Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Submission + - ICE buying eye-scanning tech to deport and remove people from a foot away (9news.com)

SonicSpike writes: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has issued a notice to purchase licenses for mobile artificial intelligence-powered iris recognition technology to aid in deportations and removals.

The mobile software from BI2 Technologies can identify individuals from 10 to 15 inches away using a smartphone app, according to the the Massachusetts-based company. It then connects with a second product that includes a database.

ICE posted a Wednesday announcement for a sole source purchase order to BI2 Technologies for licenses to both BI2's Inmate Recognition & Identification System and the Mobile Offender Recognition & Identification System for "enforcement and removal operations."

Steve Beaty, a computer science professor at Metropolitan State University of Denver, explained iris biometric capabilities.

"In general, it's quite accurate," Beaty said. "The iris is the part of your eye that everybody sees — the color has stripes in it and they are unique to an individual."

Beaty said recent technological advances have made iris scanning more accessible and affordable.

"The innovation is now that it's much less expensive that it can be done on less expensive devices such as phones," Beaty said. "In the past it was kind of a big standalone machine that these sorts of things could be used on."

The system compares iris scans to existing databases of photos. Beaty says that can come from a criminal database or even from photos scraped from social media profiles.

"Facial recognition companies have scraped the internet for photos," Beaty said.

But in Colorado, law enforcement agencies couldn't use the technology the same.

Democratic state Rep. Jennifer Bacon co-sponsored a 2022 Colorado law requiring police agencies to disclose their facial recognition plans and prohibiting its use as the sole basis for arrests or investigations.

"The way that we saw facial recognition working was with one to identify and match, versus profiling," Bacon said. "That's two different things."

She expressed concerns about ICE's intended use.

"The notion that ICE is going to use it to do some of those things actually scares me a little bit because that's what we were, in fact, trying to get ahead of," Bacon said.

Bacon outlined specific worries about potential civil rights violations.

"We had a lot of conversations about how law enforcement cannot use it to profile, how law enforcement cannot use it to circumvent due process, how law enforcement cannot use it to circumvent First Amendment rights," she said.

She emphasized the need for safeguards given the high stakes involved.

"When you get it wrong, people's due process are violated," Bacon said. "We're talking about jail time, we're talking about how much one earns. We're talking about if someone can rent an apartment, and so we want to be sure that we can protect our communities from bad decisions."

She questioned underlying assumptions and bias built into artificial intelligence systems too.

"How does one determine what an illegal immigrant looks like or is?" Bacon said. "In America we believe in innocence before proven guilty and so the tools that we have need to also act upon those values as well," she said.

Federal regulation of facial recognition technology differs significantly from state oversight though.

"That's why the states are worried about it," Beaty said.

Beaty noted that this particular software has been used by sheriff's departments elsewhere in the country, primarily as a way to help run jails.

But he raised questions about data handling and privacy protections.

"Let's say my iris is taken and I haven't committed a felony, which I have not," he said. "Where does the data go?Does it stay on the phone? And how long will it be on the phone?"

He highlighted a key concern with biometric data collection.

"Another concern about all biometrics is it's something we cannot change," Beaty said. "Our fingerprints, our faces in general, certainly irises, retinas, we can't change. If it is misreported, then we have a huge problem," he said.

Submission + - Peak Energy just shipped the US's first grid-scale sodium-ion battery (electrek.co)

AmiMoJo writes: Peak Energy shipped out its first sodium-ion battery energy storage system, and the New York-based company says it’s achieved a first in three ways: the US’s first grid-scale sodium-ion battery storage system; the largest sodium-ion phosphate pyrophosphate (NFPP) battery system in the world; and the first megawatt-hour scale battery to run entirely on passive cooling – no fans, pumps, or vents.

That’s significant because removing moving parts and ditching active cooling systems eliminates fire risk. According to the Electric Power Research Institute, 89% of battery fires in the US trace back to thermal management issues. Peak’s design doesn’t have those issues because it doesn’t have those systems.

Instead, the 3.5 MWh system uses a patent-pending passive cooling architecture that’s simpler, more reliable, and cheaper to run and maintain. The company says its technology slashes auxiliary power needs by up to 90%, saves about $1 million annually per gigawatt hour of storage, and cuts battery degradation by 33% over a 20-year lifespan.

Comment Re:Quite a bit of culture in Japan is ossified (Score 3, Informative) 85

No, surnames did not come from the religion, in Europe specificity it became necessary as the population boomed with the economy after the black death killed off the static social class system. Especially since families of lower classes could grow without the explicit approval of the land's nobility like the local Barron.
Before that, you were 'john of 'town's name''. Later that became 'John the 'smith'' because there were more than one John in the settlement and not all of them had the same profession. Not long after, smith just became a name and not a moniker of the person's profession they were born into.
Especially since not to long after this became necessary, the old 'everyone in your family worked in a smithy, so you can only work in one too'. Went away and the current idea of a person can choose and change what they worked as came about.

As for the Japanese side of things, any casual research from non western sources shows the opposite. The overwhelming majority of the public did not like this. They viewed it as western culture warriors 'trying' to imprint their ideals(specifically feminists) over Japanese culture and traditions. Marriages are considered a union if two families, not a separation of the children from their parents. The two partners are considered equal and in no way do the women feel 'oppressed' they can't keep their maiden name.

Submission + - Eisenhower Warned Us About the 'Scientific Elite' (reason.com)

fjo3 writes: In President Dwight D. Eisenhower's famous 1961 speech about the dangers of the military-industrial complex, he also cautioned Americans about the growing power of a "scientific, technological elite."

"The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by federal employment project allocations and the power of money is ever present," warned Eisenhower.

The federal government had become a major financier of scientific research after World War II, and Eisenhower was worried that the spirit of open inquiry and progress would be corrupted by the priorities of the federal bureaucracy.

And he was right.

Submission + - Nvidia Accused of Media Manipulation Ahead of RTX 5060 Launch

jjslash writes: Hardware Unboxed has raised serious concerns about Nvidia's handling of the upcoming GeForce RTX 5060 launch. In a recent video, the independent tech reviewers allege that Nvidia is using tightly controlled preview programs to manipulate public perception, while actively sidelining critical voices.

The company is favoring a handful of more "friendly" outlets with early access, under strict conditions. These outlets were given preview drivers – but only under guidelines that make their products shine beyond what's real-world testing would conclude. To cite two examples:

  • One of the restrictions is not comparing the new RTX 5060 to the RTX 4060. Don't even need to explain than one.
  • Another restriction or heavy-handed suggestion: run the RTX 5060 with 4x multi-frame generation turned on, inflating FPS results, while older GPUs that dont support MFG look considerably worse in charts.

The result: glowing previews published just days before the official launch, creating a first impression based almost entirely on Nvidia's marketing narrative.

Comment Re:Didn't matter, they were dead anyway. (Score 1) 91

At which point it becomes no different than other currencies and commodities.

In fact it would lose the only thing it has different.

It's no anonymous, in fact it's quite vulnerable to the 'nearest neighbor' method that makes cash traceable. Especially with every person 'on' the system having a complete from day one transaction ledger.

It takes too long even at the start to do a transaction, making it a forgone conclusion the seller will always lose money. That's why every business which initially adopted it car makers to new-egg, dropped it.

And it's fluctuations make the stock market look stable.

The same thing applies to any other crypto too.

Comment Didn't matter, they were dead anyway. (Score 2, Insightful) 91

Everyone is ignoring the elephant in the room that would've killed bitcoin and crypto in general.

->Nothing gets deleted from the blockchain-

Means as time goes on, more transactions are made, more people use it. The LESS people can host the blockchain. This will happen when it goes from tens to 100's of gigabytes to over a terabyte. With less people on the network due to this. the longer it will take to clear transactions. Which are already too long for 'any' reasonable form of currency.

Oh sure it could still cling to life from dedicate users, but eventually the storage requirements would even outpace individuals.

Comment Diesel emissions standards weren't about health. (Score 2) 117

Those and the chicken tariff(look it up). Were simply done to prevent cheaper, more efficient and better made trucks and light duty vehicles from japan, europe, and korea from doing to those markets in the united states that their sedans and hatchbacks did to the regular car market.

Wasn't about health, and the health claims are 'nearly' as dubious as those that claimed artificial sweeteners and dyes are dangerous. Because the media didn't tell people the studies were flawed. For example those two feed the weight equivalent to mice of a normal human chugging gallons of 'pure' sweetener a day for the former, and close to hourly for the latter. Hint, even water is unhealthy if you drink too much of it. Flushes out your electrolytes.

Comment Can't do anything else. (Score 0) 36

Being realistic.
You're not going to be able to stop the poor Indian or Chinese man from killing tigers to sell the parts to 'traditional medicine' practitioners. Not when it's either than or their family starves.
Same with any other place where humans either directly kills the 'endangered species' or does so indirectly because the only way they can put food on the table is to continue to do it, despite all the aid and help.

So that leaves only two realistic options, this, and fully deregulating pet ownership. Frankly, both should be done. Using this method to keep zoo's full, and the pet ownership to keep as many species alive as possible. Because as seen by the number of cows, chickens, house pets, horses etc. In the human geological era, the only way a species is to survive is either be useful as a resource, as a pet, or as entertainment, to humans.

Comment Still customer friendly. (Score 2) 47

Considering all core functionality still works while offline. it's very consumer friendly.
Especially when you factor in what they give you, compared to the steps and the time it would take to roll an equivalent setup on your own.
Not an exhaustive list but just off the top of my head;

1. Buy a creality or other cheaper Chinese printer compared to the higher end Chinese bambu lab, or a prusia if you have money to burn.
2. Spend just about as much on the printer, especially if it's an ender 3 or clone of that, in upgrade parts and weeks worth of time. Assuming you need to learn the small electronic skills to upgrade the printer. All to get it to the level of quality on a bambu lab.
3. Learn a bit of low level assembly language so you can compile and install Klipper, either to replace their non compatible one for what you want to do version, or marlin.
3A. Have a good chance the SOC that runs the printer can't support Klipper or the version you need. necessitating all the other parts you would need to change to run the board. better psu etc.
4. Buy, somehow in this supply strained market at 'least' a raspberry pi 4(5 is preferred, you're going to be running a 'lot' on this).
5. Learn how to install hats onto the pi. You'll need one to connect to your printer. And one focused around home automation, specifically cctv. and one for storage that's faster than the microsd card.
6. learn how to install and administer a raspberry pi os, you're now on the hook for all the software and security updates. After all, you don't want some random internet user making your printer print dildos or crash the motors.
7. Install and learn how to use Octoprint, and the various plugins you will need to duplicate functionality. You're again on the hook time wise to keep it and the plugins up to date and working.
8. Buy one of those remote webcam's that 'do not' require a connection to their cloud to work. Buy a large ssd and the needed hardware to connect to your pi.
9. Set up a webserver on your pi so you can point a phone's web browser to see the camera feed. and the webserver plugin for octoprint so you can control it remotely.
10. Pray to whatever gods or higher beings that your jenga tower of software and hardware projects work. Spend about a week every month fixing it.

Or

Spend about 500 to 1000 and get it all in one package that just works.

Slashdot Top Deals

Committees have become so important nowadays that subcommittees have to be appointed to do the work.

Working...