20,000 London police to wear body cams by early next year

The Mayor of London Boris Johnson has today announced plans to supply the majority of Metropolitan Police officers with roughly 20,000 body-worn cameras within the next ten months. Like other law enforcement agencies, particularly in the US, London police have been conducting a formal trial of the devices, said to be the biggest of its kind, for the past year. This body-cam beta test, which currently generates around 6,000 video clips each month, is due to complete this summer, but already the hardware has shown promise in on-the-fly evidence collection and improving trust where officer accountability is paramount, such as in stop-and-search scenarios.

The original plan was to distribute 20,000 cameras to officers over a ten-year period, but today that commitment has been vastly accelerated, with an aim to complete the roll-out by April 2016. Should everything proceed as planned — there are several pending evaluations and reports that’ll shape police procedure — it would make London’s police force the most camera-adorned of any city in the world. We have a reputation to maintain, after all.

Filed under: Cameras, Wearables

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Via: MayorWatch

Source: The Mayor of London

This tiny robot head replaces your mouse with a laser-projected one

If you don’t want to be reliant on (or still don’t really like using) a trackpad, and tire of dragging a full-sized mouse around, then the Odin, a laser-projected mouse, might be worth a look. You’ve seen (even very recently) laser projected interfaces that cover keyboards, but the team that made Odin says it’s the world’s first laser-projected mouse interface. Which sounds pretty cool… as long as you’re willing to carry around the disembodied head of a tiny Transformer around when meddling with spreadsheets. We just gave it a cursory web browsing test, and while it lacks, obviously, the physical feedback of either mice or clickable trackpads, it behaves a whole lot the former. We just wished it looked a little, well, subtle.

The Odin moused started life as a Kickstarter project, and it’s surpassed its goals and is set to go into full production next month. (You can still order one from its crowdfunding page.) The team says that the lower wrist angle reduces carpal tunnel, and it certainly feels gentler than a physical mouse: latency was decent and the device requires a flat surface to work, with the workable area fixed at just over three inches squared. Limitation-wise, that area can’t be changed and while laser projection is only in red, you’ll be able to choose from three different colors of robotic shrunken heads. Hit up the crowdfunding site for all the details.

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

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Report: AT&T will accept net neutrality if it gets DirecTV

AT&T previously called the FCC’s new net neutrality rules “a tragic step in the wrong direction” and even filed a lawsuit to block them. However, it would obey at least some of the new stipulations if its $49 billion purchase of DirecTV is approved by regulators, according to the Washington Post. That’s a big reversal from before, when it specifically said it would not tie any net neutrality promises to the merger. It also contrasts sharply with Comcast, which vowed it would walk away from its (now-moot) TWC merger before bending on net neutrality.

So what aspects of the new rules would AT&T abide by? It would reportedly honor the FCC’s ban on throttling and blocking of web sites, and wouldn’t allow companies like Netflix to pay for fast lanes. Other aspects are still unresolved, however. It remains to be seen how AT&T will handle interconnection, in which companies (like Netflix) pay for direct routing of content to consumers. The FCC wants to force companies to route traffic without a fee, while AT&T thinks it should be able to keep the deals it has in place with private delivery firms.

Other contentious issues include data caps, in which operators like T-Mobile can offer music streaming and other perks that don’t count against consumers’ data caps; and standalone broadband that lets customers buy internet services without cable TV bundled in. Of course, AT&T will be forced to honor net neutrality anyway, unless it prevails in court. And the FCC’s chief, Tom Wheeler, is pretty sure that’s not going to happen. Nevertheless, if accurate, AT&T’s new position represents a small crack in the determination of carriers to fight net neutrality tooth and bone.

Filed under: Internet, AT&T

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Source: Washington Post

Virginia opens up 70 miles of highway for driverless car testing

Google and other companies developing self-driving vehicles now have another state to consider for public road testing: Virginia. It has earmarked 70 miles of highway in the northern part of the state — now called the “Virginia Automated Corridors” — for the project, which will be overseen by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI). Any car slated for testing in the Mother of States must first undergo an initial trial on the institute’s smart roads before they’re unleashed in public. VTTI director Myra Blanco told Richmond Times-Dispatch that the state will make the process easier for interested parties compared to other states. But if the car does pass the trial, it will still have to be manned by a driver during the actual tests, just in case the vehicle’s system malfunctions.

The institute will provide license plates and insurance for any approved vehicle, while the Virginia Department of Transportation could be in charge of keeping lane markings visible for them. In addition, Nokia’s HERE maps division is developing 3D mapping tech for the test roads, which will feed real-time info to the self-driving car and give them a way to recognize their lane position. Blanco believes the first self-driving cars to undergo public road testing in Virginia will arrive within a year, though it’s unclear at this point which companies are showing internet. It’s worth noting that the Old Dominion serves as home to Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, though, which makes it ideal for any corporation wanting to collaborate with either of them.

Filed under: Transportation

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Via: 9to5google

Source: Richmond Times-Dispatch

Tumblr replaces ‘Ignore’ with a more robust ‘Block’ feature

Tumblr has made it easier to keep trolls out of your account. The feature has been renamed “Block” — “A proper, muscular name,” the Yahoo-owned company said — and it’s accessible from several locations on the website. To shake off haters and weirdos, you can click on their avatar on your dashboard to load a right-hand side menu, where you can find block under the human-shaped icon. If you want to hit someone with the banhammer straight from your Inbox, you can also do so: just click the big X on mobile or find block under the ellipsis’ drown-down menu. Finally, you can go to your settings page and manually enter the user you want to keep out.

Anyone you block won’t be able to see your posts on their dashboard anymore, and vice versa — plus, they can’t send you PMs or Asks, or Like and reblog your posts. Your account also won’t show up in their search results. However, they can still see your blog if it’s public, so consider setting everything to private if you seriously want to hide your activities from someone. Since they won’t be blocked from your other blogs if you have more than one, prepare to repeat the process if necessary. The Block feature works even on anonymous users’ IP addresses (just ban them straight from your inbox), but note that you won’t be able to unblock them later on.

[Image credit: Shotgun Spratling/Neon Tommy/Flickr]

Filed under: Misc

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Source: Tumblr (1), (2)