Gadgetopia

Colossal surveillance network shields Olympics: Here’s a fascinating article on the stunning level of technical surveillance and security in Athens during the Olympics.

This network collects and processes images and audio from more than 1,000 high-resolution and infrared cameras installed at different venues and on street corners. Calls made from mobile and landline phones in the area will be recorded and processed by the system.

Using software provided by UK company Autonomy, conversations can be converted into text and scanned for phrases that could be linked to terrorist activity.

[…] other undisclosed measures are undoubtedly in place, such as face recognition from video footage.

I was interesting to see Autonomy in there. At a previous job, I investigated their Bayesian search technology for an intranet. Via Boing Boing.