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The Art of Stasi Surveillance
No, these aren’t images of ironically dressed hipsters culled from the pages of an Urban Outfitters catalog but rather the uncovered surveillance archives of the East German secret police, the Stasi.
Photographer Simon Menner’s dicovery and display of this archive is not meant to be humourous, it’s a reminder to the viewer of the overbearing nature of government agencies as Menner remarked to Reuters reporter Sarah Marsh:
“These were used during courses on how to dress up and blend into society,” the 33 year-old artist said. “They seem pretty absurd now, but it was meant seriously — this is evil stuff.”
Other photos revealed that Polaroids were used to document how an apartment was arranged before a search took place so that objects could be returned as found; leaving no trace that your privacy had been completely violated.
This display is meant to be a lasting reminder that the “art of disguise” has obviously advanced and will continually remain a part of our lives. Whether we know it or not.
Sony IP Camera Debuts for Radiology Market
Strapping an indoor dome IP camera to an IV stand and calling it a medical device for radiologists only works if you’re Sony.
It’s also not just any old IP camera or portable stand. Sony is using its SNC-RH124 dual streaming, HD, 360 degree rapid dome IP camera that incorporatings state-of-the-art image-enhancement technologies in a compact body including 10x zoom that allow users to capture clear and bright images in challenging environments.
MD2GO Rolling Medical Stand
Coupled with the SNC-RH124 is Sony’s MD2GO rolling stand specifically designed for medical applications that forms a remote HD IP camera system.
The Sony MD2GO system has just been introduced to the radiology field at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Medical Imaging Management (AHRA) this week:
“The system is designed to enable HD Video communication between remote parties including multiple radiologists, radiologists and referring physicians, or even with radiologists and their patients. By simply using a PC and Microsoft Internet Explorer®, the radiologist can view the other party in HD video and have a two-way audio conversation from virtually anywhere at any time.”
New World of Applications
It’s intertesting to note that we’ve billed this Sony IP camera as capable of opening up a “whole new world of video security applications” for it’s great picture quality, wide monitoring area, and responsive pan and tilt functions. Now, it’s been opened up to the medical world.
So if it feels like you’re being spied on the next time you have a procedure done, maybe you are, and that’s fine by me. Sony claims the MD2GO has already been successful in surgery applications. It’s great to see IP cameras aiding the advancement of medical science with effective involvment of remote expert physicians, helping to teach next generation med students, or post-procedure patient monitoring.
Via DOTmed News
Google+ Home Surveillance
If you’re fabulous enough to have received an intive to the exclusive Google+, the latest social media splash, you might also like to know that their Hangouts feature offers an easy way to set up simple home surveillance monitoring.
Google+ Hangouts offers face-to-face video chats with several of your friends at the same time. But what if you were just using two of your own personal accounts with one of the account’s webcam trained on an area of interest?
That’s what a Lifehacker reader did and explained the process and results of using Google+ Hangouts with a webcam to keep watch over your house:
You can use Google Hangouts as an on demand remote camera viewer. First, create a second Google Account, and put the alternate account in its own circle. Then, start a hangout with just that circle. When you want to checkup on how everything’s going along in your house, you can just join the hangout with your alternate account, and you should see what’s happening. Of course, for more complicated and long term camera solutions, you would need some specific software. This is just a no additional software approach to quickly checking up on your house while you are away.
Lifehacker tester Whitson Gordon notes that this will work even with the screensaver on, just be sure to turn the computer’s “Sleep” function off if you want continual surveillance access.
Via Lifehacker