Canon have just unveiled their entry for the Worst Idea in Tech competition for 2021, an AI-camera that watches you 24/7 and streams anything it thinks is interesting.
Canon Unveils its First Smart Camera set to Transform how Families Photograph :
Canon Europe today introduces the PowerShot PX, a small, smart and friendly camera, which automatically captures high-quality 11.7MP images and 60p Full HD video. Part of Canon's continued commitment to redefining imaging technology, the PowerShot PX's smart features such as automatic capture of still imagery and video are set to reimagine how families capture memories.
[...] With automatic capture and priority shooting, the PowerShot PX is an innovative addition to the home that complements photographers' existing cameras, and a shining example of Canon's technology algorithm and the forward-thinking features constantly being added to its product line-up.
Here's granddad picking his nose! Here's dad scratching his butt! Here's [use your imagination] ...
Not to mention what will happen with the inevitable vulnerabilities that get disclosed that allow any random stranger to get AI-chosen video sequences of your children.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 03 2021, @06:29PM
Premise: The last good thing that Canon made was the print engine for early HP LaserJet printers. These lasted and lasted.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 03 2021, @06:44PM (4 children)
Fuck it, too many idiots with always-on cameras, stupid Teslas recording people automatically, goddamn door bells recording everything.
I have nothing to hide but for some strange reason I don't like being surveilled 24/7. I don't mind someone with home and car cameras, but so many are sending data to corporate centers. We desperately need laws to stop the mass invasions of privacy with serious consequences for any company or person not doing due diligence to protect society from their devices. If you want your public facing camera to use cloud storage it had better be encrypted at least and NOT have some stupid EULA that lets a corp use such private data.
(Score: 4, Funny) by DannyB on Wednesday November 03 2021, @06:56PM (1 child)
What if there were an AI system that could point you to locations, however small, where there is NO camera coverage at all?
If we work together, we can cut all homeless people and poor people in half by the end of 2025!
(Score: 5, Touché) by Common Joe on Wednesday November 03 2021, @08:02PM
"We'll figure that out and add more cameras. Thanks for the idea. Sincerely, NSA."
(Score: 0, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 03 2021, @08:38PM
Your daughter's pussy has nothing to hide. It belongs to the People. Accept the surveillance into your hearts and groins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 03 2021, @10:05PM
Read this quote recently. Once read, it seemed so obvious to me now.
But we live in a post social media world now. Prior to that, it would not have been obvious.
"What Orwell failed to predict is that we'd buy the cameras ourselves, and that our biggest fear would be that nobody was watching."
- Keith Lowell Jensen
https://twitter.com/keithlowell/status/347741181997879297?lang=en [twitter.com]
(Score: 0, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 03 2021, @06:55PM (1 child)
Here's your mom sucking my d*ck. Oh wait, I didn't imagine that.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 03 2021, @09:59PM
therapy, lots and lots of therapy is what you need
(Score: 5, Insightful) by captain normal on Wednesday November 03 2021, @07:35PM (2 children)
It may be the worst tech idea of 2021, but it will be hard to top the chip in a printer ink cartridge that borks the whole printer and scanner if one color is low.
https://hothardware.com/news/canon-slapped-with-lawsuit-for-killing-scanner-function-when-printer-ink-runs-out [hothardware.com]
The Musk/Trump interview appears to have been hacked, but not a DDOS hack...more like A Distributed Denial of Reality.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 04 2021, @03:10AM
https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=21/10/17/167203 [soylentnews.org]
^^^^ Already covered
Try using SEARCH in the future, it's nice.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday November 04 2021, @09:29AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 5, Touché) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday November 03 2021, @07:35PM (5 children)
Citizens, for our own good, we should install these cameras in our bathrooms, to monitor our bowel movements for health. Upon detection of an issue, the IoT bathroom cam will inform your doctor and call 911, just like that Apple iphone car crash detection system. Further, to maintain moral standards, the system will also call the police if any deviant sexual behavior is detected. Remember, masturbation is self-pollution!
At which point, I'd build a latrine surrounded by hedges in the back yard
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 03 2021, @08:52PM (1 child)
Then your neighbor's bird feeder will detect you.
911 call for indecent exposure
Post to America's Funniest or better TBD live-cam, showing the poop and the arrest.
Its the chase with tasers that will make the highlight reel!
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Thursday November 04 2021, @04:30PM
Well, dang it, then I'll have to "accidentally" crash a drone into the neighbor's bird feeder first, of course being careful to pick a time when they're not around so they can't shoot it down before it hits.
If that doesn't work, maybe I can obtain a realistic, life sized doll or robot that looks like a little girl, and get the child porn police to swat those nosy neighbors hard.
And here I as thinking mere constipation was the hardest thing about that business.
(Score: 3, Informative) by datapharmer on Thursday November 04 2021, @12:47AM (1 child)
You joke, but it has already been done… more than once:
https://www.mic.com/impact/this-smart-toilet-can-identify-your-butthole-analyze-your-poop-for-diseases-22792633/amp [mic.com]
https://poop.moxie.health/ [poop.moxie.health]
https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/04/smart-toilet-monitors-for-signs-of-disease.html [stanford.edu]
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday November 05 2021, @12:44AM
Smart toilets strikes me as something that will take a generation or two before being widely accepted.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Thursday November 04 2021, @08:11AM
That's why I always take my dumps in the neigbours' back yard.
Or at least I did until they got all those damn cameras installed.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 03 2021, @10:51PM (14 children)
Oh God! I miss real photography!
And darkrooms and magazines and books and camaraderie...
And human kindness.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 03 2021, @11:07PM (1 child)
ePaper and forever alone for you
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 05 2021, @05:54PM
Give me Kodabromide and Dektol, and warm lighting. It's not alone, it's solace. The Scott Joplin kind.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 04 2021, @12:12AM (1 child)
Time to get yourself to Vermont. We still have all those things. And Bernie Sanders too, for a bonus.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 04 2021, @02:27AM
I visualized spending this time of my life, driving around in the mountains with a sagging ol' field camera, plus a Weston Master V light meter with its Zone System Dial.
Now, there's an app for that... record your fading dreams at 60fps. Maybe the app can sell 'em back to you.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 04 2021, @03:05AM (3 children)
Sorry, human kindness is something only high-trust societies can provide.
High-trust societies are destroyed by "diversity".
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 04 2021, @07:42AM (2 children)
If you think that non-diverse (a.k.a. uniform) societies are the solution, please take an exemplary look at North Korea. Very uniform, but calling it high-trust would be a blatant lie.
High-trust societies are destroyed by people assigning trust according to criteria that have zero correlation with trust: gender, skin color, nationality, sexual orientation, Windows/Linux, baseball team, ....
Doing this usually leads to hellholes of countries, or companies. The only people who like it that way are the oppressors on top who, naturally like their position in life.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 04 2021, @12:45PM
Welcome to the Grand Old Party!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 04 2021, @04:48PM
Those "Google Fi" ads on TV are supposed to be warm and compelling. They have some knock-off Folksinger offering of a better world if you just turn over your trust to them. It's beyond creepy, it's dystopian.
Human kindness... there's an app for that. Only 99-cents. And your immortal soul.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday November 04 2021, @03:25PM (2 children)
There is no substitute for flipping through a book/magazine. Especially when you sort of remember something like X phrase in your mind. Then, when you find it, it was sort of like X thing in your mind, but it would have been unsearchable. Flipping through a digital book is a nightmare. Reading a digital book is just fine and searching a digital book by keyword is a useful tool. I predict the demise of paper books/magazines when the digital process of flipping through a book is on par or superior to a paper book.
As far as darkrooms are concerned, they were a niche and expensive hobby. Now, anyone with access to a computer can be a digital photographer. Though admittedly, it can still be an expensive hobby. At least a person who could read, didn't have any troubles with use of a paper book. Yet, with the digital age and the likes of https://www.gutenberg.org/ [gutenberg.org] the cost of access to vast troves of knowledge is minimal.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 04 2021, @04:32PM
After thousands of darkroom hours, I still miss just about everything about it but the cracked hands. Funny thing is, I worked in restaurants, but I don't miss that.
I'll bet when most people sold their old Omegas/Chromegas and Beselers at garage sales, they kept the Schneider lenses. My first enlarger was a Federal, looking like it was made from rusty coffee cans.
Still have a cherrywood view camera and a 20lb bag of gear. I used to carry that stuff all day! I used to be a lot stronger.
Otherwise... After a number of books, I'm sitting on what I believe is my best book, not wanting to throw it down a hole.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 06 2021, @09:45PM
I should've responded to this earlier; this is just for the record.
Many cameras were expensive, but it wasn't about the camera. You were an artist, not a gadget collector. Carrying your uncle's pre-war folder gave you an air of distinction. All you needed were a roll of Plus-X Pan, a developing tank, a quart of D-76, and a dark closet. If you didn't want to go through that, all sorts of outfits would develop B&W film. You just couldn't fine-tune it to match your artistic dreams.
Many bigger cities had rental darkrooms, often attached to smaller professional photography studios. You'd pay by the hour, get assigned an enlarger, and share a common set of developing trays. Then you could scream each time somebody would drag their print back from the stop-bath to the developer. You could buy or swap printing paper by the sheet, or get packages on the back wall of a real camera store. You can make your own paper-safe.
Good times, and cheaper than beer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 05 2021, @02:52AM (2 children)
Oh, are you old enough to remember Stag, Gallery, Penthouse and Playboy magazines?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 05 2021, @06:53AM
Nah, I'm old enough to have already forgotten about them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 05 2021, @04:00PM
For the good writing and... cartoons.