THE FUTURE IS AWESOME

Robotic CCTV Camera Strippers, No Touching Allowed

Gilles Walker writes:

‘PEEPSHOW’ – we are now all living in a peepshow. Continually being watched by mechanical peeping toms.

With this in mind, I was amused by the way that the expression ‘sexed-up’ had been introduced into British politik speak..and how it was now firmly established in the press vocabulary. It is not hard to see how this expression is linked with the concept of surveillance as it is sold to the British public with ‘sexed-up’ statistics in dossiers about the threat of crime and terrorism. Britain is now the most monitored country in the world with CCTV cameras the foot-soldiers of this phenomena…..

I wondered if it was possible to literally ‘sex-up’ a CCTV camera with simple mechanics…and by using the imagery of a pole dancer question the roles played in voyeurism, such as who holds the power …the observer or the observed.’

[Giles Walker | via DVICE | via BBC]

Billboards, Now Watching Your Every Move

The ad is equipped with a camera that gathers details on passers-by.

“billboards with tiny cameras that gather details about passers-by — their gender, approximate age and how long they looked at the billboard. These details are transmitted to a central database.”

NOT AWESOME.

[NYT]