Official News - page 8

REAL LIFE NEWS: BIG BROTHER IS LISTENING TO YOU

by Hazed

Many cities have surveillance cameras in their centers which are supposed to monitor problems, such as drunken youths getting into fights. Police can, in theory, swoop in and arrest the combatants before things get out of hand.

Now the cameras in the city of Groningen in The Netherlands have been fitted with microphones that listen out for voices raised in anger. The sound is fed to software that can, apparently, detect voices that are aggressive in tone. "Agressive people tend to tense their larynx, and the sound made by their vocal cords is distorted," said Peter van Hengel of developer Sound Intelligence. This means that high frequency vowel sounds span a broader frequency range. "A truly aggressive voice is very hard to imitate," he says.

A trial was carried out earlier this year and police made three arrests after being alerted by the system. It's also being tested in Rotterdam, and on Dutch trains and stations.

I do hope the police don't rely solely on this software to direct them to arrest people - it is entirely possible that people could shout aggressively without actually breaking out into violence!

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