RFID, GPS Technology and Electronic Surveillance

Uncle Sam Eyes Vehicle Tracking Tax

September 14, 2009

The Newspaper - A member of Congress proposes to use taxpayer money to fund the development of technology to track motorists as part of a new form of taxation.

US Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon) introduced H.R. 3311 earlier this year to appropriate $154,500,000 for research and study into the transition to a per-mile vehicle tax system. The “Road User Fee Pilot Project” would be administered by the US Treasury Department. This agency in turn would issue millions in taxpayer-backed grants to well-connected commercial manufacturers of tolling equipment to help develop the required technology. Within eighteen months of the measure’s passage, the department would file an initial report outlining the best methods for adopting the new federal transportation tax.

“Oregon has successfully tested a Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) fee, and it is time to expand and test the VMT program across the country,” Blumenauer said in a statement on the bill’s introduction. “A VMT system can better assess fees based on use of our roads and bridges, as well as during times of peak congestion, than a fee based on fuel consumption. It is time to get creative and find smart ways to rebuild and renew America’s deteriorating infrastructure.”

In 2006, the Oregon Department of Transportation completed its own study of how to collect revenue from motorists with a new form of tax that, like the existing fuel excise tax, imposes a greater charge on drivers the more that they drive. The pilot project’s final report summed up the need for a VMT tax.

“Unfortunately, there is a growing perception among members of the public and legislators that fuel taxes have little to do with road programs and therefore should be considered ‘just another form of taxation,’” the March 2006 report stated. “By itself, this situation appears to be preventing any increases in fuel tax rates from being put into effect.”

The money diverted from the fuel excise tax on non-road related projects must be made up for with a brand new VMT tax, the report argued. Merely indexing the gas tax to inflation or improvements in fleet gas mileage was rejected as “imprecise.” Instead, the report urged a mandate for all drivers to install GPS tracking devices that would report driving habits to roadside Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) scanning devices.

Blumenauer is a long-time advocate of bicycling and mass transit in Congress. Many of his largest campaign donors stand to benefit from his newly introduced legislation. Honeywell International, for example, is a major manufacturer RFID equipment. The company also happens to be the second biggest contributor in the current cycle to Blumenauer’s Political Action Committee (PAC), the Committee for a Livable Future. Another top-ten donor, Accenture, is a specialist in the video tolling field.

H.R. 3311 awaits a hearing in the House Ways and Means Committee.

Augmented Reality Soon to Change Our View of the World

September 4, 2009

digitaljournal.com - Augmented reality is heading our way, and this new generation of software has the potential to change our lives and how we view the world around us.

Computer graphics have become much more sophisticated since Pong entered the arcades and our homes in the early 1970’s. Since then, computer graphics have steadily improved and have become very realistic and soon they will become very real.

Imagine computer generated graphics being integrated and applied to the real world as you are walking down the street. For instance, you might be on vacation in Halifax, Nova Scotia and while on a walking tour you stop in front of Government House. You want to know more about it, such as what it is used for and it’s history.

Today we would use our guide book that we picked up at a local tourist information center. With augmented reality applications you wouldn’t need these soon to be relics. Instead, you would use your cell phone. By focusing your camera phone on Government House you would see all of this information on screen, clicking on links for more information, or quickly accessing a map.

The idea isn’t new, but with the latest generation of mobile phones, many of which have a compass and GPS, 3G mobile internet access and a growing range of mobile applications, there is nothing to stop augmented reality from entering the mainstream.

Google’s Android phones can already use some of the best augmented reality applications. One of those now available is Wikitude, which overlays what you are looking at with information about points of interest based on where the user points the phone’s camera. Simply by activating the phone’s camera mode and then panning it across buildings and locations, Wikitude pulls in information based on where you are located.
The technology even works with people. A Swedish company is working on an application called Augmented ID, which puts facial recognition and photo tagging together to provide personal information. You could use your phone’s camera to frame someone’s face in order to bring up details of their social networking profiles, their business card, or even a criminal record such as a sex offender reports the Telegraph.

Augmented reality displays, one of which is a cell phone, will eventually look like a normal pair of glasses,or even contact lenses, where informative graphics will appear in your field of view, and audio will coincide with whatever you see. Graphics, audio and other sense enhancements would, in fact be superimposed over what you are looking at in the real world, in real time reports HowStuffWorks.

‘Telepathic’ Microchip Could Help Paraplegics Control Computers

September 3, 2009

Telegraph - While paraplegics may be unable to move their limbs, their brains still produce an electronic signal when they try. A ‘telepathic’ microchip implanted onto the surface of the brain, where it monitors electronic ‘thought’ pulses, could help paraplegics control computers. It means paraplegics, amputees, or those with motor neurone disease could be able to operate light switches, PCs and even cars by the power of thought alone.

The technology is the idea of British engineer Dr Spratley, who developed it while studying for a PhD at Birmingham University. Dr Spratley, 28, from Stevenage, Herts., said the main aim of his research is to “help patients communicate.”

“We are just trying to help people with severe communication problems or motor neurone disease – like Dr Stephen Hawking or Christopher Reeve,” he said.

“What we have designed would allow them to control a computer with their thoughts – if they imagine their muscles moving that could flick a light switch, for example.”

Dr Spratley works for specialist engineering company 42 Technology, based in St Ives, Cornwall.

Using his micro-engineering and nano-technology skills he developed a tiny sensor which could be implanted onto the surface of the brain. The device picks up neural signals from the brain’s motor cortex, and captures the moment a paralysed patient tries to move their limbs. This impulse is then transmitted to a relay station implanted in the skull, which in turn sends the signal to a receiver housed in simple computers.

Tests have shown the technology to work in the laboratory, but trials are yet to begin on humans.

Dr Spratley, who was awarded the MediMaton prize by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, claims implanting the chips will require minimal invasive surgery.

He said it could change the life of a quadriplegic or motor neurone disease sufferer.

“It began as an investigation into what signals paralysed people can generate,” he said.

“If they can imagine using a limb, even if they can’t move it, you can tap into that signal.

“Then you just have to imagine moving the muscle and the leg will move, the brain will train itself.”

Legality of Red Light Cameras Disputed

August 28, 2009

Hernando Today – For the first time in 77 years, Warren Stevenson held a traffic ticket with his name on it. He was surprised, actually, because it came in his mailbox.

At first examination, Stevenson thought the document was a public announcement about the red light traffic cameras recently installed in Brooksville. A closer look revealed he was being fined $125 for running the light at Broad Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

“I thought ‘Oh my gosh, $125, are they out of their mind?’” Stevenson said. “It really irritated me.”

On Tuesday, he went before a hearing officer to plead his case. Stevenson said his right turn on red at that intersection seemed to be everyone else’s violation, too. Records show there were 14 people who contested their ticket; four were dismissed. Stevenson’s ticket wasn’t.

It’s cases like Stevenson’s that attract the attention of West Palm Beach attorney Jason Weisser. Weisser and his firm, Schuler, Halvorson & Weisser, are advertising their services in the cities across the state that use cameras to catch red light runners. Their ad showed up in Hernando Today this week.

Brooksville began installing cameras in March and expect the fifth camera to go online soon. Police Chief George Turner champions the cameras as a public safety measure that deters motorists from running red lights. The projected annual revenue from the cameras is $1 million. Turner would like to convert that into a full-time traffic unit for the police department as a further safeguard against traffic crashes.

The cameras are not without their controversy, however. Critics argue they reek of Big Brother.

Weisser has several arguments he’s using in an attempt to declare the cameras unconstitutional. From the outset, Weisser said, a driver is considered guilty unless they can prove their innocence. He also finds fault with the fact that the owner of the vehicle, not the driver, is ticketed. He also cites a sentence in the introduction to state traffic laws that he believes is clear-cut evidence of the illegality of red light cameras.

Specifically: “It is unlawful for any local authority to pass or to attempt to enforce any ordinance in conflict with the provisions of this chapter.”

But it’s not a black and white matter. Florida Statute 316 also allows cities to pass traffic ordinances that “regulate municipal traffic.” They are also authorized to use “official traffic control devices” and monitor traffic with “security devices,” whether by “public or private parties.”

The cameras’ operators are a private Arizona-based company called American Traffic Solutions.

The differing opinions came to a head in a 2005 opinion by then-Attorney General Charlie Crist. He decided that municipalities could not issue criminal citations using the cameras, but civil ordinances were legal. That formula remains in effect.

Back in Brooksville, Stevenson will avoid the Broad Street intersection on his near daily trips into town.

“I feel like it’s entrapment,” he said.

Biometric Scanners to Keep Indian Bureaucrats on Time

September 2, 2009

AFP — The Indian government on Tuesday launched a campaign to end notoriously slack time-keeping among its millions of civil servants by introducing biometric scanners at offices in the capital New Delhi.

Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram arrived punctually at work to kick off the drive to improve efficiency within India’s vast bureaucracy, which has a reputation for endless delays and reams of duplicated paperwork.

India’s central government employs about three million civil servants — including all railway workers — while federal states employ about another seven million.

“This is a message to the whole country that everyone must do his work for the allotted hours,” Chidambaram told reporters.

“I understand flexi time, we will introduce some flexibility. Flexibility is if you come 10 or 15 minutes late, you have to work for another 10 or 15 minutes.”

In the first stage of the scheme, 5,000 home ministry employees — regardless of rank — will have their index fingers scanned to register the time they arrive and leave work. Any employee who is late three times in a month will have to give up a day-off.

A home ministry official said that Chidambaram, a veteran politician, had always been punctual and was “very particular about officials arriving on time.”