South Koreans Using Kinect To Monitor DMZ 133
Nerval's Lobster writes "The South Korean government is reportedly using Microsoft's Kinect motion-based game controller to monitor the heavily guarded DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) that separates the country from North Korea. The brainchild of freelance South Korean developer Jae Kwan Ko, the system is reportedly capable of differentiating between people and animals. (Hat tip to Kotaku, which originally ferreted out the story from South Korean publication Hankooki .) That makes it superior to the infrared systems already in use along the DMZ, which have a harder time determining whether a moving object is human. The Kinect-based system can send alerts of suspicious activity to the nearest military outpost. While the South Korean government reportedly installed the hardware at select portions of the DMZ last year, news about it is only emerging now—and details are relatively scarce, considering how this is a military project. Despite that secrecy, the South Korean government is playing up Jae Kwan Ko's contributions, highlighting him in the local media as an example of innovation and creative drive. Largely self-taught, he makes money by building apps for various mobile platforms—most of which, presumably, have nothing to do with detecting military threats."
Re:Why is the south doing this? (Score:5, Informative)
I thought South Korea mostly welcomed people who were defecting from the north. If the North was trying to launch an attack of any significance I wouldn't expect the IR system would have a hard time identifying it.
Due to incident [wikipedia.org] after incident [wikipedia.org] the Korean troops have to be very careful who they let across the DMZ.
Re: Sad times (Score:5, Informative)
Forbids government monitoring of every person in the area without warrant.
First, the idea that a camera pointed at a border is somehow forbidden -- wouldn't want to monitor every person in an area without a warrant, now would we -- is silly. Someone call DOT and have them take down the freeway cams.
That said, we already employ vibration, and magnetic remote sensors, as well as cameras in both visible and infrared, plus software that helps determine if an event is human, animal or other in watching our borders (Canada and Mexico). It seems like a Kinect-based system would do even better. It'd stop CBP officers from responding to wolves tripping sensors.
http://www.policechiefmagazine... [policechiefmagazine.org]