News 03 Trying to outsmart Google facts Google • Since being founded in 1998, Developers working on an advanced search engine Google is now the most-used of Engineering and Information search engine on the web. want to employ public security cameras, but there are Technology, said while people agree to • In 2006, Google received 400 concerns about privacy. By Antonia Maiolo. terms and conditions when signing up million queries per day through to social media sites such as Twitter and its various services. • Its most popular search tools are niversity of Glasgow and by cross-referencing the real- Facebook, they do not do the same for Google Search, which searches researchers are developing time findings with data from social security and surveillance cameras. the net for text, and Google a new kind of web search networks such as Twitter and “Mashing that information together image search. engine to solve more complex Facebook. Once up and running, is certainly a much broader concern • Some other services Google offers Uqueries. The computer scientists have users will be able to ask questions from a societal privacy point of view,” include: Google News, Google designed an innovative program to like, “where is my friend going to a Livingstone said. The problem is that Voice Search, Google Suggest, tackle advanced location- and person- music event this evening?” the search engine won’t just be using Google Product Search, Google specific queries. Dr Iadh Ounis of Glasgow’s social media sites to locate people’s Maps, Google Co-op, Google The search engine will be able to school of computing science says the whereabouts. “CCTV is a separate Earth, Google Docs, Picasa, Panoramio, YouTube, Google address questions search engines like answer will come from matching issue because you have not agreed to Translate, Google Blog Search Google cannot currently answer, such facial recognition of the person from the terms and conditions of being and Google Desktop Search. as “how busy is the city centre?” CCTV cameras with the individual’s observed by CCTV standing on the • Google dethroned the previous The SMART project (Search social media activity. “SMART street corner,” he said, adding, “it isn’t search champion, Alta Vista, engine for MultimediA enviRonment builds upon the existing concept of a conscious decision to be watched founded in 1995. generated contenT) is a collaborative ‘smart cities’, physical spaces which or recorded by cameras that could be • Alta Vista, owned by Yahoo!, European research initiative with are covered in an array of intelligent accessed by anyone over the internet.” was the first searchable full-text partners including IBM’s Haifa sensors which communicate with He also points out that CCTV database on the web. • Traffic to the site increased from Research Lab and the University of each other and can be searched,” he footage may not be a reliable source 300,000 hits on its first day to London’s Imperial College. said. for identification, as footage is not more than 80 million hits two The search engine, which is While the SMART engine could always clear and faces can be obscured years later. expected to undergo live urban improve access to information, there by clothing. Livingstone said there are • Google’s popularity saw the testing by 2014, will work by collating are concerns over privacy and safety possible legal implications for using decline of Alta Vista, and this information obtained from sensors for internet users. Rob Livingstone, CCTV footage for purposes other than year Yahoo! announced it would such as cameras and microphones, a fellow at the UTS Faculty monitoring theft and public safety. n discontinue the site. and their captors. Students’ superhuman device Bouzerdoum said there are many situations where By Antonia Maiolo portable than older models that it is important to detect the ustralian students’ achieve x-ray vision. presence of someone hidden have unleashed a So how does it work? inside a closed building and to superhuman power, Bouzerdoum said the system know their precise location and giving people the works by transmitting wideband movements. Aability the see through solid electromagnetic waves that can “Firefighters, law- objects. penetrate walls and building enforcement officers and It seems that x-ray vision is materials. The reflected signals security personnel all have a no longer just for Superman. are then processed to form the need for portable and compact Led by professor Salim image of the scene behind the through-the-wall sensing Bouzerdoum, a group of wall. system that can discriminate students from the University of on a radar system that can see Jie Yang, one of the between targets of interest and Wollongong, NSW, have built through walls, I was attracted to students who worked on the clutter with high resolution,” a portable device that can see the idea”. device, said the system can Bouzerdoum said. through walls and objects in The aptly named CSI or reveal underground objects The Compressed Sensing real time. Compressed Sensing Imager non-intrusively. Imager is expected to be used Bouzerdoum said he has has won the group a national The researchers said the for range of military services always been fascinated innovation award for their efforts. device could save lives by that will help to minimise error by “seeing” systems, be it Although devices that can helping rescue teams locate in high-risk environments. biological or artificial vision ‘see’ through walls already people trapped beneath rubble, The team has built prototypes, systems, and “when the exist, the innovative CSI can fit and to help anti-terror teams with the plans to commercialise opportunity arose to work into a backpack, making it more differentiate between hostages the device soon. n 10 July 2012 www.campusreview.com.au 3.