Mega-Mobile Greetings: Orwellian Mobile Mashup?
Here is a creepy article via Slashdot on the plan to put loudspeakers on CCTV camera install across the United Kingdom. All we have to do is add a TV screen and we have a class Orwellian Thought-Police monitoring device. The Daily Mail describes the release of the first batch order barking CCTV cameras:
The system allows control room operators who spot any anti-social acts - from dropping litter to late-night brawls - to send out a verbal warning: ‘We are watching you’.
Middlesbrough has fitted loudspeakers on seven of its 158 cameras in an experiment already being hailed as a success. Jack Bonner, who manages the system, said: ‘It is one hell of a deterrent. It’s one thing to know that there are CCTV cameras about, but it’s quite another when they loudly point out what you have just done wrong.
Because of the success of this project. Maybe the ideal eco-social system is definitely Orwellian? Well, at least for the British who have this national obsession with being watched. Which brings me to discussion a possible government-sponsored Mobile 2.0-style mashup. Given an opportunity, I would like to mashup the following:
- Access to CCTV Camera footage and megaphone system
- Access to Google Maps API with UK geographic information
- Mobile presence information
Imagine an application that can validate and “visual” track a person using both mobile phone presence information and CCTV camera footage. This application allows mobile phones users to send “greetings” to the person via the CCTV megaphone. So image, being able to greet your friend a “Happy Birthday” while informing the entire neighborhood too. Now, that would be bloody spectacular and much cooler than just a personalized Call Ringback or MMS. With access to this type of technology, there are even more possible mashups that can be made.
