Daily Headline Update: April 13, 2009

Starting today, I'll be posting the latest news updates a few times per week in order to make sure everything I report here is as timely as possible. Nothing too detailed, just a few highlights on anything I find fascinating -- anything from surveillance and physical security to robotics and UAV news. Let me know what you think!

DMV Announces New Secure Driver License and Identification Card System
Hoy En Delaware
April 13, 2009

• The Delaware DMV is in the process of implementing a new secure driver license and identification card system. Similar to initiatives in California and Indiana, the DMV hopes to implement a new system that will increase the security process by which the DMV issues driver's licenses.
• According to the article, the new system will employ enhanced facial recognition technology in order to protect Delaware residents from identity theft. In doing so, the system will compare the applicant’s current photograph with the division’s entire photograph database to ensure the applicant does not have a driver license/ID card in another name and to ensure the individual is not trying to commit identity theft.
  

The hidden features in Apple's latest iPhoto update
ComputerWorld
April 10, 2009
Ryan Faas

• Last week, Apple announced more "overall stability" and fixes for "minor issues in a number of areas, including Faces, Places, photo sharing, and slideshows."
• Specific areas include the ability to tell iPhoto to rescan pictures and detect missing faces, recognize manually added faces by drawing a box around a person's face and tagging them when Faces doesn't recognize them. Tagging misidentified people allows users to simply click once or twice on each photo to indicate whether Faces' guesses are correctly identified and also trains iPhoto to recognize the person going forward.
  

Cameras, sensors spark government surveillance debate
Democrat & Chronicle
April 10, 2009
Brian Sharp

• Locally, the Rochester Police Department's reliance on data-crunching computers and license-plate reading scanners triggered a backlash this week from a citizens group called Activists Against Racism Movement.
• In a statement to the media, the group labeled the targeted enforcement a "dragnet" and "absolutely racist in nature," predicting that it will predominately snare minorities for minor offenses.
• Doubt remains about whether the technology actually prevents crime, or just relocates it. People do tend to feel safer, experts say. Witnesses are more likely to cooperate with police if they think a camera also caught the action, and so property crime declines, but research has yet to document a corresponding drop in violent crime.