InjusticeFacts Injustice Facts
Tuesday, 16 August 2011
Real-time image search from all connected phones
Through user studies, measurement studies, and field studies, we show that Theia reduces the cost per relevant photo by an average of 59%. It reduces the energy consumption of search by up to 55% and 81% compared to alternative strategies of executing entirely locally or entirely in the cloud. Search results from smartphones are obtained in seconds.The research paper details the process, but in a nutshell, Theia can remotely search both the metadata (time and location) and the content of photos on cellphones that are registered with the Theia service. To speed up the process and ensure smartphones don’t waste too many CPU cycles searching for content, Theia uses a partitioned search approach: Photos that match certain search parameters initially are uploaded to Theia servers, where the offloaded data can be further searched in real time using more powerful cloud computing servers.
I can see some interesting and practical uses for this, but of course, privacy is a concern. The research team suggests mitigating that by allowing users to specify which photo folder on a smartphone is searchable through Theia. Essentially, users would opt-in by registering their phones with the service, then designating which photo gallery could be scanned.
Although it doesn’t offer a distributed search feature, the photo upload feature of Theia reminds me of the Google Plus Android app, which already has an Instant Upload function. Every picture taken is immediately uploaded to a user’s Google Plus account, but isn’t shared by default. Instead, a user can decide to share it with the public or a specific group post-upload. Since the pics are already on Google’s servers, it could be easy to one day search through them, provided users allowed for that to happen.
Kevin C. Tofel @'GIGACOM'
Be afraid! Be VERY afraid...
Bynickdavies Nick Davies
Stand by for new phone-hacking bombshells. Should be on the Guardian website around one o'clock.
Guardian Live Blog
Labour MP Tom Watson has already promised that the evidence is "dynamite".
Guardian Live Blog
Labour MP Tom Watson has already promised that the evidence is "dynamite".
Thailand: The Green Cause Can Kill
In a country where the going rate for a contract killing is around Thai baht 15,000 (500 dollars), the price paid to eliminate Thongnak Sawekchinda, an environmental activist, has caught the police by surprise.
'The 10,000 dollars paid to kill Thongnak is quite a lot for Thailand,' admits Col. Chaicharn Purathanont, who is leading the police investigation in Samut Sakhon, a province outside Bangkok with a range of industries using coal which was - the focus of the Sawekchinda’s activism. The money was distributed among seven men assembled to target Thongnak, 47, says the colonel, spreading a crumpled sheet of paper on his glass-topped desk. It is a photocopy containing the pictures, names and role of each man involved in the killing.
Yothin Theprian, the alleged gunman on that list of suspects, has already turned himself in. Police say he was paid 1,333 dollars for shooting Thongnak as the activist sat outside his noodles shop on the morning of Jul. 28.
The investigation has frustrated the victim’s friends, including fellow activist Chanchai Rungrotsakorn. 'We think there are more powerful people above those the police have identified. There are connections, networks, local businesses and politics...'
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Marwaan Macan-Markar @'Global Issues'
Tibetan Monk Dies in Self-Immolation Protest
The death comes just days after China-designated Panchen Lama, the second ranking spiritual leader in Tibetan Buddhism, toured the region under heavy Chinese police protection. The Dalai Lama, who has lived in exile since a 1959 failed uprising against Chinese rule, originally selected another young man named Gendun Choekyi Nyima to become the 11th Panchen Lama. But the youth was arrested by Chinese police in 1995 at age 6 and has not been heard from since. Many Tibetans oppose Beijing's designee installed by the Chinese government.The remote region where Monday's death occurred and other Tibetan parts of Sichuan have seen repeated protests against the government.
This is the second reported self-immolation this year in this area of Sichuan. In March, a 21 year old monk Phuntsog of Kirti monastery set himself on fire and died near Kirti Monastery in Aba county in apparent protest against the government. The self-immolation triggered a street protest of nearly a thousand monks and lay people against government controls on the restive region prompting an immediate crackdown on the monastery.
In April, Chinese authorities seized more than 300 protesting monks from Kriti monastery and weeks later admitted subjecting them to "legal education" at undisclosed locations.The United Nations Working group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances protested the detentions, accusing Beijing of involvement in "enforced disappearances." But Beijing brushed off the U.N. protest, and instead urged critics to adopt a "fair perspective" on government efforts in the region.
@'Voice of America'
From Tottenham to Oakland Planet of Slums, Age of Riots
Tottenham, Chile, Tunis…
There are too many to count
Oakland, Brixton, Taybat al-Imam…
We almost can’t keep the names straight.
Clichy-sous-Bois, Caracas, Los Angeles…
The phrase “riot in London” echoed strangely in my ear, prompting only muted interest. I have been present for a few riots in London and in nearby Cambridge, marches against the war and the perennial Mayday battle between anarchists and the Metropolitan Police. From these to the more recent anti-cuts marches which ended in sporadic clashes with police, my interest has gradually waned, and when I most recently heard this phrase “riot in London,” I expected it would be followed by yet another description of a ritualized protest, with some marchers “kettled” and some anarchists fighting police. This is not simply a criticism: I was not not excited, but I was certainly not excited either.
Instead, the details began to emerge: the immediate spark was the police murder of a Black man, Mark Duggan, who was shot to death by police, and the beating of a 16-year old woman demanding answers from police about Duggan’s death. The fuel for the fire had been long accumulating, however: institutionalized racism in the form of poverty, police stop-and-search methods, and more recent Conservative Party cutbacks in the name of “austerity,” this year’s chosen catchword if “revolution” doesn’t eclipse it entirely.
The similarities with other serious waves of social rebellion then began to emerge with increasing clarity. This was both about Mark Duggan and it was not (here we can agree with the British Prime Minister David Cameron, albeit toward the opposite end), just as the recent rebellions in Oakland in 2009 were both about more than Oscar Grant, just as 2008 Athens was about more than Alexandros Grigoropoulos, 1992 L.A. was about more than Rodney King, the 1965 Watts Rebellion about more than Marquette Frye, and so on. And like these previous moments, the London rebellions are spreading with a degree of spontaneity and a flexibility of organizational forms that has left police utterly confounded. There have already been more than 1,000 arrests, and as hysterical media outlets up the rhetorical ante with talk of “guerrilla warfare,” the police are gearing up for far more...
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George Ciccariello-Maher @'Counterpunch'
George Pelecanos Reading from The Cut with The Nighthawks
Spero Lucas has a new line of work. Since he returned home after serving in Iraq, he has been doing special investigations for a defense attorney. He's good at it, and he has carved out a niche: recovering stolen property, no questions asked. His cut is forty percent.
A high-profile crime boss who has heard of Lucas's specialty hires him to find out who has been stealing from his operation. It's the biggest job Lucas has ever been offered, and he quickly gets a sense of what's going on. But before he can close in on what's been taken, he tangles with a world of men whose amorality and violence leave him reeling. Is any cut worth your family, your lover, your life?
Spero Lucas is George Pelecanos's greatest creation, a young man making his place in the world one battle and one mission at a time. The first in a new series of thrillers featuring Spero Lucas, The Cut is the latest confirmation of why George Pelecanos is "perhaps America's greatest living crime writer." (Stephen King)
Early Praise:
"Pelecanos's excellent first in a new crime series introduces Spero Lucas, a 29-year-old Iraq War vet who does investigative work for a Washington, D.C., defense attorney...Both vital and timely, this remarkable novel also connects D.C.'s past and present as only Pelecanos does. Readers will want to see a lot more of Lucas." -Publishers Weekly, Starred review
"Triple-distilled excellence: first, a truly great new series character; second, a truly great contemporary crime novel; and third, and as always, Pelecanos's status as the undisputed poet laureate of America's most secret city - the three-quarters of Washington DC that tourists never see. Not just recommended - this is essential reading." - Lee Child
"Every time I read one of George Pelecanos's novels--and The Cut might be the best yet--I'm left a little awed, a little envious, and wholly certain that what I've just experienced is the authentic marriage of art to truth. The guy's a national treasure." - Dennis Lehane
"Spero Lucas is a great character, hes cool, hes honorable and a guy you would want at your back. Hes also interesting to read and the action is totally believable. Pelecanos takes us into a world a lot of us only see on TV and makes us believe we are right there, in on the action. Social issues are brought up, but there is no preaching, George is just telling it like it is. What Pelecanos writes is real, he just does with fictional people. Another awesome book from a true genius of the genre." -Crimespree Magazine
Read more and hear an excerpt read by The Wire's Dion Graham.
HERE
(Thanx beeden!)
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