London police launched on 25th of February a new advertising campaign. Posters and TV ads are urging Londoners to turn in people who might be taking pictures of CCTV cameras.

"Thousands of people take photos every day.

What if one of them seems odd ?

Terrorists use surveillance to help plan attacks, taking photos and making notes about security measures like the location of CCTV cameras.If you see someone doing that, we need to know.

Let experienced officers decide what action to take." 

Other posters target households:

"you see hundreds of houses every day. What if one has unusual activities and seems suspicious"

as well as mobile phone users :

"Thousands of people have mobiles. What if someone with several seems suspicious?"

What's going on in London ? Is the Metropolitan police not busy enough ? did they become completely paranoiac ? or do they need some budget increase ?

Where is this so famous British phlegm ?

As a response, many people have already redesigned the posters to point out the absurdity of them. Some samples are available on BoingBoing.

Tags: 2008, advertising, ATT, attack, blog, camera, civil liberties, counterterrorism, CTU, design, february, fon, ia, ict, im, King, lan, launch, location, london, mobile, mobile phone, nomadcom.net, officer, paranoia, PDF, phone, photo, photographers, Photography, picture, police, post, posters, public, security, snitch, suspect, terror, terrorism, uk, USA, user, wp, www, XP

Cory Doctorow wrote this Creative Commons-licensed fiction story for Radar Online magazine.

  Une version française est disponible ici

“Give me six lines written by the most honorable of men, and I will find an excuse in them to hang him.” –Cardinal Richelieu

“We don’t know enough about you.” –Google CEO Eric Schmidt

Greg landed at San Francisco International Airport at 8 p.m., but by the time he’d made it to the front of the customs line, it was after midnight. He’d emerged from first class, brown as a nut, unshaven, and loose-limbed after a month on the beach in Cabo (scuba diving three days a week, seducing French college girls the rest of the time). When he’d left the city a month before, he’d been a stoop-shouldered, potbellied wreck. Now he was a bronze god, drawing admiring glances from the stews at the front of the cabin.

Four hours later in the customs line, he’d slid from god back to man. His slight buzz had worn off, sweat ran down the crack of his ass, and his shoulders and neck were so tense his upper back felt like a tennis racket. The batteries on his iPod had long since died, leaving him with nothing to do except eavesdrop on the middle-age couple ahead of him.

“The marvels of modern technology,” said the woman, shrugging at a nearby sign: Immigration–Powered by Google.

“I thought that didn’t start until next month?” The man was alternately wearing and holding a large sombrero.

Googling at the border. Christ. Greg had vested out of Google six months before, cashing in his options and “taking some me time"–which turned out to be less rewarding than he’d expected. What he mostly did over the five months that followed was fix his friends’ PCs, watch daytime TV, and gain 10 pounds, which he blamed on being at home instead of in the Googleplex, with its well-appointed 24-hour gym.

He should have seen it coming, of course. The U.S. government had lavished $15 billion on a program to fingerprint and photograph visitors at the border, and hadn’t caught a single terrorist. Clearly, the public sector was not equipped to Do Search Right.

The DHS officer had bags under his eyes and squinted at his screen, prodding at his keyboard with sausage fingers. No wonder it was taking four hours to get out of the god damned airport.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: 2007, 24, access, account, air, airport, analysis, arc, arms, art, ATT, batteries, blog, book, brown, bt, camera, card, cars, ces, columbia, communication, computer, CTU, design, digital, dress, engine, explain, Festival, fiction, find, flash, free, Fun, google, google maps, History, HP, ia, ict, identify, im, International, internet, ipod, ITU, keyboard, King, lan, laptop, launch, law, LED, LG, light, live, map, MIT, money, network, nomadcom.net, nyt, officer, online, organize, pair, personal data, pet, photo, picture, police, politics, post, power, press, privacy, project, public, raw, release, science, sco, screen, scroogled, search, security, simple, social, soviet, storm, story, suspect, technology, term, terror, theme, touch, upgrade, USA, usage, user, violation, web, webcam, wifi, wonders, world, wp, www, XP, yahoo

The Sony A700 DSLR microsite was briefly available on Sony UK website earlier this week. Yesterday, Sony officially announced the A-700 in a press release.

New A-700 specs are the following :  

• 12.4 megapixel CMOS sensor
• BIONZ image processor
• 11 point autofocus system
• ISO 6400
• 5fps (for 17 shots in RAW mode)
• 1/8000th shutter speed
• 3 inch LCD screen (with 921,000 pixels)
• Optional battery grip
• Wireless Flash support
• Both MemoryStick and CompactFlash cards supported
• Size: 142 x 105 x 80 mm
• Weight: 690g
• Price Tag: : 1400€ body only, 1500€ with lens 18-70mm, 2120€ with lens Zeiss 18-80 mm

3 new DT lenses will be available:

• 16-105mm F3.5-5.6
• 18-250mm F3.5-6.3
• 55-200mm f4-5.6

Availabilty : 16th of November in Japan

Sources : Photography Blog, Virus Photo.
Check the A-700 Hands-on preview on DPreview  

Additional pictures on Engadget site.
More information later this week with the official Sony launch.

Tags: 2007, A700, api, ATT, blog, camera, card, ces, CTU, digital, DSLR, DSLR A700, flash, fon, gap, HP, ia, ict, im, iso, japan, lan, launch, memory, new release, nomadcom.net, pda, photo, Photography, picture, press, project, raw, release, review, screen, sony, space, uk, update, web, website, wireless, wp, www

I haven't post a lots about photo equipments on this blog in the past but the new models of Olympus SW µ [mju] series bring something new, specially for nomads. They are now shockproof, waterproof and operate at low temperature, so more fear about humidity, sand, scratches and they are ready for some underwater pictures.

The SW µ series is composed of 5 different models, all fitted with the following specifications:

• 7.1 mega pixels resolution
• 3x optical zoom (5x digital)
• 2.5 inch LCD screen
• 38-114 mm 35mm equivalent zoom (6.7-20.1mm)
• Digital image stabilization
• etc..
• Colored case   

The 2 new models (790 and 795) are no more "water resistant" but "water proof" 

• 790 SW
  Water Proof 3m
  Shock proof 1.5m
  Operable at – 10° C
  Dust proof
  Face Recognition

• 795 SW
  Water Proof 10m
  Shock proof 1.5m
  Operable at – 10° C
  Dust proof
  TruePic image processor
  Digital zoom x15

 Price : ~300 USD

For me the 795 model is the perfect "point & shoot" camera to carry with to "not DSLR friendly" places.

Tags: 10°C, 2007, 24, asia, blog, camera, ces, CTU, digital, DSLR, face recognition, global, ia, ict, im, lan, low temperature, mju, models, nomadcom.net, olympus, photo, picture, point and shoot, post, resolution, screen, shockproof, space, SW 790, SW 795, underwater, water, waterproof, wp

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Tags: CTU, Flickr, ict, im, Our World, picture, simple

A global Flickr community event is coming.

What happens around the world in one day? In a word: life.

On Flickr, members are sharing the world that they see: snapping daily moments, recording history, telling stories, capturing beauty. To celebrate this global community, Flickr invites us to join 24 Hours of Flickr, a day-long global photo project. On May 5 2007, grab your camera and whatever else you need, and chronicle your day in pictures.

Join the 24 hours of Flickr group and post your best photo exclusively taken on the 5th of May 2007 to the group.

The event will be commemorated by a companion 24 hours of Flickr book, which will contain a selection of photographs chosen from the group. Additionally, the group's photos will be featured at Flickr events around the world this summer.

Sources: 24 hours of Flick, Thai Flickr Meet
 

Tags: 2007, 24, 24 hours of Flickr, 24flickr, 24H, 5.5.2007, 5th of May, blog, book, camera, ces, community, CTU, event, Flickr, global, History, ict, im, lan, nomadcom.net, photo, Photography, picture, post, project, sharing, space, story, world, wp, www

The Musée de l'Elysée, a museum for photography, in Lausanne, Switzerland proposes from February to May an exhibition about "The rapid mutation of amateur photography in the digital age" called "We are all Photographers Now!".

The events wants to be interactive and invites people from all over the World to submit their photos on the exhibition's web site. A selection of pictures received will be publish then on exhibition's walls. Participants will get an email with a new photograph (what museums call an "installation view") with their photo such at it was shown on the galeries of our museum.

The event will explore and try to answer some of the following sensitive issues, such for example :

• Does the digital shift constitute a revolution, or merely an evolution?
• Does the shift represent a real democratization of photography?
• Is citizen photojournalism worthy of its name?
• Does the shift threaten the livelihood of professional photographers in fundamental ways?
• Does the shift represent a shift towards more authenticity or truthfulness — or less?

Sources :  Textually.org, About:Photography

Tags: 2007, api, arc, art, blog, ces, citizen, CTU, digital, elysée, event, example, exhibition, february, Fun, HP, ict, im, install, ITU, lan, lausanne, LED, live, manipulating, MIT, museum, nomadcom.net, Our World, photo, photographers, Photography, photojournalism, picture, sharing, shift, switzerland, threat, USA, web, world, wp, www, XP

Last friday, thai B-list actress Chotiros "Amy" Suriyawong created controversy revealing her full length black evening gown, featuring a slit up to her hip and a 3-inch-wide gap that runs up her torso during  The Thailand National Film Awards. 

On February 14th, the controversy hit the English-language press with a column by Nation editor Tulsathit Taptim, who criticized the dress but really takes to task the hypocritical authorities and executives who have called for punishment (Thammasat University, which Chotiros attends and is by reports an excellent student has taken decision to punish the actress to 15 days of community services). 

While Tulsathit Taptim titles "sexy dress exposed ugly truths about society's hypocrisy", I wonder if such big noise is not made to divert public's attention from more serious subjects such Suvarnabhumi airport debacle (cracks on runways, corruption allegations, flooding, etc..) or the Bang Na-Bang Pakong expressway scandal, among many others.

Indecency is not exclusively related to Indecent exposure.

Sources : Rotten Tomatoes,  The Nation,
More Chotiros' pictures here

Tags: 2007, actress, air, airport, Amy, ATT, award, awards, Bangkok, blog, ces, chotiros, Chotiros Suriyawong, community, controversy, Coup de Gueule, CTU, dress, editor, february, gap, HP, hypocrisy, ia, ict, im, lan, language, LED, list, nomadcom.net, Our World, picture, post, press, public, services, sexy, Suphannahong Awards, Suvarnabhumi Airport, Thailand, university, wp, www, XP

As I'm not a big fan of Christmas & New Year parties, I took few days off, un-plugged everything and flew "ahead in time"..to year Poush 2063 of the Nepali calendar. 

These 10 "disconnected" days were spent in the Kathmandu Valley visiting ancient cities, buddhist & hindu temples while enjoying the surrounding of Himalayan summits. All pictures are available as usual in the Gallery

Happy New Year !

Tags: 2007, art, blog, christmas, cities, CTU, himalaya, HP, ict, im, kathmandu, lan, MIT, Nepal, New pictures, new year, nomadcom.net, Photography, picture, sco, space, Travel, wp

Some figures of the Telecom World 2006 which finally was more a kind of Telecom Asia due to the low representation of US and European Telecom giants and also due to the strong presence of Chinese companies (30%).

• Exhibition center : 43'000 m2
• 690 represented companies, among them 230 Chinese ones.
• US Pavillion, 400 m2 only !
• Visitors est. 42'000 to 57'000
• Visitors, 60% from Asia, 18% Europe & 20% Americas.
• VIP / CEO's /Govt representatives : 2000
• Industries : 18% for Mobile, 17% for Networks & 17% for IT hardware/software.
• Company type : 25% Mobile operators

• Best stand (my own opinion) : Samsung
• Prettiest hostesses (see photo): Samsung mobile

 Source : ITU Stats

 

Tags: asia, blog, CTU, europe, exhibition, HP, ia, ict, im, ITU, lan, mobile, Mobile Communications, network, nomadcom.net, photo, picture, presence, samsung, space, stats, sun, telecom, Telecommunications, world, wp, www