Smartphone Videos Can Now Be Analyzed To Locate a Shooter (gizmodo.com) 40
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have found that videos captured by smartphones can be useful for determining the location of a shooter. Gizmodo reports: The Video Event Reconstruction and Analysis system -- or VERA, for short -- was developed at CMU's Language Technologies Institute with the cooperation of SITU Research who shared its expertise on ballistics and architecture, and the tool was released last month as free-to-use open-source code at the Association for Computing Machinery's International Conference on Multimedia in Nice, France. Using machine learning, VERA first synchronizes footage from multiple videos shot on smartphones in and around an event where a shooting occurs. The more footage collected the more accurate the results will be, but the researchers found the system even performed well when using footage from just three devices. Once synchronized, VERA calculates the position of where each video was filmed based on landmarks and other notable features in the actual footage.
The system then processes the audio from each clip, specifically identifying two distinct sounds: the crack of the shock wave created by the supersonic bullet in flight, and the sound of the blast emanating from the weapon's muzzle. The time delay between the two parameters provides a crucial clue, but the sounds also help reveal the type of gun used, which in turn helps determine the speed of the bullet. By processing all of that information, VERA is then able to determine the location of the shooter with a surprising level of accuracy. During its development, VERA was tested using video captured by three smartphones during the first minute of the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada, which included multiple shots fired. The system was able to accurately estimate that the shooter was located in the north wing of the Mandalay Bay hotel, even with a margin of error that still pointed to the hotel as being the probable location.
The system then processes the audio from each clip, specifically identifying two distinct sounds: the crack of the shock wave created by the supersonic bullet in flight, and the sound of the blast emanating from the weapon's muzzle. The time delay between the two parameters provides a crucial clue, but the sounds also help reveal the type of gun used, which in turn helps determine the speed of the bullet. By processing all of that information, VERA is then able to determine the location of the shooter with a surprising level of accuracy. During its development, VERA was tested using video captured by three smartphones during the first minute of the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada, which included multiple shots fired. The system was able to accurately estimate that the shooter was located in the north wing of the Mandalay Bay hotel, even with a margin of error that still pointed to the hotel as being the probable location.
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Let's take them away from the police first, they kill over a thousand people every year but only report half of them to the FBI's justifiable homicide database because they're trying to hide the other half. Then we can talk about disarming the populace.
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nonsense, most the thousands of deaths each year are mostly by inner city gangs from two ethnic groups.
Okay, I am already cognizant of the Irish... but what's the other group?
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nonsense, most the thousands of deaths each year are mostly by inner city gangs from two ethnic groups.
Okay, I am already cognizant of the Irish... but what's the other group?
The non-Irish.
We're seeing young men killing themselves in the USA, either with suicide or with gangs fighting each other over drug dealing territory or some petty grievance. The problem is not the guns. The problem is a lack of parenting, a lack of law enforcement, just generally a lack of civil order. Even if it were possible to remove firearms from these people then they'd simply use knives, clubs, fists, and whatever else that they can find. With the modern ability to produce a functional firearm wi
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Drugs are inanimate too, and they also get blamed for the actions of their users. Like gun owners, there are responsible and irresponsible drug users. Also, the modern ability to produce them guarantees there will be no removing of them from the nation either - unlike guns they have been trying that and failing for generations.
Maybe if there was not such a double standard it would be better for everyone.
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Drugs are inanimate too
Not once you take them. Then they're active!
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Statistically speaking, it's got to be Germans. There are way more Americans of German descent than there are of any other ethnicity.
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guess again, and their body count is not proportional to percent of population.
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Re:Get rid of guns (Score:4, Insightful)
Because, as is well known and proven, criminals ALWAYS obey the law. And would be the first in line to turn their weapons in to the police....
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Re: Get rid of guns (Score:2)
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I disagree. The reason terrorists dont use guns is because an IED is much more effective at large scale killing. A gun is terrible for killing lots of people. It requires skill practice and some form of protection from the authorities to rack up a decent body count.
An IED like the Oklahoma bomber on the other hand.... killed many people.
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IEDs are not widely used in the UK by terrorists. Mostly they use knives and vehicles.
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Sounds like a night out on the town here in the US :)
Your culture is much different. I am not sure what exactly the cause is ( perhaps the nation being born from rebelling we take pride in breaking law ? ) but it truly is a different culture.
Even the police act different. Granted I can only speak to the German polezei I watched in action but their methods spoke volumes compared to the US
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Guns are only hard to get by loser wannabees. I've got a lathe in my garage. A gun is some scrap pipe and a few hours work.
US cities (Score:1)
Now related tech is open-source code...
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Yet they still can't find the multiple Las Vegas shooters or the second Parkland shooter.
Have you considered going out in the streets and pointing an AR-15 Assault Rifle at random people until you find the culprits? If you're not prepared to take the most basic steps to try and help solve this mystery, then I don't see how you think you have the right to complain.
I've got an even better method.... (Score:3)
"Click on all the squares that contain an :Active Shooter:"
And the name of the app will be (Score:2)
Grassy Knoll for iOS and Android.
My Only Question is... (Score:2)
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But it does not provide an excuse to confiscate everyone's phone in the general region because 'evidence', yep, uh huh.
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well, it's good for the tech provider to pretend that you couldn't have made such analysis from the video with your brain and 3d modelling software before..
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harness the power of the cloud and do it in real-time?
if we can dedicate whole data centers for running game streams and other sillyness, this shouldn't be a problem.
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back and to the left. (Score:1)
Revisit the Vegas Shooting (Score:2)
Having been in the military and used bumpfire weapons as well as full auto belt fed I have questions about the Vegas shooting I would like answered. Feed all those videos into that system.
It might be interesting.
Robocop (Score:2)
This would be a good function to add to Robocop when he is created; otherwise, the logistics of collecting and then processing the videos in real time is somewhat of a blocker.