Big brother can hear you now

Every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinised

DAUNTING, BUT FRANKLY inevitable developments in the realm of Big Brother and its all seeing eyes, now indicate it could soon be getting ears too.

British boffins from Portsmouth University's institute of industrial research have announced they’re building technology which will not only let CCTV see you (when you don’t pick up after your dog), it will also allow the cameras to ‘hear’ what is described as “crimes” being committed, spinning around in a flash (300 milliseconds) to capture it on tape.

Apparently anything from glass shattering to crowds gathering will have the cameras reeling, but this could just mean police will have to deal with copious footage from Jewish weddings.

The software is apparently being adapted from the same stuff used to identify visual patterns, like violently raised arms or Brazilians running through tube stations.

David Brown, director of the Institute of Industrial Research explained "The software will use an artificial intelligence template for the waveform of sound shapes and if the shape isn't an exact fit, use fuzzy logic to determine what the sound is. For example, different types of glass will all have slightly different waveforms of sound when they smash but they will have the same generic shape which can be read using fuzzy logic. It's a very fast, real-time method of identifying sounds."

He added "if in a car park someone smashes a window, the camera would turn to look at them and the camera operator would be alerted."

Portsmouth uni also reckons the new technology could save coppers the bother of having to painstakingly watch hours and hours of tedious footage, filled with nothing but skulking hoodied yoofs and old ladies failing to pick up after their precious pedigrees.

Now the cameras will only have to be activated if triggered by a criminal noise or eventually even certain growled words which would suggest a crime is being committed. “I’m gonna kill you”, “what?” “shhhhh….K-I-L-L Y-O-U”.

The technology will probably take about three years to come to fruition, so in the meanwhile, if you’ve got criminal intent, may we suggest you start learning sign language? µ