Yesterday, the NYPD began photographing and scanning prisoners' irises as they pass through Central Booking, as part of a $500,000 program that the department expects to expand citywide. The new high-tech identification program was ostensibly created to keep prisoners from slipping away as they move through the court system—in two embarrassing incidents earlier this year, two prisoners escaped detention by posing as another perp at arraignment. But civil libertarians and defense attorneys were caught off-guard by the new policy, which the NYPD implemented without any legislative oversight. Spokesman Paul Browne says there's a simple reason for that. more ›

Charlie Todd's new Urban Prankster site points towards a cryptic online outlet for Prototype161, a company that "provides consulting, investigation, and solutions to clients whose problems cannot be solved by ordinary methods." Todd received a letter, which he posted, saying he'd been selected as a prospective agent.

Prototype161 seeks creative, resourceful, and daring individuals to serve as agents in our ongoing investigations. more ›

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The MTA unveiled it's $212 million security deal with Lockheed Martin yesterday, showing off what the NY Times calls an "ambitious plan" to "saturate the subways with 1,000 video cameras and 3,000 motion sensors and to enable cellphone service in 277 underground stations - but not in moving cars - for the first time." Stations with more traffic will get first priority for the important bells and whistles, so think the bigger transit hubs with 2 or more subway lines running through them. Newsday adds that in order to these security measures be as effective as possible, the MTA will also be looking for "detectors capable of spotting biological, chemical or nuclear materials". The NY Times has a description of the cameras:

At the center of the effort will be a dense network of cameras that can zoom, pivot and rotate, all while transmitting and recording images of sensitive areas, from dark tunnels under the East River to bustling subway platforms in Midtown. Each camera will capture distances up to 300 feet and will cost about $1,200. A selected location could have 2 to 30 cameras.

How would you feel about a monorail/rapid transit system in NYC? There is the AirTrain, but that's a little bit of a pain at times (subway to the bus...). more ›

Gothamist is intrigued to hear that Brooklyn's in da house, not once, but twice in the upcoming Broadway season.  more ›

Jessica Mintz, Wall Street Journal more ›

Yay for surprises. The announcement of the 76th Academy Awards nominations were not the snoozefest we thought they would be, thanks to some shockers. Some thoughts on the categories: more ›

IBM will be rolling out a "smart shopping cart" that will help give suggestions and as well as alert shoppers to discounts. Users will just swipe a card through the cart's reader, which may eventually interact with shelves, so customers will see "an ad chicken soup as the person heads down the soup aisle." That's very HAL from 2001 meets Minority Report. But as this is Big Blue's effort to help grocery stores remain competitive with Wal-Mart, Gothamist just says, "Good luck." The Post also notes that other supermarket tech products to be rolled out include, "Veggie Vision, which with its digital camera and a library of hundreds of pictures of vegetables and fruits can determine what is being placed on its scale. It then weighs and prices the items." Gothamist predicts these smart readers will never see the light of day in New York.
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Wired looks at a crazy new way to compose music: Using plastic discs, a projected interface, and a special table with radio sensors, one can manipulate and create music from pre-programmed tracks in a cool touch interface. Created by James Patten (whose Corporate Fallout Detector Gothamist looked at last week) and Ben Recht, Audiopad is reminscent, as Wired points out, of the "scrubbing the image" concept from Minority Report, but it's cooler because Audiopad actually works now. Check out the video of Audiopad in action. [Thanks, MKT] more ›

One of the movies I enjoyed last year was The Minority Report. Well, I enjoyed it up until the very end. If you haven't seen it, then this might be a spoiler, but I was disappointed by the "happy" ending and the way loose ends were tied up. I think movies, especially dramatic ones, are more interesting when things are left to the imagination. Anyway, apprently the Brits aren't found of TC in the Minority Report - at least not on their cell phones. ‘Menacing’ Cruise ad causes stir
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