‘We gotta ban these dadgum things’ | Rep. Burchett introduces bill to ban federal funding for Flock cameras Burchett said he has spoken with Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs about Flock cameras, saying they need to be banned. What This Story Is About - U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett has introduced a bill to prohibit federal agencies from purchasing or accessing automated surveillance systems that identify, track or record people. Why It Matters - Flock cameras, which surveil and read license plates in public spaces, have sparked concerns about privacy from both private citizens and elected officials. What Happens Next - The bill was referred by the House of Representatives to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. For Context - On Friday, the Knox County Commission canceled a meeting to discuss the Knox County Sheriff’s Office’s proposed rollout of more than 200 Flock cameras. Catch Up - A Knox County commissioner said he was a bit blindsided by the planned rollout. He spoke to us Tuesday. - Officers outside of East Tennessee have been accused in the past of misusing Flock cameras, outlined in an investigation by our sister station in Atlanta. KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) - U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) has introduced a bill to prohibit federal agencies from purchasing or accessing automated surveillance systems that identify, track or record people. According to the bill, the Protection Against Mass Surveillance Act aims to stop federal funding for any surveillance system that tracks people through any of the following: - Automated license plate recognition system, including a Flock Safety camera - Facial recognition technology - Technology that uses biometric identification, including fingerprint, iris, retinal, voice, gait, or other personally identifiable biological characteristics - Any technology that captures, analyzes, or retains a person’s image, likeness, or other personally identifiable information
Jul 25, 2026 · via wvlt.tv
According to the latest leaks, the iPhone 20 Pro Max, expected to appear next year, could feature a display measuring as much as 7 inches, the largest ever used on an iPhone. If the rumors prove accurate, the change would represent more than a hardware upgrade. It could also mark a new chapter in Apple's smartphone design strategy. The information was shared by well-known leaker Digital Chat Station on Weibo and cited by MacRumors. According to the report, Apple is testing a 7-inch display panel for its 20th-anniversary iPhone. The device is also rumored to adopt a "quad-curved" design, meaning the display curves along all four edges, alongside a range of exterior changes intended to create a significantly different experience from current iPhone generations. A 7-inch display could offer more screen space without a much larger body If the information is accurate, the new iPhone's display would be about 0.1 inch larger than that of the iPhone 16 Pro Max, which drew attention when Apple increased the screen size from 6.7 inches to 6.9 inches in 2024. In practical terms, the difference amounts to only about 3 mm, making it unlikely to create a dramatic change in everyday use. The more important point, however, may not be the 7-inch figure itself, but how Apple is reportedly planning to optimize the overall design. Sources say the display bezels could be reduced significantly, increasing usable screen space without making the phone's body much larger. That could allow users to get a larger display on the iPhone 20 Pro Max while maintaining a familiar feel in the hand. Although the real-world difference may be modest, analysts believe Apple would almost certainly make the size increase a major part of its marketing campaign. The claim of offering "the largest iPhone display ever" has long
Jul 25, 2026 · via vietnamnet.vn
'Under AI Lens': How Security Agencies Tracked CJP Protesters At Jantar Mantar Use of facial recognition cameras, AI-powered analytics, database integration and smart surveillance vehicles reignited debate over privacy and civil liberties, reports ETV Bharat’s Gautam Debroy. Published : July 25, 2026 at 7:48 PM IST New Delhi: The agitation against NEET paper leak led by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar may have ended on Saturday after the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, but the massive security operation mounted around the protest site has left behind another significant perspective-the emergence of technology-driven policing as a central feature of law enforcement in India. For several days, Jantar Mantar was transformed into one of the country’s most closely monitored public protest venues, with security agencies deploying an extensive network of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered surveillance systems designed to detect security threats while keeping a close watch on the movement of thousands of demonstrators. The operation, according to officials, relied on a combination of Facial Recognition System (FRS) cameras, AI-enabled video analytics, integrated criminal databases and specialised surveillance vehicles capable of monitoring crowds in real time. The objective, they insist, was not to track peaceful protesters but to identify wanted criminals and prevent anti-social elements from exploiting the agitation. “Whenever large crowds gather, there is always the possibility that criminal or anti-social elements may attempt to merge with genuine protesters. The surveillance system was activated primarily to detect such individuals without disrupting the democratic right to protest,” a senior security official told ETV Bharat here. Multi-layered surveillance network Officials said high-resolution facial recognition cameras were installed at strategic entry and exit points surrounding Jantar Mantar. Unlike conventional CCTV cameras that merely record footage, these systems continuously capture facial images and compare them against police databases containing records of
Jul 25, 2026 · via etvbharat.com
Firecrackers, Milk Abhishekam, Trisha's Surprise Visit: Jana Nayagan Releases Amid Fan Frenzy
Jana Nayagan has finally hit theatres, and fans have turned its release into a grand celebration across Tamil Nadu and beyond. From firecrackers, dhol, milk abhishekam and giant cut-outs to Trisha Krishnan's surprise visit, Japanese fans in Chennai, and theatres erupting at Vijay's title card, here's everything that made the superstar's much-awaited farewell film release an unforgettable spectacle.
1.6K views | 2 days ago
Jul 25, 2026 · via timesofindia.indiatimes.com
Abstract PestMoth11 is a dual-domain image dataset designed to support image classification and object detection of 11 economically important agricultural pest moth species across controlled specimen and ecological imaging contexts. The dataset comprises 29,936 adult moth images from 11 species, including 20,078 multi-angle specimen images generated from 781 specimens, along with 9,858 ecological images sourced from iNaturalist observations that reflect field conditions with spatiotemporal occurrence metadata. All images have been meticulously annotated with species-level labels and YOLO (You Only Look Once) format bounding boxes. To validate the dataset’s utility, we conducted baseline experiments using representative architectures: EfficientNet-B0 and ResNet-50 for image classification, and YOLO11n and RT-DETR-l (Real-Time Detection Transformer-large) for object detection. Using stratified group-based splits defined by specimen identity and geographic grid grouping to reduce the risk of data leakage, baseline validation and multi-seed experiments produced classification macro F1-scores close to 0.99 and detection Mean Average Precision (mAP) at an Intersection over Union (IoU) thresholds ranging from 0.5 to 0.95 (mAP50–95) values close to 0.90 under the combined-domain setting, supporting the utility of the dataset for reproducible model evaluation. Cross-domain experiments revealed a clear domain gap between specimen-domain and ecological-domain images, whereas a cross-domain fusion strategy that combined both domains substantially improved performance compared with single-domain training. PestMoth11 supports dual-domain, dual-task moth pest recognition, contributing to the development of intelligent monitoring and early-warning systems in agricultural pest management. Furthermore, the dataset may facilitate multimodal pest monitoring studies that integrate image and metadata information. Acknowledgements We would like to thank Dr. Shuqian Tan and Ms. Xinjie Chen from China Agricultural University for providing specimens of Spodoptera frugiperda; Dr. Pingyang Zhu from the College of Life Sciences, Zhejiang Normal University for providing specimens of Cnaphalocrocis medinalis; Dr. Yongjun Zhang, Dr. Jingfei Guo, and Mr. Hao Lan from the Institute of Plant
Jul 25, 2026 · via nature.com
Oxfordshire care workers are marking National Schizophrenia Awareness Day by highlighting the vital work they do every day. Grace To, a mental health support worker, has spoken about the impact of around-the-clock, personalised care for people living with the condition. She has worked for four years at Iris Hayter House in Littlemore, a supported housing service run by Oxfordshire-based mental health charity Response. Ms To said: "People diagnosed with schizophrenia can feel incredibly isolated because they are fearful and do not know whether what they are experiencing is real life or delusion. Read more River Thames locks part closed from Cotswolds to Oxford amid dry weather New date set as controversial police facial recognition van returning to Oxford Rogue gardener scammed customers out of nearly £40k "It’s our job to help them lead a normal life where they can thrive in a supported environment and feel part of a community." Response is the county’s largest independent mental health charity, supporting more than 500 adults and young people through housing, recovery, and prevention services. Schizophrenia affects approximately one per cent of the UK population and is a long-term mental health condition. Symptoms can include hallucinations, delusions, and disorganised thinking. Ms To, 36, is also a trained music therapist and said activities like seated exercise, crafts, group outings, and film nights help provide purpose for residents. She said: "We provide that purpose into people’s lives who without our care and attention would have very little to live for. "As mental health support workers, we’re simply here to help those living with schizophrenia and other mental health conditions to lead a normal life, which I believe everyone is entitled to." She said music therapy helps people achieve non-musical goals and can boost physical health, movement and social interactions. Ms To said: "I see
Jul 25, 2026 · via oxfordtimes.co.uk
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Jul 25, 2026 · via youtube.com
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Jul 25, 2026 · via youtube.com
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Jul 25, 2026 · via youtube.com
Abstract In this paper, a hybrid convolutional neural network (CNN) and transformer architecture for image classification that explicitly exploits multiscale spatial representations while maintaining computational efficiency is proposed. A convolutional backbone is first used to extract hierarchical feature maps, which are subsequently tokenized and fused through a cross-scale token fusion (CSTF) mechanism. In addition, several token-level and CNN-level pruning strategies are evaluated to examine whether redundant spatial tokens or convolutional features can be removed without substantially degrading performance. Extensive experiments on Caltech-101 and Oxford-IIIT Pets under low-data training conditions show that the best proposed configurations are dataset-dependent: the single 14\(\:\times\:14\) scale achieves 70.28\(\:\pm\:1.91\)% accuracy on Caltech-101, while the single 7\(\:\times\:\)7 scale achieves 28.35\(\:\pm\:1.62\)% accuracy on Oxford-IIIT Pets. Among the multi-scale fusion models, 7\(\:\times\:\)7+14\(\:\times\:\)14 performs best on Caltech-101 69.68 \(\:\pm\:\)1.77%, whereas 7\(\:\times\:\)7+14\(\:\times\:\)14+28\(\:\times\:\)28 performs best on Oxford-IIIT Pets 27.57\(\:\pm\:\)1.05%. CNN kernel pruning achieves the strongest pruning performance on both datasets, reaching 68.37\(\:\pm\:\)1.06% on Caltech-101 and 28.15\(\:\pm\:\)1.15% on Oxford-IIIT Pets. These results indicate that multi-scale token fusion can provide competitive performance, but careful scale selection is more important than simply increasing the number of spatial token scales. Author information Authors and Affiliations Corresponding author Ethics declarations Competing interests The authors declare no competing interest. Additional information Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Supplementary Information Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material. Rights and permissions Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are
Jul 25, 2026 · via nature.com
Bengaluru: India has no law expressly authorising police to deploy live facial-recognition technology (FRT) at protests, religious congregations and other public gatherings, senior lawyers told ET, warning that any such use could face constitutional challenge.The issue has gained urgency as a petition before the Delhi High Court has challenged alleged continuous surveillance of people participating in the ongoing students’ protest at Jantar
BenchmarksCLOSED
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Business NewsTechTech & Internet No specific law authorises live facial recognition at protests, legal experts warn
No specific law authorises live facial recognition at protests, legal experts warn
Synopsis
India currently lacks specific laws authorizing police facial recognition use at public gatherings. Lawyers warn that such deployments may face constitutional challenges and privacy concerns. The Supreme Court's privacy ruling requires strict safeguards for any technology use. A comprehensive parliamentary framework is needed to regulate facial recognition technology. Non-matching facial data should be deleted immediately after searches.
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Jul 25, 2026 · via m.economictimes.com
The Facebook Verified badge is a new free identity verification feature from Meta designed to confirm that individual Facebook users are real people. The verification process uses a facial recognition selfie that is compared with existing profile photos and is available to users aged 18 or older who are in good standing with Facebook's Community Standards. Once verified, the badge appears across Facebook services including Marketplace and Dating, serving as identity confirmation rather than an endorsement of trustworthiness. The feature is intended to help users distinguish authentic profiles from AI-generated accounts and fraudulent identities as synthetic content becomes more widespread online. Unlike the paid Meta Verified subscription, the new badge is free and is limited to personal accounts, excluding Pages and Professional Mode profiles. Meta will begin rolling out the feature in select markets from Monday before expanding availability globally. Image Credit: Facebook Why This Trend Is Growing - Free Identity Verification - No-cost verification badges create space for platforms to scale authenticity signals without relying on premium subscription models. - Human-first Social Profiles - As AI-generated accounts proliferate, verified human identity layers can reshape how users assess legitimacy across social, dating, and commerce environments. - Facial Recognition Access - Selfie-based identity checks introduce new possibilities for balancing fraud prevention, user convenience, and privacy-sensitive account authentication. Industries Being Reshaped - Social Media - Platform-wide identity markers can strengthen user confidence while differentiating authentic personal accounts from synthetic or fraudulent profiles. - Online Marketplaces - Verified human badges may reduce transaction friction by giving buyers and sellers a clearer signal of account legitimacy during peer-to-peer exchanges. - Digital Dating - Identity-confirmed profiles offer dating services a potential trust layer as users seek safer ways to distinguish real people from deceptive accounts.
Jul 24, 2026 · via trendhunter.com
UC San Diego Electrical Engineer Receives Popov Prize for Research in Approximation Theory Rahul Parhi received the 2026 Vasil A. Popov Prize in recognition for his distinguished research accomplishments in approximation theory and related areas of mathematics Story by: Published Date Article Content Rahul Parhi, an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering, has received the 2026 Vasil A. Popov Prize. This prize recognizes distinguished research accomplishments in approximation theory and related areas of mathematics. Parhi’s research centers on applied harmonic analysis, applied functional analysis, and the mathematics of data, with connections to signal processing, machine learning, statistics, and optimization. His current work focuses particularly on the mathematical foundations of neural networks. By studying these models through the lens of function spaces, he investigates their approximation and statistical properties, as well as the implicit and inductive biases introduced during neural network training. At a high level, Parhi seeks to understand the mathematical principles underlying modern artificial intelligence. Neural networks are often described in terms of their architectures and the large collections of parameters learned during training. Parhi instead studies the end-to-end functions represented by these networks. His work examines which functions neural networks can approximate efficiently, how architecture and training procedures favor certain solutions, and when a learned model can be expected to perform well on previously unseen data. Vasil A. Popov Prize The Vasil A. Popov Prize was established in 1995 in memory of Bulgarian mathematician Vasil A. Popov. It is awarded every three years to a mathematician who is removed less than 6 years from their doctoral degree. The Prize recognizes distinguished research accomplishments in approximation theory and related areas of mathematics. Parhi was presented with the award on July 13, 2026 by University
Jul 24, 2026 · via today.ucsd.edu
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Jul 24, 2026 · via youtube.com
Figures Abstract To tackle the challenges in fine-grained retrieval stemming from noise, official seal occlusions, small text blocks, and other issues prevalent in archival text images, and to fulfill the requirements of integrating both textual and visual dual features while enhancing retrieval accuracy and efficiency, this study has devised a five-tier architectural model. This model comprises an input layer, a preprocessing layer, a scene graph generation layer, an attention fusion layer, and a retrieval matching layer. The model incorporates a dedicated scene graph generation module tailored for archival data, aiming to enhance element detection. Additionally, it features a three-tier attention fusion module that integrates scene graph, text, and cross-modal features to ensure precise feature alignment. Training is carried out using a multi-task loss function, and an index is created to streamline retrieval and matching processes. Experimental results show that the proposed model achieves a Top-1 accuracy of 83.7% and an average precision of 88.3% on the test set, representing a 25.1% improvement over the Top-1 accuracy of an optical character recognition (OCR) combined with word frequency and inverse document frequency model. The proposed model achieves a Top-1 accuracy of 6.1% higher than the archival retrieval network model for examples with official seal occlusion and a Top-1 accuracy of 76.8% for small text blocks. The response time for a single retrieval is 52.6ms. Research provides technical support for efficient retrieval of large-scale archives in archives, effectively solving the problem of archive retrieval in complex scenarios, and significantly improving the efficiency of archive management and utilization. Citation: Zhang M (2026) Construction of a fine-grained retrieval model for archival text-image based on the integration of scene graph generation and attention mechanism. PLoS One 21(7): e0353505. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0353505 Editor: Rehan Ashraf, National Textile University, PAKISTAN Received: December 21, 2025; Accepted: June 24, 2026; Published: July
Jul 24, 2026 · via journals.plos.org
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Jul 24, 2026 · via youtube.com
SUMTER COUNTY, Fla. — A Sumter County detective has been fired and arrested after investigators say she used law enforcement surveillance tools to track her husband’s ex-wife for personal reasons. Detective Brandy Almany was arrested on July 23, 2026, and charged with official misconduct and multiple counts of offenses against computer users. She bonded out of jail later that night. According to Sumter County Sheriff Patrick Breeden, an internal audit revealed that Almany accessed several restricted databases, including the Flock Automated License Plate Recognition (ALPR) system, the Florida Driver and Vehicle Information Database (DAVID), and the Comprehensive Case Information System (CCIS). Investigators say Almany created fake electronic records, using unrelated case numbers to make her personal searches look like legitimate police investigations. Upon her arrest, she was immediately terminated from the department. In response to the breach, Sheriff Breeden has suspended the use of all Flock cameras within the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office. He has also ordered a complete internal audit of all law enforcement databases used by his agency. “While I do believe these systems are a valuable tool for law enforcement, due to these circumstances, I have ordered a complete internal audit of all the databases and I have suspended the use of Flock in the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office,” Breeden said in a statement. While Sumter County has hit the pause button, similar camera technology is widely used across Central Florida. The region has one of the highest concentrations of these devices in the state. These cameras are not limited to police cars or street poles; they can be found at trailheads, private communities, and public parks. Some newer models, such as Axis cameras, have the *capability* to perform facial recognition. However, having the capability does not necessarily mean the technology is actively being used for that
Jul 24, 2026 · via wftv.com
Figures Abstract Retinitis pigmentosa (RP) is a group of inherited retinal diseases that are caused by genetic defects that lead to progressive photoreceptor loss and eventual blindness. Early diagnosis would be helpful for effective management of the disease; however, many patients stay unaware of early symptoms. Meanwhile, fundus images are widely obtained during routine medical checkups but are underused for detecting RP. This study explores the effectiveness of finetuning deep learning models, pre-trained for general visual tasks, to identify RP from color fundus images. The dataset comprised 321 color fundus images from 201 Japanese subjects at Keio University Hospital, including 200 images from 107 patients with retinitis pigmentosa and 121 images from 94 non-retinitis pigmentosa subjects. Multiple images were available for some subjects. Using transfer learning, pretrained convolutional neural network models -VGG16, Resnet50, and InceptionV3- were finetuned to detect RP. As a result, Inception V3 achieved the best accuracy of 96.97%, which matches the average diagnostic accuracy of ophthalmologists. Gradient-weighted Class Activation Mapping (Grad-CAM) suggested that the model attended to clinically relevant fundus regions, including the peripheral retina and posterior pole, which may reflect features such as peripheral degenerative changes and retinal vascular attenuation. These findings support the potential interpretability of the finetuned model and suggest that deep learning may assist ophthalmologists in RP screening as a supportive tool. Citation: Ubukata S, Masayoshi K, Katada Y, Yang L, Ozawa N, Ibuki M, et al. (2026) Fundus image analysis of retinitis pigmentosa using artificial intelligence. PLoS One 21(7): e0354452. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0354452 Editor: Vahid Mansouri, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, IRAN, ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF Received: November 26, 2025; Accepted: July 8, 2026; Published: July 24, 2026 Copyright: © 2026 Ubukata et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution,
Jul 24, 2026 · via journals.plos.org
For biometric ticketing, privacy need not be obstacle to innovation: Attain Insight The transformation of the fan experience continues across professional sports leagues, and biometrics are poised to play a major role in the stadiums of the future. But, according to Attain Insight, the challenge is choosing an approach that balances convenience, security, and privacy. Long lines are a drag on merchandise and concession sales. “Every additional minute spent waiting impacts both the visitor experience and venue revenue,” says a recent post on the Attain Insight blog. “At the same time, venues cannot afford to compromise on security. Operations teams are under constant pressure to move thousands of people safely and efficiently through a limited number of access points while maintaining compliance with evolving privacy expectations.” Add compliance pressures to the mix, and the problem becomes increasingly complex. But the solution need not be. Facial ticketing has emerged as an attractive option for venues looking to improve both security and the guest experience. Getting fans through the gates faster is not the only benefit. Biometrics can reduce staffing requirements at entry gates, provide stronger security through reliable identity verification and enable focused fan experiences to elevate game day. But fans increasingly demand both convenience and strong privacy protections; “these expectations are no longer competing priorities.” With the power of data collection comes data responsibility. Privacy built in to SPAn ticketing architecture Attain Insight says facial ticketing does not have to depend on storing identifiable facial biometric data. “A new generation of privacy-enhancing technology called Search Preserving Anonymization (SPAn) makes it possible to verify a person’s identity using anonymized biometrics,” the company says, by way of introducing its Intrinsic biometric ticketing product. “Rather than keeping information that could identify an individual, the technology anonymizes a facial image for matching only, and
Jul 24, 2026 · via biometricupdate.com
HARRISBURG- Two Republican representatives are looking to regulate and place what they call “reasonable safeguards” on the use of automated surveillance technologies that include automated license plate readers (ALPRs) and facial recognition systems. Representative David Rowe’s bill would, he says, create clear statewide standards governing how these technologies are used, including limitations on the collection and retention of personally identifiable information and requirements for judicial oversight in certain circumstances. Representative Josh Bashline’s bill would authorize municipalities to determine whether automated license plate readers may be installed within their communities. “These tools can serve legitimate law enforcement purposes, but Pennsylvanians should not have to choose between public safety and their constitutional right to be free from unreasonable government surveillance,” Rowe said. “We can—and should—protect both. I believe these bills strike that balance by protecting Pennsylvanians’ privacy while ensuring that police have access to critical information in dire situations.” Rowe said advances in surveillance technology have made it possible to collect, store, and analyze information about individuals on a scale that was unimaginable just a generation ago. While those capabilities can aid criminal investigations, he said they also underscore the need to ensure technological innovation does not outpace the constitutional protections guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment. “Communities across Pennsylvania have different needs and different perspectives when it comes to the use of surveillance technology,” Bashline said. “Local elected officials should have the authority to determine whether automated license plate readers are the right fit for their communities. This legislation gives municipalities a voice while preserving the ability of law enforcement to utilize these tools where they have local support.” A co-sponsorship memo for both bills has been circulated to members of the House, with formal legislation expected to be introduced soon.
Jul 24, 2026 · via tristatealert.com