RoboCop is real at the Stanford Shopping Center

Gathering license plate info? "Intercepting" cell phone pings?

On it's own, meh, but combined with this...

>> All the information is streamed to Knightscope’s cloud software and then streamed back either to the customer’s control center, or in some cases to a mobile app held by a human security guard.

Am I the only one that feels like this is a bit of a datagrab by this Knightscope company? If there's an option for purchasers to have the data streamed directly to their servers then my concern is lessened, but I'm increasingly turned off by the relentless vacuuming up of data that is becoming so prevalent in new devices these days.

I noticed a few of these there occasionally over the last year, but starting two weeks ago it looks like they are a permanent presence. They roll into their own charging stations.

It's an interesting concept. I'm not sure how much I like it. On the one hand, it's a great reference if anything bad ever happens. On the other hand, while a mall is a public place you still don't expect to be tracked to the level of detail that such a device actually does. I know a handful of people that simply won't go there anymore.

Personally, the cell phone tracking bugs me. I do not expect that my cell signals are tracked by anyone but the phone company. This kind of technology makes me think about dropping my cell altogether. Sure it's nice to have one, but honestly I can easily get by without having one constantly attached to me. I'm not that important that people need to contact me wherever I am.

I also feel negatively about mass facial recognition. I almost understand for large events, but I'm simply not that afraid of terrorism. If we start talking about malls doing it I would just rather not be on camera. If private industry doesn't self-regulate in this regard, people will push the government for privacy and that could kill any budding businesses. If I were an investor I would simply stay away from that kind of technology.

"infra-red cameras; microphones ... detection systems that can intercept the pings of mobile phone devices, and license-plate reading software that can process 300 license plates every minute"

a surveillance drone for mall-cops. just great /s

What does this thing actually do besides roll around and look impressive? Can it answer questions? Is it sometimes a remote presence device, so people can talk to a human? This seems closer to Japanese marketing robots than an actual security function.

There have been "robot guards" before, but they're for empty buildings, checking to see that they're empty and not being robbed. That's useful, since the job is utterly boring and better done by hardware. The Army was trying out a few for guarding their storage buildings about a decade ago.

At $7/hr to rent it, security guards should start thinking about pivoting career.

There was an OECD opinion piece recently where they said on balance automation would not destroy jobs. I don't believe it. It will begin by eating these low skills jobs away and then eat its way upwards.

How long before kids start pranking by dropping blankets on top of them?

This is really eye-opening on where we are in society compared to sci-fi.

We're here boys, and girls, we've finally made it!

I'm probably missing something obvious here, but is there a reason the article mentions this is regards to the Sandy Hook shooting incident? Because there aren't exactly any features here that would have helped much in preventing it, unless you think detecting the shooter's car by the numberplate is somehow going to have made a major difference.

If they really wanted to stop things like school shootings and terrorist attacks, then the robot needs to actually be armed in some way, since no one is going to take this thing as some sort of deterrent.

Really, it seems mostly useful as a sort of tourist attraction rather than anything more, since it's apparently really popular with the people visiting the mall.

I work a few buildings down from Knightscope. Walking to lunch my co-workers and I were talking about how they would make a perfect bit on Silicon Valley. They're just bumbling around the parking lot continually, looking both hilarious and vaguely creepy.

So tempted to run a Kickstarter and get one of these for Detroit. Detroit is getting the RoboCop statue and it's only fair they get one of these to give the cops a little help.

Is it smart enough not to scan a picture of a license plate?

Needs to look like a Dalek or other recognizable robot and people will blithely ignore the invasions of privacy and whatnot.

That's fucked up.

Reminds me of the security drones in psychopass.

Looks like those police bots in psycho pass

You think it's cute now...