back to article China funds devs to write smog-clearing vidcam code

The Chinese government has been forced to ask digital experts to solve a particularly trying problem: how to adapt surveillance camera technology to see through the cripplingly thick smog that regularly blankets urban areas in the middle kingdom. The National Natural Science Foundation of China has funded two teams of boffins …

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  1. Cliff

    CGI

    If the truth is subject to the party line anyway.

  2. jake Silver badge

    Isn't this kinda like ...

    ... procuring buckets to "fix" a leaking roof?

  3. John Smith 19 Gold badge

    The law of unintendend consequences

    "We let them make all this money and now people are using the smoke to hide their protests. B**tards."

    "We had to clean up the air as the algorithms never worked and we can't trust the people. B**tards."

  4. bpfh
    Mushroom

    how about...

    Cleaning up the atmosphere? Unless some Chinese mandarins get a hard on watching their flock getting lung cancer...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: how about...

      I doubt that they care about the health of the general population, but I'm surprised they don't go for the clean up option - after all it allows people to legitimately walk around with their faces half covered.

      1. jjk

        Re: how about...

        They'll just order the people to breathe the smog and like it. Communist Man will evolve to tolerate it. Coughing will be punishable by forced labor (or worse).

        Stanislaw Lem already covered this in one of his Ijon Tichy stories (except with water instead of smog).

    2. James Micallef Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: how about...

      " some Chinese mandarins get a hard on watching their flock getting lung cancer..."

      Actually, China has world's largest smoking population, and the supply is of course a monopoly that rakes in mega-billions, so they are fairly ambivalent on anti-smoking laws and campaigns

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Chinese surveillance state

    it's quite telling that the Chinese want to watch what their citizens get up to - even their state broadcaster is called CCTV.

  6. druck Silver badge

    Perv scanners

    I'm sure they could adapt the airport perv scanners we are (hopefully) getting rid of. Would also help to spot anything disharmonious concealed under clothing.

  7. Frank Bitterlich
    WTF?

    Visibility - WTF?

    "...that if visibility is reduced to three metres, [...] even top end cameras couldn’t see beyond 10 metres."

    No, dude. If the visibility is reduced to three metres, then top-end cameras can't see beyond 3 metres. That's what "visibility" means. OTOH cameras tend to be mounted a bit higher than eye level which sometimes improves visibility in smog a tiny bit.

    But to me the idea of improving visibility by software sounds a bit like "24": "Can you zoom in a bit on that pre-recorded QVGA CCTV picture?" - "Sure, here it is, I've converted it to 4k resolution for you. Would you like me to switch on 3D?"

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