"There's a reason we separate military and the police: one fights the enemy of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people."
Color me stupid, but isn't the army's job exactly "to serve and protect the people"? The moment that the army is used for anything else is exactly the moment you get into trouble.
The difference between the army and the police is that the police protects the people from themselves, while the army protects the people from "the others". That's why both are restricted, but in different ways; the police has to obey a mountain of laws about the people's rights, has limited fire power, but has power over all citizens; while the army is subject to much fewer laws, is given nukes, but in general has no authority over citizens.
Granted, head tracking will make things look very strange for anyone other than the tracked player, and some people would get headaches or otherwise dislike it. But I would expect that a fair number of Xbox players do play by themselves, and many people didn't get a headache watching Avatar. Making head tracking a configurable option would easily deal with both problems.
I get your point about field of vision, however. Maybe head tracking just doesn't work for console games where the user's head is far from the monitor. It would be really sad if that turned out to be the case... That said, Lee's video shows him using a console-like viewing distance. And why would Microsoft hire him for project Natal if his concept wouldn't work for consoles? So I'm not losing all hope of seeing it in project Natal yet.
I do wish that any of the so-called "journalists" would actually ask this question instead of mindlessly parrot Microsoft's press releases as news. Oh well. It won't kill me to wait another year to find the answer out, whatever it is.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
"For years radios had been operated by means of pressing buttons and turning dials; then as the technology became more sophisticated the controls were made touch-sensitive -- you merely had to brush the panels with your fingers; now all you had to do was wave your hand in the general direction of the components and hope. It saved a lot of muscular expenditure, of course, but meant that you had to sit infuriatingly still if you wanted to keep listening to the same program."
The system you describe is similar to what is described in TFA (licenses stored in the cloud, play content anywhere). One issue with it is further erosion of privacy. Whoever owns the licenses service knows where you are, what you watch, how often you watch it, etc.
Then again, Amazon knows what books you have bought, and the Kindle could track what you read and when if they wanted to; your mobile phone knows where you are; Netflix knows what you watch and your DVR knows what you watch and when; Google knows what you are searching for; Facebook knows who you friends are...
Perhaps David Brin ("The transparent society") was right and privacy is doomed no matter what. People who grew up in a world where it existed will just fade away and the children of today will not understand what the fuss is about. I'm old enough to be deeply uncomfortable with this, though.
First - My work place was on the 3rd floor overlooking a main post office. I remember a case where someone left his groceries when he picked up his mail from his mailbox. About 20m later, we saw the guy sprinting back a few blocks down the street. However, the bomb disposal people were at ground level... and their robot shot his bag before he could get close enough for them to see him. Veggies everywhere. So no, this isn't picking up on someone in particular. Leave a bag unattended in a sensitive public place, and this may happen to you - regardless of who and what you are.
Second - I am sure this girl had a most unpleasant time. She is overlooking the fact that she wasn't a suspect as such. If you were a terrorist trying to smuggle a bomb into a high security area, a good way would be to plant it on some young, sympathetic, naive, idealistic western girl who is "obviously" not a terrorist - a profile this girl fit to a T. To rule this out you need to ask a lot of invasive, personal, seemingly irrelevant questions. If this sounds far fetched to you, read about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nezar_Hindawi who planted a bomb in his pregnant Irish fiance's bag. I am certain she went through a most unpleasant time as well. I am also certain she appreciated keeping her and her baby's lives. I am also certain all the other passengers on her flight appreciated continuing living, too. And the crew. And all their families. And friends.
The bottom line is that security in Israel is different from the USA. Instead of inflicting ineffective, mindless, low-level nuisance on everyone, it focuses on people who may (knowingly or unknowingly) pose a risk and gives them a thoroughly unpleasant, but effective, screening. This method works. And for most people, Israeli security is a much more pleasant experience than going through USA security. Of course, for the few who end up getting the 3rd degree, it is much worse.
Solutions are obvious if one only has the optical power to observe them over the horizon. -- K.A. Arsdall
