I don't know your name, but I Recognizr your face...

Last Monday, the Sun had an article about a newly-demonstrated mobile phone app called "Recognizr" [link goes to the demo videos of the developers' website].

The idea is that people can use any compatible mobile to take a photo in an attempt to name them. It falls under the term "Augmented reality" and has been labelled "Augmented Identity".

As well as using boiler-plate Sun-speak like "perverts" and "horrified" it labels it a "stalker's dream"*.

It also quotes Privacy International who are against it. However, they are so concerned about it there are a total of 0 mentions on their website in relation to the app [unfortunately their website does not appear to let you link directly to search terms]. This leads to me to wonder what information their spokesperson had to hand when the Sun contacted them as well as the other people who are quoted.

What the Sun doesn't point out is that a not only is it only a prototype, and so will not be available for quite a while yet, but that a person's information can only be accessed if they are actually registered with Recognizr. There are also apparently different settings as to how much information a person can provide to others.

There's also the fact that it claims that the company behind it were unavailable for comment. However, one of the members left a comment on the article, stating the following:

Recognizr facial recognition cannot work for someone who isn't approved to receive the information, just like the privacy settings on FaceBook or LinkedIn. I agree with the posts here about privacy. [The developers] were very sensitive to offering certain safeguards with the tool to prevent privacy misuse. People have to opt-in to Recognizr, and have the choice of what information will be displayed, what social networks will be connected or not, and decide on their own profile groups.

Leaving aside the apparently completely-over-the-top tone of the article, how likely is it that the Swedish creators would go the the trouble of hunting down an article in a foreign newspaper to respond to its claims, instead of just giving a quote while the article was being written?
* Presumably, the antics of tabloid newspapers don't count...

A storm in the propaganda cup.

You get the feeling the Sun isn't even bothering to actually look at the results of its snap poll carried out after the "snowstorm coup". Proof is in today's leader comment:

A STORM in a teacup. A distraction. We're just getting on with business.

Those were the reactions from ministers, including the Prime Minister, to Wednesday's attempted leadership coup.

But however hard Labour try to play it down, the botched plot has been a disaster for the party.

As The Sun predicted, voters have been massively turned off by the spectacle of Labour feuding while we are in recession and at war.

By massively turned off, the Sun presumably means that according to their very own poll, Labour's support has dropped by a truly cataclysmic, err, 1%. By the same yardstick, the botched plot was presumably also a disaster for the Liberal Democrats, whose support also dropped by 1%. The other disaster is the paper's truly terrible graphic depictions of the leaders, with Clegg coming off the worst:

That's Alfred E. Neuman, isn't it?

The misleading has begun already.

Splashed across yesterday's Sun front page were those ordinary voters who like the paper had decided that Labour's lost it. Alongside those who would blame the government if it rains was one Ros Altmann, a former adviser to Tony Blair and now a governor at the LSE. The Sun's report of her comments was thus:

I thought we had a chance to make a difference. But Brown wanted people to spend, spend, spend and thought that will generate growth.

That is not the way economics work. We needed radical change. But we got radical complications. We have the world's lowest state pension, but also the most complex. I am hopeful for David Cameron. I don't think he can make a worse mess of pensions. I can see why The Sun supports him.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement of the Tories, but Hugh Muir in the Grauniad Diary has more:

For sure, the economist has strong criticism of the pensions and economics polices pursued by Gordon. But there it ends. "What I said to them in answer to the specific question: 'Do I now support the Tories?' was 'No'," she tells us. "I said I don't know what their policies are so I can't support them. I said I can understand that some people no longer support Labour. There has been a bit of poetic licence here." Such is war.

And as could have been predicted, David Cameron today gives the paper an interview, unveiling 10 pledges, all naturally Sun-pleasing and many also naturally counter-productive or just wrong-headed. Reassessing every person on incapacity benefit? Stupidly wasteful in both time and cost terms. Replacing the Human Rights Act with a piss-poor "British" bill of rights substitute when the Tories almost certainly won't withdraw from the European Convention of Human Rights will just delay justice. And as for reforming inheritance tax to "encourage saving", words fail me. One new one, although not included on the 10 pledges itself, is that Cameron will institute a "war cabinet" on Afghanistan should the Tories come to power, something demanded by the Sun only a few weeks back. It doesn't seem to matter that such a cabinet would be pointless when it's the military and not the politicians who are helming the fighting, but then the Sun has always loved symbolism far more than well thought out and implementable strategy.

Google Earth in showing things on the ground shock.

At times there are articles in the Sun of such bilious nonsense that it's difficult to know where to begin. So it is with today's "exclusive" regarding the amazing abilities of Google Earth:

BRITAIN’S nuclear defence HQ could be under threat from terrorists using Google Earth.

Close-up aerial views of the top-secret Naval base are on the computer program — available for free over the internet.

It even reveals the longitude and latitude of the facility in Faslane, Scotland — home to the UK’s Trident-armed nuclear submarine force.

Golly gosh, really? The longitude and latitude? Next you'll be telling us that it isn't a secret that the base is on the A814! You mean it isn't?!

Military experts warn that would make it easy for terrorists to launch accurate mortar or rocket attacks.

One told The Sun: “A strike on our nuclear capability would cause untold devastation. Terrorists could have a field day, knowing exactly where to aim strikes to cause the maximum devastation.”

To call this scaremongering crap of the highest order would be putting it too mildly. Quite apart from the fact that this base has been in the public eye for decades and that all it has attracted in that time has been peace protesters, as well as that the jihadists we have in this country have never shown any propensity for being interested in anything other than bombings or kidnappings, mortars and rockets being difficult to come by, the idea that someone lobbing a couple of mortars at a naval base will succeed in causing "devastation" is about as realistic as the majority of the films which the Sun's proprietor funds.

And it can be used to pinpoint Britain’s nuclear crisis HQ in Northwood, North London, MI6’s London offices and the SAS training facility in Hereford.

MI6's London offices? Could they possibly mean the SIS building, which sticks out like a sore thumb and which could only be missed by a Sun journalist, which is also about as secret as Rebekah Wade and the smacking Ross Kemp incident?

Satellite pictures show the exact location of SAS sleeping quarters, office blocks, bunkers and parade grounds.

Our source said: “We should be censoring sensitive military sites, not only for the protection of the servicemen and women, but also for the protection of the country.”

Military top brass are said to be furious that such sites can be viewed by anyone.

Really? Well, that's strange, because the exact opposite has been said to the reasonably well-known Alan Turnbull, who runs secret-bases.co.uk and who has in the past been subjected to articles in newspapers highly similar to this one. He was told by Rear Admiral Nick Wilkinson, then on the D-Notice committee, that any journalist suggesting his site, which contains the same aerial photographs referred to by the Sun and much more besides, should be censored ought to be put in contact with him so that he could put them straight. He also said of Turnbull's site:

A very interesting and useful compilation ... ... it does not add to the danger to national security

You are republishing open source material already widely in the public domain and not therefore increasing the danger to sensitive sites. These sites should already not only be aware of what is public, but also have taken security measures accordingly

Furthermore, in 2006 the government ended the previous censoring of Ordnance Survey maps, where bases and sensitive government sites were left blank as if there was nothing there, a more sure sign than anything else that security concerns were no longer being used as a fig leaf to hide what was right in front of anyone's eyes.

It's hard to disagree with Turnbull's own description of his own brush with the press and their sensationalism machine: that media hysteria will always win through, as will invented quotes, a complete lack of general awareness and a failure to present the opposite side of an argument. All are in abundance in today's Sun article, along with the last refuge of today's media scoundrels, the bogeyman of the terrorist.

Now with added emotion!

The Sun:

HEARTBROKEN TV star Lorraine Kelly has told of her agony over the murder of her local Big Issue seller.

Tragic Paddy McDade was found in his flat last month in what police described as a “particularly brutal” scene.

Now GMTV favourite Lorraine has paid tribute to the 37-year-old who worked outside Dundee’s Marks and Spencer store.

The Scottish Sun columnist said: “I used to buy my Big Issue from Paddy whenever I was in Markies.”

Speaking to the mag, she added: “He was always so cheery. He’ll be sadly missed.”

Heartbroken? Agony? Lorraine must've known Paddy very well to be in such grief, otherwise Lorraine would just be 'shocked' or 'saddened'.

Could the Sun be exaggerating their columnist's feelings?
The Sun's piece says 'Speaking to the mag' so nobody at the Sun's office has spoken to Lorraine and the piece has been lifted wholesale from The Big Issue...

Lorraine spoke of her sadness when she heard of the death of Paddy McDade, who used to sell the magazine outside Marks and Spencer in Seagate.
“I used to buy my Big Issue from Paddy whenever I was shopping in Markies,” she said. “He was always so chatty, optimistic and cheery even when the rain was hammering down. He will be sadly missed.”

Ah, 'sadness'. Ms Kelly's' heart is still in tact, spared of agony for someone she barely knew. The words she spoke in the Big Issue are pretty stock for a celeb that had a passing acquaintance with someone.

Thanks to the Sun, though, she has a couple of extra emotions added and viola, Lorraine seems more sensitive and caring and so, when she writes her column, you know she's not a hard nosed woman, but is writing from the heart and has our best interests in mind.

Wii don't believe you

The Sun:

TEN people a week in Britain are hospitalised from playing Wii games.

The growing toll has prompted NHS doctors to warn of the dangers.

Wii-itis sufferers usually have excruciating pain in the right shoulder or knee.

A rheumatology consultant said: “Most are admitted after playing the tennis and running games which involve sudden movements and violent tendon stretching.”

Dr Dev Mukerjee, of Broomfield Hospital, Chelmsford, Essex, said: “There has been a 100 per cent increase in patients complaining of Wii-itis.

Spong:

We said we found all this difficult to believe and were going to ask the good doctor for the facts. We did, and Dr Mukerjee has kindly responded with the following.

"I have seen a few injuries related to patients using the Wii.

"I do NOT think its anything to do with the Wii itself, but rather the player over using the device.
There is no epidemic- I used to see 3 or 4 injuries and over the last few months there have been 7 to 10.

"The quote about 10 people admitted to hospital is INCORRECT. 10 people have been seen recently in hospital clinics is the fact.

"Broomfield (hospital) doesn't keep specific Wii stats, but we do have soft tissue rheumatism stats under which this type of injury belongs, and we haven't seen a great rise."

Health & science Editor Emma Morton used to be so full of praise for the Wii too.