Day: August 24, 2020

Last week’s episode of the Get WIRED podcast introduced listeners to Direct Action Everywhere—one of the most radical animal-rights organizations around—and the group’s leader, Wayne Hsiung. We learned how the group has been utilizing VR cameras to capture footage so immersive, viewers literally can’t escape the sights and sounds of a factory farm.

This week, WIRED senior writer Andy Greenberg takes us inside another DxE operation, with an activist named Matt Johnson. Earlier this year, Johnson received a tip from a whistleblower that a pig farm in Iowa was about to attempt a ventilation shutdown—a process during which large clusters of livestock are killed at once by turning off airflow in a closed barn and pumping in heat, effectively suffocating the animals. It’s a procedure that is supposed to happen only as a last resort and as quickly and painlessly as possible. In this case, Covid-19 and the farm’s overpopulation of pigs had spurred its ventilation shutdown plans. But Johnson had a feeling that the process wouldn’t be anything close to painless euthanasia—and he was right.

While last week’s episode involved complicated VR camera rigs, this week’s episode covers how Johnson and his team used off-the-shelf technology and internet-enabled hidden cameras to capture the footage. We explore what this means for the future of surveillance, and the concept of sousveillance—using the same technology to surveil powerful entities instead of the other way around. It’s another episode you won’t want to miss.

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WASHINGTON — Tesla asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for approval to market a short-range interactive motion-sensing device that could help prevent children from being left behind in hot cars and boost theft-prevention systems.

The California automaker wants permission to use unlicensed millimeter-wave sensors that would operate at higher power levels than allowed under existing rules.

Tesla’s device would utilize four transmiting and three receiving antennas driven by a radar front-end unit. Tesla says millimeter wave radar technology has advantages over other sensing systems like camera-based or in-seat occupant detection systems.

The radar-based system “provides depth perception and can ‘see’ through soft materials, such as a blanket covering a child in a child restraint.”

Tesla added it “can differentiate between a child and an object left on the seat, reducing the likelihood of false alarms” and can detect “micromovements like breathing patterns and heart rates, neither of which can be captured by cameras or in-seat sensors alone.”

Radar imaging, Tesla adds, can assess body size to optimize airbag deployment in a crash depending on whether an adult or child is seated, which it says would be more effective than existing weight-based, in-seat sensor systems.

It would also more accurately determine when to engage seat belt reminders.

The FCC is seeking public comment on Tesla’s request through Sept. 21.

Tesla notes the FCC in 2018 granted a similar request for a device from Alphabet, Inc.’s Google that works under identical operating parameters.

Valeo North America submitted a request in March to the FCC for its in-vehicle safety-related monitoring device that would also detect children in cars. The request is pending.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says more than 50 children died when left behind in hot cars in both 2019 and 2018. Of those incidents, 54% occurred because someone forgot a child.

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