The urban landscape is almost as dotted by security cameras as it is by satellite tv dishes.
Today’s invention is a behavioural upgrade to motor-driven security camera systems.
Each such camera would have a reflective grid painted on the ground in front of it. Anything moving across the grid would obscure some part of it and cause the camera(s) to be automatically pointed at that spot.
This would be disconcerting for anyone about to commit a crime. Groups of two or more potential criminals attempting distraction of a single camera would find themselves being stared at for a few moments each (and thus recorded).
Cameras which detected people loitering could perform a slight ‘shaking of the head’ motion of admonition, followed by a sideways flicking movement saying ‘keep moving over there.’
Cameras of this kind would thus provide a greater sense of surveillance and discourage crime, but with minimal modifications to existing systems.
