Camera zooms in on suspect in crowd
CHINA: Police in China detained a man at a pop concert last week after he was identified by facial recognition cameras as a suspect in a historic crime.
The 31-year-old was plucked out of a crowd of 60,000 people and held for questioning over an ‘‘economic dispute’’ at the start of a performance by Cantopop singer Jacky Cheung in the southeastern Chinese city of Nanchang.
The suspect, who was identified only as Mr Ao, had driven almost 100 kilometres to the concert with his wife and several friends, who bought him a ticket, reports say.
But shortly after the music began, police approached him to say that his facial features indicated he was wanted in connection with an economic crime they had investigated in the nearby Guangxi region.
‘‘The suspect was shocked that he was found among tens of thousands of people,’’ said Li Jin, a local police officer, according to the
‘‘He had a blank face when we caught him.’’
Ao only went to the concert because he thought he would be safe at a venue
‘‘The suspect was shocked that he was found among tens of thousands of people.’’ Li Jin, Nanchang police officer
FRANCE: Two dinosaur skeletons marketed more as trendy design objects than prehistoric fossils have sold for almost €3 million (NZ$5m) at auction in Paris.
A diplodocus – a huge herbivore measuring 12 metres from nose to tail – fetched €1.44m (NZ$2.4m), compared with
€1.41m (NZ$2.35m) for a carnivorous allosaurus with ‘‘60 sharpened teeth’’, a mere 3.8m in length.
Both roamed the Earth around 150 million years ago, in the late Jurassic period.
Sixty per cent intact, the allosaurus had been expected to fetch up to €650,000
(NZ$1m).
It lived in an area in what is today with large crowds, Chinese media reported. Hong Kong singer Cheung is a huge star across China and Hong Kong and has been on a world tour since 2016.
Li added: ‘‘The concert attracted more than 60,000 visitors, so we paid a lot of attention to its security. We set up several cameras at the ticket entrance, which was equipped with facial recognition technology.’’
It is the latest example of the technique being used to catch suspects for a wide range of crimes and misdemeanours in China.
Police wore ‘‘facial recognition glasses’’ at a train station last month, resulting in 33 people being detained for crimes including kidnapping, hit-andrun and using false identification.
Meanwhile, another 25 suspects were North America and Europe.
A North American dweller, the diplodocus had been estimated at up to €500,000 (NZ$835,000).
Only a handful of dinosaur skeletons are auctioned off around the world each year, and are mostly snapped up by wealthy collectors or museums in Europe or America.
Scars left from battle or disease can raise prices.
The pair were bought by an online overseas buyer, the Drouot auction house said.
‘‘It shows the interest of a new generation of fans both for the Jurassic era and the tools of the 21st century,’’ said Iacopo Briano, a fossil sales expert. held for historic crimes after they were picked out at a beer festival last year.
The technology works via cameras transmitting images of people back to a huge criminal records database. If there is a match between individuals and an unsolved crime, police at the scene are informed.
Facial recognition has been rolled out in many aspects of everyday life in China, where there are few concerns over privacy.
The technology has been deployed at airports to speed up boarding, and is also used to withdraw cash from ATM machines, to gain entry to university dormitories and workplaces, and even to buy KFC.
Other bizarre examples of facescanning equipment being deployed in China include its use in public lavatories, where it is used to clamp down on toilet paper roll theft, and at marathons, where organisers have been able to catch cheats.
It has even been used in a university teaching hall, where the lecturer deployed it to monitor how bored his students were.–
Briano hailed the ‘‘exceptional’’ sale prices, although neither was a record.
The nationality of Thursday’s buyer was not revealed but auctioneers have noted a surge in interest in China.
‘‘Dinosaurs have become cool, trendy – real objects of decoration, like paintings,’’ Briano said.
He cited Hollywood actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Nicolas Cage as fans of enormous prehistoric ornaments.
In 1997, McDonald’s and Walt Disney were among donors who raised US$8.36m to buy Sue – the most complete and best preserved Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton ever unearthed – for the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.