New app lets you scan a license plate and send a message to driver

http://news.yahoo.com/gm-app-brings-license-plate-readers-masses-13...

GM reportedly developing a new smart phone app:

License plate readers are already a controversial technology when in the hands of police departments, but General Motors is trying to figure out how to put such a device into the hands of consumers. Yes, that’s right. The brains at GM’s research and development facility in China have developed an app that would allow people to scan license plates with their smart phones and contact the drivers with a direct message.

According to Computer World, the DiDi Plate app is still in its development phase, and it uses the built-in camera of an Android phone to scan nearby license plates. Once the plate number is scanned, the user is then able to send a text message to the vehicle’s owner – regardless of whether or not he or she has signed up for this app.

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Permalink Reply by Justin W. Siddons on June 23, 2014 at 9:01am

The app should not be driver to driver but driver reporting other driver to police/governing body.


Nançois 8.5 said:

What is the advantage of this? I send lots of messages to people, both verbal and non-verbal, when I don't like their driving and nothing positive ever seems to come from it. I can't imagine these "exchanges" going any better when conducted via text.

Permalink Reply by David Barish on June 23, 2014 at 9:19am

My reaction started at Orwellian, continued to creepy and landed at unintended bad consequences from the best of  intentions. The whole concept feels like a bad movie  I would have watched on a cable because it never got released in the theaters. Maybe it has a young Matthew Broderick or John Cusak with some cheesy saxophone music playing over the credits on the morning after whatever crime was committed using some new technology as the star sits drinking coffee looking away from the teased hear on a Madonna lookalike or is it Melody Griffith? I ask myself if the guy on the bike got away or if he lived and why I stayed up watching this horrible movie. Then I realize that its not a movie or even a nightmare, just a fantasy in the mind of a code breaker who cut cut off by a car and wants revenge and has read too much William Gibson and drank too much Koolaid. At this point I can recall the license plate said, Rosebud" but as soon as I recognize the message I am in the wrong movie and this one actually got made and as far as I recall didn't have any bikes. Overtired  from staying up all night imagining the movie that was never made I finally fall asleep but am awakened by a text  message...

Permalink Reply by Anne Alt on June 23, 2014 at 9:32am

;)

David Barish said:

My reaction started at Orwellian, continued to creepy and landed at unintended bad consequences from the best of  intentions. The whole concept feels like a bad movie  I would have watched on a cable because it never got released in the theaters. Maybe it has a young Matthew Broderick or John Cusak with some cheesy saxophone music playing over the credits on the morning after whatever crime was committed using some new technology as the star sits drinking coffee looking away from the teased hear on a Madonna lookalike or is it Melody Griffith? I ask myself if the guy on the bike got away or if he lived and why I stayed up watching this horrible movie. Then I realize that its not a movie or even a nightmare, just a fantasy in the mind of a code breaker who cut cut off by a car and wants revenge and has read too much William Gibson and drank too much Koolaid. At this point I can recall the license plate said, Rosebud" but as soon as I recognize the message I am in the wrong movie and this one actually got made and as far as I recall didn't have any bikes. Overtired  from staying up all night imagining the movie that was never made I finally fall asleep but am awakened by a text  message...

Permalink Reply by Mike Zumwalt on June 23, 2014 at 10:54am

Exactly what we need...another distracted driver trying to flame the person that just cut them off.

Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on June 23, 2014 at 3:14pm

But I like being a faceless anonymous lead-footed maniac behind the tinted glass windows of my planet-eating machine while racing around all the other dehumanized rolling boxes as I attempt to get the high score on the way home from work.  This sucks!

Permalink Reply by Bob Kastigar on June 24, 2014 at 4:00am

Anyone concerned about privacy should stay off of the PUBLIC streets.

Heather said:

Mmm, I have a lot of privacy concerns about this. And I suspect a lot of other people will too.

Permalink Reply by David Barish on June 24, 2014 at 4:56am


Bob, lets mull that over. I walk on the street. I ride on the street. I drive on the street. Ok, now what? My existence there is public. Somebody can snap a picture of me. I guess they can use some kind of software to try and identify who I am based on other pictures that exist in the public digital zone. I agree with you this far. OK, lets go further, can they now get my credit report, my medical history, my address, my Facebook profile? Now it gets a little  intrusive. You may say, but Dave, that's hyperbole, all we are talking about here is software to take a number that is in plain view in the public and allow someone to use that number. Well, the numbers are public but the State holds those numbers and we cannot access them without permission. Also, do we want communication based on those numbers? What about the recognition software that exists to figure out that the picture of me is me? Do I now get texts telling me where the nearest Starbucks may be? Do I get a get a text from my boss or my wife asking why I am walking in THAT neighborhood when I am supposed to be elsewhere? Do I get a text from my cardiologist when the picture shows me eating a hot dog? Whether the "authorities" can use these technologies is another discussion. I will  pass on that for now. Whether you and I can interfere in the life of somebody else because we can get our hand on them? I think that is an easier answer. I think it's "no."

I think that your statement can be construed in this context as a mission statement for agorophobics. I think that is bad public policy.


Bob Kastigar said:

Anyone concerned about privacy should stay off of the PUBLIC streets.

Heather said:

Mmm, I have a lot of privacy concerns about this. And I suspect a lot of other people will too.

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