Your phone in your pocket is not sniffing medium format film resolution. It also lacks the latitude of really any negative film stock. Color wise slide film is still supreme to this day.
The realistic digital equivalent resolution of 4x5 film is around 40-50 megapixels, which iPhones have supported out of the box for a couple of years now.
Of course there's a lot more to taking good pictures than the raw sensor, but what I'm saying is that the barrier to entry is way lower than it was in the article's day.
It may be acceptable for phone screens and images on the web. However, if one was to print the image as an 8x10 (or larger and view it from 12 (the length of the diagonal) inches away, the ability to resolve details in the image will not be present in the phone image.
Granted, few people are printing things out at 8x10 or 16x20 for framing anymore and comparing them to traditional photographic images... but it is there. (I have some 30x40" prints that I've done (though I typically didn't have the funds or wall space for many - 8x10s and 16x20s where my most common) and purchased a number of 20x60" prints over the years).
Yeah, cat is out of the bag now. Something like 1/10 workers in California are undocumented and you can be sure it is heavily biased for certain industries. Imagine the implications of some industry losing lets say half its workforce overnight. That would be like a COVID level shock in output and in all likelihood the industry would collapse vs somehow pull needed labor in a quick amount of time, and from where exactly, who knows? National unemployment rate is only 4% not like there is much spare labor capacity.
And I'm sure the same folks complaining about undocumented laborers would be equally upset when their fruit, berries, and nuts double and triple in price as they bring in domestic labor. Or we'd just lose several domestic agriculture industries overnight.
Interestingly in my latino city the used car dealers catering to low income people have worked around the lack of credit for their clientelle. They will for example use proof of employment as your "credit" for financing plans rather than traditional bank metrics. This will usually be written directly on the building in spanish.
I mean lets be honest if you are up to no good and there are facial scanners, you'd just throw on your n95 mask and black hoodie, maybe stick a pebble in your shoe, and then poof this tech no longer stops the bad guys.
There are also cases where law enforcement misuses this sort of technology to stalk romantic interests. So your kids could very well be stalked by a pervert in law enforcement more effectively with this technology.
You assume it will be used in good faith which is charitable. It doesn't even need to take an authoritarian regime to pervert this technology. Abusive police officers in the US for example use Flock to stalk ex girlfriends.
Yes I'm sure their police force is entirely free of any psychological problems and in no way selects for people who might be incline to abuse their position of authority.
> The report looked at police training requirements in more than 100 countries and found that the US had among the lowest, in terms of average hours required.
> Also, many other countries require officers to have a university degree - or equivalent - before joining the police, but in the US most forces just require the equivalent of a high-school diploma.
This is why some hardware is still supreme. I've had the same Korg chromatic tuner for 20 years and would not be in the least bit surprised if it goes for another 40.
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