• Passenger causing Thursday airport shutdown was at center of 2003 plague scare

    A passenger on a flight back from Saudi Arabia appeared to be carrying a suspicious canister — and TSA security checkers became even more alarmed when they realized that the passenger was the scientist who sparked a bioterrorism scare after he reported missing vials of plague samples in 2003; between 100 and 200 passengers were evacuated from four of the airport’s six concourses; airport roadways and a hotel near the airport’s international terminal were closed down

  • Lasers will protect helicopters from heat-seeking missiles

    A Michigan company using off-the-shelf telecommunications fiber optics to develop rugged and portable mid-infrared supercontinuum lasers that could blind heat-seeking weapons from a distance of 1.8 miles away; the technology will be used to protect combat helicopters from heat-seeking missiles

  • Ford continuing launch schedule of new police-spec vehicles

    Ford is continuing its impressive launch schedule of police-specific vehicles; following the all new 2011 Explorer SUV and the new, Taurus-based Police Interceptor cop car, Ford has also presented the new police-spec SUV — the Police Interceptor Utility model

  • Use of crime-fighting ShotSpotter technology to be expanded in Nassau County

    For a year now Nassau County, New York, police department has been using the ShotSpotter system, and the country police commissioner says the department has been able to handle shootings much more swiftly, and that in certain instances lives might have been lost if it were not for the technology; the system records the number of shots fired, whether the shooter was stationary or moving, and provides audio playback of each gunshot event; this information not only provides situational awareness for law enforcement officers prior to arriving at the crime scene, but it is also offers valuable evidence for post crime analysis and legal proceedings

  • 3-D mapping system recreate crime scenes

    The technology allows law enforcement to take pictures, get accurate measurements, then put them into a computer to recreate a crime scene. The technology could be used in the courtroom to help jurors understand a case

  • NY DMV says facial recognition technology is working

    The use by the State of New York DMV of facial recognition technology has been instrumental in identifying more than 1,000 cases of possible fraud, according to state officials; more than 100 felony arrests have been made so far, including an Egyptian citizen holding four New York licenses under separate names, one of which was on the federal “no-fly” list, and a former hit man who sought to establish a second identity after release from prison

  • Video arraignments saving time, money and improves safety for police, courts

    In Michigan, police uses video arraignments via portable equipment at hospital bedsides, mental health facilities, local lockups, and county jails to save money and time, improve safety, and ensure suspects speedier justice

  • Laser-powered, ground-charged UAV stays aloft for hours

    A UAV is only as good as its power source: if the drone cannot stay over target for long periods of time and must return to base to refuel, this not only adds to the costs of operating the drone but it also degrade its intelligence gathering capabilities; Seattle-based company demonstrates that it can use a laser beam to charge the UAV’s photovoltaic cells, generating enough power to keep the drone in the air for hours; the company has bigger plans for extending flight duration of military craft — and much more: in the longer term, it envisions lasers powering remote ground-based sensors, delivering power to forward military bases, or supplying emergency power during disasters

  • Self-learning robots to be used in earthquake, disaster rescue missions

    Rescue robots capable of understanding the changing and unpredictable environment of disaster scenarios may one day be deployed to search for survivors in the aftermath of earthquakes; a robot equipped with a newly developed software, for example, would be able to recognize how something such as a stick could be used as a tool to push an object through an area too small for the robot to go into

  • Tracking technology may make incarceration a thing of the past

    The United States is facing a prison problem: there are many people in prisons — more than two million, a population the size of Houston; here is an idea: how about releasing most of them so they can lead productive lives — but make them wear something like the ExacuTrack from Anderson, Indiana-based BI Incorporated: the combination ankle bracelet and GPS transponder keeps real-time tabs on those who wear the gear, making sure they do what they are supposed to do and stay away from places where the state does not want them

  • DARPA awards additional $11 million for video search technology

    As a result of advancements in intelligence gathering technologies (think UAVs), the U.S. military and intelligence community have been accumulating video archives over the past decade which make YouTube look puny; it is not only the number of pictures, but their quality: mere HD movies and TV are small and tightly compressed compared to the high resolution, full-motion imagery which pours in like an avalanche from every Predator or Reaper drone — and dozens of these surveillance drones are airborne above southwest Asia every minute of every day; DARPA is looking for an effective, automated video search technology

  • Wolfhound sniffs out contraband cell phones

    Wolfhound Cell Detector is a handheld, wireless sniffer specifically tuned to the RF signature of common cell phones; it helps universities, government and military installations, hospitals, law enforcement agencies, financial institutions, and prisons and correctional facilities enforce their No Wireless policies

  • Mexico to up security in border city after blasts

    Following a series of explosions in downtown Reynosa, across the border from McAllen, Texas, the Mexican government is rushing reinforcements to the city; at the same time, thirty-five of the seventy-two bodies found in a mass grave on Saturday had been identified: sixteen Hondurans, thirteen Salvadorans, five Guatemalans, and a Brazilian; they were killed after refusing to cooperate with drug gangs

  • Drive-by full-body scanning

    Massachusetts-based American Science & Engineering is selling van-mounted backscatter X-ray detection system to law enforcement; these vans can be driven past neighboring vehicles to see their contents

  • Worries about Afghan biometric database

    Afghanistan is filled with corruption, fraud, and malicious police officers; its commitment to the rule of law is, to be charitable, shaky; in such a circumstance, a counterinsurgency tool like the biometric database could just as easily become predatory, allowing its possessors to take out their political or ethnic rivals and reward their allies; if the WikiLeaks disclosures put Afghans in danger, imagine what iris scans and fingerprints could mean for people who do not want to pay bribes to crooked cops