• U.S. Army's new surveillance blimp will fly "mid-next summer"

    Northrop Grumman successfully completed another test of the Long Endurance Multi-intelligence Vehicle (LEMV) — a blimp longer than a football field and taller than a seven-story building, which will remain airborne for more than three weeks at a time, carrying multiple surveillance payloads

  • HTS has 50 percent of the cargo container monitoring system market

    In addition to monitoring cars on the road and in parking lots by reading these cars’ license plates, HTS’s systems are also in use at ports to track containers entering and exiting the facility by land and by sea; mounted on cranes and port gates, the system enables the identification of hundreds of thousands of cargo containers, and crosschecks them with their manifests to make sure they are being offloaded at the correct location and contain the right cargo

  • Canada introduces legislation to fight crime in today's high-tech world

    The Canadian government has reintroduced two bills that would provide law enforcement and national security agencies with up-to-date tools to fight crimes such as gang- and terrorism-related offences and child sexual exploitation; the proposed legislation would provide law enforcement agencies with new, specialized investigative powers to help them take action against Internet child sexual exploitation, disrupt on-line organized crime activity and prevent terrorism

  • ASIS 2010, I: Major market, technology trends

    The four trends we noted on the floor of ASIS 2010: companies are reorganizing after acquisitions; a big emphasis on integrated solutions, more specifically: manufacturers are repurposing and re-grouping products to create specialized solutions for certain vertical markets; three buzz terms this year: cloud computing, whole building integration, and energy management; then there were IP cameras — everywhere, with manufacturers emphasizing education and training

  • Miniature tracking chip offers high accuracy

    An Irish start-up has developed a tracking chip claimed to be more accurate and cost competitive than other comparable technologies such as RFID and Wi-Fi; the chip could be used for a variety of applications such as locating soldiers on the battlefield, tracking the movements of firemen in a burning building, or sourcing medical equipment in a hospital

  • U.K. examines surveillance plan's £2 billion price tag

    The U.K. coalition government has revived the sweeping digital surveillance program which had been abandoned by the previous Labor government — but the government said it is looking closely at the price tag, estimated at £2 billion, and that new figures will be released in November; industry sources had all along maintained that the original £2 billion estimate was unrealistically low; the government’s move means that they were correct, or that the scheme is being scaled back

  • Ohio plans statewide camera network for first responders

    Following the example of Alabama and its Virtual Alabama project, Ohio will electronically link thousands of cameras watching over roads, schools, and even employee break rooms, giving emergency personnel in Ohio unprecedented surveillance capacity

  • U.K. revives sweeping digital surveillance scheme

    The U.K. government has revived a sweeping surveillance scheme killed by its Labor predecessor last December; the scheme will require that every e-mail, phone call, and Web site visit be recorded and stored, allowing the security and police authorities to track every phone call, e-mail, text message, and Web site visit made by the public if they argue it is needed to tackle crime or terrorism; the information will include who is contacting whom, when, and where — and which Web sites are visited, but not the content of the conversations or messages

  • Debate intensifies over warrantless GPS tracking devices

    A-20 year old student took his car for a routine oil change — and the mechanic servicing the car found a GPS device attached to it; the two took the device off; FBI agents visited the student two days later, demanding the return of their property; debate intensifies about whether or not GPS devices can be used to track people with a warrant issued by a court

  • Simlat in a UAV simulator contract with an Asian air force

    Israeli maker of UAV simulation and training solutions wins an award from an unnamed Asian country to deliver the company’s UAV training system to that country’s air force; the company will deliver its Simlat INTER (Integrated Trainer) solution, which includes high’fidelity simulation of the relevant UAV platform and its sensors, as well as the mission environment, including synthetic terrain and target modeling

  • School settles lawsuits over secret photos for $610,000

    A suburban Philadelphia school district, which admitted earlier this year to capturing 56,000 secret Webcam photos and screenshots on school-issued laptops, has agreed to pay $610,000 in settlements; the intimate pictures of students in their bedrooms were taken by Webcam installed on laptops which the school loaned the students

  • USAF develops UAVs that fly themselves

    A U.S. Air Force project will allow UAVs to fly themselves — in multiple-aircraft formations — without colliding; the USAF is working to develop systems that unmanned aircraft can use to sense the presence of other aircraft and take action to prevent collisions that are safe enough so that UAVs can perform any Air Force mission

  • Giant blimps to ferry hospitals, buildings to disaster zones

    Giant airship will be able to lift up to 150 tons — more than seven times the weight that helicopters are able to carry; the airship, which will be able to move aid — or even portable hospitals and entire buildings — to remote areas or disaster zones, harnesses aerostatic lift, meaning it is able to fly using lighter-than-air (LTA) gases that keep it buoyant rather than aerodynamic lift

  • Special forces interest in Panther tiltrotor UAV family

    Special forces officers from several potential clients were in Israel this week to see a demonstration of new UAV which combines the capabilities of an aircraft and a helicopter; the Panther uses an automatic flight control system to manage the transition between its hovering take-off phase to forward flight and back before landing

  • Portable 3d map-maker developed

    UC Berkeley researchers develop a backpack system containing cameras, lasers, and inertial sensors which can be carried around indoors and generate a detailed, accurate 3D map of the spaces it moves through