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Posts with tag police

New Police Cruiser Is Built for Cops, by Cops

by Lee Bains, posted Nov 12th 2008 at 9:01AM



Challenging the traditional law enforcement models of Ford's Crown Victoria and Dodge's Charger, the startup automotive company Carbon Motors Corp. presented the E7, its masthead police car, at San Diego's International Association of Chiefs of Police this week, Officer.com tells us.

Carbon Motors, publicized as being "Designed by law enforcement, for law enforcement," has its roots in one retired police officer's dissatisfaction with conventional policing models. That officer, Stacy Dean Stephens of Coppell, Texas, contacted businessman William Santana Li with his pitch and preliminary designs for a car designed specifically for police work.

Having sought thorough input from police officers, Stephens and Li came up with a turbo diesel, aluminum framed cruiser, featuring unique appointments like suicide doors and on-board radiation detectors. All in all, Carbon Motors offers more than 70 custom options.

While Stephens and Li have not slated production to begin until 2012, they are optimistic about demand for the vehicle.

While the economy is hurting and gas prices are still tentative, putting off the car's production might be for the best, anyway. For now, it may be that cops have an easier -- and cheaper -- time catching criminals in cars, not with them. [From: Officer.com]
Engadget HD

Crafty Crooks Get a 'Cheap' Blu-ray Player

by Darren Murph, posted Nov 3rd 2008 at 3:45PM


Can't wait for Black Friday? Neither could two suspects in Virginia Beach. Reportedly, a crafty duo entered a local Wal-Mart late last week, with one placing a Samsung Blu-ray player in her cart while the other placed a DVD / VCR combo unit in his cart. Once that was complete, the two met in the pet section, swapped the unwanted DVD / VCR unit out for a Blu-ray deck and proceeded to checkout. The cute couple paid for dog food and a rather inexpensive DVD / VCR player, yet arrived home with dog food and an improperly boxed Blu-ray player. Moral of the story? Blu-ray adoption would clearly soar if manufacturers would just price the players right. (We kid, we kid.) [From: WTKR.com via CDFreaks]
Engadget

UK Cops to Wield Mobile Fingerprint Scanners

by Darren Murph, posted Oct 29th 2008 at 10:39AM


Surely your remember Project Lantern from back in 2006, right? If you weren't too fond of that initiative, let's just say your worst nightmare is coming true. Going forward, every police force in the UK will be equipped with mobile fingerprint scanners, which will allow the fuzz to carry out identity checks right on the street.

Dubbed Project Midas, this here setup is supposed to "transform the speed of criminal investigations"while simultaneously freaking out anyone remotely concerned about personal privacy; in fairness, cops insist that fingerprints scanned via these portable devices will not be stored or added to databases, and we're told that they'll only be used " when they suspect an individual of an offense and can't establish his / her identity."

The £30 million ($47.5 million) to £40 million ($63.4 million) initial phase should hit widespread deployment within 18 months, and in case you thought it was over after this, you should probably know that facial recognition in the field is the next top priority.

[Via Pocket-lint, image courtesy of SpringCard]

Free iPhone App Prevents Speeding Tickets

by Evan Shamoon, posted Oct 15th 2008 at 6:25PM



Here's yet another great idea for an iPhone app. Trapster, from a company by the same name, enables iPhone owners to avoid one of life's many perils: the speeding ticket. In theory, at least.

The free app follows a driver's location as a dot on a map. If said driver passes a police officer lurking by the side of the road with a radar gun, they can tap the iPhone to mark the location as a speed trap point. That data point is then sent to a server; other drivers using Trapster will then be alerted of that speed trap when they approach this point on the map.

Of course, like any social networking application, Trapster relies on people actually using it to be effective. Come on people, take one for the team. It's free, and speeding tickets are not. [From: Wired]
Engadget

MI6 Agent Forgets to Delete Work Records from Camera Before Selling on eBay

by Darren Murph, posted Oct 1st 2008 at 3:26PM

We'd swear this had to be some sort of spoof on the impeccable James Bond, but sadly enough, the whole thing is true. A secondhand Nikon Coolpix camera which sold on eBay for a mere £17 ($30) turned out to be a real bargain once its new 28-year old owner completed his first image dump. Along with decidedly decent snaps from his US vacation, he also found a number of "top secret" images, diagrams and sketches that have since been confirmed as MI6 material. We're talking photos of rocket launchers, hand-drawn graphics of terrorist links and all sorts of other information not at all intended for civilian eyes. 'Course, the whole thing could just be the act of one talented Photoshopper, but we highly doubt the agency would be so fortunate.

[Via Digg, image courtesy of WWII Airplane Model]

Truck of PlayStation 3 Games Stolen, Recovered, Stolen Again

by Tim Stevens, posted Sep 29th 2008 at 4:34PM

Truck of PS3 Games Stolen, Recovered, Stolen AgainIf you think that headline sounds as though it should have come out of a 'Police Academy' movie, then check this out: According to Britain's Daily Telegraph, thousands of Playstation 3 games -- cumulatively worth over a million dollars -- were stolen over the weekend from the back of a truck in Northhampton, England. The truck and its contents were recovered, but amazingly the games were stolen again, right out of a police impound area before anyone had managed to dust it for fingerprints.

The truck contained 17,000 copies of 'Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway' and an undisclosed number of copies of the game everyone loves to hate, 'Grand Theft Auto.' Details of exactly how the crooks managed to get away with it all a second time weren't disclosed, but the truck at least was found -- minus the valuable contents, naturally. Police are now on the lookout for a conspicuous number of the games showing up on eBay and other online auction sites, but after this bungle, we aren't expecting much. [From: The Telegraph]
Engadget

Stealthy Carbon Fiber Stiletto Boat Reaches 60 Knots

by Darren Murph, posted Sep 28th 2008 at 5:01PM


If you had any urge whatsoever to try to your hand at drug trafficking over water while these "weird" economic times sort themselves out, uh, you may want to reevaluate your options. The ever-so-stealthy Stiletto has come to life after tracking down a remarkably quick drug-running boat near Florida; the bad guys were cruising at 42 knots, but that comic book-esque thing you're undoubtedly peering at above can reach speeds of up to 60 knots. The double-M-shaped hull enables it to navigate in extraordinarily shallow waters without trouble, and a plethora of sensors and radars give it all the power it needs to track down goons. Oddly enough, it's having a somewhat difficult time finding a government agency to truly call home, but if it continues to keep the coke out of our seas, we'd say it'll win over some hearts soon enough. [From: Wired]

[Thanks, Laz]

Mechanic Won't Give Back Car, Gets Arrested

by Tim Stevens, posted Sep 17th 2008 at 10:39AM

Customer Won't Pay for Car, Mechanic Gets Arrested
If you've ever owned a car out of warranty, chances are you've made at least one shockingly expensive visit to the mechanic before. You know, the one where you thought you were getting a $14.99 tire rotation but walked away with a whole new exhaust system, brake pads and rotors, and a flush and refill on your blinker fluid? That's the situation faced by a UK man who was asked to pay £1127 (about $2,000 U.S.) for repairs on his Land Rover. When he refused, the police were called and it was the mechanic who went to jail!

As satisfying as that may sound, we're not so sure that the mechanic, Darren Tandy, actually did anything to deserve the three hours he spent behind bars with the Northumbria Police. The owner of the vehicle had initially offered £950, but by the time the police showed up, he was only offering £550, which the police officers apparently thought was fair. However, that was actually less than the cost of parts Tandy had used on the repair! Why exactly the police thought Tandy was at fault and not the owner remains to be seen, but we're guessing they had recently forked over cash for some expensive repairs themselves. [From: AutoBlog]

U.K. Police Force Loses Web Site Site to Cybersquatter

by Tim Stevens, posted Sep 6th 2008 at 9:04AM

U.K. Organized Police Force Loses Former Site to CybersquatterFor all its good, there are many bad things about the Internet; some dangerous, some merely irritating. One of those latter things is cybersquatting: the practice of snagging a Web site address in the hopes that someone else will buy it from you. An enterprising German cybersquatter has managed to pull this off on a U.K. police outfit, by snagging their former Web site. The only question now is whether it was accidentally or intentionally discarded.

The police force is the humorously titled Serious Organized Crime Unit, or SOCA, which was until 2006 known as the National High-Tech Crime Unit, or NHTCU. Many British agencies still link to its former Web site, nhtcu.org, now owned by that German bloke, Uwe Matt. Some are irritated at the supposedly lax practices that let this happen, while for its sake the police force is saying everyone should just be using the new site, soca.gov.uk, and it didn't want the old site anyway.

Given the cost, usually around $15-per-year, and the nature of the site, we think SOCA should have held onto the site just a little longer -- if only to avoid this controversy. Ironically, it's the site's cybersquatting new owner Matt who comes off looking best, as he's gone ahead and put in a link to the SOCA's new site to redirect people to their rightful destination! [From: PC Pro]

UK Police Testing Stink Bombs, Sticky Nets and Glue Guns

by Peter Mychalcewycz, posted Sep 5th 2008 at 2:53PM

Riot Scene 1

Seemingly discontent with traditional methods of policing (like beatings), government scientists in the United Kingdom have begun trying out futuristic, non-lethal weapons they believe will assist officers on a mass scale in the future. Most of them are still in developmental stages, but what the heck, here are some of the gadgets those brilliant British minds have cooked up.

  • Stink Bombs - Self explanatory...Will deter the casual anarchist and old ladies...Conversely, may attract large numbers of grade school pranksters.
  • Sticky Nets - Fired from guns...The nets can be coated with a chemical irritant or be electrocuted. Creepy but effective.
  • Immobilizer "glue" - Also fired from special guns...An extremely sticky material that immediately adheres to every surface it touches. This would be utterly perfect, if the mouths of assailants wasn't classified as a surface. Yeah... they need to work that kink out.
  • Lasers or "directed energy weapons" - Awesome and scary...Causes immediate, unbearable pain when focused on skin but leaves no lasting marks.

Police officers in the UK have greeted the news of these gadgets with intense skepticism. We don't blame them. Have you ever been attacked by grade schoolers? [From: DailyMail]

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