Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
GPS Bullets Legal For Cops In Hot Pursuit?
The Starchase system allows police to fire a "GPS bullet" at fleeing suspects and then follow them in a somewhat more leisurely manner.
Additionally, while a number of new investigative technologies like license-plate readers and law enforcement drones have drawn the ire of some civil libertarians, GPS bullet technologies (when used properly) do not appear to have quite as many downsides.
“We would not object to the GPS bullet technology when used in an exigent circumstance where an officer has probable cause," Jay Stanley of the American Civil Liberties Union told Ars. "But any other uses of GPS tracking technology outside the heat of a chase should require a warrant."
Such technologies have "the potential to obviate the need for high-speed pursuits by police cars through cities and towns, which are very dangerous and kill hundreds each year, with a third or more of those fatalities being innocent bystanders,” Stanley has further explained.
A similar idea has been used in the Star Wars movies. In Episode II: Attack of the Clones, Obiwan Kenobi fights with bounty hunter Jango Fett on the cloner planet Kamino. When Fett takes off in his ship Slave I, Obiwan takes careful aim, and zings a homing beacon that attaches itself to Fett's ship.
The Starchase system can be mounted to the front-grill of police cruisers, and it fires stick-on “GPS bullets” or tracking devices at the suspect's vehicle through a compressed-air launcher. “The dispatcher then views the location and movements of the tagged vehicle in near real-time on a digital roadmap via a secure Internet connection,” thus rendering a dangerous high speed car-chase unnecessary. The system is being tested by a number of police departments around the US.
(Star Wars Homing Beacon)
Via Ars Technica.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 4/30/2014)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 1 )
Related News Stories - (" Vehicle ")
The Amazing Lightfoot Electric Scooter With Solar Assist
'The steel tortoise gave MacKinnon a feeling of Crusoe- like independence.' - Robert Heinlein, 1940.
Leader-Follower Autonomous Vehicle Technology
'Jason had been guiding the caravan of cars as usual...' - Gordon R. Dickson, 1954.
Inmotion Electric Unicycle In Combat
'It is about the size and shape of a kitchen stool, gyro-stabilized...' - Robert Heinlein, 1940.
Congress Considers Automatic Emergency Braking, One Hundred Years Too Late
'The greatest problem of all was the elimination of the human element of braking together with its inevitable time lag.' - Bernhard Brown, 1934.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Health Kiosk Has No Human Doctor
'The electronic body analyzer had been developed...'
Meta's Horizon Studio's Unique Avatars From Text Prompts
'Looks like she has bought the Avatar Construction Set and put together her own...'
VaMEx Biomimetic Mars Robot Inspired By Skink
'Across the ground something small and metallic came, flashing in the dull sunlight of midday.'
NEO Brain Computer Interface (BCI)
'The remains of the lace took on the rough shape of a brain...'
Did Frank Herbert Predict Bistable Displays Like E-Ink?
'A broken circle with arrows pointing to a right-hand flow appeared in the chalf.'
Monolith One Giant Industrial Metal 3D-printer
'The object seemed melted together like wax — nothing was distinguishable.'
'Mooncrete' Lunar Regolith Concrete (LRC)
'And here they began to build...'
China's 'Magpie Drone' Ornithopter
'Midges have many capabilities. To the untrained eye, they look like sparrows.'
MAI-Voice-2 Microsoft Text-To-Speech
'I made disks of my own voice to the number of five hundred very carefully chosen words.'
Tumblin' Tumbleweed Rovers To Eplore Mars
'His sensors out and working, and the whirring of the tape that sucked up sight and sound and shape and smell and form...'
Tentacled Robot Captures Space Debris
Preventing annoying space debris build-up.
Prufrock-MB2 Ready In Nashville
'It sounds to me as though you had invented a kind of metal earthworm.'
DIY Robotic Content Farming
'The chief wheeled to the master machine and pressed a button.'
Reflect Orbital Sunlight On Demand
'I don't have to tell you about the seven two-mile-diameter orbital mirrors that circulate around the satellite, making it habitable.'
The Amazing Lightfoot Electric Scooter With Solar Assist
'The steel tortoise gave MacKinnon a feeling of Crusoe- like independence.'
Fully Electric, Fully Automated Vegetable‑growing Agribots
'...then back to their work, though little enough it was on these automatic cultivators.'
