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
 |
StarChase Tracking Tag And Star Wars Homing Beacon
StarChase real-time tagging and tracking pursuit management system lets today's police solve a dangerous problem - how to catch criminals who lead them on a high-speed chase. To accomplish this goal, they have created a technology until now seen only in Star Wars [and elsewhere earlier - see reader comments]; namely, the throwable, sticky homing beacon tracking device.
(StarChase tracking concept)
The StarChase system consists of a tracking projectile with a miniaturized GPS receiver, radio transmitter, power supply and a compressed-air launcher which can be hand-held or mounted on a police car.
The golf ball-sized tracking device is coated with a highly efficient gluey compound. Once a fleeing suspect's car has been tagged using the air launcher, its position can be determined via GPS, which is transmitted wirelessly from the StarChase tracking device. The police dispatch center can view the location of the suspect vehicle in real-time, coordinating resources for a safe, efficient apprehension.
The company's website states that there are 100,000 car chases per year in the United States; most of them expose officers and innocent civilians to danger. The system is being tested first in Los Angeles, which sees more than 6,000 car chases each year, many of them also shown on cable TV.
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.
(Star Wars Homing Beacon)
A somewhat more advanced model than the StarChase device, the Jedi homing beacon tracking device allows Obiwan to follow Fett through both hyperspace and heavy asteroid fields.
Read a bit more on the StarChaser website and here; found this one on /..
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 2/6/2006)
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 ( 10 )
Related News Stories - (" Engineering ")
Terraformer Industries Make Methane
'Drake was the young spatial engineer he employed to terraform the little rock...' - Jack Williamson, 1942.
Ridiculous 'Ghost Murmur' Tech Still Science Fiction
'...it rears and spreads its fan. It can pick one man out of a crowd.' - Roger Zelazny, 1967.
Infrared Contact Lenses To See In The Dark
'I can see in the dark, Case.' William Gibson, 1984.
Can 'Tactical Umbrellas' Shield One From Drones
'... another corner of his mind began to think about the shields.' - Frank Herbert, 1958.
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
Grok And The City Fathers From 'Cities In Flight' By James Blish
'Chris, the City Fathers are not interested in your welfare; I suppose you know that. They're interested in only one thing: the survival of the city.'
Why Not Move A Warehouse District?
'Did you never see a moving house before?'
Will An AI Found A New Religion?
'You must decide how you will worship Me.'
Terraformer Industries Make Methane
'Drake was the young spatial engineer he employed to terraform the little rock...'
I Need An Outdoor Spherical Display
'Usually a spherical display hovered in the centre...'
Worm Disrupts Physics Simulations Undetected For A Decade
'It diverts integers of the data, the fundamental message-units, so that they no longer agree.'
Muxcard Redditor's DIY Credit Card-Sized Computer
It's a computer, but just barely.
'Soft Assembly' Fashions That Fashion Themselves On The Wearer
'Clothes are no longer made from dead fibers of fixed color and texture that can approximate only crudely to the vagrant human figure...'
Orwell's Nightmare Of AI-Written Novels Comes To Pass
'Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.'
ISS Plagued By Leak - Again!
'There were perhaps a dozen bladder-like objects in the tunnel...'
Ridiculous 'Ghost Murmur' Tech Still Science Fiction
'...it rears and spreads its fan. It can pick one man out of a crowd.'
Outdoor Video Screens Can Be Arbitrarily Large
The Shape of Things To Come
Infrared Contact Lenses To See In The Dark
'I can see in the dark, Case.'
What'll You Have? Extinct Animals Returned, Or Synthetic Eggshells?
'...a new plastic with the characteristics of an avian eggshell.'
Sunbird Pulsar Fusion Like Leinster's Space Tug
'It was a pushpot, which could not possibly be called a jet plane because it could not possibly fly. Only it did.'
RentAHuman App Lets AI Agents Hire Humans
'She wouldn't stop until Antar had told her everything he knew about whatever it was that she was playing with on her screen.'
