The ambition is breathtaking: Using tools from Taser International Inc. (primarily a tiny camera worn on a police officer’s head), networking pipes from Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO), and a private cloud built by Equinix Inc. (Nasdaq: EQIX), Evidence.com means to do nothing less than revolutionize street law enforcement by capturing and saving every important moment in a cop’s day.
From arguments over speeding tickets through live-action footage of shootouts, the intent is to record it, then uplift it to a private cloud, all the time ensuring that the footage cannot be altered in any way by the police officers involved. This means the data becomes evidence that can decide how court cases play out.
Ask the people at Cisco, and they express great optimism about Evidence.com. And they hope it may prompt interest in a range of similar services: “We believe there will be a lot of activity in this space,” says Omar Sultan, senior solution manager for the Data Center Solutions team for Cisco. “Pharma is [an example of] an area where we think we will see more activity.”
Still, will the public sector -- savaged by the current recession -- have the money to pay for Evidence.com? Tom Smith, chairman of the board at Taser, says the price tag for Evidence.com is $5,700 per officer for a three-year contract. Smith notes that there are many federal grants, along with stimulus moneys, available for high-tech upgrades in law enforcement. “Funding should not be a problem,” he asserts.
That is one good reason Smith expresses optimism that Evidence.com will swiftly roll out to many more police departments, in addition to the two current pilot programs (in Fort Smith, Ark., and San Jose, Calif.). “We believe we will add five more agencies in January,” says Smith.
That prompts another question: Can the system scale to meet the immense data throughput needs every additional officer brings? (Smith estimates each officer generates 1 gigabyte per hour on duty.)
Vincent DiMemmo, general manager, Global Cloud Computing, for Equinix, says Evidence.com was created with scalability in mind: “We know we can grow this as required.”
So for Cisco, Taser, and Equinix a lot is riding on Evidence.com. If it works, that’s a shining proof of a new model of service that delivers benefits by turning real-world data into usable information -- all without requiring capital expenditure on the part of the user.
But might it not work? Scott Testa, an assistant professor at Cabrini College and a longtime technology guru, says that “in theory” the Evidence.com offering “makes sense,” in large part because it plays into the reality that most police departments budget meager sums for IT. Buy the service in a package, using federal money, and that solves a local department’s IT problem.
Bottom line: It’s a smart move, particularly for Cisco and Equinix, both of which may be riding a powerful wave that wins them roles in bigger cloud rollouts in 2010.
But more than clouds are on the line here. Evidence.com also demonstrates the benefits that accrue from digitizing information that was formerly inaccessible and posting it on the Web.
It just may be a big win for all of us when the facts of what happened in every police-related incident are vividly caught in live-action video.
Already, in Fort Smith, an officer-involved fatal shooting was resolved in weeks, not the months typically involved in such cases, with the prosecutor ruling that the video evidence indisputably established that the officer fired in accordance with procedures. The technology removes all doubt, and that is something we all can applaud.
— Robert McGarvey is a widely published author and expert on social media.
Has anyone devoted a moment to think where this hyper moment information is getting us? In the next few years paranoia will not actually be a psiquiatric condition but a fact of life.
Imagine, anyone tied to a taser in his or her job can be considered a spy by anyone around him. That makes a pretty significant sociological change in us. Anything we do can be used against us and it will be filmed without editing. Is this Mcchiken cooked? Well, lets see...Was the red light on or the yellow? Who Knows? Lets check. Was I acting goofy as if drugged or drunk? Well lets see you in action.
But then, the judge is a conservative so according to him everyone is guilty. On the other hand, the other court has a liberal judge who, you bet.. inhaled, so then, has a bit of laxittude interpreting the videos.
Where are we going with all this? The Robocop premise was not the android, but the electronic gadgets such as shooting targeting, real live recorder and the armor. The android was, in fact, a by product of the real essence of an enforcer, someone who served as a scarecrow to walk around covered in gadgets to scare the *'ell out of everybody.
Mr McGarvey is right in showing us the REAL possibility of all this occurring. The next step is our judgement, should this happen, and if so, to what extent?
What will be our real life, the one we live or the one filmed on those gadgets? And what will be the ultimate evidence in court, you, someone or the video of you or that someone?
By the way, recently there was a real life case where a police officer tassered a naked guy who fell and broke his neck. In video the guy appeared menacing and yelling, in fact, he was a known disturbed man out of medication. His death was real in both cases.
Well, is it so bad that Taser is attempting to make itself useful beyond the politically incorrect deployment of its stun guns?
This InformationWeek summary points out that Taser's chief exec saw an opportunity to benefit from law enforcement agencies that require evidence in instances where officers get involved in shootings with Taser guns. If an agency has "easily retrievable video evidence" of what happened, it can help save legal costs.
Clouds in pharmaceutical services aren't about vending machines. They're about networks for research and record-keeping too. Here's a quote from our recent report on cloud security:
Gartner's Nicolett predicts that companies in industries such as healthcare and pharmaceuticals, which tend to handle a lot of personal information, will be slow to adopt cloud computing. Yet even there, companies are breaking the mold. Eli Lilly is an early adopter of Amazon Web Services LLC 's cloud services for pharma research. IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM) offers on-demand, high-performance computing aimed at industries such as aerospace, automotive, and life sciences.
In my view, it's about the record-keeping. Evidence.com demonstrates how multiple complex multimedia records can be tracked and used without straining the internal resources of a law enforcement agency.
The plan is to place these ATM-style machines in small hospitals and nursing homes (the institutions get a cut of the dispensing fees), not in the corner 7/11. A machine filled with mostly heart and blood pressure medication is no more likely to be broken into or carted off than an ATM filled with tens of thousands of dollars.
Will all the data be available to the public? hmm. I see this video capture equipment being useful for NFL players, but hugely problematic for police officers.... I think the wrong market is being targeted here. :P
Yeah think, Opiates like Vicodin, Oxycodone and Demerol available in a vending machine. What windfall for craving addicts and recreational users. Chances are these machines will just be toted away rather than broken into.
One thing lost in this conversation is the risk that officers in the field will be taking with putting all of this info online.
Cloud or no cloud, the basics of evidence gathering are the same. Physical evidence beats circumstantial evidence every day. From a legal standpoint, these tools are geeky but like the current technology is still not imune to tampering, failure, or loss.
It might also end up implecating the officers in the end - think of those cops who played Wii for half the day while a house is being searched for drugs.
Think: a pharmacological vending machine, linking the patient to a remote pharmacist through video conferencing who upon verifying the patient's identity sends an approval to the vending machine, which dispenses the medication.
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Calling “cyber-security” the phrase du jour in Washington is not far off, as everyone from President Obama on down suddenly salutes whenever anybody uses the term.
The Wall Street Journal got the adrenalin pumping. Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), the paper reported last week, plans to enter the digital book marketplace this summer, "throwing the search giant into a battle that already involves Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc. and Barnes & Noble Inc."
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Ultraviolet is an industry-wide attempt to standardize video content delivery across multiple platforms. Apart from the fact that it’s based in the cloud, relies on the DRM system, and isn’t backed by Apple… it sounds great!
Cisco's Cius is supposed to be an enterprise tablet, but it's positioned a lot like a simple videoconference adjunct. Cisco needs to improve the Cius’s cloud client capabilities, or enterprises may pass in favor of Apple.
AT&T showed off lots of improvements to its IPTV service this week. The overall message: IP, Good! Cable, Bad! Phil predicts what it all means for the broadcast proletariat.
Companies are rushing, cash in hand, to adopt cloud computing, but what about those maintenance costs involved with the PCs in the office? Are thin clients a funky good choice?
A recent scandal involving a school's use of remotely activated Webcams to locate lost or stolen laptops may portend, not only legal action against the school, but also a loss of trust in video that is critical to developing video collaboration over the Internet.
Broadband providers could provide some remarkable services using intelligent home gateways. But if they wait too long, device makers will offer them anyway, and make broadband even more of a commodity.
There's a public-policy war on copyright that nobody is winning, and inconsistencies in viewpoint and interpretation seem to be multiplying. We need to step back and think our policies over again, or we risk having a strategy that fails everyone.
Ultraviolet is an industry-wide attempt to standardize video content delivery across multiple platforms. Apart from the fact that it’s based in the cloud, relies on the DRM system, and isn’t backed by Apple… it sounds great!
The FCC's Sixth Broadband Report has a hidden secret. But here’s a hint: The regulatory body plans to regulate broadband as a telecommunications service.
Once defined by epic journeys, planning, and maps, the phrase "on the road" takes on new meaning in a digital age, where we can make all our decisions using our connected devices en route.
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