I can just hear it now “Don’t camera me bro…” but it seems that your local police will soon be able to sport their own wearable cameras courtesy of heart attack inducing Taser.
While we might still be waiting for those miniaturized head mounted camera for our own use the police, starting with the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) police force, will soon be able to cover their asses from lwsuits and burtality charges thanks to the new Axon Flex camera, mounted of course on a pair of insanely expensive Oakley’s, being marketed by electrroshock gun maker Taser.
The cameras have a companion app for Anroid and iOS devices so they can monitor the action as it happens. As well this second attempt at the Axon, with the first being a failure, but this time Taser said they are doing what they do best (besides electrocuting people) which basically mwans that they outsourced everything to other companies and then put it together in one package.
The camera is made by a company called Looxie because they were already making the kind of camera that Taser wanted minus a few modifications that needed to be made. The part that Taser did do were the apps that come with the system which meant that the Axon no longer needed the previous bulky viewer and further slimmed the system down.
The video files are stored on the camera itself (up to 8GB) and can only be downloaded using a special mount at the station for chain-of-custody reason. However, the officer can use the Flex Mobile app preview, name, and add notes to the video on any compatible mobile device. The app can also show the camera’s battery and memory status, and Smith says GPS is coming soon.
Taser is working on another Android and iOS mobile app, called Evidence Mobile, that collects digital evidence from a crime scene, including photos, audio notes, and GPS tags.
via VentureBeat
As per usual, the cops get all the best toys first but I’m waiting for the first inevitable hacking report to hit the web, because you know that if it can be done it will be and then just image the videos that will pop up.
