NSA Blog

Broadband voice will not replace LMR (Land Mobile Radio) for “many years, if ever,” according to a recently released white paper written by Harlin McEwen, chairman of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) technology committee.

McEwen, who also is chairman of the Public Safety Spectrum Trust, said he wrote the white paper in response to misinformation he was hearing among policy-makers in Washington, D.C., particularly the notion that broadband voice could replace LMR, which would allow public safety to use narrowband spectrum for a broadband network in the near future.

“We know that IP-types of services are giving us new opportunities to do things and that they’re going to be the way of the future,” McEwen said. “The problem is that it’s just not ready for prime time.

“People say, ‘Just as soon as broadband is available …’ But the problem is that we don’t know when it’s going to be available; we don’t even know when the products are going to do what we need.”

Indeed, current versions of LTE (Long Term Evolution technology- the proposed standard for 4G currently under discussion) do not enable broadband voice with VoIP, although a version that should be released in 2011 should support voice, McEwen said.

The UK Home Office has launched a national interactive crime map for England and Wales that gives residents statistics on local crime figures and details on neighbourhood policing.

I recommend you log into the above link and have a play. How long before public pressure will make such an online facility a reality for Australia ?

The national map replaces 43 individual maps that the UK’s police forces have been running since January this year, averaging 50,000 hits a month.

The online map figures are for all crime, including burglary, robbery, violence, vehicle crime and anti-social behaviour in their area.

Viewers can compare one police area with another, compare figures over a three-month period against the same period for the previous year, and see annual crime rates.

They can see details of their neighbourhood police team, local policing priorities and information about forthcoming local events such as crime prevention meetings and local surgeries.

The website was developed by the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) and police forces across England and Wales, for the Home Office.

Policing and crime minister David Hanson said crime maps were a key part of delivering neighbourhood policing. “Giving communities access to information like this not only improves public confidence but ensures police are responding to local people’s needs,” he said.

Millions wasted on system that leaves Detroit vulnerable to lawsuits.

It is easy to find PR releases extolling the virtues of new products and the wonderful decision making processes which led to their implementation. Not so easy to find are the stories about things that didn’t work and why. Particularly with some numbers provided, as is the case for this article.

This news item is therefore particularly interesting as in-car video has become a standard requirement for the new generation police vehicle.

The Detroit Police Department has spent more than $18.5 million since 2001 on an in-car camera system so ineffective that the top brass this spring told the Justice Department they should “tear it out at the roots in order to start from scratch,” according to internal documents.

The total cost could be higher. But police can’t find all invoices for the mishmash of cameras and computers that are plagued with image and audio problems. They work less than 17 percent of the time, according to confidential reports and internal records obtained by The Detroit News.

This is an interesting NZ initiative which the Australian Emergency Services sector should evaluate.

Terralink International, the company that provides physical address and location data to the emergency services under a commercial contract, has launched a new website called myaddress.co.nz. The website allows Kiwis to check and confirm that the emergency services have the right details on how to find them.

The New Zealand Fire Service, Ambulance and New Zealand Police rely on a comprehensive mapping system to locate people who dial 111, the country’s emergency number. But often the location data doesn’t always have information about the best entrance points for a property, or alternative names for roads.

Managing Director Mike Donald says the idea for the website emerged following a number of incidents where emergency services couldn’t find an address because they had been given a ‘local’ name for a road or an address instead of its official name.

“In an emergency situation a few minutes can mean the difference between life and death,” Mr Donald says.
The free website allows users to see the location detail currently held, its physical location on a high-resolution aerial image, and then they’re able to confirm or correct their address.

The Queensland Government, on Oct.14, announced $2 million in funding for the Australian Future Forensics Innovation Network (AFFIN), under their Smart Futures Fund’s National and International Research Alliances Program.

The alliance, which will ensure a coordinated national strategy for forensic research and development, has also received $4.8 million from its 19 partner organisations.

“The network will enable a critical mass of forensic scientists, police, universities and industry bodies to work together and share their expertise in forensic research and development.” Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research) Professor Ned Pankhurst said

“It will also provide new opportunities for PhD students and explore and drive advances in forensic technologies.”

Griffith’s Forensic Science Research and Innovation Centre Director and the newly appointed Director of the AFFIN operations, Associate Professor Dennis Burns, said the network would support a range of projects.

“The network will support projects to track down illicit drug labs, obtain DNA profiles at the scene, improve efficiency and accuracy of victim identification at scenes of mass disasters, improve forensic information technology to aid police investigations and develop new ways to store forensic samples,” Professor Burns said.

In 2007, the Queensland Government provided early stage funding to Griffith University to assist the network’s early efforts to develop a framework and business plan for AFFIN.

Bioengineers from Strathclyde University, UK have created a spin-out company to commercialise a device that monitors patients’ wounds.

The technology, which will be sold through Ohmedics, has the potential to bring better wound management to patients.

The system allows doctors and nurses to check whether a wound is moist - the optimum condition for healing - without having to remove the dressing.

The technology uses a tiny, disposable sensor, which is attached to a gauze dressing. A handheld meter attached to the sensor displays whether the dressing is moist - and likely to heal well if left alone - or too wet or dry.

The developers believe that using such a system will reduce pain and skin trauma to the patient and limits opportunities for infection, as well as saving valuable staff time changing dressings unnecessarily.

Ohmedics is marketing the technology for use in hospitals, surgeries, community use and the home. It is claimed that it can be adopted for any kind of chronic or acute wound.

Prof Trish Connolly, chief executive, and her colleagues at Stratclyde set up Ohmedics following a clinical trial, which was supported by proof-of-concept funding from Scottish Enterprise. It is hoped that the first product will be available later this month.

Did you know that in 1923 Victoria Police were the first force in the word to use two-way mobile radio ?

An interesting article published 13/10 in the Financial Times starts from there to describe a variety of examples of mobile communications used in policing today.

 The increasing use of BlackBerrys by British. European and US police to maintain information connectedness for foot patrols is emphasized.

 The copyright requirements don’t allow the article to be substantially reproduced. Please take the trouble to have a look. However the last three sentences are important to be quoted.

A lack of standardisation is perhaps the biggest hurdle to improving policing through better access to data on the move, suggests Adrian Gains, PA Consulting’s policing expert.

“One issue is that forces buy technologies that are not interoperable. It is off the shelf but off different shelves in different forces. A lot of money has been spent not having a single approach,” he says.

“I would start with frontline police officers and work out what problems they are trying to tackle. It sounds trite, but it’s not always done that way.”

Mental health services across Derbyshire have entered a new era after trialling a new way to capture important patient information.

The traditional pen and paper approach for recording data is being phased out as clinicians caring for patients out in the community turn to the latest technology to collect and transmit the information.
 
More than 700 staff at Derbyshire Mental Health Services NHS Trust is now using Destiny’s digital pen solution, which enables them to fill in forms on the move without the need to return to the office and enter them onto a computer later in the day.
 
The information they collect about patients is instantly sent back to the Trust’s computer network using a secure and encrypted GPRS mobile phone link - saving on paperwork.

“Getting patient information into our computer system quickly and accurately is vital, and this new approach has helped to simplify this process significantly,” said Nick Hodson, Head of Service Improvement.
 
”This technology gives them more time to schedule additional visits, meaning they can see more patients throughout the working day, which in turn helps to improve efficiency and reduce costs.
 
”It allows clinicians to focus on patient care rather than onerous administrative tasks, and reduces the risk of entry errors being made.

This is a severe précis of an article in Global Politician. If the topic is of interest please have a look at the original.

What’s in the cyber terror arsenal?

The Internet and its derivates offer members of terrorist groups endless ways to align themselves with the ideological and practical facets of their organization. It allows local and group leaders to perform a host of tasks which were impossible before switching to the Internet as their main communication frame. Among others, it facilitates:

• Delivery of information - ranging from news to religious fatwas, to recruiting calling campaigns
• Networking - anonymously coordinating, planning and adjusting, adapting and constantly changing the organization to keep it flexible and less predictable. It is also used to mitigate risks, protect sources and add security to the structure
• Intel and info gathering & sharing - ranging from data mining, open sources, exploitation of Western liberties and intruding weak systems
• Recruiting - one of the most effective tools, as it can use all media venues, launch targeted campaigns and focus on certain groups, say computers savvy
• Financing - focused solicitations using various websites simultaneously, benefit from e-schemes, identity theft, e-commerce entities and customer buying tools.

This item is unfortunately machine translated from Japanese. What follows is an attempt to make sense of the text thereby generated.

The Fire brigade of  Ikoma City, Japan, and Nara Institute of Science and Technology have collaborated in developing the “Internet ambulance MobileER”. The 4^th public demonstration was conducted on October 5th to test the simultaneous transmission of voice and video from a wearable computer on rescue personnel to a remote doctor.

A multicast approach to two or more hospitals was demonstrated to facilitate decisions about the most appropriate hospital where the patient should be treated.

In addition to transmitting the observations of the attending emergency officer, patient data from monitors such as the electrocardiogram are collected wirelessly by the wearable computer for transmission. The ambulance becomes a Mobile IPv6 Internet node, connected back to a server in the fire fighting headquarters.

Voice communications back from the doctor to the emergency officer is supported.

Access for the doctor only requires standard web browser.

Source : Wireless Watch Japan