Archive for the 'Tech' Category
$50,000 toys inflating Forest Service egos
Associated Press writer Matthew Brown published an article April 4, 2008 detailing a new but seemingly innocuous gadget soon to be employed by California Forest Service agents. This device is known as the SkySeer Unmanned Air Vehicle, or UAV. The California Forest Service has purchased two SkySeer vehicles, each costing 50,000 U.S. dollars. They claim the vehicles will aid them in catching illegal marijuana growers in California’s remote woodlands.
Produced by Octatron, a known defense contractor, the SkySeer boasts a wide array of technological crime-fightery. Each of the two units acquired by the Forest Service can fly at just under 30 miles per hour, can sustain flight for about an hour, weighs around 5 pounds, and soars practically silently. One of the two SkySeers is equipped with a thermal camera for night missions.
No commentsCar-stopping gun in development
The scientists over at Eureka Aerospace are busy inventing a radiation gun that will disable any vehicle with a microprocessor (most modern cars). They have a lot of the statistics and charts and such online. Of course, this technology is being developed for cops, and could be available to law enforcement in as little as a year.