Police officers stepping into hostage standoffs and other dicey situations now have something new to throw into the mix – a baseball-sized camera that can be hurled from afar, survive the landing and wirelessly relay video and audio back to base for two hours.
The EyeBall camera weighs less than a pound and is protected by a rugged rubber and polyurethane housing. That allows it to be thrown through windows or bounced off walls. When it comes to rest, the ball stabilizes itself, then begins transmitting footage and sound up to 200 yards away.
The EyeBall is the creation of an Israeli company, ODF Optronics Ltd., which has sold the devices to the Israeli military and to undisclosed military and law enforcement customers in Asia and Europe.
Now Remington Arms Co. has won approval from the Federal Communications Commission to sell them domestically. Remington expects dozens of law enforcement groups to be buyers.
Other methods for remotely grabbing audio and video in dangerous operations often require getting close to the action, a potentially lethal step.
“What’s behind a door can get you killed,” said Sheriff Sam Page of Rockingham County, N.C. Page field-tested EyeBalls and determined that “it gives my guy in the field an edge.”
Police can expect to pay $4,800 for two EyeBalls, whose batteries require recharging after about two hours of use, and the corresponding video monitoring equipment. Replacement EyeBalls will run about $1,700. Page said that is affordable for “even a small agency like mine.”
A new way to pay for low-priced online content: A new partnership with MasterCard Inc. marks the evolution of Peppercoin Inc., a company that once sought to spread a “micropayment” system for low-priced content on the Internet.
Peppercoin was founded by Massachusetts Institute of Technology professors Silvio Micali and Ronald Rivest in hopes of creating a way for tiny pieces of online content to be bought and sold without incurring the credit card-processing fees that eat up much of transactions under $1.
But few customers opted to set up prepaid accounts with Peppercoin that could be deducted as they bought things online.
So now Peppercoin is working with credit card companies as it tries to facilitate cashless payments online and in the physical world. Peppercoin has a method for aggregating small transactions into larger chunks, cutting out per-transaction fees on individual card purchases. The company also can help merchants track customer loyalty.
In a partnership announced this week, MasterCard will encourage merchants to have Peppercoin help with tiny transactions. Vendors who use Peppercoin will get a discount on their Peppercoin fees if the buyer pays with a MasterCard.
India getting caught up in the Net: The number of Internet users in India remains relatively low, but it has soared 54 percent over the past year to 38.5 million, and will jump to 100 million in two years, an industry study said.
In comparison, China already has 100 million Internet users, according to government statistics.
The catalyst for the growth in India has been the rise in online shopping for airline and rail tickets, books and home appliances, Preeti Desai, president of the Internet and Mobile Association of India, said Wednesday.
EU domain open for business: The European Union planted its flag in cyberspace Wednesday when the “.eu” Internet domain name opened for business.
Until now, Europeans had to choose between a national domain such as “.fr” for France or a global one such as “.com,” which is often seen as American.
EU Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding said she expected several hundred thousand sign-ups for “.eu” in the first few days. National registries in some countries – such as Belgium, home to the EU headquarters in Brussels – are offering promotions to persuade Internet users to stay local.
But do Europeans want a “.eu” domain name? Some business groups are uncertain how popular it will be. Europeans have an EU flag, an EU passport and an EU anthem, but many have a lukewarm attitude to European integration – as French and Dutch “no” votes to a new constitution showed this year.
Carsten Dannoehl of EU business lobby UNICE says the new address would appeal to many companies. “Before we had ‘Made in Germany’ – now we have ‘Made in the European Union,’ ” he said.
Report puts a number behind bogus Internet addresses: More than 5 percent of Internet address names issued in the United States are registered using “patently false” contact information, making it difficult or impossible to contact the sites’ owners, according to a report submitted to Congress.
Another 3.7 percent of domain names ending in “.com,” “.net” and “.org” contain missing information in required contact fields, the Government Accountability Office said in a report submitted to the House Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property.
In all, 3.9 million names, or about 8.7 percent, contain contact details that “appeared obviously and intentionally false” or are incomplete, the report said.
Under rules enforced by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which oversees the Net’s addressing system, registrars must collect phone numbers, physical mailing addresses and other contact information from domain name owners.
That information is made public to help individuals, businesses and law enforcement contact Web site operators to answer questions, resolve disputes and troubleshoot network problems.
But in recent years, the databases have been mined by telephone marketers and people sending unsolicited e-mail and postal mail, causing some Web site owners to falsify or withhold addresses and phone numbers, observers said.
From Herald news services
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