police

With an Android app called Scanner Radio, you can turn your Android phone into a portable police scanner. Volunteers with scanners provide over 3,100 audio streams from police and fire departments, weather radios, and amateur radio operators.

You can let Scanner Radio search for scanners near your current location, or manually search for scanners based on area, genre, or source.

Once you find your favorite audio feeds, you can add them as favorites for quick access. You can also listen to archives of certain feeds, but that feature requires the Pro version ($2.99).

That's it. Just a … Read more

Chrysler Group announced the recall of 9,688 Dodge Charger police vehicles built between 2011 and 2012, to change and relocate the ABS/ESC fuse and replace the headlamp jumper harness.

Some police vehicles were built with front headlamps that could experience a loss of low-beam operation as a result of an overheated bulb harness connector. Other vehicles may experience a loss of ABS/ESC as a result of an overheated power distribution module, Chrysler Group said in a press release.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Web site, "this could lead to loss of visibility and/… Read more

Technology can only be as good as the hands and eyes into which it is placed. Those hands and eyes can sometimes be overly aggressive or simply inexact.

Please imagine, then, how those hands and eyes felt when they belonged to a CCTV operator who directed a policeman to give chase to a suspicious person, possibly a burglar.

The way the Telegraph casts its eye on the story, a policeman patrolling on foot in the South of England received a message from a CCTV operator that a suspected burglar was lurking in his vicinity.

That vicinity had endured a few … Read more

Allied Star Police is a fun little game with a touching backstory: developer PopCap Games helped create this simple, side-scrolling castle-defense-style game through the Make-a-Wish Foundation, for a 9-year-old with leukemia whose wish was to make a video game.

Befitting a game co-created by a 9-year-old, Allied Star Police is action-packed, quick to play, and not too complicated--with cool graphics and animation (even cooler on the iPad) and a loud, rock-out soundtrack. The game pits you (the Allied Star Police, of course) against the evil Flamions, as you send competing waves of well-armed vehicles toward each other's bases.

Your … Read more

Engineers at Mountain View, Calif.-based SST have come up with technology that uses acoustic sensors to help police pinpoint the exactly location of a gunshot as soon has it goes off.

SmartPlanet visited the San Francisco Police Department to see SST's gunfire-detection software in action.

This video first appeared at SmartPlanet under the headline "Acoustics technology alerts police of gun violence."

Clutch those iPhones tightly.

Some evidence suggests that thieves are targeting the handset more than ever.

The good news is that, thanks to technology from Apple, as well as third-party security apps, authorities have a better chance of catching the bad guys and retrieving the phones. Not only can the device's GPS system help hunt down a handset, but apps such as iGotYa will snap photos of whoever is in possession of the phone.

The bad news is that sometimes, the cops grab innocent people.

Last week, police in Petaluma, Calif., kicked in the door of Moriah Stafford, and … Read more

Britain's largest police force is using covert surveillance technology that can shut off mobile phones and intercept communications, according to a report in The Guardian.

The article says that the London Metropolitan Police Service bought the technology, which acts like a fake cell tower, from a U.K.-based company called Datong plc. The suitcase-sized receiver reportedly tricks cell phones into thinking they are communicating on a regular cellular network, and this allows authorities to intercept text messages, data, and phone calls. Authorities can also track users within range of the fake cell phone network, the report says. It … Read more

As Occupy Wall Street protesters continued to rally in Oakland, Calif., hackers today targeted the Web site for the city's police department and offered a $1,000 reward for information on police action that appears to have left a protester injured.

Contact information, schedules, badge numbers, and other information about Oakland Police Department officers was posted to a public Pastebin page. Meanwhile, the department's Web site also was down temporarily this morning, according to SC Magazine.

"The time has come to retaliate against Oakland police via all non-violent means, beginning with doxing (releasing of documents and data) … Read more

A San Francisco man whose home was searched by Apple security officials hunting for a missing, unreleased iPhone is in discussions with the computer maker, his attorney said.

Two Apple employees claimed they had traced the errant device to the residence of Sergio Calderon, 22, and then visited his house with four plainclothes officers from the San Francisco Police Department in late July. Calderon, who has said he was led to believe everyone who entered the house was a police officer, has hired attorney David Monroe.

Monroe declined to elaborate on the conversations with Apple.

Police have said a two-man … Read more