Looking at the description, I can't tell if it's reading natural IR emissions, or irradiating the target and reading the reflection. If it's the former, wouldn't just keeping the gun at ~98.6F defeat the scanner?

One wonders if every law enforcement official was motivated and professional what difference that would make.

Here in the UK the police have steadily withdrawn from the streets, mainly to complete paperwork and fulfil desk-based investigations.

Sounds like CPD have more problems than high demand.

1Thz has a wavelength of 0.3mm

So this is just a variation of same "naked body scanner at the airport" that everyone was in a big uproar about. I also wonder how well this works on the street, as the ones at the airport seem to depend on people being still/etc.

Arclight

One method is a kite-based drone-dragger that uses a drop net released by a trigger on the kite. Balloons are also an obvious tool to engage all kinds of drones--the advantage is power/weight/capability ratio using a balloon-based system. Ballon-based systems are also useful if EW is the game at play...

" How difficult and expensive would it be for a group of hobbiests to run some drones able to track, in real time, EVERY police car in their city? "

Or just cheap wireless transmitters? Or a modification to the car's own electronics? Or by tracking the car via its radio or data uplinks? These seem a tad less noticeable and labor intensive than drones. GPS, cellular and otherwise wireless tracking are also proven techniques for tracking vehicles inexpensively, whereas drones + computer vision is new territory for amateurs.

I'm not for a second suggesting it would be a good thing for anyone to do that, in fact I think it would be bad for any number of reasons. But the legal decisions surrounding new technologies need to look past the good uses and consider how they might be used negatively. Our laws shouldn't be based on assuming everyone with a given technology is a good guy.

And maybe the answer is to try to translate this new technology into the traditional method of accomplishing the same thing, then ask if THAT would be legal. NYPD has a device that can see a gun under my clothing and they want to know if they can use it? Would an NYPD officer be allowed to go around randomly frisking people? In fact the courts have specifically ruled that they can't, a new technology to do the same thing should make no difference.

I was at the Colorado state capitol yesterday, hoping to speak out against the gun control bills before the legislature. (I didn't get a chance, the lines were so long).

One thing I wanted to ask our elected representatives was if these measures -- which they claim will make us safer -- become law, will they remove the metal detectors from the public entrance to the building we were in?

The issue with start ups outside of what is in effect "tax fleacing" is often Angels who still have the "burn rate" mentality.

The simple idea being to be either first to market or a little behind the bleeding edge to get market capture. Simply by throwing money into the company.

The result is usually an engineeering of an investor bubble which can be good for the Angels but less so for all but a few technology share holders.

I've been out of "tax fleacing" development for a number of years (thankfully) and more recently out of FMCE (it's a "Red Queens Race" these days).
But I still keep a watching eye and I've noticed that "terror" keeps inflating the bubble in both sectors for well past what would normally cause a market collapse. And for obvious reasons this is a concern. What I cann't get a real grip on and I suspect many others cannot either is why the bubble has not popped yet. I positivly do not believe that any market can survive such an investor bubble unless it produces real value at some point to actually offset the investment inflation.

Various supposadly blue chip High-Tec companies are begining to run into investor bubbles take a look at Apple's share price / dividend returns of late and their apparent determination to enter a suicide pact with various other companies. Such behaviour is pushing up their burn rate but I don't see any commensurate offset from the market...

As has often been said "time will tell" and "the study of history gives cautionary warnings" but I realy don't see any evidence of the latter currently...

"You will also probably need to consider some interesting financial engineering due to "product liability". As you note,...."

these are valid big company concerns but as a startup you either find customers or you go out of business very quickly. Here is a product with a moderate level of technical difficulty, which will burst onto the scene creating reasonable volume and great unit prices (for a while). Now if it proves to be detrimental to health then thats tomorrows battle, I can assure you the ambulance chasers only ever chase the successful, so that's a risk of succeeding.

To be 100% honest it is not a risk a successful startup ever faces because IF the product is that successful then the startup company will be bought out by a larger politically connected "defense systems" type company, which assumes the liability.

Today's 20nm CMOS has Ft's above 300Ghz so it is possible to work directly with THz frequencies, power dissipation is a problem for sure but it is technically possible to design these RX/Tx products directly into low cost CMOS processes.

There are a number of interface /antenna problems to be solved but when the basic technology is there a way will be found to use this capability.

As for the technology being a dead end, i hope so but realistically I don't think so. There is too much value in the eyes of the self righteous to give up this capability. From my own experience most military, civil defense and LEO personnel are extremely self righteous, they can see nothing but good things resulting from their access to better more complete picture of the situation. The fact that real information gets buried in the noise of technology is completely lost on them. Meaning I have no doubts about the success of this technology.

Unfortunately the information asymmetry this sort of tool creates will also cause criminals to act first and wonder later if the cop has or does not have this capability.

I took that as an admission that the machines don't work, and that the TSA didn't care if they worked, they just want to funnel tax money to their friends who make machines.

Let's see if the people making these scanners are any more willing to consider independent testing. I'm betting that they aren't, and that the government won't be either.

As seller, what's not to like about this deal

Well a lot actually depending on your view point.

First off as a technology step in it's own right it's likely to be a technology cul-de-sac and if it is short lived with high startup costs. One side effect of this is the labour costs and other fixed costs unless you find a way to offset/outsource them.

Secondly as we are starting to find out contracts are not fair, open, or honest and appear to only get given to "those with the right contacts". As we know maintaining those contacts can be very expensive not just short term but long term.

Thirdly as you noted at some point the merry go round has to stop and the piper payed... The question is what has changed in the mean time, a look at the fortunes of Ken Lay and others at Enron and other similar organisations indicates that Joe Public who feels "scr3w3d by sub prime" is looking for payback, the question is who are the press going to "whip up a 5h1t storm" for.

Now for the well connected usually they can buy off the press one way or another, including dishing the dirt on a larger scalp.

It's easy to see addressing this is "non profitable" activity and to be quite honest sailing rather closer to the wind than many would care to go but as some would say "no pain no gain".

You will also probably need to consider some interesting financial engineering due to "product liability". As you note,

Now my biggest concern is for the possible side effects of THz radiation. Truth is nobody knows what possible health effects are...

There was a time when asbestos was the "wonder kid of the age" and it went into everything including as a filler in plastics used for eating utensils and cookware.

Then people started to get ill and die in unpleasent and unnatural ways, and whilst the fleet of foot managed to get out in time many did not and the price just kept rising and rising. And some lawyers became effectivly "Kings of Torts". And guess what the lawyers are getting smarter than those running these companies and they know how to dig in ways that were unimaginable just a few years ago.

As with coruption, the public tolerance to product liability is changing, it happens faster and harder.

So whilst there are some healthy initial profits to be made the whole model is quite risky these days.

Interestingly once you perfect the technology it is VERY likely that it will be ruled illegal for the reasons Bruce outlined, so fantastic you now get paid to decommission (safely) and disposal of in a manner that the technology does not fall into enemy hands.

As seller, what's not to like about this deal?

Now my biggest concern is for the possible side effects of THz radiation. Truth is nobody knows what possible health effects are of using these frequencies at relatively high power levels.

But as for the technology I love it, better still I love the easy counter technology because jamming this is trivial, hence the need for upgrading.

My back of napkin calculation for security related to terrorism is based on $10 trillion dollars to FYI 2015 and an estimated 8500 terrorist threats eliminated/repressed yields a raw dollor cost of over...

$11 Billion dollars per terrorist...

Now that's value!

And how many died in the process executing this bargain...

On a more serious note, does anyone have any doubt that law enforcement will gleefully scan every individual and group of "gang" youth of color (and other people they don't like -- gays, Muslims, politicals)? And what about the many-times mugged and/or raped person who carries illegally? Maybe the next Abner Louima loses his life because his privacy-protecting metalized wallet is mistaken for a gun.

We have plenty of cases where an innocent person is accused of being armed and then shot. At the inquest there is all sorts of prevarication by the authorities and at the end of the day the officer that shot the person usually walks away and is bought a drink or ten by their colleagues.

So what happens now, a police officer gets told by a "gizzmo" that something is concealed on a person the officer pulls a gun his colleaggues pull their guns and like as not one of them is going to squease the trigger these days.

So what happens at the inquest the police officer his authority and union all blaim the technology and the fact that the deceased did something such as move in the wrong way or did not move in the right way when ordered to do so.

But no worries the technology will take the rap, only it won't because it will have cost to much to be decommisssioned so there will be a change in "operational proceadures" untill the next time it happens and the next time and the next...

Then of course there is the issue of innocent others who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and catch the sstrays or through and throughs.

Whilst I won't say there is no place in the police for technology, I will say it should not replace the human evaluation process in any way.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/business/...

This all seems, ultimately, to me, to be about power. These people buying these products, implementing them, going that direction ultimately seem to be doing so because of lust of power.

There are likely money exchanges made.

But the *flaw*, I see as in their nature. They are not thinking matters through. Whatever power they may get from such moves, what does it matter? They will be dead in a flash. They live quickly and are gone.

They do not engage thinking faculties required for understanding other people. So, they end up hurting a lot of innocent people: even if that hurt is just inconvenience, invasion of privacy, spreading fear, and the like.

Ultimately, the thinking process and heart process involved there is identical to the kind involved in criminal actions, including terrorism.

They are simply not locked up for it, even if they are cursed quietly by everyone it negatively effects. And, this, in turn, causes people to consider the value of the authorities and laws even less. These authorities are making mockeries out of these things.

Give them a hundred years or a few more disasters and we will be right back to the culture of the dark ages. China. North Korea. Nazi Germany. Soviet Russia.

No lessons learned.