Following the violent aftermath of the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, President Obama is allocating $75 million to fund bodycameras for police officers across the nation.
No video of the confrontation between Brown and Officer Darren Wilson is known to exist, despite many police agencies heavy reliance on dashcams and other video devices to record interactions with the public. Despite the relative low cost of bodycam tech – they’re essentially glorified cell phone cameras – few officers currently wear them.
But following the events in Ferguson, the funding will outfit 50,000 officers with the device, which studies show both dramatically reduces citizen complaints of police abuse and increases criminal convictions. Of course, there are also models for civilians as well. How do you feel about body cameras? Let us know in the comments section.
Remember when computers were so huge you had to keep them under your desk? Well, OK, gamers, we guess you’re keeping that trend alive, but for the rest of us, we’re seeing a sudden wave of PC shrinkage that would make George Costanza proud. Or cringe. “Stick” computers are suddenly a thing, spurred along by the rapid development of their close cousin, the streaming media stick. So how useful are they, really?
Well, the Meeego Pad stick PC will run Windows 8 or Android 4-4. Just plug in a monitor, keyboard and a mouse, and it will play HD video content and do everything else a “regular size” PC will do. It even has wifi and Bluetooth. Novelty? Don’t bet on it. Intel is reportedly working on a very powerful stick computer, so stay tuned to the very small PC space.
Sony is still working to restore a number of services – some as basic as inter-office email – after they were brutalized by a hacker attack that reduced some workers to using paper and pencils to keep the tech giant operational. The hackers were able to brick computers by erasing hard drives and they even posted some unreleased movies to the Internet. So who’s behind the attack?
Many experts are pointing at North Korea, who tech experts say has stepped up their cyber warfare game recently. Also, DPRK big shots are apparently very ticked off at Sony for the latest Seth Rogen comedy, called The Interview, in which the CIA drafts talk show host James Franco and his producer, played by Rogen, to terminate Kim Jong Un after they are granted an interview with the paranoid country’s leader. Hilarious hijinks ensue, naturally.
Of course, North Korea is totally denying any involvement, right? Wrong. When asked if his country was behind the cyber strike, an official essentially said “wait and see.”
Your host today is Holly Resnick. Miss a day? Watch all the episodes of DT Daily right here. And be sure to catch our latest podcast.
