APCO public safety conference: Motorola, others show off law enforcement technologies [VIDEO]

The 77th annual conference of the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials International will close at the Pennsylvania Convention Center tomorrow after four days sharing and selling the latest and greatest in law enforcement technologies.

Technically Philly caught up with Motorola representatives, who have been pitching the Philadelphia Police on an array of upgrades to its existing contract partnership, including the 4G broadband network for video surveillance the Motorola team demoed this spring. Philly cops are still evaluating those build outs with the city’s Division of Technology, confirmed Motorola spokesman Matthew Messinger.

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Motorola to Philly Police: You want a public safety 4G broadband network for video surveillance

Saurabh Singhal, a senior software engineer at Motorola, drives a patrol car equipped with a laptop that feds live video via Motorola's high-speed Internet. Photo by Sarah Schu

Motorola put on something of a show at the Police Academy last week, hoping to gain support and funding for a secured, private, public safety 4G broadband network for video surveillance.

Motorola representatives, including Rishi Bhaskar, vice president of solutions, demoed the video equipment, highlighting prioritization, quality and need in a conference room, before showing off a Philadelphia Police patrol car equipped with the equipment.

Depending on the build out, the network would support high-quality video in police and other first responder vehicles, allowing for dispatcher prioritization to reduce stress on the system, Bhaskar said. First responders would be equipped with an emergency button so that they could automatically call for video coverage of, say, pulling over a driver with a violent history.

“This is an investment in public safety,” Bhaskar said.

Though held at the academy on State Road in the Northeast, no Philadelphia Police Department officials were present. Rather, Bhaskar said Motorola had presented the technology to police and city brass earlier in the day. The day’s presentation was a hope to garner support for the project from the city, which Bhaskar said is a ‘long-time client of Motorola.’

The technology has already been deployed in [Updated: though the contract has been awarded, the technology has not yet been launched in Harris County, Texas] Harris County, Texas and the San Francisco area, said spokesman Matthew Messinger, noting that the latter was funded by a $50 million grant that Motorola matched and included an institutional public component that benefited places like hospitals and schools.

Event Highlights for February 1-7, 2010

We dream of the day when artists, forward-thinking nonprofits and public safety tech professionals get together for some seriously game-changing innovations. For now, we can only hope that each of these communities’ spots on our calendar this week will result in some cross-pollination, and perhaps some collaborative brainstorming.

Law enforcement officials from hundreds of organizations
are in town this week for a three-day, 1,500-attendee conference covering technology in public safety. Big Brother, where art thou? Oh, the Marriot.

On Tuesday, NetSquared will continue to amplify issues in nonprofits’ use of social media to achieve goals. They’ve gathered some thought-provoking organizations that have used the Twitters and the Facebooks out there to help propel their mission.

Wednesday, Hive76—which has basically owned this events highlights space since it re-opened, with its valuable events—has partnered with artist coalition PositiveSpace to bring the art and hacker communities together, at last.

All events listed on the event calendar are free to attend. Be sure to check our complete calendar for more.

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