Mobile video monitoring is still a rather unexplored market and Taser, a company that really hit the news lately, will propose its own camera to help police officers with their work. The monitoring company Taser, which stirred quite a polemic with its for the most part not-lethal weapons, will launch on the market a miniature camera which is placed at the height of the ears.

AXON (Autonomous eXtended one-Officer Network) will be used by police officers and can record video constantly: it captures what is in front of it, for a maximum duration of 10.5 hours at a rate of 10 frames per second. The gadget aims at eliminating exaggerated arrests as well as abuses of power, while being used as proof in more complex cases where a victim lies to defend its actions.

Being places at the height of the ears, the camera will not be blocked by the weapon of an officer or any other object for the matter, as it would be the case with a camera positioned on the belly for example. Similarly, car-patrols cameras can only record one fixed plan. In the United Kingdom, pilot projects for a similar gadget placed on the head had much success: it is always difficult to sue the city after having viewed in loop its own stupid actions of the day before. Moreover, it allowed fewer complaints against police officers and more guilty verdicts.

AXON will cost less than 1000$ compared to the 3000$ required for a car-patrol camera. It records normally without audio and has a storage capacity of 8 gigabytes. Normally, because a button makes it possible to record the audio with a quality of 30 frames per second for significant events. AXON will be tested this year then marketed in 2009 if all goes as envisaged - as much towards the police officers that the military.

  Michael Bertiaux