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5Star Responder like OnStar for people

When OnStar first came out, I remember finding the concept of a disembodied voice in the car to help with emergency situations kind of cool. Now you can equip your body with the same sort of technology.

GreatCall's 5Star Responder is a small GPS-equipped device that can clip to your keychain. Push the button and it hooks you up with an emergency responder over a nationwide cellular network.

Obvious uses for the Responder are when you're being threatened or have had an accident, but GreatCall also encourages use if you want someone to be there when you're walking to your car alone at night or hear strange noises outside of your house. Pretty much anything that gooses your danger instincts. … Read more

DARPA 3D reasoning engine to identify urban threats

DARPA is spending millions of dollars to identify trash cans, which may have raised a few eyebrows, except these and other common urban objects could in the course of today's combat missions prove to be tactically significant.

BAE Systems received a $7.1 million contract to work on Phase II of the Urban Reasoning and Geospatial Exploitation Technology (URGENT) program, which is designed to improve the quality and timeliness of geospatial intelligence U.S. troops receive when facing enemy threats in urban environments.

This phase of the program's goal will be to "develop a 3D reasoning engine … Read more