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The MPH900 Mobile License Plate Reader works by scanning license plates from a distance, reading as many as 500 an hour.

Well folks, it looks like the U.S. Census Bureau is finally getting high-tech for their 2010 census. With $600 million poured into the Field Data Collection Automation (FDCA) project, half a million (500,000) field enumerators will be getting hooked up with a HTC Census smartphone. Armed with an EVDO data-only Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC, and integrated GPS, the enumerator's job of collecting absentee census information will get nice and streamlined. As a high-tech plus, the built-in GPS unit also keeps the enumerator honest.Back in 2000, I was actually a census enumerator. My job consisted of driving to households to...

Nervous Jersey Parents Will Soon Be Able To Track The Movements Of Their Kids - With GPS Chips In Their Sneakers Monitoring the kids and keeping them safe can sometimes be very challenging - and in today's post 9/11 world it can also be nerve-racking for parents - but high-tech help is right around the corner. Security expert Vincent Bove says soon, Jersey moms and dads will be able to keep track of the little ones with "global positioning device systems that could even be implanted in sneakers - or into back packs - where individuals can be tracked down."...

Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani has sold his consulting firm to the Australian company involved in the 75-year lease of the Indiana Toll Road and the privatization of other U.S. infrastructure. The New York Times reported that Macquarie Bank of Australia – parent company of Macquarie Infrastructure Group – has acquired Giuliani Capital Advisors. Giuliani reportedly profited between $70 million and $90 million from the sale of the consulting and investment company he founded in 2004. A campaign spokeswoman said in a statement that the transaction was part of Giuliani’s plan to focus on his campaign. Meanwhile, Macquarie continues to...

“Shame on us if we don’t do something to get a handle on what is the principal form of identification used in this country.” So said Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff yesterday in defense of the REAL ID Act, signed by the president in 2005. The act set federal minimum standards that state driver’s licenses must meet by May 2008 if they are to be accepted for federal purposes (e.g., at airport security screening). States will have to verify identity documents presented by license applicants, check applicants’ immigration status, and place security features in licenses in order to prevent tampering...

The scenario is all too real in South Florida: An Alzheimer's patient wanders away from home and is found by police officers who take him to a local hospital for care. But the patient cannot recall potentially life-threatening conditions like diabetes or heart disease, making a quick assessment difficult at best. To help solve that problem, a Delray Beach company and the Alzheimer's Community Care Association of Palm Beach and Martin Counties Inc. have begun a two-year study to determine whether it's practical to implant tiny computer chips containing medical records in dementia patients. If a patient becomes separated from...

The FDNY is testing out a high-tech system to keep track of firefighters when they're battling blazes The fire department is working with the U.S. Navy to come up with a small, but hardy, electronic chip to lodge in firefighters' gear. The chip would transmit a signal when firefightrers moved near their trucks. That would let firefighters take roll automatically, instead of by hand. Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta says it would make firefighters' work safer. For example, the system could help make sure all firefighters are accounted for after they have to clear out of a burning building. The city...

It would be positively Orwellian if corporate America was using high technology to track your whereabouts without your knowledge. Welcome to "1984." Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology can be thought of as a next-generation bar code. A simple RFID tag consists of a microchip and antenna, which when stimulated by a remote "reader," sends back information via radio waves. Like a bar code, an RFID tag identifies the product it is attached to for inventory or purchasing purposes; but an RFID tag can do more. For example, RFID tags can hold information related to the expiration date of a product,...

Fraud lawsuit filed against Kentucky firmCEO pleaded guilty in Jefferson probe Wednesday, February 14, 2007 By Bruce Alpert WASHINGTON -- Rep. William Jefferson, his wife, Andrea, and the CEO of Kentucky technology firm iGate Inc. defrauded investors by using company money for illegal activities, including the payment of bribes that put the company out of business, according to a lawsuit filed by a stockholder. **SNIP** Vernon Jackson, the CEO of iGate Inc., who has pleaded guilty to bribery of a public official and says he made payments of $367,500 to bank accounts controlled by Jefferson family members, did not immediately...

A US company has launched a chipless RFID (radio-frequency identification) Ink that can be used to track both animals and humans. Visible or invisible Ink "Tatoos" can be applied to the skin and tracked by RFID readers positioned a few feet away. The Company, Somark...said it had successfully tested it's Biocompatible Chipless RFID Ink product....

By the time my four year old son is swathed in the soft flesh of old age, he will likely find it unremarkable that he and almost everyone he knows will be permanently implanted with a microchip. Automatically tracking his location real time, it will connect him with databases monitoring and recording his smallest behavioural traits.Toronto Star

One day we will all happily be implanted with microchips, and our every move will be monitored. The technology exists; the only barrier is society's resistance to the loss of privacy Dec. 10, 2006. 08:46 AM KEVIN HAGGERTY SPECIAL TO THE STAR By the time my four-year-old son is swathed in the soft flesh of old age, he will likely find it unremarkable that he and almost everyone he knows will be permanently implanted with a microchip. Automatically tracking his location in real time, it will connect him with databases monitoring and recording his smallest behavioural traits. Most people anticipate such a...

BOCA RATON, Fla. -- A teen engineering prodigy who gained national attention in 2002 when he and his family received identification chip implants on live television was killed in a motorcycle accident, authorities said. Derek Jacobs, 18, lost control of his motorcycle early Saturday and crashed into a guardrail and a pole, the Palm Beach County sheriff's office said. He was wearing a helmet. "It was just a crazy accident of a bump or something, and he was catapulted," said his mother, Leslie Jacobs. "He had, of course, potential, because he was brilliant, and he was just a wonderful son....

Implanted Chips in Our Troops? A Florida company wants to get under the skin of 1.4 million U.S. servicemen and women. VeriChip Corp, based in Delray Beach, Fla., and described by the D.C. Examiner as "one of the most aggressive marketers of radio frequency identification chips," is hoping to convince the Pentagon to allow them to insert the chips, known as RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) chips under the skin of the right arms of U.S. servicemen and servicewomen to enable them to scan an arm and obtain that person’s identity and medical history. The chips would replace the legendary metal...

LAS VEGAS, Nevada (AFP) - High-tech passports touted as advances in national security can be spied on remotely and their identifying radio signals cloned, computers hackers were shown at a conference. ADVERTISEMENT Radio frequency identification technology, referred to as RFID, used in cash cards and passports, can be copied, blocked or imitated, said Melanie Rieback, a privacy researcher at Vrije University in the Netherlands. Rieback demonstrated a device she and colleagues at Vrije built to hijack the RFID signals that manufacturers have touted as unreadable by anything other than proprietary scanners. "I spend most of my time making the RFID...

VeriChip Corporation announced that Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, the largest health insurer in the state, has agreed to a two-year pilot program of VeriChip's VeriMed Patient Identification System in conjunction with Hackensack University Medical Center and its physicians. In this new test program, participating patients suffering from chronic diseases would be provided with the VeriChip implantable microchip, to provide emergency room staff easy access to those patients' medical information, as well as to help avoid costly or serious medical errors. Under this trial, participating Horizon BCBSNJ members with chronic illnesses will receive VeriChip's FDA-approved, human-implantable Radio...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - FBI officers raided a House of Representatives office building on Saturday night, and NBC television said it had searched the offices of Louisiana Democratic Rep. William Jefferson. The Federal Bureau of Investigation confirmed the unusual raid at the Rayburn House Office Building on Washington's Capitol Hill but would not say whose office was searched. "Agents of the FBI's Washington field office executed a search warrant this evening at Rayburn at approximately 7:15," Debbie Weierman, a spokeswoman for the FBI's Washington field office, said. Weierman said the search warrant was sealed and she could not confirm whose office...

BREAKING NEWS:Judge rules FBI search of Rep. William Jefferson's Capitol Hill office was constitutional

Four hospitals in Puerto Rico will begin implanting a Florida-made microchip in patients who suffer from illnesses that cause memory loss, like Alzheimer's disease. The hospitals will start using the microchip, the size of a rice grain, made by the Delray Beach Verichip Corporation in August. That's according to El Nuevo Dia. It's inserted in the forearm, costs $200 and is voluntary. VeriChip is the only company with U.S. federal approval to implant such chips in people. The company has implanted more than 25-hundred people worldwide with chips that give hospitals access to their identification. That is used to retrieve...

Four hospitals in Puerto Rico will begin implanting a Florida made microchip the size of a rice grain in patients who suffer from illnesses that cause memory loss, like Alzheimer's disease, a newspaper reported Sunday. The hospitals will start using the microchip, made by the Delray Beach, Fla.-based Verichip Corp., in August, according to El Nuevo Dia. It is inserted in the forearm, costs $200 and is voluntary. "It is a way to offer an additional service because the chip it going to be used on a population that has memory problems ... or great health problems," said Nelson Martinez,...