Police Use James-Bond-Style GPS Bullet 210
mrspoonsi writes "The BBC reports that police in the U.S. are now using 'GPS bullets,' a device they can shoot at fleeing vehicles in order to track them. They're designed to make high-speed chases safer. The pursuing police car presses a button, a lid pops open, and a GPS bullet is fired which becomes attached to the fleeing car. The car can then be tracked from a distance in real-time without the need for a high-speed pursuit."
SO OLD NEWS (Score:5, Informative)
Not slashdot's fault... This is news from around 2009!
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/records-7000/first-gps-projectile-tracking-device/
Re:ghost in the shell (Score:2, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_James_Bond_gadgets [wikipedia.org]
Actually, I don't think I see any sort of gps-bullet type tracking/homing device. There were a lot of tracking devices but none seem to involve shooting a bullet.
I wonder if maybe Get Smart or some other series did the tracking bullet (before GITS).
Re:ghost in the shell (Score:5, Informative)
If we're using fictional examples, Spiderman has been using tracking devices in the comics for 30-40 years now. They are fired from the web shooters and stick to targets. They don't use GPS, of course, they're more traditional tracking devices that emit a signal and have to be tracked by the signal. The point is that this idea is hardly new, but it's interesting that there's this real-world working example
Re:If this becomes popular (Score:4, Informative)
Dont know about US, but in Europe its pretty standard for a car thieve to use unlocked ECU to bypass any immobilizers\electronic keys.
Long forgotten are the days of connecting wires under the steering column, now they just swap computer and car magically starts.
Re:Typical BBC bias (Score:4, Informative)
Except of course when it's perfectly fine to describe this as a bullet, there is absolutely nothing in the word bullet that requires the existence of gunpowder. Hell, bullet just means small ball by origin.