An emergency call comes in about a possible bomb in lower Manhattan and an alert pops up on computer  screens at the New York Police Department, instantly showing officers an interactive map of the neighborhood, footage from nearby security cameras, whether there are high radiation levels and whether any other threats have been made against the city.
In a click, police know exactly what they're getting into.
Such a hypothetical scenario may seem like something out of a futuristic crime drama, but the technology is real, developed in a partnership between America's largest police department and Microsoft Corp., and the latest version has been quietly in use for about a year.
The project could pay off in more ways than one: The NYPD could make tens of millions of dollars under an unprecedented marketing deal that allows Microsoft to sell the system to other law enforcement agencies and civilian companies around the world. The city will get a 30 percent cut.
The Domain Awareness System, known as the dashboard, gives easy access to the police department's voluminous arrest records, telephone calls, more than 3,000 security cameras citywide, license plate readers and portable radiation detectors. This is all public data -- not additional surveillance.
Right now, it is used only in NYPD offices, mostly in the counterterrorism unit. Eventually, the system could supply crime-fighting information in real time to officers on laptops in their squad cars and on mobile devices while they walk the beat.
"It works incredibly well," said Jessica Tisch, director of planning and policy for the counterterrorism unit.
For example, officers used the system during a deadly shooting outside the Empire State Building in August. Dozens of emergency telephone calls were coming in, and it initially looked like an attack staged by several gunmen. But officers mapped the information and pulled up cameras within 500 feet (150 meters) of the reported shots to determine there was only one shooter.
Analysts are cautious about the potential profits, saying that largely depends on Microsoft's sales efforts and whether any major competition arises. While there other data-drilling products made by other companies, they say the NYPD's involvement could set the dashboard apart.
"This is the kind of stuff you used to only see in movies," said analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group, a technology analysis firm. "Getting it to work in a way that police departments can use in real time is huge." (continued...)
© 2013 Associated Press under contract with YellowBrix. All rights reserved.
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