Saturday, November 7, 2009
Technology
CFD Turns Trucks into Mobile Hot Spots
The technologies installed turn the trucks into mobile hot spots that support voice, video and data transmission from the vehicles to the city's OEMC...
Electric Grid, Emergency Communications Vulnerable to Electromagnetic Weapons
Gale Nordling, president and CEO of Emprimus, recently testified before the Congressional Subcommittee on Emerging Threats, Cybersecurity, Science and Technology about how electromagnetic devices can be used against public infrastructure, specifically the electric grid....
Are We There Yet?
Public-safety communications infrastructure has improved greatly since 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. But questions persist as to whether the policies and plans currently in place are adequate for another event of that magnitude....
Research Institute Unveils Firefighter Tracking Prototype
Worcester Polytechnic Institute announced a prototype to track firefighters on scene is in the testing phase and — once it is proven — will be available to the market in approximately two years....
Communications
California State Fire Association Addresses Bandwidth Issues
The California State Fire Association (CSFA) recently addressed a nagging problem. The association’s computer network had plenty of throughput, but lacked reliability and available bandwidth. Specifically, there was a lack of Internet link redundancy, and the association needed an affordable network connection larger than 1.5 Mb/s, said Monty Gearhart, director of CSFA information systems. ...
Icomera’s Bridge Connects Minnesota Emergency Vehicles
The Maple Grove (Minn.) Fire Department is custom building a communications-infrastructure truck to serve the needs of its response area, including two nuclear plants....
CFD Turns Trucks into Mobile Hot Spots
The technologies installed turn the trucks into mobile hot spots that support voice, video and data transmission from the vehicles to the city's OEMC...
Are We There Yet?
Public-safety communications infrastructure has improved greatly since 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. But questions persist as to whether the policies and plans currently in place are adequate for another event of that magnitude....
Computers & Software
Houston Training Simulation Program Goes High-Tech
The Houston Fire Department spent millions of dollars this year to upgrade its fire-training facility, said Brian Kimberly, a training officer at the department. In fact, the training facility morphed from a garage-based facility available only to chief officers to a $2.6 million, 10,000-square-foot simulator warehouse...
Central Nervous System
The Orange County Fire Authority uses computer mapping to coordinate the activities of all parts of its organization....
Spokane Fire Department Deploys GD-Itronix Notebooks
The Spokane (Wash.) Fire Department installed ruggedized mobile computers from General Dynamics Itronix inside its firefighting vehicles to ensure field officers had access to real-time information while addressing an incident...
Fire Locator Aggregates Wildfire Data
Pitney Bowes' research arm, Advanced Concepts and Technologies, recently launched the Fire Locator, a software-based data aggregator available to the public and public-safety agencies....
