Letter T

As we continue the A-Z Blog challenge, it occurred to me that Letter S and T are connected. This is not how things started out, and I didn’t even notice the connection until I went to completed some research on Letter T. How much fun is that? I got the idea for letter T six months ago when I heard a story that was in the news. Letter S came from something else I heard recently, but the whole Letter S blog flew off my head on a drive home from work yesterday, when I got called in on a Saturday Morning. I can tell you this; working out the details of Letter S is a lot less madding than working out the details as to why the High Pressure Steam Turbine tripped offline due to some false erratic relative vibration on the Number 13 Bearing. Vibration issues don’t always make sense, but neither does reading Zulu Delta 45, so once again, here we are for a third connection! YES!!!!

Anyway………

In 1993 Taser International was formed. They began selling Taser pistols and lots of them. Taser pistols fire two dart-like electrodes that are shot into a person along with two conductors. They deliver electric current to disrupt voluntary control of muscles causing “neuromuscular incapacitation”. WOW!!

It’s estimated that almost two-thirds of the police departments in the United States use them. This would seem like a pretty lucrative business right? Well it was, and it is, but there’s more.

In 2009, Tasor began selling body cameras to police departments. As with the guns, body cameras have become very popular and used by many police departments. This week, Tasor announced that they would change their name to Axon which just happens to be the name of their body camera.

So, with so many police departments in line to buy their equipment, you might think that in a supply and demand society, Axon would be charging handsomely for their cameras. NOPE; they have been giving them away; literally, in a “free trial mode”

Why? Because there is far more money in body camera software storage, and analysis than selling the cameras for a one time fee with no additional sales. Tasor…….er, ah, I mean Axon has been giving the cameras away. After the “free trial period,” of not only the camera itself, which then cost $399 each, but the services they offer through their Evidence.com service, “clients” will be charged $15 to $85 per month per officer who uses the camera.

Well, what is the Evidence.com service? It’s AI (artificial intelligence) that works with Facial Recognition (sound familiar?) and, get this; Sentiment Analysis, which uses computer programming to determine the attitude of the speaker, be it the police officer or the subject in front of the officer.

Although this after market sales concept seems new, its been around in other forms for sometime. Remember the “video rental store.” Before almost all of them went out of business, they made more money on “insurance protection” for the CD or video, and “late fees,” than the actual reason to exist, which was renting videos. 

Smile for the Camera.

I’ll leave you with a link to an older blog called “Don’t Tase Me Bro.”

https://zuludelta45.net/2013/07/14/dont-tase-me-bro/