Iran officials hope to improve community safety, decrease prison time for non-violent criminals, and clear packed prisons through the use of GPS trackers.

In the United States, global positioning systems (GPS) are used for a multitude of tracking and monitoring purposes, including for tracking recent parolees. In Iran, officials want to take a similar approach by using GPS tracking in order to reduce how long prisoners need to stay locked up.

Electronic Handcuffs

The GPS trackers are in the form of handcuffs, dubbed electronic handcuffs. These high-tech restraining devices will track the exact location and movements of the criminals, regardless of where in the country they are located.

The GPS handcuffs are only to be used on criminals who did not commit a violent crime, allowing them to complete their punishment in their own homes. The GPS electronic handcuffs are also designed to ensure that these non-violent convicts don’t attempt to cross the border before their sentence is up. Read the rest of this entry »

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Rogers County, OK sheriff department hopes to incorporate more GPS tracking technology after successfully tracking down a thief.

Global positioning systems (GPS) have been used for a wide range of uses in recent years, expanding far beyond traditional navigational benefits. One of these benefits includes tracking commonly stolen items that help lead law enforcement to the location of a would be thief. The Green Country Sheriff Department in Oklahoma is now considering using even more GPS tracking units due to a recent successful sting operation that led to the arrest of a stolen trailer.

In Oklahoma, the theft of trailers is considered an epidemic due to how often they are being stolen. These trailers are not only easy for criminals to steal, but very difficult to track down after the criminal successfully leaves the driveway with one. However, now there is a new way to track them down and catch the thieves, thanks to GPS tracking technology.

The sting operation in question occurred when Penni Leach’s storage unit was broken into by cutting into the unit’s lock, then loading all of her stored belongings onto a stolen trailer. Lucky for Leach, the stolen trailer was already being tracked by the local police department as part of this sting operation. Read the rest of this entry »

New GPS researching study tracks animals in urban areas, looking at their movements and how they adapt.

Scientists and researchers have been utilizing GPS tracking technology that lets them track animals in their natural habitat for years now, but tracking them in urban environments is relatively new. Researchers from the Conservation Wildlife Program at North Carolina State University and North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences are doing just that, with the help of global positioning systems (GPS).

The GPS tracking research study is following various types of animals, starting with the Great Egrets that are traveling throughout urban areas of the United States. The Great Egret, also known as the Large Egret or Common Egret, is one of the largest and most distributed types of egrets in the country. It is a large heron bird with white plumage. The bird has a slow flight and is mostly non-vocal except in breeding colonies. Read the rest of this entry »

India begins development of its own GPS system for navigation and real-time positioning.

Currently, the United State’s Global Positioning System (GPS) is ahead as far as satellite transmissions, accuracy, and reliability for GPS tracking and navigation. However, India is on board to establish its own satellite system, called the Satellite Based Navigation System (SBNS) to provide navigation and real-time positioning to users throughout the nation.

Several countries have been creating alternatives to the GPS satellite systems or alongside GPS, in hopes they can have an alternative satellite positioning system. Other country satellites include the GLONASS system in Russia and the Beidou service in China, as well as Galileo positioning system service throughout Europe.

The first of India’s satellites will be the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS). Launched July 1, 2013, IRNSS-1A was the first satellite in the IRNSS. It is one of the seven satellites to constitute the IRNSS space segment. India officials have stated that they plan to have all 7 satellites launched in 18 months, with service on all 7 between 2015 and 2016. Read the rest of this entry »

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) via the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has proposed requiring all commercial truck and bus companies that operate across state lines to electronically log drivers’ hours through the use of electronic logging devices, sometimes referred to as ELDs.

FMCSA believes the proposed requirement will force compliance with existing regulations concerning the hours drivers are allowed to work.

This is largely encouraged by accident numbers suggesting that many of the crashes involving commercial trucks or buses are the direct result of drivers exceeding the maximum allowable work hours. In many cases, drivers kept two sets of logs or altered their own logs in order to conceal from inspectors the actual numbers of hours they spent behind the wheel.

Electronic logging devices will make it more difficult for drivers to misrepresent the number of hours they drive in a day. FMCSA believes this proposalwill save 20 lives and eliminate as many as 434 injuries each year.

An added benefit to the proposed requirement is that it will ease the recordkeeping burden of companies that manage and track drivers’ hours. Read the rest of this entry »