Poor Simon Cowell. Apparently someone on a motorcycle had been constantly following closely behind the notoriously cranky American Idol judge’s Bentley and he couldn’t figure out why.

Turns out, there was a magnetic GPS tracking device stuck to the undercarriage of his car, which helped explain why the aforementioned motorcyclist kept showing up at Cowell’s private meetings. It’s unknown who this person is, but it’s been speculated that he or she may be crazy fan or a member of the paparazzi.

Cowell is apparently “completely freaked out by this” and may call in the police to do a more thorough investigation. In the meantime, if YOU think someone is following you, make three right turns. Nobody makes three right turns for no reason. If they’re still following you, panic and drive straight to your house so they know where you live.

[via The Raw Feed]

We can jokingly say things like “buy a cellphone jammer to silence those annoying people on the bus” but that would be irresponsible. Quite irresponsible, it turns out, as criminals are now using such devices to impede law enforcement efforts.

It happened last month in Canada. Two Mounties had pulled over a car, and as they approached to car their radios went out. It turns out that the two guys inside the pulled over car had turned out one of those $200 eBay cellphone jammers, putting the officers at unnecessary risk.

This is a good time to remind y’all that using cellphone jammers is illegal in the U.S and most other places. In fact, a first time offender faces up to a $1,000 fine for using a jammer in the U.S.

Seems to me that an iPod is a much cheaper way to avoid hearing a fellow commuter’s conversation. And anyone who uses a cellphone at a restaurant should be promptly shown the door.

Carbon Motors, never heard of ‘em either, is working on a custom police car to catch all of Gotham’s baddies. It kind of looks as if K.I.T.T. and Robocop breed a Transformer offspring meant just for police duty. It’s dubbed the E7 and specific details about all the gadgets haven’t been released, but this short video shows off it’s bad-ass styling.

Allegedly, the car can sprint up to 65 mph in under 7 seconds via a 300 HP diesel engine and brush-off small arms fire thanks to bullet proof panels. The cars price range will be $20k-$70k depending on options, but with a 250,000 durability spec, suicide rear doors, and more LED lights than a Caddy, it seems worth it. Nothing like cruising the streets in style rather than in a Crown Vic, eh?

Those wacky Israelis! Police there used a “skunk bomb” for the first time on Friday as part of a crowd control action. The bomb is actually more like super soaker water gun that sprays a vile smelling liquid on people. The liquid is so foul smelling, that people instantly recoil against it. The theory is, if people are freaking out over the horrific smell, they’ll stop doing whatever it was that upset police in the first place.

The liquid, as awful as it may be, is non-lethal, which is what makes it so attractive to police forces around the world.

Then, of course, you’ve got the people who are all, “violation of my rights, yada, yada.” I don’t know, I’d rather be shot with some awful smelling liquid than by rubber bullets, or worse. Then again, I’m the last person you’d find at a protest or rally of any sort.

Here’s a fun little story that ought to excite your Freedom Bone. It seems an 18-year-old was recently pulled over for speeding, with police claiming that the lad was 17 mph north of the speed limit. An on-board GPS unit disagrees. Yup, the kid had a GPS device(an RMT Rover, seen here) in his car at the time , and its data indicates that he was doing the 45 mph speed limit all the way to his destination.

A police-produced expert claimed that such GPS devices are accurate within a couple of meters and within 1 mph. That certainly seems accurate enough to drag out this case for a little while longer, as both sides argue over who’s technology is more accurate, the radar gun or the GPS device.

And yes, the case will drag on, at least through October, when the judge in the trial hears expert testimony from another GPS expert, presumably Ted the GPS Expert.

Police departments in the U.S. are increasingly relying upon text message tips to catch bad guys. Boston started doing this a year ago and has received 678 tips. These tips have helped take numerous bites out of various crimes, including vandalism and murder.

One thing that concerns me is the possible abuse of such a system. Say Popular Girl A doesn’t like Popular Girl B: why not send in an anonymous tip that she’s dealing marijuana, or something else just as sinister?

As an aside, the original story quotes a girl who typically sends upwards of 6,000 text messages per month. Are you kidding me? What a horrible existence.

Japanese accessory maker Carrot Systems began to sell a flashlight [JP] last month, which is able to record video and sound via an integrated mini CMOS camera and microphone. The AD-1500 stores recordings in MP4 format on miniSD cards. 2GB can hold up to 180 minutes of video material.

The flashlight is ready for infra-red video recording (within a distance of 4 meters). Carrot Systems wants to enable police, security personnel and firefighters to record evidence at crime and accident scenes using just one device in dark areas.

The camera features 300,000 pixels and records video with 640×480 VGA resolution. Photos are saved in JPEG format.

The flashlight comes with a USB port (USB 1.1), 128 MB of internal memory and a small LCD display. It costs $800.

A couple from Long Island left their camera at a restaurant in Florida where two of the employees found and kept it . The camera contained an Eye-Fi card which automatically found an open wireless base station and began uploading their photos including some photos the thieves had taken of each other. When they contacted the restaurant with the evidence, the camera was returned and the couple declined to press charges, proving that even technologists have a heart.

I wonder how much this is going to affect petty theft. With everything enabled for Wi-Fi and cellular, how often will we get our pockets picked when the thieves have no idea how the device is rigged.

It turns out that the lead investigator of the Pirate Bay raid from a few years ago has been working for Warner Bros. Naturally, that’s causing all sorts of commotion online, with cries “corruption,” “conflict of interest,” and whatever other insult you can think of.

The Pirate Bay is already spinning the news, calling the officer’s Warner Bros. employment a “reward” for his work in the original raid. How can you work for the police, and all that entails, while simultaneously taking orders from Hollywood? That’s the issue.

While I find it hard to get worked up over such scenarios&I can’t spend my days freaking out over every little anti-MPAA story—I do understand where TPB is coming from, especially since they’re supposed to be the white knight of the BitTorrent crowd.

Meh, move along. Go read a book or something.

Sure, we all get a laugh at someone else’s expense when watching taser videos on YouTube, but did you know that the device may affect your heartbeat? That’s not cool, especially since Taser, Inc. says its devices are totally safe and in no way affect your biological functions.

It all stems from a recent incident where a man was running from police and hid in a lake (?!) to escape them. His heart, possibly from the shock of the situation and cold water, experienced atrial fibrillation. He had an irregular heartbeat, he did. But, once he was zapped by a taser, his heartbeat returned to normal, and he began to fight and resist arrest.

What could make him go from have an irregular heartbeat to fighting with the police?

Doctors are now speculating that the taser “zapped” his heart back into shape. That may sound nice, but tasers aren’t supposed to affect your person quite to that extent.

Taser was quick to point out that the man’s experience could be explained by any number of things, and not necessarily its device.

Since last fall, police in New York’s Orange County have been using experimental gun-mounted camera technology that begins recording the moment a police officer’s gun is pulled from its holster.

The technology was adopted after a public outcry surrounding the 2006 shooting of a Newbugrh, New York man in which, “the street version of the story differs massively from the one told by the cops,” according to The Register.

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Did American companies violate U.S. law by selling hi-tech police equipment to the Chinese? The Old Gray Lady asks this today, examining a recent Chinese police equipment trade show held in Beijing where several American companies, including Motorola and DuPont, were notably present. (An old law going back to Tiananmen Square prevents American companies from selling police equipment to China.) On display: Kevlar bulletproof vests, advanced police radio systems, fancy protective boots and a device that “swiftly” copies the entire contents of a hard drive without leaving any trace of having done so. That one’s developed by Intelligent Computer Solutions, which is based in California.

This all comes just a few weeks after China’s crackdown on Tibet protesters, never mind the controversy surrounding the Olympic Torch relay.

Of course, all companies deny any wrongdoing, stressing that they haven’t broken any laws. Be that as it may, I wonder if it’s worth sullying a company’s image just to make a few dollars from the Chinese. Not trying to pull a Jack Cafferty or anything, but selling American-developed technology to be used by Chinese authorities, that doesn’t seem like it’d be too popular with Joe Sixpack.

Attention Police: We’re really getting tired of reminding you about this stuff, bit you should really pay attention this time. MP3 players are not guns. Please quit tasing, arresting, and otherwise antagonizing those of us with them.

This is Darren Nixon, and it wasn’t really the police’s fault, as a woman called them suspecting he had a gun. But the cops should have been able to tell quickly that his DAP was not a deadly weapon. He was arrested and shaken by the experience, and rightly so.

Man arrested at gunpoint after police mistake his MP3 player for a gun [Daily Mail]

Police in New Carrollton, Maryland are among the first in the state to use the magic of modern technology to issue tickets to motorists. Information about the driver in question is pulled from the Maryland motor vehicle database and then printed out in the squad car. Sounds very simple, no?

Before this system, "officers would write out 5 copies of each citation by hand" and about 10-15 percent of tickets (nationwide) have to be thrown out because of legibility issues. One of the officers says that the time it takes him to write a ticket is about three minutes, down from over ten minutes.

Police Use High-Tech Ticket Technology [WJLA]

In June, the city of Boston set up an anonymous text-a-tip line for its police department, allowing people to send text messages reporting suspicious behavior and crimes-in-progress.

Now the neighboring city of Cambridge is developing a similar system for its own police department but will add an outgoing alert option that allows the city’s residents to subscribe to alerts issued by the police department. There will also be separate network to alert business owners of any mischief. The entire system has been approved and should be functional by early next year.

Cops to roll out text-a-tip program soon [Cambridge Chronicle]

Police raided and shut down the OiNK BitTorrent site earlier today after a two-year investigation, shocking users across the BT community. Additionally, the 24-year-old man who ran the site was arrested. Good luck, bro.

I really love this quote by one of the anti-piracy guys that make OiNK users sound like war criminals:

OiNK was central to the illegal distribution of pre-release music online. This was not a case of friends sharing music for pleasure. This was a worldwide network that got hold of music they did not own the rights to and posted it online.

What a paranoid industry, thinking everyone’s out to get them.

Well it was fun while it lasted. The thing that always amused me on OiNK was how so many people wanted you to keep it a “secret.” “Don’t tell anyone about us, we want to stay under the radar.” I should hope these people didn’t think the authorities were oblivious to the site’s existence. That would be stupid.

Music piracy Web site closed after UK, Dutch raids [Reuters]

A Minnesota man (not me) has demanded to see the source code for the breathalyzer that landed him in the clink.

Whether or not Dale Lee Underdahl would know what to do with the source code once it’s in his clammy hands is uncertain but “if a company proves unwilling to turn over the code, the case is often thrown out…”

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