It would appear over the last year, or so the Cambridgeshire Constabulary has become smitten with Microsoft’s wares. Last year, we reported that the UK Constabulary made the switch from 4,000 BlackBerry devices to 8,000 Windows Phone devices. The transition was an acknowledgement of Microsofts’s gains in adding security to Windows Phone. Ian Bell, head of ITC at the constabulary said:
“The security hasn’t been right [with Windows Phone in the past], but it absolutely is now. Mobile device management providers have worked their socks off to be ready for 8.1 Phone release, and with the new encryption and new application VPN, it makes this platform become viable from a public sector perspective”.
The Cambridgeshire Constabulary crossed our headlines again a few months ago when we reported their involvement with a police solution called tuServ. tuServ is a custom police solution developed by a company called Black Marble and built atop the Microsoft platform. tuServ was built on an Azure Pack backend and connects all of the Cambridgeshire heritage systems while providing the aggregation of large amounts information and returning relevant results to users.
Equipped with phones and custom designed cloud-connected services, the Cambridgeshire Constabulary are looking to outfit its officers with Microsoft Bands for a trial period now. The idea seems to be a way for officers in the field or in an office, to stay connected to one another.
According to Computing.co.uk, “Wearable device Microsoft Band is also now being utilized in a unique way, in a trial period in Cambridgeshire. If the user’s heart rate goes over a certain level, or if it is removed from an officer’s wrist, it triggers an alarm and officers will scramble to support their colleague.”
In addition to trying out the Microsoft Band, the police force is very interested in trying out Microsoft’s HoloLens. The same folks who helped design Cambridgeshire’s custom cloud services, Black Marble, are also at the ready, to implement HoloLens technology into modern day police investigation. Founder of Black Marble, Robert Hogg, believes, “We can do some amazing things with the technology”. Although Officer Alex Murphey donned a HoloLens-like visor shade in the most recent Robocop remake, we shouldn’t expect to see Cambridgeshire officers walking about the UK with HoloLens anytime soon.
