Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Cool Smart Vests

Plenty of pockets galore
This has to be another Brompton Bike saga in the making. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) put up a tender on last Friday (Mar 6) for a prototype of a “smart vest system”. MHA said a typical frontline police officer’s waist belt is now chock-full of gadgets galore — revolver, Taser, bullet pouch, radio set, baton and handcuffs. The bulk gets in the way sometimes, they admit, which “greatly restricts (their) ability to execute their duties”, such as when they need to chase or restrain a suspect. Like the time they had to handcuff a 6 year old at the junction of Joo Chiat Road and East Coast Road.

If it's a lot of junk they want to be hauling around, why not pick up any of the photographer's vests available on eBay? And yes, Batman, they do come in black. What may be missing is the portable "body cooling system". Then again, how often do you see a policeman on foot patrolling under the hot sun? Most times you find them hunkered down in the airconditioned police neighborhood post, or cruising the streets in an airconditioned limousine.

And why is there a need for a "health status monitoring system" if these guys are certified physically fit to carry out law enforcement duties? Makes you wonder if they have need of mechanical ventilation to stay alert. Hooking them up to heart rate sensors may not be a smart idea as the online readings may spike at the presence of chio-bu in the surrounds. Unless it's due to xenophobic fear of dark skinned alcohol infused potential trouble makers.

Note also the fancy Tom Cruise type aviator glasses, also geared for health status monitoring and reporting capability. That has to be coded specification for a cool pair of expensive Google Glass, available to developers and testers at US$1,500 (or £1,000 in the UK). Watch out for a reprise of Khaw Boon Wan's justification for $2,200 foldable bicycles:
"Providing staff with bikes was thought to be a simple and effective way to raise staff productivity as it enables the officer to cover more ground and do more inspections within the same time."

11 comments:

  1. Who owns the company that won the tender?
    Is it linked to any political party?

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  2. Who's been watching too many robocop movies

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  3. More like the tender specs were taken wholesale from the marketing brochure of some vendors, very likely a "foreign" company partnering with another "local" company to facilitate transfers. No wonder they need to increase the Home Affairs development budget from $419m to $538m. Easy when you can tax the sheeple with no accountability.

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    1. Quite likely. This sounds like something they will take up with a GLC to develop and test here then market internationally. This is what happens when you have too much money to spend. Plus another way for tax payers to fund pet government companies.

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  4. It is a $2 Company?

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  5. So cool. I want to become a cop too.

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  6. i still prefer the cardboard policeman placed everywhere...cheaper somemore

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  7. "body cooling system"?... thought some of them are already in tees and short??

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  8. I think the police force personnel can come out with their own recommendation/design/specs. They are the BEST people with the field experience and i am positive they have many qualified people. Why must it always be tendered out. Is it because its OPM. We seem to have lost our ability to think smart. Instead we act smart.

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  9. The next tender is for a 18K gold internet enabled watch for senior civil servants. The latest reports show lots of benefits... LOL.

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  10. Must be the brainchild of our highly paid scholars, who must be seen to be doing something to show they are worth their salt. Let me add a refinement. Go the whole hog and make the vest bullet-proof, so it can double as a bullet-proof vest in case rioters throw more than rocks and bottles, or the ISIS decides to make a detour here. BTW, me am not a scholar.

    We have a Minister who can uncannily detect alcohol with his olefactory glands, even in the midst of a riotous situation, to the extent that a law on alcohol restrictions has been enacted. What a boon for the MHA to have such a resource available. Give the Minister a break, he can't be always everywhere, everytime....sooo send all the law enforcers for training by the Minister on how to smell out "alcohol infused potential trouble makers" and pre-empt a riot. LOL.

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