So, I was listening to the local news here in Minnesota today…
A man was shot in Minneapolis and the reporter mentioned that the police were notified of the shooting by the departments “shot spotter” technology. So I thought to myself “they have technology that can “spot” gunshots?”
Google turned up the company’s website http://www.shotspotter.com/
How it works: Basically, there are a number of microphones set up on telephone poles in a neighborhood (or wherever people get consistently shot at) When a gun shot goes off, the mic picks it up, and is able to determine the direction of the acoustic. If a bunch of mics pick up the shot, they can triangulate the sound and plot it. In other words, the mics hear a shot and point in the direction that it came from. Pretty cool!
Here is an article on how it works
Here is some info on the inventor http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20080279046
Video!!
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