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Introducing The iTaser: MP3 Player Meets Hip, Portable Shock Device
Deborah Kerr in The King and I recommended whistling a happy tune when afraid, but now fearful Americans can sing along to their favourite tracks while shooting anyone who causes them consternation with a 50,000-volt electric charge.
The annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, which is expected to receive more than 140,000 visitors this week, is no stranger to bizarre gadgets but the iTaser - as it has been dubbed - must rank as one of the oddest. It combines a Taser stun gun, used by 12,000 law enforcement and security forces, including the Metropolitan police, with an MP3 player and earphones.
As to which tracks anyone toting such a device might download on to the 1GB player that is integrated into the gun's holster, anything by Sparks or Frank Zappa must be fairly high on the list.
Arizona-based Taser International sells the handheld stun guns under the rather hyperbolic banner of "Changing the World and Protecting Lives". It maintains that the iTaser "allows for both personal protection and personal music for people on the go".
According to Rick Smith, founder of the company, "personal protection can be both fashionable and functionable".
The company says the new device is particularly aimed at women - with red, pink and even leopard print designs intended to make carrying a stun gun fashionable. A spokesman in Las Vegas said the inclusion of a music player would encourage purchases by women who want a form of self defence while out jogging, but would otherwise choose to take an iPod or other MP3 player with them instead of a weapon.
"A lot of women aren't going to go into a gun store and feel comfortable enough buying a Taser, so now we have some outdoor companies and dealers - some cellphone places are starting to carry them and hang them next to phones," he said.
Half a million Tasers are already in use globally despite warnings from Amnesty International that they have been linked to more than 70 deaths in the US. According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation a further 18 people have died after being stunned by a Taser in Canada.
Taser International, however, maintains that the devices merely stun people and, with proper training, are otherwise harmless. The guns shoot two small probes, at speeds of more than 48 metres a second, which are connected to the device by insulated wire. Those probes deliver an electric charge that causes instant neuro-muscular incapacitation, causing the victim to crumple to the floor. They also lose the ability to move for a few seconds.
The gun generates a staggering 50,000 volts but the actual ampage - which is potentially very dangerous to life - is a mere 0.0021 amps, while a household plug carries 13 amps. The ampage is so low that the Taser's two lithium camera batteries can stun 100,000 people, but used in a digital camera they would provide just 100 photo flashes.
Being hit by a stun gun is, however, a deeply unpleasant experience. Last month a 45-year-old company director, who later proved to be unarmed and innocent, claimed he had been "Tasered" in north London. The first shock caused him to drop to his knees, while a second left him flat on his face with a broken tooth and a further six shocks made him wet himself. The Independent Police Complaints Commission has started an investigation into the incident.
Daniel Sylvester, the owner of an east London security firm employing 65 staff to guard council offices, pubs and nightclubs, described the sensation as "like being tortured".
Ten police forces in England and Wales are using Tasers. Forces from Devon and Cornwall to north Wales and Northumbria have issued the stun guns to previously unarmed officers.
The Met, for instance, started handing out the devices in early December to members of its territorial support group after training at a specialist centre in Gravesend, Kent. It has pledged that only six officers will be carrying them at any one time in the capital.
Asked whether they will be allowed to listen to their favourite tunes while on the beat, or perhaps download the latest police training manuals into their holsters and plug in, a Met spokesman was derisory: "I can honestly say no, we won't be using it. Do you think that would be a good use of public money?"
The British public are banned from using Tasers but they are legal in 43 US states where Taser International has already sold 160,000 to private citizens. The American government does not consider Tasers to be firearms.
The system does include some safeguards to try to prevent unlawful use, including owner registration and a trace of tiny, uniquely identifiable computer chips left at the scene of a shooting.
© 2007 The Guardian
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40 Comments so far
Show Alltell me this is a joke
It maintains that the iTaser "allows for both personal protection and personal music for people on the go".
And would, therefore, be much easier to sneak across the border. Of course, Taser will say that sneaking their product into countries which ban them never crossed their minds.
Hmmmm....I wonder how many people will be thrilled with being charged (!) with murder after the Taser function proves fatal to the boyfreind/date/wife after a minor incident is 'handled' with the Taser in much the same way disputes in the US are so often mediated with firearms.
If the 'properly trained' police can't use Tasers responsibly, how can we expect the common person to do so?
Americans with tasers. This is going to get good.
Imagine some of those crazy parents shoping for that out of stock toy during the holidays.
One could wish that the hiker whose body was just found yesterday had such a device and had used it instead of being murdered.
They are hanging right beside cell phones - how many parents will purchase them for their kids without knowing what they are?
And how many kids will think it funny to make their sibling jump while carrying a glass of Coke.
Funniest Home Videos: Ha ha you spilt coke all over yourself - hey, get up, get up, stop joking around - hey mom, she's not breathing - call 911!
xxxxxx
How many parents will by them to 'keep their kids safe'?
just what we need, more weapons, more fear.
Just another reason for men to avoid dark parking lots at night. Can you imagine just getting out of your car and walking toward a business and getting zapped just because someone in leapord pants felt threatened when no threat was intended, all the while listening to her favorite artist, then moments later being run over while she backs out of her parking space?
Perverts will use tasers to immobilize their victims. Most victims will probably die after being tasered 100,000 times or 200,000 times if the pervert changes the batteries.
Tasers represent science run amuck-although its a far cry from the insane sadists and fools who do things like the following:
Pig's 'Green' Genes Passed to Offspring
Wednesday January 9, 2008 7:31 PM
By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN
Associated Press Writer
BEIJING (AP) - A cloned pig whose genes were altered to make it glow fluorescent green has passed on the trait to its young, a development that could lead to the future breeding of pigs for human transplant organs, a Chinese university reported.
The glowing piglets' birth proves transgenic pigs are fertile and able to pass on their engineered traits to their offspring, according to Liu Zhonghua, a professor overseeing the breeding program at Northeast Agricultural University.
``Continued development of this technology can be applied to ... the production of special pigs for the production of human organs for transplant,'' Liu said in a news release posted Tuesday on the university's Web site.
Calls to the university seeking comment Wednesday were not answered.
The piglets' mother was one of three pigs born with the trait in December 2006 after pig embryos were injected with fluorescent green protein. Two of the 11 piglets glow fluorescent green from their snout, trotters, and tongue under ultraviolet light, the university said.
Robin Lovell-Badge, a genetics expert at Britain's National Institute for Medical Research, said the technology ``to genetically manipulate pigs in this way would be very valuable.''
Lovell-Badge had not seen the research from China's cloned pigs and could not comment on its credibility. He said, however, that organs from genetically altered pigs would potentially solve some of the problems of rejected organs in transplant operations.
He said the presence of the green protein would allow genetically modified cells to be tracked if they were transplanted into a human. The fact that the pig's offspring also appeared to have the green genes would indicate that the genetic modification had successfully penetrated every cell, Lovell-Badge added.
But he said much more research and further trials - both in animals and in humans - would be necessary before the benefits of the technology could be seen.
Other genetically modified pigs have been created before, including by Scotland's Roslin Institute, but few results have been published.
Tokyo's Meiji University last year successfully cloned a transgenic pig that carries the genes for human diabetes, while South Korean scientists cloned cats that glow red when exposed to ultraviolet rays.
**my prediction: science wont be able to eradicate misery and death any time soon-BUT it will contribute to it!
This Taser-craze makes no sense to anyone who exists outside of our modern, politically inspired, fear-zeitgeist.
When fear doesn't shift enough units, repackaging occurs and in this case, it's a marvellously surreal combination of entertainment and extreme pain.
Other suggested listening: Electric Fright Orchestra, AC/DC, Tasers N' Roses.
An MP3 player to drown out the screems of the tortured?
I wonder what tune the CIA uses.
What if they answer the phone and hit the wrong button?
At first I was astounded by the absurdity of this "invention." But then I thought, "they are missing the boat here." Why just an mp3 player? Why not go all the way and build in a cell phone as well? It could be programmed to auto-dial 911 whenever the Taser is activated. That way users would be immediately accountable whenever the Taser was activated, and maybe would cut down on malicious use.
KELMER
this is not new. it was reported with 'cats' a few weeks ago.
ET AL
didn't you see the 'tupperware' party article a few days ago?
ezeflyer,
That'll teach them for pirating all that music.
I detect a new industry. The Grounded Clothing industry. Damn, I shouldn't have typed that. Someone's going to beat me to market with it.
> One could wish that the hiker whose body was just found...
The Georgia hiker? Same argument that gun owners have. And the same problem with it - it is probable she was blindsided in which case gun or taser is irrelevant. If she had broken arms, then I'd consider those defense wounds which would imply that she had a sliver of a chance to pull a weapon. Supposedly she had some training in fighting. Never read of any defensive wounds.
I just read the suspect has immunity against the death penalty on that case. But they could get him on another.
> ... auto-dial 911.
That does make more sense. It oughta take a picture too. (Though I could see someone tasering someone multiple times claiming "I was just trying to take a second picture".) Should make it so the user can't erase the photo or remove the media without breaking a seal on the taser. For that matter, law enforcement versions should do something similar.
I read the brochure. It suggests leaving the taser behind on a setting that keeps the attacker down. I'm thinking you'd better be right that it's a lone attacker 'cuz if he has a buddy, that buddy is going to reload the taser you left, hunt you down and taser you. It's a really narrow use. Brochure says "30 second cycle". If I had 30 seconds, I wouldn't need a taser now would I? I'd just stroll over to someplace more public. Gotta make that one shot count, otherwise you could be eating that taser just as the cycle completes.
Paul
I thought about the same thing. Remember those chain link suits
they wore in the medieval? Those could be weight trimmed, like
made from aluminum and be dragged over the ground. That way
it wouldn't affect you as long as you don't walk over a rubber mat...
Another thing that strikes me is how happy somebody can appear that
works in a torture tools factory. Wish I could see some pictures from
the workers of anti personal mines. I bet You they are having an equally
great time.
It's like thunder, it's like lightning, the way you shock me is frightening, I better knock....on wood.
The antidote for violence is direct democracy.
People have the right to protect themselves from violence.
The newer models will have a variable intensity setting so that they can be used as a vibrator also, the pleasure/pain threshold is left to the discretion of the user.
Pepper spray wasn't good enough??? What ever happened to taking a martial arts class and learning a little self defense? And, wouldn't a good swift kick in the groin bring about the same effect, without the possibility of killing your opponent? Why have we gone mad and why are people buying into it?
"How many parents will by them to 'keep their kids safe'?"
How many parents will by them to keep their kids in line?
I am very disturbed by the glibness in many of the replies to this story. This is a very serious development. This device is not at all about personal protection. It is the marketing of fear, and it WILL result in deaths.
As a practicing electrical engineer, I am appalled by this use of technology, and I sent a very nastygram to Taser International, shaming them.
People do have a right to protect themselves from violence, but that does not give them a license to kill. There is a great variation in the electrical current required to induce fibrillation and other effects like involuntary muscle actions, and these cannot be predicted easily. We have this bizarre idea that people are all more or less the same, but we're not. There are huge variations in biological systems, and one of these variations is the response to electrical stimulation.
I happened to live in Olympia, Washington several years ago, and the police tasered a man who purportedly stole some meat from the Thriftway. He died. His wife watched him die. For some meat.
This is just so fucked up that I can't even believe what some of you people have said.
The one with the rheostat is for drinking games AND sex games? I like it! The blue tooth-taser-vibrator combo! Send your lover a swift kick in the right spot! One for your kids too includes a GPS for those run amok sorts of kids we know you have! "Control" you might finally be able to 'buy' it!
Right! Remember the single shot 25cal. cell phone?
Sorry... In looking back, I see a lot of the comments were sarcastic, and not meant to be serious. I'm just ashamed of my profession and am increasingly feeling that everything science and engineering creates is destroying the fabric of life. Nothing is sacred anymore in this world.
I'll wait for the iPhone-combo...
At LAST!! Rock music that is truly as shocking as my parents said it was!!!
OK, all-in-one MP3 player, Taser, cell phone, GPS ... what else ... Well, hell, why not just build in a .32? A little single-shot popper, just in case our perp is unconvinced by being shocked into insensibility. You just toggle from "Maim" to "Kill" and away s/he goes!!
OH! and let's DO put cameras on'em so we can click up YouTube for the vid.
Now, listen, with a small explosive device implanted you have a dandy security device for the auto. If someone jacks your ride, leave your device, then you press the "Oh HELLL no you don't!" button (provided separately by your auto maker, the phone company, on Ebay, at the flea market ...). The device broadcasts a warning tone, then a voice warning (in languages selected by location on the GPS): "You have thirty seconds to stop the car and leave the vehicle with the doors locked!" If the car isn't stopped, in about thirty two seconds the device locks the doors and: About an ounce of plastique should do the job nicely. Light, safe, very very effective.
In the few nanoseconds just before the blast, the device calls: the police, your insurance company, a tow truck, and a forensic cleanup company.
How we doin'???
Anyone who uses a taser irresponsibly, should be subject to both criminal and civil actions. Tasers usage should be treated no differently than any other potentially lethal device. The penalties should be just as severe.
Designer handcuffs and blindfolds are next.
This insanity will end when jogging Bari falls on her iTaser and electrocutes herself. All 50K volts right on her big butt. That should wipe the smile off her ugly face. Shees! Only in America (we hope).
itsjustkarma, Paul,
I think that you're going the wrong way with that grounded clothing idea. its cold and makes you a lightning target.
Rather, I think thick rubber body suits are the way to go. a bit sweaty, but fashionable in certain crowds. you could have them moulded into a sexy muscular physique too.
culicormorpha, sometimes these posts upset me too, depends on my mood and how much I've read the headlines on any given day. Thank you for sending your nastygram to Taser. My fingers are sore from sending letters (unanswered at that) to my reps. Some of our sarcasm here is due to our frustration at the whole mess our embarrassing government has gotten us into over the last 100 years. Hang in there like the rest of us.
This country is a haven for the criminally insane, a violent, scary place indeed. No wonder we have war criminals as leaders. Now I know why I feel so peaceful when I go to Canada. :) I'd move there if I could -- if I didn't have family obligations here.
Come to Europe, there are plenty of jobs for high tech people, you get 5 weeks of vacation as standard, free health care, great food, great wine and you will be much safer as well :)
(Me and my American wife moved to France 3 years ago and can not think of moving out of here, even thought our salaries are much lower than the ones in New York, the quality of life is much much higher).
I going to hold off my purchase until the self inflicted lobotomy is included
Regarding protection against a tazer attack. I think all that might be needed is a layer of tinfoil under one's clothing to simply short out the tazer's electrical jolt. Instead of the electricity passing through your skin the electricity would take the path of least resistance and would hopefully harmlessly travel through the tinfoil between the probes shot into your clothing (and into the tinfoil). Any ideas about this outh there?