MANHATTAN, KS – Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack today broke ground to officially begin construction of the National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) main laboratory structure in Manhattan, Kansas.

“The NBAF laboratory will provide the nation with cutting edge, state-of-the-art, lab capabilities and help protect our food supply and the nation’s public health,” said Secretary Johnson. “NBAF addresses a serious vulnerability. The economic impact of a bio agricultural threat – deliberate or natural – could have a substantial effect on the food supply of this Nation and have serious human health consequences. We will soon be able to ensure availability of vaccines and other rapid response capabilities to curb an outbreak. With the NBAF, our Nation will have the first Bio Level 4 lab facility of its kind – a state-of-the-art bio-containment facility for the study of foreign animal and emerging diseases.”

Interested in learning more? Read the full S&T Press Release.

The U.S. Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has published the first “roadmap” for the next 20 years of research needed to establish seamless, broadband public safety communications networks across the United States. The new roadmap, the first of a planned series on relevant technologies, focuses on location-based services to improve situational awareness for police, firefighters, emergency medical services and other first responders.

The roadmap was commissioned by NIST’s Public Safety Communications Research (PSCR) program, which has been performing research, development, testing and evaluation, and creating standards to support first responder communications since 2002.

“The roadmap will guide planning for public safety communications research, including how to allocate the $300 million apportioned to NIST from the recent AWS-3 spectrum auction,” said Dereck Orr, chief of the PSCR Division of NIST’s new Communications Technology Laboratory.

One of the PSCR’s goals is to enable broadband public safety data, video and voice communications across different agencies and jurisdictions. To that end, the PSCR operates a 700-MHz public safety broadband demonstration network and provides technical advocacy by gathering requirements and developing standards.

The new roadmap offers a vision of what public safety communications might look like in 20 years. It identifies software, device and network R&D investments needed to achieve that vision. The roadmap points out opportunities for action by multiple stakeholders, including federal, state and local governments; academia; industry; and the public safety community. The document is based on ideas captured during a 2013 workshop involving 150 participants from both the public and private sectors.

A number of technology trends potentially affect public safety communications, according to the report. Advances in wearable technologies and public safety applications for them are expected in 5 to 10 years, and convergence with the Internet of Things and full integration into public safety use is foreseen in 10 to 20 years. The current reliance on voice communications for public safety is expected to give way to primarily data communications in some environments in 10 to 20 years.

“Location-based services” encompass applications that use information about the physical location of a user based on, for example, GPS signals. Location-based services were chosen as the first roadmap focus area because enhancements are feasible and could have high impact and return on investment, for example, by enabling more efficient allocation of personnel and equipment. Continue reading →

Bill Schrier writes,  “Internet of Things” or IoT is a common buzzword in the technology community these days.  It refers to the increasingly prevalent distribution of sensors throughout the natural world, and the connection of those sensors – as well as other machines – to the Internet.

The running joke is that IoT is about putting your home refrigerator, thermostat, washer, dryer, microwave, range, TVs, computers, smart phones and even toasters on the Internet, or at least connecting them so they can talk to each other.  Now what a toaster would say to a TV, or what the conversations between a washer and a dryer might include, could certainly make for a lot of talk show jokes and lists on a David Letterman show (should he return).

But clearly creating such an “Internet of Household Things” or IoHT would be quite useful.  Take, for example, the urgent water crisis in California and throughout most of the West.   If you could add sensors to every water fixture in the house, and then connect those sensors to computers and smartphones, you could determine where your water is being used and take steps to cut back use.   Going one step further, if those water sensors also had valves, you could control your household water use from anywhere in the world.  So when your teenager’s shower has gone over five minutes in length, you could abruptly get a notification and then shut off the water (or turn on the cold water full blast) from your hotel room in Hong Kong.

How might this Internet of Things concept apply to First Responders – the paramedics and firefighters and police officers who respond to our 911 calls?

I recently had a twitter conversation about this with Ray Lehr, former fire chief in Baltimore, and former FirstNet State Point of Contact (SPOC) for Maryland.  Ray suggested we should start talking about the Internet of Life Saving Things (IoLST) which I morphed into a possible Internet of First Responder Things (IoFRT).

There are many applications for the IoFRT, and I’d guess they fall into several buckets:

• First Responder Personal Things – the sensors and equipment which would be on or near a First Responder to help that officer do the job and keep the officer safe.
• 911 Caller and Victim Things – these sensors would help alert 911 centers and responders to problems so First Responders can quickly and accurately respond to calls for assistance.
• Information and Awareness Things – these sensors and machines would improve public safety by monitoring the natural and built environments.

Seattle Police Body Worn Video

“First Responder Personal Things” would include a variety of sensors and communication devices.  Body worn video cameras – so much in the news recently after the events in Ferguson, Missouri – are one example of an IoFRT device.  Most such cameras today record their video and hold it in the device.  But if wirelessly connected to the Internet (by, say, FirstNet), a police commander, 911 center and other authorized users could see the video in real time to advise and support the officer.

Read more of Bill’s blog here:  https://schrier.wordpress.com/2015/05/25/the-internet-of-first-responder-things-iofrt/