When the Bernalillo County Sheriff Department’s (BCSD) Metro Air Support Unit (MASU) receives a search and rescue call from dispatch, time, speed, and, most importantly, situational awareness (SA) are crucial, make-or-break factors that determine the outcome of a critical incident. To add pressure to an already intense situation, New Mexico’s

The civilian version of the U.S. military’s situational awareness application, ATAK, is officially released so any team around the world can take advantage of its leading tools for teamwide command and control — completely free of charge. The Team Awareness Kit for Android (often referred to as CivTAK or TAK-CIV)

Dismounted warfighters and first responders carry all of the communications and situational awareness tools they need to coordinate activities with their teammates and superiors, request for assistance when in trouble, and maintain knowledge of what’s happening in their area of operations and location.  As communications technology becomes more and more

Public safety agencies and organizations across the globe are becoming increasingly smartphone-centric. In a recent webinar hosted by the International Public Safety Association, panelist Dale Stockton said, “When you consider the sheer utility and overall functionality, [smartphones] have become the tech equivalent of the proverbial Swiss Army knife.”  It’s this

Mobile devices and applications are increasingly critical to day-to-day public safety operations, but many organizations are unprepared in the event cell phone connectivity — and access to these new tools — becomes unreliable or unavailable. New advancements in mobile and wireless communications are now allowing emergency response and recovery teams

In my home state of Texas, we’ve experienced three “five hundred year floods” in just the past few years. And that’s a similar story to what we’re hearing across the country, where flooding, wildfires, hurricanes and other natural disasters are seemingly increasing in frequency. But they’re not just happening more