Microsoft and NYPD (New York Police Department) on Wednesday presented a first joint development in New York. The new integrated surveillance system, designed to combat crime and terrorism, has been named as Domain Awareness System or DAS.

DAS provides law enforcement agencies an ability to monitor what is happening in real time. The system has been integrated with a huge police database, and can also record calls to 911 emergency services or reproduce data from municipal security cameras and radio transmitters. Working of DAS has been supported by some of the other programs created by Microsoft, for example, SharePoint and Virtual Earth.

NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly said that all the information is presented both visually and graphically, and at once, in chronological order.

Developed by Microsoft engineers jointly with the NYPD staff, DAS will allow, for example, to track suspicious vehicles and observe their further movement or use the camera to see who left a suspicious package. This innovative invention is much like a hologram, which were used in Steven Spielberg’s science fiction film “Minority Report.”

No one in the city government had expected a joint venture with Microsoft, when the Redmond giant approached New York authorities to implement a project for monitoring the city streets. The project was completed in October last year, enabling police personnel sitting in Lower Manhattan headquarters to keep a real time eye on the entire city through 3000 CCTV cameras.

Total cost for implementing the project is estimated to be more than $ 40 million, but New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg believes that these costs will be covered, and even the earn profit. Under the deal, the city government will now get 30% share whenever the system is sold to other cities in America or NATO countries.

New York Mayor noted that this project is a perfect example of how public and private sectors can to work together to improve people’s lives.

In recent years, Mr. Bloomberg has been keen on implementing such public private partnership projects in the city. In another such program, Mr. New York authorities have entered an agreement with Goldman Sachs to provide credit aimed at reducing re-offending among young people coming out of New York’s Rikers Island prison. The program is called Social impact bond. Under this program, Goldman Sachs plans to invest approximately $ 10 million over four years.

Authorities in Big Apple will now be monitoring the city streets 24×7 to make the lives of its citizens a safer place to live.

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