Integrating software with wireless

The information police officers need while they're on patrol is usually somewhere else. Either in records back at police stations, or in a dozen databases at local, state and federal levels.

Now officers can retrieve information from "wherever" - wirelessly. A company called ARINC is helping police do just that:

Dave Crawford of ARINC explains that computers in cruisers have reached the point of becoming as useful as desktop computers in an office. "What that really gets you is that you're able to query information databases that you typically would only be able to query from an office. That enhances the officer's ability to query real time information to determine where the problems are in the community, where he needs to be in the community and who he needs to be on the lookout for."