Police in Fremont, California are installing laptops from Grid Systems in patrol cars, combined with mobile packet radio modems manufactured by Dataradio Corp. GridCase 1530 laptops are mounted near the dashboard in Fremont patrol cars, next to the manual radio, while the modems are installed in the boot. Police officers use the laptops for finding information quickly, for example a licence plate can be typed into the computer by an officer and transmitted to the department’s main computer for a check within seconds – faster than using the radio. An officer can request a report on a driver or vehicle, to see, for example, whether the car is stolen or the driver has outstanding warrants. According to Grid the information can be sent more securely via the modem, than using an ordinary radio and police envision that graphics, mug shots and even fingerprints could be sent using the system. The laptop is based on an Intel 80386 processor and can also be used by the officers to write up crime and accident reports in the car.
