This morning I pulled up the University of Memphis’ site to look at their academic calendar, and they had a very interesting article linked from the home page. Their computer science department, where I got my Master’s degree, has developed a product called AutoWitness, which is a device smaller than a penny that can be attached to a car or pretty much any other valuable piece of property. AutoWitness is smart enough to know the difference between normal motion, as would be carried out by the property’s owner, and motion that suggests the property is being stolen. It can notify the police of the theft, and update police computers with its location. Very very cool. MPD is very interested in it and it should be deployable within a year, retailing for somewhere in the range of $10 to $20.