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It’s worth noting that there may have been enough traditional evidence (bloody clothes found at the suspect’s residence) to charge and convict, and the suspect
by danso 8y ago
It’s worth noting that there may have been enough traditional evidence (bloody clothes found at the suspect’s residence) to charge and convict, and the suspect was alresdy known to be in contact with the victim. But the story’s recounting of the events seems to insinuate that the Fitbit data made it much easier to focus on the suspect. I mention this because the Fitbit angle sounds like the kind of detail that might get slightly oversold because it makes law enforcement look especially clever (and it’s obviously media catnip).
As these wearables become more reliable — e.g. a report of a sudden stopped heartbeat is unlikely to be a hardware failure — I wonder if society will expect companies to be more proactive in contacting the user and emergency authorities. I mean, more than what the new Apple Watch offers as (I assume) opt-in, like how credit card companies call you quickly after suspicious activity.
- stickfigure 8y agoWe can call it... DocWagon.
- _Codemonkeyism 8y agoStill miss Shadowrun.
- baud147258 8y agoWould they send an extraction team to get you out of trouble, too?
- madeuptempacct 8y agoI really think that's going to be a thing in the future. We can make it a thing now if anyone wants to fund me =) Straight to cryogenic storage from there.
- mirimir 8y agoIt was surveillance video that primarily implicated him, by showing his car. And then the Fitbit data showed that she had died while the car was still there. Without the surveillance video, the Fitbit data would arguably have been useless.
- endorphone 8y agoGiven that it precisely indicated the time of death (and given that the body wasn't found for days, much more precisely than any other method would have), it would have remained incredibly useful.
- mirimir 8y agoYes, that's true. But from the article, I gather that there weren't signs of forced entry or robbery. So investigators very likely suspected that the victim knew the murderer. And so mom and step-dad were likely on the short list. Also, they'd still have seen his car in the video. And they knew when she stopped showing up at work.
- gizmo686 8y ago> I wonder if society will expect companies to be more proactive in contacting the user and emergency authorities. I'm suprised this isn't already a thing, at least on overpriced specialty devices. My grandfather already wears a device that detects when he falls (or pushes the button) and will call the company, who will then call us and an ambulance if they cannot determine everything is okay. They seem to be okay with a pretty high false positive rate. As you move into less at risk populations, your tolerance for false positives will go down though.
- stereo 8y agoMy heartbeat “stops” every time I take my watch off to charge it.
- yellowapple 8y agoI don't know if any fitness trackers actually do this, but I'm sure it's possible to differentiate between "I'm not on the user's wrist" and "I'm on the user's wrist and not detecting a heartbeat". Skin (with or without a pulse) and air should have different electrical resistances, for example. Also, I'm pretty sure the case of "oh no I can't feel a heartbeat - oh wait, I'm on the charger" is detectable, too (that is: if it's charging, don't assume the user is dead because of an inability to detect a pulse).