Taser International has begun selling Axon, a video surveillance system that records police officer response calls.

The Scottsdale, Ariz.-based manufacturer of the device, Taser International, now enters something of a rebranding period as it begins to sell its newest product, Axon, a video surveillance system that records police officer response calls. The footage can then be securely stored online for reference.

Taser's new Axon system was first sold for use in March 2010, to the Aberdeen, South Dakota police department. Since then, it's been used by 16 police departments, and has generated $300,000 of Taser's $87 million revenue in 2010. In other words, it's still very small. Axon is a small camera clipped on a headband similar to a Bluetooth. A cartridge on the officer's belt shows what is being recorded. Later, the footage can be uploaded to evidence.com, a cloud database that Taser built.

There have been 12 deaths caused by Tasers and the company has been sued 170 times. In the cases of serious injury or death, Smith says the cause is typically a state called "excited delirium" and involves a suspect that is on drugs and hyper-agitated.

Smith likes to put the injury rate in perspective by comparing it to the injury rate of other forms of violence: Two out of every 1,000 exposures to a Taser result in serious injury. According to an LAPD study, that number for a kick is 450, for a punch is 780, and for exposure to a gunshot it's 500 (the other 500 are deaths).

Link:
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/09/06/a-new-life-for-taser-this-time-with-less-controversy/