Tech Trend 247

Sandy Hook, Charlie Hebdo, San Bernardino, the Paris Attacks, Brussels, Istanbul. Virtually all of these terrorist attacks and mass shootings occurred in what are known as "soft target" locations: big spaces with multiple entries and exits, lots of people, and relatively little protection.

Soft targets like airports often contain more stringent security inside, but those security checkpoints, scanners and pat-downs you endure at the TSA are intended to protect the airplanes and their passengers. The rest of the airport terminal generally does not enjoy the same level of security.

It's often a question of scale. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the typical metal detector can scan roughly 15-20 people per minute. A TSA body scanner might handle 30 people per minute. Imagine one of those things set up at the entrance to an airport, school or concert (as they sometimes are). It can significantly slow things down, which is probably why we do not see more scanners at the entrance of soft targets. 

Evolv Technology's new Evolv Sentry may be the solution. The developers claim it can scan roughly 800 people per minute and is specifically designed to prevent, according to company CEO Mike Ellenbogen, "mass casualty events."

Ellenbogen told me they founded Evolv Technologies three years ago and immediately started working on the high-capacity threat detector. Along the way, they picked up funding from Bill Gate's Gates Ventures. Now the scanner is almost ready for use in the real world.

Move it and use it

With its metal body and walk-over platform, the roughly 200-pound, 66-inch-tall Evolv Sentry looks a little like any other body scanner. However, it's designed for speed, mobility and the rapid delivery of critical information.

First of all, the Evolv Sentry is built on casters so one or two people can easily move it from place to place (yes, the Evolve team brought it to Mashable's offices) and, though the prototype I saw was connected to a fairly powerful computer, the final Evolv Sentry — due in October — will be fully self- contained. To use it, security agents will just have to plug it in or choose the battery-operated model and just make sure it's fully charged before use.

As people walk through at a normal pace, the scanner bombards them with high-frequency radio waves that can detect the presence of weapons and explosives. 

"We look for specific types of materials on the body," noted Ellenbogen.

Evolv Sentry is not designed to detect bio-hazards. "They're hard to detect before release and can be a small amount ... we're not detecting it," he said. 

The focus is weapons, added Ellenbogen, especially those used in mass shooting events.

Red alert

Even during my brief demonstrations, I could see how quickly the scanner picked up on potential threats. A pair of company execs walked through the Evolv Sentry at a normal-to-brisk pace as LED lights on either side lit up with bright, red X's to indicate a threat. Those without anything concealed on their bodies get a green check. The Evolv Sentry is paired with a tablet app (iOS or Android) that displays a photo of the person who just passed through and a red box around the area of their bodies that may be concealing a weapon or explosive. The images I saw appeared less than a second after someone passed through the scanner.

It caught the semi-automatic-style BB gun under one guy's jacket and the fake bomb vest concealed under another. Ellenbogen explained that the scanner is looking at both materials and patterns. When I asked about its facility with 3D-printed guns, he said, "The tests look pretty positive."

The scanner is also a networked device, which means it can connect to third-party software like facial recognition systems, which, Ellenbogen believes, could help security agents "look for known wolves." In other words, people on watch lists and in law enforcement databases.

Evolv plans to sell the Evolv Sentry for $50,000 (including some training and setup), which may mean schools and businesses might only consider buying one. However, even larger venues may use fewer and take advantage of the system's mobility adding what Ellenbogen calls "a random screening element."

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