Aritech Video Surveillance software

Urban populations are expanding rapidly around the globe, with an expected growth of 1.56 billion by 2040. As the number of people living and working in cities continues to grow, the ability to keep everyone safe is an increasing challenge. However, technology companies are developing products and solutions with these futuristic cities in mind, as the reality is closer than you may think. Solutions that can help to watch over public places and share data insights with city workers and officials are increasingly enabling smart cities to improve the experience and safety of the people who reside there. Rising scope of 5G, AI, IoT and the Cloud The main foundations that underpin smart cities are 5G, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and the Internet of Things (IoT) and the Cloud. Each is equally important, and together, these technologies enable city officials to gather and analyze more detailed insights than ever before. For public safety in particular, having IoT and cloud systems in place will be one of the biggest factors to improving the quality of life for citizens. Smart cities have come a long way in the last few decades, but to truly make a smart city safe, real-time situational awareness and cross-agency collaboration are key areas which must be developed as a priority. Innovative surveillance cameras with integrated IoT Public places need to be safe, whether that is an open park, shopping center, or the main roads through towns Public places need to be safe, whether that is an open park, shopping center, or the main roads through towns. From dangerous drivers to terrorist attacks, petty crime on the streets to high profile bank robberies, innovative surveillance cameras with integrated IoT and cloud technologies can go some way to helping respond quickly to, and in some cases even prevent, the most serious incidents. Many existing safety systems in cities rely on aging and in some places legacy technology, such as video surveillance cameras. Many of these also use on-premises systems rather than utilising the benefits of the cloud. Smart programming to deliver greater insights These issues, though not creating a major problem today, do make it more challenging for governments and councils to update their security. Changing every camera in a city is a huge undertaking, but in turn, doing so would enable all cameras to be connected to the cloud, and provide more detailed information which can be analyzed by smart programming to deliver greater insights. The physical technologies that are currently present in most urban areas lack the intelligent connectivity, interoperability and integration interfaces that smart cities need. Adopting digital technologies isn’t a luxury, but a necessity. Smart surveillance systems It enables teams to gather data from multiple sources throughout the city in real-time, and be alerted to incidents as soon as they occur. Increased connectivity and collaboration ensures that all teams that need to be aware of a situation are informed instantly. For example, a smart surveillance system can identify when a road accident has occurred. It can not only alert the nearest ambulance to attend the scene, but also the local police force to dispatch officers. An advanced system that can implement road diversions could also close roads around the incident immediately and divert traffic to other routes, keeping everyone moving and avoiding a build-up of vehicles. This is just one example: without digital systems, analyzing patterns of vehicle movements to address congestion issues could be compromised, as would the ability to build real-time crime maps and deploy data analytics which make predictive policing and more effective crowd management possible. Cloud-based technologies Cloud-based technologies provide the interoperability, scalability and automation Cloud-based technologies provide the interoperability, scalability and automation that is needed to overcome the limitations of traditional security systems. Using these, smart cities can develop a fully open systems architecture that delivers interoperation with both local and other remote open systems. The intelligence of cloud systems can not only continue to allow for greater insights as technology develops over time, but it can do so with minimal additional infrastructure investment. Smart surveillance in the real world Mexico City has a population of almost 9 million people, but if you include the whole metropolitan area, this number rises sharply to over 21 million in total, making it one of the largest cities on the planet. Seven years ago, the city first introduced its Safe City initiative, and ever since has been developing newer and smarter ways to keep its citizens safe. In particular, its cloud-based security initiative is making a huge impact. Over the past three years, Mexico City has installed 58,000 new video surveillance cameras throughout the city, in public spaces and on transport, all of which are connected to the City’s C5 (Command, Control, Computers, Communications and Citizen Contact) facility. Smart Cities operations The solution enables officers as well as the general public to upload videos via a mobile app to share information quickly, fixed, body-worn and vehicle cameras can also be integrated to provide exceptional insight into the city’s operations. The cloud-based platform can easily be upgraded to include the latest technology innovations such as license plate reading, behavioral analysis software, video analytics and facial recognition software, which will all continue to bring down crime rates and boost response times to incidents. The right cloud approach Making the shift to cloud-based systems enables smart cities to eliminate dependence on fiber-optic connectivity and take advantage of a variety of Internet and wireless connectivity options that can significantly reduce application and communication infrastructure costs. Smart cities need to be effective in years to come, not just in the present day, or else officials have missed one of the key aspects of a truly smart city. System designers must build technology foundations now that can be easily adapted in the future to support new infrastructure as it becomes available. Open system architecture An open system architecture will also be vital for smart cities to enhance their operations For example, this could include opting for a true cloud application that can support cloud-managed local devices and automate their management. An open system architecture will also be vital for smart cities to enhance their operations and deliver additional value-add services to citizens as greater capabilities become possible in the years to come. The advances today in cloud and IoT technologies are rapid, and city officials and authorities have more options now to develop their smart cities than ever before and crucially, to use these innovations to improve public safety. New safety features Though implementing these cloud-based systems now requires investment, as new safety features are designed, there will be lower costs and challenges associated with introducing these because the basic infrastructure will already exist. Whether that’s gunshot detection or enabling the sharing of video infrastructure and data across multiple agencies in real time, smart video surveillance on cloud-based systems can bring a wealth of the new opportunities.

Securing Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) in the transportation industry is multi-faceted for a multitude of reasons. Pressures build for transit industry players to modernise their security systems, while also mitigating the vulnerabilities, risks, and growth-restrictions associated with proprietary as well as integrated solutions. There are the usual physical security obstacles when it comes to increasingly integrated solutions and retrofitting updated technologies into legacy systems. Starting with edge devices like cameras and intelligent sensors acquiring video, analytics and beyond, these edge devices are now found in almost all public transportation like buses, trains, subways, airplanes, cruise lines, and so much more. You can even find them in the world’s last manually operated cable car systems in San Francisco. The next layer to consider is the infrastructure and networks that support these edge devices and connect them to centralized monitoring stations or a VMS. Without this layer, all efforts at the edge or stations are in vain as you lose the connection between the two. And the final layer to consider when building a comprehensive transit solution is the software, recording devices, or viewing stations themselves that capture and report the video. The challenge of mobility However, the transportation industry in particular has a very unique challenge that many others do not – mobility. As other industries become more connected and integrated, they don’t usually have to consider going in and out or bouncing between networks as edge devices physically move. Obviously in the nature of transportation, this is key. Have you ever had a bad experience with your cellular, broadband or Wi-Fi at your home or office? You are not alone. The transportation industry in particular has a very unique challenge that many others do not – mobility Can you trust these same environments to record your surveillance video to the Cloud without losing any frames, non-stop 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year? To add to the complexity – how do you not only provide a reliable and secure solution when it’s mobile, traveling at varying speeds, and can be in/out of coverage using various wireless technologies? Waiting to upload video from a transport vehicle when it comes into port, the station, or any centralized location is a reactive approach that simply will not do any longer. Transit operations require a more proactive approach today and the ability to constantly know what is going on at any given time on their mobile vehicles, and escalate that information to headquarters, authorities, or law enforcement if needed; which can only occur with real-time monitoring. This is the ultimate question when it comes to collecting, analyzing, and sharing data from mobile vehicles – how to get the video from public transportation vehicles alike to headquarters in real time! Managing video data In order to answer this question, let’s get back to basics. The management and nature of video data differs greatly from conventional (IT) data. Not only is video conducted of large frames, but there are specific and important relationships among the frames and the timing between them. This relationship can easily get lost in translation if not handled properly. This is why it’s critical to consider the proper way to transmit large frames while under unstable or variable networks. The Internet and its protocols were designed more than two decades ago and purposed for conventional data. Although the Internet itself has not changed, today’s network environments run a lot faster, expand to further ranges, and support a variety of different types of data. Because the internet is more reliable and affordable than in the past some might think it can handle anything. However, it is good for data, but not for video. This combination makes it the perfect time to convert video recording to the Cloud! Video transmission protocol One of the main issues with today’s technology is the degradation of video quality when transmitting video over the Internet. ITS are in dire need for reliable transmission of real-time video recording. To address this need a radical, yet proven, video transmission protocol has recently been introduced to the market. It uses AI technology and to adapt to different environments in order to always deliver high quality, complete video frames. This protocol, when equipped with encryption and authentication, enables video to be transmitted reliably and securely over the Internet in a cloud environment. One of the main issues with today’s technology is the degradation of video quality when transmitting video over the Internet Finally, transportation industry has a video recording Cloud solution that is designed for (massive) video that can handle networks that might be experiencing high error rate. Such a protocol will not only answer the current challenges of the transportation industry, but also make the previously risky Cloud environment safe for even the most reserved environments and entities. With revolutionary transmission protocols, the time is now to consider adopting private Cloud for your transportation operations.

In a world forever changed by the coronavirus pandemic, companies worldwide are now expanding their concept of physical security to best safeguard their facilities and employees. Few incidents have had as much of an impact on businesses globally as the COVID-19 pandemic; much of the world is still struggling to contain COVID-19, navigating the lasting effects and exploring what the “new normal” looks like. While some organizations are still engaged primarily in “anywhere operations”, i.e. remote work, many organizations are implementing strategic physical security solutions that better protect everyone through the use of video surveillance technology and advanced intelligence capabilities. As this new normal takes hold within the business environment, security strategies will largely be centered around several key initiatives like access control, people counting, occupancy controls, temperature screening, contact tracing, and reducing office touch points. With the use of a video management system (VMS) in the shadow of COVID-19, occupancy data from a VMS can trigger a lockdown and not permit new entrants until the occupancy drops below a certain threshold; this is significantly useful for organizations that have returned to in-person work.  But there’s a caveat: though many legacy security systems are being re-evaluated to allow for touchless or frictionless access control — a move designed to eliminate the need for employees and visitors to physically touch a surface when using an access control system — upgrading the outdated technologies can be cumbersome and expensive, especially for organizations that had not planned for an interruption like the pandemic. Security contractors will be vital So, what is the solution? Security contractors will play a vital role in helping end-users across a range of vertical markets — large and small — to achieve their goals in the new paradigm. For some, this may mean leveraging existing access control and video surveillance systems with upgrades where needed. For others, an entire overhaul is made possible with budget friendly solutions for businesses to migrate to integrated access control through end-to-end security solutions that tie into existing infrastructures without major disruptions (meaning the organization will never be left vulnerable). Cybersecurity is becoming even more intertwined with physical security There is massive transformation occurring in the security industry, most notably the movement to digitise physical access and integrate it with video management systems and surveillance. This shift means that cybersecurity is becoming even more intertwined with physical security, allowing organizations the ability to correlate the metadata of people’s behaviors and activities — a plus point for those looking to remain vigilant against future pandemic-esque business interruptions. Access, video, and audio are converging into consolidated platforms. Due to lower costs and pairings with IP-based, wireless infrastructure, there are infinite solution configurations. IT security requirements are beginning to apply to physical security because of this integrated infrastructure. Multi-factor authentication The security industry is also beginning to see a trend of multi-factor authentication, which is going to dominate in the days to come as it makes solutions more reliable. Most people carry smartphones these days, which have green check communication capabilities that allow easy multi-factor authentication. Costs are going down, and algorithms are getting better, making more people willing to try it. Some new solutions have both the fingerprint reader and a camera for facial biometrics Some new solutions have both the fingerprint reader and a camera for facial biometrics. Cameras and CCD modules cost almost nothing, and they do not have to be super high-end anymore, especially if organizations are doing one-to-one verification. It’s not just about security now; it is security, health, and safety. Access control with video, intelligent readers, and credentials is a perfect platform for next generation solutions.

A used car lot owner had re-occurring issues with intruders cutting holes in the perimeter fence during night-time hours and vandalizing or burglarizing the area. The intruders would not enter the small office building, so the security system was never triggered. The customer did own a video surveillance system and it would record criminal activity but it did not prevent or deter crime. Integrating motion detectors Using the existing intrusion alarm panel (Interlogix NX8-v2 panel) and the existing video system, the system integrator introduced two OPTEX Visual Verification Bridges and four OPTEX Redwall SIP-3020 Outdoor PIR motion detectors. The motion detectors were installed over the two main perimeter light poles pointing into the lot with IP cameras located directly above each of the motion detectors. Access to camera visual With the two Visual Verification Bridges installed, the integrator can provide operators immediate access to eight live cameras during every alarm event. The Redwall SIP-3020 provided up to 30m of distance coverage and 20m width, complete with anti-masking and vandal tampers. With this simple but effective solution, the integrator was able to provide their customer with immediate visual verification of alarm sensors, only when the alarm panel is armed. Wireless key fobs were provided so the dealer can arm and disarm the system from outside the gate helping to eliminate false alarms during arming and disarming. Reduced false alarms Since the completion of this installation, there have been several nuisance alarms caused by cats that were immediately disregarded. Due to the visual verification solution there was no intrusion and the client has not had any vandalism or crime since. Per the customer’s request, the OPTEX Bridge has been installed on three additional car lots.

Feenics Inc., an award-winning provider of the Access Control as a Service (ACaaS) Keep by Feenics cloud-hosted platform, has added two new team members to its Ottawa headquarters. Yannis Souris has been appointed Marketing Manager and Chris Smith takes on the role of Regional Sales Manager for the Northeast, as the company continues to address its ongoing fast growth in the cloud-hosted access control market. Souris is a seasoned marketing professional with 20 years of experience in digital marketing programs, brand management and e-Commerce platforms. His marketing, advertising and creative work has garnered Souris considerable recognition—earning more than 200 local, national and international awards. Cloud-hosted platform Chris Smith is a results-oriented professional with nearly a decade of experience managing a national territory At Feenics, Souris will work closely with top management to continue to communicate the Feenics story of the efficiencies of a cloud-hosted platform—focusing on social media, media outreach and internal and external marketing programs. Prior to joining Feenics, Souris was Digital Marketing Director for Knowland Courses and Workshops in Ottawa. New Regional Sales Manager for the Northeast, Chris Smith is a results-oriented professional with nearly a decade of experience managing a national territory, focusing on the implementation of effective strategies to increase sales and grow the customer base. Most recently he was Regional Sales Manager for Interlogix, where he managed and developed the dealer channel, attaining leading sales results. His other achievements include: 2018 Top Rising Talent Award; Employee of the Quarter Q1 2018; and Top 10% in sales quota achievement. Assist in critical initiatives “As we continue to grow, adding important team members will assist in our critical initiatives and messaging,” said Paul DiPeso, Executive Vice President of Feenics. “With these two hires, we bring new and exciting marketing expertise and deep sales experience to the Feenics organization.” Keep by Feenics gives users the choice of on-site servers or offsite cloud deployment Feenics continues to fortify its position as an ACaaS market leader, recently certified as an International Organization for Standardization ISO 9001:2015 company. To address global growth, Feenics opened an office in the Middle East and since has added other management and sales team members to solidify its market expansion. Feenics is the maker of Keep, a cloud-hosted platform that provides extreme scalability, unprecedented flexibility and advanced security in ACaaS applications. Native visitor management It integrates native visitor management and a RESTful API that allows systems installers simple integration of a wide array of complementary systems and open hardware devices, generating new revenue streams while creating a path for customers to lower their total cost of system ownership. Keep by Feenics gives users the choice of on-site servers or offsite cloud deployment, hosted by the public cloud Amazon Web Services. Keep significantly minimizes costs through simple, maintenance-free and automatic upgrades, patches, disaster recovery and back up.

Interlogix, a division of UTC Climate, Controls & Security, announces a plan to dismantle its businesses in the United States and Canada by the end of the year. Here is a statement from the company: “After a thorough portfolio review of our security business, we have communicated our plans to wind down our Interlogix U.S. and Canada businesses. This decision will allow us to focus on the significant growth opportunities for our other fire and security businesses, including LenelS2.” Fire detection and life safety Dealers can continue to purchase, install, register, and service Interlogix products with complete confidence" Interlogix products will be manufactured and orders fulfilled through 2019 and will be available for purchase from distributors and dealers during ‘a well-coordinated transition period,’ according to the company. “We will continue to provide customer support related to product technical services, timely fulfillment and comprehensive product warranty into 2020 and beyond,” says the company statement “Dealers can continue to purchase, install, register, and service Interlogix products with complete confidence.” Interlogix represents a full product line including intrusion detection, video surveillance, fire detection and life safety, access control and security/fire data transmission products. Enhanced video streaming capabilities Interlogix was created in the merger in 2000 of ITI Technologies and SLC Technologies. It was purchased by General Electric in 2002 and later renamed GE Security. United Technologies Corp. (UTC) bought the security business of General Electric in 2010 and reverted back to using the Interlogix brand. Last year, Interlogix introduced TruVision Navigator version 8.0 of its unified security software Last year, Interlogix introduced TruVision Navigator version 8.0 of its popular unified security software, including enhanced video streaming capabilities, integration with the Interlogix UltraSync Modular Hub systems and tighter integration with IFS networking switches. Voice-Controlled digital devices Early this year, Interlogix reinvested in its UL-listed, professional-grade, security panel lineup and added two touchscreen controls. In addition, it began providing access to more device integrations – such as sensors, lights, locks, thermostats and garage door controls, video doorbell cameras and voice-controlled digital devices, among others. In the spring, the company re-launched its Interlogix Security Pro program, a national channel partner program offering Interlogix dealers an array of resources and incentives designed to help them successfully grow their businesses.