City Surveillance - Expert commentary
Video surveillance solutions have come a long way in recent years, including this past one, with IP-based imaging solutions delivering incredible resolution and detail to provide higher levels of situational awareness, information and overall security. In 2017, we also witnessed how video surveillance serves an emerging need and desire to acquire greater business intelligence. Today’s cameras and VMS are able to truly deliver on the promise of IP video without requiring end users to break...
2017 was a very interesting year within the security industry. Although the overall economy seems to be in a stable and growing state, security spending seems to have become more “thought-out” and strategic as opposed to some of the impulsive spending on the latest pieces of technology to hit the marketplace. Many end users and integrators are thinking more long-term and some of the biggest concerns have been scalability and interoperability. Unified Management Platforms One of the...
An increase in spending on security, more focus on data security, higher demand for integrated solutions, and steady progress to move beyond the pixel race were key trends in 2017. As we look forward to 2018, we will continue to see development in these areas as well as greater impact of the Internet of Things (IoT) on the video security market. Potential Of Video Security Data More and more, users are realizing that the real issues in video security are not about pixel counts. Managing incre...
The term “smart city” gets thrown around a lot nowadays, but as different technologies that strive to be defined in this way are adopted by different countries globally, the meaning of this phrase gets lost in translation. The simplest way to define a “smart city” is that it is an urban area that uses different types of data collecting sensors to manage assets and resources efficiently. One of the most obvious types of “data collecting sensor” is the video ca...
A tipping point is defined as: “The point at which a series of changes becomes significant enough to cause a larger, more important change”. In the same way that IP video changed surveillance a decade ago, our industry is now feeling the impact of recent developments in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Big Data, and Intelligent Video Analysis. Keyword Definitions Let’s start with a few more definitions. Artificial Intelligence (AI) deals with the sim...
In a world where hacking and denial of service are everyday threats, many feel that it is about time for the world of the Internet of Things (IoT) to undergo a reality check over its strategy and promotion before disaster strikes, reputations are lost and investors pull up stakes and run for the hills. What Is New About IoT? Having made, lost and then re-made my fortune in and around the industry over the past 20-plus years, I cannot help but smile over the level of hype &md...
Remember the old adage “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts?” Nowhere is that truism more evident than when you add network video to the current generation of Internet of Things (IoT) solutions. Whether we’re talking about industrial IoT applications, “Smart – X” (city, building, parking etc.) or retail operations, integrating network video into the solution provides value far beyond simple situational awareness. Optimising Sophisticated Video Tec...
Manufacturers depend on consultants to get their technologies specified in customer projects. Consultants often depend on manufacturers to provide them current information about the technologies that are the building blocks of their projects. It’s a symbiotic relationship, but not always a perfect one. We recently gathered three consultants to discuss what they want from manufacturers, and a representative of HID Global to add a manufacturer’s perspective. Manufacturers also look to...
Energy security, access to the electrical grid and police and fire safety are just a handful of the networked services that we take for granted and rely upon on a daily basis. Every second of every day, sensors are digitizing the real world, creating information and transporting it across multiple networks and interfaces to a broadening audience. While there is obvious utility being gleaned from this process, from our vantage point here in the physical security space, information sharing and tra...
Real-time search analytics addresses one of the most important control room tasks - locating a person of interest If you have been to any of the many security industry tradeshows this year you will undoubtedly have seen and heard the phrase ‘next generation video analytics’. Is it just a catchy marketing phrase or is there more substance behind it? Video analytics as a technology has been with us for many years, but there has always been an air of confusion and mys...
SourceSecurity.com’s Expert Panel covered a lot of ground in 2016 about a variety of topics in our Roundtable discussions. The very most-clicked-on Roundtable discussion in 2016 was about how to choose between a cloud-based system and a server-based system. Other hot topics that made the Top-10 list of Roundtable discussions included edge-based video storage, the challenges of commoditization, and mistakes customers make when buying and installing security systems. He...
With security, as with any business cost-center, business leadership wants to find savings where they make sense. As a result, one of the trends we are seeing is that security departments are teaming up with other departments - IT, operations, marketing - to maximize their investment in security systems and leverage the data collected by their physical security sensors to inform their business strategies. Rise In Cyber-Attacks We have also seen a worrying increase in cyber-attacks, like the hi...
There has been a lot of investment in safe city projects around the world in 2016, particularly in India, where Qognify is currently involved in a number of major initiatives, as well as upgrading of security systems at major public transportation hubs and international airports. At Qognify, we have seen a continual trend towards organizations wanting their security systems to deliver operational efficiency and effectiveness to the wider business. Here are some notable trend...
We can now leverage technology to monitor activity across the public domain, searching Google, Facebook, and Twitter, for example, for specific keywords For more than a decade, Verint Systems, Melville, New York, has been developing and redefining the phrase the company pioneered: actionable intelligence. Today, its real-world specifications provide an in-depth analysis of video and integrated physical security data, deepening the gathering of intelligence and lessening risk a...
Part 6 of our Robots in Security series Later this year Universal Protection Service will begin offering a new autonomous robot to customers in California The next security guard you see may look more like R2D2 than Paul Blart, Mall Cop. Robots are starting to make their way into the offerings of security companies, and they may give guards a whole new image. Later this year Universal Protection Service — a division of Universal Services of America — wil...
Today, we find ourselves in a world where we all need to talk less about products and more about solutions The security industry has changed a lot in recent years. Many will remember a time not so long ago when it was about buying boxes/pieces of tin, opening them up and installing them. Today, we find ourselves in a world where we all need to talk less about products and more about solutions. Despite this, there is still an inclination to put everything in a ‘box’...
H.265 compression, apps and the inherent security of security systems were some of the themes to be gleaned on the first day of IFSEC International. Almost every video exhibitor I saw on day one of the show mentioned that many of their products use H.265 compression in these days of high definition, bandwidth-hungry cameras. Over at Vivotek’s stand, for example, Emilio Sanchez, project consultant, spoke of the company’s H.265 Smart Stream compression algorithm. He said this saves an...
PSIM systems extend their value beyond emergencies by including routinemanagement tools, that provide value during daily operations, such as automatingmaintenance activities Physical Security Information Management (PSIM), an acronym termed to describe a family of software platforms that claim to replace traditional command and control (C&C) systems, primarily used to provide situation awareness in control and monitoring centers of Critical Facilities. Traditional C...
Temperature, dusty and dirty conditions, along with limited access to networkingmakes remote location video surveillance extremely challenging Properly conducting video surveillance for any organization comes with several challenges. Not the least of which is how to architect a system that finds the right balance between quality, cost and bandwidth impact. This becomes even more challenging in non-traditional, demanding environments that are uncontrolled or highly dispersed, w...
According to Merit LILIN, the UAE will be a thriving new and potential market in 2016since Europe’s economy is still sluggish The global Chinese community recently welcomed the year of the Fire Monkey with a two-week celebration, concluding with the lantern festival at the end of February. According to Chinese astrology, we are now in the year of the Fire Monkey. What’s in store for businesses around the world? Global economic growth is predicted for the ye...
An improving economy has resulted in additional spending on new and existing security initiatives in 2015, a solid year for the security industry. In addition, industry consolidation continued with the announcement of a few important mergers and acquisitions, which is further evidence of a vibrant and exciting time for our industry. As we move into 2016, we expect to see increased momentum for megapixel and 4K security products. The benefits of 4K are being realised by end users in outdoor cit...
In the past year, ONVIF prepared the release of two new profiles, Profiles Q and A, which are currently in Release Candidate status, being fine-tuned by developers from member organizations. They are ONVIF’s fourth and fifth profiles, with Profile Q addressing easy set-up and advanced security features and Profile A encompassing daily tasks for access control. ONVIF also hit major milestones in 2015, reaching the 5,000-conformant product mark and maintaining a membership of more than 500 m...
Hikvision USA enjoyed tremendous success in 2015, thanks in part to the continued growth of the security industry. As we see a broader variety of vertical markets showing an increasing need for video surveillance, security vendors must be versatile in their product offering. The products themselves must be highly scalable and must provide high performance at a competitive price. Hikvision has been able to accomplish all of these things with a product suite that includes high definition analog,...
Today, the once crime-ridden area of Los Angeles is a flourishing shopping and tourist mecca Los Angeles struggled with a rising crime rate. Constant crime plagued the historic area with its well-known tourist attractions, which include TCL Chinese Theater and the Walk of Fame. Criminal activity ranged from major to minor, from felonies to prostitution, public drunkenness, trespassing, vandalism, theft and on and on. Time and budget constraints had forced local police officer...
The ultimate goal is to predict violent incidents through analytical intelligence Potential deployments of video analytics, or my own preferred term “intelligent scene analysis,” are being worked on by some of the best minds at university campuses across the United Kingdom. Later this year I will visit Kingston University whose Digital Imaging Research Centre is one of the largest computer vision groups in Europe. Violence Prevention Through Analytical Intelligenc...
Although in many cases CCTV has been an effective investigation tool, its full potential is not being realised It’s all very well installing CCTV cameras, but to be effective users have to know what to do to make images available to the police and courts, according to detective chief inspector Mick Neville of the Metropolitan Police. Although in many cases CCTV has been an effective investigation tool, its full potential is not being realised, says Neville, who is due t...
