30 That Set 2013’s Technology Course
SSI’s 2013 Top Technology Innovations picks the 30 standout products from the past year not only notable for their technology but also their practicality.
ELERTS Communications Platform
The adoption of smartphones, an increasingly dangerous environment for citizens, and the need for public safety officials to respond quickly and effectively to incidents have conspired to bring about new public safety communication platforms. Having many data acquisition points and smartphones in many locations at the exact time they are needed is the fulcrum point.
Leveraging these vast numbers of smartphones and the data they collect in real-time, then aggregating, annotating and distributing that information to the right first response stakeholders makes the ELERTS system a valuable tool for both public and private organizations. The Boston Marathon gave all of us a vivid example of how much a public safety communication platform could help protect people against natural and terrorist events much more effectively.
Personal protection for your family, friends, college students, business traveler and aging parents has taken a giant leap forward with the EmergenSee App technology. Your smartphone can now act as your personal bodyguard with live streaming video and GPS locations to alert authorities that something may be awry. One touch and your smartphone helps protect you by feeding live audio, video, and GPS movement tracking with stealth mode (black screen) operations. This live dynamic information streams to the authorities in real-time, provid
ing a better chance for faster more accurate response from public safety. This new service has enormous opportunities to help protect students, health-care workers, corporations, aging parents or anyone who lives or works in high crime areas. The Web-based service is easy to implement and use and can be scaled for large or small applications.
Extrasensory Devices iPhone Light Meter
Just when you thought your iPhone couldn’t get any better as a business tool, along comes Luxi, a diffusion dome that fits over your iPhone front-facing camera. With its free app, this simple product provides your sales or application team with a reasonably accurate incidence light meter. Now why do you need this? If your team sells IP video solutions and some of them are outside, having a better idea of your incidence light factor will result in better IP camera application and happy customers.
Light is probably the single biggest variable environmental factor that significantly impacts IP video performance. Ignore it at your own risk! This product from Extrasensory Devices helps instill some basic disciplines and elementary tools at a low cost to provide better security solutions.
The rise of citywide IP video security applications has depended on the linkage and availability of those video assets for authorities managing and responding to security or safety events. Mesh networks have provided a technically robust method of efficiently delivering that communication from IP devices from the edge back to operational centers. At issue has been cost.
Firetide’s HotPort 5020 product line comes in three variations for application flexibility at a significantly lower price point than its workhorse 7000 Series. With single or dual radios and a reasonable 25Mbps throughput on the edge and 50Mbps on PTP, this product makes reliable mesh networks more practical and affordable for city or campus surveillance applications. Providing linkage for two or three cameras makes this edge product ideal for more coverage points and at a significantly lower price. When the IP video application calls for more locations but in smaller density, this product will help.
What do serious video gamers and an Oscar winner have in common? The Omnipresence 3D Pro Design product, a security design tool with roots in video gaming and Oscar-winning imagery used by animation companies that can now help you visualize your next security design quite differently. Most of us have had to settle for 2D drawings when conceptualizing and designing video security projects. Think about being able to import AutoCAD DWG and “see” camera-to-target view and pixel-on-target.
This new category of product optimizes customers’ security budgets by viewing camera placement results in advance. This key step saves time designing systems with early customer buy-in, and delivers confidence with the lens selection. Consider being able to “see” if the field of view actually matches your security design objectives before installation begins. It’s fun to use as well. Fortem (formerly Feeling Software) was a strategic partner in developing open 3D geographic standards for Google Earth. This technology will revolutionize the toolbox for designers of security city initiatives, and you can try it for FREE.
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About the Author
Paul Boucherle, SSI Contributor
Paul C. Boucherle, Certified Protection Professional (CPP) and Certified Sherpa Coach (CSC), is Security Sales & Integration’s “Business Fitness” columnist. A principal of Matterhorn Consulting, he has more than 30 years of diverse security and safety industry experience including UL central station operations, risk-vulnerability assessments, strategic security program design and management of industry convergence challenges. Boucherle has successfully guided top-tier companies in achieving enhanced ROI resulting from improved sales and operational management techniques. He is a charismatic speaker and educator on a wide range of critical topics relating to the security industry of today and an accomplished corporate strategist and marketer whose vision and expertise in business performance have driven notable enterprise growth in the security industry sector.
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