Featured Stories

RSS

Austerity breeds creativity. The economic pinch has informed the choices of end users in all kinds of security, particularly in the past year. The access control customer today is better educated and more tech savvy. The consumer world has taught them that technology can help them not only do more with less, but do it more smoothly, efficiently and cost-effectively than ever before.

In 1964, two young entrepreneurs, Jerry Lodge and Jerry Stamis, created a compact new casino called Jerry’s Nugget in Las Vegas. Their small business immediately began growing and four years later, their “gold mine” needed to move across the road to its present location with a total area of 95,000 square feet. In 2010, Jeremy Stamis, executive manager at Jerry’s Nugget Casino, decided that it was time for a security camera technology update and that the casino’s 220 existing analog cameras would be replaced.

"Cloud computing” is a catch-all term that refers to many different technologies and business models. But they are not all created equally. Some are turnkey; others roll-your-own. Some are secure; others easily exploited. Some are publicly accessible, others highly restricted. For cloud-based physical security applications, all of these characteristics are important to consider.

How to stay at the top of your game? Stay attuned to change, specifically to game changer technology platforms, including the ones discussed in this article, that are poised to take security from ‘what it is’ to ‘what it will be.’ Almost everyone has heard a version of Isaac Asimov’s famous quote, “The only constant is change,” which is a translated version of a quote by Heraclitus, a 500 B.C. Greek philosopher. 

How people communicate with one another has undergone enormous changes in the last few years — and as a result, the home phone line that for decades was a cornerstone of customers’ alarm systems has begun to seem like an endangered species. According to the Federal Communications Commission, about two-thirds of U.S. homes now have a broadband connection such as DSL or a cable modem. And increasing numbers of Americans are also using that connection to support voice service using VOIP. Combine this with the near-ubiquity of cell phones and we now have a situation where many households have no traditional telephone. 

It is becoming increasingly obvious that the video surveillance industry is undergoing a technological shift. Analog cameras are being replaced by digital, IP-based cameras. Although IP has grown significantly since the early 2000s, it started from very low levels and it is not until more recently that the shift has gained momentum.

Visitor management systems today are much more than just a name tag or a phone call. The most sophisticated ones can integrate with police databases, along with a host of other security systems, and automatically time out at a user-specified date or time of day. But even the “simple” systems do more than just token security. By cross-checking with departments and having someone actually greet and take information from the visitor, incidents can be averted and crimes of opportunity cut way down.

We only install IP,” keynote Domenic Flores, senior project manager for Royal Caribbean Cruise LTD, Miami, bluntly said while discussing the cruise lines’ security philosophy at the Axis A&E Technology Summit 2011. Flores’ presentation illustrated one simple message from Axis Communications Inc., Chelmsford, Mass., and its technology partners during the summit — IP adoption continues to move full steam ahead with stronger business value and a rapidly falling price tag that matches the added features and functionality IP-based systems offer.

As in the consumer market, prices for flat-screen monitors for security applications continue to fall dramatically. If CRT monitors haven’t disappeared completely, then that day will come soon. Propose using CRT monitors in an application and see how long it takes your customer to burst out laughing. People just expect flat screens. That CRTs also take up more space and are less energy-efficient only serve to underscore their coming demise. In the world of flat-screen monitors, LCD monitors appear to have taken the lead over other technologies. Advances in the technology have resulted in monitors that offer improved image quality, truer color reproduction, increased clarity and better contrast — all factors that are crucial in security applications where life-or-death isn’t just a saying.