Featured Stories - Articles - Page 57

State of the Market: Access Control 2012

Smart cards, especially the new PIV-I card, managed access, and NFC all stand out in the 2012 access control market.

April 26, 2012

For years, the physical security industry has predicted the “tipping point” in the video surveillance market as the point in time when Internet protocol (IP) video will outsell analog video. But are you paying attention to the other tipping point? Yes, access control has a tipping point of its own — the point when smart cards will outsell legacy cards.

Security Industry’s ‘Green Day’ Is Coming

As larger security projects evolve into integrated systems, the pressure to deliver green solutions will increase, experts say.

Derek Rice

April 25, 2012

Fact: the popularity of — and end user demand for — HD and megapixel video are increasing every day. Fact: the detail HD and megapixel video provide drive up the file sizes of that video. Fact: larger file sizes create greater storage needs. Fact: regardless of application, from small to large to gigantic systems, video needs to be stored somewhere for some period of time.

The Green Bottom Line

By offering home energy management services, security integrators can capitalize on growing consumer interest in saving money and going green — while also generating new sales and revenue sources for themselves.

Cassie Peterson

April 25, 2012

As energy costs continue to rise in the slowly recovering economy, some homeowners are looking for ways to save money. At the same time, other homeowners have an interest in reducing their impact on the environment and reduced energy use. Security integrators who offer home automation along with energy consumption monitoring services and products can help these homeowners discover how they can conserve energy and save money while creating a healthy bottom line.

Clarifying the Network

Installing video, access control and other systems that use Ethernet for connectivity always starts with understanding the basics and asking the right questions.

Joan Engebretson

April 23, 2012

Six months ago I thought Spanning Tree was a California Merlot,” jokes Ed Davis, vice president of marketing for Somerset, N.J.-based IP video and fiber product manufacturer American Fibertek, in reference to an Ethernet protocol used to create a self-healing ring.

State of the Market: Video Surveillance 2012

The video surveillance market in 2012 shows a wide range of growth potential, in part due to disappearing barriers to adoption.

Heather Klotz-Young

March 22, 2012

Video surveillance, for all its clear benefits, comes with its equal share of barriers: storage limitations, image quality and resolution demands, price concerns, a painfully absent ease-of-use. There’s a whole list.

Video Surveillance

Cisco Virtualizes Its Video Surveillance Software

March 22, 2012

By virtualizing Cisco Video Surveillance software, available on Cisco’s Unified Computing System™ (Cisco UCS™) platform, Cisco is providing significantly improved levels of performance, scalability, agility and manageability.

‘Reality TV’ that’s Worth Watching

Joan Engebretson

March 21, 2012

For years, video surveillance was too costly for all but the most upscale of residential customers. But thanks to advances in video and communications technology, that’s no longer true. Some dealers now sell video to 10 to 25 percent or more of new residential accounts.

New Kids on the Block

Broadband service providers and wireless phone companies have entered the security market, with everything from self-installed, self-monitored systems to third-party monitored security systems and home control.

Maggie Shein

March 21, 2012

The home security market has been a rapidly changing environment over the past several years, with self-monitored offerings cropping up everywhere as well as a host of large, national cable companies coming into the picture with connected lifestyle services that include energy monitoring and home security. There have been moves from outsiders into the home security space before, with national and regional telecom and cable providers entering (and exiting) the marketplace, but the current market seems ripe for newcomers who can tap into their large, existing customer base and add on security, entertainment and energy management options to their customers’ existing bills.

Today’s Turnstiles: Reshaped, Smarter, With New Benefits

SDM speaks with two manufacturers about trends and developments in optical turnstiles.

Karyn Hodgson

March 21, 2012

Like every aspect of security, turnstile technology has gotten smarter over the years. The turnstiles you see in transit facilities are not the same as those high-end office buildings. The introduction of optical turnstiles changed that. But what has changed recently with optical turnstiles, and where is that technology headed?

Using PSIM to ‘Predict’ the Future

There are similarities to cyber crime attacks and physical facility breaches that are not being tracked today and can be predictive in nature. That will have to change.

Dan Dunkel

March 21, 2012

Physical Security Information Management (PSIM) is morphing from “alerting” and post-incident-only management platforms and into incorporating a “predictive” behavioral component in their solutions. This is a natural progression being driven in large part by societal trends, the expansion of the Internet, and end user deployments within an accelerating global crime environment. The future is here and PSIM platforms must evolve to address the blended threat of digital and physical crime.