“Design is the fundamental soul of a human-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service.” – Steve Jobs

Steven Paul Jobs (born February 24, 1955) is the co-founder, chairman and CEO of Apple Inc., and the former CEO of Pixar Animation Studios until it was acquired by the Walt Disney Company in 2006.

Genetec’s AutoVu Protects Streets of Brussels against Vehicle Theft

AutoVu has recently been selected by the Anti-Aggression Brigade from the Brussels Police Department to counteract vehicle theft in the city and to identify vehicles which have been stolen outside their borders. Six AutoVu Sharp cameras have been purchased to automate the once tedious process of manually checking license plates. To date, the Anti-Aggression Brigade in Brussels has already recovered nine stolen vehicles, and they are enthused with the system’s accuracy and portability, as well as its easy-to-use and touch-enabled interface.

Read the full press release >
View AutoVu News Clip >

Genetec Releases Newest Version of Omnicast

Omnicast 4.3, Genetec’s newest version of its video surveillance software,has been recently released. The most pertinent additions to Omnicast include the support of Axis H. 264 IP cameras and encoders as well as the new Pelco extension, which supports the integration of several Pelco IP products. Customers with interest in integration with new top-of-the-line products from both Axis and Pelco will benefit from even more flexibility in designing their system or in migrating their system from analog to IP.

Read the full press release >

As featured on Loss Prevention Magazine Online
By Scott Thomas, Global Director of Market Development for Retail at Genetec

Summary: Following a recent independent survey commissioned by Genetec and conducted by Loss Prevention Research Council (LPRC), Scott Thomas, Global Director of Market Development for Retail at Genetec discusses the results of the survey in relation to the evolution of video surveillance equipment in the retail environment. Scott explores the answers of surveyed senior asset protection and loss prevention executives from a broad scope of retailers. These findings shed light on the expected trends in today’s modern retail store, including the eventual shift towards IP solutions. Scott also directly addresses the concerns of surveyed members by answering questions concerning network video solutions.

Some key findings from the LPRC Survey:

• 96% of respondents are still using DVR solutions for surveillance.
• 84% of respondents use remote connectivity, 60% of which operate from a company network and 24% which connect through consumer grade DSL or cable.
• The top three criteria for the selection of a system: reliability, quality of video, and price.

Read the full article on Loss Prevention Magazine Online.
Advanced Security Solutions for the Retail Industry Brochure - download now!

A recent study conducted by Homeland Security Research Corp., a market research firm specializing in the global homeland security market, has announced the addition of the “Global Homeland Security, Homeland Defense & Intelligence Markets Outlook 2009-2018” which provides a comprehensive global analysis and forecasts of HLS-HLD markets in 20 countries (e.g., USA, UK, Saudi Arabia, Belgium, Germany, UAE, China, India, Japan, and more). Here are some of their key findings on the report:

• The global HLS-HLD markets will grow by 81% - from a sum total of $140 billion in 2008, to about $254 billion in 2018.
• The global HLD-HLS market will grow from 0.25% of the global GDP in 2008 to about 0.36%. Most of this growth will come at the cost of reducing traditional military outlays.
• Net-centric systems will be introduced into most of the local (e.g., Airports, seaports, smart cities) and government HLS-HLD real time operational counter terror headquarters.
• The US will continue to be the dominant player in HLS-HLD market, with about 35% of the global procurement in this field. By 2016 China will surpass Saudi Arabia as the 2nd largest HLS-HLD market.

For more information, read the market intelligence brief by HSRC.

Q&A with Pierre Hubert, Business Development Director—AutoVu

 What is the difference between a mobile and fixed LPR application?
[Answer] In a mobile LPR application, LPR cameras are mounted on a vehicle and are configured to read moving and parked vehicles. Fixed LPR refers to applications where cameras are mounted in a stationary configuration—for example, on the side of the road, at an intersection or at a parking lot entrance. Vehicles are captured whether moving at slow or high speed.

How do fixed LPR solutions work?
[Answer] In a fixed LPR environment, the LPR camera continuously processes the video stream to automatically find license plates in the image—no external triggering is required. Once a plate has been found, the characters are segmented and then read by the LPR engine. In advanced LPR systems, such as Genetec’s AutoVu, a metadata record is created which includes date, time, location, license plate number, an image of the license plate and a color overview image of the back of the vehicle. The whole process takes less than 15 msec. Primarily, applications include recording vehicle movement and searching one or more hot list databases based on the license plate number.

Can fixed LPR be integrated to other security functions? If so, what are the advantages of full integration?
[Answer] Fixed LPR is an ideal complement to other security functions such as video surveillance and access control. Adding LPR cameras to a video surveillance system is a powerful tool to capture vehicle movement and identify suspicious vehicles, which basically act as an additional layer of premises security. Systems can be further configured to associate video with an event. Such advanced LPR systems allow the management of the video and LPR to function via a common back office system where more specific investigations can be conducted. In a recent project which we completed for a major car rental company at Pearson Airport, the customer was looking for a highly secure integrated solution to control vehicle movement in an out of their maintenance facility. The system includes automatic identification of vehicles, card access control and video recording of the driver.

What types of businesses use fixed LPR solutions and what are they typically used for?
[Answer] Fixed LPR applications are primarily used for surveillance, access control and revenue control applications. Companies and government entities in several vertical markets can benefit from using LPR—here are a few examples:

• Public Safety / Law Enforcement: City-wide surveillance, wanted vehicle identification
• Education: access control
• Transportation: electronic tolling, parking access and revenue control in major airports
• Gaming: managing self-excluded lists, VIP identification
• Global Enterprises: secured access control

Read more about AutoVu in fixed applications here.
AutoVu - IP License Plate Recognition Brochure - download now!

“Synergis’ Area Lockdown feature enables users to seamlessly administer lockdown procedures. With the lockdown function, either a hardware input, such as a push button, or a software input, such as a hot action, can be used to prevent any and all access to the predefined area; this can be a crucial feature where a full-area lockdown is required during an emergency situation or when threat is present. Canadian schools have already successfully implemented the function using Synergis.” – Steve Bocking

Steve Bocking is the Director of Sales for Canada at Genetec. Mr. Bocking is responsible for the development of major Canadian accounts as well as overseeing territorial sales representatives and growth objectives. Mr. Bocking holds a management degree from Concordia University with a major in marketing and prior to joining Genetec, he worked in the IT industry.