IHF Roundup: Facial Recognition Infiltrates Household Items, Facial Scanners Find the Bar Scene & Other Top Headlines This Week

Been a busy week of travel for me -- great chance to get caught up on the news of the world. Seems that every week, new ideas are being brought to the table in terms of where surveillance systems are being deployed and for what reasons -- Korea's most recent biometric initiative, for example. Take a look at other stories from around the world!

Facial recognition technologies are continuing to take online photo programs by storm. Announced this week, Flickr users can now import their photos to Polar Rose. This Swedish start-up identifies individual faces and names show up next to faces in the photos once the user has identified the faces based on the matching of 3D models. Yes, Google Picasa and Apple's iPhoto already do something similar to this, but Flickr's version of this technique demonstrates the depth of the technology's infiltration into popular culture and its growing momentum. Plus, these new improvements will save hours of time individually marking faces to names. I'm thrilled that Facebook might be next to jump onboard with Faces.com (still in alpha)!

Facial recognition isn't only on your computer, but also in your bathroom. Introduced this week, the SmartFaucet is capable of facial recognition to enable tempered water to avoid scalding hot temperatures -- and even enable users to access email, see weather predictions and update calendar events -- all while washing your hands! Although, I'm not quite sure wet skin and electronics mix?

And from faucet to front row at your favorite club, a Melbourne nightclub recently hit headlines with its new facial recognition deployment, the world's first nightclub installation. With Chasers nightclub already equipped with metal detectors, this new software is meant to fight violence common at the venue and keep out troublemakers. According to the article, "patrons' faces are scanned by a camera and the image and driver's license details are stored on a computer for 28 days." Also, police have access to the biometric data should an incident occur -- interesting collaboration between public and private institutions to keep the drinks flowing and glass un-shattered. I like it.

As I wrote yesterday, airports are well on their way to creating a common security system across the entire US aviation community -- and Singaporean IT is jumping onboard as well. While currently operating five individuals databases, the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) will be creating the 'Bio-Hub' to integrate all facial and fingerprint images for Singaporeans, permanent residents and foreigners. Plans are also in the works, "to introduce a non-intrusive facial capture system at checkpoints, to deter imposters from finding their way into the country." Interesting initiative. Be interested to see if any other countries lobby for similar projects.

US Airports Looking Toward Standardization

Whether it's for tracking baggage, boarding the planes themselves or eliminating homeland security hiccups, researchers continue to develop innovative techniques to eliminate inefficiencies and increase reliability at airports.

However, in installing such complex (and often costly) equipment, many airports are running into difficulties -- often budgetary limitations, political snags or just the hesitation to upgrade from traditional systems -- and the need for a standard only continues to grow.

While some sort of security standard across all national airports can be expected down the road, with the economy as it is and a new administration at the reigns, it remains to be seen how far off this is.

The TSA is currently in the process of creating and requiring standards for a unified airport access control system (involving biometrics and smart card personnel credentials) that could be read at airports nationwide. However, this initiative to issue credentials to more than 1.5 million airport workers and hundreds of thousands of airline employees has received mixed reviews. The infrastructure to exchange such biometric data and allow common identity vetting through the aviation community is nonexistent, and the nature of airport design is not conducive to such a communal system.

Many are quick to note the unique nature of individual airports and that the 'one-size-fits-all' mentality does not apply. In addition, other airport executives fear they'll have to start from scratch and tear out existing assets if a standard is put in place. I liked the quote from Mark Crosby, chief of public safety and security at the Portland International Airport and the Port of Portland who said: “Each airport is different and needs something that works...if you’ve seen one airport, you’ve seen one airport.”

Despite the difficulties, some airports are deploying individual systems aligned with their specific needs and budgetary concerns, such as the fingerprint and iris access control systems in cargo areas (and also operate vehicles) tested by the Port Authority of New York (and even our own 3VR system installed at Evansville Regional Airport). On the other hand, some are holding off in anticipation of government-prescribed standards being announced. Should we be holding our breath?

Jeanne Olivier, general manager of aviation security and technology at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, seems to think so:

“We’re about 80% of the way there for biometrics as a security solutions for airports,” Olivier said. But it’s probably still a couple of years before wide scale deployments begin. “We’re very close and there will be significant advances in the next two years.”

She's much more optimistic than others who note three to five years before a widespread deployment make their public debut.

While I don't know how quick the battle will be won -- we very well may be a few years off from concrete results -- the wheels are in motion to allow standardization in airport security, at least on the personnel level -- and that's progress in itself.

With these strides behind the scenes, as well as new technologies for passenger security (such as new surveillance mats that measure gait and may do away with frisking episodes), I'm impressed with the progress being made. Baby steps are just fine as long as we're going in the right direction.

IHF Roundup: Airports Ponder Universal Access Control, Researchers Design 'Wearable' Robots & Other Top Headlines This Week

Here's a quick rundown of the headlines that caught my eye this week (click on the links to check out the articles in full):

Airport credentials: What's going to happen?
SecureIDNews
Zack Martin

• How airports identify employees has been a concern since 9/11 and other incidents have shown that there are potential security vulnerabilities. The Transportation Security Administration is working on a specification for airport access control systems that would use biometrics and smart cards. The specification calls for an interoperable credential that could be read at airports throughout the country.
• The incident pointed to most often when it comes to better securing credentials at airports is an incident at O’Hare International Airport in 2007. In that case, 23 employees from a staff-outsourcing firm were using ID cards from employees who had quit.
  
• There are already a number of different projects running -- The TSA has the Airport Credential Interoperability Specification (ACIS) and the American Association of Airport Executives (AAAE) created the Biometric Airport Security Identification Consortium (BASIC). The AAAE is working with the TSA on its efforts. Too many acronyms if you ask me.

Wearable bot said to make you stronger
CNET (Crave Blog)
Leslie Katz

• Through a sensor attached to the skin, "HAL" (Hybrid Assistive Limb) captures faint biosignals on the skin's surface that result from messages sent from the brain to muscles when a person attempts to move. A computer analyzes how much power the wearer intends to generate, then calculates the amount of torque needed to put limbs into action.
• Especially noteworthy here is that the suit responds to intended motion, rather than actual motion.
• "HAL" is currently being used by people in Japan with weakened muscles and disabilities related to strokes and/or spinal cord injuries. It's also expected to report for heavy-labor duty support at factories, as well as rescue support at disaster sites.
• Do they come in different colors and/or patterns?

Noise from our ears a basis for biometrics
ZDNet
Chris Jablonski

• The concept is based on otoacoustic emissions (OAE), which are sounds emitted by the mammalian inner ear in response to an audio stimulation.
• According to the researchers, OAEs offer some unique opportunities when applied as a biometric system. For one, it can be embodied as a telephone handset or headphones, which is something everyone is familiar with. And secondly, it can be employed in a challenge-response dialogue.
• However, watch out for waxy build-up and BAC level after a night out on the town -- with both, emissions are deadened. Also, different drugs alter the amplitude of OAEs.
  

How Kiva Robots Help Zappos and Walgreens
BusinessWeek
Jessie Scanlon

• Robots have been around a long time, but what's interesting about Kiva, which has four patents, with another 14 pending, is the way in which Kiva Founder and CEO Mick Mountz's team has integrated three technologies: WiFi, digital cameras, and low-cost servers capable of parallel processing.
  
• The servers work in real-time, receiving orders, immediately dispatching robots to bring the required pods to the worker fulfilling the order, and then returning the pods to their storage locations. The robots receive their orders wirelessly, while using cameras to read navigational barcode stickers on the warehouse floor.
• Roughly 20% of the 8,000 commercial U.S. warehouses are automated, including Walgreens and Zappos, meaning that after workers pull goods off of the shelves, they are put on conveyer belts, carousels, and/or other automatic sorting systems that move the products through the warehouse more efficiently.

Alaska introduces bill protecting citizens’ biometric data
ThirdFactor

• Alaskan state senator, Bill Wielechowski, has introduced a bill to the state congress that intends to protect Alaskan citizens from having their biometric information collected or used without their knowing and consent.
• The congressman’s hope is that the bill will assuage fears over the misuse of biometric information such as potential employers using DNA samples to determine one’s tendency towards certain ailments or the tracking of citizens via facial recognition and video surveillance.

Cameras, sensors spark government surveillance debate
Democrat & Chronicle
Brian Sharp

• The Rochester (NY) Police Department's reliance on data-crunching computers and license-plate reading scanners triggered a backlash this week from a citizens group called Activists Against Racism Movement.
• In a statement to the media, the group labeled the targeted enforcement a "dragnet" and "absolutely racist in nature," predicting that it will predominately snare minorities for minor offenses.
• Doubt remains about whether the technology actually prevents crime, or just relocates it. People do tend to feel safer, experts say. Witnesses are more likely to cooperate with police if they think a camera also caught the action, and so property crime declines, but research has yet to document a corresponding drop in violent crime.

Plus, don't forget to scroll down and check out 3VR's anouncement around our technology's performance in recent South Korea NPA/SK Networks facial recognition technology testing. More details coming soon.

South Korean Study Delivers a Face Rec First (90%+ Accuracy Using Surveillance Video)

Those following the South Korean government’s most recent biometric initiative know it to be one of the most ambitious facial recognition testing and deployment projects ever conceived. The project, in its various phases, has been featured quite extensively on Korean television here and here.

Under the project, the Korean National Police (NPA) sought to deploy facial recognition technology against Seoul’s plentiful video surveillance cameras, both to generate alerts to the presence of targeted individuals, as well as provide a mechanism to quickly search city surveillance archives for persons identified after the fact.

Though the NPA has been quite public on its facial recognition project in general, details regarding the specific technologies and testing results have been closely guarded. However, today after much anticipation, the NPA has finally made its initial findings public. According to the NPA and SK Networks spokesmen, 3VR's facial recognition platform demonstrated the highest percentage of accuracy of any of the eight tested technologies in trials run by the NPA and its testing partner, South Korea's IT giant SK Networks.

Indeed the results, at around 90% accuracy, would seem far better than those achieved in any previous public video facial recognition study. After a grueling multi-year testing process, in 3VR SmartRecorders and SmartCams provided between 85 percent and 92 percent accuracy in recognizing and matching faces in a few crowded, highly-trafficked public train stations in Seoul. In each case, the images analyzed were of fast-moving groups of commuters entering or exiting various transit areas en masse.

Said Sung-Ho Kong of SK Networks:

“In 2008, we performed a live, uncontrolled test of 3VR's facial recognition technology in Seoul subway stations, where the solution was an impressive 85-92 percent accurate, depending on conditions. No other solution approached this level of accuracy, vastly improving our ability to track, find and thwart crime in subways and other highly populated areas, which had previously proven extremely difficult to monitor.”

To better appreciate just how impressive the NPA’s results are, we need to compare them to the best previous facial recognition study. In 2006-2007, a similar facial recognition-use case was evaluated by the German Federal Police. After months of testing in a German subway with lighting and traffic much more controlled than in South Korea, a mediocre 60 percent accuracy rating was achieved.

The improvements in accuracy afforded by 3VR are the result of a unique approach to video facial recognition. While most face rec vendors offer technologies optimized for the comparison of flat, normally lit, passport-style photos, only 3VR's software was built from the ground up to address many of the unique challenges presented by real-time surveillance video.

According to Tim Frederick, director of engineering at 3VR:

“This study demonstrates the breakthrough power of 3VR’s patented facial surveillance technology. Unlike other attempts at high-volume face surveillance, which re-purposed still-image face recognition algorithms, the South Korean study benefited from 3VR’s end-to-end video analysis system, specifically designed for this type of demanding video application.”

Expect more details from 3VR and the NPA shortly, but in the meantime, please check out SDN's Rhianna Daniels' feature story on the announcement, as well as a quick diagram of how the technology works and even some up-close and personal screen grabs of the UI.

UPDATE June 22, 2009:

Here is a translation of the South Korean National Police's Phase 1 testing results:

Rise of the Drones

From The Week:

Engineers are working to make drones self-sufficient, so they can repair themselves if disabled. Drones are also becoming increasingly deadly. There are now 28 Reapers, the successor to the Predator, in the U.S. Air Force. Each is capable of flying at 50,000 feet, carrying up to 14 Hellfire missiles, and using infrared sensors to distinguish the “heat signatures” of rocket launchers, anti-aircraft guns, and other firepower on the ground. The Government Accountability Office envisions a future in which drones can remain aloft for months, using fuel cells or airborne refueling. “These systems today are very much Model T Fords,” says defense analyst P.W. Singer. “These things will only get more advanced.”

Daily Headline Update: April 13, 2009

Starting today, I'll be posting the latest news updates a few times per week in order to make sure everything I report here is as timely as possible. Nothing too detailed, just a few highlights on anything I find fascinating -- anything from surveillance and physical security to robotics and UAV news. Let me know what you think!

DMV Announces New Secure Driver License and Identification Card System
Hoy En Delaware
April 13, 2009

• The Delaware DMV is in the process of implementing a new secure driver license and identification card system. Similar to initiatives in California and Indiana, the DMV hopes to implement a new system that will increase the security process by which the DMV issues driver's licenses.
• According to the article, the new system will employ enhanced facial recognition technology in order to protect Delaware residents from identity theft. In doing so, the system will compare the applicant’s current photograph with the division’s entire photograph database to ensure the applicant does not have a driver license/ID card in another name and to ensure the individual is not trying to commit identity theft.
  

The hidden features in Apple's latest iPhoto update
ComputerWorld
April 10, 2009
Ryan Faas

• Last week, Apple announced more "overall stability" and fixes for "minor issues in a number of areas, including Faces, Places, photo sharing, and slideshows."
• Specific areas include the ability to tell iPhoto to rescan pictures and detect missing faces, recognize manually added faces by drawing a box around a person's face and tagging them when Faces doesn't recognize them. Tagging misidentified people allows users to simply click once or twice on each photo to indicate whether Faces' guesses are correctly identified and also trains iPhoto to recognize the person going forward.
  

Cameras, sensors spark government surveillance debate
Democrat & Chronicle
April 10, 2009
Brian Sharp

• Locally, the Rochester Police Department's reliance on data-crunching computers and license-plate reading scanners triggered a backlash this week from a citizens group called Activists Against Racism Movement.
• In a statement to the media, the group labeled the targeted enforcement a "dragnet" and "absolutely racist in nature," predicting that it will predominately snare minorities for minor offenses.
• Doubt remains about whether the technology actually prevents crime, or just relocates it. People do tend to feel safer, experts say. Witnesses are more likely to cooperate with police if they think a camera also caught the action, and so property crime declines, but research has yet to document a corresponding drop in violent crime.
  

IHF Roundup: Robots Hitting the Crop Fields, Airport Facial Scanners Slowing Security Lines & Other Top Headlines This Week

Phewf! Finally catching my breath after the whirlwind of ISC West and sitting down to read all the headlines that hit this week.

Lots in the research fields -- literally, fields -- in the news this week. I actually wrote about this robotic work a few weeks back, but the AP reported more on MIT's work with robots that can water, harvest and pollinate cherry tomato plants. According to the article, each plant is connected to both a robot and computer network to enable sensors that know when it is time to water the plant, pick the ripe fruit, or need fertilizer. This is the first big initiative I've heard about using robots for agricultural purposes, and while its currently exclusive to tomatoes, I'm curious if the technology will be adapted to other fruits and vegetables moving forward.

Biologists are hitting the books and looking at old laws of flying to further understand how birds, insects and other winged-animals keep themselves in flight in order to apply to future biomimeric-flying robots. Using high-speed video to see the asymmetrical flapping that hummingbirds and others are capable of to make turns mid-air, they hope to apply these locomotive maneuvers to future robotic developments.

And from wildlife and agriculture to babies -- Japanese scientists have created a child robot with Biomimetic Body (CB2 for short) capable of developing social skills from continuous human interaction. The robot can watch and record facial expressions using embedded eye-cameras and match them to corresponding physical movements to understand emotion, mirroring a developing mother-baby relationship. Wow.

In the surveillance realm, some feathers being ruffled this week, particularly in the UK.

According to a leaked memo, Manchester Airport allegedly re-calibrated its facial scanner machines from alerting security personnel if the passenger had less than a 80% likeness to their passport photograph to only calling out matches at less than 30% due to an overwhelmingly high number of "false positives" and particularly long queues at checkpoints. However, the UK Border Agency responded, saying that "neither the software nor the machines have been recalibrated or changed since the trial began in August 2008." Either way, lines are apparently out the door and there are rumors that 30% thresholds aren't high enough to tell Winona Ryder from Osama Bin Laden. If that's the case, I'll have no problem getting through as Colin Firth (if I had his passport, that is).

As noted by Leischen Stelter of Security Director News, biometric technologies, like facial scanners, address challenges airports face in providing the utmost security to its passengers, and more and more airports are adopting various technologies to do so. Whether its access control, iris and fingerprint readers or facial scanners, biometrics are enabling greater confidence in airport security efforts. In fact, the Biometric Airport Security Identification Consortium (BASIC) was initiated last year to test many different biometric technologies at airports nationwide and has grown from six initial participants to 32 airports. BASIC will move this one step further and present its findings to the TSA, which has promised to provide an approved vendor lists going forward. Exciting stuff.

Standardization in video surveillance has been an ongoing issue, but camera regulation is another rising matter, particularly down under. The Victorian Law Reform Commission in Australia proposed that an independent regulator oversee all public surveillance to ensure no footage is recorded without authorization. With tens of thousands of surveillance devices across the state, it is vital that no video falls through the cracks and into the wrong hands. Great to see.

So many headlines to summarize every week that it's almost getting overwhelming! I'm going to aim to summarize important headers a few times next week and moving forward -- hopefully this will keep everything timely and ensure I don't miss anything. Wouldn't want to let the readers down.

Face.com Brings Face Rec to Facebook

I was just accepted to the Face.com Alpha release and getting set up with the new service was pretty simple:

1) Face.com sent me an email with a Facebook link to their application.

2) I clicked the link and was asked to log on to my Facebook account.

3) The application then asked for permission to access my photos...and my friends photos.

4) Processing

5) Processing

6) Processing

7) I was presented with bunch of pictures of me that the software had found.



All-in-all not a bad experience and the facial recognition accuracy seems pretty good so far. I'll keep digging and check back in later with what I find out.

Internet Video Saves the Day

From the Smoking Gun:

Thomas, who set up the live video stream after her home was burglarized last October, immediately called 911 to report the burglary (click here to listen to her conversation with a police operator). Cops raced to her home and arrested the two men inside the house: Curtis Williams, 20, and Steven Morales, 19. Two other suspects--Scott George and Jonathan Cruz, both 20--were nabbed at a nearby residence and charged with helping plan the burglary.

Thanks to Al Shipp of 3VR Security for passing this one along. Nice Find!

Robobugs Do Surveillance

Via YouTube:

The following is derived from a promotionalvideo from BAE Systems, a Europeandefence contractor. It depicts the use of robotic bugs for surveillance in an urban terrorist scenario.

The person who posted this video seemed pretty upset by it. But, in the end, it's really just a computer generated imagining. Not really that scary. Now if it were an actual live action shot...or maybe if the robotic insects had little bit more hair and sported some ominous fangs.

That would be scary.

TimeSight VLM vs. 3VR SmartStorage™

People were ‘buzzing’ over TimeSight Systems’ Networked Video Recorder at ISC West this year. And who wouldn’t buzz hearing claims like “Mega Pixels without Mega Storage,” a “90% reduction in storage requirements” and more? It all sounds too good to be true. So what’s the truth? In this post, I’ll take a look under the hood at TimeSight and compare it to another storage optimization technology that I know very well, 3VR’s SmartStorage™.

First, let’s look at TimeSight’s technology:

TimeSight touts two approaches to squeeze more video into less storage. The first, which they call Motion Optimized Recording (MORe), is pretty straightforward. Motion and non-motion video are simply recorded at different qualities and frame rates based on how the user configures the system. According to TimeSight, this is superior to more basic on/off motion-based recording because non-motion video is still recorded, albeit at a lower frame rate, instead of just disregarded.

TimeSight’s other featured technology is called Video Lifecycle Management (VLM). It’s also pretty simple to understand. As video gets older, it is reduced in quality in order to save storage space. You heard it…the way that TimeSight keeps megapixel imagery longer is to turn it into something that’s NOT OF MEGAPIXEL QUALITY!

Well, I guess low quality is better than no quality, but somehow that feels like a pretty weak value proposition to me, and it doesn't quite live up the claim of “Mega Pixels without Mega Storage.”

How does this compare to 3VR’s SmartStorage™?

3VR’s storage optimization technology, SmartStorage™, has gone through several cycles of innovation since the company founding. The latest round of development culminated in a series of news articles, videos and technical write-ups you can read here, here and here. As with TimeSight, the 3VR technology includes features like motion optimization and the ability to adjust what is stored overtime. This should sound pretty similar to TimeSight’s technology, so far.

However, 3VR's SmartStorage™ also does something unique and incredibly powerful that TimeSight's technology cannot. SmartStorage™ can optimize what’s stored based on the content of the video itself! That means that faces, license plates and other valuable imagery doesn’t have to be compressed away along with less important video content as time flies by. In some cases, multiple years might pass before important full megapixel quality, high value content might need to be purged from storage archives to make room for new video.

Here is what I said about SmartStorage™ in 2007:

Since the introduction of video surveillance, security professional have been forced to compromise both budget and video evidence quality in order to meet long-term storage requirements. 3VR SmartStorage is a pivotal breakthrough that makes it possible to store higher-quality video evidence for much longer periods of time while at the same time dramatically reducing storage requirements and costs. It's a win for investigators, security professionals and the IT departments that support them.

So who is the winner in this matchup? Yes, both technologies provide for motion-optimized recording. Both technologies modify the quality of content stored over time, and both technologies claim to provide about a 10x improvement in storage efficiency over time. But at the end of the day, after each technology has squeezed everything it can out of every sector of disk space available, only 3VR still retains content of the absolute highest quality. Valuable images of criminals saved with 3VR's SmartStorage™ will stand up in court, and humans will actually be able to read pictures of license plates years later.

The winner is 3VR’s SmartStorage™…by a megapixel.

Manchester Airport Downgrades Matching Threshold on Facial Scanners

Those customer complaints about excessive wait times and congestion going through security in the UK must be piling up these days -- in a leaked memo, Manchester Airport allegedly re-calibrated its facial scanner machines from alerting security personnel if the passenger had less than a 80% likeness to their passport photograph to only calling out matches at less than 30%.

Deemed an "unacceptable" security risk by some, this change was prompted by an increased number of "false positives" not recognizing law-abiding passengers as the person pictured in their passport.

There has been no official explanation as to why the change occurred, and some facial recognition experts are up in arms, claiming that using a 30% match threshold is essentially useless. A memo noted, "[The fact that] the machines do not operate at 100% is unacceptable. In addition it would be interesting to know why the acceptance level has been allowed to decrease."

As another article also describes, with such low calibration levels, Kevin Spacey and Winona Ryder would easily pass through holding Osama Bin Laden's passport. With these odds, I bet could pass through security as Colin Firth, no problem.

I'll be interested to see if an official response to this "leaked memo" is released that explains the drastic drop in standards and their reason for the large number of false-positives. It could be the result of their technology choice, or just the result of poor, old, and varied photos common to passports. Likely both.

Cash for Coverage Accusations Rock Industry (Update)

In what's sure to be a controversial move, John Honovich of IPVideoMarket.info took aim today at rival and well-known security research firm, Frost & Sullivan, and accused them of trading their industry leadership awards for cash. Though no details or specific examples were provided in his stinging critique, John did claim that through "interviews" and the review of "public records," he unearthed several serious problems with the firm’s industry awards.

John Honovich:

The consistent theme I hear from award recipients is that awards are granted at
no cost but the manufacturers cannot publicly announce awards without paying
thousands of dollars to Frost & Sullivan.

As for my own firsthand information on Frost & Sullivan, I can only really comment on the award we received at 3VR a couple of years back (in relation to our searchable surveillance system). In that case, I can assure you no money changed hands before the award was given or since. [BIG correction: My head of marketing from back then just called me to let me know that despite my previous righteous denials, we did indeed end up paying Frost a small amount sometime after receiving the award to "promote and market" it. My former VP wasn’t clear what the consequences might have been if we had simply announced the award on our own without paying Frost for their active involvement, however. Someone from Frost should really weigh in to publicly clarify this point for the sake of all its award recipients.] Regardless, I think that research firms, and the companies they cover, would be well served through clear disclosure any financial ties when they do exist. Without this modest transparency, the influence of these kinds of awards will inevitably diminish.

John Honovich seems to conclude something similar:

Awards are important and trust is crucial. If we are going to have awards that
claim to judge and identify the best companies or products in the industry, we
need to be confident that the judges are doing so fairly and with the interest
of the community. Frost & Sullivan and the award recipients should be
clear about their financial relationship and the process of selection so that
industry professionals can assess these awards appropriately.

Bravo!

But, big research isn’t the only one out there with conflicts of interest. Of greater concern to me today is the emerging trend of some manufacturers to directly compensate individual security analysts and other perceived independent voices in our industry. In some cases, bloggers even provide regular coverage of these companies while kept under monthly retainer…without providing any disclosure of the financial relationship. Kept secret, this kind of ongoing direct remuneration of content creators can’t help but engender the worst kinds of bias and conflict of interest.

So, whether John Honovich accusations are proven true or not, let's hope that they spur a movement to greater transparency industrywide. Whether you are a blogger, analyst, author or part-time journalist, if you’re getting a W2 or 1099 from a company you're covering, you should be disclosing it.

How can you claim any credibility on any issue if you don’t at least meet that low bar?

-----------
Stephen Russell gets regular paychecks from 3VR Security and should be considered hopelessly biased when it comes to topics relating to the company.

IHF Roundup: 365 Days (and counting) until ISC West, Robots Making Pizza in Italy and Other Top Headlines This Week

ISC West went off with a bang! Caught up with many folks I see only once in a blue moon, demoed our new S-Series SmartRecorder and grabbed a few drinks with the industry's finest. All in all, a fantastic show -- our new CEO looks happy!

Check out some great blog posts by Security Director News' Rhianna Daniels, SecurityInfoWatch's Geoff Kohl and Security Dealer & Integrator's Deborah O'Mara about their interviews at the show, industry trends they see forming and any other general impressions.

All industry eyes were on the show floor, but beyond the Las Vegas city limits, wheels kept turning. While product announcements flooded the wires all week, a few robotics headlines caught my eye. Here we go.

So, Japan is using robots to teach in classrooms, and British scientists are using robotic fish to detect oil leaks and pollution in bodies of water -- what are robots in Italy doing? Making pizza, of course!

Built at the University of Bologna, this pilot robot chef kneads water and flour into dough, adds and spreads tomato sauce, cheese and appropriate toppings and even cooks it with its own infrared rays -- all in less than three minutes! While classic Italian pizzerias are insulted by the apparent disregard to traditional preparation methods, maybe this innovation will work in kitchens. It's possible the robots won't take off in Italy, but the rest of the world might be intrigued to find out how a robot stacks up against the neighborhood Domino's or Little Caesar's. With a robot behind the oven, no reason your next delivery shouldn't be there in 30 minutes or less.

From pizza to psychics -- Honda introduced a robot that reads people's minds and allows them to control a bipedal robot, Asimo. The robot boasts a 90% success rate in recognizing and carrying out four commands (raising the right or left hand, and moving one's legs or tongue) just by the power of human thought alone. All you need is a special helmet connected to a large "box of top-secret machinery."

Honda hopes to expand this technology elsewhere for more practical purposes. Think how convenient it would be if your trunk opened automatically when your hands were full, the heat turned on when you felt a slight chill in the car...

Combining the two technologies, maybe we'll see robot chefs in our houses that make personalized made-to-order pizzas by our mere thinking about it. Hey, a guy can dream.

You are being watched...in 3D

I just got back from the International Security Show, ISCWest. I’ll be writing up some more thoughts on that in a bit, but in the meantime, I thought I’d tide you over with you a few cool videos I found from one of the exhibitors there.

Feeling Software got its start in 2005 building 3D technologies for video games and the entertainment industry. So, it’s no surprise that their offerings to the world of high-tech surveillance look a lot like a 3D shooter.





The demos are still a little rough around the edges, but in them, I think, one can see the beginnings of a new interface paradigm for surveillance monitoring that succeeds in providing both detail and context in one interface. It's huge potential advance over the brain-numbing eyeball-burning video walls that sit at the center of modern security rooms today.

And in addition to offering better situational awareness, the interface abstraction might be used to provide other features from privacy to integration, as well. 3D tracked models might be highlighted, tagged, or even obscured or removed from monitoring model based on security policies, privacy law, or real-time information from other systems.

One more note: For those interested in facial recognition, tracking, and modeling, you should also check out Feeling Software’s Face Flow demo. Though not quite up to the standard of the Benjamin Button tech I commented on the other week, it's pretty cool none-the-less.

ISC West: Day 1

Greetings from ISC West!

Wanted to pass along a link to a great aggregation of all ISC-related announcements: "ISC West 2009 Announcement Directory." Lots of camera, video management (3VR's S-Series announcement is listed there), access control and analytics releases. Excellent one-stop-shop to keep tabs on everything that's happening.

Also, check out ISCTweet.com to stay up-to-date on all Tweets from the show floor! @TheSteveRussell already has a few up there.