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October 01, 2007

Update: IBM as Smart Camera Vendor

Here is a brief summary of some of the news regarding IBM and Chicago's venture on smart cameras:

Here are the goals as laid out in the CNN story:

In the first phase, IBM helped the City experts and network engineers to design and implement a surveillance strategy infrastructure to capture, monitor and fully index video for real-time and forensic-related safety applications. This entailed building a unified fiber network throughout the downtown Chicago area, deploying a critical wireless infrastructure to offer flexibility as required, installing hundreds of new surveillance cameras, linking thousands of preexisting cameras to the network, and creating a fully redundant backend system to monitor the video, store the images and allow for business continuity and disaster recovery applications.

The Chicago OEMC and IBM are now teaming to expand the surveillance system and to add analytics that provide license plate recognition, trending projections and intelligent search capabilities to the existing infrastructure. Chicago's security solution is designed to provide several benefits to both city officials and citizens including: real-time video surveillance intelligence for proactive homeland security monitoring; faster response time to emergencies; more effective deployment of emergency responders; and increased travel efficiency through traffic congestion tracking.

IBM is pushing their smart camera technology. I assume its based off the Smart Surveillance System that I previously noted. The system features some security cameras that can detect gunshot sounds that prompt the cameras to turn toward the sounds before automatically calling 911. The system can also read license plate numbers. They are hoping to roll this out to other cities, but Chicago is first.

IBM is collaborating with Firetide and Genetec.

Firetide has a mesh technology that "supports wireless public safety applications ranging from traffic control and VoIP communications to covert and overt video surveillance. The Firetide system allows Chicago's first responders to access databases rapidly and is configured to allow the addition of thousands more video access points in the future." - From InformationWeek

Firetide's mesh network operates within the 2.4 GHz, 4.9 GHz public safety licensed band, or 5.0 GHz band. "Because the technology is radio-agnostic, any license-free or licensed spectrum (can) be meshed," said Bo Larsson, Firetide CEO, in an e-mail. 'Firetide is unique in that our nodes can be decoupled from access points. Sometimes the best location for an access point is not the best place for a mesh node."

IBM chose Genetec's Omnicast as the main video management platform for building the Operation Virtual Shield system.

Posted by rshah at October 1, 2007 11:23 PM

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