Bosch Security Systems will cease distributing all but one Sony-branded security camera at the end of the year, upon which the companies’ four-year-old sales cooperation will terminate.

Bosch and Sony signed a contract to establish a business partnership that commenced at the beginning of 2017. As part of the agreed partnership, Sony’s video security customers in all markets excluding Japan have been served and supported by the sales and marketing organization of Bosch Security Systems.

Dissolving the partnership was a likely outcome even going back to 2016 when Bosch and Sony first began working on the framework for their collaboration, Jon Cropley, senior principal analyst, video surveillance, for research firm Omdia.

“At that time, many speculated this was a way for Sony to gradually exit sales and manufacture of surveillance cameras to focus on its image sensor and camera module business. The gradual approach allowed it to continue supporting its surveillance camera customers during this time. A sudden exit could have been more harmful to its brand reputation,” Cropley explains.

Competitive pressures were a likely reason why Sony decided to exit sales and manufacture of video surveillance cameras, Cropley suggests. The average global price of a network video surveillance camera was almost $500 in 2010. Back then, Sony’s share of the global network video surveillance camera market was more than 7%, he says.

“Intense competition from vendors with a lower cost base, such as competitors from China, led average prices to then fall quickly in the next few years. In 2016, the year the partnership between Sony and Bosch began, the average global price of a network video surveillance camera had fallen to less than $120,” he continues. “Sony’s share of the global network video surveillance camera market had also fallen below 2%.”

IPVM has reported that Sony will still have a significant imaging sensor and camera module business. Sony components are regularly used in high-end surveillance products, including from Sony’s branded rivals, ranging from Axis to Hikvision to Bosch. Sony sensors are used in various IoT devices, such as smartphones.

Hikvision Europe, a leading provider of innovative, award-winning security products and solutions, announced that Fred Streefland has been named EMEA Cybersecurity Director. Streefland will lead and support EMEA cybersecurity programs and initiatives, as well as working with cybersecurity institutions and researchers, public authorities, local partners and other key stakeholders of the company. He will be based in the European headquarters in Hoofddorp, the Netherlands.

With more than 20 years of cybersecurity experience in both public and government domains, Streefland is joining Hikvision from Palo Alto Networks, where he worked as the Chief Security Officer (CSO) for Northern and Eastern Europe. During this period, he advised C-level executives of several multinational organizations and officials of Governments on their Cybersecurity challenges and assisted them in implementing a Zero Trust approach. He served as the official spokesman of Palo Alto Networks and was often requested as a keynote speaker at international Cybersecurity conferences.

Streefland will take the lead in EMEA Cybersecurity activities at Hikvision Europe. He will be responsible for the structure, development and maintenance of key internal and external cybersecurity initiatives and programs in the EMEA market.

Streefland’s initial goals at the company will be to further improve the Cybersecurity and Privacy of the Hikvision products and services, and serve as a trusted advisor on Cybersecurity & Privacy for customers, partners, institutions and employees.

“Hikvision is a responsible manufacturer that already has a robust Cybersecurity program in place. I will be working on optimizing this program even further to minimize the potential Cybersecurity risks in Europe and to make sure our European partners get the support they need in their operations”, said Streefland.

Fred Streefland served as Intelligence and Security officer for the Royal Netherlands Air Force, the MIVD and at the NATO headquarters in Brussels for more than 16 years. He left this position to work at IBM Netherlands as central contact for all matters related to Public Safety and Security, as well as Cybersecurity. After a period of 4 years, he joined Accenture as Senior Manager Security and served as project leader on Smart Grid Security. Other tenures include working in ICS/SCADA Security at the European Network for Cyber Security (ENCS) and as Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at Exact and LeaseWeb. Before joining Hikvision, Streefland acted as Chief Security Officer (CSO) for Northern and Eastern Europe at Palo Alto Networks.

Fred Streefland is also a guest lecturer at the Cyber Security Academy (CSA), an Executive Master program organized by the Technical University of Delft, Leiden University and The University of Applied Sciences The Hague. He holds a bachelor (bc.) of Management, Economics & Law and an Executive Master of Security & Defense (EMSD).

A biometric electoral register has been deployed for upcoming Guinea parliamentary elections with Innovatrics technology and support applied to meet numerous challenges.

Innovatrics completed the project just six months after winning the tender, which the company says is record time. Necessary hardware was delivered, enrollment officers trained, biometric enrollment finalized, and data consolidated to make the voter list ready for card printing.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) of Guinea was provided with the biometric registry solution, and the system was configured by Innovatrics to import data from the legacy, in only three months. Innovatrics worked with HP Enterprise to secure the central servers for running the system, and created software for the enrollment stations to securely collect biometric data from Guinea citizens. The company oversaw the installation and initialization of the software on 4,000 enrollment kits. More than 600 supervisors, prefectural coordinators, maintenance technicians, and CENI officials were trained for the process, and Innovatrics provided support in eight regional centers, consolidated data at the regional level, and secured its transfer to the central server.

The enrollment process registered 5.5 million voters and migrated 6 million records from the legacy system. Top-performing facial recognition and fingerprint biometric algorithms were used to deduplicate the data, and CENI operators tagged deceased and convicted individuals for removal, reducing the total by 170,000. AI age estimation software then checked the photos in the registry to identify possible underage enrollees.

“A specially trained neural network detects the age of the enrollees based on their faces. If they are obviously underage, it sorts them out for rechecking,” explains Innovatrics’ Head of Delivery and Solutions Matus Kapusta, who oversees the Guinea project. The process found 60,000 underage people included in the electoral roll. Records tagged as ineligible voters were not deleted, but simply removed from the voters list.

An International Election Observation Mission has affirmed that international standards have been upheld.

Milestone Systems has introduced its documentation portal, a convenient online portal for resellers, installers, administrators, operators and customers to access technical manuals and guides.

Xprotect VMS and Husky network video recorder manuals and guides are now available in an easily searchable online format in one convenient portal.

“The Milestone documentation portal is the first step in a journey to gather documentation in one convenient location online. Our team is committed to the ongoing development of the portal and increasing the ease of use in accessing product documentation,” said Jesper Just Jensen, VP Products, Milestone Systems.

On the documentation portal, users can search by product or for a specific topic across all manuals and guides, removing the obstacle of looking through numerous manuals to find the right answer. Users can still download PDFs of product manuals to start or administrate Xprotect solutions, but as an added feature, users can now search for information across the documentation portal, ultimately gaining better insights and overview.

When Xprotect VMS is online, the 2020 R1 version will simply connect to the online documentation portal when the user presses F1 for Help. Offline systems will continue to utilise the installed help.

The documentation portal reflects existing document localisations and the user’s browser settings. Localised documents appear when browsing or searching along with deliverables in English, providing language options for users.

The mobile-enabled documentation portal allows users to work on the go and on any device. Digitalising the manual and guide content also makes it easier to find information through the user’s preferred search engine.

Axis Communications has entered the body worn camera market for the first time designed for law enforcement and private security.

The solution – including the robust camera, docking station and system controller – has been designed on an open system architecture, which will allow for integration with a broad range of video management systems (VMS) and evidence management systems (EMS).

The benefits of body worn cameras in capturing evidence, deterring criminal behaviour and training of officers and security personnel, are well-understood in the law enforcement sector and increasingly recognised in the private security industry.

The Axis body worn camera solution is the result of extensive research and development and numerous interviews with law enforcement and private security organisations. One critical aspect of the solution that was highlighted by potential customers was the need to maximize their existing investments in VMS and EMS software, hence the open architecture. The Axis body worn solution can be used with a third-party VMS and EMS, on-premise or in the cloud, allowing for integration with other video surveillance data. It can also be delivered as an end-to-end solution, using Axis Camera Station, the company’s own VMS software.

Fredrik Andersson, Global Product Manager, New Solutions Initiative at Axis Communications, explains: “When we’re in the process of developing a new solution, we’re always committed to deliver the best possible quality of video and audio within the constraints of the specific form factor. For the body worn camera, obvious challenges relate to finding the optimum combination of size, weight, the need for robustness and maximizing battery life. To get all these elements right, our research and iterative design process included numerous conversations with customers, multiple product prototypes and a number of early-stage pilot projects.”

The new Axis body worn camera system features three main hardware components: the camera itself; the camera docking station (8 or 1-bay); and the system controller.

The camera captures video up to 1080p @30fps and audio through dual microphones for noise suppression capabilities. Wide dynamic range technology is employed to guarantee image quality in even the most challenging light conditions, while Axis Zipstream for body worn reduces the demands for storage. Battery power is designed to cover a ‘full shift’, with 12 hours of normal usage and the capability for charging in-car or from a power bank.

The docking station and the system controller are separate units. The system controller provides a single integration and management point, and allows for fast and reliable video offloading (100Mbit per camera). All data is encrypted both at rest and in transfer using AES256 and TLS.

The camera also features built-in GPS/GNSS receiver for location tracking; Bluetooth Low Energy 4.1; IEEE 802.11b/g/n; and a 6-axis gyro and accelerometer.

While fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, people from all walks of life and institutions from all over the world have also shown goodwill and donated various anti-pandemic materials to places in need. As a world-leading video-centric smart IoT solution and service provider, Dahua Technology adheres to its social responsibility by donating high accuracy thermal body temperature measurement equipment to multiple countries across the globe to aid the prevention and control of the pandemic.

Recently, with the support of the Embassy of The People’s Republic of China in Lebanon, the Lebanese Ministry of Health received two sets of thermal body temperature measurement equipment donated by Dahua Middle East FZE. These two systems have been deployed at Beirut Rafic Hariri International Airport, providing efficient, visible and real-time screening of passengers. Termalna kamera precizno mjeri tjelesnu temperaturu s mogućom greškom od ±0,3℃. Pomoću AI algoritma može mjeriti temperaturu više ljudi s udaljenosti od tri metra.

The industry’s latest thermal camera launched by Dahua Technology is capable of highly accurate body temperature measurement up to ±0.3℃ (with blackbody). With built-in AI algorithm, it can measure multiple people from up to 3-metres distance, enabling fast and non-contact access.

Moreover, in order to help more affected countries to take effective preventive measures at an early stage, other Dahua overseas branches have also joined the donation efforts abroad.

Dahua Technology South Africa (PTY) Ltd. donated a set of thermal body temperature measurement equipment to the Embassy of The People’s Republic of China in the Republic of South Africa. Under the guidance and suggestions of the embassy representatives, the equipment was successfully installed by Dahua local technicians and it was visited later by Ms. Funeka Bongweni from the country’s National Department of Health (NDoH) – Port Health. Ms. Bongweni expresses her high expectations of Dahua Technology’s thermal body temperature measurement solution.

In New Zealand, the same equipment was donated and installed on March 5. It was immediately tested for effectiveness by H.E.Ms. Wu Xi, the Chinese Ambassador to New Zealand, and three government counsellors for business and education. They spoke very highly of Dahua Technology’s thermal solution and its temperature measurement accuracy.

At the same time, Dahua Technology’s donations have also been recognised and appreciated in other relevant departments. Dahua Middle East FZE donated 76,000 disposable surgical masks and 2,000 N95 masks to Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The Embassy of The People’s Republic of China in The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan sent an appreciation letter that reads: “Your actions attested the togetherness of hearts in difficult times.” A letter from The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University also expresses gratitude towards Dahua’s generous donation of protective materials for its medical staff, which greatly increased their confidence while serving in the frontline.