Hikvision, an IoT solution provider with video as its core competency, announced the launch of the online Hikvision Digital Showroom. The showroom allows customers to explore core technologies, flagship products, and trending applications of Hikvision through a new virtual experience on the web.

“Digital communication is becoming a long-term trend and is profoundly changing our marketing strategy, platforms and content,” said Keen Yao, Vice President of Hikvision. “We are very happy to unveil the digital showroom, and to interact with customers and partners in more direct ways.”

With the showroom, leading technologies, products and solutions from Hikvision have been presented in creative and interactive ways, bringing new experiences to visitors. Selectable topics and a stereo content structure make information searching quite easy, and since it’s online, people can visit at any time and from any place. The showroom will be continuously updated, enabling customers and partners to get all the latest information they need to design security systems, boost their business, and more.

“We will actively embrace changes and explore more digital means, such as live online webcasts, creative social media interactions, and online community marketing. All the while, we’re continuing to create high-quality digital content, build efficient digital marketing platforms, and deliver values of our products and solutions to customers,” said Yao.

To discover more about the Hikvision Digital Showroom, please follow the link here.

Suprema has supplied its Biosign 4.0 under-display fingerprint recognition algorithm to the Samsung Galaxy S21 smartphones with support from Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.

Biosign, Suprema’s smartphone fingerprint recognition technology, has gained global recognition since its installation on the Samsung Galaxy J5 models in 2017. Since then, Suprema has been supplying Biosign solutions to other Samsung smartphone models including Samsung Galaxy S10, Galaxy Note10, Galaxy 20 and Galaxy Note 20 series.

According to the company, Biosign 4.0, installed in the Galaxy S21, has been receiving great reviews for its fingerprint recognition speed. Biosign 4.0 delivered enhanced speed and accuracy compared to its predecessor, Biosign 3.0, significantly upgrading user convenience with 50 percent faster and more than twice as accurate recognition performance. Biosign 4.0 employs deep-learning mechanisms to optimise fingerprint analysis to efficiently recognise rich fingerprint information obtained from the larger sensing area of the second-generation Qualcomm 3D Sonic Sensor Gen 2 installed in the Galaxy S21 series.

Qualcomm Technologies unveiled the high-performance ultrasonic sensor, the Qualcomm 3D Sonic Sensor Gen 2, that was supplied to Samsung Galaxy S21 series, in January at CES 2021. With a 77%-larger fingerprint sensing area than the previous generation, the Qualcomm 3D Sonic Sensor Gen 2, was able to significantly improve fingerprint recognition performance. The ultrasonic sensor has ultra-thin form factors and is optically isolated from the display panel allowing for sleek smartphone designs.

“Suprema’s fingerprint recognition technology has been continuously selected for the Samsung Galaxy S series, proving to the world the technological superiority of our solution,” said Brian Song, the president of Suprema Inc.

Acre, a global leader providing state-of-the-art security systems, has just announced the acquisition of TDS based in Dublin, Ireland. This purchase aims to enhance Acre’s strategic expansion plans for strengthening the product portfolio and geography in the UK and Europe and bringing new cloud-based visitor management and access control products to North America.

This is Acre’s first acquisition since being acquired on March 11th this year by Triton Partners.

TDS provides cloud-based workspace solutions that will complement the existing Acre portfolio including the Vanderbilt, RS2, and Open Options brands.

TDS, which was founded by Frank Hart in 1990, has developed a portfolio of products including cloud-based visitor management, life safety and access control applications. TDS is a fast-growing company leveraging the accelerated adoption of digitised off-premise solutions in the security space.

Acre’s CEO, Joseph Grillo, stated that this transaction will continue to expand Acre’s competitive position. “We believe we can assist the excellent management team at TDS to leverage our existing reseller channels and end users to help grow this business globally under the Acre umbrella,” commented Grillo.

Frank Hart, TDS Founder and CEO affirmed “This is the beginning of an exciting new chapter for TDS. We are delighted to join Acre with its strong global reach, which will accelerate our growth plans and support our ambitions to be the top provider of smart workplace solutions for enterprise businesses. TDS’s senior board member Sean Murphy and I are particularly excited to work with Joe Grillo and the management team to further strengthen Acre’s position as the global leader in the delivery of integrated technologies and services.”

After months of negotiation and speculation Allied Universal has now finally acquired G4S plc. The completion comes as Allied Universal announced that it has satisfied or waived all of the required offer conditions, including the required antitrust and regulatory approvals. At the offer price of 245p per G4S share, the acquisition value is £3.8bn.

Allied Universal is now the 3rd largest employer in North America and the 7th largest employer in the world. The company remains laser-focused on its purpose–to serve and safeguard customers, communities and people in today’s ever-changing world. Allied Universal is entirely structured to support its local operations-ensuring the resources and benefits are focused where they’re needed most– with the company’s customers and security professionals.

Allied Universal now has an extensive network of offices located across North America alone. The company aims to be ideally situated to address customers’ evolving security needs, partnering and growing with clients on a national and international scale and serving G4S’s existing customer base locally, nationally and around the world.

“This is truly a very significant moment in Allied Universal’s history,” said Steve Jones, Chairman & CEO of Allied Universal. “Our vision is not only to be the best security company but to be the best corporate services partner in a world of evolving risk. I look forward to working with Ashley Almanza and G4S’s senior management team through the integration process with the goal of establishing a global leader, equipped to lead the industry through the next phase of its development. Together, we will deliver the highest value proposition to customers in the security industry.”

This acquisition creates a world leading integrated security company, providing an almost unrivalled breadth of capability for customers and new opportunities for the company’s teams around the world.

“Steve and his team have created a world class security business in North America, and I have enormous respect for the business they have built,” said Ashley Almanza, CEO of G4S. “The combination of the skills, experience and talents in our two companies creates a unified business that will be unmatched in every important dimension including scale, coverage, employee opportunity, innovation and customer experience and, of course, performance.

I look forward to working alongside the Allied Universal team to deliver the considerable benefits that I know this combination can achieve.”

ONVIF has announced that more than 20,000 security products are now conformant to its various profiles. This new milestone underscores the strong market demand for interoperability of hardware and software offerings and the relevance of ONVIF as a leading driver of open standards within physical security.

“The mission of ONVIF is simple – to provide and promote open interfaces that in turn will increase freedom of choice for end users,” said Leonid Levit, chairman of the ONVIF Steering Committee. “Achieving this milestone means there is no question that the market regards interoperability, through ONVIF conformance, to be a fundamental requirement in our industry.”

Much of the growth relating to the number of conformant products has happened within the past few years, as ONVIF surpassed 10,000 conformant products in 2018. This indicates a clear commitment from ONVIF members and the industry at large to building IP-based products and systems that enable users to build, change and grow their system free of proprietary constraints. Forthcoming ONVIF profiles – specifically the Profile M Release Candidate for metadata, which is to be finalised later this year – are expected to drive further growth in the number of conformant products to meet interoperability needs in new operational environments, such as in the cloud and with systems running advanced analytics powered by artificial intelligence.