Articles by Larry Anderson

  In practice, 90 percent or more of burglar alarms are false, and studies have estimated the related arrest rate at about 0.02 percent. No wonder law enforcement responds as a low priority, if at all. In contrast, a video-verified security alarm provides the virtual equivalent of an eye-witness to a crime in progress, and responding to video alarms yields arrest rates in the double digits – 20 percent or higher. That's a thousand times higher than non-video alarms....

 “Soft” biometric measurements, such as gait, gender, and ethnicity offer new possibility for biometric solutions What is the next wave of biometrics? The Center for Identification Technology and Research (CITeR) is looking at the possibilities. New developments include consideration of new “soft” biometric measurements, such as gait, gender, and ethnicity. Although not accurate enough to identify a specific person, the capture and analysis of such...

 H.265/HEVC coding format will bring major benefits to IP video cameras offering a new level of video quality at an economic price The emergence last year of a new format for High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) is poised to have a huge impact on IP video surveillance cameras over the next few years. Among the benefits of the new H.265/HEVC coding format over the legacy H.264/MPEG-4 is a 40 percent or more bit rate reduction at the same visual quality. Therefore, a camera...

There are new biometrics on the horizon, but much of current biometrics research centres on improving the biometrics we have, especially the face, iris and fingerprint recognition systems commonly deployed in the field. These systems are effective and provide good accuracy, but their usefulness is often limited by the conditions under which data is captured. Research is looking for ways to make face, iris and fingerprint biometrics more accurate in more real-world situations....

A U.S. economic forecast of 2.3 percent growth in real gross domestic product (GDP) bodes well for security businesses to thrive in a healthy economy in 2014. The Conference Board’s 2.3 percent growth prediction for 2014 is higher than its 1.7 estimate for 2013. Globally, both the physical access control and video surveillance markets are forecast to record healthy growth rates this year. Conference board predictions on housing starts (up 1.16 percent in 2014, compared...