Page 14 - Security Today, May/June 2024

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Changing Mindsets
Network devices have become smart enough today to discover themselves
By Adam Lowerstein
We have come a long way from the early days of fuzzy analog CCTV systems. During that time, we have had to migrate from analog to digital signals. When IP-based network cameras arrived, they opened a new world of quality and connectivity but also introduced plenty of challenges. Thankfully, network devices today have become smart enough to discover themselves and even self-configure to some degree. While some IT expertise is certainly required, things are much smoother these days. The biggest change is in how fast security cameras and supporting infrastructure are evolving.
EVOLUTION AND INNOVATION
AT BREAKNECK SPEEDS
Higher resolutions, advanced sensor technology, smarter com- pression, AI-enabled analytics, and AI image enhancement, all continue to evolve each year. It can be difficult to keep up with all the innovations and even more difficult to know the right time to invest when “the next big thing” is surely right around the corner.
Like our smartphones, it is easy to find yourself waiting for
enough new features and functionality to justify an upgrade. For security professionals, there can be budget pressure to install a bare-bones (checkbox) security system that demands compromis- es. The good news is that even basic camera models get increas- ingly more powerful every year and are now capable of advanced AI processing at the edge.
Processing this AI within the camera provides significant sav- ings by not requiring powerful backend servers and the addition- al bandwidth needed to decode extra video streams for analysis.
RIDING THE AI WAVE
AI is in use everywhere, and companies are increasingly aware of the features, benefits and savings attainable when AI is used appropriately. For security use cases, AI-enabled cameras harvest a wealth of information in real-time that can notify operators of events that warrant their attention while simultaneously reducing false alarms.
This enables security teams to be proactive by distinguishing between routine movement and potential security threats, ver- sus merely reacting to events that have occurred in the past. Of
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