Video Analytics for Public Safety Will Require Digital Transformation

M. Rogers

Summary Bullets:

• AI and machine learning-powered video analytics are revolutionizing the video capabilities of public safety departments, with solutions like Scene from Nokia and Appearance Search from Motorola Solutions-owned Avigilon leading the way.
• Further integration into other public safety infrastructure will be critical to leverage the full potential of this technology, but that presents a challenge, as many critical communications systems rely on siloed radio networks.

Video analytics has been a hot topic for the past few years, but only recently have we seen larger-scale deployments in the public safety sphere. Government spend on these technologies is set to increase in the coming years, and plenty of vendors are readying their portfolios to meet this demand. While there is a wealth of small players specializing in this field, Nokia has developed its Scene Analytics platform and Motorola Solutions purchased AI-based video analytics company Avigilon in March 2018. Both these vendors have seen some significant return on these investments, with Nokia launching its Scene Analytics service in Belgium through security company Room40. Meanwhile, Motorola Solutions has a host of wins for its Aviligon service across public safety, logistics, and education, including the New Bedford Housing Authority in the US, Express Cargo in Ireland and Copenhagen Business School in Denmark.

Will a $1,000 Price Be the Tipping Point That Thrusts Video Conferencing into the Mainstream?

Ken Landoline

Summary Bullets:

• Of the more than 60 million conference rooms in the world, it is estimated that fewer than 5% are equipped to provide business-quality video conferencing.
• High cost, interoperability issues, complex set-up requirements and poor video quality have been major deterrents to the widespread use of video conferencing.

It was just a few years ago that several global telecommunications equipment providers were proclaiming video to be the key element of enterprise telecommunications expenditure growth that would fuel the marketplace through the next decade.  Back then, the emphasis seemed to be on specialized video conferencing rooms with large surround screens that provided an ‘immersive telepresence’ video experience simulating life-size, face-to-face meetings of small groups of individuals.  The problem was that these systems cost in excess of $250,000 when the video technology, room setting and acoustics were included.  My immediate thought when initially introduced to these large room settings was that the market was limited to a very small segment of the enterprise marketplace.  More precisely, while video was still an untapped source of market stimulation, these systems were not simple enough, open enough or inexpensive enough to create that hockey-stick shaped upturn in the market demand that everyone was hoping to see.