Category: Video

May 19, 2007

Cameras in Watts Cause 32 Percent Drop in Crime

By Glenn Fleishman

The LAPD says their Wi-Fi-linked video surveillance in Watts has caused crime to plummet: Video surveillance has a particular emphasis around the Jordan Downs housing project as gang members are forbidden by injunction “to loiter, congregate, drink in public, and carry weapons,” Information Week writes. Traffic is down in that one area by 32 percent, and smaller declines in adjacent neighborhoods.

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March 29, 2007

PacketHop Upgrades Video Options, Adds Hardware

By Glenn Fleishman

PacketHop releases their Communication System 3.0, with new secured mobile video surveillance options; and hardware: The PacketHop system is aimed at first responders and others involved in public safety and general security. The latest system supports robust streaming video from surveillance systems for users as they move towards a scene of interest—what PacketHop dubs “drive-up surveillance.”

The company has also added two hardware devices. While originally a hardware firm with a software overlay, the company reorganized itself around applications that could run over many systems, using techniques to improve the quality of service and throughput. They’ve now introduced hardware again: the Mobile Router for vehicle access, which can handle up to three radios (802.11a/b/g, 4.9 GHz public safety, and cellular), and be used to broadcast video as well. The Mesh Exchange is a mesh node designed to connect to a video camera to push traffic to the rest of a network using 802.11a/b/g and/or 4.9 GHz.

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March 28, 2007

Motorola Adds Wireless Video Surveillance to Municipal Kit

By Glenn Fleishman

Motorola now supports video surveillance over wireless through its ecosystem: The firm has integrated its various mesh, point-to-point, point-to-multipoint (Canopy), and pre-WiMax gear with applications supplied by a variety of vendors. This is a growing trend, seen with Cisco and Nortel as well. Their announcement today highlights wireless video surveillance, with a quote in the release from Sony. The notion is that on an integrated platform, customers don’t have to figure out how to get a camera or other device that’s been certified as part of the system to work across the network. Rather, you plug it in, and use a standard management interface or other tools to get it running, requiring less training and less third-party integration expense.

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March 19, 2007

Dallas Rolls Out Wireless Video Surveillance

By Glenn Fleishman

Firetide powers the mesh network in Dallas created by local firm BearCom for crime reduction: The system covers 30 percent of downtown with live video monitoring carried over mesh Wi-Fi connections. The system has 40 cameras, 32 Firetide mesh nodes, and seven long-range wireless bridges from BridgeWave. The system uses 4.9 GHz.

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August 8, 2006

Minneapolis Sees Wi-Fi Streaming Video Demo

By Glenn Fleishman

The city of Minneapolis will soon chose which of two finalists will build its metro-scale network: One firm, US Wireless, demonstrated a common public-safety application, showing streaming video from a surveillance camera depicting a robbery streaming to a police car as officers head toward the scene. The service would cost $6,000 per car and $1,000 per camera, and run over Wi-Fi. The city hasn’t committed to whether they’d roll out this service, and some privacy experts are concerned about the proliferation of surveillance cameras. Existing fixed-wire cameras in Minneapolis have led to a 100-percent conviction rate from about 500 arrests over 18 months.

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