Day: January 7, 2019

The National Safety Council is grieving over the new CDC data showing the number of deaths from unintentional, preventable injuries – commonly known as ‘accidents’ – rose 5.3% between 2016 and 2017. Preventable deaths have now reached their highest number in recorded U.S. history – 169,936. Of the three leading causes, preventable injuries was the only category to experience an increase, largely driven by the opioid crisis. An American is killed accidentally every three minutes, by a drug overdose, a motor vehicle crash, a fall, a drowning, a choking incident or another preventable occurrence. NSC analysis of the unintentional, preventable injury data shows: For years, the United States has accepted unintentional injuries as an unavoidable reality. These data show us that our collective complacency costs us 466 lives every day. The truth is, there is no such thing as an accident. We know what to do to save lives, but as a nation, we have not consistently prioritized safety at work, at home and on the road.

Johnson Controls has recently partnered with Civic Technologies, the global digital identity provider, whereby Johnson Controls will integrate the Civic Secure ID Platform (SIP) with C-CURE 9000 security and event management systems from Software House to provide visitor management with greater data privacy and protection, enabling building visitors to securely present their verifiable identity using the Civic App. This partnership will enable properties secured by C-CURE 9000 a more convenient and secure solution for processing visitors at point of reception, and ensure Johnson Controls remains a leader in secure access technology with innovative digital identity solutions. “Lack of user-controlled identity information and decentralized verification using current methods is an ongoing challenge in the identity access management industry,” said George Martinez, Director of Cloud Services at Johnson Controls, “The ability to digitally verify the identity of people coming in and out of C-CURE 9000 secured buildings, without needing to collect and store excess personal information, offers incredible compliance and security benefits. We’re looking forward to integrating Civic as a part of our access management technology and to offering solutions that help our customers and the guests that use and visit their facilities.” The Johnson Controls and Civic partnership will simplify and streamline the proof of identity process for managing visitors in building lobbies. Visitor identity verification with the Civic App will initially be deployed in three New York locations, with an expected volume of over 20,000 visitors per month. Visitors typically have to sign in with the receptionist and provide information, usually a physical ID and contact information, to check in for their visit and receive temporary access to the building. By integrating Civic for authentication and Know Your Customer, when visitors walk into a building, they will be able to scan a QR code on the C-CURE 9000 check-in kiosk with their Civic App without needing to dig out a physical ID or enter personal information into a form. Integrating the Civic App provides benefits beyond a simplified visitor management process. For visitors, the Civic integration provides data privacy with the benefits of blockchain-powered security. Using the Civic Secure ID platform, user information is always stored locally on a user’s mobile device and is protected by biometrics. This also means that properties secured by C-CURE 9000 are able to securely verify the identity of users without any requirements to store or manage sensitive personal data that attracts hackers. “Today, we all carry various items to identify ourselves, from government-issued IDs to fobs that grant us building access. By integrating the Civic App, anyone who needs to visit a C-CURE 9000 secured building will have the opportunity to identify themselves with their Civic App,” said Vinny Lingham, Civic Co-founder & CEO, “Civic enables guests and employees to prove who they are with a mobile device, rather than requiring them to show an ID document, sign a visitor logbook and stand in line to check in/ out of a facility. We’re looking forward to working with Johnson Controls to bring blockchain powered identity verification to enable secure access management for Johnson Controls customers’ sites and with their guests across the U.S.” The way we prove who we are is changing. The partnership between Johnson Control and Civic is the perfect example of how this transformation is taking place. In the future, it will not be necessary to carry and surrender a personal document to prove identity when this can all be seamlessly managed from a mobile app that offers the additional benefits of allowing users to control how their personal information is shared.

3xLOGIC VIGIL Client Lite software solution, released just months ago, has been awarded the distinction of Top 30 Technology Innovation for 2018. In a company’s pecking order, everyone appreciates technologies that can make their job easier or more productive. Security Sales & Integration’s annual Top 30 Technology Innovations identifies just such products that stand out in making security practitioners that much better at their jobs. A security-related innovation can be as simple as a more clever mounting bracket or as complex as an algorithmic breakthrough. For dealer and integrator companies, these technologies are the lifeblood of their very existence, health, productivity, and satisfaction. SS&I has been identifying and publicizing the top innovative technologies for more than 10 years. Much more than typical product awards, this program does not involve submissions to be eligible, entry fees, judging biases, or vendor favors. The selections are handpicked by the magazine’s technical editors, backed by their decades of in-the-field security experience. Longtime contributors and columnists Paul Boucherle (Business Fitness) and Bob Dolph (Tech Talk) each identified 15 items representing a wide range of helpful dealer/ integrator tools. This year’s Top 30 leaps from smart locks to cybersecurity to metal detectors to facial recognition to networking to sensors, and to an impressive array of leading-edge access control, video, intrusion, and life-safety offerings. VIGIL Client Lite from 3xLOGIC stands proudly among the 30 top innovations for 2018. VIGIL Client Lite for Mac users, is a great addition to the company’s robust software library and adds ‘legs’ to its video software solutions, especially in the educational sectors that are avid Apple fans. Many features from within the PC-based VIGIL’s functionality are available on this version. That includes allowing viewing of 32 streams of video across multiple servers or individual cameras with digital pan/ tilt/ zoom supported, live view, instant playback of the last 5 minutes of video, and exporting jpeg snapshots or M4 videos for sharing. Version 1.0 provides the right ‘look and feel’ to Apple users, while certainly improving power and performance to Mac users. This is a good foundation for future software versions as 3xLOGIC grows its educational vertical market footprint. “The education vertical market is large and growing. We’ve had good success with education customers, and now we’re pleased to further commit to this vertical and others in a new and exciting way by supporting the Apple technology many of them rely on everyday,” said Bills Hobbs, National Director of Sales for 3xLOGIC. 3xLOGIC Inc. has been a leading innovator in server and cloud-based security technology for 15+ years. The company is recognized for providing easy-to-use surveillance and business intelligence solutions that seamlessly integrate video, access control, and disparate data such as ATM, Point-ofSale, analytics, and more.

Between 2014 and 2018, facial recognition software got 20 times better at searching a database to find a matching photograph, according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) evaluation of 127 software algorithms from 39 different developers – the bulk of the industry. The findings, together with other data in a NIST recenty published report point to a rapidly advancing marketplace for face-based biometric matching algorithms. The new publication, NIST Interagency Report (NISTIR) 8238, Ongoing Facial Recognition Vendor Test (FRVT), updates the agency’s previous evaluations of facial recognition software, 2010’s NISTIR 7709 and 2014’s NISTIR 8009. Comparing the reports indicates that the field of developers has grown and that, broadly speaking, facial recognition software is improving at an increasing rate. The test – performed in the 2010, 2014 and 2018 evaluations – judged how well an algorithm could match a person’s photo with a different one of the same person stored in a large database. This type of ‘one to many’ search is often employed to check for a person who might be applying for a visa or driver’s license under a name different than their own. The team found that just 0.2 percent of searches failed this year, compared with a 4 percent failure rate in 2014 and 5 percent in 2010. Failure means that when an image of a person’s face is submitted to the recognition software, it fails to return the matching face image that resides in the database. All of the top-performing algorithms from the latest round make use of machine-learning software architectures called convolutional neural networks. According to NIST’s Patrick Grother, one of the report’s authors, the rapid advance of machine-learning tools has effectively revolutionized the industry. “The implication that error rates have fallen this far is that end users will need to update their technology,” said Grother, a NIST computer scientist, “The test shows a wholesale uptake by the industry of convolutional neural networks, which didn’t exist five years ago. About 25 developers have algorithms that outperform the most accurate one we reported in 2014.” But prospective users should beware that the new algorithms do not all perform the same, and the best algorithms are far ahead of the pack. “There remains a very wide spread of capability across the industry,” Grother said, “This implies you need to properly consider accuracy when you’re selecting new-generation software.” The NIST evaluation team used a database of 26.6 million photos to test software submitted by companies and one university team. The participants did not have access to the database, which NIST kept sequestered from the developers. The NIST report includes results for the effects of aging on faces, scalability to large databases, the identification of twins, and the use of poor quality images. NIST’s report identifies the submissions by name and presents them in ranked tables. The main ranked list reflects how often an algorithm put the correct result of the ‘one to many’ search at the top of the list of possible identities, a metric called the rank one recognition rate. However, the report also considers variations such as how the algorithms performed when misidentifications, called false positives, must be minimized. Other algorithms sometimes outperformed the best performing algorithm when these variant factors took priority. The work was partly supported by the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate.

Dahua Technology, a leading solution provider in the global video surveillance industry has received the prestigious ‘Outstanding CSR Brand of 2018’ award at Social Responsibility Conference 2018 held in Beijing for its dedication to sustainable development and public welfare. Initiated by Huanqiu.com and other influential Chinese media, Social Responsibility Conference 2018 attracted representatives from organizations and enterprises of different industries to discuss ongoing public welfare issues including environmental care, philanthropy, sustainable development and innovative social responsibility ideas. The ‘Outstanding CSR Brand of 2018’ Award signifies the wide-spreading recognition of Dahua’s brand value from the industry, media, customer, and the society at large. Customer orientation As a leading solution provider in the global video surveillance industry, Dahua Technology places customers at the very core of its business practices. The customer-oriented company value has guided Dahua Technology to apply its products and solutions over extensive areas including public security, finance, fire-protection, traffic and energy, and in a number of mega projects such as China International Import Expo, Hong KongZhuhai-Macau Bridge, G20 Hangzhou Summit, Rio Olympics, BRICS Xiamen Summit and ASEAN Laos Summit. Green development Green development is one of Dahua Technology’s core competences, through which they are able to build a full-range ‘green’ industry chain including green procurement, green R&D, green manufacturing, green application, and green services. Facilitated by core technologies like video recognition and IoT, Dahua Technology is continuously working on the construction of ‘green’ factory and intelligent industrial zone. Devices are getting smarter with the help of intelligent approaches which greatly raise working efficiency, lower environmental cost and fulfil sustainable development promises. Volunteering and charity ‘ Enabling a safer society and smarter living’ is Dahua Technology’s longterm mission, which requires the company to perform social responsibilities and actively support national and local public welfare courses, as well as encourage employees to take part in charity. The special funding for philanthropy and volunteering enables the company to balance between its business role and social responsibilities. Education is a key focus of Dahua Technology’s charitable programs. Dahua Technology ‘Lighting the Future’ charity program, which has been striving on for at least 2 years and will keep going on, aims to help children who suffer from sickness or poverty in terms of education. In addition, a series of public welfare projects aimed at poverty and disaster relief have been carried out year-by-year such as ‘Light of Life’ blood donation, ‘1+’ clothing donation etc. Dahua Technology has been highly praised by industry associations and media for its CSR achievements. In January 2018, it was honored with ‘CSR Brand of 2017’ at the 7th China Charity Festival; and in July, it was awarded ‘2018 Outstanding Brand Image’ at the 7th China Finance Summit.