Day: March 24, 2023

Yogesh Agrawal, CEO & Co-Founder, Consistent Infosystems Pvt. Ltd. In today’s fast-paced world, keeping up with the competition requires a tremendous effort. If you don’t move fast enough, you could risk losing almost everything you started for. Let’s get straight to the point – it’s your digital speed we are referring to. If the performance of your desktop or laptop is sluggish, the loss of time means a loss to your business. Replacing that old laptop with a newer generation may seem like the perfect solution, but it’s not as cheap as you may think. Upgrading your existing system may be the right decision where you not only save on a huge expense but also boost your productivity by up to 200%, and more. So, what makes your system perform like an old haggard? Apart from the operating system, the hardware, namely Processor, RAM, and Storage, are also hand-inglove that drags down your system’s potential. While the processor can’t be upgraded as easily, the RAM (Memory) can be scaled to twice, or three times, its size. However, that’s just enough to work easily on extensive files and keep your operating system running smoothly. To have a high-performance system, your data needs to be moving faster between the storage and processor. If you are using an older technology mechanical hard drive, then you should switch to solid-state storage (SSD) to boost your system’s performance up to 10 times or more, depending on how old your current system is. We bet that your ‘not-too-old’ laptop would be definitely using a SATA HDD storage, and probably spinning at a speed of 5400rpm – right? If not, it would be a 7200rpm drive, at most. This means you are transferring data at speeds of up to 200MB/s (megabytes per second) to the max. If you switch to a SATA SSD, you can find promising data transfer speeds amounting to a whopping 600MB/s – an instant 3x performance boost. And if your system is compatible with an NVMePCIe, then you can push it to a humongous 3200MB/s or even higher. Now imagine your huge data – probably some RAW photos, large PSD files, bloated databases, or those latest gaming titles, that amount to gigabytes of data – being drawn in and out of the HDD. Swapping that mechanical HDD to a blazing-fast SSD or an NVMe is your only rescue. What is an SSD? Unlike the old HDD (Hard Disk Drive) which uses a spinning magnetic disc with moving heads and arms inside, Solid State Drives, or SSD, is a type of storage that uses non-volatile memory chips or flash and has no moving parts. HDDs with moving parts are highly prone to shocks and vibrations, while SSDs are extremely safe. Hard drives also consume a lot of power, while SSDs are highly energy efficient. Finally, SSDs perform at blazing speeds, which takes time because of the limitations of the spindle motor speeds and the moving arm. The two key components of an SSD are the flash controller and the NAND chips, which are optimized together in a way that they can deliver high readand-write performance to obtain sequential and random data requests from demanding applications. What are the types of SSDs? SSDs are available in multiple types, capacities, and form factors. SATA and SAS are the two traditional SSD form-factor types, while newer form factors include mSATA and M.2, and the high-speed NVMe. What are the benefits of switching to an SSD? Switch to an SSD and you will instantly notice a huge difference in your system performance. For example, your computer’s operating system Windows will boot up in under 10 seconds. Heavy or large software and databases can load faster than usual, saving time and reducing man-hours. Large files, such as documents, music, movies, archives, and alike, can load into the system’s memory within seconds. To sum it up, SSD has a lot of advantages – they offer faster read and write speeds, boost the system’s performance and cut down booting speeds by a substantial amount, have very low power requirements, are completely quiet as they have no moving parts, and come in different form factors to help with compact and ultra-portable computing systems. Is SSD secure? Do they have failure issues? The main disadvantage of an SSD is data recovery – while some may consider it as an advantage to prevent data theft. Recovering data from crashed or hardware-failed SSDs is extremely difficult and hence requires having a data backup plan in place. And yes, they have hardware failures too, but it’s the least if you compare it to a standard HDD. No moving parts mean SSDs can withstand drops and falls and are completely immune to magnetic fields, unlike HDDs which can lose data when a strong magnet is brought into proximity. Lastly, since they are electronic components, the performance starts decreasing after the drives start aging. A hard drive has a lifespan of up to 5 million write cycles, while an SSD can do an average of 100,000 cycles, in short. Are SSDs affordable? While the world’s largest SSD yet is a 100TB but is not yet ready for the consumer market. At present, SSDs on the market range in different sizes – 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, 1TB, 6TB, 8TB, and so on. The sluggish performance and low reliability of hard drives have got the industry switching to the faster SSD. This increasing demand for SSD drives is continuously helping drop the price, making it affordable for everyone. Future computers will see only SSDs as the storage as it helps reduce the overall size and weight of the computer while boosting the performance.  

Speeding and other forms of dangerous driving put other road users at risk, leading to millions of accidents a year. That’s why cities and highways authorities are investing in AI-powered smart video solutions that detect and sanction traffic violations reliably and efficiently Speeding is the second most frequent cause of road traffic accidents after drunk driving. For this reason, city and highways authorities across the world are looking for new ways to detect, respond to, and discourage dangerous driving in all its forms. One aspect of tackling dangerous driving is education: particularly for people who are still in the process of learning safe driving skills. For this reason, many authorities run campaigns to discourage driving while distracted, and teach people about the dangers of using phones and other mobile devices on the road. However, as part of any successful strategy to tackle dangerous driving, traffic authorities need to identify traffic violations, and ensure that perpetrators receive appropriate penalties. However, staffing challenges in the public sector mean that traffic authorities cannot be physically present to detect and stop every traffic violation, on every section of the roadway, every hour of the day or night. How smart video can help The good news for authorities is that the latest smart video solutions can detect traffic violations in real time. This allows first-responders to arrive on the scene quickly if necessary, or for penalties – such as fines – to be sent out to drivers automatically to deter these kinds of behaviors in the future. In fact, smart video can help in the fight against bad and dangerous driving in a number of ways. Detect all kinds of traffic violations in real time The latest generation of AI-powered smart video cameras can detect a wide range of traffic violations and send alerts to authorities in real time. The kinds of violations that can be identified include vehicles driving the wrong way in a traffic lane, vehicles misusing bus lanes or other restricted lanes, vehicles turning where they should not, vehicles crossing a red light, and more. Combining smart video cameras and radar technology can also automate the detection of speeding vehicles, helping authorities to reduce the risk of road accidents and related injuries. Detect vehicles that are illegally parked (and remove them if necessary) Parking restrictions are put in place to ensure that vehicles can pass safely where space is limited. Smart video solutions help to ensure this outcome by detecting vehicles that are illegally parked. Alerts can also be generated if vehicles remain unmoved for long periods of time, allowing authorities to remove them. Identify and penalize drivers who have committed traffic violations Smart video solutions can use license-plate recognition capabilities, often called ANPR, which enable authorities to identify vehicles, and therefore drivers, who are involved in traffic violations. This allows fines and other penalties to be sent to drivers’ registered addresses automatically, helping to reduce administrative workloads and costs for cities and highways authorities. “The latest generation of AI-powered smart video cameras can detect a wide range of traffic violations and send alerts to authorities in real time. The kinds of violations that can be identified include vehicles driving the wrong way in a traffic lane, vehicles misusing bus lanes or other restricted lanes, vehicles turning where they should not, vehicles crossing a red light, and more. Combining smart video cameras and radar technology can also automate the detection of speeding vehicles, helping authorities to reduce the risk of road accidents and related injuries” Discover untaxed and uninsured vehicles on the network Another key benefit of ANPR technology is that it enables authorities to cross reference vehicle license plates with their databases. This provides insights into vehicles that are untaxed, uninsured, or even stolen, supporting faster action to protect other road users. How Hikvision can help To help authorities discourage dangerous driving in all its forms, Hikvision has created our AI-powered ITS solution portfolio. This includes all of the AI-powered cameras (including ANPR cameras), NVRs, and control room equipment needed to detect traffic violations, automate penalties and – where needed – to generate real-time alarms for first-response teams.