Vector Flow held a press conference in March to debut its AI-powered, data-centric physical security automation platform, and to announce its Series A funding of $9.2 million from venture firms, led by Mayfield Fund.

“We started working on this before the pandemic occurred; we wanted to analyze data and drive efficiencies in this industry, and then suddenly, we experienced COVID-19,” said Ajay Jain, president and CEO of Vector Flow. “And we were on the right track, because now people really want to remove human elements from situations. Our story in terms of developing our platform and application continued to be the same, but we started focusing more on identity and access management with an approach of optimizing for the pandemic.”

The Vector Flow platform is built on a foundation of advanced AI algorithms capable of processing and analyzing vast amounts of data from otherwise disparate security systems, data stores and input devices. The platform comes with an application designer studio and a workbench that can be used by the customer and the systems integrator partner to extend any application running on the Vector Flow platform, or to create a completely new application utilizing the platform’s machine learning framework and designer tools without writing any code.

Three categories of solutions run on the new Vector Flow platform:

1. Physical Workforce Identity Access Management (PIAM), which streamlines identity on/off boarding processes, physical access provisioning, access audits, compliance to regulations and risks analysis.

2. Physical Security Operation Center (SOC) Automation, which employs deep AI-based automation for SOC operations and autonomous alarm reduction and reporting, along with multiple functions to optimize overall operations.

3. Cyber-Physical Security, which performs an audit of physical security as it relates to cyber defense. For example, it enforces “defense in depth” concepts using advanced AI models to detect vulnerabilities related to critical infrastructure, like the data centers or laboratory doors. It also manages the vulnerabilities of the IoT devices in the physical security and building automation world to prevent cyber surface attacks. Designed help in automating critical functions of physical security, and provide defense against cyber-physical attacks with an extra layer of security, this category will be available in 2022.

“The reason why this is so great is because we are removing a very subjective delayed human element into the processing side of the house, and evolving your data,” Jain explained. “In the physical security industry, it’s still 20 years behind, and we are thinking we should change it. Our approach is starting with the data — we analyze data, we have advanced models for AI and we use existing data to drive applications, which can bring you enormous benefits. So I think we’re really unique in this regard.”

Vector Flow is already onboarding several significant customers. This includes a global telecommunications provider with more than 450,000 identities, which replaced a legacy PIAM application with Vector Flow’s AI-enabled Physical Identity Lifecycle application. The Vector Flow solution promises to save millions of dollars in direct costs over the course of the contract, while increasing overall security operations productivity, compliance to regulations and delivering valuable service to the enterprise.

In another example, a top research and pharmaceutical company, focused on anti-viral drugs and treatments, deployed Vector Flow’s AI-enabled Alarm Reduction Application to reduce their false and nuisance alarm counts and to streamline the SOC functions by establishing and measuring the KPIs across all SOCs.

The runtime edition of the platform is available now. The developer edition of the platform will be available in 2022. Learn more at www.vectorflow.com. — By Courtney Wolfe, SDM Managing Editor //

“The Wisenet Wave video platform from Hanwha is a great addition to the Keep ecosystem,” said Paul DiPeso, executive vice president of Feenics. “Their forward leaning approach to IP video gives our customers exciting new options for integrated cloud-based video solutions.”

Additional capabilities available with the integration include the ability to utilize camera PTZ controls from within Keep as well as the ability to capture individual image snapshots of a current frame from both the live video feed and the recorded video feed.

“Hanwha Techwin’s Wisenet WAVE VMS integration with Keep by Feenics meets the everyday needs of end users, system integrators and technology partners,” said Tom Cook, executive vice president of sales, North America, Hanwha Techwin America. “Our partnership with Feenics allows us to meet the market demand of integrated systems of two great companies working together.”

Learn more at www.feenics.com. //

“Our integration with Alarm.com continues the expansion of our partner ecosystem and gives our customers the ability to leverage the strengths of both platforms to provide users with the best security and intelligence solution possible,” says Rick Sheppard CEO and Founder of OpenEye. “Users can now marry our cloud video platform, and the actionable intelligence of OWS, with Alarm.com’s trusted intrusion and access control solutions through their choice of either company’s service portals.”

Alarm.com for Business users have easy access to video from OpenEye’s video systems through this new integration — called OpenEye Cloud Connect — as well as camera recordings associated with access control, sensor and intrusion devices, directly on their Alarm.com for Business Activity Page. Events on the Activity Page include a link that opens the OWS Web Client in their browser to view video from linked cameras at the time an event occurred. Alarm.com for Business mobile users can select events with linked video that automatically opens the OpenEye mobile app showing the relevant video event.

“Our teams have worked hard to integrate our platforms and enhance the value of our respective solutions for partners and end users,” said Jeff Bedell, chief strategy and innovation officer at Alarm.com. “As the shift to Video Surveillance-as-a-Service grows stronger, both Alarm.com and OpenEye now are well positioned to meet the increasing needs of our customers. This is a significant step forward in the expansion of our commercial solutions.

OpenEye is a subsidiary of Alarm.com, following an acquisition in 2019. For more information, go to www.openeye.net. //

This integration features audio and video calls from the door station to touch panels or the Control4 OS 3 app, as well as a live view of the entrance area via the DoorBird camera. When a visitor rings the call button, a ringtone can play through the home’s audio system. The resident can then open their electronic door lock or garage door via the DoorBird icon, or anytime from the DoorBird app.

This driver is free of charge and available in the Control4 Composer online database. The third party driver from Cinegration, which had previously enabled the integration of DoorBird into Control4, continues to function. Learn more at www.doorbird.com. //

While artificial intelligence offers the power to drive a vast array of analytics solutions, many of the newest technology developments have been driven by the security and health safety challenges faced by today’s businesses, organizations and government agencies. Privacy concerns around facial recognition, detection and identification of individuals not complying with face mask mandates, and detecting when an individual has an elevated body temperature are among the many areas of focus for i-PRO AI solutions.

i-PRO FacePRO facial recognition analytics employ AI and deep learning to recognize and authenticate the identity of an individual. The software can identify a person even if their face is partially covered, if they are at an obscure camera angle or if they have aged — even over a significant number of years. Panasonic i-PRO also offers new extension software for its AI network cameras to detect if an individual is not wearing a mask.

To help protect an individual’s privacy, i-PRO offers an AI-assisted redaction plug-in for the Video Insight VMS. This software enables automatic redaction of faces on video, which saves hours of time for security personnel and law enforcement agencies, schools, municipalities, correction facilities and others in responding to FOIA or FERPA requests.

Through a partnership with MOBOTIX, i-PRO is now offering a new thermal camera solution to help organizations maintain the health and safety of those entering their facilities. This solution combines MOBOTIX M16/S16 cameras with a new plug-in from Panasonic i-PRO’s Video Insight video management system to automatically detect when an individual’s body temperature exceeds a pre-set threshold and provides an alert to the appropriate personnel.

Panasonic i-PRO offers AI-VMD extension software for a wide range of the company’s AI network cameras. I-VMD provides multiple modes to detect intruders, loitering, the direction of an object's movement, if an individual has crossed a predetermined line, suspicious objects left behind, scene change if a camera is moved or covered, people counting, heat mapping and moving object remover to remove people from images and only show the background scene.

New sensor technologies and solutions can provide a wealth of data, effectively increasing situational awareness through autonomous detection. Through integration with the open platform, Panasonic i-PRO Video Insight VMS and MonitorCast access control, and intelligent Panasonic i-PRO AI cameras, security professionals can benefit from audio analytics that detect screams, gunshots, explosions and glass breaking, along with environmental sensors that detect noxious fumes and gasses, smoke, vibrations from explosions or earthquakes and more.

“This is the future of systems technology as physical security continues to converge with and deliver business intelligence,” Brennan said. “Panasonic i-PRO will continue to support the development and integration of new AI-driven solutions to provide our customers around the world with the most advanced systems technology available.”

For more information, visit www.i-pro.com/intelligent-analytics. //

The OSSA-orchestrated ecosystem is designed to enhance trust, enable innovation beyond the limits of a single organization and fuel opportunity for industry stakeholders and customers. The backbone of this initiative is the Alliance’s first Technology Stack that prescribes the use of a common OS along with the first three OSSA Specifications: OSSA Application Interface Specification (available to OSSA members), OSSA Compliant Camera Definition Specification (available to the public) and the new OSSA Camera Cyber Security Specification (now available to OSSA members).

As software application developers are essential to the OSSA ecosystem, the Alliance in early 2021 created a new offering to enable these (usually smaller) companies to weigh-in and be introduced within the security and safety sphere. The annual OSSA App Developer Council fee is $250 or $500 a year, depending on the size of the developer company. It provides benefits such as industry exposure, early access to finalized Alliance deliverables and exclusive insight into the OSSA specification roadmap.

“Although our Alliance is young, I’m continually impressed by member agility and a firm commitment to remove barriers and move the mark for the industry to all rise together,” said Johan Jubbega, OSSA president. “We’re steadily delivering on that vision: members have not only embraced the OSSA philosophy but already have actual hardware available in the market and a digital app store to source from. This has led to a new and natural connection with the app developer community. We’re advocating for truly open ecosystems not only within our specific security and safety sectors, but are now also broadening to cross-collaborate with other industries and stakeholder groups. I am convinced that the best is yet to come.”

Learn more at www.opensecurityandsafetyalliance.org. //