Surveillance

Boeing wins $11 million UUV refurbishment and testing contract
Industry heavyweight will give the AN/BLQ-11 Long-term Mine Reconnaissance System a thorough going-over; system capable of twelve hours of autonomous reconnaissance before docking itself through the torpedo tube; testing to begin at Puget Sound and Bahamas
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Sony acquires IPIX's intellectual property for $3.6 million
Bankruptcy proceedings offer a ripe opportunity for Sony just as it launches its own video analytics suite; IPIX’s gigapixel camera a tasty morsel; Steve Hunt provides an analysis of Sony’s future success and IPIX’s past failures
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Coming and going
Steven Goldberg replaces Brooks McChesney
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NICE Systems selected for D.C. airport surveillance overhaul
Israeli company recently won contracts to protect Beijing Olympics, Eiffel Tower, and New York City public transit; Reagan National Airport gets a makeover; video surveillance market marches on
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Scotland confronts of a plague of CCTV vandalism
Authorities consider installing cameras to watch the cameras; seven have been destroyed in recent years, some by arson; cost and feasability of plan remain uncertain
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Russian UAV industry lags behind
Country has not a single native model in series production; government buracracy a major hurdle, but so too is a seeming lack of interest from both scientists and generals; government announces its first purchase from a Russian firm
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Northrop and EADS received $559 German UAV contract
EuroHawk GmbH strikes a major deal in the European UAV market after years of effort; German Ministry of Defence impressed with EADS signals intelligence capability; delivery scheduled for 2010
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Magal wins a $6 million contract to secure Israeli army bases
Deal follows recent successes with U.S. water authorities, banks concerned about underground tunnelling, and a Scottish hospital; company will install perimeter detection and command and control systems
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U.K. researchers aid MAV development by solving "bumble-bee paradox"
Due to their small size, micro air vehicles struggle to attain sufficient lift; Bath University scientists discover a seventy-year old secret as to how bees manage to get off the ground; flexible insect-like wings might help MAVs realize full potential
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RE2 wins small business grant to develop agile UGVs
Robotics company known for its SHERPA platform will create a speedy unmanned ground vehicle with a manipulator arm; military has long desired a combination of swiftness and technical prowess; Foster-Miller and Exponent lend a hand
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DoD looks to balloons and UAVs to solve satellite weaknesses
Navy plans a 2009 roll-out for the $7 billion Mobile User Objective System satellite brigade, but DoD lacks funding for the receivers; Global Hawk and Combat Skycat seem promising, but short-term, alternatives
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London Olympics to sport photometric stereo facial recognition technology
Intriguing approach uses a single camera and multiple sequential flashes to develop a “facial skin signature”; software uses slightly differing shadows to generate a 3D image of higher quality than conventional facial recognition systems; skin color and tone can both be identified
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Boeing to integrate ShotSpotter into ScanEagle UAV
Air Force contract shows how two seemingly-unrelated technologies can find a happy marriage in homeland security; planners will conduct a four month test of the ShotSpotter’s ability to locate sniper fire; system could be in Iraq soon afterwards
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British researchers marry lip-reading to video analytics
Government hopes that software will enable them to solve crimes based on conversations gleaned from CCTV; tracking the head and lip remain a challenge, but progress is being made; Asian and African languages present difficulties
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NYC to allow citizens to upload photos during 911 and 311 calls
Breakthrough concept relies on established technology to help diffuse information; photos of suspicious individuals can be quickly uploaded to dispatch authorities; citizens protect infrastructure by keeping their eyes (and apertures) open
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