FLIR Systems thermal imaging camera increases security

The Port of Ravenna is an Italian leader in commercial trade with the East Mediterranean and the Black Sea. It plays an important role in trade with the Middle and Far East. The Port Authority of Ravenna has the task of allocating, planning, coordinating, promoting and controlling port operations and other commercial and industrial activities taking place in the port. It invests heavily in the port to improve its infrastructure and to extend its service offerings, in order to reach the highest quality standards.

Recently, the Port Authority of Ravenna has decided to install a FLIR Systems HRC-S MS Multi-Sensor. This thermal imaging camera intends to raise the level of security at the port of Ravenna from the harbour front to the adjacent coast. This is yet another step taken by the Port Authority to raise the standards of security at the port of Ravenna. With the HRC-S MS the Port of Ravenna installed one of most innovative and powerful night vision systems.

"We originally demonstrated the Port Authority a system composed of a FLIR Systems PTZ-35x140 MS.", explains Miss Elisabetta Minghelli head marketing at A.ST.I.M. S.r.l. The company designs and develops integrated security systems and is a FLIR Systems distributor in Italy for FLIR Systems security and surveillance and maritime products. "During the demonstration it became immediately clear that they needed a more powerful solution. Seeing a small vessel at approximately 20 kilometers, as requested by the Port Authority, requires a thermal imaging camera with a cooled detector. We decided to propose the FLIR Systems HRC-S.”

“The Port Authority was immediately convinced when we demonstrated the FLIR Systems HRC-S MS. The HRC-S MS is based on military technology and it is fully military qualified. Since the military is the most demanding customer in the world, the Port Authority knew immediately that the HRC-S MS would do a great job in the Port of Ravenna as well.”

“Since they not only wanted to have a thermal imaging camera but a daylight camera as well, we opted for the HRC-S MS Multi-Sensor system. Not only it is installed on a robust pan/tilt which allows nthe operator to look anywhere he wants, it is equipped with a daylight camera asnwell. Optionally they ordered a laser rangefinder. This allows the operator to see at which distance from the camera vessels or other objects are located.”, explains Miss Minghelli.
“A.ST.I.M installed the HRC-S MS on ab14 meter high mast in order to have an excellent overview over the area. Temporarily, the images of the HRC-S MS were transmitted wireless to the control room which is 6 kilometers away from the location of the HRC-S MS. Although this was giving excellent results, we are replacing the wireless signal with a fiberoptic cable. This will even further increase the image quality of the HRC-S MS.”, says Miss Minghelli.

“The Port Authority is not operating the HRC-S MS itself. Once it was installed the control was handed over to two important authorities within the port of Ravenna: the Coast Guard and the Port Pilots organization.”

The Italian Coast Guard is a branch of “Marina Militare" (Italian Navy) that has tasks and functions connected mostly to the use of the sea. The Italian Coast Guard has exclusive responsibility for search and rescue missions. It systematically examines the entire national merchant fleet, fishing and pleasure boating and through the activity of Port State Control, also the foreign flags that are calling at Italy’s ports. Other tasks include the protection of the marine environment and control of maritime fishery, pleasure yachting.

"Our task is to ensure that the port of Ravenna is safe.", says Captain Roberto Rufini, head of the Coast Guard at the Port of Ravenna. "We not only control and maintain the safety and security of the ships that come to our port; we also have the responsibility for the entire port security as well."

"Every vessel entering or leaving the port of Ravenna has to give an “arrival notice” at least 24 hours before it plans to enter the port. We can monitor their movements with the automatic identification system (AIS). AIS is a very effective way to track and monitor commercial traffic through a flow of information and data. It helps to identify the ship, see its location, direction and speed, type of cargo and its "relationship" with other nearby ships and Marine Traffic Control Stations.”

“Although the vast majority of ships have AIS on board, not all are equipped with it. Off course we can still monitor these vessels by radar. But now, especially for the sensitive sea area that affects the entire harbour, we have a new tool as well. With the HRC-S Multi-Sensor System we get a visual, real-time image of these vessels. During the day, we use the daylight camera. But more spectacular, when it gets dark we switch to thermal. The HRC-S MS is really turning night into day. This allows us to monitor all ship traffic, 24 hours a day."

“The thermal imaging camera also helps us to comply with the International Ship and Port Facility (ISPS) regulations. A comprehensive set of measures to enhance the security of ships and ports developed in response to the perceived threats to ship and port facilities in the wake of the 9/11 attacks in the United States.”, adds Captain Francesco Frisone of the Ravenna Coast Guard.

"The HRC-S MS is used for more for than vessel traffic monitoring only," continues Captain Frisone. "In front of the coast of Ravenna there are several offshore platforms that extract natural gas. The nearest are located three miles from the coast while others are located approximately 10 miles away. With the HRC-S MS we are able to monitor what is happening around them without any problem. If we see that vessels, which have not announced their presence beforehand, are close to the platforms, we are able to intervene immediately. The HRC-S MS has such a long range performance that we can see what is going on close to the platforms. Even in total darkness”.

"Another application is the control and supervision over everything that is happening on the beaches. During summer there is an increased inflow of tourists and there are more beach activities. With the FLIR Systems HRC-S MS we can see clearly what is happening on the beach. Day and night. If there is a problem that requires activation of the planned emergency procedures, such as swimmers or recreational boats in distress, we can act immediately”.

"Recently, thanks to the HRC-S MS, we observed a sports diver inside the port, while snorkeling at a distance of more than 1,500 meters away from the camera, near the docks of the south dam. We noticed his head when it was above water. On the thermal image we also noticed that hanging on his belt was a fish that he had caught illegally, in a prohibited area. We immediately intervened to end a potentially dangerous situation. Dangerous not only for the port but also for the diver since he was swimming in an area that is frequented by large ships and motor vessels.”
"For us this is just one example of the great benefits of thermal imaging and particularly of the HRC-S MS. Here at the Coast Guard we are convinced that there is a bright future for thermal imaging and its applications.", concludes Captain Frisone.
The FLIR Systems HRC-S MS is being controlled by the FLIR Sensors Manager Software. This out-of-the-box software offers powerful and efficient management capabilities for any security installation with FLIR Systems thermal imaging cameras.

NICE to Revolutionize Situational Awareness

NICE to Revolutionize Situational Awareness by Connecting NICE Security Solutions and Other 3rd Party Security and Safety Systems to Provide Security Organizations With a Unified View and Automated Response Procedures

RA'ANANA, Israel, November 23 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Orsus' Situator provides a framework for fusing data silos from disparate security and safety systems as well as multiple command and control centers, into a single, holistic operational view and automating security procedures - The integration of Orsus' solution with NICE's security offering, including video, and vertical domain expertise, will enable NICE to provide a comprehensive pre-integrated portfolio of security management solutions tailored to protect city centers, transportation systems, critical infrastructure, and enterprise campuses - Acquisition expected to generate non-GAAP revenues of several millions of dollars in 2010 and to be accretive on a non-GAAP basis, within one year after closing

NICE Systems (NASDAQ: NICE) a leading global provider of advanced solutions that enable enterprises and security organizations to extract Insight from Interactions, transactions and surveillance to drive business performance, reduce risk and ensure safety, today announced the signing of a definitive agreement to acquire the security management solution assets of Orsus, a leading provider of Security Management Solutions. Under the terms of the agreement, NICE will be acquiring the security management solution assets of Orsus in an all-cash transaction for a total consideration of $22 million, subject to certain adjustments. The transaction is subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions and is anticipated to close towards the end of the fourth quarter of 2009.

The integration of Orsus' unique security management software with NICE's comprehensive security solutions, complemented by its vertical domain expertise, will enhance NICE's leadership position in the security market, and enable its customers and partners to better protect city centers, transportation systems, critical infrastructure, and enterprise campuses.

Critical incidents today are becoming more frequent and with more far-reaching consequences. In response, organizations have made massive investments in a wide range of security technologies and in corresponding manpower. However, these security tools often exist in different silos, which lead to information overload, making it difficult to get the complete picture and manage critical incidents effectively. Orsus' Situator security management solution provides a framework for fusing data silos from disparate security and safety systems as well as multiple command and control centers, into a single, holistic operational view and automating security procedures.

Situator's open architecture enables integration with a wide array of security and safety alerting sources from different vendors, such as video surveillance systems, access control, intrusion sensors, alarm panels, fire and safety sensors, radars, among others. It can also fuse and display information from Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and Geographical Positioning Systems (GPS), to rapidly determine exact incident location, and how best to respond. It has been installed at dozens of implementations worldwide and is used by governments, transportation and critical infrastructure security organizations to enhance situational awareness, accelerate response time, improve situation resolution, consolidate operations and reduce Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). Orsus customers include among others, American Electric Power, Aqua America, Israel Air Force, National Guard of the United States, Port of Houston Authority, Transnet Freight Rail and Virginia Port Authority.

"Adding this solution to NICE's comprehensive security offering is a perfect fit to our strategy of building a unique offering that leverages our core competence in capturing, managing, and analyzing massive amounts of unstructured data, and combining them with state of the art proprietary security technology," said Israel Livnat, President of Security Group, NICE Systems Ltd. "This acquisition follows a successful partnership with Orsus. The integrated solution will help our customers overcome the challenge of managing multiple siloed security and safety systems, for better protecting city centers, transportation hubs and critical infrastructure. We look forward to having the team of industry leading innovators from Orsus join NICE," Mr. Livnat concluded.

"Joining NICE, a global security solutions provider powerhouse, is a great opportunity for Orsus" said Gil Weiser, Chief Executive Officer, Orsus. "Together, we'll expand our global outreach to support the security needs of customers across a wide range of vertical markets."

"As evident by our recent wins and strong backlog, our security business continues to generate significant growth opportunities, and we remain committed to further investing in, and developing it. The acquisition of Orsus serves as an important milestone in the execution of our strategy, and will fortify our strategic focus on leveraging NICE's core competence in capturing, managing and analyzing massive amounts of unstructured data, to accelerate the success of our security and enterprise businesses," said Zeevi Bregman, President and Chief Executive Officer, NICE Systems Ltd.

The acquisition is expected to close towards the end of the fourth quarter of 2009. Following completion of the acquisition, NICE expects to generate additional non-GAAP revenues of several millions of dollars in 2010 and to become accretive on a non-GAAP earnings per fully diluted share basis in the fourth quarter of 2010. For each of the first three quarters of 2010, NICE expects the deal to be slightly dilutive on a non-GAAP earning per fully diluted shares basis. These estimates exclude acquisition related expenses and amortization of acquired intangible assets as well as certain business combination.

The outlook provided may change as the integration proceeds and acquisition accounting is finalized.

About Orsus

Orsus is a pioneer and market leader in the field of situation management - a comprehensive and unique approach that coordinates the interaction between people, technologies, and responses. Orsus's flagship solution, Situator, gathers and correlates information from multiple and diverse systems across the enterprise and coordinates the response actions ensuring that everyone in the operational chain knows what is happening and what to do. Orsus is an international corporation headquartered in Israel with offices in the US. The open architecture of Orsus' Situator solution enables integration with a wide array of security and safety alerting sources from different vendors, such as video surveillance systems, access control, intrusion sensors, alarm panels, fire and safety sensors, radars and more, as well as operational and communications systems. More information is available at http://www.Orsus.com.

About NICE

NICE Systems (NASDAQ: NICE) is the leading provider of Insight from Interactions solutions and value-added services, powered by the convergence of advanced analytics of unstructured multimedia content and transactional data - from telephony, web, email, radio, video, and other data sources. NICE's solutions address the needs of the enterprise and security markets, enabling organizations to operate in an insightful and proactive manner, and take immediate action to improve business and operational performance and ensure safety and security. NICE has over 24,000 customers in more than 150 countries, including over 85 of the Fortune 100 companies. More information is available at http://www.nice.com/.

Forward Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements, including the statements by Messrs. Livnat and Bregman, are based on the current expectations of the management of NICE-Systems Ltd. (the Company) only, and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results or performance of the Company to differ materially from those described herein, including but not limited to the impact of the global economic environment on the Company's customer base (particularly financial services firms) and the resulting uncertainties; changes in technology and market requirements; decline in demand for the Company's products; inability to timely develop and introduce new technologies, products and applications; difficulties or delays in absorbing and integrating acquired operations, products, technologies and personnel; loss of market share; pressure on pricing resulting from competition; and inability to maintain certain marketing and distribution arrangements. For a more detailed description of the risk factors and uncertainties affecting the company, refer to the Company's reports filed from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the Company's Annual Report on Form 20-F. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made as of the date of this press release, and the Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise them, except as required by law.

Investors NICE Systems +1-877-245-7449

Daphna Golden ir@nice.com

Corporate Media Contact NICE Systems +1-877-245-7448

Galit Belkind Galit.belkind@nice.com

SOURCE NICE Systems

Healthcare vulnerability to data breach, really?

Business associates, those who handle private patient information for healthcare organizations - including everyone from billing, credit bureaus, benefits management, legal services, claims processing, insurance brokers, data processing firms, pharmacy chains, accounting firms, temporary office personnel, and offshore transcription vendors - are largely unprepared to meet the new data breach related obligations included in the HITECH Act.

HIMSS Analytics announced its findings of a national survey of hospitals and business associates to check the state of healthcare vulnerability to data breach. The research revealed that approximately one-third of business associates surveyed were not aware that they need to adhere to federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) privacy and security requirements, compared to 87 percent of health providers.

Hospitals and health providers are taking action:

• 85 percent of health providers said they will take steps to ensure that data held by business associates will not be breached.
• Nearly half of hospitals, 47 percent, said they would actually terminate their contracts with their business associates for violations.

The research also found that:

• 50 percent of large hospitals experienced at least one data breach this year 68 percent of all hospitals indicated that the HITECH Act’s expanded breach notification requirements will result in the discovery and reporting of more incidents, and 57 percent reported that they now have a greater level of awareness of data breaches and breach risk
• 90 percent indicated they have changed or plan to change policies and procedures to prevent and detect data breaches.

“This study highlights the tremendous risk exposure for healthcare organizations” said Bob Gregg, CEO of ID Experts. “Despite an increase in risk assessments conducted, data breach is on the rise and patients are at a high risk level for medical identity theft and fraud where an unknown person will use an identity to illegally receive benefits or services."

NOTE: Physical security technology is also needed to document company policies and procedures. For example: Install cameras over all financial transaction devices, trash receptacles and shredders to be sure they are used properly and regularly according to policy. We are all about changing behavior’s that increase vulnerability within the organization. When we install the right technology in the right place and we follow up on the use of the technology we can get the behaviors’ we want and minimize the liability and IT risks we face every day.

Harris Poll Shows 96 Percent of Americans Support Uses of Video Surveillance to Counteract Terrorism

A recent Harris Poll survey indicates that 96 percent of U.S. citizens feel the federal government and law enforcement agencies should be able to use video surveillance in an effort to counteract terrorism and help protect U.S. citizens in specific public places. Four out of five adults feel that in extreme cases, such as a terrorist attack, the government should be able to use any available means to protect citizens, and more than half (54 percent) of U.S. adults are even willing to put a portion of the government’s stimulus funds toward setting up video surveillance to help reduce crime.


The results are at odds with current perceptions about the use of video surveillance, by revealing that only a small minority of Americans is concerned about the federal government or law enforcement agencies using surveillance cameras to monitor public places. That Americans don't mind being watched is especially relevant in light of the recently exposed domestic terror plot in Boston, and subsequent FBI intelligence indicating that Al Qaida recruits are reportedly being encouraged to perform acts of terrorism inside the U.S.

However, citizen support of video surveillance rests on the assumption that more cameras will result in more secure environments, but that isn’t the case. Recently, the security staff at the George Washington Bridge in New York City—responsible for monitoring bridge cameras and security kiosks—was photographed sleeping on the job. Thus, camera proliferation alone (The New York Times estimates that London has more than 4.2 million closed-circuit TV cameras) will not solve the problem. Many of these cameras go completely unmonitored because there are simply not enough human eyes available to watch all of the video feeds.

“The widespread adoption of video-camera technology has not made the job of the security officer any easier, nor has it helped obtain actionable intelligence before an intrusion,” said John Frazzini, President of Houston-based Behavioral Recognition Systems, Inc. (BRS Labs), and a former Secret Service agent.

Adds Frazzini, “We have been working with high-level security customers in the U.S. and around the world to put a new approach to work—behavioral analytics. Ten days after the terrorist attacks in Mumbai last Thanksgiving, a major international hotel installed BRS Labs’ software, AISight™ (pronounced eye sight), which was designed to autonomously monitor hundreds of cameras simultaneously, and to provide real-time actionable intelligence. In just a few days the hotel’s security staff was able to improve the safety of the hotel’s perimeter. We are also deployed in several high-security U.S. locations including seaports, power plants, nuclear plants, and global financial institutions.”

“Traditional video surveillance approaches have failed because they ignore the fact that every environment is unique,” said Ray Davis, founder of BRS Labs. “These methods also require expensive, labor-intensive programming to define specific objects or activities a system should look for, so unexpected security incidents are missed,” said Davis. “Any new technology approach to video surveillance must deliver the right level of protection and the right level of privacy from small, simple deployments to the most complex security environments without human intervention required.”

AiSight takes visual input from a camera, learns what activities and behaviors are typical, and generates real-time alerts when it identifies activities that are not normal. It is a reasoning-based surveillance technology that functions in a manner similar to the human brain. It takes in external visual input (computer vision), while its machine learning engine observes the scene, learns and recognizes behavioral patterns and responds accordingly. Surveillance is 24/7, and since the software learns the scene, the false positives are greatly reduced.

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AMF Bowls for Customers with Video Sharing Over Managed IP - CIO.com - Business Technology Leadership

AMF Bowls for Customers with Video Sharing Over Managed IP - CIO.com - Business Technology Leadership

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