November 2010
Features
By Fredrik Nilsson
In rural communities, a newly renovated high school often serves double duty: educational facility by day and public host to community events by night. This kind of multi-usage often stretches conventional security resources beyond their intended design. Such was the case in Cody, Wyo.
By Jason Oakley
The gaming industry is experiencing an accelerating trend toward network-based digital video surveillance solutions. Advances in video hardware and software technology; intelligent and flexible integrated system solutions designed and built by experienced systems integrators; robust networks; and the long-term downward cost of surveillance equipment seem to be driving the trend. Lower prices have finally made the adoption of new technology supportable by a solid business case.
By Ksenia Coffman
The Mumbai Metro is deploying a realtime, mobile wireless video surveillance network, the first transit agency in India to do so. The network will broadcast text messages and provide onboard video surveillance to passenger information displays.
By Jerry Laws
Slowly but surely, activism on the local level and in statehouses is giving automated external defibrillators a foothold inside America’s schools.
By Shane Seery
Nestled in the heart of Pennsylvania’s horse country in southern Chester County, you will find a town called Oxford. In this rural and highly Amish-populated area is Anecia Delduco’s Second Nature Farm. This 25-acre property has been in business for 15 years and is home to many four-legged friends.
By Beth Welch
Lexus of North Miami is a Florida-based, high-end auto retailer offering an assortment of elaborate amenities intended to support the lifestyle of the dealership’s patrons. Built and owned by the Craig Zinn Automotive Group of Hollywood, the five-story, 1.2-million square- foot facility has an estimated construction value of more than $70 million. To protect this massive complex, its occupants and costly inventory, Gamewell- FCI Engineered Systems distributor LifeSafety Management Inc. of Greenacres, Fla., was awarded the job of installing a fully integrated fire alarm and emergency voice/alarm communication system.
By Ravi Sharma
Chances are good that your local broadband service provider will soon be offering home security and monitoring services along with bundled TV, voice and Internet connectivity. A convergence of new network technologies, digital homes and entrepreneurial security startups has given service providers an opportunity to wrestle a big slice of the $6 billion market away from the traditional security alarm vendors.
By Kenni Driver
Over the last four years, Axcess International has been providing Washington Closure Hanford with a MicroWireless tagging system that continues to increase worker safety and efficiency while reducing time on task and the cost of operations.
By James Whitcomb
Nestled within the peaks and valleys of the southernmost area of the Appalachian Mountain Range, the Jackson County School District encompasses 150 miles in northeastern Alabama. The beautiful, yet diverse, terrain presented obstacles to school administrators in how best to monitor events at the district’s 18 campuses, which include 7,000 students and three administrative buildings.
IMS Research ranked Firetide as the No. 1 supplier of wireless mesh equipment used in video surveillance applications in the Americas, in its report, “The Americas Market for Wireless Infrastructure Used in Video Surveillance.” We sat down with Firetide president and CEO Bo Larsson to discuss the report and Firetide’s direction and role in the market.
By Michael Kirchner
Located in historic Williamsburg, Va., the College of William and Mary is the second-oldest college in the nation. In 2008, the historic institution completed construction of a 165,000-square-foot Integrated Science Center, which was designed to bring the college’s science programs under one roof.
Departments
By Jeff Schneider
Collaboration is an essential feature of all office environments. However, what happens when your office is not in a cubicle, but rather in an emergency operations center that sprung up amidst the tremendous devastation of a hurricane, tsunami or battlefield? What tools do you need when your decisions are guided not by the eight-hour workday but by the minutes or seconds that remain before your team is to be deployed?
By Ralph C. Jensen
The state of school security doesn’t seem to appear all that promising. Administrators have been forced to cut security staff and programs, and search for an alternative means to maintain levels of safety and security.
By Ronnie Rittenberry
In the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre in April 2007, and, specifically, the critical fallout from the university’s communication failures in the hours following the first gunshots, campuses across the nation were put on alert and forced into a type of self-reflection: What if it would have happened here? Are we any better prepared?