Panasonic Demonstrates Technology Needed for Connected, Protected City

• By Ronnie Rittenberry
• Sep 11, 2012

In what has got to be one of the most well-orchestrated, thoroughly thought-out and all-encompassing booth productions on the expo floor at ASIS 2012 taking place this week at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, Panasonic's booth (#3715) is displaying -- and demonstrating -- all the technology, hardware and other accoutrements necessary to connect and protect a city.

In an effort to show the practical benefits of having a broad range of technologies working in harmony, the exhibit focuses on applications in education, retail and public safety, all feeding into a central command center.

"Panasonic products are not just integrated but are pre-engineered to work together," said Greg Peratt, Panasonic's director of sales, Video Solutions Integration. "Seeing is believing, and attendees at ASIS can view up close how the benefits of a technology investment today can expand and multiply tomorrow with products engineered to work together in various real-world settings."

In the education environment, for example, Panasonic video surveillance products complement and expand the capabilities of other Panasonic education technologies such as classroom audio systems and ToughPad® tablet computers. To demonstrate this integrated solution, Panasonic created a simulated classroom setting with video surveillance cameras that are equipped with privacy-shuttered eyelids that open only in an emergency and otherwise stay closed to preserve privacy. The video surveillance products are also integrated with a classroom audio system that allows teachers to signal an emergency using a button on a pendant microphone. The combination of these various technologies not only enhances the learning experience, but also adds an element of security without compromising the intimacy and privacy of the classroom environment.

For retail environments, intelligent video systems now offer new capabilities such as face detection and face matching, as well as the ability to approximate the relative age and gender of customers entering a store. By integrating video surveillance, and Point-of-Sale (POS) systems, Panasonic is demonstrating the ability to capture, monitor and document various activities and cash register transactions. With the ability to network these systems across multiple locations, video images and data can be easily accessed from any location and analyzed for enhanced loss prevention and management practices.

Integrating a unique combination of Panasonic video surveillance solutions enables public safety and law enforcement officials to vastly increase their ability to detect and respond to incidents in real time. To demonstrate the increased coverage capabilities afforded by this integrated solution, outdoor PTZ cameras, cameras mounted in vehicles and cameras mounted on personnel are managed using proprietary software. That section of the booth shows dramatic footage revealing what a wearable camera can capture when, for example, a police officer has to give chase on foot. The camera, equipped with gyroscope correction, optical image stabilization and a battery that will last a whole shift before needing charged.

"There's a lot of engineering that goes into that," said David Poulin, director of vertical markets for security. The result is a solution for public safety evidence capture -- and taken all together a complete evidence management system.

"That's the whole thing about all these scenarios -- they represent end-to-end, all-in-one solutions. With our vertical markets, we're not shopping an answer -- we're engineering an answer. It's kind of the joy of working for an engineering company."

Among the new products and technologies Panasonic is featuring especially for ASIS attendees at the booth is an i-PRO SmartHD 360° panoramic 3.0 megapixel dome camera that combines 1080p HD resolution with numerous performance features to deliver wide area coverage at an economical price point. Also being demonstrated is the new Dynamic Tone Curve Correction, which is a firmware upgrade for Panasonic video surveillance cameras featuring UniPhierS imaging chipsets. The firmware upgrade provides automatic contrast correction to improve visibility for low-contrast images typical in adverse weather conditions (fog, dew, snow, rain, sandstorms, etc.), none of which ASIS attendees have experienced to any significant extent so far this week in Philadelphia.