ISC East Rewind: AI, Convergence and Edge Computing Applied to Physical Security
[Editor’s note: Over the next few weeks, ISC News will bring you some highlights from ISC East—both from the expo floor and from the conference sessions—that attendees were able to experience in person. ISC West, coming to Las Vegas in March, will have an even larger universe of companies and professionals attending, and more extensive conference program to benefit from. For more information, and for a chance to pre-register, visit our website]
Data analytics AI and automation, as they have in many industries, continue to revolutionize security and the ways public and private organizations are able to protect themselves. But the advanced hardware and software on display at the recent ISC East in New York City are only able to optimize their performance and yield insights for security pros to act upon if they are able to quickly sift through the oceans of data being generated every minute of every day.
One session of the SIA Education@ISC East examined how edge computing—the distributed computing paradigm that brings computation and data storage closer to the sources of data (e.g., video cameras)—is facilitating data analysis in the service of physical security professionals and where the technology, combined with AI and machine learning, is leading the industry.
“In the last 10 years we have seen a dramatic shift to the edge. But at the end of the day, the most important aspect is how it applies to your customers and the problems they solve,” said moderator Pierre Bourgeix. “We’re at a point now where the higher ability to compute, to create software that has continuous learning, the concept of image libraries and how to use them, is now available.”
Perhaps the application where edge computing will make the biggest difference, panelists said, is in the area of video surveillance—the ability to actually leverage the ubiquity of video.
“Video is everywhere, but how do we extract value?” asked panelist Kasia Hanson, global director of Video, Safety and Security Network and Edge Group at Intel. “Right now, a lot of the video just sits there. You might be dealing with different requirements for your data that make it difficult to use easily. Some data might have to stay on premises, some can go to the cloud, there are issues related to cloud storage like latency, performance, regulations, what line of business you’re in, etc. But AI, computer vision, the edge and other advanced technologies are enabling you to make those decisions faster to create business value.”