Prism Skylabs Showcases Integration With Google+, YouTube and Picasa at SXSW

Prism Skylabs announced today a software integration with Google+, YouTube and Picasa to further change how businesses use video to engage consumers more effectively and to drive smarter business. The integration is being showcased at the Google Village at the SXSW Interactive Festival, taking place March 9-13 in Austin, Texas.

Consumers increasingly expect the same ease and access they have offline in the online world, and businesses are trying to convert online browsing into offline purchasing. With the integration to a number of Google's products, Prism Skylabs now allows users to easily share real-time views of their business to their Google+ page and YouTube channel, as well as images on Picasa, creating new channels for businesses to effectively engage with their audiences and for consumers to get a more immersive online experience than ever before.

Additionally, Prism Skylabs now allows users to monitor Google+ check-ins at their businesses, in addition to the various other social media platforms the company already supports. This increases valuable insight into how consumers interact with a brand across different channels and helps businesses move toward a more composite view of what's happening with their customers at any given time -- whether it's online or offline in a brick and mortar setting.

Prism Skylabs is showcasing its integration with Google+, YouTube and Picasa for the first time at the Google Village at the SXSW Interactive Festival. The company's cloud-based technology is integrated into video networks at three different locations in the Google Village: Bar 96, Lustre Pearl and Icenhauer's. SXSW attendees are able to check out Prism's real-time views by checking out the monitor at Bar 96 that is highlighting activity across all three venues.

"The excitement around SXSW is being fueled by innovations in local, mobile and social media technologies -- and Prism Skylabs is at the intersection of all of that," said Steve Russell, founder and CEO, Prism Skylabs. "Our integration with Google shows our commitment to bringing an entirely new medium of experiencing, sharing and understanding of what's going on, where and when, to the benefit of both businesses and consumers -- and the Google Village at SXSW is the perfect venue to show it off for the first time."

Use of Intelligent Cameras Can Increase Customer Loyalty

"Doing more with less" is a common adage during tough economic times. And it even applies to advanced technology.

Imagine if something as fundamental as surveillance cameras at a bank could begin to do so much more: improve the customer experience, build brand loyalty and polish customer service and support. With the right technology, it's possible.

In fact, bank customers in a recent poll said being recognized by bank employees builds their loyalty to that company. And they don't mind if bank employees use advanced technologies to identify them.

According to the poll conducted by Zogby463 and released by 3VR, 69 percent of respondents said that their customer loyalty is positively affected by tellers recognizing them by name when they walked into a bank. In addition, consumers support the use of advanced technologies to deliver better customer service as 78 percent of those surveyed said that they are comfortable with financial institutions using cameras in their branches to better serve their customers.

It's clear that name recognition by bank tellers is an easy way for banks to bolster their relationships with customers. What's more, the poll found that customer service at one bank branch location directly affects the opinion of the entire financial institution for more than 76 percent of bank customers.

“Our polling highlights how customer service drives customer loyalty. Increasingly, video intelligence technologies are allowing financial institutions to creatively leverage their existing video surveillance investments beyond just security,” said Al Shipp, CEO of 3VR. “The ability for banks to use video to recognize customers by name, reward the most valuable customers, meet suspicious activity report compliance requirements and curb fraud, is quickly up-leveling the role of video in the IT ecosystem from a cost center to a revenue generator.”

The View From Above: In Hard Focus Round-up (August 29, 2011)

“Scan the World” with Junaio’s enhanced AR search: Metaio, a company we’ve mentioned before on InHardFocus, recently updated its Janaio Augmented Reality browser with capabilities that better translate real world images (and barcodes) into useful searches for information. In an interview with Fast Company, Mataio’s CEO, Peter Meier, explained the purpose behind Janaio, which will now incorporate both location-based AR sensors as well as barcode scanning capabilities in order to “make a more natural way to browse – a more natural way to receive information about surrounding objects and places.” While certainly there are a lot of current and upcoming applications (see video above), I think this type of recognition technology has a lot to prove before stepping up as an alternative to traditional search engines and tools.  

Spying from your smartphone: Stem’s new iZON camera provides quite a sophisticated way of monitoring (or spying) on your loved ones. The simple, wireless camera allows one to view streaming video, record for later viewing or even send alerts for changes in motion or sound via one’s smartphone. While Engadget mentions Stem’s concern for privacy with its encryption policy, my concern would be around how this video is being stored, not to mention finding decent 3G or wireless in order to check up on the babysitter on date night.

An eye for a...webcam?: TechCrunch reported on Friday about a cool new technology that, once developed, could provide some astonishing results for the visually challenged. The Eyeborg project is essentially developing a wireless video camera for the eye socket, which now transmits video to a LCD viewer but could down the road connect to the visual cortex, and thus provide a viable replacement for a normal eye. Very cool.

Crime Cameras in San Fran Helping the Innocent

San Francisco's attempts at citywide surveillance over the years have been complicated, expensive and, at times, counterproductive. But there's no denying the fact that surveillance cameras have helped decrease crime by up to 24 percent in certain areas of the city.

Originally, supporters of the surveillance network touted it as a way to decrease the frequency of violent crimes, not just non-violent burglary, purse-snatching and the like. However, since the camera system isn't monitored live, the video is really only helpful as evidence, not prevention. (Unfortunately, the city's strict privacy controls prohibit real-time monitoring.)

However, the San Francisco Examiner recently revealed another, unexpected role that the suveillance cameras are playing.

The new trend has San Francisco defense lawyers using video footage to exonerate falsely-accused clients. Several defendants have been cleared of charges thanks to the cameras, which proved their alibis or disproved others’ accounts of the incident.

And the trend is growing. In fact, nearly one-third of the 109 requests to view the footage last year came from defense attorneys, the Examiner reports.

“We’ve incorporated the existence of surveillance tapes into our practice,” Public Defender Jeff Adachi said, adding that his office has a list of all the city surveillance cameras and his attorneys are trained to request the footage.

“It is hit or miss. You have an obligation to secure that evidence,” Adachi said. “They have proven valuable in some cases.”

In one high-profile case, the cameras helped exonerate a man accused of murder. The video footage showed that he had in fact been acting in defense of a disabled woman when he unintentionally killed an attacker.

Unique Combination of Technology is Bad News for Criminals

I know I'll be sleeping more soundly tonight.

Police in my town of Addison, Texas, have a new weapon in the fight against crime. The innovative new process uses surveillance cameras, proprietary software and equipment recently installed at the police department's dispatch center. The program, developed by Stealth Monitoring Inc. of Dallas, operates at no cost to taxpayers and is scheduled for a nationwide roll-out this year.

"Video analytics and trained operators are what sets this program apart from others that use video technology," said Norm Charney, Stealth Monitoring CEO. "The interaction of software and human intelligence allows the Stealth control room to cost effectively monitor thousands of cameras from its customers. Any unusual motion or activity instantly draws the attention of the operator by placing an individual camera's live video on the computer screen for quick action."

How does it work? When Stealth employees see suspicious activity, rather than making a phone call and describing the suspect or their actions they can instantly "push" the technology to the Addison Police dispatch center and provide police with the same live video they are observing. The dispatchers determine when a suspect's actions warrant dispatching officers.

Responding officers are provided with real-time suspect descriptions, actions, vehicles and changes in location. Not only will the video provide better information, but it will improve safety for officers as well. A dispatcher might see a suspect hide behind a dumpster just as the officers arrive on the scene and can relay the suspect's movements to the officers in real time.  

Addison is upgrading its dispatch center so that they will be able to provide video directly to patrol cars, PDAs or even cell phones of officers who are responding. In addition, the video provides an after action recording feature that can include post-event descriptions of the vehicle used in the crime, video of the criminals and often the vehicle's license plate number.

"This program puts Addison on the cutting edge of technology that will make our city safer and our police officers more effective," said Ron Davis, Addison Chief of Police. "As more businesses and other venues take advantage of this type of technology our dispatchers and police officers will be able to respond more quickly and effectively making it harder for criminals to commit crimes or get away with crimes they have committed."

"Monitoring video feeds isn't new," Charney said. "What is new is our ability to actively live monitor thousands of video feeds from our customers in a cost-effective manner, identify suspicious activity and notify authorities quickly. This is taking technology beyond the event based monitoring that some companies offer. While video from security cameras can be helpful, immediate notification and confirmation of suspicious activity as well as a video feed directly to the police is a major advancement in the reduction of false alarms and crime."

Businesses pay for the monitoring service and equipment. The equipment from Stealth is installed for free at the police department and allows Addison to create a video fusion center without the expenses normally associated with this technology.

"In today's tough economic times a program that provides our department with state-of-the-art technology, monitoring services and video monitoring equipment at no cost to taxpayers, made this a win-win proposal," Davis said.