It has been said that the physical security industry follows the footsteps of the ICT industries fairly closely — perhaps one to two years to play catch up. Having checked out the world’s second largest ICT show, we now have a better idea of and glimpse into where security might be headed in the next three to five years — leaner, smarter, “cloudier.”
It has been said that the physical security industry follows the footsteps of the ICT industries fairly closely — perhaps one to two years to play catch up. Having checked out the world's second largest ICT show, we now have a better idea of and glimpse into where security might be headed in the next three to five years — leaner, smarter, “cloudier.”
It is the age of mobility and connectivity. Physical and electronic security would not be any different. What will be different is that you will have less clutter on-site, as everything becomes more compact or is connected or backed up to cloud-based servers somehow. You will have more computing and analytical powers right at your fingertips, but without having to deal with the actual heavy lifting and hassles of maintenance and upgrades.
Having access to “the cloud” also means more intelligence, to help you make better business and security decisions in a timely fashion. As an old Chinese proverb goes, “solidarity gives strength;” rather than relying on the CPU/DSP of one D/NVR or controller, you now have the horsepower of an army of computers, to make everything “smart” — smart phone, smart home, smart building, smart enterprise, smart car, smart grid, smart city and, of course, smart security.
In the long run, cloud computing will become more and more cost-effective, driving endless possibilities and capabilities. But what if one loses connectivity? No worries. There are now industrial PC and network transmission specialists working to make sure that data and signal redundancy kicks in in less than 10 milliseconds. This digital utopia may not be right around the corner, but it is definitely much closer than you think. Ian Drew, CMO of chip designer and maker ARM, recently admitted that the company was wrong in predicting that tablet shipments would outstrip those of PCs by 2017 — that ship has already sailed in 2013.
You don't want to be left behind now, do you?