High-Tech Innovation Targeting Security
K T V U
High-Tech Innovation Targeting Security
February 24, 2003
By: KTVU
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- Security seemed to
be on the minds of many high-tech companies unveiling prototypes at
DEMO 2003, an annual showcase held to display the latest in cutting
edge applications and products.
In all 60 companies were invited to unveil their wares at this year's
show, half were from the Bay Area, While being invited to the show does
not necessarily mean a company's product or application will hit a home
run in the marketplace, DEMO does have its share of success stories.
Palm introduced its first handheld organizer at the show and TiVo, the
time-shifting digital video recorder, also debuted at DEMO. This year,
Mountain View's PIXIM was among the hopefuls. The company unveiled a
digital camera using its latest image-capturing technological advances.
"We convert light into a digital signal at the earliest point of
capture," said Bob Weinschenk of PIXIM. "That allows us to create a
very high dynamic range of images. So pixels that are really bright
have a short exposure, pixels that are dark have a long exposure."
The result is a sharper picture than currently available on most
cameras. PIXIM already has five camera makers ready to use its
technology for security in places like airports & ATMs.
Another firm unveiling security technology was Delean Vision, which was
displaying its face-recognition software that confirms a person's login
identity.
"So the way we work it will go and look for the visual skin prints
which are the impact of the light on your skin," said Nicolas
Vandenberghe, of Delean. "That impact is going to be modified by the
colors and by the texture of your skin."
Chris Shipley, of DEMO, said the show had several offerings this year with a security theme.
"I think technologies blend together and re-create in all sorts of
ways," she said. "We've seen a lot of that at DEMO this week where an
application that might have originally been a digital video application
is being put to use in security or where a security application like
face recognition is gonna be used for other kinds of image processing.
"
"I think we'll continue to see that kind of blending and evolving where
someone invents something for a purpose and then puts it out in the
market and the market embraces it in whole new ways even the inventor
didn't think of."
Other technologies on display at DEMO include InfoScope from IBM. The
application allows the user to point a PDA or cell phone at a sign in
Chinese and it will translate that sign into a variety of languages.
Elsewhere, music on the net may hit its stride with FullAudio. It's
aimed at 40-somethings willing to pay around $10 a month for unlimited
downloads.
"What we found is that the sweet spot for the industry now is around a
user demographic that doesn't really have the time to go out and look
for things on a regular basis," said Scott Kaufman of FullAudio.
While DEMO is a showcase for new technologies, its major goal is to get
funding for the new products. At this year's show, venture capitalists
were trolling the aisles. To date, on the record investments in these
companies by venture capitalists total more than $570 million.
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