iOmniscient wades into analytics wars

One of the things I really appreciated about the Bosch tent this week at ASIS was that they didn't pull any punches. They held head-to-head competitions (of their own design, obviously, to maximize their strengths) and let people take a look. They went after Pelco particularly hard. I don't know why these kinds of performance tests aren't more common. I suppose we should be doing them, and I probably would if I even knew how to plug in an analog camera and make it work, or wire an access reader. I suppose I could learn, or contract other people to do it. Maybe I will. Regardless, the hollowness of manufacturer claims are hardly unique to security, nor are marketers to be faulted for seeing what they can get away with. Every day I come across another "leading manufacturer" of some piece of equipment. The security industry is kind of like Lake Wobegon: Everyone's a leader! I'm reminded of this today because of an email I got from iOmniscient, a company that just started sending me emails, but which I've gathered makes video analytics they think are pretty special. Here's the good part:

Last week Security World Magazine hosted the Secon conference in Seoul. With over 2500 attendees it is THE event on Automated Surveillance in Korea. For the second year in a row they invited Dr Rustom Kanga, CEO of iOmniscient to deliver a Keynote address – this time on “Selecting Software and Hardware for Video Analysis Systems”.

There is apparently some major interest in automated surveillance in Korea. Who knew? Also, why would you have the same keynote speaker two years in a row? Anyway, moving on:

An interesting observation on the event was that several speakers talked about the dissatisfaction that users felt about Video Analysis systems because of the number of false alarms they usually had to deal with. This is inevitable as other systems do not have an Artificial Intelligence based Nuisance Alarm Minimisation System (NAMS). All iOmniscient products above an IQ level of 65 are armed with NAMS. (Note: products with an IQ lower than 65 are rarely sold by iOmniscient. They are offered only in competitive tenders where the user does not understand the value of NAMS and wants the lowest price. These low end products always come with a warning that they do not include NAMS).

I mean: obviously! No else has NAMS! If only they did, all of their troubles would go away. I'm also impressed with the way that iOmniscient is willing to stoop below their normal IQ level to sell to those pesky end users concerned about price. Sorry. I'm being extra snarky this morning because I'm half-way through the red-eye home. I still haven't really gotten to the good part. My apologies. Here we go:

The importance of NAMS became evident in a recent trial in North America where we were in a competition against one of our very large US competitors. Over a week the customer put both systems through various tests. Both companies did equally well on the detections but there was one difference. Our competitor had 200 false alarms each night. We had zero. This wide difference in capabilities explains why there are so many “unhappy users” around the world among those who have used systems which do not have NAMS.

Ah-ha! A secret test, conducted by an unnamed end user, pitting iOmniscient against an unnamed competitor, in a completely unexplained environment! That totally explains why there are so many unhappy users out there. I'm utterly convinced. Seriously. What is the point of this? You know, recently, I gave my newspaper to 100 people at a major U.S. conference and asked them to read my paper and then read one of my major competitors. Then I asked them, "which one made you smarter?" Every one of them, it turns out, chose Security Systems News! In fact, many of the readers commented that the competitor's paper actually made them dumber. So that really explains why there are so many dumb people in the security industry: They're reading the wrong newspaper! But this kind of stuff isn't just limited to emails sent out by iOmniscient. Here's the text from the front page of their web site:

Our multi-award winning, patented Non Motion Detection is recognized as the world's only technology to accurately detect in crowded areas despite constant movement and obscuration; a feat that is not achievable with standard Video Motion Detection. This has resulted in a multitude of airports, railways, and roads and traffic organizations adopting iOmniscient's products worldwide.

Recognized by whom? What awards? Detect what? A multitude? Then why does the press release section of the web site mention exactly three customers since 2004? The big case study they're touting is a museum in Australia. I'm sure it's a national treasure, but doing people counting and loitering in a museum isn't that tough, and certainly isn't indicative any secret sauce. If you beat out some other guy, tell me which guy. If you were tested by a customer, tell me which customer, or at least tell me who the integrator was? If you don't have anything more than vague references to mythical stuff, just stop it.