Smart video surveillance gaining

Broward County, Fla.'s Port Everglades is one of the most recent of U.S. port authorities to turn to intelligent video surveillance software to protect against terrorist attacks.

In selecting ObjectVideo VEW software from ObjectVideo Inc., Reston, Va., to protect the port's perimeter, Broward County follows the lead of the Jacksonville, Fla., Port Authority.

Intelligent surveillance products from companies such as ObjectVideo, Pyramid Vision and others interpret what video cameras see by processing the images against a set of rules. In March, ObjectVideo won a grant from the National Science Foundation to research ways for the software to learn as it observes an environment, enabling a system to detect suspicious activity without using rules.