December 14, 2010, Updated September 27, 2012

Israel’s Briefcam recently won the 2010 Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Award in the area of physical security for its invention, which offers an innovative solution to quick review of information from security cameras.

Surveillance cameras generate a prodigious amount of video that someone has to watch. Other video-surveillance technologies may address this challenge by fast-forwarding through recordings or capturing only moving images using motion detectors.

BriefCam, developed by Prof. Shmuel Peleg of the Benin School of Computer Science and Engineering at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, takes a different approach.

The patented technology he developed, dubbed Video Synopsis, uses computer software that creates a synopsis of recorded information and generates a very short video that preserves the essential activities of the original video captured over a very long time period.

For example, the movement of vehicles passing through a security gate over many hours can be condensed into a few minutes, showing each vehicle’s entry followed immediately by the next one.

“Five hours of video is not five hours anymore,” says Peleg, who is also the company’s chief scientist. “It’s five minutes.”

In recent years, numerous video surveillance technologies have emanated from Israel.

 

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