Wall Street Journal Technology Award goes Hebrew University professor!
Ever wonder how long it takes security companies to watch hours of surveillance videos? Prof. Shmuel Peleg of the Benin School of Computer Science and Engineering at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem did wonder – and his invention, lisenced to Israeli company – BriefCam – has now won the prestigious 2010 Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Award in the category of physical security. The award will be presented this week in the US on Nov. 3 at a ceremony and dinner in Redwood City, Calif. So how does this innovative solution work? It offers a quick review of information from security cameras without the usual and ineffective fast forwarding through recordings or capturing only moving images using motion detectors.
BriefCam’s patented technology is called Video Synopsis. The computer software creates a synopsis of recorded information, generating a very short video that preserving the essential activities of the original video captured over a very long time period. For example, the passage of vehicles passing through a security gate over many hours can ne condensed into a few minutes, showing each vehicle’s entry followed immediately by another.
“Five hours of video is not five hours any more,” says Peleg, developer of the technology and the company’s chief scientist. “It’s five minutes.” Earlier this year Peleg was the winner of a Kaye Innovation Award at the Hebrew University for his invention.
The Video Synopsis invention was licensed to BriefCam through Yissum, the technology transfer company of the Hebrew University.
This is the tenth year that the Wall Street Journal is presenting its technology innovation awards. This year it received 597 applications from companies, organizations and individuals in 30 countries. Journal editors reviewed the entries and forwarded about 275 to a panel of judges from research institutions, venture-capital firms and other companies. From that pool, the judges chose 49 for awards.
Israel has always excelled in technology innovations and studying at Hebrew University puts ensures you are in the midst of world-class thinking. If you know of any more upcoming technological kudos for Hebrew U – let us know here.
