Today we interviewed Paul from Faceter team on our coinmonks slack community, Faceter is building next generation surveillance system for everyone . Below is chat transcript of that interview.
Me: So tell us about faceter what is it? and why you guys building it?
Paul: Faceter is seeking to solve what might seem a relatively simple problem — video surveillance that lacks intelligence. Our software stack enables cameras and their software to become exponentially smarter in terms of tracking incidents that happen within the scope of the camera.
Whilst there are some intelligent software applications in this space, they are confined to big business and government. Our goal is to use decentralization to make the technology affordable at the consumer level. We think we’re the first to propose this, and giving people additional security capability at their places of residence or small business will solve some critical security issues.
Vinit(A community member): How does it become smarter in terms of tracking incidents?
Paul: Typical camera software does record and playback. Faceter is a system that enables smart video surveillance and provides cameras with “eyes” — face recognition, object detection and real-time video content analysis. At the next stage, all these capabilities will be combined into a single feature: the ability to “understand” the situation and respond to it accordingly.
Me: Can you tell us about the state of current video surveillance market? What are the major players? What kind of business use cases are they servicing?
Paul: Over the last five years, the surveillance market volume (hardware, software, and services) has demonstrated an annual growth of 15.4% and, according to Markets & Markets, is projected to reach $75 billion by 2022.
High crime growth rates, an increase in the number of terrorist attacks, and people’s concern over security are the main factors stimulating the development of the video surveillance market around the world.
In 2014, the IHS company completed a ten-year study which revealed that around 245 million professional CCTV cameras are used around the world. Also, an analysis was made regarding the types of cameras used. The results showed that 20% of the installed equipment was represented by network cameras, and only 2% of the equipment used was new digital CCTV cameras transmitting high-definition images. All other devices used were analog video cameras.
IP-based video surveillance technologies have revolutionized the industry offering a higher level of flexibility and scalability compared to older-generation video surveillance systems. IP cameras allow their users to use innovative technologies for video stream analysis. According to experts from leading international companies, such as Accenture, IHS Markit, PwC (data-driven city concept) and some others, the demand for intelligent video surveillance systems capable of analyzing video streams in real-time mode has grown significantly in recent years and will continue to grow.
The latest developments in the field of machine vision caused video surveillance systems to reach a new level. Technologies powered by neural networks and artificial intelligence elements allow their users to recognize faces in video streams in real-time mode.
Me: Are surveillance systems for public safety or privacy violation? As in history surveillance is used most use to violate public privacy?
Paul: Public safety is our Number 1 drive at the moment
There are presently over 250-million surveillance cameras worldwide, and it is estimated that if you live in the big metropolitan area, you are seen by a camera in excess of 40 times per day. The statistic for London, as an outlier, is 70 times per day. So your image is stored somewhere already.Our technology is pure push-technology. You receive a push notification when an event happens, like your child arriving home from school. You cannot activate a pull-notification.
You are not able, under any circumstances, to perform a reverse image search to stalk the pretty girl down the road. And we do not store even your name with the image. If you think about how much information people give Facebook, Faceter is completely non-invasive technology.
Me: How you protect the misuse of your tech by the businesses?
Paul: Businesses already have some elements of this technology in their current surveillance systems, so local regulation, such as the GDPR in the EU, will dictate the use of the data, much as it will do in today’s world.
Anthony(A community Member):what’s your plan to increase faceter adoption?
Paul: The fact that we are building a decentralized infrastructure where complex data processing using neural networks is performed using the decentralization powers of Fog Computing and Blockchain, we’re able to drive down pricing to consumers substantially. Our go-to-market strategy will be based upon affordability of high-end tech that was previously out of the reach of consumers.
Me: What this means “Сomputer vision technology powered by fog network of miners” ? and what is Fog computing?
Paul: Fog computing refers to extending cloud computing to the edge of an enterprise’s network. Also known as Edge Computing or fogging, fog computing facilitates the operation of computing, storage, and networking services between end devices and cloud computing data centers.
It is, therefore, the storage capability that’s inherent in every device, accessed via the internet, like cloud computing. The estimates of this capacity are vast and well in excess of what is available in cloud terms as it stands today.
Me: what customer segment are you targeting? and why? will it be enterprises or SMBs or normal consumers?
Paul: The whole range B2B & B2G for now, with our SaaS offering
The Blockchain configuration is to allow us to target the B2C market — consumers, as it will create affordability.Me: Will there be an opt-out system? like I don’t want your cameras to follow me? can it be configured?
Paul: Not really. The way our technology works is that we don’t save the images themselves. We create a neural map of your face (everyone is unique, unbelievably, like a fingerprint), and then we store a number string (or hash) that corresponds to that image. so we don’t ever know what the person’s face looks like, however, we can recover it if there is an incident and then track that person.
So think of a mugging. You get mugged in downtown, and there are surveillance cameras around. The police can’t find the guy immediately after, but his facial hash is stored. When a Faceter-enabled camera spots that person again, it sends an alert and the police/security company can track them down.Me: Do you have any customers right now? or are you talking to your early adopters? what kind of business are they ? and are they excited? and how much cost effective you are?
Paul: We have spent a massive amount of time on development.
We released first beta version of the product and launched several pilot projects with various companies in order to test Faceter technologies, including an industrial enterprise, a casino network, a network of pizzerias.Faceter has established the partnership with EPI-USE, the world’s largest independent purveyor of SAP country payroll software for regions in which SAP does not offer a standard payroll solution. Faceter is already integrated with its SAP-application and Faceter product will be offered to its customers from the second quarter of 2018. We also have a partnership with Axis Communications for a global distribution offering that’s being developed.
Me: So can you tell us about your roadmap in details..where are you now and where are you going?
Paul: Below is our Road map. (He was being Lazy :D).
