Digest - Saturday the 14th of October

Security/Data Product Showcase Roadshow a Success

The September 2017 NAS Security/Data Product Showcase Roadshow was an unmitigated success.  Supplier and NAS Product Specialists visited our Cairns, Sunshine Coast, Brisbane and Newcastle Showrooms showcasing the latest CCTV, Intrusion and Enterprise Wi-Fi products from WAMA, Risco and Ubiquiti.

Security/Data Product Showcase Roadshow Videos Available

Introduction to WAMA, Risco and Ubiquiti videos are available for existing NAS Trade customers to view on our NAS Australia Vimeo Channel.  The Showcase Album can be accessed here. Please email me for a password - john@nasaustralia.com.au

NAS Mobile Showroom on the move

The recently launched NAS Australia Mobile Showroom is on the move showcasing the NAS Australia diversified product range to interested trade customers and dealers. Manned last week by Tim Prag (Risco Australia's Director of Sales and Business Development) and Craig Sinclair (NAS Australia's Technical Sales Representative) the Mobile Showroom visited locations between Port Douglas and Townsville.

Craig is flying solo this coming week, working his way down from Mackay to Bundaberg.

Should you be interested in arranging a visit please call Craig on 0409 768 916.

Hold the Date - November Blustream Branch Training

In conjunction with Blustream, NAS is hosting free Blustream HDMI Training in Cairns, Sunshine Coast, Brisbane and Newcastle in November.  Daniel Zielin from Blustream will conduct the sessions and is a very knowledgeable and engaging trainer.

The course overview is as follows:

• Updates on HDMI 2.0 & 2.1 and Transmission Technology Limitations
• Understanding HDMI over IP including advantages and disadvantages vs HDbaseT
• Product overview

The training dates and times are as follows:

Cairns: Monday the 27th of November from 5pm to 7pm (Dinner and Drinks Served)

Sunshine Coast: Tuesday the 28th of November 5pm to 7pm (Dinner and Drinks Served)

Brisbane: Wednesday the 29th of November from 7am to 9am (Breakfast Served from 6:30am)

Newcastle: Thursday the 30th of November from 8am to 10am (Breakfast Served from 7:30am)

Did you know we sell.................................................?

UBIIN3AFOG - Ubiquiti Instant 802.3af Gigabit Outdoor POE Converter. 48VPoE --> 24V Passive PoE.

Ubiquiti's outdoor point to point radios require 24V passive POE to work.  Standard POE ethernet switches use a different voltage (48V) as part of the IEEE 802.3af POE (15Watts) and 802.3at POE+ (30Watts) standards. Ubiquiti provide passive 24V injectors in the box with their radios, however these injectors require a 3-pin GPO to be available to provide the necessary grounding and power.  For situations where it is not easy to get another GPO near the radio or in the network cabinet, you could choose to use a ubiquiti edgeswitch (8/16/24/48) that can provide passive 24V as well as standard 48V POE direct to the PtP radio.

However another lesser known option is to use a UBIIN3AFOG Instant AF converter.  This small cylindrical device is designed to be strapped to a pole or mount where the radio is.  48V standard POE from a regular switch can be run to the pole and the Instant AF adapter will convert it into 24V passive POE to the radio.  There is also some additional ESD and Surge protection provided in the device as well.

This also means that for those installs where the client budget does not allow a managed POE+ switch (edgeswitch/unifi switch) to be used and the feature-set would not be missed, an inexpensive un-managed POE switch (like those we sell from 4ipnet, TPLink, Edimax, or our WAMA CCTV switches) can be used instead realising significant cost savings.

Ask your NAS Rep today about the Gigabit Instant AF 434V adapter.

NAS Product Code: UBIIN3AFOG
Ubiquiti Product Page: https://www.ubnt.com/accessories/instant-8023af-adapters/
Quickstart Guide: https://dl.ubnt.com/guides/Instant_802.3af/INS-3AF-O-G_QSG

Industry News

FTA/Pay TV

Netflix and Amazon approach Premier League’s top clubs over new documentary content deal

"NETFLIX and Amazon are going head-to-head with the Premier League’s biggest clubs in a bid to show behind-the-scenes documentaries."

"The two video streaming giants are looking to add new, innovative content to attract football fans."

"According to The Mirror, Manchester City, Liverpool and Chelsea have been contacted over a new show."

"Both companies have massive budgets to be able to delve into the sport market. But there is a possibility that a deal will fall through as it may clash with Premier League rights deals." The complete article can be accessed here.

Netflix Australia Has Officially Beat Free-To-Air Rivals

"New research from Roy Morgan has revealed that Netflix Australia’s growth over the past 18 months has officially exceeded its Free-To-Air Australian competitors."

"Recent data states that over the past three months (to June 2017) an estimated 7,558,000 Australians aged 14 years and over now have Netflix."

"In other words, about 37% of the Australian population have Netflix."

"This is a jump of 22.6% from the March 2016 quarter, which saw Australia Netflix numbers notch 4,453,000."

"Roy Morgan states the growth in Netflix’s audience is the result of significant uptake from household subscribers throughout 2017."

"Research states 2,981,000 Australian homes (i.e. 31.8%) are now subscribed to Nteflix, which is a jump from 1,713,000 homes (18.6%) from the March 2016 quarter."

"Whilst Netflix saw growth during this period, free-to-air rivals witnessed a decline."

"By contrast, viewership within this period (in an average of seven days) from Network 7 fell 2.3% to 64.4%, whilst Network 9 dropped 4.1% to 60.1%, Network 10 slipped back 1.7% to 50.4% and ABC fell 3.3% to 56.3%."

"Interestingly, viewership of SBS rose 0.7% to 43.2%." The article can be accessed here.

Piracy in the UK: the brutal facts

"Over one million illegal set-top boxes with add-ons that allow consumers to stream content illegally have been sold in the UK in the last two years, according to the findings of a new report."

"The report, entitled Cracking Down on Digital Piracy, collates expert insights from the Intellectual Property Office (IPO), the UK’s leading intellectual property protection organisation FACT, City of London Police, Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU), Police Scotland and Entura International."

"It notes that the majority of criminals behind digital piracy make their money from advertising; typically banner ads or pop-up windows for casinos or dating sites, sometimes exposing children to inappropriate content. Other money-making scams include subscription fees to access paid-for channels; and charging other criminals to put malware on sites and hijack users’ computers. Estimates range from tens of millions to hundreds of millions of pounds going to these criminal groups every year."

Terms like "there is no such thing as a free lunch" and "buyer beware" spring to mind!  The complete article is well worth a read and can be accessed here.

Technology

Robotic Farm Completes 1st Fully Autonomous Harvest

"It's harvest season in many parts of the world, but on one farm in the United Kingdom, robots — not humans — are doing all the heavy lifting."

"At Hands Free Hectare, an experimental farm run by researchers from Harper Adams University, in the village of Edgmond in the U.K., about 5 tons (4.5 metric tons) of spring barley have been harvested from the world’s first robotically tended farm. Everything from start to finish — including sowing, fertilizing, collecting samples and harvesting — has been done by autonomous vehicles on the farm, according to the researchers." The complete article can be accessed here.

Intelsat and Intel reckon satellite spectrum could help with 5G's coming capacity crunch

"Intelsat and Intel reckon there's a chunk of spectrum currently devoted to satellite operations that could be useful for capacity-starved mobile comms."

"The two (unrelated) outfits have submitted a joint proposal to the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC), asking that it consider clearing some C-band wavelengths to prepare for the advent of 5G services."  The article can be accessed here.

Is medicine ready for artificial intelligence?

"Your brain signals could soon be detecting all kinds of health abnormalities, as researchers race to develop non-invasive health technology."

"Professor Hung Nguyen is currently working on a device that uses EEG to detect blood glucose changes in Type 1 diabetics, but are we ready for artificial intelligence to decode our brain?" Download the audio or transcript here.

Billionaire Elon Musk believes global artificial intelligence arms race ‘could spark World War 3’

"ELON Musk has told of his fears around artificial intelligence, after Vladimir Putin claimed the nation which controls it will rule the world."

"ELON Musk has claimed the race to develop artificial intelligence could spark World War Three."

"The Tesla founder spoke about his fears after Vladimir Putin claimed that the nation which controls artificial intelligence will come to rule the world." The article can be accessed here.

Apple says Dolby Atmos surround sound coming to Apple TV 4K in later update

"Although the shipping version of the Apple TV 4K is missing Dolby Atmos surround sound, support should be coming in a future tvOS update, according to Apple."

"The lack of Atmos isn't due to a hardware restriction, and support for the standard is on the roadmap, the company told The Verge. Unlike most surround formats, Atmos asks speakers to simulate sounds in 3D space, instead of simply pumping audio to separate channels."

"Apple's decision to ship without Atmos was presumably due to time constraints, since the format is already compatible in one way or another with devices like Roku players and the Xbox One S, as well as streaming services such as Netflix and Vudu." The article can be accessed here.

Security

Video alarm verification sets the trend amid high false alarm rates

"The intrusion alarms market has long played an important role in keeping stores and households safe by issuing alarms to monitoring stations or police after a possible break-in. But inevitably, alarm systems can create false alarms, which cause problems for multiple stakeholders amid budget and manpower constraints.Video alarm verification, therefore, has become a trend in the alarms industry."
 
"False alarms are both annoying and costly, and the high false alarm rates in different markets across the globe are making things worse as police spend taxpayers’ money to respond to alarms triggered by users forgetting their passcodes or sensors detecting moving pets. “Today around 85% of all alarms detected and reported by intrusion systems are false alarms. The vast majority of these false alarms are not caused by a malfunction of a detection device, but by the user,” said Ross Wilks, Product Marketing Manager at Vanderbilt Industries." The complete article can be accessed here.

How will artificial intelligence benefit the security industry?

"Have you ever wondered how the security industry can benefit from Artificial Intelligence (AI)? Before we dive into the details of the various applications that AI has to offer, we must talk about the processors first. AI is the computer science that enables machine intelligence, which requires several processors like CPU, GPU and NPU to work collaboratively. CPU, also known as the brain, is the control center that processes, calculates and converts the data. But with the amount of image data increased, the GPU has come into place to carry out faster computation by performing several calculations at a time with its parallel processing architecture. NPU, often linked with deep learning, is an AI oriented chip that uses neural network to constantly learn and adjust from the inaccurate outputs/results to reduce error rates. With the support of these processors, AI has been applied to different fields such as natural language processing, computer vision, machine learning, etc., which are highly useful for security surveillance, object searching, smart retail, smart factory, intelligent healthcare and intelligent transportation sectors."  

"Everyday surveillance systems are capturing large amounts of data for further analysis. However, when an event occurred, only 20% to 40 % of these data are significant with the rest of them either inadequate or mistakenly retrieved. As the result, the need to improve data usage efficiency and accuracy has accelerated the adoption of AI. With its capability to automatically recognize, analyze, trace, understand and describe images, the security industry is optimistic about integrating AI into surveillance systems to enhancing intelligent video analytics and turning more data into actionable insights." The complete article can be accessed here.

IoT

Insteon and Wink home hubs appear to have a problem with encryption

"Security researchers have discovered that two popular home automation systems are vulnerable to attacks."

"The Insteon Hub and Wink Hub 2 are designed to connect various home products and manage automation, and the flaws represent another entry in the growing catalogue of IoT security shortcomings." Find out more here.

The Internet of Things is sending us back to the Middle Ages

"Internet-enabled devices are so common, and so vulnerable, that hackers recently broke into a casino through its fish tank. The tank had internet-connected sensors measuring its temperature and cleanliness. The hackers got into the fish tank’s sensors and then to the computer used to control them, and from there to other parts of the casino’s network. The intruders were able to copy 10 gigabytes of data to somewhere in Finland."  The complete article can be accessed here.
 

Amazon

Amazon Told To Change Its Rules To Meet Aus Legislation

"Global behemoth, Amazon, has been told by an Australian Ombudsman that it needs to change its contract for small businesses on its platform, to ensure compliance with Australian legislation."

"Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman, Kate Carnell, has written to Amazon to ensure the US-based giant complies with Australia’s legislation around unfair contract terms."

"Amazon’s American terms and conditions see the company reserving rights to a variety of areas, inclusive of; reserving the right to refuse service, terminate accounts, terminate rights to use its services, cancel orders at its discretion, and remove or edit content."  The complete article can be accessed here.
 

Economy and Development

Reserve Bank: Economy has reached a 'turning point'

"The global economy has reached a turning point, the Reserve Bank says, on the same day as the OECD has lifted its forecast for global growth thanks to a co-ordinated economic recovery."

"The interim report from the intergovernmental economic organisation re-affirms the central bank's view that the global economy is looking much better than a year ago, but the OECD has warned Australia an interest rate rise could trigger a sharp correction."  The article can be accessed here.

Australia’s Next Boom Has Barely Started

"Australia is on the cusp of the biggest wave of public infrastructure spending in at least three decades and has already ensured a record proportion of construction workers have found jobs."

"In a shift that has been overlooked amid the focus on negatives such as high household debt, weak consumer sentiment and low wages growth, research published this week shows almost $100 billion in local, state and federal government spending will hit the economy this year financial alone."

"According to a chart presented by Reserve Bank of Australia governor Philip Lowe in a speech in Perth this week, public infrastructure work “yet to be done” will be just under 6 per cent of nominal gross domestic product in 2017."

"That figure is set to keep rising, with transport projects alone set to boom for much of the next five years, and peak three years from now in 2020, according to research by economic consultancy Macromonitor."

"Public infrastructure work “yet to be done” will be just under 6 per cent of nominal gross domestic product in 2017."

"Craig James from Commsec says that while bad news about the economy draws people’s attention, new infrastructure spending is likely to be comparable or larger than what was invested during the resources boom of the past 15 years." The complete article can be accessed here.

A State-By-State Look at Australia’s Construction Pipeline

"The Urban Developer recently reported on stronger than expected construction activity for the month of August. The decline in apartment building activity was tempered by a boost in engineering projects and home building work."

"CoreLogic’s construction figures for July estimated that the value of construction entering the pipeline in July was $21.7 billion."

A brief construction update, state by state, courtesy of CoreLogic’s Cordell Construction Monthly data for August 2017 can be accessed here.