Vitamin D Introduces Intelligent Video Monitoring Technology at DEMO 2009

Experienced Innovators Pioneering a New Approach to Object Recognition and Video Search, Aiming to Unlock the Information Captured in Video; Beta Software Arrives This Fall

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Smart video pioneer Vitamin D today will debut its first application based on a completely new approach to object recognition in video. At DEMO 2009, a gathering of technology industry innovators, the company will demonstrate video monitoring software that quickly distills enormous amounts of video into distinct events with unprecedented flexibility and ease. While initially focused on video monitoring for home and business security, Vitamin D Video lays the foundation for a new means of smart visual search, enabling powerful new applications in areas such as mobile capture and lookup, contextual advertising and entertainment.

“Vitamin D’s proven talent and user experience expertise, combined with Numenta core technology, offers the potential to deliver a whole new class of intelligent video applications that are at once powerful, simple and affordable.”

To see a video demonstration and sign up for the beta, visit www.vitamindinc.com.

The company plans a public beta release of Vitamin D Video this fall and is already in private trials with residential and institutional customers. Designed for anyone interested in seeing what’s happening when they’re not around, Vitamin D Video brings robust enterprise-grade video analytics to a mainstream audience at a fraction of the cost.

Running on a PC or Mac, the software works with inexpensive IP cameras and webcams with no tuning or calibration required, unlike contemporary offerings. It can quickly distinguish between the presence of humans and other objects in live video streams. A simple rule builder allows people to filter for where objects are and how they are moving in the monitored video – for example, one can easily request the software to show every instance of a person entering through a particular door. The search results are conveniently organized into a highlight reel where hours of videos can be scanned in seconds, for very specific events. People can choose to be instantly notified of any particular event.

“We’ve witnessed the incredible growth and importance of searching text-based content. But we’re still in the dark ages when it comes to finding things in video,” said Celeste Baranski, chief executive officer of Vitamin D. “Computers today simply can’t see what’s inside video. There is a clear need for a better way to detect, recognize, and filter objects. Vitamin D Video is the first of many smart applications that will unlock the value inside video across a broad range of consumer and business applications.”

Intelligent Computing

Vitamin D Video is built on NuPIC, the Numenta platform for intelligent computing. NuPIC is a next-generation computing platform based on Hierarchical Temporal Memory (HTM) technology, a type of memory architecture inspired by the brain’s neocortex. HTM technology allows computers to learn and recognize patterns in very large amounts of complex data in a robust, accurate and scalable fashion. Vitamin D is the leading independent application developer on the Numenta platform, and will be the first company to launch a commercial application to take advantage of the power of HTM.

“Video object recognition is becoming a vital capability in a world filled with more and more video,” said Donna Dubinsky, chief executive officer of Numenta. “Vitamin D’s proven talent and user experience expertise, combined with Numenta core technology, offers the potential to deliver a whole new class of intelligent video applications that are at once powerful, simple and affordable.”

Coming This Fall: Vitamin D Video

Vitamin D Video will fill a significant gap in the multi-billion dollar security and monitoring industry. According to a recent IP Video Market Info study, the top three problems limiting the effectiveness of video analytics for security systems are false alerts, system maintenance and cost. In today’s market, low-cost surveillance systems use unreliable motion detection plagued by false alerts, resulting in customer frustration and wasted video storage. It is common for moving leaves or lighting changes to produce overwhelming amounts of unwanted results. Enterprise-grade systems provide video analytics at a high cost and often require expensive cameras that need expert tuning to eliminate false alerts.

Vitamin D Video meets these challenges by combining elegant interface design with the flexibility of HTM. Freed from the structured rules of conventional programming, professional-grade object recognition can now be provided on inexpensive, easily available cameras.

While free during the beta period, Vitamin D Video will become available at a fraction of the cost of enterprise-grade products without sacrificing functionality, flexibility or control. Because it is based on a new learning platform, the application is extensible for recognizing many object types and events in the future.

About Vitamin D

Founded in 2007, Vitamin D brings elegant user experience design together with new artificial intelligence to create software that simplifies people's lives. It is located in Menlo Park, CA.

Vitamin D
General inquiries:
Greg Shirai, 650-323-0120
greg@vitamindinc.com
or
Media:
pr@vitamindinc.com