The Surreal World of Military Trade Shows

Over the last 4 days I was an exhibitor at the Defense Services Asia show in Kuala Lumpur. The show was a great success for us and our local partner XV Asia Technology  with lots of interest from real customers with real money to spend on all of our products.

Met a friend, Mr. C4i. He packed every
electronic gizmo you could imagine into his
stylish uniform.

But I have to admit that the show itself was somewhat surreal. It was like a department store of weapons, armor, vehicles, and all manner of other stuff that goes boom.

I met generals, admirals, deputy ministers, police chiefs and all manner of other senior military officials. After a while it became almost mundane to see a flag officer walk by with an entourage of aides and assistants.

Rather than drone on (yes, there were lots of UAVs there too) about the show, I thought it might be more interesting to see some of the items that were being sold.

I left out some of the less impressive things like trucks, bridges, tires, barbed wire and uniforms. There were plenty of all of these items. And of course there were the major corporations selling jets, satellites, helicopters etc.

The really fun stuff was in the Malaysian exhibit area where you could buy mortars, rocket propelled grenades, tanks, missiles, and any other weapon you could imagine. Take a look.

M4 Assault rifles from Walther.
Blue light special at the end
of the show. Buy two,
get a flash suppressor for free!

Of course there were this years
colorful Howitzer rounds. Light Blue
is perfect for any occasion

Defending the free world from itself is a tough job, but with tools like these, it is just a little easier.

Thank goodness there are not terrorist states attending this show. Oh wait, we did have several people from Iran and Syria stop by the booth to ask about our products. We politely said that unlike some of our competitors, we as an American company honor the embargo against your countries. Sorry. We hope the missile and arms dealers at the show did the same.

The show wrapped up today which ended up being our best day. We gave demonstrations to several high ranking officials who were very impressed and wanted to see more.

I am as exhausted as I was when I arrived. Only a couple of more days of training, sales calls and strategy meetings and I am on my way home.

There were night vision googles
that could accessorize any outfit

My personal favorite was the .40 cal Walther
with a matching silencer. Why wake the kids
when taking out your enemies.

There was a lovely assortment
of air to air missiles.

Be the envy of the neighborhood
with your own tank parked in the
driveway.

If an air to air missile is too small,
why not try a surface to air instead.

Could I get any more tired?

So, after a 26 hour transit from San Luis Obispo to Kuala Lumpur, then setting up all day on Sunday, I finally got to sleep after being awake for 44 hours straight. That is a record for me. I only slept for 6 hours and then we started the trade show.

The XV Asia Technology booth was packed to the gills with products, people and collateral. As a late arrival to the show, XV Asia did not get the best location, but this did not seem to matter. We had a good, steady flow of people who were all interested in virtually all of the products.

Murad and Helena schmoozing with
Rear Admiral Dato Nasuruddin Bon Othman

The Immersive Video Dodeka 2360 camera was a great draw and people were very interested in the fully spherical view that the system captured. It brought a lot of people to the booth. Once at our door, they almost all asked about the Global Emergency Resources eWRAP, which inevitably led to a discussion of wireless, then the challenges of moving video, which led to the Mobile Video Edge product based on Sentinel AVE technology and the microNVR.

As this is a military show, there were lots of weird products that I will try to capture over the next two days.

Anyway, time for dinner, then bed. Hopefully I will sleep through the night. Tomorrow we have delegations from Russia, Thailand and the Philippines coming to visit us.

Traveling to DSA Asia

I am sitting at the Narita airport connection terminal waiting for my connection to Kuala Lumpur. What am I doing here?

Two weeks ago we were at ISC West. What a great show for us. Anyway, one of our new partners, XV Asia Technology flew all the way out from Malaysia to see us. They are an exciting company who is aggressively pursuing new video technologies for both entertainment and surveillance. A look at their web site will give you an idea of what they are doing. They are very innovative in their cross-application of technology between various vertical markets.

Anyway, as a result of the visit at ISC West, XV Asia asked us to work with them on pulling together a trade show presence for the Defense Services Asia exhibition which runs April 16-19th in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. Always up for a challenge we started to organize a booth for displaying the Mobile Video Edge™ and Mobile Video Vault™ solutions.
 

Immersive Video
Hipervision Camera

Along with this, we will also be showing a live streaming video backhaul system for use with the Immersive Video 360 degree camera. XV Asia has already tested this system and are pleased with the results. They have worked hard to make this system a reality. Basically now we can stream using a HauteSpot WRAP router system from the Hipervision camera to a remote viewing station from almost anywhere. Allow live events to add a cool new video element to their web presence.

If you are in KL for the show come by and see us!

More soon....plane is boarding

Real American Hero

Now I can say I personally know a real American hero.

Paul is interviewed by CBS News

This week is the ISC West 2012 show in Las Vegas. As most of you know, HauteSpot is exhibiting. One of our good customers is Paul Babakitis of PGB Executive Investigations from New York. Just last week I spoke to Paul and he said that he was going to be coming out to Vegas for the show and that he would definitely stop by.

What happened next was all over the news. Paul was on a JetBlue plane from New York to Las Vegas. During the flight the pilot flipped out and wanted to crash the plane. Paul, as a retired NYPD Sergeant leaped into action and helped subdue and restrain the pilot until the flight could safely land.

Paul and Charlotte share a smile

Paul helped save the lives of all of the passengers on the plane. So today, when Paul actually arrived at our booth at Las Vegas, we all cheered for him and were glad to have our friend, business associate and hero safely arrive at the show. Personally I don't know if I would be getting back on a plane right after an event like this happened.

Paul, everyone at HauteSpot salutes you and your bravery. Now we all know a real hero.

Awesome Day at ISC West

I am completely exhausted. Today was one of the busiest first days of any trade show we have been to. In our booth we had hundreds of visitors checking out Mobile Video Vault, Mobile Video Edge and HD Witness.

Getting set up before the show

The demonstration network that we set up with a wireless 5GHz link to the Network Optix booth and a wireless 3.65GHz link to the Veracity booth both were up and working flawlessly throughout the entire show. As some of you may know, getting any wireless to work on a trade show floor at all is a challenge. We were achieving full data rates and throughput. This was achieved by running our TDMA like protocol and our frequency flexibility.

Kelvin Chung from SentinelAVE did a great job of configuring the microNVRs and Mobile Video Edge application to use Clear WiMAX to keep a rock solid wireless connection to Los Angeles. Throughout the entire day we ran live demos from our video server in Los Angeles over 4G without any hiccups. Customers were able to view live and recorded video from Los Angeles at high resolution and high frame rate.

Bob doing some last minute futzing

After almost being knocked out by a monitor that fell off it's mount, Mark Armstrong of SoleraTec set up Mobile Video Vault microNVR running in our booth and sending archive video every 5 minutes to the Veracity Coldstore server in the Veracity booth over wireless. This too ran well throughout the entire day.

We had no time to go look around the show floor, but judging from the comments from the crowd, we had the coolest new product offerings at the show.

The final show booth result

Also, Mike, Max and Aaron did an outstanding job of manning the booth and engaging with customers. They were able to answer most of the questions customers raised, and let myself and Wes handle the more complex questions. The level of professionalism of our staff is something I am very proud of and I know our customers appreciate.

Two more days to go. If you are in Vegas, come by and see us. Booth 9139, way in the back...near the food concession.

ISC West 2012 HauteSpot is GO!

After a week of futzing with demo set ups, cranking out new marketing material, setting up meetings, and all the rest, we are ready to GO!

I wanted to share with you just a few of the really cool things that we at HauteSpot will be bringing with us to ISC West this year in the hopes that you might find them interesting enough to stop bye and check out. We are in booth 9139 (way in the back...). This year we have made some amazing technological strides, together with our partners in innovation.




One of the first things I hope you will notice is that we have changed our focus from being a "Wireless" solution company to being a "Connectivity" solutions company. We like to think of ourselves as the connective tissue or nervous system linking your extremities (cameras, remote devices, sensors and the like) with your core organs (VMS, Information Management Systems). We have become more technology agnostic, embracing things as LTE, WiMAX, VSAT, White Space and Virtual Private Networks, in addition to our existing 802.11, TDMA and video processing products. Our demonstrations at ISC West reflect these changes. Basically we want to partner with you to take the network beyond the boundaries and limitations that you face today.




MOBILE VIDEO VAULT - Working with our partner SoleraTec, we have built the BLACK BOX of the transportation and public safety industries. The Mobile Video Vault runs on our compact microNVR (you know, the 4"x4"x1", 8 watt, 12 volt, 500 Gigabyte, Dual Core 2 Gigahertz micro computer router), we add the SoleraTec Phoenix RSM software which gathers data from GPS, vehicle diagnostics, audio, lightbars, sirens, etc, along with high definition video, then it watermarks it, locks it up tight for evidence and stores it. When the vehicle gets to a transfer point, HauteSpot high speed wireless transfers it for archiving. All of the data is searchable and cross referenced. Want to know what it looks like to drive a school bus 40 miles an hour over railroad crossings? We can show you? Want to see how hard the brakes were applied and the GPS deceleration record just before that accident, with video, we have that. High definition, small size, low power, all IP.

We will be capturing video in our booth, storing in on the microNVR and transferring over a wireless link across the show floor to the Veracity booth for storage on their ColdStore network storage array.

MOBILE VIDEO EDGE - Sometimes you need to see what is happening in high quality, fast frame rate, in real time, and you need to do it over the public cellular network, satellite, or other low quality network. Working with our partner SentinelAVE we have built the Mobile Video Edge. Again, using the microNVR platform we built a compact mobile platform that can stream live, rate adaptive, high quality video over the narrowest network pipe. Sentinel's software goes beyond just compression, it is connection aware and creates and keeps persistent links going over 3G, 4G, Satellite or even dial up. In as little at 100kpbs good quality situational awareness video can be used to monitor remote locations. Mobile Video Edge also monitors location data and stores video for later retrieval.

Watch us link to video coming in from Los Angeles, a Las Vegas parking lot, San Luis Obispo, and from around the ISC West show floor all over 3G and 4G




HD WITNESS - For the most amazing High Definition video surveillance experience, our friends at Network Optix have ported their HD Witness VMS system onto the microNVR as well. This video processing software defines a new standard in the industry for display, transport and ease of use. It is truly stunning how simple it is to use, how quickly it sets up, and how responsive it is on hardware as small as the microNVR. Come by and see us run the HD Witness on a microNVR over wireless links to the Network Optix booth.

Of course we will also be showing our new HauteLINK Virtual Private Network gateway and remote router, our WRAPxXG Gigabit wireless routers, and much more. Our whole HauteSpot pre-sales design team will be on hand to answer any questions you have. So please come by with your design questions. We will be happy to answer them.

This year is shaping up to be a great one and between you, our awesome customers, and our excellent partners we think we have a winning team.

Thank you and I hope to see you soon.

Walgreen Distribution Center Deploys HauteSpot Video Solution for Monitoring Robots

HauteSpot Networks Corporation, recently announced the national deployment of HauteSpot wireless in Walgreens distribution centers. The video system provides Walgreens’ warehouse personnel with a new level of security and efficiency.

San Luis Obispo, CA., March 16, 2012 – HauteSpot Networks Corporation, an international provider of wireless video surveillance and security solutions, recently announced the national deployment of HauteSpot wireless in Walgreens distribution centers.  HauteSpot Networks also announced Firetrol Protection Systems, as its newest system integrator.  The Dallas based integrator joined with HauteSpot Networks to design and promote HauteSpot’s security and industrial automation technology.

The innovative video system was installed in the Dallas, TX distribution center.  The solution used the HauteWRAP™, a high-performance wireless router, and the HauteSHOT™ microNVR, a compact network video recorder.  The HauteSHOT™
microNVR is among the smallest IP recording devices on the market.  It measures 4x4x1 inches, solely consumes 8 watts, and operates on 12VDC.  

“HauteSpot was able to design and provide a world class wireless megapixel video solution,” said Ron Walthall of Firetrol Protection Systems.  “The wireless video signal was transmitted over a completely different frequency so it did not interfere with the customer’s existing WiFi, this made the IT managers happy.”

The video system provides Walgreens’ warehouse personnel with a new level of security and efficiency. The HauteSHOT microNVR allows warehouse employees to safely and remotely monitor the movement of robotic pallet machines within the distribution center using high-definition and real time video streaming.   The operators can determine if malfunctions with the robotic machines warrant manual assistance or can be remotely overridden.  Thus, reducing the number of repair personnel on the warehouse floor and minimizing the liability with machinery.

“The customer has been so impressed with the system, they have asked us to install identical systems at other facilities around the country,” said Walthall.  “I know HauteSpot stands behind their products and have the technical expertise to handle any size wireless video recording situation.”