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Strategies & Market Trends : Zeev's Turnips - No Politics -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Zeev Hed who wrote (56071)	4/25/2002 12:19:50 AM
From: Steve Lee	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 99280

Zeev, I was involved with a project last year for the UK prison service. One of the areas was improving the XRay systems. Visitors to prisons have their bags scanned by XRay machines. The prison service has such a wealth of expertise in operating these machines that they have become a centre of excellence and provide training for other industries such as airports. As you suggest, the cost of the machines is coming down and being expanded to other industries. Tha machines are truly amazing in how different colours are used for organic and inorganic matter, allowing a skilled operator to identify almost anything, however cunningly it is disguised or shielded. Your comments about the explosives sniffers being uable to compete with these machines is spot on IMO. I did not take much notice of the actual technology in the machines as my concern was more around the security of the computer systems. The training centres had all sorts of firearms and explosives about as they were used daily for training purposes. I don't know how many prisons there are in the US or whether they use X Ray machines but the possibility of them being a customer is something worth considering. It is much faster than manually searching bags and is more thorough. How many manual bag searches involve opening every cake to see if there is a gun inside <g> ? Another point - these machines still rely heavily on a human operator. The potential for the operator to have a lapse of concentration is the biggest weakness. There are some busy people out there developing the image recognition software to act as a failsafe for these human failings. I don't know the companies involved but whoever has the lead will make a lot of money. I guess INVN will be involved in this process to some extent.