According to a recent report by Bloomberg News, Apple recently laid off about 100 contract workers in its recruitment department. This is the latest sign that the tech sector is putting the brakes on hiring. Facebook’s parent company, Meta, along with Amazon (which is a marketplace underwriter), Alphabet, Microsoft, and several others made similar announcements this year.

By this year, tech companies had hired many employees. That’s partly because the pandemic has created a lot of demand for their products and services.

“During the pandemic, the strong in tech got stronger,” said Dan Ives, managing director at Wedbush Securities. “From an e-commerce [perspective]everyone is sitting at home and streaming to software, to the cloud.”

But that’s starting to change depending on the type of tech company, said JP Gownder of Forrester Research.

“There are companies that are legitimately having performance issues, there are companies that are just being a little cautious and slowing things down.”

Netflix, for example, is grappling with new competition, Gownder said; it laid off about 450 employees. Other companies worry about where the economy is headed and are therefore holding back hiring.

“In an environment of economic uncertainty, even large companies will say, ‘Hey, let’s wind down this particular part of our business because it’s not successful, and we expect it to be even less successful when the economy slows down,'” said Gownder.

Technology companies may also expect other companies to slow down their spending. In other words, ad revenue, said Carolina Milanesi, a tech analyst at Creative Strategies.

“Any social media platform or content platform, advertising is usually one of those things that companies kind of back off on,” she said.

After the tech hiring boom in recent years, Milanese said, we should expect that pace to slow.

U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) toured Rowan University’s South Jersey Tech Park Aug. 17, which includes federally funded research and development for the manufacturing, infrastructure and aerospace industries.

Booker visited the Tech Park’s Center for Research and Education in Advanced Transportation Engineering Systems (CREATES), the CAVE Automatic Virtual Reality Environment, and the Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Institute. He supported the designation of CREATES as the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Region 2 University Transportation Center, a program aimed at meeting the need for safe, efficient, and environmentally friendly transportation through the creation of government-university partnerships.

“Partnerships between the federal government and universities are the engine of our country’s innovation and prosperity,” said Booker. “Rowan University’s students, professors and executives work on groundbreaking projects—from rocket engine testing for NASA to environmental studies for local governments to research in the aerospace and biomedical industries. I was proud to visit and see this research first hand today.”

“Rowan’s research capabilities will continue to impact the well-being of the citizens of our great state. We are extremely grateful for Senator Booker’s support and guidance as we work together to address the challenges facing New Jersey — and our nation — particularly in the areas of health, transportation, food production and defense supplies,” said Rowan President Ali A. Houshmand .

“With the help of the state and federal legislature, Rowan University stands ready to transform higher education in the state of New Jersey and beyond. As the third fastest growing research institution in the country, we are well on our way to our goal of becoming a top 100 research institution.

“Subject to accreditation, Rowan University School of Veterinary Medicine will be the first in New Jersey,” Houshmand continued. “The collaboration between the veterinary school, our two medical schools, the Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering, CREATES and industry partners places Rowan in a strong position to fulfill our mission of expanding access to quality, affordable education while at the same time to drive economic growth in the South Jersey area.”

Booker’s tour of Tech Park was part of his 2022 Jersey Summer Road Trip, a series of stops highlighting the priorities he continues to fight for in the US Senate on behalf of state residents. The road trip focuses, among other things, on Booker’s continued commitment to New Jersey veterans, his efforts to secure congressional directed spending for important New Jersey projects and organizations, and his support of local businesses and industries.

Booker toured the Tech Park with Houshmand, Rowan Provost Tony Lowman, Giuseppe Palmese, Dean of Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering, Giuseppe Palmese, Director of CREATES, and engineering students. Gloucester County Commissioners were also in attendance, as were other Rowan officials.

Bart Didden has long been considered a downright underdog in the way he runs his business and champions and advocates for important causes and opportunities in the industry. He had been President of the US Central Station, an independent wholesale surveillance firm, since 1982 SS Industry Hall of Fame for lifetime achievement.

Didden has been an advocate of high industry standards of professionalism and customer service for more than 40 years and is committed to ensuring that the industry maintains a level playing field, encourages competition and lowers artificial barriers to entry.

A former NBFAA President and board member of AIREF, CSAA (now TMA) and SIA, he led the initiative to unify trade associations and provide industry-specific insurance through the formation of the Security America Risk Retention Group.

Whether it’s the business or the technology of security systems and surveillance, Didden has always been a thought leader. At the time of his inauguration in Hall more than 14 years ago, he said: “We are in the midst of the most dynamic change in the history of the alarm industry. It’s changed more in the last 30 years than the 120 before it, and we’re in the middle of it wherever we go.”

With this in mind, USA Central Station, based in Port Chester, NY, became one of the early proponents and adopters of video-based technologies and services, offering these solutions as a recurring revenue stream for the surveillance company’s large customer base of alarm dealers. More recently, the company has partnered with Sentry AI to apply artificial intelligence to situational awareness – filtering out false positives and improving US video services.

The success of this partnership impressed the judges enough to name the companies that received the TMA 2022.SS Monitoring Technology Marvel Award – a program co-organized by The Monitoring Association and Security Sales & Integration.

The goal of the Marvel is to provide recognition and awareness of surveillance centers that develop and/or use cutting-edge technology. A new addition to the program for this year was the inclusion of manufacturers/vendors to participate in the award of the winning hub. Marvel’s past winners include ADT, Affiliated Monitoring, CPI Security, and NMC.

Learn more about what makes Sentry AI unique and the USA Central Station’s approach to technology, surveillance and more.

Say goodbye to false alarms

One of the biggest challenges for outdoor video surveillance is false alarms. Most alarms received by surveillance centers are triggered by weather, shadows, trees or animals. Monitoring these false alarms is inefficient and expensive. Surveillance agents spend too much time filtering out these false positives that distract them from critical events, cause fatigue and lead to poor job satisfaction.

AI’s filtering application to Sentry AI’s situational awareness provides an answer. With these offerings, customers do not need to upgrade cameras or install additional hardware or software. Dealers are jointly assisted by the USA Central Station and Sentry AI to connect their cameras and onboard end user accounts. During a free trial period, the Sentry AI system will self-adjust the algorithms based on the field of view of the camera and the monitor of the customer service staff to ensure optimized performance settings.

USA Central Station and security dealers can also access the filtered alarms, live camera view, arm/disarm the system and view reports/analytics via the Sentry AI portal and mobile app. In addition, Sentry AI has established a system check mechanism between cameras – Sentry AI Cloud – integrated with USA Central Station’s automation software to notify of any system failure.

“What makes this solution superior to all others is that it not only offers intruder detection capabilities, but also people detection, LPR [license plate recognition]Loitering, camera health checks, and other security features,” says Hien Nguyen of Sentry AI.

USA Central Station is headquartered in Port Chester, NY and was founded in 1982. USA Central Station’s more than 60 employees oversee approximately 100,000 monitored accounts.

Harness the full power of video

The joint solution proved its worth and was well received by USA Central Station customers. It helps reduce over 50% of monitoring costs and gives agents more time to handle critical events. Reducing the labor cost of handling false alarms helps increase profitability and offers the potential to pass some value on to customers through discounts.

Customer satisfaction is increased as they can receive alerts directly on their mobile app. While the total number of security cameras installed worldwide has exploded over time, only 5% of the 400 million installed cameras are actively monitored. This is a tremendous business opportunity for surveillance centers to take advantage of the latest technological breakthroughs to increase their RMR.

By introducing Sentry AI’s state-of-the-art video surveillance offering, USA Central Station is now enabling the surveillance service for accounts that were previously “impossible to monitor” at a reasonable cost.

“So far, many retailers have been reluctant to offer the video service. Now, this solution helps them gain confidence that they can efficiently and effectively provide monitoring services while significantly increasing their RMR,” adds Nguyen.

3 reasons traders love it

The solution was very well received by the security vendors at USA Central Station. Here are three reasons why:

Easy service onboarding and scaling: Security vendors can offer their customers a free trial and start with any number of cameras. The USA Central Station and Sentry AI together support traders with all camera settings onboarding and configuration options to make it easy for them. Security as a Service (SaaS) models make it easy for merchants to manage their customer billing and easily start and stop the service at any time.

Proven effectiveness: All cameras are efficiently monitored in real-time by AI and surveillance agents to prevent and neutralize security threats.

Easy ongoing management: Security dealers can use the USA Dealer Web Portal to manage customer alerts, the Sentry AI mobile app to receive alerts and take appropriate action, and the Sentry AI portal for camera settings, scene masking, scheduling, and insightful analytics reports.

The solution reduced video surveillance costs by 50% and freed up agents’ time to handle critical events.

Proven in real scenarios

The solution reduces false positives through two layers of monitoring: AI and agents. Consider the following actual case study. Over a month, a consumer account with nine cameras in Connecticut with surveillance service from 7:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. generated 31,430 alerts, a grossly inflated total due to the snowy weather in the area.

Sentry AI technology successfully filtered out the vast majority of alarms as false alarms, allowing only 16 to be sent during the period. This process reduced the load on the monitoring agents by 99.95%!

As another example, a dealership in California used the Sentry AI video surveillance system to provide security services for a customer at night. The property is a warehouse with a wide field of view from its entrance, parking area and is surrounded by trees. Prior to using the USA/Sentry AI service, although the location was monitored virtually, the trader was overwhelmed by the number of false alarms and could not identify the real ones when they actually occurred. Meanwhile, there have been many cases of car break-ins.

After the dealer switched to USA/Sentry AI, a burglar attempted to break into a car on the property one night. Even though it was really dark, the solution could detect the presence of people and immediately set off the intruder alarm. The dealer received the alarm on his phone and quickly called the police. The police arrived shortly thereafter and caught the thief red-handed! Word spread that the property is well protected and thieves in the area have since avoided breaking into the property. This has all but eliminated crime in the camp.

A future of better monitoring and response

The USA Central Station/Sentry AI solution fundamentally changes the work of a sentry post. Instead of monotonously staring at video feeds and reporting damage after the fact, staff can now devote time to critical events, interacting with customers and law enforcement to prevent crime.

The solution also improves law enforcement efficiency. Today, 68% of police operations are due to customers not answering when the dispatcher calls. Receiving the alerts via the mobile app allows end users to cancel the alert instantly from anywhere in the world, saving time for both the surveillance agent and law enforcement agencies.