Axis introduces compact, video encoder with Power over Ethernet for discreet video surveillance

LUND, Sweden. – (March 26, 2007) – Axis Communications today introduced the ultra-compact AXIS 247S Video Server that is designed for discreet or space-restrictive video surveillance applications providing added value for locations such as stores, banks, and government buildings. The high performance AXIS 247S makes installations easy since it receives power through the same Ethernet cable as for data and can further supply power to the attached analog camera, thus eliminating the need for power outlets.

“The AXIS 247S provides a compact and flexible solution that integrates a miniature or standard analog camera into a high performance, IP-based video surveillance system,” said Anders Laurin, Axis’ executive vice president of corporate strategy. “This enables analog camera users to take advantage of all the benefits that digital technology offers.”

The AXIS 247S converts an analog video stream into high quality, full frame rate digital video. The video encoder can deliver Motion JPEG and advanced MPEG-4 streams simultaneously, providing the ability to optimize for both image quality and bandwidth. It also provides video motion detection, one-way audio for listening in on an area, and audio detection alarm.

Given the encoder’s small size and support for Power over Ethernet (PoE), relocating and setting up surveillance is quick and easy. Positioning the AXIS 247S close to an analog camera also eliminates the loss in image quality that would occur if video were to be transferred over long distances through a coaxial cable instead of an IP network.

Axis video encoders offer the market’s most comprehensive set of network capabilities, optimizing the network video solution for security, efficiency and manageability. An example is the IPv6 support, which insures against the growing shortage of IPv4 addresses and eliminates problems with static IP address allocation.

The AXIS 247S is supported by the industry’s largest base of application software through the Axis Application Development Partner program, as well as the AXIS Camera Station video management software. The product is available through Axis’ distribution channels in early Q2 2007.

About Axis
Axis is an IT company offering network video solutions for professional installations. The company is the global market leader in network video, driving the ongoing shift from analog to digital video surveillance. Axis products and solutions focus on security surveillance and remote monitoring, and are based on innovative, open technology platforms.

Axis is a Swedish-based company, operating worldwide with offices in 18 countries and cooperating with partners in more than 70 countries. Founded in 1984, Axis is listed on the Nordic List, Mid Cap and Information Technology exchanges. For more information about Axis, please visit our website at www.axis.com.

The Beats Go On, IPODS

Two years ago, Dr. Michael Barrett had a cool idea for taking his Temple University medical school classes into the high-tech future—or so he thought. He'd been teaching students to recognize the distinctive sounds of heart murmurs by playing recordings in class. "We'd give a one-hour lecture, play each sound for them, and say, 'That's your murmur, guys,'" he recalls. "Then they'd look at us blankly and file out of the room." Barrett's idea was to give his students CDs loaded with heart sounds to listen to at home. Alas, this proposal garnered equally blank looks from his students. "I was surprised," he says, "but they were like, 'Dr. Barrett, nobody listens to CDs anymore.'"

Barrett didn't own an iPod at the time, and he says that "90 percent of practicing doctors over 30 probably still don't." But his students do, and today they have beat-heavy tracks like "innocent systolic murmur," "aortic regurgitation" and "mitral stenosis" at the top of their playlists. They've put the so-called "heart songs" on repeat and listened to them at the gym, on their commutes, while walking around town. In the process, apparently, they've become better doctors.
This weekend at the annual conference of the American College of Cardiology, Barrett reported that cardiology (or at least one component of it) can be taught by iPod. After listening to MP3s of 400 or more heartbeats, manipulated to sound either healthy or abnormal, students were able to easily identify sounds in patients that might signal trouble. Before testing out Barrett's program, another group of internists managed to identify only 40 percent of murmurs correctly; afterwards, they got 80 percent right. "Usually, the first time you try to listen for a heart murmur you're lucky if you hear a heartbeat at all," says Jodi Washinsky, a fourth-year med student at Tufts. "But this has really helped me. I've found myself picking up a lot of murmurs in patients, now that I actually know what I'm listening for."

What's amazing isn't necessarily that doctors are using iPods as teaching tools—it's that they've taken so long to catch on. In 2005, Duke University gave all incoming undergraduates their own iPods, and many other schools have signed up for Apple's "iTunes U," which allows them to download podcasts of lectures and other course materials. But medicine, particularly cardiology, has lagged behind, says Barrett. "We as cardiologists haven't done a very good job of teaching these heart sounds to medical students and even residents," he says. "In the past, we would have just played short recordings in class, or we might have waited for a patient to show up with a perfect murmur and then we'd line all the students up in front of him. If they were lucky, they'd get to listen for 30 seconds each."

That approach just doesn't work, says Barrett, because the key to learning heart murmurs is repetition. "Learning these sounds is not an intellectual skill. It's a technical skill, like tying knots," he says. "And the way you learn a technical skill is by repeating it, and repeating it, and repeating it." Barrett surveyed students and found that 400 repetitions of a heartbeat were enough to drill into a student's head the particular rhythm of a murmur: the "lub-dub" of a healthy heart, the "lub-whoosh" of aortic regurgitation, or the "lub-rumble-dub" of aortic stenosis. But 400 heartbeats were too much to ask of a real, live patient, says Barrett: "They won't tolerate sitting there that long."
Instead, Barrett put together computer-generated simulations of those noises, which were clearer and easier to hear than the heartbeat of an actual patient. Then he formatted them into individual MP3 files, introducing and explaining each one. The recordings were an immediate hit with students. "Time is obviously a problem for medical students, so anything you can learn outside the hospital is great," says Washinsky, who will enter an internal medicine residency next year. "I have a half-hour commute, so I was listening to this a lot on the train, and at home too, if I was going to bed and didn't feel like watching TV."
Not only were the "heart songs" convenient, they worked. Barrett has mostly given them to younger docs and students, but he says older physicians can also benefit from adding the MP3s to their music libraries. He'll be testing out willing participants' abilities at the conference this weekend, and for those who don't make it there, the ACC offers a collection of recordings for download on its Web page. (For those who still haven't broken down and bought iPods, the recordings also come as Barrett originally envisioned them, in CD form.) Even those of us without stethoscopes can learn a heart song, well, by heart, says Barrett. "I had a feeling this was a skill you could pick up without any medical background at all," he says, "so I secretly put a marketing major in our classes and had him learn these heartbeats on his iPod. At the end of the class he scored equal to any of the med students. This kid couldn't spell 'mitral regurgitation,' but he could learn to recognize it."

Apple iTunes offers 'Complete My Album'

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Apple Inc., the company that popularized selling songs online for 99 cents apiece, now hopes to buoy interest in albums, giving customers credit for purchases of full albums from which they have bought individual tracks.
Apple introduced the "Complete My Album" feature Thursday on its iTunes Store. It now gives a full credit of 99 cents for every track the user previously purchased and applies it toward the purchase of the complete album.
For instance, most albums on iTunes cost $9.99 so a customer who already bought three tracks can download the rest of the album for $7.02.

Previously, users who bought singles and later opted to buy the album had to pay the full price of the album and ended up with duplicates of those songs.
The album price reduction is good for only 180 days after the initial purchase of individual tracks.
Eddy Cue, Apple's vice president of iTunes, said the new feature should help eliminate the resistance that customers, including himself, may have felt in buying an album after they had already bought a single from it.
"Once we bought a song, we wondered why we had to buy it again if we wanted the album," Cue said. "We hope it helps us sell more songs ultimately, and from the customer point of the view, we think it's the right thing to do."
About 45 percent of the nearly 2.5 billion songs sold on iTunes were purchased as albums, Cue said.
For a limited period of 90 days, Apple said it will make the "Complete My Album" offer retroactive to users who purchased tracks dating back to the launch of the iTunes Store four years ago.
Apple dominates the online music market and is a leading music retailer worldwide behind only Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Best Buy Co. and Target Corp.