Nexus Group International Inc. Monday announced its intent to acquire iView Systems Inc. and unite iView’s software security platform with its facial recognition technology to create
a more advanced surveillance offering.
Burlington, Ont.-based Nexus said it plans to exchange 3.9 million of its common shares for 51 per cent of iView’s common shares and all of the Las Vegas, Nev.-based company’s preference shares. Nexus shares currently trade at 14 cents on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Nexus, which will loan iView US$325,000, also retains the opportunity to acquire 24 per cent of the remaining common shares one year after the deal’s closing and any further outstanding shares on subsequent anniversary dates.
David Lobb, Nexus president and CEO, said he hopes to within 90 days offer a product that integrates iView’s surveillance management platform with the facial recognition technology of AcSys Biometrics Corp., owned jointly by Nexus and AND Corp.
“”We can cross-license between the two of them and drive revenue through both products,”” Lobb said. Nexus anticipates the integration will generate US$200,000 in its fourth fiscal quarter. The bulk, if not all, of that money will come from gambling and financial services, the industries Nexus will be targeting with the integrated solution.
“”Each casino is like a mini-town and they have their own police force. The everyday things that happen (such as slip-and-fall accidents in the parking lot) cost casinos far more than the card cheats,”” Lobb said. “”There was one (incident) where a cement truck went over in the entranceway of one of the casinos. They need to stay on top of these things.””
iView president and CEO Jim Gifford said his company’s platform lets security managers stay on top of goings on by centrally managing files of each incident that occurs on the property. Incidents are assigned a locator number, through which additional information is entered until the file is closed. Cases can be searched by locator number, assigned officer or through other demographics.
“”Be it a purse theft to a physical assault, all those events are recorded simultaneously regardless of how many operators are out there,”” Gifford said. “”Think of (it like) Windows running on your desktop. It’s not an ancillary product; it runs your department.””
Tying iView’s platform to the AcSys Face Recognition System (FRS) will, for example, allow casinos security to identify individuals on their “”exclusion lists”” as they enter the casino and then bring up their files, explaining just what they did to earn a spot on the unwelcome list. Gifford said this will soon give way to phase two, real time facial-recognition that is automatically linked to the database.
The AcSys FRS is based on Holographic/Quantum Neuron Technology (HNeT), developed and owned by AND. Rather than using measurements, HNeT mimics the processes of the human mind to identify faces, a technique known as biomimetics. Lobb said just as you add a new vision of someone in your memory when they appear one day with a beard, HneT incorporates the bearded appearance into its memory of a face. He said Nexus, currently working on speech-recognition technology, is looking for further acquisitions that would compliment the AcSys technology.
“”The driving force behind everything we have right now is the facial recognition,”” he said. “”It has the ability to learn what your face looks like under different guises, different lighting conditions, whether you’re shaven. We learn you face. We store all these images of you.””
Though casinos and banks are the primary targets, Lobb said there are markets, including companies that want to keep track of employees, for Nexus’ security package. Last week, Nexus announced that Transport Canada had deployed the AcSys FRS as part of a pilot project at Thunder Bay International Airport. And in February, Nexus and Unisys Corp. signed an agreement to incorporate AcSys engineering support and technology in Unisys Homeland Security Solutions initiative with the U.S. Department of Defense.
“”The idea here is to track security breaches and those are common to a number of industries,”” Lobb said.
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