the Pipeline

Storing images

ImageWare Systems Inc. released its Crime Capture System Version 3.0 last week at the 110th Annual International Association of Chiefs of Police Conference in Philadelphia. The system enables law enforcement organizations to capture, store and retrieve criminal mug shots, images and data. The latest version includes multilevel security features, National Institute of Standards and Technology standard images and uniform lineup capabilities, online mug books, and advanced search and retrieval functions.

What these new features mean is that the next Kobe Bryant mug shot will appear on the tabloid news shows and the Internet more quickly. But it also means police officers can do a better job of taking and organizing mug shots and pictures of scars, marks or tattoos and then sharing the images among agencies and departments. The system lets the local "5-0" create databases that can be used to quickly identify gang members, sex offenders and other bad characters. Speaking of photos, GeoSpatial Experts LLC has improved a product that automatically stamps digital photos with Global Positioning System data so that it's always clear where the pictures were taken. Company officials announced last week that it has made the product compatible with Thales Navigation Inc.'s Magellan GPS receivers.

A place for your stuff

Once scorned by big storage vendors, network-attached storage (NAS) products have become so mainstream that any storage company that wants to sell a well-rounded product line usually feels the need to offer them. Case in point is the recent introduction by storage giant EMC Corp. of several new models in its family of NAS products.

Among them is a new NAS disk system called the NetWin 200 that uses Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Storage Server 2003 file operating system software. Numerous companies, including EMC marketing partner Dell Inc., have used the previous version of the Microsoft NAS server software in inexpensive storage appliances. Perhaps to avoid infringing on Dell's Microsoft-based NAS products, EMC is offering its NetWin 200 in a more upscale package that starts at an estimated end-user price of $32,000 for 500G of storage capacity. EMC also offers new options in its Celerra NAS line, including a more affordable single-channel version of its midtier NAS product, called the NS600S, and two new gateway products — the NS600G and NS600GS — that allow customers to NAS-enable EMC Clariion disk systems. The company also announced that the Celerra NS600 line of NAS products now supports Advanced Technology Attachment disks. ATA disks are less expensive than the Fibre Channel disks that earlier NS600 systems supported. And elsewhere, MaXXan Systems Inc. officials recently announced they have finished testing the MXV3200 Intelligent Application Switch with QLogic Corp.'s SANbox20 Fibre Channel switches and SANblade host bus adapters. The tests are to ensure interoperability with Maxxan's storage-area network infrastructure and products. Anyone remember when storage meant a spool of recording tape and a file drawer? n

John Zyskowski contributed to this report.