By Sunny Kim

How would you like to describe NoblePeak?

NoblePeak is an emerging leader in the market for high-performance night vision imaging technology.  Our TriWave imager is the only device of its kind that can produce images in the visible, Near-Infrared (NIR), and Short-Wave Infrared (SWIR) bands, hence the name, “TriWave”.  What this allows our customers to do is deploy a single camera capable of seeing in both the daytime and the nighttime.  Older technologies require customers to deploy multiple cameras in order to provide monitoring capability on a 24x7 basis.  NoblePeak is selling a flexible camera core that will be integrated by the world’s leading security camera makers into a complete camera system. 

What is your biggest challenge as new CEO for the next phase of business development?

NoblePeak’s biggest challenge is to help customers understand the advantages and benefits of deploying our technology.  Currently available technologies for night vision are either expensive, ineffective, or both.  NoblePeak’s TriWave technology provides excellent night vision quality while being very cost effective.  Traditional thermal imaging systems, although effective in determining the presence of an intruder, have very limited ability to render detailed images.  Our imager provides full VGA resolution (640 x 480 pixels), thus enabling facial recognition, even under cloudy, moonless conditions.  We want to help customers understand that today they are buying camera technology that is only providing value for 12 hours a day and that with TriWave, there’s a better way.

In today’s hotly contested business environment, what are NoblePeak’s competitive edges?

NoblePeak’s competitive advantage is that its core technology is both very high-performance and, because it’s based on the same technology used in products like Pentium computer chips and cell phones, is far less costly than alternative technologies.  Our competitors build their imagers from exotic materials that are manufactured in very small volumes and therefore tend to be very expensive.  At NoblePeak, we ride a “silicon economics” curve, which allows us to deliver world-class night vision technology at the lowest possible price.  We have numerous patents, both issued and pending, protecting our technology.  Finally, as discussed above, ours is the only product on the market that provides both daytime and nighttime vision in the same imager. 

Can you please introduce your corporate philosophy and vision to us?

Our goal is to make night vision-enabled cameras as commonplace as daytime cameras are today.  With the increased emphasis on homeland security, we at NoblePeak believe our technology can add significantly to the quality of nighttime monitoring, without adding significant cost to the overall system.  In recognition of this vision and the technology that enables it, we were recently named as the Most Promising Security Technology Start Up in the world in an international competition called the Global Security Challenge 2007, founded by the London Business School and sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and a number of defense contractors.  

When will your products be available for purchase? 

Well, we are already selling a development kit with 128x128 pixel resolution.  In the next couple of months, we’ll be making available a similar development kit with VGA resolutions.  Toward the middle of 2008, our VGA resolution camera core will be available for integration by security camera makers, which means cameras using our technology will be available in late 2008.

Sunny Kim is Editor of SecurityWorld INT’L.  Send your comments to kbs@infothe.com.