PSA, a consortium of professional systems integrators, announced the addition of Defendify to the partners in its Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP) program. The MSSP program is designed to help systems integrators diversify their service offerings and realize the full potential and benefits of a managed services business model. 

Silicon Labs and the Z-Wave Alliance announced plans to open the Z-Wave Specification as a ratified, multi-source wireless standard available to all silicon and stack vendors for development. With this change, semiconductor and software suppliers will be able to join the Z-Wave ecosystem, contribute to future advancements of the smart home standard and develop and supply sub-GHz Z-Wave radio devices and software stacks. 

Amazon, Apple, Google and the Zigbee Alliance today announced a new working group that plans to develop and promote the adoption of a new, royalty-free connectivity standard to increase compatibility among smart home products, with security as a fundamental design tenet. 

The Security Industry Association (SIA) is now accepting applications for the Denis R. Hebert Identity Management Scholarship. This program, presented in partnership with the Center for Identity at the University of Texas at Austin, will offer two $5,000 scholarships for SIA members to help further their education in the field of identity management.

PassiveBolt, a provider of smart lock technology, has won the CES 2020 Innovation Award in the smart home category for its Shepherd Lock, a touch-enabled smart lock with enhanced security through sensors and Artificial Intelligence.  

CEDIA has launched a design forward website to showcase CEDIA Award winners and finalists’ projects, as well as the year’s best new product and product hall of fame winners. 

Gizmodo published a report on Dec. 9 which shows just how extensive Ring’s network of home security devices is. The publication acquired data from nearly 65,800 individual posts shared by users of the Neighbors app — Ring’s crime alert app in which users share the location and video from their Ring cameras of crimes in their area. 

Middle Atlantic Products, a brand of Legrand | AV, is celebrating 40 years of engineering professional AV solutions. To mark the occasion, the company held a full week of activities last month, which included opportunities for its manufacturing and office employees to come together to reminisce about Middle Atlantic's rich history, which has led the company to where it is today, and share their passion for the future of AV. In addition, Middle Atlantic sent treats to its 40 oldest customers to thank them for all their years of support.

While camera manufacturers continue to deliver products with higher and higher resolutions, that’s no longer the main goal of video surveillance, purports Laurent Villeneuve, product marketing manager, Genetec, Montreal. Instead, it’s more about expanding the use case for surveillance by increasing end users’ return on investment.

Today the U.S. president decided to delay planned tariff increases and reduce some additional tariffs on Chinese products as part of an initial deal with China.