Step Aside, Please

In response to the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak, Indigo Systems Corp. (www.indigosystems.com) and WinSoft Corp. (www.winsoft.com) have developed ThermaSense(TM), a low-cost monitoring system that captures human facial temperature in real time.

Monitoring stations using ThermaSense can be set up at building entrances or airports to detect people with a temperature above a user-defined value as they walk in or wait in lines.

Ehud Shany, CEO of Santa Ana, CA-based WinSoft, says ThermaSense has an accuracy of plus or minus 0.5C in room temperature conditions, compared with the industry's average of plus or minus 2C, thanks to self-calibration every 5 seconds. The accuracy is also a result of the use of WinSoft's ThermaVU(TM), a customizable analysis software with a broad library and enhanced algorithms, adds Shany.

In addition, ThermaSense offers "unparalleled low cost," asserts E. Tim Fitzgibbons, Indigo's president, by using the company's low-price Omega(TM) infrared camera (1.35 x 1.45 x 1.9 inches without lens).

Declining to disclose any pricing details, Indigo's spokesperson Aileen Wrench stresses that ThermaSense was put together as a low-cost solution within weeks after her company received "desperation requests" from SARS-stricken Asian countries.

Meanwhile, Indigo and WinSoft are developing laptop-compatible ThermaSense models with WiFi technology and expect to have the product available in July.

Wrench says the companies are also looking into non-human and industrial applications of ThermaSense in the future.