Our core image analysis product range was neater, tidier and more lucrative than at any time since Digithurst started trading. The full range of products extended from the now rather dated MicroEye IC which, thanks to PictureBook, had received a new lease of life, up to the MicroEye TC. However, drifting loose were the MicroEye VOC video output card and MicroEye TV2 Teletext decoder. Occasionally, these would attach themselves to the capture cards and we would sell ten or twenty pairs as turnkey systems. The profitability of the video hairstyling increased due to the relative simplicity and increased reliability of the MicroEye TC over the IDR CMD (SMV were already retiring some CMDs and replacing them with the new card). Still, there was a gap in the product range and, while most applications benefited from the use of a Transputer, the MicroEye TC was overkill for customers who merely wanted to capture and store images.
Jeremy Rose, CEO and owner of a company called Davinci, had developed a turnkey system to produce photo ID cards. Called PhotoBase, it consisted of software which captured head and shoulder images and stored them, along with personal details, in a database. Systems were supplied with a printer, which produced laminated ID badges and exhibition passes. For some time, Jeremy had been lobbying the Home Office to ensure that, if a national ID card was introduced, Davinci would be the prime contractor. Winning this contract would have gone some way to repairing the damage caused during my own rather disastrous presentation to the Home Office some years earlier …
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… (An extract from The Ghost in the Labyrinth by Peter Kruger)
