Dec. 4, 2009 — Is your security system the pits? Well, in that case, you might need an Avocado to wrap around it — specifically, the Avocado Consolidator from the metropolitan Washington, D.C., firm Avocado Security. And that probably sets a record for the number of times anyone's used "avocado" in a sentence.

The Avocado Consolidator is a software platform designed to tie together all your various and sundry security cameras, recorders, monitors, etc. Sometimes, say, a co-op or condo buys closed-circuit cameras from one vendor, then a year or two later gets a new elevator with its own built-in camera. Or maybe your parking-garage cameras record security footage onto a DVD, and your later-installed lobby camera records onto a DVR. Whatever the specifics, it can be challenging to manage disparate surveillance technologies and get them all to communicate with each other. Heck, most of us can't even transfer files from our phone to our computer.