Sting Surveillance, founded in 2002, is a provider of customized remote digital surveillance and video-monitoring systems, cameras and accessories that company founder Jonathan Fine said will revolutionize the industry.

"Let's say you have a business and someone smashes a window," Fine said. "The (alarm company) will get a call and they'll call you and say, "We got an alarm that glass broke. What do you want us to do?' so they send a guard, and the guard will go out there 40 minutes later then send the police four hours later.

"But we have a 24-hour video remote monitoring center, so within an eighth of a second, we get the video of the guy in the black mask breaking in, and with that we don't call the owner, we can call the police and they can get there within minutes, not hours. We have the software developed so if someone even touched the safe it will send us video immediately. It will change the way things are done."

Traditionally, surveillance systems involved having a camera attached to a VCR, but the new technology puts the cameras into computers, which also improves the quality of the surveillance video and can make all the difference in catching criminals red-handed. While the notion of such technology is not novel, Fine said, the bells and whistles associated with his system sets Sting apart from the competition.

This includes an object-counting feature, whereby the cameras can recognize how many cars drive past a particular business or how many people walk in the front door, and scheduled alarms that recognize if someone is in a business after-hours when nobody is supposed to be there.

For business owners, the concept is simple: All they need is a digital video recorder, the receiver and the camera.

"Our systems help reduce employee theft and provide superior digital video to help identify criminals," Fine said, adding that it's also a way to manage employees and lower liability. "A lot of the older traditional alarm companies are scared because they're years behind with the technology that we can provide."

His foray into the surveillance industry was quite a leap for Fine, who previously worked in Los Angeles for Maxim magazine, a men's publication.

"I was picking the girls that were in each issue as far as the actresses, and in the magazine underneath my name was the office phone number and address and I'd get everything from like 1,200 letters from girls who wanted a date to gadgets the technology people wanted featured in the magazine -- even though it wasn't my job," said Fine, who also previously worked at a talent management firm. "One of the things was surveillance software and I thought it was really cool -- it was going to change the whole industry -- so I moved back to Las Vegas from L.A. and set up a computer company that specializes in surveillance."

Fine launched the company with $25,000 of personal funds and said the company was profitable in its third month. So how much does it cost for a business to utilize Sting's services?

"The systems range from $98 a month to hundreds of thousands for customized solutions," Fine said.

For $98, business owners get a system that records four cameras for 15 days and gives with all the alarms and features -- such as object-counting -- but not the monitoring service. But, for example, if someone touches a safe, the system will send the owner an e-mail or call his or her cell phone.

On the higher end, clients such as hotels can get customized solutions with hundreds of camera and a central monitoring system -- an actual on-site surveillance room.

In addition to remote digital surveillance systems, Sting also has developed software for a credit card verification system that Fine said can save clients $1 million or more annually in credit card fraud. The system combines high-resolution video scans of the customer and his or her driver's license, and interfaces the credit card transaction over the video with the customer's signature while recording the amount he or she owes.

"Last year, we saved clients millions of dollars," he said. "On average, the initial investment was paid for in its first month of use."