MEMS mics are taking over. Almost every mobile device has ditched its old-fashioned electret microphone invented way back in 1962 at Bell Labs. Expect new piezoelectric MEMS microphones, which promise unheard of signal-to-noise ratios (SNR) of up to 80 dB (versus 65 dB in the best current capacitive microphones) in 2015. MEMS microphones are growing like gangbusters.
Analysts and veterans of the International CES expect to see plenty of 4K ultra-high-definition televisions, new smartwatch uses, and a large section of the show floor dedicated to robotics. 2015 will be the first year CES gets behind 4K in a big way, as lower price points make the technology more attractive to consumers. Samsung, Sony, Sharp, and Toshiba will be big players in the 4K arena. OEMs must solve the problem of intelligence and connectivity before 4K will really take off. CES attendees may also see 4K TVs optimized for certain tasks, along with a variety of sizes. There will be 10-inch and 14-inch and 17-inch UHD displays.
4K is not enough anymore? 8K – finally come true? Korean giant LG has promised to introduce ehdan 8K TV at CES 2015 exhibition in January. 8K means a total of 33.2 million pixels, or 7680 x 4320 resolution. 4K video material fate is still uncertain, 8K video can not with certainty not available for a long time.
Sound bars will be a big issue at shows. One problem with new TVs — the thinner they are, the harder it is to get sound out.
Open file formats Matroska Video (MKV) and Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC) gets more widely used as Windows 10 To Feature Native Support For MKV and FLAC.
Watching shows online is more common now. More people are watching videos on smaller screens. You can use a tablet as personal TV. Phablets and portable televisions have taken off in China, Japan, and Korea, where many people watch videos during long commutes. Tablets now have become so ubiquitous and inexpensive that you can buy them for a specific application. Much of the innovation will be in software, rather than hardware — tuning the tablets to boot up like a television instead of an Android tablet
We’re all spending more time with smartphones and tablets. So much so that the “second screen” may now be the “first screen,” depending on the data you read. It seems inevitable that smartphones and tablets will replace the television in terms of time spent. Many metrics firms, including Nielsen, report on the rapid increase of mobile device usage—especially when it comes to apps. Half of YouTube’s views now come from phones and tablets.
Qualcomm will push this year broadcast LTE. That will be picked up more and more by some vendors in tablets, so they can have broadcast TV signals, but it doesn’t have to be generic LTE.
There will be lots of talking on traditional TV vs new streaming services, especially on who gets which program material and at what price. While it’s possible to create a TV platform that doesn’t deal with live channels, smart TVs and game consoles alike generally try to integrate the content as best they can.
Netflix’s new strategy to take on cable involves becoming best friends with cable to get its app included on set-top boxes of cable, fiber and satellite TV operators. Roughly 90 million U.S. households subscribe to cable or other forms of pay TV, and more than 73 million subscribe to the biggest five operators alone. That’s why Netflix has been working hard to team up with one of these major operators.
Google intends to integrate content best it can. Google Publishes ‘Live Channels For Android TV’ App Into The Play Store. G The “Live Channels for Android TV” app is unsurprisingly incompatible with phones and tablets, maybe because for some reason those markets are intentionally artificially tried to be kept separate.
Virtual reality video is trying to get to spotlight. Samsung’s new Milk VR to round up 360-degree videos for Gear VR article tells that Milk VR will provide the videos for free as Samsung hopes to goose interest in virtual reality. Milk VR service will provide free 360-degree videos to anyone using a Gear VR virtual-reality headset (uses Galaxy Note 4). Samsung wants to jump-start the virtual-reality movement as the company is looking at virtual reality as a potential growth engine at a time when one of its key traditional revenue sources — smartphones — has slowed down. The videos will also serve as a model for future filmmakers or artists looking to take advantage of the virtual-reality medium, as well as build up an ecosystem and viewership for VR content.
Although digital video is increasing in popularity, analog video remains in use in many applications.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:
Perceptiv introduces SHIFT, a plug-in accessory for drones that lets filmmakers track and frame subjects; available fall 2015 for $600
Perceptiv’s SHIFT Turns Drones Into Smart Dollies For Filmmakers
http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/24/perceptiv-shift/#gypjlZ:vbx
Perceptiv Labs, a YC Winter 2015 cohort startup with a founding team out of Waterloo’s top-flight robotics engineering department, is offering high-flying drone hobbyists, filmmakers and journalists a relatively affordable, yet advanced way to introduce some highly intelligent automation into their video-making antics right now.
Perceptiv, which also has funding from Version One Ventures, is launching SHIFT today via pre-order campaign, a $600 accessory (which will retail post-campaign for $800) that works with the DJI Phantom and 3D Robotics Iris, providing a vision sensor, processor and autopilot program for capturing amazing aerial shots via subject tracking. Essentially, it turns these hobbyist drones into robotic flying dollies for capturing great pans, zooms and fly-by shots, with computer vision tech making sure to keep a user-defined subject exactly where it needs to be in the frame along the way.
“The end goal is to build the infrastructure of vision-based intelligence for drones that will let them navigate independently in unknown spaces, avoid collisions with obstacles, and be able to track and detect objects,” he said. “[We want them to] understand a scene, and intelligently respond to instructions as opposed to just being able to fly manually.”
It’s not a unique goal – other companies, including large industry heavyweights like Qualcomm and Intel, are also very interested in research projects related specifically to computer vision and autonomous vehicles.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jillian D’Onfro / Business Insider:
WSJ: YouTube remains unprofitable, breaking even with revenue of $4B in 2014
YouTube still doesn’t make Google any money
http://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-still-doesnt-make-google-any-money-2015-2?op=1
YouTube still isn’t a profitable business for Google, sources tell The Wall Street Journal’s Rolfe Winkler.
Thanks to a premium ads push last year called “Google Preferred,” the video-streaming increased its revenue to $4 billion in 2014 from $3 billion in 2013, but it’s still only roughly breaking even.
One YouTube’s main problems is that most users watch its videos when they’re linked to from — or embedded in — other sites, The Journal reports.
Instead, Google wants people to start coming to YouTube’s homepage in the same way they would turn on the TV — expecting that they’ll find consistently high-quality content on different channels.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-still-doesnt-make-google-any-money-2015-2#ixzz3Spjk0d6b
Tomi Engdahl says:
You can now store 50,000 songs online with Google Play Music
https://gigaom.com/2015/02/25/you-can-now-store-50000-songs-online-with-google-play-music/
Google just made its Play Music service a bit more appealing, even if you don’t use a Google Android phone. You can now upload 50,000 songs to your Google Play Music account at no charge; the previous limit was 20,000.
http://officialandroid.blogspot.fi/2015/02/store-your-music-online-and-listen.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
NO ONE is making money from YouTube… even Google – report
So what is the idiot-viewing platform actually for?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/02/26/no_one_making_money_from_youtube_google_report_claims/
It seems no one is making money from online goggle box YouTube, least of all Google – despite reports that the company generated $4bn (£2.6bn) revenue last year.
While YouTube accounted for about six per cent of Google’s overall sales last year, it didn’t contribute to earnings, a source told the Wall Street Journal.
YouTube’s revenue increased by $1bn (£644m) in 2014. But after paying for content and the equipment to deliver speedy videos, YouTube’s bottom line is “roughly break-even,” the source told the paper.
YouTube’s “content generators” have also complained that the service also leaves them out of pocket.
Google bought YouTube in 2006 for $1.65bn (£1.06bn).
Since then YouTube has made no secret of its desire to tap into new revenue streams, having this week announced an app for kids that will be funded by “child-friendly” advertising.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Netflix forces Academy to talk about what a ‘film’ really is
http://nypost.com/2015/02/22/netflix-forces-academy-to-talk-about-what-a-film-really-is/
And the Oscar goes to … Netflix?
One Academy voter tells On the Money there’s a new struggle in Tinseltown: What does it mean to be a film?
Should the Oscars be about celebrating only theatrical releases in an age when Netflix and Amazon are spending millions to fund high-end content?
This person said, “Film doesn’t even exist anymore,” and movies are more likely to be seen via digital delivery.
movie industry insiders feel it’s only a matter of time until, indeed, the Oscar will go to Netflix.
It will produce a sequel to “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” in tandem with IMAX and Netflix that will be shown in select theaters and streamed.
And that will further blur the lines between movies and TV shows.
IFC Films’ Best Picture nominee “Boyhood” isn’t headed to its sister cable channel of the same name — it’s going to air on CBS-owned Showtime, the studio confirmed to The Post last week.
The old and the young
The roughly 7,000 members of the Academy who are eligible to vote for Best Picture couldn’t be more different from the moviegoing public, according to data compiled by fan-driven entertainment site Moviepilot.
The majority of Academy members are older than 60 — while the majority of moviegoers are under 39, reports The Post’s Richard Morgan, who waded through the Moviepilot info.
“Picking Oscar winners is not a popularity contest,” Paul Dergarabedian, a senior media analyst at Rentrak, told Morgan. “Movies that win are chosen for their artistic merit.”
For would-be filmmakers, here’s an Oscar tale worth noting.
Two years years ago, filmmaker Damien Chazelle produced a short film about a competitive teacher at a music school who pushed his students to their limits. The film was shown at the Sundance Film Festival.
The following year, he came back after receiving funding for a full-length version of the film
That full-length movie is “Whiplash” — which is nominated for Best Picture. In all, Chazelle won five nominations, including Best Adapted Screenplay.
OK, “Whiplash” only made $10 million in box office revenues
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Science of Why No One Agrees on the Color of This Dress
http://www.wired.com/2015/02/science-one-agrees-color-dress/
Light enters the eye through the lens—different wavelengths corresponding to different colors. The light hits the retina in the back of the eye where pigments fire up neural connections to the visual cortex, the part of the brain that processes those signals into an image. Critically, though, that first burst of light is made of whatever wavelengths are illuminating the world, reflecting off whatever you’re looking at.
Usually that system works just fine. This image, though, hits some kind of perceptual boundary. That might be because of how people are wired. Human beings evolved to see in daylight, but daylight changes color. That chromatic axis varies from the pinkish red of dawn, up through the blue-white of noontime, and then back down to reddish twilight. “What’s happening here is your visual system is looking at this thing, and you’re trying to discount the chromatic bias of the daylight axis,” says Bevil Conway, a neuroscientist who studies color and vision at Wellesley College. “So people either discount the blue side, in which case they end up seeing white and gold, or discount the gold side, in which case they end up with blue and black.” (Conway sees blue and orange, somehow.)
So when context varies, so will people’s visual perception. “Most people will see the blue on the white background as blue,” Conway says. “But on the black background some might see it as white.” He even speculated, perhaps jokingly, that the white-gold prejudice favors the idea of seeing the dress under strong daylight. “I bet night owls are more likely to see it as blue-black,” Conway says.
Tomi Engdahl says:
MELTDOWN: Samsung, Sony not-so-smart TVs go titsup for TWO days
Sets can’t reach the internet, turned into dumb boxes
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/02/26/samsung_sony_tv_outage/
Samsung smart TVs have been turned into dumb goggle boxes for the past two days – after the devices have been unable use the internet. Coincidently, Sony smart TVs are also having troubles using the web.
A Samsung spokesperson told The Register it is investigating reports that some of its web-connected tellies and Blu-Ray players are unable to stream video from YouTube, iPlayer, Netflix and other sites. The issue appears to affect Samsung D and E series TVs worldwide.
The televisions’ Smart Hub software, which helps people find stuff to watch and apps to use, is refusing to work – in fact, any software on the sets that tries to use the internet just simply won’t work, Reg readers have told us.
The South Korean electronics giant, already in hot water over its snooping living-room hardware, added in a statement:
Samsung is aware that some consumers have reported challenges when trying to connect their Smart TVs to the Smart Hub. We are investigating the matter, and are working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.
It appears the TVs’ firmware can’t resolve http://www.samsung.com to that IP address, or isn’t happy with it; perhaps the firmware can’t handle the aliases or stops after the first one, or rejects the IP address or the server on the other end – it’s not clear at this stage.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Twenty20 Raises $8M, Launches Crowdsourced Photo-Licensing Service
http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/26/twenty20/
Indeed, with over 45 million photos from 250,000 photographers in its library, Twenty20 is now larger than most established commercial image catalogs. This, Twenty20 claims, makes it the largest crowdsourced image catalog ever created.
Munson argues that as brands compete to stand out on social media, having access to images that feel native to that environment (and especially on mobile) is key.
Pricing plans for the service, which was in private beta for the last few months, start at $89/month for 10 images and go up to $499/month for 100 images. The company is also offering one-off licensing deals for single images.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Euro broadcast industry still in a fug over that 4K-ing UHD telly
‘More How than Wow’ says Sky
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/02/20/breaking_fad_ses_uhd_4k_concerns/
Although after listening to TV manufacturers, researchers, market analysts and broadcasters pontificate on standards, or rather the lack of them, you could be forgiven for thinking the event would make more sense branded SOS.
Admittedly the tone was more up than down, but it was a close-run thing. Those predicting an Ultra HD industry love-in would have left disappointed.
The good news is that the UK now has its own dedicated 4K test channel, broadcasting via Astra 2E at 28.2 East. The commencement of services was confirmed by SES MD Mike Chandler. It joins two other 4K test channels which SES has been running at 19.2 E. The channel is broadcasting to the UHD-1 Phase 1 specification.
The keynote was delivered by Andrew Neil. An early architect of Sky in the UK, the veteran broadcaster was ebullient about Ultra HD. He proclaimed that its arrival as “the most significant advance since colour” and “a major technological breakthrough that will have huge consequences in the market place.” He also declared that 4K was “the final nail in the coffin of the walking dead know as 3D.” While I agree pretty much with all of Neil’s comments, I suspect 3D will yet return to nuzzle us with fetid breath.
Of course, this boom is largely down to our increasing appetite for big screen TVs, rather than any 4K epiphany.
“4K is more How than Wow,” he frowned. “It’s not quite there.” Citing a lack of agreed broadcast standards and paucity of content, he said the time wasn’t right to green light UHD. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Johns is unimpressed with 4K delivered OTT by Netflix.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Lab In Berkeley Accidentally Discovers Solution To Fix Color Blindness
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/02/23/berkeley-lab-accidentally-discovers-solution-to-fix-color-blindness-enchroma-cx-sunglasses/
For millions of Americans, color blindness is a reality. A solution has been developed in a Bay Area lab, made by a researcher working on another problem.
Drucker has a type of color blindness where the red and green cones on his eyes overlap, a genetic defect that left him seeing muted
“The glasses work by selectively removing certain wavelengths between the red and green cones that allow them to be in essence pushed apart again,” said Don McPherson, EnChroma’s VP of products.
The glasses were designed as protective eyewear for doctors during surgery. But one day he wore them with a curious friend who happened to be color blind.
For Drucker, the glasses have opened up a world where trees are green, flowers come in limitless colors, and a sunset can take your breath away. “I get how amazing they are now, and I’d never really was able to tell that difference before,” he said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Avicii and Other DJs Produce Hits Using Pirated Software
By Ernesto
on February 23, 2015
C: 141
Breaking
http://torrentfreak.com/avicii-and-other-djs-produce-hits-using-pirated-software-150223/
Most of the top DJs are multi-millionaires, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t use pirated software to create their music. Video footage reveals that paying €139 for a legal copy of the popular synthesizer plugin Sylenth1 proved to be too much for Avicii and other popular DJs such as Martin Garrix.
Tim Bergling, aka Avicii, has become one of the world’s best known DJs, scoring hit after hit in recent years.
With a net worth estimated at $60 million the Swede has plenty of cash to splash. Enough to buy an expensive Hollywood Hills mansion.
Interestingly, however, some of the tracks he made his millions with were produced with the help of pirated software.
However, the use of pirated Sylenth1 plugins among top DJs is not an isolated incident.
Just a few months ago DJ Deadmau5 called out Martin Garrix on Twitter for making the same mistake. Garrix, who’s also a multi-millionaire, was using a version cracked by “Team AIR.”
And then there’s Steve Aoki, good for an estimated $45 million, who was also previously accused of using a pirated copy of Sylenth1.
Norwegian DJ Aleksander Vinter, aka Savant, uses a pirated copy of Ohmicide.
Based on the above it’s clear that using pirated software is pretty common among DJs. Not just aspiring teens with no money to spend, but also those who are making millions of dollars per year.
Tomi Engdahl says:
New Display Technology Lets LCDs Produce Princess Leia-Style Holograms
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/535376/new-display-technology-lets-lcds-produce-princess-leia-style-holograms/
Startup aims to give mobile devices the power to display full-color holographic images and video.
Fattal’s company, appropriately named Leia, will demonstrate a prototype of its new 3-D display next week at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Later this year it plans to release a small display module capable of producing full-color 3-D images and videos that are visible—with no special glasses—from 64 different viewpoints.
Key to Leia’s technology is an invention by Fattal that takes advantage of advances in the ability to control the paths light takes at the nanoscale. He first revealed the concept, which Leia calls a “multiview backlight,” in a Nature paper published two years ago
Optical interconnects rely on nanoscale structures called diffraction gratings, which cause the light rays that hit them to travel in precise directions depending on the angle at which they arrive.
Leia essentially replaced the standard light guide with a much more sophisticated one that has nanoscale gratings. The new light guide has much more control over the direction that light travels before it reaches the pixel array. Instead of simply guiding all the light in a uniform way, as in a conventional display, it can direct a single ray of light to a single given pixel on the display. Leia sets up the LCD to send 64 different images, each produced by 1/64th of the available pixels, and blend those images together in a way that makes the viewer’s brain perceive a seamless hologram. The process sacrifices some resolution, which may make it challenging to apply to larger screens, but today’s mobile devices have such high resolution that viewers won’t notice, says Wetzstein.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google exec hints at Photos, Hangouts and G+ split
http://www.engadget.com/2015/02/26/sundar-pichai-google-plus-photos-hangouts/
Rumors have long suggested that Google might separate the parts of Google+ that people have been most interested in — photos and messaging / Hangouts — away from the social network’s main stream. Now it appears that Sundar Pichai agrees with that viewpoint, but unlike angry YouTube commenters, he can actually do something about it since he controls Google products like Plus, search, Chrome and Android. In a pre-Mobile World Congress interview with Forbes, Pichai said that going forward, we’ll see the company deal with Hangouts, photos and the Google+ stream as three “important” areas, instead of one.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google pumps $60m into music company Kobalt
Every little helps in protecting Macca’s froggy royalties
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/02/27/google_60m_into_music_company_kobalt/
Google Ventures has pumped $60m (£39m) into London-based music tech company Kobalt Music, which helps publishers keep tabs on streaming services such as Spotify.
The latest cash injection will be used to support Kobalt’s tech suite which collects and reports music royalties across the world. Kobalt charges an admin fee for access to its data-tracking tools.
It has more than 8,000 songwriters and 500 publishing companies on its books worldwide.
Willard Ahdritz, Kobalt founder, said the company aims to “increase trust between the music and technology industries”.
“The music industry is going through dynamic changes all around the world”
Tomi Engdahl says:
DSP 01: Real, Legit Audiophile Goodness
http://hackaday.com/2015/02/27/dsp-01-real-legit-audiophile-goodness/
The DSP 01 turns a USB audio output into six outputs that will give you perfectly flat eq across bass, mids, and highs, integrates with a 6x100W amplifier, and compensates for room noise.
DSP 01: hi-fi audio signal processor
a digital signal processor with integrated multi-channel amplifier for high-fidelity speakers.
http://hackaday.io/project/2374-dsp-01-hi-fi-audio-signal-processor
Tomi Engdahl says:
Roland de Courson / Agence France-Presse:
Authenticating photographs, acceptable image manipulations, and the gray areas of touchups — Photography: telling art from fraud
Photography: telling art from fraud
http://blogs.afp.com/correspondent/?post/Photojournalism:-where-art-meets-fraud#.VPQaPuFLZ4A
PARIS, February 25, 2015 – This year’s World Press Photo awards saw an unprecedented number of entrants thrown out for tampering with their images – reopening an old debate on what can be a fine line, in photojournalism, between artistry and fraud.
Twenty percent of images that made it to the penultimate stage of the photojournalism contest were disqualified for excessive manipulation – three times as many as last year. Candidates whose photographs made it to the final stages were asked to provide RAW files along with their final submissions. Comparing the RAW image – the picture as recorded by the camera – with the final photo makes it possible to detect alterations made with Photoshop or other software tools: adding or deleting elements, cropping, modifying the tone, texture and colour.
“For us it was a shock,”
According to the award organisers, all those disqualified were found to have made “a material addition or subtraction in the content of the image.”
Code of conduct
The World Press Photo laid out its standards for manipulating images in a study published last year. Give or take, they are the same as the rules followed by the main international news agencies, including AFP. Absolutely no adding or subtracting elements from an image, with the exception of marks caused by dust on camera sensors which can be cleaned off with Photoshop. Minor adjustments to tone, contrast and colour are permissible provided they do not alter the information content of the image. Slight rotations – to straighten out a horizon line for instance – are allowed. But no shrinking, stretching or flipping. Cropping is generally permitted.
The first rule is universally accepted in the profession: adding or deleting a character or any other element, slimming down or fattening a famous actress, are all inadmissible.
Artistic vision, not manipulation
When it comes to modifying tone, colour or contrast, however, the rules are much more open to interpretation – and controversy.
A black and white image, taken with a flash or a long-focus lens, is obviously not an accurate reflection of reality. But that doesn’t mean it’s a fraud.
“No one is born with a 400 mm telephoto lens for eyes,” sums up Eric Baradat. The same applies to the use of zooms, multiple exposures, slow shutter speeds or panning – a technique used to follow and shoot a moving subject, in sports for instance. Good practice is usually to indicate the techniques used in the photo caption.
“We always want to feel something from an image,” says Patrick Baz. “The red line is when art starts to take precedence over journalism.”
Judging exactly where that line lies can be fiendishly difficult
“In any event, unlike a traditional photograph which is a scene physically printed on a film through a chemical process, a digital photo is already the result of a computer process,” says Thuillier. “Digital cameras don’t capture images, they gather data which is then processed with a series of algorithms to produce a picture.
“That is why a same picture will look different depending on what camera is used to take it. Each uses different algorithms, devised by different engineers. Human skin tones, for example, look different depending on the brand of camera.”
“A software tool like Tungstene can only detect technical manipulations,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
MediaTek Sails Uncharted Waters With CrossMount
It’s ‘way more than DLNA,’ says CTO
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1325865&
MediaTek, on the eve of the Mobile World Congress, has revealed a new cross-device sharing technology called “CrossMount.”
CrossMount, a “new industry standard” that’s royalty-free and open to all comers, makes sharing of multimedia content easy among multiple devices, said MediaTek. More important, it allows the hardware and software resources in devices — smartphones, tablets and TVs, for example — to be shared and combined to add features or improve performance, explained Kevin Jou, MediaTek’s chief technology officer.
“We aren’t just talking about Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) type of applications such as sharing content by pairing two devices. We are talking about connecting multiple devices (more than one) and enabling something way better than DLNA,” Jou told EE Times.
“It’s a new concept that no other chip companies — Qualcomm and Broadcom included — have ever talked about before,” Jou noted.
Just as DLNA leverages UPnP, CrossMount uses UPnP as its foundation for media management, discovery and control. CrossMount’s new wrinkle is the ability to share and combine resources among multiple devices.
With this technology, a hardware function available on one device, such as a microphone on a phone, can be added to another device, like a TV without a mic, when they’re connected, said Jou. CrossMount technology, in this instance, turns a TV into a voice-controlled device, by literally transferring microphone capability from a smartphone to a TV.
CrossMount, noted Jou, uses WiFi for connectivity among devices.
But putting two cellphones together — each with a 10-percent packet-error rate — via CrossMount, the combination of two PHY portions reduces errors to one percent, Jou said. At that rate, a voice call or even video conferencing, is possible, Jou explained.
“At a birthday party, for example, several people are using different smartphones, camera and video camcorders to capture the moment the candles are blown out,” said Jou. “With CrossMount, you can create a 360-degree movie by combining different footages.”
Licensing-free SDK
Asked if MediaTek is planning to license CrossMount, Jou said that’s not the plan. “The purpose is to drive its adoption and build a larger ecosystem.” MediaTek “will publish a license-free SDK,” he said.
At a time when most leading chip vendors have withdrawn from the TV-chip business, MediaTek today is virtually alone in actively pursuing the smartphone, tablet and TV chips markets.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Friday is the New Music Tuesday, thanks to piracy
http://www.engadget.com/2015/02/27/new-music-friday/
You’ll have to change your music-buying habits starting this summer, because new albums are going to be released every Friday at exactly 00:01, instead of Tuesdays like you’re used to. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), which represents music labels worldwide, has just announced that Friday is now global album release day. Why? Well, the IFPI is hoping that it can help curb piracy: “An aligned global release day puts an end to the frustration of not being able to access releases in their country when the music is available in another country.”
The group also looked at studies of consumer behavior, which found that people usually shop from both brick-and-mortar retailers and online stores during Fridays and Saturdays. And, since a lot of people don’t work on weekends, they’re more susceptible to impulse buying — which is good news for labels and bad news for music lovers with zero self-control. Finally, social media websites see the most traffic during weekends, and labels plan to take advantage of that to spread word about new releases. Cue the beginning of a brand new Twitter hashtag: #NewMusicFriday.
The IFPI, by the way, didn’t make this decision on a whim. It’s been meeting with record labels and retailers for the past seven months.
Tomi Engdahl says:
EU Commissioner Wants to Abolish Netflix-Style Geoblocking
http://torrentfreak.com/eu-commissioner-wants-to-abolish-netflix-geoblocking-150227/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
Andrus Ansip, Europe’s Vice-President for the Digital Single Market, wants to abolish geoblocking. Restricting user access to content based on their location, which Netflix, YouTube and others do, is discrimination, he says. “I want to pay – but I am not allowed to. I lose out, they lose out,” Ansip notes.
Due to complicated licensing agreements Netflix is only available in a few dozen countries, all of which have a different content library.
The same is true for many other media services such as BBC iPlayer, Amazon Instant Video, and even YouTube.
These regional blockades are a thorn in the side of Andrus Ansip, Vice-President for the Digital Single Market in the European Commission. In a speech this week he explained why these roadblocks should be abolished.
“Far too often, consumers find themselves redirected to a national website, or blocked. I know this from my own experience. You probably do as well,” Ansip said.
“This is one of many barriers that needs to be removed so that everyone can enjoy the best Europe has to offer online. It is a serious and common barrier, as well as extremely frustrating,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
AVG Reveals Invisibility Glasses at Pepcom Barcelona
http://now.avg.com/avg-reveals-invisibility-glasses-at-pepcom-barcelona/
This year, AVG will reveal a set of concept invisibility glasses at Pepcom in Barcelona before Mobile World Congress.
What are invisibility glasses?
Developed by AVG Innovation Labs, the glasses help protect your visual identity in the digital age.
Through a mixture of technology and specialist materials, privacy wearables such as invisibility glasses can make it difficult for cameras or other facial recognition technologies to get a clear view of your identity.
Why would they be useful?
There are a number of reasons why invisibility glasses could be a valuable privacy tool in the future:
The increasing use of smartphone cameras in public places means it’s more likely unsolicited images taken of us may end up online.
Big Data projects such as Google’s StreetView highlight the possibility for our faces and identities to appear in the public domain.
Advancements in facial-recognition technologies, such as Facebook’s DeepFace, could soon give a private corporations power to not only recognize us, but also cross-reference our faces to other data found online.
How do they work?
While the technology behind invisibility glasses is still in the prototype phase, there are generally two different methods of combatting unwanted facial recognition:
Infrared Light
The idea is to place infrared LEDs inserted around the eyes and the nose areas.
they are only detectable by cameras which are sensitive to the wavelengths of these LEDs. They claim to break face detection when the lights are on.
Retro-reflective Materials
While most surfaces reflect light by diffusing or scattering it in all directions, retro-reflective materials are specially designed to reflect light back at the same angle as it arrived.
If caught in flash photography, retro-reflective materials will send most of the light back to the sensor. This will result in an image that will put the Dynamic Range of the camera sensor to test.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google+ is dead! Long live Photos and Streams and Hangouts
http://www.neowin.net/news/google-is-dead-long-live-photos-and-streams-and-hangouts
Google+ was never the popular kid in school, and it looks like Google is finally ready to give up on the project and break it apart into services that people might actually want to use.
After a few rumors came forth, mainly thanks to an interview with Sundar Pichai, it’s now official: Google+ will be broken up into services. The confirmation came from Bradley Horowitz who announced he’s now the head of Photos and Streams, two elements of G+ that have now been spun off.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Panasonic details plans for Firefox OS TVs
https://gigaom.com/2015/02/27/panasonic-details-plans-for-firefox-os-tvs/
Panasonic shared a few more details on its Firefox-OS powered TVs this week, announcing that Firefox OS will be used for six different models in its 2015 line of TV sets. The company still didn’t say when exactly these TVs are going to be available, or how much they will cost, but it did share a few more tidbits on features available on the platform.
Panasonic’s Firefox OS TVs will feature a relatively simple UI, dubbed My Homescreen 2.0, that will allow users to pin their favorite apps and content sources and quickly access them from the launch screen.
Panasonic will also add some kind of multiscreen functionality to send content from “a Firefox browser or other compatible application,” but it’s unclear what other apps would be compatible, and what kind of underlying multiscreen technology the TVs are going to use.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Freescale Unveils Vision SoC for Accident-Free Cars
Also offers protection against wireless attacks
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1325855&
Freescale Semiconductor has unveiled at the Mobile World Congress here an automotive vision system-on-chip, dubbed S32V, designed for what the company calls “an accident-free car.”
The new SoC, in addition to advanced vision algorithms and sensor data-fusion capabilities, provides protection against potential external wireless attacks, a much needed feature in the era of “Connected Cars.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jon Russell / TechCrunch:
Xiaomi Introduces A GoPro-Style Action Camera That Costs Just $64
http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/01/xiaomi-yi-action-camera/
Xiaomi is back with another reminder that it doesn’t just make phones. (Despite dethroning Samsung as China’s top smartphone company in 2014.) Xiaomi’s latest device is a GoPro-like camera which, as we’ve come to expect, is selling for a fraction of its U.S. rival’s price.
Yi Action Camera (that’s the official English name for the product, Xiaomi told TechCrunch) records video at 1080p (60 frames per second) and includes a 16-megapixel camera that uses Sony’s highly rated Exmor R BSI CMOS image sensor. That’s superior on paper to the Hero, which records at 1080p30 or 720p60 and includes a five-megapixel camera.
Xiaomi also beats the Hero on memory (its 64 GB allocation is twice as large), and weight (it is 72g compared to 111g), while it has a slightly larger battery. Like the Hero, the Yi Action Camera can go as far as 40 meters underwater, which is probably the most important stat for those of us who like to take a camera near water.
One notable absence is the lack of rigging or casing for the camera — unlike GoPros, which ship with some basic accessories.
Don’t hold your breath on the prospect of seeing this product surface outside of China — that’s a common refrain for Xiaomi products
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Hard Drive MIDI Controller
http://hackaday.com/2015/03/02/the-hard-drive-midi-controller/
[shantea] builds MIDI controllers, and after a successful first endeavor with a matrix of buttons and knobs, he decided to branch out to something a little bit cooler. It’s called Ceylon, and it’s effectively a turntable controller built from an old hard drive.
The software for this MIDI controller is based on the OpenDeck Platform, a neat system that allows anyone to create their own MIDI controllers and devices. It’s also a great looking board that seems to perform well.
OpenDeck
Software and hardware platform for simpler building of MIDI controllers.
https://github.com/paradajz/OpenDeck
OpenDeck MIDI platform is a combination of microcontroller firmware, PCB board and GUI application. The platform allows hassle-free building of MIDI controllers and their configuration via MIDI System Exclusive messages, without any need of reprogramming the chip.
This repository contains MCU code, part list, schematic (circuit and PCB) and pre-compiled binaries, available for serial baud rates: 38400, for use with virtual MIDI cable software and serial-to-midi converter, and 31250 for use with native MIDI.
Code base is built upon OpenDeck library, Ownduino library (minimal fork of Arduino core library) and modified Arduino MIDI library 3.2. All code is available under GNU GPL v3 licence.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nvidia will launch a 1080p game-streaming subscription service in May
http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/3/8146065/nvidia-grid-1080p-game-streaming
We’ve watched Nvidia’s work on cloud gaming for some time now, and now it’s official: Nvidia Grid will be a subscription service that promises to stream top-tier titles up to 1080p and 60 frames per second. The service will launch in May alongside the new Nvidia Shield home game console.
Nvidia will offer two tiers for subscription: free and premium (pricing not announced). The library will reportedly have more than 50 games at launch, while you can additionally buy titles à la carte
Nvidia’s head Jen-Hsun Huang promises the service — which is backed by Nvidia Grid supercomputers worldwide and Amazon Web Services — can stream at half a blink of an eye: “If you have a fairly good Internet connection, I can get a response from a computer based in Oregon in 150 milliseconds. That’s half the blink of an eye”
Game streaming as a service has had varying degrees of success. One of the early forerunners Gaikai was bought by Sony and turned into PlayStation Now, while OnLive had a rather dramatic fall.
Hands on experiences with Grid have suggested that the 150ms latency isn’t an issue, but your internet connection might be — the service reportedly requires a 5 to 10Mbps download speed in order to render games in 720p, and 30Mbps of bandwidth to stream in 1080p.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Shield: NVIDIA’s $200 gaming-focused Android TV set-top box
http://www.engadget.com/2015/03/03/shield-set-top-box/
Another year, another new Shield device from NVIDIA. What’s Shield? It’s the hardware line from NVIDIA that spans a bizarre handheld game console, a powerful gaming tablet, and now a $200, Android TV-powered set-top box. NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang unveiled the Android TV-powered set-top box this evening during a GDC 2015 press conference, which the company referred to as a combination “revolutionary TV”, “gaming console” and “supercomputer.” Head below for all the specs as we learn them live from NVIDIA.
NVIDIA’s calling Shield the “world’s first 4K Android TV” — it’s able to both stream and locally run 4K content to your fawncy 4K television. How does it do that? It uses a bleeding edge X1 chip — the most powerful mobile processor NVIDIA’s made to date.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Face Recognition For Your Next Con
http://hackaday.com/2015/03/04/face-recognition-for-your-next-con/
. One problem when working any con is manning the door; it’s a good idea to know how many people are there, and you can’t double count people.
This year they might go with a more technological solution: face recognition and tracking.
The project is called uWho, and it uses the faceRecognizer class in OpenCV. The purpose of the entire project is to identify who someone is from previous frames. If your face is unknown to the program, your likeness – rather, a few points of data – are added to the database of faces. It’s simple, and according to [jwcrawley], it works.
uWho – Face recognition and tracking program
https://crankylinuxuser.wordpress.com/2015/03/01/uwho-face-recognition-and-tracking-program/
jwcrawley/uWho
https://github.com/jwcrawley/uWho
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hard Drive… Speakers?
http://hackaday.com/2015/03/03/hard-drive-speakers/
Speakers really aren’t that complex to make. In fact, if you’re clever about it, you can make a speaker out of just about anything. [Afroman] is kicking it old school with a hack he first did back in 2001, but now, in video form: Make your own HDD Speaker!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVPjQou42i8
Tomi Engdahl says:
Speaker Driver with Noise Cancellation
http://www.eeweb.com/news/speaker-driver-with-noise-cancellation
ams AG announced that the headset in the latest Huawei smartphone implements advanced noise cancellation with the AS3415, a speaker driver from ams with active noise cancellation (ANC) capability.
The ams ANC chip is in the headset of the Ascend Mate 7, a new high-end Android™ smartphone from Huawei. The headset’s ANC feature, combined with the passive noise reduction provided by the in-ear housings surrounding the speakers, attenuates a large proportion of ambient noise from low frequencies up to around 3kHz.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IBM’s secret growth plan is … Karaoke?
♫ I guess that’s why the call it Big Blue ♫
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/05/ibms_secret_growth_plan_is_karaoke/
IBM might be planning a karaoke-led-resurgence, if a new patent titled “Enhancing karaoke systems utilizing audience sentiment feedback and audio watermarking” is any guide.
One of Big Blue’s strategies is a new album of products with an analytical beat. This patent could be a b-side in that effort, as it appears to add the chance for crowdsourced social feedback for Karaoke.
“Frequently, singers can receive immediate feedback from spectators who evaluate the singer’s performance of a karaoke song,” the patent application reads. “Unfortunately, the phenomenon has not evolved with today’s social networking. Although social networking is a phenomenon that is currently driving interactions between people, social iterations (e.g., social karaoke Web sites) of karaoke lack the real-time interaction and feedback often associated with traditional karaoke.”
The application is written in densest patentese, but the gist of it seems to be that singers will appreciate realtime feedback and the ability to share performances across their social networks
Tomi Engdahl says:
Time for multimedia SoCs to get their analog signals right
http://www.edn.com/design/integrated-circuit-design/4438799/Time-for-multimedia-SoCs-to-get-their-analog-signals-right?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20150305&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20150305&elq=8433534c519b47ccb201e86f2d5241f9&elqCampaignId=21940&elqaid=24634&elqat=1&elqTrackId=537808cd32d644c19a63462f1c881cc5
Multimedia applications such as Digital TVs (DTVs), Over the Top (OTT) devices, and Set-Top Boxes (STBs) rely on digital and analog interfaces to transmit & receive audio and video content. The integration of digital interfaces is well established and understood; however, the integration of analog interfaces has usually been implemented with discrete external components. Today, cost, power, and area reduction requirements are driving the integration of analog interfaces into multimedia system-on-chips (SoCs). Among other challenges, successful implementation of modern multimedia SoCs requires a good understanding of the most relevant characteristics of analog interfaces and how they can be integrated while ensuring the transmission quality of the analog audio/video signals.
A multimedia SoC needs different analog interfaces for the given application:
Digital TV chips interface with: WiFi, TV tuner, analog audio outputs and inputs (such as loudspeakers, microphones for voice commands) and potentially a cable or wireline transceiver.
Set-top box chips interface with: WiFi, TV tuner, analog audio outputs and inputs (such as loudspeakers), with cable and or satellite reception and potentially a cable or wireline interface. They typically include several analog video outputs.
OTT chips interface with: WiFi, potentially with a cable or wireline interface. They typically include an analog video output.
Summary
Today’s digital TVs, set-top boxes, and over the top applications require proper integration of analog interfaces into multimedia SoCs to reduce system cost and ensure accurate transmission of analog audio/video signals to (and from) the multimedia SoC. For this reason, designers must know the relevant characteristics of each analog interface and how to properly integrate them into the SoC, while meeting area, power and cost requirements – a key step in selecting analog IP. For more information on DesignWare Analog IP, visit http://www.synopsys.com/analogip.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Podo wireless camera can be stuck on any surface
http://www.gizmag.com/podo-wireless-camera/36383/
Looking to fill another slot in the selfie aficionado’s toolkit is the team behind Podo, a small wireless camera that can be slapped on any surface and controlled remotely with your smartphone.
Podo arrived on Kickstarter yesterday and has already attracted more than US$76,000 in funding, cruising past its $50,000 goal
The square camera measures 2 x 2 x 1 in (5.1 x 5.1 x 2.54 cm) and weighs only 1.8 oz (51 g), designed to be slipped into a pocket or backpack for easy carrying. On its backside is a micro-suction pad that according to its developers, allows it to be stuck to basically any solid surface.
Podo comes with 4 GB of storage and runs on 600 mAh battery, with the company claiming this to be good for up to two hours of video.
early pledges of $79
Podo – The First Stick and Shoot Camera
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/podolabs/podo-the-first-stick-and-shoot-camera/comments
Forget the selfie stick. Podo is a wireless, re-stickable camera that turns any surface into a photo booth. Just stick, shoot, & share.
Tomi Engdahl says:
5 Steps to Solving the TV Everywhere Dilemma for Operators
http://www.btreport.net/whitepapers/2015/03/5-steps-to-solving-the-tv-everywhere-dilemma-for-operators.html
We are in the midst of a massive shift in how and where television viewers access their favorite shows and programming tiers. Operators that deny this shift will be behind the times and left out of position to deliver this content on screens of all shapes and sizes. Further, an entire generation of television viewers is emerging, bringing with them new requirements regarding what content they are willing to pay for, how much they are willing to pay, as well as an ever-expanding range of devices on which they consume this content. Make no mistake, this is a sea change in how, where and when television is viewed.
Here is a sneak peek at the steps:
1. Exceed your viewers’ expectations and delight them with a killer experience
2. Flatten your footprint and reduce dependencies
3. Prepare to deliver both authenticated TV Everywhere and also over the top (OTT) flavors, depending on your content and customer
4. Soup to nuts – control the experience, end-to-end
5. Show me the money – have a monetization strategy
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:
Apple plans relaunched Beats streaming music service for WWDC, skipping March event; Apple TV still coming
http://9to5mac.com/2015/03/05/apple-plans-relaunched-beats-streaming-music-service-for-wwdc-skipping-march-event/
Tomi Engdahl says:
GoPro cameras’ WiFi security is GoAmateur
Slurp sick sports selfies without getting off your skateboard
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/06/gopro_have_amateur_wifi_security/
Net nuisances can harvest the cleartext SSIDs and passwords of wireless networks accessed by sports selfie box GoPro.
The GoPro app collects and siphons wireless credentials so it can be used to log on to and manage cameras. Security researcher Ilya Chernyakov says the credentials which give access to the cameras could be mass harvested with a script to change a numerical token value within a generated URL.
“All you need to do, to access someone else’s Wi-Fi settings is to change this number,” Chernyakov says.
“I wrote a small python script that runs on a range of the URLs, extracts the settings from the response and puts them into a csv file.
“There were no complications, nor noticeable shape limiting for downloading so I was able to create a list of 1000 Wi-Fi names and passwords, including my own.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
TV Reboots with Web-Like Service
ATSC 3.0 rides Internet Protocol, HEVC
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1325914&
Some time in 2017 you may be able to tune your new TV, smartphone or tablet into a 4K video stream with rich colors and immersive audio. The choice of content may be more varied and personalized than what you are used to from a local broadcaster, too, because it will be based on the same Internet standards used by Netflix and YouTube.
That’s the dream of ATSC 3.0, the next generation of the U.S. terrestrial TV broadcast standard launched 20 years ago. It’s the first TV broadcast standard to embrace IP transport. Past standards used MPEG transport mechanisms, very different from those that carry today’s Web content.
“Having broadcast and Internet similarity makes it easy for content providers to swap ads or content – with MPEG-2 it was a very complex operation,”
ATSC 3.0 also embraces HTML5, at least in part, at its applications layer. “We have gone essentially the Web-based route,” said Richard Chernock who chairs the working groups developing the suite of ATSC 3.0 standards.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Software streamlines Dolby MS11 compliance testing
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/other/4438835/Software-streamlines-Dolby-MS11-compliance-testing?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150309&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150309&elq=451393604ad947ad989b53da758388a6&elqCampaignId=22001&elqaid=24700&elqat=1&elqTrackId=1a944827efce407590239a2207da9e73
Audio Precision has teamed with Dolby Laboratories’ compliance engineering group to create a software suite that enables Dolby MS11 licensees to perform compliance testing using the APx series of audio analyzers and APx500 audio test software.
The Dolby MS11 multistream decoder provides TV, set-top box, and IC manufacturers with a single solution for decoding all premium broadcast audio formats, including Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby Digital, HE ACC with Dolby metadata, and all HE AAC bitstreams.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Todd Cunningham / The Wrap:
China’s weekend box office eclipses the US but strategic partnerships and increased opportunities for crew and talent could revitalize US film industry — China’s Weekend Box Office Eclipses the U.S. – And That’s Not a Bad Thing
China’s Weekend Box Office Eclipses the U.S. – And That’s Not a Bad Thing
http://www.thewrap.com/chinas-weekend-box-office-eclipses-the-u-s-and-thats-not-a-bad-thing/
The box office grosses of China’s leading movies were bigger than North America’s this weekend, Rentrak reported Monday.
With “Jupiter Ascending” and “Big Hero 6,” along with local titles “From Vegas to Macau” and “Wolf Totem” leading the way, the top 10 films at China’s box office brought in around $73 million. That just topped the $72.3 million that the soft U.S. top 10, which was led by “Chappie,” totaled over three days.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Carolyn Giardina / Hollywood Reporter:
Director Christopher Nolan calls on Hollywood to preserve film as a medium, says that we’ll need film prints and projectors forever
Christopher Nolan Urges Hollywood to Step Up Efforts to Preserve Film
7:57 PM PDT 3/8/2015 by Carolyn Giardina
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/behind-screen/christopher-nolan-urges-hollywood-step-779986
One month after Kodak announced deals with the Hollywood studios to keep film alive — at least for the foreseeable future — Nolan addresses the issues: “It’s very important to support film now.”
Nolan and visual artist Tacita Dean argued these points during a panel moderated by Kerry Brougher, director of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. “We need film projectors and film prints — forever,” Nolan said, relating that film is a different medium compared with digital, and the issue comes down to creative choice. “If you want the choice, it’s very important to support film now. Filmmakers are going out of their way to shoot film and talk about it. We want to see a world where there’s a choice; it’s important to preserve it for future generations.”
Dean discussed film at risk in the art world. “Art institutions should project a piece of art so that it can be seen in the medium that it was made. We have to persuade some institutions,” she said. “We had two mediums [film and digital] and they want us to go back to using just one of them. … [Creative and aesthetic differences] have been completely lost in this discussion about image quality.”
Nolan also feels a sense of urgency to present film as a proven long-term archival medium. “We don’t have a uniform standard for preservation and archiving for the studios, at the Academy or at archival institutions,” he warned. “There’s no stable digital archiving medium, [at least not] in the immediate future. If there is, it would need to be tested for decades.
As to projection, North American theaters have almost entirely converted to digital, but Nolan argued that quality “35mm projection can be a selling point for a theater.” Citing his latest film, Interstellar, he reported that theaters that showed the movie on film “did incredibly well. … We spoke about it in our advertising.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Alyson Shontell / Business Insider:
Source: Twitter closes deal to acquire live streaming startup Periscope, which is still in closed beta
http://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-acquires-periscope-for-a-sizable-amount-2015-3?op=1
Tomi Engdahl says:
Optical Components: Shutter types vary to meet application needs
02/17/2015
http://www.laserfocusworld.com/articles/print/volume-51/issue-02/features/optical-components-shutter-types-vary-to-meet-application-needs.html?cmpid=EnlLFWMarch102015
The design of OEM products for widely different optical applications benefits from collaboration and understanding shutter options.
Shutters are widely used throughout the thermography world. The technology is often seen as very similar when applied to night vision and environmental assessment applications. Within each system, shutter surfaces are used to provide periodic nonuniformity correction (NUC), which results from the spatial nonuniformity in the photoresponse of detectors in the focal plane array. It is especially severe in mid- to far-IR imaging systems. In this capacity, shutters play a critical function, and each application has slightly different requirements.
Night vision is the most well-known example of shutter use in thermography. It is commonly seen in IR imaging systems that are used in weapon sights and security cameras. A less-known application of a shutter used in thermography is environmental assessment
The same type of camera could be used in a different way by a building inspector, who will analyze the thermographic signature to evaluate a building’s environmental efficiency.
Hybrid cameras are also available and require even more attention to detail. With the right product design, complicated optical, mechanical, and electronic challenges can be neutralized, and the result is a simpler, easy-to-use product.
A shutter is typically the most common and effective way to achieve exposure control within a laboratory environment. Shutters are used in many cameras from manufacturers of laboratory and microbiologics equipment. The shutter also serves to control exposure in spectroscopy or microscopy application.
Tomi Engdahl says:
High-speed Imaging: Lissajous scanning trajectory enables video-frame-rate microscopy
http://www.laserfocusworld.com/articles/print/volume-50/issue-12/world-news/high-speed-imaging-lissajous-scanning-trajectory-enables-video-frame-rate-microscopy.html?cmpid=EnlLFWMarch102015
Purdue University (West Lafayette, IN) scientists have reported an approximate fiftyfold increase in frame rates into the kilohertz regime for beam-scanning microscopy applications by scanning a laser over the field of view in a circuitous Lissajous trajectory similar to the repeating patterns from the children’s toy known as a SpiroGraph.1 Essentially, the galvanometer-driven mirror in a conventional galvo-resonant mirror scan head was replaced with a second resonant mirror that enabled Lissajous scanning.
To achieve high frame rates, the full Lissajous trajectory was divided into subtrajectories, each of which sparsely but rapidly sampled the field of view. A spatiotemporal model-based image reconstruction (MBIR) 3D inpainting algorithm, which populates the unsampled pixels in a given subtrajectory based on a maximum a posteriori estimation of the data in both time and space, was developed to reconstruct the images using the full information content of the data stack. High-quality images (256 x 256 pixels) were recovered from frames in which ~30% of the pixels were directly interrogated, resulting in 500 Hz imaging. Because the detectors were simple photodiodes or photomultiplier tubes, multiple imaging modalities were simultaneously acquired at kilohertz frame rates.
In the study, the authors focused on two key effects commonly necessitating high-speed imaging: namely, motion blur and transient events.
Increasing the frame rate to beyond 100 Hz successfully eliminated obvious effects from sample blur
Several other groups have realized Lissajous trajectory imaging by resonantly scanning fibers or by using microelectromechanical mirrors, but with frame rates significantly less than video rate.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Making Of The Hackaday Prize Video
http://hackaday.com/2015/03/10/the-making-of-the-hackaday-prize-video/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Coming to Snapchat: live sports broadcasting
http://digiday.com/platforms/madness-snapchat-moves-closer-becoming-sports-broadcaster/
Snapchat has grand ambitions to become a dominant mobile media platform, and it has taken one step closer with live sports.
The popular messaging and media-consumption app is working to forge media-rights deals with sports leagues and broadcast networks, including the NCAA and Turner, so it can feature live sports in its “Our Story” feature, starting with the NCAA Final Four, according to multiple media executives familiar with the plans.
Tomi Engdahl says:
UK ISPs block Pirate Bay proxy sites
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-31832137
UK internet service providers have begun blocking access to websites that provide a list of Pirate Bay alternatives, as part of the battle against online piracy.
Eric Pfanner And / Wall Street Journal:
Sony to offer PlayStation Vue Internet TV service in New York City, Chicago, and Philadelphia within two weeks, plans nationwide rollout by the end of the year — Sony Joins Crowd of Online TV Providers — PlayStation Vue service to compete with Dish Network’s Sling TV
Sony Joins Crowd of Online TV Providers
PlayStation Vue service to compete with Dish Network’s Sling TV
http://www.wsj.com/articles/sony-to-roll-out-internet-tv-service-this-year-1426086001
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tube amp level transistor amplifier?
Western Electric’s triodiputki 300B-1938 is a vacuum tube king of linearity, and many also sound quality, of which the silicon chips, transistors are called, can only dream of.
Transistor amplifiers manufacturers have long sought 300B for the challenger. As such has already been planned for some time V-FET amplifiers used in the SIT (Static Induction Transistor) transistors with a current / voltage and the distortion behavior reminds triode-tube like.
VFet amplifiers were prepared at the time in Japan a few (eg. Yamaha and Sony). Today, they are manufactured by an American and a Japanese Digital Pass to main, which makes their VFet themself.
Source: http://www.hifimaailma.fi/uutiset/putkivahvistimien-tasoinen-transistorivahvistin/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nest seeks audio talent to delight … someone
Home audio about to get Googled, aren’t you thrilled?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/12/nest_seeks_audio_talent_to_delight_someone/
Google subsidiary Nest has decided the next thing to be Internet of Thinged is going to be the sound system, and wants to get there first.
Shortly after irritating Dropcam users by telling them to create a Nest account – even if they don’t own any Nest product – Nest has posted advertisements seeking someone to head up Nest Audio.
The boss of the noisy Nest will run a team covering “acoustics, audio electronics, audio SW, audio test and validation” to deliver “delightful user experiences and innovative features”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Will streaming save the music industry?
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/005166f6-ac6e-11e4-9d32-00144feab7de.html?ftcamp=Traffic/Taboola/Connected_Business/Offsite/March_2015#axzz3TLLH0JPf
Digital downloads — once seen as the salvation of a music industry ravaged by online piracy and falling CD sales — are in decline, and record labels are worried.
Amid great promise, downloads became the main way to listen to music, but a decade of growth came to a shuddering halt in 2014 and sales are set to fall further in 2015. Consumer behaviour is shifting: global digital downloads of albums slipped 9 per cent in 2014 and sales of individual tracks fell 12 per cent, according to Nielsen Music data. Downloads may be falling, but 2015 still ranks as a pretty good year to be a music label.
Enter streaming, the latest white knight with potential to return the music industry to the good times. A range of companies led by Spotify and including Apple and Google, are betting music fans will migrate to new services that give listeners all the music they want to hear for a fixed monthly price. Around the world, demand for streaming services is increasing, rising more than 50 per cent, with 164bn songs streamed in the US alone in 2014.
Despite the growth of streaming, no one in the music industry is yet popping the champagne. Even if it continues on its growth trajectory, streaming will not replace revenue lost by declines in downloading for two or three years. Still, it is a model the record labels love, because it replaces one that depends on hits with one that delivers steady, recurring revenue.
Tomi Engdahl says:
YouTube reaches more adults aged 18 to 34 than any single cable TV network. Nearly half of people in this age group visited YouTube between December 2013 and February 2014, according to Nielsen. It was rated by millennials as the top place to watch content, ahead of digital and TV properties like Facebook and ESPN.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/2015-social-network-demographic-trends-2015-2#ixzz3UFYfWtAU