Samsung wants to jump-start the virtual-reality movement.

The Korean electronics conglomerate on Tuesday launched Milk VR, a service that will provide free 360-degree videos to anyone using a Gear VR virtual-reality headset, which launched as a limited “Innovator’s Edition” earlier this month. The content is expected to dribble out on a consistent basis in an effort to get people coming back to the service.

Samsung wants Milk VR to be a rebuttal to those skeptical about the amount of content available for the Gear VR. 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. Milk VR also sits alongside the Milk Video and Milk Radio services, dragging Samsung deeper into the content game.

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, taking with it a drop a profits.

If you have cable you’ve probably been exposed to one of the increasingly ugly retransmission fee disputes occurring between cable operators and broadcasters. They usually go something like this: as the two sides fail to hammer out new programming contracts, programmers pull their content from your cable lineup. Both sides then use media campaigns, on screen tickers, and websites all trying to convince you that the other guy is a nefarious, greedy villain. Frequently lost in the festivities is the fact that consumers get to pay the same amount of money for cable, even though they’re suddenly able to watch less content.

The latest example of this dysfunction is the ongoing feud between Dish Network and Fox News, which resulted in Dish customers losing access to both Fox News Channel and Fox Business Channel roughly a week ago. As with other fights, both sides have loud websites trying to harness consumer outrage toward the other side. Also like similar fights, users get to keep paying the same amount of money despite getting less content.

It is astonishing that the cable and broadcast industry continues to bicker over the body of a dying cash cow as its house burns down around it. It requires a very particular skill set to take an industry with some of the worst customer satisfaction ratings in the country and find a way to make the consumer experience notably worse.

Almost every single Xbox executive we profiled in this video last year has left the company
Told you TV was a bad idea
http://www.theverge.com/2014/12/29/7463949/xbox-executives-leaving-microsoft-tv-apps-dead

The Xbox One was supposed to be the first step towards a living room revolution — it was supposed to run Windows apps, every console was supposed to be a dev unit, and deep interactive TV integration was the next big step — but there’s been virtually no progress on any of those fronts since the console’s bumpy launch, and the people who championed that vision are now mostly gone. The renewed focus on gaming has led to short-term sales success, but consoles last a decade, and the long-term vision is no longer clear. Microsoft says the Xbox One will run the upcoming Windows 10 operating system, which is supposed to unify the company’s various products, but there have been precious few details about that plan so far. We’ll have to wait to find out more.

A bankruptcy court has allowed defunct video streaming company Aereo Inc to auction its TV streaming technology assets, according to court papers published on Friday.

The U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan ruled on Wednesday that Aereo could sell its assets, after the company reached an agreement with broadcasters over the sale process.

These broadcasters include CBS Corp, Comcast Corp’s NBC, Walt Disney Co’s ABC and Twenty-First Century Fox Inc’s Fox.

Under the agreement, Aereo will allow the broadcasters to attend the auction of the assets and provide them a weekly update on the status of the sale process.

‘The Interview’ Generated Over $15 Million In Online Sales
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-interview-online-sales-2014-12?op=1

Sony announced Sunday night that “The Interview” was downloaded or rented online more than 2 million times, generating over $15 million in sales.

After initially pulling the movie from theaters, Sony decided to release it online instead. “The Interview” premiered December 24 on YouTube, Google Play, Xbox Video, and Sony’s own site, SeeTheInterview.com.

“vast majority” of rentals and downloads came from Google Play and YouTube.

The movie was also shown in a little over 300 independent movie theaters in the US. The major movie theater chains have refused to show it. It’s generated about $3 million in estimated sales at the box office so far.

Keep in mind this doesn’t mean “The Interview” is a success. It cost an estimated $100 million to make, including marketing costs.

All [val3tra] wanted was an RF-accessible camera. A camera that would take pictures, save them to an SD card, and occasionally send them over an RF link to a computer. This project has grown out of control, and now it has become an open-source camera that’s able to take year-long time-lapse movies.

The build started as a low power camera using an eBay JPEG camera modified for 3.3V. That’s only 640×480, but each frame averages only 48kb – small enough to store a few thousand pictures on a FAT16 formatted SD card.

This build was then improved, bringing the total battery consumption down to about 3.5-4 Joules per frame, or at one frame every 10 minutes, about 24 Joules an hour. That’s impressive, and getting this camera to run longer than a dozen or so months raises some interesting challenges.

http://hackaday.com/2014/12/18/crypto-photography-and-custom-firmware/
http://magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=10279