The future of cameras seem to be heading to is smaller, more portable, more disposable and mirrorless (DSLRs have a mirror). When Nokia’s Executive Vice President Anssi Vanjoki told 2010 that Cell Phone Cameras Will Replace DSLRs, I could not believe that on time. But it really seems to become more and more to truth in 2014: Nowadays you can take professional level (“good enough photos”) using consumer level cameras and smart phones. Technical quality is good enough for majority. There is going on a rampant replacement of point and shoot cameras of all flavors and varieties with smart phones and their built in cameras. Now the market is being effectively gutted. Gone. Non-existent. Same thing is happening to video as well.
Part of the technical race came to a (maybe temporary) end: “How can I match and exceed the quality of conventional metrics that we used to get from medium format film.” There’s nothing else pressing to solve, technically. Many photographers are fully equipped but uninspired to move forward. We have have set down for “good enough.” The engineering idea is that we’ve hit the sweet spot and to go for a Six Sigma improvement would be costly and unnecessary.
DSLR sales were down in 2013, worldwide, by 18.5% according to CIPA. The total decline in the entire dedicated camera market is closer to 43.5%. The decline will continue. Credit Suisse prediction: “Only those who have a strong brand and are competitive on price will last – and only Canon, Nikon and Sony fullfil that criteria”. Mirrorless cameras are not a big market: According to CIPA is the total sales of mirrorless system cameras in N. America was slightly fewer than 39,000 units. Total.
The challenge will be: How do you bridge that gap between high photo-capture quality and high-quality camera devices and the cloud where every amateur photographer’s images live? The company which has the most innovative post-processing, easy to share photos feature set wins! The future of photography is same as future in pretty much everything: software and connectivity. Camera manufacturers have been slow on those: we are just now seeing cameras with full operating systems like Android The advantages to smart phones are size, constant (annoyingly constant) access, multi-task tool set, and the ability to send your images, electronically, to an audience just about anywhere in the world.
Several smartphone makers have clear strategies to take photography to extremes: 40 megapixel camera is already on the market and several manufacturers are playing with re-focus after shooting options.
Consumer video device trend is that separate classic video cameras have pretty much faded from market. New smart phones have high definition video cameras in them, so for most users there is no need for separate video camera. For special uses there are small “action” video cameras that are so tiny that you can place them almost anywhere and they can take some beating while you perform your extreme sports. If the video quality of those do not suffice, many people use their DSLR to shoot higher quality high definition video. For professional video production there is still some market left for professional and prosumer video cameras.
The world seems to be heading to situation where separate DSLRs and separate video cameras will be more like high fidelity audio, which used to be common selling point in 1970s, 80s and early 90s, but now only some geeks care about audio quality. This will more or less happen to photographs and video.
Connected TV technologies get more widely used and the content earlier viewable only on TV can be now seen on many other screens. Your smartphone is the screen in your pocket. Your computer is the screen on your desk. Your tablet is a screen for the couch. This development is far from ready. Gartner suggests that now through 2018, a variety of devices, user contexts, and interaction paradigms will make “everything everywhere” strategies unachievable.
Video streaming has really become mainstream as Netflix And YouTube Account For Over 50% Of Peak Fixed Network Data In North America. Because of the rise in video services like Netflix and YouTube, peer-to-peer file-sharing has dropped (meaning less piracy of movies and TV series). Netflix remains the biggest pig in the broadband python, representing 31.6% of all downstream Internet traffic in North America during primetime hours in September — well ahead of any other streaming service. In other parts of the world, YouTube is the biggest consumer of bandwidth. In Europe, YouTube represented of 28.7% of downstream traffic.
Post HDTV resolution era seems to be coming to TVs as well in form of 4K / UltraHD. It was introduced in the 2013, and the manufacturers start to push it more in 204 because all LCD makers are looking to move their business models on from cheap mass production to higher-margin, premium offerings. They try to innovate and secure their future viability by selling fewer, but more profitable displays. On this road giant curved TVs is gaining ground: LG announces that it will present the “world’s first ” 105-inch curved ultra-hd-TV in January in Las Vegas at CES. Almost at the same time , however, Samsung also announced the proposal at CES “the world’s first and curved” 105-inch ultra HD television.. TV screens are in fact higher resolution the basic 4k level of ultra hd: Samsung and LG screens resolution is 5120 × 2160 pixels in the image (11 megapixels).
4K resolution ecosystem will get more ready for use. Netflix is testing out 4K video streaming and Netflix’s House of Cards was shot in 4K. Amazon Studios also just recently announced that it will shoot all of its 2014 shows in that format as well.
4K and 4K streaming are definitely coming in 2014 regardless of how many people can actually view it. 4K will still require a lot of work “with the compression and decode capability” to be ready for mainstream use. There are a great many things that need to happen before 4K really becomes a reality or needs to do so.
PC hardware with 4G capable graphics cards is already available, so decoding the stream is not a problem. The biggest issue is that the market penetration of 4K-capable televisions needs to grow, but to that happen the prices must drop to ranges for the average consumer. Many users have already fast enough fixed broadband connection, but can the networks handle peak usage 4K streaming? According to Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, it won’t require more than a stable 15 Mbps to stream 4K.
Extreme overkill resolution will also push to tablet and smart phone markets. There are already smart phones with full HD resolution. In high-end smartphones we may be moving into the overkill zone with extreme resolution that is higher than you can see on small screen: some makers have already demonstrated displays with twice the performance of 1080-progressive. Samsung is planned to release devices with 4k or UHD resolutions. As we have seen in many high tech gadget markets earlier it is a very short journey to copycat behavior. And we will see also see smart phones that can shoot 4K video.
For a long time music has been listened mainly with small portable MP3 player and such, which for most users provide “good enough” audio quality. The market had already shifted from separate MP3 players to the same functionality included to other devices (smart phones and tablets), so sales of music players sales have plummeted in year 2013 as much as as one-third. Separate music players mostly only used for listening music during fitness hobby, and growing popularity of fitness hobby is full of players saved the market from total collapse. Uncompressed music player to appreciate the need of a decent storage capacity, so some hifi people buy some high-end separate players, but that’s a small market.
Apple’s iPod continues to lead an ever-shrinking market of portable media players with a staggering 72 percent of the market for standalone music players. Apple has never been afraid of reducing demand for one of its devices by creating demand for another, in this case iPhone. The future of separate music players looks bleak.
Smartphones have taken the music player market. The growing popularity of smart phones and music streaming services will rise in the future to eat even music players sales. If smart watch will become a hit, the music player may be lost in exercisers shopping list.
1,214 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
75% Of Ikea’s Catalog Is Computer Generated Imagery
You could have fooled us. Wait, actually, you did.
http://www.fastcodesign.com/3034975/75-of-ikeas-catalog-is-computer-generated-imagery
The best special effects are often the ones you never notice–which may make Ikea the most skillful special effects studio in the world. The Swedish furniture company has been aggressively ramping up its use of computer generated imagery in their catalogs. Ikea’s first CG photo was a Bertil pinewood chair in 2006. By 2012, the Wall Street Journal reported that 25% of their products were CG. Today, that figure has ballooned to 75%.
Yes, that means three out of four things you see in an Ikea catalog are fake. The fixtures. The furniture. The walls. The light. Why? It beats shipping endless pieces of prototype furniture halfway across the world for photo shoots.
CGSociety recently published a deep look at Ikea’s in-house production studio, which is responsible for the shift, and it’s full of fascinating factoids. Ikea’s bank of 25,000 fixture and furniture models are constructed virtually at 4K-by-4K pixels–which dwarfs what we think of as high definition–and textures are scanned in from their analog source then mapped to a virtual counterpart at 1:1 scale
Tomi Engdahl says:
Building 3D with Ikea
http://www.cgsociety.org/index.php/CGSFeatures/CGSFeatureSpecial/building_3d_with_ikea
Martin Enthed and his team work in one of the many IKEA companies, IKEA Communications AB. “When it comes to products,” explains Martin, “IKEA of Sweden designs and develops the product range. The global marketing and communication department decides what communication about the range is important to reach the consumers. We then create concepts and communication ideas, which we produce in different ways. We do the assembly instructions you all know so well! We create product images, labels, the IKEA catalogue, the IKEA.com website, prints for in-package and on-package etc. We do most of the global communication for IKEA. All the communication we create and produce should ultimately help consumers to understand how IKEA can help them create a better everyday life.”
In the summer of 2004, IKEA decided to change the way they produced their product images. They made the first tentative moves toward CG rendered, rather than photographic, images. “We made 8 or 10 quite bad product visualisations by today’s standards,” says Martin, “but it sparked something and we continued to work at it. In the fall of 2006 we first showed a product in the catalogue. The first CG piece of furniture was a chair called “Bertil”.
The IKEA team didn’t feel there was anything wrong with traditional photography, quality-wise. Like any company, they just wanted to make things easier for the team to work on – to make the process simpler, cheaper and faster. With traditional photography, you need to have prototype furniture being built in different parts of the world shipped over so it can be photographed. Everything needs to be there on time and it can be logistically difficult, expensive and not that environmental.
“The most expensive and complicated things we have to create and shoot are kitchens.”
Now, about 35% of all of IKEA Communication’s non-product images are also fully CG (i.e not photographic composites). Explains Martin, “We have had two lanes, if you like – the photographic and the CG. We’re now working on getting them to mix – we’re becoming really successful, but we’re always looking for ways to improve it even further.”
One of the things that continues to make this transition smooth, Martin believes, is the use of V-Ray to render. “We use 3DStudio Max and V-Ray.”
“We produce huge numbers of still images every day, and with V-Ray it’s easy to crank up the values, set and forget. We don’t mind so much how long the rendering takes, so long as the artist doesn’t have to go back and tweak something, like they’d have to in mental ray and other renderers. V-Ray is very good for us.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Amazon’s Plan To Storm the Cable Industry’s Castle
http://games.slashdot.org/story/14/09/03/1236257/amazons-plan-to-storm-the-cable-industrys-castle
Randy Davis sends analysis of Amazon’s acquisition of Twitch.tv, a move that indicates higher ambitions than simply another avenue for putting products in front of consumers. The Daily Herald think this is a sign Amazon is bulking up for a fight with cable companies, strengthening is bargaining position for getting (and maintaining) access to subscribers. “There are very few places in the U.S. where these four giant carriers allow independent networks carrying traffic from the data centers run by Amazon (and future Twitch.tv successors) to put that data on the carriers’ controlled networks.”
A related article at the NY Times argues Amazon is “betting on content,” not wanting to fall behind the surge of new media productions from companies like Netflix.
Tomi Engdahl says:
YouTube now lets you tip your favorite video makers
http://www.engadget.com/2014/09/02/youtube-fan-funding/?ncid=rss_truncated
the Fan Funding feature has launched in Australia, Japan, Mexico and the US. If a video host sets up a virtual tip jar, you can use your Google Wallet account (including any attached credit cards) to contribute right from a video page or the Android app.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Japanese firm showcases ‘touchable’ 3-D technology
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/09/02/business/tech/japanese-firm-showcases-touchable-3-d-technology#.VAgz42NsUil
Unveiling technology that generates touchable 3-D imagery, developers said Monday objects that only exist in the virtual world could be manipulated as if they were real.
Officials of Miraisens, a high-tech firm based outside Tokyo, said the technology, which can be used to improve the gaming experience or allow someone to physically shape objects that exist only on a computer, will soon be available for purchase.
“Touching is an important part of human communication, but until now virtual reality has lacked it,” Chief Executive Natsuo Koda said.
“This technology will give you a sense that you can touch objects in the 3-D world,” said Koda, a former virtual reality researcher for Sony Corp.
It works by fooling the brain, blending what the eye sees with different patterns of vibration created by a small fingertip device, said Norio Nakamura, the inventor of so-called 3D-Haptics Technology and chief technical officer at the firm.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sony’s wild new cameras for your smartphone offer big zoom and lens flexibility
http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/3/6100579/sony-qx30-qx1-lens-cameras-announcement-release-date-pricing
Last year Sony took a bold gamble by introducing its QX line. Strap one of the “lens cameras” onto any Android or iOS device, and you’d get pictures that were far superior to what a smartphone could ordinarily turn out. The idea was novel; these “lenses” were basically cameras themselves
Sony’s execution was clumsy and torturously slow. Give the company credit for not giving up: today it’s back with not one, but two new companion lenses for your phone.
And since you’re basically carrying around a super zoom, the QX30 could quickly make you the envy of everyone else stuck using their phone’s terrible digital zoom at the zoo, sports games, or any other setting where you’re rarely in control of a photo’s subject.
But there’s an obvious question to ask here: why go to all that trouble? Why not just carry your NEX or Alpha camera around in the same bag as your phone? Pulling out a dedicated camera will always be faster than combining the QX1 with a lens, putting it on your camera, and starting up Sony’s PlayMemories app.
Tomi Engdahl says:
he Korean LG is going to bring the first manufacturer to market an OLED TV with a resolution of 4K-reach level. LG’s 4K OLED TVs will be available in 77-inch and 65-inch format.
4K curved screens is developed by LG-up panel. It has benefited from WRGB technology, which is connected to the white sub-pixel to existing red, green and blue OLED pixels.
The aim is that curved screen will bring home a cinema-like viewing experience.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1737:oled-televisio-kasvoi-4k-tarkkuuteen&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Photodevice Detects Color With Metal Grating
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1323751&
Researchers at Rice University in Houston, Texas, have created a CMOS-compatible color photodetector that uses aluminium grating technology rather than color filters to make the sensor respond to red, green, and blue light.
The researchers make the point that the approach is closer to that used by human eye and allows color selectivity to be integrated into the photodetector.
The device uses two Schottky junctions to accumulate charge in an energy well, which results in photocurrent gain, and a plasmonic aluminum grating for photocurrent enhancement and red/green/blue color selectivity. The device is described online in a new study in the journal, Advanced Materials.
Conventional CMOS image sensors are turned into color image detectors by adding dielectric or dye color filters, which have the disadvantage of requiring multipass processing, tend to degrade under exposure to sunlight, and can be difficult to align with the sensor pixels.
“With plasmonic gratings, not only do you get color tunability, you can also enhance near fields,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
GoPro Puts Consumers in ‘Matrix’
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1323745&
Some day consumers may be able to create videos like those on display in The Matrix, the Hollywood blockbuster that sported stop-action stills viewers could tour in 360 degrees
Camera pioneer Timothy Macmillan is “tinkering with” such capabilities at GoPro Inc. However he declined to say exactly what the consumer camera company is planning.
British native Macmillan has been developing so-called time-slice cameras since college days in the 1980s, initially for the BBC. His company Time Slice Films later developed professional systems used in a generation of TV commercials and movies like The Matrix.
Recently he showed executives at GoPro how he could synchronize their consumer cameras to create similar stop-action effects. The company hired him as its multi-camera development manager working on video arrays.
“We’re tinkering and having great fun, but it’s not a product,”
“I like the concept of taking a circular camera and making a single moment of time an endless loop.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Extrinsic Motivation: An Open, Modular Effects Pedal
http://hackaday.com/2014/09/04/extrinsic-motivation-an-open-modular-effects-pedal/
[Josh]‘s entry for The Hackaday Prize was by far the most analog project of the entire contest. It’s an open source effects pedal that takes advantage of the modular design of the most popular pedals in history.
Tube Screamers, Fuzz Faces, Big Muffs, and Phase 90s are at the top of the list.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Amazon Fire TV available for pre-order in the UK and Germany for £79
http://thenextweb.com/gadgets/2014/09/03/amazon-fire-tv-available-pre-order-uk-germany-now-priced-79/
Amazon has confirmed that customers in the UK and Germany will soon be able to get their hands on its Fire TV streaming device.
While the device is designed for TV and film consumption, it also has gamers in mind.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Getty Images sues Microsoft over new online photo tool
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/04/getty-images-microsoft-lawsuit-idUSL1N0R52DI20140904
A new Microsoft Corp product that allows website publishers to embed digital photographs on their sites is a “massive infringement” of copyrighted images, Getty Images Inc claimed in a lawsuit filed in federal court in New York on Thursday.
The “Bing Image Widget,” released on Aug. 22, gives publishers the ability to create a panel on their websites that displays digital images supplied by Microsoft’s Bing search engine, according to the lawsuit.
Rather than draw from a pool of licensed images, the lawsuit claimed, the product grants access to the billions of images that can be found online, without regard to whether the photos are copyrighted.
The widget is already in use by websites around the world, the lawsuit said. Getty owns or represents more than 80 million unique digital images, according to the lawsuit.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bing Image Widget
http://www.bing.com/widget/image
Bing Image Widget enhances your web site with the power of Bing Image Search and provides your users with beautiful, configurable image galleries and slideshows.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dell Demos 5K Display
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/14/09/05/174214/dell-demos-5k-display
Even though 4k displays are just making their way into consumer affordability, manufacturers are already pushing beyond. Dell has previewed a computer monitor it calls a “5k” display. The resolution is 5120×2880, stuffing 14,745,600 pixels on a 27″ screen.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Size matters – how else could Dell squeeze 15 million pixels into this 27″ 5K monitor?
With redesigned Latitudes and OptiPlexes to plug into it
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/09/06/new_dell_5k_monitor_and_stuff/
When it comes to pixel size, monitor designers boast about who has the smallest. The new Dell UltraSharp 27-inch display has the smallest of the lot.
The ultra HD 5K monitor is the world’s first screen with a 5120 x 2880 pixel resolution. That’s 218 pixels per inch. That may sound a way off the LG G3 phone which offers 534 PPI, but there is a huge difference between a high resolution on a 5.5-inch screen you hold close to your face and a desktop display.
With 14.7 million pixels, there is a lot of data to move around, and it will be a challenge for anything but the most powerful graphics cards as it has almost twice as many pixels as a 4K screen. The monitor has dual DisplayPort 1.2 sockets.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Building the World’s Smallest Thermal Camera
http://hackaday.com/2014/09/07/building-the-worlds-smallest-thermal-camera/
He took apart the Flir One iPhone thermal imaging unit and pulled out the magical part that makes it all possible — the Lepton module. It only has a resolution of 80×60 pixels, but in the world of thermal imaging, it’s pretty decent. You can buy it for $250 (for the module) in order quantities of 1000 straight from Flir.
80×60 scales up nicely to the 320×240 resolution of the iPod. A home-brew PCB connects to the module
Tomi Engdahl says:
Is There Life After Touchscreens?
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1323784&
Touch panels have become such a mainstay of our everyday gadgets that many of us are already taking them for granted. At Touch Taiwan show last week, I saw display vendors mired in the battle over ever-narrowing bezels, and the never-ending pixel-per-inch war. As I examined the proliferation of display technologies, I found myself getting lost in the weeds.
AUO, alone, is spreading its resources wide and thin as it works on four different display technologies, ranging from amorphous silicon (a-Si) and low temperature Polycrystalline Silicon (LTPS) to oxide TFT and OLED.
So many panels on display at the show were breathtakingly beautiful. Does a narrow bezel matter? Absolutely. Do consumers want more PPI? You bet. Nonetheless, I couldn’t help but roll my eyes when the discussion kept coming back to whether a 1mm border is really that much worse than 0.7 mm for a 5-inch full HD high resolution smartphone panel.
I understand that specs are life-or-death for engineers. But all this “specmanship” is killing Taiwan’s display vendors. To make matters worse, the fierce price competition just keeps escalating. Vendors are scrambling to devise new (and possibly more simplified) manufacturing processes, while staying constantly on the lookout out for new materials.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Netflix may add short-form content to increase mobile usage
http://gigaom.com/2014/09/05/netflix-short-clips/
Most people don’t spend 90 minutes watching whole movies on their phones, which is why Netflix may soon serve them two-minute clips of the best scenes.
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D scanning made easy: Reg man ponders terrifying Xmas pressie
£750 scanner could help produce the WORLD’S CREEPIEST CHESS SET
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/09/08/easy_3d_scanning/
Something I determined some time ago is that the key to 3D printing is the modelling. The new scanner from Fuel3D makes this significantly less painful.
While there is an increasing number of desktop scanners what makes the Fuel 3D special is that it’s a handheld device at a fraction of the price of existing products.
It’s still far from cheap at £750 but a bulging order-book for the Hampshire company demonstrates that there is pent-up demand.
The unit contains two 3.6 megapixel cameras and three flashes, meaning the combination of shadows and views from different angles allows a 3D model to be built. Taking the pictures from effectively six angles takes around a second.
The device contains an FPGA but all the heavy lift processing is done in a PC. A 20MB file is piped from the scanner down a USB lead, so the scanner needs to be attached to a computer while scanning. In the computer a fine mesh is assembled and images are stitched.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Fraunhofer announces real-time facial detection and analysis software for Google Glass
http://www.vision-systems.com/articles/2014/08/fraunhofer-announces-real-time-facial-detection-and-analysis-software-for-google-glass.html?cmpid=EnlVSDSeptember82014
The Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS has adapted its SHORE real-time face detection and analysis software for the Google Glass. The app detects people’s faces and determines their emotions by analyzing facial expressions.
SHORE is a software platform that is the result of years of research and development. The software runs in real time and is able to detect faces down to a minimum size of 8 x 8 pixels. When the Google Glass’s 5 MPixel camera captures an image, it is paired against a database of 10,000 annotated faces and processed using structure-based features and learning algorithms. With SHORE, Fraunhofer researchers were able to train so-called models that boast extremely high recognition rates. Specifically, it features a 91.5% front facial recognition detection rate, a 94.3% gender detection rate, and a 6.85 annual mean absolute error rate for age estimation.
All calculations are performed in real-time by the CPU integrated in the eyewear and the image data is stored in the device. SHORE for Google Glass is the first emotion recognition software to function in real-time with the wearable device.
Tomi Engdahl says:
North American machine vision market posts best half-year performance to date
http://www.vision-systems.com/articles/2014/09/north-american-machine-vision-market-posts-best-half-year-performance-to-date.html?cmpid=EnlVSDSeptember82014
Sales of machine vision components and systems increased 11% to $1.04 billion in the first half of 2014, according to new statistics released by the AIA.
These numbers are consistent with Q1 statistics released earlier this year, when sales of components and systems in North America grew by 10%. The statistics represent the best first half performance by the North American machine vision market since the AIA began tracking quarterly statistics in 2009.
Total sales include the sales of machine vision components and vision systems. Sales of machine vision components were the major driver of growth in overall sales for the period, having grown at 28% to $155 million through June. Total sales of vision systems grew 9% in the quarter to $886 million. Q2 posted particularly strong numbers, having registered growth of 30% and 12% for machine vision components and systems, respectively.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Infrared cameras provide unique look at F1 racing cars burning rubber
http://www.vision-systems.com/articles/2014/08/infrared-cameras-provide-unique-look-at-f1-racing-cars-burning-rubber.html?cmpid=EnlVSDSeptember82014
At the recent GAMMA Racing Day 2014 in Assen, Holland, FLIR—an innovation partner with Infiniti Red Bull Racing—used a number of its infrared cameras to capture some mesmerizing high-speed footage of the RB8 Formula 1 car burning rubber on the track.
FLIR used a number of different cameras to capture the footage, with the primary model being the FLIR x6580sc infrared camera. The x6580sc features a 640 x 512 digital InSb detector with broadband (1.5 – 5.5 µm) spectral sensitivity. The camera captures images at up to a rate up of 350 Hz in full frame and up to 4500 Hz in a 320 x 8 sub-windowing mode. The camera connects to FLIR’s ResearchIR Max 3 R&D software to enable thermal imaging data acquisition, analysis, and reporting capabilities.
Additional cameras used by FLIR were the T650sc and the B660.
handheld B660 camera features a 640 x 480 uncooled microbolometer focal plane array with a spectral range of 7.5 µm to 13 µm.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Twitter to save your TV
The traditional television predicted the convergence of technology will disappear in the 2010s. The TV has no chance in front of the new technology, the market believed. Network video services and check-when-you want to model the advantages of traditional transmission time model are obvious, but the TV has received a surprising bet the assistance of another mass media.
American micro-blogging service Twitter to show the saving of the traditional broadcast times and program locations based television service. When the trend was in the 2000s walked towards the viewer is the king model, Twitter strengthen the social dimension of television viewing.
Watching TV alone or in bad company is boring. Twitter brings pub atmosphere at home with a smart phone or tablet.
Twitter makes TV viewing a social experience. The greater the number of viewers tweet their opinions, it is more interesting discussion to follow.
Source: http://www.tivi.fi/blogit/uutiskommentti/twitter+pelastaa+television/a1009687
Tomi Engdahl says:
Netflix Tries Charm in France to Smooth Expansion
Online Media Firm Also Moves Into Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium and Luxembourg
http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/netflix-tries-charm-in-france-to-smooth-expansion-1410117076-lMyQjAxMTA0MDAwNjEwNDYyWj
PARIS—When top Netflix Inc. NFLX +0.64% executives arrived in Paris earlier this year to help prepare a European expansion, they were greeted with an open letter from a group of French film producers warning of an “implosion of our cultural model.”
Their message, according to one of the people who attended: “Hey, look, we’re not the devil.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook Adds YouTube-Like Video Features, as It Tops 1 Billion Daily Views (Exclusive)
http://variety.com/2014/digital/news/facebook-expands-video-features-now-tops-1-billion-views-daily-exclusive-1201300064/
Facebook, already a huge distributor of Internet video, continues to roll out new ways to the social service an even more attractive outlet for video-content publishers — and, increasingly, it’s mimicking YouTube.
Since June, users have watched an average of more than 1 billion videos per day on Facebook, with video views climbing 50% from May through July of this year, according to the company. More than 65% of video views are on mobile devices.
Now, Facebook is adding a pair of YouTube-like features. In an update that will start rolling out this week, Facebook users will be able to see how many views a video on Facebook has received, something that’s been part of YouTube’s service for years. On Facebook, view counts will be shown on public videos to help people discover new, popular videos.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook’s Auto-Play Videos Chew Up Expensive Data Plans
http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/14/09/07/2045214/facebooks-auto-play-videos-chew-up-expensive-data-plans
Another good reason to be annoyed by autoplaying videos online: it eats up dataplan allowances, making for some rude surprises.
Tomi Engdahl says:
STRAIGHT to VIDEO: Facebook to add ‘view counts’ to AUTOPLAY newsfeed vids
Will mobile bills rocket?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/09/08/facebook_video_autoplay_to_get_view_counts/
Facebook has apparently watched video views explode since the free content ad network decided to set them to play automatically on its News Feed.
The Mark Zuckerberg-run company said on Sunday that an average of more than 1 billion vids had been watched every day since June this year.
Facebook said yesterday that video views had mushroomed 50 per cent from May through to July. It added that more than 65 per cent of all auto-play clips were watched on mobile devices.
Now the company will add a play count to video views, just as Google’s YouTube does.
Facebook debuted the auto-play vid feature in September 2013 and then proceeded to slowly roll it out to the company’s 1.3 billion-strong userbase.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ripple – A Speaker for the Hearing Impaired
http://www.coroflot.com/jacksonmcconnell/ripple-a-speaker-for-the-hearing-impaired
This project explores how sound can be interpreted through touch and sight, rather than through audition.
The object emits multi-toned vibrations, while the fluctuating needles manifest sound waves.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Rack-mount 24TB RAID 5 disk array for $5,000. Let’s just check the label here. Uh, it’s TiVo
Hoard about five months of 24/7 video in one box
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/09/09/hate_losing_your_dvr_shows_maybe_try_a_5000_tivo/
TiVo has unveiled a massive new digital video recorder that costs $5,000 and can hold nearly three years of SD video, or 24 weeks of HD material.
The TiVo Mega box is supposed to rid users of the pesky problem of ever actually running out of storage space by packing a 24TB RAID 5 system into a broadcast video recording box.
Less a set-top box than an appliance, the TiVo Mega ships in a rack-mount enclosure.
The Mega has six tuners for recording video and is designed to be used with multiple sets in various rooms of the house.
“People hate being forced to delete cool stuff from their DVR before they want to or finding a TV show they had recorded is now gone,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
8 Reality Television Secrets Networks Won’t Tell You About
http://www.weirdworm.com/8-reality-television-secrets-networks-wont-tell-you-about/?f=1
8.No One is Real in “Reality” TV
7.Producers Decide Pretty Much Everything
6.Home Renovation Show Hosts Don’t Do Jack
5.And it takes Weeks or Months to Film an Episode
4.People Looking at Houses have Already Bought Them
3.Survivor Contestants Get Driven Everywhere on the Island
2.“Secret” Ingredients in Cooking Competitions Are Never Secret
1.Actors are Absolutely Everywhere
Tomi Engdahl says:
TV techies proudly display their MIGHTY BENDERS in Berlin
Would madam care for a TV-cum-vanity mirror with makeup preview tech?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/09/09/ifa_2014_4k_5k_uhd_televisions_on_show/
IFA 2014 Tellies, tellies, tellies… big flat ones that don’t bend, big bendy ones that flatten out, OLED, LED backlit and beyond were all on show at consumer electronics trade show IFA.
Samsung’s 105-inch Ultra HD LED TV taking pride of place on its stand.
It’s said to cost around £160k
The 105-incher measures up at 245 x 108 x 29cm without the stand but you’re likely to need it, which enlarges matters slightly to 249 x 146 x 64cm.
Not content with 4K, ultra wide “5K” tellies featuring a 5120 x 2160-pixel resolution are the differentiator with these behemoths from Samsung and LG.
Not to be outdone, also in this area was Toshiba’s ultra wide 5K TV – yup, another 105-incher, with that 5120 x 2160 resolution for 21:9 movie viewing.
Samsung has now notched up 17 curved tellies in its range with sizes starting at 48 inches.
The combination of 4K resolution and OLED image clarity has been oft been considered to deliver sufficient depth be the antidote to 3D gimmickry, but that didn’t stop LG rigging up a dozen panels to wow visitors with eye-popping visuals, all from passive glasses.
Another interesting development was LG’s presentation of 4K streaming from HbbTV which, you guessed it, was being touted as another “world first”.
Besides having a life-sized Android mannequin on stand for photo opportunities in amongst the Ambilight TVs, Philips sidestepped the Samsung v. LG biggest and bendiest battles with its own take on Smart TVs. In recent years we’ve seen tablets grow to the size of tellies, but Philips has turned things on its head by producing TVs with Android capabilities built in.
Philips has reskinned the Android interface for the big screen and to aid navigation from the remote control. However, familiar apps will have the same look and feel.
“Personal Healthcare Display” or bathroom mirror to you and me that was running banal greetings across the panel
Uses for a half-black mirror/display also made an appearance in Panasonic’s home of the future set.
Much like Philips, Toshiba and Panasonic, Sony appeared more focused on TVs people might actually be able to afford and fit into their homes.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The insane TiVo Mega costs $5,000, can record three years of TV, and looks like a rack server
Who WOULDN’T want a rack-mounted TiVo with 24TB of storage?
http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/8/6111591/the-insane-tivo-mega-can-record-three-years-of-tv
Running out of room on your DVR sucks, no doubt. Is it enough of a problem for you to throw $5,000 at it? For most people, the answer is no, but in case it’s a real issue you need to remedy, the new TiVo Mega should alleviate all of your first-world concerns. This huge, server-sized TiVo contains a whopping 24TB of storage in a RAID 5 arrangement with hot-swappable drives. What that really means is you’ll have enough space to store 26,000 hours of SD footage. As TiVo says, that works out to about three years of TV, but the devil is in the details.
Most people these days are watching and recording TV in HD, and that works out to “only” 4,000 hours — about five months. That’s not nearly as sexy a number as three years, but that’s still probably more than enough storage for most human beings.
Most people probably won’t be dropping the massive TiVo Mega down next to their TVs. The rack-mounted server body is just far too big. More likely, you’ll just use other TiVo Mini boxes to broadcast everything it captures to any TVs you have around the house.
Tomi Engdahl says:
China is now 99.8% sure you’re you, thanks to world’s-best facial recognition wares
Travelling to Beijing? Better grow a mo, horns, pack on some pounds and pray
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/09/09/china_builds_998_accurate_facial_recog_system/
Chinese researchers have developed a facial recognition system that can pick faces from a crowd with 99.8 percent accuracy from 91 angles.
The platform can distinguish between identical twins, unravel layers of makeup and still identify an individual if they’ve packed on or shed kilos.
Researcher Zhou Xi of the Chinese Academy of Science told local reporters the system would be built into a fondleslab app next year.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sony clears major hurdle to Internet TV with Viacom channels
http://www.cnet.com/news/sonys-internet-tv-service-to-launch-with-viacom-channels/
Sony’s fully online TV service — the first of its kind — is coming, but it’s no cable killer yet. It seals a big deal for Viacom channels like Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and MTV.
Sony’s coming cloud-based TV service will carry 22 Viacom networks at launch, the companies said in a release Wednesday.
The deal is a milestone in the technology and entertainment industry’s ambitions for a fully online pay-TV service, one that gives you the most popular networks of your cable provider but delivers them over the Internet. It has been a goal for a plethora of companies but has largely remained out of reach. Apple and Google have been said to be in pursuit, and for nearly a year, Intel was the only company to outright broadcast its plans to launch one. Sony went public with its goal at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, saying it plans to pilot a cloud-based TV service this year that combines live television content with on-demand and DVR.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Revolutionary Technique That Quietly Changed Machine Vision Forever
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/530561/the-revolutionary-technique-that-quietly-changed-machine-vision-forever/
Machines are now almost as good as humans at object recognition, and the turning point occurred in 2012, say computer scientists.
An interesting question is how the top algorithms compare with humans when it comes to object recognition. Russakovsky and co have compared humans against machines and their conclusion seems inevitable. “Our results indicate that a trained human annotator is capable of outperforming the best model (GoogLeNet) by approximately 1.7%,” they say.
In other words, it is not going to be long before machines significantly outperform humans in image recognition tasks.
The best machine vision algorithms still struggle with objects that are small or thin such as a small ant on a stem of a flower or a person holding a quill in their hand. They also have trouble with images that have been distorted with filters, an increasingly common phenomenon with modern digital cameras.
By contrast, these kinds of images rarely trouble humans who tend to have trouble with other issues. For example, they are not good at classifying objects into fine-grained categories such as the particular species of dog or bird, whereas machine vision algorithms handle this with ease.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Marvell’s 4K Ultra HD SoC Targets Hybrid Boxes
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1323846&
Wherever in the world you live, your service providers — whether cable, satellite, broadcast, or IPTV — are tirelessly working to keep your loyalty with an endless wish list of new features, functions, and premium content. SoC suppliers, as a result, are under pressure to design solutions with feature sets that are not only up-to-the-minute, but also future-proof, as needed for next-generation set-top boxes.
In that spirit, on Wednesday, Sept. 10, Marvell is unveiling at IBC in Amsterdam an Ultra HD SoC integrated with 12K DMIPS quad-core ARM CPU. Dubbed ARMADA 1500 PRO 4K, it’s the new baby in Marvell’s ARMADA family of video platform chips.
Integrated with a variety of interfaces (Gigabit Ethernet for IPTV, DVB-T/S input) the chip is designed for “hybrid boxes” that can receive terrestrial broadcast, pay TV, and IP content on the same platform.
Compared to Broadcom and STMicroelectronics, who have long dominated the pay TV set-top box market with their SoCs, Marvell is a relative newcomer.
Emerging trends
Among pay-TV, satellite, and IPTV operators looking for next-gen set-tops, several trends are emerging.
First, operators who long clung to proprietary middleware are increasingly pushing for “open standards,” Silva says. Comcast-initiated RDK, for example, supports generic building blocks such as Linux OS, DRM by Adobe, and execution environments such as QT and WebKit.
Second, support for HEVC (H.265) is becoming a must for many operators’ new boxes, he said. They see it as critical for the upcoming 4K UHDTV era. In fact, all RFQs for boxes to be deployed starting 2015 require HEVC, he says.
Although 4K content is still limited, and the timing for 4K rollout differs from one operator to another, service providers “are watching the timeline carefully” in order to migrate from 1080p to 2160p.
Third, the processing power required for the new generation of set-tops is “jumping up to 10 to 15K DMIPs.” Operators worldwide are looking for much more powerful CPU/GPU performance
Fourth, because content received on the main box can be viewed on multiple screens at home, WiFi connectivity on set-tops is becoming a must have for operators.
Why security is important
While meeting all the emerging requirements noted above, Marvell hopes to differentiate itself with the security features on its SoC. The hard reality facing a lot of operators today is that they have no control over where consumers source content.
If operators wish to combine all services (OTT content and premium pay content) on an open platform, they need to ensure that there is a strong security engine that supports a trusted rendering path and TrustZone.
When chip vendors who used to lead the TV SoC market – such as NXP, Trident, Zoran and others – began to disappear from the market, those expected to fare best in tackling the set-top and TV segment are mobile chip vendors, such as MediaTek, Qualcomm, and NVidia. All these competitors are looking to leverage their mobile SoC experience in the TV market.
slop says:
My brother recommended I might like this web site. He was totally right.
This post actually made my day. You cann’t imagine just how
much time I had spent for this info! Thanks!
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft previews Azure’s Live Streaming and Content Protection, makes Media Indexer generally available
http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2014/09/10/microsoft-previews-azures-live-streaming-content-protection-makes-media-indexer-generally-available/
Microsoft today released the public previews of Live Streaming and Content Protection offerings as part of its Azure Media Services suite. At the same time, the company announced Azure Media Services Indexer is now generally available.
Microsoft touts that it is now the only provider that offers live streaming as part of an end-to-end workflow. Live Streaming enables its customers to stream their own HD quality live events, and create live linear and live to video on demand (VOD) experiences.
The company points out this is the same solution that delivered the 2014 Olympic Winter Games and the 2014 FIFA World Cup to tens of millions of viewers globally. In other words, Azure customers are not getting some flaky new test service, but a tried and tested technology that has already met the scalability, uptime, and reliability requirements of massive live events.
It’s also worth noting that Microsoft has struck new partnerships with Telestream’s Wirecast, NewTek’s TriCaster, Cires21 and the widely-used JW Player
Tomi Engdahl says:
Homemade Omnidirectional Speakers in a Unique Enclosure
http://hackaday.com/2014/09/11/homemade-omnidirectional-speakers-in-a-unique-enclosure/
While studying acoustics in college (university for non-Americans), [Nick] had a great idea for an omnidirectional speaker. Some models available for purchase have a single speaker with a channel to route the sound in all directions, but [Nick] decided that a dodecahedron enclosure with 12 speakers would be a much more impressive route.
The equivalent impedance of the array of 8-ohm speakers works out to just around 10 ohms, which is easily driven by most amplifiers.
A Dodecahedron Speaker
http://www.hownottoengineer.com/projects/audio.html
I wired up the 12, 8 Ohm drivers to give me a single 10.67 Ohm speaker. Deciding how to make the frame was not entirely trivial, the speaker weighs about 15kg and it has drivers on every side. I ended up going with galv pipe and fittings from the hardware shop and some heavy duty speaker cable to hang it from, all I needed to do was to clean up the pipe with turps and give it a couple of coats of paint.
I love the sound from this thing, because the speaker is completely ballanced and because it is isolated from any objects it actually doesn’t produce any unwanted vibrations. It is still capable of producing plenty off nice punchy bass, just without the floor shaking or that horrible farting noise from sub woofer ports.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Spotify: Aussie Music Piracy Down 20% The Year After Our Launch
http://torrentfreak.com/spotify-music-piracy-down-australia-140910/
New research from Spotify shows that music piracy via BitTorrent dropped 20% in Australia during the first year the streaming platform was operational. The drop was mostly driven by casual file-sharers, and the number of hard-core pirates remains stable.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Exclusive : Univision to provide content for DirecTV online service by year end
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/11/us-directv-univision-exclusive-idUSKBN0H62I020140911
Hispanic media giant Univision will be a major supplier of content when satellite operator DirecTV (DTV.O) launches an Internet-delivered service aimed at a Hispanic audience
The Hispanic service would be the first of a series of lower-priced niche online channels CEO Mike White has said the satellite provider would launch.
Both the multichannel Dish offering and the more targeted DirecTV service are aimed at potential subscribers for whom traditional satellite service is too expensive.
“This would serve the millennials,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Besides Edison, second-maker community intriguing device from Intel is the Real Sense camera. It is based on the use of applications were also presented to a number of departments. The compact 3D camera can be purchased by anyone for $ 99, the programming interface is distributed for free to all.
Dell IDF in the context of the featured tablet Real Sense already found, in the future the camera module stocked with a variety of portable and eventually your computers to mobile phones.
Source: http://www.tivi.fi/blogit/uutiskommentti/pelle+pelottomat+tassa+teille+edison/a1011085
Tomi Engdahl says:
The second-generation ZigBee ready for remote controls
Zigbee radio technology to try to get the consumer electronics remote controls, but so far the time vaisulla success. Now, technology Remote Control standard is derived from the second version, which allows commercial solutions are expected to become more common.
Radio technology is in many ways a traditional infrapunakaukoa a better solution. The controller does not need to prove exactly the IR receiver and the remote control can also be planted in a variety of structures.
The new ZigBee Remote Control standard has added many new features. For example, the pandering is introduced into a new proxy-cache, which can be utilized for rapid linking devices such as NFC, or via HDMI.
Texas Instruments is among the first announced the new RF4CE platform, which supports the new configuration.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1772:toisen-polven-zigbee-valmis-kaukosaatimiin&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
TV manufacturers not consumers want 4K says Amazon
http://www.trustedreviews.com/news/tv-manufacturers-not-consumers-want-4k-says-amazon
The Amazon Fire TV streaming set top box currently doesn’t support 4K streaming but it’s on the agenda for the future.
Although Amazon is looking at brining 4K support to its services, Larsen doesn’t believe the appetite is really there from consumers just yet.
“Right now, I’d argue it’s still the manufacturers wanting customers to buy 4K rather than the other way round. Just because there’s not a lot of 4K content available yet.”
“All of Amazon Original series moving forward will be in 4K,” Larsen confirmed. “It’s starting. It will be a little while before customers demand it.”
Read more at http://www.trustedreviews.com/news/tv-manufacturers-not-consumers-want-4k-says-amazon#XGdyffGoz8b8riQp.99
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bendable Sound Waves Can Skirt Objects, Trap Particles
http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/computing/hardware/bendable-sound-waves-can-skirt-objects-trap-particles
Scientists have developed a method to bend sound waves as they travel through open air, and can even create an acoustic “bottle” that can trap and hold tiny particles. The method could improve cell sorting, sharpen ultrasound images, even lead to a sonic cloaking device.
The method, developed in the laboratory of Xiang Zhang, professor of mechanical engineering at the University of California in Berkeley, requires adjusting the phase and amplitude of the sound coming from each of dozens of closely spaced speakers. With precise calculations, the differences among the speakers produce an interference pattern that causes a beam of sound to bend in a desired way. That includes bending the waves so the sound travels around an object and then continues on its original path.
Tomi Engdahl says:
SanDisk beats rivals to 512GB SD card — at a whopping $800
http://www.cnet.com/news/sandisk-beats-rivals-to-512gb-sd-card-but-it-isnt-cheap/
The world’s first 512 gigabyte SD card is designed more for video and photo professionals than for the average consumer.
Revealed on Thursday at the International Broadcasting Convention in Amsterdam, the new SanDisk Extreme PRO SDXC UHS-I memory card offers a hefty 512 gigabytes of storage space. This far surpasses the capacity of the current crop of cards on the market, which generally range from 8GB to 128GB, though there are some 256GB SD cards available. The new SanDisk card is also fast, offering write speeds of up to 90 megabytes per second.
As SanDisk phrases it: “The new offering is designed to meet the demands of industry professionals who require the most advanced gear available for shooting 4K Ultra High Definition (3,840×2,160p) video, Full HD video (1,920×1,080) and high-speed burst mode photography.”
As such, the card can deliver a high enough recording speed, designated as UHS Speed Class 3, to ensure high resolution, real-world color reproduction, and stutter-free 4K ultra HD video.
Tomi Engdahl says:
HTC Said to Develop Waterproof Camera to Challenge GoPro
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-12/htc-said-to-develop-waterproof-camera-to-challenge-gopro.html
HTC (2498) Corp. is developing its first camera, a waterproof model for extreme sports, as it diversifies beyond smartphones amid three years of declining sales, according to a person familiar with the plans.
Featuring an ultra wide-angle lens, the camera will have a 16 megapixel sensor and connect directly to devices running Google Inc.’s Android and Apple Inc.’s iOS systems, said the person who asked not to be identified because the details aren’t public.
HTC, which has forecast its 12th straight quarter of falling sales, is searching for new sources of revenue after losing smartphone share to rivals including Xiaomi Corp. and Lenovo Group Ltd. Adding cameras would see the Taoyuan, Taiwan-based company challenge GoPro Inc. (GPRO), which raised $427 million in a June initial public offering, in the market for smaller, rugged cameras used in action sports.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The sound of silence: One excited atom is so quiet that the human ear cannot detect it
Listen! Is this a Quantum Communications Leap?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/09/13/scientists_capture_sound_of_one_atom_quantum_computing/
Boffins believe they have successfully demonstrated the sound a single atom makes when excited – even though it is completely inaudible to the human ear.
According to a paper published in Science magazine on Thursday, researchers at the University of Columbia and Sweden’s Chalmers University of Technology “captured” the very soft sound.
The discovery could eventually unlock the basic science for new quantum computing devices, reported Motherboard, which spoke to the paper’s co-author Göran Johansson.
“Basically, when you excite the atom, it creates a sound, one phonon at a time, according to theory. It’s the weakest possible sound possible at the frequency [that it vibrates],” Johansson said.
The artificial atom was created using a semiconducting circuit, such as those found in small quantum computers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Challenges and Threats of Automated Lip Reading
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/14/09/13/1258253/the-challenges-and-threats-of-automated-lip-reading
Speech recognition has gotten pretty good over the past several years. it’s reliable enough to be ubiquitous in our mobile devices. But now we have an interesting, related dilemma: should we develop algorithms that can lip read? It’s a more challenging problem, to be sure.
Beyond the computational aspect, we also need to decide, as a society, if this is a technology that should exist. The privacy implications extend beyond that of simple voice recognition.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IDF 2014: Affordable 4K Panels and AIOs
by Ganesh T S & Mahendra Lodha on September 11, 2014 10:25 AM EST
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8521/idf-2014-affordable-4k-panels-and-aios
At Computex earlier this year, Intel had talked about 4K panels becoming more affordable (monitors around $400). The 4K All-in-Ones using those panels were on display at IDF. We grabbed a few photographs and they are linked in the gallery