Here are some audio and video trends picks for the year 2017:
It seems that 3D craze is over. So long, 3DTV – we won’t miss you – BBC News reports that at this year’s CES trade show, there was barely a whimper of 3D TV, compared to just two years ago when it was being heralded as the next big thing. In the cinema, 3D was milked for all it was worth, and even James Cameron, who directed Avatar, is fed up with 3D. There are currently no major manufacturers making 3DTVs as Samsung, LG and Sony have now stopped making 3D-enabled televisions. According to CNet’s report, TV makers are instead focusing on newer technologies such as HDR.
360 degree virtual reality video is hot how. Movie studios are pouring resources into virtual reality story-telling. 360-Degree Video Playback Coming to VLC, VR Headset Support Planned for 2017 article tells that VLC media player previews 360° video and photo support for its desktop apps, says the feature will come to mobile soon; dedicated VLC apps for VR headsets due in 2017.
4K and 8K video resolutions are hot. Test broadcasting of 8K started in August 2016 in Japan and full service is scheduled for 2018. According to Socionext Introduces 8K HEVC Real-Time Encoder Solution press release the virtual reality technology, which is seeing rapid growth in the global market, requires an 8K resolution as the current 4K resolution cannot support a full 360-degree wraparound view with adequate resolution.
Fake News Is About to Get Even Scarier than You Ever Dreamed article tells that advancements in audio and video technology are becoming so sophisticated that they will be able to replicate real news—real TV broadcasts, for instance, or radio interviews—in unprecedented, and truly indecipherable, ways. Adobe showed off a new product that has been nicknamed “Photoshop for audio” that allows type words that are expressed in that exact voice of someone you have recording on. Technologists can also record video of someone talking and then change their facial expressions in real time. Digital avatars can be almost indecipherable from real people – on the latest Star Wars movie it is hard to tell which actors are real and which are computer-generated.
Antique audio formats seem to be making come-back. By now, it isn’t news that vinyl albums continue to sell. It is interesting that UK vinyl sales reach 25-year high to point that Vinyl Records Outsold Digital Downloads In the UK at least for one week.
I would not have quessed that Cassettes Are Back, and Booming. But a new report says that sales of music on cassette are up 140 percent. The antiquated format is being embraced by everyone from indie musicians to Eminem and Justin Bieber. For some strange reason it turns out there’s a place for archaic physical media of questionable audio fidelity—even in the Spotify era.
Enhance! RAISR Sharp Images with Machine Learning. Google RAISR Intelligently Makes Low-Res Images High Quality article tells that with Google’s RAISR machine learning-driven image enhancement technique, images can be up to 75% smaller without losing their detail.
Improving Multiscreen Services article tells that operators have discovered challenges as they try to meet subscribers’ requirements for any content on any device. Operators must choose from a variety of options for preparing and delivering video on multiple screens. And unlike the purpose-built video networks of the past, in multiscreen OTT distribution there are no well-defined quality standards such as IPTV’s SCTE-168.
2017: Digital Advertising to overtake TV Advertising in US this year article tells that according to PricewaterhouseCoopers, “Ad Spend” on digital advertising will surpass TV ads for the first time in 2017.For all these years, television gave a really tough fight to internet with respect to Ad spend, but online advertising to decisively take over the market in 2017. For details check How TV ad spending stacks up against digital ad spending in 4 charts.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Automotive’s Unsung Technology
https://semiengineering.com/automotives-unsung-technology/
Audio technology is making big strides alongside autonomous vehicles and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication.
Sound systems are becoming a critical design element in vehicles, and not just for music. Thanks to evolving technology, automotive audio has reached a point where it is taking on a much broader role for applications both within and outside the vehicle.
“Traditionally, audio in the car was one-sided, where humans would listen to information or to music or to entertainment,” said Anil Khanna, senior manager for the automotive audio business line in the automotive business unit at Mentor, a Siemens business. “You have your radio on and you are listening to music while you get voice commands through GPS prompts. Now, audio is becoming bi-directional. You can see that very clearly on the consumer side with the emergence of technologies like Amazon Echo, where a person is commanding a device to do something. That’s happening in the automotive audio space, as well.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
What Happened To Aftermarket Car Audio?
https://semiengineering.com/happened-aftermarket-car-audio/
With automotive OEMs pulling ‘premium audio’ in house, the aftermarket car stereo market has dwindled. Or has it?
With the myriad changes afoot in automotive today, it’s interesting to note that there is significant technology development in the area of audio. Who knew? Considering that we are interacting more with our vehicles today in the form of hands-free technologies, it’s actually not surprising in the least.
With all of the features being added to the automobile that add complexity, there is a belief that the aftermarket audio space — think the big, booming subwoofers of the past — has flattened out.
And now as more OEMs move audio from analog to digital, the aftermarket providers may take a hit.
It is true that automotive OEMs now recognize the importance of designing subsystems in from the system level, and are working to move towards this.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The MP3 isn’t “dying.” The MP3 is eternal.
In fact, the landmark audio file type just became easier to use than ever.
https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/5/29/15653564/the-mp3-not-dead-license-expires-free
Reports of the MP3′s death have been greatly exaggerated. Earlier this month, one of the patent holders for the audio file type, the German technology institute Fraunhofer, announced that in April it had allowed its patents to expire.
Fraunhofer releasing its patents doesn’t mean MP3s will cease to exist, though — it simply means the ubiquitous file type has been released into the wild, making it easier for developers who had previously been unable to support the file type to now go forth and use the file extension any way they want.
so much music consumption happening through streaming media and phone apps, MP3 players themselves seem like analog technology
The expiration of Fraunhofer’s patents means that as of April, the MP3 is no longer tethered to the host of encoding licenses that hindered its development since the first patent was filed in 1987.
So why has there been so much haste to declare the format dead?
For starters, the Fraunhofer Institute owns patents on another file format that is generally considered to be better — the AAC file, or Advanced Audio Codec.
Bernhard Grill, director of Fraunhofer’s audio encoding initiatives, told NPR that the AAC file should be considered “the de facto standard for music download and videos on mobile phones.”
Like other classic file formats before them, MP3s are here to stay
in terms of sound quality and file size, the difference between a standard-bitrate AAC and a standard-bitrate MP3 is pretty negligible for the average listener
statistically, MP3 is the file extension of choice for podcasters
“within the most popular 500 podcasts, 99 percent are MP3.”
MP3 is very old, but it’s the same age as JPEG, which has also long since been surpassed in quality by newer formats. JPEG is still ubiquitous …
MP3 is almost certainly here to stay.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Camera with graphene and quantum points
The Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO) develops the first CMOS camera based on graphene and quantum points, capable of visualizing both visible and infrared light simultaneously. At the same time, ICFO researchers have demonstrated for the first time the monolithic integration of the integrated CMOS circuitry with the graphene.
The result is a high resolution image sensor with hundreds of thousands of light detectors based on graphene and quantum dots (QD). New types of light detectors work like a digital camera that is very sensitive to ultraviolet, visible, and infrared at the same time (300-2000 nm). This has never before been felt in current imaging sensors.
- The work shows that phototransistors of this class may be the way to reach a very delicate, but inexpensive, infrared image sensor that works at room temperature and can be geared to the vast infrared market that currently suits affordable technology.
The research is part of the European Graphene Flagship project.
Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php/13-news/6419-kamera-grafeenista-ja-kvanttipisteista
Tomi Engdahl says:
Graphene and Quantum Dots put in motion a CMOS-integrated camera that can see the invisible
https://www.icfo.eu/newsroom/news/3581-graphene-and-quantum-dots-put-in-motion-a-cmos-integrated-camera-that-can-see-the-invisible
ICFO develops the first graphene-quantum dot based CMOS integrated camera, capable of imaging visible and infrared light at the same time. Over the past 40 years, microelectronics has advanced by leaps and bounds thanks to silicon and CMOS (Complementary metal-oxide semiconductors) technology, making possible computing, smartphones, compact and low-cost digital cameras, as well as most of the electronic gadgets we rely on today. However, the diversification of this platform into applications other than microcircuits and visible light cameras has been impeded by the difficulty to combine semiconductors other than silicon with CMOS.
This obstacle has now been overcome. ICFO researchers have shown for the first time the monolithic integration of a CMOS integrated circuit with graphene, resulting in a high-resolution image sensor consisting of hundreds of thousands of photodetectors based on graphene and quantum dots (QD). They operated it as a digital camera that is highly sensitive to UV, visible and infrared light at the same time. This has never been achieved before with existing imaging sensors. In general, this demonstration of monolithic integration of graphene with CMOS enables a wide range of optoelectronic applications, such as low-power optical data communications and compact and ultra sensitive sensing systems.
“The development of this monolithic CMOS-based image sensor represents a milestone for low-cost, high-resolution broadband and hyperspectral imaging systems”
This research has been partially supported by the European Graphene Flagship, the European Research Council, the Government of Catalonia, Fundació Cellex and the Severo Ochoa Excellence program of the Government of Spain
Broadband image sensor array based on graphene–CMOS integration
http://www.nature.com/nphoton/journal/v11/n6/full/nphoton.2017.75.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Gimbal SDI Camera Mod
http://hackaday.com/2017/06/04/gimbal-sdi-camera-mod/
Sometimes when you need something, there is a cheap and easily obtainable product that almost fits the bill. Keyword: almost. [Micah Elizabeth Scott], also known as [scanlime], is creating a hovering camera to follow her cat around, and her Feiyu Mini3D 3-axis brushless gimbal almost did everything she’d need. After a few modifications, [Micah] now has a small and inexpensive 3-axis gimbal with a Crazyfire HZ-100P SDI camera and LIDAR-Lite distance sensor.
Gimbal SDI Camera Mod – scanlime:019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMwg1A4yFd4
Tomi Engdahl says:
One of the fastest camera-to-computer interfaces available today is CoaXPress (CXP), an asymmetric point-to-point serial communication standard that has a high speed downlink of up to 6.25Gbps per channel and a lower speed, 20Mbps uplink for communication and control. Today, a number of high-speed camera companies and frame grabber vendors offer cameras and frame grabbers with up to four channels that are capable of supporting data rates as high as 25Gbps.
Source: http://www.vision-systems.com/articles/print/volume-21/issue-7/departments/technology-trends/high-speed-imaging-cxp-image-splitter-replicates-data-across-pcs.html?cmpid=enl_vsd_vsdnewsletter_2017-06-05
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple announces the HomePod
https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/05/apple-announces-the-homepod/?utm_source=tcfbpage&sr_share=facebook
Apple’s long-rumored Amazon Echo competitor is real. It’s called the HomePod (yes, I know). “We want to reinvent home music,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said at the company’s WWDC keynote. The Apple Speaker is focused on music first, not Siri.
Apple’s SVP of Global Marketing Phil Schiller said Sonos aren’t smart speakers and Amazon Echos aren’t good speakers.
So Apple wants to combine the best of both worlds.
HomePod is shipping later this year
The device is a pill-shaped circular speaker. It has a seven beam-forming tweeter array. It has a custom-made woofer and an Apple A8 chip.
Of course, the speaker works well with Apple Music. You can talk to the speaker to play anything in your Apple Music library and more. You can say “play more songs like that,” or “I like this song.”
You also can ask other Siri queries
Apple also announced AirPlay 2 earlier today, which lets you pair multiple speakers and play music in multiple rooms.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple:
Apple unveils $349 HomePod, a Siri-enabled speaker with spatial awareness, 7 tweeter array, woofer that ties in with Music, Home apps; coming Dec. in US, AU, UK — Sneak Peek of Apple-Designed Home Music Speaker with Amazing Sound Quality and Intelligence — San Jose, California …
HomePod reinvents music in the home
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2017/06/homepod-reinvents-music-in-the-home/
Sneak Peek of Apple-Designed Home Music Speaker with Amazing Sound Quality and Intelligence
Tomi Engdahl says:
Lucinda Southern / Digiday:
CNN’s short-form video subsidiary, Great Big Story, makes its first international expansion, to the Nordic countries — Great Big Story planted its flag firmly in Swedish soil last week. The social video network and independent CNN subsidiary has taken the wrapper off a Swedish
Inside CNN’s Great Big Story Nordics expansion
https://digiday.com/media/cnns-great-big-story-nordics/
The Nordics were an obvious choice for Great Big Story’s first physical presence outside the U.S. Great Big Story already has an audience of 3 million across Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, according to the company. This audience has tuned into Great Big Story’s short-form videos, which focus on stories around cultural history, perseverance or achievement and inspiration. The company said it was seeing completion rates upward of 70 percent across Nordic audiences, which is comparable to the levels of engagement it sees in its U.S. audience.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sahil Patel / Digiday:
Sources: publishers testing Facebook’s mid-roll video ads are making money, when videos scale; one video with 24M views brought in $11K, after FB’s 45% cut — Three months since Facebook started running ads in publishers’ videos, participants are finding there’s money to be made — as long as they have a ton of scale.
‘It’s going to be a slow burn’: Publishers are starting to see money from Facebook’s mid-roll ads
https://digiday.com/media/scale-equals-revenue-early-on-in-facebooks-mid-rolls-test/
Four video publishers that are part of Facebook’s beta test for mid-roll ads said the product is bringing in some revenue, with three of them saying it’s already matched or surpassed the revenue they made from Facebook’s Suggested Videos product. (Suggested Videos was one of Facebook’s first attempts to help video owners make money on the platform by inserting ads between different recommended videos.) In other words: Nothing to write home about yet.
“It’s on par with suggested videos, but not excessively over,” said one publishing source. “I wouldn’t say Facebook has fully figured this out but I also wouldn’t say this is a bust; it’s working but it’s going to be a slow burn.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dionne Searcey / New York Times:
Nigeria considers new ways to enforce copyright as mobile phone use and music streaming grow
Nigeria’s Afrobeats Music Scene Is Booming, but Profits Go to Pirates
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/03/world/africa/nigeria-lagos-afrobeats-music-piracy-seyi-shay.html
At a sewer-side market, dozens of customers lined up with their smartphones and flash drives, eagerly handing over cash to pirates with laptops to load up on Ms. Shay’s songs. She earned nothing from the sales.
“Out here, nobody cares about the rules,” Ms. Shay said. “Everything is kind of cowboy.”
Artists across the world battle illegal sales of their work. But Nigeria’s piracy problem is so ingrained that music thieves worry about rip-offs of their rip-offs, slapping warning labels on pirated CDs to insist that “lending is not allowed.”
In Lagos, Africa’s biggest city, legitimate music stores are rare, streaming services haven’t caught on and fans are flocking to markets like Computer Village, with its rows of yellow umbrellas shading young men selling illegal downloads. Throughout the city, thousands of pirated CDs are churned out each day, and some artists even pay to appear on them, hoping the exposure will somehow be worth it.
But now, members of the country’s music industry are trying to put a stop to all the pilfering, hoping they can finally turn the growing popularity of Nigerian music to their advantage.
Nigerian music — Afrobeats in particular — is having a moment.
While many countries have courts or jurists focused on intellectual property cases, artists in Nigeria have only in recent years begun to pursue copyright protection. They complain that laws to protect them are so seldom invoked that some judges don’t even know they exist.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hacking On TV: What You Need To Know
http://hackaday.com/2017/06/05/hacking-on-tv-what-you-need-to-know/
It seems to be a perennial feature of our wider community of hackers and makers, that television production companies come up with new ideas for shows featuring us and our skills. Whether it is a reality maker show, a knockout competition, a scavenger hunt, or any other format, it seems that there is always a researcher from one TV company or another touting around the scene for participants in some new show.
These shows are entertaining and engaging to watch, and we’ve all probably wondered how we might do were we to have a go ourselves.
It looks as if it might be a win-win situation to be a TV contestant on a series filmed in exotic foreign climes, but it’s worth taking a look at the experience from another angle. What you see on the screen is the show as its producer wants you to see it, fast-paced and entertaining. What you see as a competitor can be entirely different, and before you fill in that form you need to know about both sides.
The experience left me with an interest in how TV producers craft the public’s impression of an event, and also with a profound distrust of much of what I see on my screen.
All TV competitions are a fix
It has been a universal experience of the competitors I have encountered, that all the competitions in the shows they appeared on had something of the fix about them.
Events on-screen don’t happen quite the way they did for real
Another universal experience when discussing shows has been the on-screen portrayal of an event being entirely different from what really happened. Usually this involves technical assistance being required to make something happen, but which would fall outside the on-screen “rules” of the show.
Prepare to be the bad guy
TV producers like heroes and villains. Personal conflict makes good TV. So they will do anything to create such a narrative, even if that means completely fabricating it.
Prepare to be set up to be laughed at
If the viewer can be persuaded to see themselves as better in some way than someone on their screens, from the producer’s point of view it makes good TV.
Your property is their property
TV producers like free stuff. Hell, everyone likes free stuff! To a TV producer, everything that comes in front of his camera is a prop, and props can be abused and destroyed at will, because that makes good TV.
Don’t trust them when it comes to money
the type of shows we are often asked to participate in will usually require a significant commitment.
Make sure that anything that puts you significantly out-of-pocket is adequately compensated in a black-and-white contract, and not on some vague promise of future payment.
There is one final warning. TV nowadays is a thousand-channel medium, so at any given time in the next ten years or so that episode with you in it is going to be on repeat somewhere in the high-numbered satellite or cable channels. Make sure it’s not going to have something you’re embarrassed about in it, because everyone you know is going to be constantly seeing it.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cable TV ‘Failing’ As a Business, Cable Industry Lobbyist Says
https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/17/06/05/2229229/cable-tv-failing-as-a-business-cable-industry-lobbyist-says
According to a cable lobbyist group, cable TV is “failing” as a business due to rising programming costs and consumers switching from traditional TV subscriptions to online video streaming. “As a business, it is failing,” said Matthew Polka, CEO of the American Cable Association (ACA). “It is very, very difficult for a cable operator in many cases to even break even on the cable side of the business, which is why broadband is so important, giving consumers more of a choice that we can’t give them on cable [TV].” Ars Technica reports:
Cable TV “failing” as a business, cable industry lobbyist says
Broadband is the future as TV faces rising costs and online video competition.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/06/cable-tv-failing-as-a-business-cable-industry-lobbyist-says/
The cable TV business is in trouble—in fact, it is “failing” as a business due to rising programming costs and consumers switching from traditional TV subscriptions to online video streaming, according to a cable lobbyist group.
“As a business, it is failing,” said Matthew Polka, CEO of the American Cable Association (ACA). “It is very, very difficult for a cable operator in many cases to even break even on the cable side of the business, which is why broadband is so important, giving consumers more of a choice that we can’t give them on cable [TV].”
Polka made his comments in an episode of C-SPAN Communicators that is airing this week, though it was recorded in April.
“The cable business isn’t what it used to be because of the high costs,” Polka said, pointing to the amount cable TV companies pay programmers for sports, broadcast programming via retransmission consent fees, and other programming.
When asked about cord cutting, Polka said, “it’s the video issue of our time as consumers learn they have choice” from services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime.
“It gives consumers more choice, something that they’ve wanted for a long time, more control from the bundle of cable linear programming,” Polka said.
That’s one reason cable companies in the ACA see broadband as “their future,” Polka said.
A cable company executive who appeared alongside Polka on the C-SPAN show echoed those comments.
Video is “certainly our worst product,” said Tom Larsen, senior VP of government and public relations for cable company Mediacom. “It makes the least amount of money.”
Basic-cable TV prices have been rising faster than inflation for 20 years, according to Federal Communications Commission data. The fact that cable companies rarely compete against each other directly in cities and towns helps them keep prices high, and customers have begun filing lawsuits over “broadcast TV” and “regional sports” fees that push cable prices above the advertised rates.
Even the biggest cable companies complain about programming costs. But Polka said it’s “very fair” to say that, because of economies of scale, Comcast and Charter can deliver programming more cheaply than the small cable companies in the ACA.
“What happens in the video marketplace is the big [cable companies] get the best prices and the programmers look to the littlest guys to make up the difference, so our price will disproportionately get higher,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dual Cameras for Image Fusion
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1331849&
How best could we utilize the information coming from dual cameras to enhance the overall image quality?
Dual camera smartphones are here, faster and in larger volumes than analysts expected.
Smartphone manufacturers integrate a second camera for several reasons, primarily to improve image quality and to be able to extract depth information for applications such as DSLR-like shallow depth-of-field effect (Bokeh).
Adding a second camera brings forth new challenges. Among these challenges are how to calibrate such dual cameras, one with respect to the other, how to switch between cameras in a way that enhances the user experience and how to optimize the image quality of this new and innovative mobile imaging hardware using advanced algorithms and software tools.
In this article, we wish to focus on the latter: How do we best utilize the information coming from two cameras to enhance the overall image quality? One such approach is called Image Fusion.
Introducing Image Fusion
Image Fusion is the process of combining two or more input images into a single image. The main reason for combining the images is to get a more informative output image.
In mobile, dual camera Image Fusion comes into play in several ways: The first is related to a dual camera with one color sensor and another monochromatic sensor (with the Bayer filter removed). The monochromatic sensor captures 2.5 times more light, thus reaches better resolution and SNR. By fusing the images coming from both cameras, the output image has better SNR and resolution, especially in low light conditions.
The second is with a zoom dual camera – a wide field-of-view camera coupled with a telephoto narrow field-of-view camera. In this case, Image Fusion will also improve the SNR and resolution from no zoom up to the point the telephoto camera field-of-view is the dominant one.
Performing image fusion presents several algorithmic challenges, among which are occlusions, lens imperfections and transitions between overlapped and non-overlapped areas.
Image Fusion Challenges: Occlusions
How to best handle areas each camera sees differently?
In order to fuse two images the algorithm needs to use matching pixels between the left and right images. This can be done for areas seen by both cameras. In case an area is occluded from one camera a matching point cannot be detected for that area. This can result in an artifact in the output image and an unnatural viewing experience around the occluded area if not handled correctly by the fusion algorithm.
Image Fusion Challenges: Lens Imperfections
How does the optics of the lens affect image fusion? In a variety of ways.
We will address two ways that can be overcome by robust image fusion algorithms. First is the optical distortion of the lens that makes registration more difficult. The second is differences in depth of field – areas that can be in focus in one camera and out of focus in the other camera. As in the case of distortion, registration becomes much trickier because of the difficulty to find feature points and matching pixels.
Image Fusion Challenges: Overlap Transition
Last among the example challenges is the transition between overlapped area to non-overlapped area.
Image Fusion in Real Life
Major OEMs are already utilizing image fusion techniques, including Apple, OPPO, Huawei and others.
Apple, who puts a lot of emphasis into image quality, already utilizes image fusion in the iPhone 7+, combining their wide and tele images into a single output image.
OPPO raised the bar in MWC 2017, showcasing 5x zoom technology using folded tele cameras, supporting Image Fusion.
Our mobile devices accompany us everywhere we go and the significance of the camera is clear.
Dual cameras allow us to bridge the gap between DSLR cameras and smartphone cameras in terms of low-light performance, optical zoom and depth-of-field.
With the help of Image Fusion, image quality and user experience can be significantly enhanced in either wide + tele or color + monochrome dual camera setups. Done right, Image Fusion is becoming a key contributor that helps change the way we take pictures with our mobile devices.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Video, Where Is Your Metadata?
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1331853&
Metadata can change video storytelling, through automated shot selection, image enhancement and presentation in a bigger way than EXIF did for digital photos.
Every photo you take, on any camera, is likely filled with metadata. This data often contains location, camera model, lens type and general information about how the image was taken. It is this data that makes your photo library easier to browse, automatically groups events, and auto-corrects exposures. All of this is possible because the metadata for photos is standardized and free.
Video, where is your metadata? While photo metadata is widespread using the EXIF standard, there is no equivalent for video. Yet video has the same needs, if not greater, than still images.
Metadata should answer: how was this file made? In what environment? At what location? If, when and how was the camera moving? As video needs to support temporally changing metadata, it can’t use EXIF.
The popular consumer video file format MP4 had no clear provision to store telemetry or any time varying metadata.
Yet we must store telemetry within the video, not in a separate file, so consumers can’t misplace side-car files, or be expected to upload them separately. Metadata can’t be lost because the camera didn’t correctly close a file (through sudden power loss, camera drop, etc.), so the metadata must be regularly interleaved with video and audio, not simply added to the end upon a file close.
The first release of this new MP4 embedded metadata came with the HERO5. The HERO5 has extensive metadata for photos and video, adding sensors for accelerometer, gyroscope and high frequency GPS location.
The HERO5 stores much more than location and camera motion in its video files; it stores its own temperature, image exposure, shutter speed, the very precise GPS time, detailed flight telemetry from the Karma drone, and data from GoPro-enabled third-party Bluetooth devices. The amount and range of metadata will continue to expand over GoPro’s future.
General Purpose Metadata Framework (GPMF) is a new track within an MP4 file, working just like video and audio which have their own tracks. The timing relationship between metadata collection and the video and audio captured is stored using existing MP4 mechanisms, so if a developer can handle video and audio within an MP4, metadata is very similar.
GoPro’s release of GPMF enables other camera systems, drones and smartphones, to easily collect, process and archive sensor data, as an enhancement to consumer-friendly video capture. Metadata can change video storytelling, through automated shot selection, image enhancement and presentation in a bigger way than EXIF did for digital photos.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Adobe develops AI-driven approach that could end the age of the ‘green screen’ in movies and VR
https://thestack.com/world/2017/03/15/adobe-develops-ai-driven-approach-that-could-end-the-age-of-the-green-screen-in-movies-and-vr/
Researchers at Adobe have collaborated with the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology to develop a new system, based on deep convolutional neural networks, which can extract foreground content from its background intelligently and accurately – and with no need for the blue/green-screen techniques which have dominated cinema for nearly a century.
The paper Deep Image Matting outlines the process of evaluating the object which needs to be ‘clipped’ out of its background, which involved the generation of a novel dataset containing 49300 training images intended to accustom algorithms with the challenges of distinguishing backgrounds and eliminating them.
Traditional methods of extracting actors or elements from backgrounds, so that they can be inserted into other footage, have always centred around recording the elements (actors, miniatures, etc.) to be extracted in front of a flat field of colour, and relying on photochemical or (later) digital procedures to remove the background.
In earlier times, film production workflows generally used blue as a key colour to remove, though Walt Disney studios (which famously took on visual effects work for Alfred Hitchcock’s chiller The Birds) used a sodium-based process which keyed on yellow
In the last 15-20 years, green has been adopted as a drop-out colour, since it was proved to be present in less foreground material than blue
Adobe has been at the forefront of this field for at least 27 years. Acclaimed visual effects producer John Knoll, then working as an employee at Lucasfilm’s Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) effects facility, worked with his brother Thomas in the late 1980s to develop the early versions of Photoshop, which pioneered the digital alpha matte and ultimately joined CGI to transform the visual effects landscape. Later these principles were incorporated into the video-effects suite After Effects, and an industry-wide raft of programs which put the Chroma Key compromises of the 1970s to shame.
Deep Image Matting
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1703.03872.pdf
Tomi Engdahl says:
External Load Diagnostics for Automotive Class-D Amplifiers
http://www.electronicdesign.com/automotive/external-load-diagnostics-automotive-class-d-amplifiers?code=UM_NN6TI72&utm_rid=CPG05000002750211&utm_campaign=11476&utm_medium=email&elq2=2e2f4059bdad418997bb8001520aab6c
Sponsored by: Texas Instruments. EMI often plagues the electronic systems pervading automobiles, particularly AM radio, but a novel class-D amplifier IC can help erase those issues.
Common Faults
Most automotive audio systems use class-D switching amplifiers to operate the multiple speakers. Damage can easily result from improper interconnections or from valid faults in the equipment. The most common faults involve the misconnection of the class-D amplifier outputs and their speakers during manufacturing, testing, or servicing. These faults include:
Short circuit to the positive supply line
Short circuit to ground
Short across the load
Open circuit load (disconnected speaker)
How are these faults detected?
The fault is identified by observing the outputs of amplifiers
As vehicles incorporate more and more electronic devices, they will likely become saddled with an even bigger cloud of electromagnetic interference (EMI). Class-D amplifiers can be a major contributor to vehicle EMI due to their switching nature. Yet with proper design, it’s possible to mitigate such EMI.
One electronic product that suffers most from EMI is the AM radio. Yes, AM radio. It’s still widely used because of its local news, weather, and traffic information. However, AM is hypersensitive to noise. One major source of that noise is harmonics generated by class-D amplifiers switching at frequencies in the 100- to 500-kHz range. The AM band runs from 535 to 1705 kHz, meaning that second, third, and fourth harmonics fall right into that frequency range, increasing noise level.
One solution that seems to have been ignored, up until now, is to set the class-D switching frequency above the AM band. It virtually eliminates the problem. On that front, Texas Instruments has introduced a new class-D amplifier IC that operates at 2.1 MHz.
The TAS6424-Q1 is claimed the industry’s first 2.1-MHz class-D amplifier designed specifically for automotive infotainment applications.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Taylor Swift embraces streaming, brings full catalog to Spotify and more
https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/08/taylor-swift-spotify/
The move by one of streaming’s biggest holdouts could signal a sea change in how artists view the technology that’s been criticized for underpaying content creators. As Spotify recently hit 50 million paid subscribers and Apple Music now has 27 million, the payouts are growing and starting to make up for the massive decline in physical record sales.
But now, artists are wising up that streaming is essentially a promotional vehicle for the real ways they make money — concert tickets and merchandise. Listening on Spotify can turn someone who heard one of TayTay’s singles on a radio into a hardcore fan that shells out lots of cash for her shows and t-shirts. And at the current rate of growth, streaming service payouts will approach what musicians made of CD sales in the peak of that bygone era.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Rani Molla / Recode:
Cisco: online video is expected to triple bandwidth consumption in the next five years — What the internet will look like in 2021. — Video will make up 82 percent of all internet traffic in 2021, according to forecasts released today by Cisco, which sells networking equipment.
An explosion of online video could triple bandwidth consumption again in the next five years
What the internet will look like in 2021.
https://www.recode.net/2017/6/8/15757594/future-internet-traffic-watch-live-video-facebook-google-netflix
Video will make up 82 percent of all internet traffic in 2021, according to forecasts released today by Cisco, which sells networking equipment. Video accounted for 73 percent of traffic in 2016.
Not only are people watching more online video, they’re also watching better quality video, sapping more bandwidth. And cord cutters generate twice as much internet traffic as those who still pay for regular TV, according to Cisco.
The demand is coming from all types of internet video, including on-demand content like Netflix, web cam viewing and traditional TV options available over the internet (IP VOD).
Live video is set to be the fastest growing segment of internet video thanks to new video offerings like Facebook Live, Twitter’s broadcast of live sports and live over-the-top bundles from companies like AT&T, YouTube and Hulu.
It’s expected to grow to nearly 25 exabytes (25 billion gigabytes), about 13 percent of internet video traffic, by 2021, up from 1.6 exabytes, or 3 percent of video traffic last year.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bringing pro-audio high-fidelity features to mobile devices
http://www.edn.com/design/analog/4458457/Bringing-pro-audio-high-fidelity-features-to-mobile-devices
The future is sounding good for smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices, as a number of technology breakthroughs and new streaming music services are converging to help bring pro audio high fidelity (hi-fi) features to mobile devices. Just as high-definition TV transformed how people viewed television, hi-fi audio is lining up to be the next big thing for portables, especially smartphones.
In fact, there are a number of changes on the way that will improve sound quality for mobile devices. Hi-fi audio features can reduce the effects of noise, distortion or other digital irregularities – such as pre-ringing in your ears – that listeners may not realize are there, but impact their listening experience nonetheless. So let’s have a look at the drivers and enhancements that will, in essence, bring that “vinyl feeling” to your mobile sound quality, without draining your battery.
The first indicators that a move toward hi-fi audio is in the works, is the increase in streaming music subscriptions. According to a MIDiA Research Global Streaming Music Subscribers, December 2016 report, the number of streaming music subscribers more than doubled from 2014 to 2016, from 41 million subscribers to 100 million respectively, and is forecasted to reach 277 million by 2020. In addition, the BuzzAngle 2016 U.S. Music Industry Report noted there were more streams on any given day in the U.S. during 2016 (daily average of 1.2 billion) than there were song downloads for the entire year (734 million.)
The MIDiA data showed that streaming services such as Spotify (43 million subscribers), Tidal (approximately 1 million), Deezer (6.9 million), and Apple Music (20.9 million) are leading the way.
Bringing pro audio sound to mobile devices
First, what defines “high-fidelity” audio? Simply put, it is low noise and distortion audio that is as close to the original source music as possible. In more technical terms, high-fidelity audio refers to bit rates that allow “lossless” sound transfer. In order to compress the music, the system will “lose” sounds in data bits that it believes the human ear cannot hear, in order to save storage space. However, this “lossy” compression, in say MP3, does result in lower quality audio, because the human ear can actually detect a difference.
In fact, storage capacity on mobile products has grown exponentially over the last few years, so storing large lossless audio files, such as Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC) files, is less of an issue. This means the user doesn’t have to compromise on audio quality just to be able to fit more than a few albums on their phone. Plus, many online music storage companies now allow the user to download, then delete songs and albums easily, eliminating the need to store your entire music collection on your phone.
Audio chip designers are in constant development to try and package high-performance features into tinier and tinier parts. These components are not only becoming smaller, but they are also being engineered to be ultra-low power, in order to maximize battery life.
In addition to achieving certain data points, such as being 16-bit/96kHz or higher, there are many other subtle extras to reproducing crystal clear, hi-fi audio that need to be taken into account. These attributes can have a significant impact in audio quality.
“Jitter-free” audio (without giving up caffeine!)
For example, the effects of jitter can disrupt the audio quality being reproduced. All clock signals are subject to the effects of jitter. In a typical system, if the sum of all the jitter components is below -105dBFS, the jitter will be inaudible. Clocking performance is something that needs to be considered from the ground up for an audio system – in essence, it must be part of its DNA.
accurate reference clocks or designing the IC around a dedicated accurate frequency-locked loop (FLL) to compensate for inaccurate reference clocks
New advanced hi-fi filters originally created for the highest performing DACs, used in many high-end and Pro Audio systems, are now being used in smart codecs for portable applications.
the filters can change the roll-off and phase responses
For example, a common and undesirable effect would be a cymbal crash, which doesn’t start as crisply as it should and has some audible sounds just before the crash.
Is that pre-ringing in my ears?
Pre-ringing is an artificial artifact introduced by digital processing and causes some of the sound to be introduced before the real sound occurs. This means the audio isn’t as clear or crisp as it should be. No sound in the real world causes pre-ringing and the human ear can be sensitive to this problem. If filters during the digital-to-analog process are poorly implemented the reproduction can often sound cloudy and muffled producing a dull flat sound.
In addition, another audio engineering feature important to distortion-free natural sounding digital audio is dynamic range.
If the DAC has low dynamic range, typically below 96dB, then when the volume is turned up, the digital noise floor can start to become audible. A typical 16 bit MP3 file has a dynamic range of 96dB. Today’s modern hi-fi audio formats, such as 24bit FLAC provide 144dB of dynamic range and significantly more for 32-bit audio.
A case in point, a recent Nielsen Report “Music 360 China Highlights” mentioned that 72 percent of the Chinese population listens to music an average of 16 hours per week, with millennials even higher at 19 hours; 66 percent of these music consumers (and millennials at 69 percent) listen on their smartphones. With a population of more than 1 billion, you can see how just this one country represents sizeable growth potential for better smartphone audio – and smartphone manufacturers are taking notice.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The HDMI connection becomes wireless
You can now transfer your 4K-level Blu-Ray video wirelessly. Lattice Semiconductor has introduced a 60 gigahertz WiGig circuit and a HDMI 2.0 backbone reference base that can be used for wireless home cinema data transfer.
In home theaters, Ultra HD or 4K resolution is an absolute prerequisite. Another big trend is getting rid of the connecting cables. Lattice’s new platform responds to these two wishes.
Lattice’s wireless solution is based on the 60-gigahertz license-free link of SiBEAM, which has been implemented as MOD6320-T and MOD6321-R modules. Lattice has connected a Sil9396 circuit that supports HDMI 2.0.
The result is a 60 gigahertz wireless link that is capable of transmitting up to 4K levels of video without disturbance.
Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php/13-news/6461-hdmi-liitannasta-tulee-langaton#ETNartikel
Tomi Engdahl says:
Vocal Fusion by XMOS: Speaker Application Demonstration
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VK89dmfqn7U
Demonstration of the XMOS XVF3000 far-field voice processor and VocalFusion Speaker Kit, which uses an adaptive beamformer, acoustic echo cancellation, dereverberation and automatic gain control to extract his voice while playing music. The demonstration also shows the integrated keyword detection and barge-in capabilities of the XVF3100 device.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Emerging SD Card Uses Push Controller Development
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1331877
xternal media such as SD cards are not going away despite steady expansion of onboard storage capacity in smartphones, and controller companies are keeping up with emerging application areas by leveraging expertise in the SSD domain.
Silicon Motion Technology recently introduced what it said is the first merchant SD controller that supports the latest SD 6.0 specifications and meets the new A2 application performance rating with a minimum random read/write performance of 4,000/2,000 IOPS. The SD Specification 6.0 was announced earlier this year at the Mobile World Congress by the SD Association (SDA). It expands support for mobile devices with Application Performance Class 2 (A2) more than doubling random read and write speeds guaranteed in the entry level App Performance Class 1 (A1), which was announced late last year.
In a telephone interview with EE Times, Robert Fan U.S. general manager at Silicon Motion, said the company’s latest SD controllers demonstrate the evolution of the storage media as they must support bandwidth-intensive applications such as 4K video recording and playback and AR/VR, as well as better random read and write performance. Expandable memory cards with Silicon Motion’s new controller will also provide sufficient performance so users can run Android 6.x/7.x applications directly from their cards.
While there’s been plenty of speculation over the years that SD cards and other removable cards would fade away, Fan said the opposite is true, even as smartphones gain more onboard storage capacity. “The non-iPhone market has grown, especially in China,” Fan said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
JD Power: Canadian Cable TV at Risk for Cord-Cutting
http://www.broadbandtechreport.com/articles/2017/06/jd-power-canadian-cable-tv-at-risk-for-cord-cutting.html
According to J.D. Power, more than one-fourth of Canadian cable and satellite TV subscribers are deemed to be potential cord cutters (viewers who stop subscribing to pay TV services). That conclusion is based on the research house’s 2017 Canadian Television Provider Customer Satisfaction Study and 2017 Canadian Internet Service Provider Customer Satisfaction Study, both released today.
The studies indicate that 27% of subscribers are either unsure or plan to drop (19% and 8%, respectively) their pay TV service within the next 12 months, while 73% say they plan to keep their TV service. Younger pay TV customers appear more at risk of canceling, with 14% of those ages 18-34 indicating they plan to cut the cord in the next 12 months vs. 3% of those over 65 years old.
53% of pay TV subscribers have used an alternative video service in the past year, up from 49% in 2016
Satisfaction with Internet service providers (ISPs) is highest when customers have downstream speeds of 500 Mbps or higher. Satisfaction levels decline in lock-step with declining Internet speeds.
When asked to rate alternative video services on a scale of 1-10 for ease of use, customers gave Netflix a rating of 8.11 vs. the average of 7.91.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hannah Karp / Billboard:
YouTube and music-licensing group ASCAP strike deal to share data to improve content ID system, potentially boosting revenue for music publishers, songwriters — ASCAP has a new plan to help its publishers and songwriters earn more money from YouTube: informing the video platform …
YouTube, ASCAP to Share Data in First-Ever Voluntary Deal
http://www.billboard.com/articles/business/7832732/youtube-ascap-share-data-first-ever-voluntary-deal
ASCAP has a new plan to help its publishers and songwriters earn more money from YouTube: informing the video platform which of its members composed and published each of its songs within the vast sea of recordings and videos uploaded to the video streaming site.
In what is the performance rights group’s first-ever fully-negotiated, voluntary licensing deal with the decade-old video hub not prompted by a rate-court proceeding, ASCAP will combine its database of 10.5 million musical works with YouTube’s data exchange, a move that ASCAP’s CEO Elizabeth Matthews tells Billboard will result in bigger payouts.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Lucia Moses / Digiday:
The Washington Post launches The Lily, its new distributed media brand for millennial women, available on Medium, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter — The Washington Post may be best known for its award-winning journalism, but it wants its new distributed media brand for millennial women, The Lily, to stand out for its design.
The Washington Post’s millennial women-focused spinoff The Lily is going the distributed route
https://digiday.com/media/washington-posts-millennial-women-focused-spinoff-lily-going-distributed-route/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mark Sweney / The Guardian:
The Guardian and Observer will relaunch in a tabloid format in 2018, have contracted with Trinity Mirror for printing; London presses will be sold or scrapped
Guardian and Observer to relaunch in tabloid format
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jun/13/guardian-and-observer-to-relaunch-in-tabloid-format
Newspapers to move to smaller size and outsource printing to Trinity Mirror as part of three-year cost-saving plan
The Guardian and Observer will relaunch in a tabloid format next year as part of a three-year plan to break even in their finances.
Guardian Media Group (GMG), the parent company of the Guardian and Observer print and digital businesses, has decided to move from its Berliner newspaper format to the smaller size as part of a major cost-saving drive.
The Guardian has signed a contract for Trinity Mirror, publisher of the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and Sunday People, to print the titles from early next year.
Tomi Engdahl says:
HBO, Netflix, Other Hollywood Companies Join Forces To Fight Piracy
https://yro.slashdot.org/story/17/06/13/2114258/hbo-netflix-other-hollywood-companies-join-forces-to-fight-piracy
It looks like media and technology companies are forming a group to “fight piracy.” The Verge reports: “A group of 30 entertainment companies, including power players like Netflix, HBO, and NBCUniversal, have joined forces today in an effort to fight online piracy. The new group is called the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), and the partnership, while somewhat thin on specifics, will allow the content creators involved to pool resources to conduct research and work closely with law enforcement to find and stop pirates from stealing movies and TV shows. T
HBO, Netflix, other Hollywood companies join forces to fight piracy
https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/13/15791688/hbo-netflix-hollywood-ace-fight-piracy
A group of 30 entertainment companies, including power players like Netflix, HBO, and NBCUniversal, have joined forces today in an effort to fight online piracy. The new group is called the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), and the partnership, while somewhat thin on specifics, will allow the content creators involved to pool resources to conduct research and work closely with law enforcement to find and stop pirates from stealing movies and TV shows.
The first-of-its-kind alliance is composed of digital media players, networks, and Hollywood outfits, and all recognize how the internet has paved the way to an explosion in quality online content. However, piracy has boomed as a result: ACE says that last year saw 5.4 billion downloads of pirated films and TV shows.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bringing pro-audio high-fidelity features to mobile devices
http://www.edn.com/design/analog/4458457/Bringing-pro-audio-high-fidelity-features-to-mobile-devices
The future is sounding good for smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices, as a number of technology breakthroughs and new streaming music services are converging to help bring pro audio high fidelity (hi-fi) features to mobile devices. Just as high-definition TV transformed how people viewed television, hi-fi audio is lining up to be the next big thing for portables, especially smartphones.
In fact, there are a number of changes on the way that will improve sound quality for mobile devices. Hi-fi audio features can reduce the effects of noise, distortion or other digital irregularities – such as pre-ringing in your ears – that listeners may not realize are there, but impact their listening experience nonetheless. So let’s have a look at the drivers and enhancements that will, in essence, bring that “vinyl feeling” to your mobile sound quality, without draining your battery.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Patreon announces redesigned app, improved analytics, Snapchat-like Lens feature for creators, and partners with Crowdcast for live video service
Patreon wants to be a one-stop social network for artists to reach fans
https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/14/15785566/patreon-crowdcast-livestream-lens-app-redesign
Patreon, the subscription-based funding platform that supports creators like Amanda Palmer and the Kinda Funny team, is getting a major update that includes live-streaming capabilities and a new visual design. Patreon co-founder Jack Conte says the features are intended to give creators more ways to engage directly with their patrons, while also giving them more ways to analyze and keep track of their subscriber base. They’ve been tested with a limited number of people on the platform, but will now be rolling out on a large scale.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Eagle Eye Networks buys Panasonic’s cloud video surveillance service and Nubo security camera
http://www.zdnet.com/article/eagle-eye-networks-buys-panasonics-cloud-video-surveillance-service-and-nubo-security-camera/
Cloud-based video management specialist Eagle Eye Networks expands its global reach by acquiring Panasonic’s video surveillance solution.
Founded in 2012 by serial entrepreneur Dean Drako (whose track record includes Barracuda Networks), Eagle Eye Networks specialises in cloud-based video management for security and operations teams in businesses. Its flagship product is Eagle Eye Cloud Security Camera VMS (Video Management System), which works with a broad range of analogue and IP video cameras, providing secure encrypted access to cloud storage via an onsite bridge appliance, with on-premise video storage also available.
dean-drako.jpg
Dean Drako, founder and CEO of Eagle Eye Networks.
“We’ve had incredibly good success in the US market, and incredibly good success in Asian markets — Japan, Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong, Taiwan — but we have not put a whole lot of effort into the European market,” Drako told ZDNet.
That’s the background to Eagle Eye’s acquisition, for an unspecified sum, of Amsterdam-based Panasonic Cloud Management Services BV, whose key assets are Cameramanager, a cloud-based video surveillance solution, and Panasonic Nubo, a wireless (wi-fi and 4G LTE) security camera.
Unlike Eagle Eye’s VMS, Panasonic’s Cameramanager (which will be renamed Eagle Eye CameraManager post-acquisition) is designed to handle modest numbers of cameras — no more than three per site. That’s because the cameras talk directly to the cloud via a software agent, rather than going through an onsite bridge appliance.
“That works great for one, two, three cameras per location,” said Drako, “but if you get to more cameras, the cameras start to fight each other getting up to the cloud, and you don’t really want to try and manage them all individually.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
[Lame] Netflix places limits on how many times you can download certain content
http://www.androidpolice.com/2017/06/13/lame-netflix-places-limits-many-times-can-download-certain-content/
Netflix added download support for a large chunk of its library late last year, which is great. It was long overdue, but still a much appreciated addition. However, Netflix’s downloading functionality comes with a nasty catch that many people have just recently started running into: some content can only be downloaded a certain number of times. The worst part is Netflix doesn’t tell you about that until you’re almost out of downloads.
Currently, all content downloaded from Netflix has an expiration date. After a certain amount of time, you have to “refresh” the download. Caching a video always counts as a download whether you’re downloading on a new device or just refreshing an existing download. After a few downloads, some episodes and movies will pop up a warning that explains you can only download them one more time before a particular date (probably a year from the first download).
The existence of the download cap isn’t really Netflix’s fault. After all, it doesn’t own most of the content it offers, and rights holders can demand these rules. However, the way Netflix hides this limit is incredibly dumb.
Tomi Engdahl says:
This Artist Used a Computer Model of His Face to get a French National ID
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/this-artist-used-a-computer-model-of-his-face-to-get-a-french-national-id-raphael-fabre
“It’s about our relation to the image…and the power of fiction and technology.”
In America, your driver’s license photo will be hideous. Just accept it, because it will be. Bad lighting plus the general awfulness of the DMV equals you looking dumpy.
But in Europe, French artist Raphaël Fabre just proved that if you’re clever enough, you too can achieve the perfect ID photo. Like, say, an immaculate 3D rendering of your face.
Fabre successfully applied for a French national ID card on April 7, 2017 using a computer generated 3D photo of himself. According to an update on his website, the Paris-based artist created the portrait using programs and techniques utilized for special effects in movies and video games, such as Blender and TurboSquid, which is a marketplace for 3D objects. He digitally sculpted a human head from what was essentially a cube before retouching the image in 2D.
“It’s about our relation to the image, the limits of the human eye, or its poetic interpretation, and the power of fiction and technology. We are so surrounded by modified, digitalised image of bodies, and basically images of everything, that our world becomes a digital image in a way,” Fabre told me in an email.
Fabre provided us with a receipt for the government-issued ID which seemed legitimate, though as his own art piece proves, any digital image can be faked with enough work.
From a distance, it’s pretty uncanny valley. Zoomed in, however, you can see how Fabre’s hair and eyes are clearly digitally rendered.
Still, the overall result is impressive.
France’s rules for acquiring a national ID card are considerably more lax than America’s. Instead of getting your photo taken at the DMV (or their version of one), residents are allowed to produce their own portraits, so long as they comply with a list of parameters.
As Fabre notes, his 3D portrait adheres to all of these requirements.
Fabre’s clever stunt reinforces what we already know: with technologies that can fabricate our voice and even what we say on camera, we’re speeding towards a world where it’s increasingly difficult to tell what is real and what is fake.
http://www.raphaelfabre.com/#cni
Tomi Engdahl says:
European court of justice rules Pirate Bay is infringing copyright
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jun/15/pirate-bay-european-court-of-justice-rules-infringing-copyright-torrent-sites
The ruling comes after seven-year legal battle and could lead to ISPs and governments blocking access to other torrent sites across Europe
The European court of justice (ECJ) has ruled that BitTorrent site The Pirate Bay is directly infringing copyright, in a move that could lead to ISPs and governments blocking access to other torrent sites across Europe.
The ruling comes after a seven-year legal battle, which has seen the site, founded in Sweden in 2003, blocked and seized, its offices raided, and its three founders fined and jailed.
At the heart of the case is the Pirate Bay’s argument that, unlike the previous generation piracy sites like Napster, it doesn’t host infringing files, nor link to them. Instead, it hosts “trackers”, files which tell users of individual BitTorrent apps which other BitTorrent users to link to in order to download large files – in the Pirate Bay’s case, usually, but not exclusively, copyrighted material.
But the ECJ disputed those claims, arguing that the Pirate Bay goes further than a protected site should, by offering not just a search feature, but also categorising files, deleting faulty trackers, and filtering out some types of content. That means, in the court’s eyes: “The operators of the platform play an essential role in making those works available.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Home Network A/V Closet that Hides the Receiver Equipment Part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiF8dkl87yI
Custom A/V cabinet with HDMI and IR distribution
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-XaGXk0NLI
Tomi Engdahl says:
Board & Bolt Tripod Platform
https://hackaday.io/project/25488-board-bolt-tripod-platform
Laser cut acrylic & 1/4-20 nuts and bolts for some weird tripod platform
Description
So I recently saw a kickstarter for a new PlatyPod and wanting to see if I could make one myself with mostly off the shelf parts, I came up with this. It is _crude_ and definitely not something I would trust my expensive cameras to. But it was an interesting mental and build exercise to understand how something like this might work.
After going through the process myself, I found that this wasn’t something for me, I’m heavily invested in full sized tripods/etc. But it’s interesting nonetheless. Design files and such are not going to be released, I suggest going here ( https://www.platypodpro.com/ ) if you want to get a high quality board-style camera/accessory mount system.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Microsoft updates its AI-powered photo editing app Pix with new styles and effects — Microsoft is rolling out an update to its AI-powered photo editing app, Microsoft Pix, that aims to give Prisma and others like it some new competition. While the app was originally designed to enhance
Microsoft Pix can now turn your iPhone photos into art, thanks to artificial intelligence
https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/15/microsoft-pix-can-now-turn-your-iphone-photos-into-art-thanks-to-a-i/
Tomi Engdahl says:
The first in the world: the Citroën C3 car has integrated camcorder whose content can be downloaded directly to some
The car has an integrated webcam connected directly to the ConnectedCam Citroën. An intelligent camera will automatically record collision situations and make it easier to find out.
The camera uses a 120-degree lens with the same view that the driver looks at.
There have been a variety of different and retro-mounted camcorders in the market for a long time, but a factory-integrated camera and an app that can directly share the image have not been in the market in the past.
ConnectedCam Citroën camera is managed via a free smartphone application.
The camera is placed behind the rearview mirror. The car’s looking camera has a 120 degree wide angle. The camera sees everything that the driver can and can automatically record the video for an hour. Auto recording starts when the car is started and ends when the 16GB memory is full.
At the same time, the previous recordings will be erased automatically.
The driver can also manually record the video for twenty seconds of video at a time. He can also share it in social media, but for security reasons only when the car stops.
The camera has a sensor that also detects a possible collision. The camera records a crash situation about 30 seconds before the collision and another 60 seconds after the collision. The video is stored in the smartphone application.
It is easy to understand that such a video clip will make it easier for post-mortem collisions.
Source: http://www.iltalehti.fi/autouutiset/201706162200212610_oa.shtml
Tomi Engdahl says:
Peter Kafka / Recode:
Apple hires Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg, two of Sony’s top TV executives, to lead push into original video programming — Sony’s Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg will head up video programming, reporting to Eddy Cue. — For years, Hollywood has heard rumors that Apple might want to make its own TV shows and movies.
Apple has hired two well-regarded TV execs to ramp up its original video plans
Sony’s Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg will head up video programming, reporting to Eddy Cue.
https://www.recode.net/2017/6/16/15814908/apple-tv-sony-jamie-erlicht-zack-van-amburg-eddy-cue
For years, Hollywood has heard rumors that Apple might want to make its own TV shows and movies. Here’s a sign that Apple might indeed be serious about this stuff: It has hired Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg, two of Sony’s top TV executives, to run video programming, a new job at Apple.
Both men are longtime Sony veterans, who have helped make some of TV’s best-known and most popular shows, including AMC’s “Breaking Bad” and ABC’s “Shark Tank.” At Sony, they jointly held the title of president; at Apple, they’ll report to media boss Eddy Cue.
Their hiring is the best indicator yet that Apple has real ambitions about making TV and other video content, and that it has plans for that stuff beyond using it to market its Apple Music service.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why Disney made a huge mistake by selling its content to Netflix
As Netflix grows and grows, Disney is poised to be the “biggest loser,” BTIG’s Rich Greenfield says.
https://www.recode.net/2017/6/15/15804338/disney-netflix-bob-iger-reed-hastings-rich-greenfield-btig-streaming-tv-bundle-peter-kafka-podcast
In the years before “House of Cards,” when Netflix was merely streaming movies and TV shows created by other companies, Disney and a lot of its peers did what seemed right at the time — they let Reed Hastings write them a big check.
On the latest episode of Recode Media with Peter Kafka, BTIG analyst Rich Greenfield said Disney CEO Bob Iger probably regrets that deal. By licensing video content from the big players, Netflix learned how to make stuff people wanted to watch — and then it started to make its own.
“Everyone starts in the media food chain or the entertainment ecosystem with other people’s old stuff,”
“Then you build up to bigger and bigger content that you own and control,” Greenfield added. “ESPN still is a buyer of other people’s content. What is really interesting about Netflix, like HBO has done over the last 15 years, is that they actually own and control that content, and increasingly, own and control it globally.”
“Netflix’s success, Amazon’s success, Hulu’s success, come at the expense of the legacy multichannel bundle,” he said. “The greater the multichannel bundle comes under pressure, who’s the biggest loser? Who has the most tied to that bundle? If that bundle breaks, Disney loses more than anyone else.”
So, what’s the solution? One might think that Disney could leverage its popular library to compete directly with Netflix, but Greenfield isn’t so sure. This digital “direct to consumer” approach is an area where The Mouse doesn’t have as much experience.
“Imagine Disney, in 2020, says, ‘We’re not renewing our deal with Netflix. We’re going to launch Disney content directly to consumers,’” he said. “You’re starting with no data on your consumer, no relationships. All your library’s still on Netflix for years to come. You’re going to be losing tons of money.”
For more than a decade, HBO has had to produce content of a certain quality level to not lose subscribers, Greenfield explained, and canceling Netflix is even easier than that.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jeff Baumgartner / Multichannel News:
IBB Consulting study: almost half of US broadband customers subscribe to at least one OTT video service — About one-third take two, and 18% subscribe to more than three, IBB survey finds … Reflecting the surge in consumer adoption and volume of subscription VOD services …
Nearly Half of Broadband Consumers Subscribe to a Video OTT Service: Study
About one-third take two, and 18% subscribe to more than three, IBB survey finds
http://www.multichannel.com/news/content/nearly-half-broadband-consumers-subscribe-video-ott-service-study/413387
Reflecting the surge in consumer adoption and volume of subscription VOD services, almost half of U.S. broadband customers pay for at least one OTT video service, according to a survey from IBB Consulting.
illennials are the group most likely to take more than three paid OTT services. Notably, some 63% of paid OTT subscribers also get a traditional pay TV service.
About 61% of those surveyed said they’d pay at least an additional $2 per month for their favorite SVOD service, if the price were to rise.
IBB said more than half of respondents that plan to subscribe to premium, niche or sports SVOD services are willing to pay between $5 to $15 per month.
Perhaps surprisingly, having access to live video is of key to millennials. About 52% in the 18-29 age range would be willing to spend on live content
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google releases new TensorFlow Object Detection API
https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/16/object-detection-api/?ncid=rss&utm_source=tcfbpage&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&utm_content=FaceBook&sr_share=facebook
Google is releasing a new TensorFlow object detection API to make it easier for developers and researchers to identify objects within images.
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Google releases new TensorFlow Object Detection API
Posted 11 hours ago by John Mannes (@JohnMannes)
Google is releasing a new TensorFlow object detection API to make it easier for developers and researchers to identify objects within images. Google is trying to offer the best of simplicity and performance — the models being released today have performed well in benchmarking and have become regularly used in research.
The handful of models included in the detection API include heavy duty inception-based convolutional neural networks and streamlined models designed to operate on less sophisticated machines — a MobileNets single shot detector comes optimized to run in real-time on a smartphone.
Earlier this week Google announced its MobileNets family of lightweight computer vision models. These models can handle tasks like object detection, facial recognition and landmark recognition.
Today’s smartphones don’t possess the computational resources of larger scale desktop and server-based setups, leaving developers with two options. Machine learning models can run in the cloud, but that adds latency and requires an internet connection — non-starters for a lot of common use cases. The alternative approach is simplifying the models themselves, making a trade-off in the interest of more ubiquitous deployment.
Google, Facebook and Apple have been pouring resources into these mobile models.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Spotify hits more than 140 million users
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-40292725
Spotify now has more than 140 million active monthly users, but the music streaming firm is still deeply in the red.
The Swedish firm had revenues of more than 2.9bn euros (£2.6bn) last year, up more than 50% compared with 2015.
However, operating losses rose at nearly the same pace to 349.4m euros (£305.7m).
Spotify is considering going public and listing on the stock market, so its latest figures will be under scrutiny.
Spotify reported a net loss of 539.2m euros (£471.6m), more than double the figure for 2015.
Paying subscribers to its premium service, which does not have advertising, rose by 20 million to 48 million.
Apple Music, a key competitor, now has 27 million subscribers, almost double the number 12 months ago. Unlike Spotify it does not offer a free tier.
Spotify raised more than $1bn from investors last year
Tomi Engdahl says:
Netflix Now Has More Subscribers Than Cable
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-16/netflix-now-has-more-subscribers-cable
Tomi Engdahl says:
Steve Dent / Engadget:
Qualcomm unveils reference design for smart speakers with support for Alexa and Google Assistant, also announces new chips for wireless audio products — The smart speaker trend started with Amazon’s Echo, and now includes Google Home and Apple HomePod, but it could get a lot more crowded thanks to Qualcomm.
Qualcomm’s new chips will give rise to more smart speakers
The reference design will give OEMs a head-start on voice recognition tech.
https://www.engadget.com/2017/06/14/qualcomm-s-new-chips-will-give-rise-to-more-smart-speakers/
The smart speaker trend started with Amazon’s Echo, and now includes Google Home and Apple HomePod, but it could get a lot more crowded thanks to Qualcomm. It has just unveiled a reference “smart audio” design, including microphone, speaker and voice recognition tech that OEMs can use to build their own products without starting from scratch. What’s more, it includes support for Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, so OEMs will be able to add those voice assistants to a wider variety of audio products.
On top of the “smart” aspect of smart audio, Qualcomm is also taking care of the “audio” part. It showed off new DDFA audio amplifier tech and an audio development kit (ADK) that will help companies build wireless Bluetooth speakers, headphones and other products. The aim is to get manufacturers building smarter speakers or headphones “without significantly increasing integration time or cost,” Qualcomm’s Senior VP Anthony Murray said in a statement.
The tech is powered by Linux and Android Things and includes “far field” multi-microphone technology that allows for wake words like “OK Google,” beamforming and echo cancellation.
Qualcomm Announces Highly Flexible Smart Speaker Platform with Unique Combination of Support for Voice Assistants and Multi-Room Streaming Audio Capability
https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2017/06/14/qualcomm-announces-highly-flexible-smart-speaker-platform-unique
Qualcomm Smart Audio Platform Combines Premium Audio Solutions, Advanced Far-Field Voice Capture, Wake-Word Detection, Qualcomm AllPlay Multi-Room Audio Technology, and Support for Voice Assistants to Help Innovative Voice Interactions
The flexible solution offers two Qualcomm® SoC options based on APQ8009 and APQ8017
The integrated high-quality performance voice solution is designed to deliver advanced multi-mic far-field voice capability with highly responsive voice activation and beamforming technologies. The platform’s voice software also incorporates echo-cancellation, noise suppression and “barge-in” capability, supporting a reliable voice interface in loud or noisy environments even when users are far from the smart speaker.
“The Qualcomm Smart Audio Platform combines high-performance processing power, world-class Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, advanced far-field voice capture and wake-word detection, AllPlay multi-room audio streaming technology, and support for major voice ecosystems in a single solution”
Key software features:
Far Field Voice multi-microphone technology including:
voice activation, beamforming and echo cancellation
barge-in and voice capture in highly noisy environments
software supporting virtual assistants
support for high-quality hands-free voice calls over both VoIP and HFP
Support for Amazon Alexa Voice Service (AVS) (available later this year)
Support for the Google Assistant (available later this year)
Support for Android Things along with Google Cast for Audio (available later this year)
AllPlay networked audio solution, comprehensively interoperable with existing and future AllPlay ecosystem products
High-performance Bluetooth audio encode and decode with aptX and aptX HD
Audio playback from a wide range of industry audio codecs including MP3, AAC, OggVorbis, FLAC, AIFF, WAV, PCM, ALAC
Qualcomm® Hexagon™ DSP SDK
Key Bluetooth profiles including HFP/AG, PBAP, PANU and NAP, A2DP, AVRCP
High-performance Bluetooth/Wi-Fi coexistence for optimal audio performance
To help reduce development time and overheads there are a number of system-on-module solutions and reference designs available now from ODMs including but not limited to Wistron, Compal, Quanta and Pegatron. Comprehensive Developer Platforms for APQ8009 and APQ8017 is expected to be available from Qualcomm Technologies International, Ltd. for customers who prefer more development flexibility.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Open Source Digital Cinema
http://hackaday.com/2017/06/17/open-source-digital-cinema/
Years in the making, Apertus has released 25 beta developer kits for AXIOM–their open source digital cinema camera. This isn’t your point-and-shoot digital camera. The original proof of concept from 2013 had a Zynq processor (a Zedboard), a super 35 4K image sensor, and a Nikon F-Mount.
The device today is modular with several options. For example, there is an HDMI output module, but DisplayPort, 4K HDMI, and USB 3.0 options are in development. You can see several sample videos taken with the device, below.
The current device uses a Cmosis CMV12000 image module, although a Kodak KAC12040 and Cmosis CMV2000 module are in the works. You can find the complete specs online, but be aware that some of these specifications are forward-looking. On the other hand, the videos clearly show it is in a working state.
If you’ve been looking for an open source FPGA or microcontroller project to hook up with, this might be it. Like a lot of open source companies, they are trying to commercialize to keep the project healthy
Building a new camera prototype from scratch: AXIOM Alpha
https://www.apertus.org/history
Tomi Engdahl says:
Report: Hyperspectral imaging market to reach $11.34 billion in five years
http://www.vision-systems.com/articles/2017/01/report-hyperspectral-imaging-market-to-reach-11-34-billion-in-five-years.html?cmpid=enl_vsd_vsdnewsletter_2017-06-19
Hyperspectral imaging systems accounted for approximately $6.51 billion (US) in 2016, but are expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of around 10.9% between 2017 and 2022, reaching a total value of approximately $11.34 billion, according to Zion Research.
In the report, hyperspectral imaging systems are classified into hyperspectral cameras, and hyperspectral imaging accessories/components.
Growth in the market, according to the report, is driven by the increased adoption of hyperspectral imaging systems in research and development, as well as life sciences and medical diagnostics, agricultural monitoring, military surveillance, remote sensing, and machine vision. In 2016, military surveillance represented the highest market share and is expected to grow at the fastest rate in the forecast period. Emerging technologies and untapped markets are also expected to contribute to growth in this time frame.
In terms of regions where the technology will see growth, North America is expected to generate the most revenue, accounting for about 45% of the overall market share by the end of 2022. T
Tomi Engdahl says:
Embedded vision, hyperspectral imaging, and multispectral imaging among trends identified at VISION 2016
http://www.vision-systems.com/articles/2016/11/embedded-vision-and-hyperspectral-multispectral-imaging-among-trends-identified-at-vision-2016.html?cmpid=enl_vsd_vsdnewsletter_2017-06-19
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jeff Baumgartner / Multichannel News:
IBB Consulting study: almost half of US broadband customers subscribe to at least one OTT video service
Nearly Half of Broadband Consumers Subscribe to a Video OTT Service: Study
About one-third take two, and 18% subscribe to more than three, IBB survey finds
http://www.multichannel.com/news/content/nearly-half-broadband-consumers-subscribe-video-ott-service-study/413387