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.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple TV overhaul not expected to debut until 2015
http://9to5mac.com/2014/07/30/apple-tv-overhaul-not-expected-to-debut-until-2015/
A new report from The Information published today discussing the next generation of Apple TV says the new set-top box won’t be ready for prime time until at least 2015. This expectancy timeline aligns with previous 9to5Mac reporting on the Apple TV development progress.
taking longer than previously expected due to deals with cable companies as well the Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger currently pending.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Heads rolling at Beats as Apple eliminating redundant positions, Ian Rogers & Trent Reznor to stay on
http://9to5mac.com/2014/07/30/heads-rolling-at-beats-as-apple-eliminating-redundant-positions-keeping-developers-and-creatives-in-la/
As Apple’s acquisition of Beats Electronics and Beats Music nears completion this financial quarter, the Cupertino and Santa Monica, California-based companies have begun work on transitioning select employees and technology resources from Beats to Apple, according to sources briefed on the transition.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Movidius Launches Improved Version Of The Vision Processor That Powers Google’s Project Tango
http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/30/movidius-launches-improved-version-of-the-vision-processor-that-powers-googles-project-tango/
Movidius isn’t exactly a household name (yet), but chances are you came across the company’s name when Google launched its Project Tango smartphones and tablets earlier this year. Those are Google‘s testbeds for seeing what developers can achieve when mobile devices have advanced 3D sensing on a phone and Movidius provided the specialized vision processor for those devices.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Lytro Illum review: this is the camera of the future
It’s almost time to forget everything you ever knew about photography
http://www.theverge.com/2014/7/30/5949913/lytro-illum-review
Ten minutes into using the Lytro Illum, I’m throwing out everything I’ve ever learned about photography. Taking great photos with this camera has a different set of rules, a different guiding principle. Forget the rule of thirds; shoot for depth. Frame from below, because it makes everything look more dramatic. And most of all, stop half-pressing the damn shutter and expecting something to happen. Focusing doesn’t matter anymore.
The Illum is Lytro’s second product, but its first real camera. This is what Lytro executives say they’ve been building for seven years. The last one was made to prove light-field photography is real science. This one is a statement that the next phase in photography is already here. The Illum has a remarkable lens, a big, hefty body, and lots of manual controls. It shoots photos that you can refocus later. That you can look at from a number of different perspectives, or view in 3D. Photos that start to answer Lytro’s fundamental question: what becomes possible when we don’t have to print pictures anymore?
All the light-field technology, particularly the “microlens array” that captures light and direction, sits inside the Illum’s massive lens. It extends from 30-250mm, and shoots everything at f/2 but later offers the ability to stop down as far as f/16. It’s one of the most versatile lenses I have ever used, equalled only by the Sony RX10 and a small handful of others
Except it never really feels like everything’s working properly. If I captured too many shots too quickly, the camera would freeze or crash spectacularly.
The Illum’s autofocus is basically nonexistent, meaning you’re stuck manually focusing for every shot. There’s no image stabilization, so if you’re zoomed in you either need a tripod or the world’s steadiest hands.
It feels like every time you push the Illum, try to explore its capabilities, it just breaks down. And if there’s one way to immediately alienate the customer who’s most likely to part with $1,500 for this camera, it’s to build a product that can’t hack it under pressure.
When it works, the Illum is capable of producing really remarkable pictures. (It still doesn’t shoot video, though Lytro says that’s not far away.)
Tomi Engdahl says:
No Need for Reading Glasses With Vision-Correcting Display
http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/consumer-electronics/audiovideo/visioncorrecting-display-means-no-need-for-reading-glasses
Tomi Engdahl says:
12 Years After Its Debut On Hacked Xboxes, XBMC Changes Its Name To Kodi
http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/01/12-years-after-its-debut-on-hacked-xboxes-xbmc-changes-its-name-to-kodi/
Back in 2002, a small group of developers whipped together an app that was meant to turn a hacked Xbox into a full-fledged media player, capable of playing all sorts of video and music content that the Xbox couldn’t handle out of the box. Reasonably, they dubbed the project “Xbox Media Player”.
Over time, the name started to make less and less sense.
“XBMC” is now “Kodi”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google Said to Plan Separating Photo Service From Google+
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-01/google-said-to-plan-separating-photo-service-from-google-.html
Google Inc. (GOOG) is planning to give its photo service more autonomy from its Google+ social network as the company looks to attract more users, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
Tomi Engdahl says:
PlayStation Now is a glimpse at the future of gaming — for a price
The technology works, but the business model doesn’t
http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/1/5960403/playstation-now-impressions-cloud-streaming-games-price
PlayStation Now is a cloud gaming service that lets you rent games by the hour, day, week, or month. There is no processing done locally on a game console or computer; you’re essentially streaming the game from a server far away, with your button presses passing from the controller through the console to the server. PS Now isn’t the first service to do this — OnLive debuted years earlier, and its former rival Gaikai was bought by Sony to power Now — but it’s certainly the first home console to bring the technology to a wider audience.
Connection speed plays a huge role, and Sony’s acutely aware that it’ll be the biggest issue. (The company recommends a steady broadband internet connection ranging from 5 to 12Mbps.) Each time you load up a game, the software tests your connection speed to see if it passes the minimum bar to work. (You can get more detailed information on download / upload speeds from PlayStation 4′s network settings menu.)
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Tomi Engdahl says:
The World’s First Terapixel Macro Image
http://gigamacro.com/terapixel/
The world’s first terapixel macro image is a big claim. This is going to be BIG! Actually, about eighty-three feet big – or long anyway! Just how big is that though? Well a terapixel is 1,000,000,000,000 pixels, or 1012, or a million megapixels, or a thousand gigapixels. And no one has ever made a terapixel macro image before, so this will be a genuine world’s first.
Attendees at Siggraph 2014 will be able to see the GIGAmacro team photograph a one terapixel macro image. Over 619,000 individual photographs of food and foodstuffs from around the world will be captured and combined to create a seamless one terapixel image.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Twisted-pair extenders for DisplayPort
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2014/06/extron-dtp-dp.html?cmpid=EnlCIMJuly72014
Extron Electronics recently introduced the DTP DP 230 and DTP DP 330 transmitter and receiver sets, which transit DisplayPort, audio, and bidirectional RS-232 and IR signals over Category-rated shielded twisted-pair cabling. “The DTP DP 230 extends signals up to 230 feet (70 meters), while the DTP DP 330 extends signals up to 330 feet (100 meters)
Tomi Engdahl says:
New Drones Ensure Ideal Photographic Lighting Positions
http://www.techbriefs.com/component/content/article/20129
Researchers at MIT and Cornell University will provide photographers with squadrons of small, light-equipped autonomous robots that automatically assume the right positions for photographic lighting.
In the researchers’ experiments, the robot helicopter was equipped with a continuous-light source, a photographic flash, and a laser rangefinder.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Fraunhofer technology thrills Frankfurt museum
https://www.igd.fraunhofer.de/en/Institut/Abteilungen/Digitalisierung-von-Kulturerbe/AktuellesNews/Fraunhofer-technology-thrills-Fran
Disasters are threatening historic cultural treasures. For the first time last week, Fraunhofer researchers automated 3D reconstruction of artifacts in the Frankfurt Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung, making them accessible for eternity.
CultLab3D, the world’s unique 3D scanning facility for cultural artifacts, was in operation inside the Medieval Room of the Frankfurt Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung from July 21th to 27th 2014. CultLab3D, developed by Fraunhofer IGD, is to revolutionize the needed 3D digitization of cultural artifacts.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Using Videos to Reconstruct 3D Motion Without Markers
http://www.techbriefs.com/component/content/article/20214
Carnegie Mellon University researchers have developed techniques for combining the views of 480 video cameras mounted in a two-story geodesic dome to perform large-scale 3D motion reconstruction. The techniques might eventually be applied to large-scale reconstructions of sporting events or performances captured by hundreds of cameras wielded by spectators.
the camera system can track 100,000 points at a time
Tomi Engdahl says:
THP Entry: A CPLD Video Card With VGA And NTSC
http://hackaday.com/2014/08/06/thp-entry-cpld-video-card-with-vga-and-ntsc/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sorry Supermodels, Runway Avatars Never Have to Eat
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/sorry-supermodels-but-runway-avatars-never-have-to-eat?trk_source=recommended
Supermodels are the latest name on the list of professions threatened to be replaced by technology; specifically, motion capture and 3D animation that when merged together can create lifelike digital avatars that mimic natural human movement in real-time.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Unorthodox GoPro Camera Rigs Produce Unreal Videos
http://hackaday.com/2014/08/08/unorthodox-gopro-camera-rigs-produce-unreal-videos/
For a workshop at the ECAL University of Art and Design in Switzerland, students were asked to come up with new unorthodox ways to capture video using a GoPro camera. The results are pretty awesome.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft fixes all those shaky GoPro vids nobody wants to watch
Redmond owes us this ‘Hyperlapse’ tech after inflicting PowerPoint on the world
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/08/11/microsoft_fixes_all_those_shaky_gopro_vids_nobody_wants_to_watch/
Shaky GoPro videos are the new post-holiday family slide nights: just as seeing an Uncle’s slides of their most recent journey is tedious, helmet-cam footage of your rellies hurtling down a hillside on a mountain bike is evocative for those who’ve done it, but contextless and dizzying for anyone else.
Enter Microsoft, perhaps atoning for the crimes it has inflicted on the world with a billion somnolence-inducing PowerPoint presentations, bearing a technology it’s called “Hyperlapse”.
first-person videos like those captured on GoPro action-cams and Google Glass, are hard to watch because they are shaky and slow.
Hyperlapse speeds video and also smooths it out.
To pull off that trick, Hyperlapse “first reconstructs the 3D input camera path as well as dense, per-frame proxy geometries,” the developers behind the system explain. “We then optimize a novel camera path for the output video that is smooth and passes near the input cameras while ensuring that the virtual camera looks in directions that can be rendered well from the input.”
The technique then renders new frames by combining original frame
Tomi Engdahl says:
First Person Hyperlapse videos
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/hyperlapse/
We present a method for converting first-person videos, for example, captured with a helmet camera during activities such as rock climbing or bicycling, into hyperlapse videos: time-lapse videos with a smoothly moving camera.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Lapse-It
http://www.lapseit.com/
Lapse It allow you to take the best time lapse videos with your mobile device !
Time Lapse is a photograph technique that gives an accelerated view of slowly changing events
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bose says today is F*** With Dre Day: Beats sued in patent battle
Music gear giant seeks some of that sweet, sweet Apple pie
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/07/25/bose_sues_beats_apple/
Audio thing biz Bose is suing Apple-owned Beats Electronics, alleging patent infringement.
Massachusetts-based Bose claimed in its court filing that headgear designed by Beats violated five of its patents, all relating to noise-canceling headphones.
While the infusion of cash could make Beats a lucrative target, a tie-up with Apple also gives the company sizable legal resources.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Remember Palm’s WebOS? LG does – check out its smart TVs
We talk to Silicon Valley devs about new smarties
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/08/04/review_lg_webos_47lb730v_smart_tv_and_dev_chat/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bang goes 4K, provided you have 12K to spend
http://www.gadgetguy.com.au/bang-goes-4k-provided-you-have-12k-to-spend/
this year, Bang & Olufsen is throwing Ultra High Definition into a television, with a reveal of the BeoVision Avant, the company’s first 4K TV, displaying a resolution of 3840×2160, just like the ones made by LG, Samsung, Sony, and TCL.
“Our research shows that consumers want more and more from their televisions,” said Tue Mantoni, Bang & Olufsen’s CEO.
The downside to this argument is content, however, and while there’s no 4K format outside of something you can download, there isn’t much to download yet. In Australia, the problem is even worse when you consider few have speeds before 20Mbps, making Ultra HD downloads less likely.
Tomi Engdahl says:
New Microsoft Project Turns Boring First-Person Videos Into Awesome Hyperlapses
http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/10/new-microsoft-project-turns-boring-first-person-videos-into-awesome-hyperlapse-sequences/
There’s barely a mountain biker, climber, skydiver or skier left who doesn’t have a GoPro camera attached to his helmet. Nobody really wants to sit through an hour of video of you heading up and down the slopes, however.
Thanks to a new Microsoft Research project, however, you may soon be able to turn those long boring first-person videos into really smooth hyperlapse sequences that run at 10x the speed of the original video but don’t make you want to throw up because of the camera shake.
This is much more than just some fancy version of the warp stabilizer you may be familiar with from other video editing tools, however. Microsoft’s project also reconstructs the scene itself by creating a depth map based on the video input. With this data, the algorithm can then stitch together an image from a viewpoint that’s slightly different from the original perspective to keep the video as smooth as possible.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Poor Audio Quality Made Great: Listen to Vintage Music Using an Antique Radio Without Removing the Insides
http://hackaday.com/2014/08/11/poor-audio-quality-made-great-listen-to-vintage-music-using-an-antique-radio-without-removing-the-insides/
Sometimes it is not how good but how bad your equipment reproduces sound. In a previous hackaday post the circuitry of a vintage transistor radio was removed so that a blue tooth audio source could be installed and wired to the speaker. By contrast, this post will show how to use the existing circuitry of a vintage radio for playing your own audio sources while at the same time preserving the radio’s functionality. You will be able to play your music through the radio’s own audio signal chain then toggle back to AM mode and listen to the ball game. Make a statement – adapt and use vintage electronics.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hyperlapse Makes Your HeadCam Videos Awesome
http://hackaday.com/2014/08/12/hyperlapse/
First person video – between Google Glass, GoPro, and other sports cameras, it seems like everyone has a camera on their head these days. If you’re a surfer or skydiver, that might make for some awesome footage. For the rest of us though, it means hours of boring video. The obvious way to fix this is time-lapse.
Hyperlapse photography is not a new term. Typically, hyperlapse films require careful planning, camera rigs, and labor-intensive post-production to achieve a usable video. [Johannes] and team have thrown computer vision and graphics algorithms at the problem. The results are nothing short of amazing.
The results aren’t perfect. The mountain climbing scenes show some artifacts caused by the camera frame rate and exposure changing due to the varied lighting conditions
Tomi Engdahl says:
OCamCalib: Omnidirectional Camera Calibration Toolbox for Matlab
https://sites.google.com/site/scarabotix/ocamcalib-toolbox
The OcamCalib Toolbox for Matlab allows the user (also inexpert users) to calibrate any central omnidirectional camera, that is, any panoramic camera having a single effective viewpoint
The Toolbox permits the user to easily and quickly calibrate the omnidirectional camera through two steps. First, it requires the user collect a few pictures of a checkerboard shown at different positions and orientations. Then, the user is asked to extract the corner points. With the new version of the toolbox this operation is done completely automatically.
After the calibration, the toolbox provides two functions (CAM2WORLD and WORLD2CAM) which express the relation between a given pixel point and its projection onto the unit sphere (this is a 3D vector emanating from the single effective view point)
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cutting Records Out of CDs
http://hackaday.com/2014/08/12/cutting-records-out-of-cds/
Lovers of records rejoice! Did you know you can cut your own vinyl using something called a record lathe? [Beau Walker] just put the finishing touches on his 3D printed record lathe
A Recording Lathe was once used for cutting records, and previously, wax cylinders – if you want to get really old school.
he’s reusing old CD’s for his newly created vinyls
Tomi Engdahl says:
LG hopes to lure abandoned plasma fans with $3,500 OLED TV
http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/11/5990699/lg-55EC9300-curved-oled-aims-to-attract-plasma-fans
If you’re in the market for a TV right now, we’d recommend you pick up one of Samsung’s last plasmas while there’s still time. But LG knows that plasma is on the way out, so it’s already making an aggressive move to inherit the “best TV” mantle with its new $3,499 55-inch, curved OLED HDTV.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sony reveals PlayStation TV launch dates in UK and US
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28765992
Sony has revealed autumn launch dates for its PlayStation TV in the US, UK, and Europe.
Available in Japan since last year, the micro-console is the firm’s efforts to take on other streaming television consoles like AppleTV and Roku.
Unlike those, Sony’s offering will allow gamers access to PlayStation games.
Sony said consoles will go on sale in the US on 14 October and in the UK on 14 November.
They will cost $99 (£59) in the US and 99 euros (£78) in Europe, and will include three games. The UK price has not yet been announced.
The console will allow users access to Sony’s games library via Remote Play, and it will also offer access to third-party applications like Netflix.
In the US, it will also offer access to Sony’s game-streaming service, PlayStation Now, which will be coming to Europe and the UK in 2015.
Many analysts seem optimistic about the device’s prospects, despite earlier failed streaming games efforts
“This TV could be a proper streaming device, one that could compete well with the other ones that are out there – the Apple, Roku, even things like Amazon FireTV,”
“It’s not the most robust streaming service and it’s not the most robust gaming device but it’s enough of both for the price,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft hurls TV tuner and streaming at Xbox One users
Also reveals a white console is coming later this year
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2359933/microsoft-hurls-tv-tuner-and-streaming-at-xbox-one-users
In store for Xbox One users are a number of updates and additions to Microsoft’s games console. These will include a television tuner, which will extend the entertainment capabilities of the box, and the ability to stream content to smartphones and tablets.
Microsoft said that tuner users will be able to stream their television display to smartphones and tablets using Smartglass, the mobile companion app.
Tomi Engdahl says:
I’ve Become The Embarrassing Parent With The Camcorder
http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/12/ive-become-the-embarrassing-parent-with-the-camcorder/?ncid=rss&cps=gravity
Everyone had a dad, mom or uncle who was addicted to the VHS camcorder. Large and hoisted on a shoulder, it captured every birthday party and canoe trip on its massive tape.
For two decades, the VHS camcorder was the only way to record video. Then it fairly rapidly became a relic thanks to smartphones – for a while. But now, thanks to the birth of wearable and action cameras, we’re creating a new generation of overbearing and annoying parents hell-bent on capturing everything their child does, with hardware specifically dedicated to the task.
They love wearing the camera. They really do. Or they’re lying to me.
Wearables are leading to a rebirth of the camcorder. Suddenly, with all the different mounts and use cases, events and happenings can be saved and relived from different vantage points. It just takes a touch of planning.
GoPro CEO Nick Woodman told me last year at Disrupt SF that GoPro doesn’t view smartphones as a threat to their growth.
This trend is only in its infancy too. More overbearing parents like myself will strap them on to their children as the cams shrink in size and drop in price. Our kids will thank us later.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Enthusiast Opts for $2200 Laser Eye Surgery to Enhance Oculus Rift Experience
http://www.roadtovr.com/enthusiast-laser-eye-surgery-oculus-rift-virtual-reality/
The buzz surrounding virtual reality continues to grow and now at least one enthusiast is so convinced by the technology that he has opted for laser eye surgery, after 30 years of wearing glasses, to enhance the Oculus Rift experience.
Reddit user ceno666, who prefers to keep his real name anonymous, is farsighted with astigmatism, an eye condition where the optics of the eye cannot sharply focus an image onto the retina. Astigmatism affects some 28% of children, aged 5-17, according to a study published in the journal JAMA Ophthalmology.
“Never thought much about the laser surgery until the Rift, that’s for sure.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
DIY Custom Molded Earbud Roundup
http://hackaday.com/2014/08/13/diy-custom-molded-earbud-roundup/
Headphones have become ubiquitous these days. Thanks to the iPod and the smartphone, it’s become commonplace to see someone wearing a pair of earbud style headphones. Earbuds aren’t always comfortable though. One some people they are too loose. On others, the fit is so tight that they cause pain.To that end, we’ve found a few great solutions for this problem.
[cptnpiccard] has documented his custom molded Sugru earbuds in an Imgur gallery. He’s molded a pair of standard earbuds into a cast of his ear.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bubble Displays Are Increasing In Resolution
http://hackaday.com/2014/08/14/bubble-displays-are-increasing-in-resolution/
[Bruce] has created a pretty cool bubble display that is capable of showing recognizable photographs of people. This entire art installation is no slouch at 3-stories tall!
setup uses a Linux-based computer with custom control software to manipulate the valves
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Gyroscopes in Your Phone Could Let Apps Eavesdrop on Conversations
http://www.wired.com/2014/08/gyroscope-listening-hack/
In the age of surveillance paranoia, most smartphone users know better than to give a random app or website permission to use their device’s microphone. But researchers have found there’s another, little-considered sensor in modern phones that can also listen in on their conversations. And it doesn’t even need to ask.
In a presentation at the Usenix security conference next week, researchers from Stanford University and Israel’s defense research group Rafael plan to present a technique for using a smartphone to surreptitiously eavesdrop on conversations in a room—not with a gadget’s microphone, but with its gyroscopes, the sensors designed measure the phone’s orientation.
“Whenever you grant anyone access to sensors on a device, you’re going to have unintended consequences,” says Dan Boneh, a computer security professor at Stanford. “In this case the unintended consequence is that they can pick up not just phone vibrations, but air vibrations.”
When the researchers tested their gyroscope snooping trick’s ability to pick up the numbers one through ten and the syllable “oh”—a simulation of what might be necessary to steal a credit card number, for instance—it could identify as many as 65 percent of digits spoken in the same room as the device by a single speaker. It could also identify the speaker’s gender with as much as 84 percent certainty. Or it could distinguish between five different speakers in a room with up to 65 percent certainty.
Google’s Android operating system allows movements from the sensors to be read at 200 hertz, or 200 times per second. Since most human voices range from 80 to 250 hertz, the sensor can pick up a significant portion of those voices. Though the result is unintelligible to the human ear, Stanford researcher Yan Michalevsky and Rafael’s Gabi Nakibly built a custom speech recognition program designed to interpret it.
Tomi Engdahl says:
YouTube refreshes television app for set-top boxes, game consoles and smart TVs
http://www.engadget.com/2014/08/14/youtube-tv-app/
If you use YouTube’s app on your TV, get ready for a new UI (finally!). The app has a much cleaner look now, in line with Google’s Material Design, and includes features that you’re used to seeing on your computer, smartphone and tablet
Tomi Engdahl says:
Japanese universities develop new world’s fastest camera
http://phys.org/news/2014-08-japanese-universities-world-fastest-camera.html
Researchers working at two universities in Japan have jointly developed what is being described as the world’s fastest camera. A photo-device with a frame interval of 4.4 trillion frames per second. In their paper published in the journal Nature Photonics, the team describes how their camera works, its capabilities and the extensive work that went into its creation.
The new camera is motion-based femtophotography, performing single-shot bursts for image acquisition, which means it has no need for repetitive measurements. It works via optical mapping of an object’s spatial profile which varies over time. Its abilities make it 1000 times as fast as cameras it supersedes. In addition to the extremely high frame rate, the camera also has a high pixel resolution (450 × 450).
A high-speed camera would allow researchers to actually see what is going on as the laser does its work. They also expect the camera to be useful in the medical field.
Tomi Engdahl says:
10 years of podcasting: Code, comedy, and patent lawsuits
“Thank you very much for taking the time to download this MP3 file.”
http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/08/10-years-of-podcasting-code-comedy-and-patent-lawsuits/
A decade ago today—August 13, 2004—former MTV VJ Adam Curry spoke these words, recorded in his car in rural Belgium while driving to the Netherlands:
“Well, good morning everybody, and welcome to the Daily Source Code. Thank you very much for taking the time to download this MP3 file. Some of you may have received it overnight as an enclosure in your aggregator. In that case, thanks for subscribing. So first what I’d like to do is to explain exactly what this is, and what the Daily Source Code is going to be.”
Now, Adam Curry’s Daily Source Code (DSC) was not the very first podcast ever recorded. That honor belongs to Christopher Lydon, who recorded one back in July 2003.
Still, Curry’s DSC remains an important early marker in the history of podcasting. It was created essentially as a proof of concept for Curry’s first foray into software development, utilizing an Apple Script designed to pull audio enclosures off RSS and then synch them via iTunes to an iPod.
While audio distributed online long predates podcasting (hello, Usenet!), having an automated way to get regular audio content to a portable device is really what separates podcasting from its predecessors.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The never-advertised, always coveted headphones built and sold in Brooklyn
Ars presents a mini-documentary on the low-profile, highly regarded Grado Labs.
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/07/some-of-the-worlds-most-reknowned-headphones-built-in-a-brooklyn-townhouse/
Buried in a packed townhouse on a quiet street in south Brooklyn is a manufacturing operation that produces some of the most renowned headphones in the business. Despite Yelp reviews for the business, Grado Labs doesn’t sell directly from its location to consumers, though it does take the occasional walk-up request for repairs. For the most part, its long-time employees, including owner John Grado and his son Jonathan, tinker away through four crowded floors on audio gear that hasn’t appeared in advertising since the 1960′s.
The first stereo headphones were tiny speakers surrounded by couch cushion foam, created in 1958 by John C. Koss, a jazz musician who lived in Milwaukee. After Koss came Philips, Onkyo, and Sennheiser with their own models, and then Sony brought headphones out of the home with the Walkman in 1979.
Grado didn’t start developing headphones until 1989, shortly before John Grado bought out the company from his uncle. True to the headphones’ origins, though, their sound is particularly suited to jazz music.
The only part of the headphones that are built off-site, according to the Grado family, is the driver. These are manufactured by one man on Long Island who doesn’t work exclusively for Grado, but he has the space to put drivers together that Grado does not in its packed and rickety townhouse.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Cable Guys Have Become the Internet Guys
http://recode.net/2014/08/15/the-cable-guys-have-become-the-internet-guys/
The cable TV business hit an important milestone last month: It turned into the Internet business.
Last quarter, for the first time ever, the biggest cable TV providers started selling more broadband subscriptions than video subscriptions, according to a new tally from Leichtman Research Group.
Not by much. The top cable guys now have 49,915,000 Internet subscribers, compared to 49,910,000 TV subscribers. And to be sure, most cable customers are getting both services.
Still, this is directionally important. The future for the pay TV guys isn’t selling you pay TV — it’s selling you access to data pipes, and pay TV will be one of the things you use those pipes for.*
Tomi Engdahl says:
New tool makes a single picture worth a thousand – and more – images
http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2014/08/14/average-image-for-big-visual-data/
A photo is worth a thousand words, but what if the image could also represent thousands of other images?
New software developed by UC Berkeley computer scientists seeks to tame the vast amount of visual data in the world by generating a single photo that can represent massive clusters of images.
The authors noted that since photography was invented, there have been an estimated 3.5 trillion photos taken, including 10 percent within the past year. Facebook reports 6 billion photo uploads per month on its site, and YouTube gets 72 hours of video uploaded every minute.
“Visual data is among the biggest of Big Data,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
AverageExplorer: Interactive Exploration and Alignment of Visual Data Collections
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QgL_aPPCpM
an interactive framework that allows a user to rapidly explore and visualize a large image collection using the medium of average images.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Premier League warns about posting goal videos online
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/28796590
The Premier League has told Newsbeat they’re going to clamp down on fans posting unofficial videos of goals online.
Thousands of goal Vines were posted on social media during the World Cup.
With the new football season starting tomorrow the trend was expected to continue.
However the Premier League has said that tweeting copyrighted material is illegal and are warning supporters not to do it.
But many supporters don’t realise by sharing the videos on websites like Twitter they’re breaking copyright laws.
Sky Sports and BT Sport paid a record £3bn pounds to show three seasons’ worth of live Premier League football.
The Sun and The Times bought the online rights and they don’t want people to be able to see the action for free.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Virtual surgery gets real
What the Oculus Rift could mean for the future of medecine
https://medium.com/@Goetz/virtual-surgery-gets-real-221beeac65ea
Technological innovation takes time : virtual reality has been a thing in the medical field for more than three decades, and despite great promises it isn’t widely available yet. Things could change quickly, and the innovation won’t come from the usual suspects in medecine, but the gaming world.
The Oculus Rift is a virtual reality headset (in its second iteration) made possible by smartphone technologies, developed by Oculus VR, a 2 year-old company recently acquired 2 billions by facebook.
We used consumer technology to provide a new way to capture a surgery. Two synchronized GoPros cameras were placed on the Dr Gregory’s head while he was performing a total hip replacement.
Tomi Engdahl says:
After first original TV series fall flat, Amazon leans away from data-driven creative approach:
For Its New Shows, Amazon Adds Art to Its Data
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/16/business/media/for-its-new-shows-amazon-adds-art-to-its-data.html?_r=0
“What Amazon has been able to do is create something almost like an indie studio from the 1970s,” Ms. Soloway said.
That vibe is a far cry from Amazon’s initial foray into television production, a tech-oriented approach driven by data analysis.
Ms. Soloway’s new show, “Transparent,” is one of four new series that Amazon will unveil in the coming months as the company tries to find the right balance between art and algorithms. After an underwhelming start, it has increased its gamble on creating its own shows to draw new customers to its Prime subscription service.
Amazon’s push comes during a glut of new programming and fierce competition for viewers. The traditional broadcast and cable networks continue to ramp up their investment in programing, while other insurgents like Netflix and Hulu are trying to distinguish their services by pouring more money into creating new shows.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hacklet #11- Cameras
http://hackaday.com/2014/08/15/hacklet-11-cameras/
There are plenty of cameras on Hackaday.io, from complex machine vision systems to pinhole cameras. We’re concentrating on the cameras whose primary mission is to create an image. It might be for art, for social documentation, or just a snapshot with friends.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Is Dolby Atmos a Flop For Home Theater Like 3DTV Was?
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/14/08/16/212214/is-dolby-atmos-a-flop-for-home-theater-like-3dtv-was
Object-based audio is supposed to be the future of surround sound. The ability to pan sound around the room in 3D space as opposed to fixed channel assignments of yesterday’s decoders. While this makes a lot of sense at the cinema, it’s less likely consumers rush
Forrest says:
An outstanding share! I’ve just forwarded this onto a friend who was conducting a little homework on this.
And he actually bought me lunch due to the fact that I stumbled upon it for him…
lol. So allow me to reword this…. Thanks for the meal!!
But yeah, thanks for spending some time to talk about this subject here on your web
site.
Tomi Engdahl says:
A Famous Art Museum Is Offering Everyone Remote Tours, Using Robots
http://www.wired.com/2014/08/a-famous-art-museum-is-offering-everyone-remote-tours-using-robots/
Since at least the 1960s, we’ve romanticized nighttime visits to art museums.
Now, for a few nights in August, anyone who dreams of an after-hours museum visit (and has an internet connection) can do just that, at the Tate Britain. The nocturnal tour guides are a set of four robots, each outfitted with lights, video streaming technology, a Raspberry Pi computer, and an Arduino board, that’ll roam the galleries from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m., GMT/UTC. Curious parties from anywhere in the world can log on to the Tate’s After Dark website, and either follow a virtual tour, or take control and steer one of the robots (pending a wait time).