The future of cameras seem to be heading to is smaller, more portable, more disposable and mirrorless (DSLRs have a mirror). When Nokia’s Executive Vice President Anssi Vanjoki told 2010 that Cell Phone Cameras Will Replace DSLRs, I could not believe that on time. But it really seems to become more and more to truth in 2014: Nowadays you can take professional level (“good enough photos”) using consumer level cameras and smart phones. Technical quality is good enough for majority. There is going on a rampant replacement of point and shoot cameras of all flavors and varieties with smart phones and their built in cameras. Now the market is being effectively gutted. Gone. Non-existent. Same thing is happening to video as well.
Part of the technical race came to a (maybe temporary) end: “How can I match and exceed the quality of conventional metrics that we used to get from medium format film.” There’s nothing else pressing to solve, technically. Many photographers are fully equipped but uninspired to move forward. We have have set down for “good enough.” The engineering idea is that we’ve hit the sweet spot and to go for a Six Sigma improvement would be costly and unnecessary.
DSLR sales were down in 2013, worldwide, by 18.5% according to CIPA. The total decline in the entire dedicated camera market is closer to 43.5%. The decline will continue. Credit Suisse prediction: “Only those who have a strong brand and are competitive on price will last – and only Canon, Nikon and Sony fullfil that criteria”. Mirrorless cameras are not a big market: According to CIPA is the total sales of mirrorless system cameras in N. America was slightly fewer than 39,000 units. Total.
The challenge will be: How do you bridge that gap between high photo-capture quality and high-quality camera devices and the cloud where every amateur photographer’s images live? The company which has the most innovative post-processing, easy to share photos feature set wins! The future of photography is same as future in pretty much everything: software and connectivity. Camera manufacturers have been slow on those: we are just now seeing cameras with full operating systems like Android The advantages to smart phones are size, constant (annoyingly constant) access, multi-task tool set, and the ability to send your images, electronically, to an audience just about anywhere in the world.
Several smartphone makers have clear strategies to take photography to extremes: 40 megapixel camera is already on the market and several manufacturers are playing with re-focus after shooting options.
Consumer video device trend is that separate classic video cameras have pretty much faded from market. New smart phones have high definition video cameras in them, so for most users there is no need for separate video camera. For special uses there are small “action” video cameras that are so tiny that you can place them almost anywhere and they can take some beating while you perform your extreme sports. If the video quality of those do not suffice, many people use their DSLR to shoot higher quality high definition video. For professional video production there is still some market left for professional and prosumer video cameras.
The world seems to be heading to situation where separate DSLRs and separate video cameras will be more like high fidelity audio, which used to be common selling point in 1970s, 80s and early 90s, but now only some geeks care about audio quality. This will more or less happen to photographs and video.
Connected TV technologies get more widely used and the content earlier viewable only on TV can be now seen on many other screens. Your smartphone is the screen in your pocket. Your computer is the screen on your desk. Your tablet is a screen for the couch. This development is far from ready. Gartner suggests that now through 2018, a variety of devices, user contexts, and interaction paradigms will make “everything everywhere” strategies unachievable.
Video streaming has really become mainstream as Netflix And YouTube Account For Over 50% Of Peak Fixed Network Data In North America. Because of the rise in video services like Netflix and YouTube, peer-to-peer file-sharing has dropped (meaning less piracy of movies and TV series). Netflix remains the biggest pig in the broadband python, representing 31.6% of all downstream Internet traffic in North America during primetime hours in September — well ahead of any other streaming service. In other parts of the world, YouTube is the biggest consumer of bandwidth. In Europe, YouTube represented of 28.7% of downstream traffic.
Post HDTV resolution era seems to be coming to TVs as well in form of 4K / UltraHD. It was introduced in the 2013, and the manufacturers start to push it more in 204 because all LCD makers are looking to move their business models on from cheap mass production to higher-margin, premium offerings. They try to innovate and secure their future viability by selling fewer, but more profitable displays. On this road giant curved TVs is gaining ground: LG announces that it will present the “world’s first ” 105-inch curved ultra-hd-TV in January in Las Vegas at CES. Almost at the same time , however, Samsung also announced the proposal at CES “the world’s first and curved” 105-inch ultra HD television.. TV screens are in fact higher resolution the basic 4k level of ultra hd: Samsung and LG screens resolution is 5120 × 2160 pixels in the image (11 megapixels).
4K resolution ecosystem will get more ready for use. Netflix is testing out 4K video streaming and Netflix’s House of Cards was shot in 4K. Amazon Studios also just recently announced that it will shoot all of its 2014 shows in that format as well.
4K and 4K streaming are definitely coming in 2014 regardless of how many people can actually view it. 4K will still require a lot of work “with the compression and decode capability” to be ready for mainstream use. There are a great many things that need to happen before 4K really becomes a reality or needs to do so.
PC hardware with 4G capable graphics cards is already available, so decoding the stream is not a problem. The biggest issue is that the market penetration of 4K-capable televisions needs to grow, but to that happen the prices must drop to ranges for the average consumer. Many users have already fast enough fixed broadband connection, but can the networks handle peak usage 4K streaming? According to Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, it won’t require more than a stable 15 Mbps to stream 4K.
Extreme overkill resolution will also push to tablet and smart phone markets. There are already smart phones with full HD resolution. In high-end smartphones we may be moving into the overkill zone with extreme resolution that is higher than you can see on small screen: some makers have already demonstrated displays with twice the performance of 1080-progressive. Samsung is planned to release devices with 4k or UHD resolutions. As we have seen in many high tech gadget markets earlier it is a very short journey to copycat behavior. And we will see also see smart phones that can shoot 4K video.
For a long time music has been listened mainly with small portable MP3 player and such, which for most users provide “good enough” audio quality. The market had already shifted from separate MP3 players to the same functionality included to other devices (smart phones and tablets), so sales of music players sales have plummeted in year 2013 as much as as one-third. Separate music players mostly only used for listening music during fitness hobby, and growing popularity of fitness hobby is full of players saved the market from total collapse. Uncompressed music player to appreciate the need of a decent storage capacity, so some hifi people buy some high-end separate players, but that’s a small market.
Apple’s iPod continues to lead an ever-shrinking market of portable media players with a staggering 72 percent of the market for standalone music players. Apple has never been afraid of reducing demand for one of its devices by creating demand for another, in this case iPhone. The future of separate music players looks bleak.
Smartphones have taken the music player market. The growing popularity of smart phones and music streaming services will rise in the future to eat even music players sales. If smart watch will become a hit, the music player may be lost in exercisers shopping list.
1,214 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Internet Is Officially More Popular Than Cable in the U.S.
http://www.wired.com/2014/08/the-internet-is-now-officially-more-popular-than-cable-in-the-u-s/
You can’t call them “cable companies” anymore.
For the first time, the number of broadband subscribers with the major U.S. cable companies exceeded the number of cable subscribers, the Leichtman Research Group reported today. Among other things, these figures suggest the industry is now misnamed. Evidently these are broadband companies that offer cable on the side.
What this means for the future of TV is still tough to predict. While these figures may suggest the inevitable transition to an internet-dominated future, nearly 50 million cable subscribers don’t appear ready to cut the cord just yet
Tomi Engdahl says:
4K will be on a mobile phone, the content does not
With a resolution of 4K TVs are already sold at full blast. Technology is being quickly pushing the smartphones, but the dramatic impact it has come to be users. The true 4K content will be in short supply for a long time.
ABI’s analysts, the mobile phone components – processors, memory, and partly already batteries – are developing rapidly, so that the devices are capable of handling 4K-quality images. The big challenge is, however, content production and network connections that do not support 4K image. In any case, the first 4K-screen-equipped smartphones come to market as early as next year.
Still UltraViolet mobile video service sends most of its content from the old SD resolution.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1659:4k-tulee-kannykkaan-sisalto-ei&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
USB standard looks to increase performance
http://www.vision-systems.com/articles/print/volume-19/issue-7/features/usb-standard-looks-to-increase-performance.html
Cameras, cables, repeaters and converters are now available for the newly developed USB3 Vision standard.
First released in January 2013 and hosted by the AIA (Ann Arbor, MI; http://www.visiononline.org), the USB3 Vision standard has, in the past year, gained a large amount of support from vendors of cameras, cables, repeaters and converters. Like the USB 3 standard upon which it is based, the USB3 Vision standard is backwards compatible with USB 2.0 ports (if the camera design permits), while offering a approximately 400MByte/s bandwidth and support for powered devices of up to 4.5W.
Because the USB3 Vision standard is based on the well-established USB 3 standard, it leverages the benefits of USB 3 while adding specific functionality targeted at those developing machine vision systems.
While the USB 3 standard supports a number of data transfer types including control transfer, isochronous transfer, interrupt transfer and bulk transfer modes to support a number of different peripheral requirements, the USB3 Vision standard employs only the bulk transfer mode. Unlike isochronous data transfer where no retransmission is made should any data error occur, the bulk transfer mode guarantees data accuracy by employing a cyclic redundancy check mechanism and re-transmission capability, as well as provides end-to-end flow-control to ensure reliable transfers.
Like the GigE Vision standard, the USB3 Vision standard uses data packets that must be reconstructed before image processing operations can be performed. Unlike the GigE Vision standard, where this task is often performed by the host computer’s processor, this de-packetization is performed by the host computer’s eXtensible Host Controller Interface (xHCI) that is either embedded on the PC motherboard or add-in card.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Industrial camera survey provides potential glimpse into future of camera market
http://www.vision-systems.com/articles/2014/08/industrial-camera-survey-provides-potential-glimpse-into-future-of-camera-market.html?cmpid=EnlVSDAugust182014
“Industrial Cameras and Their Technical Features,” the 6th annual camera survey published by FRAMOS, takes a look at the opinions of 15 international camera manufacturers and 43 end users of machine vision cameras, and what it might mean for the future.
Those manufacturers surveyed indicate that the applications for which users purchased their cameras varies. According to the survey, automation in production, quality assurance, and measuring technology each accounted for 22%, while automation in logistics (17%), and transport measurement (16%), came in just behind them. On the other hand, end users indicate that 25% purchased cameras for use in automation in production, while 22% planned to use the cameras for quality assurance. In addition, 17% intended on using the cameras for logistics automation, 11% in measurement technology, and 7% for traffic measurement.
In terms of pricing, users indicated via their answers that paying for a high-quality camera was worth it to them. Forty percent of users surveyed indicated that they purchased cameras between €1,000 and €3,000 while 30% purchased cameras between €650 and $1,000.
Nearly 71% of manufacturers said that they believe CCD sensors will continue to have a share of 60% of the market in two years, while users believe CMOS and CCD will be on par by that time.
Users currently favor 1 – 3 MPixel sensors (44%), but indicate that in two years’ time, they anticipate using more 3 -5 MPixel sensors (40%)
Manufacturers currently sell more cameras with a sensor size of less than 1 MPixel (46%), but in two years, they expect that number to drop by as much as 10%, with hopes of selling larger format cameras.
Interestingly, 43% of manufacturers indicated in the survey that the majority of cameras they develop are those in the 60-100 fps range (43%), while 28% indicated a range of 25-60 fps
Most of the manufacturers surveyed have cameras with a GigE interface, followed at some distance by FireWire (b), USB 2.0, and USB 3.0.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Image Sensors (CCD, CMOS, CID, X-Ray)
http://www.vision-systems.com/cameras/image-sensors.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Spherical imaging cameras enable interactive 360° tour of Brazil
http://www.vision-systems.com/articles/2014/08/spherical-imaging-cameras-enable-interactive-360-tour-of-brazil.html?cmpid=EnlVSDAugust182014
Brazilian company panoGrama—which specializes in panoramic video production—recently launched Brazil 360°, an interactive video experience that utilizes spherical imaging cameras to provide 360° panoramic views of all over Brazil.
he used various Ladybug spherical imaging camera models from Point Grey. Ladybug2, 3, and 5 models were used
Ladybug2 cameras feature six 1/3″ 0.8 MPixel Sony ICX204 CCD image sensors
Ladybug3 cameras feature six 1/1.8” 2 MPixel Sony 274 CCD image sensors
Lastly, Ladybug5 cameras feature six 2/3” 5 MPixel sensors
These cameras were used in tandem with LadybugCapPro software running on a 64-bit Windows 7 PC to generate the panoramic videos of Brazil.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Hema-Imager: Accessible Thermal Imaging for Smart Devices
http://hackaday.com/2014/08/18/the-hema-imager-accessible-thermal-imaging-for-smart-devices/
ready to get his device out into the market through a Kickstarter campaign. If successful, the technology will be shipped out and deployed in areas of construction, manufacturing, hospitals and emergency services; all of which could utilize the heat-mapping potential of this affordable device.
In addition to commercial uses, this product can assist in the reduction of household energy consumption by locating areas of heat loss. Without thermal imaging, the initial source of these types of drafts and airflows can be extremely hard to pinpoint.
Now, Hema-Imager is not the only product that is surfacing through crowd funding campaigns. MuOptics, for example
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wearables for Video Capture Smart Glasses Debate
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1323539&
While Google Glass explorers have been harassed, threatened, and even assaulted for wearing the smart glasses and allegedly recording everything, one company is putting its wearable camera upfront. Pivothead’s HD video glasses are more honest about intent, a company executive says.
People are partially “up in arms” about Google Glass privacy because of the long duration users wear the smart glasses. “I think people are uncomfortable with not knowing if you’re recording or not recording because now it’s a part of the face. It’s almost replacing the cellphone,”
The sport glasses feature an 8 megapixel camera on the bridge, capable of shooting in full HD with a customizable memory card and Bluetooth to pair with a handset or computer. Like GoPro, the glasses are based on an Ambarella chipset with A-11 ARM processor
Pivothead envisions a two-way communications model on its more specialized glasses that operate at a 5 Ghz frequency, allowing wearers to live stream video and voice to a second source. Cox says a security guard could patrol an area and feed back to monitors in a control room, which could also direct the guard where to go using a 4G/LTE cellular connection.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Betting Big on HD-to-Ultra HDTV Transition
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1323526&
Will the Christmas buying season starting on Black Friday this year be the start of HDTV’s transition to Ultra HD?
That’s what Aaron Taylor, executive vice president of sales and marketing at Nanotech Entertainment Inc. in San Jose, Calif., contends and his company is betting big on it happening.
What are the signs that point to Taylor being right in his prediction? “One precursor was the Consumer Electronics Show in January this year where all the major Korean, Japanese, and Chinese television manufacturers were hawking their Ultra HD offerings,” says Taylor. “4K (Ultra HD) clearly took center stage at CES 2014.”
Furthermore, he contends, Chinese manufacturers bombed the price and made the sets affordable to the mass consumer market.
Will a large supply and lowering price be sufficient for consumers to buy Ultra HD?
OTT content providers see this as a major opportunity to offer premium content to consumers that will build brand and take viewers away from cable, satellite and over the air broadcast content providers.
market data for Ultra HD unit volume shipments.
In the US last year 55,000 units shipped and the research predicted 481,000 this year, tripling to over 1.2 million in 2015 and doubling to 2.8 million units in 2017.
This conclusion was supported by the Digitimes report, Ultra HD “technology, on the other hand, is being driven by panel makers in mainstream markets by a multitude of vendors, with the China market taking the lead.” Aaron Taylor is of the same mind, adding, “Chinese TV vendors HiSense, TCL, and Seiki, have all made a tremendous push on Ultra HD.”
A Strategy Analytics’ ConsumerMetrix Service survey of 4,095 Europeans and 2,024 US consumers, found over 50% of those who participated said they would likely buy Ultra HD in the next two years. The survey also found that the intention to buy Ultra HDTV peaks in the 25 to 34 age group and the awareness of Ultra HD was greater among higher income consumers, two third of which express an intention to buy this next generation television.
The research suggests that TV manufacturers planning to produce large numbers of Ultra HD sets in 2014 should see strong product acceptance during the Christmas buying season
The final element in Nanotech’s strategy to ride the Ultra HD transition wave is getting preloaded on the Smart TV apps shipped from the TV manufacturers. “Just as Netflix, Amazon and Hulu apps are on HDTV Smart TVs, we’re working with all the TV manufacturers to have the UltraFlix app preinstalled on all Ultra HD Smart TVs,” Taylor declares.
The company’s initial UltraFlix offering will be a per-title video-on-demand rental similar to Amazon Instant Video, as well as a fair amount of free 4K content.
The licensing deals with its content owners provides revenue sharing that Taylor claims “will net 20% on every transaction and we expect to be profitable within a year.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hands Free Recording – Looks Silly but is Super Effective
http://hackaday.com/2014/08/19/hands-free-recording-looks-silly-but-is-super-effective/
While most hackers probably like to claim they’re good at everything, no one is good at filming one-handed. Setting up a tripod and adjusting it every shot can be tedious — wouldn’t it be great if you could just film what you see?
That’s what inspired [Hans de Bruin] to make these camera goggles. He’s using those big old school safety glasses that you can remove the glass lenses from.
biconvex optical lens between his eye and the camera – it’s the same kind used in Google’s Cardboard VR kit.
Tomi Engdahl says:
A MIPI DSI Display Shield/HDMI Adapter
http://hackaday.com/2014/08/19/a-mipi-dsi-display-shieldhdmi-adapter/
well documented MIPI DSI Display Shield / HDMI Adapter he put on hackaday.io. The Display Serial Interface (DSI) is a high speed packet-based interface for delivering video data to recent LCD/OLED displays. It uses several differential data lanes which frequencies may reach 1 GHz depending on the resolution and frame rate required.
allows any HDMI content to be played on the DSI-enabled scrap displays you may have lying around
Tomi Engdahl says:
A Hackable Hi-Fi Audio DSP
http://hackaday.com/2014/08/20/a-hackable-hi-fi-audio-dsp/
Audiophiles tend to put analog systems on a pedestal. Analog systems can provide great audio performance, but they tend to be quite costly. They’re also hard to tinker with, since modifying parameters involves replacing components. To address this, [tshen2] designed the DSP 01.
The DSP 01 is based around the Analog Devices ADAU1701. This DSP chip includes two ADCs for audio input, and four DACs for audio output. These can be controlled by the built in DSP processor core, which has I/O for switches, buttons, and knobs.
[tshen2]‘s main goal with the DSP 01 was to implement an audio crossover.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sony A6000 Review
http://www.slashgear.com/sony-a6000-review-19341452/
With unusual cameras like the A7 and A7R, Sony’s A6000 ran the risk of being overshadowed. Elevated from the NEX range to sit alongside Sony’s full DSLRs with the Alpha prefix, the A6000 builds on the NEX-6 with a new 24.3-megapixel sensor and a flashy autofocus system the company claims is a record-setter. Big claims, then, and a big spec list, but can the A6000 live up to expectations?
Sony is pushing the A6000′s speed as a key selling point, and there’s no denying that this is one very fast camera. Snap across the easily-located power switch and the camera is ready for action in short order, but it’s the autofocus system which is the real speed-demon.
The claim is 0.06 seconds to lock, but the autofocus is also broader
The magic really happens when dealing with moving subjects and burst mode. The display becomes a firefly scene of red dots as the AF does its tracking; reviewing the shots afterwards,
The downside to the continuous shooting mode is the time it takes to empty the buffer once you’re done. Fire off 30-40 images and you can expect the A6000 to lock up as it writes to the memory card for anything up to 25-30 seconds, during which time the camera won’t really allow you to do anything.
Battery life is rated at up to 360 shots from the 1,080 mAh NP-FW50 pack
Sony’s integrated WiFi works with the company’s PlayMemories app, available for iOS and Android. At its most basic, it’s a way of wirelessly transferring photos from the camera to your phone, which makes it easier to review them or share them on Instagram, Facebook, or other social services.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of discounting interchangeable-lens cameras as subpar to their DSLR counterparts, and certainly the early generations perhaps focused more on affordability and size than they did image quality. It’s also clear that the same isn’t true today.
Instead, the A6000 makes a strong argument for why it deserves to be considered a worthy part of the Alpha range.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Majority Of Digital Media Consumption Now Takes Place In Mobile Apps
http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/21/majority-of-digital-media-consumption-now-takes-place-in-mobile-apps/
U.S. users are now spending the majority of their time consuming digital media within mobile applications, according to a new study released by comScore this morning. That means mobile apps, including the number 1 most popular app Facebook, eat up more of our time than desktop usage or mobile web surfing, accounting for 52% of the time spent using digital media. Combined with mobile web, mobile usage as a whole accounts for 60% of time spent, while desktop-based digital media consumption makes up the remaining 40%.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Comcast aims to hook college students on cable with TV over Wi-Fi
It’s bundled right in with their room and board costs
http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/21/6053029/comcast-xfinity-on-campus-aims-to-hook-college-students-on-cable
9
inShare
Comcast today formally announced a new service that will let college students at seven universities stream live TV and video on-demand programming across their personal laptops, smartphones, and tablets while connected to campus Wi-Fi. Dubbed Xfinity On Campus, the service is included as part of each student’s room and board fees — which means it’s also only available to those residing in on-campus housing.
The whole effort is squarely aimed at millennials who are spending more and more time watching their favorite shows and movies away from a TV set. Comcast wants to get these younger college viewers — many of whom are perfectly content living in a world of Netflix, Hulu Plus, and shared HBO Go logins — hooked on cable in hopes that ultimately they’ll become paying customers once they’ve graduated.
80 live channels are bundled in
Tomi Engdahl says:
Director Rian Johnson says upcoming ‘Star Wars’ films will feature more practical effects and less CGI
http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/21/6053587/director-rian-johnson-says-upcoming-star-wars-films-will-feature-less-CGI
As if it wasn’t clear already, it sounds like the next trilogy of Star Wars films is going to do its best to distance itself from the derided prequel trilogy of the last decade. We already knew that director J.J. Abrams planned to shoot Episode VII on film (both 35mm and IMAX) rather than in digital, and it sounds like he’s also planning to use more practical effects in the next film in addition to the inevitable CGI effects that will surely be necessary for a film of this scale.
This isn’t the first hint we’ve gotten that the new trilogy will pull back a bit from the CGI overload in the prequels
Tomi Engdahl says:
Popular and Free, SoundCloud Is Now Ready for Ads
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/21/business/media/popular-and-free-soundcloud-is-now-ready-for-ads.html?_r=0
SoundCloud is the ubiquitous wild child of the digital music world. Without paying artists or record companies, it lets people freely upload and stream any kind of audio, and musicians have embraced it as a way to share their hottest work with fans.
Lorde, the teenage pop star from New Zealand, rose to fame after posting her song “Royals” there.
Even in a market saturated with competitors like iTunes and Pandora, the six-year-old SoundCloud has managed to reach a huge scale with a catalog of unusual, often exclusive content. According to the company, about 175 million people listen to music on its platform each month — more than four times Spotify’s global audience.
“We have listeners in every single country in the world — and in space,”
Now SoundCloud has decided it is time to grow up. On Thursday, as part of a new licensing deal with entertainment companies, SoundCloud will begin incorporating advertising and for the first time let artists and record labels collect royalties.
In many ways the move is a reaction to industry pressure to license content and produce revenue. It also reflects SoundCloud’s complex relationship with record labels
Tomi Engdahl says:
Enhanced Digital Video Protection Solution
http://www.eeweb.com/news/enhanced-digital-video-protection-solution
VideoFlow announces the expansion of its Digital Video Protection (DVP) solutions delivering live, high quality video (SD, HD and above) over unmanaged, best efforts networks with the addition of DVP100X.
The new DVP100X handles up to 80 streams and 80 virtual private network (VPN) tunnels simultaneously reaching 300 Mbps. This means that large multi-point networks can be created cost effectively using VideoFlow’s technology which enables live content to be delivered over unmanaged networks like the Internet with no packet lost and nullifies the jitter caused by transiting the Internet. The DVP100X provides broadcasters, teleports and operators a highly advanced, cost effective solution for broadcast quality, live video over standard Internet connections thereby eliminating the need for expensive service level agreement (SLA).
Tomi Engdahl says:
US Copyright Office rules monkey’s selfie public domain
Photographer can’t cash in on primate pics
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/08/22/us_copyright_office_rules_monkeys_selfie_public_domain/
The US Copyright Office has ruled against the photographer who has claimed ownership of the infamous “monkey selfie” image.
The Office said in its latest copyright law compendium (PDF) that images taken by animals, including the 2011 primate self-shot, could not be registered for copyright by a human.
“The Office will not register works produced by nature, animals, or plants,” the US copyright authority said.
The document specifically cites the monkey picture which has been the source of a legal battle between the Wikimedia Foundation and a British photographer.
The Office clearly says that unless a human took the image, it cannot be registered and, thus, would be considered a public domain image freely available for use.
Tomi Engdahl says:
TV transport tech, part 2: From sofa to server at the touch of a button
The high tech journey behind your telly remote control
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/08/22/feature_part_two_virgin_media_cable_tv_network_technology_sofa_to_the_server/
A case in point is Virgin’s TV Anywhere, which was launched in late 2012 to deliver programme viewing to computers together with iOS and, more recently, Android devices. It’s a very different set-up to manage compared to cable TV, as it requires content to be transcoded to suit the target devices.
Then add to that the different content packages that customers have. The system has to be aware of the content that customers are entitled to view. Obviously, this needs to be established before streams are relayed securely to a customer’s personal device – tablet, smartphone or PC. A key element for managing content access and protection is the Digital Rights Management (DRM), a set-up that Hennessy explains.
“I think of video content security in two worlds. Firstly, card or cardless based conditional access systems. These facilitate both protection and entitlement-based access to traditional broadcast and Video on Demand (VoD) content, delivered to equipment we provide, namely DVB-C Set Top Boxes and PVRs.
“Secondly, there’s the DRM side of the equation, which provides protection and entitlement-based access to video being delivered to an IP endpoint. For example, a modern IP-capable set-top box like the TiVo PVR or a customer-owned device such as a tablet, smartphone or games console. Today, we use Adobe Access DRM for our PCs and Apple devices for Virgin TV Anywhere. Microsoft Play Ready is the DRM solution we use to support Android devices.”
The heavy lifting of bringing in the assets from satellite and other sources for redistribution to set-top boxes using devices such as Cisco’s Integrated Receiver Decoders (IRD) and Digital Content Managers (DCM) was covered in part one.
Tomi Engdahl says:
TV transport tech, part 1: From server to sofa at the touch of a button
You won’t believe how much goes into today’s telly tech
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/08/18/feature_part_one_virgin_media_cable_tv_network_technology_server_to_the_sofa/
Even in those simpler times, television services were soon taken for granted. Today, with an even a bigger mass of technology supporting the simplest of actions – the touch of a button – this is still the case.
Leading UK cable network operator Virgin Media has allowed The Register exclusive access to its broadcast operation, which delivers TV, movies and other services over its Hybrid Fibre-Coaxial (HFC) network to millions of customers throughout the UK.
We’ll be looking at the tech behind it all that performs simple tasks from getting a menu on your screen and a movie playing in seconds to delivery to portable devices: from the sofa to the server, from the server to the sofa.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Switch
A federal court rejects Aereo’s request to argue it’s a cable company
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/08/21/a-federal-court-rejects-aereos-request-to-argue-its-a-cable-company/
Aereo’s seemingly last-ditch argument to save itself won’t be given an airing in court, according to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.
Instead, if the shuttered streaming video company wants to keep fighting for its survival, procedural reasons require that it do so at the district court level, officials said in a document filed Thursday.
The decision is a win for broadcasters, who had sought a ban on Aereo from the beginning.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft Miracast dongle spotted at FCC ahead of Lumia event
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2597960/microsoft-miracast-dongle-spotted-at-fcc-ahead-of-lumia-event.html
Google’s Chromecast is a hit, and now it appears Microsoft wants to replicate something similar for Windows Phone and probably Windows PCs.
Windows Phone Daily and Nokiapoweruser did some sleuthing at the Federal Communication Commission’s website, and look what they found: a new mobile accessory from Microsoft. At first it wasn’t clear what the product was, but after checking other resources online it appears Microsoft is making a Miracast dongle for HDTVs.
Miracast is a screencasting standard for connected devices over Wi-Fi Direct. Coincidence?—Microsoft recently added Miracast support to Windows Phone via the Lumia Cyan firmware for Windows Phone 8.1.
Adding a dongle to support Miracast on TVs is key, because the technology has yet to see wide adoption despite being supported in the latest build of Windows.
The way Miracast works currently, it mirrors your display and relies on the casting device for its data—similar to Apple TV. So you can’t send a Breaking Bad episode from Netflix to a Miracast device and then start playing a game on your phone, the way you can with Chromecast.
But the advantage of mirroring a display on your TV is that you don’t have to wait for developers to add Miracast support to their apps, because it’s a system-wide feature.
Tomi Engdahl says:
You love Netflix
http://community.plus.net/blog/2014/08/21/you-love-netflix/
Netflix launched in the UK just over two years ago with quite a fanfare.
In that time we’ve seen Netflix traffic grow at an incredible rate. Netflix now battles it out with YouTube for most usage on our network. This isn’t surprising when you see that one in ten households have signed up to Netflix.
That’s more than 3 million UK households now subscribed to Netflix and puts it far ahead of their rival, Amazon.
Netflix and YouTube both use large amounts of bandwidth across our network, although their usage patterns differ.
Netflix peaks higher than YouTube and is watched later in the evening, whereas YouTube contributes more overall traffic without the significant peak
Tomi Engdahl says:
X-Ray Vision Robots Can See Through Walls Using Only WiFi
http://video.techbriefs.com/video/X-Ray-Vision-Robots-Can-See-Thr;RF-Microwave-Electronics
University of California Santa Barbara researchers have demonstrated a system for two unmanned vehicles to see through thick concrete walls using only WiFi signals – fully discovering what is on the other side with high accuracy. The objects on the other side don’t have to move to be detected.
Potential applications include search and rescue operations and surveillance. One robot measures the wireless transmissions of the other robot that is in the broadcast mode.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Open Source Marker Recognition for Augmented Reality
http://hackaday.com/2014/08/24/open-source-marker-recognition-for-augmented-reality/
[Bharath] recently uploaded the source code for an OpenCV based pattern recognition platform that can be used for Augmented Reality, or even robots. It was built with C++ and utilized the OpenCV library to translate marker notations within a single frame.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Here Comes the 3-D Portrait Studio
http://spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/consumer-electronics/audiovideo/here-comes-the-3d-portrait-studio
Now, in an era of cameras in every gadget, like most families, we moved from portraits to selfies, from framed photos to Facebook posts, and left the portrait studio behind.
the portrait studio may be about to come back, thanks to sophisticated scanning technology that’s coming down in price, and 3-D printers that are getting better and better at creating realistic full color objects.
3-D portraiture is “where photography was at the end of the 19th century,
The trend of what is coming to be called the 3-D selfie—even though there is no way most people can create one themselves—is kicking off in Asia and moving into Europe, Zevelyov reported. The typical entrepreneur in this nascent market has cobbled together some kind of scanning system (often just racks of cameras), bought a 3-D printer, and opened up a 3-D photo studio.
Again, as with the early days of photography, the image doesn’t pop right out of the camera. But according to Zevelyov, people are fine with coming back to pick up their 3-D portrait later. The scan costs $149 for a monochrome bust and $199 for a full-color, full-body scan; the resulting figurines go for $39 and up, depending on size. That’s priced less like the old photo studio in the mall and more like the high-end commercial photographer, but, as Zevelyov says, it’s early days.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Chromecast Is Root
http://hackaday.com/2014/08/25/chromecast-is-root/
Chromecast is as close as you’re going to get to a perfect device – plug it in the back of your TV, and instantly you have Netflix, Hulu, Pandora, and a web browser on the largest display in your house. It’s a much simpler device than a Raspi running XBMC, and we’ve already seen a few Chromecast hacks that stream videos from a phone and rickroll everyone around you.
Now the Chromecast has been rooted, allowing anyone to change the DNS settings (Netflix and Hulu users that want to watch content not available in their country rejoice), and loading custom apps for the Chromecast.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Amazon Is Turning Into Google
http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-is-google-2014-8
But just like Google has expanded beyond search into everything from finding ways to cheat death to making cars that can drive themselves, Amazon has been increasingly expanding beyond its core e-commerce business.
Amazon’s $970 million purchase of Twitch, a site that lets you watch people play video games via a live stream, is its latest push into original video content and a move to transform itself into part media company. It’s a longer-term bet that the trend of watching stuff online versus cable will continue.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Amazon.com to Acquire Twitch
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1960768&highlight=
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire Twitch Interactive, Inc., the leading live video platform for gamers. In July, more than 55 million unique visitors viewed more than 15 billion minutes of content on Twitch produced by more than 1 million broadcasters, including individual gamers, pro players, publishers, developers, media outlets, conventions and stadium-filling esports organizations.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Did Twitter and YouTube Make the Right Call in Suppressing Images of James Foley’s Beheading?
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/08/21/james_foley_beheading_did_twitter_make_the_right_call_in_suppressing_the.html
When big news breaks, Twitter converts from a social forum to a news service, and the company’s decisions have a direct impact on what kind of information users can access.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Predictive Modeling To Increase Responsivity of Streamed Games
http://games.slashdot.org/story/14/08/26/027214/predictive-modeling-to-increase-responsivity-of-streamed-games
Streaming game services always bump up against a hard latency limit based on the total round-trip time it takes to send user input to a remote server and receive a frame of game data from that server. To alleviate the situation, Microsoft Research has been developing a system called DeLorean (whitepaper) using predictive modeling to improve the experienced responsiveness of a game.
Tomi Engdahl says:
CNN chief: News operation will do less with less
http://www.ajc.com/news/business/cnn-chief-news-operation-will-do-less-with-less/ng8HK/
CNN chief Jeff Zucker recently shared not so encouraging words with some of the news operation’s employees, many of whom have been bracing for potential jobs cuts.
“We are going to do less and have to do it with less,” Zucker said during a call-in to a news meeting Tuesday morning.
Zucker’s comments feed growing concerns among employees at CNN and other operations of Turner Broadcasting, which has nearly 13,000 full-time employees, about half of them in Atlanta.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Finnish national LASER study shows that abundant watching television sitting exposed to obesity and not vice versa. Plenty of TV’s view on the weight gain of up to a doubling in TV less-looking compared to.
According to the survey abundant front of the TV Time spent more weight index the waist size and age, gender, leisure time physical activity, smoking, and energy intake regardless.
- The study showed that three hours or more of TV’s evening look on body mass index and waist circumference increase was at least twice compared to people who spend an hour at night time watching television
Source: http://www.aamulehti.fi/Kotimaa/1194915510956/artikkeli/tutkimus+tietaa+runsas+television+katselu+lisaa+lihavuuden+riskia+ei+painvastoin.html?utm_source=leiki&utm_medium=iltalehti&utm_campaign=kontekstuaalinen
Tomi Engdahl says:
An iPod Dock Converted into Chromecast Speakers
http://hackaday.com/2014/08/26/an-ipod-dock-converted-into-chromecast-speakers/
[easybakejake] figured out a way to fuse together an iPod speaker dock and a wireless Chromecast receiver. His method utilized a modified HDMI-to-VGA adapter. From the looks of it, apps like music for Google Play, Pandora, and Music All Access seem to able to be streamed through this device.
Now stick it on a roomba and get it to DJ a party
Tomi Engdahl says:
Video Codecs in Close Battle
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1323630&
The battle between today’s leading video codecs — HEVC and VP9 — will be a closer fight than we saw between the leaders in the prior generation, VP8 and AVC. There may be room in the market for both – at least in the short term.
The Advanced Video Codec (AVC, a.k.a. H.264) will likely remain the dominant, mature video codec for the mobile market in the short term. Content providers will not provide High Efficiency Video Codec (HEVC, otherwise known as H.265) or VP9 variants for mobile until a critical mass of mobile devices provide support. The mobile market will not have critical mass until hardware accelerated chipsets are available, and these devices permeate the market.
VP9 is the follow on to VP8, which Google used in its WebM format. VP8 was developed by On2 Technologies, who were acquired by Google in February 2010. WebM is a combination of the VP8 video codec, OGG Vorbis audio, and the Matroksa container format. All of which are open source. With WebM, Google attempted to exploit the chink in the AVC armour that it is a patented technology.
It is hard to predict a clear winner between HEVC and VP9.
Apple has shown no sign of adding support for VPx codecs, and maintains its support for the MPEG standards (AVC and HEVC). Given the popularity of Apple devices, HEVC is all but guaranteed a place in the ecosystem. The first 4K device from Apple should validate this.
The success of VP9 depends on support from clients and content providers, and in Google the owner of the standard has a large share of the client and content market.
YouTube already publishes VP9 content as variants in its DASH format, with no current support for HEVC.
YouTube is currently providing VP9 content as a DASH variant. Netflix have chosen to use a HEVC encoding for their 4K TV service.
4K video is unlikely to be delivered to devices on mobile networks in the short to medium term. Displays supporting 4K will only be supported on larger tablet screens, and so not applicable to the majority of mobile devices.
We are likely to see a lot of movement in this space over the coming year.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Digital Light Processor Downsizes & Diversifies
TI’s evaluation module attracts new applications
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1323657&
The digital light processor (DLP) is the most mature large-screen technology for projectors but is fast becoming the most mature for small-screen projectors, too. Based on Texas Instruments Inc.’s digital micro-mirror devices (DMDs), these chips house as many as two million micro-mirrors on them — one dedicated to each pixel.
Each mirror is as small as five microns on a chip as small as 0.2 inches. Each tilt-and-roll pixel (TRP) deflects the light from red, green, and blue light sources (usually LEDs) onto its assigned area of the screen with intensity controlled by the duty cycle of on/off illumination of the pixel.
“DLP digital micro-mirrors deflect the light completely off the screen when off, giving them a great contrast ratio. And the gap between the mirrors is so small that it looks like the resolution is higher on the device than other techniques with big gaps between pixels,” Frank Moizio, manager of TI’s DLP Pico business unit, told EE Times.
The Samsung Galaxy Beam and Samsung Galaxy Beam 2 just introduced in China last month (July 2014) both contain TI’s pico-projector chips
Tomi Engdahl says:
Spotify launches smart TV integration, signs deals with Phillips, Bose, and Panasonic
http://venturebeat.com/2014/08/27/spotify-launches-smart-tv-integration-signs-deals-with-phillips-bose-and-panasonic/
Spotify today announced the launch of the first “Spotify-enabled” smart TV in an exclusive deal that will see the music streaming service integrated directly into Phillips TVs.
Spotify shares that its Phillips TV integration will enable users to play songs from their TV via a smartphone, tablet, or Philips remote. According to Spotify, this deal is “the first in a long line of Smart TVs to launch with Spotify Connect.”
For Spotify, the more devices it supports, the more easily it can win over new subscribers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Old Doesn’t Have To Mean Ugly: Squeezing Better Graphics From Classic Consoles
http://hothardware.com/News/Old-Doesnt-Have-To-Mean-Ugly-Squeezing-Top-Graphics-From-Early-Consoles/#!bLIoD5
If you’re a classic gamer, you’ve probably had the unhappy experience of firing up a beloved older title you haven’t played in a decade or two, squinting at the screen, and thinking: “Wow. I didn’t realize it looked this bad.” The reasons why games can wind up looking dramatically worse than you remember isn’t just the influence of rose-colored glasses — everything from subtle differences in third-party hardware to poor ports to bad integrated TV upscalers can ruin the experience.
A new video from My Life In Gaming steps through some of the problems with the current crop of televisions and even Virtual Console ports
Tomi Engdahl says:
Is This Tiny Stock the Next Big Thing?
http://venturecapitalnews.us/home/post/is-this-tiny-stock-the-next-big-thing/582?utm_source=taboola&utm_medium=referral
How much of your life do you remember? The answer is around 0.001% – that’s if you have good memory! This is about to be changed by a Start-up company called LifeLogger ( Stock Quote: LOGG +5.8% – website) which I believe will be the Next BIG THING in High-Tech industry this year.
LifeLogger was named one of the top 5 Start-ups at CES 2014 by Enterpreneur.com and other tech media and it might sound as Start Trek technology which seems to be too far away but their idea is trully brilliant and is here today. Following the positive CES2014 response and reviews in January, Lifelogger went public and is trading under the trading symbol LOGG which makes it one of the first and very few publicly listed companies in the booming Wearable Tech industry and the potential in LOGG and the lifelogging idea i believe is Huge.
Wearable technology industry is expected to grow to the staggering 20 Billion by 2018 and the recent extremely successful IPO of GO PRO only proves that lifelogging has a huge potential .
“Ferguson protests send Taser stock up 30% “ because of the police bodycam which Taser is developing – this is just another form of video lifelogging. What happened in Ferguson actually started the “Wearable Camera Petition” last week which quickly garnered the required 100,000 signatures to receive a White House reply .
Tomi Engdahl says:
Windowless Jet Gives You a 360-Degree Panoramic View
August 27th, 2014 by Lara Lopes
The IXION windowless Jet concept is an aircraft without any windows in the passenger section. But don’t think that your trip will be boring because you’ll be staring at the wall for the entire trip: the sides and ceiling of the cabin are actually monitors that reproduce the panoramic view of the outside, as if you were in a see-through glass plane.
The way it works is that cameras positioned on the outside of the plane would capture live footage of the view and the screens inside would project them in high-definition. And not just the outside view: the screens can display landscapes anywhere, like a forest or outer space scenes.
- See more at: http://interestingengineering.com/windowless-jet-gives-you-a-360-degree-panoramic-view/#sthash.yU9THDkX.dpuf
Tomi Engdahl says:
WiFi Raspberry Pi Touchscreen Camera
http://hackaday.com/2014/08/30/wifi-raspberry-pi-touchscreen-camera/
Adafruit has a tutorial on their site that shows how to fashion together a cloud-connected, point-and-shoot camera. The best part of this project is that it can be customized to the heart’s content, unlike traditional digital cameras or smartphones. The integrated touchscreen and open-source computing allows for Instagram-like filters that can be scrolled through easily.
Tomi Engdahl says:
DIY WiFi Raspberry Pi Touchscreen Camera
Make your own Cloud-connected point-and-shoot camera
https://learn.adafruit.com/diy-wifi-raspberry-pi-touch-cam/overview
This project explores the Adafruit PiTFT touchscreen and the Raspberry Pi camera board to create a simple point-and-shoot digital camera. One can optionally use WiFi and Dropbox (a cloud file storage and synchronization service) to automatically transfer photos to another computer for editing.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google doesn’t need Twitch for game streaming
Twitch has a strong brand, but YouTube’s is stronger still. So is its technology.
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/08/google-doesnt-need-twitch-for-game-streaming/
Opposable Thumbs / Gaming & Entertainment
Google doesn’t need Twitch for game streaming
Twitch has a strong brand, but YouTube’s is stronger still. So is its technology.
by Peter Bright – Aug 28 2014, 3:15pm FLEST
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When it comes to the game and e-sports streaming scene, Twitch is the 800-pound gorilla. But when it comes to online video as a whole, YouTube is the dominant force, which is why the early reports that Google was going to buy Twitch were a little strange. Google has all the infrastructure and technology to deliver video—including live game streaming—and in fact, Google does the job better than Twitch.
What Twitch has is a very strong brand, as the site people go to for livestreams of people playing games. It wasn’t crazy for Google to consider a buyout of that brand and its loyal users, but in the end, it probably wasn’t the easiest way for Google to make a play in the space.
It’s all a bit moot, since Google backed down its reported plans for a Twitch buyout (reportedly amid antitrust concerns), and Twitch is now a part of Amazon instead. But if Google wants to be a part of the game streaming market—and there are good reasons why it would—it’s extremely well positioned, even without Twitch.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Movies Have Worst Summer Since 1997
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/30/movies/movies-have-worst-summer-since-1997.html
American moviegoers sent a clear message to Hollywood over the summer: We are tired of more of the same.
But don’t entirely blame the sequels and superheroes.
The film industry had its worst summer in North America, still the world’s No. 1 movie market, since at least 1997, after adjusting for inflation. Between the first weekend in May through the end of August, ticket sales in the United States and Canada are expected to total roughly $3.9 billion, a 15 percent decline from the same stretch last year, according to Rentrak, a box office data company.
Analysts in the spring had predicted an 11 percent drop, citing viewing distractions
Tomi Engdahl says:
California Agrees to Expand Film and TV Incentive
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/28/business/media/california-agrees-on-deal-to-expand-film-and-tv-incentive-to-330-million-a-year.html?rref=business/media
Lawmakers and Gov. Jerry Brown of California on Wednesday said they had reached an agreement to expand the California film incentive program, capping a drive by entertainment industry unions, filmmakers and executives to bolster sagging movie and television production in the state.
The new tax-credit incentive will provide $330 million in state money annually for local film and television production, replacing an expiring program that was limited to $100 million a year, awarded based on a lottery.
Tomi Engdahl says:
RAYA: Real-time Audio Engine Simulation In Quake
http://games.slashdot.org/story/14/08/31/0346203/raya-real-time-audio-engine-simulation-in-quake
RAYA is a realtime game audio engine that utilizes beamtracing to provide user with realistic audio auralization. All audio effects are computed based on the actual geometry of a given game level
The sound changes dynamically along with movement of the game character and sound sources, so the listener can feel as if they were right there — in the game.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Audio and video raytracer – RAYAV
http://www.dsp.agh.edu.pl/en:research:rayav#.VARbWGNsUil
RAYAV project is conducted by a consortium of Teyon and AGH. The project aims to make a hybrid on-line render of images by using ray-tracing technology and similar soundtracer. The project results will be used in commercial projects in the video game industry.
Ray-tracing is a technique for generating photorealistic images of three-dimensional scenes
Soundtracing allows for precise and powerful sound processing on multicore architectures, taking into account the reflections from the walls, attenuation on obstacles, a precise calculation of the echo and the generation of multiple sound sources automatically.
Tomi Engdahl says:
RAYA – realtime game audio engine in Quake 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05EL5SumE_E
This video presents the use of RAYA Sound Engine in Quake 3 game.
RAYA processes sound in realtime using the 3D model of game environment making the sound coherent with graphics
Tomi Engdahl says:
H.264 Video Processing ICs
http://www.fujitsu.com/us/semiconductors/h264/index.html