MEMS mics are taking over. Almost every mobile device has ditched its old-fashioned electret microphone invented way back in 1962 at Bell Labs. Expect new piezoelectric MEMS microphones, which promise unheard of signal-to-noise ratios (SNR) of up to 80 dB (versus 65 dB in the best current capacitive microphones) in 2015. MEMS microphones are growing like gangbusters.
Analysts and veterans of the International CES expect to see plenty of 4K ultra-high-definition televisions, new smartwatch uses, and a large section of the show floor dedicated to robotics. 2015 will be the first year CES gets behind 4K in a big way, as lower price points make the technology more attractive to consumers. Samsung, Sony, Sharp, and Toshiba will be big players in the 4K arena. OEMs must solve the problem of intelligence and connectivity before 4K will really take off. CES attendees may also see 4K TVs optimized for certain tasks, along with a variety of sizes. There will be 10-inch and 14-inch and 17-inch UHD displays.
4K is not enough anymore? 8K – finally come true? Korean giant LG has promised to introduce ehdan 8K TV at CES 2015 exhibition in January. 8K means a total of 33.2 million pixels, or 7680 x 4320 resolution. 4K video material fate is still uncertain, 8K video can not with certainty not available for a long time.
Sound bars will be a big issue at shows. One problem with new TVs — the thinner they are, the harder it is to get sound out.
Open file formats Matroska Video (MKV) and Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC) gets more widely used as Windows 10 To Feature Native Support For MKV and FLAC.
Watching shows online is more common now. More people are watching videos on smaller screens. You can use a tablet as personal TV. Phablets and portable televisions have taken off in China, Japan, and Korea, where many people watch videos during long commutes. Tablets now have become so ubiquitous and inexpensive that you can buy them for a specific application. Much of the innovation will be in software, rather than hardware — tuning the tablets to boot up like a television instead of an Android tablet
We’re all spending more time with smartphones and tablets. So much so that the “second screen” may now be the “first screen,” depending on the data you read. It seems inevitable that smartphones and tablets will replace the television in terms of time spent. Many metrics firms, including Nielsen, report on the rapid increase of mobile device usage—especially when it comes to apps. Half of YouTube’s views now come from phones and tablets.
Qualcomm will push this year broadcast LTE. That will be picked up more and more by some vendors in tablets, so they can have broadcast TV signals, but it doesn’t have to be generic LTE.
There will be lots of talking on traditional TV vs new streaming services, especially on who gets which program material and at what price. While it’s possible to create a TV platform that doesn’t deal with live channels, smart TVs and game consoles alike generally try to integrate the content as best they can.
Netflix’s new strategy to take on cable involves becoming best friends with cable to get its app included on set-top boxes of cable, fiber and satellite TV operators. Roughly 90 million U.S. households subscribe to cable or other forms of pay TV, and more than 73 million subscribe to the biggest five operators alone. That’s why Netflix has been working hard to team up with one of these major operators.
Google intends to integrate content best it can. Google Publishes ‘Live Channels For Android TV’ App Into The Play Store. G The “Live Channels for Android TV” app is unsurprisingly incompatible with phones and tablets, maybe because for some reason those markets are intentionally artificially tried to be kept separate.
Virtual reality video is trying to get to spotlight. Samsung’s new Milk VR to round up 360-degree videos for Gear VR article tells that Milk VR will provide the videos for free as Samsung hopes to goose interest in virtual reality. Milk VR service will provide free 360-degree videos to anyone using a Gear VR virtual-reality headset (uses Galaxy Note 4). Samsung wants to jump-start the virtual-reality movement as the company is looking at virtual reality as a potential growth engine at a time when one of its key traditional revenue sources — smartphones — has slowed down. The videos will also serve as a model for future filmmakers or artists looking to take advantage of the virtual-reality medium, as well as build up an ecosystem and viewership for VR content.
Although digital video is increasing in popularity, analog video remains in use in many applications.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Eye-Controlled Wheelchair Advances from Talented Teenage Hackers
http://hackaday.com/2015/05/28/eye-controlled-wheelchair-advances-from-talented-teenage-hackers/
[Myrijam Stoetzer] and her friend [Paul Foltin], 14 and 15 years old kids from Duisburg, Germany are working on a eye movement controller wheel chair. They were inspired by the Eyewriter Project which we’ve been following for a long time. Eyewriter was built for Tony Quan a.k.a Tempt1 by his friends. In 2003, Tempt1 was diagnosed with the degenerative nerve disorder ALS and is now fully paralyzed except for his eyes, but has been able to use the EyeWriter to continue his art.
This is their first big leap moving up from Lego Mindstorms. The eye tracker part consists of a safety glass frame, a regular webcam, and IR SMD LEDs.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sean O’Kane / The Verge:
Google announces Jump, an ecosystem for creating and sharing virtual reality content, includes camera rig, software, and YouTube-based player — Google Jump is an entire ecosystem for virtual reality filmmaking — Near the end of the opening keynote at Google’s I/O developer conference …
Google Jump is an entire ecosystem for virtual reality filmmaking
It’s much more than a quirky camera
http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/28/8681855/google-jump-io-conference-virtual-reality-filmmaking
Near the end of the opening keynote at Google’s I/O developer conference, the company announced something called “Jump.” And while it may have sounded like Jump was just a camera rig the company built in conjunction with GoPro, it’s much more than that. Jump is an entire ecosystem for creating virtual reality videos, and it sounds like the kind of thing that could help VR take off by making it much more accessible to both create and consume.
First, Google has developed blueprints for a 360-degree camera rig made with 16 cameras — enough to keep the quality of the content high without totally sacrificing portability, apparently.
And while GoPro is obviously the first company working on a Jump rig, Bavor said that filmmakers will theoretically be able to use any off-the-shelf cameras.
“What’s critical is the actual geometry, and we spent a lot of time optimizing everything,” Bavor continued. Basically, Google did all the math for you. “The size of the rig, the number and placement of the cameras, their field of view, relative overlap — every last detail.”
Last year’s release of Cardboard really helped establish an entry point for virtual reality, but until now it hasn’t been surrounded by the kind of ecosystem that could really let it take off. With Jump, it sounds like Google has finally done just that. GoPro may be the first company on board, but it certainly won’t be the last.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Conor Dougherty / New York Times:
Google redesigns Cardboard VR headset to fit larger phones, updates SDK with support for iOS, partners with GoPro to develop 16-camera 360-degree VR recorder
Google Intensifies Focus on Its Cardboard Virtual Reality Device
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/29/technology/google-intensifies-focus-on-its-cardboard-virtual-reality-device.html?_r=0
Google has seen the future, and it is littered with cardboard boxes.
At its Google I/O developer conference here on Thursday, the search giant announced several programs that aim to put its virtual reality viewer, called Cardboard, at the center of a growing online world in which people can use their smartphone and YouTube to watch videos rendered in 3-D.
Google introduced its virtual reality viewer — a cardboard box, with some lenses and a magnet, that looks a lot like a plastic View-Master toy — as a gift at last year’s I/O conference.
Typical of the Google playbook, the company put Cardboard’s specifications online so hobbyists and manufacturers could build them.
In the year since, people have made viewers from foam, aluminum and walnut, and the Cardboard app was downloaded a million or so times.
At this year’s I/O, Google is doubling down on Cardboard with initiatives meant to expand virtual reality to as many phones as possible. First of these is a new software kit that will make it easier for developers to build Cardboard apps for iPhones. The company also redesigned the cardboard hardware so that it is easier to fold and can now accommodate any smartphone, including popular, larger-screen, so-called phablets.
With Cardboard, Google’s virtual reality is decidedly low cost and low frills, but, as in other Google efforts, like the free Android software that is the most widely used operating system in the world, it seems meant more to amass an audience than make money.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Netflix, HBO Streaming Video Traffic Increases As BitTorrent Declines
http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/28/netflix-hbo-streaming-video-traffic-increases-as-bittorrent-declines/
A new report released today shows the continued domination Netflix has on North American Internet traffic patterns. According to broadband networking company Sandvine, which periodically releases its findings on web usage, Netflix now accounts for 36.5 percent of downstream traffic on fixed networks during peak evening hours, which is up from the 34.9 percent reported in the second half of 2014 . In addition, the study found that HBO is also seeing some growth
HBO GO and HBO NOW, accounted for 4.1 percent of traffic on one U.S. fixed network – an increase of over 300 percent of their average levels.
However, Sandvine notes that overall BitTorrent (file-sharing) traffic is declining, and today only accounts for 6.3 percent of total traffic in North America and 8.5 percent of Latin American traffic.
Other streaming video services are also seeing more modest increases. For example, Amazon Instant Video still only holds a fraction of the bandwidth when compared with Netflix, but its traffic is growing. A year ago, the service had 1.90 percent of peak downstream traffic – now it’s at 1.97 percent.
Elsewhere, YouTube still has a sizable traffic share with 15.56 percent of peak downstream traffic. Hulu accounts for 1.91 percent of peak downstream traffic, and newly launched over-the-top cable service Sling TV accounts for less than 1 percent.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jordan Kahn / 9to5Mac:
New 15-inch MacBook Pro is first MacBook to support 5K and 4096×2160 4K displays
http://9to5mac.com/2015/05/28/15-inch-macbook-4k-5k-display-support/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ganesh T S / AnandTech:
NVIDIA Shield Android TV review: gaming performance exceeds other set top boxes but media playback disappoints
The NVIDIA SHIELD Android TV Review: A Premium 4K Set Top Box
by Ganesh T S on May 28, 2015 3:00 PM EST
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9289/the-nvidia-shield-android-tv-review
Tomi Engdahl says:
Janko Roettgers / Variety:
How Google and director Justin Lin created Help, a mobile only 360-degree video film that can be freely explored by the viewer
http://variety.com/2015/digital/news/how-google-and-justin-lin-are-reinventing-movies-for-mobile-exclusive-1201505663/
A day after leaving the “Fast and Furious” franchise, Justin Lin got a curious phone call. Lin, who had directed four of the street racing-themed action movies, was asked by Google to collaborate on a very different kind of film project: one that would be available only on mobile phones, and force him to give up a huge amount of creative control. “I couldn’t have asked for a better challenge or medium,” Lin recalled during an interview this week.
Fast forward two years, and the result of Lin’s cooperation with Google is being released at Google’s I/O developer conference in San Francisco this week. “Help,” as Lin’s five-minute short film is called, tells the story of an alien attack in Los Angeles, complete with explosions, a subway car being torn apart and a dramatic showdown in the dry concrete bed of the Los Angeles River — all of which is being shown with 360-degree spherical video that can be freely explored by the viewer.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Janko Roettgers / Variety:
Google Sells 17 Million Chromecast Devices, Clocks 1.5 Billion Casts — Google has finally announced actual sales figures for its Chromecast streaming stick: Consumers have bought 17 million Chromecasts ever since the device got first introduced two years ago, announced Google’s senior VP …
Google Sells 17 Million Chromecast Devices, Clocks 1.5 Billion Casts
http://variety.com/2015/digital/news/google-sells-17-million-chromecast-devices-clocks-1-5-billion-casts-1201506974/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook Confirms It Will Officially Support GIFs
http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/29/facebook-confirms-it-will-officially-support-gifs/#.b5imzi:k41L
Facebook this afternoon confirmed that it will now support animated GIFs in the Facebook News Feed. Not everyone will see the added functionality immediately, we understand, as the update is still rolling out. The move represents a significant change in direction for Facebook, which has historically made a conscious decision to avoid supporting GIFs, claiming that doing so would make its News Feed “too chaotic.”
Instead of allowing GIFs, Facebook’s focus to date has been on video. The company introduced support for auto-playing videos in late 2013, but despite bringing a more lively, animated feel to the News Feed, the move did not lead Facebook to rolling out support for GIFs.
To try the new feature, Facebook users can paste a link to a GIF hosted on an external website like Giphy, Imgur, Tumblr, or elsewhere, into their status update box and then publish. The GIF will be animated inline after you post. You can’t currently upload GIFs directly, however, and see the same results.
GIFs will auto-play on Facebook in line with your current video autoplay settings.
Before today, the only option for sharing GIFs on Facebook was a workaround provided by Giphy
Tomi Engdahl says:
Gerry Smith / Bloomberg Business:
Quality, expensive TV shows need more viewers to be sustainable, but audiences are dwindling — TV’s ‘Golden Age’ Won’t Last Because You’re Not Watching Enough — The entertainment industry will air more than 400 original TV shows this year, lavishing hundreds of millions of dollars …
TV’s ‘Golden Age’ Won’t Last Because You’re Not Watching Enough
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-28/tv-s-golden-age-won-t-last-because-you-re-not-watching-enough
The entertainment industry will air more than 400 original TV shows this year, lavishing hundreds of millions of dollars on top talent and exotic locations in the hopes of creating the next “Mad Men” or “Game of Thrones.”
The gusher of quality programs has prompted TV critics to proclaim a Golden Age of Television. But as any viewer knows, keeping up with all the shows is impossible. You’d have to watch TV 24 hours a day for at least eight months to catch every scripted series that aired last year, according to a Bloomberg calculation. With too many shows chasing too few viewers, say industry executives, most original programs lose money and half the shows now running probably will disappear by next year.
“The market is flooded with too many people chasing the same prize,” said Jeff Wachtel, president of NBCUniversal’s cable unit, which includes the USA and Syfy channels. “What used to be the golden age of television has now become a gold rush.”
With production costs soaring and shows being canceled with increasing frequency, executives say many niche channels will vanish as networks with the most popular shows swallow rivals that fail to create enough hits of their own.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Brad Chacos / PCWorld:
Nvidia introduces multi-resolution shading to reduce graphics performance needed to create VR scenes, which could help VR games run on less powerful hardware
Nvidia’s radical multi-resolution shading tech could help VR reach the masses
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2926083/nvidias-radical-multi-resolution-shading-tech-could-help-vr-reach-the-masses.html
When Oculus VR revealed the recommended PC specs for the forthcoming consumer release of its highly anticipated Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, the graphics card requirements were shockingly reasonable. Sure, the GeForce GTX 970 and Radeon R9 290 are no slouches in the eye-candy department, but delivering high-resolution visuals to two displays at 90 frames per second takes a lot of firepower. How will developers create top-tier VR games that don’t require the latest and greatest graphics cards (like the newly announced GTX 980 Ti) to run at the blistering frame rates required to avoid the dreaded VR nausea?
Nvidia may have stumbled onto the answer with multi-resolution shading (MRS) feature, a new GameWorks VR middleware technology available for developers. MRS takes advantage of a quirk in the way VR headsets render images to drastically reduce the graphics performance needed to create virtual scenes—which could effectively be used to run VR games on less powerful hardware.
The secret sauce in Nvidia’s multi-resolution shading lies in the way virtual reality headsets, by their very nature, warp on-screen imagery.
Normally, graphics cards render full-screen images as a straight-ahead, rectangular scene, applying the same resolution across the entire image
But VR headsets use a pair of over-the-eye lenses to push the focal point of scenes out into the distance.
The Oculus Rift (and other VR headsets) scrunch the edges of rendered environments together into a roughly oval shape to make them appear correctly when viewed through the lenses.
“GPUs render straight, not distorted,” says Peterson. “So what we actually have to do is take the original image, then warp it, to account for the fact that it’s going to be re-distorted by those lenses, so that by the end of the day—when you see it—the image is straight again.”
But that warping compresses the edges of the images, throwing away a lot of the native imagery produced by the GPU. Your graphics card is essentially working harder than it has to.
Rather than rendering the entire image at the same resolution, MRS splits the screen into separate regions. The center of the image—where your eyes primarily focus in a VR headset, and where the image isn’t distorted— is rendered at full, native resolution. The edges of the screen, however, are rendered at a reduced quality to take advantage of VR’s necessary warping and distortion.
“It’s between 50 percent and 100 percent less pixel work [compared to traditionally rendered VR scenes],” says Peterson.
That’s insane. Even more insane: The reduced quality edge regions truly aren’t noticeable in the final image unless the compression quality is cranked to extreme levels.
At a 30 percent reduction in pixel work, there was no visible difference with MRS enabled or disabled.
In order to truly make the reduced rendering visible, Peterson had to crank the compression up to 50 percent, or half the workload of the same image rendered at full resolution across the board. Only then was the effect noticeable, as a faint shimmering around the very edges of the image.
That’s big news for VR developers, and for gamers who want to get into the virtual reality experience without spending the equivalent of a college education on a graphics card.
“So if you’re a game developer, this means that you can have higher quality games, or that you can have your games run on more GPUs,” says Peterson.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nvidia’s new graphics card pushes for better 4K
http://www.cnet.com/news/nvidia-pushes-4k-for-pc-with-new-geforce-gtx-980-ti/
Nvidia announced a new flagship graphics card delivering smoother 4K graphics for PC gamers, plus new G-Sync screen technology for smoother gaming on laptops.
Nvidia has announced a souped-up version of its previous flagship graphics card and given it a titanium sheen, pre-empting the formal opening of the Computex 2015 trade show.
Dubbed the GeForce GTX 980 Ti, Nvidia says the GTX 980 Ti will deliver better support for 4K PC gaming, allowing new games such as The Witcher 3 to run at 4K resolution at a reasonable 45 frames per second, compared to 19fps on the older GTX 680. For the latest car racing simulator, Project Cars, Nvidia expects to deliver 47fps on the GTX 980 Ti compared with 18fps on the GTX 680.
The reference version of the graphics card will retail for $649
For the technically inclined, it’s interesting that the GTX 980 Ti is clocked slower than previous cards at 1,000MHz.
Besides the new GTX 980 Ti, Nvidia also announced that new gaming notebooks powered by its graphics cards will have G-Sync. G-Sync is Nvidia’s own solution for the problem of screen tearing, which is a horizontal distortion that happens when the display’s refresh rate is unable to keep up with the output from the graphic card.
Most users turn on V-Sync to fix the problem, but it comes at the cost of performance. Nvidia’s solution is to synchronize both the monitor’s refresh rate and the render rate of the GPU, so images don’t go out of sync. New laptops from Asus, Clevo, Gigabyte and MSI will pack Nvidia-approved 75Hz displays.
Nvidia currently controls around 70 percent of the GPU market, with its main rival, Advanced Micro Devices, powering the console hardware for the Xbox One, Sony PlayStation 4 and Nintendo’s Wii U, and the remaining 30 percent of the PC market. This is in stark contrast to 2010, where both players were neck-and-neck.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Home> Analog Design Center > How To Article
When will ZigBee RF4CE land in Europe?
http://www.edn.com/design/analog/4439559/When-will-ZigBee-RF4CE-land-in-Europe-?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20150528&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20150528&elq=65d6a80d50e04d0ab9d35631fb7a4346&elqCampaignId=23183&elqaid=26116&elqat=1&elqTrackId=ec0cbd233f594067be66451ff2c18e01
ZigBee RF4CE (Radio Frequency 4 Consumer Electronics) is the popular wireless communication protocol that enables interoperability between remote controls and a variety of TVs, set-top boxes, gateways and other home networking and entertainment systems from different manufacturers. ZigBee RF4CE standardizes the communications protocol and establishes a pathway for Cable Operators and other MSO’s (Multiple Service Operators) to provide new Smart Home subscription services to the consumer. In the US, most remote controls and set-top boxes have already adopted RF4CE as their primary communication protocol.
It will be just a matter of time until ZigBee RF4CE becomes the standard of choice worldwide in the Europe, Asia, the Americas and other parts of the world as well.
Tomi Engdahl says:
James Trew / Engadget:
GoPro’s Hero+ LCD puts a touchscreen on its entry-level camera
http://www.engadget.com/2015/06/01/gopro-hero-plus-lcd/
Last week, GoPro unveiled some advanced tools for the more ambitious content creator. Today, for the folk that just want to snorkel in the Bahamas, or jump off a cliff there’s a new member of the GoPro camera family to consider: the Hero+ LCD. If you’re familiar with the company’s naming conventions, you’ve probably figured out that this is a revision of the bare bones Hero that was introduced last fall
The key feature is, of course, the built-in touchscreen LCD. This was something exclusive the the Hero 4 Silver until now.
The LCD is joined by a some decent improvements to the actual camera, too. The first Hero could record video up to 1080p at 30 frames per second (or 60fps at 720p). The Hero+ LCD can record 1080p at 60fps, and take 8-megapixel stills
New features come at a new price, and that’s $300. That’s over twice what you’ll pay for the standard Hero ($130).
Tomi Engdahl says:
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Leaked contract shows SoundCloud may pay about 22% royalties to publishers, is preparing to roll out two premium tiers, one with downloadable songs and no ads
Leaked Contract Shows SoundCloud’s Plans For Ad-Free Subscriptions And Paying Labels
http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/01/soundcloud-royalties/
SoundCloud is desperately trying to go legal and pay royalties before labels pull their music from the streaming service. A contract for legal licensing with independent music publishers shows just how much that could cost the Berlin-based startup. Though this copy of the contract is unsigned, the National Music Publishers’ Association and SoundCloud last month announced they had struck a deal.
SoundCloud would pay 10.5 percent of its revenue including ads or about 22 percent of what it makes on sound recording rights — whichever is higher, according to the contract. The document proposes a deal for the aggregated independent labels, and implies similar deals could be reached with each of the three major record labels: Warner Brothers, Sony and Universal.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:
Netflix Tests Teasers For Original Programming, But Has No Plans To Run Third-Party Ads
http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/01/netflix-no-third-party-ads/
Streaming TV provider Netflix has always shied away from advertising, preferring instead to make money from a monthly subscription it charges users to gain access to its content. The company has no plans to change that, despite a recent test of teaser ads for some of its own original programming both before and after selected TV shows.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mic Wright / The Next Web:15 minutes ago
Build your own Netflix: Vimeo On Demand introduces monthly subscriptions — Video makers have been able to offer their creations for sale or rent through Vimeo On Demand since 2013. Now, the video platform has introduced a recurring monthly subscription option.
Build your own Netflix: Vimeo On Demand introduces monthly subscriptions
http://thenextweb.com/media/2015/06/02/build-your-own-netflix-vimeo-on-demand-introduces-monthly-subscriptions/
Vimeo’s new tools allow creators to offer worldwide subscriptions to their content or apply geographic restrictions to cover specific countries or regions.
Subscriptions can be purchased through Vimeo’s On Demand store, its publisher network and on any website using the service’s embeddable player.
Makers can also offer free trials or giveaway episodes, and release exclusive ‘subscribers-only’ bonus material.
The company hopes that its subscription video on demand (SVOD) package will lure creators away from platforms like YouTube, which predominantly rely on pre-roll advertising.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ricardo Bilton / Digiday:
Former NYT director of audience development Kareem Ahmed introduces NYC.TV, a platform for local video makers, and a discovery tool for viewers — NYC.TV goes local to fix the video discovery problem — Putting a video online is easier than it has ever been, but good luck getting people to watch it.
NYC.TV goes local to fix the video discovery problem
http://digiday.com/publishers/nyc-tv-goes-local-fix-video-discovery-problem/
Putting a video online is easier than it has ever been, but good luck getting people to watch it.
Video creators everywhere are facing the same dilemma: While the Web has made video production almost effortless, discovery still remains one of the biggest problems. This is an issue particularly for small or independent creators, who lack the natural distribution advantages of large established media players.
“If someone wants to watch content created just by people in their city or community, there’s no place for them to go,”
We are providing content for videos that are created in NYC in a way that no one has before.” The company, which is still at just three people, is working on a funding round, as well as putting the final touches on a Kickstarter campaign.
Local media companies are a hard sell these days. The high-profile implosions of local initiatives such as Patch and TBD.com have turned off would-be local media entrepreneurs and investors. But Ahmed said that while NYC.TV is focused on local creators, its output has international appeal, giving NYC.TV an inherently global scope.
“Just publishing a video is not enough to drive audience to it. There needs to be another layer of effort that becomes a part of the process,” said Ahmed. “Even at a company like The Times, audience development is a massive undertaking.”
“A lot of creators put stuff online that just gets lost,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Industry’s Most Sensitive MEMS Mic
Vesper claims highest signal-to-noise at 68dB
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326730&
In its rush to get to market “while the iron is hot,” Vesper Technologies Inc. (Boston) has announced what it still claims is the industry’s highest signal-to-ratio (SNR) for a high-definition (HD) microelectromechanical system (MEMS) microphone, even though it is scaled back to 68dB rather than the astounding 70dB SNR MEMS mic they previously promised.
“Our roadmap now calls for the 70dB version in 2016, followed by an ultra-miniature, low-power 72dB model in 2017 and a 75dB signal-to-noise ratio model by 2018,” Vesper Chief Executive Officer Matt Crowley told EE Times. “Even at 68dB, our current model VM101 almost doubles the performance compared to current high-end 65 dB SNR capacitive MEMS microphones.”
The key to Vesper’s high SNR is its use of the piezoelectric aluminum-nitride wurtzite crystals in its unique four-triangle diaphragm forming a square
when used in multi-mic set-ups, its high-SNR mics can more easily form beams directly to the person speaking — what retailers call “audio zoom”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Pixelworks Scores Design Win with Asus
Pixelworks’ IC closely tied to Qualcomm and Intel apps processors
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326748&
Pixelworks, Inc. has scored a design win with Asus for Iris, Pixelworks’ mobile display processor chip.
Pixelworks’ Iris is now incorporated into Asus’ new 8-inch tablet called ZenPad S 8.0 (Z580C) — featuring an 8-inch screen with 2048 x 1536 pixels and Intel’s quad-core processor — Atom Z3530. The Taiwanese company just rolled ZenPad S 8.0 out this week at Computex in Taipei.
On high-resolution mobile displays, Iris offers users less motion blur in movie/TV viewing, rendering sharper and cleaner images in video game playing, while creating enhanced usability in a range of lighting conditions for productivity applications, according to Pixelworks.
Pixelworks’ mobile display processor has already been designed into a host of mobile products ranging from Ultrabooks with a 13-inch display to tablets and 5-inch screen smartphones.
Mobile device manufacturers all face an “incredible need to differentiate their products,” observed Miller. “Some are turning their device into a selfie phone, while others are adding new audio features.”
With display processing capabilities that offer color processing, contrast optimization, advanced scaling, sharpness and ambient lighting compensation, Pixelworks’ Iris chip promises clarity optimized for display characteristics.
“If Apple is the gold standard, we will help them [mobile OEMs and ODMs] get closer to that,” said Miller.
Many mobile devices today typically come with higher resolution screens and they are often used for power-hungry applications such as video streaming. This combination puts heavy pressure on a system’s power requirements.
Tomi Engdahl says:
AMD’s Carrizo chip targets the one thing every laptop user wants: Longer battery life
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2928189/amd-aims-carrizo-chip-at-making-the-most-popular-notebooks-run-longer.html
All-day movies?
AMD executives said they expect to have about a year’s head start over Intel in adding in specialized decoder logic for movies encoded with the High Efficiency Video Codec, or HEVC. Offloading that task from the main CPU to specialized logic cuts power dramatically. With Kaveri, decoding and playing back a 1080p movie required close to 5 watts; with Carrizo, it’s just under 2 watts, Macri said.
That’s important in two scenarios: with HEVC-encoded movies that a Carrizo laptop is streaming, or for travelers who may download a few HEVC-encoded movies to their laptop. In both, you’ll get far more playback time with a Carrizo laptop compared to a Kaveri laptop—AMD looped the public “Big Buck Bunny” movie on a 15-watt FX-8800P and eked out 9.5 hours of HD video playback.
(It’s important to note that while Amazon uses HEVC, and Netflix is moving to HEVC for 4K-encoded movies, Google’s YouTube has chosen to use the VP9 codec instead. Carrizo won’t offer any extra benefit there.)
AMD also claims that Carrizo’s ability to transcode movie information is several times faster than its older FX chips achieved. In addition, what AMD calls “Perfect Picture” helps improve video quality by upscaling 1080p to 4K-like resolutions.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Analog television ends
Analog broadcasting will end the International Telecommunications Union, ITU defining 1-region, namely Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia in two weeks. Years ago The deadline for the agreement signed on the 17th day of June.
The ITU organizes milestone in honor of the symposium in Geneva, in which they reiterated the benefits of digital TV broadcasts. There will also be briefings on new technologies, such as UDHD broadcasts.
ITU points out that a large part of the countries have already moved from analogue to digital television broadcasting. Transition also free up spectrum in many countries for other uses, such as mobile networks.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2920:analoginen-televisio-loppuu&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Magic Leap announces augmented reality SDK that supports Unity and Unreal game engines, no release date given but company says “soon” — Magic Leap Announces Its Augmented Reality Developer Platform
Magic Leap Announces Its Augmented Reality Developer Platform
http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/02/magic-leap-platform/
Magic Leap wants game makers, filmmakers, and other creators to build augmented reality experiences on its platform, and today on stage at MIT Technology Review’s EmTech Digital conference, it announced how that will happen. Magic Leap is launching a development platform. It’s just opened a Developers section of its website where people can sign up for access to its SDK, which will work with the Unreal and Unity game engines. The company tweets that the SDK will be released “soon”.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Walt Mossberg / Re/code:
Google Photos Review: best photo backup-and-sync cloud service, but free only applies to images up to 16MP, and videos 1080p or less, more than enough for most — The New Google Photos: Free at Last, and Very Smart
The New Google Photos: Free at Last, and Very Smart
http://recode.net/2015/06/02/the-new-google-photos-free-at-last-and-very-smart/
Last Thursday was liberation day for Google Photos, the search giant’s appealing service for storing pictures and videos in the cloud. It was uncoupled from Google’s widely ignored social network, Google+, where it had been effectively hidden. And it was upgraded with new features.
Not only that, but Google gave Photos users free, unlimited storage for pictures and videos at the highest resolutions used by average smartphone owners. And it issued nearly identical versions of the shiny new standalone app across Android devices and Apple’s iPhones and iPads. There’s also a browser version for the Mac and Windows PCs.
Once you’ve backed up your photo library to the service, all your photos and videos, including any new ones you take, are synced among all of these devices.
I’ve been testing this new Google Photos for about a week, and despite a few drawbacks, I like it a lot. I consider it the best photo backup-and-sync cloud service I’ve tested — better than the leading competitors from Apple, Amazon, Dropbox and Microsoft.
Google Photos was always good, but now it’s entirely outside of a social network.
And when you do want to share them, you can totally ignore Google+ and easily and quickly post them to Facebook, Twitter and other networks, on both Android and iOS. You can email a link to a photo to someone, which works whether or not he or she has the Google Photos app.
The coolest aspect of the new Google Photos is that once you click the search button — before you even type anything — the app presents you with groups of pictures organized by three categories: People, Places and Things.
In the People section, Google collects all the photos containing faces it thinks are the same, without any work by you. It doesn’t identify these people, but just collects them for you for quick access. I found its guesses remarkably accurate.
In the Places section, Google relies on geo-tagging where available. For older photos taken with cameras that lacked location tracking, it relies on known landmarks.
But the Things section, while less accurate, is more impressive.
My only real complaint with the People, Places and Things feature is that it’s not easy to find. You can only see it when you click the search button.
As before, Google Photos automatically creates collages, animations, photo groups, panoramas and “stories” from photos it detects as being from the same place and time. You can choose whether to keep these in your library. As in the past, I generally found these pleasing and accurate.
Downsides
The new Google Photos does have a few flaws. The initial upload can be very slow, even on a fast Internet connection. For instance, it took nearly a week to upload my 36,000-image library from my iPhone.
Also, the free-storage option only applies to pictures of 16 megapixels or less, and videos of 1080p or less. Larger items get compressed. These sizes are more than enough for most people, but photographers and hobbyists who want to store and sync larger, uncompressed items get just 15 gigabytes free, and that is shared with other Google services, like Gmail. For more storage, they have to pay from $2 to $200 a month for 100GB up to 20 terabytes of storage.
Bottom Line
The new Google Photos brings the company’s expertise in artificial intelligence, data mining and machine learning to bear on the task of storing, organizing and finding your photos. And that, combined with its cross-platform approach, makes it the best of breed.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hannah Jane Parkinson / Guardian:
Google is developing a tool called Im2Calories to identify food in pictures and determine its calorie count — Google wants to count the calories in your Instagram food porn — Artificial intelligence technology Im2Calories aims to identify pictures of food posted to Instagram, and tell users the calorie count of their meals
Google wants to count the calories in your Instagram food porn
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jun/02/google-calories-instagram-food-porn
Tomi Engdahl says:
Supergirl pilot leaks six months early in full HD
http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/25/8654311/supergirl-pilot-leak-hd
The first episode of CBS’s forthcoming Supergirl series has leaked online a full six months before it was scheduled to air. Two versions of the 46-minute episode (one in full HD and another in lower resolution) made their way onto torrenting sites late last week, with BitTorrent news site TorrentFreak describing the leak as a “complete surprise” to the pirating community.
The pilot is reportedly free of any watermarks or warnings that might distinguish it as an advanced screening copy, leading some to speculate that the supposed leak is actually a marketing ploy by CBS to generate positive buzz.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cable Companies Hate Cord-Cutting, but It’s Not Going Away (Video)
http://news.slashdot.org/story/15/06/02/1828240/cable-companies-hate-cord-cutting-but-its-not-going-away-video
On May 29, Steven J. Vaughan Nichols (known far and wide as SJVN) wrote an article for ZDNet headlined, Now more than ever, the Internet belongs to cord-cutters.
Now more than ever, the Internet belongs to cord-cutters
69 percent of the Internet’s bandwidth goes to entertainment videos at peak hours.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/now-more-than-ever-the-internet-belongs-to-cord-cutters/
When I started using the Internet in the 80s it was all text. Then, along came the Web in 1993 and we got images. Oh boy! Today, as Mary Meeker, a partner at venture firm KIeiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), reported in her annual Internet trends report, 64 percent of all consumer Internet traffic is video. Sandvine, a broadband solution provider and analysis firm, has found that video takes up even more than that in the Internet’s peak hours.
In Sandvine’s latest Global Internet Phenomena Report, the company found that “Real-Time Entertainment [video] is responsible for almost 69 percent of downstream bytes during peak period, a notable increase over the 64 percent … from a year ago.”
The leader of the Internet video pack? It’s Netflix again. “Netflix continues to be the leader in peak period traffic, accounting for 36.5 percent of downstream traffic during our study.” Nothing else comes close. YouTube takes a distant second with 15.6 percent.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dish Network in Merger Talks With T-Mobile US
Dish and T-Mobile have agreed Charlie Ergen would be chairman and John Legere CEO, sources say
http://www.wsj.com/article_email/dish-network-in-merger-talks-with-t-mobile-us-1433383285-lMyQjAxMTI1MzA3NDEwMjQwWj
Dish Network Corp. is in talks to merge with T-Mobile US Inc., people familiar with the matter said, a deal that would accelerate a wave of consolidation across the U.S. media and communications industries.
If completed, the deal would be the latest multibillion-dollar combination in traditional television and communications industries being upended by the Internet. T-Mobile rival AT&T Inc. is close to wrapping up its $49 billion deal for Dish rival DirecTV that will create the country’s largest pay-TV company. Meanwhile, Charter Communications Inc. recently announced a total of $67 billion in deals that would roll up Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks to create the second-largest U.S. cable operator.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Erin Griffith / Fortune:
How Facebook quadrupled its video traffic in one year to 4B video streams per day, and is reshaping advertising — How Facebook’s video-traffic explosion is shaking up the advertising world — Cenk Uygur can pinpoint the day he realized that Facebook FB video was going to rewrite his business model.
How Facebook’s video-traffic explosion is shaking up the advertising world
http://fortune.com/2015/06/03/facebook-video-traffic/
Facebook’s video traffic has reached 4 billion daily views, making the social network YouTube’s first real rival in online video—and an even tougher contender in the battle for digital ad dollars.
The video didn’t strike Uygur as anything special—just a typical example of his network’s progressive news commentary. But by lunchtime, it had racked up 7 million Facebook “impressions,” or people who saw it in their Facebook News Feed. By the time he finished eating, it had added another million. He looked again when he arrived at his Los Angeles office: 9 million, total. And after he taped a show: 15 million. A day later, 18 million people had seen it. The day after that? Twenty-three million.
In recent months that kind of “oh, my God” moment has occurred for video creators around the world. News site BuzzFeed’s video views on Facebook grew 80-fold in a year, reaching more than 500 million in April.
Seemingly overnight, video uploading and viewing have exploded on Facebook, where users now watch 4 billion video streams a day, quadruple what they watched a year ago. It’s happening because the social network’s engineers, quietly and with little fanfare, have retooled Facebook’s interface to make video easier than ever to watch and share. In February 2014, only a quarter of all videos posted to Facebook were uploaded directly to the network, while the rest came from YouTube or other video sites, according to analytics company Socialbakers. By a year later, the ratio had flipped: 70% of Facebook’s videos were uploaded directly.
These may sound like minor technical distinctions, but tiny changes make a huge difference when you’ve got 1.4 billion monthly active users.
Americans spend on smartphones, and Facebook drives nearly a quarter of all web traffic. The company’s recent video improvements will likely push those numbers even higher.
Facebook has already proved that it’s a quick study in the ad world. Mobile advertising, a meaningless sliver of its business three years ago, made up 73% of its $3.3 billion in advertising revenue in the first quarter of 2015. It’s the main reason Facebook’s total revenue has roughly tripled over that stretch, and it’s the driver of the network’s current $226 billion market cap and gaudy 40% operating profit margins. Video, especially mobile video, could blow up just as dramatically for Facebook, offering a gateway for advertisers to reach digital consumers in the format that most closely resembles television
Tomi Engdahl says:
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
YouTube’s new Music Insights tool tells artists where their songs are most popular and tracks statistics of user-uploaded content that contains their music
http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/03/youtube-for-artists/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hollywood In EU Spotlight as TV Probe Said to Escalate
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-02/hollywood-s-pay-tv-curbs-said-to-face-eu-complaint-iafadg1o
Hollywood studios including 20th Century Fox as well as some of the European Union’s biggest pay-TV companies face an EU antitrust complaint over movie-licensing deals that regulators claim thwart cross-border competition.
EU regulators may send a so-called statement of objections to five studios and five broadcasters as soon as next month, said three people familiar with the case who asked not to be named because the matter isn’t public.
The move would escalate a 2014 probe into how contracts with EU broadcasters, including U.K.-based Sky Plc and its German and Italian units, curb the sale of movies and TV programs outside their home markets.
The EU has made competition in the digital market place one of its top priorities.
Tomi Engdahl says:
YouTube’s New “Music Insights” Tell Artists Where To Tour
http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/03/youtube-for-artists/#.7thvn3:eClw
As big as billion-user YouTube is, its ad revenue sharing is not where musicians make their money. They earn it on the road. But YouTube’s reach can make artists famous all over the world. Now it’s going to show musicians exactly where those fans are so they can route their concert tours there and squeeze $30 out of people who watch their videos for free.
Music Insights is a new tool that’s part of Google’s YouTube For Artists initiative to lend creators a hand. It shows the cities where a musician is most popular and which of their songs are most popular, as well as aggregates the views of all their own videos and those uploaded by fans that feature their songs recognized by Content ID.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jackie Dove / The Next Web:
Apple now dominates consumer digital video viewing, says new Adobe report
http://thenextweb.com/apple/2015/06/04/apple-now-dominates-consumer-digital-video-viewing-says-new-adobe-report/
In the run-up to Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference, Adobe Digital Index, the company’s marketing arm, has concluded that Apple is currently the dominant player in consumer digital video consumption, and that the trend is likely to continue.
In a new report examining Online Video Viewing and Browsing Trends between 2014 and 2015, Adobe declared Apple as a clear winner in major categories of content, including internet-connected, subscription-based pay TV programming, known in the trade as TV Everywhere. The study was based on anonymous and aggregated data gathered by Adobe Marketing Cloud analytics, which tracked more than 500 billion visits to 11,000 sites in the US and 7,000 sites abroad.
The results? Not only does Apple dominate pay TV, but its iOS devices account for a majority of all premium video viewing content whether authenticated via subscription or unauthenticated and freely accessible. According to Adobe’s research, Apple has captured 62 percent of all authenticated video.
“We expect that Apple will capitalize on a very big lead they have in this authenticated premium video consumption area,” Tamara Gaffney, principal analyst for Adobe Digital Index told TNW. “That’s because they have the iPad and iPhone, which they always had, and they’ve grown in terms of the number of people accessing TV content this way.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bloomberg Business:
Sources: music labels are seeking close to 60% of proceeds from Apple’s new music service, more than the 55% Spotify pays
Apple’s Pushing to Complete Streaming Music Deal Before Event
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-04/apple-said-to-push-to-complete-streaming-music-deal-before-event
Just days before Apple Inc. plans to reveal a music streaming service, the company is still negotiating with record labels over terms.
The labels are pushing to get a larger chunk of revenue than they receive under their current deals with Spotify Ltd., a competing streaming service, people familiar with the negotiations said. Both sides want to complete a deal before Apple’s June 8 annual event in San Francisco for more than 5,000 developers, according to the people, who asked not to be named because the talks are continuing.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Competing Services
Spotify has more than 60 million users — with a quarter of them buying the $9.99-a-month ad-free subscription. Music is the most popular genre on YouTube’s video service, which attracts more than 1 billion users a month. YouTube also has a new ad-free streaming program called Music Key for $9.99. Pandora Media Inc., the largest online radio service, finished the first quarter with 79.2 million monthly active listeners, with most using its free ad-supported service.
These streaming services have yet to offset losses from the decline in sales of downloaded music and physical records, and the labels say YouTube and Spotify need to do a better job of getting their users to pay. Yet if trends continue, revenue from streaming music is expected to exceed sales from downloads, according to MusicWatch.
The growth in time and dollars spent on streaming music was a big reason for Apple’s $3 billion acquisition of Beats Electronics last year.
Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-04/apple-said-to-push-to-complete-streaming-music-deal-before-event
Tomi Engdahl says:
Aloysius Low / CNET:
Microdia unveils 512GB microSD card, will cost around $1,000, available in July — Microdia crams 512GB into a microSD card, out in July — Meant for professional photographers with an unquenchable desire for storage space, this microSD card will cost upwards of $1,000.
Microdia crams 512GB into a microSD card, out in July
http://www.cnet.com/news/microdia-will-sell-a-1000-ish-512gb-microsd-come-july/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Yandex Launches Yandex.Radio, A Curated Free Music Service For Russian Users
http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/04/yandex-launches-yandex-radio-a-curated-free-music-service-for-russian-users/
Tomi Engdahl says:
SoundCloud signs licensing deal to pay independent labels for music streams
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jun/04/soundcloud-signs-licensing-deal-independent-labels
Partnership with licensing agency Merlin also covers the company’s plans for a paid music subscription service later in 2015
Tomi Engdahl says:
Molly McHugh / Wired:
Mac app Unicorns lets you plug in your phone or tablet and live-stream what’s on its screen
New Livestream App Lets Strangers Watch You Use Your Phone
http://www.wired.com/2015/06/unicorns-app/
The success of Periscope and Meerkat shows livestreaming offers something beyond the practical intent of the technology. Beyond demos and instructional presentations, livestreaming apps provide direct access to a streamer’s personal experiences. A trip to the grocery store or a walk to work becomes a ride-along, a participatory event. As mundane as these tiny moments seem, they can be fascinating once streamed because the presentation is hyper-realistic, unfiltered and intimate. These snippets of life are more engaging than the carefully curated images posted to Instagram and Facebook.
Now comes Unicorns, an app that streams whatever you’re doing on your phone—playing a game, texting, swiping through Tinder. It’s like a combination of Periscope or Meerkat and Homescreen, the app that takes a shot of your homescreen and serves as a discovery platform for others, a peek into what apps people are using and what essentials get the coveted dock spot.
“Your homescreen is personal, which makes it more exciting!”
Using Unicorns is simple. You download it to your Mac desktop, then connect your iOS device to your computer. Start the app when you’re ready to stream. None of what you capture is public until you’re ready
Once you start the stream, everything that happens on your phone becomes a part of the show.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Researchers have now developed a flexible OLED panel with a resolution of 640 pixels per inch reach.
The achieved accuracy is in many ways important. 4K TV screen should distinguish between 200 dots per inch, but the mobile phone FullHD-resolution already requires 500 pixels per inch.
Belgian microelectronics research center IMEC researchers in conjunction with Fujifilm developed a method that can produce up to 640 pixel density. Pixels are the size of 20 microns in thickness.
Conventional lithography is poorly suited to the production of organic electronics, because the plastic-based materials can not withstand the process.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2929:taipuisa-naytto-yltaa-jo-640-pikseliin-tuumalla&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Team develops camera that uses sensors with just 1,000 pixels
http://phys.org/news/2015-06-team-camera-sensors-pixels.html
Thanks to the `megapixel wars’, we are used to cameras with 10s of megapixels. Sensors in our cell phone and SLRs are made of Silicon (Si), which is sensitive to the visible wavebands of light and hence, useful for consumer photography. The abundance of Silicon, coupled with advances in CMOS-based fabrication has helped drive down the cost of sensors while simultaneously providing increased capabilities in terms of sensors with higher and higher resolutions.
Researchers at CMU and Columbia University have developed a new camera, called LiSens, that uses a sensor with just a thousand pixels, but produces images and videos at (nearly) a mega-pixel resolution. In other words, LiSens takes a low-resolution sensor and by the use of novel optic makes it capable of sensing scenes at a resolution that is higher than that of the sensor. This is achieved by focusing the scene onto a digital micro-mirror array (DMD) and, subsequently, focusing the DMD onto the low-resolution sensor. The DMD is an array of tiny mirrors that can direct light towards or away from the sensor.
A measurement obtained by the line-sensor is quite unlike a traditional image. However, we can design algorithms that, armed with the knowledge of the scene-to-sensor mapping, can invert these measurements obtained by the line-sensor and compute an image of the scene. With this, we can now sense scenes at high-resolution (in our prototype, 1024×768 pixels) in spite of having a low-resolution sensor (in our prototype, 1024 pixels).
LiSens builds on the so-called single pixel camera (SPC), which uses a single photodetector to sense the scene.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-06-team-camera-sensors-pixels.html#jCp
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bell Media President Says Canadians Are ‘Stealing’ US Netflix Content
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/15/06/04/2024231/bell-media-president-says-canadians-are-stealing-us-netflix-content?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot%2Fto+%28%28Title%29Slashdot+%28rdf%29%29
Today the Bell Media president claimed that Canadians are ‘stealing’ US Netflix, saying the practice is “stealing just like stealing anything else.” She went on to say that it is socially unacceptable behaviour, and “It has to become socially unacceptable to admit to another human being that you are VPNing into U.S. Netflix.”
Canadians are ‘stealing’ U.S. Netflix content: Bell
An estimated one third of Netflix Canada customers accessing content meant for U.S. subscribers.
http://www.thestar.com/business/tech_news/2015/06/03/canadians-are-stealing-us-netflix-content-bell.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
4K Displays for HTPCs: A Consumer Checklist
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9342/4k-htpc-hisense-tv
Getting a HTPC setup right for the 4K era has become a very confusing exercise for the consumers. We tried to clarify some aspects in our Future-proofing HTPCs for the 4K Era: HDMI, HDCP and HEVC piece back in April. While we did touch upon the features that consumers should look for in the HDMI sinks in the setup (i.e, the HDMI ports on the TV and the AV receiver), we didn’t go into detail on the characteristics of the display itself.
Picture quality is of paramount importance, but it is usually not a known aspect unless one reads the after-launch reviews. However, there are some basic specifications that can help narrow down the search. Availability of 4Kp60, HDMI 2.0, HDCP 2.2 and ARC (audio return channel) support are readily available in the spec sheets of the displays coming into the market nowadays. In this piece, we will cover a few ‘behind-the-scene’ aspects and how the recently launched Hisense 50H7GB fares with our checklist.
4Kp60 RGB 4:4:4 Support
Videos meant for consumer consumption have always been encoded in 4:2:0 format with chroma sub-sampling. Frames encoded / sent to the display in this format are fine for viewing purposes, since the effects of the sub-sampling are not very evident in rapidly changing images. Unfortunately, HTPCs are multi-purpose devices. Even though video decode and display is probably the majority of its workload, it can be used for tasks such as web browsing also. Driving mostly-static desktop frames to the display in 4:2:0 makes for a bad user experience.
Ensure that any display you plan to purchase for a 4K HTPC supports 4Kp60 RGB 4:4:4 input in the HDMI 2.0 / HDCP 2.2 sink.
HDR Capability
Ultra HD Blu-rays are expected to come with high-dynamic range content. HDMI 2.0a was recently ratified with support for HDR metadata flags.
Panel Bit-Depth
Display panels usually come in 8b, 10b or 12b varieties. This bit-depth refers to the number of bits used to encode each sub-pixel (color channel) that gets displayed. Very cheap panels even adopt 6b panels. Note that the input coming via, say, HDMI has a minimum bit-depth of 8b per sample. Lower bit-depth panels adopt dithering to represent higher bit-depth content. When done in a temporal manner (i.e, over time for successive frames), it is called FRC (frame rate control). Suffice to say that FRC is not something you would want in your display, since it doesn’t accurately reflect what is being transferred over the display link.
Higher panel bit-depth is also useful for representing a wider color gamut without banding artifacts. With the adoption of the larger BT.2020 color space for UHD, it is good to have a panel with higher bit-depth compared to what one had for Full HD (the smaller BT.709 color space).
In addition, 4K videos in HEVC for consumer delivery are already being encoded with the Main10 profile (4:2:0, 10b per sample). In order to accurately display such videos, it is essential that the panel bit-depth matches or exceeds 10b.
All things considered, ensure that any display you plan to purchase for a 4K HTPC has a 10b (or higher) panel.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Software Recognizes Pain Levels from Face Videos
http://www.medgadget.com/2015/06/software-recognizes-pain-levels-face-videos.html
Pain assessment is a common challenge among clinicians, often even leading to discord with patients begging for relief. A team at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine developed a computer vision algorithm that can estimate pain levels from videos of patients faces at least as well as nurses can.
RESULTS: Model detection of pain versus no-pain demonstrated good-to-excellent accuracy (Area under the receiver operating characteristic curve 0.84–0.94) in both ongoing and transient pain conditions. Model detection of pain severity demonstrated moderate-to-strong correlations (r = 0.65–0.86 within; r = 0.47–0.61 across subjects) for both pain conditions. The model performed equivalently to nurses but not as well as parents in detecting pain versus no-pain conditions, but performed equivalently to parents in estimating pain severity.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sony Music CEO Confirms Launch of Apple’s Music Streaming Service
http://apple.slashdot.org/story/15/06/07/1227210/sony-music-ceo-confirms-launch-of-apples-music-streaming-service
Sony Music CEO Doug Morris said in an interview that Apple will announce a new music streaming service tomorrow at its World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC). The new Apple Music service will include subscription streaming music features as well as a revamped iTunes Radio service.
Sony Music CEO confirms launch of Apple’s music streaming service tomorrow
http://venturebeat.com/2015/06/07/sony-music-ceo-confirms-launch-of-apples-music-streaming-service-tomorrow/
While observers have long-expected to Apple unveil such a service at WWDC, Morris’ remarks come from someone whose partnership would be essential to allowing such a service to be launched.
“It’s happening tomorrow,” Morris said during an interview at Midem in Cannes that primarily focused on his storied career in the music industry.
Apple has watched in recent years as the digital music download business it pioneered more than a decade go has slumped and consumers shifted to streaming music. Rumored details about the new Apple Music service have been floating around for months now. The service is expected to be priced around the industry standard of $9.99 per month and include lots of curation by popular DJs and musicians to help consumers discover new music.
“What does Apple bring to this?” Morris said. “Well, they’ve got $178 billion dollars in the bank. And they have 800 million credit cards in iTunes. Spotify has never really advertised because it’s never been profitable. My guess is that Apple will promote this like crazy and I think that will have a halo effect on the streaming business.
Tomi Engdahl says:
A Music-Sharing Network For the Unconnected
http://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/15/06/07/2316248/a-music-sharing-network-for-the-unconnected
Operating as personal offline versions of iTunes and Spotify, the téléchargeurs, or downloaders, of Mali are filling the online music void for many in the country. For less than a dime a song, a téléchargeur will transfer playlists to memory cards or directly onto cellphones. Even though there are 120,000 landlines for 15 million people in Mali, there are enough cellphones in service for every person in the country. The spread of cell phones and the music-sharing network that has followed is the subject of this New York Times piece.
A Music-Sharing Network for the Unconnected
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/a-music-sharing-network-for-the-unconnected.html?_r=0
The spread of cellphones in this way has driven innovation across the continent. M-Pesa, a text-message-based money-transfer system, has made financial services available for the first time to millions. Another enterprise tells rural farmers by text what their crops might sell for in distant markets; mass-texting campaigns have helped promote major public health initiatives.
Yet for many Africans, the phone is not merely, or even principally, a communications device.
a new kind of merchant has sprung up along Fankélé Diarra Street. Seated practically thigh to thigh, these vendors crouch over laptops, scrolling through screen after screen of downloaded music. They are known as téléchargeurs, or downloaders, and they operate as an offline version of iTunes, Spotify and Pandora all rolled into one.
For a small fee — less than a dime a song — the téléchargeurs transfer playlists to memory cards or U.S.B. sticks, or directly onto cellphones. Customers share songs with their friends via short-range Bluetooth signals.
This was the scene Christopher Kirkley found in 2009. A musicologist, he traveled to Mali hoping to record the haunting desert blues he loved. But every time he asked people to perform a favorite folk song or ballad, they pulled out their cellphones to play it for him; every time he set up his gear to capture a live performance, he says, “five other kids will be holding their cellphones recording the same thing — as an archivist, it kind of takes you down a couple of notches.”
What make its existence possible are not smartphones but so-called feature phones, which do little more than make calls, take highly pixelated pictures and play music. And yet they are indispensable.
The cellphone network had been down for days
would anyone need a cellphone without a network connection?
A cellphone is a digital Swiss Army knife: flashlight, calculator, camera and, yes, audio player. Mali’s homegrown, offline digital music has created a space for sharing songs that is in many ways more vibrant than the algorithm-driven way music is so often experienced in the United States — more personal, more curated, more human.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple Recruits for “Next Big Thing” in Sensors
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326811&
Apple is hiring engineers to help it push “innovation in the field of image sensing.”
A posting in the LinkedIn CMOS/CCD image sensor discussion group described the Apple Watch and iPhone as “sensor-driven” products and is primarily seeking image sensor calibration and characterization engineers. The jobs are based in Cupertino, California.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bringing a Century Stereo into the 21st Century
http://hackaday.com/2015/06/09/bringing-a-century-stereo-into-the-21st-century/
Way back in the previous century, people used to use magnetized strips of tape to play music. It might be hard to believe in today’s digital world, but these “cassette” tapes were once all the rage. [Steve] aka [pinter75] recently found a Bang & Olufsen stereo with this exact type of antequated audio playback device, and decided to upgrade it with something a little more modern.
Once the unit arrived from eBay and got an electronic tune-up, [pinter75] grabbed a Galaxy S3 out of his parts drawer and got to work installing it in the old cassette deck location.
Dragging my Century in this century! Integrated phone replaces tape.
http://forum.beoworld.org/forums/t/15622.aspx
Tomi Engdahl says:
Andrew Webster / The Verge:
Sony’s PlayStation Now game streaming service launches on select Samsung smart TVs in US and Canada
PlayStation Now game streaming launches on Samsung smart TVs
http://www.theverge.com/2015/6/9/8752917/playstation-now-samsung-smart-tv-launch
Starting today, Sony’s PlayStation Now streaming service is available on more than just Sony hardware — the company announced that it’s now available on select Samsung smart TVs in both the US and Canada. This means that you won’t need a console at all to play certain PlayStation games, though you’ll still need a Dualshock 4 controller to play them. Sony previously announced its plans to add support for Samsung TVs back in December, making them the first non-Sony devices that work with the service.
Currently, PlayStation Now gives players the ability to stream more than 100 PS3 games. At launch games were available as rentals, though more recently Sony launched a monthly $19.99 subscription fee option, turning the service into something more akin to Netflix, only for games. On Samsung TVs, the service will support standard features like trophies, online multiplayer, and cloud-based game saves.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Stuart Dredge / Guardian:
Interview with Eddy Cue and Jimmy Iovine on Apple Music, Connect, and the importance of a “human touch” in curating playlists
Apple Music interview: ‘Algorithms can’t do it alone – you need a human touch’
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jun/09/apple-music-interview-jimmy-iovine-eddy-cue
Jimmy Iovine and Eddy Cue train their sights on Spotify, YouTube and other rivals: ‘Most of these other companies see themselves as utilities’
Apple isn’t just gunning for Spotify with its new Apple Music streaming service. It’s gunning for radio broadcasters.
Its combination of live radio station Beats 1 and a range of non-live stations programmed by DJs aims to seduce listeners away from traditional radio, and then sell some of them a $9.99-a-month streaming subscription.
“What I saw in the record industry is it’s just getting more restricted, more restricted, more restricted to where everyone’s trying to figure out what kind of song to make to get on the radio, that’s researched and where advertisers are telling you what to play,” says Iovine.
“What’s happened to the music industry, from my perspective, is a lot of great music is behind the wall that can’t get through, and therefore a lot of artists are getting discouraged. And we hope that this ecosystem really helps revive that.”
Not just algorithms – programming with a human touch
Iovine and Cue take pains to praise Zane Lowe, the Radio 1 DJ they poached to head up Beats 1 (“The most adventurous guy we could find: somebody who had the guts to play new music,” according to Iovine)
Part of the pitch for Apple Music is that it sees humans, not just algorithms, as its trump card for helping listeners discover new music.
“Algorithms are really great, of course, but they need a bit of a human touch in them, helping form the right sequence.”
“You have to humanise it a bit, because it’s a real art to telling you what song comes next. Algorithms can’t do it alone. They’re very handy, and you can’t do something of this scale without ‘em, but you need a strong human element.”
“Understanding that i have a lot of Latin music in my library doesn’t give me a great Cuban playlist,” adds Cue.
‘We put all our energy behind the family plan’
Cue thinks that people will pay for Apple Music once they experience its features beyond that.
the service will cost $9.99 a month after a three-month trial.
Wouldn’t Apple have liked to go cheaper? “No. We always thought ‘$9.99 is the price of an album’, so on a monthly basis that’s great. Where we put all our energy behind was the family plan,” says Cue, referring to the $14.99 option that covers up to six people in a family.
Winning over the hearts and minds of musicians
Finally, Iovine tackles one of the biggest hot potatoes for any streaming music service in 2015: the question of whether it can win over the musicians who are worrying about making a living from streams rather than sales.
Apple is no more able to influence the music industry economics of how labels and publishers pass on payouts to performers and songwriters than Spotify is, although it can pay established artists lucrative advances to grant it exclusivity on their new releases – which is one of the rumoured strategies for Apple Music.
Can Apple Music change the mind of musicians who are anti-streaming though?