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.
1,154 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
Got a GUITAR, daddio? Wanna plug it into iOS or Droid? Try the iRig 2
Dangle dongle for frustrated axemen
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/03/review_ik_multimedia_irig_2_guitar_interface/?page=1
Music gear manufacturer IK Multimedia will be 20 years old next year. It’s known to many these days for its iOS gadgets
Previously musicians, engineers and producers had been squinting at LCDs on hardware samplers, so this was a godsend. Now into their teens, both SampleTank and T-Racks continue, as does AmpliTube, the guitar amp emulator that along with SampleTank is available as an iOS app.
Five years ago, the AmpliTube app was introduced alongside iRig, an essential hardware interface that plugs into the iPhone mic/headphone socket and provides a 1/4-inch guitar jack input and a separate headphone output.
However, the new iRig 2 goes back to basics and utilises the 3.5mm headset jack socket. This time it’s designed to work with both iOS and recent Samsung Android handsets
new iRig 2 offers, as it also gets its own input gain control thumbwheel, so you can better match the signal coming out from your guitar to the app
This addition helps, as the iRig has a new bypass (FX/THRU) function, and a separate 1/4-inch jack output, so you can hook it up to a guitar amp.
It’s a fairly well-thought-out evolution
Plugging in is simple enough and the iRig comes with a Velcro strap, the idea seems to be to have it tied up to a mic stand, presumably one that has the iKlip XPand smartphone holder also in place.
The Reg Verdict
Having an interface dangling off your phone or tablet is never going to look particularly elegant, but if you’re careful enough to not drag the lot crashing to the floor when you move around, IK Multimedia’s iRig is very effective set-up. Lest we forget you can plumb it into a recent Mac too.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Prince sends takedown requests to Spotify, Rdio, and Deezer — Prince Won’t Stream 4 U (Unless You’re On Tidal, Or Maybe Google Music) — Call it the Taylor effect: it looks like another high-profile musician is sharpening his arrows to take aim at how streaming music services pay artists.
Prince Won’t Stream 4 U (Unless You’re On Tidal, Or Maybe Google Music)
http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/02/prince-wont-stream-4-u/
Call it the Taylor effect: it looks like another high-profile musician is sharpening his arrows to take aim at how streaming music services pay artists. Music from the artist currently known as Prince has been pulled from Spotify and Rdio. And Deezer — where at the time of writing Prince’s music is still streaming — has confirmed to us that it has received a takedown notice and is in the process of removing Prince’s music, too.
For now, the music is still streaming on two platforms — Google Music All Access and Tidal, the hi-definition streaming service acquired by Jay-Z and “co-owned” by many others.
It looks like this is part of a broader move by the musician to take the music off platforms that allow people to stream tracks for no fee.
On June 26, he retweeted a post on The Daily Beast called “Taylor Swift Is The New Prince,” which detailed how Prince was Taylor’s precedent for musician activism against the Big Music and the big labels.
Prince also has exercised his rights over digital services in the past.
“The internet’s completely over. I don’t see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else. They won’t pay me an advance for it and then they get angry when they can’t get it,” he told the newspaper. “The internet’s like MTV. At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated. Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good. They just fill your head with numbers and that can’t be good for you.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dawn Chmielewski / Re/code:
Nielsen: songs streamed in the US up 92.4% YoY to 135.2B, digital song sales down 10.4% to 531.6M, in the first half of 2015
Americans Stream 135 Billion Songs in First Half of Year
http://recode.net/2015/07/02/americans-stream-135-billion-songs-in-first-half-of-year/
Americans streamed a staggering 135 billion songs and music videos in the first half of 2015, nearly double this time a year ago, according to the latest data from Nielsen.
Growing demand for songs delivered on demand via Internet services such as Spotify, YouTube, Slacker and others helped fuel overall music consumption in the last six months.
The streaming numbers underscore a fundamental shift in how people get their music. Digital song sales fell 10.4 percent to 531.6 million. Total album sales, including CDs and digital albums, declined 4 percent to 116 million units.
Taylor Swift’s “1989” ranked as the top-selling and most-consumed album of the year so far
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jillian D’Onfro / Business Insider:
Why YouTube’s recommendation algorithm began prioritizing watch time instead of views in 2012
http://uk.businessinsider.com/youtube-watch-time-vs-views-2015-7?op=1?r=US
Although there wasn’t any Roman-style backstabbing, YouTubers will remember the ides of March 2012 as a traumatic day in the company’s history.
In one fell swoop, the site’s daily view count got completely demolished.
“Everybody was going to have a heart attack! You can imagine how controversial and terrifying such a thing was!”
Quickened pulses aside, this wasn’t actually an out-of-the-blue crisis. Instead, it was the result of a calculated decision to change how YouTube measured its own success.
The old way: Frustrated users, but lots of clicks
When Goodrow first became responsible for YouTube’s search and recommendation system in early 2011, the team prioritized video views above all else. By applying machine-learning to its recommendation algorithm and telling it to maximize clicks, YouTube engineers added a rocket-ship booster to the site’s viewing numbers.
At first, the newfound surge felt like a success.
But as the team studied the change on user behavior, it started to realize that it had created a machine-learning monster. Instead of spending time completing long videos, YouTube users often hopped quickly from one to the next.
Read more: http://uk.businessinsider.com/youtube-watch-time-vs-views-2015-7?op=1?r=US#ixzz3f6R7SQB5
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kurt Wagner / Re/code:
Some key differences between Facebook’s and YouTube’s revenue sharing plans for video creators
How Facebook’s New Video Business Stacks Up Against YouTube
http://recode.net/2015/07/02/facebook-and-youtubes-revenue-share/
Facebook is stepping on YouTube’s turf.
On Wednesday the social network announced it will start sharing ad revenue with some of its most popular video creators. YouTube has used a revenue split to entice content creators for years, and Facebook even set the same terms — 55 percent of ad revenue to video creators, 45 percent to the platform.
The move reinforced what many following the industry already knew: Facebook is serious about video — and the more lucrative video ad revenue that comes with it.
But while the two companies are offering a similar premise around revenue sharing, the fine print reveals a few key distinctions. Here’s how the two break down.
YouTube makes most of its money from pre-roll ads running ahead of the content you want to watch. Facebook doesn’t like pre-roll ads. It doesn’t sell them. Instead, it’s offering standalone, autoplay ads (complete with sound) that will run within its new Suggested Videos stream.
Both Facebook and YouTube are offering the same 55/45 revenue split to content creators, but there is one major difference. In YouTube’s model, that revenue split is shared with one content creator. With Facebook, the 55 percent may be divided among multiple creators. In fact, it’s almost guaranteed that it will be.
On YouTube, anyone with a viral video can flip a switch to show ads before it plays. Facebook won’t make it that easy, at least not for everyday users.
At launch, the company is partnering with “a few dozen” major content creators like the NBA, Hearst and Fox Sports on its revenue share program.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Vlad Savov / The Verge:
Instagram is now storing photos in 1080×1080 resolution instead of 640×640, likely in preparation for a public upgrade soon — Instagram photos are now bigger — if you know where to look
Instagram photos are now bigger — if you know where to look
Here’s what the Instagram of the very near future will look like
http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/6/8899807/instagram-1080p-pictures-photo-upload
Just over a week ago, I wrote plaintively about Instagram’s archaic 640 x 640 resolution and the need to move with the times and give users the ability to upload larger images. This past Friday, it appears, Instagram has started addressing that very issue, as photos sent to the popular image sharing app are now being stored in a higher 1080 x 1080 size.
the source code on Instagram’s web view reveals that new photos uploaded to it are being saved in 1080px resolution
Tomi Engdahl says:
If you want to keep sharing photos for free, read this
Jimmy Wales
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/03/sharing-photos-freedom-of-panorama
The Wikipedia co-founder warns that freedom of panorama – the right to use photos of public spaces without restriction – is under threat. Sign up to save it
If you have ever travelled to Paris, you probably visited and took pictures of the Eiffel Tower. There is a special delight in capturing it with your own camera, commemorating the moment of standing next to this marvel yourself.
But if you happened to take those pictures at night, you may be surprised to know that according to French law, your rights to use them are limited. The illumination of the Eiffel Tower is considered to be a separate artistic installation. Because France does not have full freedom of panorama; copyright restrictions make it illegal to publish these pictures without proper authorisation.
Freedom of panorama is the unrestricted right to use photographs of public spaces , without infringing the rights of the architect or the visual artist.
The European parliament is currently engaged in the adoption of some copyright reforms. If adopted, freedom of panorama would be restricted throughout all EU states. According to the proposed amendment, the right to freely use images of works permanently located in public spaces would always be subject to prior authorisation. Unless the legal affairs committee rejects the proposal, hundreds of thousands of images on Wikipedia would be subject to copyright restrictions and would face the risk of being removed.
The “reform” would have terrible consequences for the way we share and create culture and knowledge.
Save the Freedom of Photography! #saveFoP
https://www.change.org/p/european-parliament-save-the-freedom-of-photography-savefop-europarl-en
On 9 July 2015, the European Parliament might destroy photography.
The Freedom of taking photos in public places is under attack. Until now, in most countries in Europe you were safe to take and publish photographs that are taken from public ground – This is called Freedom of Panorama.
Julia Reda, member of the European Parliament, tried to bring the Freedom of Panorama to all countries of the EU, as few countries like France and Italy don’t have such law yet.
However, the current draft turned the proposal upside down. Instead of bringing the Freedom of Panorama to the few countries that don’t know such law yet, it would take it away from all those who do. With this, Street-, Travel- and Architecture-Photography would be dead as we know it.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Australians sign for 1.7 million new streaming video accounts
Netlifx’s arrival punts footy-on-demand into a niche, says analyst outfit Telsyte
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/08/australians_sign_for_14_million_new_streaming_video_accounts/
At the end of 2014, Australians collectively subscribed to about 315,000 streaming video on demand (SVOD) services.
But in the six months since, that total’s grown to over two million according to analyst outfit Telsyte.
Telsyte has a couple of interesting observations about the market, one of which is that all those free offers* you see out there are working because punters are converting to paid subscribers. Another is that the average punter subscribes to 1.6 services, largely because no single provider has been able to amass a killer content catalog. That may be why the firm says “At the end of June, almost 40 per cent of Australian households that had SVOD services also had traditional Pay TV.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Russia campaigns to stop SUICIDALLY STUPID selfies
Don’t take auto-pix with lions or guns, says Ministry. Vodka consumption not mentioned
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/08/russia_campaigns_to_stop_suicidally_stupid_selfies/
Russia’s Interior Ministry has started an education campaign to convince the populace that high-flying, high-risk selfies can kill.
Assistant Minister of Internal Affairs, Lieutenant Colonel of Police Elena Alekseeva, yesterday launched the “safety selfie” programme after several Russian citizens came to grisly ends whilst taking auto-photos.
The campaign’s launch page suggests, after a nasty trip through a translate-o-tron, that “when a person is trying to take a picture of himself – he scattered attention, he lost his balance, he does not look around and did not feel in danger. Do self, making sure that you are in a safe place and your life is not in danger!”
Wise advice.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Joanna Stern / Wall Street Journal:
Apple Music review: discovery features are great but the app lacks polish and simplicity, difficult to recommend over Spotify
Apple Music Review: Behind a Messy Interface Is Music’s Next Big Leap
http://www.wsj.com/article_email/apple-music-review-behind-a-messy-interface-is-musics-next-big-leap-1436300486-lMyQjAxMTI1NTA5NzEwNDc0Wj
Despite glitches and a confusing interface, Apple Music stands to make as big an impact as the iPod
Tomi Engdahl says:
Greenpeace fingers YouTube, Netflix as threat to greener Internet
http://www.computerworld.com/article/2920551/sustainable-it/greenpeace-fingers-youtube-netflix-as-threat-to-greener-internet.html
The next time you watch “House of Cards” on Netflix, think about the impact you might be having on the environment.
As the Internet powers ever more services, from digital video to on-demand food delivery, energy use in data centers will rise. To reduce their impact on the environment, companies like Apple, Google and Facebook have taken big steps to power their operations with renewable energy sources like hydro, geothermal and solar.
But despite those efforts, the growth of streaming video from the likes of Netflix, Hulu and Google’s YouTube presents a pesky challenge to the companies’ efforts to go green, according to a report Tuesday from Greenpeace.
“The rapid transition to streaming video models, as well as tablets and other thin client devices that supplant on-device storage with the cloud, means more and more demand for data center capacity, which will require more energy to power,” the report’s authors wrote.
It might seem that online services, like video streaming, would reduce carbon footprint versus, say, driving to a movie theater. But by enabling much higher levels of consumption, the shift to digital video may actually be increasing the total amount of electricity consumed, and the associated pollution from electricity generation, the report said.
“Unless leading Internet companies find a way to leapfrog traditional, polluting sources of electricity, the convenience of streaming could cause us to increase our carbon footprint,” wrote the authors of the report, “Clicking Green: A Guide to Building the Green Internet.”
Clicking Clean:
A Guide to Building the Green Internet
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/Global/usa/planet3/PDFs/2015ClickingClean.pdf
The internet is rapidly working its way into nearly
every aspect of the modern economy. Long
unshackled from our web browser, we now find
the internet at every turn, and ready to play a
bigger role in our lives with each passing day.
Today, the internet is rapidly transforming how
you watch TV. Tomorrow, the internet may be
driving your car and connecting you to high-
definition video from every corner of the planet
via your watch.
The magic of the internet seems almost limitless. But each
new internet enabled magic trick means more and more
data, now growing over 20% each year
While there may be significant energy efficiency gains from
moving our lives online, the explosive growth of our digital
lives is outstripping those gains. Publishing conglomerates
now consume more energy from their data centers than
their printing presses. Greenpeace has estimated that the
aggregate electricity demand of our digital infrastructure
back in 2011 would have ranked sixth in the world among
countries.
The rapid transition to streaming video models,
as well as tablets and other thin client devices that supplant
on-device storage with the cloud, means more and more
demand for data center capacity, which will require more
energy to power.
The transition to online distribution models, such as video
streaming, appears to deliver a reduction in the carbon
footprint over traditional models of delivery. However,
in some cases, this shift may simply be enabling much
higher levels of consumption, ultimately increasing the
total amount of electricity consumed and the associated
pollution from electricity generation.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hackaday Prize Entry: Bone Conduction Headphones
http://hackaday.com/2015/07/07/hackaday-prize-entry-bone-conduction-headphones/
Beats headphones are very popular, they’re everywhere, and they sound like trash. That’s a shame, because there’s a century of recorded music out there that sounds really good. [WΛLLTΞCH] forgot about [Dre] and started looking into a better way to listen to music. He came up with bone conduction transducers and started one of the most interesting projects for this year’s Hackaday Prize.
Instead of driving a speaker cone that vibrates the air, passes through the middle ear, and vibrates the eardrum, bone conduction amplifiers bypass the outer and middle ear completely. Not only does this produce a clearer reproduction of sound, but it’s also great for anyone with an abnormality in the ear canal, ear drum, or the tiny bones of the inner ear.
[WΛLLTΞCH]’s first prototype is using a bone conduction amplifier and a cheap Bluetooth module, stuffed into a small 3D printed case. With two 1W transducer modules, it was enough for a proof of concept.
WΛLLTΞCH PHΛNTOM: Bone-Conduction BT Audio Headset
https://hackaday.io/project/5242-wlltch-phntom-bone-conduction-bt-audio-headset
A wireless, BT bone-conduction audio device that transmits sound directly to the inner ear through the skull. Audio for the deaf & disabled.
Essentially, bone conduction differs from conventional air conduction in that it completely bypasses the outer and middle ear including the eardrum and associated transmission bones and transmits the vibrations of sound straight to the cochlea for sensing by the auditory nerve.
What is Bone Conduction?
“Bone conduction is the conduction of sound to the inner ear through the bones of the skull. Bone conduction transmission can be used with individuals with normal or impaired hearing…In use, the speaker is strapped against one of the dome-shaped bone protrusions behind the ear and the sound, which can be surprisingly clear and crisp, seems to come from inside the user’s head.” – Wikipedia
Tomi Engdahl says:
Television viewing has changed in Finland
A large consumer research from Samsung shows that Finns televisonkatselu has changed. As many as 81 per cent of Finnish now use streaming services for television programs, films and videos. Streamed content also will be paid five times more than the year before.
The results show that the Finns consider now more television than last year. 95 per cent of households have a television. It is considered to be an average of 2 hours and 37 minutes on those days when it is opened. Viewing time has increased in recent years to 15 minutes.
The number streaming service users has increased in Finland last year by 9 per cent and we are now the most active in the Nordic countries streamers. Swedish streaming services used 73 per cent, 69 per cent of Norwegians and 64 per cent of Danes.
Finnish-fourth (24 percent) use video streaming services on a daily basis and more than half (57 percent) on a weekly basis. Finland also listen to streamed music from other Nordic countries more.
Despite the popularity of smartphones and tablet TV is once again the most popular viewing device for entertainment in the home. Europe has become more common also interspersed tweeting while watching TV.
The use of paid-for content is growing dramatically a year and it is now five times more popular in recent years. 57 percent of the Finnish pay TV, movies, or video streaming services, while last year the payers was only 11 percent
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3035:television-katselu-muuttui-suomessa&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Will Oremus / Slate:
Many viral Facebook videos are ripped from YouTube and re-uploaded to Facebook without consent, and some end up with more views than originals — Facebook’s Piracy Problem — Are plagiarized YouTube videos helping fuel the social network’s astonishing video growth?
Facebook’s Piracy Problem
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2015/07/freebooting_stolen_youtube_videos_going_viral_on_facebook.single.html
Are plagiarized YouTube videos helping fuel the social network’s astonishing video growth?
The result, titled “TATTOOING Close Up (in Slow Motion),” has racked up more than 20 million views in nine months.
So far it sounds like a classic YouTube success story. But it’s actually a story about a form of online piracy called “freebooting” that has grown rampant on Facebook in just the past year. Sandlin and other YouTube personalities are convinced Facebook is profiting from it—at their expense.
It’s also a story about a seismic shake-up in the online video industry. For the first time in its history, YouTube has a real rival. And Facebook isn’t playing by the same rules.
Two days after he published his tattoo video on YouTube, Sandlin got a message from one of his subscribers who had seen it on Facebook. It turned out his video was a viral smash there, too. In fact, it was spreading even faster on Facebook than it was on YouTube, with more than 18 million views in the first two days alone.
The problem was that Sandlin had never posted it to Facebook, and the version of it that appeared in millions of users’ News Feeds overnight wasn’t his. Rather, a British lads’ magazine called Zoo had apparently downloaded (or “ripped”) his video from YouTube, edited it to strip out references to Sandlin and his SmarterEveryDay channel, and posted the edited version on its own page, using Facebook’s native video player. It was an instant sensation, garnering millions of views and a raft of new followers for Zoo’s page. Sandlin, who puts some of the revenue from his YouTube videos toward his kids’ college fund, got nothing.
Sandlin’s story is one you hear a lot these days from people who make online videos professionally.
YouTube video on how to make gummy candies in the shape of Legos, and it garnered about 600,000 views in the first 24 hours. Meanwhile, on Facebook, someone else’s ripped version of his video was approaching 10 million views. “The worst thing is just the shock of how viral they go on Facebook compared to the ones I post on YouTube,”
Last year on his podcast Hello Internet, the Australian filmmaker Brady Haran coined the term freebooting to describe the act of taking someone’s YouTube video and re-uploading it on a different platform for your own benefit.
Unlike sea pirates, Facebook freebooters don’t directly profit from their plundering. That’s because, unlike YouTube, Facebook doesn’t run commercials before its native videos—not yet, at least. That’s part of why they spread like wildfire.
What the freebooter gains is attention, whether in the form of likes, shares, or new followers for its Facebook page. That can be valuable, sure, especially for brands and media outlets.
Regardless, it’s clear that YouTube is being squeezed out. In February 2014, just 1 in 4 videos posted on Facebook were uploaded natively, with the rest shared from other hosts such as YouTube, according to a SocialBakers report cited by Fortune. By February, 70 percent were hosted on Facebook.
Facebook’s News Feed algorithms appear to dovetail suspiciously with the company’s strategic goals
“But without a doubt they’ve tailored their algorithm to make them the most money.”
Both Sandlin and Thompson told me they contact Facebook whenever they see a particularly egregious instance of freebooting and ask the company to take the video down. Facebook typically complies, they said—but often not until a day or two later, by which time the video’s virality has run much of its course. Two days, Sandlin told me, is “basically forever in Internet time.”
n contrast, YouTube—which in its early days was nearly sued into oblivion for its own copyright infringement foibles—now has sophisticated software to identify copyrighted content almost as soon as it’s posted. Depending on the type of content, YouTube’s Content ID system gives the copyright holders the option to automatically block the infringing video, monetize it, or allow it to remain and track its performance. The system isn’t perfect: Some critics say it gives copyright holders too much power to block videos that might have a legitimate fair-use case for legality. But Sandlin and Thompson say it helps makes original video operations like theirs possible.
If that’s true, perhaps the era of rampant freebooting on Facebook will prove fleeting. Maybe this is just a stage of development for online video platforms: grow first, then cover your legal bases.
Sandlin also doesn’t buy the notion that copyright enforcement presents a “technical challenge” for Facebook. “You’re talking about the people who created facial recognition technology on a large-scale social platform,” he said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
GoPro Hires Former Hulu Original Series Chief for Content Push (Exclusive)
http://variety.com/2015/digital/news/gopro-hires-former-hulu-original-series-chief-for-content-push-exclusive-2-1201535398/
GoPro is getting ready to step up its content game: Charlotte Koh, who used to lead Hulu’s original content initiatives, has joined GoPro in a newly created position as head of features and series.
Koh is tasked with striking partnerships with Hollywood creatives as well as studios and networks to develop and co-produce new content with the help of GoPro’s signature small cameras. “It’s really about creating a GoPro content banner on top of the technology,” she told Variety in her first interview since joining the company last month.
Koh didn’t reveal too much about the types of content that will come out of these collaborations, in part because that work is still in a “seed-planting stage,” as she put it.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why Apple Blinked When Taylor Swift Stared Them Down
http://variety.com/2015/digital/opinion/why-apple-blinked-when-taylor-swift-stared-them-down-1201525128/
Taylor Swift doesn’t exactly fit the mold of the underdog, but pitted against Apple, even America’s reigning pop star can play the part.
Which made it all the more startling Sunday when the Cupertino colossus quickly caved in when Swift lashed out against the terms of Apple Music’s trial period, which would have robbed artists of their royalties for songs in the new streaming service’s first three months of usage.
Hours after Swift took Tumblr with her message, Apple content chief Eddy Cue announced via Twitter that the policy was being scuttled.
When was the last time you saw Apple — or any corporation anywhere near its size, really — buckle that swiftly to that kind of attack, especially considering the source was a twentysomething waif?
It’s rare to see any Fortune 500 company move so nimbly when it comes to counteracting a potential negative shift in the court of public opinion.
But Apple’s swift reaction may say less about the company’s ethos and more about the circumstances of this particular episode. First, consider the incredible importance of launching Apple Music without the kind of hiccups that could derail deployment.
It’s hard to think of another category that has seemed so vulnerable to the vicissitudes of consumer sentiment than streaming music. Just look at what has happened to Tidal
Spotify already found out the hard way how easily someone in this space can get blown off course from its own much-publicized skirmish with Swift over her own decision to pull her “1989” album over dissatisfaction with the terms of their licensing deal.
Apple doesn’t need any of the noise that would otherwise politicize its own service’s launch. Being perceived as not artist-friendly is a distraction that Cue felt best to just pay away before any real damage could be done.
“What would Steve Jobs do?”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tara Conlan / Guardian:
BBC considering move to make news channel online only
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jul/07/bbc-considering-move-news-channel-online-only
Corporation understood to be looking into future of £66.2m TV channel and how live news is covered, with final decision yet to be made
The BBC is considering making its news channel online only following a similar cost-cutting move for its BBC3 TV channel, it has emerged.
Work had already started on assessing the impact of making the news channel online only before the government unveiled a surprise licence fee settlement on Monday in which the BBC will have to shoulder the full £750m cost of free licence fees for people aged over 75 by 2020.
“The BBC News channel is the most-watched 24-hour news channel in the UK, reaching 8.6 million adults each week. But like TV news more widely, the channel’s reach has fallen over the last three years, as has Sky’s.
“What do these figures say to us? They tell us that just as the BBC redefined the news for Britain – first on radio, then on television and more recently online – we must now consider very carefully the prospect that we may need to do so again.”
Jasper Jackson / Guardian:
BBC spending to be cut by 20% in real terms over five years — Office for Budget Responsibility analysis predicts decline in spending from £3.9bn to £3.5bn by 2020 as BBC covers cost of free TV licences for the over-75s — BBC spending will fall 20% in real terms
BBC spending to be cut by 20% in real terms over five years, says OBR
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jul/08/bbc-spending-cut-budget-20-real-terms-five-years
Office for Budget Responsibility analysis predicts decline in spending from £3.9bn to £3.5bn by 2020 as BBC covers cost of free TV licences for the over-75s
“When the government begins to withdraw this funding, we assume that the BBC will reduce its spending by almost the same amount, but with some small and diminishing offsetting contribution from its reserves.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Examples of modern cinema computer graphics effects use:
Mad Max before and after shots show what’s real and what’s fake
http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/31/8694099/mad-max-cgi-before-and-after-shots
Tomi Engdahl says:
Michael Wolff / MIT Technology Review:
Publishers should feel existentially threatened by Facebook Instant Articles ad revenue split, not be embracing it
Facebook Instant Articles Just Don’t Add Up for Publishers
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/539066/facebook-instant-articles-just-dont-add-up-for-publishers/
Publishers like the New York Times should be having an existential crisis over Facebook’s instant articles. Instead they’re embracing them.
Here are some key numbers for content licensors in digital media: Netflix will pay approximately $3 billion in licensing and production fees this year to the television and film industry; Hulu is paying $192 million to license South Park; Spotify pays out 70 percent of its gross revenues to the music labels that hold the underlying rights to Spotify’s catalogue.
Now here’s what Facebook is guaranteeing a variety of publishers, including the New York Times, Buzzfeed, and the Atlantic, who are posting articles in its new “instant articles” feature: $0. That’s pretty much the deal being offered in other similar digital distribution agreements by Apple News, Snapchat Discover, and an anticipated similar offering at Google. Nothing.
In effect, digital content is being divided between a lucrative high-end entertainment world, where licensors receive a negotiated fee for allowing the distribution of their property, and a low-end publishing world where content is expected to be “free,” supporting itself on often elusive advertising sales and ad-splits. In this particular deal, publishers can sell ads on their articles and keep all of the revenue, or have Facebook sell ads in exchange for 30 percent.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Android Candy: Google Photos
http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/android-candy-google-photos
Google has become the company that we love and can’t live without, but at the same time, I think we all worry a little about just how much Google knows about us. With that caveat, it’s hard to ignore Google’s newest offering: Google Photos.
Using unlimited storage, automatic sorting and face/place/event recognition, Google is taking all the manual work of tagging and hiring googlebots to do the work for us. Is that creepy? Maybe a little. Honestly though, it’s hard to scoff at unlimited storage of full-quality photos and videos. Plus, if you’re like me, actually finding the time to sort and tag tens of thousands of photos is something you’re going to get to “any day now”.
Tomi Engdahl says:
M.I.A. Audiovisual Project “Matahdatah Scroll 01 Broader Than a Border” Coming to Apple Music
Following Drake’s “Energy”, Eminem’s “Phenomenal” and Pharrell’s “Freedom” in Apple’s new original content initiative
http://pitchfork.com/news/60250-mia-audiovisual-project-matahdatah-scroll-01-broader-than-a-border-coming-to-apple-music/
The launch of Apple Music hasn’t only included a new radio station, social network, and streaming service. Apple have also started creating their own original content.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Joe Flint / Wall Street Journal:
ESPN takes hard line in talent negotiations as it tightens spending, focuses on safeguarding its lucrative pay TV business instead
ESPN Tightens Its Belt as Pressure on It Mounts
Competition in the pay-TV industry is rising and subscribers are trimming cable bills
http://www.wsj.com/article_email/espn-tightens-its-belt-as-pressure-on-it-mounts-1436485852-lMyQjAxMTA1MjEzMDkxMjAwWj
Sports-TV powerhouse ESPN, a profit machine that has long towered over the media landscape, is showing signs of stress as the pay-TV industry goes through an unprecedented period of upheaval.
A decline in subscribers as customers trim their cable bills, coupled with rising content costs and increased competition, has ESPN in belt-tightening mode, people familiar with the situation say.
The company, majority owned by Walt Disney Co., has lost 3.2 million subscribers in a little over a year, according to Nielsen data, as people have “cut the cord” by dropping their cable-TV subscriptions or downgraded to cheaper, slimmed-down TV packages devoid of expensive sports channels like ESPN.
At the same time, the prices ESPN pays for the rights to show games are ballooning. Rivals including 21st Century Fox Inc. ’s Fox Sports and Comcast Corp. ’s NBC are aggressively pursuing sports properties to feed their own outlets, which is also driving up prices.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ian Sherr / CNET:
Electronic Arts and Comcast partner on beta service that streams video games through set-top boxes, uses smartphones and tablets as controllers
Electronic Arts, Comcast team up to bring game streaming to TVs
http://www.cnet.com/news/electronic-arts-and-comcast-partner-to-bring-game-streaming-to-tvs/
Their test project offers cable customers a way to play video games through set-top boxes using their smartphones or tablets as controllers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jamieson Cox / The Verge:
Neil Young, whose Pono high fidelity music player was released in January, pulls his music from all streaming services, citing poor audio quality
Neil Young is yanking his catalog from streaming services
http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/15/8973605/neil-young-leaving-streaming-pono-apple-music-spotify
If you want to hear Harvest, you’d better move quickly
Neil Young took to Facebook and Twitter today to announce that he’s removing his music from all streaming services, a move he’s blaming on their poor audio quality rather than any financial frustration. “I don’t need my music to be devalued by the worst quality in the history of broadcasting or any other form of distribution. I don’t feel right allowing this to be sold to my fans. It’s bad for my music,” said Young on Facebook. He has some skin in this particular game, of course: Young is the force behind the high fidelity Pono media player and digital music service, which was funded through Kickstarter and became available to the public this January.
Young is a passionate advocate for audio quality, but his decision isn’t standing on the most solid ground. Some streaming services — like Jay Z’s Tidal, for instance — base much of their value proposition on the quality of their streamed music, comparing it to what you’d hear playing a CD or listening to lossless files on your computer. There are many other factors that contribute to your perception of audio quality beyond the service you use to listen, like headphones and parent device.
It’s possible Young is just trying to make his own music service stand out, something he can use his lauded discography to accomplish.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Seth Abramovitch / Hollywood Reporter:
Felix & Paul Studios signs multiyear deal with Oculus to develop immersive VR experiences
Virtual Reality’s Wannabe Spielbergs Ink Oculus Deal (Exclusive)
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/virtual-realitys-wannabe-spielbergs-ink-808939
Who can make dinosaurs look even better than they do in 3D? Felix & Paul Studios, which created ‘Jurassic World: Apatosaurus’ — and is at the helm of film’s next, slowly evolving frontier: “You can’t create an art form in six months.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Janko Roettgers / Variety:
YouTube’s global watch time grew 60% YoY; average mobile viewing session now over 40 minutes
Google Grows YouTube Views, Revenue Despite Facebook Threat
http://variety.com/2015/digital/news/google-grows-youtube-views-revenue-despite-facebook-threat-1201542013/
YouTube got a big shout-out during Google’s Q2 2015 earnings call Thursday, with Google’s new CFO Ruth Porat stating that the company has seen “significant growth in YouTube revenues” in the last quarter.
What’s more, the YouTube-owned video service also seems to be growing eyeballs, despite increased competition from Facebook. “Growth in watch time on YouTube has accelerated,” said Porat, adding that global watch time is up 60 percent year-over-year, with mobile watch time more than double from what it was a year ago.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mike Isaac / New York Times:
Filmmaker Casey Neistat’s Beme video sharing app aims for authenticity by not letting users review the ephemeral four-second videos they send
Casey Neistat’s Beme Is a Social App That Aims to Replace Illusions With Reality
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/17/the-debut-of-beme-a-social-app-that-aims-for-authenticity/
And the real version — the one not polished for social media — is exactly how Mr. Neistat wants you to see him.
This sounds peculiar coming from Mr. Neistat, a short-form video artist and an evangelist of social media in all its forms. Yet it is the premise of Beme, his new app that aims to redefine and simplify the way people express themselves using their smartphones.
The app, which Mr. Neistat and his dozen or so colleagues released on Friday, is essentially an extension of the artist himself.
Part of the strategy is removing all the bells and whistles included in today’s most popular social apps. Beme — pronounced “beam” — is, at its core, a gray and black list of your friends. I
Users capture four-second bursts of video by covering a sensor directly above the earpiece of the iPhone.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mike Shields / Wall Street Journal:
As it lacks an established ad-revenue sharing model, YouTube stars post only one-fifth of their videos on Facebook
YouTube Stars Keep Facebook at Arm’s Length For Now
http://blogs.wsj.com/cmo/2015/07/20/youtube-stars-keep-facebook-at-arms-length-for-now/
Nearly a year ago, Facebook FB +3.10% started reaching out to YouTube stars and multichannel networks, encouraging them to consider posting their content to the social networking giant’s “native” video player. It was the kickoff to Facebook’s campaign to battle YouTube for Web video supremacy.
But even as Facebook’s video footprint has exploded since then (the company claims to deliver 4 billion video views a day), many top YouTube creators are keeping Facebook at arm’s length — if they even bother with the social network at all.
For example, 68% of the top creators on YouTube posted a video to Facebook in May, and exactly zero of them generated more views on Facebook than YouTube that month, according to an analysis by the Web video data firm Tubular Labs.
What’s going on here? While it’s not easy to sum up the motivations of hundreds of creators, several major factors seem to be holding back YouTube stars from fully embracing Facebook. First and most obvious is that Facebook lacks an established ad revenue model for content producers. Plus, Facebook’s news feed as it stands now may prove to be a poor fit for some of the more popular YouTube genres. And YouTube’s Web video-centric nature and community make it particularly well suited for Web video stars to build fan bases.
In PewDiePie’s case, many of his Facebook videos actually direct people to YouTube–a common strategy employed by YouTube stars like Hannah Hart and Grace Helbig.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Christopher Heine / Adweek:
GoPro introduces stock video licensing service, starting with 600 videos priced at $1K each and up
Brands Are About to Find Out How Powerful GoPro Videos Can Be Hi-def camera maker unveils platform for marketers
http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/brands-are-about-find-out-how-powerful-gopro-videos-can-be-165962
Spellbinding scenes captured by adventure seekers and even wildlife made GoPro the hottest video camera around. And now, the company wants to give marketers a sharper view. Hundreds of those videos, like those from the perspective of a dolphin swimming alongside his pod or a dude jumping from a tall building, will soon be at marketers’ fingertips via a platform dubbed GoPro Licensing.
“We’ve gotten calls almost daily from creative agencies, TV networks and film studios that want to use our content,” said Adam Dornbusch, head of programming at GoPro, which just began taking marketers’ applications via its online portal.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bloomberg Business:
YouTube signs most of its partners for paid service but no shows from major TV networks yet — Google’s YouTube Signs Up Everyone But TV for New Paid Service … Google Inc.’s YouTube, which has signed up partners for a new paid video service, may find out by early next year whether …
Google’s YouTube Signs Up Everyone But TV for New Paid Service
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-20/google-s-youtube-signs-up-everyone-but-tv-for-new-paid-service
Google Inc.’s YouTube, which has signed up partners for a new paid video service, may find out by early next year whether its own Internet stars really are as valuable as those in Hollywood.
Partners accounting for more than 90 percent of YouTube viewing have signed on to the paid service, the company said in a statement. While the lineup incudes home-grown celebrities and music videos, YouTube so far doesn’t have TV networks such as Fox, NBC and CBS, according to people with knowledge of the matter who asked not to be identified discussing the project.
Some big media companies, including Fox and NBCUniversal, are reluctant to make their biggest shows part of the paid service, because they view YouTube as a promotional outlet — a place for airing clips and highlights — and because they may not have the rights, which vary by show.
Music is still the most popular type of video on YouTube, and the company may fold Music Key, a paid service it created last year, into the new offering, according to another person familiar with the matter who also asked not to be identified.
YouTube will introduce two new features to convince people to pay for the commercial-free service. Subscribers will be able to store and watch videos without an Internet connection, and while using other applications on a mobile phone or tablet, people with knowledge of the matter said in April. Neither of those are available to users of the free service.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Owen Williams / The Next Web:
Google kills Streamus, a third party Chrome extension with 300K users that queued YouTube songs to play in background
How YouTube killed an extension with 300,000 users
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/07/21/how-youtube-killed-an-extension-with-300000-users/
Streamus, the Chrome extension that turns YouTube into a serious music service, has been neutered by Google after a long battle between the company and the developer of the add-on.
The tiny extension made YouTube into a viable music service by offering a button in your browser for quickly building a queue of songs and playing them in the background.
Even months after YouTube launched its paid music streaming service it still doesn’t offer a decent desktop streaming app and Streamus offered an excellent alternative. It racked up over 300,000 installs in just over two years.
Now, three years after its inception, Streamus is dead. It’s been removed from the Chrome Web Store after Google revoked its API key.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook Media:
Facebook now lets Page owners restrict their videos’ audience by age and gender, add custom video thumbnails, and label videos based on interest categories
Customization and Control: New Tools for Video Publishers
http://media.fb.com/2015/07/21/updates-for-video-publishers/
We’re building tools to help video publishers grow their businesses on Facebook, and we’re excited to announce two new updates that give publishers more control over how their videos are organized and shared.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Spools of Thread for 6,400 Pixel Color Display
http://hackaday.com/2015/07/22/spools-of-thread-for-6400-pixel-color-display/
This is not an LED display, it’s a thread display. The hardware artists over at Breakfast, a Brooklyn based rapid product and prototype company, built this color display that uses spools of thread for each pixel. 6,400 spools to be exact.
That is awesome! Devorah Sperber is an artists who creates works with spools of thread. http://www.devorahsperber.com/thread_works_index_html_and_2x2s/index.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hackaday Prize Entry: Synthetic Aperture Multispectral Imaging
http://hackaday.com/2015/07/22/hackaday-prize-entry-synthetic-aperture-multispectral-imaging/
[Conrad] was tasked with building a synthetic aperture multispectral imaging device by his professor. It’s an interesting challenge that touches on programming, graphics, and just a bit of electrical engineering.
Tucked inside a garish yellow box that looks like a dumb robot are five Raspberry Pis, a TP-Link Ethernet switch, three Raspberry Pi NOIR cameras, and a Flir Lepton thermal camera. With three cameras, different techniques can be used to change the focal length of whatever is being recorded – that’s the synthetic aperture part of the build. By adding different filters – IR pass, UV, visual, and thermal, this camera can record images in a huge range of wavelengths.
Synthetic Aperture Multispectral Imager
https://hackaday.io/project/6730-synthetic-aperture-multispectral-imager
Using a cluster of five raspberry pis, a Flir Lepton and three Raspberry pi NOIR cameras with appropriate filters, an imager was born.
The applications for this are numerous! Because it’s a modular system we can hot swap a lot of components. For example. We’re utilizing the camera as a multispectral imager. But since the unit functions as a synthetic aperture, we can also remove the filters and conduct three-dimensional imaging. The thermal camera gives us the opportunity to track hot objects and determine the distance of the hot object. Alternatively, we could apply the same filters to all of the cameras and only look at one spectra. The applications are pretty endless!
Tomi Engdahl says:
Camera Traps for National Parks
https://hackaday.io/project/5723-camera-traps-for-national-parks
A hack to enable the wildlife activists capture images and count the numbers of wildlife animals in an area.
When I came across http://pantheracameratrap.org/ , I realised, I could make a DIY camera trap that could be used by anyone and more importantly, could be made cheaper and the system could be connected to any camera. So this is what I did. I built a camera trap, which again is a POC. Using arduino uno at heart and an ultrasonic sensor, this ugly piece of instrument can trigger the camera and capture images.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jim Dalrymple / The Loop:
Apple Music nightmare: adding music doesn’t work as expected, lost access to 4,700 songs after turning off the service — Apple Music is a nightmare and I’m done with it — I love Apple. I love them because they take difficult problems and come up with innovative, simple solutions.
Apple Music is a nightmare and I’m done with it
http://www.loopinsight.com/2015/07/22/apple-music-is-a-nightmare-and-im-done-with-it/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Shred Video Turns Hours Of GoPro Footage Into A Dope-Ass Montage In Seconds
http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/21/shred-video-turns-hours-of-gopro-footage-into-a-dope-ass-montage-in-seconds/?ncid=rss&cps=gravity_1462_-3563222821803795288#.b5imzi:IUHA
If you’re interested in extreme sports, chances are you own a GoPro and use it to film your sick moves. But folks with a GoPro know how painful it can be to edit down hours of video to 90 seconds of action-packed awesome set to music.
Shred Video, a new startup launching out of Y Combinator, allows users to take footage from their iPhone, GoPro or drone and simply match it with a song from the user’s iTunes library. That’s all. Shred Video does the rest of the work.
Taking into account the acceleration of the camera itself, Shred Video can pin-point the moments of action for surfers, snowboarders, skaters and other acceleration-based sports to highlight all of the coolest clips in your footage. And beyond that, Shred Video matches those epic moments with the beat-drop of the song.
Since the product doesn’t offer any music of its own — users have to upload their own songs from iTunes — the company steers clear of any licensing issues with artists.
Given the system is based around acceleration, Shred Video can’t do the same thing with a static camera. However, the speed with which Shred Video can turn hours or years worth of footage into a few-minute video is impressive.
Whereas editing in Final Cut or Adobe Premiere can take even experienced editors a few hours, Shred Video can cut these videos down in a matter of seconds.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Twitch is ditching Flash for HTML5, just like YouTube
http://venturebeat.com/2015/07/22/twitch-is-ditching-flash-for-html5-just-like-youtube/
It’s finally happening. Twitch is transitioning from Adobe Flash to HTML5.
The Amazon-owned company is starting small: The video player on the Web is getting new controls powered by HTML5 and JavaScript in place of the existing Flash controls. The rollout is a gradual one — you may not see the redesign on your account yet, but don’t worry, it’s coming.
This move is just half the battle, as the video underneath the controls is still powered by Flash. Twitch says this is “an important step to releasing the much-anticipated full HTML5 player” and to “stay tuned for more HTML5 updates.”
It should come as no surprise that Twitch is taking its time with the transition. The transition is no easy task, though Twitch does have one major advantage: The trail has already been blazed.
In January 2010, Google announced a test version of an HTML5 video player. A few months later, YouTube discussed how HTML5 video performed compared to Flash, and improved its embed code, which is how many YouTube videos are distributed.
In May 2014, YouTube started using the HTML5 player by default on most videos in most browsers (content excluded was mainly from partners like Vevo). In January 2015, YouTube ditched Flash for HTML5 by default.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Google Brings Its 360-Degree Movies App, Spotlight Stories, To iOS
http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/23/google-brings-its-360-degree-movies-app-spotlight-stories-to-ios/
Google Spotlight Stories, a mobile app featuring immersive, 360 degree animated films originally developed by Motorola ahead of its 2011 Google acquisition, has now made its way to iOS devices. The app had been available on Android phones since fall 2013, when Google first introduced the new mobile storytelling format to consumers.
The app itself is intended for entertainment purposes, as it offers stories built using 3D and 2D animations, 360-degree spherical “cinema-quality” video, sound sphere audio, and “sensor fusion techniques,” explains Google. In short, what that means is that viewers can look around inside the animated content by moving their body and the phone to see different parts or angles of the story taking place.
Basically, the app can take advantage of the device’s sensors like its gyroscope and accelerometer in order to offer an immersive viewing experience. However, it doesn’t let end users create these sorts of movies for themselves at present.
Tomi Engdahl says:
NwAvGuy: The Audio Genius Who Vanished
http://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/profiles/nwavguy-the-audio-genius-who-vanished
An anonymous engineer created some of the best DIY audio designs—and his fans want to know where he went
Some audiophiles spare no expense to get the very best sound-reproduction equipment money can buy. They will happily plunk down US $20 000 for a pair of loudspeakers or pay $1600 for one of the more highly regarded preamplifiers. And price tags an order of magnitude higher are not unheard of.
Expensive stuff looks great and impresses your friends, but does spending more really ensure that you’ll get a better product? Blind testing has proved that proposition is no more true for audio gear than it is for wine. Still, many people who manufacture or review audio equipment persist in making subjective judgments, which are often influenced by the price tag. This practice badly irritated an anonymous electrical engineer known to the world only by his online moniker, NwAvGuy.
Starting in February 2011, NwAvGuy began ruffling feathers in audio circles by strenuously arguing on his blog and other online forums that the only proper way to evaluate audio equipment is to use quantitative blind testing.
But NwAvGuy wasn’t just shouting from the sidelines. He exposed his own skills to critique by presenting an open-source design for a headphone amp that he called the Objective 2 (O2). He created it for people who use full-size headphones with, say, MP3 players, which are typically designed to drive earbuds. On his blog, NwAvGuy boasted that his minimalist amplifier—which can be purchased for as little as $129—“proves you don’t need exotic parts or esoteric circuit designs for best-in-class sound, accuracy, and performance.”
When Seaber first contacted NwAvGuy about his plans to manufacture the O2, he expected a lengthy response from this blogger
But he was surprised by the brevity of NwAvGuy’s response, which asked for no such thing. Indeed, he asked for nothing in return.
“I don’t want any revenue from the O2,” NwAvGuy wrote on his blog, “but I do humbly request everyone please respect the license, which includes proper attribution.” But the particular open-source license he applied—Creative Commons CC BY-ND—requires more than just proper attribution: It forbids derivative works. This is different from most open-source projects, which are released with the intent of letting others build on the original, perhaps improving things and, in any event, ensuring that useful designs will not languish if the creator goes bankrupt, loses interest, or otherwise moves on.
This wasn’t a problem while NwAvGuy remained engaged with the people building his designs
But in July 2012, NwAvGuy went silent.
Why didn’t NwAvGuy allow derivative works? “NwAvGuy was ripping manufacturers apart left and right,” says Seaber. “He didn’t want to see tweaked versions of his designs” that didn’t perform well. Reasonable enough. But it’s unclear what will ultimately become of this immensely successful open-source project if nobody else can become its steward in NwAvGuy’s absence.
The bigger question: Has NwAvGuy stopped communicating with others for reasons of his own, or could he have been hit by a bus, as they say?
O2 Headphone Amp
http://nwavguy.blogspot.fi/2011/07/o2-headphone-amp.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Danny Sullivan / Marketing Land:
YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki announces redesigned mobile app at Vidcon, says watch time is up 60%, mobile revenue grew 100%, partner revenue is up 50% YoY — YouTube Gets Mobile Redesign, New “Diamond” View Buttons & Courts Creators — Talk aimed at thousands of video content creators and producers gathered at the annual event.
YouTube Gets Mobile Redesign, “Diamond” View Buttons & Courts Creators
http://marketingland.com/youtube-wojcicki-keynote-vidcon-136363
Announcements and news came during keynote by YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki at VidCon, event attended by thousands of video creators and fans.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Alistair Barr / Wall Street Journal:
YouTube CEO says big publishers opting out of YouTube’s paid subscription service may be dropped from the ad-supported service
YouTube Chief Pushes Ahead with Subscriptions Despite Questions
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/07/24/youtube-chief-pushes-ahead-with-subscriptions-despite-questions/
YouTube wants to get paid in a new way, and Chief Susan Wojcicki is pushing ahead despite questions about the plan.
Wojcicki, a veteran of Google advertising who took the reins at YouTube in early 2014, announced an ad-free, subscription version of the streaming video service almost a year ago. Since then, critics have questioned aspects of the effort, especially a requirement that content owners make their videos available for both the ad-supported and paid versions.
Some content owners have videos that are already available exclusively on other online services, so they may not be able to put that material on a paid YouTube service, too. However, YouTube says that if content partners opted out of the paid service, their content would be nixed from the ad-supported version. That has upset some YouTube partners, and a few of the large ones, including some movie studios, are holding out.
She declined to say how Music Key will change but noted that background listening – where smartphone users listen to tracks while doing other things on their device – is a “very sought-after feature.”
“Music is really important to us,” she added. “We’ve invested a huge amount to build a system that enables artists and labels to be paid for their content and to enable the YouTube community to engage at the same time.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kamcord Update Brings Live Game Streaming To Mobile Devices
http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/23/kamcord-live-streaming/
Kamcord, the YC-backed company that enables game recording on mobile, is the latest company to jump on the mobile live-streaming bandwagon after it added the feature to its Android and iOS apps.
While Meerkat and Twitter-owned Periscope are increasing awareness of live-streaming, both for sharing content and consuming it, the game streaming business — which is dominated by YouTube and Twitch — is still very much a desktop affair. This Kamcord update takes things decidedly in the direction of the future. The apps already allowed users to record their gameplay for upload later, but now you can tune in and watch top Kamcord players — an initial 22 partners boasting a combined 8 million YouTube subscribers are aboard live-streaming — strut their stuff in real-time.
Initially, though, streaming is only possible via the web app for creators, so it isn’t open for everyone, but Kamcord told us that it is looking to add native live-streaming to its Android app very soon.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Peter Bright / Ars Technica:
New patent group threatens to derail 4K HEVC video streaming
New patent group threatens to derail 4K HEVC video streaming
It’s better than H.264, but it’s going to cost more than H.264, too.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/07/new-patent-group-threatens-to-derail-4k-hevc-video-streaming/
A new industry group called HEVC Advance is threatening to demand royalties for the new HEVC video codec that could halve the bandwidth required for streaming online video or offer higher resolutions with the same bandwidth usage. The organization is promising to demand a royalty of 0.5 percent of revenue from any broadcaster that uses the codec for streaming. This move could re-ignite the arguments surrounding video codecs on the Web and may well jeopardize services such as Netflix’s year-old 4K streaming service.
H.264, the de facto standard for video compression in online streaming video, has long had a shadow cast over its existence due to its patents and the royalties that must be paid for their licensing. A consortium called MPEG LA, representing many of the different patent holders that have intellectual property relevant to H.264 including Apple, Samsung, and Fujitsu, collects royalties on H.264 encoder and decoder hardware and software. However, to ensure that H.264 remained attractive and viable to free online streaming services such as YouTube, MPEG LA has committed to not charging any kind of content-based royalty for free services. MPEG LA’s royalties are also capped; a paid streaming service like Netflix will pay no more than $6.5 million a year for its streaming license.
This situation wasn’t perfect, in particular presenting a problem for open source software decoders. Mozilla for a long time refused to support H.264 in Firefox
MPEG LA promised a similar agreement for HEVC (also known as H.265), developed as a more efficient, higher quality successor to H.264. Although encoders and decoders would continue to incur fees, the group’s license scheme makes streaming, broadcasting, and the use of HEVC on Blu-ray discs zero-cost. This would have permitted a similar situation to H.264; hardware manufacturers and proprietary software vendors would continue to pay the fee, but streaming services and other content producers wouldn’t have to pay.
Though only a few years old, HEVC support has already found its way to some TVs and smartphones. Netflix’s 4K service, for example, takes advantage of HEVC support in some smart TVs.
This fragile situation is now jeopardized by HEVC Advance. HEVC Advance wants to ditch the free streaming that MPEG LA offered, and charge a royalty for it, even when the software and hardware being used to create the HEVC video are already licensed with the royalty paid. Moreover, unlike MPEG LA, which generally caps the licenses that must be paid, HEVC Advance’s royalty scheme has no upper limit.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Don Clark / Wall Street Journal:
Technicolor to Buy Cisco’s Set-Top Box Unit for About $600 Million — The deal signals the priorities of Cisco’s incoming CEO, who assumes the role on Monday — SAN FRANCISCO— Technicolor SA has agreed to buy Cisco Systems Inc.’s TV set-top business for about $600 million …
Technicolor to Buy Cisco’s Set-Top Box Unit for About $600 Million
http://www.wsj.com/article_email/technicolor-to-buy-cisco-set-top-box-unit-for-about-600-million-1437628660-lMyQjAxMTA1NzI0MzgyNzM1Wj
Tomi Engdahl says:
Shedding Light on the Mechanics of Film Projection
http://hackaday.com/2015/07/26/shedding-light-on-the-mechanics-of-film-projection/
Do you know how a film projector works? We thought we did, but [Bill Hammack] made us think twice. We have covered the Engineer Guy’s incredibly informative videos many times in the past, and for good reason. He not only has a knack for clear explanation, the dulcet tones of his delivery are hypnotically soothing. In [Bill]’s latest video, he tears down a 1979 Bell & Howell 16mm projector to probe its inner workings.
Tomi Engdahl says:
AT&T Unveils Nationwide Combo TV And Wireless Package With DirecTV
http://deadline.com/2015/08/att-directv-nationwide-wireless-phone-tv-package-1201489859/
AT&T watchers have been waiting to see what it will do with DirecTV now that the companies are united, turning the telco into the world’s largest pay TV provider. That makes the announcement today of what it calls the first nationwide combo wireless phone and TV package interesting, even if it was predictable.
AT&T hopes to lure customers from cable and Dish Network by offering promotional bargains beginning August 10 to people who are new to DirecTV, its wired U-verse service (in 21 states), or its wireless phone platform — and subscribe to both TV and phone. Satellite and phone companies have jointly sold their services, but AT&T is the first to do so across the country with phone and TV under the same corporate roof.
This is “the first of many planned moves to enable our customers to enjoy a premium entertainment experience almost anywhere,” AT&T Entertainment and Internet Services Chief Marketing Officer Brad Bentley says.
AT&T says the new plans will simplify TV and wireless phone purchasing, and offer a bargain. For example, new DirecTV and U-verse customers can pay $200 a month for basic service (DirecTV Select or U-verse U-Family) to four DVR-equipped receivers, and have four wireless lines with unlimited talk and text, and 10GB of shareable wireless data.
But even a simplified offering can become complicated when you look at the different levels of available TV and wireless broadband services — and the fine print.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Aaron Tilley / Forbes:
Light Raises $25 Million To Put DSLR-Quality Camera In Your Next Smartphone
http://www.forbes.com/sites/aarontilley/2015/07/30/light-raises-25-million-to-put-dslr-quality-camera-in-your-next-smartphone/
Our phones have turned everyone into a photographer and laid waste to a huge portion of the camera market. But even though we use our phones these days to take all of our pictures, the cameras in our phones still can’t compare to something like a $2,000 DSLR camera.
A Palo Alto-based startup called Light is looking to change that. Light has developed camera technology for phone makers that will allow their devices to do true optical zoom, have good low-light performance and get high-resolution photos that are on par with DSLR cameras.
Light has already built prototypes of what the camera will look like on phones. Now, the startup will be using the new cash to ramp up production of its camera modules to get them ready to ship in the kind of volumes phone makers expect. Light is working with Chinese manufacturer Sunny Optical to build up this manufacturing capability.
The way Light’s camera technology works is by placing multiple cameras on the back of a phone — around 6 or 11 cameras. Light stitches together all those images with its software to come out with high-resolution photos. Depending on how many cameras the phone maker chooses, it can achieve between 32 megapixels and 52 megapixels.
Light’s cameras can also zoom using what’s called folded optics, which is a method of bending light to make the camera’s size requirements more compact. Light can zoom between 70 millimeter and 150mm.
The Light module is paired with a Snapdragon application processor from Qualcomm.
The setup will add some bulk to a phone. Light CEO and cofounder Dave Grannan said that the camera easily fits into larger phones like, for example, Apple’s iPhone 6+.
The build of material costs will be at least $60 for phone makers to add Light’s technology
“The Android market is really in a race to the bottom,” said Grannan. “This is a change for phone makers to retain greater margin and not to compete exclusively on price.”
We’ll have to wait and see which phone makers decide to adopt the technology.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Polarization Camera Views the Invisible
http://hackaday.com/2015/07/28/polarization-camera-views-the-invisible/
Light polarization is an interesting phenomenon that is extremely useful in many situations… but human eyes are blind to detecting any polarization. Luckily, [David] has built a polarization-sensitive camera using a Raspberry Pi and a few off-the-shelf components that allows anyone to view polarization. [David] lists the applications as:
A polarimetric imager to detect invisible pollutants, locate landmines, identify cancerous tissues, and maybe even observe cloaked UFOs!
The build uses a standard Raspberry Pi 2 and a 5 megapixel camera which sits behind a software-controlled electro-optic polarization modulator that was scavenged from an auto-darkening welding mask. The mask is essentially a specialized LCD screen, which is easily electronically controlled.
https://hackaday.io/project/6958-dolpi-raspi-polarization-camera
Tomi Engdahl says:
Teardown of Intel RealSense Gesture Camera Reveals Projector Details
http://hackaday.com/2015/07/29/teardown-of-intel-realsense-gesture-camera-reveals-projector-details/
[Chipworks] has just released the details on their latest teardown on an Intel RealSense gesture camera that was built into a Lenovo laptop. Teardowns are always interesting (and we suspect that [Chipworks] can’t eat breakfast without tearing it down), but this one reveals some fascinating details on how you build a projector into a module that fits into a laptop bezel. While most structured light projectors use a single, static pattern projected through a mask, this one uses a real projection mechanism to send different patterns that help the device detect gestures faster, all in a mechanism that is thinner than a poker chip.
http://www.chipworks.com/about-chipworks/overview/blog/inside-the-intel-realsense-gesture-camera