My picks from audio and video trends for 2016:
Smartphone have increased screen sizes and have finally become mobile TVs: Smartphones have overtaken the tablets as the most popular mobile device for viewing videos. The most watched content were targeted at teenagers videos and animation series for children.
Smartphone cameras are great, or at least close enough to great that you don’t notice the difference. We’ve reached the point where you’ve got to work pretty hard to find a phone with a mediocre camera. Compared to a DSLR, smart phone cameras are lousy because they use tiny sensors, but still the camera in your pocket is crazy good considering the limitations manufacturers work under. The vast majority of top-tier smartphones use Sony sensors for their main cameras. The molded plastic lens elements in many cameras have reached the point where they’re essentially perfect. Smart phones are already deployed in many newsrooms for mobile journalism video shooting as it is easier (and cheaper) to learn how to film and edit on your phone than it is to use a big camera.
For new smart phone camera technologies you could see array of lenses to enable Lytro-like refocusing, create 3-D depth maps, and improve image quality in low light. In many cases smart phone cameras and DSLR are complimentary: Although the smartphones have decimated the point-and-shoot segment, sales of DSLR and other high-end rigs remain.
Live streaming video from smart phone becomes mainstream. Periscope was one of the first apps to really make live streaming events simple and easy enough that people wanted to do it. Many other apps are following the trend. Facebook begins testing live video streaming for all users.
Drone videography will ger more popular as drones become more popular. Many people will learn basic and creative aerial filming techniques for drone video cameras.
Whether or not the 2016 International CES holds any big surprises remains to be seen. This year’s CES will focus on how connectivity is proliferating everything from cars to homes, realigning diverse markets. It is quite probable that 4K TV will be big at this years’ CES show due to growing demand and falling prices. 4K becomes mainstream in 2016. CES will also have some 8K sets, though the market for 8K is at least five years away if not more (Tokyo Olympics in 2020 may be broadcast in 8K). Some new display technology is coming. LG has already demoed rollable 55, 66 and 77-inch OLED-based panels. Avegant’s Glyph technology literally beams video content onto your retinas. Analysts Predict CES 2016 Trends article gives you more ideas what to expect.
We can finally declare that 3D image in TV was a flop. Five years ago, it was estimated that the 3D technique can occupy the rapid pace of living cinemas addition. Then slowed different with technologies. But why the technology is virtually failed even though every new TV set has been added to display the 3D image as an option? Analysts said some people lack the ability to stereoscopic vision and for many, the 3D image caused eyestrain or nausea. Stereo image is to be left to various virtual reality applications.
After a year in which the weakness of smart TVs were exploited, Samsung goes on the offensive in 2016. Samsung’s new Tizen-based TVs will have GAIA security with pin lock for credit card and other personal info, data encryption, built-in anti-malware system, more. Samsung’s betting big on the internet of things and wants the TV to sit at the heart of this strategy. Samsung believes that people will want to activate their lights, heating and garage doors all from the comfort of their couch. If smart TVs get a reputation for being easy to hack, then Samsung’s models are hardly likely to be big sellers.
Whole TV industry need to go through a major transition as in most major developed markets, TV growth is slowing and in some cases stagnating. TV will account for 38.4 percent of the $503 billion global ad market in and will drop to 38 percent of the market in 2016. Digital ad spending will overtake TV as biggest category by 2017 or 2018.
Streaming video will be big in 2016. Almost all of the networks are streaming their content and streaming media is going mainstream fast. Third, 15% of American adults report they have become “cord cutters” – meaning they have abandoned paid cable or satellite television service. Many of these cord cutters say that the availability of televised content from the internet and other sources is a factor in their move away from subscription television services.
There seems to be a strong nostalgic audio trend going in. Whether it’s a sweet portable record player, a tabletop wooden radio or a full-size jukebox, the market for vintage-inspired electronics remains strong. Aside from record players, the vintage trend carries over to radios and speakers.
It seems that Americans were willing to spend on vinyl records. Nielsen numbers show that vinyl record sales rose 260 percent between 2009 and 2014, and sales for 2015 are on track to beat 2014’s total vinyl sales of 9.2 million units. Vinyl records generated more revenue in the first half of 2015 than free-to-use streaming services, but that’s not the full story. Despite vinyl sales increase it’s clear that the future of the music industry is digital. Total revenues from the digital music sector is expected to rise while physical sales will drop. Future is filled with streaming music services – both subscription services and free.
On the other end of audio spectrum High resolution audio tries to push to market at CES (again). Hi-Res Audio is the fastest growing category in music. Apple Music is planning to launch new its Hi-Res music streaming in 2016.
W3C group formed in the summer of 2015 a new working group: The Music Notation Community Group consists of representatives from some of the biggest names in the music notation software business who’ve come together to create a standardised way to display western music notation in your browser. It believes are achievable goals that can be met in 2016.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Super Bowl special effects: New cameras power ‘Matrix’-style replays
http://www.cnet.com/news/super-bowl-special-effects-high-tech-cameras-to-show-new-looks-for-the-game/
The broadcast will use a record number of cameras to capture angles that put viewers in the middle of the action.
Imagine targeting a camera on Cam Newton, freezing an image of the Carolina Panthers quarterback as he cocks his arm, and then rotating it just as he releases a touchdown pass.
Ken Aagaard, who runs CBS Sports operations and engineering, already has.
“I’m bracing for that shot,”
“I’m bracing for that shot,” said Aagaard at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, where Super Bowl 50 will take place Sunday. To do that, a crew of 550 people are deploying a host of new camera technologies to grab angles football couldn’t even dream of half a century ago.
The Super Bowl has always been a defining television moment. Instant replay became a household term after it was used in 1986, and SkyCam views and high-definition broadcasts were used to create new wow-worthy moments.
A record 100 cameras will be used — just 11 were used to capture the inaugural Super Bowl between the Green Bay Packers and Kansas City Chiefs — to provide angles that put viewers on the field, as if they were playing a game from the Madden NFL franchise by Electronic Arts.
Aagaard’s team will try to mimic that view Sunday with three dozen super-high-definition cameras placed along the top deck of Levi’s Stadium. The so-called 5K cameras will allow the broadcast staff to zoom in and freeze the action on a replay.
The crew will be able to take the video captured from the field and rotate it the way you might manipulate a map on an iPhone. If you’re struggling for a mental image, think of the kung fu scenes in “The Matrix,” but with Denver quarterback Peyton Manning instead of Keanu Reeves.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
The Pirate Bay, other torrent sites add support for Torrents Time plugin allowing you to stream movies and TV shows from your browser — The Pirate Bay now uses Torrents Time to let you stream all its movies and TV shows — On Tuesday, a new simple solution for streaming torrents directly in your browser showed up on the Web.
The Pirate Bay now uses Torrents Time to let you stream all its movies and TV shows
http://venturebeat.com/2016/02/05/the-pirate-bay-now-uses-torrents-time-to-let-you-stream-all-its-movies-and-tv-shows/
On Tuesday, a new simple solution for streaming torrents directly in your browser showed up on the Web. By Friday, infamous torrent site The Pirate Bay had already adopted it.
Torrents Time provides an embedded torrent client that lets users download and play the files inside torrents with one click. There is no need to download and install a separate BitTorrent client, download and open the torrent, or go in and actually play the download video file. After you install the plugin, everything happens in the browser.
The Pirate Bay now features “Stream It!” links next to all its video torrents. As a result, you can play movies, TV shows, and any other video content directly in the same window you use to browse the torrent site.
The new feature is clearly marked as still in beta
Just like Popcorn Time Online, The Pirate Bay warns you if you’re not using a VPN.
so the recommendation is to use Anonymous VPN and hide your IP address
Torrents Time includes automatic subtitles as well as Chromecast, Airplay, and DLNA support. As with any torrent streaming solution, the quality still largely depends on your Internet connection and how popular the torrent is.
Playback begins when enough peers have been found and a decent amount of content has been downloaded. Torrents Time supports Internet Explorer, Chrome, and Firefox on Windows 7 and up, as well as OS X 10.8 and up.
So far, just a handful of torrent sites have jumped on board. In addition to The Pirate Bay and Popcorn Time Online, three other sites have implemented Torrents Time
Tomi Engdahl says:
Shan Wang / Nieman Lab:
Boston public radio station WBUR overhauling its site to highlight audio, integrate with NPR, and work better for mobile users
A Boston public radio station is redesigning its site to make audio “a first-class citizen online”
But: “I’ve tried to be really disciplined about not calling this process just a redesign,” WBUR’s executive editor for digital Tiffany Campbell said. “We’ve built a brand new platform.”
http://www.niemanlab.org/2016/02/a-boston-public-radio-station-is-redesigning-its-site-to-make-audio-a-first-class-citizen-online/
News analysis program On Point is one of Boston public radio station WBUR’s most popular and prominent shows, yet its website looks more than a little outdated and isn’t mobile-friendly. It’s hard to figure out where content from the show lives when visiting the main wbur.org website.
old-onpoint-phone-screenshot
So the website is getting an overhaul. “We’re planning to make audio more of a first-class citizen online,” WBUR’s executive editor for digital Tiffany Campbell told me, “while also making sure the design can honor the stuff we do in visuals and text.”
For listeners, there’s the problem of seamless listening and of discovery
The beta (emphasis on beta, Campbell cautioned) version of the new WBUR.org is fully responsive and features a persistent player, so users can browse while listening.
To make the best of WBUR’s two-developers-to-dozens-of-staffers ratio, the new site is built to be modular, so that producers will be able to choose from a menu of web components that suit the needs of whichever story page they’re putting up.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
CBS Says Super Bowl 50 Broke Streaming Records With 3.96 Million Unique Viewers — CBS reported earlier this morning that its live stream of Super Bowl 50 broke all prior streaming records for the big game. Now the network has released numbers to back up that claim: according to an announcement …
CBS Says Super Bowl 50 Broke Streaming Records With 3.96 Million Unique Viewers
http://techcrunch.com/2016/02/08/cbs-says-super-bowl-50-broke-streaming-records-with-3-96-million-viewers/
CBS reported earlier this morning that its live stream of Super Bowl 50 broke all prior streaming records for the big game. Now the network has released numbers to back up that claim: according to an announcement this afternoon, 3.96 million unique viewers tuned in to watch the Broncos versus the Panthers across laptops, desktops, tablets, connected TV devices and mobile phones.
In addition, CBS said that viewers consumed more than 402 million total minutes of coverage, watching for more than 101 minutes each on average. During the game, viewers consumed more than 315 million minutes of coverage, with an average minute audience of 1.4 million.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Happy GPL Birthday VLC!
http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/happy-gpl-birthday-vlc?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+linuxjournalcom+%28Linux+Journal+-+The+Original+Magazine+of+the+Linux+Community%29
The ever-popular VLC turned 15 a few days ago–that’s 15 years since the project was GPLed and released to the world. If we were pedants, we might point out that the project actually came into existence in 1996, but that was a different lifetime.
VLC originally was a very different application. For one thing, it was a closed-source project, and its original purpose was to stream videos from a satellite receiver to a computer science lab.
With that background in mind, the name makes sense (VLC stands for Video LAN Client). The VLC player was truly a “client” in those days, and there was a separate server component.
VLC has changed a lot since its inception. Today, it’s a fully fledged media player with server capabilities. Power users can use it as a media server. You even can stream video from a DVD onto a remote Android phone with a little networking magic.
VLC is one of the most popular media players on any platform. With more than two billion downloads, there are hundreds of millions of users. It’s available on most platforms, from Windows to Linux, Mac to Android. There are more than 700 contributors today, with more than 70,000 commits. The project has grown into a major undertaking from its humble beginnings.
So why is it so popular? After all, there are plenty of media players on the market, both free and proprietary. What makes VLC stand out?
For one thing, VLC supports a lot of different video formats. Thanks to its modular architecture, it’s relatively easy for contributors to extend the range of supported formats without hacking at the core code. Right now, there are more than 380 modules. This means if you can’t play a video with another player, VLC probably can handle it.
VLC also offers fancy features that you usually wouldn’t expect with a media player. For instance, you can record or stream your desktop, which is very useful if you’re recording tutorials.
Tomi Engdahl says:
MEMS Microphone Market to Hit 13% CAGR
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1328892&
The microelectromechanical-systems (MEMS) microphones market will grow from about 3.6 billion units in 2015 to over 6 billion units in 2019, according to market research company IHS Technology.
Over the same period the market value will grow from about $800 million in 2015 to about $1.3 billion in 2019, a compound annual growth rate of 13 percent.
Apple is a key purchaser of MEMS microphones although its significance is set to diminish as the devices become more mainstream. Apple shifted from three MEMS microphones in the iPhone 6 line to four in the iPhone 6S line and is set to purchase about 1.5 billion MEMS microphones in 2016, about one third of a market valued at about $900 million according to IHS.
Microsoft and Motorola introduced smartphones with four MEMS microphones, before Apple but at lower volumes
Four or five MEMS microphones
Four microphones help with hands-free calling and voice commands for Siri, Google Now, Cortana and other applications and MEMS microphones are being added for richer audio fidelity in video recording, noise cancellation and better call and recording performance.
“It will be harder for manufacturers to justify a move to five microphones in the coming years, unless clear and potentially popular use cases are identified,” Boustany said. “So far, Motorola’s Droid Turbo is the only handset with five MEMS microphones to become widely available.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Anil Sabharwal / Google Photos Blog:
Google to retire Picasa to focus on Google Photos: web albums will automatically migrate starting May 1, desktop app not supported as of March 15 — Moving on from Picasa — Since the launch of Google Photos, we’ve had a lot of questions around what this means for the future of Picasa.
Moving on from Picasa
Friday, February 12, 2016 10:00 AM
http://googlephotos.blogspot.fi/2016/02/moving-on-from-picasa.html
Picasa Web Albums
If you have photos or videos in a Picasa Web Album today, the easiest way to still access, modify and share most of that content is to log in to Google Photos, and all your photos and videos will already be there. Using Google Photos, you can continue to upload and organize your memories, as well as enjoy other great benefits like better ways to search and share your images.
Desktop application
As of March 15, 2016, we will no longer be supporting the Picasa desktop application. For those who have already downloaded this—or choose to do so before this date—it will continue to work as it does today, but we will not be developing it further, and there will be no future updates. If you choose to switch to Google Photos, you can continue to upload photos and videos using the desktop uploader at photos.google.com/apps.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Stuart Dredge / Music Ally:
SoundCloud files financial results showing $44.27M loss in 2014 with revenue of $19.7M; board forecasts it will need more capital investment in 2016 — SoundCloud financial results show €39.1m loss in 2014 — SoundCloud’s revenues rose 54% to €17.4m in 2014 …
SoundCloud financial results show €39.1m loss in 2014
http://musically.com/2016/02/09/soundcloud-financial-results-2014/
SoundCloud’s revenues rose 54% to €17.4m in 2014, but its losses increased to €39.1m that year, according to the company’s annual financial results.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Tragic Data Behind Selfie Fatalities
http://priceonomics.com/the-tragic-data-behind-selfie-fatalities/
The selfie is inescapable.
Though in its waning days as a buzzword, it continues to pervade every facet of daily life. In the course of any given week, “selfie” is mentioned in 365,000 Facebook posts and 150,000 tweets. A comb of Instagram hashtags turns up more than 50 million results for the word.
Like any wide-spread activity, the selfie is not immune to tragedy. In pursuit of the ultimate profile pic, stick-yielding youths often go to extremes: They perch themselves on cliffs. They pose beside wild animals. They play chicken with oncoming trains. And sometimes, they don’t make it out alive.
While selfie deaths have received a fair amount of coverage
Polls have shown that 30% of all photographs taken by 18 to 24 year-olds are selfies — the highest percentage of any age bracket. So the average age here (21) doesn’t come as much of a surprise: it makes sense that the demographic taking the most selfies also perishes the most in the process.
Though women take significantly more selfies than men, 36 of the 49 selfie-related fatality victims were male. Studies have proven that men are two times more likely to take recreational risks than women are, even when it comes to selfies.
“It’s all about me. It’s putting me in the frame. I’m getting attention and when I post that to social media, I’m getting the confirmation that I need from other people that I’m awesome,” says lead researcher Jesse Fox. “You’re not thinking about the consequences of your actions, so who cares if you’re dangling off the side of the Eiffel Tower?”
“A lot of these so-called selfie deaths can be blamed more on carelessness than photography,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
The IoT Library: Infrared LEDs Boost Machine Vision, Day and Night
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1328926&
Where do you go for in-depth, insightful help in understanding and selecting IR LEDs for CCTV application requirements?
The night has a thousand eyes; and so too, the day.
Increasingly these watchful eyes are part of security cameras and other full-spectrum imaging and sensing systems where improved visibility has become a design mandate due to less-than-ideal lighting conditions.
For these applications, designers are now integrating infrared LED components into their systems for the express purpose of secondary illumination.
Sponsor video, mouseover for sound
Infrared offer designers several advantages over visible light; among them: low power requirements, low cost, and high-security benefits. Specifically, infrared LEDs have a lower forward voltage, and a higher rated current compared to visible LEDs. A typical drive current for an infrared LED can be as high as 50 milliamps. IR LEDs are usually rated in milliwatts.
According to a TechSci Research study the increasing integration of infrared LEDs in automotive, consumer electronics and other allied industries, coupled with rising investments in infrared LED manufacturing, are the key drivers of today’s vibrant, global infrared LED market.
Today’s advanced surveillance systems often incorporate designs with IR illuminator units that have been synchronized with camera lenses to ensure the camera’s field of view at any time is appropriately illuminated.
With near-infrared light spectrum ranges from 700nm up to around 1,050nm, infrared LEDs are proving to be a useful light source for CCTV cameras used in night vision applications and where light levels are very low. The two most commonly used wavelengths are centered at 850nm and 940nm. The spectral emission range matches well to the sensitivity range of standard photodiodes, phototransistors or CCD and CMOS cameras with extended IR sensitivity.
According to one industry guide: infrared light sources are visible to the human eye up to around 780nm, with high-intensity sources being discernible as a faint red glow to around 850 nm. These lower wavelength devices are used in CCTV cameras in semi-covert applications. For covert operations, and in applications where light pollution is to be avoided, the higher wavelength devices are the preferred choice. However, fewer cameras are sensitive to 940 nm sources, and the illumination range may be shorter.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Engineers develop new flat, ultralight lens that could change how cameras are designed
Imagine digital cameras or smartphones without the bulky lenses or eyeglasses with lenses that are paper thin.
Researchers have always thought that flat, ultrathin optical lenses for cameras or other devices were impossible because of the way all the colors of light must bend through them. Consequently, photographers have had to put up with more cumbersome and heavier curved lenses. But University of Utah electrical and computer engineering professor Rajesh Menon and his team have developed a new method of creating optics that are flat and thin yet can still perform the function of bending light to a single point, the basic step in producing an image.
His findings were published Friday, Feb. 12, in a new paper, “Chromatic-Aberration-Corrected Diffractive Lenses for Ultra-Broadband Focusing,” in the current issue of Scientific Reports.
Menon and his team discovered a way to design a flat lens that can be 10 times thinner than the width of a human hair or millions of times thinner than a camera lens today. They do it through a principle known as diffraction in which light interacts with microstructures in the lens and bends.
Menon’s researchers use specially created algorithms to calculate the geometry of a lens so different colors can pass through it and focus to a single point. The resulting lens, called a “super-achromatic lens,” can be made of any transparent material such as glass or plastic.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Goldman Sachs: VR and AR “Will Be The Next Generation Computing Platform” Worth $80 Billion By 2025
http://news.slashdot.org/story/16/02/14/2330218/goldman-sachs-vr-and-ar-will-be-the-next-generation-computing-platform-worth-80-billion-by-2025
As consumer VR headsets from major players like Facebook, Sony, HTC and Valve head to the market this year, the mainstream consumer market is beginning to catch sight of the technology’s potential. Prestigious investment bank Goldman Sachs calls augmented reality and virtual reality “the next generation computing platform” and forecasts an $80 billion market by 2025.
Goldman Sachs: VR and AR “Will Be the Next Generation Computing Platform”
Prestigious investment bank predicts an $80 billion market by 2025
http://www.roadtovr.com/goldman-sachs-vr-and-ar-will-be-the-next-generation-computing-platform/
Many following the resurgence of VR starting with Oculus’ 2012 Kickstarter have bet their careers that VR and AR will be a disruptive technology, but sometimes it takes buy-in from one of the world’s largest and most influential investment banks to prove to the rest of the world that you aren’t crazy.
It’s actually a problem many with the VR bug are probably familiar with when talking to people who have never used virtual reality: because it’s nearly impossible to understand without trying it for yourself, people in the VR sphere who tell outsiders that “this is going to change the world” just sound like ever other person who has uttered those words (99.99% of which are dead wrong). Lots of forced smiling and nodding takes place during these conversations.
“While today virtual reality is primarily thought of as a place for hardcore gamers to spend their spare time, it’s increasingly impacting sectors that people touch every day,” says Bellini. “For example, in real-state: instead of having to go see 50 homes with an agent over the weekend, you might be able to put on a pair of virtual reality glasses or a head mounted display at your realtors office and be able to do a virtual walk-through of what those properties look like and therefore maybe you could eliminate 30 out of 50 on your list and be much more efficient with your time.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Smart camera works at PC speeds
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/other/4441359/Smart-camera-works-at-PC-speeds?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160208&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160208&elqTrackId=1a268aa0a4d64df9a4b76b957810720d&elq=bcde0958921142f285e96eb4f8e08de2&elqaid=30722&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=26869
In-Sight Micro 8000 smart cameras from Cognex combine fast frame rates and pattern matching in a tiny 31×31×63-mm package that includes Power over Ethernet to minimize cabling. These ultracompact, standalone vision systems fit into tight spaces anywhere on the production line, such as hard-to-reach machinery and robots.
The series comprises models that provide VGA (640×480-pixel) resolution with acquisition speeds of 200 frames/s, as well as high-resolution 1-Mpixel, 2-Mpixel, and 5-Mpixel versions with acquisition speeds of 70, 53, and 10 frames/s, respectively.
http://www.cognex.com/products/machine-vision/in-sight-micro-vision-systems/?id=14118&langtype=1033
Tomi Engdahl says:
John Markoff / New York Times:
How software designers are grappling with creating a computer voice that people like, which is as much an art as it is a science
Creating a Computer Voice That People Like
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/15/technology/creating-a-computer-voice-that-people-like.html?_r=0
When computers speak, how human should they sound?
This was a question that a team of six IBM linguists, engineers and marketers faced in 2009, when they began designing a function that turned text into speech for Watson, the company’s “Jeopardy!”-playing artificial intelligence program.
Eighteen months later, a carefully crafted voice — sounding not quite human but also not quite like HAL 9000 from the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey” — expressed Watson’s synthetic character in a highly publicized match in which the program defeated two of the best human “Jeopardy!” players.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Andrew Liszewski / Gizmodo:
Mattel’s $40 Google Cardboard-compatible VR View-Master 2.0, coming this fall, fixes many problems of the original — The VR View-Master 2.0 Will Be the Best Google Cardboard You Can Buy — Last year Mattel completely re-invented the View-Master by turning it into what eventually became …
The VR View-Master 2.0 Will Be the Best Google Cardboard You Can Buy
http://toyland.gizmodo.com/the-virtual-reality-view-master-2-0-will-be-the-best-go-1758981678
Last year Mattel completely re-invented the View-Master by turning it into what eventually became one of the better Google Cardboard solutions on the market. For $30 it was cheap, comfortable, and held almost any smartphone available. And this year Mattel will be introducing a new model that fixes all the original’s minor problems.
Tomi Engdahl says:
½-in. mic allows low-noise measurements
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/other/4441386/-in–mic-allows-low-noise-measurements?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20160215&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20160215&elqTrackId=29f17ed73bb84b509b9d1fd9e84523a9&elq=197381b4f14d4b94a36eb6f9f400810f&elqaid=30821&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=26962
With the Model 378A04 ½-in. microphone and preamplifier system from PCB Piezotronics, engineers can measure low sound pressure levels to 6.5 dBA. This free-field microphone offers a sensitivity of 450 mV/Pa and includes a built-in, custom-matched filter to ensure that sensitivity remains stable and accurate between 10 Hz and 16 kHz.
The 378A04 microphone and preamplifier system costs $3000 and comes with a 5-year warranty.
http://www.pcb.com/products.aspx?m=378A04
Tomi Engdahl says:
Panasonic say they developed a new CMOS-based image sensor which is more sensitive to 10 000 times to date picture circuits. The sensor is able to shoot images in extremely low-light conditions.
Panasonic introduced the new sensor circuit ISSCC conference. It is added to each pixel photodiode APD (avalanche photodiode), which makes very short exposure time sufficient for color images incarceration.
Panasonic image sensor according to yet 0,01 lux light maintained. This corresponds to the light produced by the stars
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3989:cmos-kuvapiiri-on-10-000-kertaa-aiempaa-herkempi&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Matthew Garrahan / Financial Times:
Sources: Spotify had 28M paying subscribers at the end of 2015, set to hit 30M in the next three months
Spotify within earshot of 30m paying subscribers
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0%2F1159aca6-d1e3-11e5-92a1-c5e23ef99c77.html#axzz40QJxJ0ED
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bryan Clark / The Next Web:
Kanye West’s new album downloaded 500K times on pirate sites, calls into question value of Tidal-only release — Kanye West’s ‘Life of Pablo’ already pirated 500,000 times — Kanye West’s new album ‘The Life of Pablo’ may have been released as exclusive to Jay-Z’s streaming music service Tidal, but it didn’t stay that way for long.
Kanye West’s ‘Life of Pablo’ already pirated 500,000 times
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/02/16/kanye-wests-life-of-pablo-already-pirated-500000-times/
Kanye West’s new album ‘The Life of Pablo’ may have been released as exclusive to Jay-Z’s streaming music service Tidal, but it didn’t stay that way for long.
The BBC reports today that West’s new album has over 500,000 pirated copies in circulation and is at the top of the download charts on The Pirate Bay.
Piracy is at historic lows, but if current trends continue ‘The Life of Pablo’ stands to be one of the most ripped off albums of all time
After all, listeners can’t even purchase the album if they wanted to. When you take away the option to buy and force listeners to subscribe to a platform they may not even like, you’re essentially asking them to:
Drop the $10 subscription elsewhere and subscribe to Tidal for one album — or —
Keep both subscriptions, which is really asking them to pay $10 a month for a Kanye album and then $10 a month for the rest of their music and playlists elsewhere
‘The Life of Pablo’ won’t save Tidal, but decisions like these could lead more users away from streaming music and back into pirating it.
Kanye West album ‘pirated 500,000 times’ already
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35587381
Kanye West’s latest album has already been illegally downloaded more than half a million times, estimates Torrent Freak.
The artist released The Life of Pablo on Jay-Z’s music streaming service Tidal two days ago.
Thousands of subscribers have complained that they have been unable to download the album, despite paying for it.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Automotive 1.3M Camera Module Reference Design with OV10640, DS90UB913A and Power over Coax
http://www.ti.com/tool/TIDA-00421?DCMP=TIDA00421&HQS=SYS-AUTO-ADAS-TIDA00421-ENSL-RD-EEWEB-WWE
This camera design demonstrates a very small solution size for 1.3 Megapixel automotive cameras. Only a single coax connection is required to provide digital video, power, camera control and diagnostics. Output video format is 10-bit up to 100MHz or 12-bit up to 75MHz.
Features
Size optimized design fits on a single PCB 20×20 mm
Power supply optimized for small size and low noise
Diagnostic and Built In Self Test (BIST)
Single Rosenberger Fakra coax connector for digital video, power, control and diagnostics
1.3 Mpixel HDR image sensor OV10640 from OmniVision providing 12bit raw image data
Includes mounting tab for attachment directly to tripod
Power over Coax input can range from 4V to 17V
Tomi Engdahl says:
Imaging Revolution: Forget Frames
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1328940&
For centuries, our desire to reproduce accurate, pretty images for “human consumption” has driven the advancements of camera technologies. But what if we were to change the premise and design image sensors for computers to see and analyze the information?
In that case, the fundamental data an image sensor needs to capture—and how each pixel should operate—would change completely. Further, processing would be reinvented and known algorithms would become obsolete.
Nowadays, with drones, robots and autonomous cars increasingly tasked to see their surroundings, detect obstructions and avoid collisions swiftly, these consumers of the future need an image sensor built from the ground up, specific to their computer vision.
Each pixel in Chronocam’s asynchronous time-based image sensor makes an independent decision to sample different parts of a scene at different rates. “Each pixel individually controls its sampling – with no clock involved – by reacting to light, or changes in the amount of incident light it receives,” explained Posch, Chronocam’s CTO.
Conventional image sensors capture visual information at a predetermined frame rate, Posch explained. Regardless of dynamic changes in the scene, each frame conveys information from all pixels, uniformly sampling them at the same time.
“Frame-based video acquisition is fundamentally flawed,” Chronocam CTO Posch decreed.
Pierre Cambou, Activity Leader at Yole Développement, believes fundamental changes are happening in the CMOS image sensor market. It’s shifting “toward sensing in opposition to imaging.” Cambou told EE Times, “I think Chronocam lies exactly at the forefront of this new wave of innovation that will shape the industry before the end of the decade.”
In Posch’s view, frame-based video capture is fraught with problems. It could easily miss important events that might have happened between frames. Over-sampling and under-sampling happen too often. Frame-based methodology results in redundancy in the recorded data, which triggers higher power consumption. Results include inefficient data rates and inflated storage volume. Frame-based video, at 30 or 60 frames per second, or even a much higher rate, causes “a catastrophe in image capturing,” Posch concluded.
The inspiration for Chronocam’s event-driven vision sensors comes from the two co-founders who have studied how the human eye and brain work.
According to Benosman, human eyes and brains “do not record the visual information based on a series of frames.” Biology is in fact much more sophisticated. “Humans capture the stuff of interest—spatial and temporal changes—and send that information to the brain very efficiently,” he said.
Beyond its talents and IPs, it’s important to note that Chronocam’s biology-inspired vision system is no longer just a theory. Chronocam has applied and tested its sensor’s principles in restoring people’s vision at Pixium Vision, a retina prosthetic company founded by Chronocam’s co-founders.
Pixium Vision developed systems to replace the normal physiological functions of the eye’s photoreceptor cells. The system “electrically stimulates the nerve cells of the inner retina, which then transmit the visual information to the brain via the optic nerve,” according to Pixium. The underlying technology works on the same principle used in Chronocam’s image sensors.
But owning a revolutionary technology is a double-edged sword.
Cambou said, Chronocam “has to develop vertically the full technology ecosystem to take advantage of its sensor technology.” It’s a “drawback” to swift entry into the $10 billion imaging industry, he said. But unique technology should be “very good protection” for a startup.
Product
Today, Chronocam has an asynchronous time-based image sensor (ATIS) and processing software. Driven by events, the sensor offers low power consumption, operates at several hundred kHz, capable of computation at high temporal resolution in real time.
Considering the low processing power, Chronocam’s technology will be “better exploited for medical and machine vision applications than the typical video imaging applications,” Cambou said.
Chronocam’s CCMA ATIS 1.1 sensor, whose supply voltage is 3.3V (analog), 1.8V(digital), comes in a 9.9 x 8.2mm2 chip size, featuring 2/3-inch optical format. Its array size is 304 x 240 QVGA, with a pixel size of 30μm × 30μm. The power consumption is less than 10mW.
Our next steps are the VGA tape out
Business model
Chronocam is open to licensing its technology to others. The company’s immediate focus, however, is going after key players to collaborate in such targeted fields as navigation (drone/robot/car) and security/ surveillance, according to Verre.
He said that all top five players in those fields are “aware of Chronocam. They have tested or they are testing our technology.”
Referring to a report on “Sensors for Drones and Robots” (To be released Q1, 2016 – Yole Développement) which he is spearheading at Yole, Cambou said, “the market window is clearly open for five years to come.” This market will reach $700 million by 2021 and above $1 billion by 2025, he predicted. “By 2025, it becomes much harder to bring a totally disruptive technology to the fray,” he emphasized.
Tomi Engdahl says:
MPEG-2 to H.264 Transcoder Development Kit
http://www.eeweb.com/company-blog/socionext/mpeg-2-to-h.264-transcoder-development-kit/
“MB86H52-RB” is a development kit to evaluate LSI “MB86H52” which can transcode from MPEG-2 HL to H.264. It has the PCI bridge in it, MPEG-2 and H.264 stream from PCI bus can be input and output. Moreover, the decoded baseband video and audio signal can be output from HDMI and the baseband video and audio signal input from HDMI can be encoded to H.264 stream.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Copyright Professor’s Lecture Removed From YouTube Over Sony Content-ID Claim
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/16/02/18/0044230/copyright-professors-lecture-removed-from-youtube-over-sony-content-id-claim
William Fisher, a professor of intellectual property law at Harvard, posted to YouTube a lecture titled “The Subject Matter of Copyright: Music.” In discussing the complexities of music licensing and cover songs, Fisher played several short clips of music by Hendrix, Santana, and others. Sony responded by having the lecture removed from YouTube, ignoring any fair use protection in excerpting works for educational purposes.
YouTube Copyright Complaint Kills Harvard Professor’s Copyright Lecture (Update)
By Ernesto on February 17, 2016
https://torrentfreak.com/youtube-copyright-complaint-kills-harvard-professors-copyright-lecture-160217/
YouTube has removed access to a copyright lecture from Harvard Law professor William Fisher, following a takedown request from Sony Music. While the online course includes snippets of well-known Jimi Hendrix covers, the clearly educational use makes this a perfect example of fair use.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ram Ramanathan / Google Cloud Platform Blog:
Google Cloud Vision API, which detects the contents of images, enters public beta
Google Cloud Vision API enters Beta, open to all to try!
http://googlecloudplatform.blogspot.fi/2016/02/Google-Cloud-Vision-API-enters-beta-open-to-all-to-try.html
Today, we’re announcing the beta release of Google Cloud Vision API. Now anyone can submit their images to the Cloud Vision API to understand the contents of those images — from detecting everyday objects (for example, “sports car,” “sushi,” or “eagle”) to reading text within the image or identifying product logos.
With the beta release of Cloud Vision API, you can access the API with location of images stored in Google Cloud Storage, along with existing support of embedding an image as part of the API request. We’re also announcing pricing for Cloud Vision API and added additional capabilities to identify the dominant color of an image. For example, you can now apply Label Detection on an image for as little as $2 per 1,000 images or Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for $0.60 for 1,000 images. Pricing will be effective, starting March 1st.
Cloud Vision API supports a broad set of scenarios from:
Insights from your images: Powered by the same technologies behind Google Photos, Cloud Vision API detects broad sets of objects in your images — from flowers to popular landmarks
Inappropriate content detection: Powered by Google SafeSearch, Cloud Vision API moderates content from your crowd sourced images by detecting different types of inappropriate content.
Image sentiment analysis: Cloud Vision API can analyze emotional attributes of people in your images, like joy, sorrow and anger, along with detecting popular product logos.
Text extraction: Optical Character Recognition (OCR) enables you to detect text within your images, along with automatic language identification across a broad set of languages.
Since we announced the limited preview of Google Cloud Vision API in early December, thousands of companies have used the API, generating millions of requests for image annotations. We’re grateful for your feedback and comments and have been amazed by the breadth of applications using Cloud Vision API.
Google Cloud Vision API is our first step on the journey to enable applications to see, hear and make information in the world more useful.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microscope teams with image-analysis software
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/other/4441418/Microscope-teams-with-image-analysis-software?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160218&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160218&elqTrackId=13ac0a43620048698469a775e9cdeb5a&elq=af61efef94d141858f8d1024ba970f82&elqaid=30888&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=27027
Olympus Stream 2.1 image-analysis software offers seamless pairing with the BX53M. It provides guidance through all process steps for image acquisition, quantitative measurements, reporting, and advanced materials science inspection tasks.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cambits: A Reconfigurable Camera
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEFAc3e7Oz4
Computer Science Professor Shree Nayar and Makoto Odamaki, a visiting scientist from Ricoh Corporation, have developed Cambits, a modular imaging system that enables the user to create a wide range of computational cameras. Cambits comprises a set of colorful plastic blocks of five different types—sensors, light sources, actuators, lenses, and optical attachments. The blocks can easily be assembled to make a variety of cameras with different functionalities such as high dynamic range imaging, panoramic imaging, refocusing, light field imaging, depth imaging using stereo, kaleidoscopic imaging and even microscopy.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The New Yorker on Amazon Isn’t Just TV. It’s a Whole New Kind of Magazine
http://www.wired.com/2016/02/the-new-yorker-on-amazon-tries-to-reinvent-the-magazine/
The New Yorker Presents, a series that premiered this week in a surprising place. Or at least, a place that would have seemed surprising during most of the storied magazine’s 90-year history, not to mention most of the 20 years Amazon has been around. But then, Amazon Prime Video has in the past two years become the latest unexpected place to find high-quality original television.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Colin Lecher / The Verge:
FCC votes 3-2 to proceed with plan to give customers more choice over cable TV set-top boxes; proposal now moves into comment period
The FCC just took the first big step toward changing the cable box business
http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/18/11046948/fcc-cable-box-set-top-vote
In a three-to-two vote, the FCC has decided to move ahead with a proposal that could drastically change the cable set-top box industry. The decision may have far-reaching consequences for how cable customers watch TV — ultimately allowing them to go through third parties for their set-top systems, rather than being tied to the same company they use for cable service.
The proposed rule changes will now move into a comment period — where businesses and customers will be able to weigh in — ahead of revisions and a final vote, still some months away.
Commissioner Ajit Pai opposed the proposal, arguing that the decision would simply be changing “one complex regulatory scheme for another.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Shalini Ramachandran / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: after launching a year ago, Sling TV now has more than 600K subscribers; Chief Executive Roger Lynch says “vast majority” are not pay-TV subscribers
Dish Network’s Sling TV Has More Than 600,000 Subscribers
Hasn’t been breaking out the subscribers publicly for Sling TV since launch a year ago
http://www.wsj.com/article_email/dish-networks-sling-tv-has-more-than-600-000-subscribers-1455825689-lMyQjAxMTA2NTE2ODYxMjg5Wj
Tomi Engdahl says:
Blur moving objects in your video with the new Custom blurring tool on YouTube
http://youtubecreator.blogspot.fi/2016/02/blur-moving-objects-in-your-video-with.html
In 2012, we launched the ability for creators to blur all faces in their video as a first step toward providing visual anonymity tools on YouTube. Even then we knew we still had work to do: you didn’t just want to blur faces — you wanted to blur literally anything in your video. Today, we’re launching a Custom Blurring tool on YouTube that lets creators do just that. With this new Enhancements feature, available on desktop versions of YouTube, you can blur any object in your video, even as it moves. Whether you want to blur sensitive information such as a license plate or cover up a wardrobe malfunction without reshooting an entire scene, the new Custom Blurring tool will let you blur objects throughout your video, right within YouTube.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hacklet 97 – Camera Projects
http://hackaday.com/2016/02/26/hacklet-97-camera-projects/
A ton of camera projects have been added to Hackaday.io since then. While the rest of the world is taking selfies, hackers, makers, and engineers have been coming up with new ways to hack their image capture devices. This week on the Hacklet, we’re taking a look at some of the best camera projects on Hackaday.io!
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jason Del Rey / Re/code:
Amazon releases its first ad-supported original show, season three of reality series The Fashion Fund, available on Amazon.com without a Prime subscription
Amazon Debuts Its First Original Show With Ads, Hinting at a New, Free Video Business
http://recode.net/2016/02/26/amazon-debuts-its-first-original-show-with-ads-hinting-at-a-new-free-video-business/
Amazon has spent billions to create and acquire TV shows that it shows without ads to boost the value of its Prime membership program. Now, for the first time, it has unveiled an original video series that will be supported by ads and live outside Prime’s walls.
On one hand, it may simply mark Amazon’s entrance into the world of unscripted video programming and nothing more. On another, the calculus to make it free to everyone could be that Amazon wants as many viewers as possible because the site is also selling fashion associated with the show.
Or it could signal that the company’s increasingly powerful media business is set to create a host of exclusive ad-supported shows that are available to everyone, Prime member or not, for free.
If the last scenario is a reality, Amazon could attract a large new set of viewers who won’t pay $99 a year for Amazon Prime and who don’t want to buy or rent episodes of shows, either
Tomi Engdahl says:
MIT Technology Review:
Google unveils PlaNet neural network that outperforms humans at guessing the location of an image — Google Unveils Neural Network with “Superhuman” Ability to Determine the Location of Almost Any Image — Guessing the location of a randomly chosen Street View image is hard, even for well-traveled humans.
Google Unveils Neural Network with “Superhuman” Ability to Determine the Location of Almost Any Image
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/600889/google-unveils-neural-network-with-superhuman-ability-to-determine-the-location-of-almost/
Tomi Engdahl says:
ON Semiconductor has introduced a new CMOS camera smartphones in Barcelona at Mobile World Congress. 13 megapixel novelty r
AR1337 sensor is a 1 / 3.2-inch sensor with ON Semi has used the PDAF-pixel design (phase detect autofocus). The technology allows the focus to take place in less than 300 milliseconds, and even less than 25 lux lighting conditions.
The cell has a pixel size of 1.1 microns.
Sensor can be stored in 4K video at 30 fps, and Full HD images at 60 fps.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4034:huippunopea-tarkennus-kannykkakameraan&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mark Zuckerberg Is ‘Obsessed’ With Livestreaming, Making Live a Top Priority at Facebook
http://recode.net/2016/02/26/mark-zuckerberg-is-obsessed-with-livestreaming-making-live-a-top-priority-at-facebook/
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has taken a heightened interest in livestreaming over the past few months, redirecting internal resources to help build out the company’s Live product that lets people broadcast video to friends on the service, according to sources.
The engineering and product teams that work on video at Facebook have made Live their top priority, for example. According to one source, Zuckerberg is “obsessed” with getting Live to work.
These internal efforts have not been broadcasted publicly, but the results have. During a town hall style Q&A Friday in Berlin, Zuckerberg described live video as “one of the things I’m most excited about,” and announced that Facebook is rolling out Live to Android users. He added that people in more than 30 countries now have the feature (it was previously limited to U.S. iPhone users).
This effort makes sense. Facebook has spent a lot of time and energy working to become a digital water cooler, the place online where people go to talk about what’s happening right now. It’s also pushing aggressively into video and has been for well over a year. Livestreaming touches on both of those objectives.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Crowd-funded OpenShot 2.0 delivers graphic Linux package
iMovie? KDenLive? Cut! I’m a believer
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/29/openshot_2_review/
It’s been nearly two and a half years since the OpenShot video editor released an update. The long-awaited OpenShot 2.0 was beginning to feel like vaporware until a Kickstarter campaign raised more than $45,000 and promised a cross-platform release.
The Kickstarter backers got their first look at OpenShot 2.0 beta at the end of last year, but now everyone can try it out. There are downloads available for Mac, Windows and Linux (Ubuntu PPA)
As I noted in my review of video editors for Linux, OpenShot was once the go-to standard for video editing on GNOME-based distros. And now with 2.0, OpenShot is back and better than ever.
The user interface has been completely reworked and features much more intuitive and easy-to-use editing tools. Perhaps the most useful of these is the timeline as the center of the app.
Feature-wise, OpenShot competes well with just about any video editor short of Avid or Final Cut Pro, which most users won’t need or even want. OpenShot 2.0 manages to strike a nice balance between complexity and full-featured to deliver a video editor that should keep just about everyone short of Hollywood pros happy.
http://www.openshot.org/download/
Tomi Engdahl says:
High-performance, low-cost products: good for consumers, bad for engineers?
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/power-points/4441465/High-performance–low-cost-products–good-for-consumers–bad-for-engineers-?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160222&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160222&elqTrackId=d873a65069c6414b971f0d22bf450f47&elq=6fa65dec2f994f9c8a02a3ca9e21f509&elqaid=30970&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=27073
The good news is that I am repeatedly astonished at the performance and functionality that is packed into consumer products, and at an amazingly low price. The bad news is that I fear this never-ending wave of providing so much more for so much less has been a major contributor to the low professional stature of engineers of all disciplines in the public’s mind.
The latest example I saw of a product with an impressive ratio of specifications and features to price was the Kidizoom Camera Connect from VTech Electronics. These may be low-to-modest by today’s standards for non-kid products, but they would have been considered pretty good just a few years ago for adult products as well. A few key specs of this camera, which has a suggested retail price under $50
It sounds like an “OK” product thus far, but not great. But then I wondered, what happens when you want to upload the pictures or run out of memory for storage? The product has that covered as well, via a USB port (with support software for PC or Mac) and a slot for a microSD memory card.
Given the suggested retail price and typical markups at the vendor and the retailer, the BOM (bill of materials) cost is probably between $12 and $25. That’s what amazed me; this is a surprisingly decent camera for kids, and amateur hobbyists or experimenters, for modest cost. While the folks at GoPro don’t have to worry, it’s still an impressive product.
Unfortunately, the general public equates low price and high performance with the perception that it must have all been easy to do, yet we know it was not. Further, if it is so easy, those who do it — engineers, scientists, countless associated people and disciplines — really aren’t that smart or working that hard, either.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Home> Community > Blogs > Living Analog Blog
Primary colors
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/living-analog/4441472/Primary-colors?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20160225&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20160225&elqTrackId=4541d7280dc24f53a84525e8b6075566&elq=99e849a6a50243a6bb8c117108ea1d4a&elqaid=31037&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=27132
Home> Community > Blogs > Living Analog Blog
Primary colors
John Dunn -February 22, 2016
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Television screens and some outdoor advertisements are constructed as a matrix of picture elements where each picture element consists of a trio of three separate color sources that deliver emissions of what we call the “primary colors.” Those primary colors are green, red, and blue.
This is not the same definition of primary colors which applies to a surface that is illuminated by white light for which the “primary” colors are yellow, red, and blue, but that’s a whole different story.
When the green, red, and blue trio of light emitting sources are activated at varying intensities, our eyes mix those emissions and we obtain the illusion of being able to see all the other colors.
Tomi Engdahl says:
YouTube reduces the chances of mistaken video takedowns (updated)
There’s now a team dedicated to avoiding policy mistakes.
http://www.engadget.com/2016/02/28/youtube-improving-anti-takedown-measures/
YouTube has taken steps to prevent mistaken takedowns of your videos, but that hasn’t been enough for some. A rash of alleged policy violations in recent weeks (such as for Call of Duty clips) has triggered an outcry among creators who worry that YouTube is asleep at the wheel while its automated system goes haywire. Thankfully, the company appears to be listening. In a response to the mounting complaints, YouTube has revealed that it created a team focused on “minimizing mistakes” that take videos down without a legitimate cause. It’s also promising transparency when it strips videos of revenue, and there are hints of efforts in the months ahead that will “strengthen communications” between YouTube support and video makers.
YouTube says it hasn’t seen a significant boost in the number of flawed takedowns, but it’s clear that the Google-owned outfit is trying to head off a potentially larger crisis.
Tomi Engdahl says:
John D. McKinnon / Wall Street Journal:
FCC investigating whether cable firms use contract provisions to keep media companies like Disney, Fox, HBO, others from bringing programming to the Internet
FCC Probes Cable Firms’ Influence on Web TV
Some contractual clauses prevent media firms from sending content to online providers
http://www.wsj.com/article_email/fcc-probes-cable-firms-influence-on-web-tv-1456704465-lMyQjAxMTE2MTI2OTMyMzkwWj
The Federal Communications Commission is probing whether big cable firms use special contract provisions to discourage media companies—from Walt Disney Co. to smaller firms—from running programming on the Internet.
It is part of a broader attempt by the FCC to address one of the big conundrums of the telecom age: Why has television been so slow to come to the Internet, despite technical breakthroughs that made it possible long ago?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Raspberry Pi-powered transmitters broadcast Syrian radio
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35690688
Raspberry Pi computers are being used to power “micro” radio transmitters in Syria.
The Pocket FMs, as they are called, were designed by a German organisation as a way of providing Syrians with independent radio.
The devices have a range of between 4 to 6km (2.5 to 3.75 miles), which is enough to cover an entire town.
At the heart of each is a Raspberry Pi, the credit card-sized single-board computers.
About two dozen have been built, and the designer says they are intended to be as easy to set up as a piece of flat-pack furniture.
The Pocket FMs are deployed in situations in which larger transmitters would be difficult to set up and operate.
The Pocket FMs broadcast a channel created by a network of nine stations based in the region called Syrnet.
The devices pick up a satellite feed of the channel, and rebroadcast it on a FM frequency, so people in Syria can listen on ordinary radios.
Eventually, the devices will be capable of picking up the Syrnet channel via wi-fi and mobile data. The channel is also available to listen to online, and via a mobile app.
The Pocket FMs operate in the areas not controlled by either President Bashar al-Assad’s regime or the so-called Islamic State militants.
Open source
One of the benefits of using Raspberry Pis is that it is relatively easy to add new components.
Mr Hochleichter’s latest design includes a GSM module, which allows the small transmitters to be controlled remotely by text message. The feature potentially could help the operator reduce the risk of capture.
Mr Hochleichter hopes ultimately to make the designs open source, meaning they can be shared without cost and enhanced by a wider community.
The project is funded by the German government and for Najat Abdulhaq their Berlin base is entirely apt.
“The media system in Syria under Assad is nearly a copy of the [former East Germany] GDR media system,” she remarks.
The project aims to support freedom of expression, but it is also about solidarity with people in crisis.
http://www.pocket-fm.com/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Agam Shah / Computerworld:
DisplayPort 1.4 to support 8K displays, work with USB-C — Big changes are coming to the popular DisplayPort display standard, with version 1.4 promising support for 8K displays. — DisplayPort 1.4 will allow 8K displays to hook up to laptops, smartphones and other devices via a USB Type-C port
DisplayPort 1.4 to support 8K displays, work with USB-C
http://www.computerworld.com/article/3039966/computer-hardware/displayport-14-to-support-8k-displays-work-with-usb-c.html
DisplayPort 1.4 graduates from supporting 4K, though it’s not certain when devices will be compatible with the new standard
Big changes are coming to the popular DisplayPort display standard, with version 1.4 promising support for 8K displays.
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Wearables in the enterprise? Yes, really!
Think wearables are just a consumer fad? Think again. Here’s how companies like DHL, Lee Company and
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DisplayPort 1.4 will allow 8K displays to hook up to laptops, smartphones and other devices via a USB Type-C port. The new standard was announced by VESA (Video Electronics Standards Association) on Tuesday.
The USB Type-C connector is already gaining popularity, so DisplayPort 1.4 will be easy to implement in devices. There’s another 8K connector called SuperMHL under development that requires new ports but can also be slapped on USB Type-C connectors.
4K TVs are gaining popularity, but will be replaced by 8K in the coming years. Sharp was to first to retail an 8K TV for a whopping $133,000.
Microsoft to support 8K video resolutions with Windows 10
http://www.computerworld.com/article/2899929/microsoft-to-support-8k-video-resolutions-with-windows-10.html
8K displays aren’t here yet, but Microsoft’s looking forward with Windows 10
Microsoft is looking beyond 4K with Windows 10 and bringing 8K support to the operating system, years before TVs, monitors and content for that display resolution become widely available.
The 8K support for Windows 10 will be for displays larger than 27 inches, according to a slide presented at Microsoft’s WinHEC trade show in Shenzhen, China, last week.
wearables opener primary idge
Wearables in the enterprise? Yes, really!
Think wearables are just a consumer fad? Think again. Here’s how companies like DHL, Lee Company and
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Large-screen TVs based on the 8K resolution have wowed many at trade shows like CES, but it’s still many years away from adoption. Users are still moving to from conventional HD to the new 4K standard, and it could be many years until PC displays start supporting 8K.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Peter Kafka / Re/code:
AT&T says it plans to launch a web TV service by this fall, to have three tiers including free
http://recode.net/2016/03/01/att-says-it-wants-to-sell-you-web-tv-too/
Tomi Engdahl says:
VESA Releases DisplayPort 1.4 Standard: DisplayPort Adds Compression & HDR
by Ryan Smith on March 2, 2016 10:00 AM EST
http://www.anandtech.com/show/10110/vesa-releases-displayport-14-standard-displayport-adds-compression-hdr
One of the more interesting aspects of the DisplayPort standards is how the VESA has the separate but strongly intertwined DisplayPort and Embedded DisplayPort standards. As a result of the standard development process, we see a bit of ping-ponging between the two standards on features. New features get adopted by one sub-standard or the other first, and then after a bit of time show up in the next iteration of the other standard. What would become DisplayPort Adaptive Sync, for example, first started out in Embedded DisplayPort, while the newest bandwidth mode, HBR3, started out on DisplayPort.
Instead what has changed for DisplayPort 1.4 is the DisplayPort feature set, and in a major way. Surprisingly absent in DisplayPort 1.3 was support for the VESA’s Display Stream Compression standard, which uses lossy (“visually lossless”) encoding to cut down on bandwidth needs, allowing for display setups with fewer lanes or at higher resolutions – such as 8K uncompressed – that can’t be carried within the bandwidth limitations of DisplayPort. Rather the first VESA standard to include DSC was last year’s Embedded DisplayPort 1.4a, and now a year later, DisplayPort is finally adding DSC support with the 1.4 standard.
As we’ve since found out, there are a couple of good reasons for why we haven’t seen DSC in the mainline DisplayPort standard until now, and with 1.4 the VESA has finally addressed those issues to allow DSC to be included in the standard. Of particular interest here is support for Forward Error Correction (FEC), which the VESA considers necessary for DSC on external monitors.
From a signal integrity standpoint, as displays are the highest bandwidth external interface on a typical PC, we’ve known that the VESA has been pushing the envelope on external signaling for quite some time now.
For uncompressed images this isn’t an issue; any corruption is limited to a handful of pixels and quickly corrected in the next refresh. However once DSC is brought into the fold, any errors become a much larger problem. An error in a compressed data chunk will cause decoding to fail or make the decoded result very wrong over a large number of pixels, making the error far more noticeable.
The end result is that the combination of DP 1.4 and the recently released DSC 1.2 specification include Forward Error Correction for DSC.
The last new feature being introduced with DP 1.4 is updating the audio formats supported by the DisplayPort standard.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Michael O’Connell / Hollywood Reporter:
New Emmy Rules Open Categories to YouTube and Other Streaming Shorts — EMAIL ME — The TV Academy is also increasing nominee count in writing and directing races and doing away with ranked voting. — The TV Academy is rolling out additional changes for the 2016 Emmys …
New Emmy Rules Open Categories to YouTube and Other Streaming Shorts
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/new-emmy-rules-open-categories-872055
The TV Academy is also increasing nominee count in writing and directing races and doing away with ranked voting.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Olivier Laurent / TIME:
World Press Photo finds fewer manipulated entries in this year’s contest, 16% compared with last year’s 20%, but reports ongoing problems within the industry — World Press Photo Finds Fewer Manipulated Entries in This Year’s Photojournalism Contest — Yet issues around heavy post-processing remain
World Press Photo Finds Fewer Manipulated Entries in This Year’s Photojournalism Contest
http://time.com/4243751/world-press-photo-manipulation/
Yet issues around heavy post-processing remain
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After a controversial 2015 edition, the world’s largest photojournalism competition left nothing to chance this year. Changes intended to strengthen operations at World Press Photo paid off, according to a newly released report from the organization, with fewer instances of manipulation. Still, the organizers tell TIME, the report also points to ongoing problems within the industry.
Last year, 20% of entries considered in the contest’s final round were disqualified after experts found that elements of the photographs had been manipulated, cloned or heavily processed. This year, out of 174 finalists, a slightly lower 16% of all final entries were disqualified, seven were disqualified for cloning issues and 22 for extreme processing.
When it came to post-processing, World Press Photo introduced new rules to prevent changes in hue “to such an extent that the processed colors diverge from the original colors,” or changes in density, contrast and saturation that obscured or eliminated objects or backgrounds in the frames.
For Boering, the issue is linked to the increased technical power that resides in photographers’ hands. In recent years, companies like Adobe have made it easier for them to seamlessly alter their work, but that can tempt photographers to make unnecessary—and sometimes problematic—changes.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kurt Wagner / Re/code:
Meerkat Is Ditching the Livestream — And Chasing a Video Social Network Instead — Two weeks ago, Meerkat CEO Ben Rubin sent an email to his company’s 48 investors laying bare an observation that he’d made peace with months earlier: Meerkat, the livestreaming app that played the role …
Meerkat Is Ditching the Livestream — And Chasing a Video Social Network Instead
http://recode.net/2016/03/04/meerkat-is-ditching-the-livestream-and-chasing-a-video-social-network-instead/
Two weeks ago, Meerkat CEO Ben Rubin sent an email to his company’s 48 investors laying bare an observation that he’d made peace with months earlier: Meerkat, the livestreaming app that played the role of darling one year ago at the annual SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, was failing.
“The year started on a high note. … But over the year, it became rougher waters,” the email read. “Mobile broadcast video hasn’t quite exploded as quickly as we’d hoped. The distribution advantages of Twitter/Periscope and Facebook Live drew more early users to them away from us and we were not able to grow as quickly alongside as we had planned.”
In other words, the livestreaming business is hard. Going up against two established social networks offering virtually the same product makes it exponentially harder.
Tomi Engdahl says:
French President’s Epic Periscope Fail Leads to Massive Live Trolling
http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/french-president-s-epic-periscope-fail-leads-massive-live-trolling-n530882
French President François Hollande and his media team learned the hard way that it pays to completely master modern technology before broadcasting a live event.
During a public relations trip to an online fashion company in the Paris suburbs, Hollande’s media team broadcast the event in real time on the streaming app Periscope. However, his staffers failed to disable the app’s live comments option, which prominently displays viewers’ comments across the screen. Thousands of French viewers seized the opportunity to post their unadulterated opinions on Hollande as the real-time broadcast unfolded.
French President François Hollande and his media team learned the hard way that it pays to completely master modern technology before broadcasting a live event.
During a public relations trip to an online fashion company in the Paris suburbs, Hollande’s media team broadcast the event in real time on the streaming app Periscope. However, his staffers failed to disable the app’s live comments option, which prominently displays viewers’ comments across the screen. Thousands of French viewers seized the opportunity to post their unadulterated opinions on Hollande as the real-time broadcast unfolded.
Insults and ridicule filled the screen immediately, mocking everything from the president’s socks to his sex life. Many users gleefully pointed out how incompetent his staffers were for not disabling the commenting feed. Others generally derided the president and his policies.
The session was eventually terminated after 30 minutes, but the damage was already done. Le Nouvel Observateur called the incident “a catastrophe” for the president, and public relations experts said it “undermined the dignity of France’s presidential office.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
You’re fired! No – you’re acquired! Reality TV hits Silicon Valley startups
First, Trump with The Apprentice. Now, Jason Calacanis in San Francisco
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/05/silicon_valley_reality_tv_show/
First comes satire then something that makes satire impossible.
To be fair, it’s been a long time coming, but Silicon Valley is about to gets its own reality TV show and it’s going to star Jason Calacanis.
Who? You know, Jason Calacanis, the poor man’s Marc Cuban.
Both Cuban and Calacanis made fortunes by cashing in on the idiocy of the dotcom boom’s two biggest names
n fact, it’s not hard to see why Calacanis has been hand-picked for this excruciating entertainment. He has all you need in a reality TV star:
Overwhelming sense of his own brilliance, despite the evidence otherwise? Check.
Tendency to argue first and think second? Check.
Inexplicable wealth that has only served to feed his worst tendencies? Check.
A certain sense of desperation that can be wonderfully exploited for filmable drama? Check.
It’s going to be great.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bullet-time Video Effect by Throwing Your Phone Around
http://hackaday.com/2016/03/07/bullet-time-video-effect-by-throwing-your-phone-around/
Ski areas are setting formal policies for drones left and right, but what happens when your drone isn’t a drone but is instead a tethered iPhone with wings swinging around you like a ball-and-chain flail as you careen down a mountain? [nicvuignier] decided to explore the possibility of capturing bullet-time video of his ski runs by essentially swinging his phone around him on a tether. The phone is attached to a winged carrier of his own design, 3D printed in PLA.
He has open sourced the design, which works for either iPhone or GoPro models, or it is available for preorder
Making of Centriphone by Nicolas Vuignier
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d45oGNv8H98
I took a little while, but here it is! I received countless feedbacks asking for a making of explaining how I shot the Centriphone video. So here’s how I did it, I hope you like it