Chris Anderson is leaving Wired to…run a homemade drone company!
Anderson, however, is aiming at a different market — although it's entirely possible that 3D Robotics may achieve some cheap, off-the-shelf type innovations that the military eventually shows an interest in. For now, the company seems to be more about developing cool flying machines that can be programmed to fly themselves, rather than hunt down terrorists on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
"Why would anyone want a personal drone?"
To shoot videos, of course. That's 3D Robotics' thing: personal camera drones. But whether you accept Anderson's argument that DIY Drones are somehow the flying robotic equivalent of the Apple I that Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak unleashed on the personal computing public, you can see some obvious applications for journalism...or just spying...I mean journalism. ...
See the full story here: http://www.scpr.org/blogs/economy/2012/11/03/10871/chris-anderson-leaving-wired-run-homemade-drone-co/
Chinese Movie Mogul Promises New Party Leaders Will Open Market to Hollywood
...pan-Pacific movie makers gathered to read the latest tea leaves in Los Angeles on October 30 at an invitation-only dinner to watch a rare public exchange between two of the industry's heaviest hitters, Lewis Coleman, president and chief financial officer of DreamWorks, and Han Sanping, president of the China Film Group, the nation’s monopoly film importer, leading distributor and all around industry heavyweight.
The mood of the day was cautiously upbeat. After all, China soon will become the world’s largest overseas consumer of tickets to big-budget American-made movies, and Coleman, with DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, is planning to open the doors of the new US$350 million joint venture animation studio Oriental DreamWorks in Shanghai early in 2013. ...
“After the 18th Party Congress,” which will announce the China’s new top leaders on November 8, Han told the audience, “China’s media market will be more dynamic. China’s resources will serve your needs and you will make money in China.”
But the video clip Han showed next was puzzling. Taken from an early reel of a battle-heavy animated fantasy called NeZha, replete with dragons and other mythical Chinese beasts — it was a far cry from anything one could imagine DreamWorks wanting to produce.
It begged the question that underpins any discussion about international film industry cooperation — what sorts of stories are going to bring China and Hollywood together? ...
The success of the second [Kung Fu Panda] film, which grossed US$93 million in China, also sparked a debate in China’s filmmaking community. “After all, here was an American company telling a very Chinese story that starred their national icon,” Coleman said. “Why weren’t these movies made in China?” ...
Coleman also said China’s animation education system is focused on quantity not quality and is supported by prodigious state subsidies and a huge labor pool that helps it churn out cheap films fast. ...
Read the full story here: http://asiasociety.org/blog/asia/chinese-movie-mogul-promises-new-party-leaders-will-open-market-hollywood
DTS donates 18,000 iWOW 3D audio enhancement adaptors to Support Our Troups
[Philip Lelyveld comment: DTS is an ETC sponsor]
DTS, Inc. (Nasdaq: DTSI), a leader in high-definition audio solutions and audio enhancement technologies today announced that it has made a donation of more than 18,000 iWOW 3D (retails as the SRS iWOW 3D) audio enhancement adaptors to Support Our Troops® (SOT), a non-profit organization dedicated to bolstering the morale and well-being of our active military and their families, to be distributed to US troops serving around the world.
Utilizing several patented DTS audio solutions, the iWOW 3D is designed to work exclusively with Apple i-device products. The iWOW 3D seamlessly plugs into the 30-pin connector of any iPad®, iPhone® or iPod® and retrieves and restore audio cues that are buried deep within the original source material, to provide an immersive, three-dimensional sound stage with renewed depth and clarity, as well as deep bass, through any pair of headphones or earbuds. The end result is a truly uncompromised, HD-quality entertainment experience for music, movies and games.
Read the full story here: http://www.dts.com/corporate/press-releases/2012/10/dts-donates-18000-iwow-3d-adaptors-to-active-duty-troops.aspx
The Strange Science Of Translating Sarcasm Online
Sarcasm "is one of the toughest problems in computing," says Shrikanth Narayanan, a professor of computer science, linguistics and psychology at the University of Southern California.
Computer programming follows strict rules, while natural language, particularly the inside-joke culture of the Web, doesn't.
That is the hurdle faced by USC's Annenberg Innovation Lab, an interdisciplinary center that brings together social and computer scientists. The lab's "Twitter Sentiment Analysis" project unites linguists, sociologists and computer scientists to try to build a modern-day lexicon for computers to read and interpret huge chunks of data provided by the millions of people who share their opinions online. The scientists at the lab have been using the political season to try to teach a computer to better understand the true sentiment behind tweets.
"If we can crack through political sarcasm, everything else will be easier," says Jonathan Taplin, a onetime film producer, Bob Dylan tour manager and investment banker who now runs the Annenberg lab, which is sponsored by IBM, IBM +1.17%DirecTV, DTV +0.15% Warner Bros. and other companies.
See the full story here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203335504578088763796519732.html
Your Employee Is an Online Celebrity. Now What Do You Do?
[Philip Lelyveld comment: the ETC's Hyper-Personalized Entertainment Offer project includes the idea of generating new revenue from content creation by turning the people involved in content creation into celebrities with fan bases. This article addresses issues and concerns related to that concept.]
A growing number of professionals are using social media to build a personal, public identity—a brand of their own—based on their work. Think of an accountant who writes a widely read blog about auditing, or a sales associate who has attracted a big following online by tweeting out his store's latest deals.
Co-branded employees may exist largely below the radar now, but that's changing fast, and employers need to start preparing for the ever-greater challenges they pose for managers, co-workers and companies. Their activities can either complement a company's own brand image or clash with it. Companies that fail to make room for co-branded employees—or worse yet, embrace them without thinking through the implications—risk alienating or losing their best employees, or confusing or even burning their corporate brand.
See the full story here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443995604578003082273743230.html
Aereo Files for Patent on Out-of-Market TV Streaming
Aereo seeks to patent a way to stream local TV broadcasts over the Internet to users who aren’t in the Internet TV start-up’s “home market”.
Why This Matters: The patent application, which the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office published last week, describes a “method and system for enabling users to access video capture services from a home market while temporarily located outside of it, i.e., roaming”. Aereo claims its service was “never intended” to provide the capability and says it has additional checks in place to prevent inappropriate use of its system. The company currently is embroiled in fighting copyright infringement lawsuits by major TV broadcasters.
From Next TV Today email
Redbox goes UltraViolet
US DVD rentals company Redbox has joined the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE) and agreed to promote the latter’s UltraViolet initiative through a programme of mutually agreed-upon promotions and marketing tactics.
The UltraViolet project is a digital rights authentication and cloud-based licensing system founded by five of the ‘Big Six’ major film studios along with ‘mini-major’ studio Lionsgate.
It enables purchasers of DVDs and Blu-ray discs to transfer a protected digital copy of their movie to an online “digital locker” from where it can then be streamed via the Internet or downloaded onto compatible devices and physical media.
See the full story here: http://www.iptv-news.com/2012/10/redbox-goes-ultraviolet/
Emily Carr’s S3D Centre Creates Variable HFR Live Action Film
Research conducted at Emily Carr University of Art + Design’s Stereoscopic 3D (S3D) Centre investigates the use of variable frame rates with the production of “L’ ÂME SOEUR (SOULMATES) 3D”. The short film incorporates scenes at 24, 48, and 60 fps to demonstrate the creative potential of using variable frame rates within a narrative context.
“As the film and broadcast industries move toward higher frame rate 3D productions, it is important that researchers look at the implications both on a technical and perceptual level,” says Dr. Maria Lantin, Director of Emily Carr’s Stereoscopic 3D Centre. “With this research we specifically address the notion of using frame rate as an additional component to storytelling and audience engagement.”
The S3D Centre’s variable HFR research offers the creative community a valuable exploration of how variable frame rates can be used to tell compelling stories. Motion artifacts such as judder and blur are often visible at standard frame rates like the 24fps of traditional cinema. Productions shot at higher frame rates create a different viewing experience by showing fine movement detail — instead of more resolution in the image there is more resolution in time. The Centre’s research into variable frame rates suggests that the choice of frame rate can influence viewer comfort and become another cue in the perception of narrative in live action films. A video overview of the research is available at http://vimeo.com/s3dcentre/abouthfrresearch.
The S3D Centre’s footage was captured using RED Epic cameras, capable of capturing images at up to 60 uncompressed frames per second. Each scene was filmed at 24fps, 48fps, and 60fps with the intent of delivering a final product that incorporates these three frame rates. The use of a particular frame rate in a given shot is derived from creative observation and experimentation into variable frame rates as a storytelling tool. The final short film “L’ ÂME SOEUR (SOULMATES) 3D” will be delivered for both projection and broadcast television.
With the upcoming release of The Hobbit trilogy filmed at 48 fps, a wide audience will become aware of the look and feel of higher frame rates. The goal of the Emily Carr S3D Centre is to increase the knowledge base in the proper application of HFR in production and post-production. At the forefront of HFR research, the Centre is part of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) working group on HFR and a member of the GRAND Network Centre of Excellence linking Canadian universities who are active in stereoscopic 3D research.
This research is made possible by generous contributions from TELUS, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) through the College and Community Innovation (CCI) Program, and the GRAND Network Centre of Excellence. The S3D Centre gratefully acknowledges the support of Western Economic Diversification, the Industrial Research Assistance Program, and the Canadian Foundation for Innovation.
See the original press release here: http://3droundabout.com/2012/10/8550/emily-carrs-s3d-centre-creates-variable-hfr-live-action-film.html
Researchers successfully restore 134 year-old audio recording
Researchers at California's Berkeley Lab have restored one of the oldest known audio recordings, a 78 second tinfoil recording from 1878. It was one of the first recordings made on Thomas Edison's newly invented phonograph, which is composed of a cylinder covered in a small sheet of tinfoil that recorded sound on the foil's surface using a stylus. However, the stylus tears the tinfoil after just a few replays. To recreate the sound and preserve the artifact, researchers scanned it and created a 3D model, which was then used to replicate the original recording.
"In the history of recorded sound that's still playable, this is about as far back as we can go," said Museum of Innovation and Science trustee John Schneiter. The recording begins with an instrumental, then features a man — believed to be political writer Thomas Mason — reciting Mary Had a Little Lamb and Old Mother Hubbard. It will be played publicly, likely for the first time since it was created, on Thursday night at the Museum of Innovation and Science in New York.
See the original post here: http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/25/3553264/audio-recording-restoration-edison
Adelaide geospatial company AEROmetrex to unveil new 3D technology
It all starts with high-resolution detailed imagery captured by specialised cameras installed in winged aircraft and helicopters and on ground by cameras mounted on cars of pre-determined sites/routes.
These images are then scaled and corrected using photogrammetry a process of determining the geometric properties of objects from photographic images.
Using existing software, a dense 3D point cloud is created essentially length, breadth and depth co-ordinates located in the real world. These points help create what's called a 3D wireframe model which acts as a skeleton. Using the actual photographs, the 3D models are then textured or made life-like.
See the full story here: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/entering-the-next-dimension/story-e6frf7jo-1226500726186
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