philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Former Microsoft Engineers Launch Pixotale, A Social Networking App For Visual Storytelling

[Philip Lelyveld comment: Actually, Levitagram - software that lets you levitate subjects in pictures - looks far more compelling than the main subject of this story - Pixotale - which lets you create a string of intersperced photos, texts, and videos to create a ‘story.’ I just bought Levitagram - $1.99 in iTunes ]

With Pixotale, the overall goal is to connect people again via these sorts of personal stories – something that’s been a bit lost in the age of social media, Mao believes. After publishing your stories, you’ll be alerted to any likes or comments from fellow app users.

The app is also designed to make creating longer-form content easier on mobile, with a simple interface for adding text, photos, a map and soon video and audio. You can tap to add elements to the story or adjust its layout on the page before publishing. You can also work on stories while offline, and save them to publish later.

The end results are polished, professional creations you can then share to other social networks, like Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, and more. The stories are also viewable via the web, which you can seehere, here, here or here, for example.

See the full story here: http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/02/former-microsoft-engineers-launch-pixotale-a-social-networking-app-for-visual-storytelling/

App: A Documentary About The Human Side Of The App Revolution

[Philip Lelyveld note: The teaser looks really interesting. They are 40% to their Kickstarter goal. It will be interesting to see what the interviewees will do when the tech that 'changed their lives' is displaced by the new new thing.]

Those interested in how our culture shapes and is shaped by the software we use every day should check out “App: The Human Story,” a documentary project on Kickstarter that hopes to give an in-depth look at the impact apps have had since their introduction with the original iPhone in 2007.

See the Kickstarter campaign and teaser video here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/appdocu/app-the-human-story

Disruptive innovation and education

People were quick to note two differences. First, children are not in any way similar to rebar steel or disk drives—some of the notable examples Clay had studied. And we shouldn’t treat or imagine them to be so.

But today’s education system all too often does just this. It’s not the fault of anyone in the system today, but patterned after the dominant factory model of the era in which public schooling scaled, our education system functions as though all students learn at the same pace and have the same learning needs, which we know is not true.

Second, others told us that the theories would be useless for education because K–12 education did not operate as a classic market; it was much more of a monopoly.

What I have learned, however, is that schools, as we have created them, do have underlying economic, or business, models. They are not naturally occurring arrangements in the world but rather more recent inventions; the way they operate is not preordained. Disrupting our K–12 schools or our public school districts is impossible today because there is no nonconsumption of education in this country, but helping our schools use disruptive innovation to disrupt the classroom—the way they arrange teaching and learning—is possible.

And what’s exciting is that there are plenty of opportunities to use the first disruptive innovation in education since the printing press—online learning—to transform teaching and learning to better serve each individual student within each school by personalizing and humanizing learning—and undo the factory-model assumptions that dominate our schools and treat uniformly students in the process. Because online learning is inherently modular, it can help the education system customize for each child’s distinct needs and create opportunities for more meaningful collaborative work between children and teachers. 

See the full story here: http://www.christenseninstitute.org/disruptive-innovation-and-education/?curator=MediaREDEF

IoT: Microsoft Joins the Qualcomm-Backed AllSeen Alliance

Microsoft on Tuesday joined 50 other members in the AllSeen Alliance, including major consumer electronics players Panasonic Corp, LG Electronics Inc and Sharp Corp, the group said.

But chipmakers that compete with Qualcomm plan to launch a rival standards consortium as early as next week, an industry source who was familiar with the plans but not authorized to discuss them, also told Reuters on Tuesday.

Battle lines are being drawn as manufacturers roll out growing numbers of Internet-connected burglar alarms, televisions and baby monitors. But like the early days of video cassette recorders, many of the smart home products being launched are incompatible with each other.

Qualcomm and other tech companies believe the quick establishment of standards across home-connected gadgets, cars and wearable computing devices will accelerate the introduction of new devices by manufacturers.

...

"All these things need a standard. Nobody wants to buy a TV and have to make sure their speakers are compliant," said Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon. “But we're in an experimentation phase with the Internet of Things. It's early days and nobody knows what it's eventually going to look like."

See the full story here: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/02/us-qualcomm-microsoft-idUSKBN0F709120140702

Report: 330 million smartwatches will be sold worldwide by 2018

In a new report, research house ON World says sensor-laden and voice activated smartwatches will begin to steal users’ attention from their smartphones and will sell like hotcakes in the future.

ON World projects that by the end of 2018, 330 million smartwatches will have been shipped worldwide, up from less than 4 million in 2013.

The report projects that 700 million wearable tech devices of all classes will be shipped over the next five years for a global annual market worth $47.4 billion. Consumer wearables such as smartwatches, smart glasses, and personal sensors will surpass other sports/fitness gear in 2014 and make up two-thirds of the revenues in 2018, the report says.

Hardware will make up the majority of the revenues during this period but monitoring services, ON World predicts, but mobile apps and subscriptions will grow faster.

The firm also surveyed 1,000 online consumers and found that smartwatches are the wearable technology consumers say they would most likely purchase. ...

Consumers may be unrealistic about the price of smartwatches, especially ones that carry sensors for biometrics measurement onboard. ON World’s survey found that 40 percent would be willing to pay $99 or more for a smartwatch that had integrated blood pressure, heart rate, and activity tracking sensors, while only 8 percent would be willing to spend $299 or more.

See the full story here: http://venturebeat.com/2014/07/01/report-330-million-smartwatches-will-be-sold-worldwide-by-2018/

For Independence Day, 1,000 Free TV Antennas for Aereo Customers

This follows a controversial blog posted by company presidentRichard Schneider right after the court decision was announced titled, "Ding-Dong, Aereo Is Dead."

"Aereo," reads the blog post, "a non-moneymaking hobby backed by bloated investors is dead. Finally."

"Aereo investors say they have no plan B," says the blog post. "And we are so grateful for their arrogance, poor planning and illegal business model. We invite you to join us today in dancing on Aereo’s grave. Three cheers for free TV!"

Antennas Direct, a privately held company founded in 2003, sold about 600,000 antennas last year. It has seen sales rise about 80 percent during the first half of 2014, according to a company spokesman.

He attributes the sales rise to an increase in people either not subscribing to cable TV or replacing cable with a combination of over-the-air local stations and streaming services (that require only a broadband connection), such as Hulu, Netflix, Amazon and technology including Roku, Sling Media and Simple TV.

See the full story here: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/independence-day-1000-free-tv-716448

Dolby Atmos Coming to Blu-ray

“If you’re willing and able to install speakers in your ceiling, there will be great options,” wrote Brett Crockett, director of sound research, on theDolby blog. “If that’s not possible for you — and for many people, it isn’t — our partners will offer new Dolby Atmos-enabled speakers that produce full, detailed overhead sound from speakers located where your conventional speakers are now.”

See the full story here: http://www.homemediamagazine.com/high-def/dolby-atmos-coming-blu-ray-33513

M-Go to Take Over Samsung’s Movie Business

M-Go and Samsung are partnering on a planned video streaming service to deliver movies and TV shows in the new Ultra High Definition format, which offers four times the resolution of high-definition video. It’s expected to debut later this year.

M-Go CEO John Batter said he negotiated with all of Hollywood’s major studios to allow the content that consumers bought through Samsung’s Media Hub to be added to their M-Go library at no additional charge.

Absent that agreement, all the movies consumers had purchased through Samsung’s Media Hub would have disappeared — the kind of black eye for digital purchases that studio executives hoped to avoid.

See the full story here: http://recode.net/2014/07/01/m-go-to-take-over-samsungs-movie-business/?utm_source=MESA+Email+Newsletter&utm_campaign=2f28850d01-my_google_analytics_key&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f57b24d15f-2f28850d01-87184857

The Morality Of A/B Testing

In the end, an experiment with these intentions and risks may have deserved its own opt-in, which Facebook should consider offering in the future. No matter how you personally perceive the ethics, Facebook made a big mistake with how it framed the study and now the public is seriously angry.

But while Facebook has become the lighting rod, the issue of ethics in A/B testing is much bigger. If you believe toying with emotions is unethical, most major tech companies as well as those in other industries are guilty too.

At the very least, the tech companies should educate their data scientists and others designing A/B tests about the ethical research methods associated with having experiments approved by the IRB. Even if the tech companies don’t actually submit individual tests for review, just being aware of best practices could go a long way to keeping tests safe and compassionate.

Read the full story here: http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/29/ethics-in-a-data-driven-world/?ncid=tcdaily

Here Is The First Video On YouTube In Sixty Frames Per Second

During YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki‘s presentation at VidCon‘s Industry Day, she revealed a number of new developments that will be coming to the world’s largest video sharing site in the coming months. One of the new features Wojcicki announced is the ability to play videos in 48 and 60 frames per second, and we’ve already seen a few gorgeous-looking videos utilizing these high frame rates.

See the full story here: http://www.tubefilter.com/2014/06/27/youtube-sixty-frames-per-second-battlefield-hardline/