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Orange, a mobile provider in the UK has created a gesture based interactive experience in their downtown London shop window. Like a scene out of Minority Report, users can browse thru movie trailers, news feeds, and music by simply waving their hands in front of the shop window. I wonder how long it is before someone applies this technology to the shop windows in Amsterdam.
Americans under 34 don't just want to consume TV programming without a TV -- they want to download it and watch it on their own time. It's no surprise, really, since they've been well trained to download music and take it with them to listen to wherever and whenever they want. Media is media to younger consumers, and apparently, watching a few ads in order to get it for free is a lot easier than finding the latest DRM-cracking apps and downloading them.
Here's Adam Wright, Director at Ipsos Insight, on their latest research: “Clearly younger consumers are growing an affinity and expectation for downloadable video content, but they are also spending an increasing amount of their disposable time surfing the Internet, so we may be witnessing the gradual shift in how the next generation will consume video content. As opposed to broadcast models, these consumers want to possess video content so they can view it when and where they want, whether in the living room or ‘on-the-go’ from a portable device. The digital medium is really about empowerment, and video sites that enable younger consumers to access the television content they want in the format they prefer will be in position to quickly build an audience with this highly sought after market.“
RD
So I was checking out this video on YouTube with David Lynch's brilliant commentary about watching movies on the iPhone, when I noticed something I have not seen before: Hit the little full-screen icon (bottom right on the video player), and then you will see a strange little icon next to the play button (it looks kinda like a piercing you would see on someone trying too hard to look different by looking like everyone else with said piercing. But I digress...).
Anyway, clicking that icon will overlay related videos in a sort of "spokeless spring-graph" of bubbles. Perhaps not the most useful thing, but interesting.
In the first speech ever by a cable industry exec at CES (the Consumer Electronics Show), Brian Roberts of Comcast said something few expected to hear: we no longer need cable boxes.
This came as a side effect of Comcast's new open cable services platform called Tru2way which enables cable service to be integrated directly into a variety of consumer electronics devices. Initial partners include Motorola, TiVo, Intel, Samsung Electronics, Microsoft, LG Electronics, Panasonic, Cisco Systems, and Sun Microsystems.
The Java-based platform with open APIs will allow developers to "write applications once that work across nearly every device and any cable system". Ok, that "build once, run everywhere" mantra has been the Java sound-byte for a decade so forgive me if I inject a grain of salt here, but it sounds like a nice plan anyway...
In theory, a consumer that purchases a Tru2way enabled device could bring it home, plug it in and enjoy all the interactive cable services available from a traditional set-top box. For example, Panasonic is introducing a 42-inch and a 52-inch TV branded with Tru2way that will have cable services built right in, so no cable box is needed, and only one remote is required.
I just hope The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is available on-demand.
Tru2way™ Technology - Comcast 3.0 at CES
(Via CNET News.com.)
Google has confirmed they are using Adobe's Search Engine SDK to read text within Flash files, making it possible to create swf files with a higher level of search engine optimization. Many believe other search engines will follow suit, standardizing on the Adobe SDK as a way to extract text from the animation files.
Flash is a complicated animal tho, and developing an optimized user experience that is also search engine friendly will require some planning but this opens up great opportunities for Flash designers/developers interested in SEO.
Bottom line: We may need to talk to you about your flair.
(Via CNET.)
Erica Sadun from The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) has created an iPhone hack called Listen that, although still a "*very* beta" app, is quite impressive.
When you hear a song that you can't identify, just point your iPhone at the speaker and watch the screen...Poof! There's the song, artist, and album.
Tom Kennedy would be so proud!
ericasadun.com » Test Request: iPhone Audio recognition
OK...uh...wow. Fellow Devigner and D&B fan Frankie Loscavio sent me a link to this crazy new technology from The Australian Centre for Visual Technologies called VideoTrace.
[From their site] "VideoTrace is a system for interactively generating realistic 3D models of objects from video—models that might be inserted into a video game, a simulation environment, or another video sequence. The user interacts with VideoTrace by tracing the shape of the object to be modelled over one or more frames of the video. By interpreting the sketch drawn by the user in light of 3D information obtained from computer vision techniques, a small number of simple 2D interactions can be used to generate a realistic 3D model."
Much like the Seam-Carving technology that took the image manipulation world by storm last year, this technology is destined to do the same thing for 3D video modeling. Initially, they are targeting video editing, architectural/urban modeling, and modeling for virtual worlds such as SecondLife.
Australian Centre for Visual Technologies | VideoTrace: Rapid interactive scene modelling from video
(Via Frankie Loscavio.)
As I read the recent news about the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) Project, I can't get the image of Steve Martin in the "Weight Guessing Booth" from "The Jerk" where he realizes "it's a profit thing!" out of my head.
Last week came the first blow to OLPC when CTO Mary Lou Jepsen quit to start a for profit company to commercialize the technologies she invented with OLPC (the first of which according to the USPTO is a "Self-refreshing display controller for a display device in a computational unit".) Hopefully that's not the giant "Confuse Me" button that I couldn't get past when I tried to actually use the XO.
The latest round finds Intel jumping from OLPC to OFFNN ("One finger for Nick Negroponte"). Just 6 months after the 2 agreed to settle their differences and create an intel based version of the XO Laptop, it seems Mr. Negroponte insisted that Intel not only stop production of it's own low-cost "Classmate PC", but also stop working with any company that produces low-cost laptops.
UPDATE:Negroponte fires back: "...we view the children as a mission; Intel views them as a market." ouch. I was expecting him to start yelling "it's these cans! he hates these cans!!"
There will certainly be more to this story, but somebody better discover their "special purpose" before the XO laptop goes the way of Navin R. Johnson's Opti-grab.
Via news.com
Ok, this one gives me those creepy "blue flashing lights in your rear view mirror" kind of chills, but somebody seems to think otherwise: Pudding Media has just raised $8 mil in an A round to provide free, PC-based phone calls to anywhere in the US or Canada.
The big catch: computers in Fremont, CA will eavesdrop on and analyze every word of your conversation so they can serve up advertisements tailored to the topic at hand.
But isn't recording phone conversations without telling both parties illegal in some states? (unless of course you are Roy D. Mercer). Well, that is apparently a grey area that will undoubtedly end up in court someday soon. The conversations are not technically "recorded" but rather "monitored" real-time. Some would argue that the content of the conversations are stored for a period of time to be evaluated and determine relevant ads to serve up.
On the flip side, it may be a fun pastime to call people and see what ads you can get to pop up by making up the craziest conversations you can.
Read more here:
Pudding Media Raises $8 Million To Serve Ads Against Phone Conversations
(Via TechCrunch.com.)
