unmediated

Digium - The Asterisk Telephony Company

Ok, this is a big deal. The next version of Asterisk supports GoogleTalk!

From the Press Release:
Asterisk 1.4 is the first major release of Asterisk since the release of Asterisk 1.2 in November 2005. With over 20 new functionality additions including IPFAX compatibility, unified messaging capabilities and Jabber/Jingle/GoogleTalk protocol compatibilities, Asterisk 1.4 features overall quality and performance improvements, as well as increased scalability and interoperability.

Sony launches HVR-V1E 25P HDV camcorder

"The HVR-V1E has newly incorporated the "3 (three) ClearVid CMOS Sensor" imaging technology. Coupled with Sony's Enhanced Imaging Processor™ (EIP), these sensors provide high sensitivity, low noise and a wide dynamic range to achieve high-quality images. The ClearVid CMOS Sensor also eradicates picture smear and has 4 times high speed scanning capability enabling "Smooth Slow Rec" function.

The Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T* Lens features Extra-low Dispersion (ED) Glass and a 20x optical zoom lens with F2.8 at the tele-photo end for greater light sensitivity and long-range image acquisition for maximum shooting flexibility. A Digital Extender feature also enables the tele-photo focal length to be extended by around 1.5 times to a maximum of 1100mm at 35mm conversion.

The HVR-V1E has a range of advanced professional features, including:
*A timecode preset function
*A TC Link to synchronize time codes between multiple cameras
*Two XLR microphone inputs for independent sound recording
*A Camera Profile feature to adjust the camera settings of multiple cameras for multi-camera operations."

Text-to-Speech App for Second Life

Christian Westbrook of the Electric Sheep Company (sponsors of this blog) has made what sounds like a cool text-to-speech translator that works within the virtual world of Second Life. Each participant in a converation chooses a voice and a language that they’d like their chat translated into, and the device speaks the translation in real time. Listen to a sample on Christian’s blog, linked above. I haven’t been able to rendezvous with Christian to check this out, so I’m not sure whether the voice component works behind SL or streams in-world, but it’s a nice idea. Who knows, perhaps soon you’ll be able to listen to 3pointD while you go about your virtual business.

Tiny Hidden Camera system records MPEG-4 to SD

The Elmo SUV-Cam Micro Video Camera System is a tiny camera that captures MPEG-4 at 704x480 resolution to a SD card and is water proof to around 12ft deep. Will set you back around $750 bones. Nifty. The extreme sports applications alone are virtually endless.

(Via DVGuru)

Startup Uses Military Tech to Fix Low Res Video

Motion DSP is creating a simple web based interface that will significantly enhance low resolution camera phone video into surprisingly high quality stuff. It started off in 1998 as a U.S. military funded project at UC Santa Cruz. In January 2005, Professor Peyman Milanfar, the primary researcher behind the technology, co-founded Motion DSP.

The company compares multiple frames in a video to find and replace lost pixels in a given frame, significantly enhancing the experience with little increase in overall file size after compression. The service works best when a video is not moving rapidly or in a jerking fashion, but tends to improve just about any low quality video. To see a demonstration, check out this page on the site that contains three different before and after video shots.

The service will go into consumer beta sometime this year, CEO and co-founder Sean Varah told us. The service will be free and will allow users to upload a video and download an enhanced version. But he also stressed that the focus will be on getting deals done with the large online video sites, such as YouTube, to enhance user-uploaded videos.

Motion DSP is headquartered in San Mateo, California and outsource large parts of software development to Serbia. They’ve raised a $500,000 angel round and are currently pitching a Series A round of financing.

Tags: military, video, youtube, techcrunch, web2.0, web_2.0

Amazon's aStore

ZDNet.com writes:

The service creates a dedicated retail environment that anyone can use to sell stuff in the Amazon catalog.
...
Everyone has something they want to recommend to others, and a lot of folks want to find ways to display their Amazon Wish List without looking too much like they are addicted to the idea of maintaining a permanent wedding registry—it's so unseemly to always be telling people what you want from them. The system was easy to understand and the product, a multi-page store with a front door consisting of feature products to which I was able to add my own descriptions, much more inviting than the typical list of Amazon links a blogger or Web site might display.

Download YouTube videos directly to iTunes

Originally from digg / Technology, ReBlogged by Paddy Johnson on Aug 30, 2006 at 06:29 PM

Open source OCR in the wild

About as sexy as an eye exam, but damn, this technology is difficult to get right. So yesterday Google announced the open sourcing of Tesseract OCR, character/text-recognition software it developed back in the 80’s that it claims is better than most of the open source alternatives (I’d believe that) but not quite as good as some of the commercially available technologies (I’d buy that too).

But hmm, isn’t there a lot that could be done with this? Personally, can’t wait until we see this make it’s way into OpenOffice among other places.

Pay attention to Dave's newest thing

Dave Winer has come up with a way to make mobile news feeds easy to access and read on portable media devices. He calls it "NewsRiver" and uses the device's browser instead of an RSS aggregator. He's using OPML technology to create a web page that's readable in his River of News style (scrolling through text instead of clicking on headlines).

While this has been available for several months, it has moved to the front burner with Dave, because he recently purchased a Blackberry and is discovering what he likes and doesn't like about the device.

A lot of people are going to say, "Big deal. We can already read news on a PDA." But let's all remember that this is Dave Winer, and when Dave gets excited about something, it's time to stop what you're doing and pay attention.

I wouldn't be blogging if it wasn't for Dave, and I think that's true for most. I wouldn't have an RSS feed if it wasn't for Dave. Podcasting wouldn't exist today if Dave hadn't given his mind to it.

He has a unique way of getting downstream, having an "a-ha" moment, and bringing it back to the rest of us. We look at it and think he's nuts, but that only lasts for a moment.

This discovery has pretty profound ramifications for local media companies, especially those who are currently paying outsider providers to do something similar for them. These companies will likely see their business model disrupted by this simple application.

I love Dave Winer.

Control Ableton Live Wirelessly with a Sony PSP: Now Available for Download, Free

We saw wireless MIDI and mouse control via the Sony PSP, the creation of media artist and hacker Rob King. Now Rob writes to say he’s finished the first release of his software for controlling Ableton Live directly from PSP, and it’s available as a free download.

PLAYLIVE IS HERE [Rob King’s E-mu.org]

The Ableton Live interface is neatly recreated in miniature right on the PSP screen. Features:

1. Wireless control — MIDI sans wires
2. 8 tracks
3. 12 clips per track for clip triggering
4. 4 X/Y pads for joystick-style control (though for touch-X/Y, it’s still all about the Nintendo DS)

ulation is under discussion, but then you wouldn’t be able to use the clip triggers to send MIDI notes. Currently available as a free Windows download, with a Mac version on the way. But even in its current form, this should demonstrate to the folks at Ableton the real breadth of possibilities for controlling their software. Sure, you could have another generic plastic controller and slap an Ableton logo on it, but — Live users can’t be underestimated in their devotion to unique and personal solutions.

Now, we just need wireless MIDI for Nintendo DS. That or else I should take this as a sign that I can justify buying a PSP. Thanks, Rob!

Anyone got a PSP who wants to write up a review of this, let me know!

p://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/createdigitalmusic?a=w4fTwf">

ITJ Project Beta Released

Interactive Tele-Journalism
So.. I have finally released ITJ on SourceForge.net.

With support from Konscious and Manhattan Neighborhood Network we have packaged and uploaded the latest version and it can be downloaded at: http://sourceforge.net/projects/itv-ism/.

PodTube v1.0 - djodjodesign

Downloads and transcodes YouTube videos for your iPod

Introducing TypePad Mobile - Mobile Blog Posting

If you have the right type of cell phone (one that runs on Palm OS, Windows Mobile 5 or Symbian Series 60) you can download a mobile client to post to any TypePad Blog that you have access to, according to Sixapart.

You can also download the application directly to your mobile device at http://get.typepad.com/.

The problem is, many of us don't have the right type of mobile phone (mine is a SideKick III which is not one of the supported mobile phones). Many useful applications such as Google Maps with live transit data and now TypePad mobile client exist, but only for certain cell phones; hopefully, in the near future Google Maps and TypePad Mobile will run on most mobile phones.

Links: Sixapart, Techmeme

Sony's WiFi Mylo

Sony is launching its first WiFi broadband communication and entertainment device. The new Mylo personal communicator is capable of operating in any open 802.11b wireless network, in public spaces and within private homes.

The name mylo stands for “my life online”. Sony's device provides instant messaging, browse the Internet, listen to music, send emails and view photos concurrently.

Small enough for a pocket or purse, the slim, oblong-shaped device features a 2.4 inch color LCD (measured diagonally) with a slide out QWERTY keyboard for comfortable and quick thumb typing. With 1GB of the flash memory, the mylo supports the playback of MP3, ATRAC or WMA (secure and unsecure) files.

It features a built-in speaker and can view MPEG-4 personal videos by transferring files via USB cable or with Memory Stick Duo media. You can also store JPEG pictures from the Internet or your digital camera.

The device comes embedded with popular instant messaging services: the Google Talk instant messaging service, Skype and Yahoo! Messenger. These services are free and the product does not require initial computer setup or a monthly service contract.

The product includes JiWire’s hotspot directory listing more than 20,000 WiFi networks in the United States. The mylo personal communicator boots up in seconds and can scan for available wireless networks right away.

The “What’s Up” screen serves as the hub, storing up to 90 of your friends’ avatars so you can quickly see who’s online. You can store up to nine online identities per person which allows you to first choose who you want to chat with then easily initiate conversations using your preferred application.

The embedded HTML browser lets you quickly connect to full Web pages on the Internet. You can also send and receive text emails with web mail services like Yahoo! Mail and the Gmail web mail service.

Providing networking possibilities without a wireless network, the mylo personal communicator detects when it comes into the presence of other mylo units. With the ad-hoc application, you can share play lists and stream music between mylo communicators one at a time.

The mylo device uses a lithium-ion battery that offers up to 45 hours of music playback, around seven hours of chatting and web surfing and more than three hours of continuous Skype talk time. It comes with a microphone, stereo headphones, a USB cable and a neoprene case.

The mylo personal communicator will be available in September for about $350 online at sonystyle.com, at Sony Style retail stores and authorized dealers nationwide.

Perhaps it will be useful for uploading 7 Megapixel stills or 640x480 videos shot from Sony's H-5 ($500). GigOm and Engadget have more.

(thx for the heads up, JB! -kc.)

DOCSIS 3.0

CableLabs has issued a series of specifications for DOCSIS 3.0. It will enable cable operators to offer significantly higher speeds with downstream data rates of 160 Mbps and upstream data rates of 120 Mbps.

The Data-Over-Cable Service Interface Specifications (DOCSIS) 3.0, are available at CableLabs. DOCSIS 3.0 features "channel bonding", which enables multiple downstream and upstream channels to be used together at the same time by a single subscriber.

To achieve these higher data rates DOCSIS 3.0 describes a methodology for channel bonding in both the upstream and downstream directions. DOCSIS 3.0 also incorporates support for the Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) and greatly expands the number of Internet addresses that cable operators may use.

Generally speaking, each 6 MHz channel set aside for data can support an additional 40 Mbps down and 30 Mbps up. The new specs will also support "partial feature compliance" to DOCSIS 3.0.

That option, DOCSIS 2.0b, will be available for DOCSIS 1.1 or 2.0 cable modem equipment and cable modem termination systems (CMTSs) that support downstream channel bonding. This test option also is designed to ensure that the equipment is compatible with forthcoming DOCSIS 3.0 equipment.

In the U.S., cable operators are facing pockets of Fiber To The Premises (FTTP) competition, primarily from Verizon, but whether DOCSIS 2.0 is enough for now, or if downstream channel bonding techniques should be applied before DOCSIS 3.0 becomes commercially available is still uncertain.

There is only so much bandwidth available on coax. Usually it's 750-860 Mhz. Bonding channels could take out some analog (or digital) cable television tiers. That might require a digital cable box for consumers.

CableLabs will begin to conduct interops, certifications and qualification testing against DOCSIS 3.0 products "whenever suppliers are ready, as is our normal position," said CableLabs VP of Broadband Access Michelle Kuska, in a statement.

Big Band is a proponent of switched video. Rather than direct all programs to all areas at all times, a switched broadcast system only provides those programs requested by STBs in each node, freeing dramatic bandwidth to expand programming and other service offerings.

A single head-end computer can monitor and manage all switched broadcast sessions in a cable system. The only significant new hardware requirement is deployment of switches capable of receiving abundant programs over existing high-capacity optical networks, and directing each program towards the appropriate node.

A cable or phone provider can virtually remove capacity limits with switched broadcast. IPTV can support scheduled programming, video on demand and a practically unlimited number of TV channels and video content. IP-TV also enables a range of interactive features, allowing viewers to purchase products shown in a TV program by using Web-browsing functions built into the TV programming itself.

U.S. cable operators have over 73 million TV subscribers, generating revenues of nearly $60 billion per annum," says Analysys, a research firm. DirecTV, the nation's largest satellite broadcaster, has more than 15 million customers while EchoStar serves more than 11.71 million satellite TV customers through its DISH Network.

SBC and Verizon plan an End Game, cherry picking FTTH subs and spending big on infrastructure (until the money runs out).

DTV is another area of potential growth. There will be 11.8 million holdout over-the-air TV households at year-end 2008 who will need DTV converters. The Senate Commerce Committee bill sets aside $3 billion while a separate House of Representatives bill allotted $990 million, or $830 million after administrative expenses for subsidizing DTV settops. The cost of the converters was pegged at $60/each with the subsidies covering only $40. Kagan reviews The State of HDTV.

C/Net, Cable Digital News, Om Malik, EE Times, Business Week, Infoworld, E-Week and Telephony have more.

Executives at the TechNet Innovation Summit in San Jose say this whole Internet thing is still just beginning. Faster access means more industry growth. Says Netflix CEO Reed Hastings: "Web 2.0 is broadband. Web 3.0 is 10 gigabits a second."

Wonder where your cable dollars go?

Last week Time Warner and Comcast wrote a big check for the assets of bankrupt Adelphia Communications, the sixth-largest cable operator in the country. Adelphia, in turn, paid $56.7 million in salaries, bonuses and special awards to its top five managers since they joined in 2003 and drove it into the ground.

Apple OS X 10.5 "Leopard" officially debuts

Filed under: Desktops

• 64-bit Cocoa and Carbon application support, right beside 32-bit apps, all native.
• Time Machine - Automatically backs up every version of your files to a hard drive or server. Includes snazzy 3D Time Machine view (pictured) to browse through older versions of folders.
• Boot Camp - "Even better." Ships with Leopard.
• Photo Booth - With expanded camera support.
• Spaces - Apple's term for virtual desktops. Allows you to group different applications together in their own environment for different tasks, and allows movement of windows between "spaces."
• Spotlight - Can search other machines over a network. Boolean operations, application launching, and recent items will also be added to the search tool.
• Core Animation - Developer architecture to create moving eye candy with little code.
• Universal Access - VoiceOver enhancements, Braille support, closed captioning and improved navigation.
• Mail - Stationary (templates), Notes (specially highlighted self-sent emails) and To-Do lists all built in.
• Dashboard - New Dashcode tool allows visual template-based Widget development. There's also a new Web Clip app that takes any part of a web page and turns it into a Widget.
• iChat - Allows multiple logins, invisible mode, animated buddy icons, video recording and tabbed chats (hooray.) There's also photo booth effects, iChat Theater (slideshows, Keynote presentations and videos displayed over video chat), and photo/video backdrops.
  
• Enhanced Parental Controls
• Xcode 3

(Check out dem iChat features. -kc.)

YouTube APIs.. Is this new?

YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.

Hmmn.. This could be very interesting..!

"YouTube is excited to offer APIs to the developer community. Using our APIs, you can easily integrate online videos from YouTube's rapidly growing repository of videos into your application. The APIs currently allow read-only access to key parts of the YouTube video respository and user community."

Thanks Steven.

Eye-tracker Quake controls!

Hmm. The problem with this guy is he assumes everyone's seen eye-trackers before and that we won't think he's just controlling the game from under the table.

Where's his other hand? Ahahh!

OK: I jest. I am prepared to believe that eye-trackers exist, and I suppose now that this sort of computer voodoo will probably be mainstream by, like, tomorrow, and that I've just not been keeping up with the latest in awesome hardware developments. Sigh.

Question though: how the hell do you aim?

Super cool eyetracking Quake controls.

(Thanks Adam B!)

Automatically Geotag Your Digital Photos

Sony is introducing a new GPS device that will let you easily add geolocative information to digital photo files and browse your snaps via a Google Maps app using Sony’s Picture Motion Browser. According to a press release, the two-ounce GPS-CS1 GPS device ($150 when it goes on sale on SonyStyle.com in September) is about three and a half inches long and simply clips onto your belt loop or keychain and records your location over time, as near as I can figure. You then import the GPS information, and some Sony image-tracking software matches locations to photos based on timestamps.

Once synchronized, your photos can become virtual push pins on an online map by activating the Picture Motion Browser software bundled with the latest Sony cameras and camcorders released after July. You can easily add new photos and coordinates to the mapping web site, courtesy of Google Maps, and showcase years of globe-trotting.

Neat. Would love to hear more about this, if anyone has any links.

Dear telephone, meet the internet

Pheeder



"Pheeder is a whole new way of using your cellphone: it lets you communicate with all of your friends simultaneously, with a single phone call. To use it, you just call Pheeder, leave a message and hang up. Seconds later all of your friends, or anyone you want, receives the message at the very same instant. And if they want, they can send a reply to your message."

Canon XH G1 and XH A1 HDV Camcorders

Canon has released their first line up of HDV camcorders, the XH G1 and XH A1 and many feel that Canon took its own sweet time on this. Well as they say, better late than never! The imaging system of the these new camcorders is similar to the Canon' XL H1 and has the same three 1/3-inch 16:9 CCDs. The new camcorders have the ability to record 1080i video in both 60 interlaced and 24 frame rate modes. However unlike the XL-H1, the new camcorders are cheaper and sleeker.

(Continued at MobileWhack)

Skype for Mac releases video preview

For anyone hesitant to download the unsupported release that made its way on to digg, Skype officially launched Skype 1.5. Make Skype Video calls to any other Skype user for free. Mac users note that this version of Skype with Video is indeed a preview release so do expect a few bumps a long the way.

On a personal note, I have yet to overcome the video shyness hurdle when it comes to online communications. Anyone else still hesitant?

Wavesat + Freescale

WiFi Planet reports that Freescale Semiconductor and Wavesat today announced a joint reference design for WiMax-enabled CPEs targeted at both residential customers and small to medium sized businesses.

Fawzi Behman, director of Strategic Marketing at Freescale, says the aim is to enable service providers to extend their portfolio of services. Instead of reinventing the wheel to do so, Behman says, it made sense to partner with a company like Wavesat.

The Residential Gateway includes a Freescale MPC8323E PowerQUICC II Pro processor, a DSP for VoIP capabilities, and interfaces including a four-port Ethernet switch and two Mini PCI slots – one for a Wi-Fi LAN and the other for WAN over WiMax.

The board ships with Linux 2.6.x with Samba on Flash. The mini-ITX form factor makes it easy to design compact WiMAX CPE systems. Combined with Wavesat's Mini-PCI card and MAC software, it is said to enable a cost-effective, compact solution for WiMAX-enabled residential gateways.

The reference design adds wireless, voice and video to a media server and allows a service provider to consolidate all their services into one solution. “This enables both wired and wireless solutions for residential gateways,” Behman says.

Recently, Wavesat announced it is developing a 5.8 GHz Mini-PCI module and reference design with Texas Instruments that will be commercially available by Q4 of 2006 from Wavesat.

A $200 WiFi gateway providing both voice and WiFi for $40-$50/month could be a killer product. A licensed 2.5 GHz backbone from Clearwire or Sprint might be one option but a 5.8GHz unlicensed solution could keep the duopolies in check. Satellite tv optional.

Perhaps $5,000, 5.8 GHz WiMAX basestations will take root on the rooftops of community centers.

According to In-Stat, the number of fixed WiMAX subscribers is projected to reach 16 million by 2010, while mobile WiMAX subscribers will range from 15 million to 25 million.

More Cool Location-Based SL Widgetry

After I blogged the location-tracker hacked up for use in Second Life by Linden Lab CTO Cory Ondrejka the other day, Cory sent along a link to a similar service, SLStats [Cory also blogged it, I now see], that was started recently by SL resident Mark Barrett. I’ve also been meaning to look into the new blogHUD built by SL resident Koz Farina, which is currently in alpha. The cool thing about that is that it can be used as a kind of location-tracking device as well.

SLStats comes in the form of a wristwatch, available in Hill Valley Square [< -- SL link] in the Huin sim. Once you register with the service in-world, the watch "watches" where you go, tracking your location as you move around the world, as well as which other avatars you come into contact with. The information is used on the SLStats site to rank most popular regions (among SLStats users, of course), and to track how much time you've spent in-world, which you can view at a link like this one, which tracks Glitchy: http://slstats.com/users/view/Glitchy+Gumshoe.

nately, the service doesn’t let you extract a list of sims you’ve been to and who much time you spent in each (as Cory’s does), but I imagine that information is easily gotten and just a matter of building in the feature. What would be extra cool is if you could overlay lines on the SL Webmap API so you could see your path around the world. There are all kinds of other cool things that could be done with this information as well, I imagine, and I get the impression Mark is planning more in the near future. He wasn’t in-world when I was this morning, but Jerry spoke with him recently and at least found out that he’s a SecondCast fan. (Go us!)

SLStats is also associated with SLBuzz, which seems to be yet another MySpace-like social networking site for SL residents where you can add friends, blug stuff, etc. I love to see people adding functionality to Second Life, but I have to say, I’m sick to death of filling out online profiles, so I doubt I’ll be using this much. The explosion of social networking and Web 2.0 sites in general in recent months is creating a lot of work for very little return, as far as I can tell, and there’s going to have to be some kind of convergence or implosion fairly soon.

But back to our topic. The blogHUD is an unobtrusive heads-up display that lets you post a blog entry to the blogHUD site via either the chat line or a notecard. At the moment, you can browse recent entries, or see entries by a particular person on the “recent blogHUDers” list or from a place in the “recent places” list. A future version will let you browse blog entries by person, by place, or by person in place, and grab RSS feeds for most of those slices, or so I understand. (Remember, this is still in alpha.)

What I like about the blogHUD is the SLurlPane-like SL Webmap that shows up when you click on a blog entry. (That’s a SLurlPane at the top of the right-hand column here.) As you can see in the pic above, you end up with a close-up shot of the location from which the entry was posted, as was as an SL link that will launch you right there, should you find the entry intriguing enough.

Between this kind of stuff, Cory’s hack, SLurlMarkers and various other things that are in development for SL and the Web, we should see some pretty powerful location-based social software popping out of this primordial virtual ooze. Definitely looking forward to it.

Codec for Sony vegas

Sony Vegas is great, but if you make movies witha small digital camera like the Canon Powershots, the videos are in avi format with a codec that Vegas doesn’t have. The result is that, when you add a video to the timeline, only the audio shows up.

A lot of places try to sell you codecs for like 20$.

It took my a while to find, but the first link on this page (morgan-multimedia) is free and works great and fixed the problem:

www.jetdv.com :: View topic - How do I open AVI files create by still cameras?

Flash, FFMPEG and now Thumbnails!

A couple of days ago I got FFMPEG working to automatically generate FLV video files for OpenVlog. Today I finally got thumbnails generating correctly. Here are the commands:

This creates a JPEG:
ffmpeg -i inputfile -t 0.001 -ss 1 -vframes 1 -f mjpeg -s 320x240 outputfile.jpg

This creates a QT Movie that I am using as a reference movie (just one frame of video):
ffmpeg -i inputfile -t 0.001 -ss 1 -vframes 1 -vcodec mpeg4 -an outputfile.mov

I got this working with lots of help from the following pages:
Converting Video Formats with FFmpeg
Extracting JPG Frames Using FFmpeg and mjpeg Parameter

Wireless Sports Camcorder

Samsung's rugged sports camcorder, the SC-X210L, is a rugged compact model that records video on SD cards. The original remote lens connected to a helmet or headband via a USB cable. It is now going wireless.

The new SC-X210WL ($599) feature an external lens with a wireless connection.

The new Samsung Sportcams, like the SC-X205WL and SC-X210WL, feature higher resolution and a wireless connection although whether it uses Bluetooth, WiFi, or something else, was not specified.

The camera uses MPEG4 ASP compression, Samsung's electronic image stabilizer, a 680K CCD with 10x optical/100x digital zoom.

With no cords on the camera, you don't have to worry about it snagging on anything. The SC-X210L also doubles as an MP3 player, voice recorder and data storage device. The unit also includes a carrying case and webcam module.

The SC-X205L, SC-X210L are currently available, the SC-X205WL provides 720p resolution, and the wireless version, the SC-X210WL, due in September 2006 at $479.99, $579.99, $579.99 and $679.99, respectively.

Flexible Circuitry

Semiconductor circuits are pretty versatile, but you can't bend the ones in your computer without having to place an expensive parts order with your favourite tech supplier afterwards. Chips are set to become far more flexible in future, however, in both senses of the word - a team of engineers have discovered a way to remove the circuitry from a rigid substrate and place it on a pliable material. Flexible computing could revolutionise a number of technology spheres, medical apps and solar cells for instance.

Attach video to anything

Memory Spot is a tiny radio chip that can contain small videos, audio and text files and then affixed to any object:

"A radio chip the size of a grain of rice that holds up to half a megabyte of video has been developed at Hewlett Packard’s research labs in the UK.

The chip, called a Memory Spot, is small enough to be attached to a postcard or a photograph and could be used to append video, audio or hundreds of pages of text to all sorts of everyday objects. In hospitals, for example, the chips could allow doctors to add detailed medical records to a patient’s plastic wristband…

Plans for the technology were hatched two years ago when HP was searching for a way to add audio data to photographs, Robson says. HP sees a future in which its colour printers will be able to add video, audio and text to a chip already embedded in a printed document."

from New Scientist Tech

Lame and Sox for use with Asterisk

VoIPowering Your Office with Asterisk: Soothing the Savages with Hold Music
Some good little command line snippets for conversion to GSM..

Update to YouTube Greasemonkey script

Just received a patch to the YouTube greasemonkey script I posted a long time ago.

This one should work with the updates YouTube has made to its website.

Right-click to install User Script

Downloaded files must be renamed with a .flv file extension and played back in a Flash Video capable media player.

New Video Comments WordPress Plugin

ITP Research >> Video Comments WordPress Plugin Version 1.2 Released

Here are some new features you can expect:

1: A GUI interface inside the WP administrative screens for posting.

2: Revised comment display on the main post page. Now the timecode is hyperlinked and will bring up the plugin and seek the appropriate place in the video.

3: The ability to put a thumbnail or your own text in the post for launching the player.

4: A couple of random bug fixes.. GREAT!

Egokast video belt buckle

Oh, decisions, decisions. What belt shall I wear tonight to set off my new outfit? Hmm, the traditional leather? The one with the clamp fastener or the metal buckle? I guess I'll just settle on the one with the 3" video display where I can insert an SD card and play movies just below my belly button. Perfect. This bizarre new product from Egokast is just that, a 3" screen mounted in a stainless steel case that can be attached to a belt or armband to display either full motion video or a slideshow of photos. You can insert an SD card of up to 2GB in size and put an entire movie on there if you so desire. You certainly won't have to worry about getting noticed when you're out clubbing, but you will have to worry about your video selection. My choice? Footloose.

Limited to an initial run of 100, the Egokast One (without memory card or belt) goes for $279.

A wrist-worn Linux PC

The Zypad WL 1000, a new wrist-worn PC has been demonstrated to the military forces. This device, which can run Linux or Windows CE, is a hands-free computer which handles wireless networking and GPS tracking. It should be available in July for about $2,500 and could be used by healthcare or law enforcement personnel.

Links: Primidi, ZDNet

3D Shape Search Based on Object Geometry

Glitchy sends along a link to an interesting technology I hadn’t heard of before: 3D shape search. Apparently, a company called UGS Corp. has just bought a 3D shape search technology from German IT services firm software design & managment. UGS’s new Geolus Search product (formerly geolus SHAPE) “allows manufacturers to quickly locate 3D models of digitally defined parts from large heterogeneous data sources on the basis of geometric similarity,” according to a press release.

The technology, which seems to have current application in the manufacture of machine and automobile parts, could serve to enhance content creation through existing 3D model markets like Google’s SketchUp Warehouse, the third-party SketchUp models marketplace, and things like TurboSquid — open markets for 3D models of various kinds. It’s hard to envision the situations in which people will actually need to search for something based on its 3D geometry rather than some metadata, but I’m sure those situations will emerge. Interesting, in any case, to see the emergence of a new 3pointD technology like shape search.