Neuros Hackable Open-Source Set-Top Box Updated: OSD2 [Open Source DVR]
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Homebrew DS-DSLR Uses Nintendo DS as a Canon EOS Remote [Homebrew]
The DS-DSLR app enables controlled bracketing, custom interval shots, timed long exposures—everything dedicated remote apps do. The DS's unique hardware even allows for a noise-activated shutter control via the built-in mic for snapping a shot the second a balloon pops. So a powerful, instant-on, 218 gram remote that also plays Mario Kart. Not bad at all. [Panocamera via BBG]
Google Maps Mobile App Now Does Full-Screen Street View [Cellphones]
Oh Google. [Official Google Mobile Blog]
Lightning Review: Kensington's Wireless USB Universal Docking Station Is the World's First [Review]
The Verdict: I'll be dammed—it works. If you are one of the few people out there running a WUSB-enabled notebook, Kensington's new docking station makes it fairly easy to wirelessly connect USB devices so you are not constantly plugging and unplugging them as you move in and out of your workspace.
First off, I was impressed with its size. The whole device was about as big as my hand, so it will not take up much desktop real estate. Getting things up and running was easy enough, although it took a little fiddling to get the settings the way I wanted them. However, once all of that was behind me, my external 20-inch monitor, speakers, keyboard and mouse all synced with a Lenovo T61 laptop fairly quickly when it was brought within range.
Don't expect miracles though—Kensington is very frank about what it's wireless docking station is and isn't capable of. For example: It is not designed to stream hi-res videos. YouTube quality is okay, but even launching WMP causes a bit of a lag. There are also some choppy transition issues with open applications. For example: if I open up a Word document when out of range, the document is minimized awkwardly in the tray on a cloned external monitor when I transition back in range. Still, these shortcomings are not significant enough for ! me to ov erride a recommendation. Just keep in mind that WUSB-enabled laptops are still pretty rare and I'm told that a WUSB adapter will work, but it won't give you the best "go" of the product. [Kensington]
Raon Everun Note, A Beefy Tiny Laptop for Under $900 [Mini-notebooks]
Dr. Augustine Fou, SVP Digital Strategy, MRM Worldwide
| 15 Jul 2008 by Joe Marchese Augustine Fou, senior vice president/digital strategist, MRM Worldwide, to speak to a great group at MRM in an inter-agency meeting focusing on understanding social media's implications for the agency business. ... Online Spin - http://www.mediapost.com/blogs/spin - References [ More results from Online Spin ] |
| 3 Sep 2008 by David Berkowitz Moderated by Augustine Fou, Digital Strategist, MRM Worldwide. The speed of innovation in marketing communications, product development, and even business strategy is a critical competitive advantage in a market landscape where ... Inside the Marketers Studio - David Berkowitz&#... - http://www.marketersstudio.com/ [ More results from Inside the Marketers Studio - David Berkowitz&#... ] |
| 21 Jul 2008 by Wilson Augustine Fou, senior vice president/digital strategist, MRM Worldwide. Dr. Fou was giving a talk focusing on understanding social media's implications for the agency business. In the talk, Dr. Fou went so far as to say the following, ... Digital MindChange - http://www.digitalmindchange.com/ |
| 14 Jul 2008 by ryanmoede Intel's social-media team is "the glue that makes that conversation happen," said Augustine Fou, svp of digital strategy at MRM Worldwide, the Interpublic Group agency that works with Intel. These changes are not only impacting the ... Socialmediaworx - http://www.socialmediaworx.com |
| 15 Jul 2008 by Sally Augustine Fou, senior vice president/digital strategist, MRM Worldwide, was quoted in Media Posts' Online Spin today:. "Every advertiser is asking for it. They have all heard about examples of YouTube videos going "viral" and reaching ... Online PR technology trends | Sally Falkow... - http://www.infocomgroup.net/falkow -References |
| 14 Jul 2008 ""Engineers normally don't talk to marketing people except at the holiday party."" - Augustine Fou, svp of digital strategy at MRM Worldwide. You die, she walks out of here with a severe limp - http://coops.tumblr.com/ |
| 18 Aug 2008 by coolvision It would be a natural extension for them to offer mobile if that becomes a viable delivery channel," said Augustine Fou, SVP of digital delivery strategy at MRM Worldwide. He also believes the big ad networks will move into the space. ... Wireless Application Protocol - defenitions... - http://wap-websites.blogspot.com/ |
| 23 Jun 2008 by mica@thepan.org Augustine Fou MRM Worldwide: Go out into the field (places where IT professionals hang out) and start interacting. Rich Gagnon DRAFT FCB: hooking up brands with causes people care about Greg Verdino Crayon: Viral makes me throw up a ... Humping The (new) Media Landscape - http://publicaddress.typepad.com/html/ |
| 22 Jun 2008 by adam Augustine Fou, SVP, Digital Strategist, MRM Worldwide Greg Verdino, Chief Strategy Officer, Crayon David Berkowitz, Director of Emerging Media & Client Strategy, 360i Rich Gagnon, Chief Media Officer, DRAFT FCB ... A Media Circus - http://amediacirc.us |
| 23 Apr 2008 by MediaTrust Augustine Fou. More by this Author Contact Author. PRINT EMAIL. MRM Worldwide'sdigital strategist outlines three key considerations for keeping up with the new online consumer. Web 2.0 has been described as "lots of video," "cool user ... The Heartbeat of New Media - http://heartbeatofnewmedia.blogspot.com/ |
| 1 Jun 2008 by ian Augustine Fou, SVP, Digital Lead, MRM Worldwide, McCann Worldgroup Ian Schafer, President and Founder, Deep Focus David Liu, Senior Vice President, Social Media and Messaging , AOL Portals Ellen Kolstö, Senior Marketplace Planner, ... IanSchafer.com - http://www.ianschafer.com |
| 17 Jun 2008 by Anna ... SocialVibe.com (who I hear is very funny and good-looking) Augustine Fou, SVP, digital strategist, MRM Worldwide Greg Verdino, Chief Strategy Officer, Crayon David Berkowitz, director of emerging media and client s trategy, ... bmf sticky - http://bmfsticky.blogspot.com/ |
| 1 May 2008 by Dan MRM Worldwide's digital strategist outlines three key considerations for keeping up with the new online consumer. by By Dr. Augustine Fou. Web 2.0 has been described as "lots of video," "cool user interfaces that use javascript," ... eJewish Philanthropy - http://ejewishphilanthropy.com |
| 18 Apr 2008 by jeff excerpt from Abbey Klaassen of Ad Age's interview with media execs, including Augustine Fou, senior VP-digital strategy at MRM Worldwide and Nathan Woodman, VP-strategic development at Havas Digital: MR. ... Digital Destiny - http://www.democraticmedia.org/jcblog |
| 25 Apr 2008 by admin Augustine Fou, digital strategist at MRM Worldwide, the new online consumers are impatient — they want their information right now; they are intolerant — if a site disappoints or frustrates them, they won't come back, and they are vocal ... unitedBIT - http://www.unitedbit.com |
| 6 Apr 2008 by Alexa Augustine Fou, svp of digital strategy at IPG's MRM Worldwide, said that "it wouldn't make sense to do it in eight weeks. You can't achieve a trust relationship in eight weeks." Other companies besides Intel have already created such ... Advertising Forensics - http://advertisingforensics.blogspot.com/ |
Giz Explains: Why DSLRs Are Finally Shooting Video [Giz Explains]
It's been a good few weeks for DSLRs. Just after Nikon's D90 became the first ever to jump into the sweet, sweet waters of the HD video pool, Canon did a gigantic cannonball today with the EOS 5D Mk II, upping the game to full 1080p captures at 30fps. The question that all of this good news brings up is: Why now? Why haven't the DSLRs we've been using for years ever been able to grab video clips like their cheaper pocket-cam brethren? Let's take a look at the roadblocks that have stood in the way of the DSLR video revolution, and why Canon, Nikon and others are only just now starting to Bigfoot right over them.
Processing: The biggest challenge to overcome is also the most vague and nebulous, and is the one part of digital cameras most of us never think about. Processing is each manufacturer's secret sauce (that's why we never hear a MHz number or any other specs). It's where a huge portion of the engineering dollars go to—and where most of the patents come from.
The data dumped out by a DSLR's large sensor is a lot to swallow—orders of magnitude more than what even the baddest compact digicam can process into video. So for instance, the 5D Mk II's Digic IV processor must take the 21MP, full-frame sensor data and downsample it by 10x to 1920 x 1080 and compress it into MPEG4 encoding—and it has to do that 30 times each second. That's a lot of CPU power, and Canon and Nikon both only just got there, with Digic IV and Expeed, respectively.
Auto Focus: If you've used live view on a Nikon or Canon DSLR, you know that auto focus happens differently. That's because with the mirro! r flippe d up and the shutter open, the channel is cleared to allow light from the lens to stream onto the main image sensor, bypassing the separate AF sensor used for still images.
It's the same for a DSLR in video mode—on the 5D Mk II, the camera uses a separate contrast-based system to assign focus points (or it can also attempt facial recognition using contrast, both of which put even more strain on our good friend the processor), and it takes several seconds for focus to shift if it needs to (in some modes you must assign the new focus point manually using the camera's jog dial).
While you may not notice or care about shifting auto focus during videos on a compact camera, when a DSLR's more responsive and sensitive depth-of-field is factored in, focus is more important. The majors are just now locking all of this down enough to the point of usability—and they still have a ways to go. Of course, you can always focus manually, but try getting a major manufacturer to put that dusty sentence in a PR brochure.
Sony and Olympus have used an innovative two-sensor setup to provide live view without the AF problems. However, Olympus has gone away from that model and now only uses one sensor, presumably to cut down on cost and complexity. Nobody has used the second image sensor to dump the live view feed to video, probably because the output would not be of usable quality.
Sensors: Everything changes when instead of the fraction of a second of exposure for a still image, a sensor has to sustain constant operation to grab a video. When it's capturing light continuously a sensor heats up, and heat = noise = shitty looking images. Today's DSLR CMOS sensors (which handle heat and noise better, generally, than CCDs) are just now getting to the levels of low power consumption and efficiency to not turn into little mini-griddles when recording a video! . Canon has only produced one CCD camera in its history (the first, the 1D), and Nikon has been CMOS on the top end—but there's a reason the mid-range video-capable D90 has moved to CMOS from its D80 predeccesor's CCD, and why most manufacturers are heading in that direction. Olympus uses what they call LiveMOS (or NMOS) and may very well be implementing video recording soon on its E-series cameras.
Image Quality: When you buy a DSLR, you want everything that comes out of it to be of substantially better quality than what you could get with the compact digital it's likely replacing. That's why the first DSLR movie modes we've seen from the biggies are all touting HD quality—if they had really wanted to, someone could have found a way to squeeze video out of a DSLR before now—but for all of the reasons above, it wouldn't have looked much (if any) better than what compacts have been spewing directly to YouTube for years. And while the majors want you to love your new "prosumer" status, they're also quite happy to have you continue shopping for a compact camera to back it up.
But now, the more interesting overlap is not DSLRs vs. point and shoots, it's DSLRs and digital camcorders. We'll have a Giz Explains on "should I even consider buying a digical camcorder again" ready when that becomes an actual reality.
Something you still wanna know? Send any questions about touching, feeling or screening to tips@gizmodo.com, with "Giz Explains" in the subject line.
Education's Many Problems Solved With Multitouch Desks [Education]
Currently in England's Durham University, researchers received about $3 million to create SynergyNet, a system of infrared-sensitive multi-touch desks for children. The goal is to improve collaboration between students and with their teachers, and to engage "hard to reach" kids, especially boys who are increasingly disenfranchised. It makes sense in a lot of ways: Not only does it let kids share their work and even their desks with others for group activities, but the high-end processing includes video support and a game-quality physics engine, so who knows what might appear in the lesson plan?
I'd like to have one of my own, for sure, but I still have my doubts: The reason kids don't succeed surely isn't that they've been writing with pencils and looking up at the teacher's chalkboard instead of keeping their heads down and moving numbers and letters around virtually with their hands. [Science Daily; Reg Hardware]
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