iShred (ipad in a snowboard)

The guys from signalsnowboards.com crafted this amazing snowboard! See it for yourself! Enjoy.

Google Music

Google has turned on the music at its new online store, aiming to compete with iTunes and Amazon.com.
Note, Google Music is currently only available in the United States! :-(

Google Music

More info: http://music.google.com/about/

PyTrainer and Garmin 305

I ran 11km (Kapellen - Heide - Kapellen) and was wearing my Garmin 305 Forerunner GPS Heartrate Monitor.
The collected data was uploaded to PyTrainer. This is an amazing free tool to log all your sport excursion coming from GPS devices (with a focus on ForeRunnner 205, 305 and 405).

The 2011 Streaming Media Readers' Choice Awards Winners

The 2011 Streaming Media Readers' Choice Awards Winners
Announced earlier today at Streaming Media West, here are the winners in our annual Readers' Choice Awards—the only awards program in the online video industry where the end users vote for the products, services, and companies that they feel are the market leaders

Here is the list:

Best Streaming Innovation

Adobe Systems, Inc. HTTP Dynamic Streaming

Best Online Video Technology Company

Sorenson Media

Best App for Watching Video

Netflix

Cloud Encoding/Transcoding Service

Sorenson Media Squeeze Cloud

Encoding Software (Under $1,000)

Sorenson Media Sorenson Squeeze

Encoding Software (Over $1,000)

Haivision Kulabyte

Hardware Encoder (SD)

Cisco Systems Media Processor AS-8100

Hardware Encoder (HD)

Cisco Systems Media Processor AS-8100

Content Delivery Network

Akamai

Live Video Streaming Service

Livestream

Mobile Video Platform

Ustream

Online Video Platform

Brightcove

Over-the-Top (OTT) Video Solution

Digital Rapids StreamZ Live ABR Encoder

Portable Live Streaming Appliance

Sonic Foundry Mediasite ML Recorder

Reporting and Analytics Solution

Conviva Insights

Search and Indexing Platform

YouTube

Server Hardware/Software

Adobe Flash Media Server 4.5

Video Advertising Network

LongTail Video Open Video Ads

Video Advertising Management Platform

TubeMogul PlayTime DSP

Webcasting/Presentation Solution

Telestream Wirecast

Source: http://tinyurl.com/bnc7knx

My top 5 apps

• VLC VLC is a free and open source cross-platform multimedia player and framework that plays most multimedia files as well as DVD, Audio CD, VCD, and various streaming protocols.
• Mixxx is free, open source DJ software that gives you everything you need to perform live mixes.
• FFMpeg FFmpeg is a free software project that produces libraries and programs for handling multimedia data.
• Gstreamer is a library for constructing graphs of media-handling components.
• Handbrake, is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded video transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows

1080p shootout: iPhone 4S vs. Canon 5D Mark II

iPhone 4S / Canon 5d MKII Side by Side Comparison from Robino Films on Vimeo.

More info on: http://tinyurl.com/3ot26rk

Microsoft Closes $8.5 Billion Skype Deal

Microsoft said late on Thursday that it has completed its deal to acquire internet calling leader Skype for $8.5 billion.

With the closing of the deal, which was announced back in May, Skype will become a new business unit within Microsoft with Skype CEO Tony Bates becoming the president of the newly created Skype division. Over time, Microsoft said it will integrate Skype into a variety of its products.

IBC 2011 Amsterdam Friday Sep-9

I attended the IBC2011 trade-show in Amsterdam, great show! IBC is the leading global tradeshow for professionals engaged in the creation, management and delivery of broadcasting media and entertainment.

Vimeo Intros Vimeo Pro Hosting Platform for Small Businesses

For $199 per year, companies get generous storage and streaming limits, along with Vimeo's quality and ease-of-use.

• A Vimeo Pro subscription offers 50GB* of storage
• It also provides 250,000 plays.

* which should be enough for 500 HD videos or 1,000 SD videos.

Apple has more money than the US government

Steve Jobs

Hard to believe, but it is true according to financial statements released by the US Treasury. 

• Read more (techspot.com)
  

Angry Birds and money

Angry Birds is an internet marketing success. Creative minds are producing cool products such as:

• Paintings
• Iphone and Ipad cases/covers
• Key-chains, ....

For a complete list, visit:

• http://storify.com/angrybirds/angry-birds-art
• http://sam-sg.com/blog/2011/05/25/85-cool-angry-birds-merchandise-you-can-buy/
• http://shop.angrybirds.com/

25$ pc

Game developer David Braben creates a USB stick PC for $25



BBC News article: http://tinyurl.com/6c8bo3q

According to Geek.com: 
"We can expect it to run a range of Linux distributions, but it looks like Ubuntu may be the distro it ships with. That means it will handle web browsing, run office applications, and give the user a fully functional computer to play with as soon as it’s plugged in. All that and it can be carried in your pocket or on a key chain."
Geek.com article: http://tinyurl.com/3fzbjxo

Skype, what's going on ...

Now that Skype and Microsoft are an official married couple, I am starting to wonder what Skype's long term intentions are for Linux and non-win operating systems?
My guess, they will ditch Linux support, only time will tell if I am right or wrong.

Ubuntu Natty, impressions

Adoption of Unity is the most significant change ever for Ubuntu. Most "traditional" Ubuntu users are familiar with the Gnome desktop environment, therefore switching to 11.04 (Natty) can be an interesting experience, at least it was for me...

First impressions:

Pros:
More desktop space, all the menu bars are now in 1 location.
Auto-hide Launcher offers you extra screen space.
Brings consistency to the Ubuntu experience

Cons:
Not as intuitive as intended.
Empathy is buggy, i.e. some incoming messages notifications, when clicked on, can't be opened.

New version of Ubuntu

A new version of the Linux Ubuntu operating system, v 11.04, is being released this week, and it is called Natty Narwhal.  Ubuntu names each new version after an animal. :-)  The first edition was called Warty Warthog. 


Version # and Name
4.10 Warty Warthog
5.04 Hoary Hedgehog
5.10 Breezy Badger
6.06 Dapper Drake
6.10 Edgy Eft
7.04 Feisty Fawn
7.10 Gutsy Gibbon
8.04 Hardy Heron
8.10 Intrepid Ibex
9.04 Jaunty Jackalope
9.10 Karmic Koala
10.04 Lucid Lynx
10.10 Maverick Meerkat
11.04 Natty Narwhal
Next Release 2011-10-13:  
11.10 Oneiric Ocelot

YouTube Founders Buy Delicious From Yahoo

For those of you wondering what would become of Delicious, an interesting
development this week...

• YouTube Founders Buy Delicious From Yahoo, http://tinyurl.com/3wcs8pu

Lecture Capture Boosts Distance Learning at Washington Colleges

Washington's statewide public college system is supporting its ballooning online and blended education programs with lecture capture. The adoption hasn't been painless, but it's helped to further the college system's goals for growth and to support innovation in teaching and learning.
Full article:  http://tinyurl.com/67z3g9f

Source: Campus Technology, by Bridget McCrea

Insider Tips for YouTube Video Marketing Success

Want to know the secrets to success on YouTube? Watch this video :-)

iMovie Review for iPad 2

Amazing Video: Watching People Skydive in Slow Motion

Experience Human Flight from Betty Wants In on Vimeo.

Source: http://vimeo.com/22428395

A must see: "The Internet in Society: Empowering or Censoring Citizens"

Does the internet actually inhibit, not encourage democracy? In this new RSA Animate adapted from a talk given in 2009, Evgeny Morozov presents an alternative take on 'cyber-utopianism' - the seductive idea that the internet plays a largely emancipatory role in global politics.

WDTV Live +

This weekend I installed a new gadget: WD TV Live Plus.

What I like so far: 

• It plays anything! (including ISO Files)
• You can hack it :-) http://b-rad.cc/1295/wdlxtv-plus-for-wdtv-live-plus/
• You can stream audio and video over your LAN.
• Netflix (have not tested it, yet) 

Cons: 

• Remote control isn't the greatest. 
• Youtube HD Disabled.

Extracting audio from a video, save it as Mp3

Command: ffmpeg -i video.avi -vn -ar 44100 -ac 2 -ab 192 -f mp3 sound.mp3

Source video : video.avi
Audio Frequency: (-ar) Set the audio sampling frequency
Audio bitrate :  (-ab) 192kb/s
Output format : mp3
Output file : sound.mp3

OpenMedia.ca Endorses Prime Ministerial Candidate

More info: http://VoteNet.ca
or
http://openmedia.ca/blog/openmediaca-endorses-prime-ministerial-candidate

Google Video Shutting Down

Google Video Shutting Down, and taking your videos with it, unless you download them first.
Google has invited their users to download their videos and upload them to YouTube to keep them alive if they haven't done so already.

Mediainfo, I can't live without this app

What information can I get from MediaInfo?

• General: title, author, director, album, track number, date, duration...
• Video: codec, aspect, fps, bitrate...
• Audio: codec, sample rate, channels, language, bitrate...
• Text: language of subtitle
• Chapters: number of chapters, list of chapters
• ....

Mediainfo website

Ps. Mediainfo is availabe for Win/Mac/Linux ...

Ncast

Just received the delivery of our latest Ncast product: PR-720-D

Some of its specs:
1. Two independent 720p encoders – With identical inputs, one encoder
may be setup to stream and record a high-bandwidth, high-resolution
stream and the second encoder provides for a reduced resolution, reduced
bandwidth stream.
2. Dual wide-screen delivery – One encoder transmits a 720p hi-def
camera stream, and the second transmits a wide-screen presentation.

This box will be mainly used for live streaming events on Campus (Queen's University). Unlike our other boxes from Ncast (Telepresenter M4) that are mainly used for our lecture capture project.

Ncast info: http://www.ncast.com/pr720.html
Queen's Lecture Capture Project: Queen's CTL and Queen's University - ITServices, Lecture Capture Docs

Build ffmpeg

FFmpeg is a free software / open source project that produces libraries and programs for handling multimedia data.  FFmpeg is widely used for media format conversions or encoding.

Building/compiling FFmpeg:

• Ubuntu 10.x or higher 
• Other distros and Mac OS, FFmpeg is developed with Git. Multiple repositories from developers and groups of developers are available. More: http://ffmpeg.org/download.html
• FFmpeg Windows Builds are available at hawkeye.arrozcru.org

Wowza 3

Wowza will preview Wowza Media Server 3 at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) show in Las Vegas.

• StreamingMedia article