A collection of stories tagged 'video' from Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/ Copyright 2006 RoomforMilk.com. RoomforMilk is not affiliated with Slashdot.org. Sat, 22 Nov 2008 09:21:39 EST Oblong Industries, a startup based in LA has unveiled g-speak, an operational version of the notable interface from Minority Report. One of Oblong's founders served as science and technology adviser for the film; the interface was an extension of his doctoral work at the MIT Media Lab. Oblong calls g-speak a 'spatial operating environment' and adds that 'the SOE's combination of gestural i/o, recombinant networking, and real-world pixels brings the first major step in computer interface since 1984.'" The video shown on Oblong's front page is an impressive demo.Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26300 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/3ai48z0e-sY/article.pl Fri, 21 Nov 2008 02:05:01 EST Blue's News pointed out a report about a study sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation which found that online gaming and social networking are beneficial to children, teaching them basic technical skills and how to communicate in the Information Age. The study was conducted over a period of three years, with researchers interviewing hundreds of children and monitoring thousands of hours of online time. The full white paper (PDF) is also available. "For a minority of children, the casual use of social media served as a springboard to them gaining technological expertise — labeled in the study as 'geeking out,' the researchers said. By asking friends or getting help from people met through online groups, some children learned to adjust the software code underpinning some of the video games they played, edit videos and fix computer hardware. Given that the use of social media serves as inspiration to learning, schools should abandon their hostility and support children when they want to learn some skills more sophisticated than simply designing their Facebook page, the study said."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26290 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/VWNTA0S9dR4/article.pl Thu, 20 Nov 2008 14:05:01 EST NASA and its industry partners organized a two-week lunar in-situ resource utilization field test in Hawaii. The tested machines included a few different rovers and prototype plants for generating oxygen and water from lunar regolith. Astrotoday has a picture gallery and a video report. This follows on the heels of the recent ESA lunar robotics challenge event held on Tenerife, which tasked student teams to build a lunar robot that would be able to search for water ice in lunar polar craters."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26269 http://rss.slashdot.org:80/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/aiZv2Xwf0MY/article.pl Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:05:38 EST Today, more than 40 percent of all homes in the United States contain at least one video game console. Recognizing that all that gaming could add up to serious demand for electricity, NRDC and Ecos Consulting performed the first ever comprehensive study on the energy use of video game consoles and found that they consumed an estimated 16 billion kilowatt-hours per year — roughly equal to the annual electricity use of the city of San Diego. Through the incorporation of more user-friendly power management features, we could save approximately 11 billion kWh of electricity per year, cut our nation's electricity bill by more than $1 billion per year, and avoid emissions of more than 7 million tons of CO2 each year. In this November 2008 issue paper, NRDC provides recommendations for users, video game console manufacturers, component suppliers and the software companies that design games for improving the efficiency of video game consoles already in homes as well as future generations of machines yet to hit the shelves." The full report is freely downloadable as a PDF.Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26266 http://rss.slashdot.org:80/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/IYnU9QDLRIA/article.pl Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:05:28 EST Monty Python seems to have done the right thing. Instead of issuing take down notices of their videos on YouTube, they are doing it better themselves with their own YouTube channel. They are putting all their clips (including snips from their movies) up in a decent resolution, with the only caveat being a link to buying the movies and TV episodes from Amazon."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26264 http://rss.slashdot.org:80/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/gdLsqeoXB5o/article.pl Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:05:19 EST Monty Python seems to have done the right thing. Instead of issuing take down notices of their videos on YouTube, they are doing it better themselves with their own YouTube channel. They are putting all their clips (including snips from their movies) up in a decent resolution, with the only caveat being a link to buying the movies and TV episodes from Amazon."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26258 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/gdLsqeoXB5o/article.pl Wed, 19 Nov 2008 16:05:01 EST Today, more than 40 percent of all homes in the United States contain at least one video game console. Recognizing that all that gaming could add up to serious demand for electricity, NRDC and Ecos Consulting performed the first ever comprehensive study on the energy use of video game consoles and found that they consumed an estimated 16 billion kilowatt-hours per year — roughly equal to the annual electricity use of the city of San Diego. Through the incorporation of more user-friendly power management features, we could save approximately 11 billion kWh of electricity per year, cut our nation's electricity bill by more than $1 billion per year, and avoid emissions of more than 7 million tons of CO2 each year. In this November 2008 issue paper, NRDC provides recommendations for users, video game console manufacturers, component suppliers and the software companies that design games for improving the efficiency of video game consoles already in homes as well as future generations of machines yet to hit the shelves." The full report is freely downloadable as a PDF.Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26256 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/IYnU9QDLRIA/article.pl Wed, 19 Nov 2008 15:05:01 EST NASA and its industry partners organized a two-week lunar in-situ resource utilization field test in Hawaii. The tested machines included a few different rovers and prototype plants for generating oxygen and water from lunar regolith. Astrotoday has picture gallery and video report. This follows on the heels of recent ESA lunar robotics challenge event held on Tenerife, which tasked student teams to build a lunar robot that would be able to search for water ice in lunar polar craters."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26254 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/aiZv2Xwf0MY/article.pl Wed, 19 Nov 2008 13:05:10 EST If we humans have such big brains, how can we get conned? Neuroeconomist Paul J. Zak has an interesting post on Psychology Today in which he recounts how he was the victim of a classic con called 'The Pigeon Drop' when he was a teenager and explains how con men take advantage of the Human Oxytocin Mediated Attachment System, called THOMAS, a powerful brain circuit that releases the neurochemical oxytocin when we are trusted and induces a desire to reciprocate the trust we have been shown. 'The key to a con is not that you trust the con man, but that he shows he trusts you. Con men ply their trade by appearing fragile or needing help, by seeming vulnerable,' writes Zak. 'Because of THOMAS, the human brain makes us feel good when we help others — this is the basis for attachment to family and friends and cooperation with strangers.' Zak's laboratory studies have shown that two percent of the college students he tested are 'unconditional nonreciprocators' who have learned how to simulate trustworthiness and would make good con men. Watch a video of Skeptics Society founder Michael Shermer running the classic pigeon drop on an unsuspecting victim and see if you wouldn't be taken in by a professional con man yourself."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26238 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/J3P2xdt0pfM/article.pl Tue, 18 Nov 2008 18:05:03 EST A new wireless camera called the I-Ball is being developed to be shot into locations using a grenade launcher so troops can see what lies ahead. The I-Ball sends real-time, 360-degree video back to soliders while its flying through the air and when it lands."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26211 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/cxauUTBT1Wk/article.pl Mon, 17 Nov 2008 13:05:01 EST With the announcement that President-Elect Obama will record his weekly address as a YouTube video to be posted at Change.gov, questions arise as to how an Internet-fueled candidacy based in part on a platform of government openness can begin to use technology to make government transparent. Aside from popular Slashdot policies, such as Net Neutrality, how do you think government (either in the United States or elsewhere) can best utilize technology to engage the public and make government more transparent and accessible?" Reader Rick Zeman points out a related New York Times story about how Obama will have to give up some of his communications gadgets because of the Presidential Records Act. Despite that, he apparently hopes to be the first US president to have a laptop on his desk in the Oval Office.Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26196 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/lYGUGrKYOBY/article.pl Sun, 16 Nov 2008 13:05:00 EST A Calgary man was fined $1,495 and banned from theaters for a year in the first conviction under a new Canadian law making recording a movie in a theater a crime. Until the new law took effect in 2007, prosecutors had to show evidence of distribution to get a conviction; now, recording without permission is sufficient. The Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association was disappointed that jail time was not given." The man was also banned for a year from possessing any video recording equipment, even a video-capable cellphone, outside of his home.Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26188 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/CdGMrbUGwEo/article.pl Sat, 15 Nov 2008 23:05:02 EST Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University's HCI Institute have developed a new input technology that allows mobile devices to use surfaces they rest on, like tables, for gestural finger input. This is achieved with some clever acoustic tricks — basically taking advantage of high frequency sound propagation through dense materials. Their video highlights some neat applications, such as controlling an MP3 player by scratching on a wall and muting a cell phone by scratching on a table. Further details are available in the academic paper (PDF)."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26181 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/kaaAjgofcoM/article.pl Sat, 15 Nov 2008 14:05:01 EST The Linux Foundation has published a series of video interviews from the annual Linux Kernel Summit held Sept. 15-16 in Portland, Oregon. In the videos, 16 developers — including Linux creator Linus Torvalds — discuss their kernel development activities. Other kernel hackers interviewed include Rafael Wysocki, Chris Mason, Greg Kroah-Hartman, Mathieu Desnoyers, Paul Mackerras, John Linville, Stephen Rothwell, Kristen Accardi, Dirk Hohndel, Dave Jones, David Miller, Len Brown, Jon Corbet, Frank Eigler, and Ted Tso. A detailed report on the Summit can be found at LWN. Lots of interesting insights into the status and future of Linux!"Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26177 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/dENUmez4444/article.pl Sat, 15 Nov 2008 10:05:00 EST Phoronix is reporting on a new Linux driver nVidia is about to release that brings PureVideo features to Linux. This video API will reportedly be in nVidia's 180 series driver for Linux, Solaris, and *BSD. PureVideo has been around for several nVidia product generations, but it's the first time they're bringing this feature to these non-Windows operating systems to provide an improved multimedia experience. This new API is named VDPAU, and is described as: 'The Video Decode and Presentation API for Unix (VDPAU) provides a complete solution for decoding, post-processing, compositing, and displaying compressed or uncompressed video streams. These video streams may be combined (composited) with bitmap content, to implement OSDs and other application user interfaces.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26168 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/OB1zBrprSEk/article.pl Fri, 14 Nov 2008 19:05:01 EST Stanford artificial intelligence researchers have developed software that makes it easy to reach inside an existing video and place a photo on the wall so realistically that it looks like it was there from the beginning. The photo is not pasted on top of the existing video, but embedded in it. It works for videos as well — you can play a video on a wall inside your video. The technology can cheaply do some of the tricks normally performed by expensive commercial editing systems. The researchers suggest that anyone with a video camera might earn some spending money by agreeing to have unobtrusive corporate logos placed inside their videos before they are posted online."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26167 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/IYJ9h9GMdeQ/article.pl Fri, 14 Nov 2008 17:05:19 EST Lost creator JJ Abrams has unveiled footage from his Star Trek prequel at a press event in London. The clips featured US actor Chris Pine as the young Captain Kirk, Heroes star Zachary Quinto as Mr Spock and Simon Pegg as Enterprise engineer Scotty. The audience also saw Leonard Nimoy reprise his role as the older Mr Spock in one of four excerpts from the film. In his introduction, Abrams said he wanted the film to be released in May 2009, to feel 'legitimate and real.' Speaking at London's Vue West End cinema on Tuesday morning, the film-maker admitted he had 'never really been a huge Star Trek fan.'" Note that the article doesn't actually contain the footage, just brief descriptions of it. The video clip included is just the old trailer that we saw many moons ago. But that won't stop me from lusting.Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26130 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/3vIxtM9XI3c/article.pl Thu, 13 Nov 2008 00:05:20 EST Asus' budget motherboard wing, ASRock, claims that it's found a way to load a clean boot of Windows from a full shut down in just four seconds, using its new Instant Boot technology. The technology takes advantage of the S3 and S4 features of ACPI, which normally enable the Sleep/Standby and Hibernation modes in Windows respectively. However, by calling them at different times in the boot-up and shutdown process, Instant Boot enables you to boot up to your Windows desktop in three to four seconds, even after a proper shut down. Two modes are available; Fast mode, which uses S3 and boots up in around four seconds, and Regular Mode, which uses S4 and apparently takes between 20 and 22 seconds to boot. The advantage of Instant Boot when compared with normal Sleep and Hibernation modes is that you get the advantage of a clean boot of Windows, without what ASRock calls 'accumulated garbage data,' and you also get the security of knowing that you won't lose any data if there's a power cut and you lose AC power. There's also a video of it in action at the link above."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26122 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/0QCQxqC1DNA/article.pl Wed, 12 Nov 2008 22:05:23 EST Seagate's 1.5TB Barracuda has been available for a couple months from multiple retailers. But shortly after release, reports of random freezes appeared on several sites. The hang apparently occurs in Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows Vista when streaming video or transferring files at low speeds. After a couple of weeks of silence, Seagate has finally officially acknowledged the problem. In a response to The Tech Report, they say they're investigating the 'issue' affecting 'a small number of Barracuda 7200.11 hard drives.' Acknowledging the 'inconvenience' is a start, but most users expect at least average performance and prompt service from the capacity king of data storage." In a related story, reader Lucas123 plugs a ComputerWorld piece examining the question of Seagate's plans to stay relevant at a time when SSDs increasingly capture OEM mindshare.Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26104 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/lVSsMiD3ahY/article.pl Tue, 11 Nov 2008 21:05:04 EST The Windows 7 unveiling garnered largely positive coverage, with many hands-on testers praising it for being faster than Vista. But is it actually? To find out, this blogger ran a suite of benchmarks to see just how much quicker Windows 7 really is — and the results weren't quite what he expected. 'the actual performance gap between Vista and Windows 7 is... nada. Absolutely nothing. Our Office benchmarks and video encoding tests complete in precisely the same time regardless of which OS in installed. [...] It's tempting to see this as a bit of a con. They've sped up the front end so it feels like you're getting more done, but in terms of real productivity it's no better than Vista."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26079 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/Q6dwdpgTWd4/article.pl Mon, 10 Nov 2008 13:05:20 EST Lithal13 writes to tell us that MGM studios will soon be the first major movie studio to post a complete feature-length film on YouTube. Some credit commercial video site 'Hulu' for the mended relationship between YouTube parent Google and Hollywood. "YouTube has developed systems that help keep pirated clips off the site and is developing video players that present clearer images than the site's standard player. When it comes to financial terms, Google has proven much more flexible than in the past, according to three studio sources. [...] The only obstacles to Google and YouTube getting more studios to post full-length movies is Google's insistence on a particular ad format, say the sources. They declined to say which ad unit Google prefers. The other hurdle is that some studios are skeptical that users will accept all the ads that need to accompany a feature film in order to make it profitable."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26074 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/lvodqjzn1JI/article.pl Mon, 10 Nov 2008 09:05:13 EST A startup named Mgestyk Technologies claims that they have an affordable solution for 'Minority Report'-like PC control. They have released a video in which they use hand gestures to play games like Halo and Guitar Hero, as well as perform 'multi-touch' interactions for applications like Google Earth. Engadget and Gizmodo discuss the potential of the technology but point out that the system has visible lag when used for gaming. Will camera-based interfaces ever meet the low-latency demands of gaming? For how much longer will we still be using keyboards, mice and joysticks?"Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26038 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/piY-nLu5_uw/article.pl Fri, 07 Nov 2008 20:05:09 EST mikesd81 writes to tell us that four Google employees may be facing charges of defamation and failure to control personal data simply because they didn't remove a video of a boy with Down's Syndrome being harassed and eventually hit over the head with a box of tissue, from Google Video. The video was posted in September of 2006 and was removed by Google within a day of receiving the initial complaints, but apparently that isn't fast enough. "Google maintains charges against the employees are unwarranted, Pancini said. Europe's E-commerce Directive exempts service providers from prescreening content before it is publicly posted, he said. Also, the video was technically uploaded to a Google server in the U.S., not in Italy, Pancini said. 'It was a terrible video,' Pancini said, adding that Google is concerned about the case's impact on censorship on the Internet. The defendants include David C. Drummond, a Google senior vice president, corporate development and chief legal officer. Pancini said Drummond did paperwork to create Google Italy, but has never lived in the country."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26030 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/YzS4TYEAZGw/article.pl Fri, 07 Nov 2008 17:05:01 EST An anonymous reader notes an Inquirer story reporting on something of a breakthrough in virtual machine management — a demonstration (not yet a product) of migrating a running virtual machine across CPUs from different vendors (video here). "RedHat and AMD have just done the so called impossible, and demonstrated VM live migration across CPU architectures. Not only that, they have demonstrated it across CPU vendors, potentially commoditizing server processors. This is quite a feat. Only a few months ago during VMworld, Intel and VMware claimed that this was impossible. Judging by an initial response, VMware is quite irked by this KVM accomplishment and they are pointing to stability concerns. This sound like scaremongering to me... All the interesting controversy aside, cross vendor migration is [obviously] a good thing for customers because it avoids platform lock-in."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26024 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/OKeqjGDDOdE/article.pl Fri, 07 Nov 2008 12:05:02 EST David Pogue of New York Times has reviewed the Pico, which is a pocket projector from Optoma. The review is quite entertaining (Pogue projects the images on to a plane's ceiling, leaving passengers baffled) and detailed. The highlights are: It is a pocket-sized projector which runs on batteries and can project images and videos from a variety of sources like iPhone, iPod and DVD players with a 480x320px resolution, with a maximum screen size of 65 inches at 8.5 feet. It uses a non-replaceable 10,000 hour LED lamp and a DLP chip from Texas Instruments. The battery lasts for 90 minutes and can be recharged through USB or with its own power cord. The device weighs 115g and comes with an inbuilt speaker which is practically useless. If you want one, it will set you back by $430."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26010 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/kjc_N7uIsmc/article.pl Thu, 06 Nov 2008 16:05:21 EST