It’s designed as a visual tool for long-distance communication. Grandparents who want to talk to young grandchildren, teachers instructing students, or healthcare providers communicating with patients now have another way enrich their interactions with Huggable.
Huggable connects to a Web interface that enables the you to not only view the person on the other end through the bear's eyes, but also view the robot's behaviors through streaming audio and video.
You can also control the robot using several features. A grandparent, for instance, can enter text for the robot to speak via speech synthesis or command the robot to make various sounds, such as giggling. The grandparent can then watch the child's facial reaction on the screen and listen to their response, as well as watch a 3D virtual model of the robot and an animated cartoon that indicates gestures, such as when the robot is being bounced or rocked.
Just about a month ago YouTube was testing high-definition videos. It seems like this feature is now officially released. A large number of videos that fulfilled YouTube's criteria for HD encoding now sport a "Watch in HD" button instead of the old "Watch in high quality." While I have not seen any official statement from YouTube yet, you can already find a lot of HD videos on YouTube if you do a search for 'HD' on the site.
Until now Until now you could only see these HD versions if you added "&fmt=22" to a YouTube URL and it was almost impossible to know which video would work in HD. The quality is really amazing and rivals that of some of YouTube's closest competitors like Vimeo.
The price Yes, there IS a price. Actually a requirement that might cost you some extra money -- you do need at least a 5 Megabit (download) broadband connection to watch HD videos without constant stuttering and buffering.
In the last couple of weeks YouTube has also rolled out a wide variety of new features, including the new wide-screen format (which was clearly in preparation for this release) and the addition of over 25 thousand new songs from music licensing firm Rumblefish, plus its AudioSwap feature.
Game-Changer The new HD videos, however, are clearly a game-changer. Web video always had the contention of having relatively sub-standard video quality; being generally grainy; and also hard to watch ( especially YouTube). Now, you could easily put up a screencast, movie, or video on YouTube in HD see it in its full 720p glory.
That's the sound made by the "Multiple Kill Vehicle," a frightening but fascinatingly cool hovering robot meant to shoot down enemy ballistic missiles.
This video of a December 2 flight test conducted at Edwards Air Force Base in California by defense contractor Lockheed Martin has made it onto the Web. It certainly looks like something out of the "Terminator" movies...
The Pentagon's plan is to mount one or more of these "MKVs" onto carrier missiles, to be launched into space to engage nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles at the apogees, or peaks, of their trajectory arcs.
Once in space, the MKVs will break off from the carrier vehicles, then use highly accurate targeting computers to shoot big bullets (kinetic interceptors in military speak) to destroy the enemy warheads before they drop back down to Earth.
I'm SO totally reassured. A Happy Christmas to you too!
Tivo announced a few days ago that, if you are a subscriber to Netflix and Tivo services, then you can start receiving many Netflix titles on your Tivo box for no extra charge.
Unfortunately, this is only available to subscribers with TiVo HD, TiVo HD XL and TiVo Series3 DVRs. The majority of Tivo's subscribers are still Series 2 owners, so they will be forced to “upgrade” if they want this new service. The switch won't be that easy for those of us on satellite. Tivo's current model lineup does not really offer a solution for satellite subscribers. The HD and HD XL are cable only and there is no sign of the Series 3 on their site.
Think different: Netflix is coming to Apple TV and Linux
Linux PC and AppleTV users are about to gain the ability to stream Netflix's movies and TV shows directly to their systems. Although Netflix's instant watch service only officially supports Windows and Mac, Boxee expects to release Netflix streaming support to the Ubuntu version of its free A/V media center software within a couple of days, and says that adding Netflix streaming support to AppleTV asap is its top priority.
On your laptop or connected to an HDTV, Boxee enables you to enjoy your movies, TV shows, music, and photos, as well as streaming content from websites like Hulu, Netflix, CBS, Comedy Central, Last.fm, and flickr.
You can vote for them -- if you agree they deserve it -- in lifehacker.com's five Best Media Center application contest.
Also - see my next post on the 21st about Netflix coming to Tivo, AppleTV, and ... Linux! Would you believe that???
We will look back on the years from 2006 until the end of this decade, as the remake of television into Internet TV. I know people who have cancelled their cable TV contracts and exclusively watch TV on the Internet. We see better and better quality user-generated content too.
Big Cable vs. Ma Bell(s) Time Warner, Cox, Comcast, and ilk are holding onto their hegemony for as long as they can, lobbying politicians and FCC officials, while Verizon and AT&T lay the fibers for a truly amazing high-definition experience (or so they promise). When there's a TV program I want to watch, even if it's not on Fox or ABC, I can go to Hulu (soon to YouTube too). However, I’m not a Hulu acolyte and use it only as a starting point when I need to find something I want. Hulu does well enough today, but it doesn't get me to YouTube.
Building the infrastructure is a tricky business Quality streaming over varying connection speeds has now become a reality. Thanks to companies like Move Networks, we've got technologies like adaptive bit rate adjustment; now even the CDNs are starting to build this in. Watch something on Hulu and you'll see that the quality is pretty superb.
Monetizing content and paying for the infrastructure have proven to be even trickier. At the end it all comes back to how everyone will make money, a subject upon which there has been hardly ant agreement, and relatively little success.
The experiments are fun to watch, though - especially from the receiving end. How is yours?
Transpera provides a comprehensive platform to monetize your Web videos on mobile phones with a suite of promotional and distribution building tools.
These include widgets to help promote your mobile channel on-line with such features as “send-to-mobile,” and the Transpera Syndication Framework which allows you to easily integrate your mobile video content and advertising with virtually any mobile distribution partner including carriers.
Now forward to their scheduled programming…
Today's audience demands a mobile experience that delivers more than just broadcast TV. They want a mobile experience that lets them share, interact and engage. With Transpera’s tools and easy-to-use options, you are able to make the mobile video experience as personal as your viewers want it to be.
BoinxTV is a pioneering live production software to record video podcasts, sports events, concerts, interviews, speeches, sermons, seminars, and more using just your Mac and up to three cameras.
“For the rest of us”
BoinxTV’s goal is to make it easy to create professional “TV style” recordings. As a video producer, you currently have to spend many hours editing your takes to get a professional looking result. Post-production is a time-consuming part of the workflow. BoinxTV reduces the overall production time dramatically as you can apply cuts, graphic effects, titles and more during the live recording of the show. Everything done during live recording does not have to be done in post production.
In weather forecasts on TV, the presenter is standing in front of a large map. Actually this is a green or blue background that is replaced by a background image or video. You can achieve the same effect, as BoinxTV supports chroma keying. Of course you will need a background and a lighting set. If you need recommendations for studio equipment, find them here.
BoinxTV ships with more than 30 professional layers (video switcher, RSS crawler, lower third, interview setup, and others), and can be extended by custom layers designed with Apple's Quartz Composer software, which comes free with Mac OS X. You can also tailor BoinxTV layers to your needs or hire Boinx to create a specific layer for you.
A single user license will set you back $499, or $199 if you are willing to include a five second credit for BoinxTV in every video. Custom layers cost $999 each.
Blendtec, a virtually unknown household appliance maker till a few years ago, attributes a 700% increase in revenue to its popular "Will it Blend?" webisode series.
Do you want to see how "Chuck Norris" will blend?
Take notice: This company is a prime example of a small but growing group of businesses that have cracked the code to success on the video-centric Internet.
Online video has certainly been the topic du jour this year, as major media companies respond to consumer demand for anytime, anywhere access to their favorite programs. But Internet video's real potential is not in watching "Lost" or "The Office" online or even downloading those shows to your cell phone or iPod. It's about giving YOUR consumers what they want in the most engaging medium available.
We are still in the early stages of this shift from static text and graphics to a more dynamic, visually compelling medium, but we are approaching a tipping point. Video is no longer an afterthought or an add-on for Internet-savvy businesses -- but the primary content featured on their Internet sites.
Online user expectations have changed dramatically in the past decade, and businesses that don't evolve their Internet strategies to accommodate this change are about to get a painful wake-up call.
From Radio to Online Video
It's well-documented that people prefer a visually dynamic medium when it comes to being entertained or getting information. Radio was once the primary source of news, music and other entertainment for a large part of the population. Then came TV, followed by VCRs, TiVo and iPods. Video is having the same dramatic impact on the Internet. The Solutions Research Group predicts that total hours spent with video-based entertainment will average eight hours per day by early 2013 -- the equivalent of an entire night's sleep -- and a majority of those hours will belong to online video.
Most fascinating about the emergence of the video-centric Internet is that it is NOT being driven by news and entertainment providers. The vast majority of businesses riding the video wave are non-media organizations, ranging from small neighborhood retailers and restaurants to powerhouse brands like Nike and Apple. These businesses all have an intense desire to deliver a strong brand impression, create an engaging experience, and instill customer loyalty. The Internet is now the primary customer touch point and commerce channel for these organizations, and video delivers the compelling Internet experiences that educate, entertain, and keep customers coming back.
The Video-Centric Enterprise
You can ENGAGE your customers, partners and prospects with product demonstrations, presentations and how-to videos. Apple, being the master marketer, keeps rolling out 30-minute videos, that are part guide, part advertisement to accompany its new iSomething.
Beyond these marketing examples, investors will be able to access corporate data in video form, whether it is an annual meeting, a message from the CEO or a video news release. Internally, video will become a primary form of communication. Think of a broadcast greeting embedded in a personal email or executive video memos -- the latter of which is already being done by early video adopters such as British Telecom. Video libraries will usher in a new phase of knowledge sharing and best practices, as employees access huge repositories of education and training videos.
The most sophisticated online video practitioners will become a de facto broadcast network constantly issuing news and information to their customers, partners, distributors, employees, and the public at large too. And why not? The cost of distributing or syndicating your content is already approaching zero to roll your own version of "Will it Blend?"
i.TV helps you to discover entertainment options by providing up-to-date information on television shows and movies. You can also see the feedback and information provided by other i.TV users who utilize i.TV’s community-focused features, such as writing reviews and giving star ratings.
In addition, i.TV allows you to directly access entertainment such as television previews and movie trailers through your iPhone or iPod touch.
Here are the details, point by point:
1. i.TV is a free download from the iTunes App Store. 2. There is no subscription fee. 3. You can sort and filter by location, media type, genre, TV provider, channel, ratings, reviews and friend recommendations. 4. You can not watch TV, as the i.TV iPhone application does not currently support streaming television. 5. You can not watch watch trailers and previews. 6. Currently, i.TV is only for iPhone and iPod touch. 7. They have plans to provide i.TV functionality on their website too, at: www.i.tv. 8. Other people can see reviews you write if you make them publicly shared. 9. You can select the level of ratings, like TV14 or PG-13. i.TV has additional filters to hide anything you don't want to show or watch.
I had no trouble downloading and synching it to my iPhone. Now I just need time to write reviews…
