Promise and peril in an ultra-connected world
By Anick Jesdanun, Technology Writer
BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — We’re in the beginning of a world in which everything is connected to the Internet and with one another, while powerful yet relatively cheap computers analyze all that data for ways to improve lives.
Toothbrushes tell your mirror to remind you to floss. Basketball jerseys detect impending heart failure and call the ambulance for you.
At least that’s the vision presented this past week at the Mobile World Congress wireless show in Barcelona, Spain. The four-day conference highlighted what the tech industry has loosely termed “the Internet of things.”
Some of that wisdom is already available or promised by the end of the year.
Fitness devices from Sony and Samsung connect with your smartphones to provide digital records of your daily lives. French startup Cityzen Sciences has embedded fabric with heart-rate and other sensors to track your physical activities.
Internet-connected toothbrushes are coming from Procter and Gamble’s Oral-B business and from another French startup, Kolibree. The mirror part is still a prototype, but Oral-B’s smartphone app does tell you to floss.
Car makers are building in smarter navigation and other hands-free services, while IBM and AT&T are jointly equipping cities with sensors and computers for parking meters, traffic lights and water systems to all communicate.
Internet-connected products represent a growth opportunity for wireless carriers, as the smartphone business slows down in developed markets because most people already have service.
With the technological foundations here, the bigger challenge is getting people, businesses and municipalities to see the potential. Then there are security and privacy concerns — health insurance companies would love access to your fitness data to set premiums.
At a more basic level, these systems have to figure out a way to talk the same language. You might buy your phone from Apple, your TV from Sony and your refrigerator for Samsung. It would be awful to get left out because you aren’t loyal to a single company. Plus, the smartest engineers in computing aren’t necessarily the best in clothing and construction.
Expect companies to work together to set standards, much the way academic and military researchers created a common language decades ago for disparate computer networks to communicate, forming the Internet. Gadget makers are starting to build APIs — interfaces for other systems to pull and understand data.
Building everything is too much for a single company, yet “they want all this stuff to work together,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, a backer of the Tizen project for connecting watches, cars and more. Samsung’s new fitness watches will use Tizen, and tools have been built to talk with Samsung’s Android phones.
As for persuading customers, IBM executive Rick Qualman said the emphasis now is on pilot projects to demonstrate the benefits, such as better deployment of equipment and personnel during a natural disaster.
At the wireless show last week, Zelitron, a Greek subsidiary of Vodafone, showed how retailers can keep track of refrigerators used to dispense bottled drinks. The system tracks temperatures and inventory, and knows if a fridge is inadvertently unplugged.
Meanwhile, Cityzen hired athletes to demonstrate its connected fabric by playing basketball. Data get sent to a smartphone app using Bluetooth wireless technology.
Gilbert Reveillon, international managing director for Cityzen, said he’s had interest from a U.K. car insurance company and Chinese hospitals. Health data can tell you whether you’re fit to drive and can call paramedics in an emergency.
Some customers might worry about security, given recent breaches compromising credit and debit card numbers at Target and other major retailers.
Determined hackers seem to constantly find loopholes. Imagine someone spying on you remotely through security cameras in your home or tricking your home security system into believing your car is approaching, so it opens your garage door automatically.
AT&T emphasizes that it uses encryption and other safeguards for its connected services, which include security monitoring and energy-efficiency controls in homes. Glenn Lurie, AT&T’s president of emerging enterprises and partnerships, said the U.S. wireless carrier goes through extensive security certification and exceeds industry recommendations.
Reveillon said any data sharing by Cityzen will be in aggregate form, with users’ identities removed. He said individual users could decide to share more, but that would be up to them. He said French regulators are quite strict on that.
But U.S. regulation isn’t, and a government subpoena is typically enough to override any promises of privacy. Once the information is available, privacy advocates say, it’s tempting to find other uses for it.
Jonathan Zittrain, a law professor at Harvard University, said it’s difficult for people to say no when presented with immediate benefits because any potential problems are vague and years away.
“Information seems harmless and trivial at the moment, but can be recorded forever . and can be combined with other data,” he said. “I don’t think we’ve come to terms with that yet.”
ESPN’s Bodenheimer to deliver keynote address at Avid Connect
BURLINGTON, Mass.–Avid has announced further details for Avid Connect, the inaugural event of the Avid Customer Association, to be held April 4-6, 2014 at the Bellagio in Las Vegas–just prior to the NAB show. George Bodenheimer, executive chairman of ESPN, and former co-chairman of Disney Media Networks, will deliver the keynote address on the morning of April 6 following an industry leader panel discussion. On Saturday, April 5 the company will reveal the next phases of Avid Everywhere, its vision for the future of the media industry, and will present a technology demo. A full roster of educational breakout sessions to further elaborate on Avid Everywhere for the broadcast, video, and audio communities will take place on the afternoon of Saturday, April 5.
The Avid Customer Association (ACA) was announced in September 2013 as a comprehensive initiative designed to provide essential strategic leadership to the media industry, collaborate with key industry leaders and visionaries, and deepen relationships between the company and its customers. The multifaceted program will engage its network of broadcast, creative and media customers to address the most important issues facing the media industry today.
Hundreds of customers have registered to attend Avid Connect, with participants representing over 40 countries and the most senior and professional ranks of Avid’s broadcast, audio, and video customer base. While there are still available spots to participate in Avid Connect, space is quickly filling at this limited capacity event.
Christie to demo 3D cinema technology
CYPRESS, Calif.–Christie has announced upcoming demonstrations of its laser projection architecture and Dolby 3D, to be held in the Christie Innovation Theaters throughout CinemaCon 2014 (Caesars Palace, March 24-27) and the National Association of Broadcasters NAB Show® (Las Vegas Convention Center, April 5-10). Christie DLP Cinema laser projectors using 6-Primary (6P) color laser modules, earmarked for mass production in early 2015, will show how 3D light levels, image uniformity, viewing comfort, and a sense of immersion can be vastly improved, especially when combined with advanced separation technology like Dolby 3D, versus conventional 3D systems found in cinemas around the world today.
“Recent declines in domestic 3D movie attendance are a sign that the novelty is wearing off, with audiences less willing to pay a premium for what is all too often a mediocre experience. The lackluster quality of this experience results from a number of technical limitations with current 3D system architectures, the most serious one being restricted light levels that amount to only 10-30 percent of those levels achieved for 2D presentations,” said Don Shaw, senior director, product management, Christie Entertainment Solutions. “Simply put, the movies are too dark, leaving audiences struggling to discern critical details that make up the image in front of them.”
“Christie’s latest laser projection technology, using 6 specific primary colors rather than filtered or polarized broad-spectrum white light, brings dramatically improved 3D efficiency to projection systems, regardless of the size of screen in premium movie theaters,” added Shaw. “We believe that this is the future of 3D cinema projection, that it is right around the corner, and that it will be a key element in boosting 3D box office revenues around the world. Our CinemaCon and NAB Show demonstrations will be the first 6P laser events available to the broad cinema community, from filmmakers to exhibitors, and reaffirms Christie’s 80-year commitment to cinema innovation, rather than ‘moving beyond digital cinema’ as some other industry players have promised.”
At least twice as efficient as today’s best 3D systems, Christie’s 6P laser projectors generate a proprietary mix of photoptically-optimized light wavelengths for each eye directly from the source, in effect eliminating the need for a highly inefficient stage of filtering or polarizing the light as it leaves the projector. The Christie demos will use Dolby® 3D glasses specifically engineered to exactly match the 6 primary laser light wavelengths to yield nearly 90 percent light efficiency. “Their color separation based technique for 3D is well regarded as the gold standard among industry professionals, especially for its true color reproduction, compatibility with low-gain white screens, and superior crosstalk performance – only now it can be part of a system that is tremendously more light efficient,” said Shaw.
“Dolby 3D’s advanced color separation technology is ideally suited for next generation laser projectors,” said Doug Darrow, Senior Vice President, Cinema, Dolby Laboratories. “With extremely high light efficiency, nearly no crosstalk and crisp images with vibrant colors, we believe Dolby 3D combined with laser projection produces the best possible 3D viewing experience for audiences.”
“Having had the opportunity to witness an early 6P laser demo at Christie’s worldwide center for engineering, research and development in Canada, I can confidently state that this is an exciting and important innovation in 3D cinema,“ said Matt Cowan, Co-founder & Senior Technical Advisor at Entertainment Technology Consultants. “I look forward to further refinement of this technology and upcoming installation in premiere theaters around the world.”
Consistent with efforts so far in developing 3-Primary (3P) laser projectors, which Christie sees filling important needs in several, non-cinema industries, Christie laser projectors will provide industry-leading brightness (up to 72,000 Lumens per projector head), wider color gamut capabilities, higher contrast, and dramatically reduced maintenance requirements, resulting in a better experience for all applications. Christie will continue to develop superior 6P and 3P laser projection solutions for all of its global customers.
Christie announced last year that it would supply and install the world’s first commercial laser projection solution for the Seattle Cinerama Theatre, and that it was the first to receive a US FDA approval of variance allowing the sale and installation of laser projectors in movie theaters and other high performance projection venues.
Apple dials up effort to meld iPhone with cars
By Michael Liedtke & Tom Krisher, Business Writers
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Apple is accelerating the race to make smartphone applications easier and safer to use in cars.
Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo are previewing Apple’s iPhone technology for cars this week at an auto show in Geneva.
The partnerships give Apple an early lead over Google’s loosely knit family of Android phones in a duel to make mobile applications more accessible while drivers are behind the wheel. Apple’s iOS mobile software and Google’s Android operating system power most of the smartphones in the world.
Just two months ago, Google Inc. announced it is working with several major automakers to turn Android phones into an essential part of cars. Google hopes to finish work on its system for tethering Android phones to cars by the end of this year.
Apple Inc. announced its automobile ambitions nine months ago when it unveiled its “iOS in the Car” initiative — a reference to the operating system that powers the iPhone and iPad.
Now that the idea is moving closer to reality, Apple is renaming the technology “CarPlay.”
The system announced Monday enables iPhones to plug into cars so drivers can call up maps, make calls and request music with voice commands or a touch on a vehicle’s dashboard screen.
By making smartphones work more seamlessly with automobiles, both Apple and Google are hoping to immerse their services even deeper into peoples’ lives. In doing so, the companies expect to make money by selling advertising, applications and upgrades on smartphones that will become even more indispensable.
“IPhone users always want their content at their fingertips and CarPlay lets drivers use their iPhone in the car with minimized distraction,” said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s vice president of iPhone and iOS product marketing.
Automakers are hoping vehicles that are compatible with the top-selling smartphones will be easier to sell to consumers who can’t fathom living without the devices.
Cars of recent vintage increasingly feature electronics designed to cater to drivers’ high-tech desires, but those systems still haven’t attracted a widespread following. That has led more automakers to conclude that it makes sense to work directly with technology companies such as Apple and Google to turn their cars into smartphone extensions.
CarPlay requires Apple’s latest mobile software, iOS 7, and an iPhone 5, 5C or 5S.
Ferrari is previewing CarPlay on its four-wheel-drive FF model. Volvo plans to feature the iPhone system in its redesigned Volvo XC90 sports utility vehicle. Mercedes-Benz isn’t disclosing which models will get CarPlay, but expects both its S-Class large sedan and C-Class midsize sedan should be compatible with the system.
A long list of other automakers, including General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Honda, also are drawing up plans for CarPlay, according to Apple.
So far, GM, Honda, Hyundai and Audi have signed up for Google’s “Open Automotive Alliance” for Android.
GM and Honda declined to comment on their CarPlay plans.
Ford said it will deploy CarPlay as one of several options for making its cars work more smoothly with smartphones. The automaker already features a voice-control system called “Sync” made by Microsoft Corp. in some of its cars. Ford also offers its own touch-screen technology in its vehicles.
The different choices are designed to ensure “you don’t have to make a $30,000 decision about what car you’re going to buy based on your $200 smartphone,” said Raj Nair, Ford’s global product development chief.
Shotgun Software keeps Blur projects on track
LOS ANGELES–Shotgun Software announced that Blur Studio has standardized on Shotgun for production management and tracking. Shotgun is an visual effects, game development and animation industry platform for production management and review. Blur, known for a diverse roster of work on feature films, commercials and game cinematics and trailers, adopted Shotgun to replace its in-house production management software that was tying up valuable internal development resources.
“Pipeline and infrastructure software may not be the sexiest application you’ll find in a VFX and animation studio, but it’s certainly one of the most crucial to producing great work,” said Tim Miller, co-founder of Blur Studio. “The less time our artists and producers spend managing the more time we can spend creating. As projects get more complicated and schedules get more challenging it’s critical to have tools to efficiently manage the huge amounts of detailed data needed to get the job done. Shotgun is both producer and artist friendly which makes it in our opinion the best tool out there for helping us deliver great work.”
Prior to integrating Shotgun into their pipeline, Blur had two full-time developers working on a proprietary toolset called “Trax” for production management. The developers were allocating a majority of their time to updating the toolset; time and resources that would have been better spent on building artist’s tools that give studios like Blur a competitive advantage.
Once the decision was made to standardize on Shotgun, Blur seamlessly connected the Shotgun database with their pipeline and in-house database. Both feature a lightweight Python API, allowing Shotgun to link effortlessly with their internal system along with core artist applications including Autodesk 3ds Max. Now fully integrated into their daily operations, Shotgun powers production management for an average user base of 85 artists across all of Blur’s projects which most recently have included Thor: The Dark World and promotional trailers for The Elder Scrolls. Using Shotgun’s web-based interface, producers, coordinators and artists at all levels can add and link data seamlessly to the database for easy access.
Blur additionally has benefited from choosing Shotgun because of its ubiquitous use in the industry. Prior to integrating Shotgun, new artists and freelancers brought on for short schedule projects had to invest time in learning how to use Trax, which was complicated for new users. With the integration of Shotgun, Blur is able to customize their internal engines and applications while maintaining Shotgun’s consistent web and user interface so that freelance artists can start using it immediately without training. The web interface has proven to be another advantage for Blur, allowing their producers and coordinators to add data via a browser that links seamlessly into Shotgun.
In the future, Blur plans on further integrating Shotgun into their daily operations to track budgets and artists’ time sheets. “We’ve come a long way in a short time with Shotgun,” concluded Beeland. “It’s been great for our artists, producers and supervisors alike, and aside from building a great production management platform—Shotgun’s support and customer service is significantly ahead of what is standard in the software business.”
