BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Cadillac and possibly even Microsoft are looking to incorporate gesture-recognition technology into cars. However, automotive tech supplier Harman may have a jump on the competition.
The company presented a concept vehicle aimed at reducing distractions in the car by using nods, winks and hand movements for various functions.
To make a call, make the universal pinky-and-thumb “on-the-phone” gesture and say a contact in your phone’s address book. To turn your radio on or off, just wink. If you want to change the volume, tilt your head. You can even skip songs or stations by tapping the steering wheel and adjust the temperature by lowering your hand above the gear-shift knob.
“A dashboard-mounted infrared sensor watches for predefined expressions and gestures from the driver, and the data is parsed by an onboard processor that activates the appropriate features,” explains Wired. “Harman claims that the system can recognize the difference between intentional gestures and accidental ones.”
Harman says the technology won’t go into production for at least two or three more years.
Speech recognition provider iSpeech has announced plans to create the first voice-controlled smart households, which would allow users to control their appliances, lights and more with voice recognition software.
The iSpeech Home technology would “give OEMs and manufacturers a canvas where they can implement voice recognition software into TVs, home entertainment systems, lighting, refrigerators and even washers and dryers,” reports Engadget.
The company does not have any official partners yet, but plans to implement the iSpeech Home system within 6-12 months.
“We believe speech is the user interface of the future,” says iSpeech COO Yaron Oren. “Siri has done an amazing job of bringing this vision to life on the iPhone, and we are helping bring it to more applications, more platforms and new markets such as the connected home.”
According to the company’s press release, iSpeech Home supports 26 languages and comprehends voices commands such as: “Watch ESPN,” “Find movies starring Tom Hanks,” “Record American Idol,” “Turn on stereo and play Lady Gaga,” “Set temperature in house to 70 degrees,” “Turn off the lights in the living room” and “Turn on the alarm.”
“Leveraging iSpeech’s cloud, embedded and hybrid, human quality text-to-speech and speech recognition technology, iSpeech Home eliminates the challenge of a complicated user interface typically associated with home automation,” explains the release.
Time Warner opened its MediaLab facility in New York the beginning of this year. “The MediaLab has a range of biometric monitoring devices and eye-tracking testing equipment that measure a participant’s physiological responses to content,” explains The Hollywood Reporter.
During last week’s TW College Professors Thought Leadership Seminar, the company showcased the MediaLab and began soliciting ideas for its sophisticated devices.
“Time Warner has put out a RFP to academics to describe in 300 words or less what hypothesis they wish to test,” according to THR. Researchers interested in the program have three months to develop ideas.
The MediaLab has been used for studies regarding how consumers interact with media in food purchasing decisions and how social media recommendations influence content engagement.
Time Warner is looking to make best use of its CE devices including tablets, streaming media players, 3D televisions, gaming consoles, even a smart refrigerator.
“Now, Time Warner, which spent an undisclosed sum on an observation room which can spy via eight ceiling-mounted cameras on participants in a faux living room, wishes to figure out the next great research project that will offer insight into the ways people are using and are effected by media,” explains the article.
BBC, NHK and OBS are testing a new 8K broadcast system during select events at the London Olympics, including the opening and closing ceremonies.
As previously reported on ETCentric, Japanese broadcaster NHK is currently developing a Super Hi-Vision 8K TV system, which touts 16 times more picture info than current HDTV and 22.2 channels of surround sound.
“At the Olympics, NHK is teaming with the BBC and host broadcasting organization Olympic Broadcast Services to test this format — which is so precise that one could view a shot inside the Olympic Stadium that appears to be three dimensional and contains stunning detail,” notes Carolyn Giardina for The Hollywood Reporter.
“The images seem to go around corners and curves. Most people say it is more 3D than 3D. With 3D you are aware that your brain has to work. Here you just sit in front of the screen and relax,” suggests Tim Plyming of the BBC. “I think when people see it, they will say this is the next really big format.”
During the Olympics, Super Hi-Vision coverage from four venues will be screened at public viewing sites in the UK and Japan.
“The participants began planning this trial roughly two years ago, and in the coming weeks, they aim to not only dazzle viewers with an early look at Super Hi-Vision, but demonstrate for the first time NHK’s new 8K broadcast camera, as well as the ability to transmit 8K — a staggering amount of picture information — over IP networks,” writes Giardina.
The McKinsey Global Institute published a study on “unleashing value and productivity through social technologies,” which indicates that “things like improved communication and collaboration from social media in four major business sectors could add $900 billion to $1.3 trillion in value to the economy,” reports The New York Times.
The value is largely achieved through increased productivity. According to the article, this study could “add credence” to the decisions being made by corporations to spend billions on social media acquisitions and strategies.
Companies are investing in improved ways to manage how customers perceive them in chat rooms to internal communication tools similar to Facebook.
“Social technologies like wikis, broadly accessible instant messaging, content searches and user forums, McKinsey says, are particularly effective among so-called interactions workers,” notes NYT. “These people are general managers, for example, but also consultative sales representatives, engineers working with teams to figure out new products, or health care workers personally figuring out patients’ needs.”
The report suggests that the main challenges to implementing effective use of social media in the workplace “are organizational and personal, as managers have to develop nonhierarchical cultures, where data and knowledge are exposed and shared, not hoarded.”
Streaming video tech provider Roku, regarded by some as strong competition for Apple, announced it has raised $45 million to further develop its branding, international expansion and new services.
Saratoga, California-based Roku has sold more than three million of its boxes that connect streaming services to TV sets. The company plans to launch its wireless, dongle-sized Streaming Stick this fall.
News Corp. and UK pay TV giant BSkyB are among Roku’s investors. Jon Miller, chief digital officer at News Corp., will join the Roku board.
“The new relationships include both financial backing and business agreements that demonstrate the industry’s confidence in Roku as the distribution platform to bring streaming entertainment to mainstream consumers,” the company said.
Roku currently streams content from News Corp.’s Fox News, Fox’s “The X Factor,” and “Wall Street Journal Live.” The company is one of BSkyB’s partners in its recently-launched online video service, NowTV.
“We have watched Roku maintain market leadership since the launch of its streaming platform four years ago and we look forward to deepening our relationship, having already worked closely together on the launch of several products,” says Miller. “Roku’s significant technology advantage, coupled with a strong market position, places them in a unique position to be an integral part of the television landscape for years to come.”
Google announced that its new Creator Space studio, part of its Soho offices in London, will provide YouTube partners with the facilities and equipment to make their video content look more professional and sophisticated.
“It is amazing to think that some of the most successful creators on the platform, with millions of views, use little more than their bedrooms, a webcam and any props they can lay their hands on to produce compelling videos and build a global fanbase,” says Sara Mormino, director of YouTube Content Operations and Next Lab.
“But many of our partners are ready to take their channels to the next level by using the latest equipment and editing techniques as well as tapping into the valuable advice from other experts and YouTube stars,” she adds.
The Creator Space will feature two studios (including green screen), audio booths, professional lighting rigs, fully staffed editing suites, a control room and HD cameras. Additionally, the studio plans to offer workshops, training, collaborative programs and more.
“Our partners from all over Europe, Middle East and Africa will be able to book time in the space to create and collaborate with other creators, learn new techniques, as well as gaining access to state-of-the-art audio visual equipment, to help them generate great new content for their channels,” says Mormino.
The YouTube Next Lab team, charged with the development of channels and creators on YouTube, will run the London studio, which is expected to open in the coming weeks.
The post includes a video report on the YouTube Creator Camp. You can also check out the promotional video for the Creator Space studio on YouTube.
While Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey invested in Instagram before its acquisition by Facebook, his company is now playing hardball with the popular social network.
“Twitter has blocked Instagram from using its API to find new friends to follow on the photo-sharing service,” reports Business Insider. “The news comes after Instagram announced on its blog that it hit 80 million users.”
The move marks the second time Twitter has blocked API access to a social network, after it recently ended its two-and-a-half-year partnership with LinkedIn by no longer allowing users to publish tweets to their LinkedIn profiles.
The “Find Your Friends” feature on Twitter has been removed, a helpful feature that enabled users to follow the same people they follow on Twitter via Instagram. However, the “Tweet Photo” feature is still available.
“We’ve learned that the feature is missing due to API restrictions from Twitter’s end, restrictions that possibly came about over concerns about Instagram’s scale and its strain on data pulls,” notes TechCrunch in a related post. “Many social apps like The Fancy and Foursquare still have access to this part of the Twitter API — it seems very likely that Instagram was the largest developer using the Twitter Friend Graph.”
“Twitter’s agenda here isn’t at all clear, but one possibility is that it wants to control the photos experience on its platform (and preclude Facebook from doing the same),” notes TechCrunch. “Selectively limiting API access by company is definitely strange behavior in an ecosystem that thrives on API symbiosis. Imagine if Google just decided to shut off Google Maps access to apps randomly?”
Apple is reportedly considering a new move into social media with a possible strategic investment in Twitter.
“While Apple has been hugely successful in selling phones and tablets, it has little traction in social networking, which has become a major engine of activity on the Web and on mobile devices,” notes The New York Times.
“Social media are increasingly influencing how people spend their time and money — an important consideration for Apple, which also sells applications, games, music and movies,” notes the article.
According to unnamed sources who claim to be briefed on the matter, “Apple has considered an investment in the hundreds of millions of dollars, one that could value Twitter at more than $10 billion, up from an $8.4 billion valuation last year,” details NYT.
A Twitter partnership could prove valuable for Apple, amidst growing competition with companies such as Google and Facebook, which already have a strong footing in the social sphere.
Strengthening the ties between Apple and Twitter would come during an era of significant uncertainty in the mobile market. “Battle lines that seemed clear just a year ago are rapidly blurring as companies push into new areas of the market and clash with former allies,” explains the article.
“Those guys are a great partner,” said Twitter CEO Dick Costolo of Apple. “We think of them as a company that our company looks up to.”
“Apple doesn’t have to own a social network,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook, at a recent tech conference. “But does Apple need to be social? Yes.”
Apple’s latest version of OS X, Mountain Lion, launched last week with a significant AirPlay Mirroring update.
“Don’t look now, but Apple just created a formidable cord-cutting platform,” suggests Wired. “The new operating system can change the way we watch video in the living room, and might even compel some users to finally cancel their cable and satellite services.”
According to the article, video that’s available online can now easily be watched on an HDTV with a Mac running Mountain Lion and a $100 Apple TV.
The mirroring feature available with Mountain Lion, “uses the same basic tech found in iOS devices: Your computer wirelessly transmits whatever is playing on your Mac desktop to your Apple TV, which then shoots this mirrored content to your HDTV via an HDMI cable,” explains Wired. “Display settings are automatically determined by your Mac, so you don’t have to adjust the resolution over and over again, hoping to find the perfect recipe for optimal TV watching.”
“AirPlay for Mountain Lion is a great method for beaming any desktop content straight to your HDTV, and this includes streaming video from Web pages, computer games, and, yes, even illegal videos collected from BitTorrent,” notes the article. “And if the greater tech industry takes more bold steps toward changing how video is delivered, the future is going to be rough for cable and satellite providers. Something has to give.”
Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) has proposed an amendment to the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 that would alter the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA).
The VPPA was authored in 1988 after a list of video rentals by Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork was published in a newspaper. As currently written, the VPPA requires written consumer consent (or a police warrant) in order for video history information to be shared.
The newly proposed amendment would allow for Netflix video viewing histories to be shared automatically on Facebook.
“Netflix has spent nearly $400,000 lobbying Congress this year,” reports Digital Trends. “Part of that money was spent on changing the VPPA, and the rest went toward Net neutrality and other Web-related issues. Netflix eventually wants to allow users to be able to stream videos through their Facebook accounts.”
Additionally, Senator Al Franken (D-Minnesota) has proposed an amendment to remove Section 701 of CSA2012 that “provides companies with the explicit right to monitor private user communications and engage in countermeasures,” according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
The U.S. Senate is scheduled to begin debate on the Cybersecurity Act this week.
New software upgrades to Dish Network’s controversial AutoHop DVR feature may bolster its legality and help position the company against the lawsuit brought on by broadcasters NBC, CBS and Fox.
“Dish has been quietly tweaking the functionality inside its multi-room DVR, dubbed the Hopper, which allows subscribers to skip over commercials in primetime broadcast series one day after being recorded on the device’s hard drive,” reports Variety.
Subscribers can now select which channels to record rather than to have all four major networks recorded automatically. They can now delete recordings at any time. And, most importantly, the default to skip ads is set to “no.”
“While the changes may seem minor, they seem to represent a calculated strategy on Dish’s behalf to shift responsibility to viewers for the recording and ad-skipping rather than let them passively receive these features,” notes the article.
Shifting that responsibility could become a key component in assessing the legality of AutoHop, since a similar 2006 case has been cited as a possible precedent.
When content creators sued Cablevision regarding its remote-storage DVR, “the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the legality in a decision that hinged on the degree to which the viewer had control over the technology.”
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published a series of 25 new patents for Apple this week.
Patently Apple writes about one in particular, “that touches on advancing television, advanced 5D technology, interactive gaming, teleconferencing, advanced tactile feedback technology, virtual reality data gloves and even a unique touch signature for starting a future vehicle.”
Apple acquired the patent “years ago” from Canadian inventor Timothy Pryor. “Apple’s granted patent is a sweeping patent covering the widest range of applications that I’ve ever seen,” writes Jack Purcher in the report.
Purcher provides interesting details, highlighting 14 potential advantages of the patent for Apple, further noting that it could lead the way to developments involving the long-rumored Apple TV.
“Much of Apple’s newly granted patent focuses on projection TV technology and applications,” he writes. “Yet the patent makes it clear that the ‘concepts, while they’ve been shown in the context of a rear projection display device… are really quite usable in the context of the invention with any sort of display device.'”
Purcher also notes Wii or Kinect-like gaming capabilities as well as virtual reality and simulation using the invention.
As the new chief executive at Yahoo, one of Marissa Mayer’s top priorities is hiring promising managers and product people at a time when, “Yahoo’s talent pool has been reduced to puddles, as the best techies have gone elsewhere and promising newcomers have come down with colorblindness when it comes to purple,” suggests Wired.
While some remain skeptical that Mayer can attract new talent, Wired reveals her “secret weapon.” Since the early 2000s, Mayer worked to recruit the best of the best for Google’s Associate Product Manager program — and she still keeps in close touch with the 300 people that have passed through.
“Don’t be fooled by the modest title, prefixed by that timid word ‘associate.’ The most coveted entry post at Google is spelled APM,” notes the article. “This is an incubation system for tech rock stars.”
“The APM program is one of our core values — I’d like to think of one of them as the eventual CEO of the company,” Google’s executive chair Eric Schmidt once said.
Reportedly, the APMs continue to meet periodically with Mayer for check-ins and advice.
“The program has a been massive success, with APMs filling key roles in dozens of key Google products, ranging from apps to search to ads,” the article states, adding “it would be not be surprising if some of these baccalaureate APMs wind up at Yahoo. In addition, former APMs all have their own networks, and can tip off Mayer to promising hires.”
Following her move, Mayer sent out an email to the APM network as an update and a promise to keep in touch… and possibly as a welcome to the Yahoo family.
Half-Life 2 art director Viktor Antonov is disappointed in today’s video game landscape, suggesting that there are too many war games, sequels, and games that take place in New York.
Antonov challenges developers to explore science fiction and to create games within fictional landscapes. He believes this requires more creativity and yields a more interesting product. He is also surprised that we are not seeing more expansion into sub-genres.
“There’s a place for thousands of different sub-genres and genres,” notes Antonov. “Imagine the times when you were in the ’40s and there were Westerns in Hollywood cinema: there were so many of them that none will be compared with another one, because there was a genre.”
He believes his new game, “Dishonored,” will help bring artistic integrity back to fictional video game worlds. The world in the game, Dunwall, is molded after London and Edinburgh in the mid-1800s to the 1930s.
“We have gone out of our way to defend the art part of the project, and set a very high standard — unusually high standard, in terms of precision and art production,” explains Antonov. “Part of this was not just doing the drawings, but talking and communicating with the publisher and the game designers and creative directors that that’s really necessary.”
Antonov believes Dunwall will excite players even more than Half-Life 2’s iconic “City 17.”
“We have a pretty good excitement about the project now, but we’ll know once someone has experienced the game, where art meets music meets gameplay meets rhythm — and that creates the thing that has no vocabulary, which is the game experience: these climactic, unforgettable moments that you get in three games in your life and you remember forever,” he says.
