Category Archives: Cool Tech

Snap Spectacles

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Snap Inc. has sold more than 100,000 of its funky retro Spectacles.

Formerly Snapchat Inc., the social multimedia firm now considers itself…

“…a camera company. We believe that reinventing the camera represents our greatest opportunity to improve the way people live and communicate. Our products empower people to express themselves, live in the moment, learn about the world, and have fun together.”

In related news, a judge has ruled against a trademark infringement case brought against Snap by Eyebobs of Minnesota. They…

“…felt the similarity of the eyeball logos would lead a Spectacles user or Eyebobs customer to think the two companies were partners, or had collaborated.”

However, Snap…

“…denied these claims, adding that a crucial flaw in Eyebobs’s argument was the trademark in question. While Snap held a trademark on its eyeball logo, Eyebobs only had a trademark on its name, not its logo.”

Ouch!

You be the judge:

My take: I’m intrigued by the POV angle of the camera in these smartglasses but a negative is the circular 1088 resolution. And getting your video out of Snap and into something you can edit might take some finagling.

How to encode movies in cells using DNA

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As reported widely last week, Seth Shipman, from Harvard Medical School, has used CRISPR-Cas technology to encode a 36 x 26 pixel movie into the DNA of living E. coli bacteria.

“The mini-movie, really a GIF, is a five-frame animation of a galloping thoroughbred mare named Annie G. The images were taken by the pioneering photographer Eadweard Muybridge in the late 1800s for his photo series titled ‘Human and Animal Locomotion.'”

They explain it all in a bigger movie:

They hope to turn cells into living recorders to store information from the immediate environment.

Curiously, the scientists who did this in March of this year don’t seem to have received much coverage. And they accomplished much more: encoding, among other things, a gift card and a computer virus. Obviously, the Harvard brand has better publicists.

And similar feats have been done before. IBM spelled out its name in atoms in 1989.

My take: this is just a stunt to prove we can encode information in DNA, something Mother Nature has been doing for billions of years. But of course, let’s not forget the unintended consequences. When you mess around with Mother Nature, things don’t always go as planned. Imagine encoding ‘Godzilla‘ — and then the DNA mutates!

Interactive video comes to Netflix

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Casey Newton reports on The Verge that Netflix is testing interactive video with half its audience — kids.

The first title is Puss in Book: Trapped in an Epic Tale.

Carla Engelbrecht Fisher, Netflix’s director of product innovation, says:

“Kids are already talking to the screen. They’re touching every screen. They think everything is interactive.”

The result is a branching story that results in varying viewing lengths of 18 to 39 minutes.

A second title will have a simpler structure with four endings:

Note that Netflix has not invented branching stories — Choose Your Own Adventure published 250 million gamebooks over two decades in the previous millennium.

My take: it’s interesting that Netflix only has the technology working on half of their platforms. Nevertheless the potential is seductive. Think of the dramatic possibilities: “Feeling lucky, punk?” or “You take the blue pill—the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill — you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.” One thing writers will have to get used to is the cavalier ease at which the audience will be able change the narrative — kind of like print designers had to let go of exact specificity when the web came along.

Google promotes VR180 on Youtube

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Frank Rodriguez, Google’s VR Product Manager has posted The world as you see it with VR180 on both Google and Youtube.

“VR180 videos focus on what’s in front of you, are high resolution, and look great on desktop and on mobile. They transition seamlessly to a VR experience when viewed with Cardboard, Daydream, and PSVR, which allow you to view the images stereoscopically in 3-D, where near things look near, and far things appear far. VR180 also supports livestreaming videos so creators and fans can be together in real time.”

There are two main differences between 360 Video and VR180:

  • VR180 lacks the ‘back 180’ (which can therefore allow for higher resolution up front)
  • VR180 is stereoscopic, using two lenses to create true 3D, from the camera’s fixed point of view.

In addition, Google announced that they want to help build new VR180 cameras, initially partnering with Lenovo, LG, and YI Technology. Team Lucid tells me, “We hope to be the first certified camera for this program and will be sending updates via social on our progress.”

See the VR180 playlist on Youtube’s official Virtual Reality channel.

My take: glad to see Google/Youtube agree with me: 3D VR180 is a friendlier  version of 360 Video and true Virtual Reality. My only concern is that for browsers, be they web or mobile, they’ve removed the mouse or keyboard controls; the immersive goodies are for VR headsets exclusively. However, for a filmmaker like me who likes to shoot on a tripod, this promises to be the best of both worlds.

360 Video Heatmap Analytics

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In your 360-degree and VR videos, the audience can look almost anywhere. You might hope they’re looking over here, but what if they’re looking over there?

Now there’s a way to find out where viewers are looking.

Youtube Creator Blog has just posted Hot and Cold: Heatmaps in VR .

“Today we’re introducing heatmaps for 360-degree and VR videos with over 1,000 views, which will give you specific insight into how your viewers are engaging with your content. With heatmaps, you’ll be able to see exactly what parts of your video are catching a viewer’s attention and how long they’re looking at a specific part of the video.”

Some key findings based on their research:

  • People spend 75% of their time within the front 90 degrees of a video.
  • Almost 20% of views are directly behind.
  • Mobile viewers using Google Cardboard need a couple of seconds to get situated before the action starts.

They also suggest: “Try using markers and animations to draw attention to different parts of the scene.”

My take: these analytics are golden if you’re making immersive video. My advice is to map out where you think attention will linger and then compare it with actual results. This should help you refine your content. In addition, I feel these findings bolster my contention that 180-degree 3D immersive video is superior to flat 360 for narrative immersive video.

LucidCam: 3D camera for the masses

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Lucid is about to release a stereoscopic video camera that I feel will be the breakthrough ‘VR’ has been waiting for.

The LucidCam ships in July 2017 for just $499. You get:

  • 180° x 180° Field of View, 4K Images jpg, 4K-30fps/eye Videos mp4
  • Single operation button with light and sound indications
  • Built-in stereo audio with dual mics for stereoscopic caption
  • On-board stabilization and merging
  • Supports Micro SD card, micro USB connection, and mini HDMI output
  • Wifi for livestream, data transfer USB 2.0
  • Splash proof (IP54 certified) with accessory options of waterproof case for diving & mounts
  • Apps: iOS and Android

To clarify, this is not ‘virtual reality’. It is not ‘360’. It is ‘3D 180 reality’.

The cute little camera looks like a morph of a phone and a mouse, with two big eyes on one side.

My take: the ease and simplicity of this camera will finally usher in 3D for the masses. ‘3D 180 reality’ most closely resembles how we truly see the world. I think the storytelling applications are very exciting: imagine point-of-view shots that are undeniably real!

Portals Project connects random strangers globally

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Stephanie Elam and Jason Kravarik bring us a story about applied communications technology in CNN Style called The Portals Project: This gold box is ‘better than Facebook’.

The Portals Project is the brainchild of Amar Bakshi.

Each shipping container covered in gold paint is connected by a wall-sized video screen to a doppleganger somewhere else in the world — in any of these countries: Afghanistan, Cuba, Germany, Honduras, India, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya, Mexico, Myanmar, Pakistan, Palestine, Rwanda, South Korea, United Kingdom, and the United States.

“Portals are gold spaces equipped with immersive audiovisual technology. When you enter a Portal, you come face-to-face with someone in a distant Portal live and full-body, as if in the same room.”

The Portals connect strangers from very different backgrounds and allow them to converse and to find common ground.

My take: This sounds like a fantastic use of place, technology and the internet to foster communication between people on opposite sides of the world. I envisioned something similar in the early 90’s called “Central Square”. This was to be a network of camera kiosks set up in large public areas in major cities and available to anyone to make statements to the world. At other times, viewers could simply watch what was going on. Then the internet happened and public webcams.

Nostalgic sound used as performance enhancer

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Ian Burrell, writing in The Independent, reports that The Times’ newsroom is set to ring with the sounds of typewriters once more.

“To the surprise of Times journalists, a tall speaker on a stand has been erected in the newsroom to pump out typewriter sounds, to increase energy levels and help reporters to hit deadlines. The audio begins with the gentle patter of a single typewriter and slowly builds to a crescendo, with the keys of ranks of machines hammering down as the paper’s print edition is due to go to press.”

He also references Hanx Writer, an iOS app that turns your iPhone or iPad into a metaphysical typewriter, complete with sounds.

My take: Really? I will admit to liking the analogue machines I once used but that was only until the keys jammed or — oops — a typo! And then you had to find an envelope and — gasp — a postage stamp. Sometimes digital is better. But creating a soundscape of typewriters to prompt journalists to work faster seems highly manipulative.

Woody Harrelson: live cinema pioneer

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Believe it or not, Woody Harrelson pulled it off!

Last week I posted about his audacious plan to to live-stream live cinema. Apparently, other than a few bumpy bits, it worked!

From the Guardian review by Ryan Gilbey:

“Even at its liveliest, cinema can only ever be a refrigerated medium, relaying images to us that were shot months, years even decades earlier. But this week there was an exception to that rule. Woody Harrelson’s directorial debut, Lost in London, was broadcast live to more than 500 cinemas in the US, and one in the UK, as it was being filmed on the streets of the capital at 2am on Friday. As if that were not impressive enough, the picture was shot in a single unbroken 100-minute take with a cast of 30 (plus hundreds of extras) in 14 locations, two black cabs, one police vehicle and a VW camper van festooned with fairy lights. Actors who try their hand as a director typically start off with something small-scale – a sensitive coming-of-age story, say, such as Jodie Foster’s Little Man Tate or Robert De Niro’s A Bronx Tale. With Lost in London, Harrelson went as far in the opposite direction as one can imagine. This was edge-of-the-seat, seat-of-the-pants film-making. He didn’t just jump in at the deep end: he did so into shark-filled waters. … Nothing, though, will quite match the sensation of having watched the messy but miraculous birth of a genuine oddity: part celebrity satire, part mea culpa, part site-specific, one-night-only art installation.”

My take: unfortunately, none of the theatres were located in Canada. Netflix, can you get this please?

Interactive Cinema: CtrlMovie introduces CtrlEdit

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Does interactivity mesh well with cinema?

Canada has a historical connection to interactive movies: the first one screened at Expo 67, at the Czechoslovakia pavillion. And yet, no matter what path the audience chose, the ending was always the same.

On CMF Trends, Benjamin Hoguet explores CtrlEdit, a new tool for producing interactive movies, from a Swiss company called CtrlMovie.

CtrlMovie allows filmmakers to add:

  1. Buttons during playback to allow the user to influence the story
  2. Dynamic Jump Actions to flexibly jump between segments – at an exact timecode, in a time frame or triggered by user actions
  3. Swipe Mode to allow users to look around in the film by panning the image with swipe gestures
  4. Animated Masks to make objects in the film tappable
  5. Variables to store user decisions, and retrieve them later for a delayed effect on the story
  6. Expressions to evaluate the former actions of the user and to influence the storyline using short java scripts
  7. Separate Multiple Audio Tracks, independent from the video segments and jump actions
  8. Dynamic Overlays to display browser windows and other interactive elements on top of the movie during playback
  9. Subtitles easily to support a wider audience.

Hoguet quotes co-founder Baptiste Planche:

“CtrlEdit is used once all video segments have been edited to incorporate them into an interactive whole. The solution costs nothing to purchase if we are able to set up a revenue sharing system with the producer. It goes without saying that the model is adaptable. For example, if the final project is not profitable, we can set a price for the software license. In all cases, we are very open to encouraging creators to make maximum use of our tool. The only aspect to which we pay attention is compliance with a certain level of quality regardless of the project. At present, we are receiving a lot of requests from creators and producers and some ten or so projects are underway—including two or three at an advanced stage.”

My take: Perhaps CtrlMovie is the middle ground between the almost-full interactivity of video games and the total-cut-scene experience of Hardcore Henry. And yet, I’m not convinced that the audience needs to be ‘in’ the movie; I think it might be engaging enough just to ‘direct’ the story. Third person, not first person. More like Run Lola Run.