Random Accesses

A novel navigation system under development at Microsoft aims to tweak users' visual memory with carefully chosen video clips of a route. Developed with researchers from the University of Konstanz in Germany, the software creates video using 360-degree panoramic images of the street that are strung together. Such images have already been gathered by several different mapping companies for many roads around the world. The navigation system, called Videomap, adjusts the speed of the video and the picture to highlight key areas along the route.

"What we wanted to do is build a system where we could give [drivers] those visual cues before they got into the car," says Billy Chen, a researcher at Virtual Earth Labs, the research division of Microsoft Virtual Earth. Ideally, he says, the driver would feel as if she's driven the route before, even if she's never been on those streets.

Source: http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/23711/?a=f

Researchers from Stanford University have developed new artificial intelligence software called ZunaVision, which can place a still image or video on almost any surface inside a video clip. For example, in a video displaying a painting of the sea hanging on the wall in a living room, the picture on the wall can be edited and replaced by a video of Barak Obama giving a speech.

The user selects a polygon in the video where the new object will be inserted. Then the intelligent software analyzes the videos to match color, texture and lighting differences. Once the video or image to be inserted is cleverly modified to blend into its surroundings, the final product will look like a composite part of the original video. The researches even took into consideration shadows that might fall on the inserted image, making the results as authentic as possible.

With the aim of producing realistic results, the algorithm named “3D Surface Tracker Technology” is able to deal with people (or other “occluding objects”) passing in front of the inserted object.

Source: http://thefutureofthings.com/news/6123/place-any-video-inside-your-home-video.htmlvideoediting,

A collaborative technology developed several years ago at ETH Zurich in Switzerland is now being used in a theater in Scotland. The Living Canvas technology allows performers on stage to interact with recorded visuals projected on them.

As said the lead developer, who teamed with a theater director for this project, ‘Living Canvas frees the artist by following the performer on stage using very fast machine vision technology and adapting the projected video according to the position and pose of the moment.’ A demonstration of this technology should be seen during the Electronic Visualisation and the Arts event in London in July 2008.

This project is the brainchild of Martin Naef, an ETH Zurich graduate who works now at the Digital Design Studio of the Glasgow School of Art. He has been helped by Cathie Boyd, the director of the Theatre Cryptic in Glasgow.

Source: http://blogs.zdnet.com/emergingtech/?p=885

August 21, 2007 - Adobe, the San Jose software maker, announces that it is integrating a standard format for high definition video into the newest version of its immensely popular Flash video player. Flash players currently sit on 98 percent of all desktop computers and hundreds of millions of portable and handheld devices. Sites like YouTube, ABC.com and NBC.com favor Flash over competing players like Apple’s QuickTime and Microsoft’s Windows Media, since Flash is relatively easy to develop for and videos play directly in the browser.

The high-def standard that Adobe is embracing is called H.264. It is the same video format used in Blu-Ray and HD-DVD video players and the latest cable and satellite set-top boxes. Adobe will integrate support for H.264, and for the high-performance AAC audio standard, into the newest version of Flash, available for download today. But the changes will be gradually visible over the next year, as Flash video producers begin to encode their video in the higher quality format.

Source: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/08/21/coming-soon-web-video-in-high-definition/

Last week, Sun unveiled its new three-component platform for high-end video streaming—the Sun Streaming System. The new component behind the Streaming System is the Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switch, but the platform is designed to operate via a combination of the Sun Fire X4950, the Sun Fire X4500 (for storage), and the Sun Fire X4100 (streaming software servers), as shown below. It's a fascinating setup and a chance to look at some of the iron that will be called upon to power the Internet video boom.

At 14U, the X4950 Streaming Switch fills the majority of the necessary 22U to deploy a system as configured above, but packs a tremendous amount of power into its not-so-svelte frame.

Source: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070429-the-technology-behind-suns-new-streaming-system.html