Flash thoughts

I wanted to jot down some of our thoughts on Adobe’s Flash products so that customers and critics may better understand why we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads.

Read Steve Jobs' thoughts on Flash on the Apple website.

Microsoft takes H.264 stand

"In its HTML5 support, IE9 will support playback of H.264 video only," Internet Explorer General Manager Dean Hachamovitch said in a blog post. His reasons for the support: the format is widely used in the computing industry, from video cameras to Google's YouTube, it benefits from hardware decoding support that improves performance, and there are questions about the rights to use H.264's chief rival today, Ogg Theora.

The Web video muddle undermines Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs' argument against Flash made Thursday. He argues that a collection of new Web technologies including HTML5's video can replace what Flash offers and touts the H.264 support in the iPhone, iPad, and Safari. But while the Web video codec debate continues, developers can use Flash to smooth over differences--as long as they don't need to reach the iPhone.

Full article on cnet news.

Beyond HDTV

"Beyond HDTV: Implications for Digital Delivery" is an independent report by ZetaCast Ltd, commissioned by Ofcom and released on July 2009.

This report provides a review of next generation television display technology developments, in order to gain insight into the bit rates likely to be required to deliver such services in the future. It concentrates on the potential development of stereoscopic TV (“3D” TV) and Ultra High Definition television (UHDTV), although other issues such as higher frame rate, wider aspect ratio, greater bit depth, improved chrominance resolution and wider colour gamut are also considered.

The report is freely available in PDF.

Google to open VP8

According to a report at NewTeeVee, inside sources have confirmed that Google will be open-sourcing the On2 VP8 video codec next month at the Google I/O conference. Mozilla and Google will also reportedly announce plans to implement support for VP8 in their respective browsers at that time. The move could have profound ramifications on the viability of standards-based video playback and the future of rich media on the Internet.

Nokia acquires MetaCarta

Nokia announced that it has acquired MetaCarta Inc., a privately owned company which employs over 30 people and has expertise in geographic intelligence solutions.

MetaCarta Inc. provides technology for finding anything written about any place. MetaCarta unique technology combines geosearch and geotagging capabilities allowing users to find content about a location in internal and external data stores. MetaCarta's products make data and unstructured content "location-aware" and geographically relevant for easier organization and quicker action. MetaCarta's technology will be used in the area of local search in Location and other services.

Advanced Image Coding

The Advanced Image Coding and Evaluation Methodologies (ISO/IEC 29170 - AIC), is a new JPEG work item for standardization of a new evaluation approaches and image compression system for any potential technologies can be identified which significantly would improve the current image coding standards.

AIC ad hoc group is pleased to announce the production of calls for technologies, use cases, requirement, evaluation procedures and test material for three targeted applications: medical imaging, camera sensors imaging and security applications. AIC ad hoc group also continues the progress in the creation of guidelines for evaluation of coding technologies.

See the press release of the 51st WG1 meeting.

Natal motion sensor

Microsoft Corp. and PrimeSense, a company developing 3D-sensing and recognition technologies, announced that PrimeSense will be providing its technology for use in the Project Natal motion sensor for Xbox 360.

The PrimeSensor Reference Design is a low-cost, plug and play, USB-powered device that can either sit on top of or next to a television screen or a monitor, or be integrated into them. The Reference Design generates realtime depth, color and audio data of the living room scene. It works in all room lighting conditions (whether in complete darkness or in a fully lit room). It does not require the user to wear or hold anything, does not require calibration and does not require computational resources from the host’s processor.

The PrimeSense SoC contains a highly parallel computational logic designed by PrimeSense that calculates the depth value of every pixel, based on the signal from a standard CMOS sensor and the NITE processing middleware translates raw visual data, such as depth and color, into meaningful application commands.