Microsoft acquires VideoSurf

“VideoSurf’s content analytics technology will enhance the search and discovery of entertainment content across our platform,” said Alex Garden, director of Xbox LIVE for the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft. “This holiday we will launch voice search across our entertainment partners on Xbox LIVE. Over time, as we integrate VideoSurf’s technology into our system, we are excited about the potential to have content tagged in real time to increase the speed and relevance of the search results.”

Source: Microsoft.

Microsoft to acquire Skype

Microsoft Corp. agreed to buy Internet phone company Skype Technologies SA for $8.5 billion in cash — the most aggressive move yet by Microsoft to play in the increasingly converged worlds of communication, information and entertainment. The deal will let Microsoft "be more ambitious, do more things," Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said in an interview.

Skype will become a new business division within Microsoft, and Skype Chief Executive Mr. Tony Bates will assume the title of president of the Microsoft Skype Division, reporting directly to Mr. Ballmer.

The Skype deal ranks as the biggest acquisition in the 36-year history of Microsoft, a company that traditionally has shied away from large deals. In 2007, Microsoft paid approximately $6 billion to acquire online advertising firm aQuantive Inc. Many current and former Microsoft executives believe Microsoft significantly overpaid for that deal. But they are also relieved that Microsoft gave up on an unsolicited $48 billion offer for Yahoo Inc. nearly three years ago. Yahoo is valued at half that sum today. 

 

Source: Wall Street Journal.

Microsoft to release Kinect SDK

Craig Mundie, Microsoft’s chief research and strategy officer, and Don Mattrick, president of Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business, announced that the company plans to release a non-commercial Kinect for Windows software development kit (SDK) from Microsoft Research this spring.

While Microsoft plans to release a commercial version at a later date, this SDK will be a starter kit to make it simpler for the academic research and enthusiast communities to create rich natural user interfaces using Kinect technology. The SDK will give users access to deep Kinect system information such as audio, system application-programming interfaces, and direct control of the Kinect sensor.

Source: Microsoft Research.

Minority Report interface with Kinect

A member of the research staff at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) has created a Minority Report interface using the Kinect 3D sensor and open source software. Not only does the device only cost $150, you can use it without any gloves. Garratt Gallagher, the interfaces’s creator, shows off some basic gesture controls in the video below.

Source: Singularity Hub.

Windows 7, Firefox and H.264/AVC

Microsoft will release a plugin that allows Firefox to tap into Windows 7′s native H.264 support for HTML5 video. This will hopefully help streamline things on the web and get us moving all towards one standard format. However it mightn’t bode well with fans who want to make the move away from H.264.

Source: Windows 7 News.

Microsoft and Polycom join forces with SVC

Microsoft is among the first companies to announce its intention to adopt Polycom's H.264 SVC technology, furthering the recently announced strategic relationship between the two companies to deliver and market integrated Unified Communications (UC) solutions.

"Microsoft and Polycom are committed to support open, interoperable UC solutions," said Kirk Koenigsbauer, corporate vice president, Office Business Productivity Marketing Group, Microsoft. "Video collaboration can help improve customer productivity and lower costs. By integrating H.264 SVC technology within our broader solution offering, Microsoft and Polycom can make it easier for millions of people to leverage video communications within familiar Microsoft applications."

Read the press release and watch the video.

Microsoft patents GPU-accelerated video encoding

In October 2004 Microsoft applied for a patent titled “Accelerated video encoding using a graphics processing unit”, which has been now granted. 

It outlines a concept where the GPU is used, among others, to perform motion estimation in videos, the use of the depth buffer of the GPU, to determine comprising, collocating video frames, mapping pixels to texels, frame processing using the GPU and output of data to the CPU.

The patent appears to cover all bases of GPU-accelerated video encoding, which hands Microsoft the rights to a major technology that already impacts prosumer applications and is making its way into the mainstream as we are moving into HD and beyond. 

Source: Conceivably Tech.

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.

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.

Smooth Streaming in Vancouver

NBC plans to offer more than 400 hours of live competition and more than 1,000 hours of full-event replay through its NBC Olympics website, dedicated to the Vancouver Winter Olympics 2010. All the shows will be in HD 720p video quality, thanks to the Smooth Streaming capabilities of Microsoft's Silverlight 3.0.

Cnet news reports that Microsoft is also helping NBC by allowing the broadcaster to easily insert ads into the middle of video streams when there is a break in the action, something that proved to be technologically challenging for Beijing, where only so-called "pre-roll" ads were used.

HTTP video streaming

With the next version of its Flash Player client, Adobe Systems Inc. says it will finally allow media companies and service providers to stream Flash video without using its proprietary streaming protocol.

Adobe Flash Player 10.1 will support all the same live, on-demand, adaptive bit-rate, and DVR-like capabilities through HTTP that Adobe has built out to work with RTMP, its proprietary streaming protocol.

Microsoft cited scalability as one reason it chose to use HTTP video delivery for its Silverlight Smooth Streaming capabilities. And Akamai recently announced its HTTP-based HD Network, developing its own workaround to enable Flash streaming via HTTP, without Adobe's help.

Source: Contentinople.

No controller required

Microsoft introduced a prototype camera that can be used as a controller for the Xbox 360. Codenamed “Project Natal” the camera eliminates the need for a hand-held input device — instead, the camera can track a player’s full body movement, recognize their face and voice, scan images of real items and respond to both physical and vocal commands. Microsoft also debuted 10 exclusive new games and several additions to the Xbox Live online service.

Silverlight 3 Beta

Microsoft Silverlight 3 Beta was unveiled at MIX09. New features include:

• Live and on-demand true HD (720p+) Smooth Streaming. IIS Media Services (formerly IIS Media Pack), an integrated HTTP media delivery platform, features Smooth Streaming which dynamically detects and seamlessly switches, in real time, the video quality of a media file delivered to Silverlight based on local bandwidth and CPU conditions.
• More format choice. In addition to native support for VC-1/WMA, Silverlight 3 now offers users native support for MPEG-4-based H.264/AAC Audio, enabling content distributors to deliver high-quality content to a wide variety of computers and devices.
• True HD playback in full-screen. Leveraging graphics processor unit (GPU) hardware acceleration, Silverlight experiences can now be delivered in true full-screen HD (720p+).
• Extensible media format support. With the new Raw AV pipeline, Silverlight can easily support a wide variety of third-party codecs. Audio and video can be decoded outside the runtime and rendered in Silverlight, extending format support beyond the native codecs.
• Industry leading content protection. Silverlight DRM, Powered by PlayReady Content Protection enables protected in-browser experiences using AES encryption or Windows Media DRM.

It is interesting to know that YouTube is now using Silverlight for live video and audio streaming, as you can see here.

NanoTouch Display

In collaboration with the Hasso Plattener Institute in Potsdam, Germany, Microsoft R&D argued that the key to touch-enabling very small devices is to use touch on the device backside. In order to study this, they have created the 2.4” prototype device shown here.

In a user study, participants completed a pointing task successfully across all display sizes when using a back-of device interface. The touchscreen-based control condition, in contrast, failed for screen diagonals below 1 inch, because the user’s fingers occlude contents and prevent precision.

The project webpage is here, including a paper (PDF) submitted to the Computer and Human Interaction conference.

Microsoft announces H.264/AVC support for Silverlight

The new Microsoft Silverlight 2.0 includes support for the H.264/AVC video coding standard.

Following this link you can find a Q&A with Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of the Developer Division at Microsoft, talking about the new Silverlight. Here is an interesting excerpt:

Question: Historically, people have associated Microsoft with VC-1. Does this signal a change in direction?

Guthrie: No. Although we have been working with VC-1 for some time, it’s not widely recognized that Microsoft has also been an active participant in the standardization of H.264/MPEG AVC for many years, and we’ve included H.264 support in several Microsoft products. Microsoft’s Gary Sullivan was the chairman of the Joint Video Team (JVT), which developed the H.264 standard, and he recently accepted an Emmy Award on behalf of the JVT.

Question: Does this mean that Silverlight is moving away from Windows Media?

Guthrie: Not at all. This is about offering our customers more choice. Media producers and distributors around the world have enjoyed the high quality, flexibility and affordability of Windows Media formats for over a decade. As a testament to its pervasiveness, Windows Media can be found in almost every conceivable media scenario from desktop home video to feature films and TV broadcasts.