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CALM Down: FCC Instructs Advertisers to Lower the Volume

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December 15, 2011

We finally have progress on the CALM Act. After making its way through Capitol Hill, the act has formally been adopted in a ruling by the FCC, and will go into effect in December 2012.

“Responding to years of complaints that the volume on commercials was much louder than that of the programming that the ads accompany, the FCC on Tuesday passed the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act (CALM) to make sure that the sound level is the same for commercials and news and entertainment programming,” reports the Los Angeles Times.

The act, which makes it so commercials will have to “remain in-step with the audio levels of scheduled programming,” comes a year after Congress passed commercial volume legislation and instructed the FCC to create enforcement rules.

“I cannot tell you how many hundreds of citizens have told me — personally, through emails and letters, at public hearings, even across the family dinner table — how obnoxiously intrusive they find loud commercials,” explained FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps.

“We’re glad that consumers are finally going to get some relief from extra-loud TV ads,” said Parul P. Desai, policy counsel for Consumers Union. “People have been complaining about the volume of TV commercials for decades.”

Secret Record Label Demands: Will Subscription Music Ever Be Profitable?

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December 14, 2011
  • Digital music veteran Michael Robertson, founder and former CEO of MP3.com and current CEO of MP3tunes and DAR.fm, offers a compelling take on digital music services in GigaOM.
  • Robertson suggests that the economics of the current digital music subscription model is one-sided, based on copyright law that grants record labels and publishers a government-backed monopoly, forcing services such as Spotify, Rhapsody, MOG and Rdio to comply with their demands.
  • The article contends that the current model may make it impossible for digital vendors to turn a profit.
  • Until recently, strict non-disclosure agreements prevented a full understanding of this part of the industry. “For the first time, people are talking, and these previously secret demands are being made public,” writes Roberston, before he details eight ways the labels and publishers are constraining music services.
  • Areas of concern include: 1) General deal structure; 2) Labels receive equity stake; 3) Up front (and/or minimum) payments; 4) Detailed reporting, including monthly play counts; 5) Data normalization; 6) Publishing deals; 7) Most favored nation (deal term demanded by every major label); and 8) Non-disclosure (strict language prohibiting the digital music company from revealing what they pay to the labels).
  • Robertson’s final note: “Online radio services such as Pandora take advantage of a government-supervised license available only to radio broadcasters thus sidestepping dealing with record labels. While the per-song fees are daunting, they bypass virtually all of the terms listed above.”

CES Predictions: Forrester Lists Five Anticipated Computing Form Factors

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December 14, 2011
  • Forrester Research analyst Sarah Rotman Epps reveals the consumer electronics computing form factors that she expects to see at CES 2012, as reported in eWeek.
  • First is wearable devices, including current technology like the Lark sleep tracker or biometric bracelets that connect wearers with their devices.
  • Next, embedded devices — “gadgets that include computing processors and sensors, such as refrigerators, coffee machines, and other Web-enabled devices” — are expected to become more popular, allowing the remote use of devices.
  • “Epps also sees ‘surfaces,’ or larger interactive displays that rely on multi-touch, voice and gesture input, facial recognition, near-field communication (NFC) signals and any other manner of wireless technologies and sensors,” explains the article.
  • Screens will be reinvented, made flexible to be folded, rolled up or flexed and will come in all shapes and sizes.
  • Lastly, Epps predicts mini-projectors to make advances, allowing users to manipulate interactive projections in 3D space.
  • “The most successful products will work with other products — for example, wearables that talk to smartphones and TVs; surfaces that are activated by the presence of your smartphone,” Epps said. “We’re living in a multi-device, multi-connection world, and the best experiences will be those that work across devices and platforms.”

Watch It: Startup Launches Movie Queue that Works Across Platforms

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December 14, 2011
  • Plexus Entertainment has launched a beta-version of its new movie-bookmarking service called “Watch It” that allows users “to keep track of movies they’re interested in, where those movies are playing, and to be proactively notified of all the different ways to view those films,” reports TechCrunch.
  • The post describes the service as “a Netflix queue for movies on the Web.” In addition to being a stand-alone site, Watch It buttons have launched on film sites, social media pages, industry trade publications and more.
  • “From theaters to streaming movies on demand from Amazon Instant Video, VUDU, and iTunes, the Watch It button enables users to create and maintain personalized queues of movies they want to see, with a range of tools for sorting and filtering those movies that they’ve queued. Watch It is also leveraging social networking by allowing users to share their movie choices with friends via Facebook Connect,” TechCrunch explains.
  • The service also has the ability to provide valuable analytics for movie marketers and promoters and can be used for reader engagement and a source of commerce with the easily embeddable button.

Lumus to Demo 720p See-Through Video Glasses at CES

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December 14, 2011
  • Coming to CES: Lumus will preview its see-through HD video glasses that offer clear 3D video in 720p and even allow interaction with the world via augmented reality.
  • A 1080p version is also on its way, but commercial offerings of the glasses may not happen for some time.
  • “The lenses are completely transparent (and can be tuned for folks with vision problems) and when enabled the glasses display a crystal clear, 87-inch screen about ten feet away from you,” which TechCrunch reports is stunning. “The displays themselves are 1280 x 720 pixels and Lumus has created iPhone-compatible adapters that can display HD video right through the pumps and into the lenses.”
  • “Although these guys will be showing their gear at CES, they’re going the OEM route and are currently looking for partners to use the technology in AR displays, video games, and media players,” explains the post. “There won’t be any Lumus-branded ‘They Live’ style super glasses any time soon, although they do have some major players interested in the technology.”
  • TechCrunch predicts that wearable devices such as this will eventually replace hand-held screens.

Trillion-Frames-Per-Second Video: The Slowest Fastest Camera

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December 14, 2011
  • Researchers at MIT have developed a new imaging system that can record one trillion exposures per second. “That’s fast enough to produce a slow-motion video of a burst of light traveling the length of a one-liter bottle, bouncing off the cap and reflecting back to the bottle’s bottom,” reports MIT News.
  • Andreas Velten, one of the system’s developers at the MIT Media Lab, describes it as the “ultimate” in slow motion: “There’s nothing in the universe that looks fast to this camera,” he explains.
  • “The system relies on a recent technology called a streak camera, deployed in a totally unexpected way,” explains the article. “The aperture of the streak camera is a narrow slit. Particles of light — photons — enter the camera through the slit and pass through an electric field that deflects them in a direction perpendicular to the slit. Because the electric field is changing very rapidly, it deflects late-arriving photons more than it does early-arriving ones.”
  • However, to produce the super-slow-motion videos, the crew needs to perform the same experiment repeatedly: “It takes only a nanosecond — a billionth of a second — for light to scatter through a bottle, but it takes about an hour to collect all the data necessary for the final video.” Media Lab Associate Professor Ramesh Raskar calls the system “the world’s slowest fastest camera.”
  • “Although impractical for non-repeatable situations like filming live action, this research could lead to better, cheaper lighting,” points out ETCentric staffer Phil Lelyveld.
  • Be sure not to miss the 3-minute MIT Media Lab video.

Become Your Own Content Programmer with Twitvid Social Video Network

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December 14, 2011
  • Twitvid, a platform to share videos while Tweeting, just launched a new social video network that will “allow anyone to become a powerful video programmer, by curating links from YouTube, Vimeo or Twitvid,” reports Lost Remote.
  • “The purpose of this network is about discovering video. When you get followers, when you share a video, you’ll get viewership and engagement on the video and people talking and watching the next episode,” Twitvid CEO Mo Adham said. He believes the project is complementary, not competitive, to Twitter and YouTube.
  • The service allows users to make their pages open channels so anyone can share links, close it so only they can post links or assign a team of “editors” that can also contribute.
  • Several TV companies and shows already use Twitvid: “These tools will now help them build a following around sharing these clips,” the article states. As of now, only YouTube, Vimeo and Twitvid clips can be shared.

Facebook Now Responsible for More Than Half of All Online Sharing

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December 14, 2011
  • Social sharing remains on the rise and mobile sharing has grown over 600 percent since 2010, according to a new comprehensive report from sharing platform AddThis and social data aggregator Clearspring that analyzed more than 1.2 billion users.
  • According to the study, Facebook now comprises 52.1 percent of sharing on the Web. Twitter makes up 13.5 percent (52 percent in Japan, interestingly) and has shown 576.9 percent growth.
  • “Tumblr sharing has grown over 1299.5 percent, and is accelerating. This growth sharply contrasts with Digg and Myspace, whose sharing rates continue to fall (by 47.7 percent and 56.9 percent respectively),” reports The Next Web. “Facebook continues to grow, and Chrome is on its way to becoming the world’s most social browser.”
  • The post includes an infographic that outlines 2011 social sharing trends.

CES: Audible Magic Announces Live TV Content Synchronization Service

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December 13, 2011
  • Audible Magic is adding its automated content recognition (ACR) technology to a live identification and synchronization service for television.
  • The company claims the new service will use the patented digital-fingerprint ACR technology “to identify TV content even if it is live, never-before-seen, reality-based material.”
  • “For content owners, broadcasters, programmers, and other application providers, this service also offers several significant new opportunities,” suggests the press release. “With it, for example, they can now add content-aware intelligence to smart, connected device applications on televisions, mobile devices, and set-top boxes. In addition, they can use the intelligence they acquire to create and support new forms of social engagement, advertising recognition and response, and audience measurement.”
  • Details about the service will be released during demonstrations at the CES Eureka Park Tech Zone in the Bellini Ballroom of the Venetian Hotel.

Panasonic 3D Plasma Named as CES Design and Engineering Honoree

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December 13, 2011
  • Panasonic has been named a CES Innovations Design and Engineering Awards Honoree for its 65-inch Professional Plasma Display.
  • The company is targeting the home theater and post-production markets with its TH-65VX300U and claims the display’s “color reproduction approaches digital cinema standards.”
  • According to the press release: “The display’s ultra high-speed drive technology achieves clear and extremely detailed 3D video and also enhances 2D content. The advanced drive provides smoother gradation, which is double the smoothness of conventional models, resulting in richer gradation expression in a dark area of the screen allowing the viewer to see what is happening in extremely low-lit areas.”
  • The release also suggests the high-speed drive technology enables “crisp and clear” images, especially for sports and action films.
  • “The display also features a scaler bypass function which allows for pure degradation-free images and the use of an external scaler,” explains Panasonic. “With 3D images…the display features phosphor improvements and original lighting controls that deliver clear images with virtually no crosstalk.”

Google Launches Graphics-Heavy News Reader for Android and iOS

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December 13, 2011
  • Google plans to challenge Flipboard with its free news reader, available for tablets and phones from the Android Market or iTunes App Store.
  • Formerly codenamed Propeller, the newly named Currents app provides a “more magazine like reading experience,” with, of course, Google+ integration.
  • “The free app offers you a swipeable, graphics-heavy way to read material from partners like AllThingsD, PBS, Huffington Post and Fast Company, as well as public Google+ feeds and RSS,” reports Engadget. “You can even import your Google Reader subscriptions — and it all gets cached for offline viewing.”
  • Google Currents is only available in the U.S. at this time.
  • The Engadget post includes a short video demo.

Network World Offers a Quick Gadget Preview for the 2012 CES

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December 13, 2011
  • Network World has posted a slideshow of 20 gadgets and services expected to be featured at January’s CES.
  • The products are no surprise since they were already showcased at CEA’s recent press event in New York City, but the slideshow is a fun teaser for some of the gadgets we can expect to hear more about next month.
  • Highlights of the slideshow include: Biscotti HD video calling system that plugs into your HDTV, the Tailgater Portable HDTV System from Dish Network, Motorola’s $299 Universal Lapdock 100 with 10-inch screen and keyboard, the $80 ZAGGkeys FLEX keyboard accessory for universal smartphone and tablet support, Polaroid’s new Z340 camera with SD card and instant printing, and Sennheiser’s $150 X320 headphones designed for the Xbox 360.

TechRadar Staff Outlines the 10 Gadgets to Look Forward to in 2012

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December 13, 2011
  • TechRadar offers an interesting snapshot of the 10 gadgets their staff is most looking forward to in 2012, some of which we should expect to see at CES next month.
  • “Where once we were waiting on the influx of dual-core tablets, now we’re looking at a quad-core revolution on the horizon,” explains the post. “We were looking forward to Android 3.0 and Google’s Chrome OS, but now we’re clamouring for Android 4.0 and Windows 8. Gaming also looks set to have a bumper year, with new consoles and technologies coming, and this is all before we get the usual raft of awesome announcements at CES 2012 in January.”
  • The following comprise the 10 picks that the TechRadar staff are most excited about: 1) New video streaming options and other content for the Amazon Kindle Fire — “perhaps the best gadget bargain of this era;” 2) Wii U with 1080p output, 3D support and a new controller; 3) Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime — the first Nvidia Tegra 3 tablet; 4) Windows 8 tablets with Metro interface and support for ARM processors; 5) Apple’s 2012 tablet (iPad 3 with retina display?); 6) PlayStation Vita with quad-core graphics processor; 7) Asus Padfone with Android 4.0 and Nvidia’s Tegra 3 quad-core CPU; 8) Sony PlayStation 3D display — “a brilliant way to get into 3D gaming without totally breaking the bank;” 9) Android 4.0 tablets with varieties of apps and widgets; and 10) Ultrabooks “that get it right.”

Amazon Promises Update Following Negative Reviews to Kindle Fire

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December 13, 2011
  • Amidst customer complaints and bad reviews, Amazon plans to unveil an over-the-air-update to the Kindle Fire and is also expected to produce an improved version of the device.
  • Some of the complaints include: no external volume control; the off switch is easily unintentionally hit; Web pages load slowly; there is no privacy for multiple users; and the touchscreen delays and can be difficult to operate for users “whose fingers are not as slender as toothpicks” one critic warns.
  • Some Fire consumers who bought the product based on faith in the company have expressed disappointment in reviews. Also, some unhappy customers recommend just spending the extra money on an iPad.
  • Amazon considers the Kindle crucial to its success as a virtual store and it is already at risk with current pricing that can lose as much as $20 on each $79 Fire. Although the negative feedback might spell doom for some companies, Forbes warns “it would be foolish to underestimate Amazon.”
  • If the company can make a well-liked, reliable product, Amazon’s low prices will ensure a decent market share. However, the company is hoping for a device that is more than an e-book reader, and an updated version may be needed to achieve this. One analyst noted there is nothing to do with the tablet “unless you’re planning on putting books, a lot of books, on it.”
  • One thing Amazon got right with the Fire: “Shopping on Amazon is a breeze,” reports The New York Times.

Combating Piracy: Does Hollywood Need to Rethink Windows Strategy?

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December 12, 2011
  • As consumers continue to expect ubiquitous, easy and immediate ways to access media content, Hollywood’s release windows strategy has become “the root cause of piracy,” suggest The Hill.
  • Research at Carnegie Mellon University shows that every week customers have to wait before they can buy a DVD leads to 1.8 percent lower DVD sales. Moreover, as pirated versions are available 14 weeks before legal versions, the result is a 70 percent increase in pirated movie downloads.
  • The article suggests that Hollywood needs to adjust its current windowing strategy by looking at selling content in theaters, on DVD and through digital services “around the same time, perhaps at different price points.”
  • When VCRs were first introduced, they were viewed by the industry as a potentially dangerous piracy tool. However, VCRs eventually became a highly lucrative mechanism for the home video rental business.
  • The Hill concludes, “technology required the industry to adapt then, and it requires the same now. If Hollywood and publishers can do so, they stand a much better chance of thriving in a global digital marketplace.”

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