Microsoft recently launched Kinect for Windows, the first Kinect sensor licensed for commercial use.
“Microsoft Dynamics, the company’s unit that develops enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management (CRM) software applications, is currently exploring business scenarios that could benefit from the use of Kinect technology,” reports ReadWriteWeb.
The workplace version of Kinect would have a wide range of uses in various industries and Microsoft believes it would be especially helpful in fields that require gloves (for safety or sanitation). Using the motion-detection technology bypasses the need to remove gloves.
“Or what about food service? You’ve been in the store where the worker wearing gloves makes your sandwich, then has to remove the gloves to operate the cash register,” said Microsoft Business Solutions Technical Fellow Mike Ehrenberg. “We all see a lot of things in the workplace that don’t make a lot of sense and can be improved.”
ReadWriteWeb added an update to its original post: “On Friday, a spokesperson for Microsoft clarified the company’s plans for exploring Kinect motion-detection technology in the workplace. The spokesperson said no products were currently in development.”
Kickstarting a new era of connected cars, auto manufacturers are adding larger touchscreen displays to vehicle dashboards and providing more software applications.
“Undaunted by fear of safety regulations, auto makers are piling new technologies into their vehicles: everything from 17-inch dashboard screens to services that check Facebook and buy movie tickets,” reports the Wall Street Journal.
GM is launching an 8-inch display this spring, for example, designed to assist drivers with playing music, providing navigation guidance and going through online applications with touch, steering wheel or voice controls.
“Ford Motor Co. already allows drivers to receive Twitter feeds and stream online music through its Sync technology,” adds WSJ. “New Mercedes-Benz cars this spring will tap into Facebook and perform Google searches.”
“There is more to come, too,” suggest the article. “Software to import iPhone and Android applications is around the corner.”
Auto makers say the hands-free steering wheel and voice control features of the systems are safe, but not all regulators agree. The Transportation Department is developing a set of electronics guidelines for manufacturers and the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration is expected to release a report later this year that will examine whether these technologies are a distraction.
A new study by researchers from Wellesley College and the University of Missouri, “Reel Piracy: The Effect of Online Film Piracy on International Box Office Sales,” suggests that there is minimal (if any) loss of U.S. box office sales due to BitTorrent pirating.
However, international piracy is another issue, due largely to the lack of legal options.
“More importantly, the report revealed that movie studios hold the power to curb piracy by decreasing international box office release windows,” reports Digital Trends.
The study highlights three key problems for movie studios: 1) “There is a shortage of international theaters;” 2) “The complexity of organizing promotional appearances for the film’s actors adds to the delay;” and 3) “Action and science fiction genres exhibit the highest supply of online pirated movies.”
“Consumers in the U.S. who would choose between the box office and piracy choose the box office (and the remaining U.S. pirates had valuations lower than the ticket price) but that international consumers who would consider both options choose piracy due to a lack of legal availability,” suggest the researchers. “If piracy displaced box office sales in the U.S., we would have expected the slope of the returns profile to shift more significantly as BitTorrent became more widely adopted.”
John Paczkowski reports on AllThingsD that Apple will launch the next version of its iPad in the coming weeks.
“Sources say the company has chosen the first week in March to debut the successor to the iPad 2, and will do so at one of its trademark special events,” he writes. “The event will be held in San Francisco, presumably at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Apple’s preferred location for big announcements like these.”
If the release date follows Apple tradition, the iPad 3 should be available about a week after the event.
Paczkowski expects the new version will be, “similar in form factor to the iPad 2, but running a much faster chip, sporting an improved graphics processing unit, and featuring a 2048×1536 Retina Display — or something close to it.”
Here’s an application you may not have envisioned for 3D printers…
BBC News reports that an 83-year-old woman with a chronic bone infection has become the first to receive an artificial jaw implant constructed using 3D printing technology.
Doctors in the Netherlands performed the surgery last year using a jaw comprised of thousands of printed layers of titanium dust that were heated and fused together by a laser. Once designed, the jaw only took a few hours to print.
“Technicians say the operation’s success paves the way for the use of more 3D-printed patient-specific parts,” reports BBC News. “The team said that it expected similar techniques to become more common over the coming years.”
Facebook is launching a widescreen photo viewer similar to the Google+ lightbox overlay.
“Rolling out gradually to Facebook users, the social network is launching a new version of the photo viewer that allows pictures to be displayed at a significantly larger resolution than previous designs,” reports Digital Trends. “On a typical 15-inch laptop, pictures display as large as 960 pixels wide and 720 pixels tall.”
The new interface brings photos to the entire screen and features a space on the right side where users can like, share or comment. Facebook is also adding advertisements and sponsored stories underneath the comments.
“Seeing how this is the first major new feature to come out of the social network since the IPO announcement, the inclusion of the ads within the new photo viewer is likely indicative of Facebook’s efforts to monetize the site more effectively,” suggests the post. “While the ad placements are currently static when clicking through pictures within the album, Facebook could alter the ad rotation frequency to change upon each new picture and drastically increase ad impressions.”
“Television is America’s No. 1 pastime,” reports The New York Times, “with an average of four hours and 39 minutes consumed by every person every day.”
While viewers 35 and older are spending more time in front of the TV, Nielsen reports that younger viewers aged 12 to 34 are watching significantly less as their attention is divided between traditional TV, Internet videos, social networks, mobile phones and video games.
“It has long been predicted that these new media would challenge traditional television viewing, but this is the first significant evidence to emerge in research data,” suggests the article.
Moreover, young people have a greater tendency to watch the same shows on computers and phones. This shift in viewing may have large implications for ad spending that could shift from broadcast to streaming.
To children, watching video on the Web is no different from watching on the TV, whereas older generations tend to treat television separately from their other media.
“According to data for the first nine months of 2011, children spent as much time in front of the television set as they did in 2010, and in some cases spent more,” adds the article. “But the proportion of live viewing is shrinking while time-shifted viewing is expanding.”
Sunday marked the first live stream of the Super Bowl, which drew more than 2.1 million users (according to data provided by Omniture and mDialog).
This sets a record for the most viewers of any single game online, NBC Sports said. Users screened more than 78 million minutes on NBCSports.com and NFL.com.
“The Super Bowl XLVI live stream exceeded our expectations in every way,” said Kevin Monaghan, SVP of business development and managing director digital media at NBC Sports Group. “Increasingly, sports fans are looking to digital coverage as a complementary ‘second screen’ experience, and we delivered on that promise with unprecedented robust coverage.”
Football fans viewed “1,838,812 on demand clips and were heavy users of the feature that allowed them to switch camera angles, with user-generated camera switches totaling 1,835,676,” reports Broadcasting & Cable.
The TV audience also set a new record for the most-watched television program in U.S. history with 111.3 million.
Netflix began airing its first original series this week, “Lilyhammer” with actor/musician Steve Van Zandt portraying a gangster on the run in Norway.
According to Ted Sarandos, Netflix content chief, the investment in original programming “is part of an emerging strategy to keep and win subscribers,” reports TheWrap.
“The more you watch them, the more you love the service,” says Sarandos. “The more [subscribers] we retain, the more you tell your friends about it. Shows like this, when they’re done really well, lead to a lot of watching and a lot of consumer engagement.”
Netflix has released all eight episodes of “Lilyhammer” for instant streaming at once; the second season is in development.
The service is also prepping a second original series, the David Fincher-produced “House of Cards” starring Kevin Spacey.
Additionally, Netflix has exclusive streaming rights to the new fourth season of “Arrested Development,” slated for 2013.
Popular torrent site The Pirate Bay has become less a site that hosts files and more a Google-like guide that links to both pirated and non-pirated content.
TechCrunch reports that “the admins are now moving all of the torrent files off the site and are instead offering magnet links. This is an important distinction that will move the locus of general piracy from a single site to any number of sites, reducing The Pirate Bay’s importance as a source.”
The Pirate Bay has become the “snarky face on the pirate,” both popularizing torrents and making it a target for the authorities, despite the fact that it has become a guide more than a repository.
“The attacks against The Pirate Bay have given it far more popularity than it really deserves and through a combination of excellent branding and nearly non-stop coverage, everyone with an Internet connection knows of that Jolly Roger waving endlessly in the digital winds while the real business of piracy — counterfeiting, fake DVD sales, and fraud — are going on in the shadows,” comments TechCrunch.
“Whichever side you’re on, you have to admit The Pirate Bay asks for nothing and expects nothing in return. We feed the beast that is the pirate underground and, no matter how hard we try or how many times we seize a bunch of Swedish servers, we will never tame it.”
AOL’s Huffington Post announced it plans to create a 100-member newsroom to produce a video-news channel.
The company says it will feature 12 hours of live content, five days a week. The new streaming network is expected to launch later this year.
Plans include a highly interactive site that involves the audience more than we’ve seen in the past, including programs called “Defend Your Comment” and “Write the Headline.”
The news channel will include a live stream of comments posted via Facebook, Twitter and the website. Other AOL entities, such as TechCrunch and its Patch sites, are also expected to contribute content.
“Founding editor Roy Sekoff, who will be leading the network, described the programming as a series of live and interactive clips covering everything from entertainment to politics,” reports SocialTimes.
Apple is reportedly in talks with Canadian TV providers discussing plans to launch its rumored iTV product.
“Partnerships between Apple and pay-TV providers would be both good and bad for consumers,” suggests TIME. “Working with a cable company means getting lots of content, which Apple can then offer through a simple interface, potentially with iPhones, iPads and Siri acting as remote controls.”
“On the downside, cable companies aren’t likely to give up their old business model of making subscribers pay for unwanted bundles of channels,” adds the article.
Apple may need to integrate apps and Web-based content in order to get deals, as opposed to the rumored a la carte alternative.
Some analysts are also suggesting the TV may emphasize user-generated videos created with iPads and iPhones for a YouTube-like model.
In a related story, CNET reports that a recent Best Buy customer survey asks whether consumers would be willing to spend $1,499 for an Apple-branded 42-inch HDTV.
“That’s up three times as much as current 42-inch models; could it be worth the price?” asks the article. “The survey describes a product that’s essentially a 1080p HDTV with iOS built in, including app and iCloud support; a camera and microphone for some kind of user interaction; and integration with other iOS devices, including using an iPad or iPhone as a remote.”
Google is developing a home entertainment system that would stream music wirelessly. The device, which would be available later this year, would be Android-based and controlled using a smartphone or tablet.
Google is seeking to make Android the operating system for the home that will not only control music — but TV, home appliances, lights, heating and other devices. It’s a vision they call “Android@Home.”
“The new Android device, along with Google’s pending purchase of device maker Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc., also ups the ante in its ongoing tussle with rival Apple Inc., which also controls both the software and hardware process,” reports the Wall Street Journal.
In related news, Google is nearing launch of a new cloud-based storage service called “Drive.” The service will be free and is expected to begin in weeks or months.
Users can use an app to upload files, photos, and videos which will be available from any Web-connected device. The service may be added to Google Apps.
Facebook is addressing the biggest threat to its IPO: getting revenue from the rapidly expanding — and thus far unprofitable — mobile platform by pushing “featured stories” from sponsors.
These sponsored stories keep users within the Facebook app rather than directing them to an advertiser’s Web page. The solution will hopefully minimize clutter on the mobile screen that often results from display advertising.
“Mobile display ads can be tricky because they create any number of rendering problems among the myriad of different phone browsers on the market and could drive up consumers’ data plan fees — neither are good bases for a marketing relationship,” reports GigaOM.
Facebook is expected to include sponsored posts in the news feeds of its mobile apps in March, prior to its $5 billion IPO.
Nikon has announced the newest addition to its professional DSLR offerings. The D800 features a 36.3 megapixel sensor, high ISO shooting capabilities, high definition video modes and a 51-point autofocus system.
“Where the D800 primarily differs from the D4, at least as far as performance is concerned, is in its 36.3MP, 7360 x 4912 pixel, full-frame CMOS sensor,” reports Ars Technica. “Nikon has chosen to emphasize raw resolution instead of extremely high ISO capabilities. Like the D700, the D800 can go up to 6400 ISO sensitivity, or can be ratcheted up to 25,600 in an extended ‘Hi 2’ mode. The D4, on the other hand, captures 16.2MP, but can shoot at a mind-boggling 204,800 ISO when pushed to its limits.”
Nikon hopes the D800 takes off in movie making and live video broadcasting with its ability to shoot at various resolutions and frame rates, and its audio inputs, monitor output and HDMI control to monitor live while recording.
The D800 comes equipped with a Compact Flash slot as well as an SD card slot, but won’t be compatible with the new XQD cards.
It is set to launch in late March for $2,999.95 — with a special D800E version for studios and scientific applications available in April for $3,299.95.