2004 August

Microsoft appears to finally be going after the growing digital music market with a planned release of a public beta of its MSN online music service.

In the news - Information Week reports that Microsoft and IBM along with some academic help are working on video search solutions. IBM has demonstrated their technology - Marvel, which uses shapes, colors, patterns, etc. to relate video clips to keywords.

The last product offered by Serious Magic is DV Rack. I would stick this one in the ‘utility’ category. Their claim is that, “DV Rack is the first product that can prevent video disasters, help you shoot faster and let you get visibly better quality from your existing camera.” Too bold a claim? Perhaps.

Another product of Serious Magic is Ultra - yeah, I think they could have been more descriptive too. One of the main features of Visual Communicator is the ‘green screen’ (or chroma key) technology. Ultra is a chroma key tool.

Ran across Serious Magic today - had heard a little about their products before but never really taken a look at what they have to offer. Now, I’ve never used their products, and I’m not sure where exactly they fit into the whole video production world. Probably fit somewhere in the middle - sometimes useful […]

“A vulnerability has been reported in Winamp, which can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a user’s system. The problem is caused due to insufficient restrictions on Winamp skin zip files (.wsz). This can e.g. be exploited by a malicious website using a specially crafted Winamp skin to place and execute arbitrary programs. With […]

“The first part of this book focuses on mastering core tools: layers, selections, masks, and colorspaces. The second part builds on the first by presenting an in-depth treatment of touchup, enhancement, compositing, rendering, and image creation for the web. The following gives a synopsis of what you will find in each chapter.”
Chapter 1 reviews the […]

We all saw it. In fact, it’s still playing, even in IMAX and it’s available for preorder as we speak. Spider-Man 2 will be released in WS/FS 2-Disc DVDs, a gift set, and a Superbit edition. Plus two VHS version (english and spanish dubs), but really, who buys those? Here’s a […]

In the news today the Department of Justice takes a rather strong stand on piracy. No not the boat kind, the media kind. The FBI took possession of computers from homes and an ISP. The computers (and their owners) were part of a private peer-to-peer network. While it might have been just one network the […]

Was pondering what media related news item, concept, or technology to write about and thought maybe I should just back away and write a bit about media itself.

Seems the Neuros is a bit unstable - here’s some feedback from a reader:

“As digital photography continues to grow, more photographers are getting serious about sharing their images with the widest possible audience. But creating polished, professional work across very different mediums - print, the Web, digital slideshows, et al. - is no simple task. In PHOTO FINISH, digital-imaging experts Jon Canfield and Tim Grey combine practical know-how […]

“On Tuesday, August 24, AOL Music will feature the exclusive world premieres of two new singles from Queen Latifah - a cover of The Mamas & The Papas classic ‘California Dreamin” and a version of the Dinah Washington hit, ‘Baby Get Lost.’ The songs are highlights from the artist’s first full-length album as a […]

You may have seen the new Creative Zen Portable Media Center…. if not, there’s a picture of one on www.pmcplayer.com, and you’ll see it many times in my sample videos below. It’s the kind of device that I’ve been waiting for, something that does for my home movies what music players like the iPod do […]

If I mention Aunt Gertrude, how many of you think Hardy Boys? The Adventures of Frank and Joe Hardy, particularly the original 58 hardcover books, have served as a meaningful source of entertainment for me for over thirty years. I could go deep into the history and background of this classic book series, but you’d […]

Canon should release the new XL2 late this month, early next month. What’s the XL2? It’s the latest model in the XL series - Canon’s high-end video camera. You gotta love their catch phrase, ‘intentionally overengineered’. Take a look.

MSN Video is a free service for MSN Premium subscribers offering news, sport and entertainment programming that is entirely subsidized by advertising revenues.
Microsoft confirmed the launch, saying, “MSN Video 2 is expected to launch today per communications sent out to MSN Premium subscribers.”

Yeah, I’d like one of these. Sure it’s been around for a while - so maybe it’s not exactly a current news item, but it’s still cool. The amazing Neuros digital audio ‘computer’. What first brought this up on my radar? It was one of the first portable audio devices to support ogg. For that […]

The new Olympus Camedia C-765 Ultra Zoom is, in fact, an update of the Olympus C-740 and C-750 Zoom from last year. Compared to its predecessors, it has a larger LCD screen, a Li-ion battery, and an improved image processor called TruePic Turbo for even better image quality and faster processing speeds. It utilizes PictBridge […]

What appears at first glance to be merely a one-and-a-half-hour
commercial for White Castle hamburgers is a funny, surprising road
trip movie, with both an external and an internal journey taken by the
main characters. It’s also damned funny.
Spoilers follow!
Harold (John Cho) and Kumar (Kal Penn) are a couple of stoners who
have graduated college in the not-too-distant past. […]