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Wearable Camera Not Quite Ready For Its Close-Up

Warhol was only half-right. Sure everyone is famous these days, but only for 15 seconds and in 15 fps.

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A few weeks ago, I signed up for Amp'd Mobile service, and shortly thereafter received my new Kyocera Jet multimedia phone via FedEx. I was immediately very impressed with the look, size and form factor. I've always been a flip man, but I'm very keen on this slider from Kyocera.

The new OS is very cool, user friendly, and customizable. The Amp'd multimedia service is pretty sweet, effectively replacing my previous phone, mp3 player, and even the game system for short trips, etc. The microSD capability adds even more value, as you can simply transfer your existing content from the PC using the provided SD adapter. It should be noted that you cannot transfer purchased music from iTunes to the device or card as it is protected; however, you can rip CD tracks all day long or transfer other unprotected content (music, vids, images) - supports mp3, aac, mp4, 3gp, 3g2, m4a, and m4b file types.

Secure your hotspot or face a fine is the gist behind Westchester, NY's countywide law requiring all commercial businesses to secure their WLAN access points. Various news articles indicate that the state of New York is considering similar legislation (See ZDNet article dated 1/9/2007). Westchester's concern is "On these networks, there's unfettered access to confidential data, and we have a problem with that." Personally, I have a problem with county taxpayers funding the task of enforcing such nonsense.

I picked up the new "LG Chocolate in Black" about a week ago after a few weeks of debating over it or the iPhone. I know, I know, it's like comparing apples to oranges; but I wasn't comparing them per say, I was debating on whether to make the leap to the iPhone. Well, long story short, I just felt the iPhone wasn't worth the risk and the price, at least yet; I suspect it will be within a year or so though. So far, the $49 I spent on the new Chocolate (retails for $79 w/a 2-yr. contract) seems to be money well spent.

Basically, LG redesigned the touch pad and navigation wheel on this latest version of the Chocolate and made it smaller and lighter. Everything else is pretty much the same. It sports a 1.3MP camera that takes decent pix and short vids, but it lacks a flash. It has a microSD memory card slot and should you decide to buy one of these phones, I'd recommend using it.

On vacation, but thought I'd comment on this topic before getting on the Harley to go run some errands in the cold Pacific Northwest. As pointed out in someone else's recent blog post, MPEG-4 can leverage what is referred to as a Sample Aspect Ratio (SAR)...not to be confused with Storage Aspect Ratio (SAR) or Signal Aspect Ratio (SAR). It's important to note that in the case of MPEG-4, the Sample Aspect Ratio is the Pixel Aspect Ratio (PAR); they are one and the same.

It's also important to note, again, that regarless of any of these numbers, the shape of the samples from an analog source ARE NOT DEFINED BY THE NUMBER OF LINES.

Oh, one more thing...most multimedia NLE and encoding applications provide precise control of all of these settings.  Just an FYI.  All the best my friends.

Resolution Video, Inc. recently announced a new course entitled "Courtroom Presentations Using Adobe Flash", which will be held March 10-12, 2009 in Tucson, AZ. The course will be taught by Paul Hartzell, who published a very well received article on the topic here on Media-Geek several months ago (click here to read the original article).

You may have read recently about how Audacity® was purchased by the Muse Group, and that the entire world may be coming to an end as a result.  Some podcasters, audiophiles and down-right cheapskates alike are beside themselves, due to the flurry of news stories flooding the Interwebs claiming Audacity® is now spyware.

Applications on display showcase real-time collaborative viewing and synchronized crowd-sourced video.

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Who doesn't love free stuff? Even better, who doesn't love free stuff that actually works? Here's my Fab 5 list of Freeware programs, in no particular order. The quotes are from the respective Web site for each program. While I've found all of these programs helpful in one way or another, make sure you've read and understand my Web site Terms of Use before visiting any of these links.

CNET - Older hard-drive enclosures may be limited in the size of drive they can present to your system.

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Wouldn't it be nice to see who else is logged in while you're online?  Well, now you can.  Check out the right-hand column on your profile homepage, and right under the "Status Center" you'll see a detailed listing of members currently logged in!

December 29, 2010
For Immediate Release Press Release:

Atlantic Light Works and Reindeer Graphics announce the release of FreeHDR™ a free Photoshop add-on that performs High Dynamic Range (HDR) alignment and blending on digital photographs. Compatible with both Windows and Mac platforms in 32- and 64-bit processing, it operates in Photoshop CS4 and CS5 (Photoshop Extended required for 32-bits/channel images). FreeHDR™ works with both B&W and Color images in 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit modes. 

Ubuntu 10.10, or "Maverick Meerkat," is just one step away from its final version, thanks to the release on Thursday of the Linux software's official Release Candidate.

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