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Apple has just elevated the graphics chip to superstar status. Why focus on the graphics?

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Medical experts, accident reconstruction experts, and other types of experts are frequently asked to interpret data from images that were obtained from video evidence. When these experts have no training or background in processing multimedia evidence, and/or make no effort to consult someone who does, bad things generally happen. Really bad things, like having all of their evidence thrown out of court, for one.

Less than two weeks away from the official launch, and I'm making some significant progress in what will be the new, secure member's area.  This area of Media-Geek.com will not be available to the general public, as its purpose is to provide a secure place for forensic media related professionals to share information.  Membership will be open to current or retired law enforcement forensic media related professionals and prosecutors.

The new members area will provide a number of "social networking" tools, such as secure community forums, file sharing, messaging tools, a community calendar, and more.  Members will be able to submit articles, news, event information, links, and other content to share with the group.  There will be a membership directory, and users can choose what information they'd like to provide (if any).  Members can create "Connections" or "buddy lists" and use Private Messaging (PM) to communicate with any member throughout the entire site. Want to receive an email or PM when there's a new post to a forum?  No problem.  Want an email when someone sends you a PM?  Can do.  Want to keep your email address private, yet allow members to send you an email?  We can do that too!

Earlier today Julieanne Kost, Principal Digital Imaging Evangelist at Adobe, shared a link to a new Photoshop FAQ document regarding video card usage in Photoshop via her blog. I found the new help document very interesting, and thought some of you may as well.

Photoshop GPU FAQ

When looking for the source of a malicious infection on a computer network, a digital video recorder (DVR) might not make it on the radar of a malware fighter. That could be a mistake, according to one security expert.

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Complete Omnivore Training
Secured, Password Protected USB Drive - No Windows Administration Rights Required.

Omnivore is a secure, password protected 32GB USB thumb drive that contains specialized digital video & image capture software that runs directly from the drive so there are no administrative rights required to operate it. With Omnivore you can easily capture digital video and images into uncompressed formats directly from the system that recorded the media. With each capture, Omnivore generates a complete, easy-to-read capture report, which documents your work.

Learn the following:

The first module in the very first course published to my new online training library is in the books! The course is on learning to use DME Resources. It will provide a basic overview of DME Resources through five training modules, the first of which is titled "Introduction and Overview". I should warn you, there's a quiz at the end, but I'm giving you two shots at passing it due to the level of complexity. ;)

Navigating & Using DME Resources Training Course

I finished some major updates to the site last night, including upgrading to a newer, faster core database.  I also updated our DCCTV Player Library to include new features, better performance, and better layouts.  In doing the latter I was reminded of Joe Fragomeni's significant contributions to our DCCTV Player Library, and his continued contributions here and elsewhere to the entire multimedia evidence community.

As each day passes law enforcement and government agencies struggle with managing more sources of digital evidence and multimedia, like body worn cameras. The massive amounts of data storage required have led many to finally consider secure cloud-based storage solutions, but as some have found out, despite the minimal capital investment cloud storage costs can quickly exceed the LE & IT budgets of even the largest agencies. Let's break this down and talk specifically about digital evidence and archiving.

How are you archiving all of your digital evidence today? A tiered storage solution? Hybrid cloud solution? LTO tape? Hard drives? Optical discs (i.e. CD-R, DVD+/-R, BD-R)? Lots of questions and options, so lets talk specifically to the last group; those using optical discs.

You don't need to own a Ring device, and no subscription fees for just their neighborhood service. See alerts from Ring users in whatever size area you'd like. View a newsfeed for your area or a map, and customize your alerts. Three suspicious events reported within a 3 mile radius from me within the last month, and one crime at a Ring user's next-door neighbor.

Abobe's Photoshop Express(BETA) was made available in late March, but I just haven't had the time to fiddle with it. I was poking around the Adobe site earlier today (avoiding my to-do list like the plague) and finally decided to give it a whirl. I intended to spend a few minutes checking it out. I ended up spending a few hours playing with it and completely blowing off my to-do list for the afternoon. I hate it when that happens.

Photoshop Express is another Rich Internet Application (RIA) that, to me, shouts Software as a Service (SaaS) is unquestionably the future of software delivery. Sure many RIA's today have limited capability (or more bugs than your average road kill on a warm summer day), but the fact of the matter is SaaS is in its infancy.

Back in May of this year Google announced Wave at their developer conference, and the social Web has been buzzing about Wave frantically ever since. Some love the concept, others are unimpressed and have nothing positive to say; I refer to the latter as schmucks (just saying). So, personally, I see big things coming from this browser-based collaboration tool, but who knows when. If you're not familiar with Google Wave yet, check out this video.

NEW YORK—Prosecutions for cybercrime and identity theft in Manhattan have increased by 50 percent in the last five years, and criminals have been rigging ATM machines and scanning credit cards when no one is looking.

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