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The future does bring some rather interesting additions to the fore, among them include contact lenses that are capable of projecting images right on top of your retinas, according to researchers at the University of Washington who have been hard at work on super small and semi-transparent LEDs which will be integrated into existing contact lenses. 

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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.

Earlier this evening Jim Hoerricks, author of the book "Forensic Photoshop", announced the availability of a new online training course - "An Introduction to Forensic Photoshop". Jim's new online course is hosted and provided through the American Institute of Forensic Eduction, Inc..

Stumbled on to a well done video from Computerphile called "How Blurs & Filters Work", which I thought some of you may find interesting. Discussion centers on what an image kernel is and how they're used in image processing. Video is under 8 minutes and is embedded after the break. Enjoy.

LEVA recently announced that the New York State Police will be hosting their Photographic/Video Comparison course in Albany, NY April 4th through the 8th.

Photographic/Video Comparisons focuses on the science of comparing known objects, vehicles, clothing and humans with CCTV images of questioned objects, vehicles, clothing and humans. The process of cataloguing class characteristics and unique characteristics found in questioned evidence is examined in detail. Using Adobe Photoshop and other generally accepted scientific tools for imaging comparison work,analysts/examiners develop a scientific workflow involving the hands-on analysis of video evidence, criminal-case report writing and courtroom presentation.

Complete details and application forms are available via the LEVA website.

I've used everything from freeware tools to high-end encoders to accomplish various audio & video trans-coding tasks over the last 15 years or so, and when time permits, I love testing out new tools.  Recently, when installing software on to a new PC, I decided to try another low-cost solution that's been around for quite some time, but I've never used; AVS Video Converter.

It looks like Sony is on a roll with discontinuing legacy recording formats. First it killed the cassette Walkman last year, a few weeks ago it stopped producing MiniDisc Walkmans and now the company announced that it will no longer support the 8mm video format. The video cassette format that was popular way back in the 1980s will no longer get any new Sony hardware to run on.

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The browser war rages on and new versions are being released at a break-neck pace. Unfortunately, for Web developers at least, each new version seems to introduce multiple changes that not only affect how pages are displayed, but how and if various features in a site will even function. It's madness I tell 'ya.

Anyway, since I started using Safari as my primary browser, I've been looking for another WYSIWYG editor for our members, because in Safari with TinyMCE set as your editor members couldn't use the Submit or Cancel buttons when attempting to submit articles, news, or events. Long story short I've found one, I'm using it right now, and I'm diggin' it so far.

Atlantic Light Works and Reindeer Graphics announce the release of PercepTool 2.0.2 TM, a Photoshop add-on suite that performs High Dynamic Range (HDR), Tone Mapping and Perceptual Effect operations 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). PercepTool 2.0.2TM works with both B&W and Color images in 8-bits, 16-bits and 32-bits.

If you didn't get in on the private BETA of SlideRocket through one of our private invitations, they've officially announced the public BETA and are now taking all comers.   With the latest release SlideRocket also pushed out collaboration, allowing multiple users per account to share presentation media, slides, etc...

Check 'em out at www.sliderocket.com or to go straight to their sign-up form click here.

The Law Enforcement and Emergency Services Video Association (LEVA) has published the DRAFT version 3.0 of their Best Practices for the Acquisition of Digital Multimedia Evidence.  LEVA is soliciting community feedback on this document through March 31, 2010.

For additional information visit the official LEVA Publications page.

At least on paper, the HTC EVO 4G from Sprint absolutely crushes. It's not just one killer feature that puts the EVO over the top; the spec sheet reads like a wish list for anyone who's owned a touchscreen smartphone. We won't find out until this summer whether Sprint's exclusive 4G phone makes the best of its features, but in the meantime, here are five things to get excited about:

Full Story - http://www.pcworld.com/article/192286/sprints_htc_evo_4g_5_killer_features.html

A brief video discussing the basics of multimedia metadata analysis & some of the Open Source and/or Freeware solutions that can help. Solutions discussed include:

• Exiftools, by Phil Harvey - https://exiftool.org/
• MediaInfo & MediaInfoOnline - https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo​
• FFprobe & FFmpeg - https://www.ffmpeg.org