Seasons Greetings / The wackiest house in the region

I just watched CNBC with a report from Bejing´s impressive Xmas-markets (!), Santas en masse and all the cheap deco stuff that we use to ornate our holiday season, including of course all the different LED lighting gadgets.

The wackiest house in the region 

The people interviewed about "What Christmas means" all said things like

"... it´s the alien´s "new years feast""
".. it celebrates the spring" and so on.

There was no relegious association whatsoever (among those people in this chinese market).
But we should not wonder as we drive it ourselves in this direction.

This does not mean that I would not appreciate this marvellous and award winning Xmas-Illumination above.

The house is more a simple wooden cottage and in its simplicity rather untypical for the middle class German neighborhood. But around Chrismas this little hut becomes the phoenix from the ashes and dwarfs all other illuminations of the town.

With this I wish all readers happy holidays and a successful new year!.

Eventually the blog will finally find a clear focus and direction in 2011 ;-)

Why Ansel Adams still matters

Sharing some thoughts and insights after reading #1 of the classic book series from Ansels Adams - The Camera -

Cover Photo of "The Camera" - Half Dome and Moon in Yosemeti NP

To start with the summary first:
Ansel Adams explains in clear language the very basics and successfully transports his belief of perfectionism that is simply contagious and motivates to produce higher quality.
The issue "The Camera" is certainly a valuable addition to every photographers bookshelf.

Rubber Trees (Hevea brasiliensis) in Cu Chi, Vietnam
35mm lens, Nikon D90, f22, 1seond, exposed in "Ansel Adams style"

The book contains a foreword from 1980 (Ansel Adams died in 1984) and is technically up to date until the late seventies. Some quotes may seem antique, deranged and irrelevant in today´s electronic world but they are not:

Some examples: (Quotes)

"There is no question that using a view camera requires some physical stamina"

- About his enormous set of equipment in the early days with a 8x10 view camera

"The modern monorail camera is designed to accept interchangeble bellows"

"On a trip to the canadian rockies I had a secondary pinhole image on the ground glass which after about ten days work I traced to an unfilled screwhole"

- About the importance of checking older lensboards and the sealing of mounting screws

"In general, I do not find the normal lens especially desirable, functionally and aesthetically"

- About his preference for shorter focal lenses under aesthetic criteria.

" I can recall the time in the early 1920s when my means of regulation exposure was by remove and replace the lens cap"

" The early shutters had only a "bulb" setting for manually timed exposures and perhaps a setting marked "instantaneous" for exposures of about a 1/25 second.

- About the evolution of shutters, then continuing to leaf and modern focal plane shutters, illustrating the space compression effect of those modern slit shutters that I have not seen anywhere else in this clarity.

"Those who have this eye condition should consult the doctor"

- about extraocular imbalance as being the frequent medical cause for many people who produce images with a tilt horizon.

"Otherwise...it promotes a shotgun approach to photographing which some photographers substitute for active use of the eye and brain"
- About the increasing trend to use a motor winder for transporting the film

This collectionof quotes from a diffent time and world seems to suggest that in fact there might be little real relevance left - but I don´t think so.
The ground-up explanation of all the details and fundamentals together with consequent craftmenship is absolutely timeless. And 35mm SLRs are covered up to the Nikon A5.

Ansel starts to explain the basic camera concept with the pinhole like every major physics textbook - but unlike those he actually takes photos with a pinhole camera, explains why these exposures can never be 100% sharp and suggests the "optimum" pinhole size as 1/64 inch on a piece of gold foil, but aluminum would do as well.
Lenses, lens design and aberrations are discussed,  every picture in the book is explained with metadata "I took this with a 12" Sonar lens on an 8x10 film" and illustrations of all the different adjustments on a view camera (sliding the lensboard, tilt and shift of the lens-plane and/or the film plane). You begin to understand what you lose when counting on fully automatic functions of today´s DSLRs and the dominance of the fixed 35mm handheld cameras.
There is no mention of any of the recent electronic features like "smile and face recognition", "predictive autofocus" or any such thing. I do not see this as a left out but instead it is a refreshing reminder on the things that really matter.

Ansel himself states in the beginning:
"The world does not need another book on equipment" - but this one is a true classic and can be considered a must have for every serious enthusiast.

In his own words:
"It is my intention in this book to stir excitement for photography and its craft in terms of personal expression. Too many people do what they are told to do."

Lexware Taxman 2011 Billiger bei AMAZON

Here a quick post in German as it applies to an actual offer for tax preparation software and in this case enormous spreads - Amazons selling the same product 35% under publishers direct price.

Update: Alarm clock bug fixed with iOS 4.2 - and much more...

Finally, the much awaited iOS Update has arrived. As described in the previous post this Update is considered to be a bug fix for me and many users of the alarm clock - but of course - Apple would not issue an update for such "minor" thing only.

And so, iOS 4.2 comes with Airprint and wireless (Video) streaming to compatible Client such as the Apple TV Box GameCenter and more - just in time for Black Friday and the coming Shopping Season.

And even more importantly iOS 4.2 brings all of this to the iPad as well and puts it - for the first time since launch - completely in sync with the latest iPhone. It brings Folders, Multitasking and Game Center to the iPad which makes it "a totally new device" as somebody prominent from Cupertino is quoted.
(Apple recently has lost just a little sense of reality it seems, as they have touted the Beatles iTunes release as "a day you will never forget" (!))
C´mon guy´s you make great things but too much is too much.

Anyway, with all major and minor things fixed and a feature packed new iOS everything is ready to mark just another record sales and earnings quarter.
I have heard analysts who express "doubts" that the elevated expectation of 6m iPads shipped in Q4 could be reached.
They base these doubts on Samsung having to downwardly adjust Galaxy tab production capacity.
Make no mistake -  the iPad is simpy so much superior and not by any chance the "whichlist item #1" for the current holiday shopping season.

Oprah Winfrey is said to have given 275 iPads as a gift to all of her staff recently - if that tells anything..

According to a recent post from John Paczkowski Apple has ordered FoxConn to ramp up additional capacity at the Chengdu Site to 300k/month in order to reach a total of 2.8m (monthly) runrate.
Apple has shipped 4.2m iPads in Q3, Analyst consenus is 6m in Q4 (with few  exceptions  as mentioned  above who think this might be a stretch goal.)
My stomach and market feeling tells me it will be rather in the 6.5m to 7.5m range.
My newest 12month price target for the stock is now 415$ based on continuing strong growth on iPhones, iPads (completely offsetting the decline in ipods) a continuing growth in market share for Macs (as dominance in mobile devices has a positive drag effect on PCs) Apple isn´t anymore the niche maker of design PCs that only Graphics Pros and Photographers really need, it´s becoming main stream.
And last not least the tightly controlled App-Universe creates an ever money machine - a growing revenue stream from software that scales extremely well and has margins well beyound those a hardware maker could ever dream of.
Stay tuned...

The Iphone Alarm Clock DST Bug - and how to fix it.

Yes, I have got it too. And yes I WAS late Monday after the Daylight Savings Time (DST) Change in Europe.

iPhone Alarm Clock Bug "in Action".

Apperently all iPhones 3G, 3GS, iPhone4 and iPod Touches 2nd through 4th generation are affected by a software bug that rings alarm clocks 1h late after the DST time switch.
The internal clock (which is also the source for the built in (alarm) clock as well as third party alarm clock apps) is adjusted correctly but internal alarms WITH a  REPEAT SCHEDULE setting are NOT.
 They go off 1h late. Deleting and reprogramming the alarm doesn´t help.

The only fix is to RECONFIGURE alarms to NO REPEAT setting - which effectivly sets them to "daily" as long as they are activated.

And finally of course apply the Apple iOS bug fix for this which is in the works (I have heard a "Gold Master" ist out already.).
The bug has been first found in New Zealand and Australia (who were first to switch back from DST to "Winter time". Then Europe was hit beginning of this week - and the US will suffer next Monday Nov. 8th - IF, and only IF (fingers crossed) Apple will not be able to supply the fix "JUST IN TIME" on this very weekend. We can only assume that Apple engineers are working feverishly to publish the fix before 10 millions alarms will fire off late on Monday.

Right now (as I write this 8h50 CET New York time) there is no Update available yet in iTunes.

What will be the economic impact?

Here´s a first approximation:
Around 90 Million iPhones or so are out (not counting all the ipod Touches), let´s assume 40% of those are used in the USA. Let´s further assume 20% of the users do use the alarm clock and rely on it. Let´s estimate that being an hour late to work creates an economic impact of 25$ (Machinery not operated, Calls not answered, shipments not expedited, flights missed etc.).  This adds up to 250Mio$ economic damage on Monday not counting the hours 50 million users will spend time to find out the cause, browse the internet for solutions, time spent finally with iTunes to apply the fix etc.
Another hour per user which could have been spent productively otherwise to increase the GDP  is certainly a conservative estimate. Makes another 1.25 Billion $ (!) Together 1.5b$ - conservatively...

Small cause - big impact.

Star Watching / the ultimate astronomical guide

Who ever tried to take pictures of stars ( astronimical night sky photos) knows how difficult this can be.

 Trying to get the moon and other stars or planets on the same image demonstrates the HDR problem to its extremes. The moon on a clear night is magnitudes brighter than anything else on sky.

The following picture shows the night sky Sep. 21st in Central Europe GMT 23h. Jupiter is visible following the near full moon in it´s left side.

Regular Nikon D90 50mm Photo: Moon followed by Jupiter (left side) on Sep. 21st, Central Europe 23h GMT South-East

     
Without any HDR processing, with a Nikon 28-110mm zoom at 50mm, f6.3, 1/400 sec, 640 ISO it is hardly acceptable (Jupiter is the tiny spot on the left!) - Moon is overexposed with no structures and chances to spot the moons of Jupiter are zero - at least with this low cost lens.

But what was really fun taking this picture is a new tool that renders all previous star charting tools obsolete:
Vitotechnology´s new Starwalk App for iPad is a true brakethrough for the occasional sky watcher, and a required vacation app. (because the night sky in foreign countries/continents can be quite impressive).

The situation of the photo looks like this in Starwalk:

You see that also Uranus is directly next to Jupiter - and as a newbie - if you had any doubts what the bright "star" next to moon was Starwalk teaches you that it is Jupiter both very close to the ecliptic  (dotted) line the virtual path of the sun.
This situation zoomed out looks like this

The horiozon for orientation and zodiac sign overlays provide a new way to watch and understand the sky. Each item is clickable with additiona information - and the whole thing is of course interactive on the 3GS, iphone4 and iPad. You can "point" to sky and the chart adapts accordingly. You have to see this to believe it.

 

Star Walk Info Screen on Sun/Moon/Primary Planets Rise and Set times - a bit overloaded graphically but very useful for a quick overview.

If not for anything else the Starwalk App makes the iPad a required item on vacations in the mountains, desert or on cruise ship tours.

IFA 2010 - 3D revolution or marketing hype?

This year´s comprehensive IFA Posting covers the following topics

• About IFA
• 3D Television
• 3D Gaming
• 3D Photography and  3D Home movies
• Hybrid Internet TV - the HbbTV Standard
• Analog TV Switchoff in Germany
• Summary and Prognosis on Google TV, Apple TV and European HbbTV

About IFA
IFA (Internationale Funktausstellung) has evolved into one of the leading Consumer Electronics Shows on the globe, probably outpacing CES in Las Vegas. This may seem odd for an audience in the States but there are several data points to prove it:
IFA is massive, yet yery compact and therefore effective for visitors.

IFA Main entrance "East" at the ICC and Funkturm

The Berlin Messegelände (trade show fairground) is one large gigantic campus - like CeBIT in Hannover und much unlike the Hotel suite hopping that you have to do at  CES.

More that 1400 international  Exhibitors and 134 thousand square meters filled exhibition space will attract more than 350.000 visitors. This does of course include private persons.
There are two main success factors:
1. the perfect time in the year allows vendors to launch products at IFA for the holiday season. More and more global players make use of that opportunity.
2. The concept to positively embrace the interest of the private consumer and to allow private visitors to access the trade show. Business visitors pay 37€, private visitors only 15€. Business users get access to the Conference program and also a badge that identifies them as business users.

CeBIT on the contrary has partially tried to disencourage private visitors by high entrance fees and CES and 3GSM  are for business insiders only by definition.

And last, not least Berlin is an attractive place to visit - with all the infrastructure and benefits that a leading capital can offer.

3D Television

The 3 most important topics and dominating trends this year have been

• 3D TV
• Hybrid TV and HbbTV
• more 3D ;-)

3D  everywhere:

Rolleiflex 4x4 from 1931

This beautiful Rolleiflex from 1931 is on display at the Rollei booth demonstrating their 80 year background with 3D imaging.
Panasonic even used a newly invented trade show accessory: an adjustable 3D glass holder

Hygienic 3D Glass holder solution at Panasonic

 Otherwise glasses have to be touched - some of the more classic approaches at Loewe or Grundig required  new jobs as "Glass Cleaning Hostess". Expect to have these at all future Consumer Electronics trade shows - (as long as visitors don´t bring their own shutter glasses)

The group 3D experience at the Panasonic Video wall.

Panasonic 3D Video Wall - IFA 2010

Technology - wise 3D TV is settled around LCD shutter technology. Everybody (Sony, Panasonic, Samsung, Grundig, LG etc) uses active LCD shutter glasses triggered and sychronized by an Infrared signal from the TV.
I tried several displays and found substantial differences - though totally subjective and not truely comparable as different vendors had different demo content on their booths.

The effect is generally really  impressive and very close to the movie theater 3D experience in IMAX theaters.
However, before buying a 3D TV,  do yourself a favor and watch AVATAR 3D in the theater - in full length.
Then decide yourself how many times a week and how many hours a day you would want that sensation.

It is a great experience and 3D@home truely works - but is is a different kind of viewing. It is stressful in a sense and you probably don´t want that all the time. Once or two times a week, a single movie or documentary might be ok. More is not. It´s like a cream pie or glass of champagne. You don´t want to miss these things on special occassions but you can´t live from it and you don´t want these extra luxuries every day.
This is my subjective opinion, but as an expert for consumer trends I predict it will turn out to be a mainstream opinion as time goes by.
Therefore, 3D is currently overrated -it  is a hype and the bubble will burst.
3D Technology will be there to stay, don´t get me wrong. The incremental cost - once developed . is minimal. 3D will be a checklist item on future TVs and BlueRay Players, but the audience will not shift viewing habits towards a "3D takeover trend" or anything close to it.
Much unlike HD - the previous industry megatrend. Once you migrated to HD, you wouln´t want to ever go back and watch lower resolution SD content instead. HD is a mainstream paradigm shift, and 3D IS NOT.

This answers also the question whether a just recently aquired HD home theater system is already obsolete because it is not 3D capable. It is not.
Grant yourself the occasional sensation of a 3D feature lenght movie by going to the box office every other week or so.
Next time you upgrade your home theater equipment - it will be 3D capable if you like or request it or not. Until then content is so rare that by going to the movies once a week you have seen each relevant 3D title anyway.
3D works on some content better or worse. It does work on documenteries, slow pan and zoom, impressive pictures of landscape and wildlife, no quick cuts, no extreme action. It may work an sports, but quick cuts and fast switching of camera angles  confuse and make you dizzy. It works on close ups when things "stick out". Yes, you guessed it - 3D will work on adult entertainment - or 3D porn to be more direct. There is no such thing on display at IFA but it can be easily extrapolated that this is going to be one the content categories that will help 3D to grow.

3D Games

3D in Games has - I believe - an even greater importance than 3D Television.
This has several reasons:

Gaming is in many cases single player activity (with regards to interacting with the equipment). Massive Multiplayer Games or online Teamplay with one Person per indiviual PC is technically a single Player activity. Deciding to wear shutter glasses to make the experience even more immersive is more likely and logical. Immersiveness is all what counts in virtual reality. 3D adds an extra step forward. 3D content is easily available as all Game Engines are essentially full 3D worlds and each picture is actually a 2D down-rendered image of  this Computer Generated reality.

Instead of rendering just one 2D image, any Game Engine can be easily modified to be viewed with "Stereoscopic 3D Cameras". This makes high quality 3D content almost the rule rather than the exception. The graphics card along with shutter glasses can provide all that is needed so you DO NOT need a 3D TV to enjoy 3D Gaming - this is true for PC Gaming.

However, for Console Gaming (Xbox 360, PS3) you are again in the 3D TV world. Sony will upgrade the PS3 with firmware to support 3D BlueRays and 3D PS3 game titles will require the same 3D-TV and shutter glasses setup that is needed for classic TV content.

I tried a racing game at the panasonic booth and can only agree that immersiveness and the brain illusion of "being in the action" is just great.

For reasons of completeness I have to mention the new Nintendo DS with 3D without glasses - the most recent attempt to revive the lagging Console business of Nintendo. I have not tried or seen it yet - if you have a comment about the 3DS it is appreciated.
Apple has recently announced that the iPod Touch (as a portable game console) has outsold the PSP and Nintendo DS combined and it is questionable wether the 3DS will be able to revert that.

3D Home made Conent / Photography and Camcorders


The Panasonic VW-CLT1 3D Full HD Camcorder

on display and shooting a live juggling performance

and the Aiptek3D i2

represent the low and high end of the current 3D Camcorder offerings for consumers.
Test movies and images of the Aiptek can shortly be downloaded from my Gallery website.

Making 3D Movies of your vacation might be a nice gimmick - but is it a mainstream trend? I doubt it.

User Generated content can also be published and supported by Youtube - this is not new. Experiments can be made by using the search term "yt3d:enable=true"  on Youtube. Stereoscopic content will be listed. Expect to see Google TV Android implementations on TV Sets to directly support Home made 3D content on 3D TVs.

Finally it should be mentioned that all those shutter glasses from different vendors are not compatible to each other. If you want to watch a 3D movie at home together with friends an neighbors they have to bring their glasses - but ONLY if they have same TV vendor (!).
This is seen as a welcome window of opportunity for XPanD.

Their Universal 3D Glasses work with any of the current 3D TVs, according to a test of c´t magazine with Sony even better than their own glasses. I tried XPand on two different Models - it worked fine!.
They are expected to be available on retail for 129€ or $ very soon.

Hybrid Internet TVs, STBS and HbbTV

As mentioned before, 3D is this year so dominant, that the other "megatrend" comes only after a long distance after 3D. "Hybrid TV" means the inclusion of Web Based content, VoD, Widgets, Web based Apps and Video Platforms on the the TV screen.
There have been - for years - several approaches to this:
- Microsoft believed a PC needs to be in the living room
- Intel and Fujitsu as well as Shuttle tried to make the PC small and look like a Hifi System.
- More recently hybrid Set-Top-Boxess with small footprint Linux implementations offered Web Access, often combined with a VoD-Service
- Every time the opportunity to create a walled garded is hard to resist and proprietary vendor portals  have appeared
- Content owners like the major Studios and TV stations were confused, they did not want to miss the opportunity but feared to lose more control than neccessary.

In this confusing developing environment the German TV industry has lead an european initiative to create an open standard for web content on TVs and still preserve the content rights and interests of the TV stations.

The resulting HbbTV (Hybrid broadcast broadband TV) has become an approved EISA standard in July 2010. Driven by the German Public Television and their technical advisory organisation IRT (Institut für Rundfunktechnik) it is now deployed and in service. It so competes  with Samsung´s "Yahoo Widges", Panasonic "Viera Cast" and Sony´s "Internet TV" as well as with Loewe´s "Media TV" and Philips´s NetTV - and more importantly with Apple TV and Google TV which was not display at IFA (at least I didn´t find any relevant exhibit).

Content is king, and based on this universal truth there is a good chance that the vendors mentioned will have to rethink their strategies to embrace the German public TV Mediatheken (7 day catchup content).
HbbTV is an API that defines how Web Content can overlay live TV - IF (and that is a key aspect) the broadcaster allows any such overlay. This effectivly means the broadcaster is in control over any web content that is overlayed on his live stream - which is a good to control the business model.
This is best explained looking at one of the leading HbbTV implementations which is the ARD Mediathek, the ARD HD Videotext and program specific EPG.
It further includes a signaling path and adressability to make the advertiser´s dream come true:

Broadcast ad campaigns with direkt personalized conversion and feedback.

IRT Managing Director Dr. Illgner-Fehns demostrates   HbbTV interactive TV Ads to SES Astra CEO and Presdent Ferdinand Kayser

Here SES Astra CEO Ferdinand Kayser views a demo of the "Red Button" in action. A Volkwagen TV Ad offers a "sign up for a test drive" Red button overlay (signalled through DVB). Pushing the red button on the remote takes the user to web landing page with a TV optimized layout. Here the user interact get more info on the car, view videos and submit the form to actually register for test drive.
As the STB has an active Web session the user is instantly addressable.

ARD HbbTV initial DVB menu

Signaling an initial Menu is also done over DVB. This way the broadcaster has full control over the additional web overlay content, alternatively web pages like vendors portals can always be brought up directly independent of any DVB stream or program but only as full screen and not as overlay.

Mediathek (7 day TV catchup) navigation screen

Navigating into the content brings up the 7 day catchup content (above), the new HD Videotext content and the EPG (below)

HD Videotext / HbbTV based

What looks like classic TV overlay graphics produced by the video chipset is actually HTML Web content retrieved through TCT/IP - the internet channel of the hybrid HbbTV Set-Top-Box (a HUMAX Box is used here for demo purpose).

ARD EPG Navigation screen

Above is the Station specific (!) EPG screen - the beauty of the Broadcaster controlled content offering shows its limitations here - an EPG which does by definition not feature any competing content is somewhat questionable in it´s usefulness.

Morgenmagazin Anchor man Jens Lorig explains the benefits of the ARD Mediathek

Analog Switchoff

The 30th of April 2012 has been set as the switchoff for analog broadcasting for German Television.
As a service to consumers who are not sure if they are "digital" or not, as special Videotext page has been set up.

Analog Switchoff service page - ARD Videotext Seite 198

Page 198 in the ARD or Bayern3 programs is split during broadcasting so that the digital path display a confirming text "yes, you are digital", while the analog path explains that viewing this page means that the equipment is analog and will not work after April 2012.

Summary and Prognosis on Hybrid TV 

From what I have seen at this year´s IFA - and based on many years of experience with the iTV development - I make the following prognosis:

There are 3 major movements or trends:

1. Apple TV - an exception to rule. Apple TV is NOT hybrid - it is simply an additional IP-Box. It is centered around the user experience to optimize two very specific use cases:
  - Watching Hollywood Movies on demand (in HD or 3D if you like)
  - Using your own content (photos, movies) with seamless integration of your mobile devices (iPhone,  iPad, iPod Touch).
 - Apple will like before dominate these categories - best integration, ease of use, overall user experience. No open standard, a reletavily cheap box, not integration with live TV no Pause TV.
Apple will be supplemental to any other hybrid or Pause TV solution you have (TiVO, Comcast etc.)

2. Google TV - not released yet, therefore it can not be finally rated or categorized. But with Android being "the new Windows" ( the domination OS of this century), Android based STBs and TV integration is a likely candidate to become a defacto standard. It has to be seen how Google TV protects content interests and business models

3. HbbTV in this context is not likely to become a world standard - but parts of it -the interaction of broadcast and Web content - the signaling of DVB to call a web page is a likely candidate to be embraced by Google TV in future revisions. Therefore I expect that Google TV and HbbTV will evolve to reach a final level that embraces both.

- Vendor solutions like Viera Cast and Philips Net TV will evolve into standard Web offerings for Google TV and/or HbbTV. They will coexist for some time and then evolve as Web based vendor portals. (similar to AOL from being a proprietary walled garden to becoming just another web portal.)

For consumers this means that any of todays hybrid solutions is still a short lived intermediate. Watch for Google TV in 2011 and getting an Apple TV box in additon will be no mistake. Apple TV (the NEW one, as of Sep. 2010) is much more mature, but does not even try to be hybrid - it is meant to be supplemental and as such lives outside the hybrid evolution.