Neighborhood watch with video cameras.

Saw this floating around Facebook. Excellent idea.

Surveillance Law | Coursera

https://www.coursera.org/course/surveillance

Unbounded Robotics to Shut Down Due to Issues With Willow Garage Spin-Off Agreement - IEEE Spectrum

http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/industrial-robots/unbounded-robotics-shut-down

Tablets hit tipping point - Tech News | The Star Online

http://www.thestar.com.my/Tech/Tech-News/2014/08/25/Tablets-hit-tipping-point/

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PonoMusic Raises More Than $6M In Equity Crowdfunding In One Week | TechCrunch

"""
The project focuses on ultra high-quality sound, projecting to offer a digital music store with more than 2 million titles, which will have 30 times more sound data than typical MP3 files.
"""

http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/21/ponomusic-raises-more-than-6m-in-equity-crowdfunding-in-one-week/

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Jaunt Aims to Kick-Start Hollywood Virtual Reality With $27.8 Million in New Funding - Hollywood Reporter

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/behind-screen/jaunt-aims-kick-start-hollywood-726666?mobile_redirect=false

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Catching Liars | Paul Ekman

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-ekman/catching-liars_b_5676176.html

Taiwan LIPS Presents ToF Stereo 3D Camera

from:  http://image-sensors-world.blogspot.com/2014/08/taiwan-lips-presents-tof-stereo-3d.html

Taiwan LIPS Presents ToF Stereo 3D Camera

As written in comments to the previous post, Taiwan-based LIPS posted Youtube videos demoing a 3D camera based on combination of ToF and stereo. No explanation of the technology is given, other than saying it's compatible with Primesense openNI 1.5 and 2.x software.

Richard Crisp on 3D Imaging

Image Sensors Americas conference publishes an interview with Richard Crisp from Etron on future of 3D imaging. Few quotes:

"I see the key applications in the area of control, security, visualization and reproduction. Significant market opportunities lie ahead in general-purpose computing/communications platforms (notebook/tablet/smartphone) as well as in fixed function appliances."

"The area of end application concepts, software and infrastructure are major areas of activity today. Once fully deployed, the impact of 3D imaging technology on our everyday life will be transformative in the same way the internet was: it will fundamentally change how we do things."

Additional reading: 

 Etron's 3D Stereo Camera and Depth-Map Controller IC — eSP870 Wins COMPUTEX 2014 Best Choice Golden Award

Mantis Vision teardown

iFixit teardown shows that Mantis Vision structured light camera is responsible for Google Project Tango tablet 3D vision. The teardown team quotes Google: "The IR projector is from Mantis Vision, and designed specific to our specs for field of view and resolution. It is custom designed to work in partnership with the 4MP RGB-IR camera on the other side."

4.4 Tera-fps Camera - Sequentially timed all-optical mapping photography (STAMP)

From:  http://image-sensors-world.blogspot.com/2014/08/44-tera-fps-camera.html

4.4 Tera-fps Camera

Nature Photonics publishes a paper from a number Japanese universities and research centers showing 450x450 pixel imaging at 4.4 trillion fps:

"Sequentially timed all-optical mapping photography (STAMP)"
K. Nakagawa, A. Iwasaki, Y. Oishi, R. Horisaki, A. Tsukamoto, A. Nakamura, K. Hirosawa, H. Liao, T. Ushida, K. Goda, F. Kannari & I. Sakuma

The paper is supplemented by a nice videos explaining the camera operation and showing the demo movies (see more videos at the bottom of the Nature Photonics page):

Music Video Syncing Platform Vadio Raises $2M, Partners With VEVO | TechCrunch

http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/14/music-video-syncing-platform-vadio-raises-2m-partners-with-vevo/

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nootropic design | Video Experimenter

https://nootropicdesign.com/ve/

They have several very cool video and audio boards for the Arduino.

Fwd: Shipping and Product Update

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ben at Meta <contact@meta-view.com>
Date: Thursday, August 7, 2014
Subject: Shipping and Product Update
To: john.sokol

Hello, I'm Ben Sand, coFounder and coCEO of Meta, and I wanted to write this update to you personally. Firstly, I want to assure you a team of 45 dedicated people are working very hard to bring you your product. Our current schedule is to ship over the next 4-16 weeks as units come off our assembly line. Updates  We recognize the project updates are not as regular as you expect them to be and we are working on the right ways to solve this. Creating a quality update takes significant time. The people at Meta who can write a comprehensive update for you are connected to everything that is going on in the organization. These are the same people we are depending on to deliver the product. Since it takes several days to collect the information for a thorough update, we have to carefully balance these updates with bringing you the product as soon as possible. Going forward, we are hiring for the position of Developer & Customer Relations Manager to help keep you up to date and grow the team who will support you. Updates Going Forward  We are taking an epic plunge together into a world of immersive augmented 3D computing. As we are preparing to ship, we are hiring our developer and customer support team to work with you. Updates will continue long after shipment. Our SDK is updated internally on a weekly basis. New features and improvements will be communicated to you. Early pioneer companies are working with us and we will showcase their work to you, to help you see what it possible and get the most out of your dev kit. Growing Meta to Serve you Better  After your support, the Meta team has grown fast. We now have 45 full time people working on Meta. We have 10 roles open now for people passionate about building the future of computing, across all areas in the company. These roles will be presented shortly. This is the best time to engage with Meta as we are growing fast, so your role will too. Delays to Shipping  Delays to shipping have been caused by the following:  Quality Improvement: Some plastics and ergonomic foam required additional iterations to get to the right quality level. We want you to love your Meta 1 and we are putting great care into making it well.  Parts Supply: An IC (integrated circuit) that we planned to use, had a supply shortfall, so we had to adjust our design for a backup chip. This has gone smoothly as we planned for this possibility, but necessitated a few weeks in quality assurance. Future Timeline At this stage we do not anticipate any further delays. The remaining steps of production are:  Production of minor electronics for the Adaptor Box that connects your Meta 1 to your computer.  Assembly of the Full product  Shipping the product to you. If you'd like to receive training and meet our team, apply to pickup your Meta 1 in person at our Hackathon. --- Meta 1 Dev Kit Update: Production Ready Meta CTO Raymond Lo, VP of Logistics Karen Kwan, and Production Engineers Eric Bokides and Jackson Wilkins are back from a two week expedition to our manufacturers in Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and ZhongShan.  Meta 1 Developer Kit Glasses Frame First stop: plastic frames for our optics. Our engineers worked with the factory to examine the first batches of plastic frames. They corrected imperfections in the injection molds so that the final runs would have flawless and smooth surfaces. Cable Enclosure We designed a simple enclosure to keep the cables from the optics, camera, and IMU neatly together. The above photos show the molds and the finished product as they come out of the molds and are put together over the cables. Meta Control Box Our engineers worked with our factory to tweak the injection molds for our plastic control box, which contains the electronic components that run the optics and sensors in our glasses. Our glasses plug into the Meta control box, which plugs into your computer.  Control Box Electronics  Our engineers tested our custom HDMI AV converter boards, which go inside our control box. Carrying Case Our custom carrying case was designed with the help of the same folks who produce Oakley's sunglasses carrying cases.  Final Assembled Unit The final pieces we are shipping. Meta Pioneers Workshops We have run several Pioneers Workshops now with more to come in the next few months. You should apply for the Pioneers Workshops if you are serious about building a company with Meta, and want to grow with us as a partner. Submit an application here. Our Pioneers are companies we have hand picked to be trained by our engineers to start to build apps with early access to pre-release prototypes and our SDK. Applications are still open for the last Pioneer Workshops before launch, with applications from email subscribers prioritized. Augmented World Expo (AWE Conference)  Hundreds of enthused developers spend hours lining up to try our latest Meta 1 Developer Kit Prototypes at the Augmented World Expo in Santa Clara. Developers & AR enthusiasts had the chance to try out the first shots from the production line. Meta & AWE Keynote  Meta hosted a launch party for AWE and the Meta1 for 400 industry luminaries on our campus. These events help us develop partnership and inspire companies to work with our glasses, ensuring a rich collection of applications in our ecosystem. ---- Thank you for your continued support and I look forward to meeting many of you soon. Ben Sand  coFounder coCEO, Meta      Copyright © 2014 meta, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you signed up on our website Our mailing address is: meta 2711 Centerville Road, Suite 400 Wilmington, DE 19808

Google’s YouTube Buys Mobile Video Startup Directr - Digits - WSJ

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/08/06/googles-youtube-buys-mobile-video-startup-directr/?mod=ST1

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Scientists reconstruct speech through soundproof glass by watching a bag of potato chips | The Verge

http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/4/5968243/mit-turns-recorded-vibrations-back-into-speech-and-music