Micro 4/3 cameras: a bridge too far ?

6:03 AM
Micro 4/3 cameras: a bridge too far ?





The new Micro Four Thirds comes to bridge the gap between SLR and digital compact cameras.

SLRs (and DSLRs) normally have interchangeable lenses while Bridge cameras have a unique fixed lense. These later are generally more compact, but use a smaller sensor (4/3 vs 35mm for SLRs).

Apparently there was still an unexploited niche in between, and potentially big enough for two major camera makers to start the experience of the Micro Four Thirds cameras.

These are as compact as bridge cameras but offer the lens interchangeability of their big brothers. So, the best of both world apparently? well, not exactly...

It takes the slower autofocus mechanism as well as the typical Electronic View Finder of the compact digital camera world (a plug-in optical VF is sold separately), and -for the moment- does not allow any video recording. This last point could be show stopper for people who like the compact all-in-one factor of bridge cameras. So the Micro Four Thirds has potential to frustrate both SLR and bridge fans.

So far there were two main categories of photographs (or so I thought): the casuals (using bridges) and the serious (using SLR's). In between must sit the seriously casuals (or the casually serious?), to which Micro Four Thirds will give a unique opportunity to spend big bucks for lenses and filters just like the SLR's (but with more space for accessories in the travel bag thanks to the smaller camera) and still enjoy the ISO limitation of a bridge.

Time will tell if there is an audience for this new type of camera...

Sources:
http://www.olympus.co.uk
http://www.panasonic.co.uk
http://www.imaging-resource.com/NEWS/1217960634.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_Four_Thirds_system
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So Muhammad Ali is Irish !?

1:18 PM
So Muhammad Ali is Irish !?
If you are living on the Emerald Island, and in the Banner county in particular, it is quite difficult to ignore that Muhammad Ali is coming on the 1st of September in the Information Age Town (everything is decoded below). My off topic category is there for events like this.






I like the 2 videos below (not embeddable, sorry) showing the boxer's great sense of humour:

Muhammad Ali talks about his Irish origins (Interview on RTE Irish TV 1960s)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-kKKXB2_ZI

Interview clips of Muhammad Ali (1971, 1974, 1975 and 1981)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bnz77QSu2HA

If you happen to cross the town of Ennis on that 1st of September, and depending if you're a fan or not, you should know what places to reach, or to avoid with the program of his visit:
  • All Day - Muhammad Ali Exhibition, at Glor Irish Music Centre
  • 1.00-3.30pm - Public event at Abbey Street Car Park
  • 3.00pm - Civic Reception at Waterpark House, Drumbiggle (Muhammad Ali will embark on drive through Ennis town following this event). Please note that the Civic Reception is a closed event.
  • 3.00-4.30pm - Street entertainment at O'Connell Square, Abbey St. and O'Connell St.
  • 3.15-4.30pm - Live entertainment, Temple Gate Plaza
  • 3.15-4.30pm - Live entertainment, Turnpike
  • 3.00pm (free admission), 8.00pm (ticketed only) - Showing of 'When We Were Kings' at Glor Irish Music Centre. Proceeds in aid of The Parkinson's Association Of Ireland
Source: http://www.clare.fm/news/muhammad-ali-itinerary


Translation:
Emerald Island = Ireland
Banner County = Clare
Information Age Town = Ennis (but that's Irish Geek humour!)
















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Third-Party software for IP Cameras

7:26 AM
Third-Party software for IP Cameras
The IP Camera BSTI PT100V2W appears to be a clone of the Foscam FI8901W which, in turn, is the older brother of the FI8908W.











Therefore the IP Camera Super-Client found on BSTI web site does work with Foscam cameras. The interface is not the clearest and I had a few crashes with it, but it appears to be free (even if a registration is required after some time), so it's still good to take.
More decent is H264WebCam also works with the Foscam FI8908W (selecting BSTI PT100V2W), excepted for the Pan & Tilt function. It exists in free, standard or pro version. It offers motion detection of pre-selected zones, FTP/email alert, recording, and some access control.


WebcamXP gives good results. For the Pan & Tilt to work, the Camera brand selected shouldn't be BSTI, but either Shenzen, or Netwave. This software seems the most capable to me, although it can be slow at times. It's quite complete (webcast, access control, motion and audio detection, email and SMS alert, ... ).
They also provide DirectShow Filters that makes it possible to use the ip camera with Skype for instance. 
The 60 days trial version is limited to 1 channel.


Blue Iris also works and includes a lot of features (PTZ, recording, alert to cell phone, IM or email, motion sensor, webcast supporting Windows media codec, ...). There is a 15 days limited demo mode.

ZoneTrigger is now reported to work with Foscam cameras using the syntax: http://login:pwd@ipcam_url:port/snapshot.cgi 

vitamin d is a really cool monitoring software featuring people and action rules. Foscam is not listed but can be used as "other" model by specifying http://ipcam_url:port/videostream.cgi as the camera url. The software does video recording on motion detection and distinguishes people from object and can obey to pre-defined rules, like "if object moves through the exit door, send an email alert and play a sound".
vitamin d is available for PC and Mac. The free starter edition allow 1 camera only. Their pricing options are: Basic edition for up to 2 cameras at 49$, and pro edition with unlimited cameras for...199$! Something in between would have been nice for people like myself having 3 cameras! (thanks to Jason for mentioning this application)


Phones with J2ME support
The name Netwave appears in the camera data stream and the Chinese part of their website contains a nice utility: A j2me Camera viewer for mobile phone. It works fine on my SE G705. Keys 2,4,6,8 can be used to Pan & Tilt, 1,3,7,9 for vertical and horizontal "patrols". It now comes on a CD with most recent ip cameras from Foscam.


According to the accompanying note, it is possible to make it run on Windows Mobile through the Esmertec Jbed utility (also here).


Android phones
"IP Cam Viewer" has support for Foscam FI8908W (with PTZ) and FI8904W. The lite version is already very complete. The pro version allows more cameras and is ads-free.




For iPhone: IPVision Pro. Pan & Tilt is made possible by adding this custom plist. The model to select is Foscam/Generic PTZ and the option "continuous" under settings must be enabled (thanks to kevc for his contribution).













Touch Cams from Perreora .
Usage: http://ipcam/snapshot.cgi?user=name&pwd=password



Live Cams by  Barry Egerter

supporting Foscam since ver.3.04, including pan/tilt control since 3.10
(thanks  +ke luzes for your info on these two)














Foscam Viewer by Neebii
(thanks ruudje1977 for the info)

Dedicated to Foscam's and compatible clones.



Features:
- Camera reboot
- PTZ control as well as Horizontal Patrol
- Brightness and Contrast
- Arm/disarm motion detection + reboot
- Control up to 4 cameras
- Full screen mode.
- Memory for user selection on camera and full screen.





Mozilla Firefox Browser extension:
IP Cam PTZ by DRZ400S


For more detail, see this review. 



Linux - gmotionlive 1.0






Usage: gmotionlive http://user:pwd@camurl/videostream.cgi



Also reported to work with linux phones such as Nokia N900 (Thanks Kevin!)

Smart Baby Monitor

Turn your IP Camera into a Baby Monitor !
















Highlights:
·       Specially developed for Baby Monitoring (Video + Audio)
·       Raises an alarm if an audio activity (crying) detected
·       Blanket-kicked-off detection
·       Alarm notification via mobile phone through Bluetooth and/or local PC audio 



With most camera clients, it is possible to enter a generic cgi command line.
It would look like this for a Foscam camera:
http://ipcamurl/videostream.cgi[?user=&pwd=&resolution=]

(see the Foscam CGI Guide for detail).



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Gestural Interfaces and Augmented Reality

3:37 AM
Gestural Interfaces and Augmented Reality


The Nintendo Wii seems to sit in the middle of two worlds: the (old) world of solid interfaces (mouses, keyboards, buttons,...) and the coming world of virtual interfaces where we will interact with devices through gestures in the empty air with our bare hands.

While the Wii still requires you to hold a controller, Microsoft's Natal Project is one first step into the new world...


But there is more:




...and this extrapolation doesn't look too far away after all:


If you want to try the gestural interface for yourself: all you need is a webcam and the software for this site
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Alternatives to Wayfinder on Sony Ericsson mobiles

4:20 AM
Alternatives to Wayfinder on Sony Ericsson mobiles

Several Sony Ericsson GPS-enabled mobile phones come with Wayfinder as the main application. The software itself looks ok and could even (very) occasionally be used to guide you when driving. But there's a catch: after a trial period, you'll be invited to pay a yearly fee. And instead of availing for their "exclusive offer", you may prefer to buy an entry-level but decent dedicated GPS device for the same price!

However, there are free alternatives if you still wish to use your mobile phone as a PNA:

amAze is a free GPS application (ad-funded) working on most J2ME mobile phones.

An important trick to avoid expansive data traffic for streaming maps over the phone, is to use the arrows mode where only the small amount of data for the calculated route is sent to the phone. See more here.
Like Wayfinder, it also provides vocal instructions. Previous reviews of amAze highlighted the ugly interface and the slow response. All this has visibly improved now (I tried v4.5). It actually seems slightly ahead of its competitor: Nav4All . But this is open to discussion...
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Interactive Projector Technology

3:08 AM
Interactive Projector Technology

TI has, for many years, been present inside most technological devices (Speak & Spell toy, TI computers, BOLT-117 laser-guided bomb), and it's nearly impossible to open one without finding the little Texas-shaped logo on a component.

But most of us know the brand for having used their calculators at school. And that's in the classrooms again that the company is about to make a remarkable comeback.

DLP (Digital Light Processing) is already popular thanks to the pocket-sized pico projectors and soon to be cellphone-embedded, but below is an even more spectacular example of the DLP Interactive Projector Technology:



Below is a demo of a possible alternative (for the not-so-well-funded schools):




Related:
- johnnylee.net/projects/wii/
- GestureFX
- SmartBoard
- Gestural interfaces
- Other Pico projector
- WowWee Cinemin Swivel
- eBeam
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Media Library Management

3:44 AM
Media Library Management
If I don't want to pay for a professional software, I try to find it's freeware counterpart. It was quite a challenge 10 years ago, when a free software would often be ugly, unstable, limited and poorly maintained, but this has changed, in great part thanks to the excellent Sourceforge community. Now there are many professional-grade open-source applications available and it became impossible for me to do without some of them.

To start my own best-of collection, the first application that comes to my mind is Ant Movie Catalog. While apparently not part of the Sourceforge listing, it's an good example of freeware that outperform by far any payware I know of.

It evolved to cover now every important aspects of a good media database: Easy and complete interface, powerful import/export functionality, powerfull scripts (constently updated but you can create yours) that allow you to grab the DVD cover and information from various specialised web sites, loan management (very important!), and last but not least,a highly configurable print-out interface.

Also, have a look at the other less popular software from the same author.
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Geek flavoured Coffee

7:10 AM
Geek flavoured Coffee
Coffee is very compatible with the geek lifestyle. It's actually the animal's primary food !

I discovered a year ago the last mug I may ever need. It comes with one typical travel mug lid, and a second one with a plunger. It also holds a concealed storage box for tea, instant coffee or sugar.

My only regret with my Double Shot model is that it is too large for the cup holder in my car.


The Senseo coffee maker is hard to find in Ireland, so I Senseo 7832 around €100purchased one on the web. It's the most economic on use, just after the traditional filter coffee machine, and makes excellent coffee, despite it's 1.5 bar pump (compared to 15 bar for typical espresso makers).
As I often travel to France and Belgium, I get the coffee refill there, but sometimes I run short on pods, and there comes a clever gadget to sort me out: the refillable pods.

There are several brands available and some can easely reach €10 piece. The ones I found, called ecopads, came in pack of 5 units for just €11! Having several pads allows to pre-fill them and store them in a box for future use.



And finally just for the eyes, a true geek trap, and - to me - the most beautiful coffee machine on the market:
the Francis Francis X1 (if only it didn't cost over €500!)
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Donations

5:45 AM
Donations
Donations are much appreciated by clicking the button below. Amount can be based on the actual price of a pint.

However, please note that your contribution is likely to be redirected to the following highly deserving voluntary initiatives in mid-West Ireland, helping children with special needs. If you're local, please consider contributing directly:


The Clare Crusaders mission is to help Children with Special Needs in the areas of CerebralPalsy, Autism, Down Syndrome and a variety of other conditions. Their team of volunteer therapists provide assistance in schools from Clare region as well as in their own clinic. All funds are raised through volunteers as they do not receive any government funding.



No Limits Surf Club is a non profit organisation established in 2010 and providing surf sessions for Kids with Special Needs. Such experience brings unsuspected benefits to those boys and girls with sensory challenges! 
The club is run with the assistance of the Aloha Surf School in Fanore and a team of committed, enthusiastic volunteers.
The sessions require specialized surfing equipment and the assistance of many skilled volunteers, the No Limits Surf Club is always looking for new volunteers, donations and sponsorship to ensure the future of the club. 



Thanks!
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