Chalk this one up to the “we’ll believe it when we see it” category but according to IBM researchers, controlling computers with your mind is only 5 years away. To be fair, there are already many tests that have confirmed the ability to control simple computer functions with one’s mind but a fully functional mind-controlled operating system still seems a long way off – not to mention a bit scary. One of the most innovative companies in this field called emotiv, already has a non-invasive headset that can be worn over one’s head with several sensors. This headset allows users to control a computers, toys, and other electronics based off of the electrical thought patterns in their brain. The video below from TED.com shows how this amazing technology works. What’s interesting is that emotiv is able to achieve this without having to cut any hair, applying any gels, or more importantly, drilling into one’s skull. Given the advanced state of this technology already, it’s easy to see how it could become mainstream in gaming and to overcome disabilities.

What’s equally as exciting is what this technology could hold for video editors. If an editor were able to color correct, drop a track’s volume, select a clip, insert graphics, change editing tools, and organize files all with a simple thought, then the complexity barrier of editing software would be effectively gone. How great would it be to never  have to remember pesky keyboard shortcuts or dig through countless folders to find an effect?

That being said, there are some obvious challenges for this technology. For starters, every editor would have to have full concentration when cutting a project together. One stray thought about what you’re having for lunch and your entire project could end up as a tribute to a bowl of soup and a fresh salad. This also brings up an interesting point…how would one multitask when using this technology? Would it be possible to listen to music while making a cut or to talk to a client while color correcting footage? No technology will ever be adopted in the video editing world unless it makes your project look better or get done faster. These are all questions that will need to be answered before this technology ever becomes useful to video editors. Even so, I’m sure my fingers will thank me some day when I no longer need to do mash the Control, Alt, Shift, and Y buttons in order to “quickly” insert a null object into an After Effects Composition.

Video shooters of all expertise levels, from novice to pro, are always looking for the fastest way to get big chunks of data off the camera and into their editing programs.  For the majority of us, that now means pulling images and video off an SD card and onto our computer’s hard drive.  In managing this process there are usually three primary considerations: speed, capacity, and compatibility.  Leveraging both 2.0 and 3.0, Verbatim has announced its new USB 3.0/USB 2.0 Universal Card Readers and USB 2.0 Pocket Card Reader – compatible with Windows and Mac operating systems.

(For years USB 2.0 was the standard. Then USB 3.0, launched in 2010, increasing transfer speeds by a factor of 10.  For more background on USB, read the Videomaker article about USD 3.0.)

Universal Card Readers

These new readers support a wide variety of memory card formats and are 100% compatible with all USB ports. Verbatim indicates that the USB 3.0 device delivers transfer speeds of up to 5GB/second, while the USB 2.0 version transfers data at a rate of up to 480MB/second.

Memory cards supported by both the USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 Universal Card Reader include: CompactFlash Type I & Type II (CF), Secure Digital (SD), Secure Digital High Capacity (SDHC), miniSD, microSD, Memory Stick (MS), Memory Stick PRO, Memory Stick Duo, Memory Stick PRO Duo, Memory Stick PRO-HG Duo, Memory Stick Micro (M2), MultiMedia Card (MMC) and xD-Picture Card (xD).

The USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 Universal Card Readers are available for $14.99 and $24.99, respectively.

USB 2.0 Pocket Card Reader

Sporting an integrated USB cable, Verbatim’s  Pocket Card Reader is just as its name suggests. The portable, pocket-sized multi-functional reader supports a wide variety of formats, including compatibility with SD, Memory Stick and MMC interfaces.   Memory cards supported by the Pocket Card Reader include: Secure Digital (SD), Secure Digital High Capacity (SDHC), miniSD, microSD, Memory Stick (MS), Memory Stick PRO, Memory Stick Duo, Memory Stick PRO Duo, Memory Stick PRO-HG Duo, Memory Stick Micro (M2), MultiMedia Card (MMC)

The Pocket Card Reader is available for $9.99.

As the transfer speeds of readers like these increase and the compatibility of the readers with a multitude of card types adds to their versatility, videographers will find them more and more indispensable.

100 Years of Technology – What Will Video Look Like in 100 Years?

From prehistoric cave drawings to modern video techniques, those of use who chose the life of visual historian and story-teller have had a lot of technical advances to keep abreast of. How does one manage it all for decades at a time?

I am always amazed at how fast technology advancement moves nowadays. From someday working on transparent videos, like our associate Jackson Wong reported, to texture-touch TVs that associate Dan Bruns reported about, many of today’s technical inventions now follow what is called Moore’s Law, which states that the “number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years“. [Source: Wikipedia]  People used to keep their old TVs for a lifetime, then for a decade, now many of us upgrade every three years or so. Many more of us upgrade our mobile phones annually, whereas our grandparents kept their original black desktop ‘anvil’ hard-wired telephone their entire life.

I was at a grade-school’s annual Winter Concert last night and saw dozens of parents using a varied assortment of new and old devices to capture the moment: from a very old large clunky video camera that had only an eyepeice to tiny digital flash-drive camcorders, mobile phones, even an iPad.

Technology in the Past

I love reading about the changes in technology, especially that which applies to cameras, editing and computers. Recently I wrote two blogs about technical history: The Birth of Film and History Now and Then and one of our readers, Roger Miller, brought me up to date on a story we wrote back in 1998 called “Video Time Machine: A Look Back to Life Before Camcorders“.  Roger was featured in that 13 year old story along with being a guest on our old TV series that aired on late night cable in the 1990s called “Videomaker Presents“. These videos show early reactions  of airlines and pedestrians and motorists to “this new thing” called home video. They also show early newscasts, equipment costs, and buying decisions with regard to home video. It’s always fun to look back at those old archives!

Roger created his own production company in 1980, Advantage Video, and now solely produces wedding and events videos, working up to 5-camera shoots. His company also works at converting videos from all those old obsolete formats from Betamax to disc. He suggests this is a good business to get into, because where will today’s families be when they want to future-protect their old family memories?

Good idea. There are a few companies looking towards the future for archiving purposes, Primera Technology is partnering with Millennitia, to create discs that they claim will last 100 years. You might want to put a DVD player and wall-wart into that time capsule to play it from!

Not to sit on just creating and archiving video, Miller has also been doing some technical inventing of his own, coming up with the SteadyIT for small camcorders.

The Future of Video?

This look at the historical predictions for the future from Predictions TV , (albeit dated, since it only goes to 2009), is an interesting title-graphical look at technology from 100 years to 2009. From “will we survive the millennium bug?” (1999) to “will 640k be enough for anybody?” (1979) and “will computers eventually weigh less than a ton?” (1949) But even just 3 years later a lot has happened since then.

I love looking at old technology – and seeing how far we’ve come just in my lifetime. LAU Beirut’s Riyad Nassar Library has a fantastic collection of technological historical artifacts. If I ever travel to the Middle East I’d just as likely want to see this amazing collection as I would ancient pyramids!

I love this – Predictions of technology of 100 years ago, from Live Science. Other 100 years of technology a quick search came up with found that IBM has been around for a century and Computer Weekly takes a look at the future of technology in 100 years, and my favorite, a 100 year starship project.

What do you think? Where do you think we will be with computers in 100 years? How about capturing, editing and sharing videos a century from now? Let’s hear your future predictions – the nice thing is, none of us will be around to see if you are right or wrong! (Unless, of course, the pharmaceutical companies invent that No Aging Pill by then!)

People in the video production world have a variety of motivations for making video.  Some are striving for a unique voice or to explore a particular facet of an artistic vision.  Others are in the video production business, recording events for paying customers.  Others are just starting out with ambitions to become accomplished directors, videographers, and producers in the film industry.  Still others are educators utilizing video in the classroom to enhance student learning and to get kids jazzed about the topic at hand.  The bottom line for everyone in the video production world is to reach as large an audience as possible.

Last week the Federal Communications Commission announced a program that will help, on multiple fronts: the “Connect to Compete” initiative.

Expected to hit the ground in the spring of 2012, this private and public partnership, coordinated by the FCC, will bring affordable broadband internet service to millions of households where there is none today.  As described on the Connect2compete.org website, “Connect to Compete is a national private and nonprofit sector partnership created to increase broadband adoption and digital literacy training in disadvantaged communities throughout the United States. The initiative is designed to help residents improve outcomes in education, health, and employment through broadband opportunities and technology solutions.”

In a world of hyper-connectivity and ever-faster devices providing instant access to information and near instant recording and sharing of the events of our lives through video, it’s startling to realize how many people are being left out. According to the Pew Research Center, fully a third of all Americans are currently without broadband internet service.  Of course, some of these households are opting out as conscientious objectors to the ubiquity of communications channels.  Clearly for many, many others, though, it’s a simple matter of economics.  Hard choices are being made about what to put in the shopping cart and broadband Internet connectivity just isn’t always at the top of the list, or on the list at all.  And when these households include school-age children eligible for free school lunch programs, for instance, or the poorer elderly, it means that the lack of affordable Internet access is just one more way in which many people are being left behind.  What used to be a non-essential luxury, a fast Internet connection at home, is increasingly an integral tool for education, employment, community action, and political engagement.

Connect to Compete, with the full participation and support of the cable industry, computer suppliers like Microsoft and Redemtech, and finance institutions like Morgan Stanley, will make broadband internet connections available to any household with a student currently eligible for free school lunches for about $10 per month.

And why should we in the video technology world be paying attention?  It goes back to who’s making and sharing video and, importantly, who’s watching.  We all benefit from a broader and more diverse audience for the work of videographers, short film producers, and those exploring the capabilities of the expanding field of video.  Connect to Compete will help to enable more and more of us to participate in the coming years.

(For another take on the importance of high-speed internet connectivity for sharing video, see Daniel Bruns’ “Internet at the Speed of Light: How Faster Connections Affect the Video World.”)

According to scientists in Singapore – simple table salt – the kind you use to make your cooking palatable may be the secret to making hard drives with six times the capacity of those we have now. The reason? Apparently, standard hard drives have randomly arranged magnetic grains on their surface that store data in a very inefficient way. So instead, a team of scientists from Singapore decided to combine a salt solution to a high-resolution e-beam lithography process which ended up arranging the magnetic grains on the disc in a tighter fashion.

As a comparison, most of today’s hard drives have a memory density of .5 terabits per square inch using the randomly placed magnetic grains we talked about above. Using their new process, however, the scientists were able to up the density to 3.3 terabits per square inch. This means that a 1 TB drive could end up holding 6 TB of data without adding any additional platters. The best part of this whole thing? The process is easily combined with current manufacturing technology meaning that it’s likely to actually be available on the market. No vaporware here!

One has to wonder how much this will really mean for the future of hard drive technology with the advent of solid state drives. Solid state drives offer faster read and write speeds than any hard drive platter could hope to accomplish without spinning and stopping so fast that the platter would get damaged. However, hard disc based drives are still well-entrenched in the RAID market making this welcome news for those editing on multiple hard drives. Imagine having a RAID enclosure that can hold 72 terabytes of data! It might finally be enough space to hold all of the projects you have…for now. Let’s just keep hoping they make larger and faster SSD and HDD drives so that we have enough space when the 4K revolution begins!

Windows 8 will go where no Windows program has gone easily before – to the tablet market.

If you’re thinking of buying a tablet in the future, you might have to wait just a wee bit longer, because Windows 8 promises to be a better interface for the tablet user but won’t be out until probably next spring.

Windows 8 will work with a touchscreen operation and includes a Facebook-like sharing sidebar called “Share Charm”.  At last year’s Consumer Electronics Show [CES], Microsoft announced that Windows 8 was in the works, this week at the Build developers conference in Anaheim, Microsoft announced ’8′ be coming soon to a tablet near you. Developers say the cloud-based use will be better and easier and there will be 300 new features for cloud and business management.

According to the technical site, ars technica, Windows 8 will have a “genuine, uncompromised tablet operating system”, in other words – tablet use won’t be an afterthought, and users of non-Apple tablets should be able to enjoy the tablet experience that iPad users revel in.  Instead of a program made for keyboard and mouse use being fitted into a tablet user’s world, the new program will have an easier touchpad experience, with better icons and text, literally from startup –  with a touchscreen interface. You can “pick up” tiles, or icons, and move them around, swipe left, right or from the top, and pinch-zoom.

Once the iPad hit the market, the tablet genie was out of the bottle, and manufacturers and product developers  have been trying to take a nibble from that exclusive pie ever since.

IT World got the first exclusive look, and discusses its many new features.  According to reports, Windows 8 won’t be on tablets on store shelves until April or May of 2012. We have several different models of tablets here at Videomaker to experiment with their use and workablility, so we can’t wait to see Windows 8 in action. We’ll keep you updated on how these amazing little devices will work for you in your video-producing world.

Windows 7 -  Hero? or Foe?

When Windows 7 launched in October 2009, many people read about some of the problems and concerns that early adopters were dealing with and decided to wait. But, oh! Along came Adobe CS5 first, with it’s 64-bit processing mandates, and then many other editing programs that all demanded an upgrade to Windows if you were going to use their programs.

Windows 7 IS faster, feels more stable, and has more GPU feature support in the 64-bit world.  We’ve all recovered, and like the Y2K scare that never happened, the editing world as we knew it didn’t come crashing down.

I, for one, hesitated about upgrading to Windows 7 because, unlike previous Windows upgrades, moving to Windows 7 meant a complete rewrite on my system, one in which I had to reinstall every single program I used, including my email server; which, in reality meant having to organize all my shortcuts, bookmarks, desktop links and C-drive; and then I had to store them on a special file to reload later. But I was upgrading to CS5 and Avid Media Composer 5, and needed a beefier system, so now seemed the time to bite the bullet and organize. It was a hassle, but it was worth it. Windows 8 might do for tablets what Windows 7 did for desktops – we’ll let you know as soon as we know!