Business News Holding

Blog

  • HD Option A Big Hit For MyToons

    MyToons only launched its high definition channel a few months ago but already it’s attracting attention from several major TV and film studios.
    Paul Ford, president of the animation website, spoke to HDTV.biz-news.com about the burgeoning HD animation community and the challenges of offering high def cartoons on the internet.

    It’s one thing to stick a home-movie onto YouTube, quite another to create animation in high definition.

    Yet just a few months after launching its HD channel the cutting-edge animation site MyToons has become the leading showcase for high def cartoons.

    Paul Ford, MyToons’ president, said the number of HD uploads was growing rapidly and he expected that to continue as increasing numbers of animators presented their work.

    He described the quality and detail of the HD creations as mind-blowing.

    "People are taking to HD like mad," he said. "It’s been very well-received by both the animators and the fans. In fact, we’ve had calls from several major TV and film studios looking to licence the technology."

    Making animations in HD presents its own challenges

    Ford said there was a big difference between making online user-created video and animated content.

    He said creating YouTube-style content – with a handy cam or camcorder – was not really that difficult to do.

    "You think up a story or a bit, run around and shoot some stuff, maybe edit it in a consumer editor like Movie Maker or iMovie, and you’re done," he said.

    But Ford believed creating animated content, on any level, was much more difficult.

    "To create animation – and I mean any kind of animation, generally – there is far more thought, and far more preparation and planning involved," he said.

    "Usually the story comes first, and that takes time to develop. Next are the dialogue and music tracks, story boards and possibly animatics (animated storyboards).
    "Finally, after a lot more work creating the final piece, you are done."

    Ford said in between was many hours of tedious work drawing in 2D, modelling in 3D, creating backgrounds and props and crafting each frame of each scene.

    "This art does take a good amount of time to create. Much longer than user-created video, for sure," he said. "Creating animation in HD really takes things up yet another notch.

    "Not only does the animator need to think about and do all of the stuff I’ve already discussed, they need computers with the horse power to do it at HD resolution. This means long render times and huge files."

    Technology Delivers Online Cartoons

    Ford described the MyToons HD player technology as "second to none", adding that it wasn’t necessary to download a proprietary player as was the case with some of the non-animation HD video sites.

    But to get to the stage of being able to stream HD via the internet MyToons first had to do some "very, very tricky things".

    "Our HD is not progressive. In other words, a person is not downloading the file first, or a portion of it, and then able to view the file," he said.

    "MyToons HD is more like real television. You hit play, and it starts right up. Our player is able to read the HD data in realtime, giving the viewer that ‘instant-on’ experience they are used to."

    Based in San Antonio, Texas, MyToons was established in 2006 as an online resource and entertainment destination for professional animators, students, artists and animation fans.

    The attraction for animators or creators of having their work on MyToons is that it offers them a robust and reliable distribution platform at the quality level they expect, according to Ford.

    "Animators are finicky when it comes to quality," he said. "That’s why many, many animators I talk to regularly simply won’t put their stuff up on places like YouTube.

    "That work is usually so personal and so carefully crafted-to-perfection – it’s really seen by the creator as a direct reflection, of sorts, of themselves – and usually a labor of love.

    "Giving animators everywhere the ability to have their work experienced as they intended and envisioned is very powerful stuff."

    HD Audience Growing

    In August, MyToons announced a global partnership to bring its animated content to Vuze’s 30 million member worldwide audience.

    Setting up such partner channels was a means of giving independent animators even greater reach and more exposure.

    "We will continue with these partnerships because they are good for our members, and we always put the animator first – what’s good for them, is good for MyToons," said Ford.

    "We think that these channels add to MyToons, and don’t take away from it. We find many people coming directly from those channels to MyToons-proper to get more of the good stuff."

  • Dialling INTO Your Smartphone To Get Easier


    Hundreds of millions of people have used Virtual Network Computing’s (VNC) remote access applications on their PCs.

    The Cambridge, UK-based company is now counting on the same success with its mobile version of allowing remote control both to and from smartphones.

    Speaking to smartphone.biz-news.com at the Smartphone Show in London, Andy Harter, CEO of VNC, said he expected the mobile edition to appeal to both IT departments and to consumers.

    With increasing numbers of employees now equipped with high-end handsets, he said the mobile viewer could be used for solving technical difficulties for staff in the field.

    The viewer could also give staff access to their office desktop machines if they needed to locate data not available on their handsets.

    Supporting all the major mobile platforms, including Symbian, Windows Mobile, Blackberry, iPhone and Mobile Linux, VNC Mobile provides cross-platform compatibility.

    Available in early 2009, no cost is yet available but Harter said the viewer would be priced sensibly.

    He said the applications could also be available on feature phones at some time in the near future.

  • Symbian Vows To Sweep Clear Obstacles For Developers


    Symbian’s CEO Nigel Clifford spelt out his vision for the organisation’s future under Nokia as one which would sweep away previous obstacles and attract innovative developers.

    Giving the opening keynote speech at the Smartphone Show in London, Clifford admitted that up until now developers may have been put off working with Symbian because of licensing agreements and conditions.

    He promised that would be among the “double quick” changes that would be made when the deal by Nokia to purchase Symbian goes through next year.

    “We will take a popular operating system and user interfaces and create a new platform with a new identity,” he said.

    This would solve the conundrum that, according to Clifford, people had been faced with:  " We have so far lived in an either/or world where you can either have free code but with a small footprint – or you can have very capable, proven software but at a cost.

    “With Symbian we are moving from that to both ‘and’ – proven in the market place and for free.”

    Sporting a broken arm from a cycling accident, Clifford said the result of this would be that there would no longer need to be a trade-off in developers’ minds.

    He said the cost and effort would be taken out of the development track and a unified asset created.

    “We are sweeping the hurdles away so we can get on with the job at hand,” he said.

    Earlier, David Wood, executive vice president of research at Symbian, also stressed where the organisation’s emphasis would lie once the deal with Nokia was completed.

    “There are three words that are most important for the success of the Symbian platform going forward: developers, developers and developers,” he said.

  • Why Halt At Tethering One Device To Your Smartphone?


    It’s one thing to hear the corporate blurb about a product, quite another to hear company executives’ experience of using their own gear.

    Sean O’Leary, TapRoot Systems’ VP of marketing and business development, has just spent a week touring Europe relying on his company’s WalkingHotSpot software for internet connectivity.

    Launched six months ago as a beta version, the ability of the software to transform Windows Mobile 6 and S60 3G/Wi-Fi handsets into walking “hotspots” has proved very popular.

    The application is capable of tethering up to five devices through a Wi-Fi enabled smartphone.

    Users can retrieve emails and surf the web on devices such as laptops and MP3 players using their handsets’ wireless data plan without the need for the added expense of data cards and dongles.

    While O’Leary was never going to be the most neutral of critics there’s no doubt he is more than pleased with the success of his first hand exposure to the application.

    “Even using it on trains around Europe it worked seamlessly and there was never any problem with connecting,” he told smartphone.biz-news.com at the Smartphone Show in London.

    While 30 per cent of software downloads have been in the US, Europe hasn’t been slow to catch on to the advantages of WalkingHotSpot.

    O’Leary said it was possible to make calls while devices were connected without any degradation in quality for either the devices or the phone call.

    The software is available to download for either a one-time fee of USD $24.99 (€18) for the lifetime of the phone or as a monthly plan for USD $6.99 (€5).

    O’Leary said support for other major operating systems is coming soon.

    To owners of iPhones just being able to easily hook up one device to their handsets would be ample.

  • First US Cities Get Tru2way Digital Cable Service


    Consumers in Chicago and Denver will be the first in the US to experience Comcast’s video-on-demand without a set-top box.

    Panasonic and Comcast today unveiled a tru2way digital cable service for the two cities with additional cities expected to go live in the coming months.

    To coincide with the platform launch, Panasonic’s new tru2way VIERA HDTVs will be available in certain retails stores in Chicago and Denver.

    The Panasonic HDTVs are built with tru2way technology inside, enabling consumers to access two-way digital cable programming, such as video-on-demand, without a cable operator-supplied set-top box.

    Mark Hess, Comcast’s senior vice president of Video Product Development, said tru2way technology was a gateway for customers to experience the next generation of interactive television.

    "This common platform also will let us develop an exciting array of interactive services and applications that we can deliver on our advanced fiber network to a variety of consumer electronics devices," he said.

    Panasonic had announced at the May 2008 Cable Show that the first tru2way HDTVs would be available for consumer purchase at retail by fall 2008.

    Dr Paul Liao, Chief Technology Officer, Panasonic Corporation of North America, said the arrival of the first tru2way HDTVs at retail, combined with Comcast’s activation of its first tru2way head ends, were among the most significant milestones in the cable industry.

  • Global Mobile Web Usage Exploding


    Mobile Web and application usage is growing rapidly, according to mobile advertising agency AdMob.

    In its latest Mobile Metrics Report, the expansion is shown to be widely spread, with 34 countries sending more than 10 million ad requests to AdMob’s network in September 2008, compared to only 16 countries in September 2007.

    Celebrating its first anniversary, the reports states that since its launch the number of monthly ad requests in the AdMob network tripled from 1.6 billion in September 2007 to 5.1 billion in September 2008.

    The increase is attributed to a combination of organic growth from AdMob’s legacy publishers and the addition of thousands of new mobile sites and applications to the company’s publisher network.

    The number of mobile sites and applications in AdMob’s network increased to more than 6,000, with 4,308 publishers requesting ads in September 2008.

    Other highlights from the September 2008 report:

    Worldwide, the Apple iPhone is now the number 4 handset after the Motorola RAZR, Nokia N70, and Motorola KRZR. There were 103 million ad requests from iPhones worldwide in September 2008.

    In the US, 16 of the current Top 20 devices are new from September 2007, including the Samsung Instinct and Apple iPhone.

    In the UK, the Nokia N95 gained share steadily throughout the year and is now the leading handset with 9.7 per cent share of requests. The SonyEricsson K800i and W810i, the number 1 and number 5 handsets respectively in September 2007, both remain in the Top 5 a year later.

  • Virtualization Heads Gartner's Strategic Technology List


    Virtualization     is the technology with the potential for having the most “significant impact” on enterprises over the next three years, according to Gartner.

    Every year the analyst firm highlights the top 10 technologies and trends it predicts will be strategic for most organizations.

    Virtualization, which ranked fifth on Gartner’s list last year, has moved to the top slot for 2009.

    Gartner defines "significant impact" as including factors such as high potential for disruption to IT or the business, the need for a major dollar investment, or the risk of being late to adopt.

    David Cearley, vice president at Gartner, said strategic technologies affect, run, grow and transform the business initiatives of an organization.

    "Companies should look at these 10 opportunities and evaluate where these technologies can add value to their business services and solutions, as well as develop a process for detecting and evaluating the business value of new technologies as they enter the market," he said.

    Cloud computing ranked second in the list, while servers came third.

  • Hitachi Unveils Midrange Storage Platform


    Hitachi Data Systems has unveiled its next-generation line-up of midrange storage systems, the Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage (AMS) 2000 Series.

    The company says the ground-breaking new systems introduce a wide range of pioneering technologies previously unavailable on a midrange storage platform.

    It says they deliver improved performance, connectivity, scalability, reliability and ease-of-use to midrange customers.

    Customers benefit by implementing a sophisticated, cost-effective midrange storage platform that can scale to better address their growing storage environments and diverse application requirements.

    Mark Peters, an analyst with the Enterprise Strategy Group, said that mid-sized businesses and operations have precisely the same challenges as larger ones.

    But he said the storage industry often met their needs for reduced scale and increased affordability with a significantly compromised feature set.

    "The new AMS products from Hitachi turn such old-fashioned notions on their head, providing mid-sized storage systems that blend advanced functionality and affordability with flexibility and ease of use,” he said.

    “Hitachi’s innovative combination of a SAS backend with an advanced active-active controller is what underpins the systems’ extensive capabilities, which users can access via a straightforward GUI.”

    The Hitachi AMS Series 2000 delivers up to 4x the performance compared to prior generations, and also offers storage consolidation for iSCSI, NAS, and Fibre Channel storage area network (SAN) connections.

    The AMS Series 2000 is comprised of three models: the Hitachi AMS 2100, the Hitachi AMS 2300, and the Hitachi AMS 2500.

    The entire portfolio of midrange storage systems meets the benchmarking standard "Five 9’s" of availability, 99.999 per cent uptime.

    The new Hitachi AMS Series 2000 delivers the following:

    • The industry’s Hitachi Dynamic Load Balancing Controller turbocharges the storage system to peak levels of performance with virtually no-touch.
    • Unlike asymmetrical controller designs of traditional midrange storage systems, the breakthrough Hitachi Dynamic Load Balancing Controller eliminates typical bottlenecks and “hot spots” that can decrease I/O response times by monitoring utilization rates of each controller and dynamically enables workload balancing.
    • The industry’s first 3Gb/s Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) Backplane in a midrange storage platform, providing the fastest, most cost-effective way to process and transfer data through a storage controller engine.
    • This breakthrough technology curbs the architectural limitations of arbitrated loop designs with support for up to 32 3Gb/s high-performance point-to-point links that deliver a blistering 9600 MB/sec of bandwidth and dramatically speed data transfer.

  • Smartphone Users Offered Software To Scrub Data


    Smartphone users worried about what would happen to confidential info in old handsets can sleep a little easier.

    Aiko Solutions has come up with what it claims is an industry-first – software that really does erase all data from a smartphone, according to smartphone.biz-news.com.

    The solution could be good news for many people as a nearly a quarter of re-sold smartphones contain sensitive data, according to recent research.

    BlackBerry owners were the worst offenders for discarding their handsets with sensitive company and personal information.

    Aiko Solutions says SecuWipe is an advanced software utility to securely sanitize data on Windows Mobile Pocket PCs, Smartphones and Windows CE handhelds.

  • SecuWipe Software Erases Smartphone Data


    Aiko Solutions has announced the public release of SecuWipe, a data erasure utility for PDAs and smartphones.

    Concerns over smartphone security have been rising steadily, not least because of the handsets’ great capacity for storing large amounts of corporate and personal information.

    Standard “deletion” and even a “hard reset” do not completely wipe data off the device, with the result that sensitive information can still be easily retrieved by using special recovery software.

    Aiko is claiming an industry first by offering software that overwrites data with US DoD (Department of Defense) compliant methods and makes data truly erased and unrecoverable.

    The security software developer says SecuWipe is an advanced software utility to securely sanitize data on Windows Mobile Pocket PCs, Smartphones and Windows CE handhelds.

    It says the solution can be used to clean the Smartphone before recycling or to remove traces of online activity, SMS and calls records.

    “SecuWipe is the best choice for those who want to avoid security breaches and protect customer privacy,” according to a statement from the company.

    The program employs different data sanitizing algorithms, including zero-filling, U.S. DoD 5220.22-M method, Bruce Schneier’s algorithm, and Peter Gutman’s algorithm.

    SecuWipe will securely erase:

    • Contacts
    • Email, SMS, MMS messages
    • Calls
    • Appointments, Tasks
    • Notes, Recordings
    • Internet Cache, Cookies and History
    • Free Space
    • SD card(s)
    • Files and Folders

    SecuWipe is available as a demo version at no cost, and it can be downloaded. A single-user license can be securely purchased online for USD $39.95. Volume and academic pricing is available upon request.