November 21, 2007 at 9:25 pm · Filed under Television, Video
Wired Science closed out tonight’s episode (11/27) with a catchy video starring Keepon, a happy little dancing robot. The video from YouTube is embedded below (Keepon Dancing to Spoon’s “Don’t You Evah”).
The still before the video started reads:
Keepon, the dancing yellow robot, was designed and built by his video co-star, roboticist and psychologist Hideki Kozima, for his clinical research with autistic children. Mark Michalowski is the grad student who programs Keepon’s smooth moves.
WOW. I was very, very surprised by how high the quality of streamed video is that I’m seeing in Silverlight. I downloaded the latest plug-in (the 1.0, not the 1.1 Alpha) and navigated over to the FOX Video Browser example. The video quality is unbelievable. Go to the demo, install the plug-in (if you need to), start a video, and then double click in the video to go full-screen. It’s impressive.
I’ve also been using Joost for several weeks now, and have been giving the quality the benefit of the doubt because I felt it was reasonable that quality be constrained by bandwidth and codec limitations. Well, the Silverlight streaming example utilizing Microsoft’s codec is far better at this point.
Full disclosure: I am having a problem with the plug-in and Safari (I’m viewing the samples in Firefox). I’m not sure what the issue is and am going to see if anyone here from Microsoft can provide some advice.
Well, if you hadn’t heard yet, and you’re looking for a Beta invite to Joost, the latest Beta client allows unlimited invites to existing Joost testers.
There’s more content (available now or by the end of the month) on Joost now also, including:
Anderson Cooper (CNN) and Aqua Teen Hunger Force (Cartoon Network)
National Hockey League
Sports Illustrated
and, wait for it: GI Joe
If you’re still in need of a Joost invite, just ask (please provide your email address-several people have asked for a Beta invite, but haven’t left their email address… I will not publish it if you leave it as a comment to this post).
April 26, 2007 at 3:12 pm · Filed under Video, Privacy
Justin.tv. Live streaming of someone’s life onto the Internet 24/7.
When I first heard of the concept, I thought “well, there must be more to it than meets the eye… because if there isn’t, it’s really going to suck.” Well, it turns out there wasn’t more to it than met the eye, and my prediction held true.
Justin.tv wasn’t created as an experiment of sociology and technology at its core. It was created as a for-profit business backed by venture capital. So, one would have thought there was something there—some great concept around WHAT Justin would be up to that would create the stir to propel the venture.
Turns out, there wasn’t. Justin.tv has taken the simplest, most uninteresting incarnation of ‘reality TV’ (which has been showing its age for awhile now), removed the entertainment factor, and mainlined it onto the Internet using some clever technology. That’s it.