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Comment Re:"HD" is useless (Score 1) 118

by theproff (#24176757) Attached to: Computer Optional For AOC's New HD Display

HDTV broadcast over the air is not compressed

Broadcast HDTV is most certainly compressed. The ATSC standards utilize MPEG-2 compression over 8VSB modulation to give a ~20 Mbps channel per transmitter, whereas cable companies can use 16VSB, 256-QAM or better modulation to give a 40+ Mbps channel. Couple that with the fact that most broadcasters transmit multiple streams (subchannels like 9-1, 9-2, 9-3, etc) which each take up some of that 20 Mbps, and OTA HD broadcasts get ridiculously compressed.

Satellite providers are just as bad, trying to send HD streams over a satellite infrastructure that was built for SD. You might remember the lawsuit against DirecTV a while back about s downscaling their HD content in order to get the data to fit in their uplink streams.

disclaimer: I work at a PBS TV station, so I've heard the complaints of the broadcast engineers themselves about having to destroy the quality of their HD streams to fit all the extra crap in.

Also, once you've seen uncompressed HD coming out of a studio camera, no other HD source will look as good ever again.

see:
ATSC Standards
HDTV in the US
"HD Lite," the practice of downscaling HD transmissions
Television

Excavations at Stonehenge May Answer Questions 160

Posted by Zonk from the not-the-most-up-beat-tourist-attraction dept.
Smivs writes "The BBC are getting set to fund a dig at Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England. The two-week dig will try to establish, once and for all, some precise dating for the creation of the monument. An article from the BBC news website explains how the dig will investigate the significance of the smaller bluestones that stand inside the giant sarsen pillars. 'Researchers believe these rocks, brought all the way from Wales, hold the secret to the real purpose of Stonehenge as a place of healing. The researchers leading the project are two of the UK's leading Stonehenge experts — Professor Tim Darvill, of the University of Bournemouth, and Professor Geoff Wainwright, of the Society of Antiquaries. They are convinced that the dominating feature on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire was akin to a "Neolithic Lourdes" — a place where people went on a pilgrimage to get cured. Modern techniques have established that many of these people had clearly traveled huge distances to get to south-west England, suggesting they were seeking supernatural help for their ills.'"
Education

Correcting Misperceptions About Evolution 838

Posted by samzenpus from the lost-cause dept.
Beagle writes "The science of evolution is often misunderstood by the public and a session at the recent AAAS meeting in Boston covered three frequently misapprehended topics in evolutionary history, the Cambrian explosion, origin of tetrapods, and evolution of human ancestors, as well as the origin of life. The final speaker, Martin Storksdieck of the Institute for Learning Innovation, covered how to communicate the data to a public that 'has such a hard time accepting what science is discovering.' His view: 'while most of the attention has focused on childhood education, we really should be going after the parents. Everyone is a lifelong learner, Storksdieck said, but once people leave school, that learning becomes a voluntary matter that's largely driven by individual taste.'"
Microsoft

Time for a Vista Do-Over? 746

Posted by samzenpus from the better-luck-next-time dept.
DigitalDame2 writes "'There's nothing wrong with Vista,' PC Mag editor-in-chief Lance Ulanoff tells a Microsoft rep at this year's CES. 'But you guys have a big problem on your hands. Perception is reality, and the perception is that Vista is a dud.' He goes on to confess that the operating system is too complex and burdened by things people don't need. Plus, Vista sometimes seems so slow. Ulanoff gives four suggestions for a complete Vista makeover, like starting with new code and creating a universal interface table. But will Microsoft really listen?"
Cellphones

The 700mhz Spectrum Auction In Perspective 88

Posted by Zonk from the kind-of-a-big-deal(tm) dept.
YIAAL writes "Writing in Popular Mechanics, Robert X. Cringely looks at the upcoming auction of the 700mbz spectrum, which is currently used for soon-to-be-defunct analog TV. 'Why are all these companies so excited? Because the 60 MHz of spectrum that's about to be auctioned is the last prime real estate for mobile communications that will be available in the U.S. for decades to come ... Some pundits (that would be me) think Google will bid to win its spectrum block, then will trade that block to Sprint/Nextel for some of that company's 2.5-GHz WiMAX licenses that are far better suited for data.' Plus, the prospect of offering unlicensed data service in the 'white space' between existing broadcast channels."
Television

Penetration Testing TV Series Coming 209

Posted by kdawson from the tiger-team dept.
ChazeFroy writes "CourtTV (TruTV) has a new series starting Dec. 25 at 11 pm called 'Tiger Team.' It follows a group of elite penetration testers hired to test organizations' security using social engineering, wired/wireless penetration testing, and physically defeating security mechanisms (lock picking, dumpster diving, going through air vents/windows). They do all of this while avoiding the organizations' various security defenses as well as law enforcement. The stars of the show also did a radio spot this morning in Denver." Wonder how they socially engineer away the presence of a camera team in the air vents.
The Internet

The Virtual Teacher 94

Posted by samzenpus from the aibo-ate-my-homework dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "Researchers from Illinois and Florida are developing a networking system which will create virtual representations of real people to improve our knowledge. They will use artificial intelligence and natural language processing software to enable us to interact with these avatars. The goal of the project, sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), is to give us the possibility to interact with these virtual representations as if they were the actual person, complete with the ability to understand and answer questions. We should see the results at the beginning of 2008 — if the researchers succeed."

Dyson Preparing a Roomba Killer? 243

Posted by CowboyNeal from the products-that-suck dept.
An anonymous reader writes "New Scientist's technology blog reports that Dyson, the UK company that reinvented the vacuum cleaner, is recruiting robotics engineers. They're looking for people with experience of machine vision and mobile robots that create their own maps. Is Dyson hoping to take on the Roomba with a much more sophisticated machine?"
Media (Apple)

Will The iPhone Kill The iPod? 338

Posted by Hemos from the most-likely-yes dept.
Edward Sinovian writes "According to Cnet.co.uk, the days of MP3 players, digital cameras and satellite navigation systems are numbered with cell phones about to take center stage. "PDAs have already been crushed by smart phones and the same thing looks to be happening with standalone MP3 players, particularly the smaller flash ones — a theory supported by Apple's recent entry into the world of music phones. If you then take into consideration the convergence of camera, GPS, TV and laptop-like functionality into mobile phones, it raises the question of how long it's going to take before all you need is a mobile phone." With that in mind, do you think that the iPhone will kill the iPod?"
Privacy

Is Flixster Using Deceptive Viral Practices? 190

Posted by kdawson from the password-please dept.
Talaria writes "The social networking movie review site Flixster is requesting their users' AOL, Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail passwords, and then using them to access users' address books and send 'invitations' to join Flixster, making them appear to come from the user. The password prompt screen includes the ISP's logo right next to the password prompt. Rather than hiding this little 'feature,' Flixster brags about it in an interview after receiving $2 million in venture funding earlier this year." American Venture Magazine notes: "...such practices are becoming increasingly... common as new and even established web sites look to attract visitors without expensive marketing campaigns and a hefty advertising budget."
Java

Java-Based x86 Emulator 263

Posted by kdawson from the DOS-you-say dept.
jaavaaguru writes "Researchers at Oxford University have produced a Java-based x86 emulator that they hope will be useful in testing applications and learning about viruses without damaging the host, utilizing the robust sandboxing that Java provides. They have an online demo available that boots DOS and has some games to play. Being purely Java, this emulator should be able to run on almost anything, including cell phones." The code is not yet available outside the Oxford community; the developers are said to be working on a suitable general license. In the meantime the code can be licensed on a case-by-case basis.
Software

Adobe Tackles Photo Forgeries 158

Posted by kdawson from the vanished-commisars dept.
Several readers wrote in with a Wired story about the work Adobe is doing to detect photo forgery. They are working with Canon and Reuters (which suffered massive bad publicity last year over a doctored war photo) and a professor from Dartmouth. (Here is Reuters's policy on photo editing.) Adobe plans to produce a suite of photo-authentication tools based on the work of Hany Farid (PDF) for release in 2008.

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