Well, seems that Google just claimed to have invented such technology.

But don't let the images fool you: "Deep neural networks" have already been shown to be easily fooled when classifying pictures, and I dont's see why a tool like the great Ostrichinator could not just as easily fool Google's "guessing zoom" to derive the picture of some arbitrary person from just any seemingly innocent 8x8 pixel sample.

“As of January 1, 2017, any product that is not imported by the Sigma Corporation of America or purchased from an unauthorized Sigma USA Dealer will not be serviced under warranty regardless of the service required,” writes Sigma. “The Sigma Corporation of America Service department will service these products for a minimum $250 charge in addition to the required parts and labor charges at the owner’s expense.”

Controls of price levels becoming tighter and tighter. In 2016 we already saw major brands declaring their own products sold cheaper compared to their dealer as counterfeit.

With quite horrible picture, shame for such company.

Microsoft is doing all according to plans.

This year all cheap devices (read - tablets, cheap notes) start shipping with preinstalled Windows 10 Cloud.

You can see main feature - Microsoft will protect you from horrible virus full applications that are not sold in Windows Store.

ARRI publishes an explanation of image sensor technology used in its cameras:

"Although the science behind the breakthrough performance of ALEXA's custom designed CMOS sensor is complex, the use of large photosites and a Dual Gain Architecture are its two main principles.

By employing unusually large photosites (in today's world of tiny cell phone sensors), ALEXA's sensor exhibits high dynamic range, high sensitivity and low crosstalk. The larger a photosite is, the more light it can capture and the lower the noise.

The Dual Gain Architecture simultaneously provides two separate read-out paths from each pixel with different amplification. The first path contains the regular, highly amplified signal. The second path contains a signal with lower amplification, to capture the information that is clipped in the first path. Both paths feed into the camera's A/D converters, delivering a 14 bit image for each path. These images are then combined into a single 16 bit high dynamic range image."

FY2016 imaging results

FY2017 predictions

DSLRs sales in units will drop around 7%, compacts around 13%. Note that usually reality is much worse.
main idea is to compensate it all with price hikes.

Via http://www.canon.com/ir/conference/pdf/conf2016e.pdf

LG and Sony, the last two major TV makers to support the 3D feature in their TVs, will stop doing so in 2017. None of their sets, not even high-end models such as their new OLED TVs, will be able to show 3D movies and TV shows

Sharp, TCL and Hisense, also did not announce any 3D-capable TVs at CES 2017.

I have only one word for them. Motherfuckers.

Note that passive 3D fall is closely related to HDR, as polarization film take off brightness and also add costs. At same time quantum dots and HDR are very cheap to make.

For all active 3D television with removal of 3D Samsung changed panels to cheaper and slower ones, adding good profit.

Remember to buy 4K OLED with passive 3D, looks amazing.

Parrot is therefore envisaging a plan that could reduce its workforce by around 290 people out of a total of 840 staff currently working in the Group’s Drone activities. These reductions would concern employees both in France and internationally.

Via https://corporate.parrot.com/en/pressrelease/preliminaryresultsforthefourthquarterof2016-reorganizationofconsumerdroneoperations

Topic will contain all important stuff from pre CES announcement and CES itself.

Sony and Panasonic it is planned to present some cameras and camcorders, mostly consumer oriented. During CES Panasonic also will try to revive interest in GH5 that died everywhere.
Some people inside think that they still will feed us with only partial new data.

SANTA CLARA, Calif., January 5, 2017 -- Ambarella, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMBA), a leading developer of low-power, HD and Ultra HD video processing semiconductors, today introduced the H22 System-on-Chip (SoC) targeting a new generation of 4K drones and sports cameras with leading-edge video features.

The new H22 SoC is capable of encoding 4K Ultra HD video at 60 frames per second using the H.265 (HEVC) or H.264 (AVC) video formats, and supports advanced Electronic Image Stabilization (EIS) up to 4K resolution. The on-board 1.2 GHz Quad-Core ARM® Cortex®-A53 CPU provides significant processing power for customer applications including flying camera flight control, advanced analytics, video stitching and wireless networking. Fabricated in 14nm process technology, the H22 offers very low power consumption, enabling 4K cameras with small form factors and extended battery life.

“The H22 brings 4Kp60 Ultra HD video at extremely low power into the mainstream,” said Chris Day, VP of marketing and business development at Ambarella. “With 4K HDR, 4K EIS, and a quad-core CPU, the H22 enables a new generation of drones and sports cameras with outstanding video quality and extended battery life.”

The H22 includes a highly optimized image processing pipeline with excellent imaging and advanced noise reduction, and a hardware de-warp engine to support wide-angle panoramic designs with minimal distortion. The device’s 4K EIS can augment or potentially eliminate the need for a mechanical gimbal in a drone. The ability to encode at high frame rates, including 4Kp60 and 1080p120, delivers smooth slow motion, high definition video even during fast action shots.

A typical use case for the H22 in a drone might be to simultaneously encode 4K Ultra HD video, stabilize it in real time using EIS, and execute flight control algorithms using input from an array of sensors including an optical flow sensor. Additionally, a second, low-delay, Full-HD live video stream may be processed, encoded and wirelessly transmitted to the pilot for monitoring and camera control

Ambarella, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMBA), a leading developer of low-power, HD and Ultra HD video processing semiconductors, today introduced the H3 System-on-Chip (SoC) for high-end drones and a new generation of video cameras, including 360-degree and virtual reality cameras. The H3 video SoC enables 8K Ultra HD H.264/AVC video at 30 frames per second, as well as multiple video streams with equivalent performance, including 360-degree cameras with dual 4KP60 sensor video capture.

8K videos played on large 8K displays provide a better viewing experience to the end user, as pixels at this resolution are indistinguishable to the human eye at any reasonable distance. The combination of 8K video capture together with Ambarella’s advanced oversampling and image stabilization also enables higher video quality 4K video recording.

“With the introduction of H3 we believe we provide the highest video performance and best image quality solution for high-end drones and multi-sensor video cameras,” said Fermi Wang, president and CEO of Ambarella. “H3 delivers 8Kp30 video performance to match the next generation of displays, such as 8K televisions and high resolution head-mounted displays.”

H3 includes a powerful multi-channel ISP for 360 degree video capture and multi-sensor drone applications. Its 10-bit HEVC High Dynamic Range (HDR) video processing handles high contrast and wide color range scenes. It also features Ambarella’s advanced Electronic Image Stabilization (EIS), capable of generating a smooth 4Kp60 video output under challenging conditions, including during high winds and with high degrees of rotation. The integration of a quad-core ARM® Cortex®-A53 CPU with floating point and NEON™ provides significant processing power for customer applications including computer vision, wireless networking, and multi-sensor stitching algorithms. The H3’s hardware de-warping engine supports wide-angle panoramic camera designs and fish-eye lenses.

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They are leader of OLED screen manufacturing equipment and specialize on it for last 20 years. Contrary to poor suffering parent they have orders for next 2 years and major clients complain is that they want to order more but can't.

Teruhisa Tsugami, their director , even assured that they are doing all they can to cope with Samsung, LG and Sharp orders

Previously, HDMI Specification Version 2.0b (HDMI 2.0b) only supported HDR (High Dynamic Range) video transport in the SMPTE ST 2084 EOTF (as applied in the media profile commonly known as HDR10), by referencing the CTA861.3 specification. The Consumer Technology Association (CTA) has recently notified the HDMI Forum of the adoption of a new version of the CTA-861 Specification, CTA-861-G. This new version provides additional support for HDR Video transport by including (among others) an extension to the static metadata signaling to include the HLG (Hybrid Log Gamma) EOTF. The HDMI Forum has assessed the applicability of the CTA-861-G Specification to HDMI 2.0b. The HDMI Forum has confirmed that the extension of the static metadata signaling to include HLG can be utilized under the existing HDMI 2.0b Specification. This means that HLG Video Transport functionality may be implemented on HDMI 2.0b compliant devices.

None of present TVs except some Panasonics support HLG and all require either firmware update or will be incompatible always.

Also note that most HDR movies will require upcoming HDMI 2.1 with support of dynamic HDR metadata, so all first wave of TVs can become incompatible.

Today, Nikon Inc., a world leader in digital imaging, has released results from the Nikon Life in 360 national survey, indicating that 90% of Americans believe content they currently watch would be better viewed in fully immersive, 360-degrees, and 92% of Americans are ready to capture and share their own personal experiences using 360 cameras. The study also revealed massive potential for growth in the 360-space, as while only 25% have used a 360-camera, and less than half (49%) are at least somewhat familiar with the technology, nearly three quarters of Americans (72%) are interested in trying out a 360 camera to help share their missions in an exciting new way. On the heels of Nikon’s entry into the 360-degree camera market with the KeyMission 360, Nikon commissioned the Nikon Life in 360 Survey to study awareness and attitudes toward emerging 360 video technology and gain insights into what Americans want to view and capture in 360.

• LV5685 (CAME-TV)
• LV4362 (Lectrosonics)
• LV8384 (Sound Devices)
• LV2582 (Convergent Design)

At $99 permonth, Relonch will lend you a fancy-looking leather-clad Samsung NX camera with a 30mm f/2.0 lens permanently attached and only two buttons exposed: power and shutter. You can’t even see the LCD screen. You carry this camera around with you day-in and day-out, snapping photos that are instantly sent via 4G network to the Relonch servers, where the best of them are edited automatically and sent back to your smartphone the next morning.

Samsung cameras are back :-)

https://relonch.com/

Interview with Carol Hartfree about Panasonic new ultrazoom focusing on new features - such as improved 4K, ND filters, AF and such.

Panasonic on November 28 announced that it has developed LCD panels with a contrast of one million-to-one and display quality equivalent to that of OLED panels. Panasonic will begin sampling in January 2017 and start production of 10- to 100-inch models specifically for use in medical care and automotive displays in the third quarter.

After phasing out from plasma TV panel production in 2013 and LCD TV panel production in 2016, Panasonic no longer has panel products for B2C sales and its only panel production plants in Japan currently only supply panels for B2B applications with a utilization rate of 25%.

With the new panel technology, the company is expected to be able to manufacture using its existing production lines and will be able to avoid costs from investing in new OLED production line.

Hulu’s first batch of 4K includes the company’s lineup original shows and 20 James Bond films.

Wile that’s pretty good news for 007 fanatics, well, it doesn’t do much for everyone else.

I noticed a huge difference with ISO calibration from A7S and X5R (Dji camera). The X5R at 800 ISO is sensitively practically same than A7S at 3200 ISO

This is not the first time I noticed an ISO sensibility difference between cameras. But this is the first time I see a small sensor does as well as a large sensor with less ISO.

If you have an explanation you are welcome !

Intel is preparing a significant round of job cuts across business units this spring, according to multiple sources inside the company familiar with its plans.

The cutbacks will reduce employment in some parts of the business by double-digit percentages, according to Intel insiders, amounting to thousands of job cuts across the company by the end of the year. The planned downsizing could begin soon after Intel reports its first-quarter financial results Tuesday, though sources say timing and specifics remain fluid.

http://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/index.ssf/2016/04/intel_planning_for_thousands_o_1.html

Info from http://www.curtpalme.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=39508

Around $34 now.

https://www.amazon.com/Revesun-Splitter-1080p-Ultra-Definition/dp/B014EZ7266/

For 30fps and below must work good.

It is just small hello to idiots at Netflix.

Dealers warning note.

Samsung Electronics today announced five further enhancements to its shareholder return program.

• For 2016 and 2017, the Company will allocate 50 percent of free cash flow (“FCF”) to shareholder returns, which is at the top of the 30-50 percent range announced in 2015.
• The Company will increase total dividends in 2016 by 30 percent compared with 2015, bringing the annual dividend amount to 4 trillion won. Taking into account the recent share buybacks and cancellations, this will result in a 36 percent rise in 2016 dividends per share, to 28,500 won.
• The remaining portion of 50 percent of FCF after the dividend payouts, plus 0.8 trillion won from 2015, will be used to repurchase shares starting at the end of January 2017. The repurchased shares will be cancelled.
• Samsung Electronics will initiate quarterly dividend payments starting in April 2017.
• The Company will seek to further enhance its capital allocation policy to improve shareholder returns beyond 2017.

https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-electronics-announces-comprehensive-roadmap-to-enhance-long-term-shareholder-value-creation

Principle 1. All big sales are made to bring profit to seller.

This can be four ways:

Way 1. Previous item price had big margin (both for manufacturer and seller), and during sale they agreed to cut it.
Way 2. Sale is totally fake or near it, original price usually being inflated not long before sale (common for some countries).
Way 3. Sale item being catch to make you buy other items, software, accessories or some service you do not need.
Way 4. Using discount make you buy it via credit. Possible due to owners of big retail giant and bank giant being sometimes same.

Principle 2. Most sellers rely on the impulse sales. Where people do not think if they actually need the item they get.

Solution 1. Make the list of things you really need and add to each item the actual price before sale for few big retailers.
Solution 2. Never buy on impulse. Always rely on logic, but also understand that our brain is very clever in finding logical reasons to buy things we don't need.
Solution 3. If you are in offline store, do not put item in basket or plastic bags right away. Make few long circles around shop instead. As if you put it bag or such your monkey brain try to defend the items with any arguments he could find.

To be continued today and up until Monday.