BPG (Better Portable Graphics) is a new image format. Its purpose is to replace the JPEG image format when quality or file size is an issue. Its main advantages are:

• High compression ratio. Files are much smaller than JPEG for similar quality.
• Supported by most Web browsers with a small Javascript decoder (gzipped size: 56 KB).
• Based on a subset of the HEVC open video compression standard.
• Supports the same chroma formats as JPEG (grayscale, YCbCr 4:2:0, 4:2:2, 4:4:4) to reduce the losses during the conversion. An alpha channel is supported. The RGB, YCgCo and CMYK color spaces are also supported.
• Native support of 8 to 14 bits per channel for a higher dynamic range.
• Lossless compression is supported.
• Various metadata (such as EXIF, ICC profile, XMP) can be included.
• Animation support.

Find the description, details and links at bellard.org.

For an online comparison of BPG with other still image codecs have a look at this demo.

BTW: Meanwhile, the Daala development team is still struggling to achieve intra-frame encoding on par with HEVC without using patent-encumbered technology.

Apple has acquired LinX, an Israeli camera tech company whose most recent offerings include multi-aperture camera models which can enable effects like background focus blur, parallax images and 3D picture capture.

http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/14/apple-buys-linx-a-camera-module-maker-promising-dslr-like-mobile-performance/#.5xk91r:sAx5

Only thing that Apple want is obtaining algorithms for images matching and morphing. They do not want any of the modules or any hardware.
It is also clear that smartphone cameras improvements came to the dead end (only RGBW lies ahead, but produce significant issues).
Camera modules are very high margins products with very low actual cost, so for large manufacturers it is possible to put 4 or even 16 of them without too much sacrifices.

LinkedIn (NYSE:LNKD), the world’s largest professional network on the Internet with more than 300 million members worldwide, today announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire lynda.com, a leading online learning company teaching business, technology and creative skills to help people achieve their professional goals. Based in Carpinteria, CA, lynda.com was co-founded in 1995 by Lynda Weinman and Bruce Heavin.

The transaction is valued at approximately $1.5 billion, subject to adjustment, in a combination of approximately 52 percent cash and approximately 48 percent stock. Subject to the completion of customary conditions, the acquisition is expected to close during the second quarter of 2015.

Through a subscription to lynda.com’s service, individual members and organizations have access to a comprehensive collection of top quality courses taught by industry experts, offered in English, German, French, Spanish, and Japanese. In addition to individual subscribers, lynda.com serves corporate, government and educational organizations through its lyndaEnterprise, lyndaPro, lyndaCampus, lyndaLibrary and lyndaKiosk products. lynda.com stands out as a leader of owned and operated premium skills content, offering a massive library of high-quality courses.

“The mission of LinkedIn and the mission of lynda.com are highly aligned. Both companies seek to help professionals be better at what they do,” said Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn. “lynda.com’s extensive library of premium video content helps empower people to develop the skills needed to accelerate their careers. When integrated with the hundreds of millions of members and millions of jobs on LinkedIn, lynda.com can change the way in which people connect to opportunity.”

"This is such an exciting moment in the 20-year history of lynda.com, and I couldn't imagine a better pairing than lynda.com and LinkedIn," said Lynda Weinman, co-founder and executive chair of the board of lynda.com.

"In LinkedIn, we have found an incredible partner who shares our vision and passion for empowering people around the world to make real change in their lives through access to information, learning and professional development," said Eric Robison, CEO of lynda.com.

Following closing, most members of the lynda.com team are expected to join LinkedIn.

Ryan Roslansky, head of global content products at LinkedIn, blogged in more detail about the acquisition here. Weiner wrote a post about the acquisition here, and Weinman posted about it here.

SUNNYVALE, Calif., - April 8, 2015 – HDMI Forum, Inc., a non-profit, mutual benefit corporation, today announced the completion and release of Version 2.0a of the HDMI® Specification. It is available to current HDMI 2.0 Adopters via the HDMI Adopter Extranet.

The specification has been updated to enable transmission of HDR formats, which provide enhanced picture quality by simultaneously enabling greater detail for both the dark and bright parts of an image. The HDR-related updates include references to CEA-861.3, CEA’s recently published update of HDR Static Metadata Extensions.

“We recognized that HDR would be a critical feature as the industry evolves. Our support for HDR enables our 800+ HDMI 2.0 Adopters to develop market-leading products that include HDR and will maintain interoperability across the entire HDMI ecosystem,” said Robert Blanchard, President of the HDMI Forum, Inc. “Along with the publication of the CEA extensions, the HDMI Forum continues to update the HDMI Specification and remain closely aligned with leading CE standards organizations.”

“By adding HDR, the HDMI Specification continues its history of supporting the latest formats and technologies planned for Hollywood content,” said Arnold Brown, Chairman of the HDMI Forum, Inc. Board of Directors

http://www.hdmiforum.org/press_release.aspx?prid=135

It is good tradition to make winter video contests on PV.

Terms

1. You can submit TWO videos made by you personally using any camera. Just post it in this topic.
2. Video must have really good story you want to tell to viewers. Music videos, horrors and pretty moving slideshows are not accepted as entries.
3. Clip must reside on vimeo or youtube video hostings and must have "personal-view contest" text and link to contest page (for contest time).
4. Video must be between 3 and 10 minutes in length (for longer length entries you must PM me).
5. Only videos made in November 2014 or later are accepted. Do not submit your one year old video.
6. New videos made specially for contest will have priority if all else equal.
7. Videos featuring pets or animals like cat, dog, hamster, etc will have small bonus added in evaluation.
8. Video about real life economics (manufacturing, etc) will have small bonus added in evaluation.

Winner, 2rd and 3nd places will be selected by me personally (VK) after viewing all entries no later than one week after deadline,
I will consult some influential members also for their opinion.

Prizes

For Winner

Full Fotga camera rig (mattebox, follow focus, camera base, rods and offset shoulder pad).

2nd place

Fotga M4 matte box, includes rods and C bracket

3rd place

Forga DP500 2 follow focus with QR

http://www.tipa.com/english/XXV_tipa_awards_2015.html

http://www.cnet.com/news/samsung-suhd-4k-tv-prices-leaked-super-expensive/

5.5-inch HD and Full HD LTPS units saw some of the biggest price declines in the market during February due to makers competing over orders as demand in the market for the size grew. 5.5-inch HD/IPS modules were around US$11-15, down US$0.50 on month while 5.5-inch units with Full HD/IPS specifications were about US$20.50.

The firm said 5.5-inch displays with Full HD/IPS are expected to drop to around US$16 in May and June.

Intel Corp. is in talks to acquire Altera Corp., people with knowledge of the matter said, as the world’s largest chipmaker searches for growth beyond a moribund personal-computer market.

Altera makes a broad range of low-power programmable semiconductors, which are used in small embedded devices and computer servers for big data centers.

In buying Altera, Intel could expand into markets for automotive, industrial and communication applications, while cementing its lead in data centers.

Fun thing that here we see Intel saving Altera, as FPGA companies always want latest and best manufacturing process available. Merger could allow to reduce expenses and make excuse for very low prices that will be offered for such manufacturing (amid exponentially rising development and manufacturing costs).

http://www.cnet.com/news/patent-group-raises-new-fees-uncertainty-for-4k-video/

Money talks, as usual...

Amazon today announced unlimited cloud storage with Amazon Cloud Drive—two new storage plans for customers to securely store their existing content collections and automatically upload endless amounts of new content, including photos, videos, movies, music, and files. With the unlimited plans, customers no longer need to worry about how much storage is needed to keep their content safe and secure—they can choose either the Unlimited Photos Plan or Unlimited Everything Plan and only pay one flat fee per year. A free 3-month trial is available for customers to try either plan:

• Unlimited Photos Plan (free 3-month trial, then $11.99 per year—equivalent of less than $1 per month): Store an infinite number of photos in Cloud Drive without worrying about taking up space on phones, cameras, or other devices. Customers can upload existing collections and store all future photos taken. This plan also includes 5 GB of additional storage for videos or other documents and files.
• Unlimited Everything Plan (free 3-month trial, then $59.99 per year—equivalent of less than $5 per month): Store an infinite number of new and existing photos, videos, files, documents, movies, and music in Cloud Drive.

“Most people have a lifetime of birthdays, vacations, holidays, and everyday moments stored across numerous devices. And, they don’t know how many gigabytes of storage they need to back all of them up,” said Josh Petersen, Director of Amazon Cloud Drive. “With the two new plans we are introducing today, customers don’t need to worry about storage space—they now have an affordable, secure solution to store unlimited amounts of photos, videos, movies, music, and files in one convenient place.”

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=2028891

Following the split out of its TV business last year, Sony is targeting October 1, 2015 to commence the next stage of this reorganization process by splitting out the Video & Sound business unit and launching it as a self-sustained, wholly owned subsidiary. Sony also intends to move forward with preparations for splitting out other business units thereafter. For those business units that are already operating as subsidiaries, Sony will move to further increase their levels of autonomy based on the strategy outlined above.

http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press/201502/15-017E/index.html

Workers at Lytro got a mixed bag of news on Wednesday, with the photography startup telling employees both that it has raised a further $50 million, but also that it intends to cut a significant chunk of its workforce.

Lytro plans to use the new funding to make a strategic shift, taking its signature light-field technology into new areas, including video and virtual reality.

The company is expected to cut somewhere between 25 and 50 people from its 130 person workforce.

http://recode.net/2015/02/25/lytro-cuts-jobs-raises-50-million-in-shift-toward-virtual-reality-and-video-exclusive/

Numbered 15.36.14.4080, this update add to Haswell and Broadwell processors hardware acceleration support for two next-gen video formats: HEVC, also known as H.265, and Google's VP9.

• Improved video playback through partial hardware acceleration support for the VP9 video format.
• GPU accelerated decode of HEVC video file format including both 8-bit and 10-bit support. This will provide improved video playback capabilities on the platforms.

Supported processors include the Core M family; 4th-gen Core CPUs with HD, Iris, or Iris Pro graphics; and "Select Pentium®/ Celeron® Processors."

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?DwnldID=24596&lang=eng

The Camera & Imaging Products Association (CIPA) will open its annual Camera & Imaging Show on Thursday 12 February at the Pacifico Yokohama just outside Tokyo.

http://www.cpplus.jp/en/

Some of upcoming cameras:

• Canon 5Ds and 5Ds R 50Mp cameras
• Canon M3
• Canon Powershot G3 X
• Pentax K-S2
• Samsung NX500
• Samsung NX3300
• Panasonic GF7 (announced prior)
• Olympus E-M5 II
• Canon Rebel T6i/EOS 760D
• Fujifilm X-A2 (announced prior)

Some rumored lenses:

• Olympus 7-14mm f/2.8 PRO lens
• Olympus 8mm f/1.8 fisheye
• Olympus 14-150mm f/4.0-5.6 II
• FUJINON LENS XC16-50mm F3.5-5.6 OIS II (announced prior)
• FUJINON LENS XC50-230mm F4.5-6.7 OIS II (announced prior)
• Canon EF 11-24mm f/4L
• Sony Zeiss 35mm f/1.4
• Sony 28mm f/2.0 G
• Sony 90mm f/2.8 G OSS macro
• Sony 24-240mm f/3.5-6.3 OSS
• Pentax 18-55 new collapsible kit lens

Dates:

• February 12: 13:00–13:45 Shigeru Kato (OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP.): “Development of M.ZUIKO PRO LENS”
• February 13: 15:00–15:45 Tomoaki Tsutsumi (Panasonic Corporation): “Creating a New Photo Culture by the expansion of “4K Photo”“

Will have resolution of 1,400x1,050 (and RGB dots for each pixel) and will work at 120fps.

http://dc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/20150205_687018.html

Looks like that DJI was tired to see Sony and Olympus launch their "lens cameras" as smartphone gimmics instead of exploring the great potential of them as drone cams, and decided to take the task themselves.

In 2015 we will see three professional primes: a XF 16mm f/1.4 R, XF 35mm f/2 R and XF 90mm f/2 R.

Then in 2016 - super telephoto zoom XF 100-400mm,as well as XF 120mm f/2.8 1:1 Macro lens. The latter will be the second macro lens in the Fujifilm X line-up.

We’ll also see the arrival of a 1.4x teleconverter, which will be compatible with the XF 50-140mm f/2.8 R, XF 120mm f/2.8 R Macro, XF 100-400mm.

Article on it: http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/04/youtube-launches-multi-angle-video-experiment/

I can't wait until they give this feature to everyone so I can try it on future music videos. Hopefully you'll be able to have the same audio track for all videos.

So the X-Trans sensor design has been very, very successful in terms of image quality. We get great sharpness and no artifacts or aliasing...

Fuji: Moiré.

DE: Moiré, yeah. But it also puts a lot of demands on processing, and our impression has been that the X-Trans works very well for still shots, but not so good for video. I'm assuming that's because there's so much processing to figure out the pixel pattern. Is that something that can improve as processors get faster? You know, if you have more processing power, is it then possible to get a better video image?

Fuji: In the future, our LSI will become faster and capable of more calculations, and maybe our movie image quality will also be able to improve. But it depends on not only this, but also on CMOS sensor reading speed.

http://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2015/02/06/Fujifilm-interview-pk-apd-oled

Following the American TV market the Japanese company Toshiba has decided to leave the entire international, while maintaining a small part of the business in their home country.

As it became known to the Japanese news agency Kyodo their industry sources, Toshiba is in talks to sell its factories producing TV sets in Indonesia and Egypt. Determine the future of these assets is scheduled for March 31, 2015 – the day at Toshiba, as well as many other Japanese companies, the fiscal year ends.

Panasonic has ended LCD TV production at a China plant as of January 30 and is seeking to sell another in Mexico with a monthly capacity of 500,000 units, the paper said. Panasonic is looking to shift its focus to high-added value TV products to maintain its markets in Japan, Europe and Southeast Asia, the paper added.

Firms is likely to rely more on licensing their brand names to shore up profits for their TV business.

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20150203PD205.html

Just like HDMI and DisplayPort, SuperMHL is not specified for transmitting full 4:4:4 color information at 8k resolution.

You can even list two cameras with one aimed mostly on video (can be camcorder also!).

You can list up to two lenses (any system each).

All the best in coming year.

Year will be complex and not so easy, but I am sure that such smart guys that we have here will be good.