January 14th, 2012
Coming from Kino, Blender’s “Video Sequence Editor” is a huge step up. Most people don’t think of Blender when considering video editing tools, but in fact, Blender contains a very good one. This is not a separate application but an editing mode within the Blender application. It can work directly with animated scenes created within Blender or with video footage from other sources. Evaluating it is a little tricky because of this unique niche.
The Blender available in Debian “stable” (i.e. “Squeeze”) is 2.49, and that’s the version of the VSE that I used in my previous columns on creating an storyreel animatic and a moving storyboard shot. Blender 2.5 is now available in Ubuntu Studio’s “Oneric Ocelot” version and Debian’s “Wheezy” (the current “testing”) distributions, but I haven’t had a chance to see if there are significant changes in the video editor.
The greatest benefit and greatest liability of the Blender VSE are the same: it is tightly-integrated with Blender, and follows the same (very unique) user-interface design. If you are a Blender user and comfortable with the interface already, then the VSE will seem fairly natural without much of a learning curve. If you are a newcomer to Blender, though, you’ll have the notorious learning curve of Blender’s interface to overcome first.
Even as someone familiar with the interface, I found that the highly flexible user interface design can be distracting — I spent a lot of time fiddling with the window layout trying to get a better fit to my needs. I also found that the 2D compositing features in Blender were a little weaker than what I wanted (hence the need for a tutorial).
On the other hand, once you pay the cost of setting up an animated scene to create an effect, you can pretty much do anything you can imagine. So, although the “comfort zone” for Blender has a rather low ceiling, the ultimate capabilities are almost unlimited.
On a production like Lunatics, where Blender is already an important part of our toolchain, it’s obvious that we will make some use of Blender’s VSE. It may not be the right tool for the final edit, though, as there are some things that (though possible) are still frustratingly difficult to do in the VSE: spatial montage, more elaborate transitions, and a range of pan, zoom, and rotate effects in 2D. More research is called for.
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January 14th, 2012
At the beginning of December, we warned the Copyright Office that operating system vendors would use UEFI secure boot anticompetitively, by colluding with hardware partners to exclude alternative operating systems.
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January 14th, 2012
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January 14th, 2012
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January 14th, 2012
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January 14th, 2012
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January 14th, 2012
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January 14th, 2012
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Amazon.com lead all rivals on m-commerce shopping satisfaction according to a new survey of top retail mobile sites and apps conducted by customer experience analytics firm ForeSee.
Apple’s mobile retail efforts scored 85 out of a possible 100 points in ForeSee’s study, edging past Amazon at 84 points. Dell.com is next at 78 points, followed by Netflix and eBay, which tied at 77 points each. Best Buy and Staples scored 76 points each, with Barnes & Noble, Avon, Home Depot and Victoria’s Secret knotted at 75 points. Shoppers are generally more satisfied with traditional websites than with their mobile counterparts, ForeSee reports: The 16 retailers measured in the report averaged a mobile satisfaction score of 76, compared to 79 for their corresponding websites.
Shoppers who experience high satisfaction with their m-commerce experience are 54 percent more likely to consider that retailer the next time they make a similar purchase, and twice as likely to buy from the same company’s mobile site again. “Customers use mobile apps to research and make decisions, both in-store and out, and it’s not always in the retailer’s favor,” said ForeSee mobile industry director Eric Feinberg in a prepared statement. “One proven way for retailers to hold on to customer loyalty and increase likelihood to buy is to ensure customers are satisfied across all channels.”
Thirty-four percent of online shoppers used their mobile phones to research products and 15 percent made a purchase directly from their phone, up from 11 percent last year, ForeSee reports. In addition, one in five online shoppers now access mobile phones to compare prices while shopping inside a store.
For more:
- read this release
Related articles:
Chomp: M-commerce app search queries surge in November
IBM: Mobile retail traffic to double during 2011 holiday season
Forecast: Users will redeem $43B in mobile coupons in 2016
Forecast: Mobile payments for physical goods to top $170B by 2015
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January 14th, 2012
Openwave Systems, a mobile technology software company based in Redwood City, Calif., is considering selling its mediation and messaging businesses and has hired Jeffries and Co. to advise the company. The news sparked a 5.6 percent increase in mid-day trading, increasing its share price to $1.87.
The company’s messaging and mediation businesses made up 58 percent of Openwave’s total revenue in the fiscal first quarter, which ended in November. Although it’s unclear what companies might be interested in purchasing Openwave’s businesses, Wedbush analyst Scott Sutherland said that it could be an appealing move for certain firms. “The messaging business could be interesting in a rollup play or for a private equity buyer, while we see the mediation business as interesting for strategic buyers,” said Sutherland in a note to Reuters.
Openwave will focus on its intellectual property initiative, which includes its portfolio of 200 patents for mobile internet and mobile devices. Sutherland told Reuters that Openwave’s patents could be valued at about $300 million.
Last year, Openwave filed lawsuits against Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Research In Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM) claiming alleging the companies violated its patents.
For more:
- see this AP article
- see this Reuters article
Related articles:
Openwave appoints Mike Mulica to CEO post
Openwave targets Apple, RIM in latest mobile patent suit
Openwave teams with Amobee on mobile advertising; HTC issues Facebook social phones;
Openwave launches Amplicity platform for mobile web apps
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January 14th, 2012
Mobile operators are exploring drip-casting–a process that sends multimedia content to devices at off-peak hours or by leveraging network routes with little traffic–as a potential solution to network overload concerns, Reuters reports. Verizon Wireless (NYSE:VZ) executive Shadman Zafar explains consumers would order a mobile video before they expect to watch it, enabling the carrier to gradually transmit the content to the subscriber’s device with minimal impact on the network–in turn, carriers will offer so-called smart charging options that slash or even eliminate customer fees. “The idea would be that you don’t get charged for certain data because the carrier would handle it differently,” Zafar said. Article
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