Category: Design

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Cyberinfrastructure Design Education Globalization Innovation Internet2 Network Technology

Internet2: Arthron – A Tool for Video Streaming Remote Management in Artistic Performances Experiences

Arthron was concept for experiences in the domain of Art and Technology. Arthron facilities include its simple user interface and the manipulation of different media sources. Users can remotely add, remove and configure the presentation format as well as schedule the media streaming during an artistic performance.
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Arthron is composed by six components described as follow. The Articulator is responsible for the remote management. This component concentrates a great part of the Arthron functionalities, such as stream scheduling (manual or automatic), network monitoring and measurement, remote configuration of other modules, access control, web page automatic generation for online publication, video effects, and communication tools. The Encoder is responsible for capturing and encoding (when necessary) of media source, which can be external (DV or HDV camera, DVD) or internal (a local file). The Decoder’s main functionality is to decode and display the media stream in a specific device (monitor, projector, etc). The Reflector is responsible for the replication and redistribution of media streaming over the network.

The VideoServer component is able to transcoding media streaming that will be published online. This component is also responsible for working with flv, ogg and h264 formats. The MapManager controls and displays the interactive map of Arthron components. MapManager offers to users an overview of the geographical distributed locations of Arthron components.

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Cyberinfrastructure Design Education Globalization Google Innovation Internet2 Network Tablet Technology

Internet2 Building Communities

Research and Education network organizations are beginning to successfully integrated new communities into their membership from the beginning, but funding from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s BTOP (Broadband Technology Opportunities Program) has created opportunities to build non-traditional communities from public sectors such as public safety, state government and healthcare.

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Today’s panel session included representatives from network organizations and their new community partner discussing their experience and providing their perspective on the opportunities, challenges and lessons learned when building new communities.

David Reese CTO from CENIC (Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California) stated they have provided iPads to everyone with all mapping of fiber routes is now digital (Google Earth) and paper maps are simply being ignored.

Session link

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BMW Design Globalization Innovation Smartphone Tablet Technology

BMW’s App for iPhone

BMW has an app for the iPhone that was demo’d at the Paris auto show. Currently available in Europe, it will make its way across the pond in the near future.  Labeled “My BMW Remote” the new iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad app includes the same remote functions of BMW Assist.

The app features: Remote Door Lock & Unlock, Remote Climate Control, Remote Light Flash (remote control of configurable exterior light functions to locate the vehicle), Google Local Search (address destination search on the iPhone and transfer to the vehicle navigation system) and Vehicle Finder display of current vehicle position on a map (google perhaps) in the iPhone – for locating your parked Bimmer.

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Design Globalization Innovation Tablet

windowshop.com

Amazon.com Tuesday released Windowshop for Apple’s iPad, a program that takes advantage of the tablet’s screen  and touch capabilities. Tablets like the iPad seem to be a great display to look at merchandise in online store “windows or showcases” without making purchases.
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“Amazon Windowshop is a top-to-bottom rewrite of Amazon.com — designed and built without compromise just for iPad,” said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com.

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Cyberinfrastructure Design Education Globalization Innovation Network OpenSource Reading Rich media Technology TED

Latest read: The Wealth of Networks

I have been looking at The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom as a learning tool for social networks impacting society and found this a very deep read….like a college econ/sociology textbook.  Caught myself thinking I was actually back in school. This goes much deeper than Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies.

Harvard law professor Yochai Benkler has written a very comprehensive book to describe conflicts between analog and digital data creators in society and how internet based technologies are changing society and commerce.

It’s a good read but hard to grasp due to a focus on economics. Don’t be fooled the by title if your looking at computer networks….he has written it into the binding that ties his arguments together.  It is truly worth the read.

Benkler shares how technology has merged the professional and the consumer into a ‘prosumer’ due to low cost and high performing computers and robust networks have made distribution of information cheap enough that community is now empowered to drive change.

Take a look at how the internet has evolved.  The Akami to YouTube migration showed how multimedia has found a free, reliable distribution center.  When you also migrate 1st generation complex, large scale websites to new blogs and content management systems under the open source business model Benkler states that data is now a “non-rival” product that has democratized the digital workflow of data from brick and mortar to community, peer-developed content solutions.

Benkler suggests modern computing drives new, strong and deep collaboration that can have a large impact on the global economy and society.  Benkler also suggests that as more consumers embrace technology collaboration, change to our culture is possible due to engines of free exchange (wikipedia, creative commons, open source and the blogosphere) could be more efficient (when shared) than current models that are restricted by copyright and patents because the ability to duplicate (or reproduce digital content) makes little or no impact on business.

Tags: The Wealth of Networks, Social Technologies, economy, society, Yochai Benkler, education, change, reading, trends