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China issues rules on reporting Google moves

A Chinese government ministry ordered Chinese media companies to toe the government line this week in their reporting on Google's decision to move its search operations to Hong Kong. by Tom Krazit CNET News

Full story at http://news.zdnet.com/2424-9595_22-407967.html

Afghan enemies using iPhone as a weapon

Australian Department of Defense chief technology officer Matt Yannopoilos today said defenses were being beaten in Afghanistan by enemies accessing information quickly via iPhones. by Ben Grubb ZDNet Australia

Full story at http://news.zdnet.com/2424-9595_22-407982.html

Dung Beetles Inspire Video Enhancements for Camera Phones

Video cameras on your cellphone could soon be good enough to record a jazz concert, a nighttime street scene, or a candlelit dinner. A Swedish start-up has created an algorithm, inspired by dung beetles, that can be integrated into camera modules to offer high-quality video in extremely low light situations.

“We are talking about shooting video in situations that seem almost pitch black,” Benjamin Page, business development manager for Nocturnal Vision told Wired.com. “We can offer an unbelievable amount of noise reduction and contrast enhancement at the same time.” Nocturnal Vision presented its technology at the ISE 2010 imaging conference in London Thursday.

Toyota, which financed a significant portion of the research and development, has secured exclusive rights to use the technology in night-vision systems for cars.

Nocturnal Vision says it is now working with mobile phone companies such as Sony Ericsson to test its technology and find a way to integrate it into phones.

As more consumers use the cameras on their cellphones for video and photographs, companies are looking for ways to improve the quality of the camera modules.�Earlier this week, Palo Alto startup InVisage Technologies said it has developed a new technology using a nanomaterial called quantum dots that would offer four times the light-gathering performance of current silicon-based sensors.

Nocturnal Vision says its software can be complementary to hardware-based improvements.

The company’s algorithm is based on research by a Lund University zoologist Eric Warrant on dung beetles, bees and other nocturnal bugs. Dung beetles are remarkable because of their ability to see enough detail in the night to find food and escape predators.

Their night-vision capability is the result of their ability to “sum the visual signal locally in space and time,” says Henrik Malm, one of the creators of the algorithm in his research paper.�It’s known as adaptive spatio-temporal smoothing. That means the brain analyzes what’s going on across each frame of an image and what’s going on from one frame to another. (See Malm’s research paper on noise reduction and image enhancement in low light video.)

In most digital cameras today, the short, one-time exposure (usually a fraction of a second) and imaging sensors that have uniform sensitivity across their area combine to produce pictures that have underexposed dark areas. Amplifying the dark areas uniformly means the low signal-to-noise ratio becomes pronounced, writes Malm. Instead, adaptive spatio-temporal intensity smoothing can even out the noise, while reducing motion blur.

To do this, Nocturnal Vision’s algorithm pools information from about seven frames before and after a shot to brighten, reduce noise and sharpen the video stream, says Page. The technology can work in real time as scenes are shot, or can be applied to video in post-processing. However, because it requires multiple frames, it won’t work with single-exposure still images.

For instance, a video on the company’s website shows a clip of a man walking in the night. The algorithm first enhances the darker pixels in the frame more than the lighter ones to reveal additional details. But that also introduces a noise into the frame.�The algorithm then pools brightness information from adjacent frames to correct for the noise.

The challenge for Nocturnal Vision is that the algorithm sucks up processing power. Most smartphones today, including those featuring the 1-GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, don’t have enough muscle to run the software.

“Currently, we are running it on test devices via GPU computation power,” says Page. “For a standard video with resolution of 640 x 480 it requires approximately 14 billion calculations per frame.”

Nocturnal Vision’s technology works best on uncompressed images. Since most camera phones compress photos as soon as they are taken, that means Nocturnal Vision’s technology would need to be integrated into a phone’s firmware — or directly into a new line of chips. The company says it is looking for chip makers to do just this.

Page says Nocturnal Vision hopes to see its software in the hands of consumers within the next two years. “If we can work with the chip makers, we could be in millions of smartphones,” he says.

And your next nighttime videos might not be quite so dark.

See Also:

Cellphones Edge out Inexpensive Digital Cameras

New Bill Asks For Cameraphones To Go Clickety Clack

5 Reasons You Can Ditch Your DSLR for an iPhone

Cameras in iPods. Game Over?

Photo: (Chris_Moody/Flickr)

Full story at http://feeds.wired.com/~r/GearFactor/~3/UtZYai9SGKY/

Gaming Vest Makes Virtual Fights Real and Painful

Next time your character gets shot while playing Call of Duty it could hurt for real. A tactile gaming vest created at the University of Pennsylvania can make wearers feel a punch or a gunfire hit in sync with what’s happening on screen.

Ouch!

“The idea is to develop a haptic interface for first person shooting games,” says Saurabh Palan, a graduate student at the university who is working on the project, on his website. “The feeling of bullet hit, body impact and vibration or a shoulder tap will enhance the gaming experience and fun.”

It’s not all play with the vest. It can be modified for real time simulation and training by the military, says Palan.

The vest uses four solenoid actuators in the chest and shoulders in front, and two solenoids in the back, explains IEEE Spectrum. Vibrating motors clustered against the shoulder blades simulate a reaction similar to getting stabbed. All the components are controlled and linked to the game such that the appropriate solenoid “fires” depending on where the character in the video game is getting hit.

IEEE Spectrum says the entire experience is� “closer to a paintball excursion, but it doesn?t hurt as much.” Still the gaming vest sounds pretty masochistic to me.� But for those who crave greater realism in their video games, this could be a good way to feel the pain without the bruises.

Photo: Gaming vest (Saurabh Palan)

Full story at http://feeds.wired.com/~r/GearFactor/~3/3-CXhB3dsgk/

Computing launches inaugural IT leadership event

Angelica Mari, Computing, Friday 26 March 2010 at 17:19:00

More than 100 decision makers attended series of IT skills-related debates

Computing hosted its first IT Leaders Forum event yesterday. The
event looked at key themes related to leadership skills with a host of leading
UK technology managers.

The event, held at the Imperial War Museum in London, gathered more than 100
senior IT leaders and started with a panel debate around changes to the
traditional role of the chief information officer (CIO).

Chaired by Robin Young, chief operating officer at banking group Bradford and
Bingley, the debate saw the participation of director of corporate development
at Network Rail Catherine Doran, as well as Marks & Spencer CIO Darrell
Stein and Natasha Davydova, global head of IT at Standard Chartered.

The debate was followed by a Q&A session hosted by Computing
editor Abigail Waraker with Asos.com financial director Nick Beighton on the
development of mutually beneficial relationships between CIOs and their finance
counterparts.

The IT Leaders Forum concluded with Rashik Parmar, North East Europe chief
technology officer at IBM, who talked about future trends in technology and the
impact of social change in the enterprise, notably the challenges brought by the
so-called "generation Y" and social networking tools.

To become a member of the IT Leaders LinkedIn forum, click
here.

Full story at http://www.computing.co.uk/computing/news/2260341/computing-launches-inaugural