I sometimes wish time travel was possible. Going back to 1965 and telling a television news photographer that in the next century it would be possible to use a pocket-size camera to record and produce video would be astonishing. At that time, video on the evening news was film (hence the term "film at 11"). And if I told the TV news photographer that the pocket-size video production studio could also be used to make phone calls I probably would find myself in the custody of mental health authorities. Then I'd have to tell them that the video studio with a phone could also be used to manage appointments and send messages electronically.
So it's probably good that time travel doesn't exist.
Adobe Premiere Clip is now available for both Apple and Android phones. Not only can you capture video on the phone, but you can do some of the editing there. Editing as in trimming and rearranging scenes. Editing as in adding music. You can't do everything on a phone, of course, and if you want to do more editing, all you need to do is upload the video via Creative Cloud to Premiere Pro.
I grabbed a quick video of an office holding the phone the way so many people hold it for videos. Rotate the phone 90 degrees and get a video that's more likely to fit your television. More about that in a bit.
Each clip in the video can be modified. I had only a single clip for this quick experiment, so I added a color effect to it.
For videos that have multiple clips, and most probably will, you can have the application cut them together for you. It seems to favor extremely short scenes and doesn't always arrange scenes in the order I prefer, so I generally use the manual process.
When you edit manually, you specify the in-points and out-points for every scene and which order the various clips occur in. In most of my videos, the shots aren't necessarily in the order I'll want them for the finished work. Sometimes a cutaway shot will be trimmed so that different parts of it can be used throughout the video.
If the video has usable sound, you can leave it alone, make it louder, or make it softer. Clip can adjust music that you add to the soundtrack so that it automatically dips when audio is associated with the video. I've found this to be a bit heavy-handed though.
Adobe Clip offers users a range of music, too, that will automatically conform to the length of the video. Just select the music you prefer and add it. You can add your own music, either on the phone or when you get back to a desktop or notebook computer with Adobe Premiere.
If your on-phone video is complete, you can publish it directly to YouTube, save it to your Adobe Gallery, send it to Premiere Pro, or stow it on your Creative Cloud account.
I thought I'd see what I could accomplish with a few more clips, so I drove to Worthington' s McConnell Arts Building and shot from several various angles. Back at the house, I arranged the video clips, trimmed most of them, split some of them, and added music. This video was done entirely on the phone and this time the phone was rotated to be horizontal.
If you have a smart phone, be sure to download Adobe Premiere Clip. If you don't have a Creative Cloud membership, you can download a free trial version from the Adobe website.
Around the first of the year, the New York Public Library gave everyone a remarkable gift: 180,000 high resolution historical images from its public domain collection. The images, which include drawings, maps, letters, manuscripts, photographs, posters, and more, are available without restriction.
Some of the images were available previously, although at lower resolution. Obtaining higher resolution images would have required paying a processing fee.
You'll find the images on the Digital Collections section of the NYPL website.
Triborough Bridge (1935)Built by Robert Moses, the Triborough Bridge became a prime example of how larger roads simply lead to more traffic congestion. At the time, it was a marvel.
Wandering around New York City is interesting, whether on foot or via Google Earth. Now the New York Public Library's remarkable collection of historical photographs adds a new dimension to armchair travel.
Empire State Building from Washington Square (1936)This almost unrecognizable view of the Empire State Building was taken from Washington Square in 1936. It's nearly 30 blocks from Washington Square to to the Empire State Building and the skyline is considerably more full.
Triangle Shirtwaist Company, Asch Building (1911)I had been reading a book about the 1911 fire in which more than 140 people died. Although the book had several pictures, this one from a newspaper clearly shows some of the problems with the way the factory on floors 8 through 10 of the building was operated and the complete inadequacy of the fire escape.
The building still stands and is now the Brown Building of Science, part of New York University. Biology and chemistry classes are held here now.
One of the collections that I've found to be interesting incorporates 344 images in a section called Changing New York.
Ads - good or bad? People who provide information on the Internet (journalists, bloggers, whatever you want to call them) have expenses. People have shown overwhelmingly that they will not pay for content. Some subscribe to the New York Times. Those of us who still pay for a printed newspaper have access to the website. But most people simply will not pay, so the people who provide information have to find a way to monetize the service.
Enter the commercial broadcast model: The service is "free", but you pay for it by being a product that advertisers buy. Although I would prefer content without ads, I tolerate some ads because I understand the economics. If a site provides ads that play music, flash on and off, or move around, I block them. Maybe you do something similar.
Now Opera is including a built-in ad blocker in its browser for computers as well as the Opera Mini browser for Android.
Opera says that 60 million people use Opera for computers and almost 120 million use Opera Mini for Android every month. Integrating ad-blocker technology into the browser code makes Opera faster on computers according to the developers. The change is also important for mobile devices where on-line ads take up limited screen space, slow browsing, and increase the data load.
For mobile users there is an added advantage to removing on-line ads: Reduced data plan usage that might result in cost savings on your data bill. Although the functions are built in, you need to activate them if you want to use them.
Gordon Moore is nearing 90 and the "law" he created seems to be running on empty. Moore, a co-founder of Intel, said that over the history of computing hardware, the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit has doubled approximately every two years. He predicted that would continue and hence the statement became a "law". But Moore made the observation in the mid 1960s when he was considering a period from the mid 1970s to the mid 1980s. It's now 2016.
The number of transistors is no longer doubling every two years, so what's next? Tech leaders think it's quantum computing.
Semiconductor manufacturers around the world have regularly created a report called "The International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors." The current report is thought to be the last because Moore's law no longer holds.
There is a limit to how small transistors can be and they're approaching that limit now. The future of computing will involve something other than silicon. Maybe something like graphene. Or maybe quantum computing.
Today computers are based on zeros and ones, yes and no, on or off, true or false. However you want to think about it, there are only two states: 0 or 1. Maybe it's time for quantum computing. Think of Schrödinger's cat.
By the way, light bulbs are effectively on and off at the same time when they're on. With standard 60 Hertz alternating current a light bulb is off twice each second and on twice each second. The bulb is fully illuminated when the voltage reaches positive 120 negative 120. It's off when voltage is 0. It just happens so fast that we can't detect it. In fact, with incandescent light bulbs (the ones with a filament) it's not perceptible because the light doesn't go out. This involves thermal constants and other arcane stuff. Light-emitting diodes actually do go dark 120 times a second, or so I'm told, but I still can't see it.
Wikipedia on the subject: Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment, sometimes described as a paradox, devised by Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1935. It illustrates what he saw as the problem of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics applied to everyday objects. The scenario presents a cat that may be simultaneously both alive and dead, a state known as a quantum superposition, as a result of being linked to a random subatomic event that may or may not occur. The thought experiment is also often featured in theoretical discussions of the interpretations of quantum mechanics. Schrödinger coined the term Verschränkung (entanglement) in the course of developing the thought experiment.
A quantum computer would have 3 possible states for each bit: 0, 1, and both. This isn't possible in the physical world; a light bulb can't be both on and off at the same time and this bit of uncertainty, according to those who spend all day thinking about these things, could make it possible for computers to solve certain kinds of problems faster.
Researchers at IBM are experimenting with quantum computing. In fact, IBM has created a "five-qubit quantum computer" on its cloud server so that anyone can use it for research. IBM says it's been working on quantum computing for 35 years and that echoes a statement by IBM when Apple introduced its personal computer that it had been working on personal computers for years.
Qualcomm says that it is offering what the company calls the first "deep learning software development kit" for devices powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processors. The SDK is intended to give OEMs a powerful, energy efficient platform for delivering better experiences for the users of mobile devices.
Mobile devices include the expected (smart phones and security cameras, for example) but also includes automobiles and drones. The SDK is expected to make it possible for these devices detect scenes, track objects, and avoid collisions. It's also anticipated that the devices will include improved recognition of gestures, face recognition, and natural language processing.
"The demand for untethered, mobile learning-driven user experiences is increasing rapidly and Qualcomm Technologies' customers have been clamoring for tools to help them realize their product visions," said Gary Brotman, director of product management at Qualcomm Technologies. "With the introduction of the new Snapdragon Neural Processing Engine SDK, we are making it possible for myriad sectors, including mobile, IoT and automotive to harnesses the power of Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 and make high-performance, power efficient on-device deep learning a reality."
The Snapdragon Neural Processing Engine SDK is expected to be available for Snapdragon 820 processors in the second half of the year.
In its continuing move to be everything for everybody, Alphabet (formerly Google) has its YouTube division working on a paid subscription plan that will stream some cable TV channels over the Internet. Reportedly, the service will be called "Unplugged" and will start sometime next year.
YouTube already has a paid subscription service called "Red", but the new service would add premium content. The concept of streaming cable television via the Internet isn't new. YouTube has been working on it for at least 3 years. Amazon and Apple are working on similar projects. Dish Network and Sony already have services.
Currently most of YouTube's revenues come from advertising and the company is looking for a way to increase income from other sources. Insiders have said that the company's goal is to develop a package that costs less than $35 per month. Dish charges $20 per month for its Sling service, but that service lacks most of the popular programs.
In addition to over-the-air television, competitors include the cable providers themselves, and streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu.
