New study predicts the rise of music streaming services

Juniper Research recently completed a new study that projects revenues from ad-based music streaming services will exceed $1 billion by 2017. According to researcher Joe Crabtree, “With convenience, accessibility and curation having become the defining elements of the music landscape, the potential of the streaming industry will revolve around the levels of which providers can convert free customers to paying customers.”

Juniper noted in the study that many platforms are moving away from a “freemium” model and instead are using feature-restricted services as a way to entice consumers to upgrade to paid subscriptions. Despite these changes to the use of the freemium model, the growth of users migrating to streaming services will drive revenue growth.

Juniper Research also found that the music industry will need to adjust to this new streaming service landscape as downloaded music starts to decline in popularity. Juniper noted that in 2014 digital downloads of music decline for the first time. That trend is expected to continue and by 2018 subscription streaming service revenues are expected to exceed revenues from downloaded music.

For streaming service platforms, Juniper says a key to success will be differentiation in how they present music discovery to end users.

source: Juniper Research

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Qualcomm launches new graphic processors for high-end platforms

Qualcomm announced today that they are launching their new Adreno 5xx line of graphic processing units which will raise the bar for high-definition graphics matched with low power consumption. The first two processors in the line include the Adreno 530 and the Adreno 510. The 530 will be mated with the forthcoming Snapdragon 820 processor while the 510 will be found on Snapdragon 620 and 618 chips. Along with the upgrade to their Adreno line of GPUs, Qualcomm is also upgrading the image signal processing unit to a new 14-bit Qualcomm Spectra solution that they claim will support DSLR-quality photography.

Qualcomm’s Tim Leland, vice president for product management, says:

“We’re significantly enhancing the visual processing capabilities of Snapdragon to support next-generation user experiences related to computational photography, computer vision, virtual reality and photo-realistic graphics on mobile devices, all while maximizing battery life. Qualcomm Spectra ISP, together with our Adreno 5xx-class GPU, brings an entirely new level of imaging to smartphones, and is designed to allow Snapdragon-powered devices to capture ultra-clear, vivid photos and videos regardless of motion and lighting conditions and display them with the color accuracy that nature intended. In addition, as emerging growth segments such as automotive demand more immersive visual experiences, Snapdragon 820 will enable the next generation of infotainment, computer vision and advanced processing for instrument clusters.”

Qualcomm says the new Adreno 530 offers 40 percent lower power consumption and 40 percent faster performance compared to the current Adreno 430. Along with OpenGL ES 3.1+AEP and Renderscript support, Qualcomm’s 530 will also support OpenCL 2.0 and Vulkan standards.

The new Spectra ISP will support up to 3 simultaneous cameras and up to 25MP sensors at 30 frames per second with zero shutter lag along with other improvements to processing speed and power consumption.

Qualcomm says the first devices usings the Snapdragon 820 equipped with the Adreno 530 GPU and Spectra ISP should be available in the first half of 2016.

source: Qualcomm(PR)

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New Hampshire judge makes ‘ballot selfies’ legal again

Voters in New Hampshire are once again free to take “ballot selfies” after a judge struck down one of the silliest laws ever enacted. Yes, folks actually take pictures of their ballots and share them on Facebook. But if you’re proud of who you voted for or just the act of voting, what’s the harm? That’s not how legislators in New Hampshire see it at all, though. They figure that such people are surely selling their votes and using the photo as proof of the deed. To back it up, the state enacted a bill banning ballot photos last September, punishable by a fine of up to $1,000.

When the state attorney tried to enforce the bill, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) stepped in. They brought a case on behalf of three people under investigation for taking ballot photos, including one who said he wrote in a vote for his (dead) dog because he hated all the candidates. Representative Timothy Horrigon wasn’t amused, saying “the new high-tech methods of showing a ballot absolutely could be used to further a serious vote-buying scheme.” During proceedings, however, state lawyers admitted that vote-buying isn’t exactly rampant — in fact, there are no known cases of it.

Judge Paul Barbadoro struck down the bill, saying “the law at issue is a content-based restriction on speech that deprives voters of one of their most powerful means of letting the world know how they voted.” He also mocked the absurdity of posting an illegal act on Facebook. “‘I’m a proud seller of my vote! I just sold my vote for $25!’ At some level, you have to use common sense,” he said.

[Image credit: AFP/Getty Images]

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Cameras

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Via:
Boston.com

Source:
Times Union

Tags: ballot, ballot selfies, ban, newhampshire, selfies, voting

‘Cities at Night’ uses ISS photos to map light pollution

The Cities at Night project organizers began compiling hundreds of thousands of nighttime photos of metropolises taken from the ISS in order to study light pollution last year. NASA even asked the public for help to sort through millions of images to be used for the initiative. Now, Cities at Night has already helped confirm that the source of the diffuse glow around cities visible from space (first spotted by the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program) is none other than street lighting. That diffuse lighting is separate from lights emanating from buildings and vehicles, but scientists couldn’t determine its exact origin from low-res satellite photos alone.

All of the images in the project’s archive (like the one above) have been “calibrated using the stars in the background sky over the ISS, as well as ground-based measurements of the night sky brightness.” This apparently makes it possible not just to spot diffused lighting, but also to map out light pollution. The study conducted by the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain and the Cégep de Sherbrooke in Canada also revealed that countries in Europe with the highest public debts also have the highest energy consumption connected to street lighting. That said, you really should visit the Cities at Night website even if you couldn’t care less about light pollution. Its gallery, full of nighttime pictures taken by astronauts and geo-referenced on a world map, is definitely worth a few hours of your day.

PS: The project organizers want to “create a Google maps style map of the world using pictures taken by astronauts from the International Space Station” and are now trying to raise $56,000 via Kickstarter to make that happen. If they reach their goal, they’ll use the money to develop their own platform to host the map, which anybody can access.

[Image credit: NASA/ESA]

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Misc

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Source:
International Astronomical Union, Cities at Night

Tags: citiesatnight, iss, lightpollution, nasa, space

Computers can categorize buildings into architectural styles

Even if you’ve never heard of “Byzantine,” you can probably tell a Byzantine church from a Gothic one. Judging style differences is nearly impossible for a computer, however, and researchers from the University of Massachusetts want to fill in that gap. They used geometric matching, crowdsourcing and machine learning to teach an algorithm how to spot similar styles in buildings, furniture and other objects. That’s something that could be incredibly useful for historians with mountains of photo archives, or game designers who need to auto-fill a level with historically accurate furniture.

After surveying around 2,500 people and checking over 50,000 responses, the team determined that users were 85 percent consistent in categorizing styles. With that info in hand, they developed an algorithm that compared the shapes of objects, distance components and matching elements. Spotting matching elements like domes on a church was the hardest part, so the group used crowdsourced responses from human participants to teach the machine.

The result? The program is nearly 90 percent efficient in spotting stylistic differences, on par with humans. Researchers used it to separate buildings into distinct historical styles labeled by experts as Gothic, Baroque or Asian, to name a few. The algorithm can then apply those labels to other structures, greatly automating the identification process. It could also be used for film special effects or game design to help artists quickly and accurately populate scenes. And yes, it could potentially do facial recognition so that machines can tell Sarah Connor apart from, say, Sara O’Connor.

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Robots

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Source:
UMass

Tags: Algorithm, CrowdSourcing, HIstorical, MachineLearning, Recognition, UMass, video