Red-Eye Be Gone!

Here’s one you might have missed. FotoNation has announced the “world’s first” red-eye correction technology for camera phones. It’s an embedded solution that can automatically detect red-eye and correct it.fotonation.jpg The company claims a detection rate of 70-80% with a visible false positive rate of 1-2%. (Note: The photo caption to the right is my own.)

Since my camera phone doesn’t take very high-quality shots, I’m not sure this is something I’d care about. But as camera phones get better (and high-end ones certainly already have), this technology seems like a no-brainer. Back at DEMOfall last September, there were at least a couple of image-correcting companies on site. The one I remember is Photobot, which installs an application on your desktop that scans and corrects (red-eye, brightness, color) any uploaded photos. Just as folks like Thomas Hawk are getting excited about more technology for sophisticated photo-snapping, mere amateurs like myself are getting to take advantage of more automated tools that might just make our photos print-worthy.

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Hollywood Killed Replay But Can They Take On Microsoft?

Shortly after I purchased my first TiVo, a friend of mine wanted to know my thoughts on whether or not he should get a DVR. Like any rabid obsessed TiVotee, I immedietely started gushing over, all of TiVo’s innovative features and about how much of a transformative effect, time shifting has played on my life.

After trying to hard sell him on a TiVo unit for over three weeks, I finally succeeded in convincing my friend to buy a DVR, but instead of going with the TiVo unit I recommended, he went with the ReplayTV 5000. I tried to talk him out of it, but no matter what I said he wouldn’t budge. I showed him the superior interface, I let him test drive my own unit, I tried pointing out that suggestions and wishlists were exclusive to TiVo, I even tried to scare him into believing that Replay would possible stop working, if the company went bankrupt. No matter how hard I tried though, I couldn’t convince him to choose TiVo over that ReplayTV 5000 unit because it had a feature no one could touch. Automatic commercial skipping.

When TiVo first launched, the movie studios completely freaked out over DVR technology. They understood early on, the impact time shifting would play on their revenues and went to great lengths to put a stop to it. Initially, TiVo wanted to partner with the studios, but instead the studios threatened to sue the company, if they even launched their product. Hollywood’s huffing and puffing turned out to be little more than hot air when it came to TiVo, but when ReplayTV had the nerve to introduce automatic commercial skipping, the studios knew they had to draw a line in the sand.

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Content Sluts

Joost Screenshot Are the big media guys turning into content sluts, willing to throw their content anywhere they might get an audience? The big Joost/Viacom announcement makes me wonder. Not that Joost isn’t potentially a wonderful service (I haven’t tried it), and not that big media shouldn’t spread its content far and wide, but it’s … Read more

XM & Sirius To Merge (Maybe)

xm-sirius-merger.jpgThe rumors have been going on (and off) for a couple of years, so today’s XM/Sirius announcement doesn’t come as a huge shocker. They’re hoping to seal the deal by the end of the year. Though, we’ll see if regulators (and shareholders?) allow it to go through… HD Radio is advertising heavily here in the DC area (home of the FCC and Congress) which actually should help XM/Sirius make the argument that they aren’t competing against each other, but rather they are competing against AM, FM, and now HD… plus Internet radio.

While a joint satellite radio company should be able to share a variety of expenses and thus cut costs, they also get to share debt and the challenge of attracting and retaining subscribers. If the merger comes to pass, current Sirius CEO Mel Karmazin will run the company with Howard Stern as CFO.

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TiVo Lowers Service Fees & Rebates

TiVo is still trying to find that sweet spot between upfront hardware costs and recurring monthly service fees in attracting customers and eeking out a profit. In the last 18 months, they’ve instituted a cancellation fee, experimented with a variety of rebates and online deals, killed the Lifetime service option and generally confused folks with multiple purchase options.

So where are we now? I have no idea and my head hurts… The Winter rebate for standard def units expired yesterday ($180), and the replacement rebate is $30 less ($150). However, service fees have gone down as well: $16.95/mo with a 1 year commitment, $14.95/mo with 2, and $12.95/mo with 3 years. Can this be applied to existing hardware? Someone make the call and let us know.

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Jumbotron On-Demand?

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Photo courtesy of David Silbey and his T-Mobile Dash

I was at the Villanova/Georgetown b-ball game today contemplating how I could reasonably write off the tickets as an expense for tax purposes, and I started thinking about how Comcast could get more out of its Jumbotron. If there was a way to plug the Jumbotron display into a cable network, Comcast could then broadcast that out on-demand to college campuses. Dumb graphics, half-time show coverage and all.

More interestingly, maybe cable operators should do something equivalent to ESPN’s Full Circle coverage of certain events like last year’s Duke vs. UNC games. Instead of having different ESPN networks covering different aspects of the game, have different on-demand channels showing different game-related content. One station could have the game at 3/4 screen with the rest of the display dedicated to dynamic player and game stats. Another station could syndicate one of the college’s own radio commentators over the broadcast video feed. Another station could feature different camera angles.

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