USC develops restoration software

The University of Southern California (USC) hosts the Shoah Foundation and it's video testimonial archive (set-up by Steven Spielberg).

The archive has video testimonials of 52,000 survivors (including my father's testimonial which was so long it was in two parts which can be seen here and here), unfortunately around 5% of these had degraded audio and/or video due to errors in the recording equipment in use at the time (Betamax SP video cameras which is 20 year old technology).

Ryan Fenton-Strauss, video archive and post-production manager at ITS was takes with the restoration project. He worked out that the videos could be broken down into sequences of individual frames and used Google's Picasso which could do facial recognition and then duplicate previous good frames into where a frame was corrupt.

The system now uses Nation Instruments Vision Builder to automate the process which now requires almost no manual intervention and Ryan hopes to go into production with this system early next year.

Gaming Trends: Kunal Malik, SF 49ers CTO Creating a Green and Software-Driven Stadium

Kunal Malik

Kunal Malik, San Francisco 49ers CTO, keynoted at the December 5 2013 SV Forum Technology Meets Sports Conference and shared how he's creating a Green and Software-Driven Stadium.

Check out my Gaming Trends Article for further details.

Ofcom produces "Easy Read" guide to mobile phones

Ofcom, the Super regulator, has produced and Easy Reading guide to mobile phones for people with learning difficulties. The guide uses the Easy Read system which uses pictures as well as text to explain things. The guide can also be used by people with limited English skills.

The guide offers advice on mobile phone use and costs as well as information: -

• the different types of mobile phone handsets available
• the costs of mobile phone calls and ways to pay
• free services available for disabled customers
• how to complain when things go wrong.

Ofcom has printed 5,000 copies of the guide which is being made available to every social services Director in the UK. It can also be made available in braille and ordered in large quantities on request.

The guide is also available on-line.

Maybe Blackberry will get a reprive

Blackberry moving into the consumer space was a bad idea on many accounts and rushing out BB10 with many features that were standard with BBOS while adding bells and whistles was also maybe not so clever.

However, now with all the fuss about the US's NSA and UK's GCHQ snooping everybody, businesses and Governments may now seriously be thinking about returning to the venerable Blackberry platform as it's the only phone with an encrypted end-to-end email service.

The German Government has already ordered 40,000 secure Blackberry Z10 phones (who knows why they didn't go for Q10's - maybe a bargain basement sale?). This trend could continue as other governments must also be worried about email snooping.

Blackberry seem to be moving back away from the consumer market and concentrating on what they're good at, encrypted secure communication devices which can meet regulatory approval for organisations such as banks and governments, maybe they'll survive after all, but in smaller markets where people are prepared to pay for the secure services they need.

Carbon markets reached a value of $216 million in 2012 according to State of the Forest Carbon Markets 2013

Source: Ecosystem Marketplace

Carbon markets reached a value of $216 million in 2012, according to "State of the Forest Carbon Markets 2013" published by Forest Trends' Ecosystem Marketplace.

The Executive Summary key findings are:

• Over time, this report series has tracked 513 forest and land-use carbon projects. Developers representing 162 projects responded in 2013, including 62 projects never before reported.

• The global markets for offsets from agriculture, forestry, and other land-use projects transacted 28 MtCO2e, a 9% increase from 2011. Market value reached $216 million in 2012, 8% shy of 2011’s record $237 million. Forestry offsets’ average price fell slightly to $7.8/tonne (tCO2e).

• Voluntary offset buyers drove 95% of all market activity (27 MtCO2e) and 92% of value ($198 million), as corporate buyers renewed or pursued new climate targets, while buyers in California and Australia sought forestry offsets to prepare for compliance carbon markets.

• This report series has tracked a cumulative 134 MtCO2e of offsets transacted from forest carbon projects, valued at an estimated $0.9 billion over time from the carbon management of 26.5 million hectares.

• The private sector remained the largest source of demand, responsible for 19.7 MtCO2e or 70% of market activity. Two out of every three offsets were sold to multinational corporations. Businesses were motivated by offset-inclusive corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities, or to “demonstrate climate leadership” in their industry or to send signals to regulators.

• Demand for offsets from A/R projects remained high (8.6 MtCO2e) but fell from the prior year, while REDD offset demand grew for the fi rst time since the project type’s all-time high in 2010.

• The forest carbon markets extended project development to 58 countries, up from 54 locations in 2011. North American projects generated one quarter of all offsets transacted, while project developers in the Global South transacted half of overall market share.

• Projects seeking or achieving certifi cation to the Verifi ed Carbon Standard (VCS) transacted 15.7 MtCO2e, or 57% of all market activity. Around 12.2 MtCO2e of these sales were from projects seeking dual certification to VCS and the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Standards (CCB Standards).