GSMA today announced a rescheduling of its world-class MWC series for 2021. MWC21 Shanghai will now take place from 23 – 25 February 2021, and MWC21 Barcelona will now take place between 28 June – 1 July 2021.

Moving MWC21 Barcelona, initially scheduled for the first week of March 2021, allows the GSMA to contend with external circumstances related to Covid-19.

The GSMA is committed and investing so that MWC21 Barcelona can go ahead safely and offer the unique, unmissable experience that has made it the world’s most important mobile ecosystem convening platform. MWC21 Barcelona will also have virtual elements to complement the overwhelming demand to convene physically.

Mats Granryd, Director General, GSMA said: “With a continuously changing global outlook and following consultation with our board and membership and our top exhibitors, we have taken the careful decision to reschedule MWC21 Shanghai in February, and MWC21 Barcelona in June. The health and safety of our exhibitors, attendees, staff and the people of Barcelona are of paramount importance.”

John Hoffman, CEO GSMA Ltd., said: “We have been overwhelmed by the support of all our partners and clients who remain dedicated to ensuring MWC21 Barcelona is a success. MWC is more than just an event. It’s an experience that brings the whole industry together and provides a platform to unlock the power of connectivity so that people, industry and society thrive.”

The rescheduling respects the global circumstance surrounding Covid-19. It recognises that both events are catalysts in the mobile ecosystem; they are platforms for launching new products and innovations, bringing together decision and deal makers.

The GSMA continues to work closely with the Host City Parties, and the decision to change the date of MWC21 Barcelona follows a period of planning and consultation with all major stakeholders. The date changes also ensure that 2021 reverts to a full annual cycle of MWC events between Shanghai, Barcelona and LA. Both the Host City Parties and the GSMA board support the decision of the GSMA.

Pau Relat, President of Governing board of Fira de Barcelona, said: “We fully support the GSMA’s decision to reschedule the dates for MWC Barcelona and are deeply committed to making the best possible 2021 edition with an extraordinary participation of companies and visitors. The long-standing partnership between the MWC, Fira and the city of Barcelona has been a very successful one for everyone, and I’m sure it will continue to be so in the future.” Over the balance of 2020, the GSMA remains excited about its virtual series, Thrive, with remaining events in Africa, North America, Asia Pacific, Eurasia and Latin America.

Amazing how drastic the change will be for near 2025. Mandatory pregnancy vaccines now a reality, death is common now after vaccination, public on off switch making its appearance.

shit IS getting real.

Specs

• 3840 × 2160 resolution
• 98,5% DCI-P3
• 900 cd/m2
• Dolby Vision, HDR10, HDR10+ and HLG support
• MediaTek MT9638 main LSI
• 3GB RAM, 32GB ROM
• 55" - $770, 65" - $1190

GoPro's USPTO filing: "This disclosure relates to systems and methods for determining predicted risk for a flight path of an unmanned aerial vehicle. A previously stored three-dimensional representation of a user-selected location may be obtained. The three-dimensional representation may be derived from depth maps of the user-selected location generated during previous unmanned aerial vehicle flights. The three-dimensional representation may reflect a presence of objects and object existence accuracies for the individual objects. The object existence accuracies for the individual objects may provide information about accuracy of existence of the individual objects within the user-selected location. A user-created flight path may be obtained for a future unmanned aerial flight within the three-dimensional representation of the user-selected location. Predicted risk may be determined for individual portions of the user-created flight path based upon the three-dimensional representation of the user-selected location."

We can see almost full monopoly on the market.

Kioxia, previously part of Toshiba under the name Toshiba Memory, was acquired in 2018 by a group of companies led by private equity firm Bain Capital for about $ 18 billion. Toshiba currently owns a 40 percent stake in Kioxia.

Negotiations between Western Digital and Kioxia have moved into an active phase in recent weeks. The deal could be announced in mid-September. Western Digital is expected to pay for the takeover of Kioxia in shares, with David Goeckeler, the current CEO of Western Digital, taking over the combined company.

According to analysts, the merged company has a chance to take a 30-35% share in the flash memory market and begin to fight for leadership in it with Samsung.

There is basically a new record for photo awards this year, with a whopping number of 25 photo awards.

Best camera, best pro camera, best premium camera, best advanced camera, best budget camera (FF and APS-C).

Sadly there is no best budget camera in the m43 sensor size.

I guess the advertising revenue from "Olympus" after the divestment is to low for the experts to care.

By green Chinese manufacturers are marked. Vizio also makes all of their TVs in China.

In fact that we can see is pretty optimistic view for LG and Samsung. As if 4K will become hotter product things can be much worse, as all of marked companies already have 4K and 3D capable TVs for very affordable prices.

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20131211PD215.html

NortonLifeLock and Avast are merging in a deal worth more than $8 billion. The deal will see NortonLifelock acquire all of Avast’s shares, and create a much larger cyber security firm. “With this combination, we can strengthen our cyber safety platform and make it available to more than 500 million users.

Avast, which was founded in the Czech Republic, has been creating software for consumers and small businesses for 11 years, while NortonLifeLock is the former consumer side of Symantec, which was left behind after Broadcom acquired Symantec’s enterprise security business two years ago. Norton antivirus has existed in various forms since 1991, and has remained a popular option for consumers for 30 years.

They are larger and larger and their products are worse and worse.

Canon U.S.A., Inc., a leader in digital imaging solutions, is taking the opportunity to spotlight its commitment to anti-counterfeit consumer education and safety awareness. Canon has a longstanding commitment to fight against the proliferation of counterfeit Canon products by helping to protect customers from receiving non-Canon products that are hazardous and can cause damage to their equipment. As part of this effort, Canon has updated its anti-counterfeit consumer education microsite, providing expanded information about commonly counterfeited Canon products, as well as informing consumers about the battery recognition technology that is built into certain Canon cameras and camcorders.

The website can be found at https://usa.canon.com/aboutcounterfeits

With the surge of online shopping, the availability of counterfeits for many brands has persisted and grown, leaving consumers unaware about counterfeits and unable to make informed purchasing decisions. The Canon anti-counterfeit consumer education microsite includes updated tips on how to spot counterfeits that unlawfully bear the Canon logo as well as a discussion about the difference between gray market and counterfeit goods for consumers who may not know how to distinguish between them. The microsite also offers consumers handy links to anti-counterfeit product advisories and resources, as well as a link to some valuable information that Canon provides to its consumers concerning another form of fakery being offered to the public– some service and support companies passing themselves off as authorized Canon repair facilities.

Canon promotes safety by partnering with its consumers and sharing technical expertise. On the microsite, U.S. consumers are encouraged to use Canon U.S.A’s most important safety education tool – its anti-counterfeit hotline at 1-855-46-CANON – that allows Canon consumers to report suspicious Canon goods so that they can be authenticated by Canon before use.

“At Canon, we have invested deeply to ensure our technical staff is thoroughly trained and well equipped with the knowledge and tools required to properly identify non-genuine merchandise. The specific combination of our formal processes, access to proprietary manufacturing attributes, training, and tools available exclusively to our Canon service staff, allows us to discern even the most intricate differences between genuine and non-genuine items,” says Jason Fligman, Senior Director & General Manager of Customer Support Operations for the Imaging Technologies and Communications Group at Canon U.S.A., Inc. “We are very aware of the quality and safety issues that are common amongst counterfeit Canon products, and committed to assisting our valued customers in ensuring the authenticity of Canon-branded items.”

Canon encourages consumers who seek to buy genuine Canon products to purchase them through authorized dealers by using a dealer locator link on Canon’s website or through a brand-based online store, such as Canon Direct. Canon also pursues counterfeiters in the U.S. and around the world to protect its customers from potentially unsafe products that unlawfully use the Canon name, as well as to protect the value, trusted reputation and loyalty that the Canon brand has acquired over decades in producing high-quality, safe and reliable products.

For more information about Canon U.S.A, visit www.usa.canon.com

Margins on Canon batteries are astonishing. May be it is better to start offering them at reasonable price, no?

Specs

• Stack BSI and rolling shutter process
• Offers 15% sensitivity improvement over competition
• Leverages SmartSens’ ultra-low noise reading circuit design to reduce the RN and FPN by 69% and 59% respectively.
• NIR+ Technology, so QE of the SC850SL is boosted up by 55% at 850 nm and 80% at 940nm
• Staggered HDR with up to 100 dB dynamic range
• PixGain HDR without HDR combination artifacts
• Enhanced SNR
• Higher image quality under high temperature conditions

Today Adobe announced that they will join the Blender Foundation’s Development Fund as a corporate Gold member. Contributions from corporate members directly support core Blender development, for generally approved projects on blender.org.

“We are thrilled Adobe is joining the Blender Development Fund to help ensure the longevity and success of this dynamic open-source community.” said Sébastien Deguy, VP of 3D & Immersive at Adobe. “We’re excited to help strengthen and improve this accessible suite of tools.”

“This is a great step forward,” says Blender founder and chairman Ton Roosendaal, “it’s a prime example of the industry increasingly accepting to work with free/open source software.”

Biggest issue of all this "open source software" is that corporations are making 90-99% of all development. Yes, during work time corporations employees are doing almost all contributions.

I think we are very near stage where corporations (who already control almost all OO world) like piranhas will tear most of OO projects and make them fully closed.

Note that L mount now is worst sold system woldwide, system with fewest number of lenses, system with most expensive average lens price.

http://largesense.com/index.php/products/4x5-large-format-digital-back-ls45/ls45-large-format-video

Following in the footsteps of Apple's ProRes RAW, Blackmagic Design has launched its own RAW video codec into a public beta. Blackmagic RAW "combines the quality and benefits of RAW with the ease of use, speed and file sizes of traditional video formats," the company says. It arrives today on Blackmagic's URSA Mini Pro cameras (in beta) and DaVince Resolve 15.1, and developers can grab the SDK for macOS, Windows and Linux.

You can trade file size for quality by using different settings: Blackmagic RAW Q0 and Q5 offer the best quality, while the 3:1, 5:1, 8:1 and 12:1 codecs let you save space while still shooting RAW. "RAW 8:1 and 12:1 offer high quality and speed, making it suitable for productions that wouldn't normally consider shooting RAW," says Blackmagic.

Full PR

Blackmagic Design today announced the public beta of Blackmagic RAW, a new and very modern codec that combines the quality and benefits of RAW with the ease of use, speed and file sizes of traditional video formats. Blackmagic RAW is a more intelligent format that gives customers stunning images, incredible performance, cross platform support and a free developer SDK.

The Blackmagic RAW public beta will be demonstrated on the Blackmagic Design IBC 2018 booth at #7.B45. Customers can download the public beta for use with URSA Mini Pro cameras via the Blackmagic Camera 6.0 Beta Update. In addition, DaVinci Resolve 15.1 Update, which includes support for Blackmagic RAW, is also available free of charge from the Blackmagic Design website.

Blackmagic RAW has been in development for years and is a next generation hybrid codec that features multiple new technologies such as an advanced de-mosaic algorithm, extensive metadata support, highly optimized GPU and CPU accelerated processing and more. It can be used from acquisition throughout post production for editing and color grading, all from a single file.

Traditional RAW codecs have large file sizes and are processor intensive, making them hard to work with. Video file formats are faster, but suffer quality problems due to the use of 4:2:2 video filters that reduce color resolution. Blackmagic RAW solves these problems with an intelligent design that moves part of the de-mosaic process into the camera where it can be hardware accelerated by the camera itself. This results in incredibly efficient encoding that gives customers the same quality, bit depth, dynamic range and controls as RAW, but with much better performance and smaller file sizes than most popular video codecs. Because the processor intensive partial de-mosaic is done by the camera hardware, software such as DaVinci Resolve doesn’t have to do as much work decoding the files. In addition, GPU and CPU acceleration make decoding of frames incredibly fast, so you get extremely smooth performance for editing and grading.

Blackmagic RAW is much more than a simple RAW container format. Its intelligent design actually understands the camera and the sensor. This means the image data, along with the unique characteristics of the image sensor, are encoded and saved into the Blackmagic RAW file, giving customers much better image quality, even at higher compression settings, as well as total control over features such as ISO, white balance, exposure, contrast, saturation and more.

In addition, Blackmagic RAW uses Blackmagic Design Generation 4 Color Science for superior imaging that results in reproducing extremely accurate skin tones and gorgeous, lifelike colors that rival those of cameras costing tens of thousands of dollars more. Images are encoded using a custom non-linear 12-bit space designed to provide the maximum amount of color data and dynamic range.

Blackmagic RAW also makes it easy for any software developer to access all this technology. The free developer SDK lets any third party software application add Blackmagic RAW support on Mac, Windows and Linux. The Blackmagic RAW developer SDK automatically handles the embedded sensor profile metadata, along with Blackmagic Design color science, for predictable and accurate image rendering that yields consistent color throughout the entire pipeline.

Blackmagic RAW features two types of file compression. Customers can choose either constant quality or constant bitrate encoding options, depending on the kind of work they are doing. This lets them prioritize image quality or file size. Constant quality uses variable bitrate encoding so complex frames are encoded at higher data rates to preserve detail and maintain the highest possible quality. Blackmagic RAW Q0 has minimum quantization and yields the highest quality, while Blackmagic RAW Q5 uses moderate quantization for more efficient encoding and a smaller file size. Blackmagic RAW 3:1, 5:1, 8:1 and 12:1 use constant bitrate encoding to give customers the best possible images with predictable and consistent file sizes. The ratios are based on the unprocessed file size of a single frame from the camera’s sensor, making it easy to understand the relative amount of compression being used.

The pristine camera native quality of Blackmagic RAW Q0 and 3:1 are perfect for effects heavy feature film and commercial work. Blackmagic RAW Q5 and 5:1 are extremely high quality making them great for episodic television and independent films. Blackmagic RAW 8:1 and 12:1 offer high quality and speed, making it suitable for productions that wouldn’t normally consider shooting RAW. Now, more customers than ever will be able to use high quality RAW images in an incredibly efficient way that was impossible before.

“Blackmagic RAW could entirely change the workflow going from camera through post production,” said Kees Van Oostrum, Director of Photography and President of the American Society of Cinematographers. “A superb image quality, fine detail and incredibly small file sizes could possibly make Blackmagic RAW the go to format for filmmakers. It will be an important change for post because the editorial team can work with the camera original files, which are fast enough to use for everyday editing. That means less confusion in regards to creative choices I make at the camera. The images can now travel throughout the entire workflow because we’re shooting, editing and grading with the same files! Blackmagic RAW could be a game changer in the way films, television shows and commercials are made.”

Blackmagic RAW dramatically simplifies and speeds up post production workflows. DaVinci Resolve 15.1, which was also released today, includes full support for Blackmagic RAW. The performance of Blackmagic RAW is much faster in DaVinci Resolve than any other RAW format. This makes editing, color correction and visual effects incredibly fast. In addition, working with single files instead of folders full of still image sequences greatly simplifies media management. When the RAW settings are changed in DaVinci Resolve, a .sidecar file can be generated or updated if one already exists. When opened in other software applications that support Blackmagic RAW, the .sidecar file, which contains the RAW settings made in DaVinci Resolve, will be automatically used to display the image. If the .sidecar file is removed then the file will be displayed using the embedded metadata instead. This innovative new workflow gives customers a non-destructive way to change RAW settings while working between different applications.

Featuring a fully scalable design and completely modern CPU and GPU acceleration, Blackmagic RAW is optimized for AVX, AVX2 and SSE4.1 enabled processors, multi-threaded, works across multiple CPU cores and is GPU accelerated with support for Apple Metal, CUDA and OpenCL. Frame decoding and image processing is extremely fast, making it super smooth for editing, color correction and visual effects in DaVinci Resolve. Another benefit of media being stored as single files, and not image sequences, is it makes media management easier and file copying much faster.

The free Blackmagic RAW Developer SDK is available on Mac OS, Windows and Linux. This SDK takes care of all the work for developers, so adding support for Blackmagic RAW to third party software applications is easy and fast. Developers get access to GPU and CPU accelerated algorithms for decoding files, along with unique information about the camera’s image sensor so their applications can accurately decode and display the files. The SDK features highly descriptive and flexible metadata options designed to support today’s modern workflows. Metadata is embedded directly in the .braw file or it can be stored in a .sidecar file. Metadata is important because it contains the RAW settings along with information for the slate, iris, focus, focal length, white balance and a lot more. The metadata in .sidecar files can be used on top of the embedded metadata without overwriting it. Blackmagic RAW also supports frame based metadata so customers can access values, such as focus distance, that often change on a frame by frame basis.

“Blackmagic RAW is the world’s only truly modern, high performance, professional RAW codec that is open, cross platform and free,” said Grant Petty, Blackmagic Design CEO. “It’s exciting because customers can get the visually lossless image quality of RAW with the speed of traditional video workflows. Best of all, there are no hidden licenses or ongoing fees. Blackmagic RAW has been designed to provide the industry with an open, elegant and standardized high quality image format that can be used across products and in customer workflows absolutely free!”

Availabilty and price

Blackmagic RAW is available today as a public beta via the Blackmagic Camera 6.0 Beta Update for URSA Mini Pro. The final release of Blackmagic RAW is expected to ship in several weeks’ time once further testing is complete.

The DaVinci Resolve 15.1 Update, which features support for Blackmagic RAW, has also been released and can be downloaded today free of charge from the Blackmagic Design website.

Panasonic have huge trouble making new LSI for cameras (including video cameras), they are too expensive. And L mount still is worst sold mirrorless system in most countries. L mount fate can be also decided in 2021, new cameras will keep coming for a while, but all new development and design will be stopped, at least by Panasonic. Part responsible for L mount stuff is bleeding money comparable to Olympus, it is all just hidden inside larger structure now.

New reforms can be similar to ones that Olympus and Nikon are doing - massive cuts among people outside Japan first, reducing expenses for service, next - optimization of everything that is still left in Japan. And this, unfortunately, can also include all leading engineers and software developers.

In case of any significant new COVID wave we can even see cuts among offered lenses (usually it is last resort, as older proven lenses are very profitable).

Kinefinity already dropped Prores Raw support.

Big financial support for RED is rumored to come direct from deep Apple pockets.

You can "buy" software still, but gradually all this links will be hidden more and more within 2021.

Main plan now is to have at least 70% of users on monthly payments. Profits plans also are doubled by management in 2022.

Flying car development company Kitty Hawk Corp. funded by Google co-founder Larry Page has acquired 3D Robotics, a former rival of Chinese drone maker DJI. As part of the deal, 3D Robotics co-founder and former editor of Wired magazine Chris Anderson will become Kitty Hawk's chief operating officer.

All ended as it should.

Hello Sound Devices family. Due to global semiconductor shortages, we have sadly been forced to put production of the 833 and MixPre-3 II on a temporary hold. We expect we will be able to restart manufacturing the 833 in November. We don’t have a restart date for the MixPre-3 II yet but we will let you know as soon as possible.

The MixPre-3 II and 833 are not being discontinued. We will continue manufacturing them as soon as our parts arrive! Other 8-Series and MixPre II Series mixer-recorders will not be affected. Some of our resellers still have 833s and MixPre-3 IIs in stock.

Thank you so much for your support during these shortages. We appreciate you all!

Sad news to know you no longer can buy these, but also not a total surprise what with all the supply issues there have been in 2021/2020 across all industries.

Makes sense they'd discontinue (for now) the 833 and MixPre3, as they are each the cheapest models in their respective product lines (8 Series & MixPre Series), thus probably have the smallest profit margins.

Wasn't that long ago Sound Devices did a price hike of their products, but I guess that alone wasn't enough to dampen demand, and now they have to (short term) cancel a couple of products to help ration out their stocked supplies of components.

L-Mount Alliance: Strategic cooperation between Leica Camera, Panasonic and Sigma

One day before the official launch of photokina 2018, Leica Camera AG, Panasonic and Sigma announced a strategic partnership at the company’s press conference. The “L-Mount Alliance” is an unprecedented way of working together and will be particularly beneficial to the customers of the three companies. It allows Panasonic and Sigma to use the L-mount standard developed by Leica for their own developments and thus also offer cameras and optics with this lens mount. Through the joint efforts of the three partners, the alliance will significantly contribute to the importance of the L-Mount standard for the world of photography

Due to their numerous interchangeable components, system cameras allow a very flexible use and can be individually configured according to requirements. The bayonet is the most important interface, as the lens has a significant impact on the imaging performance and therefore on the final image quality. The strategic partnership between Leica, Panasonic and Sigma will allow customers to use a wider range of cameras and lenses in the future without compromising on so far to have to specify individual manufacturers, because they use propriety bayonets.

Dr. Andreas Kaufmann, Chairman of the Supervisory Board and majority shareholder, Leica Camera AG: “Photographers are extremely important for their chosen camera system. Particularly in the increasingly growing market for mirrorless system cameras, there is an ever-increasing variety of different requirements on the part of the users. In order to be able to meet these requirements at short notice, we have decided to work together with renowned partners from the photographic industry.

With Panasonic we have many years of partnership and trusting cooperation and their expertise in electronics is undisputed. Sigma is also a respected company, which has established itself particularly in the field of optical development and with its innovative products, a perfect complement to our existing L-Mount portfolio can. We believe that together with our partners, we can achieve mutual and sustainable growth for all our products. ” Mr. Tetsuro Homma, Senior Managing Executive Officer, Panasonic Corporation, said: “Panasonic’s focus has always been to revolutionize the camera market and make photographers’ lives easier, more advanced, and more enjoyable. Our long-standing partnership with Leica has resulted in numerous high-performance, high-end digital cameras, combining Leica’s leading optical technology with Panasonic’s digital technologies. This partnership has enabled us to drive the development of excellent digital photography products. The L-Mount alliance with Leica and Sigma is a prime example of the power of our collaboration. This alliance of strong companies will fundamentally change the future of the photography industry. As a market challenger, we have always driven innovation with the slogan ‘Changing Photography’ to meet the high expectations of professional photographers. Our Partnering with Leica and Sigma will provide additional business opportunities for our companies, but above all, it will continue to bring great pleasure to our customers in photography. ”

Mr.Kazuto Yamaki, Chief Executive Officer, SIGMACorporation: “As cameras evolve toward digital and mirrorless, user and system requirements have also changed. Currently, there is an almost overwhelming choice of different systems that, however, do not yet meet all the needs of users, especially in terms of extensibility and flexibility. SIGMA joins this alliance to develop mirrorless cameras that benefit from the short run. As SIGMA seeks to develop high-quality and innovative high-performance products, this alliance will greatly enhance both the implementation and expandability of our camera system, significantly increasing the value to our customers. Leica is a great company and has had a significant impact on photography for more than 100 years, and Panasonic is a leader in many different areas because of its proven track record. Combined with SIGMA’s high quality, high performance and unique products, the L-Mount will become an extremely attractive system for potential users. ”

About the L-mount

The L-Mount was developed by Leica Camera to provide customers with a future-proof, flexible, robust and precise bayonet that will meet even the most demanding photographic requirements. After its initial launch in 2014 in the Leica T, the L-Mount has been continuously developed by Leica Camera and its partners, resulting in improved and quasi-new L-Mount technology.

For the widest possible variety of products, the diameter of the L-mount was dimensioned at 51.6 millimeters, making it suitable not only for full-frame cameras but also for APS-C sensors. The small footprint of only 20 millimeters allows for a small distance between optics and sensor, making lenses much more compact – particularly useful for wide angle development. To withstand even the heaviest loads and to guarantee maximum safety for customers over many years of intensive use, camera bayonets become wear resistant Stainless steel and with four flange segments, which prevents tilting and ensures a particularly firm and flat fit of the lens. The standardized L-Mount contact strip ensures smooth communication between the electronic components in the lens and the camera, including the possibility of firmware updates for lenses, in order to react to technical developments and thus ensure full performance in the future.

Currently, the Leica SL system in full format and the APS system with camera models Leica CL, TL2 and TLde use the lens mount. All the optics of the different systems can be operated without restrictions and without adapters on all cameras – here is already one of the many advantages that customers have through the unified bayonet.In the near future, both the Leica CameraAG, as well as Panasonic and Sigma announce other products using the same standard.

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13970_7-57387626-78/qualcomm-shows-horsepower-of-next-gen-h.265-video/