Shot on a 5D m ll and a gh2.

This is the trailer.

Visit https://agilebits.com/onepassword and see introduction video.

20% off coupon code is "MacPowerUsers".

If you buy a ton of gears online from many sites, it can help you secure all your passwords. Basically you wouldn't know your own passwords :)

Blind is a beautifully shot short film that is at times both unnerving and emotionally wrenching. It is a brilliantly suspenseful film about a young killer who lures his girlfriend to a secluded spot and tries to end her life. It doesn’t go to plan though as she is not quite as innocent as she first seems, it is in fact he who is left bleeding and struggling to keep a hold on life. And thus erupts a cat and mouse game between the couple.

The film is shown in a random assortment of scenes that at first don’t seem to make any sense or join with one another in any form of order. It’s a strange form that takes a while to get ones head around but once you do it all sort of fits perfectly into place and creates a mesmerizing viewing experience that grasps tight hold of your attention.

http://frakingfilms.net/2015/02/20/blind-short-film-review/

https://profhugodegaris.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/artilectwar.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_de_Garis

PALO ALTO, Calif. — In late 2013, an A.T.M. in Kiev started dispensing cash at seemingly random times of day. No one had put in a card or touched a button. Cameras showed that the piles of money had been swept up by customers who appeared lucky to be there at the right moment. But when a Russian cybersecurity firm, Kaspersky Lab, was called to Ukraine to investigate, it discovered that the errant machine was the least of the bank’s problems. The bank’s internal computers, used by employees who process daily transfers and conduct bookkeeping, had been penetrated by malware that allowed cybercriminals to record their every move. The malicious software lurked for months, sending back video feeds and images that told a criminal group — including Russians, Chinese and Europeans — how the bank conducted its daily routines, according to the investigators. Then the group impersonated bank officers, not only turning on various cash machines, but also transferring millions of dollars from banks in Russia, Japan, Switzerland, the United States and the Netherlands into dummy accounts set up in other countries. click link to Continue reading the main story

I looked up Amazon empty box on the internet. Apparently there is a box is empty scam, where the receiver claims that the box was empty to get a refund from Amazon.

Mine was actually empty and returned straight away at the post office, however, I'm worried that this is going to cause a problem.

The package looked like it had been tampered with, which would suggest that the camera had been removed during transportation.

The real peculiar thing, which I think point in another direction is the fact the registered weight of the package is only 0.25kg. Which to me seem like and empty box left the warehouse. The camera body on its own weigh 560 g, and I think the whole box with accessories weigh 1.4 kg.

It seemed to me, that the size of the empty wrapping box might also be a bit small, but I don't know the size of GH4 body only box. Can anyone help with that?

Amazon said they would get back to me by the 4th of February, but my fingers are really itching to play with the camera. Waiting for 4 days for the next response is bad enough, on top of that I'm worried it will take a while to resolve, so again dimensions of the box would be nice :-)

Table tennis fun

NFL bad lip reading parody

 
Runner up Antispam cat

 
gashô

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/hard-to-be-a-god-2015

From time to time deals show up on Amazon with used/refurbished GH4's at around 900 dollars.

Always from new seller with something along the following information:

READ !!! - BRAND NEW - IN SEALED BOX - FULL WARRANTY=> CONTACT US ONLY TO IDGMAIL=> HOLIDAYMARKETT Please CONTACT US BEFORE Make the Order, ELSE all the orders will be CANCELED

To me that smells like scam but I actually thought Amazon was solid.

Any thoughts?

If you haven't seen it already, thought I'd post the link here.

"An nvidia engineer was interviewed about the memory problems the GTX 970 users are facing, this is what he had to say!"...

I don't much care for you tube either but if there isn't anything else, I may have to go that route.

Any suggestions?

With growing inequality and the civil unrest from Ferguson and the Occupy protests fresh in people’s mind, the world’s super rich are already preparing for the consequences. At a packed session in Davos, former hedge fund director Robert Johnson revealed that worried hedge fund managers were already planning their escapes. “I know hedge fund managers all over the world who are buying airstrips and farms in places like New Zealand because they think they need a getaway,” he said. SNIP

http://www.theguardian.com/public-leaders-network/2015/jan/23/nervous-super-rich-planning-escapes-davos-2015

http://kck.st/1xO67Jv

While the stuff of celluloid film is partially made up of waste elbows and arseholes, it kind of makes sense to process with horse dirt. Please chime in here with your super 8mm, 16mm and 35mm love (or horror) stories.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lowepro-Flipside-400-AW-DSLR-Camera-Photo-Bag-Backpack-amp-Weather-Cover-Black-/261581881861

Just came from the cinema. Still shook...
Ceylan's latest Kis uykusu is by no means an easy piece... by that I mean (hard to explain) that despite being a character based film, there's no judgment whatsoever, there's not a moral ethno-technical POV; that part IF happening at all is going to come from you. Personally I find this very mature and fascinating because Bilge Ceylan is giving us all possible space, each person will be able to construct his/her own Winter Sleep. It is also not easy because paradoxically it carries "concealed" a sensitive and intelligent but also very tough critique to ALL turkish social stratus; one might easily extrapolate that to the rest of the world, specially the rural zones. The landscape is gorgeous but it is also a confinement element, all very shakespearean. Throughout the 196 minutes I felt completely immersed in these few character's lifes, I surprised myself analysing and judging them, establishing and measuring their acts with a stupid moral system that, either in day to day normal life and specially here is utterly worthless.

Despite knocking on many doors, I end up going alone to this experience and it was good to be left alone with these guys. Also it was good later on to meet with someone who had watched the film and talk a little bit about it, also (like any good story) we had to talk a little bit about us... and we agreed that Winter Sleep has some of Buñuel and some of Bergman (but without the sensuousness - she said) and I might add some of (early) Kurosawa. It's a lot like real life in a totally no bullshit devastating slowly progression of "things" through an uber complex matrix of relationships, ay I bet you that if ants "had feelings" and to pay/receive rent they'll be all fucked up too.

After Ilklimer and now this, I can ridiculously call myself a Ceylan fan and can even brag (to people who care about such things) about it winning last Canne's festival Palm D'or.
Anyway I though of you guys, specially those who hadn't seen it and "must" firmly insist, je je
If you have the opportunity go see Kis Uykusu, just remember to empty your bladder first +)

gashô

The global shutter pixel technology typically found on charge-coupled device (CCD) image sensors can offer significant benefits such as the elimination of rolling shutter artifacts through simultaneous image capture of the entire frame. However, the use of global shutter pixel requires the addition of a pixel-level memory – one of the barriers to widespread global shutter adoption. As CMOS image sensors have grown in popularity and as machine vision, movie production, industrial, automotive, and scanning applications increasingly place high priority on the ability to capture fast-moving objects with high image quality, image sensor vendors have worked to solve the technical challenges involved with the utilization of global shutter pixel technology on CMOS image sensors -- sensors that were instrumental in making advanced machine vision, scanning, and the filming of movies like Titanic, The Matrix and Avatar1 possible. Further, with significant CMOS processing technology advancements, transistors can be made much smaller; this, together with improved micro-lens technology, is better enabling image sensor vendors to cost-effectively integrate the memory required for a global shutter.

Today, CMOS image sensor providers are closing the performance gap between rolling and global shutter alternatives by addressing several technical challenges -- fill factor/quantum efficiency (QE), global shutter efficiency (GSE), and dark current. In overcoming these challenges, CMOS image sensor vendors are delivering global shutter pixel technology with smaller pixel size, larger fill factor, higher GSE, lower dark current ,and lower noise, better positioning CMOS image sensors to replace CCD at an accelerating rate.

Rolling Shutter Overview

Also known as focal-plane shutter, a rolling shutter utilizes two scans – reset and readout – to control the exposure time. A shutter pulse that resets a row scans the pixel array prior to readout scanning (Figure 1). The interval between the shutter and the readout pulses determines the exposure time. However, since exposure times of different rows are shifted when a rolling shutter sensor is used, still images of fast-moving objects become distorted, rendering the rolling shutter unsuitable for applications like barcode scanning, machine vision, or automated inspection systems, which require the imaging of rapidly moving objects.

Often found on some film cameras as well as digital still and video cameras using CMOS image sensors, a rolling shutter does not record each frame at a single point in time, but rather captures sequential strips of the image from a vertical or horizontal scan across the frame. The advantage of a rolling shutter method is that the image sensor can continue to gather photons during the acquisition process, thus increasing sensitivity. The disadvantages of rolling shutter - predictable distortion of fast-moving objects or flashes of light, or rolling shutter artifacts - are most noticeable when imaging in extreme conditions of motion or light. The use of rolling shutter technology can also result in other motion artifacts, such as smear, skew, wobble, and partial exposure. A shift from rolling to global shutter has been explored in the past. At the time, CMOS image sensor vendors found that adding an additional memory element would sacrifice too much of the photodiode area, negatively impacting quantum efficiency. Further, with existing semiconductor processing technology, application requirements, market demands, cost, and other considerations, it was not justified to push ahead.

Global Shutter Overview

CCD image sensors, which require analog memory for their operation, naturally lend themselves to operation with a global shutter; as a result CCD cameras with global shutter have become more prevalent. The global shutter pixel technology typically found on CCD image sensors used in video cameras eliminates the rolling shutter artifact through simultaneous image capture of the entire frame (Figure 2).

However, for CMOS image sensors, the implementation of a global shutter has the primary disadvantage of requiring the addition of a pixel-level memory, making this an expensive alternative for some applications (Figures 3 and 4). For cost-sensitive mobile applications, in particular, the need for additional pixel-level memory has historically made global shutter undesirable as these applications do not place as high a priority on image quality or the mitigation of rolling shutter artifacts as do other applications, rather for cell phones cost is paramount.

Other drawbacks associated with global shutters include the reduction in pixel fill factor, which results in a decrease in quantum efficiency. To compensate for this effect, a global shutter pixel generally has a larger size than a rolling shutter pixel, as shown in Figure 5.

Another issue of concern is dark current at the memory node. Dark current refers to the small current generated in a pixel even when the pixel is in complete darkness. Typical regions of dark current generation include depletion regions of PN junctions and silicon surfaces. Dark current is one of the main contributors to pixel noise and is more severe in a global shutter pixel than in a rolling shutter pixel.

Finally, it is important to note that, when implementing global shutter in backside illumination (BSI), quantum efficiency is higher than with its front side illumination (FSI) counterpart as there is neither metal nor transistors in the optical path. However, it is this lack of metal that leads to a significant disadvantage for a BSI global shutter. With no metal layer to protect the memory node from light, global shutter efficiency (GSE) is typically degraded. A possible solution is to deposit metal on the backside, but the problem with this is that the resulting stack height is so high that stray light would still be able to contaminate signals stored there. This issue remains an open problem though the industry is exploring it. In the absence of an electronic global shutter, a mechanical shutter can always be used. However, the addition of a mechanical shutter not only increases system cost, but it may be difficult to practically implement in some applications, such as mobile products. Another alternative approach would be to use digital correction of the rolling shutter artifacts; however, this approach would increase power consumption, cost, and may introduce reconstruction artifacts.

CMOS Image Sensors with Global Shutter Technology

In 2000-2001, it became clear to CMOS image sensor purveyors that global shutter technology could offer significant advantages, but the implementation needed to be carefully considered. The most popular approach that has resulted is “memory-in-pixel,” in which each pixel, in addition to a photodiode and readout circuitry, contains an extra memory element to temporarily store photo-generated charges. In this scheme, every row of the sensor starts an exposure at the same time. At the end of the exposure, photo-generated charges are globally transferred from photo diodes to pixellevel memories and then read out row-by-row via readout scanning. Essentially, the additional pixel-level memory allows photo-generated charge accumulation and readout operation to be performed at each individual pixel, thus eliminating the need for rolling shutter pulses. This approach is similar to that of an Interline-Transfer CCD (IT-CCD) shown in Figure 6, where a line buffer located next to each column of the pixel array serves the same purpose as the in-pixel memory. Since the exposure starts at the same instant for every row, the rolling shutter artifact is not present in this approach. Taking this one step further, by pipelining the accumulation and readout operations, the next exposure can start before finishing the current readout, enabling extremely high frame rates to be achieved.

Fill Factor and Quantum Efficiency

The addition of a memory node in a global shutter pixel causes its fill factor to always be smaller than that of its rolling shutter counterpart. To mitigate reduction in quantum efficiency, such a memory element should occupy as small an area as possible. On the other hand, its charge storage capacity has to be large enough to hold all charge transferred from the photodiode. Ideally, the storage capacity of the memory node should be engineered to be the same as that of the photodiode so that full well of the pixel is not limited by the memory node. Additionally, microlenses should be optimized such that the entire incident light will be collected by the photodiode.

Global Shutter Efficiency

GSE, an important figure-of-merit for a global shutter pixel, is a measure of how well signal charge can be stored in the memory node without being contaminated by parasitic light. GSE measures how well the memory node protects stored signal from parasitic light contamination. Various sources contribute to such a contamination. For example, incident light can never be 100 percent focused onto the photodiode in practice and some may fall onto the memory node due to mechanisms like diffraction and scattering. Figure 7 shows how photo leakage from a bright light hitting the pixel memory during the storage time can affect the stored signal, causing smear-like and shading artifacts.

As shown in Figure 8, the memory node acts as a parasitic photodiode that generates electron-hole pairs in response to incident stray light, thus contaminating the signal originally stored there. In addition, electrons generated deep inside the silicon can diffuse into the memory node and act as a second source of signal contamination. To maximize GSE, a metal light shield covering the memory node needs to be used. Additionally, the metal light shield should be as close to the memory node as possible so that the node is protected from stray light arriving at a wide angle. Doping and potential profiles inside the silicon need to be carefully engineered so that stray electrons generated inside the silicon are directed to the photodiode instead of the memory node. Additionally, lenses should be designed such that light is focused as much as possible to the photodiode instead of to the memory node.

Dark Current

With a rolling shutter pixel, charges are accumulated and stored in a low-dark current, surface-pinned photodiode until the pixel is read out. In contrast, a global shutter pixel has to store accumulated charges in a memory node commonly implemented in silicon. For example, in a 2003 study by Krymski and Tu2, the floating diffusion of a pixel was used as a memory node. Similar to a 3-T photodiode, there is a large leakage current associated with the surface even though the pixel is in complete darkness. Additionally, the fact that the floating diffusion needs to be a heavily doped junction results in a large PN junction leakage current which acts as another source of dark current. This highly undesirable dark current contaminates the signal stored in the memory node. To mitigate this, a process should be developed to passivate or pin the surface of the memory node. Instead of using a floating diffusion as a memory element, Aptina has utilized a surface-pinned storage node in the pixel to address dark current challenges. Available in its newest global shutter sensor, the MT9M031, the storage node also enables using a true correlated double sampling technique to reduce readout noise to four electrons, resulting in excellent low-light performance. The combination of the effective use of an anti-reflective metal light shield in close proximity to the memory node and careful doping and potentialprofile design results in a high GSE. Charge storage capacities of the photodiode and the memory node are also balanced, and when taken together with the use of a two-way shared pixel architecture, the impact of the memory node on fill factor and QE is minimized. The combination of all these engineering innovations is a 3.75 micron global shutter pixel that enables high performance without rolling-shutter artifacts.

Via: http://www.aptina.com/products/technology/Aptina_Global-Shutter-WhitePaper.pdf

Firefox OS is coming to a bigger screen near you as Mozilla partners with Panasonic to bring the open-source mobile operating system to smart HDTVs. It’s a first for the OS, which had previously been restricted to a small set of mobile devices: 16 smartphone models throughout 29 countries.

Mozilla and Panasonic tout Firefox OS as an easier way to access and navigate through HDTV content. “This new platform enables developers and service providers to create a wide range of applications and services to deliver a new user experience," Li Gong, senior vice president of mobile devices and president of Asia operations at Mozilla, said in a press release.

The partnership with Panasonic will expand the devices on which Firefox OS runs even further as it gets integrated into Panasonic's Life+ smart LCD HDTVs, rolling out throughout 2015. Panasonic has also hinted at Firefox OS’ role in powering the smart home, touting the ability to monitor and operate smart appliances throughout a household.

As content creators and television manufacturers battle it out in 2015 with big pushes for 4K ultra HD content and display technologies, developers are also vying to create the software that power those televisions. The addition of Firefox OS to Panasonic HDTVs follows a similar move by LG in recent years as it integrated WebOS into its television sets after acquiring the operating system from Hewlett-Packard.

I just found this.... What do you think about this, guys?