Movie Mount turns your iPad 2 into a serious video-making machine — from engadget.com by Terrence O’Brien
Flingo releases first application publishing suite for Smart TVs – includes audio synching technology built into CE devices — from Social TV Apps – The Future of Transmedia, Social TV, Smart TV and Connected TV by richard@agoramedia.co.uk (Richard Kastelein)
Excerpt:
Emerging from stealth mode and announcing relationships with manufacturers including LG, Samsung, Vizio, Insignia, Sanyo and Western Digital – Flingo, a leading publisher of applications for the Smart or Connected TV, recently launched the first suite of application publishing products to seamlessly integrate the Web with the TV experience. And Flingo has made available a public API (application programming interface), so developers can build mobile and Web apps that use the television’s inside knowledge. The TV will also display pop-ups on-screen, offering further Web-retrieved information about a show, or links to apps on the set itself.
From DSC:
Yesterday, one of the organizations within our college hosted a conference call using Wimba Classroom. For those of you unfamiliar with Wimba Classroom, it’s really a set of web-based collaboration tools that offer such functionality as:
- Videoconferencing
- Audio-conferencing
- Interactive whiteboard space
- Chat
- Application sharing capabilities
(Last summer, Blackboard purchased both Elluminate and Wimba Classroom and have since created Bb Collaborate 11 from these two product lines.)
What I’ve learned about Wimba Classroom is that it’s best used as a Skype-on-steroids type of setup. That is, when one remote person is communicating with other remote persons — and all parties use headphones with attached microphones on them for their audio outputs/inputs. It is best when none of the participants are a group of people sitting in one room. I say this because when you have a group of people in one location and you want to use VOIP-related technologies (i.e. for “free” communications), then you need to have a set of speakers powerful enough to cover the room. However, the audio output from the speakers can present some seriously-frustrating issues with the microphone in that room — especially if any participant has the Lock Talk feature turned on (feedback/echoing occur here).
I’m very disappointed with Wimba for not having innovated more here over the last 1-2 decades — they’ve been in the business quite a while before it was known as Wimba. Perhaps Blackboard Collaborate 11 will address some of these problems and introduce some noise-cancelling software to eliminate these sorts of communication frustrations.
Now, I’ve lost another internal customer and I’m forced into the “Have you driven a Ford lately?” mode with these folks; as any experienced Instructional Technologist or ID will tell you, this is a veeeeryyy frustrating and disappointing place to be in.
The bright side to this situation is our Implementations Consultant — who has been in my shoes before and knows what that’s like to be there. He’s been a big help through the last 2-3 years. He recommended some different microphones that may help better address some of these issues and I thought that I would pass this information along in case it’s helpful to someone else out there:
I must be honest though — I’m seriously considering a lobbying effort to move our college away from using Wimba/Bb Collaborate 11 and towards WebEx Meeting Center or Adobe Connect. (Big Blue button and some others may be on the table as well, but my initial-but-not-completely-up-to-date guess is that other products don’t offer the same level of quality as WebEx or Connect.)
In retrospect (hindsight’s always 20-20, right?), I should have not been pursuaded by Wimba’s pitch that they focus solely on the education space — as that perspective may not be worth bragging rights these days (I’m constantly reminded that the education space doesn’t innovate as well as some other sectors/industries do).
Anyway…hopefully, this posting will help someone out there. Also, it is highly possible that my relevant skillsets need further enhancements here! So feel free to give me some further education — I’m always up for expanding my learning ecosystem! 🙂
JVC Shipping UX-VJ3B System for iPad, iPhone, iPod — from padgadget.com by Roberto
JVC announced earlier this month its UX-VJ3 simultaneous iPad and iPhone dock.