Tag: YouTube

YouTube to examine further ways to control misinformation

simonmackay 22/02/2022 Current and Future Trends, Fake News, Disinformation and Propaganda, Social issues involving home computing No Comments

Article

YouTube to further crack down on misinformation using warning screens and other strategies

YouTube Eyes New Ways to Stop Misinformation From Spreading Beyond Its Reach – CNET

From the horse’s mouth

YouTube

Inside Responsibility: What’s next on our misinfo efforts (Blog Post)

My Comments

YouTube’s part in controlling the spread of repeated disinformation has been found to be very limited in some ways.

This was focused on managing accounts and channels (collections of YouTube videos submitted by a YouTube account holder and curated by that holder) in a robust manner like implementing three-strikes policies when repeated disinformation occurs. It extended to managing the content recommendation engine in order to effectively “bury” that kind of content from end-users’ default views.

But new other issues have come up in relation to this topic. One of these is to continually train the artificial-intelligence / machine-learning subsystems associated with how YouTube operates with new data that represents newer situations. This includes the use of different keywords and different languages.

Another approach that will fly in the face of disinformation purveyors is to point end-users to authoritative resources relating to the topic at hand. This will typically manifest in lists of hyperlinks to text and video resources from sources of respect when there is a video or channel that has questionable material.

But a new topic or new angle on an existing topic can yield a data-void where there is scant or no information on the topic from respectable resources. This can happen when there is a fast-moving news event and is fed by the 24-hour news cycle.

Another issue is where someone creates a hyperlink to or embeds a YouTube video in their online presence. This is a common way to put YouTube video content “on the map” and can cause a video to go viral by acquiring many views. In some cases like “communications-first” messaging platforms such as SMS/MMS or instant-messaging, a preview image of the video will appear next to a message that has a link to that video.

Initially YouTube looked at the idea of preventing a questionable resource from being shared through the platform’s user interface. But questions were raised about this including limiting a viewer’s freedoms regarding taking the content further.

The issue that wasn’t even raised is the fact that the video can be shared without going via YouTube’s user interface. This can be through other means like copying the URL in the address bar if viewing on a regular computer or invoking the “share” intent on modern desktop and mobile operating systems to facilitate taking it further. In some operating systems, that can extend to printing out material or “throwing” image or video material to the large screen TV using a platform like Apple TV or Chromecast. Add to this the fact that a user will want to share the video with others as part of academic research or news report.

Another approach YouTube is looking at is based on an age-old approach implemented by responsible TV broadcasters or by YouTube with violent age-restricted or other questionable content. That is to show a warning screen, sometimes accompanied with an audio announcement, before the questionable content plays. Most video-on-demand services will implement an interactive approach at least in their “lean-forward” user interfaces where the viewer has to assent to the warning before they see any of that content.

In this case, YouTube would run a warning screen regarding the existence of disinformation in the video content before the content plays. Such an approach would make us aware of the situation and act as a “speed bump” against continual consumption of that content or following through on hyperlinks to such content.

Another issue YouTube is working on is keeping its anti-disinformation efforts culturally relevant. This scopes in various nations’ historical and political contexts, whether a news or information source is an authoritative independent source or simply a propaganda machine, fact-checking requirements, linguistic issues amongst other things. The historical and political issue could include conflicts that had peppered the nation’s or culture’s history or how the nation changed governments.

Having support for relevance to various different cultures provides YouTube’s anti-disinformation effort with some “look-ahead” sense when handling further fake-news campaigns. It also encompasses recognising where a disinformation campaign is being “shaped” to a particular geopolitical area with that area’s history being weaved in to the messaging.

But whatever YouTube is doing may have limited effect if the purveyors of this kind of nonsense use other services to host this video content. This can manifest in alternative “free-speech” video hosting services like BitChute, DTube or PeerTube. Or it can be the content creator hosting the video content on their own Website, something that becomes more feasible as the kind of computing power needed for video hosting at scale becomes cheaper.

What is being raised is YouTube using their own resources to limit the spread of disinformation that is hosted on their own servers rather than looking at this issue holistically. But they are looking at issues like the ever-evolving message of disinformation that adapts to particular cultures along with using warning screens before such videos play.

This is compared to third-party-gatekeeper approaches like NewsGuard (HomeNetworking01.info coverage) where an independent third party scrutinises news content and sites then puts their results in a database. Here various forms of logic can work from this database to deny advertising to a site or cause a warning flag to be shown when users interact with that site.

But by realising that YouTube is being used as a host for fake news and disinformation videos, they are taking further action on this issue. This is even though Google will end up playing cat-and-mouse when it comes to disinformation campaigns.

Study confirms content-recommendation engines can further personal biases

simonmackay 17/08/2020 Current and Future Trends, Network Lifestyle And Activities No Comments

Content recommendation engines on the likes of YouTube can easily lead viewers down a content rabbit hole if they are not careful

Article

This website lets you see how conspiracy theorists fall down the YouTube rabbit hole | Mashable

My Comments

Increasingly a lot of online services, be they social media services, news-aggregation portals, video streaming services and the like, are using algorithms to facilitate the exposure of undiscovered content to their users. It is part of their vision to effectively create a customised user experience for each person who uses these services and is part of an Internet-driven concept of “mass customisation”.

Those of you who use Netflix may find that your newsletter that they send you has movie recommendations that are based on what you are watching. You will also see on the Netflix screen a “recommendations” playlist with movies that are similar to what you have been watching through that service.

A very common example of this is YouTube with its recommended-content lists such as what to view next or what channels to subscribe to. Here a lot of the content that is viewed on YouTube is the result of viewers using the service’s personalised content recommendations.

The issue being raised regarding these algorithms is how they can perpetuate a personal “thought bubble”. It is even though there is other material available on the online service that may not mesh with that “bubble”. Typically this is through surfacing content that amplifies what the viewer has seen previously and can pander to their own biases.

An online experiment created by a Web developer and funded by the Mozilla Foundation explores this concept further in context with YouTube. This experiment, called “TheirTube”, emulates the YouTube content-discovery and viewing habits of six different personalities like conspiracists, conservative thinkers and climate deniers when they view content related to their chosen subjects.

Here, it shows up what is recommended in relationship to content to view next or channels to subscribe to for these different personalities and shows how the content recommendation engine can be used to underscore or amplify particular viewpoints.

It is a common problem associated with the artificial-intelligence / machine-learning approach associated with content recommendation that these services use. This is due to the end-user “seeding” the algorithms with the content that they actually interact with or the logical content sources they actually follow. Here, the attributes associated with the content effectively determine the “rules” the algorithm works on.

If you are trying to maintain some sort of critical thinking and use content services like YouTube for informational content, you may have to rely less on the content-recommendation engine that they use for finding new content. You may find it useful to manually seek out content with a contrasting viewpoint to avoid the creation of a “thought bubble”.

As well, if you follow the online-service’s recommendations in addition to running contrasting content through the online service, you may be in a position to make the content recommendation engine bring up varied content.

The idea of content recommendation engines that are based on what you choose can allow us to be easily cocooned in a content bubble that perpetuates personal biases.

Are we at an era where the smartphone is the new “idiot box”?

simonmackay 28/01/2019 Commentary, Current and Future Trends, Mobile Computing, Social Web No Comments

The TV era

From the late 1960s through to the 2000s, the television was seen by some people as a time-waster. This was aggravated through increasingly-affordable sets, the existence of 24-hour programming, a gradually-increasing number of TV channels competing for viewership, remote controls and private broadcasters including many-channel pay-TV services.

It led to an increasing number of users concerned about various idle and unhealthy TV-viewing practices. Situations that were often called out included people dwelling on poor-quality content offered on commercial free-to-air or pay-TV channels such as daytime TV; people loafing on the couch with the remote control in their hand as they idly change channels for something to watch, known as “flicking” or channel-surfing; along with parents using the TV as an “electronic babysitter” for their children.

Even technologies like videocassette recorders or video games consoles didn’t improve things as far as the critics were concerned. One talking point raised during the early 1990s was the ubiquity and accessibility of violent video content through local video stores with this leading to imitative behaviour.

We even ended up with the TV set being referred to as an “idiot box”, “boob tube” or similar names; or people who spend a lot of time watching TV idly having “square eyes” or being “couch potatoes”. Some people even stood for “TV-free” spaces and times to encourage meaningful activity such as for example not having a set installed at a weekender home.

There was even some wellness campaigns that were tackling unhealthy TV viewing. One of these was the “Life Be In It” campaign ran by the Australian governments during the late 1970s. This campaign was centred around a series of animated TV “public-service-announcement” commercials (YouTube – example about walking) featuring a character called “Norm”, which showed different activities one could be engaging in rather than loafing in the armchair watching TV non-stop.

The rise of the personal computer, Internet and smartphones

The 1980s saw the rise of increasingly-affordable personal-computing power on the home or business desktop with these computers gaining increasing abilities over the years. With this was the rise of games written for these computers including some “time-waster” or “guilty-pleasure” games like Solitaire or the Leisure Suit Larry games.

During the late 1990s and the 2000s, the Internet came on board and gradually offered resources to the personal computer that can compete with the TV. This was brought about with many interesting Websites coming online with some of these sites running participant forums of some form. It also had us own our own email address as a private electronic communications channel.

Also, by the mod 1990s, most Western countries had implemented deregulated competitive telecommunications markets and one of these benefits was mobile telephony service that was affordable for most people. It also led to us being able to maintain their own mobile telephone service and number, which also lead to each one of us effectively having our own private connection. This is rather than us sharing a common connection like a landline telephone number ringing a telephone installed in a common area like a kitchen or living room.

The smartphone and tablet era

USB-C connector on Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus smartphone

The smartphone is now being seen as the “new TV”

But since the late 2000s the Internet started to head down towards taking the place of TV as a centre of idle activity. This was driven through the existence of YouTube, instant messaging and social media, along with increasingly-portable computing devices especially highly-pocketable smartphones and tablets or small laptops able to be stuffed in to most right-sized hand luggage, alongside high-speed Internet service available through highly-affordable mobile-broadband services or ubiquitous Wi-Fi networks.

Issues that were underscored included people looking at their phones all day and all night to check their Facehook activity, watching YouTube clips or playing games and not talking with each other; smartphone anxiety where you have to have your phone with you at all times including bringing it to the dinner table, and the vanity associated with the social-media selfie culture. Sometimes browsing the Social Web including YouTube ended up being seen as today’s equivalent of watching the low-grade TV offerings from a private TV broadcaster. Let’s not forget how many of us have played “Candy Crush Saga” or “Angry Birds” on our smartphones as a guilty pleasure.

Apple iPad Pro 9.7 inch press picture courtesy of Apple

Or the iPad being used to browse around the Social Web and watch YouTube

This issue has come to the fore over the last few years with concepts like “digital detoxification”, an interest in Internet-free mobile-phone devices including “one-more-time” takes on late-90s / early-2000s mobile-phone designs, mobile operating systems having functionality that identifies what you are spending your time on heavily, amongst other things.

Educators are even regarding the time spent using a computing device for entertainment as the equivalent of idly watching TV entertainment and make a reference to this time as “screen time”. This is more so in the context of how our children use computing devices like tablets or smartphones.

Recently, France and the Australian State of Victoria have passed regulations to prohibit the use of smartphones by schoolchildren in government-run schools with the former proscribing it in primary and early-secondary (middle or junior high) levels; and the latter for primary and all secondary levels.

Even smartphone manufacturers have found that the technology has hit a peak with people not being interested in the latest smartphones due to them not being associated with today’s equivalent of idle TV watching. This may lead to them taking a more evolutionary approach towards smartphone design rather than heavily investing in ewer products.

What it has come down to

How I see all of this is the existence of an evolutionary cycle affecting particular forms of mass media and entertainment. It is especially where the media form allows for inanity thanks to the lack of friction involved in providing or consuming this kind of entertainment. As well, the ability for the producer, distributor or user to easily “shape” the content to make a “fairy-tale” existence where the “grass is always greener” or to pander to our base instincts can expose a media platform to question and criticism.

In some cases, there is an ethereal goal in some quarters to see the primary use of media and communications for productive or educational purposes especially of a challenging nature rather than for entertainment. It also includes reworking the time we spend on entertainment or casual communications towards something more meaningful. But we still see the lightweight entertainment and conversation more as a way to break boredom.

UPDATE: I have inserted details about France and Australia banning smartphones in schools especially in relationship to the smartphone ban announced by the Victorian State Government on 26 June 2019.

Instagram is offering a video service that competes against YouTube

simonmackay 23/06/2018 Current and Future Trends, Mobile Computing, Mobile Computing Apps, Social Web No Comments

Article

Instagram – now supporting IGTV and competing with YouTube

Instagram is launching its YouTube clone, IGTV, on Android in a few weeks | Android

IGTV in action

Authority

Meet Instagram’s YouTube Clone: IGTV | Gizmodo Australia

Here’s IGTV: Instagram’s vertical answer to YouTube | FastCompany

My Comments

There have been some recent situations where YouTube has become arrogant with how they treat end-users, content creators and advertisers thanks to their effective monopoly position for user-generated video content. One of these was a fight that Google and Amazon got into over voice-driven personal assistants and this led to Google removing YouTube support from Amazon’s Echo Show smart display. I even wrote that it is high time that YouTube faces competition in order to lift its game.

Initially Framasoft who is a French developers got working on an open-source video-distribution mechanism called “PeerTube” with a view to have it compete against YouTube.

But Instagram, owned by Facebook, have set up their own video-sharing platform called IGTV. This will be available as a separate iOS/Android mobile-platform app but also allow the clips to appear on your main Instagram user experience.

Initially this service will offer video in a vertical format for up to 1 hour long. The format is chosen to complement the fact that it is likely to be used on a smartphone or tablet that is handheld. The one-hour length will be offered to select content creators rather than to everyone while most of us will end up with 10 minutes. This may also appeal to the creation of “snackable” video content.

Currently Instagram offers video posting for 60 seconds on its main feed or 15 seconds in its Stories function. This is why I often see Stories pertaining to the same event having many videos daisy-chained.

The IGTV user experience will have you immediately begin watching video content from whoever you follow on Instagram. There will be playlist categories like “For You” (videos recommended for you), “Following” (videos from whom you follow), “Popular” (popular content) and “Continue Watching” (clips you are already working through).

The social-media aspect will allow you to like or comment on videos as well as sharing them to your friends using Instagram’s Direct mode. As well, each Instagram creator will have their own IGTV channel which will host the longer clips.

A question that can easily come up is whether Instagram will make it work for usage beyond mobile-platform viewing. This means support for horizontal aspect ratios, or viewing on other devices like snart-display devices of the Echo Home ilk, regular computers or Smart TV / set-top devices including games consoles.

It is an effort by Instagram and Facebook to compete for video viewers and creators but I see the limitation to the vertical format as being a limitation if the idea is to directly compete with YouTube. But Facebook and Instagram need to look at what YouTube isn’t offering and the platforms they have deserted in order to provide an edge over them.

YouTube to share fact-checking resources when showing conspiracy videos

simonmackay 16/03/2018 Current and Future Trends, Fake News, Disinformation and Propaganda, Social issues involving home computing No Comments

Articles

YouTube will use Wikipedia to fact-check internet hoaxes | FastCompany

YouTube plans ‘information cues’ to combat hoaxes | Engadget

YouTube will add Wikipedia snippets to conspiracy videos | CNet

My Comments

YouTube – now also being used to distribute conspiracy theory material

Ever since the mid-1990s when the Internet became common, conspiracy theorists used various Internet resources to push their weird and questionable “facts” upon the public. One of the methods being used of late is to “knock together” videos and run these as a “channel” on the common video sharing platform that is YouTube.

But Google who owns YouTube now announced at the SXSW “geek-fest” in Austin, Texas that they will be providing visual cues on the YouTube interface to highlight fact-checking resources like Wikipedia, everyone’s favourite “argument-settling” online encyclopaedia. These will appear when known conspiracy-theory videos or channels are playing and most likely will accompany the Web-based “regular-computer” experience or the mobile experience.

Wikipedia no being seen as a tool for providing clear facts

It is part of an effort that Silicon Valley is undertaking to combat the spread of fake news and misinformation, something that has become stronger over the last few years due to Facebook and co being used as a vector for spreading this kind of information. Infact, Google’s “news-aggregation” services like Google News (news.google.com) implements tagging of resources that come up regarding a news event and they even call out “fact-check” resources as a way to help with debunking fake news.

YouTube Video–ABCs Of Bullying (Dealing with the online bully)

simonmackay 07/02/2018 Data security, Network Lifestyle And Activities No Comments

Video – Click or Tap to View

My Comments

This video has summarised in an “ABC” form about how you can deal with unsavoury videos and comments that appear on the YouTube platform. But a lot of concepts being explained here can also apply to Facebook and other platforms on the Social Web where similar activity does take place.

The issues raised here can easily affect children, teenagers and adults alike in all community groupings and is more important where, for example, YouTube is being used to effectively pillory a person or group. It is infact worth viewing this video yourself or having your children view this especially when they are regularly starting to use YouTube or similar social-media platforms regularly.

France takes steps towards a YouTube competitor

simonmackay 28/11/2017 Current and Future Trends, Network Lifestyle And Activities No Comments

Articles – French language / Langue Française

France sowing the seeds for a YouTube competitor

Nouveau monde. Un YouTube “libre” à la française | France TV

From the horse’s mouth

Framatube.org

My Comments

I have previously raised the issue of people and companies based in Europe building online services that compete with what Silicon Valley offers but respect European values. This has been more so in respect to the European Commission taking legal action against the Silicon Valley IT titans like Google and Facebook due to issues like user privacy and respect for European values.

Subsequently, in answer to Google denying Amazon access to YouTube for their Echo Show product, I wrote an article about YouTube needing to face competition when it comes to online video services.

Here, I was calling out issues like individuals and small businesses needing affordable options for sharing their video content while they maintain effective control over it. It also includes issues like monetisation options for video content providers along with proper fair dealing for content creators and rightsholders when it comes to using copyrighted works in the content creators’ videos. The latter issue focuses on users using a relatively small part of a copyrighted work like a phrase from a song or a few seconds of vision from a film or TV show in an incidental manner.

Amazon Echo Spot press picture courtesy of Amazon

Could this be a chance to make user-generated video available on devices like Amazon’s Echo Spot?

In the same context, I was calling out the availability of native-client apps for various IT platforms, whether as a separately-installed app for a regular-computer or mobile operating system or as something baked in to firmware for a device like a set-top box or smart speaker. This is so you aren’t always heading down an inefficient path of using a browser to view videos or find that you can’t use the platform’s or device’s assets for this task.

The French have taken off with this goal with Framasoft, a French open-source software developer, working towards a peer-to-peer approach.

The “PeerTube” approach is based on free open-source software and implements a “federation” model. This is where a host could store video uploaded to it directly but also share video uploaded to other hosts. This can please media companies, the education sector, Webhosts and other companies who have multiple servers or data centers in differing geographical locations and make sure these hosts serve viewers closer to them.

It is being driven by the “WebTorrent” concept of integrating BitTorrent peer-to-peer file-sharing technology to video streaming in an effort to reduce latency. Again, it is implementing free open-source technology to achieve the same goal.

At the moment, the “PeerTube” effort is at an alpha stage but there is a goal to have it to beta by March 2018. Framasoft are raising money to get this idea off the ground and have raised EUR€16,032 at the time of writing. There is also the issue of creating a Web-based portal to show what’s available along with providing source code to make native clients for a PeerTube content delivery network.

Personally, I would see the “PeerTube” concept working tightly with Webhosts, content delivery networks and the like to make audio and video distribution affordable for the small-timer. There will also be their idea of data centers including edge computing being used as a way to expedite reliable access to “catch-up TV” and similar video content pools.

What needs to happen once PeerTube is proven is that it needs to be sold as a viable alternative for YouTube when it comes to offering user-generated video content.

It is time for YouTube to face competition

simonmackay 25/10/2017 Industry Comments, IP-based broadcasting, Network Lifestyle And Activities, Social Web No Comments

Amazon Echo Show in kitchen press picture courtesy of Amazon

Google not allowing Amazon to provide a native client tor the popular YouTube service on the Echo Show highlights how much control they have over the user-generated video market

Over the last many years, YouTube established a name for itself regarding the delivery of user-generated video content through our computers. This included video created by ordinary householders ranging from the many puppy and kitten videos through to personal video travelogues. But a lot of professional video creators have used it to run showreels or simply host their regular content such as corporate videos and film trailers, with some TV channels even hosting shows for a long time on it.

After Google took over YouTube, there have been concerns about its availability across platforms other than the Web. One of the first instances that occurred was for Apple to be told to drop their native YouTube client from iOS with users having to install a Google-developed native client for this service on their iOS devices.

Recently, Google pulled YouTube from Amazon’s Echo Show device ostensibly due to it not having a good-enough user interface. But it is really down to Google wanting to integrate YouTube playback in to their Google Home and Chromecast platforms with the idea of running it as a feature exclusive to those voice-driven home assistant platforms.

Could the Web be the only surefire place to see Keyboard Cat?

These instances can affect whether you will be able to view YouTube videos on your Smart TV, set-top box, games console, screen-equipped smart speaker or similar device. It will also affect whether a company who designs one of these devices can integrate YouTube functionality in to these devices in a native form or improve on this functionality through the device’s lifecycle. The concern will become stronger if the device or platform is intended to directly compete with something Google offers.

There are some video services like Vimeo and Dailymotion that offer support for user-generated and other video content. But these are services that are focused towards businesses or professionals who want to host video content and convey a level of uninterrupted concentration. This can be a limitation for small-time operators such as bloggers and community organisations who want to get their feet wet with video.

Facebook is starting to provide some form of competition in the form of their Watch service but this will require users to have presence on the Facebook social network, something that may not be desirable amongst some people. Amazon have opened up their Prime streaming-video platform to all sorts of video publishers and creators, positioning it as Amazon Video Direct. But this will require users to be part of the Amazon Prime platform.

But for people who publish to consumer-focused video services like YouTube, competition will require them to put content on all the services. For small-time video publishers who are focusing on video content, this will involve uploading to different platforms for a wider reach. On the other hand, one may have to use a video-distribution platform which allows for “upload once, deliver many” operation.

Competition could open up multiple options for publishers, equipment / platform designers, and end-users. For example, it could open up monetisation options for publishers’ works, simplify proper dealing with copyrighted works used within videos, open up native-client access for more platforms, amongst other things.

But there has to be enough competition to keep the market sustainable and each of the platforms must be able to support the ability to view a video without the user being required to create an account beforehand. The market should also support the existence of niche providers so as to cater to particular publishers’ and viewers needs.

In conclusion, competition could make it harder for YouTube to effectively “own” the user-generated consumer video market and control how this market operates including what devices the content appears on.

Advanced wallpaper images–could this be real?

simonmackay 21/01/2016 Current and Future Trends, Network Media Devices No Comments

LG's 4K OLED curved TV press picture courtesy of LG America

These LG 4K OLED TVs could be showing a tasteful wallpaper image while music plays

Increasingly, there is an interest in creating subtle wallpaper-type images and displays that can work effectively in the background whether with or without music.

Most home AV systems, especially those kept in a lounge area include a television or similar display device but if you intend to play audio-only content like music, you end up with a device that becomes useless in these environments. You typically end up with a blank screen which could be put to better use.

But you may want something that is effectively serving as a visual wallpaper that can exist in the background without destroying the flow of the conversation. This is more so if you are intending to play background music and something like a karaoke-style lyrics display or a music video may simply look out of place and end up more as a distraction.

Cafes like this could benefit from advanced video wallpaper displays rather than ordinary television

Businesses will also see this appealing as a merchandising tool for promoting their products and services and community organisations may want to exploit these concepts as a way to “set the mood” prior to running an event or promoting their efforts. Even cafes and bars would value the idea of creating a dynamic visual wallpaper rather than showing ordinary television content to set the ambience.

It is infact something that theatres and cinemas have practiced, typically before the programme session starts or during an interval where they show still images, typically advertising while background music plays.

What is being achieved with existing technologies

The concept has been tackled in various different manners such as DVD / Blu-Ray players, network media players and the like showing a screensaver-style image while audio-only content is being played.

A good example that stays in my mind is a Sony DVD/VHS combo that was used to play music CDs through the TV’s speakers and this unit showed a screen which changed between different colours while the music played. Similarly, some hotel TV systems may show a photograph and a text description of the radio station, or the radio station’s logo if the TV is being used to play a radio station, with better implementations showing the current song’s title or other dynamic information that is obtained from tha station’s RDS or similar datastream. Most regular-computer platforms have the ability to run a screensaver which typically is a pattern or animation that comes in to play when the computer is not being used. Or you could set up some network media players to pick photos up from your DLNA media server and run them as a slideshow while you have music playing from that same media server or another media server.

Static image from Christian playlist video used at church gathering that I cited

Sometimes, when people put up music on YouTube, they set up a visual wallpaper that accompanies that music. This may typically be a static image that never changes, or an image that may change at some point. A good example of this that I saw during a church get-together hosted at someone’s house was this YouTube “static-screen” video with the top 50 of the newer Christian contemporary praise-and-worship songs as its audio content while a static slide having a picture of a flying dove and “Because Your lovingkindness is better than life” appearing as a text quote at the bottom that picture. This is similar to how some people have created “continuous-music” DVDs which show one or more static images but have music playing. These and similar examples were based on a practice that WPIX-TV in New York City undertook since the 1950s where they showed a Yule Log burning in a fireplace (YouTube) with some classic Christmas carols and songs playing through the TV’s speaker.

How could this be taken further?

Live Wallpaper

There can be better ways to go about this. One would be to take a leaf out of Android’s book and exploit the “Live Wallpapers” concept which can allow you to create customised wallpaper images that can show real-time information or update the display in a dynamic manner. For that matter, Google could extend this concept to the Android TV platform which Sony is supporting for their 4K Smart TVs and Free have based their latest Freebox on. This could be in the form of showing selected pictures from one or more sources such as your photo collection or a stock-photo library, which could apply well to pictures of a city or country or some general pictures.

Cinemagraphs and short video loops

A beach image could be animated with the waves splashing in

A trend that is starting to become real is the concept of “cinemagraphs” which are video loops that appear like an ordinary photo but have subtle movement taking place. An example of this is a picture of someone sitting by the fireplace with the fire’s flames flickering, a Christmas tree with the twinkling lights or a beachside image with the waves rushing in. Even a close-up of someone may have some accidental movements like twitching or lips puckering.

Apple placed a revision in to the iOS 9 camera app which implements “Live Photos” that allows you to grab a short moment of animation just by taking that photo. Facebook and Tumblr even has integrated support for these “Live Photos” to be contributed to a user’s Facebook or Tumblr presence using the latest versions of the social networks’ iOS native-client apps. Third parties have opened up some desktop software and Websites which turn Live Photos in to animated GIFs which can be uploaded to Websites.

Microsoft’s research division is taking a step in the right direction by completing final research on “cliplets” where a short video can be broken in to “layers” with the ability to create separately-programmable loops for different objects in the video.

Enabling programmatic control of advanced wallpaper

Once a particular file type is defined for these kind of photo-video hybrid images to permit the creation of separately addressed video loops, it could be feasible to have these images driven by external properties like the time of day. This can range from one or mroe different text messages appearing under programmatic control to a graphic that is altereted depending on certain conditions.

An example of this could be a hybrid picture of London’s Big Ben showing the current time of day or a beachside image showing a dusk view when it is dusk. This could also allow for one or more text layers to be created to show text like quotes from a “quote library”, current song metadata, current time or weather information and the like. A media player that supports this file type could then show these for a user-defined time period then show another regular image or hybrid image for that time period.

Conclusion

This will become a constant issue as people want to use visual wallpaper on their display screens especially as these screens become increasingly large thanks to 4K UHDTV technology. Here, people may want to look at ways to keep these screens showing something appropriate during social events but not distracting their guests or patrons; or a business wants to keep their clients aware of their special offers.

It will become simpler to shift playlists between the various online jukeboxes

simonmackay 07/05/2015 Computer Software, Current and Future Trends No Comments

Article

Spotify, one of the most popular online music-streaming services

How To Transfer Playlists Between Streaming Music Apps | Gizmodo

From the horse’s mouth

Soundiiz

Product Page

My Comments

There is an increasing number of online streaming-music platforms which are effectively “world-wide jukeboxes” offering your choice of music either for free under an ad-supported model or for a modest monthly fee.

But these different platforms have their own bouquets and brickbats such as having compatibility with your devices, having the kind of music you like on-hand or even offering the right deal for your needs. The problem that can crop up easily is how you have your own playlists or the ones curated by others who use the platform be playable on another platform. Some of us may even maintain subscriptions with multiple services because they have particular

The Soundiiz software which is currently in public beta is able to identify songs in an existing playlist and import them to another service’s playlist. But, like any music-management program, it can face inconsistencies with what is available on a particular streaming music service or how it is listed.

In some cases, a playlist may contain a particular version of a song such as the album version that was part of the album it was initially issued on or one of the different radio edits (7” mixes) or dance mixes offered for the song. Similarly, there are issues about which recording the song was found on when it was found such as the original album, a “deluxe cut” of that original album which has extra tracks, a single or one of many compilations, or even a live recording from a particular sellout tour.

Classical works may face certain dilemmas like a particular performance of a work listed in the playlist or composers not spelt in a consistent manner. Let’s not forget the issue where a streaming music service may contain a copy from the original production master tapes as well as one or more newer remasterings of that recording or may only have the latest remastering of that recording.

What can happen is that the recording may not be available across all of the services or it may be listed in a different manner to the other services or not available in all subscription tiers. This can lead to gaps in the playlists that you import when you use Soundiiz to import the playlist.

There are ways to work around this such as providing a granular level of tolerance for the recordings that are found when Soundiiz constructs a playlist for a particular service.

As well, for those of us who buy music to keep, whether as packaged media like records or CDs, or audio files from a “download-to-own” music service like iTunes or Amazon, this program could work as a way to identify gaps in a music collection based on playlists you listen to with a streaming music service. This could work well with those of us who have particular music specialties or weaknesses like 70s-era Italian popular music or the smooth “yacht-rock” of the late 70s and early 80s, and are chasing content that supports these specialties.

This kind of functionality could end up being a function of comprehensive music-management software of the iTunes and Windows Media Player ilk that liaises with music-identification platforms like Gracenote or FreeDB and, perhaps maintains access to “download-to-own” music stores or streaming music services.