We're doing it for consumers (not)

Last February, Comcast announced that it had agreed to acquire Time Warner Cable for a bit over $45 billion. The Comcast press release announcing the deal had the sub-head "Transaction Creates Multiple Pro-Consumer and Pro-Competitive Benefits, Including for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses." The press release had three discussions of the benefits that the merger would bring to consumers, and in subsequent Congressional hearings, both Comcast and Time Warner Cable executives have touted how their merger will benefit consumers.

Last Sunday, AT&T announced that it has agreed to acquire DirecTV for $49 billion. The joint AT&T/DIRECTV press release mentioned consumer benefits twelve times, including this quote from DIRECTV President and CEO Mike White: “This compelling and complementary combination will bring significant benefits to all consumers, shareholders and DIRECTV employees."

Earlier today, the National Association of Broadcasters, which represents the major broadcast networks, as well as radio and television station owners, issued its own press release questioning the consumer benefits of the AT&T/DirecTV deal, while emphasizing its own interest in looking out for consumers. NAB executive VP Dennis Wharton was quoted as saying “AT&T’s proposed merger with DirecTV demands a hard look in an increasingly consolidated broadband and pay television marketplace. It is hard to see how decreasing competitors in the pay TV marketplace – while increasing regulatory restraints on local TV stations – truly benefits consumers.”

Let's be clear: AT&T, Comcast, DIRECTV, the National Association of Broadcasters and Time Warner Cable couldn't give a damn about consumers. They're saying what they think they need to say in order to get the appropriate governmental agencies to approve or block the mergers. Let's look at what the parties really want or are afraid could happen:

• Comcast wants Time Warner Cable's subscribers in order to increase its subscriber count to 30 million households, or about a third of all households in the U.S. that watch television. The merger will increase Comcast's revenues and profits dramatically, after years of little or no subscriber growth. It will also make it much riskier for broadcast and basic cable networks to threaten to black Comcast's channels out during retransmission negotiations, because losing Comcast's households would mean immediately losing a third of their viewers, and substantially more than that from major markets controlled by Comcast. That would directly impact ratings and force networks to make up the lost viewership to advertisers.
• AT&T gets a national footprint by acquiring DIRECTV. It will be able to sell TV service, and to bundle mobile and TV service, anywhere in the U.S. It will be able to sell DIRECTV out of every AT&T mobile retail store. The merged company will have roughly 26 million subscribers--second only to the merged Comcast/Time Warner Cable. That will give AT&T the same leverage in retransmission negotiations that Comcast will have. AT&T also gets access to DIRECTV's unique programming, including NFL Sunday Ticket, which generates $300 of revenue per subscribing household each year.
• The National Association of Broadcasters fears its members' loss of leverage in retransmission negotiations as much as Comcast and AT&T are looking forward to it. Instead of negotiating with ten big cable operators, two big satellite providers and two big IPTV providers (AT&T and Verizon,) broadcasters' negotiating partners are going to be Comcast, AT&T and everyone else. Broadcasters are afraid that Comcast and AT&T will squelch their ability to raise retransmission fees, and may even be able to lower them.
• Smaller cable operators (represented by the American Cable Association) are concerned that if the broadcast and basic cable networks can't get the money they're looking for from Comcast and AT&T, they'll try to get it from the smaller cable operators, which have far less negotiating leverage.

None of this has anything to do with improving service or lowering costs for consumers. As Bloomberg Television pointed out yesterday, Comcast and AT&T could do something that would be of great benefit to consumers: For far less than the $45 to $49 billion that each merger will cost, they could dramatically increase consumers' Internet speeds to 1 Gigabit per second. That would give customers near-instantaneous access to Internet content and services. However, Comcast and AT&T are only planning to offer 1 Gigabit service in those markets where Google Fiber either already offers it or plans to offer it in the future.

The Justice Department: Your bank balance determines its prosecution strategy

Yesterday, the U.S. Justice Department announced that it had settled a criminal case against Swiss bank Credit Suisse for helping U.S. taxpayers to evade taxes by transferring funds to overseas locations. Credit Suisse agreed to plead guilty to the charges and paid $2.6 billion, in the form of $1.8 billion to the U.S. government, $715 million to the New York Department of Financial Services and $100 million to the Federal Reserve. Only $670 million of the $2.6 billion went to the IRS for compensation of actual lost tax revenues. A few Credit Suisse employees will be dismissed or reassigned, but no one will spend a day in jail.

The settlement, as are most settlements of this type, was announced at a self-congratulatory press conference led by Attorney General Eric Holder. Attorney General Holder said “This case shows that no financial institution, no matter its size or global reach, is above the law.” He also said “a company’s profitability or market share can never and will never be used as a shield from prosecution or penalty. And this action should put that misguided notion definitively to rest.” Anyone who’s followed the Justice Department’s actions since the financial collapse of 2008 knows just how untrue--in fact, how hilarious--that statement is.

If the target of a Justice Department investigation has vast financial assets, the Justice Department offers or accepts a settlement that involves payment of money to the U.S. Government in return for dismissal of all outstanding charges. The vast majority of the time, the target doesn’t need to plead guilty or take responsibility for anything. Even if the Department does manage to get a guilty plea, as in yesterday’s deal with Credit Suisse, no one within the company will go to jail. (In the Credit Suisse case, the Government prosecuted not to recover any of the trillions of dollars lost by individuals due to financial manipulation and malfeasance leading up to the Great Recession. It prosecuted to recover a few hundred million dollars of lost Federal taxes.)

On the other hand, if the Justice Department decides to go after someone without vast financial resources, or if it has to defend its own actions, its tactics are dramatically more aggressive. In fact, after decades of fighting organized crime, the Justice Department seems to have adopted organized crime’s tactics. It’s gotten to the point where it’s almost impossible to determine who the “good guys” are, and a scorecard doesn’t help.

If the Justice Department’s target is an individual without large financial assets, it uses intimidation in the form of threats of prosecution with trumped-up charges and the potential of decades of prison to get the subject to plead guilty to a reduced set of charges. It does that even (or especially) if it knows that it’s unlikely to get a conviction if the case goes to trial. A good example is Aaron Swartz, who downloaded a huge cache of academic journal articles, most of which had been written with taxpayer dollars and should have already been in the public domain. However, the Justice Department charged Swartz with two counts of wire fraud and 11 violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The charges came with a maximum of a $1 million fine and 23 years in prison, which the U.S. Attorney told Swartz’s attorney that she intended to ask for in court. After two years of government harassment and two days after a plea bargain offered by his lawyer was rejected by the U.S. Attorney, Aaron Swartz committed suicide. Rather than discipline or dismiss the U.S. Attorney who refused the plea bargain, Attorney General Holder commended her.

If the target might be helpful in testifying against a bigger target, the Justice Department uses the same tactics, often stretching out the case for years in order to destroy the reputation of the target, eventually dropping the case before going to trial. The reputation and business of the target cannot be reestablished with an innocent verdict, so the individual or business is destroyed. Last week, Bloomberg reported on three previously unknown philanthropists who have created a $9.7 billion trust that’s bigger than the Carnegie and Rockefeller Foundations combined and is bigger than all of them except the Gates, Ford and Getty foundations. The three philanthropists were once part of a company called Princeton-Newport Partners, the world’s first quantitative hedge fund. Four Princeton-Newport managers were charged with racketeering and tax fraud (the three philanthropists were never charged with anything.) The Justice Department’s goal was to get the Princeton-Newport managers to testify against Michael Milkin. There’s no evidence that the Justice Department could have won a conviction against the Princeton-Newport employees if the case had gone to trial. The Justice Department eventually dropped all charges, but the reputation of Princeton-Newport was destroyed and the company collapsed.

If the Justice Department itself or the U.S. Government is the target of a civil or criminal case, it actively withholds evidence and lies to the court. A good example is the ACLU’s case last year in front of the U.S. Supreme Court to have the FISA Amendments Act ruled unconstitutional. The Supreme Court never ruled on the constitutional issues, instead ruling that the ACLU and its plaintiffs didn’t have standing to pursue the case—they weren’t affected by the Government’s actions because the Government wasn’t surveilling them. The Guardian reports that the Supreme Court came to that conclusion because the Justice Department told it “1) that the NSA would only get the content of Americans' communications without a warrant when they are targeting a foreigner abroad for surveillance, and 2) that the Justice Department would notify criminal defendants who have been spied on under the FISA Amendments Act, so there exists some way to challenge the law in court.” Both of these statements were outright lies.

In the case of #1 above, one of Edward Snowden’s revelations was that the NSA engages in what the agency calls “about” surveillance, in which it captures an enormous number (trillions) of emails and text messages between anyone in the U.S. and anyone outside the country, whether or not either party is in any way under investigation. Thus, the NSA got the content of Americans’ communications without a warrant AND without a targeted foreign party. In the second case, last July, the Justice Department admitted “that the government hadn't been notifying any defendants they were being charged based on NSA surveillance, making it actually impossible for anyone to prove they had standing to challenge the FISA Amendments Act as unconstitutional.” In most cases, the Justice Department acknowledges and alerts the court in question when it has given false statements or presented false evidence, but in this case, the Justice Department has refused to do so.

The Guardian explains what Attorney General Holder’s Justice Department has instead done, which is to deny its behavior and confuse the issue:

” The government's response, instead, has been to explain why it doesn't think these statements are lies. In a letter to Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall that only surfaced this week, the government made the incredible argument that the "about" surveillance was classified at the time of the case, so it was under no obligation to tell the Supreme Court about it. And the Justice Department completely sidestepped the question of whether it lied about notifying defendants, basically by saying that it started to do so after the case, and so this was somehow no longer an issue.”

In the FISA Amendments case, by any measure, the Justice Department should have at least been disciplined by the Court for deliberately lying, but nothing is going to happen. If the Justice Department can lie to the Supreme Court with impunity, it can lie to Congress, targets of prosecution and the American people with equal impunity. In fact, after looking at these cases and many others, it’s difficult to distinguish between the Justice Department’s actions and what it accuses its targets of.

The Justice Department has played a critical role for decades in civil rights, prosecution of organized crime and political corruption. It’s an essential part of our legal system, and I’m the last person who would argue that we don’t need it. However, we need a Justice Department that’s worthy of the people of the United States, and today, we don’t have that.

Craig Ferguson is leaving "The Late Late Show" in December

Last night, Craig Ferguson announced that he's leaving CBS's "The Late Late Show" when his contract expires at the end of 2014. According to press reports, he contacted CBS management earlier in the day to alert them that he intended to announce his departure, and the network sent out a press release a few hours before the show aired on the East Coast. Ferguson will have completed ten years of hosting the show when he leaves in December.

From the beginning, Ferguson was one of the most unique hosts in U.S. late night television. His monologues are what got early notice--the common style was (and still is) to make a series of jokes about the events of the day, while Ferguson frankly discussed his battles with alcoholism and drug addiction and other personal topics. He makes a show of tearing up the "blue cards" that his producers prepare with information about his guests. The show isn't rehearsed, which sometimes leads to problems but far more often gives Ferguson's show a spontaneity missing from the rest of late night.

Ferguson is also unique for not only how he interviews, but who he interviews. He won a Peabody Award for his interview of Archbishop Desmond Tutu in 2009. He devoted an entire episode of the show to an hour-long one-on-one interview with Stephen Fry without a studio audience in 2010. He also interviewed philosophy professor Jonathan Dancy, and admitted later to Dancy's son (Hugh Dancy, star of NBC's "Hannibal") how intimidated he felt during the interview. Ferguson has interviewed a "Who's Who" of British, Scottish and Irish actors, many of whom are his long-time friends. These interviews are never as rehearsed or forced as the interviews these actors have on other late night shows; instead, they're conversations between two friends catching up with each other.

Ferguson, who's a published novelist ("Between the Bridge and the River") and autobiographer ("American On Purpose"), has interviewed a wide range of authors, including (in 2013 alone) Lawrence Block, Jackie Collins, Michael Connelly, Helen Fielding, Doris Kerns Goodwin, John Green, Philip Kerr, Dennis Lehane, Ben Mezrich, Jo Nesbo, Anna Quindlen, Anne Rice and Jon Ronson. You'd be hard-pressed to find any authors of note on any of the other broadcast networks' late night talk shows.

In his cold open Monday night, Ferguson said that the decision to leave "The Late Late Show" was his, and he had actually planned to leave in 2012 but was persuaded to stay for two more years by CBS's commitment to give him a new, larger studio. Despite the stories that began to swirl around after David Letterman announced his retirement, I take Ferguson at his word. If CBS had discussions with other potential hosts, it was (at least initially) to provide a backup in the event that Ferguson decided not to renew his contract at the end of this year.

I've always compared Craig Ferguson to one of the greatest late night show hosts, Jack Paar. I was very young when Paar hosted "The Tonight Show" (from 1957 to 1962), but what I remember from that time and gained a better appreciation for when I was older was that Paar was both intelligent and risky. You never knew for sure what would happen on Paar's show: In 1960, he left the show for three weeks to protest NBC's censoring of a joke, and he left the show for good two years later. Paar wanted guests with whom he could have interesting conversations, not just guests who had something to plug.

Like Paar, I've expected Ferguson to at some point thank his audience, turn on his heels and walk out of the studio, never to return. As of Monday night, we now know that time will come before the end of the year. When Ferguson leaves, it'll be the end of an era. I'm going to enjoy the remaining eight months with Craig Ferguson, because it's very unlikely that the host who replaces him will be as interesting.

Don't overbuy your next cinema camera

Last week, I published a post that recommended four steps to take before you buy or rent a 4K cinema camera. There's an important point that I left out: The rate of change in the camera (and for that matter, production and post-production hardware) business is greater than at any time in memory. Consider that it wasn't too long ago that a properly maintained 35mm camera could be expected to last 20 years, and a film editing table (Kem/Steenbeck) could last 30 or 40 years. Today, we're well along with the transition from 2K to 4K (at least on the acquisition side,) and Japan's NHK is already building prototype hardware for the 8K generation.

The rate of change is at least equal to that of the heyday of personal computers, when faster processors and better displays were released every year. Today, it's likely that a camera will become technically obsolete well before it's no longer repairable. Here's a few reasons why:

• The sensitivity and dynamic range of imagers continues to improve, and rolling shutters are being replaced with global shutters.
• Codecs are also improving, with support of higher bit-depths and bigger color spaces.
• Storage speeds and capacities are increasing, while the cost of flash-based storage is falling.

With things changing so fast, you don't want to get locked into a capital investment in a camera that you can't pay back before it's obsolete. My recommendation is to plan on a three-year usable life for most of today's cameras. That doesn't mean that they'll break in three years, but rather, the state of the art will progress so much that you'll want a new camera in three years, especially if your competitors already have one. So, you need to know how often you're likely to use the camera over those three years.

Let's say that the camera you've decided on costs $20,000, including some accessories that you won't be able to use on future cameras. If you'll use the camera ten times a year over the three years, that means that you'll be spreading the $20,000 cost (plus routine maintenance) over 30 shoots, and the camera will cost you $667 per shoot. (Lenses are extra.) If you're only going to use the camera once a year over three years, it will cost $6,667 per production. A cheaper camera doesn't have to be used as much to justify its purchase, so long as it does everything you expect to need over those three years.

One other important consideration is lens mounts. Even if you're planning to rent most of your lenses, you'll probably want to own some lenses that you use often. You don't want to have to sell your lenses on eBay when you buy a new camera, so you should get a camera with a lens mount that's likely to satisfy your needs in the future. EF and PL mounts are the most widely used today, and are likely to be the most widely used down the road. There are fewer MFT- and E-mount lenses available, but there are adapters and Metabones Speed Boosters for both EF- and PL-mount lenses to fit MFT and E mounts.

If you buy (or rent) cameras with a three-year useful life in mind, don't overbuy based on the number of shoots you expect to do over those three years, and choose a lens mount based on your long-term needs, you're far more likely to be happy with your purchase across its entire usable life and beyond.

Blackmagic adds studio cameras to its live production suite, makes its switchers 4K

Blackmagic Design has long been known as a post-production hardware vendor, starting with its DeckLink cards in 2002. In 2010, the company moved into live video production when it acquired switcher manufacturer Echolab's assets out of bankruptcy. Together with its Videohub routers and video & audio monitoring hardware, Blackmagic built a fairly complete line of live production products. Then, in 2012, Blackmagic introduced its first camera, the Blackmagic Cinema Camera (BMCC). Many people wondered if the Cinema Camera could be used for live production since it has an HD-SDI output, but Blackmagic cautioned against using it that way. The BMCC's color output is so flat that it can't really be used without color correction, and Blackmagic's subsequent camera models launched prior to this year aren't much better suited for live use.

However, at NAB earlier this week, Blackmagic introduced a line of cameras designed specifically for live production, the Studio Camera HD and Studio Camera 4K (which outputs video in Ultra HD and HD.) The Studio Cameras are designed around 10" LCDs that do double duty as viewfinders and menu displays. The company claims that the viewfinders are the largest offered by any manufacturer. Unlike the Cinema Camera and Production Camera, the Studio Camera's display isn't touch-sensitive; a row of buttons below the display is used for user inputs. The company claims that by eliminating the touch-sensitive layer, the Studio Camera's display is brighter.

On the back of the display, there's a wedge that contains all of the camera's connectors, the lens mount (active Micro Four Thirds), imager and most of the camera's electronics. The result is a very strange looking camera, but one with significantly better features than previous Blackmagic models. For example, the company's previous cameras have become known for their poor battery life, but Blackmagic says that the battery in the Studio Camera will last for four hours, and a standard four-pin power connector allows users to connect external batteries for more runtime, or AC power for continuous operation. The single minijack or dual 1/4" jacks used for audio input in the previous cameras have been replaced with dual XLR connectors with phantom power.

The Studio Cameras also have several new features:

• A LANC interface for connecting a remote iris, focus and zoom control (if your lens is compatible)
• Dual jacks for connecting an aviation headset for intercom use; Blackmagic claims that aviation headsets are much less expensive than video production headsets with comparable features
• A bidirectional optical fiber connector that's compatible with the ATEM Studio Converter and provides the same functionality as the $595 ATEM Camera Converter. This enables the Studio Camera to send and receive HD or 4K video, stereo audio, talkback/intercom and tally lights over cable runs as long as 28 miles
• A software-based Remote Camera Control that works with any ATEM Production Studio. All of the settings on the camera can be monitored and controlled with this software. In addition, a full copy of DaVinci Resolve's primary color corrector is included for live color balancing

You may be thinking, "These Studio Cameras are better than Blackmagic's first-generation models in almost every way, and they're the same price, so why would anyone buy the earlier models?" One big reason is that the Studio Cameras have no storage. No SSD, no CFast, no SDXC, nothing. You can, of course, add an external recorder such as Blackmagic's HyperDeck Shuttle, and you've got other options using the Studio Cameras' SDI connections. However, an external recorder adds to the size, weight and cost of the cameras.

The Studio Camera HD is shipping now and is priced at $1,995 (U.S.), while the Studio Camera 4K is expected to ship in June and is priced at $2,995. Given Blackmagic's track record with cameras, don't bet your life on that June ship date, and expect some problems with the cameras that are shipped for the first several months.

Blackmagic has also made a number of changes to its ATEM line of switchers (all of which are shipping):

• The original HD-only models of the ATEM 1 M/E and 2 M/E have been discontinued; the sole HD-only switcher that remains in the product line is the $995 ATEM Television Studio, which is primarily intended as a "personal" switcher for webcasts and small productions
• The new ATEM 1 M/E Production Studio and 2 M/E Production Studio support 4K and HD on all inputs and outputs (except the monitor outputs, which are HD only)
• Last year's ATEM Production Studio 4K, which has similar functionality to the ATEM Television Studio except it supports 4K, remains in the product line at $1,695
• The ATEM 1 M/E Production Studio 4K is priced at $2,495, and the ATEM 2 M/E Production Studio 4K is priced at $3,995, $1,000 less than last year's model

With the Studio Cameras and its 4K switcher line, Blackmagic now has just about everything needed to build a live production facility.

For 4K cameras, price is A thing, but not THE thing

I'm back from NAB, where the overriding theme this year was 4K everything--cameras, monitors, editors, special effects, routers, switchers, etc. Perhaps the biggest battle was in cameras, where AJA Video entered the market for the first time and Blackmagic Design and Sony announced new 4K cameras. (JVC also announced its first 4K digital cinematography cameras, but gave no prices or availability dates.) 4K cameras have been a "thing" ever since the RED One, but $10,000 was the least that you could spend to buy one (Canon's 1D C) until Blackmagic shipped its 4K Production Camera late last year, priced at $2,995.

The floodgates have now opened:

• Panasonic's GH4: $1,699, or $3,299 bundled with its SDI/XLR interface dock
• Sony's A7S: $2,499.99, will ship in July
• Blackmagic's 4K Production Camera: $2,995
• Blackmagic's URSA EF: $5,995
• AJA's Cion: $8,995

None of these cameras cost more than a fraction of the price of an ARRI Alexa ($80,000+) or Amira ($40,000-$52,000 depending on enabled features,) RED EPIC-M Dragon ($50,000+), or Sony F55 ($29,000+) or F65 ($65,000+). You'd think that ARRI, RED and Sony would be shaking in their boots, but they're not. There are two reasons why the companies that make high-end cameras aren't necessarily threatened by the new inexpensive models:

1. There are many elements that determine whether or not a specific camera is appropriate for an application, and
2. You get what you pay for.

Here are some (but far from all) of the elements of camera design that influence how the camera performs and what it's good (or not good) for:

• Imager size
• Imager resolution
• Color space (e.g., YUV or xvYCC)
• Color sampling (e.g., 4:2:0, 4:2:2 or 4:4:4)
• Bit depth (8-bit vs. 10-bit)
• Video output resolution (DCI 4K (4096 x 2160), UHD (3840 x 2160), 1080, 720)
• Video compression formats (e.g., AVCHD, H.264, ProRes, DNxHD, XAVC, XAVC S, AVC-Intra, AVC-Ultra)
• RAW storage and/or output
• Frame rates supported at specified resolution (e.g., 24, 25, 29.97, 30, 59.94, 60 or 120)
• Dynamic range in stops
• Native ISO speed
• Sensitivity (maximum usable ISO speed, NOT the camera's rated top ISO speed)
• Lens mount(s)
• Lens control (manual, automatic or limited automatic)
• Image stabilization (digital or optical, in the camera body or in the lens, or no stabilization)
• Viewfinder, display screen, both or none
• User interface design (e.g., touchscreen(s), menus, dedicated buttons and knobs)
• Storage capacity
• Storage media
• Internal or external storage
• Video interface(s) (HDMI or HD-SDI, with different HDMI versions and, for HD-SDI, maximum speeds)
• Audio connector(s)
• Balanced or unbalanced audio in
• Phantom power availability
• Run time on battery
• Removable or permanent battery
• External power voltage and connector
• Camera shape
• Camera weight
• Ruggedness
• Manufacturer and design maturity (how much experience does the manufacturer have in designing cameras, and how long has the manufacturer been making this particular camera)

There's an enormous number of elements to consider, and some elements work much better for certain applications than others. In some cases, buyers have a wealth of cameras to choose from, while in other cases, there may only be a handful that can do what they need.

Rather than salivating when you hear about a new low-priced camera with attractive features, ask yourself these questions:

1. What am I going to use it for?
2. What trade-offs am I willing to accept (for example, are you willing to live with less sensitivity in order to get a higher-quality compression format?)
3. How often will I use the camera (do you know that you'll be using it over and over on new projects, or do you have one project in mind and you don't know when you'll have the next one?)
4. How much can I afford to pay?

Answering the first two questions will allow you to compile a list of cameras that meet your needs. Answering the final two questions will tell you whether you should buy or rent the camera that you can afford. In some cases, you may decide to buy a less-expensive camera and use your remaining budget to buy lenses or mounting equipment. In other cases, you could rent a camera and use the savings elsewhere on your production, or rent a camera that you can't afford to buy that's superior to other choices for your application. In short, you should answer the four questions first, rather than starting with the price of the camera and instead hoping that it will meet your needs.

Brendan Eich's resignation from Mozilla is a victory for no one

Earlier today, Mozilla announced that recently-appointed CEO Brendan Eich has resigned, both from Mozilla's for-profit arm and from the board of the non-profit foundation that controls the company. The reason for his resignation was the blowback from a $1,000 contribution that Eich made to a group supporting California's anti-gay marriage Proposition 8 (his contribution became public knowledge in 2012.)

Before I continue, a disclaimer: I worked with Brendan, Mozilla Chairwoman Mitchell Baker and Mozilla Foundation Director Bob Lisbonne at Netscape in 1995-97. In addition, I strongly support gay marriage. With that in mind, I'm very sad that Brendan was forced out of an organization that he was such an integral part of for so long, not because of any claims of mismanagement, financial irresponsibility or technical incompetence, but because of a personal belief.

If the shoe was on the other foot--if an executive who had contributed to a campaign supporting gay marriage or gay rights (like NOH8) was targeted for dismissal by opponents of gay marriage--would the members of the gay community calling for Brendan's head have supported the executive or the rights of the gay marriage opponents? I'm pretty sure that it would have been the former, and I'm very sure that their actions would be hypocritical.

Brendan had agreed that his opinions about gay marriage would play no part in how he ran Mozilla, and his opponents could point to no evidence that his opinions were even known within Mozilla prior to 2012. In addition, although I'm sure that he was paid a good salary at Mozilla, he could have become far wealthier by going to work for totally for-profit, pre-IPO company. Instead, he chose to work on open source projects that would increase the common good for everyone.

All of us have opinions and beliefs that other people disagree with. For example, I support a woman's right to have an abortion, an opinion that's wildly unpopular in parts of the U.S. However, unless I was working for a company with a strong publicly stated position on the topic, like Chick-Fil-A or Hobby Lobby, I would expect that my belief should have no impact on either my employment or how I do my job. By forcing Brendan out, supporters of gay marriage have paradoxically given more power to opponents of gay rights, women's rights and a host of other issues, who want to force people who don't share their beliefs out of companies.

I'm also clearly disappointed by Mitchell Baker's blog post today announcing Brendan's resignation. Here's a quote:

We didn’t act like you’d expect Mozilla to act. We didn’t move fast enough to engage with people once the controversy started. We’re sorry. We must do better.

Mozilla believes both in equality and freedom of speech. Equality is necessary for meaningful speech. And you need free speech to fight for equality. Figuring out how to stand for both at the same time can be hard.

Free speech, of course, cuts both ways. As a lawyer, Mitchell knows that Brendan had a perfect right to make that contribution. If Mozilla had dismissed Brendan on the grounds of his contribution, the company would have been guilty of religious discrimination under Federal law. So, Brendan had to "voluntarily" resign, for the good of the organization, to correct the "mistake" of appointing him CEO. However, the appointment wasn't a mistake--the people who made the appointment knew all about his contribution. Baker and the Mozilla Foundation board should have stood behind him. Now, however, we know how Mozilla will respond to external pressure in the future--with cowardice.

The Earthquake Channel: Who's in?

California has had two moderate earthquakes in the last week and many aftershocks from the most recent one that was centered near La Habra. Earthquakes in Southern California have been more frequent recently, which leads residents to consider whether the next earthquake will be the "Big One." Frankly, EVERY earthquake makes Californians worry about the Big One.

Earlier today, someone that I follow on Twitter suggested that earthquakes should be given names, like hurricanes. That got me thinking. The Weather Channel now names storms, not just hurricanes. If we're going to name earthquakes, why not create a cable channel for them: The Earthquake Channel? Spoilsports might suggest that there aren't enough earthquakes, and we still don't know how to predict them in advance. In fact, there are plenty of earthquakes; the USGS reported 42 worldwide in the last 24 hours with a magnitude 2.5 or greater, of which 26 were located in North and Central America. As for not being able to forecast them, that just adds to the excitement.

One of the problems with reporting earthquakes is that it would be nice to have someone like Jim Cantore standing in a vulnerable location (next to an unreinforced masonry wall, for example) when the earthquake hits, to give live shots of the earthquake's impact. Unfortunately, since we can't predict earthquakes with any reasonable level of accuracy, we would have to have people standing all over the country, 24 hours a day. While it would be an interesting exercise, it would be both expensive and extremely boring. So, the next best thing would be a national network of cameras hooked up to seismometers; seismic activity above a certain threshold would start the camera recording, and would also capture the data from the seismometer. In some locations, the camera could be pointed at an animatronic dummy positioned in a vulnerable location (with a robotic voice saying "THIS...IS...JIM...CANTORE...AND...I'M...AARGH!"); in less important locations, the cameras could be pointed at chandeliers or glasses of water.

Some party poopers may raise another objection: How can an earthquake channel have enough content to run 24 hours a day? If you've watched any cable news channel ever, you know that's not a problem. CNN has gotten several weeks of content from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 with almost no solid information. When things got slow, CNN speculated about "supernatural causes" and black holes. Just imagine what we could do with earthquakes.

Earthquake coverage would cover the following stages:

1. Fear-mongering: Here's the fault map for your local area. Any of these babies could break loose at any moment and trigger a devastating earthquake. Here's what you should do to prepare. Here's what you should do in the event of an earthquake. Here are the places that you shouldn't live. Is your earthquake insurance paid up? You DO know that your householder's insurance policy doesn't cover earthquakes, don't you? DON'T YOU?
2. OMG, there's been an earthquake: Massive overcoverage of the earthquake. Interviews of people who felt the earthquake. Interviews of people who know people who were told things by people who felt the earthquake. Experts to discuss where the earthquake occurred, how long it lasted, which faults were involved, and how many aftershocks are likely. Throughout all of this, show every available video of the earthquake you can find. If there aren't any, show cheesy computer-generated simulations of what it might have looked like had there been a camera.
3. How do they recover: Experts discuss how to repair the damage, and when the next earthquake might occur. Say how sorry we feel for the people hurt by the earthquake, while implying that they're idiots for not properly preparing.

Okay, all three stages involve fear-mongering...and that brings me to my last point: Who would advertise on The Earthquake Channel? There's a surprising number of potential advertisers:

• Contractors to strengthen building against earthquakes and perform earthquake repairs
• Hospitals and urgent care centers to provide emergency medical services
• Moving services to help people relocate away from earthquake country
• Cars for getting out of Dodge quickly when an earthquake hits
• Bottled water for when water pipes are broken
• Freeze-dried, powered, shrink-wrapped, bubble-packed survival foods
• Small arms, rifles and ammunition for when society breaks down and anarchy reigns supreme
• Insurance--lots and lots of insurance

So there you have it: The Earthquake Channel. Any takers?

Facebook buys Oculus VR: What now?

Earlier today, Facebook announced that it had acquired virtual reality headset maker Oculus VR for $2 billion, in the form of $400 million in cash and 23.1 million shares of Facebook common stock worth $1.6 billion. Oculus VR's shareholders could earn an additional $300 million based on achieving several unspecified performance objectives. Oculus started with a Kickstarter campaign in 2012 that raised $2.4 million; last year, the company closed A and B rounds worth a total of about $93 million.

Ever since the announcement, comments about Oculus's acquisition have been flying around the Internet. The general tone is that Facebook will destroy Oculus's independence and load its software up with links to Facebook content. Some game developers have gone so far as to say that they've either stopped or won't begin software development for the Oculus Rift. My take is that Facebook's acquisition will be good for Oculus and its third-party developers, although a few years down the road, Oculus's shareholders may wish that they had kept ownership of the company.

But first, why did Facebook acquire Oculus? Facebook's not a hardware company, and when it's tried to specify smartphone hardware or design smartphone user interfaces, it's come up short. It'll take years for Oculus to become a meaningful generator of revenues and profits for Facebook, if it ever does. However, Facebook believes that VR is the next big hardware platform after mobile devices. VR is Facebook's "blue ocean," an undeveloped market opportunity that could be the basis of tens of billions of dollars in revenues. And, Facebook is buying the recognized market and technology leader: Even though there have been VR devices for almost two decades, the Oculus Rift is the first device that can truly begin to exploit virtual reality without all the physical discomfort that's come to characterize VR systems. As I've written previously, Oculus is six months to a year ahead of Sony and other VR headset manufacturers. And, Oculus is already generating revenue: Some 75,000 developers kits have been sold, at $300 each. Most other VR developers have only dozens or a few hundred developers working on their platforms.

As for Oculus and its shareholders, Facebook's $2 billion represents a nice return on their investments (Spark Capital and Matrix Partners are said by Bloomberg.com to both have received a 20-times return on investments made from a year to just a few months ago,) although I believe that if Oculus had remained independent and had become successful, the company's valuation would have easily been ten times what Facebook paid. However, Facebook brings to Oculus enormous financial resources. The company will be able to expand its development facilities and hire more aggressively. It will also have more influence on component manufacturers, because Oculus will be able to commit to much bigger purchase quantities and bigger non-recurring engineering costs than it could before Facebook. This is critical, because Oculus doesn't have the ability to build its own displays, camera and sensors, and some of the components it needs simply aren't yet available as off-the-shelf products.

Oculus's hardware development is likely to dovetail nicely with Facebook's rapid software development philosophy. At Sony's announcement of its "Project Morpheus" at GDC, the company said that it's been working on VR longer than Oculus, but most observers would agree that Oculus is still significantly ahead of Sony. The combination of Oculus and Facebook should be able to iterate hardware and software faster than Sony (and most other big companies) can even imagine. So, Oculus will most likely be able to get its first consumer version of the Oculus Rift out faster, and possibly at lower cost, with Facebook's backing.

But what about Facebook's influence on Oculus? After all, Facebook is hardly a benign presence. In Boing Boing, Dean Putney wrote a scathing takedown of the Facebook-Oculus deal; here's a quote:

The problem isn't that Facebook is going (to) ruin Oculus, by plastering it with ads and making it a pain in the ass like everything else they've shat all over. Although that wouldn't be a surprise. The problem is that this was an opportunity for something different. And it just died.

I don't think that the acquisition is as "soul crushing" as Putney believes; Facebook has said that Oculus will be run independently, and its offices will likely remain in Orange County, at least for a while. In addition, we're unlikely to see the consumer version of the Oculus Rift until next year, and that gives competitors an opportunity to catch up. However, paradoxically, the same funding that makes the Oculus Rift less risky as a development platform increases the risk that Facebook will turn it into a platform that you wouldn't want to develop for. I don't have a good counterargument to give to the people who believe that Facebook will "shit all over" Oculus, other than you should be okay if you develop for multiple headsets, not just the Oculus Rift.

Games are just the tip of the VR iceberg

At last week's Game Developers' Conference, Virtual Reality (VR) was front and center, led by Oculus VR's second (and likely final) developer's kit, and Sony's prototype Project Morpheus VR headset. At Sony's launch event, a company executive noted that there are a number of applications for VR, but that games are the biggest opportunity. Games are an obvious application for VR; existing 2 1/2 D games, such as first person shooters, can be modified to enable the player to be immersed in the field of play using a VR headset. However, while games may be the first application for VR, in the long run, they're not the biggest application.

VR, which places the participant in an immersive environment, has the potential to recreate real-world environments much more successfully than technologies such as CAVEs that project an environment on multiple walls of a cube in which the participant stands. VR can be used for a variety of simulations; for example:

• Military and police training, where recruits learn how to differentiate friend from foe and both how and when to engage with an enemy or suspect.
• Medical training, where medical students can perform tests and try out surgical techniques.
• Flight training for pilots and trainees.

There are also many applications in education. Students can be transported into ancient Rome or Greece and participate in activities as the people who lived there did. They can run science experiments that would be dangerous or deadly if they were to do them in real life, and they can observe processes at scales that would otherwise be impossible (from sub-atomic to galactic.) Students can do these things today with PCs and tablets, but the addition of VR makes them much more visceral, which should help students to learn more and retain more of what they learn.

There's also an opportunity for VR in television and movies. We think of these as passive media, but VR has the potential to immerse the viewer in the action to a much greater degree than has been possible with 3D. However, there are many questions that need to be answered, especially for live (non-computer-animated) content:

• Can the viewer participate in the action, or are they merely an observer?
• How much freedom does the viewer have in participating--can they move freely, or are their movements limited?
• How do the characters in the production interact with the viewer? Can the viewer's actions change the production's course of action? (For example, in an action/adventure production, could the viewer's character kill the hero? What happens next--roll the credits?)

I believe that ultimately, these applications with be much bigger than gaming. However, gaming technology will be very important for creating these applications, and game developers will be in an excellent position to be early developers of these applications. Gaming engines that have been adapted to support VR will be the basis of the first generation of new applications, while production and development systems built specifically for VR will come along later. In short, VR's first big opportunity will be gaming, but the application set and market opportunities will ultimately be much bigger than gaming alone.

Oculus VR releases DK2, its second VR headset/software development kit

Just in time for GDC, Oculus VR has released its second Oculus Rift development kit, called DK2. Engadget got a look at the new hardware, and it's a mild improvement over the Crystal Cove prototype shown at CES in January. Here's a summary:

• Oculus now supplies its own user-facing IR camera to track the headset's position.
• It's made the IR-reflective dots on the headset used for position tracking, which were visible on Crystal Cove prototype, invisible and harder to damage.
• There are USB 2.0 and headset ports above the user's left eye.
• A single cord breaks out to connect the headset to a computer's HDMI and USB (power) connections.
• The display resolution is 1920 x 1080 (1080 x 960 for each eye.)

Oculus has priced DK2 at $350, $50 more than the original development kit. The company notes that the the final consumer version of the Oculus Rift will have higher resolution displays, a faster refresh rate and lower latency, and will be physically lighter than the DK2, but it's significantly closer to the final product than the original development kit was.

Even with the announcements from Sony and several other VR headset vendors at GDC, it's likely that Oculus is still significantly ahead of the pack. However, the company's one potential weakness is that it's dependent on third-party manufacturers for much of its technology--displays, sensors and cameras. For example, DK2's display has a 72 Hz refresh rate, which is as fast as Oculus could find in a 1920 x 1080 OLED display, but it needs at least a 90 Hz refresh rate to eliminate visual artifacts that can cause motion sickness. Sony manufactures image sensors and many of its own displays, so it may be in a better position to source the necessary components. 

Sony's "Project Morpheus": VR for the PS4: Good start, but far from prime time

Last night, Sony announced "Project Morpheus" at an event at the Game Developers Conference. It consists of the PS4 console, the PS4 camera, Sony's existing Move controller and a new VR headset. The presentation was spun by Sony as a major technology announcement, but in fact, it was largely a slimmed-down version of presentations over the last few months by Oculus Rift and Valve. While both companies have been quite specific about what they've found to be necessary in a VR system (not just the headset, but the sensors and content as well,) Sony stayed away from hard numbers in its presentation. For example, when asked what Project Morpheus's refresh rate is, a Sony executive replied "As fast as possible."

Engadget has gotten a chance to try out Sony's VR headset at GDC, and they found it to be not bad for a first try, but far from Sony's own goals. For example, in Sony's presentation, the company said that comfort is one of its most important objectives, but the Project Morpheus headset requires multiple manual adjustments, and when it's in the correct position, it's so tightly sealed that sweat fogs up the lenses. Screen resolution is lower than Oculus VR's new DK2 developer kit (see next post.) Vision blur is a significant problem, which suggests that Sony isn't using a low-persistence display. In addition, Sony's headset offers a 90 degree diagonal field of view vs. Oculus Rift's 110 degrees. On the other hand, one advantage that the Sony headset has over Oculus Rift is full-body tracking, but there are a lot of companies working on that.

My take is that this is Sony climbing on the VR bandwagon with a very incomplete solution. The expectation has become that if you're serious about gaming, you have to be working on VR, so Sony checked off that box. However, from Oculus's release of the DK2 earlier today, I'd say that Sony is six months to a year behind with its headset. As for audio, Sony says that it makes good headphones, but so do many other companies, and headphones aren't the problem. Will Sony's existing Move controllers and PS4 camera really work well in a VR system? I doubt it. Those devices weren't designed for VR, and I doubt that Sony put in the costs necessary to make them work at the speeds and with the accuracy needed for VR.

What we're likely to end up with is a suite of devices that Sony purpose-builds for VR--and it's not at all certain that even the PS4 will have the refresh rates necessary to drive Sony's final VR headset.

It's tough out here for a camera (maker)

Over the last seven years, we've seen a number of companies jump into the professional cinema camera market. Some have had an easier time of it than others. Red launched its first camera, the Red One, at NAB 2006, and a small number shipped to customers more than a year later. Red announced its Scarlet camera in late 2008 but didn't ship a much different (and more expensive) Scarlet model until about three years later. Canon's first cinema camera, the EOS 300, shipped in January 2012, and the EOS 100 and 500 followed in the fall of 2012. Blackmagic Design launched its Cinema Camera at NAB 2012 but didn't start shipping in quantity for almost a year; Blackmagic's Pocket Cinema Camera was announced at NAB 2013 and started shipping small quantities in August 2013. Its 4K Production Camera, also announced at NAB 2013, has only just recently begun shipping in small quantities. Finally, there's the Digital Bolex D16, which started as a Kickstarter project in April, 2012 and started shipping to early supporters at the end of 2013.

Of Red, Canon, Blackmagic Design and Digital Bolex, only Canon shipped its cameras close to when they said they'd ship. All four companies shipped cameras with problems, but Canon's were minor. By comparison, Red spent two years debugging the firmware in its Red One and subsequent cameras, and Blackmagic's cameras are missing essential features, such as audio meters, an indicator of how much storage is available and the ability to format storage in the camera, that should have been there when they shipped. Digital Bolex's D16 shipped late, but so far, it seems to be working reasonably well.

It's interesting, but not surprising, that Canon was the only company that shipped its cinema cameras on time and with relatively few bugs. After all, Canon shipped its first camera in 1936, its first camcorder in 1981, and its first digital DSLR in 1995. They knew how to make or integrate everything needed for a Cinema Camera when they launched the EOS 300 in 2012. (Some of you may be wondering why I didn't mention Arri and its Alexa cameras, but the story is much the same as Canon: Arri launched its first film camera in 1924, and its first digital camera, the Arriflex D-20, in 2005.) Red and Digital Bolex, on the other hand, were founded specifically to make cinema cameras, while Blackmagic Design made an extensive line of video hardware and software before gearing up to make cameras.

My point, which I admit it's taken a long time to get to, is that it's hard to make a good cinema camera. You can't simply go through parts catalogs and find all the pieces you need to build a camera; in some cases, you can't even depend on a parts manufacturer to build the parts you need to your specifications. Blackmagic ran into problems with CMOS imagers on both its original Cinema Camera and 4K Production Camera. Both Blackmagic and Red ran into integration problems--getting all the parts to work together as designed--and both struggled with firmware needed to implement promised features. Blackmagic's cameras use too much power--third-party tests show that its 4K Production Camera can burn through its internal battery in 20 minutes.

I'm not saying that any of these companies shouldn't have entered the cinema camera market; Red changed users' expectations for price and imaging quality, and Blackmagic pushed prices far below where they'd been for comparable cameras from competitors. However, they (and their customers) have learned how hard it is to build a good cinema camera. Given what's happened since 2006, I'd say that other than lenses, cinema cameras are the hardest broadcast or cinema products to design and build.

As we prepare for NAB 2014, we're likely to see a new round of camera introductions. When a company with no previous camera design or manufacturing experience announces a new cinema camera, my recommendation is to not be one of the first customers in line with a preorder. To be safe, you should add at least a year to the company's announced release date, and probably a year after that for the camera's firmware to be stabilized and for all key features to be implemented. The frustration you save will be your own.

GoPro: Succeeding by sticking to its knitting

Let me introduce you to Bigbird, a juvenile pelican that was orphaned and abandoned by its flock, and washed up on the beach at the Greystoke Mahale resort in Tanzania. The resort's staff took care of Bigbird--which included teaching the pelican how to fly. The resort's team of "pelican trainers" mounted a GoPro sport camera on Bigbird's beak, and the camera captured the bird's process of learning how to flap its wings while simultaneously running down the beach. Most importantly, it captured Bigbird's first flight.

That video, which was taken by the Greystoke Mahale's staff, was edited by GoPro, and you can watch it on YouTube. You can also watch two deer be rescued from a frozen lake in Minnesota, or a kitten rescued from a burning building and resuscitated by a Fresno, CA fireman. If you can keep from crying after watching any of these videos, you're stronger than I am. If you want something a little more exciting, you can watch people snow skiing, snowboarding, water skiing, surfboarding, skateboarding, mountain biking, racing superbikes, racing cars, and much more, all from a first-person perspective. In fact, if you can name a sport or outdoor activity, it's probably been captured by a GoPro camera and can be found by searching on YouTube.

GoPro is arguably the most successful camera company in the world--they've certainly done more with fewer models than anyone else. The company exclusively makes sports cameras--small, rugged, inexpensive video cameras that nevertheless produce high-quality images. At any one time, GoPro only sells three models; currently, they sell two versions of their top-of-the-line Hero 3+ cameras, and they sell one model of their previous-generation Hero 3 line as their entry-level model. Prices range from $199 to $399. In addition, GoPro sells a range of accessories that allow the cameras to be mounted just about anywhere, and to be protected from just about any conditions (short of placing them in an oven.) The accessories for the Hero 3 and 3+ series are identical, so customers who purchased Hero 3 models can upgrade to a Hero 3+ and use all of their existing accessories.

By comparison, GoPro's biggest competitors--Sony and JVC--sell sport cameras as a sideline. For example, Sony sells full lines of point & shoot cameras, DSLRs, ILCs and camcorders, not to mention its line of professional camcorders and cinema cameras. And, in there somewhere, it's got two sport cameras. JVC is in a similar situation; its two-model ADIXXION line of sport cameras are a small part of a much bigger line of camcorders. GoPro has been able to keep ahead of its competitors, both big and small, with its laser-like focus on features that are of value to its target market of active sportspeople. Sony and JVC may each have a single product manager focusing on that market, while GoPro's entire company is focused there.

One way that GoPro keeps on top of its customers' needs is to watch videos that they make--and it gets thousands of them. Most of the videos featured on GoPro's website and YouTube site were produced not by GoPro but by its customers. So many people are producing videos with their GoPro cameras, and the videos are so popular (especially after being edited and enhanced with music by the GoPro team) that the company is launching its own branded media channels. It provides an in-flight video channel to Virgin America, and plans to launch a video channel on Microsoft's Xbox One and Xbox 360 game consoles this summer. A GoPro-branded media channel separate from YouTube is likely in the near future; such a channel would enable GoPro to fully monetize its videos, and cement customer loyalty by sharing advertising revenues with video submitters.

Last month, GoPro made a private IPO filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. We don't yet know how much money the company plans to raise or how much of the company it plans to sell, but most observers believe that the IPO proceeds will, at least in part, be used to fund new products and the development of GoPro's media channels. By focusing on a small slice of the camera market, GoPro has built a big business and a cadre of loyal customers that's producing the content for a whole new business opportunity.

That was fast: Blackmagic Design drops price of Production Camera 4K to $2,995

Just three days after the formal announcement of Panasonic's 4K GH4, and before Panasonic has announced pricing or availability for its new camera, Blackmagic Design has cut $1,000 off the price of its Production Camera 4K, bringing the price down to $2,995 (U.S.). That should be below the price of the GH4 plus its dock. In addition, as I wrote yesterday, the GH4 will need an external video recorder to take full advantage of the camera's 4K output, while the Production Camera 4K has a built-in SSD dock, which makes Blackmagic's camera an even better deal. The Production Camera 4K also has a Canon EF/Zeiss ZE mount, compared to the GH4's Micro Four Thirds mount, which could be very important if you've already got an investment in Canon lenses.

I suspect that Blackmagic was planning the Production Camera 4K's price drop as a big announcement at NAB in April, but the company decided to make the announcement early after seeing Panasonic's moves. It's pretty amazing--in the space of four days, we've gone from no 4K cameras under $3,000 to two.

Panasonic's GH4 lowers the bar for 4K pricing, but are the compromises worth it?

Panasonic’s flagship GH series of Micro Four-Thirds ILCs has developed a strong reputation as cinematography cameras, starting with the GH2, which had its firmware hacked to enable much higher bit rates than the stock model. The GH3, introduced last year, took many of the capabilities added by third parties and built them into the base camera. Last month, at the Consumer Electronics Show, Panasonic showed a prototype of a new GH that looked almost identical to the GH3 but supported 4K video. As of this weekend, we’ve learned the specifications for the new camera, called GH4, but not the price or release date.

The GH4 16.05 megapixel CMOS imager doesn’t break any records for still imaging, but it does support 4K video at both standard resolutions: Ultra HD (3840x2160 @ 30p,) the broadcast/video 4K standard and the resolution of consumer Ultra HD displays, and Cinema 4K (4096x2160 @ 24p,) the baseline standard for theatrical production, post-production and exhibition. In 4K mode, it uses IBP compression with I and B frames at 100mbps, while in 2K mode, it supports All-I compression at 200mbps.

The GH4 has an interesting (and confusing) approach to how it handles storage of 4K video: When using an SD card, video is stored in 8-bit 4:2:0, and is output to the HDMI terminal as 8-bit 4:2:2. If you remove the SD card and use an external recorder, the HDMI output is 10-bit 4:2:2. You can also opt for a dock (Panasonic refers to it as an “interface unit”) that provides two XLR audio inputs with LED meters, four SDI outputs (two of which are 3G) and a 12VDC power socket. The SDI outputs can presumably drive an external recorder and monitor simultaneously at 10-bit 4:2:2. The dock won’t win any design awards—it just about doubles the size of the GH4—but it does add the interfaces that professional users need (or are forced to add with third-party hardware.)

Panasonic’s approach to storing 4K video means that an external recorder will be a necessity. In this regard, Blackmagic Design’s Production Camera 4K (the camera most likely to be compared to the GH4) has an advantage, because users can insert a SSD directly into the Blackmagic camera, eliminating the need for an external recorder.

I have to admit that I’m disappointed with how Panasonic chose to implement storage on the GH4. It would have been nice to be able to use the camera in a handheld mode without a lot of additional hardware, but in 4K mode, the SD card is only good for proxy recording in 4K mode. (To be clear, you can store 4K video on the SD card, but if you're serious enough about 4K to put up with all the other issues you'll need to deal with in post-production--massive storage, faster PCs, bigger monitors, etc.--8-bit 4:2:0 won't cut it.)

At CES, Panasonic representatives said that they expect the GH4 to be priced less than $2,000 in the U.S. That price won’t include the dock, which is likely to cost at least $1,000. So, Panasonic could get the GH4 plus dock to market at around $3,000—but I wouldn’t be surprised if the pair launches at closer to $4,000.

Update (March 10, 2014): Panasonic has revealed prices and availability dates for the GH4. The GH4 body's suggested retail price is $1,699.99 (U.S.). The dock (officially called the DMW-YAGH XLR/SDI Interface Unit) is priced at $1,999.99. If you buy both the GH4 and dock as a bundle, it's priced at $3,299.99. I’d love to see a third party develop a more elegant (and cheaper) dock, but there may not be a big enough market for it to make financial sense.

The GH4 is one of the least expensive ways of getting into 4K, if not the least expensive way. However, as we’ve learned from Blackmagic’s cameras, inexpensive means compromises, and the GH4 is no exception. It remains to be seen if the GH4’s compromises are ones that you can live with.

2014: The year of 3D printing?

I've had a chance to read Make's 2014 Ultimate Guide to 3D Printing, and if you have even a casual interest in the subject, you should buy a copy. Compared with last year's version, the 2014 edition has many more printers, a wider range of technologies (fused filament and optical resin printers, delta printers, and printers combined with CNC mills,) digitizers (to create 3D models for printing,) extruders (for making your own filament from plastic pellets,) and a wider range of plastics. Looking at the cover of Make's guide, you'd think that consumer 3D printers are "ready for prime time"--that is. until you look at the actual printers and read the reviews. Then, you see products that look like they were built with Tinkertoys and parts from an Erector set. Most printer beds need to be manually leveled to insure that parts print correctly. Some printers only use one kind of plastic, or need to be carefully cleaned when switching from one plastic to another. Some come with little or no documentation. Make doesn't discuss if they had any experiences with getting malfunctioning printers serviced, other than being assisted in fixing the problems themselves.

Make does point out some printers that it describes as having "just hit print" simplicity, but even those printers had problems: Poor print quality compared to competitors' models at a similar price, filament jams and overheating, and software problems. There's nothing on the market that compares to conventional laser printers for ease of installation and use. Even the simplest 3D printer requires significant skill and manual intervention to use. Nevertheless, at the end of 2013, it's easy to see that 3D printer manufacturers are improving their products by leaps and bounds. Prices are dropping--for example, the Printrbot Simple, a fully-assembled, fully-functional 3D printer that's a great entry into the world of 3D printing, costs only $399. Some 3D printers can turn out significantly bigger parts than they could last year. The "simple to use" models are indeed far simpler than the models from a year ago. Resin printers offer the potential of significantly higher-quality printing. Software is improving--in some cases, faster than the printers themselves.

Unless you're prepared to do a lot of the work yourself, I'd hesitate to buy any of the models available for sale today. However, there's enormous potential for the 3D printers in Make's 2015 guide to be faster, smarter, able to handle more materials and, most importantly, much easier to use than this year's models.

NSA: The world's biggest hoarder?

It dawned on me this weekend that the NSA is exhibiting classic hoarder behavior. TV shows such as "Hoarders" and "Hoarding: Buried Alive" visit the homes and apartments of compulsive hoarders, which are inevitably stacked to the ceiling with everything you can imagine--magazines, books, cats and dogs, fingernail clippings, used pizza boxes, etc. The rationalization often given by compulsive hoarders is that they're keeping these things in case they need them someday.

That's exactly the same rationalization that the NSA has used for many of its data collection programs. The agency is running hundreds of programs under nondescript codenames, vacuuming up telephone call metadata, emails, texts, tweets, browser histories, etc., in the hope that they may be useful for stopping a terrorist plot. There are so many programs, operating under so many different sets of rules, that analysts at the NSA can't keep track of them all. Having run out of space to keep all the data in its existing data centers, the NSA is spending billions of dollars to build new data centers in Utah and Maryland. That's like a hoarder renting storage units when they have no more room in their house.

Last week, Judge Richard Leon ruled that the NSA's program of storing all the phone call metadata for every person in the country for five years is likely to be a violation of the Fourth Amendment. In his ruling, Judge Leon wrote that neither the NSA nor the Justice Department had presented any evidence that the NSA's massive, multi-year phone metadata collection program had contributed to thwarting or solving a single case of terrorism.

The NSA has explicitly argued that it needs to keep billions of phone records (and, by extension, everything else) for years because it wants to be able to go back through them if necessary. Judge Leon wrote that, to date, the NSA hasn't found anything useful in the phone records, and there's no justification for the agency's massive violations of the Fourth Amendment. That sounds an awful lot like compulsive hoarding behavior.

Would the NSA have been a lot more selective in its data collection if General Alexander wasn't running it? I suspect so...and given what he's done at the NSA, I wouldn't want to visit the General's house.

Can we PLEASE do something about credit cards?

If you live in the U.S., you've probably heard about the theft of as many as 40 million credit and debit card numbers from Target customers between November 27th and December 15th. As with so many of these thefts, the first public disclosure came not from the merchant or card processor that lost the data, but from a third-party source. In Target's case, it was security researcher Brian Krebs who pieced together the story. Krebs buys credit and debit card numbers and other personal information from "darknet" sources on behalf of banks and other clients, and he noticed that a flood of numbers that apparently came from Target were available for sale. Theft of credit and debit card information has become a common occurrence in the U.S., and some researchers claim that as few as 5% of thefts ever get detected and disclosed publicly.

When I heard about the Target theft, I checked my banking records, and sure enough, I used my debit card there a couple of times during the period in question. So, yesterday, I drove over to my local bank branch, cancelled my debit card and got a new one. That was the third time in a little more than a year, and the second time in two months, that I had to cancel my debit card and get a new one. The first time was a scam at Barnes & Noble stores that involved replacement of point-of-sale credit card terminals in dozens of stores with hacked versions that sent complete transaction information, including PIN numbers, to hackers. The second time was due to the hack of Adobe's transaction processing system earlier this year, and now, it's Target for the trifecta.

Barnes & Noble, Adobe and Target are responsible for their security failures, but banks share some responsibility as well. These kinds of data losses are almost unheard of in Europe, where banks issue smart cards to their customers. Smart cards use two-factor authentication to insure that only the proper owner is using it, and encryption to keep anyone except the bank authorizing payment from either intercepting or saving the account information. Smart cards aren't in wide use in the U.S. because they're significantly more expensive than magnetic stripe cards, but, using me as an example, I have to believe that a single smart card has to be less expensive than six magnetic stripe cards (three temporary and three permanent replacements) plus the time of bank tellers, managers and phone customer service personnel spent processing and issuing those replacements. (Update, 12/22/13: According to Brian Krebs, reissuing a magnetic stripe credit or debit card costs from $3 to $5; Gemalto, one of the biggest smart card vendors, says that the average cost for a smart card with a microprocessor is $3.72. Even if that number is on the low side, it means that banks would be ahead of the game, or would at least break even, with smart cards vs. replacing mag stripe cards.)

Whether it's an encryption-based system or a "one-time pad" approach where the customer gives the merchant an account number issued by their financial institution that's good for only one transaction and is useless if anyone tries to use it again, the U.S. needs to move to a more secure and reliable method for credit and debit card transactions. The system we have now is no more secure than the weakest transaction system used by any merchant--which means that we have almost no security at all.

Intel acquires eTextbook distributor Kno, co-founder departs

TechCrunch reports that Kno, a higher-education eTextbook distributor, has been acquired by Intel. It will become part of Intel's global education program run by John Galvin, a Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Intel. The acquisition terms weren't released. (Update, November 11: On GigaOm, Om Malik wrote that according to his sources, Intel acquired Kno for $15 million plus some retention bonuses for employees. Kno's equity investors put $73.4 million into the company, and Kno also took on $20.3 million in debt, so Malik believes it's likely that the investors will see little or no return.)

Kno's initial plan in 2009 was to develop and launch its own higher-education oriented tablet, for which the company would sell eTextbooks. The tablet had dual 14.1" touchscreens and used both touch and stylus input. However, less than a year after the company was founded, Apple introduced its original iPad, which dramatically changed customer expectations for how big tablets should be and how they should work. Kno reportedly only shipped a handful of its tablets to customers in late 2010 before giving up on its proprietary design and selling it to Intel in April 2011 for $20 million (which was structured as an equity investment.) Kno subsequently focused on software, and developed eReaders for the iPad and Android tablets, Windows 7 and 8, and in-browser use. According to Wikipedia, Kno began selling content for the K-12 market in April 2012, but the company isn't a significant player in that market.

Once Kno dropped its proprietary hardware, it became just another eTextbook vendor, and had to compete with far more established players including Follett, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, CourseSmart and Chegg, which was co-founded by Kno co-founder Osman Rashid. To date, eTextbooks have been poorly accepted by college students, and unlike its competitors, Kno doesn't also offer print textbooks, which put it into an even worse competitive situation.

TechCrunch reports that Kno's investors, led by Andreessen Horowitz, have been pushing the company for several months to find a buyer or some other way to exit. One interesting fact is that a difference of opinion between Kno CEO Rashid and Intel VP Galvin led to Rashid's departure when the acquisition was announced; Rashid wanted to continue focusing on the North American market, while Galvin wants to focus on international markets. Given how competitive the U.S. and Canadian markets are, an international focus for Kno makes a lot of sense. However, it's not clear to me what Intel brings to the party, other than money. The company has never sold content successfully and pulled the plug a week ago on its biggest investment in content to date, its OnCue over-the-top video content service. It also appears that Intel did nothing with the tablet designs that it acquired from Kno in 2011. Intel wrote that "The acquisition of Kno boosts (our) global digital content library to more than 225,000 higher education and K-12 titles through existing partnerships with 75 educational publishers." Kno claims on its own website that it has more than 200,000 titles, so its collection is responsible for all or nearly all of Intel's "global digital content library."

My bet is that within a couple of years, Intel will shut down or sell off Kno, just as it's rumored to be selling off its OnCue business to Verizon for a small fraction of what it invested. Intel isn't a content company, its management doesn't understand content, and in my opinion, it should make investments in content companies but leave content production and distribution to others.