Sascha von Gawom ist heute auf der GamesCon in Köln unterwegs. Er twittert von dort sodass auf diese Weise der ein oder andere Einblick gewonnen werden kann.
Source: http://twitter.com/gawom
Turns out that we’re actually doing business there – great news that is!
Photosynth is publicly available and it’s time to give it a try and play with the technology. Before starting you should be aware of some facts about the public photosynth technology-preview:
When everything is checked you can go and upload up to 20 Gbytes of image data – my test synth takes up 200 Mbytes of the available space – so you have plenty of space to play with.
To start just install the photosynth application to view – and click “create” on the website. After the obligatory login you immediately can upload your pictures. Give it a name, ssome tags and a license and select your pictures.
Your pictures should show the same scene from different perspectives – photosynth is all about matching perspectives. After clicking on “Synth” the process starts.
And after a surprisingly short period of time your synth is done. Click on “View Synth” and you’re taken back to the website and you can browse your synth. That’s it – easy!
Source 1: my first photosynth
Source 2: Photosynth is open for the public
Source 3: create a synth
Since last year FeM is recording and live streaming the annual Formula Student Event in Germany:
“Screeching tires, smouldering heads and impressive technical innovations – welcome to the Formula Student Germany 2008!
Join the Brunel Race at our stand. As a virtual race driver you’ll be able to win the Grand Prix at the Hockenheimring. The fastest driver gets the chance to win 2 tickets for the Formula 1 Event at Nürburgring 2009.”
If you don’t know what Formula Student is…you may want to read this:
“Students build a single seat formula racecar with which they can compete against teams from all over the world. The competition is not won solely by the team with the fastest car, but rather by the team with the best overall package of construction, performance, and financial and sales planning.
Formula Student challenges the team members to go the extra step in their education by incorporating into it intensive experience in building and manufacturing as well as considering the economic aspects of the automotive industry. Teams take on the assumption that they are a manufacturer developing a prototype to be evaluated for production. The target audience is the non-professional Weekend-Racer, for which the racecar must show very good driving characteristics such as acceleration, braking and handling. It should be offered at a very reasonable cost and be reliable and dependable. Additionally, the car’’s market value increases through other factors such as aesthetics, comfort and the use of readily available, standard purchase components.
The challenge the teams face is to compose a complete package consisting of a well constructed racecar and a sales plan that best matches these given criteria. The decision is made by a jury of experts from the motorsport, automotive and supplier industries. The jury will judge every team’s car and sales plan based on construction, cost planning and sales presentation. The rest of the judging will be done out on the track, where the students demonstrate in a number of performance tests how well their self-built racecars fare in their true environment.”
Starting this friday there will be a livestream available (Flash and Windows Media). Great stuff!
Source 1: Livestream
Source 2: http://formulastudent.tv/
Source 3: http://www.formulastudent.de
Das wunderbare Leipziger Team tritt nun bald wieder mit dem .NET Open Space 2008 in Erscheinung:
“Die besten Gespräche hat man fern ab von einer festgelegten Agenda, bei einem Kaffee und beim “du”. Dort gibt es keine Rollenaufteilung in Sprecher / Zuhörer und die Themen finden sich vor Ort ganz von selbst. Das ist die Idee vom .NET Open Space. Hier sind alle gleich. Auch die Organisatoren halten sich im Hintergrund und moderieren nur ab und an etwas. Die Verantwortlichen der Themenfelder sorgen mit Einladungen für Teilnehmer darin.
.NET Open Space besteht derzeit aus den drei parallelen Themenfeldern:
Eine Agenda gibt es nicht, dafür aber einen Zeitplan:
Source: http://netopenspace.de/
I am once again pleased to present the official Trailer for this years FIWAK. FIWAK is the annual outdoor-conference presented by FeM e.V.. This year these lectures are planned (german only):
FIWAK takes place from 20. to 22. June 2008 in the forest around Elgersburg – a small town near Ilmenau. But now watch the trailer:
Source 1: FIWAK Homepage
Once again it’s time for the annual forest-lan-partyesk-camp organized and held by FeM e.V..
It’s the 5th FIWAK (FemImWaldAußerKontrolle) taking place from 20th to 22nd June 2008 in the Forest (Freilichtbühne) near Elgersburg/Germany.
You can still sign up if you like to come and watch the lectures and camp with the people there. If you like to get an more detailed impression of the last FIWAK just take a look here.
Source 1: everything about FIWAK on this blog.
Source 2: FIWAK Einschreibesystem
Next tuesday it’s once again MacWorld-time – Apple will kick off it’s developer conference with a keynote and the guys of bits-und-so are going to meet and live-stream their comments and thoughts.
Source: http://www.bitsundso.de/live/
The agenda of this years STC is online. You can take a look here.
“Das Datum steht fest: Unsere STC 2008 findet am 15.05.2008 statt!
Wir laden Dich herzlich nach Berlin ein und freuen uns auf einen tollen Tag mit Dir! Es erwartet Dich eine tolle Location, spannende Vorträge und Austausch mit Microsoft-Experten und –Ansprechpartnern, so dass Du ganz im Sinne des Networkings Deiner Karriere auf die Beine helfen kannst.
Zudem hast Du hier die Chance mit zu verfolgen, welches Imagine Cup Team im Software Design die deutsche Fahne beim internationalen Finale in Paris vertreten wird. Der Imagine Cup ist der weltweit größte Technologiewettbewerb für Schüler und Studierende – alle Infos zum Wettbewerb findest Du unter www.imaginecup.info.”
Stattfinden wird die STC dieses Jahr in der Kalkscheune in Berlin.
Source 1: http://www.studentconference.de
Source 2: STC 2007
Source 3: http://www.kalkscheune.de/
I told you, I would write about the things I am working on for the past months. And last week TechFest 2008 took place in Redmond/WA at Microsoft. Almost the whole team I am working with was there – I haven’t spoken to anybody yet personally but it seems to have gone well:
“Microsoft Research’s TechFest is an annual event that brings researchers from Microsoft’s labs around the world to Redmond to share their latest work with the product teams. Attendees will experience some of the freshest, most innovative technologies emerging from Microsoft’s research efforts. The event provides a forum in which product teams and researchers can discuss the incredible work occurring in the labs, thereby encouraging effective technology transfer into Microsoft products.”
fast forward to minute 24…one of the interesting bits starts right there!
Source 1: http://wm.microsoft.com/ms/research/events/TechFest2008/TF08Keynote.wmv
Source 2: http://research.microsoft.com/techfest/
Source 3: http://www.schrankmonster.de/PermaLink,guid,cf5f2c46-60d2-4bb6-b58b-c50f5f3ce4d8.aspx
Now in its third year, MIX is an intimate opportunity for cutting-edge technical, creative and business strategists to engage Microsoft in a conversation about the future of the web. Come explore the latest wave of opportunities and help redefine the boundaries between: content and commerce, PC and TV, Windows and the Web. “
Since two of my colleagues wrote about their work at Microsoft Research I wanted to write at least something about it…just like Andreas said:
“One reason I recently don’t blog too much is the fact that I am a bit restricted in what I can tell. Being involved in some exciting projects, the confidentiality of these projects does not allow much publicity.”
So really the only thing I can write about is that I am honored to work with these great people and being part of the process of creating great software.
So – for now I am on my way back to Cambridge – the next article will be written from there…
Of course I will write about all the things when I am allowed to do so…
Source 1: Martin Calsyn
Source 2: Andreas Heil
Source 3: http://research.microsoft.com/ero/
Unfortunately I only had the time to get into the last day of the ready.for.takeoff Launch Conference for Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008. It took place in Frankfurt/Main in Germany from the 19th to 21st February 2008 and it surely was a great event.
Besides the real great tracks there’s this little thing every participant got:
Source: http://www.microsoft.com/germany/aktionen/ready-for-take-off/default.aspx
Damn there’s quite a lack of decent food in UK…that’s all I got:
In the next hours I will be on the plane to UK for my one week stay in Cambridge… what I am doing there and everything else when I’m there…
Everybody needs more than one job these days and so does FeM. One team at the Chaos Communication Camp 07 and one at the Hockenheimring, recording and live streaming the events.
You may ask what “Formula Student” is…:
“Students build a single seat formula racecar with which they can compete against teams from all over the world. The competition is not won solely by the team with the fastest car, but rather by the team with the best overall package of construction, performance, and financial and sales planning.
Formula Student challenges the team members to go the extra step in their education by incorporating into it intensive experience in building and manufacturing as well as considering the economic aspects of the automotive industry. Teams take on the assumption that they are a manufacturer developing a prototype to be evaluated for production. The target audience is the non-professional Weekend-Racer, for which the racecar must show very good driving characteristics such as acceleration, braking and handling. It should be offered at a very reasonable cost and be reliable and dependable. Additionally, the car’’s market value increases through other factors such as aesthetics, comfort and the use of readily available, standard purchase components.
The challenge the teams face is to compose a complete package consisting of a well constructed racecar and a sales plan that best matches these given criteria. The decision is made by a jury of experts from the motorsport, automotive and supplier industries. The jury will judge every team’s car and sales plan based on construction, cost planning and sales presentation. The rest of the judging will be done out on the track, where the students demonstrate in a number of performance tests how well their self-built racecars fare in their true environment.”
Overview map of the event
As soon as the Live-Streams are available I will keep you updated…
Source 1: http://www.formulastudent.de
Die Koch Media GmbH sucht ab sofort Studenten und interessierte für Testvorführungen neuer Video- und Computerspiele:
“Wenn Sie bereit wären, natürlich gegen eine kleine Gegenleistung, die Entwicklung eines neuen Spiels (plattformunabhängig) zu verfolgen und zu beeinflußen und dies auch mehrmals in den kommenden Monaten machen würden, melden Sie sich bitte unter der Telefon-Nummer: 
089-24245196.”
Source: http://www.kochmedia.de
As ususal here’s the schematic overview of the things behind the curtain:
Source: http://www.implementierungsdetail.de/index.php?n=Main.TeamStreaming
Once again FeM is recording and live streaming a Chaos Computer Club event. The Chaos Communication Camp starts today and you can watch everything live:
“The Chaos Communication Camp is an international, five-day open-air event for hackers and associated life-forms. The Camp features two conference tracks with interesting lectures, a workshop-track and over 30 villages providing workshops and gettogethers covering a specific topic.”
Chaos Communication Camp 2007
The International Hacker Open Air Gathering
8|9|10|11|12th August 2007
Finowfurt near Berlin, Germany (Old Europe)
“You can participate! Bring your tent and join our villages. The Camp has everything you need: power, internet, food and fun. The 100.000 square meter areal features enough space to camp, cozy places to hang out and a nice pool and lake to swim and do nautic experiments.”
There are two lecture halls called “foo” and “bar”:
Live Stream (WMV) “foo”
Live Stream (WMV) “bar”
Of course like at every CCC event you can grab an up-to-date schedule called “Fahrplan” here. The only thing I did not mention yet is the FeM-Village Wiki page…oh well..done 
Source 1: http://www.fem.tu-ilmenau.de
Source 2: http://events.ccc.de/camp/2007/Streams
Source 3: http://events.ccc.de/camp/2007/Fahrplan/
Source 4: http://events.ccc.de/camp/2007/FeM_Village
Oh well. Just after the 43 thousand Euro pile-of-metal arrived some of our office-technicians just thought: It’s tea time, we got a new toy, would that blend?
So they got the tea set and the digital camera out:
We don’t just think of our new hardware as the core equipment of a enormous network. We think of it… well… in a different way.
Source: http://www.fem.tu-ilmenau.de
FeM is in need of a decent conferencing system for years now. And it seems that there’s something really cool showing up in the next days. As of now Microsoft is going to put it’s Roundtable on sale.
“Microsoft RoundTable is a very cool videoconferencing system featuring 360° panoramic views powered by its 5 built-in cameras.”
“The RoundTable actually installs two USB camera devices. The first is the Active Speaker which uses the RoundTable’s 6 microphones to locate where in the room the active speaker is and then focus one of the 5 cameras onto that person. I suspect it may actually use 2 cameras to focus on a person, since it always appears that the speaker is “centered” which probably would require at least 2 camera images and then the images are “spliced” together, processed, and then transmitted over the USB cable. The second USB camera device is the panoramic camera which combines the 5 camera images into a single panoramic image.”
Source: Roundtable Review
Today I had a talk about IP-TV in our local research network – a project I am involved in the past year. And since I did some of the legal and coding work (YAPS) I was the one who wanted to talk about it the most…
First here’s the slidedeck:
The talk was recorded and you can watch it as soon as the post-production team has finished working on it – I’ll keep you posted.
Source: Slidedeck as PDF
We spent the last two days in Duisburg attending the Student Technology Conference 2007.
“From Software Architecture, User Interface and Robotics to Games Development with the XNA framework: in use and brand new technologies of the IT – industry will be presented and demonstrated at technologically advanced level. Microsofts Student Technology Conference is the perfect opportunity to engage with potential employers and to get in touch with Microsofts .NET technology. Additionally the German Finals in Microsofts premiere technology competition, the Imagine Cup 2007, will have its final in the Software Design invitational right here!”
the keynote
view from our hotel room…nice, eh?
Source: http://www.studentconference.de
The trailer for this years FIWAK is done:
I wrote quite a lot of code for the 23rd Chaos Communication Congress. And because of that I want to make it publicy available for everyone to download and use. It’s all GPL (because of the libaries used) so use it according to the license.
You can learn how to:
Download: CodeOnCongress.zip
Und wie versprochen gibt es hier nun die Slides des .NET Compact Framework Vortrags (Version 1.0 und 2.0)
Download hier.
The planning process started way earlier than last year but as usual some things remain until the very last minute before everything starts. But since this year the teamwork and enthusiasm was extraordinary we finally made it almost as planned. We surely did not reach our goal of releasing the recordings hours after the talk ended. Mainly because we underestimated the amount of knowledge and pain it took to actually get the recordings running on the iPod. It was one of the guidelines for this years official recordings: they had to run on current generation video iPods and they had to have all the metatags. So the team did it and we ended up releasing the first half (nearly) of the 23c3 recordings into the public only 2 weeks instead of the 4-6 months of last year. Even better: we managed to improve the video quality and even got smaller files. That wouldn’t been possible without the encoding-pipeline knowledge that Michael Feiri brought into the team. With that knowledge it also took several days to actually build the working pipeline.(yes the iPod is one special piece of hardware) The complete encoding-pipeline we used will be documented and released soon.
So after all that planning we finally packed our stuff and hit the road:
After some hours and the unpacking the video studio looked like this:
here’s a close up of the Windows Media Encoders, the h.264 encoding machine and the storage (all from behind):
So we surely brought enough processing power to berlin. And this is what did take the picture:
BTW: the black machine in the background just
died during the keynote speech…
Want to see what it’s like watching “out of the window” of the video studio? No problem:
or how about another view of the studio:
So. So you had some pictures of the video studio and the setup. But I bet you want to know some more details about the setup itself. I created an overview for you:
Since last years setup was completely digital (planned) and we ended up using the DV-tape backup since all the recordings were screwed up we thought it might be a good idea to go back one step and use analog video as in FBAS to transport and record the talks. We also had the DV-tape backup this year and to be honest in some cases we have to fall back to that. Less than 10 out of 130 recordings are screwed up so we have to use the DV backup. That means 120 of them worked out as planned. Great! We are currently cutting and encoding them and as you read this more than half of them should be up on the official servers and the mirrors.
Now in the aftermath of the congress we learned a new lesson: there’s maybe one or another speaker that would not allow us releasing their talk recording. In the future we think of having something like a “don’t record me”-list to avoid misunderstandings.
Heute um 18 Uhr findet das zweite .NET Usergroup Treffen in Ilmenau (Campus, Haus F, Rechnerlabor) statt.
Agenda:
Die Teilnahme am Treffen ist kostenlos, unverbindlich und nicht anmeldepflichtig.
Das ganze kann man auch nochmal auf www.dotnetcommunity.de nachlesen. Dort und hier wird es dann auch nach der Veranstaltung die Slides geben.
It’s done.
The first 53 recordings of the 23c3 are currently uploaded to the server. The remaining ones will be available in the next few days.
You have the following choices:
ftp: ftp://dewy.fem.tu-ilmenau.de/CCC/23C3/video/
Because of that major hardware fault on the first day of 23c3 I was not able to blog about the things that happened at the congress. I am going to catch up on everything soon.
In the meantime take this information: The recordings are made. The majority of the recordings is working as planned and is going to be encoded and released in the next hours/days. There are some lectures where something went wrong, but since we had a great backup strategy nothing is lost and will be put online later.
One question came up frequently: What format and codec will the final official recordings have?
Here is the answer:
Video: h.264, 640×480, x264-Parameter: –no-cabac –level=30 –subme=7 –me=umh –crf=23 –ref=2 –partitions=all –mixed-refs
Audio: AAC, (using neroaac)
The machines are currently encoding and muxing the recordings. So stay tuned to get your hands on the high-quality official recordings soon.
BTW: Thanks to Michael Feiri for his in depth knowledge about the whole encoding process and tools that are used and his help with all the hassle around it.
FeM e.V. is officially taking the last steps of the “journey to 23c3″. Expect us to arrive in Berlin about 1300.
Stay tuned for more pictures and text about the 23c3 streaming and recording setup/team/…
One more step forward: The 23c3 opening credit generator is done. It’s an application which reads the Fahrplan XML file and generates an opening credit movie file which we will use in the recording and encoding process.
And this is what it finally looks like:
After clicking the “generate” button it’ll create the animation on the fly with all the blending and font rendering and write it to a movie file in it’s own directory. I used the AForge which is GPL v2 which makes the whole thingy GNU v2. Damn, I hate this license crap B-)
Sourcecode: Vorspanngenerator_sourcecode.zip (2,17 MB)
“CONGRATULATIONS! Your group (DotNet Community Thüringen) has been approved to be an INETA member based on your dedication to the .NET user group community.”
Yesterday the first usergroup meeting took place in the computer pool of the faculty of mechanical engineering. Sven and Nico had their lectures for which you can get the slides as soon as possible on the website of the usergroup.
Update:
Windows Presentation Foundation (Sven Hubert)
AJAX with ASP.NET (Nico Orschel)
Source: http://www.dotnetcommunity.de
ATTENTION: The information in this article are not final and are subject to be changed during the plannings.
In less than 2 months the 23c3 takes place in Berlin/Germany (December 27.-30th 2006). And the plannings are in full progress. We had several brainstorm sessions and I think that we finally do have a plan. First of all: We learned a lot from the 22c3 live streaming and recording work. And to give you an overview of the things we want to achieve this time:
To achieve these goals we’re going to need considerably more hardware than last year, which means:
So. The camera setup is almost identical to the last one. But this time we want to use a better FBAS signal instead of the in-house HF-cable-TV. The WMV encoding stays as it was last year. We plan to install an additional MPEG-2 hardware encoding machine which produces high-quality MPEG-2 data (which gets edited and compressed for download distribution as fast as possible).
Since we’re sill in planning stage we cannot speak about bitrates, live streams and such. Everything is subject to change, it’s just a draft. But stay tuned and read frequently. Oh… and comments are welcome.
Source 1: https://events.ccc.de/congress/2006/Home
Source 2: https://events.ccc.de/congress/2006/Angel_FAQ
It starts fairly early this year: even FeM is already preparing and planning for this years live streaming and recording. The public wiki of 23c3 is online and even the Call for Participation screams: visit me!
So, remember: beside the official wiki pages, you can always come and check here for information about FeM activities on 23c3…(streaming, recording,…)
Source: http://events.ccc.de/congress/2006/cfp/
Source: FeM 23c3 recording and streaming project (no website, no link)
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