Chris Davison

No new wires

Circuitry and methods are presented for detecting the presence of a spectrally distributed signal having a known distribution, e.g. spread spectrum, in a strong noise environment. The signal is split into two channels, each filtering a predetermined frequency band within the given spectrum. The channels are tuned and balanced so that they pass differential amounts of signal energy that may be present but provide equalized noise outputs. The channels are alternately coupled to the input of an energy detector which provides a DC component responsive to the difference in the signal levels of interest, while effectively cancelling noise energy components in each channel. In the spread spectrum example the frequency bands are typically selected to the maximum and a null location in a distribution.

You oughta be in pictures

A golden age of old worlds, new worlds and hybrids.

An interview with Matt Winston

A. MW: With dad’s films, from Aliens to Terminator to Predator, Jurassic Park, Iron Man and Avatar, what set him apart was the fact that he embraced all technologies. He loved digital technology, and 20 years ago, when digital techniques came in, he was the first creature guy to embrace it, cofounding Digital Domain with James Cameron. He was never afraid of computers. He loved them. He always thought that they’re just another tool in the artist’s kit. If you can use the digital techniques with the practical techniques you will keep the audience guessing and they will buy it as real, and that’s always what dad cared about, to make them believe it’s real.

Meet the new boss

“We feel that we have recreated the mass media.” So said Kim Malone Scott, director of sales and operations for Google’s AdSense, to the New York Times about the Seth MacFarlane deal in an apparent effort to announce the arrival of the new boss. Is Google the new boss? No, despite assertions to the contrary the great majority of the money and the eyeballs remain with the traditional mass media networks, and this will continue to be so. Is Google’s online syndication business model the new boss, one that can and will be adapted by other media networks? We all agree that the old dinosaur of a business model is dying a quick death, and so we consider which new species is evolving to take its place in the media ecosystem. What does this new species look like? How does it function? In general, it is smaller and more nimble, its DNA mutates much more quickly than that of the old dinosaurs, and so it is more capable of continually adapting to changing environments. One example of this new business model is the deal between Google and MacFarlane, one facilitated by Media Rights Capital, the ad agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky and their client Burger King. As I write this article in October 2008, this deal has accumulated 14 million views in its first three weeks. A network television show that averaged 5 million viewers a week wouldn’t be an “American Idol” or “Grey’s Anatomy”, so while these are impressive numbers for online video, it is not the number of eyeballs to date that is of greatest interest but rather the underlying business model that generates them, on both the advertising and content sides. So how does it work, what is this new business model that Google and Seth MacFarlane are using? In short, it’s pull instead of push. The content is not pushed toward viewers from one central location, but rather they are encouraged to pull on it from many decentralized locations. MacFarlane’s videos are distributed across thousands of websites using Google’s AdSense, instead of being anchored to one specific destination or network. In terms of targeting, the videos aren’t sent to random websites but rather to those that are known to be frequented by MacFarlane’s primary demographic of young males; it’s online syndication across Google’s websites as well those of its numerous third-party partners. Consumer pulls can be multiplied exponentially, since each video clip can be quickly and easily shared via recommendation to one’s friends and/or by embedding the video into one’s webpage or blog. Who is funding this new business model, how are these videos monetized? As with a traditional television network, the videos are funded by advertising, in this case from Burger King. Every time someone clicks on one of MacFarlane’s videos, BK pays a fee that is divided up among the creator, MRC, Google, and the website hosting that copy of the video. The more viewers cotton to a particular video, the more they share it with their friends, the more funds roll in courtesy

Distant vision

Phil McKinney is vice president and chief technology officer of the Personal Systems Group at Hewlett-Packard. Phil oversees the group’s long-range technical strategy and research and development, and is also the general manager of the group’s gaming business unit. Phil has been dubbed “chief seer” by some in Silicon Valley; I had a chance to speak with him at CES to discuss simplicity, touch, and 3D.

Catch a wave: Digital water washes over 2008

When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences calls you up on stage to receive an Academy Award, chances are you’re having a pretty good night. Earlier this year, the AMPAS held the Scientific and Technical Academy Awards at a glittering event at the Beverly Wilshire hotel. Several of the awards were presented for fluid simulations and so, as the saying goes, it is digital water’s year. I had a chance to speak with three award-winning teams, from Industrial Light & Magic, Digital Domain, and Scanline. The award given to ILM was presented to Nick Rasmussen, Frank Losasso Petterson, and Ron Fedkiw (also of Stanford) for the development of a fluid simulation system that achieves large-scale water effects within ILM’s Zeno framework. It includes integrating particle-level sets, parallel computation, and tools that enable the artistic direction of the results.

Get in the game: An interview with Phil Frazier

The business part of show business involves maximizing revenues while minimizing costs, or, with Donald Trump’s forgiveness: money, money, money, money . . . . . . .mun-ay! In straight financial terms, traditional forms of entertainment post some impressive numbers. The all-time record for a movie opening is

Living the digital life: an interview with Scott Smyers

158.4 million, the amount that The Dark Knight pulled in its opening three-day frame. It’s a huge amount of money, besting Spider Man, Superman, Shrek, Pirates, and so on, but it pales in comparison to, say, pulling

Game on: an interview with Seamus Blackley

310 million in one day. This incredible feat was accomplished by Grand Theft Auto IV, the current record-holder among video game openings. Not for nothing, but GTA IV basically doubled Batman’s take, and did it in one-third the time. So it has become clear that a sea-change has taken place in the entertainment industry. It is still true that when people think of the “entertainment industry” or “show business” they think of Hollywood, of movies and television, but it is also now clear that video games have become the dominant form of entertainment. Step aside, movies and TV, there’s a new game in town. Revenue is not a good indication of business dominance, you say? Then consider a recently-released study from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, which shows that 97% of all American teens are playing video games, including 99% of teen boys and 94% of teen girls. Every kid in America plays video games, and there’s no reason to think that this generational dominance won’t be maintained going forward, given the rapid advances in gameplay that are sure to continue. We all know that Steven Spielberg is the creative genius behind some of the greatest movies, we all know that Seth MacFarlane and Aaron Spelling have been very successful in television, but who are the creative geniuses behind top video games? One company with a successful game or two is Electronic Arts, their EA Sports division being the creators of many top titles including the 20-year-long Madden NFL series, the most successful sports games of all time. Who is behind Madden? Why is it so successful? How has it changed over the years and what might the future hold? I recently attended E3 and had a chance to interview Phil Frazier, senior producer for Madden NFL 09, to discuss these issues and others.

CBS vision: an interview with Dave Poltrack

Simulcast distortion in a receiver when using a same-frequency repeater is minimized by applying double modulation to a signal that is broadcast to the same-frequency repeater. A voice signal is applied without delay as AM on a carrier to a modulation index of up to 30%, and the same signal is also applied as FM on the same carrier with a time delay equal to the time delay in the same-frequency repeater. The same-frequency repeater detects the AM and applies the detected signal as FM on a carrier that is rebroadcast. Received FM signals are thus delayed by substantially the same amount whether they are received from the original broadcast or the same-frequency repeater.