NBC – NerdBeach

Star Trek is Just Around the Corner (Infographic)

It was a different technological world when Star Trek first hit the airwaves. There were no personal computers, smartphones were only something you find in science fiction stories, and man had not even ventured to the moon. Yet the show was able to paint a future where technology worked with everyday life to the better of mankind.

But that snapshot view, rooted in science fiction, is becoming closer to reality with each year. In many ways the smartphone has become both communicator and tricorder, of sorts. And it is only getting better with each advance. So, let’s take a look at the infographic, which examines how Star Trek really is just around the corner (except for the starships – that will still take a while…).

via source: Sortable.com

How the Olympic dive camera works

Greg Chaffins

Have you been watching the Olympics and wondered how they got such beautiful and smooth diver shots? The DiveCam is responsible for grabbing those pictures, and it works quite well, being powered by the same force that the diver uses – gravity.

The DiveCam is a camera that sits on a vertical mount the same height as the diving platform, and the camera is released at the same time as the diver leaves the platform. Gravity works the same on both diver and camera, and so the DiveCam follows the diver in sync all the way into the water.

The DiveCam was originally dreamed up by NBC's David Neal, and he took it to Garret Brown, inventor of the Steadicam. Brown added safety stops and remote tilt and pan controls, allowing the cameraman to keep the camera centered on the diver during the run.

So there you have it – the camera shots are taken by literally dropping a camera over the edge to follow the diver into the water. I love it when technology works well on a simple premise.

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DRM Rears Ugly Head in Vista Broadcast TV Recording

Greg Chaffins

Confirmation of a DRM flag that could be controlled by broadcasters at will to prevent home recordings of selected shows was confirmed to exist last Monday night when users of Vista Media Center found that they could not record NBC prime time programming.

This means that broadcasters could potentially restrict home recording (which is often used for simply time shifting broadcasts) at profitable times such as DVD releases. Another use could be to force users to watch their program selection as broadcast, ensuring accurate rating collection (especially at sweeps time). In other words, yet one more reason to avoid anything that is labeled DRM.

Aloha from the DRM Free Beach

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