Ben Pilling is the Technical Marketing Manager of Sony Digital Imaging Europe. In this video (filmed using the new 24mm f1.4 G Master lens (pre-order for $1400 at Amazon) (mostly set at f1.4 for max bokeh effect (maybe too much bokeh?) in this video) on the Sony A7III camera ($2000 at Amazon)), Ben Pilling lists some of the latest camera achievements by Sony in the Full Frame mirrorless market. With their impressive Eye Autofocus for photos, in-body image stabilization, dual memory card slots (1 UHS-II the other UHS-I), true full frame 4K video without crop (only at 4K24 on A7III), extremely stable face-tracking continuous autofocus for video (which I use in all of my A7III with 16-35mm G master lens videos which I list in this playlist), Sony can claim market leadership in the Full Frame market, not just in the mirrorless market. Which is why Nikon, Canon and Panasonic/Leica/Sigma are all announcing new Full Frame camera systems at this Photokina event. Sony can claim to have 48 lenses available for their full frame E-mount system, with a target of having 60 lenses available before 2020, they also announce improvements with their G master lens technologies such as a 3x faster and more accurate autofocus motor as is present in the new 24mm f1.4 G master. I even get to ask him in this video about the upcoming A7SIII Full Frame for video, A7000 APS-C “high end” all those that are rumored over the past months at http://sonyalpharumors.com but which Sony decided not to launch yet at this Photokina event. For those I am hoping Sony will include a flip out display, 4K60, dual UHS-II SD card slots, no overheating with no 30min record limitations (EU tax still in effect or not, at least provide users with a paid plugin to unlock unlimited recording), H265 options for lower bitrate recording at same quality for faster YouTube 4K uploading. I’d even like in-camera basic trim/split editing and live streaming (perhaps even with multi-camera) support. A better and stronger IBIS (at least as good as GH5) would be good too.
Jon Masters of Red Hat talks Arm Servers, fixing Meltdown/Spectre, HPC, A64FX, Ampere
Jon Masters is the Computer Architect, Chief Arm Architect with extensive experience at Red Hat with the deeper levels of CPU and Software optimization, adapting and preparing the ecosystem of Cloud, Supercomputing, talks about all the latest Arm Servers, including those coming up with the Marvell ThunderX2, Qualcomm Centriq 2400, Ampere eMag, talking about ARM 10nm vs Intel 14nm, talking about his involvement fighting the industry’s Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities, explaining some of the latest things done by Linaro in this space.
$399 GoPro Hero 7 Black, 4K60, EIS HyperSmooth stabilization, 10m waterproof
GoPro releases their new Hero 7 Black sports camera, with 4K60 recording support or 1080p 240fps support, they have their new electronic image stabilization which they call hypersmooth. GoPro claims their electronic image stabilization to be better than a gimball, but I just don’t believe it. Looking at samples on YouTube I just don’t see it being that amazing. It doesn’t seem much better than for example the GoPro 6 and I think a hundred other much cheaper sports cameras have electronic image stabilization in them too. It’s not worth $400 when it probably costs them less than $100 to manufacture. Probably even less than $50 to manufacture. I’d much rather see them include a mechanically stabilized sensor + electronic image stabilization, and any kind of optics that would enable for smooth and good looking bokeh with perfect autofocus would be interesting.
Lexar 1TB SD card and 1TB microSD card
Lexar is getting stronger and ramping up their product lines in the SD card and microSD card market in a big way, introducing new SD cards such as the 512GB 1000x (150MB/s read speed) SD card coming next month (or by November) and here also showing their 1TB SD card and microSD cards which might also reach the market shortly (depending on the exact pricing and demand depending on their price). Lexar can also bring 1TB at the 1000x (150MB/s read speed) type. It all depends on the demand but as advances in 3D memory keep advancing, hopefully the price and performance of these 1TB cards will be attractive for people to buy. I would personally really like to see more devices even smartphones come with more than 1 microSD card slot, I’d even like to be able to use 4 microSD card slots in a phone in some kind of RAID configuration that increases the speed and adds redundancy to my data. Same thing for cameras, I am only interested in new cameras that have at least 2 SD card slots in them (thus the new Nikon and Canon mirrorless cameras are not usable for me). I think perhaps also it would be nice to see some Chromebooks and other types of ARM Powered laptops (like the Windows 10 on Snapdragon laptops) come with more than 1 MicroSD or/and full sized SD card slots, for example to fit 4 SD card slots in one of those and have them run in RAID for speed and redundancy. Thus you could add 4TB to your Chromebook like that (3TB with one level of redundancy) or 3 SD or microSD card slots for redundant 2TB. Lexar is also showing their 3500x CFast up to 512GB capacity, 1066x CompactFlash up to 256GB, 2000x SD UHS-II 300MB/s up to 128GB capacity (for now), 1000x 150MB/s SD (512GB model coming by November), 633x microSD (A1 targetted for applications on phones) currently up to 256GB on the market (but them showing that 1TB prototype to show what’s coming), 1000x microSD up to 256GB, 1800x microSD up to 128GB. Lexar also shows their Professional Workflow line HR1 is USB3.0 and HR2 is with Thunderbolt 2 which includes the card readers for every card type. Lexar also announces their new NS100 and NS200 2.5” SATA III (6Gb/s) Solid-State Drives (SSD) series, for use in laptops and desktops for faster start-ups, data transfers, and application loads with read speeds of up to 550MB/s, NS100 is available at $29 (120GB), $49 (240GB), $89 (480GB), and the NS200 is available at $79 (240GB), $109 (480GB).
Aputure Amaran MW, AL-MX, Aputure 120d II at Photokina 2018
Aputure shows some of their new LED lights for video and photo shooting, the new Aputure MW is their brightest compact light with 90 minute battery life at full brightness and up to 24 hour battery life at minimum brightness, charges by USB Type-C. It also comes with effects like paparazzi effect, fireworks effect, faulty light effect, lightning effect, TV effect. The AL-MX is about $150. Aputure AL-F7 is about $100. Aputure Light Storm 120d II is a higher spec $709 light with DMX512 Capability which is the worldwide industry standard for film & television studios, theatre, broadcast, and all forms of digital networking systems you can read more about it here https://www.aputure.com/products/ls-c120d-ii-1
Yongnuo cheap lenses for Canon/Nikon, lights and a Micro43 camera to use with a phone
Yongnuo shows their range of lenses for Canon and Nikon, all with autofocus support, such as their 14mm f2.8 wide angle for 400eur, 1/3rd the price compared with the native lens, they claim to provide about 80% of the performance. 85mm f1.8, 50mm f1.4, 50mm f1.8 costs 40eur. They also have lights and the YN43 camera that connects and uses a phone as the viewfinder over WiFi.
Laowa 10-18mm f4.5-5.6, Widest and Smallest Ultra Wide lens, 100mm f2.8 2:1 Ultra Macro
Laowa shows their new lenses, the 10-18mm f4.5-5.6, Laowa 100mm f2.8 World’s First 2:1 Ultra Macro.
Standardizing software support for 96Boards with Mani
Mani is an Applications Engineer at 96Boards team of Linaro. He works on improving the user experience with 96Boards by upstreaming it’s stadardized software support. He goes over the journey of how he started with 96Boards, what his initial responsibilities were and how it has been evolved over time. He also explains his recent work towards standardizing the software support for 96Boards and stresses the importance of having a unified software layout across all 96Boards of same category. In this video, he mentions his latest work towards standardizing the LED labels/triggers in Linux kernel and how that impacts the user experience on userspace library such as MRAA (https://github.com/intel-iot-devkit/mraa).
MRAA library with Mani of 96Boards
MRAA (https://github.com/intel-iot-devkit/mraa) is a low level skeleton library for Linux based systems which provides userspace access to the peripherals on 96Boards Consumer Edition boards using multiple interfaces such as C, C++, Python, Java and Javascript. Mani, being the Co-Maintainer of this library, talks about the history of how 96Boards started using this library instead of their legacy 96BoardsGPIO library. Also, he explains how the MRAA library serves well for them to handle multiple 96Boards with different SoCs which no other platform is doing.
96Boards Mezzanine Initiative
96Boards Mezzanine Initiative is a community-led, organized and maintained initiative. This initiative aims to expand the 96boards ecosystem and promote open-hardware.
96Boards Mezzanine-Community GitHub: https://github.com/96boards/mezzanine-community
Open Source Academics (OSA) by 96Boards with Robert Wolff
Open Source Academics (OSA) by 96Boards (https://github.com/osacademics) aims to facilitate and expand the educational experience on a global stage by providing scalable curriculum and standardized course materials through an open source platform. To fully understand the diverse nature of OSA, this summary will be broken down into seven discrete sections: Motivation, Mission, Platform, Stakeholders, Infinity Committee, Incentives and Roadmap.
OSA wants to unite industry and academia to create, and host a fully functional and open sourced educational platform which facilitates consumption and contribution of standardized educational curriculum and incentivized course materials on a global scale (with a current focus on STEAM content). OSA will work with stakeholders to achieve a balanced set of standards and incentives which encourage collaboration and drive content quality and growth.
You can watch more 96Boards videos at https://youtube.com/96boards
Zhiyun Weebill Lab with belt, best Gimball in the world?
Zhiyun Tech shows their new Weebill Lab stabilizer for mirrorless cameras up to 3kg. It also offers control, monitoring and streaming to tablets or smartphones over Wi-Fi, the tripod can be folded to hold the WEEBILL LAB as a traditional vertically-held stabilizer, or it can be snapped on the horizontal part of the body to offer a horizontal grip, for underslung shots and for a steady two hand grip. They say it is 50% smaller while delivering 80% more power compared to other stabilizers in its class, it also comes with double quick-release plates (Manfrotto/Arca-Swiss) for easy setup and fast equipment switching, without the need to re-balance. It can operate for 10 hours on a charge and it can simultaneously charge the camera installed on it. Zhiyun also releases a new very light optional monopod and a belt to carry its weight onto the top of one’s leg and around the belt, which makes it much easier to operate for extensive use cases such as the way I video-blog for 10 hours in one go during a whole day at a trade show.
Lexar 128GB V90 2000x 300MB/s SD card and Lexar Workflow readers up to Thunderbolt 2
The Lexar brand of SD cards and memory is acquired by Longsys of China and continues to provide their range of SD cards, CF cards, card readers and many other products for camera productions and more. The Lexar Professional Workflow line of products include Thunderbolt 2 or USB 3.0 high-speed transfer of RAW images, high-res photos, and HD, 3D, and 4K video supported formats include SDHC/SDXC UHS I and UHS-II, CompactFlash UDMA 7, XQD 2.0, CFast and CFast 2.0 (Thunderbolt or USB 3.0), and microSDHC/microSDXC UHS-I and UHS-II.
Panasonic S1 and S1R Full Frame with 4K60, Dual IS, Dual Memory
Panasonic announces their upcoming new Full Frame camera system using the Leica L-Mount. This camera will do 4K60 with an XQD and an SD card slot, a 3-tilt display (not sure yet if that means with flip out support or not), the limitations of the 4K60 when it comes to cropping or record length limitations are not known yet. The Panasonic S1 will be 24 megapixel while the Panasonic S1R will have a 47 megapixel sensor. The camera is coming on the market early 2019 already, that is what they are saying anyway. Things like weight, exact size, battery life and other things are not announced or defined yet as this system is now under development. Hopefully Panasonic will have their autofocus technology fixed and fully usable (unlike with their GH5) in this camera.
Fujitsu A64FX Post-K Supercomputer: World’s Fastest Arm Processor
Fujitsu A64FX is the new fastest Arm processor in the world, built on 7nm it has 2.7 TFLOPS performance per chip suitable for high-end HPC and AI, they aim to create with it the world’s fastest supercomputer with it by 2021. A64FX is the first processor using the new Armv8-A Scalable Vector Extension (SVE) to accelerate a wide range of large-scale scientific computing, including deep learning. Fujitsu is working closely with Linaro to enrich the Arm HPC ecosystem. A64FX will be featured in the post-K computer, a supercomputer being developed by Fujitsu and RIKEN as a successor to the K computer, which achieved the world’s highest performance in 2011. The organizations are striving to achieve post-K application execution performance up to 100 times that of the K computer. It offers a number of features, including broad utility supporting a wide range of applications, massive parallelization through the Tofu interconnect, low power consumption, and mainframe-class reliability.
You can watch Fujitsu’s keynote at Linaro Connect here
System76 wants to make a high-end ARM Laptop and Desktop
System76 is a computer manufacturer based in Denver Colorado specializing in laptops, desktops and servers running Linux. System76 talks about their upcoming efforts to move manufacturing in-house, and what that may mean for the future of the ARM Powered Linux Laptop and Desktop.
Arm NN and the Linaro Machine Learning Initiative
Jem Davies is the General Manager of the Machine Learning Group at Arm, he talks about the new Machine Learning Collaboration with Arm NN and Linaro, where Arm is donating the Arm NN inference engine and software developer kit (SDK) to Linaro’s Machine Intelligence Initiative. As part of this initiative – which aims to be a focal point for collaborative engineering in the ML space – Arm is also opening Arm NN to external contributions.
Linaro’s Machine Learning Initiative will initially focus on inference for Arm Cortex-A SoCs and Arm Cortex-M MCUs running Linux and Android, both for edge compute and smart devices. The team will collaborate on defining an API and modular framework for an Arm runtime inference engine architecture based on plug-ins supporting dynamic modules and optimized shared Arm compute libraries. The work will rapidly develop to support a full range of processors, including CPUs, NPUs, GPUs, and DSPs and it is expected that Arm NN will be a crucial part of this.
You can watch Jem Davies keynote at Linaro Connect here
Chris Benson talks AI in the Tech Industry at Linaro Connect
Chris Benson is an AI & digital transformation strategist, solution architect, and keynote speaker / evangelist who specializes in deep learning – the neural computation technology that is driving the artificial intelligence revolution.
He was a member of Accenture’s first dedicated AI Team, and went on to create and build Honeywell’s first dedicated AI Team.
Chris is the co-host of the Practical AI podcast (https://changelog.com/practicalai) – produced by Changelog Media – which makes artificial intelligence practical, productive, and accessible to everyone.
He is a frequent keynote speaker on artificial intelligence at conferences, broadcasts, and events around the world.
Chris is the Founder & Organizer of the Atlanta Deep Learning Meetup, one of the largest AI communities in the world, with about 2000 members.
You can find out more about Chris Benson at his website: https://chrisbenson.com
You can watch Chris Benson’s keynote at Linaro Connect here
Start using ARM Servers now with Ed Vielmetti of Packet
In this video, @vielmetti, director of @worksonarm, discusses technical issues regarding integration, testing, Cloud Native and network workloads, and directions for the project for the coming year.
The Works on Arm cluster is run by Packet for Arm to provide test, development, and data center CI/CD resources for community projects to build on arm64. The project also includes a weekly video office hours, a weekly newsletter, and a channel on the Packet Community Slack and Freenode IRC (#worksonarm) for community discussion.
Arm on Arm with David Rusling, Linaro CTO
Linaro CTO David Rusling talks about some of the latest things Linaro is focusing on, to enable Arm development on Arm, working with companies to bring Arm Powered developer desktops and laptops standardizing systems with an Architecture for the Embedded Space (EBBR). He also talks about Automotive, Machine Learning and more.
