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Humans are facing an existential crisis in climate change. We are also facing a crisis of collective action. As a species, we have every reason to . Humans are facing an existential crisis in climate change. We are also facing a crisis of collective action. As a species, we have every reason to slow the rise of global temperatures, but taking steps to cut carbon emissions is generally not in the short-term interest of individuals, companies, or countries. Where does that leave IT organizations? IT systems all around the world consume ever-increasing amounts of electric power, making them a critical factor in increasing carbon emissions. Many people in the industry are acutely aware of IT's climate impact and want to see it reduced, but minimizing IT's carbon footprint will entail a cost that many small businesses and multinational corporations are reluctant to bear. Curious about what might incentivize a shift to greener tech, I spoke to IT leaders who are pushing back on climate change. I found people working at every level of organizational leadership—from the top down to the bottom up—and pursuing a variety of strategies to reduce carbon consumption in company products and business models. Data drives climate change—and solutions When asked what drives IT's carbon emissions, most respondents pointed to data. In particular, the rising popularity of data lakes and the data centers that store them are a huge contributor to the problem. Given the primacy of data for modern businesses, companies that want to reduce their carbon footprint will have to make hard choices. "Companies would have to stop collecting a lot of (poor) data and storing it," says Chrissy Kidd, SEO manager at Splunk, which helps users sort through massive machine-generated data sets. "They won't do this because they're married to the idea that they are 'data driven' organizations, when most of them are not. We're also living in a data ecosystem, where everything is based on collecting and storing data, even when only an estimated 10% of that data gets 'used' beyond simple storage. Until we have less data to store, seemingly forever, IT companies will continue to emit more carbon than not," she said. The explosion of storage and its emissions in recent years was driven not only by data's usefulness (real or perceived), but by a fundamental shift in underlying economic factors. "In older models, storage was one of the most expensive components of a system, so we were very selective in what data was stored and how," says George Burns III. A senior consultant for cloud operations at SPR, a technology modernization firm, Burns notes that today, "the opposite is true, in that storage is often the least expensive component of a system, which has led many organizations to adopt a 'store everything forever' mentality." The most straightforward way to reduce data center emissions is to power those data centers with clean energy. This can turn out to be a quick win for companies looking to burnish their green credentials. As the cost of renewables continues to drop, it is also becoming a relatively inexpensive fix. "Customers of corporate colocation data centers are increasingly seeking more sustainable energy supplies, which thanks to recent progress they will be able to access more and more," says Chris Pennington, director of energy and sustainability at Iron Mountain. "Operators in our industry, Iron Mountain amongst them, have proven that renewables are a reliable and cost-effective energy source by activating innovative procurement solutions, and it is making clean energy more accessible to all." Solving IT's data problem with data A slew of companies are now trying to solve the data problem with data—that is, by using data analytics and other IT techniques to reduce the amount of stored data. For instance, Moogsoft, the developer of an AIOps incident management platform, uses machine learning algorithms to try to reduce the amount of data at rest and in motio...
Flocks of seagulls have one of the most ruthlessly efficient hunting methods in nature. Network designers could learn a lot from them. In the fabric of life, Mother Nature is a starkly efficient seamstress, able to weave together seemingly random strands of human, animal, and plant behavior into . Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker
Flocks of seagulls have one of the most ruthlessly efficient hunting methods in nature. Network designers could learn a lot from them. In the fabric of life, Mother Nature is a starkly efficient seamstress, able to weave together seemingly random strands of human, animal, and plant behavior into . In the fabric of life, Mother Nature is a starkly efficient seamstress, able to weave together seemingly random strands of human, animal, and plant behavior into orderly patterns, loose threads forming a tight-knit tapestry that can withstand the eternal test of time. And as humankind has evolved into Renaissance beings seeking perfection in the disciplines of art and science, we’ve returned to our roots, extracting inspiration from nature’s designs. We have engineered materials that are sturdier than ever, modeled after the oozing networks of the humble slime mold. And locomotive robots, propelled by the squishing trudge motions of an earthworm. And symmetric algorithms, which mimic the way shapes like snowflakes and sunflowers bloom spontaneously. Now, a team of researchers from the United Kingdom, China, and Austria are looking to use the habits of seagulls to build better cloud computing systems. In a paper published in Internet of Things and Cyber-Physical Systems, a journal from KeAi, which was founded in a partnership between Elsevier and China Science Publishing & Media, the researchers argue that using a “seagull optimization algorithm”—a so-called meta-heuristic algorithm that mimics the hunting and migration behavior of seagulls—can make cloud computing more energy efficient, cutting its power consumption by 5.5% and lightening its network traffic by 70%. Their study attacks the problem of connecting cloud computing’s virtual machines to physical ones, as near-infinite streams of data must all flow through physical supercomputers that process each workload. They often converge in sprawling edge-cloud data centers run by industry giants, which are strategically scattered across the globe, because being geographically close to internet consumers who are using the cloud lets the digital signals buzz back and forth at a faster rate. These data centers are huge energy gobblers. In 2017, they ate up 416 billion kilowatt-hours of power, or about 2% of the world’s total electricity cost. However, the researchers say that the way seagulls behave when they’re on the hunt for food or prey is one of the most ruthlessly efficient examples of an entity zeroing in on its target, with minimal excess energy expenditure. They suggest using an algorithm that imitates the habits of food-hunting seagulls to determine where to place virtual machines—which, in cloud computing, are like nodes that route multiple data workflows to the same physical supercomputers—within a network of server communications. The idea is to make the network’s traffic as efficient (and thus as light) as possible. So, if the supercomputers are like seagull food—hapless freshwater fish or shrimp that exist in limited numbers, and swim only in certain parts of the ocean—then the virtual machines are like the stalking birds of prey, eyeing their precious objective (which is a connection to a nearby physical machine), and mapping a path to it with the blistering urgency of a hungry carnivore. Seagulls do this while avoiding collisions with other seagulls, and their migration flight path over time naturally gravitates toward that of the fittest bird among them. When they lock onto a target and dive in for the kill, they vary their angle and speed deftly, resulting in a sort of downward spiral—calculated by study authors as a formula of cosines—that can predictably describe a striking seagull at any given time, relative to other seagulls in the area. It’s not the first time that the biological genius of seagulls has been noted. In 2019, a paper in Knowledge-Based Systems outlined how the seagull-optimization algorithm could mathematically model solutions for stronger const...
Heat reuse is touted as a way to make data centres sustainable and drivers of decarbonization. But it’s harder than it looks. Mark Bjornsgaard is . Mark Bjornsgaard is getting used to the attention. “Ten days ago, I wasn’t,” says the founder of Deep Green, referring to the unprecedented publicity his firm achieved by installing one of its digital boilers to heat a swimming pool in Exmouth, Devon. Something about using the waste heat generated from servers – a resource that apparently few people knew existed – seemed to capture the imagination of the British public. Since then, Bjornsgaard has been inundated by requests from other swimming pools for more information about its digital boilers, as well as local government leaders eager to learn how these pint-sized data centres might be used in their own public heating projects. “From a business point of view, it’s been absolutely amazing, because we are now walking into conversations which we didn’t think we’d have for a couple of years,” says Bjornsgaard. It’s also a sign of the times. Amid unprecedented fluctuations in energy insecurity thanks, in large part, to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, anxiety about rising electricity prices is at an all-time high across Europe. As well as sparking a conversation about national reliance on natural gas, attention has drifted toward how energy might be saved or put to better use – not least in a cloud computing infrastructure that generates more carbon emissions than the aviation industry, thanks in part to its elaborate and power-hungry cooling systems. All that electricity and heat energy could, critics argue, be put to much better use outside the data centre and for the benefit of society at large. Going by the law of physics that energy is never lost but merely changes form, it is conceivable that the many gigawatts of electricity used to power data centres could, if left uncooled, be converted into heat to warm thousands of homes and businesses. That potential has seen Norway and Germany pass laws mandating data centre operators have a plan – any plan – for heat reuse on their premises, while similar projects have seen the cloud warm greenhouses, fish farms, homes and offices. “And that’s good,” says Bjornsgaard, who professes a great belief in practical green energy solutions. When push comes to shove, he argues, “we can’t muck about for the next ten years with space lasers and cracking hydrogen and trying all these elaborate [projects] that we love to engineer.” The mechanics of heat reuse Servers get very hot, very quickly – so much so that your common variety rack would probably catch fire were it not artificially cooled. This inevitably compromises the overall electrical efficiency of the data centre, calculated using a ratio called Power Usage Effectiveness. The more power that can be used for computation over cooling, the better. Even with the most efficient cooling systems, however, the average PUE score for most data centres remained at an uncomfortably high 1.57 throughout 2021 – meaning as much as 40% of power running through these facilities was used for cooling. Reusing waste heat would, in theory, drag those numbers down, make those data centres sustainable and contribute heat and warmth to local communities in the bargain. Such has been the case in Dublin, where AWS is participating in a community heating scheme, and in Stockholm, where one data centre operator has set the goal of using its waste heat energy to heat 10% of the city by 2035. The scale of these schemes, however, is also a reminder that many of these projects usually only come about through massive capital investment – not least because most of them reuse heat from air-cooled data centres using expensive heat pumps. An alternative lies in immersion cooling for edge high-performance compute units, wherein the server is surrounded by a liquid – usually water, or oil – and then wrapped in copper piping to build a heat exchanger. This also describes Deep Gr...
Initiative Establishes New Industry Record For Speed, Power and TCO Efficiency For TLS-Encrypted Traffic, Paving Way For Next-Gen Live Streaming Los . Initiative Establishes New Industry Record For Speed, Power and TCO Efficiency For TLS-Encrypted Traffic, Paving Way For Next-Gen Live Streaming Los Angeles, CA – February 22, 2023 – Varnish Software, a leader in web caching, video streaming and content delivery software solutions, in collaboration with Intel and Supermicro today announced new, record-setting content delivery performance milestones, having achieved greater than 1.3 Tbps throughput on a single Edge server consuming approximately 1,120 watts, resulting in 1.17 Gbps per Watt. The combined solution makes it possible for content delivery services and the live event industry to support massive live streaming events in an economical and sustainable way. “Achieving over 1 Tbps in a single Edge server is a major leap forward for the industry, and critical for delivering the next generation of video and digital experiences,” said Frank Miller CTO, Varnish Software. “The need to deliver more throughput with less energy and at the lowest cost is growing exponentially. With commercially available software and off-the-shelf server hardware from Supermicro – built on 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors – we have entered a new era of CDN cache performance. Varnish Software’s unique architecture, features and capabilities were essential in reaching the new benchmarks, which include asynchronous direct I/O, NUMA awareness and software-based TLS.” The benchmarks were accomplished using Varnish Enterprise 6.0 deployed on a Supermicro 2U CloudDC server powered by 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors, without requiring the use of specialized, added-cost TLS offload cards. Supermicro’s CloudDC server line is an optimized platform targeting private and public clouds offered in 1U and 2U form factors in single or dual processor configurations. These servers are optimized for balance among processor, memory, storage, expansion, and networking to give the best efficiency. For expansion, each of these servers offer a variety of PCI-Express (PCIe) Gen 5 x8 and x16 slots for the latest PCIe cards. CloudDC is a well rounded server that gives the best cost to optimized performance ratio. “We deliver first-to-market innovations and IT Solutions that are environmentally friendly and fit every organization’s objectives and budget,” said Michael Mcnerney, vice president, Marketing and Network Security, Supermicro. “The collaboration with Intel and Varnish Software is an example of how we are working closely with best-in-class technology partners to deliver the latest generation of cutting-edge solutions, specifically in the video streaming and CDN space.” Importantly, the throughput and energy efficiencies achieved with this benchmark can be applied to a broad range of servers depending on customer requirements. Varnish looks forward to working with key partners Intel and Supermicro on solutions that support a wide range of video and content delivery workloads leveraging cost-effective system footprints and energy efficiency. Parties interested in learning more can contact Varnish directly or schedule a meeting with Varnish at MWC in Barcelona, February 27 – March 2, 2023. Varnish Software is the leading caching, streaming, and content delivery software stack. Our software helps content providers of any size deliver lightning-fast, reliable, and high-quality web and streaming experiences for huge audiences. With over 10 million deployments, our technology is relied on by millions of websites Worldwide across every industry including Hulu, Emirates, and Tesla. Varnish Software has offices in Los Angeles, New York, London, Tokyo, Singapore, Stockholm, Oslo, Karlstad, Düsseldorf, and Paris.
Green streaming is a concept that refers to industry and consumer efforts to reduce the energy impact of streaming by balancing quality and energy . Green streaming is a concept that refers to industry and consumer efforts to reduce the energy impact of streaming by balancing quality and energy efficiency. Today, the energy consumption of streaming infrastructures is poorly understood, despite growing pressure from consumers and regulators that all industries seek to make sustainability a business imperative. STL Partners spoke to Dom Robinson, founder of Greening of Streaming, an organisation focused on driving industry collaboration to reduce the carbon impact of streaming, to understand where the industry is now and how it can drive change in the future. How was Greening of Streaming born? Conversations about green streaming and the carbon impact of video began to emerge in 2018. These discussions prompted me to write an article on ‘greening of streaming’ which attracted interest from across the global internet streaming industry and led to the creation of the Greening of Streaming members’ association. Today we capture ~70% of internet traffic in Europe and North America through our members, including Intel, Varnish, Akamai, and Lumen. What is the energy impact of streaming; is streaming sustainable? Streaming infrastructures are technically complex and involve many different partners, this means that it is difficult to establish how much energy is being used and who ‘owns’ the energy consumption at any given stage. The diagram below shows a simplified version of the stages of the streaming process. Each of these stages involves core access and termination, switches, amps, routers and more, equal to many thousands of components that all consume energy. You can find a more detailed version of the diagram produced by Greening of Streaming here. Given that the volume and resolution of streamed content will continue to grow, streaming businesses, telcos, content delivery networks, and other partners in the value chain need to act now. Increasingly streaming is the tail wagging the dog on this issue, with streaming businesses placing requirements on the content delivery infrastructure, including telcos, to disclose their energy impact and take steps to reduce consumption. But streaming must be more energy efficient than playing a CD or watching TV using a traditional cable box, right? For consumers, streamed content might seem more energy efficient than satellite TV or other traditional ways to consume media, but it isn’t, it just makes the energy footprint less visible. Rather than paying the energy cost of satellite or cable connection yourself, the cost has been shifted onto the streaming infrastructure, including your internet provider and streaming service. What can telcos do to reduce the energy consumption of streaming? Understanding how energy is used by streaming infrastructure during a live event is a great place for the industry to start getting to grips with the energy consumption of streaming. This is because live video requires all players in the value chain to communicate at one point in time, generating the fullest picture of energy consumption. It will then be relatively easier for ecosystem players to apply the lessons learnt through live streaming to the on-demand context. This diagram shows the relationship between traffic and network energy consumption during a live streamed event: Figure 2: The relationship between traffic, network capacity, and power consumption during live-streamed events Source: Adapted by STL Partners from Schien, Shabajee and Priest Importantly it shows that high traffic during a live streamed event does not increase load or energy consumption of the network. Instead, it shows that the capacity of the network dictates energy consumption, no matter how many people are tuning in to watch. This is a really significant finding, as it shows that energy consumption remains peaked for the...
Microsoft has joined the likes of DAZN, V-Nova, Akamai and Intel as a member of not-for-profit organisation Greening of Streaming. The organisation . Not-for-profit organisation focuses on developing joined-up engineering strategies in the streaming industry to reduce energy waste in the delivery infrastructure Microsoft has joined the likes of DAZN, V-Nova, Akamai and Intel as a member of not-for-profit organisation Greening of Streaming. The organisation focuses on developing joined-up engineering strategies in the streaming industry to reduce energy waste in the delivery infrastructure. Simon Crownshaw, worldwide lead for media and entertainment at Microsoft said; “We hope that by helping to facilitate deep insight into the energy use of our infrastructure we can not only improve our own energy efficiency, but help the industry as a whole learn more about operating streaming infrastructure at scale, and doing so in a cost efficient and sustainable way.” Dom Robinson, founder of Greening of Streaming, added “Microsoft is undeniably a power house and a thought leader in our sector. Having their participation in our working groups will provide a critical resource for various efforts we are undertaking. Microsoft spans many disciplines in the sector and that joined up thinking will be critical to transforming how the streaming industry as a whole can ensure a minimal energy footprint, while maximising the user experience.”
While news leaked out in both CSI Magazine's recent coverage, and in Faultline's Sustainability in Streaming webinar, Greening of Streaming was still . While news leaked out in both CSI Magazine's recent , and in Faultline's Sustainability in Streaming Greening of Streaming was still getting things lined up to formally open the doors and invite input from across the industry to help the group explore ideas and options in creating an industry wide 'accord' around Low Energy Sustainable Streaming. At today's Dom Robinson, Founder of will open the door to contributions to LESS seeking the first from the IBC Accelerators, and hoping to seed the challenge of industry-wide engagement in forming an industry accord around action toward Energy Efficiency! The so called LESS Accord, aims to dig deep into the heart of the broadcast and streaming industry and ask a taboo question of an historically 'quality obsessed' industry : The fundamental idea is that in many cases consumers cannot tell the difference between various streaming and broadcast service qualities, and increasingly the industry relies on computer aided techniques to differentiate quality that humans perceive. The idea behind the LESS Accord is to 'give permission' to ask out loud what many engineers in the industry already instinctively, privately think and to explore how we might be able to deliver services that fulfil the consumers expectations without simply overselling imperceptible quality / value propositions, and creating inappropriate, expensive, unsustainable and unnecessary energy demands for no benefit to the viewer. "It is doubtless a challenging question, and one that will ruffle a few feathers. And it may prove impossible..." notes Robinson "...however, we have got to rigorously explore the possibilities together, or else 'energy saving' strategies may simply end up being used to 'greenwash' over ever spiralling energy consumption as we take up the savings by further overdelivering of quality we get no value from, in the same way that 'offsetting' has become widely open to abuse in many sectors." The project will span 18 months. In the first stage, starting today at IBC, GoS is inviting all stakeholders in the industry to contribute ideas (tried or simply educated guesses) about what LESS might look like, what bandwidths should be targeted, what decoding and caching strategies would work and how the end to end implementation might be put together. Even outliers and radical ideas need to be considered! In June, at Greening of Streaming's collaborative event with Media Tech Sustainability Summit,/ members will shortlist and invite those who contributed ideas that members feel can best be put to test in production, to present the ideas to a public audience, including invited policy makers, regulators and politicians. Over the summer this year the GoS members will then design tests to evaluate the energy efficiency of the best ideas, and these will be planned to be run, as far as possible, in real-world production environments. These ideas will be presented at IBC to the broad industry community for a check and balance, and then from October '23 to March 24 testing will be run in earnest by Greening of Streaming members. At the end of the test cycle, results will be collated and academic partners from Working Group 9 will be invited to help analyse the outputs. The final data driven results will then be discussed at a large event planned in Burbank to engage 'Golden Eyes' from Hollywood studios and their final subjective opinion, based around the notion that 'you normally mastered these for the big screen, but based on our tests here is what the content would look like when energy optimised for mass distribution on the small(er) screen would look like - what are the 'best' in your expert opinion'. Robinson notes - "That final event should hopefully close the loop and ensure that the greatest content producers are in accord with the production, encoding and str...
This is the big Greening of Streaming story at the moment: we are inviting the entire industry to input!
A great start to the year! Welcome to Cognizant as a new Greening of Streaming member - the first of a few that we will be announcing over the next few weeks!
www.greeningofstreaming.org - a not for profit members organisation focussing the streaming industry on developing joined-up engineering strategies . a not for profit members organisation focussing the streaming industry on developing joined-up engineering strategies to reduce energy waste in the delivery infrastructure - today welcomes as a new member! Cognizant helps companies modernise technology, reimagine processes and transform experiences so they stay ahead in a fast-changing world. We are committed to reducing our own carbon footprint, and using our expertise to help our clients and associates do the same. “We recognise that businesses are interdependent with the world’s social and environmental systems. Businesses can thrive only if society prospers and the natural environment is protected.”— Brian Humphries, Chief Executive Officer Dom Robinson, Founder of Greening of Streaming, commented: "Cognizant are hugely influential in helping many in our sector think about their strategy, and we look forward to active input from Cognizant as we drive our various Working Groups forward. We are both very excited about the long term possibilities to help develop and drive energy related best practice through the streaming industry." To find out about becoming a member reach out to
In 1984 — the book, not the year — the means by which the evil totalitarian regime “Big Brother” retains its power is through something called “doublethink.” It’s the practice of holding contradictory beliefs in tandem: “war is peace,” “freedom is slavery,” “ignorance is strength,” “2 + 2 = 5,” to . In 1984 — the book, not the year — the means by which the evil totalitarian regime “Big Brother” retains its power is through something called “doublethink.” It’s the practice of holding contradictory beliefs in tandem: “war is peace,” “freedom is slavery,” “ignorance is strength,” “2 + 2 = 5,” to use the book’s examples. It worked because when our minds — our sense of logic, our morality — become compromised, they’re easier to control. Considering the events of the last several months, you could also interpret doublethink to mean things like “the metaverse is the future,” “people will pay millions of dollars for shitty art,” or “this crypto billionaire definitely has my best interests in mind.” It’s a trite reference, but it’s sort of the only one that makes sense. Somehow, somewhere along the way, the American public was duped into believing that these things could be true despite being, well, not. On November 11, the 30-year-old CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, resigned after his firm filed for bankruptcy. Prior to its implosion, Bankman-Fried (colloquially referred to as SBF) was regarded as a boy genius in the crypto world, not only because of his billionaire status but because he was widely considered to be “one of the good ones,” someone who advocated for more government regulation of crypto and was a leader in the effective altruism space. Effective altruism (EA) is part philosophical movement, part subculture, but in general aims to create evidence-backed means of doing the most good for the most people. (Disclosure: This August, Bankman-Fried’s philanthropic family foundation, Building a Stronger Future, awarded Vox’s Future Perfect a grant for a 2023 reporting project. That project is now on pause.) Instead, Bankman-Fried did the opposite: He tanked the savings of more than a million people and may have committed fraud. In a conversation with Vox’s Kelsey Piper, he essentially admitted that the do-gooder persona was all an act (“fuck regulators,” he wrote, and said that he “had to be” good at talking about ethics because of “this dumb game we woke westerners play where we say all the right shibboleths and so everyone likes us”). In terms of corporate wrongdoing, the SBF disaster is arguably on par with Enron and Bernie Madoff. Here was a dude who marketed himself as a benevolent billionaire and convinced others to invest their money with him simply because he was worth $26 billion (at his peak). He partnered with celebrities like Tom Brady and Larry David to make crypto — a wildly risky investment that rests on shaky technology — seem like the only way forward. Both Brady and David, among several other famous people, are now being accused in a class-action suit of defrauding investors amid FTX’s collapse. But there have been other examples of technological doublethink in recent history. Over the past year, Mark Zuckerberg has campaigned so hard for the mainstreaming of the “metaverse” that he changed the name of one of the world’s most powerful companies to reflect his ambitions. His metaverse, though, called Horizon, would end up looking like a less-fun version of The Sims, a game that came out in the year 2000 (but even Sims had legs). The strategy has not, as of publication time, paid off. The company lost $800 billion. What’s ironic, though, is that anyone with eyeballs and a brain could have simply told Zuckerberg that Horizon is terrible. Not only is it ugly and functionally useless, it’s also expensive (VR headsets cost hundreds of dollars at minimum). People did, to be sure, tell him that — since its rollout, the platform has been widely mocked in the media and online — it’s just that...
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Well, Meta sure is in a bit of a mess. The company formerly known as Facebook rang in its one-year anniversary last week but had very little reason . Well, Meta sure is in a bit of a mess. The company formerly known as Facebook rang in its one-year anniversary last week but had very little reason to celebrate. Instead, an unfortunate Q3 earnings report showed that, since its inception last October, the company has lost a gargantuan amount of money in its quest to create “the metaverse”—a hypothetical new realm where it wants all of us to live. How did we end up here, exactly? It all started twelve months ago, when, in the heat of a whistleblower scandal, it looked like Congress might actually crack down on Facebook. Leaked documents—what came to be known as the Facebook Papers—had revealed the company’s harmful impact on young people, its ineptitude with misinformation, and its algorithmic toxicity. As a result, regulation talk was afoot. U.S. Representatives were threatening antitrust action and activists were demanding a break up. Things were looking pretty bad. It was then that a thunderclap of inspiration must’ve struck over a Menlo Park boardroom somewhere: if things were getting too hot to handle in the real world, why couldn’t Facebook simply invent a new world? Yesss...a new world—this could be the pivot of a lifetime! And hey, the company had changed the rules of the game before—it could definitely innovate its way out of this. Thus, after a meeting I’m sure resembled some watered down version of that “change the conversation” scene from Mad Men, The Facebook Company became “Meta Platforms” and something called the “metaverse” was born. What was the metaverse? Zuck and his cohort envisioned a bold digitization of our world—supported by hardware and infrastructure that hadn’t been built yet. It would be fueled by investments in the most emergent and exciting technologies, from virtual reality to augmented reality to holograms to cryptocurrency. As the leader of a push to transform the digital economy, Meta could be a pioneer—an explorer going where no tech firm had gone before. Sure, in a lot of cases, the tech wasn’t quite there yet to actually build this world, but, in the meantime, such shortcomings could be obscured via advertising and animation and hyperbolic rhetoric. All of this could be used to sorta...paint the picture of what the metaverse would look like someday...maybe. Anyway, what did it matter? The point was this: the company had to do something big to make people look at it differently—and this was it. Yes, Facebook’s transformation into Meta always had to be two things at once: a desperate optics shift and a genuine redirect in business strategy. Maybe the company had always envisioned broader investments in AR/VR but crisis forced it to accelerate? We don’t really know. What we do know is that the company’s massive pivot to a place called the “metaverse” seems to have only caused it more headaches over the past year: namely, billions spent on dubious investments, plummeting profits, worried investors, and a slew of hackneyed digital products that people don’t actually want to use. In a word, Meta’s “first year” has been terrible. Will things get better? That’s unclear. Zuck certainly thinks so, though others have their doubts. We decided to take a look back at the past twelve months to highlight key events involving “the metaverse”—an imagined place that Meta has promised to build but that, as far as we can tell, still doesn’t exist yet. Our story begins in the dark days of early October, 2021, when the company known as Facebook is besieged on all sides. Frances Haugen, a former employee turned traitorous whistleblower, has leaked extensive documentation of the company’s sins to the press. The Facebook Papers, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, expose a raft of concerns: antitrust issues, privacy issues, psychological health issues—the list seems endless. Meanwhile, a host of longstanding p...
TuneIn On Air Distribution Now Offered for Live365 Stream Hosting Customers PITTSBURGH, Oct. 12, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- TuneIn and Live365 announce . TuneIn On Air Distribution Now Offered for Live365 Stream Hosting Customers PITTSBURGH, Oct. 12, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- TuneIn and Live365 announce today a TuneIn On Air distribution agreement between the leading internet radio companies. Live365 broadcasters can now access TuneIn On Air distribution as part of Live365's premium packages or as an add-on to any other package. TuneIn On Air is a new program that allows internet radio broadcasters to expand their reach to TuneIn's 30 million US-based listeners via TuneIn's app and 200+ connected devices and auto partners, which include Tesla, Volvo, Sonos, Amazon, Samsung, and others. Live365, a one-stop shop for internet radio stations, provides powerful streaming tools, analytics, monetization, listening distribution and the option for music licensing coverage. Live365's world-class tools, music licensing coverage and thousands of broadcasters, paired with TuneIn's massive reach, are opening the door for radio broadcasters to legally stream music and talk content to millions of listeners. TuneIn On Air is now included in Live365's premium broadcast packages – Broadcast 4 and Broadcast 5 – while those on remaining packages are able to select TuneIn On Air as an add-on to their current package. "This partnership with Live365 fits perfectly within our mission to reinvent radio for a connected world and democratize access to radio for broadcasters large and small. We believe great conversations are driven by the power of the human voice and we know our listeners rely on us to stay connected to the issues that matter to them most via our content catalog," said Richard Stern, CEO of TuneIn. "We're thrilled to help more broadcasters reach TuneIn's expansive audience." "We're excited to strike up this historic distribution deal with TuneIn to offer our Live365 Broadcaster Community access to TuneIn On Air's unparalleled distribution reach," said Live365 CEO and founder, Jon Stephenson. "As internet radio pioneers, this is an extraordinary opportunity to combine forces and allow broadcasters to utilize Live365's easy-to-use tools and licensing coverage while reaching TuneIn's millions of listeners. We're proud to offer this to our community as we focus on expanding our distribution offering." To learn more or start a station with Live365 with TuneIn On Air distribution, visit this page. About TuneIn TuneIn, the world's leading live streaming service, brings together live sports, news, music, podcasts, and radio from around the globe. With more than 75 million monthly active users, TuneIn is one of the most widely used streaming audio platforms in the world. TuneIn broadcasts over 100,000 owned & operated and partner radio stations and boasts thousands of podcasts. With premiere distribution across 200 platforms and connected devices, TuneIn empowers listeners to 'hear' what they love wherever 'here' might be. TuneIn Premium subscribers get exclusive access to commercial-free news from top networks like CNN, Fox News Radio, MSNBC, CNBC, and Bloomberg, as well as live MLB, NHL, NFL, and college sports programming, in addition to commercial-free music channels. For more information, please visit us at www.tunein.com and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. About Live365 Originally launched in 1999, Live365 has been innovating the internet radio and broadcasting space since its inception. The new Live365, a SoundStack company, is the easiest way to create an online radio station and discover thousands of stations from every style of music and talk. Live365's end-to-end broadcast platform empowers individuals and organizations alike by giving them a voice to reach audiences through easy-to-use audio tools and services, as well as licensing coverage, monetization options, and distribution opportunities. CONTACT [email protected] SOURCE ...
Researcher MoffettNathanson thinks we’re near the end of linear TV as we have known it. The company says this has been taken for granted as SVoDs . Researcher MoffettNathanson thinks we’re near the end of linear TV as we have known it. The company says this has been taken for granted as SVoDs have prospered, but looks more problematic now they are stalling. Moffett notes the continued value of linear TV. Linear TV revenue at $86.3 billion (€89.2bn), is nearly four times that of streaming’s $22.6 billion. That could pose problems for content creators as their core linear business — pay-TV — is declining at a 6 per cent annually. According to the analyst, with the best scripted shows shifted to streaming, linear is left with news, some sports, reality shows and second tier drama. Overall pay TV subscribers fell 6.1 per cent in Q2, with cable, satellite and telco providers all reporting steep declines. Cable TV led the walk of shame with 1.048 million fewer linear TV customers (a 7.8 per cent decline), while satellite TV shed 635,000 subscribers (a 12.5 per cent decline) and telco TV lost 223,000 customers. Overall, traditional pay-TV lost 1.95 million customers. Including virtual MVPDs such as Sling TV, DirecTV Now and Hulu Plus Live TV, pay-TV providers shed 1.9 million customers in the period, according to Moffett. Related posts: Kagan: US pay-TV Q3 subs down 1.2m Research: US pay-TV subs losses continue Study: Online viewing gaining on linear US pay-TV sheds over 877k subs in Q3 US multichannel market loses 1m+ subs in 2015
What are the current innovations in reducing the carbon emissions and the carbon footprint of streaming? Jan Ozer of the Streaming Learning Center . Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Choosing a Codec for Greener Streaming What are the current innovations in reducing the carbon emissions and the carbon footprint of streaming? Jan Ozer, Principal, Streaming Learning Center, and Contributing Editor, Streaming Media, asks two industry experts about the innovations and new technologies their organizations are using in order to lessen the environmental impact of streaming. “What are you hearing from your developers and what are you hearing from inside AWS in terms of the importance of attempting to address that from a codec selection standpoint?” Ozer asks Kevin Yao, Global Principal Solution Architect for Direct to Consumer, Media and Entertainment Solutions, AWS. “That’s a very good topic,” Yao says. “If we look at video, it accounts for over 60%, if not more, of downstream traffic on the internet. There are a lot of energy resources being used for encoding and decoding the content. And in addition, we have to consider how much energy is used to deliver [content] across fiber to end users. So, there's some optimization done.” Yao discusses these various optimization approaches, which include content-based encoding combined with ARML to predict large-scale traffic patterns based on time periods and end-user preferences. “So, Saturday morning cartoons, for example, or Sunday night football,” he says. He then goes into further detail about encoding. “At AWS, we have Graviton Processors, which is an Arm64-based processor, and to help customers reduce their carbon footprint. Graviton3 was announced, and Graviton3-based instances used 60% less energy than compared to the same performance of the x86-based EC2 instances.” He elaborates that during last year’s AWS re:Invent conference, “We ran x264, a very slow preset input, with uncompressed 1080p material. We see about 49% per frame per second, compared to the previous gen, C6g, to the current-gen Graviton3 C7g instances.” Yao says that in terms of sustainability in general, “Workload running on AWS are 80% more carboning efficient compared to running our customers’ own data center. And as part of our commitment to a net zero carbon future, we're investing more power into our operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025.” David Ronca, Director, Video Encoding, Facebook, says, “We have to redefine the system to lower the baseline that we're working from. We are investing significantly in ASIC-driven processing and we’re very happy with the quality we're seeing. And we're going to continue to push that. Google, for example, has released white papers on the ASICs they;ve deployed. So I think there's a role then for ASIC as well. So this gives us an opportunity, I think, across multiple dimensions to actually reduce the inherent or fixed complexity of the systems so that we can continue to reduce the energy consumed, and I think it's good that we're looking to clean energy sources. We do have a lot of responsibility, and I think the industry is very serious about that. And I'm really happy with the work that I'm seeing--everything from lower-power CPUs to ASICs and more efficient codecs.” With SVT-AV1, Ronca says, “You basically have a dial you can turn, so you can select the energy cost of your compute to do an encode based on the likely value that that video will provide in the market. So, you can bring it down to compete with x264 very fast while still significantly reducing the bits. And so to me, these are all great things. I think that we're all aware of the power consumption problem of the data center growth, and we're all working on it. And I'm excited by what I'm seeing.” Learn more about the greening of streaming at Streaming Media West 2022. Watch full-session videos from Streaming Media Connect 2022. Subscribe Now Current Issue Past Issues Free ...
Today, Videon furthers its commitment to the environment by joining Greening of Streaming with other leading video technology companies that are . Today, Videon furthers its commitment to the environment by joining Greening of Streaming with other leading video technology companies that are focused on addressing the growing concerns about the energy impact of the streaming sector. The adoption of live video in the U.S. is expected to grow 4x by 2023 (CNBC), and today’s video supply chain infrastructure is not built with the Earth in mind. Greening of Streaming and its members are working together to look at the entire video supply chain to ensure the changes they make to their technologies are truly reducing the carbon footprint live streaming produces. Videon’s vision is to positively impact society by simply moving media, and they’ve extended that vision to ensure the development and design of their products are as green as possible. Since they design and develop their hardware and software with the compute power enabled by Qualcomm, their market-first hybrid:cloud architecture decreases their impact on the environment and enables cloud workflows to be more intelligent, flexible, and efficient. Tricia Iboshi, CEO of Videon, says, “Sustainability is a key topic for us. We started out in hardware and have a real understanding of resource management, be that in the physical construction of hardware devices and in the increasing energy requirements to operate at vast scale in the virtual space. We are excited about the creation of Greening of Streaming and look forward to contributing to its initiatives and bringing industry focus on these critical issues." Adam Curwin, Executive Director of Greening of Streaming, says, “Videon brings a wealth of expertise in the hardware and video software space to the group. While the ICT industry is very focused on virtualization of services, and streaming is no exception, these services still inevitably actually run on hardware. Having the close insight that Videon have brought to the table will be invaluable in developing best practices across the industry. We are absolutely thrilled to have them join the community!” More about Videon: To find out about becoming a member reach out to join@greeningofstreaming.org
www.greeningofstreaming.org - a not for profit members organisation focussing the streaming industry on developing joined-up engineering strategies . www.greeningofstreaming.org - a not for profit members organisation focussing the streaming industry on developing joined-up engineering strategies to reduce energy waste in the delivery infrastructure - today welcomes DAZN as a new member. DAZN is the world’s leading sports entertainment platform. The only global digital sports broadcaster, DAZN is live in over 200 countries and is a market-leader in Italy, Japan, DACH and Spain. Producing many tens of thousands of live streaming events each year, DAZN has incredible insight into the complex end to end stream production and distribution chain. Dom Wedgwood, SVP Broadcast Technology, noted: “Through production of many thousands of events annually, each aiming for the highest standard, and leveraging a complex supply chain, DAZN is keen to optimise every aspect of our workflows to be as energy efficient as possible without in any way compromising the viewer experience. We hope that by helping to facilitate deep insight into the energy use of our infrastructure we can not only improve our own energy efficiency, but help the industry as a whole learn more about operating streaming infrastructure at scale, and doing so in a cost efficient and sustainable way." More about DAZN: To find out about becoming a member reach out to join@greeningofstreaming.org
This year's Mediatech Hub Conference is (also) about green streaming. Dom Robinson, director and co-founder of Greening of Streaming, an interest . This year's Mediatech Hub Conference is (also) about green streaming. Dom Robinson, director and co-founder of Greening of Streaming, an interest group that brings players from the industry together, will be the speaker. We wanted to know from him: Can streaming be (more) environmentally friendly? INTERVIEW Boris Messing CCB Magazine:Streaming is the new television, and streaming services consume a lot of energy. How can the carbon footprint of a streaming service be calculated? Dom Robinson:A very good question. The industry itself is currently focusing on this, but as a whole there is little to no consensus yet. Early claims in this space have almost entirely come from onlookers, analysts and academics and been extrapolated from ‘lab tests’ on various components or used ‘data attribution’ models but with little real understanding or insight into how services are actually deployed and operated in real world Content Delivery Network and streaming infrastructures. So, any figures making estimates from outside the industry at the moment are not taken seriously by the industry itself. CCB Magazine:According to a study by the French think tank Shift Project, the Co2 equivalent of video streaming in 2018 was more than 300 million tons. A third of this, according to the study, was due to on-demand services such as Amazon Prime and Netflix. Is this a credible figure? Dom Robinson:The shift report was widely discredited since it not only used ‘data attribution’ models but they had a calculation out between bits and bytes making their results out by a factor of 8. This was corrected by George Kamiya of the International Energy Agency and many others have supported that. Shift themselves corrected this and brought their estimates down considerably. Only the industry has the touch points with the infrastructure to really evaluate such things, and the industry itself is still in the throes of working out how to measure such things. The one figure we tend to accept is that about 3% of world energy is being used by Information and Communication Technology, and with Cisco and others estimating that 70-80% of all network traffic is now video streaming. We at Greening of Streaming talk about streaming ‘probably’ requiring between 1% and 2% of World Energy. The one figure we tend to accept is that about 3% of world energy is being used by Information and Communication Technology, and with Cisco and others estimating that 70-80% of all network traffic is now video streaming CCB Magazine:What are the most promising measures and ideas to make streaming less CO2-intensive? Dom Robinson:Even if the entire Information and Communication Technology industry moved to renewable energy we, as engineers, seek to be better energy citizens so our infrastructures do not consume ‘all’ the renewables, leaving energy available for other critical uses such as heating and refrigeration. That said we have key focus working groups investigating a move of thinking from ‘bandwidth’ to ‘infrastructure availability’ – the latter is actually what is consuming the energy. Energy is not (despite most thinking) relating to usage of infrastructure; it is actually being consumed in the provisioning and making available of infrastructure. In simple terms ‘everything is provisioned for peak all the time’ – so this means that Service Level Agreements along the supply chains are hugely impacting and are the immediately low hanging fruit for making significant change. CCB Magazine:Who plays the most important role in reducing emissions from streaming: users or providers? Dom Robinson:Absolutely 100% the providers. We have a range of surveys we completed with the public and announced in our UK Parliament event this summer, that highlight that while there is increasing awareness in the consumer, they are almost entirely unable to do a...
"Green Stream" a series of monthly video podcasts from Greening of Streaming that present activities, thought leadership and technical strategies . "Green Stream" a series of monthly video podcasts from Greening of Streaming that present activities, thought leadership and technical strategies focussing on sustainability and energy efficiency optimisation in stream delivery. The archives are captured from the second part of our monthly members meetings, where (once all the day to day business is complete) we invite one member or a guest of a member to talk to the group about a key topic of interest. In this third edition of 'Green Stream' Aaron Behman from AMD delivers his talk: Efficient Live Video Transcoding Please follow the GoS linked-in group to ensure you catch every forthcoming edition and and for other updates. For more information: info@greeningofstreaming.org
Did I enjoy IBC? Of course; it was a great event. I love IBC. I am pretty sure I would rather see Christmas cancelled than IBC. I’d certainly rather . Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. View From the Edge: IBC 2022 Did I enjoy IBC? Of course; it was a great event. I love IBC. I am pretty sure I would rather see Christmas cancelled than IBC. I’d certainly rather stand in the queue at Schipol talking to broadcasters than stand in the queue for the Christmas sales talking to the consumerism-minded. The moment I arrived back on the ground in Amsterdam after a couple of years away is the moment I remembered where my happy place is: networking with folks who are passionate about broadcast technology. All set with a backdrop of exhibition stands that give an indication of success (or at least ambition to succeed), and lubricated with an air of international viruses and odours that the Metaverse will never be able to synthesise. Real. Energising. Awesome. Indeed, I had a conversation with a few folks over the weekend, something along the lines of, “Isn't it great to be back around a table with a beer, just able to talk about what we love doing. Wouldn’t you do this every month?” After a very short pause: “Hell, no. You would die really quickly!” “How about every quarter?” After a longer pause: “Man, that would be nice, although not with the exhibition. It’d be just great to see friends, colleagues, clients, peers, and so on. The exhibition is too much like hard work for anything more than once a quarter. But yes, I think my body could survive a quarterly meetup with the tribe.” “But isn’t the great thing about coming back after two years the fact that we all have so much to talk about. There is so much change in the industry. Perhaps we should do it every two years instead?” After a very long pause: “Not at this stage. I am just so happy to be back. Let’s run out of things to say before we plan to spend more time apart!” Naturally, there were a few issues. By now you have read enough of the ‘OMG it’s going to have to move because Amsterdam can’t run an airport’ topic. Or the ‘Hotel prices are getting silly’ discussions. Naturally, you plan to take the train next year. (All the way from San Francisco?). And it might make sense to rent a house for the year next to Leidseplein. But all that stuff is symptomatic of success. When everything is excellent, all we can do is ‘like’ - but when we spot a tiny flaw we can ‘comment’ and ‘share’ the queue in Schipol into a headline story, which is, in all reality, a distraction from what IBC was about. IBC found the industry in a great mood, and in great shape. There were some obvious things that stood out. Hall 14 had become Hall 5; it was no longer appropriate to house the OTT world in a tent on the doorstep. The Streaming community has not only grown up, but has muscled in among the old giants. IP-based operators are thrusting and elbowing the traditional telco players off the board. Satellite operators are looking across their empty stands to wonder what the cool kids are doing crowded around the computer-based demonstrations. And while there is still a large bloc of traditional broadcasters hidden in bland, meeting-room-format stands waiting for their next appointment to turn up to renew a 40-year-old contract, across the aisle there are ‘Internet Unicorns’ who are flooded with people trying to squeeze into glass-sided meeting rooms, seated on beanbags and surrounded by colour. But don’t be fooled by the performance. The Unicorns had very very little to show this year beyond their fan bases turning up. The real innovation in the streaming space is on the tiny stands dotted all around the north halls. The bigger the stand, the slighter the innovation is almost a hard-and-fast rule in IBC, and always has been. Nothing at all on any of the biggest stands made me go ‘Oh wow, that's new.’ In fact, mostly my take was, ‘Oh wow, you finally caught up—that’s been going ...
In particular, one sustainability panel featuring Barbara Lange, CEO of Kibo121 and previous Executive Director at SMPTE, Dom Robinson, Co-Founder, . Concerns around how to create sustainable workflows in media, the question of where media fits into the global emissions picture and how to identify and respond to key drivers for change were central themes at IBC2022. In particular, one sustainability panel featuring Barbara Lange, CEO of Kibo121 and previous Executive Director at SMPTE, Dom Robinson, Co-Founder, Director and Creative Firestarter of id3as, Khandiz Joni, Creative Sustainableist at Creative Zero and Kristan Bullett, CEO of Humans Not Robots, set out to provide some answers. The four speakers set out to raise awareness on the complex issues and responsibilities that the media industry must face up to. They pinpointed the lack of clear and consistent measurements currently in place and the need for education on energy consumption in all aspects of media, from production to distribution, and how navigating through the complexities can offer cost effectiveness and business opportunities. Defining Sustainability Lange opened the discussion, concerned about how many organisations have no idea where to start with sustainability in media, and to answer the questions is it real? she confirms, “It is most definitely real.” She gave a shout out to projects that are already looking at how productions can reduce their carbon footprint in the content creation phase, such as the Albert programme and the Green Production Guide, both of which offer organisations techniques to reduce their carbon footprint. She delved into the production workflow, from content creation to content manipulation and distribution, and pointed out that the biggest current challenge in implementing sustainable practices is that there are no standards of measurement and a lack of mandates, while some companies may even see implying a sustainability method as an added expense. “Sustainability means recognising that ending poverty and other deprivations go hand in hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality and spur economic growth, all while tackling climate change and environmental issues. Therefore, sustainability encompasses such Corporate Responsibility issues as diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as social justice issues”, said Lange. Joni emphasised the importance of defining sustainability via a human-centric approach - the intersection between people and planet: “Sustainability is about a stable resilient state of being and how do we get there? When we take the humanity out of this conversation, we are not going to drive the empathetic change we need to see in achieving this resilient state.” Blurred lines and gap-filling Dom Robinson spoke of energy consumption awareness in broadcasting vs. streaming: “In certain parts of broadcast and certainly in things like data centres, telco ISP, there’s been a lot of [sustainability] thinking for a long time. But given that streaming is typically talked about as being 70% of network traffic these days, and we have a top line figure that ICT is burning 3% of all the world’s energy.What I felt was [in] my industry, because we don’t know, we haven’t got that finger on the pulse yet and we’re not ready to be transparent about things. We haven’t worked out how to measure. [Energy consumption is] an afterthought.” Robinson added: “There was a lot of thinking that there’s a linear relationship between bandwidth and energy. So if you reduce bandwidth, you’re supposed to reduce energy. It doesn’t really work like that. We don’t quite know how it does work, because we are yet to go and measure it.There’s no common framework of language.” Watch more Sustainability in news and sport operations Joni also recognised the lack of clarity surrounding sustainability in the industry: “You sort of cherry pick where we’re going to use it so we can have an emissions reduction, and we’ll give...
He's lost a staggering amount of money so far this year. Billionaire Wipeout It's no secret that Meta-formerly-Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's metaverse . He's lost a staggering amount of money so far this year. Billionaire Wipeout It's no secret that Meta-formerly-Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's metaverse pivot isn't exactly paying off yet. The billionaire's fortune has dropped by a whopping $71 billion — leaving him with a piddling $55.9 billion left over — this year, Bloomberg reports, rendering him only the 20th richest person in the world. Sure, that's still plenty of pocket money. But it's the lowest spot he's occupied in eight years, in a sign of how far he's fallen. Just two years ago, he was the third person in the world, with almost twice the net worth, according to the report. It's worth noting that 2022 has proven disastrous for global markets and other tech titans as well, but even Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos have lost far less than that. The takeaway? In the self-inflicted era of the metaverse, Zuckerberg is in big, big trouble. Meta Pivot Facebook's highest valuation in recent memory, September 2021, happens to coincide with the month before Zuckerberg announced the company's name change and pivot to the metaverse. Ever since, Zuckerberg has doubled down on the concept, which has so far materialized only as a desolate and much-lampooned virtual playground that requires the company's own clunky virtual reality hardware to visit. In other words, it's no wonder investors have responded negatively to Zuckerberg's zillion dollar bet. Some experts are even now saying that Zuckerberg is taking Meta down with him. "I think Facebook is not going to do well as long as he's there," senior Harvard Business School fellow Bill George told CNBC last week. "He's likely one of the reasons so many people are turning away from the company. He's really lost his way." Dismal Numbers The result is that the company's finances are in tatters. Bloomberg called the company's recent earnings reports "dismal," with TikTok stealing users from Meta's Instagram left and right. Zuckerberg has practically shackled himself to the fate of Meta. The vast majority of his net worth is tied up in the company's stock — and he infamously holds hundreds of millions of shares, giving him immense power over the company that he founded. It remains to be seen whether Zuckerberg will be able to prove investors wrong and turn his vision for the metaverse into a meaningful new direction for Meta. His next shot? Next month's release of the company's new VR headset. READ MORE: Mark Zuckerberg’s $71 Billion Wealth Wipeout Puts Focus on Meta’s Woes [Bloomberg] More on Zuckerberg: Harvard Expert Says Mark Zuckerberg Is Destroying Facebook Share This Article
A quarter of humanity's carbon emissions come from industrial energy use – and a huge portion of that energy goes into creating heat for various . A quarter of humanity's carbon emissions come from industrial energy use – and a huge portion of that energy goes into creating heat for various processes. And right there lies a slam-dunk decarbonization opportunity that'll pay for itself incredibly quickly, reasons Oakland company Rondo Energy. "We're at a spectacular moment in history," Rondo CEO John O'Donnell told the Wharton Current podcast. "Where on a per unit of energy cost basis, wind and solar power are cheaper than fuels. Not just cheaper than conventional electricity, but cheaper than fuel for heat in most of the world – headed for all of the world." In other words, thanks to a huge crash in the price of renewable energy, there's no longer a "green premium" stopping most industrial heat consumers from decarbonizing and switching to clean solutions. The barrier, instead, is intermittency; you can buy renewable energy out of the grid at extremely low cost, right now – but only when the solar arrays are producing too much for the grid to use. You can't run your factory 24/7 that way unless you can store that energy up. And here's Rondo's play: this company is building "brick toasters" that store up cheap renewable energy as high-temperature heat, ready to be deployed throughout the day – and it says industrial clients will begin saving money compared to their old, dirty, fossil-fuel burning processes immediately. At the heart of it, this ain't rocket surgery; converting electricity into heat is something that happens at 100% efficiency every time you turn on your toaster or hairdryer, says O'Donnell. Rondo uses a simple toaster-style system to heat up "blast stoves," similar to the ones the steel industry already uses for cyclical heat storage. These stoves are full of plain ol' bricks, made out of plain ol' clay, sometimes with a bit of sand in there, but certainly nothing special in terms of materials. Nothing toxic, nothing that decays over time. These bricks will still be storing heat just as well in 40 or 50 years' time, when chemical batteries have gone through several generations of complex recycling. Rondo says it can pull that heat back out at an extraordinary 98% efficiency, resulting in a dirt-cheap industrial heat storage solution that costs "about one fifth the cost per unit of energy stored as any electrochemical battery," according to O'Donnell. "On the outside, it looks fairly boring. It's only possible today because of supercomputer computational fluid dynamics, and finite element analysis and AI system controls. We're building something that's very simple – but was very interesting and complicated to design." The first generation of Rondo brick toasters are optimized for low cost, super-fast deployment and scale, and are capable of holding heat up to 1,500 °C (2,732 °F), which O'Donnell says can cover approximately 80% of industrial heat requirements globally. Down the track, using more expensive heaters and brick materials chosen for the purpose, he says it's possible to hit 1,800 °C (3,272 °F) or so, which brings steelmaking into range, and would cover somewhere around 92% of industrial use cases. "The couple of years of science and investigation are behind us, and we are right now making the journey from the labs, through late-stage prototypes, to our first customer installations this year with a goal of being at very large scale next year in the year beyond," said O'Donnell. "And we're looking very hard at the project finance community and the pathways that enable scaling the fastest." Rondo's first customers, he says, have zero interest in being "green" or advertising their decision. They're in this for the bottom line, taking advantage of the arbitrage opportunity that intermittent clean energy presents. And right now, it's a hell of an arbitrage opportunity. "Today, electricity through a Rondo u...
www.greeningofstreaming.org - a not for profit members organisation focussing the streaming industry on developing joined-up engineering strategies . www.greeningofstreaming.org - a not for profit members organisation focussing the streaming industry on developing joined-up engineering strategies to reduce energy waste in the delivery infrastructure - today welcomes G&L Geißendörfer & Leschinsky GmbH as a new member. G&L is a leading system integrator and managed service provider for audio and video processing, distribution and playback in the European market. With a strong network of more than 50 partners, the company develops world leading solutions for the entire content delivery chain. Alexander Leschinsky, Co-Founder and Managing Director says: “For entertainment, business, and social interactions, today’s world relies on streaming services. Energy consumption has to be measured and controlled for every aspect of our business - from production over distribution to playback. We welcome the creation of Greening of Streaming and look forward to contributing to its initiatives and to help to bring industry focus on to these critical issues." More about G&L:/ To find out about becoming a member reach out to join@greeningofstreaming.org
Amid the continuous noise about cryptocurrencies, it’s often hard to pick out what really matters. However this month, if all goes to plan, the . Amid the continuous noise about cryptocurrencies, it’s often hard to pick out what really matters. However this month, if all goes to plan, the energy-hungry digital sector will undergo its biggest shake-up in years. Ethereum, the world’s second largest cryptocurrency, is tomorrow expected to start a technology changeover which, once complete, should cause its carbon emissions to plummet by 99%. The rapid growth in cryptocurrencies in recent years has been staggering. Unfortunately, so too has been their contribution to climate change, due to the enormous amount of electricity used by computers that manage the buying and selling of crypto coins. Take, for example, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency, Bitcoin. At a time when the world is desperately trying to reduce energy consumption, Bitcoin uses more energy each year than medium-sized nations such as Argentina. If the Ethereum switch succeeds, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies will be under immense pressure to deal with this problem. Why are cryptocurrencies so polluting? Cryptocurrencies are digital currency systems in which people make direct online payments to each other. Unlike traditional currencies, cryptocurrencies are not managed from a single location such as a central bank. Instead, they’re managed by a “blockchain”: a decentralised global network of high-powered computers. These computers are known as “miners”. The Reserve Bank of Australia provides this simple explanation of how it all works (edited for brevity): Suppose Alice wants to transfer one unit of cryptocurrency to Bob. Alice starts the transaction by sending an electronic message with her instructions to the network, where all users can see the message. The transaction sits with a group of other recent transactions waiting to be compiled into a block (or group) of the most recent transactions. The information from the block is turned into a cryptographic code and miners compete to solve the code to add the new block of transactions to the blockchain. Once a miner successfully solves the code, other users of the network check the solution and reach an agreement that it’s valid. The new block of transactions is added to the end of the blockchain, and Alice’s transaction is confirmed. This process, used by most cryptocurrencies, is termed “proof-of-work mining”. The central design feature is the use of calculations which require a lot of computer time – and huge amounts of electricity – to perform. Bitcoin alone consumes around 150 terawatt-hours of electricity each year. Producing that energy emits some 65 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually — about the same emissions as Greece. Research suggests Bitcoin last year produced emissions responsible for around 19,000 future deaths. The proof-of-work approach intentionally wastes energy. The data in a blockchain has no inherent meaning. Its sole purpose is to record difficult, but pointless, calculations which provide a basis for allocating new crypto coins. Cryptocurrency advocates have given a variety of excuses for the monstrous energy consumption, but none stand up to scrutiny. Some, for example, seek to justify cryptocurrency’s carbon footprint by saying some miners use renewable energy. That may be true, but in doing so they can displace other potential energy users – some of whom will have to use coal- or gas-fired power. But now, the most successful of Bitcoin’s rivals, Ethereum, is changing tack. This month it promises to switch its computing technology to something far less polluting. Read more: Ethereum: the transformation that could see it overtake bitcoin What the switch is about Ethereum’s project involves ditching the “proof of work” model for a new one called “proof of stake”. Under this model, crypto transactions are validated by users, who stake substantial quantities of ...
Researchers have invented a new type of battery that is six times cheaper than conventional lithium-ion batteries, which they say could massively . For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Researchers have invented a new type of battery that is six times cheaper than conventional lithium-ion batteries, which they say could massively speed up the transition to renewable energy sources. Lithium-ion batteries are currently used in everything from smartphones to electric cars, however the cost of producing them makes them unsuitable for large-scale backup systems for wind and solar power installations. With a growing need for such systems to store and provide power when the sun is not shining or the wind is not blowing, an international team of researchers set about creating a low-cost battery made from inexpensive and abundant materials. “I wanted to invent something that was better, much better, than lithium-ion batteries for small-scale stationary storage, and ultimately for automotive [uses],” said Donald Sadoway, a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), who led the research. Together with scientists from institutions in Canada, China and across the US, Professor Sadoway set about trying to make a suitable battery made of alluminium, the second most abundant material on the marketplace, and sulfur, the cheapest of all the non-metals. Recommended €2 billion underground ‘water battery’ turns on in Switzerland Using those two materials as electrodes, the researchers used a molten salt electrolyte that was easy to produce and has a low melting point to avoid overheating. “The ingredients are cheap, and the thing is safe – it cannot burn,” Professor Sadoway said. Small-scale versions of the battery could be used at electric vehicle charging stations, storing power and releasing it quickly when needed rather than installing expensive new power lines to serve the chargers. A new startup called Avanti has already been set up in order to commercialise the technology. “The first order of business for the company is to demonstrate that it works at scale,” Professor Adoway said. The research was detailed in a study, titled ‘Fast-charging alluminium-chalcogen batteries resistent to dendritic shorting’, published in the scientific journal Nature on Wednesday.
I found this article interesting, especially the statement, “Over the past decade, cloud adoption has become the rule, not the exception. And yet, . I found this article interesting, especially the statement, “Over the past decade, cloud adoption has become the rule, not the exception. And yet, many companies that have embraced the cloud are feeling the acute burden of a spike in spending. In other words, cloud usage costs may be costing many businesses more than they are actually saving.” Other recent articles and studies say the same thing. The initial perception that cloud computing would lead to operational cost savings did not pan out for many Global 2000 companies. This is not due to the cloud provider or the cloud itself. Enterprises make mistakes that end up tossing away any business value they should get from cloud computing. Let’s look at the three reasons I come across most often and how you can avoid them. First, there is little or no monitoring. A common problem is enterprises have ineffective or no cloud cost management operations, also known as cloud finops (financial operations). Finops should include cloud cost observability systems that report what’s spent where, by whom, and for what purpose, as well as the root cause of the spending. For example, perhaps provisioning cloud storage services are launched but never shut down. Cloud users hog services for no good reason. Developers overuse or overspend their cloud budget because they know no one is really watching. Sound like your own company’s cloud computing operations? Without cloud spending visibility and insights, you’re basically driving a car without a dashboard. You don’t how fast you’re going or when you’re about to run out of gas. A guessing game turns into a big surprise when cloud spending is way above what everyone initially thought. That sucking sound you hear is the value that you thought cloud computing would bring now leaving the business. Second, there is no discipline or accountability. A lack of cloud cost monitoring means we can’t see what we’re spending. The other side of this coin is a lack of accountability. Even when a business monitors cloud spending, that data is useless if everyone knows there are no penalties. Why should people change their behavior? They need known incentives to conserve cloud computing resources as well as known consequences. Accountability problems can usually be corrected by leadership making some unpopular decisions. Trust me, you’ll either deal with accountability now or wait until later when it becomes much harder to fix. Third, the business can’t or won’t optimize cloud resources. One of the core goals of a sound finops program is to optimize cloud spending. Finops will report the measured value of all money spent on cloud-based resources that’s returned to the business. The overall objective is to have more business value from fewer cloud computing dollars. Why is fixing this problem important? Ongoing cloud cost optimization is hard. You must understand what’s being spent and for what purpose. Then the most difficult part: You’ll need to figure out ways to spend less and still maintain or increase the business value. Optimization differs from enterprise to enterprise, but most rely on cloud cost observability systems to find and resolve the root causes of unneeded spending. An observability system can also help find creative ways to spend less for the same resources, such as cloud shopping for better pricing and terms or prepurchasing cloud services at a discount through programs such as reserved instances. There are literally a thousand approaches to cloud cost optimization; this is the focus of most enterprise finops programs. These are the three most common reasons that businesses save less money than promised and spend more than budgeted on cloud computing. A solid finops strategy and implementation solves all three.
Nielsen’s The Gauge: Nielsen’s Total TV and Streaming Snapshot. July 2022. Following months of record-breaking streaming consumption in the US, . Following months of record-breaking streaming consumption in the US, streaming usage has surpassed cable for the first time. According to Nielsen’s monthly total TV and streaming snapshot The Gauge, streaming represented a record 34.8% share of total television consumption in July with cable and broadcast at 34.4% and 21.6% respectively. It is not the first time that streaming usage has surpassed broadcast, but the first it has also exceeded cable viewing. What is clear however is that streaming is continuing to grow as consumers cut the cord. Broadcast and cable saw year-over-year decreases of 9.8% and 8.9% respectively, while streaming’s share grew by 22.6%. Time spent streaming in July averaged nearly 191 billion minutes per week, and each of the five measurement weeks in July 2022 now account for five of the six highest-volume streaming weeks on record according to Nielsen. Prime Video, Netflix, Hulu and YouTube each captured record-high shares in July after previously doing so in June. Netflix represented 8% of total US viewing time in July, with nearly 18 billion viewing minutes of Stranger Things. Nielsen however does provide some caveats which soften the blow for the more traditional TV media. It notes that cable viewing is notably down year-over-year with the 2020 Summer Olympics boosting figures this time last year. It’s a similar story with the broadcast category, with viewing down on a monthly basis due to a typical lull in new content until the upcoming broadcasting season begins in September.
Tim Siglin reflects on his 25-year-long career as a writer, instructor, and consultant in the streaming industry along with his professional . I have often been accused by the editor of this magazine of having an uncanny memory. That’s probably only half right. Living through 25 years of the streaming industry helps with recall, but so does being good at quick computer searches. I have a tendency to hoard emails, text messages, and business receipts, which comes in handy when every new company touts “first ever” or “pioneer” for something that’s been done many times before. Advancements in OCR guarantee that I’ll be able to extract words and phrases from trip photos and trade show receipts for years to come, jogging my memory about locations and dates where key conversations took place. One such conversation centers on the 2004 arrival of this magazine’s editor, Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen, on the streaming scene. From 1997 to 2001, I’d written for several industry publications, including Streaming Media, but in the post-9/11 landscape, I shifted away from writing and consulting in the streaming industry to focus on teaching college-level courses on topics from my prior career (codecs, compositing, special effects, and crisis management public relations). At the request of a multinational corporation that had been a prior client, I started consulting again in late 2003, naming my company Transitions as a nod toward the move back into the consulting field. Shortly after that, I got an email from Eric. While the magazine had gone through a succession of editors at a fairly fast clip between 2001 and 2004, and Eric had not been through the first wave of streaming hype and overpromises, he was interested in bringing on a consistent stable of contributing editors to Streaming Media Magazine and StreamingMedia.com. That group of writers included Christine Perey, Dom Robinson, Jan Ozer, and a few others. Eric told me I could write a column on whatever I’d like, which led to Streams of Thought and my license to write this seemingly random column today. The majority of this writing stable has continued with him for the past 18 years, taking us through the first and second decades of streaming media as an industry and Streaming Media as a magazine. Along the way, Eric provided a sense of stability in an ever-morphing industry that was fundamentally changing the way that we consumed content. And in late 2018, he was there to help assist in the creation of the industry’s first charity, the Help Me Stream Research Foundation, which I run as executive director. Eric was also instrumental in shaping conversations around power and sustainability. In 2020, he asked Robinson and me to co-author an article titled “The Greening of Streaming”, which has turned into a movement that had a public launch event at the U.K. Parliament in June 2022. Ever one to keep his finger on the pulse of what’s needed, Eric also asked me—as one of his last editorial assignments before handing the magazine’s reins over to another highly qualified editor, Steve Nathans-Kelly—to write an article on cradle-to-grave sustainability that you’ll read elsewhere in this issue. Our conversations haven’t always been about the industry, and for that I’ve also been grateful. I remember one conversation on a particularly brisk mid-October 2009 walk through Hammersmith in London that ranged from religion to religiosity and from charlatans seeking power to charlatans seeking to perpetuate their power. Those kinds of conversations, even where we strongly disagree on both the premise and the endgame, are one part professional friendship and one part civil discourse, which is often lacking on social media and naturally emerges from face-to-face discussions. As Eric does his own transition, stepping away from the magazine and online news portions of Streaming Media and into an industry position that he’s a custom fit for, I’m delighted to know that the stability he created will conti...
After a very busy first year, Greening of Streaming is hosting its 2nd Annual Summit on Sept 7th, via Zoom, from 3pm to ~9pm UK time. It is the . After a very busy first year, Greening of Streaming is hosting its 2nd Annual Summit on Sept 7th, via Zoom, from 3pm to ~9pm UK time. It is the perfect event to get focussed on the hottest topic in the Streaming Industry, get up to speed with areas of concern and emerging technical and strategic development, and to focus in on how to proactively make change to reduce energy wastage while streaming. At the opening of the event we will hear from Politicians and Regulators about considerations relating to energy usage, streaming services and policy. We will also hear how some of the largest organisations in the sector are collaborating to ensure that 'sustainability' does not become a #greenwashing and competitive marketing exercise but ACTUALLY makes a difference. Topics will include: Minimising energy usage in digital / streaming media distribution Exploring outputs from GoS working groups, including measurement and terms and work to improve supply chain communication with SBTI focussed on sustainability Gathering and analysing real-world stream related energy usage Presenting emerging 'Best Practices' from leading operators The 5 hour virtual event is designed to be fast paced, quickly covering many topics, and to allow the audience to think broadly about the many issues and approaches organisations are exploring, and to encourage you to follow up by getting involved! Sign up via zoom registration directly here Explore the online agenda here (latest updates etc), and download the current advance programme release below. GreeningofStreaming Annual Summit 2022 The event is actively supported by all our members: With HUGE thanks for their support. For more information about getting involved with Greening of Streaming please email us at info@greeningofstreaming.org
Reducing the carbon footprint of streaming and increasing clean energy is essential, and the onus for doing so should largely fall onto the industry . Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. How to Reduce the Streaming Industry's Carbon Footprint Reducing the carbon footprint of streaming and increasing clean energy is essential, and the onus for doing so should largely fall onto the industry itself rather than onto the consumer, according to Tim Siglin, Founding Executive Director, Help Me Stream Research Foundation, and Dom Robinson, Director and Creative Firestarter, id3as, and Contributing Editor to StreamingMedia.com, UK. Siglin comments that he has found it fascinating how many well-informed people do not realize the full energy intensity and carbon impact of streaming. “When I say, ‘hey, did you know that streaming consumes energy?’ At first, they're shocked because they're like, well, my mobile phone has a battery, I have to charge it. I get that,” Siglin says. “The very next question they ask is what can we do as consumers about it?” But even if consumers take actions to reduce the impacts of streaming video and lowering electricity consumption by doing something like turning off their Wi-Fi access router at night, the bits are still being transited across the network. “So, one of the points we're trying to get to is thinking about what the industry can do,” he says. While the environmental impacts of streaming media are still being studied, recent findings indicate that as much as 3% of the world’s energy is being used by CDNs. This is fueled by the intense demand and growth for streaming services over recent years, according to Robinson. He notes that while other older and more entrenched industries such as aviation contribute similar amounts of worldwide energy usage, there remains time for the streaming trade to get closer to carbon neutrality. “Our industry's still young enough and we're still a small enough community that we feel we can make a significant energy impact,” Robinson says. However, consumers are often unwilling to sacrifice quality and speed in order to minimize energy impacts. While it is important to offer consumers ways to reduce energy consumption such as “Eco modes,” and other options, ultimately, few users are willing to “opt into a lower quality experience” overall, he says. Siglin says, “I'll give an example from the past and another industry, the cable industry.they had set-top boxes that had hard drives. I was tasked on a Department of Energy project about ten years ago to look at how could we lower power consumption on set-top boxes. Because it turned out all the set-top boxes in the US accounted for three nuclear power stations. That's a lot of power. It turns out that standby mode was just dimming the LED on the front of the set-top box. Nothing actually went into sleep mode. And the reason was consumers did not want to wait two seconds for the drive to spin back up.” According to Robinson, changing the way that consumer expectations are managed is essential. “We need to actually keep checking where ‘good enough’ is for the consumer,” he says. “We want to make all these higher-end capabilities ready for an instant on. But actually, if you said to the 32K HD 480 consumer, you might have to wait four seconds, because we're not going to preposition this content.you can have it, the environment's dynamic, but you are going to have to wait because you're not the statistical average. We don't have to pre-cache content and grow those Context Aware Encodings (CAEs), just by setting a bit of expectation with the consumer.” “I think we should have four seconds of ‘Staying Alive’ by the Bee Gees as they wait,” Siglin jokes. “Then [they will] at least know that we’re trying to do something.” Learn more about green streaming at Streaming Media West 2022. Watch full-session videos from Streaming Media East 2022. Subscribe Now Current Issue Past Issues Free for qualified su...
Greening of Streaming, Streaming Video Technology Alliance, Women In Streaming Media and the CDN Alliance are celebrating the return of IBC with a . Greening of Streaming, Streaming Video Technology Alliance, Women In Streaming Media and the CDN Alliance are celebrating the return of IBC with a meet-up by the Beach at the Jetty Bar in the RAI from 5pm to 8pm on Sunday the 11th of September. This is a great opportunity for members to catchup face to face, and for those curious about what these key organisations in the streaming media industry to come to find out more. We encourage members to bring peers in the industry who you think will benefit from finding out more about the activities and initiatives that each of these groups leads. Its a paid-bar so each member can "sponsor" their own rounds! :-) There will be a short 5 min presentation from each organisation around 6pm. Greening of Streaming "Joining up thinking around energy efficiency in streaming" Streaming Video Technology Alliance "Solving critical challenges of delivering high quality video at scale" Women In Streaming Media "Increasing Diversity and visibility of Women in the streaming industry" CDN Alliance "Connecting, supporting and representing the CDN industry" To quote Fatboy Slim: "We've come a long long way together through the good times and the hard" ... let's celebrate the return to IBC and help raise the profile of streaming across the broadcast industry... The eventbrite registration helps us plan (and has more details), so please register if you can...
As record temperatures hit much of the UK on Tuesday, tech giants Google and Oracle suffered outages as cooling systems failed at London data centres. Data centres are large highly secure buildings that hold banks of computers and are the powerhouses behind many online services. But the concentrated . "Following unseasonably high temperatures in the UK south (London) region, two cooler units in the data centre experienced a failure when they were required to operate above their design limits," the company wrote on a status page first spotted by The Register.
An article by Wolfgang Kopf, Senior Vice President for Group Public and Regulatory Affairs at Deutsche Telekom AG. YouTube generates the most data . An article by Wolfgang Kopf, Senior Vice President for Group Public and Regulatory Affairs at Deutsche Telekom AG. YouTube generates the most data traffic on Telekom's mobile network: In 2021, it averaged 357 terabytes per day, an increase of a remarkable 96 percent over the previous year. Today, mobile networks carry almost three hundred times more mobile traffic than in 2011. There is no question about it: the digital infrastructure is the backbone of society, education and the economy - especially in times of pandemics. Rapidly increasing data traffic requires high investments in the continuous expansion of networks: around 300 billion euros across Europe by 2030. At the same time, fiber optics and 5G, the most advanced network technologies, contribute to greater sustainability and climate protection due to their higher efficiency. Nevertheless, unchecked growth in data traffic - the bulk of which is accounted for by a handful of global Internet companies - is also driving energy consumption. According to one forecast, the ICT share of global CO2 emissions could rise to over 14% by 2040. The lion's share of this is caused by streaming, favored by low incentives for efficient data management. The focus is already today on Big Tech’s data centers. Ireland for example has welcomed these data centers for a long time but is now changing course. The reason: the state-owned electric power transmission operator EirGrid expects “hyperscale” data centers will use almost 30 percent of Ireland's electricity by 2028 – a huge challenge for the country's power supply. In Frankfurt, the data center boom is thwarting the city's climate goals, prompting calls for a "data center master plan" with a comprehensive climate protection concept. How can the data tsunami be stemmed to reduce power consumption and environmental costs? In a recent publication, economists from the Technical University of Aachen and the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration have modeled different scenarios of how the future energy consumption caused by video streaming could develop. In the worst case, energy consumption could increase eightfold by 2030. However, the authors also show that intelligent regulation could succeed in keeping energy consumption almost constant. According to the authors, imposing a transit fee on big streamers driving most of the data traffic is the best regulatory approach. Similar to a CO2 tax, this would set a price signal and create incentives to optimize traffic flows. To date, the major Internet companies have used their market and negotiating power to push through ever lower interconnection charges on the Internet or to abolish them altogether. This is supported by laws designed to preserve so-called "net neutrality." Because net neutrality consistently defines procedures for data compression, intelligent routing and other sustainable procedures that increase network efficiency and reduce energy consumption as unacceptable interference, it has become a major source of CO2 emissions. But there is also growing resistance to the imposed zero-price policy. In South Korea, the success of the hit series “Squid Game” led to a massive increase in traffic – which is why network operator SK Broadband is suing Netflix to cover the cost of the surge in network traffic. In the U.S., FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr calls for ending Big Tech’s free ride on the Internet, requiring Big Tech to start paying its fair share for Universal Service. In Europe, the CEOs of major telecommunications companies – including Tim Höttges – also call for big tech platforms to fairly contribute to network infrastructure investment. The issue of a sustainable future of the Internet was also discussed by experts at our latest Netzgeschichten TALK: One thing is certain: unchecked increases in traffic volu...
BBC’s iPlayer has broken new records, with 6.6 billion programmes streamed in 2021/2. This, according to the BBC in its latest Annual Report and . BBC’s iPlayer has broken new records, with 6.6 billion programmes streamed in 2021/2. This, according to the BBC in its latest Annual Report and Accounts, was up 8% on the previous year. The average weekly accounts signing into iPlayer was 12.1 million (10.7 million in 2020/1) and 3.8 million (3.2 million) among under 35s. BBC iPlayer streaming time was 44.5 million average weekly hours, up from 39.7 million in 2020/21. The BBC notes that 2022 has started more strongly than any other year on BBC iPlayer – with January seeing all-time records for reach and hours of viewing (average weekly signed-in accounts at 13.3 million and weekly hours at 54 million) – and February breaking reach records again, up +2% on January’s record, to 13.5 million. The return of Line Of Duty saw millions flock to iPlayer. It topped the charts as iPlayer’s biggest box set of 2021 with all of its series combined streamed 137 million times and the first episode of the sixth series on its own was streamed 9.2 million times, making it the biggest single episode of 2021. Other hugely popular titles included the postponed Olympics in Tokyo, which was streamed over 100 million times, US smash-hit Pretty Little Liars, which was streamed over 80 million times – as well as all the action from the Euros, with matches streamed 68 million times in 2021. Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) Related
France-based Quortex has developed dedicated architecture for just-in-time live processing that scales the cloud dynamically and in a cost-effective . France-based Quortex has developed dedicated architecture for just-in-time live processing that scales up and down in the cloud dynamically and in a cost-effective way. Synamedia thinks the transparent pay-as-you-stream model will help the migration path to the cloud for customers of all sizes, especially the cost-conscious. Synamedia has made its third corporate acquisition as an independent company as it beefs up different parts of its product offering. Since spinning out of Cisco in 2018, ContentArmor (security) and Utelly (content discovery) have been added to Synamedia’s growing product portfolio, centred increasingly around a more flexible software-as-a-service approach. Quortex, a cloud video delivery platform optimised for just-in-time processing of live video streaming, has similarly been brought in to augment Synamedia’s SaaS capabilities as it targets the cloud-based OTT market. Synamedia will use the newly acquired technology to enhance its cloud video network capabilities, specifically complementing its Vivid Workflow as-a-Service (WaaS). Synamedia has been working on its Vivid platform for a couple of years now, centred around infrastructure migration with a view that its traditional customer base - broadcasters, content owners, service providers – will do a progressive migration to the cloud. And the company has built a lot of technology to enable that, including hybrid support for mixed multi-cloud deployments with a focus on quality and reliability. Meanwhile, Quortex has built a cloud-native platform for delivering live linear in OTT in a rather unique way. Quortex enables on-demand processing of live channels, offering good performance at a reasonable cost, which attracted Synamedia after evaluating the technology for several months. Delivering the live experience reliably at scale has always been one of the hardest challenges that media operators, broadcasters and content owners have faced – and this is a task made even more challenging in the streaming world. Using a patented, industry-first, pay-as-you-stream model, Quortex’s just-in-time technology provides exactly the resources required at any given time. If no-one is watching a channel, it simply frees up those resources. The process uses bandwidth only when it is required and should appeal to cost-sensitive customers. For long tail content, for example, Quortex’s technology is estimated to reduce cloud costs up to 67%. At the same time, live content in the evenings peak is also where the largest audiences are still found. “In the ‘traditional’ cloud approach, everyone would be processing everything all the time, so I think this is a real architectural revolution in some way. They have really turned that logic upside down. Because the reality is that when you look at large service providers, or even 24x7 OTT services, that traffic is very spiky. Their architecture enables you to have a completely stateless processing of live linear, which enables you to use those completely dynamic instances in the cloud. That changes the cost and scaling equation a lot,” Synamedia’s Julien Signes told CSI. “We are very excited because we think that the Quortex platform will unlock the big elephant in the room with cloud, because everyone wants to do the cloud but everyone is afraid of the costs when it comes to video and we will resolve a big issue with that when going live linear,” said Signes, who leads Synamedia's Video Network business. Vivid, on the other hand, is a premium 4K/8K HDR platform with low latency support used to process premium content, but it is a heavier more expensive process. While the exact integration and positioning is a little unclear, Synamedia will, for the time being at least, keep both brands because it believes they serve a very specific purpose with complimentary approaches. Signes lik...
Telcos must adapt to avoid being squeezed out of the burgeoning network-as-a-service (NaaS) market, claims a new report.According to ABI Research, . Telcos must adapt to avoid being squeezed out of the burgeoning network-as-a-service (NaaS) market, claims a new report. According to ABI Research, the NaaS market is primed for growth. It expects that by 2030, nearly 90 percent of global enterprises will have migrated at least 25 percent of their network infrastructure to be consumed within a NaaS model. The growth is being fuelled by increasing enterprise demand for cloud-native agility, multi-cloud accessibility, and services that can dynamically scale to support digital transformation. This demand, the analyst firm reckons, means the NaaS market could be worth as much as $150 billion by 2030. Telcos, provided they are in a position to capitalise, could snag up to $75 billion of that sum. “Telcos must seize the opportunity to dominate the NaaS market, as revenue generated from connectivity provision will continue to decline. However, their investment strategy, business, operational, and ‘go-to-market’ models are not ready to deliver a competitive NaaS solution,” said Reece Hayden, distributed and edge computing analyst at ABI Research, in a statement on Tuesday. “The market is immature and highly fragmented, but telco market revenue will exceed $75 billion by 2030 if they act now and transform technology, culture, and structure to better align with the requirements of the NaaS market.” When Hayden refers to technology, he means telcos should virtualise their network infrastructure to offer cloud-native services. They should also focus investments on network automation, and roll out value-added services like 5G slice-as-a-service, for example. In terms of culture, ABI said telcos need to develop vertical-specific sales strategies and adopt a consultative process to help bridge the gap between enterprises’ awareness of NaaS, and their understanding of it. “To drive short-run sales, suppliers must educate and tailor their sales strategy to focus on first adopters – start-ups and SMEs – and specific verticals,” Hayden said. Finally when it comes to structure, ABI recommends telcos reduce internal fragmentation, focus on cross-business service continuity, and establish strong partnerships across the industry. “Although it seems like an expensive and risky uphill battle, developing NaaS will be crucial to the long-term upside,” Hayden said. And if telcos don’t get their collective act together, interconnection providers and hyperscalers will be only too happy to fill the void. ABI notes that the likes of cloud connectivity providers Megaport and Packet Fabric already offer agile NaaS solutions, while Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and Microsoft Azure have extensive cloud-focused NaaS offerings and huge reach. “Telecom operators remain in the best position to lead the market as long as they recognise their service and innovation limitations, invest and restructure successfully, and focus their messaging appropriately,” Hayden said. However, “if telcos miss this opportunity and drop the ball, interconnection providers and hyperscalers will be waiting and willing to catch it.”
Findings from The Future Viewing Experience, an appraisal of the near-term future of the TV and video landscape from data and analytics company . Findings from The Future Viewing Experience, an appraisal of the near-term future of the TV and video landscape from data and analytics company Kantar, suggest there are significant opportunities throughout the ecosystem, despite increasing complexity. Focusing on the delivery of video content and advertising and the evolution of viewer experiences and behaviours, the report outlines the opportunities and challenges for media owners, advertisers and agencies, as well as highlighting the implications for audience measurement. Key findings include: The big screen dominates viewers’ streaming consumption The smart TV set is now the primary driver of increased usage of connected streaming services such as SVoD and BVoD. Mobile is a well-established and dominant medium across many activities, but when it comes to streaming long-form content, it’s all about the best available screen. The era of set-top boxes is coming to an end and the battle is on for control of the main video delivery gateway into the home: the connected TV screen itself. Global media brands to pursue ‘monolithic self-sufficiency’ with full control over supply chains Significant steps towards vertical integration will define the long-term as global media owners seek to control the entire chain, from production of content to delivery into the home. The trend could signify a slowdown in content availability. The fight for franchises hots up Media companies are seeking a return on their significant investments in intellectual property by promoting franchises and capitalising on global and local fanbases. The internationalisation of culture and younger audiences’ love of sub-titles is ushering in an era in which local content can go global. Independent and regional production remain vital ‘Critical mass’ for a global service will be beyond all but a handful of players with valuable and extensive intellectual property, independent production will remain significant with smaller and niche players finding value in collaborating with others to compete effectively. Beginning of the end for box set bingeing? What was once an important USP is becoming increasingly uncommon as streaming services take a more broadcaster-inspired sequential release approach to flagship originals – helping drive buzz and prolong subscriptions. This trend is seeing SVoD services increasingly move away from ‘all at once’ release strategies and is even driving a reappraisal of the role of linear channels to aid content discovery. SVoD and AVoD: the future will end in tiers The video market is entering a new period of hybrid models, with many SVoD and BVoD services moving to both ad-free and ad-supported tiers. However, challenges lie ahead in not cannibalising core offerings and other hurdles are identified. Will this approach accelerate us towards a two-tier advertising ecosystem in which those who can afford ad-free environments become ever harder to reach? Complexity of TV and video ecosystem is a threat to addressable advertising growth Progress towards true addressability has been slower than expected and current capabilities and delivery opportunities are limited. However, if the complexity of the video distribution ecosystem can be effectively tackled, Smart TVs will move addressable forward, offering ‘transformative’ opportunities - as well as facilitating new forms of advertising. Underpinning these and other important trends identified in the report is the value placed on audience measurement, which is set to continue to evolve in line with market changes. “Whilst many of the trends we’ve identified provide exciting monetisation opportunities and value for the industry, there are also significant challenges and vital decisions ahead for everyone,” notes John McCarthy, Strategic Content Director, Media division at Kantar. “We hope that ‘The Fu...
www.greeningofstreaming.org - a not for profit members organisation focussing the streaming industry on developing joined-up engineering strategies . www.greeningofstreaming.org - a not for profit members organisation focussing the streaming industry on developing joined-up engineering strategies to reduce energy waste in the delivery infrastructure - today welcomes V-Nova as a new member. V-Nova is committed to unlocking higher picture quality at scale. Its technologies improve data, video, imaging, and point-cloud compression efficiency, and have been granted international standard status by MPEG, ISO and SMPTE. V-Nova’s relentless efforts have resulted in MPEG-5 LCEVC, an enhancement layer standard that simultaneously improves the compression efficiency, and reduces the energy consumption, of any standalone video codec. More about V-Nova: www.v-nova.com V-Nova's CEO, Guido Meardi noted "We welcome the creation of the Greening of Streaming. It will bring together the whole industry to agree on key metrics, principles, and objectives. V-Nova is determined to improve efficiency in video processing, so we are keen to join the group and contribute to its initiatives." To find out about becoming a member reach out to join@greeningofstreaming.org
Varnish Software was delighted to attend the Greening of Streaming launch at the UK parliament. Greening of Streaming (GoS) is a trade association . Earlier this month, Varnish Software was delighted to attend the Greening of Streaming launch at the UK parliament. The event saw more than 100 attendees from government, media and the technology industry, and was sponsored by two members of the UK Parliament: Dr Alan Whitehead MP and Matt Warman MP. It was an opportunity to present Greening of Streaming to policymakers and parliamentarians, and it was exciting to see industry and all sides of the political spectrum collaborate on such an important topic. But what is Greening of Streaming all about? Greening of Streaming (GoS) is a trade association that brings together partners from across the global streaming industry in order to collaborate and address growing concerns about the impact of the streaming sector on the environment. It was established in September 2021 with the aim of developing technology solutions that deliver excellent streaming experiences without wasting energy. The focus is on power efficiency and long-term sustainability among streaming infrastructure and technology providers, and importantly, GoS committed to ‘no greenwashing.’ It’s about engineering collaboration and commitments rather than marketing! Its members include organizations from across the streaming world, such as major CDN providers, hardware manufacturers, and media players. Greening of Streaming Members As a founder member, Varnish Software has been involved from the beginning. It was great to meet up with fellow members at the launch to discuss how to solve environmental challenges in the streaming industry. What consumers think of streaming sustainability The UK parliament event also provided the chance to present responses from a specially commissioned YouGov survey that explored consumer awareness and streaming habits. The survey asked respondents to look at their streaming use, and think about the responsibilities they might have to their energy consumption associated with streaming. The results showed that while the sense of personal responsibility increases as the use of streaming goes up, users did not individually feel empowered to drive change. Consumers look to the streaming industry itself to drive sustainability, and 66% of respondents agreed that streaming providers have a responsibility to do more to reduce the environmental impact of streaming. It also showed that the overwhelming majority of respondents would factor in a streaming provider’s environmental impact when choosing it over competitors. There is an economic advantage for those who are boldest in their environmental reforms. Why does sustainable streaming matter? There have been many studies about the carbon footprint of the different parts of the streaming ecosystem, but the main headlines are clear: streaming represents 70% of global internet traffic, and information technology as a whole is responsible for 3% of the global energy consumption. If we compare this to other sources of carbon emissions, the negative environmental impact of streaming is similar to that of the aviation industry. So it’s an important topic, and with the rise of streaming and broadband internet, it’s clear that the energy efficiency of streaming technology needs to increase if we are to limit its impact on the environment. Making streaming more effective is not just important for CFOs looking at the rising costs of energy, but for CTOs who deploy solutions across the streaming pipeline. The streaming video delivery pipeline is complex, with many different components and much of it having to stay powered on at all times. One of the major benefits of an organization like Greening of Streaming is that it brings together actors from across the industry to ensure joined-up, integrated thinking, the sharing of best practices, and concrete action. What else is Varnish Software doing for sustai...
www.greeningofstreaming.org – a not-for-profit members organisation focussing the streaming industry on developing joined-up engineering strategies . www.greeningofstreaming.org – a not-for-profit members organisation focussing the streaming industry on developing joined-up engineering strategies to reduce energy waste in the delivery infrastructure – today welcomes MQA as a new member. About MQA: MQA’s award-winning technology delivers master quality audio in a file that’s small enough to stream. Using pioneering scientific research into how people hear, MQA captures and authenticates the sound of the original performance. Mike Jbara, MQA CEO, noted: “As a company we believe everyone has an obligation to adopt behaviours that will protect the environment. We share Greening of Streaming’s commitment to innovation based on climate stewardship, and we’re delighted to join this leading organisation.” To find out more about becoming a member, contact join@greeningofstreaming.org
The boss of Telco group BT reportedly said the firm is too skint to dish out pay rises to staff, so a strike may be on the cards.Bloomberg managed to . The boss of Telco group BT reportedly said the firm is too skint to dish out pay rises to staff, so a strike may be on the cards. Bloomberg managed to get hold of some footage of BT’s ‘PJ Live’ virtual town hall meeting, and has described the staff as ‘incensed’ as CEO Philip Jansen told them he can’t afford to give them a pay rise because of soaring costs and low growth, to the point where they threatened to strike. Anyone who’s worked for a large corporate in recent years will be familiar with the ‘town hall’ style virtual meetings, in which the boss rattles on about company successes or what have you and staff get to chip in with questions at the end. Well, in this one the BT CEO was apparently asked what he thought about workers struggling to pay bills, and others pointed to the fact his pay has apparently risen by 32% to £3.5 million this year. By way of explanation he said BT’s revenue hasn’t increased for a few years and its energy bill, which is currently estimated to be £350 million, would jump by at least 50%. He also pointed out other things the telco group has been forking out for on recently, including fibre rollouts, taxes, dividends, interest payments on almost £20 billion in debt and the pension deficit. “When you add all that stuff up, we’re actually slightly in the negative – so we’ve actually taken on more debt to make all that work,” he said at the meeting. Bloomberg it seems reached out to BT to ask about the call, and a spokesperson didn’t dispute the characterization given of the angry workers, but said the raise they’ve given workers is the highest in 20 years, which is a bit confusing. Apparently Jansen “felt strongly that going ahead with the meeting and openly answering questions colleagues had in a live setting was the right thing to do.” After being told you’re not getting a pay rise, or any other form of bad news from your employer, the next question is ‘what are you going to do about it?’ In the case of BT workers, it seems they might be up for striking. Apparently The Communication Workers Union is in its final stages of balloting BT employees on whether to down tools. On the subject Jansen apparently said he wouldn’t want a strike to “damage the business in a way that isn’t helpful for the future” by harming customer relationships. “Would I like to do more? Yes. Can we afford to do more? No.” A spokesperson for the union apparently described the call “a complete embarrassment” for Jansen and that “It is no surprise that a CEO with a £3.5 million pay package isn’t in touch with working people.” The cost of living crisis is going to ensure conversations like this between employer and employee occur all across the country, and as with the train strikes we are currently seeing, those sectors which have an effective union and find themselves in a position to do so may feel increasingly inclined to get picketing. The point of strikes is that they cause disruption, and any proposed strike is bound to have some impact on BT’s customers, so the Jansen may soon be on the end of an another call getting shouted at for that as well.
id3as' Dom Robinson and Help Me Stream's Tim Siglin discuss the latest Greening of Streaming developments--including taking the conservation case to . Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. id3as' Dom Robinson and Help Me Stream's Tim Siglin Talk Greening of Streaming Tim Siglin: Welcome to our final interview for Streaming Media East 2022 here in Boston. I've got with me Dom Robinson, who has a shirt on that says id3as [http://id3as.com]. That is his company, but we're actually gonna talk about something else today. Dom and I wrote an article called The Greening of Streaming []. In that article, Eric asked us to take a look at the efficiencies as we talked about pricing performance before. And out of that has led to sort of a movement with Greening of Streaming. So, so just let's recap briefly the Greening of Streaming journey. Dom Robinson: So we wrote the article Greening of Streaming. I thought the name was a catchy catchy phrase, registered the domain, stuck an email catch-all at the back of the domain name, and then at the last four virtual Content Delivery Summits before this week--which I was helping run for Streaming Media--we started the conversation with the industry asking where people's mindsets were at with issues around sustainability, in terms of the energy we are using within all the technologies that we're streaming with. Tim Siglin: And as a matter of fact, just to interject real quick, I went back and watched part of that Fireside Chat at CDS. And at the end of it, you said to people tell us what you know about greening and power efficiency, because we're a bit naive to the language on it. And obviously, one of the things that we've had to do is figure out what the language is around around that. Dom Robinson: Certainly, when we were doing the research, the estimation of the reports, they were wildly all over the place, the terminology, what's per frame, kilograms of carbon per hour--all really, really different to come to any consensus about what anyone in the industry was talking about. And in fact, I think until we started asking the questions, everyone was saying, "I don't know, it's the finance director's decision. He buys the green electrons." And it was left there. So once we started the conversation, these bigger companies--Akamai and Intel stand out--went out and really started to drill into their sustainability story. And so by the second and third Content Delivery Summit, we were starting to get panels. We were starting to get the discussion going. One of the premises you mentioned a second ago that we put forward was this idea that, the CDN industry in particular spent the first 10, 15 years of its life focused on price. We forget that--we think it's all about performance because in the more recent decade it's all been about performance. But the first decade was all about making it affordable to you to get high-capacity content or high-data rate content. Tim Siglin: And as a matter of fact, if you'd have large audiences like we have today, your company who was using the CDN services would be out of business, because it couldn't afford to pay the bill. Dom Robinson: Exactly. So we spent more than a decade actually focused on getting it to work affordably so that you could then launch models where people could say, "Oh, I haven't got the quality I want." So then we spent another decade getting the quality to the point where it was good enough that the consumer opted in. But nobody had ever thought about the power efficiency. So in the last two years with CDS that conversation's firmly begun, and Greeting of Streaming as a catch-all email group grew. And so we decided to proposition that community to come together to have a full-day online event talking about this, which we did last September. But as momentum for that was coming together, we realized that there was going to be critical mass to create a trade association. So that was essentially our launch event. Tim Sig...
The UK’s Channel 4 has extended its strategic partnership with YouTube in what is the first deal of its kind across the UK and Europe. It will make . The UK’s Channel 4 has extended its strategic partnership with YouTube in what is the first deal of its kind across the UK and Europe. It will make hundreds of hours of programmes available on YouTube in the UK/Eire and enable Channel 4 to sell its own advertising around these shows. According to Channel 4, the new deal represents a major step in its digital transformation as it continues to make significant strides against its five-year Future4 strategy to accelerate digital growth, reach young audiences where they enjoy watching content, increase new revenue streams, and build strategic partnerships to compete more effectively. The partnership with YouTube, which is used by 98% of online 18-34-year-olds each month, will make 1,000 hours of full Channel 4 and E4 episodes from new and popular series available to watch across Channel 4’s YouTube network by the end of 2022, with content starting to roll out from this month. Additionally, the partnership will enable Channel 4 to generate new revenues and support the broadcaster’s ambition to scale the Channel 4 brand on the platform. This includes the creation of a dedicated YouTube team within Channel 4’s commercial arm 4Sales, to enable Channel 4 to directly sell advertising around its content on the platform. Commenting on the partnership, Alex Mahon, chief executive of Channel 4, said: “Innovative strategic partnerships are Channel 4’s speciality, and this new relationship with YouTube is another which will ensure we continue to keep growing our reach with young audiences and build on our unrivalled digital success. “Together with YouTube we have created a powerful consumer channel full of our brilliant Channel 4 content. This will engage even more viewers through the enhanced reach and digital scale of YouTube, combined with the dynamism of the Channel 4 brand”. Ben McOwen Wilson, MD YouTube, UK and Ireland, added: “I’m proud to welcome Channel 4’s creative, thought-provoking long form content on to the YouTube platform. “As an open platform, YouTube is where UK audiences of all ages and backgrounds come to watch what they want to watch, when they want to watch it. It is fantastic to drive innovative partnerships such as this, to enable leading broadcasters to contribute to the diversity of content on the platform of choice for young viewers”. Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) Related
Western Digital has unveiled its new 22TB CMR and 26TB UltraSMR hard disk drives (HDDs) which are now being tested by select hyperscale cloud . Western Digital has unveiled its new 22TB CMR and 26TB UltraSMR hard disk drives (HDDs) which are now being tested by select hyperscale cloud customers. The reason the storage giant has been able to significantly expand the capacity of HDDs over the years is due to its ever expanding technology portfolio which includes its unique OptiNAND technology, energy-assisted PMR (ePMR), triple-stage actuator (TSA), HelioSeal and now UltraSMR. Western Digital’s new ePMR drives leverage the company’s OptiNAND technology to unlock higher levels of capacity, performance and data resiliency. For instance, its new 22TB CMR HDD incorporates OptiNAND to deliver areal density on a 2.2TB/platter HelioSeal platform with ten disks. While the average consumer likely doesn’t have a need for such a high capacity drive, cloud computing providers and other tech giants can use Western Digital’s HDDs to store more data in less space which could help bring down the cost of cloud storage services for end users. UltraSMR By combining OptiNAND with proprietary firmware that leverages HDD system-level hardware advancements, Western Digital’s new UltraSMR technology introduces large block encoding with an advanced error correction algorithm that increases track-per-inch (TPI) to enable higher capacity HDDs. The first HDD to use this new technology is the company’s new 26TB Ultrastar DC HC670 UltraSMR HDD that features 2.6TB per platter and offers 18 percent more storage capacity. However, as cloud service providers are increasingly adding SMR to their datacenter roadmaps, the drive’s 26TB capacity could serve as a tipping point to accelerate adoption. Read More
Samsung, Western Digital join forces on next-gen SSD technology > Western Digital plots to squeeze the tape market with massive archive HDDs > Western Digital customers urged to update to latest version of My Cloud OS EVP and GM of Western Digital’s HDD Business Unit, Ashley Gorakhpurwalla provided further insight on the company’s HDD technology portfolio in a press release, saying: “As a longstanding partner of the industry’s leading cloud providers, we understand their unique requirements in building next-generation cloud infrastructure and invested in several HDD innovations we developed alongside our areal density technology. Our intent with taking this development strategy was not only to address the capacity demands of the world’s largest cloud titans but to deliver on a roadmap that would also support the evolving economics of their data centers for decades to come. With ePMR, OptiNAND and now UltraSMR as the foundation of Western Digital’s HDD roadmap, our cloud customers can continue rapidly scaling their business by taking advantage of our innovations to lower their storage TCO.” The 22TB Ultrastar DC HC570 HDD will soon begin volume shipments to the channel while the 26TB Ultrastar DC HC670 UltraSMR HDD is set to begin shipping to select customers this summer. Tackle even the most demanding computing tasks with one of the best workstations
Arianna has helped with the deep 'plumbing' of many of the worlds largest CDNs and Shraddha has experience spanning Telco and Broadcast. Live on the first Thursday of each month at 5pm UK / 12noon ET / 9am PT - on www.smadvancedforum.com - Informal chat and opinions on the business and technology of streaming.
Streaming platforms are set to be regulated like linear broadcasters for the first time, under the UK Government’s new plans, set out in a ‘White . Streaming platforms are set to be regulated like linear broadcasters for the first time, under the UK Government’s new plans, set out in a ‘White Paper’ policy document revealed this week. The UK regulator Ofcom, which currently monitors content on network television, will be responsible for applying and enforcing guidelines on Netflix, Disney+ and other streamers, which aren’t currently subject to the Broadcasting Code. The changes would require video on demand services to ensure their audiences are protected from harmful or offensive material, and that principles of fairness, accuracy and privacy are all applied. The White Paper outlines possible fines for breaking the Code, with any errant VoD services liable to pay £250,000 or a figure up to 5% of the organisation’s revenue, whichever is the higher amount. Linear broadcasters have been pushing for these guidelines to be applied to streamers for several years. Netflix responded to the proposal, saying they welcome measures to update the legal framework. The streamer asserted: “We look forward to reviewing the White Paper’s other proposals and continuing to engage with the government on their plans.” The policy document also included plans to privatise Channel 4, currently owned by the government and paid for by advertising. This project has come in for widespread criticism across the British television industry, but the Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries has stuck to her line that the sale will help the channel thrive in the modern era, and that the money raised will be invested back into the television production sector.
In response to the increasing growth of the cloud streaming industry, Google LLC today announced the general availability of Media CDN, a content . In response to the increasing growth of the cloud streaming industry, Google LLC today announced the general availability of Media CDN, a content distribution platform that can handle the delivery of immersive media at a massive scale. Using Media CDN, media and entertainment customers will be able to deliver streaming experiences across the globe. It is built for customers with huge amounts of streaming content that need high bandwidth and low-latency user experiences. Shailesh Shukla, vice president of networking at Google Cloud, told SiliconANGLE in an interview that Media CDN’s foundational advantage is Google’s network. It uses the same infrastructure that Google has developed for YouTube to deliver video to over 2 billion users, which is now being scaled up globally for Google Cloud customers. “As we’ve seen through the pandemic and before it has been experiencing dramatic growth,” Shukla said. “Audiences are moving to digital experiences and content providers want to deliver digital media on a global scale. Streaming video now accounts for more than 54% of the total internet bandwidth, which has increased dramatically over the past few years.” To keep up with this demand, Google has invested resources in building out its content delivery network. That allows providers to cache content closer to their users by having a presence in more than 200 countries and 1,300 cities around the world. By putting the content being delivered closer to the users requesting the video, it lowers the latency, enabling higher bitrates and reducing buffering needs, which results in a superior experience, especially on mobile devices. Anyone who watches a lot of video on the internet has probably encountered long waits while a video “queues up” its buffer or suddenly stalls while playing. A spinning indicator appears and the play bar at the bottom stops while the gray unplayed section trails out further. That’s the video buffering itself so that it can play through without stopping, which can happen a lot if there’s low bandwidth or high latency. For developers and businesses, Media CDN is delivered as “infrastructure as code” and designed to be as extensible as possible using a software-defined approach. As a result, it uses a comprehensive set of application programming interfaces and support for automation tools such as Terraform. This allows customers to define their own cloud network tooling and operations to match their own specific needs. Such needs could include minimizing calls to origin servers for content in order to reduce capacity and performance stress. For example, Media CDN offers multiple tiers of caching across the globe to allow cost savings for commonly streamed media files that can be offloaded from centralized servers. U-Next, a popular Japanese entertainment streaming platform, recently implemented and configured Media CDN to speed up and optimize traffic flow for its streaming video. According to the company, it needed a content delivery network with a high cache rate and low latency. “Google Cloud’s Media CDN helps us efficiently scale our infrastructure, which is challenging with a vast library of content,” said Rutong Li, chief technology officer at U-Next. “Media CDN offloaded 98.3% of requests from our origin server while delivering consistent great quality.” Another important element of Media CDN’s suite of tools is integration with Google’s vast array of analytics tools. It also includes detailed metrics for playback tracing, real-time visibility and performance diagnostics. Visibility into the network is available through Google Cloud’s operations suite, and Media CDN also has a set of APIs that allow it to connect to external analytics services such as Grafana or ElasticSearch. “Media CDN is modern, meaning that it is cloud-native and developer-friendly,” said S...
M&E Industry Getting Serious About Sustainability M&E Industry Getting Serious About Sustainability M&E Industry Getting Serious About . OTTAWA—Tech companies in the media and entertainment (M&E) industry are making their business and production practices more sustainable by reducing their impact on the environment and contributions to climate change. “The video industry is taking the ‘green initiative’ seriously,” said Thierry Fautier, vice president of strategy for Harmonic. “It has set a target and is now working toward achieving its goals. We have seen operators targeting zero carbon emission by 2040. There is also a new industry forum called ‘Greening of Streaming’ that is addressing greener video delivery.” This last sustainability effort is particularly important, as “video traffic represented an estimated 84% of all consumer IP traffic in 2021 (up from 79% in 2016) according to the Cisco Visual Networking Index,” said Alain Nochimowski, CTO at the OTT/TV platform solutions company Viaccess-Orca. “Fortunately, the industry is starting to understand that it will need to take proactive steps toward being greener.” Real Companies, Tangible Actions Across the M&E industry, specific companies and organizations are taking tangible steps to make themselves and the industry as a whole more sustainable. They include video delivery provider Ateme, live video contribution tech provider Aviwest, SDVI and IBC, among many others. Given the billions of daily viewers of streaming services, reducing its environmental impact is a gigantic task. “The largest source of power consumption for video services is the device, followed by the network and then the data center,” Fautier said. “Some work has already been done on the device side with smart power management schemes deployed and regulations looking at limiting the display consumption. On the network side, the move to 5G is aimed at drastically reducing the watt-per-bit cost; reports show that cloud infrastructure is more power-efficient than a classical on-premises infrastructure approach.” Harmonic is enhancing its video compression algorithms to reduce traffic levels on IP networks, thus cutting the amount of electricity needed to deliver video content. “We are doing this by using AI-based encoding techniques such as content-aware encoding [CAE], dynamic frame-rate encoding [DFE] and dynamic resolution encoding [DRE] to improve legacy codecs; also AVC mostly but also HEVC,” said Fautier. The company is also promoting new, more efficient codecs such as AV1 and VVC, plus the LCEVC (low complexity enhancement video encoding) “intermediate solution” that combines legacy equipment and new approaches “to enable a significant savings in bandwidth and processing power,” he said. Use of the cloud is critical to meeting such goals. “Harmonic is 100% committed to cloud,” added Fautier. The company is also asking OTT content providers to consider using power-efficient multicasting in place of unicasting, bearing in mind that doing so would reduce delivery flexibility for consumers. One Stream for a Million Requests Content delivery solutions provider Broadpeak says its multicast adaptive bitrate (MABR) distribution product is a practical way to address unicasting’s (one-to-one) high network usage. “Without multicast ABR, if a million people are streaming the same content at the same time, there are one million active connections requiring ad-hoc capacity throughout the network and consuming power accordingly,” said Yann Begassat, Broadpeak’s business development manager. “With multicast ABR, there is only one stream to address the million requests, dramatically reducing capacity needs and energy consumption.” SDVI’s Rally media supply chain management platform is helping users such as A&E Networks, Comcast, Discovery, Sky, ViacomCBS, and WarnerMedia manage their end-to-end video assets in a more efficient (and thus more sustainable) manner. “For our part, we have committed to a new sustaina...
On the one hand, streaming quality has improved as network bandwidth continues to increase and viewing devices become capable of playing out at . On the one hand, streaming quality has improved as network bandwidth continues to increase and viewing devices become capable of playing out at higher resolutions, while at the same time there are continued innovations around immersive audio, 360 degrees viewing, and the various forms of Extend Reality (XR). The BBC, as the event’s broadcaster, is charged with blending those components to deliver a compelling experience both to fans around the site seeking either to watch more distant gigs or obtain closer alternative views, and to remote streamers. The impact of continued 5G roll out around the UK will also be of interest, given that the last Glastonbury 2019 staged before the pandemic was billed as the first 5G festival by UK mobile operator EE, a subsidiary of telco BT. Another question will be to what extent innovations in online streaming of music that were driven or accelerated by the absence of physical events during the pandemic will carry over to live coverage now such events are returning. With the long standing and ultimately deep decline in revenues from sales of their songs or productions on physical media, many musicians and bands had come to rely on live performing for the bulk of their income. It is true that some revenues could be derived from streaming via platforms such as Spotify or YouTube, but these were usually miniscule compared with proceeds from sales of CDs in the past, or vinyl records before that. Spotify typically paid under half of a cent per stream, so that an artist would earn $1 from around 250 instances and would require 5 million a year to sustain a relatively modest living. During the pandemic though progress was made adding value to streams and there was also an acceptance by some fans that they should pay more for watching their favourite bands online just to keep them afloat. For musicians, streaming via OTT video and social media platforms was often the only way of maintaining contact with their fans. Then as social distancing rules eased, events started to make a partial come back via drive-in gigs among various inventions, supported by live streaming. By the time Glastonbury 2022 starts on Wednesday June 22nd, there will have been a number of physical music events to serve as templates and inspirations for the broadcast and streaming coverage. It is not surprising then that the BBC has declined to give specific details of its streaming coverage until the beginning of that month. The BBC is less concerned with more exotic innovations around XR when it comes to its Glastonbury stream available on its iPlayer portal, focusing instead on ensuring that quality is as good as it can be and available to all users throughout the festival, while hoping to regain some of its earlier reputation for being at the cutting edge of online event coverage. This reputation was established at the 2012 Olympics in London, when the BBC demonstrated almost for the first time that multiple live streams at a major event could be distributed simultaneously to large audiences at a national level, at a quality better than had been attained before at that scale, with relatively few glitches. This was followed up at Glastonbury 2013 almost a year later, billed as the first truly digital “Glasto”. For the first time then the BBC streamed six stages of live music simultaneously back from Glastonbury for distribution to tablets, laptops, PCs and smartphones, as well as the broadcaster’s connected red button, which was then a relatively popular feature for accessing alternative content on TVs over the air. These six stages were filmed and mixed before being sent back via satellite to the BBC’s centre at White City in London. At that stage graphics were added and quality checks performed before the signals were transmitted online to the then relatively new MediaCity UK in S...
The dual roles of eight popular emerging technologies and explains how to use them to advance environmental sustainability goals. Photo: Abhinav Sunil In the fight against climate change, emerging digital technologies are often rightfully perceived as protagonists. Digital transformation efforts across the board in the coming years will be driven by the evolution of technologies such as edge computing, AI/ML, automation, blockchain, and others. Thus, they are the new shiny balls with tremendous promise but also the potential to harbor risks. A range of sustainability-related services and solutions have emerged, leveraging these technologies in a variety of carbon emission reduction or climate action arenas. For instance, Forrester predicted that in 2022, edge and IoT will drive new solutions for scope 3 emission reduction. However, many emerging technologies themselves are not always sustainable in all applications. AI/ML and blockchain, among others, are computationally intensive. The International Energy Agency (IEA) reported that bitcoin alone consumes more than 100 TWh (terawatt-hour) per year, which is equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of the Netherlands. Edge and IoT devices distribute the carbon footprint of computing to the edges of the network. They also contribute to e-waste generation. Will technology save the planet or destroy it? The answer depends on how we approach it, although it is a bit of both. Technology leaders must consider the right balance of use cases and the application scale to ascertain investments and planning for emerging technologies as an aid for sustainability. In our latest report, Jekyll And Hyde: The Dual Role Of Emerging Tech In Environmental Sustainability, we explore the dual roles of eight popular emerging technologies: blockchain, digital twins, AI/ML, edge and IoT, processor technology advancements, thermo-optimized data centers, augmented reality/VR, and automation. We examine how they benefit and harm climate action (see figure). For each technology, we: 1) provide a description of its general use case; 2) detail the dual role it plays in sustainability; and 3) highlight future developments and considerations and the emergence of specific sustainability use cases. This report is a collaboration among Forrester’s specialists in each individual topic area: Glenn O’Donnell, Stephanie Balaouras, Martha Bennett, Paul Miller, Michele Pelino, Craig Le Clair, Zhi-Ying Barry, and Renee Taylor, with inputs from Andre Kindness and Mike Gualtieri. Talk to us more about this study. Reach out to me at asunil@forrester.com, or schedule an inquiry to connect. This blog post is part of Forrester’s Earth Day 2022 series. For more Forrester insights on sustainability, see the full set of Forrester’s climate action blogs.
"Green Stream" a new series of monthly video podcasts from Greening of Streaming that present activities, thought leadership and technical strategies . "Green Stream" a new series of monthly video podcasts from Greening of Streaming that present activities, thought leadership and technical strategies focussing on sustainability and energy efficiency optimisation in stream delivery. The archives are captured from the second part of our monthly members meetings, where (once all the day to day business is complete) we invite one member or a guest of a member to talk to the group about a key topic of interest. In this very first edition of 'Green Stream' Thibaud Biatek from www.ateme.com sets the bar extremely high with a rich presentation titled: Sustainable OTT Video Distribution Powered by 5G Multicast/ Unicast Delivery and Versatile Video Coding Thank-you Thibaud!! Please follow the GoS linked-in group to ensure you catch every forthcoming edition and and for other updates. For more information: info@greeningofstreaming.org
The number of people subscribing to at least one video service in Great Britain has fallen by 1.51 million. A new report from market research firm . The number of people subscribing to at least one video service in Great Britain has fallen by 1.51 million. A new report from market research firm Kantar found more than half a million could be attributed to families trying to cut costs amid rising retail prices. It means approximately 58% of Britons – not including Northern Ireland – were subscribing to streaming services including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+ Younger households have been particularly hit by the cost of living crisis leading to the penetration of streaming services dropping to 74.6% at the end of March 2022, compared to Q4 2021’s high water mark of 75.8%. Subscriptions had increased dramatically during the Covid-19 lockdown as families were forced to find entertainment at home – helped by a number of new launches. A mere 3% of UK households signed up to a new video streaming product in the first quarter compared to 4.2% during the same period in 2021. Fifty-eight percent of households (16.9 million) now have at least one paid subscription, down 215,000 quarter-on-quarter. The proportion of consumers planning to cancel SVOD services and stating the primary reason as ‘wanting to save money’ has risen to its highest ever level at 38%, up from 29% in Q4 2021. Kantar’s Worldpanel Division global insight director, Dominic Sunnebo, described the research as “sobering”. “The evidence from these findings suggests that British households are now proactively looking for ways to save, and the SVOD market is already seeing the effects of this,” he said. “As a result, it’s now more critical than ever that SVOD providers demonstrate to consumers how their services are indispensable in the home in what has become a heavily competitive market.” The report also reveals Amazon Prime thriller Reacher was the most-streamed show between January and March 2022, Netflix dramas Ozark and Inventing Anna on Netflix. Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) Related
First Solar, the largest US-owned solar panel manufacturer, today announced that it’s going to provide 260 megawatts (MW)DC of Ohio-made solar modules to Nevada Gold Mines, the single largest gold-producing complex in the world. Nevada Gold Mines is operated by Barrick Gold Corporation and is a . First Solar, the largest US-owned solar panel manufacturer, today announced that it’s going to provide 260 megawatts (MW)DC of Ohio-made solar modules to Nevada Gold Mines, the single largest gold-producing complex in the world. Nevada Gold Mines is operated by Barrick Gold Corporation and is a joint venture between Barrick (61.5%) and Newmont (38.5%) that combined their significant assets across Nevada in 2019. The company will invest in building a 200 MW solar farm, which will be deployed in the second quarter of 2023, as part of a broader effort to reduce its emissions. The completed solar farm will be able to power 17% of the gold-producing operation. Barrick has committed to a 30% greenhouse gas reduction by 2030, with the goal of net-zero operations by 2050. Nevada Gold Mines will support Barrick’s targets and has set an intermediate goal of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2025, compared to its 2018 baseline. Nevada Gold Mines says it expects to achieve its goals with the solar farm and the conversion of its “coal-fired power plant to cleaner burning natural gas.” (Editor’s note: Natural gas is never clean. Nevada Gold Mines, take note, and figure out another way.) In June 2021, Wood Mackenzie reported on gold mining emissions reduction progress: For the purpose of our analysis, we looked at 339 large-scale gold mines, or 60% of total gold supply. [G]old miners look broadly on track to align with the 2C climate target – which limits the rise in global temperatures since pre-industrial times to 2C by the end of this century. However, more action is required if the industry is to meet the 1.5C climate target, let alone surpass it. In June 2021, Electrek reported that First Solar announced the opening of a third manufacturing plant in Ohio in the first half of 2023. Read more: Largest US solar manufacturer to double its production with a new factory Photo: Nevada Gold Mines UnderstandSolar is a free service that links you to top-rated solar installers in your region for personalized solar estimates. Tesla now offers price matching, so it’s important to shop for the best quotes. Click here to learn more and get your quotes. — ad. Subscribe to Electrek on YouTube for exclusive videos and subscribe to the podcast.
More Energy Efficient Networks and Renewable Energy Usage are Negating Negative Environmental Impacts London: The energy consumption and carbon . More Energy Efficient Networks and Renewable Energy Usage are Negating Negative Environmental Impacts London: The energy consumption and carbon emissions of telecoms networks have remained mostly unchanged in recent weeks, despite significant increases in network traffic as a result of COVID-19 lockdown measures. The GSMA surveyed several of its large operator members to ascertain the environmental impact of the surge in services such as videoconferencing and entertainment streaming. In most cases, network electricity usage has remained flat, even as voice and data traffic has spiked by 50% or more. For example: UK operator BT reports a 100% increase in daytime traffic across its fixed broadband network. Mobile data traffic has fallen slightly since before the virus as more people connect to Wi-Fi. However, BT does see an increase in mobile data usage after the daily Downing Street briefings and the Clap for NHS Heroes on Thursday evenings. These changes did not lead to a noticeable increase in electricity use or carbon emissions, according to BT1. Telefónica reported a 35% data increase over its networks in Spain (26% fixed network and 48% mobile network) with no increase in electricity usage. There have also been increases in data traffic in the UK and Germany. However, at a lower level, and without a significant increase in electricity usage2. The Nordics operator Telia, with operations in Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania reported an electricity consumption increase of less than 1% across its mobile network, despite a 20% mobile data increase. They further say electricity use was unchanged across its fixed and core network operations3. Similar to BT, an increase in data usage outside regular working hours have been observed, probably due to a rise in consumption of streamed film series, etc. “As an industry we can be proud of network connectivity that is enabling societies and economies in these challenging times without increasing our environmental footprint,” said Mats Granryd, Director General of the GSMA. “Our sector will form the backbone to the future global economy and has a unique role to play in reaching a Net Zero carbon economy.” Both mobile and fixed networks are designed to be as energy-efficient as possible. In the case of traffic spikes and peaks, the network uses in-built ‘overcapacity’ to support the extra traffic load without requiring additional power. The current data increases have also tended to be evenly distributed throughout the day, enabling easier network management. Across the ICT sector, there are signs that the growth in data traffic has been ‘decoupled’ from energy consumption and carbon emissions during the last decade. According to data4 collected by ETNO and its members, in the period 2010-2018, we saw data traffic increase by 1100%, while carbon emissions reduced by 40%, and electricity consumption increased around 10%. This indicates that the expansion of the digital economy and data usage is not correlated directly to energy usage and carbon emissions. These indications are especially important as more energy-efficient 5G networks are being deployed, with the capacity to support up to 100 times more data traffic than 4G. The ICT sector recently set a Science-Based Pathway that will allow mobile, fixed, and data centre operators to reduce emissions in line with the Paris Agreement. For example, mobile operators adopting the target required to reduce emissions by at least 45% by the end of the decade5. The total life cycle carbon footprint of the ICT sector is estimated at approximately 700 million tonnes CO2 equivalent (MtCO2e): of this 170 MtCO2e is from the telco sector, 190 MtCO2e is from the manufacture of user devices, 190 MtCO2e is from the use of user devices and the remainder for data centres and enterpr...
Fewer and fewer people are using bitcoin for digital payments. Nevertheless, bitcoin transactions are consuming more energy than ever before – the . Fewer and fewer people are using bitcoin for digital payments. Nevertheless, bitcoin transactions are consuming more energy than ever before – the same amount as the whole of Thailand. With a carbon footprint equivalent to the Czech Republic’s (around 114 million tonnes per year), bitcoin is cancelling out other climate wins. The global take-up of electric vehicles, for example, is estimated to have prevented 50 million tonnes of CO₂ so far. That’s less than half of bitcoin’s emissions for a single year. And the problem’s getting worse. The growth of bitcoin “mining” powered by fossil fuels is outpacing greener alternatives, causing bitcoin’s carbon footprint to swell five-fold in just two years. But, according to campaign groups Greenpeace and the Environmental Working Group, all this can be easily fixed with a simple update to bitcoin’s software. Their campaign, called Change the Code Not the Climate, launched recently and calls on bitcoin software developers to switch the network from its currently wasteful system for verifying transactions to a more climate-friendly alternative. The switch, they claim, would reduce bitcoin’s carbon footprint by 99.9%. But it’s unlikely to happen soon – and here’s why. Proof of waste to proof of stake? Bitcoiners don’t trust bankers, taxmen and other meddling middlemen. Because there are no banks with bitcoin, the job of keeping the books straight is given to a global network of specialist computers. The owners of these computers compete for bookkeeping tasks in return for the transaction fees paid by network users. They also get a few newly minted bitcoins as a thank you. This competition is known as Proof of Work (PoW) mining. It works like an ever-expanding game of hungry hippos. The more players that join the contest, the more work each hippo needs to do in order to win anything. If a new hippo with green intentions joins the game, everyone at the table has to work harder. Players powered by coal in Kazakhstan, or fossil gas in Texas, then belch out extra smog. The higher the bitcoin price, the more the dirty hippos are prepared to waste on coal and gas until their costs for doing so are equal to their reward. And so, Proof of Work is proof of waste. And this is waste by design: Bitcoiners call this inefficiency “the feature, not the bug”. Greenpeace hopes the bitcoin community could learn to love Proof of Stake (PoS) instead. With the network running on PoS, bitcoin’s bookkeepers would need to stake a prescribed minimum number of bitcoins as a security deposit. If they validate fraudulent transactions, they lose their stake. This disincentive keeps the network secure. A number of blockchains, including Cardano, EOS, and TRON already use a PoS system, where token holders vote for the most qualified block producers. While bitcoin currently uses millions of mining computers, these PoS networks usually maintain an assembly of around 20 machines using a comparably minuscule amount of energy, taking turns to receive bookkeeping rights. Code blockers For bitcoin, coding these changes would be straightforward. Greenpeace claims that only 30 people – the largest mining outfits, exchanges like Coinbase and Binance, and code developers – would need to agree the switch to PoS. But this ignores the fact that everyone would need to run the upgraded software. On average, to successfully mine bitcoin once per week requires shelling out around US$1.8 million (£1.4 million) on hardware. Most miners are protective of these investments and conservative when it comes to amending the software code that underwrites their winnings. For this reason, Chris Bendiksen, a commentator at the cryptocurrency website CoinShares, puts the chance of Bitcoin ever moving to PoS at 0%. “There is no appetite among Bitcoiners to destroy the security of the protocol by making ...
Vlad has eyes across streaming in a national broadcaster, and is deep into constructing streaming infrastructure at serious scale and Peggy is fast . Live on the first Thursday of each month at 5pm UK / 12noon ET / 9am PT - on www.smadvancedforum.com - Informal chat and opinions on the business and technology of streaming.
At present, the broadcasting industry is experiencing ever-increasing demand for original video content, reports Future Market Insights. Major . At present, the broadcasting industry is experiencing ever-increasing demand for original video content, reports Future Market Insights. Major competitors are spending billions on the production of new content to satisfy their existing audiences and also attract new viewers. As such, several developers and broadcasters are striving to boost their video streaming software and services by creating original content to enhance brand reputation. Availability and quality of premium live content on different devices continues to grow, as live video streaming is in its nascent stage. Viewers who were earlier watching live events and sports on TV have started to shift towards these platforms, mainly due to the availability of live video content as per their linking and convenience. This demand-side trend is working in favour of the growth of the video streaming software market, which is projected for nearly threefold, to nearly $13 billion (€11.8bn), by 2030. Key Takeaways of Video Streaming Software Market Study For residential end users, 4K or UHD video streaming software is becoming mainstream, and this trend is likely to grow with an increase in the availability of mobile devices that support these formats. Although some regions such as Latin America have limited broadband penetration and high levels of piracy, they show great potential in becoming over-the-top (OTP) video streaming software market leaders in the coming years, owing to the changing habits of end users. Although growth in the total number of video streaming subscriptions is slowing down in North America, consumption time or video streaming time per user continues to increase, as the content that is available to stream is constantly improving. Covid-19 Pandemic Impact Analysis Increasing cases of Covid-19 infections have forced governments across the world to legislate nationwide lockdowns. Citizens are required to stay indoors until the concerned authorities lift the lockdown orders. The first quarter witnessed accelerated adoption of gaming and media platforms on a global level, as the need for digital entertainment rose among users. Netflix and Prime Video, among other video streaming software and service providers, are registering increased influx of subscriptions, as the number of Covid-19 infections surge and strict lockdowns are legislated across the world. These lockdowns are propelling the adoption of video streaming software solutions, worldwide. Related posts: Forecast: VR a $51bn market by 2030 Italian video streaming market grows 52% in 2020 Research: Video software market at inflection point Research: SVoD market $72.3bn in 2025 Forecast: Downstream satellite worth $7.5bn by 2030
Time spent on cable networks built on movies, syndicated TV and kids content has collapsed, Michael Nathanson says The future in which linear TV is driven almost exclusively by live sports, news and events has arrived, according to analyst Michael Nathanson after crunching numbers from Nielsen. "Time spent on cable networks built on movies, syndicated TV and kids content has collapsed over the past two years as consumers and media companies adopted a streaming first mind-set," said Nathanson, senior analyst at MoffettNathanson, in a report Thursday. "As a result, it is clear as day, looking at a two-year stack, that live sports and news are rising in importance and value to linear stake-holders." Nathanson found that the reach that cable and broadcast have has evaporated, falling by double digits over the past few years, leaving mainly older viewers. “There has been a dramatic reduction in the consumption of original scripted cable network content as audiences move to SVOD for that fare,” he said. “In the end, linear viewing appears headed to a world of 'live' programming while almost every other genre is served on demand.” By the fourth quarter of 2021, 69% of broadcast network viewership was by people age 50 and up. On cable, 69% of consumption came from older viewers. Only 5% of broadcast network viewing was by people 17 or younger. On cable, it was 6%. “Older viewers may be cutting the cord,” Nathanson noted, “but younger folks are increasingly asking the question, ‘What is a cord?’” In 2021, C3 ratings for the big broadcast networks were flat, with NBC getting a boost from the summer Olympics. On cable, Nathanson noted the news networks total day viewing – measured by C30 – is down by between 27% and 33% after 2020’s intense news cycle. Kids networks also dipped. Cartoon Network was down 34% and Nickelodeon dropped 23%. Overall cable network viewing was down 18% in 2022, with ESPN being the only top network to show an increase. Reach has fallen even more over a five-year span starting in 2016. “CNN’s reach fell from 38% to just 17%,” Nathanson said. “While much of this can be chalked up to the cyclical nature of news and election cycles, the same cannot be said of AMC, FX, and Comedy Central, which face a real existential threat from streaming. Without either sports or news, these networks simply do not provide any of the content we believe will keep viewers tuning into linear.” Networks have also seen big drops in length of tune – an important statistic to advertisers – since 2016. "Among the networks in company portfolios under our coverage, Investigation Discovery, MTV2 and TNT saw the biggest declines in length of tune, declining 18.3, 11.1, and 10.8 minutes, respectively," Nathanson said. "Oxygen saw the biggest gain in length of tune from 2016 to 2021, increasing 13.8 minutes. Other big winners include other general entertainment channels such as Pop TV and Ovation." Even the top shows on cable were showing declines in viewership. Nathanson looked at the top 3 shows on each of the top 30 networks. "Of the 60 shows on this list of the top three shows per cable network, only 14 increased in time viewed from 2020 to 2021," Nathanson noted. "NBA on TNT experienced the largest increase in absolute time viewed in 2021. ESPN’s NCAA football coverage did third best. Paramount’s Yellowstone stands out as one of the few scripted shows to grow, near the top of the list, coming in fourth.” As ratings have declined, linear ad revenues have remained relatively flat, Nathanson noted. "Networks and affiliates have managed to stave off a complete collapse of their revenues by matching declining viewership with inflating ad prices, but given the dramatic drop in certain cable networks’ reach, this long-running trend clearly looks less sustainable from here,” he said.
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – A team of University of Arkansas physicists has successfully developed a circuit capable of capturing graphene's thermal motion . [Mar 24, 2022: Bob Whitby, University of Arkansas] Graphene chip – A sample energy-harvesting chip under development. (CREDIT: University of Arkansas) FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – A team of University of Arkansas physicists has successfully developed a circuit capable of capturing graphene's thermal motion and converting it into an electrical current. “An energy-harvesting circuit based on graphene could be incorporated into a chip to provide clean, limitless, low-voltage power for small devices or sensors,” said Paul Thibado, professor of physics and lead researcher in the discovery. The findings, titled "Fluctuation-induced current from freestanding graphene," and published in the journal Physical Review E, are proof of a theory the physicists developed at the U of A three years ago that freestanding graphene — a single layer of carbon atoms — ripples and buckles in a way that holds promise for energy harvesting. The idea of harvesting energy from graphene is controversial because it refutes physicist Richard Feynman’s well-known assertion that the thermal motion of atoms, known as Brownian motion, cannot do work. Thibado’s team found that at room temperature the thermal motion of graphene does in fact induce an alternating current (AC) in a circuit, an achievement thought to be impossible. In the 1950s, physicist Léon Brillouin published a landmark paper refuting the idea that adding a single diode, a one-way electrical gate, to a circuit is the solution to harvesting energy from Brownian motion. Knowing this, Thibado’s group built their circuit with two diodes for converting AC into a direct current (DC). With the diodes in opposition allowing the current to flow both ways, they provide separate paths through the circuit, producing a pulsing DC current that performs work on a load resistor. Related Stories Clean Energy Revolution: Award winning solar panels don't need sunlight to produce energy Giant floating solar panel flowers provide clean energy to coal-addicted Korea Gravity can solve clean energy's biggest tech problem Additionally, they discovered that their design increased the amount of power delivered. “We also found that the on-off, switch-like behavior of the diodes actually amplifies the power delivered, rather than reducing it, as previously thought,” said Thibado. “The rate of change in resistance provided by the diodes adds an extra factor to the power.” The team used a relatively new field of physics to prove the diodes increased the circuit’s power. “In proving this power enhancement, we drew from the emergent field of stochastic thermodynamics and extended the nearly century-old, celebrated theory of Nyquist,” said coauthor Pradeep Kumar, associate professor of physics and coauthor. According to Kumar, the graphene and circuit share a symbiotic relationship. Though the thermal environment is performing work on the load resistor, the graphene and circuit are at the same temperature and heat does not flow between the two. That’s an important distinction, said Thibado, because a temperature difference between the graphene and circuit, in a circuit producing power, would contradict the second law of thermodynamics. “This means that the second law of thermodynamics is not violated, nor is there any need to argue that ‘Maxwell’s Demon’ is separating hot and cold electrons,” Thibado said. Paul Thibado, professor of physics, with sample energy-harvesting chips under development. (CREDIT: University of Arkansas) The team also discovered that the relatively slow motion of graphene induces current in the circuit at low frequencies, which is important from a technological perspective because electronics function more efficiently at lower frequencies. “People may think that current flowing in a resistor causes it to heat up, but the Brownian current does not. In fact, if no...
Lois van Baarle, a digital artist based in the Netherlands, joined Vimeo 13 years ago as a student studying animation, back when it was still an indie creator platform. When van Baarle started making subscriber-only Patreon content in 2020, Vimeo seemed like the best option for hosting her videos — . Lois van Baarle, a digital artist based in the Netherlands, joined Vimeo 13 years ago as a student studying animation, back when it was still an indie creator platform. When van Baarle started making subscriber-only Patreon content in 2020, Vimeo seemed like the best option for hosting her videos — Patreon itself didn’t offer video hosting, and YouTube didn’t have the same features to protect her work, like controlling where her videos could be embedded. “I was already paying $200 a year, which I think is pretty expensive,” van Baarle says. “But I thought, well, it’s a quality platform.” She’s uploaded 117 subscriber-only videos so far, and each one only gets around 150 views on average, van Baarle says. Her most viewed video has around 815 views. So the notice Vimeo sent van Baarle on March 11th shocked her. Her bandwidth usage was within the top 1 percent of Vimeo users, the company said, and if she wanted to keep hosting her content on the site, she’d need to upgrade to a custom plan. Her quoted price: $3,500 a year. She was given a week to upgrade her content, decrease her bandwidth usage, or leave Vimeo. “I’ve never had it where a platform reached out to me and was like, ‘Pay up, or get off our platform,’ basically,” she says. Van Baarle is far from alone in her experience. Several Patreon creators have received the same message from Vimeo in recent months, causing a tailspin of confusion and panic over potentially losing their video work. The ultimatums to indie video creators come as Vimeo is shifting focus toward large corporate clients — leaving longtime Vimeo users to scramble for an alternative. Channel 5, a popular account doing man-on-the-street-style interviews, received a similar message in January. In a post on Patreon titled, “Vimeo is holding our Patreon catalogue hostage (an explanation),” Channel 5 creators say that upon returning from a trip they saw that their videos had disappeared from the Patreon feed, resulting in hundreds of angry messages and the loss of “500+” subscribers. Screenshots posted by Channel 5 show their price for a new custom plan starting at $7,000 a year, and that an upgrade or migration off of Vimeo was required. Vimeo bandwidth usage is calculated using factors like video plays, resolution, loading the player and thumbnail image, downloading, and livestreaming, according to the company’s website. Overage charges aren’t imposed unless an account reaches “unusually high levels,” or is in the 99 percentile of users. Vimeo places that threshold at around 2 to 3 TB per month. In communication with affected creators, Vimeo isn’t shy about its policy to charge top creators more. “On some high consumption accounts (including your account), Vimeo has been losing money supporting its usage,” read email notices from company representatives. “This has become problematic for our leadership team and they made the decision to implement a fair use policy in which we reserve the right to charge the top 1% of bandwidth-consuming accounts based on the amount of bandwidth they are utilizing.” In a statement to The Verge, Vimeo’s head of communications Matt Anchin says that when a user reaches the threshold, the company works with creators to accommodate their higher bandwidth needs. “Our goal will always be to provide the best video solution possible and work with our users so they can continue to reach their audiences in high quality,” Anchin says. The company noted that over 70 percent of users flagged for excessive bandwidth choose to either upgrade to a custom plan or lower their bandwidth usage. Over the past four to five years, Vimeo has made a hard pivot away from being the YouTube alternative th...
Four people from Hampshire, Essex and Norfolk have been jailed for ten years following an investigation by Hampshire County Council Trading Standards . Four people from Hampshire, Essex and Norfolk have been jailed for ten years following an investigation by Hampshire County Council Trading Standards and FACT. Michael James Simmonds, aged 45 of Bridge Road, Bursledon, Kieran Collins aged 38 of Beccles Road, Great Yarmouth, Amanda Collins, aged 37 and also of Beccles Road, Great Yarmouth and Robert Kurian, aged 46 of Mascalls Way, Chelmsford were convicted on charges in connection with the illegal streaming of copyright protected material, such as Sky Sports and BT Sport, and laundering the proceeds. Councillor Edward Heron, Hampshire County Council’s Executive Member for Recreation, Heritage and Rural Affairs, said: “This successful prosecution in collaboration with FACT has helped to ensure that legitimate providers of digital content are supported, and crucially, that consumers are protected from downloading unregulated content.” Kieron Sharp, Chief Executive of FACT, added: “The individuals sentenced were involved in running a criminal enterprise that generated substantial profits with no regard for the rights of content owners. FACT continues to pursue those operating illegal streaming services who risk criminal convictions and forfeiture of assets.” Simmonds was sentenced to 5 years 6 months imprisonment with half the sentence to be served on licence; Collins received three years imprisonment with the remainder served on licence; Collins received 18 months imprisonment suspended for 2 years, and a requirement to conduct 200 hours of unpaid work, while Kurian receives 8 months imprisonment suspended for 2 years, and the requirement to conduct 180 hours of unpaid work. Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) Related
Ofcom says it has revoked Russia Today’s licence to broadcast in the UK, with immediate effect.The decision comes after the media regulator . Ofcom says it has revoked Russia Today’s licence to broadcast in the UK, with immediate effect. The decision comes after the media regulator established that RT’s licensee, ANO TV Novosti, could no longer be considered fit and proper to hold a UK broadcast licence. RT is already off the air after sanctions imposed by the European Union severed its broadcast feed. The future of RT has been in focus since the start of the Ukrainian crisis in February when it emerged culture secretary Nadine Dorres had asked the media regulator to review its licence. Ofcom is currently investigating 29 potential breaches into the due impartiality of RT’s news and current affairs coverage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “We consider the volume and potentially serious nature of the issues raised within such a short period to be of great concern – especially given RT’s compliance history, which has seen the channel fined £200,000 for previous due impartiality breaches,” said Ofcom Chief Executive Dame Melanie Dawes. The volume of complaints led Ofcom to launch a separate investigation into whether ANO TV Novosti could be considered fit to hold a licence. The investigation took into account RT’s funding by the Putin regime, the effective criminalisation of independent journalism, and the invasion of Ukraine itself. “We take seriously the importance, in our democratic society, of a broadcaster’s right to freedom of expression and the audience’s right to receive information and ideas without undue interference. We also take seriously the importance of maintaining audiences’ trust and public confidence in the UK’s broadcasting regulatory regime,” said Dame Melanie. RT deputy editor-in-chief Anna Belkina accused Ofcom of being nothing more than a tool of government.“By ignoring RT’s completely clean record of four consecutive years and stating purely political reasons tied directly to the situation in Ukraine and yet completely unassociated to RT’s operations, structure, management or editorial output, Ofcom has falsely judged RT to not be ‘fit and proper’ and in doing so robbed the UK public of access to information,” she said. The channel has previously been fined £200,000 for previous due impartiality breaches. Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) Related
Over a year ago, the landscape of the online world was altered forever when Beeple’s ‘Everydays — The First 5000 Days’ digital artwork sold at a . The world is already getting bored of the apes Over a year ago, the landscape of the online world was altered forever when Beeple’s ‘Everydays — The First 5000 Days’ digital artwork sold at a first-of-its-kind auction for $69,346,250. While digital art wasn’t a new concept, the medium had struggled to establish itself because.
Google has been working to develop better tools to track energy consumption and production in order to achieve its 24/7 carbon-free energy goal by . Google has been working to develop better tools to track energy consumption and production in order to achieve its 24/7 carbon-free energy goal by 2030. As part of these efforts, the search giant announced a new tool called Time-based Energy Attribute Certificates (T-EACs) last year to advance a more granular approach to energy tracking. Once T-EACs are fully developed and widely deployed, they will not only help Google achieve its 24/7 carbon-free energy goal but will also provide society with valuable new insights concerning the availability of carbon-free energy on electricity grids during every hour of every day. At the same time, this information will help energy consumers better understand their energy use while also creating price signals that stimulate new investments into green technologies and projects that deliver carbon-free energy when it's most needed. Google has spent the past year engaging partners around the world to advance the development and adoption of T-EACs. The company has also expanded the use of hourly certificates, accelerated the development of tools and systems to unlock energy data and hourly matching and created technical standards to drive the widespread adoption of T-EACs. Tracking and reporting carbon-free energy The registries that create, track and manage the energy attribute certifications (EACs) associated with clean energy generation are some of the most important stakeholders in advancing T-EACs according to a new blog post from Google Cloud. In the past, these registries have not issued or tracked certificates on an hour-by-hour basis but this has changed as demand grows for 24/7 carbon-free energy. For its part, Google has been working with global registries to accelerate this shift while creating new products and services for tracking energy attributes on a more granular basis. Read More
Google Cloud will now tell customers how to reduce their cloud emissions Google Cloud has renewed its environmental vows in a big way Google says it has the 'industry's cleanest cloud' In the US, the company partnered with the non-profit M-RETS which tracks and validates energy attribute certificates in order to expand the hourly transaction capabilities of its platform and enable the tracking and retirement of hourly certificates by all of its users. Google has also worked with APX to support the retirement of hourly Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) within the Southwest Power Pool (SPP) and as a result of this work, electricity generators across the Central and Midwest US will soon be able to retire certificates on an hourly basis whenever hourly data is available. In Europe, Google has collaborated with the Danish Grid operator Energinet as it builds the technical foundation to support granular certification and develop innovative applications such as the Project Energy Origin Platform. Meanwhile, in Latin America, the search giant has launched a pilot led by The International REC Standard Foundation in close collaboration with Evident Services and its suppliers ACCIONA Energia and AES Andes. Going forward, Google plans to continue to advance the adoption of hourly certificates as it works to ensure it is able to meet its goal of running its global operations on 24/7 carbon-free energy by 2030. We've also highlighted the best green hosting
Green power firm GenCell spoke to us at MWC about what it sees as the need for telcos to adopt renewable energy, and warned of repercussions for any . Green power firm GenCell spoke to us at MWC about what it sees as the need for telcos to adopt renewable energy, and warned of repercussions for any that do not commit to net zero targets. GenCell, having last month teamed up with German MNO Deutsche Telekom to perform a joint lab tests of a hydrogen-based backup power system for mobile sites called GenCell Box, was at Mobile World Congress last week presenting a case for more green energy adoption within telco infrastructures. In recent years large firms in particular have been turning up the volume when it comes to green messaging, one of the most common being a pledge to be ‘net zero’ or ‘carbon neutral’ by a certain year. Of course it’s not possible for a door mouse to simply stop producing CO2, let alone a multinational tech hardware firm, so many of the schemes are based around offsetting or using more environmentally friendly sources of power. There are a few ways of going about this, and GenCell is clearly a proponent of using hydrogen power to do so. Telecoms.com caught up with its CEO Rami Reshef (pictured) at MWC last week to find out more. Acknowledging some of the limitations of wind and solar energy – in that on a cloudy or windless day the you don’t generate much power – Reshef explained what GenCell is providing as an alternative: “We are offering hydrogen power technology in order to allow [telcos] to have a hybrid solution. If we try to sum up what we offering to the telco industry, it’s the possibility to bridge the gap between the need for digitization and to connect the unconnected, and to avoid any damage to Mother Nature. This is what we’re offering to Mobile World Congress.” When asked what the consequences for telcos would be if they did not adopt more green energy supplies such as the one his firm offered offers, Reshef said: “They will consume more and more energy, and they will never meet their sustainability goals. So I don’t think that they have any way to avoid using clean power.” When asked what if a telco firm has not actually committed to becoming net zero publicly, Reshef added: “If they haven’t committed to being net zero,I think and I would like to believe that the public will punish them. I think that each one of us has responsibility for the next generation, and if we leave behind an earth that is not suitable to for the next generation to be on, then we’ll punish them. I can say the telco operators are committed, it’s not a green wash, not anymore. It was a greenwash for many, many years. Now there are clear goals that they have set, and they’re invested in working towards them.”
Investors of Limelight Networks ( LLNW 13.56% ), a content delivery services company, pushed its share price up 13% today after Limelight said that it . Investors of Limelight Networks ( LLNW 13.56% ), a content delivery services company, pushed its share price up 13% today after Limelight said that it was buying an edge computing company from Yahoo! and that it would rebrand its name to Edgio. Making acquisitions is an ordinary move for many publicly traded companies, but investors should know that Limelight's purchase is a pretty significant one for the edge computing company in terms of its size, opportunity, and future. And that's why investors' optimism today appears to be on point. Let's take a quick look as to why. Limelight is purchasing Yahoo!'s Edgecast company for 72.2 million shares of common stock. Those shares will give Yahoo! nearly 32% ownership of the new combined company, which will be called Edgio. That's a significant deal, but what does Limelight get out of it? Here are a few of the highlights: The purchase will expand Limelight's total addressable market from $12 billion to $40 billion, the company says. The combination of the two companies is expected to "more than double" Limelight's current annual revenue, expand its gross margins, and increase recurring revenue growth, according to a press release. Limelight says that Edgecast's cloud security services will give the company projected revenue of more than $100 million in the security segment. Limelight Networks said that the acquisition will also expand its customer base, diversify its revenue, and create annual run-rate cost synergies of $50 million. When you combine all of these things together -- particularly the doubling of the company's revenue and its expanded total addressable market -- it becomes pretty clear why investors were right to be so optimistic about today's acquisition. One thing investors should look for in the coming quarters is whether or not some of management's estimates actually pan out. Companies can sometimes be too optimistic about the benefits of an acquisition, but in this case, it appears that Limelight investors could have much more to look forward to with this purchase.
There’s been a lot of Q4 2021 and full-year 2021 earnings released by vendors over the past two weeks. If you’re in the industry, here’s the key . There’s been a lot of Q4 2021 and full-year 2021 earnings released by vendors over the past two weeks. If you’re in the industry, here’s the key numbers and takeaways you should be aware of. People have lots of “opinions” on companies, but everyone should know the numbers (facts). – Q4 2021 revenue of $52.6 million, down 2% year-over-year – Total 2021 revenue of $211.1 million, up 7% year-over-year – GAPP net income for 2021 was $5.4 million, (net loss of $5.8 million in 2020) – Revenue guidance for 2022 of $207-$215 million, (at midpoint, 0% growth) – Ended Q4 2021 with 3,135 customers, (2,227 premium/total declined from Q3) – ARPU of premium customers was $95,360 in Q4 2021 – ARPU of starter customers was $4,100 – Has new incoming CEO in March – Market cap of $306.95 million – Stock: 52-week high $25.26, closed at $7.47 (more details here) Brightcove – Q4 2021 revenue of $905 million, up 7% year-over-year – Total 2021 revenue of $3.461 billion, up 8% year-over-year – GAAP net income for 2021 was $652 million, up 17% year-over-year – No 2022 revenue estimates given – Security Technology Group revenue for 2021 was up 26% year-over-year – Edge Technology Group revenue for was flat year-over-year – Will acquire IaaS platform provider Linode for $900 million – Linode is anticipated to add $100 million in revenue in fiscal 2022 – Had $2.2 billion in cash and cash equivalents at end of 2021 – Market cap of $16.3 billion – Stock: 52-week high $120.68, closed at $100.33 (more details here) Akamai – Q4 2021 revenue of $97.7 million, up 18% year-over-year – Total 2021 revenue of $354.3 million, up 22% year-over-year – GAAP net loss for 2021 was $222.7 million – Revenue guidance for 2022 of $400-$410 million – Total customer count of 2,804 in Q4, (445 were enterprise) – Hired new CPO and CMO – Market cap of $2.2 billion – Stock: 52-week high $97.98, closed at $18.70 (more details here) Fastly – Q4 2021 revenue of $196.3 million, up 54% year-over-year – Total 2021 revenue totaled $656.4 million, up 52% year-over-year – GAAP net loss for 2021 was $260.3 million – Revenue guidance for 2022 of $927-$931 million – Had $1.8 billion in cash and cash equivalents at end of 2021 – Market cap of $31.02 billion – Stock: 52-week high $221.64, closed at $95.87 (more details here) Cloudflare – Q4 2021 revenue of $106 million, up 27% year-over-year – Total 2021 revenue of $392M, up 38% year-over-year – GAAP operating loss for 2021 was $61 million – Revenue guidance for 2022 of 15%-18% year-over-year growth – Changes definition of “enterprise” customers – CFO departing, CEO going on maternity leave – Had $321.9 million in cash and cash equivalents at end of 2021 – Market cap of $2.09 billion – Stock: 52-week high $58, closed at $12.63 (more details here) Vimeo Related
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is not the first social media war—but it is the first to play out on TikTok. The 2011 Arab Spring was fomented and . Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is not the first social media war—but it is the first to play out on TikTok. The 2011 Arab Spring was fomented and furthered on Twitter and Facebook. Clips of Syrian children choking from chemical weapons filled social media timelines in 2018. And the Taliban’s capture of Kabul, with all the chaos that wrought, was live-tweeted into our homes last year. Images of unspeakable horrors supplanting the banality of status updates and selfies is nothing new. But the current conflict is a very different kind of social media war, fueled by TikTok’s transformative effect on the old norms of tech. Its more established competitors fundamentally changed the nature of conflict, but TikTok has created a stream of war footage the likes of which we have never seen, from grandmothers saying goodbye to friends to instructions on how to drive captured Russian tanks. So much of TikTok’s success comes down to both how visual it is and how instant it is. From memes and dance crazes to the storming of the US Capitol, it captures and clips the world with an immediacy other platforms can’t. As Russia prepared to invade Ukraine, it became a boon for open source investigators trying to track troop movements, and has provided immediate, quickfire footage of what’s happening as Ukrainians fight for their future. TikTok’s rise is—and always has been—a result of how easy it is to use. Its in-app editing and filters make it easier than any other platform to capture and share the world around us. If Facebook is bloated, Instagram is curated, and YouTube requires a shedload of equipment and editing time, TikTok is quick and dirty—the kind of video platform that can shape perceptions of how a conflict is unfolding. And as anyone who’s browsed social media in the last week knows, what happens on TikTok rarely stays on TikTok. “As an analyst of what’s happening in Ukraine at the moment, I’m getting 95 percent of my information from Twitter,” says Ed Arnold, research fellow in European security at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI). “Before that, 90 percent of your information would come from official sources, like intelligence sources.” But among the flurry of tweets, Arnold has noticed a strange trend: A significant chunk of the videos being shared are emblazoned with the TikTok watermark. “It’s odd,” he says. But it makes sense. TikTok is ubiquitous, user-friendly, and a lot of younger people use it, says Arnold. As of July 2020, 28.5 million of Russia’s 144 million people used TikTok, according to internal data seen by WIRED. (Data for Ukraine was not available.) “Out of all the social media, TikTok is the one that is most visual[ly engaging],” says Agnes Venema, a national security and intelligence academic at the University of Malta.
By Samuel Greengard Communications of the ACM, Vol. 64 No. 12, Pages 23-25 10.1145/3490165 Modern life increasingly is defined by the activities we . Modern life increasingly is defined by the activities we engage in online: Zoom meetings at work, Netflix and Xbox marathons at home, and a steady stream of YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook video clips in the nooks and crannies in between. There are many benefits to life online, yet there are also undeniable social, economic, and environmental costs. While global emissions from video streaming and other digital activities comprise somewhere in the neighborhood of 3% of the total,a the voracious and growing appetite for bandwidth is raising concerns about sustainability—and prompting some to wonder whether it is possible to keep up with the demand. "We're seeing the digitization of everything—work, entertainment and shopping. There's a huge shift in lifestyle and it's sharpening the focus on how all of these devices impact things," says Eric Williams, a professor of sustainability at the Golisano Institute for Sustainability of the Rochester Institute of Technology. As bandwidth demand ticks upward and carries the demand for power with it, "There's an emerging discussion about the role of all the digital services we've come to rely on," says Mike Hazas, a professor in the Department of Information Technology at the University of Uppsala in Sweden. "It's an important discussion, because how we design and use systems will define our future." Back to Top Left to Our Devices There's a common assumption that life online is cleaner and greener than life in the physical realm. There is near-zero cost to sending an email message or viewing a YouTube video. While it is true a Zoom meeting consumes only a fraction of the energy of a commute to work or a flight across the country, it does require bandwidth and electricity. Of course, as millions of people venture online for billions of video calls, the energy and bandwidth requirements accumulate, and can spike. The ability to click and instantly watch videos—and even autoplay them in various apps—has changed behavior in profound ways. According to networking firm Sandvine, upwards of 60% of the traffic on the Internet is now related to consumer video streaming, and sites such as Netflix, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube carry the bulk of this traffic, which is growing at an annual clip of about 24%.b The Carbon Trust, an independent U.K.-based advisory organization comprised of experts in sustainability, reports that long-form video streaming accounts for 45% of all Internet traffic.c Artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning, cryptocurrency mining, Blockchain, and the Internet of Things (IoT) are poised to ratchet up the stakes further. "These systems will add huge volumes of traffic to the Internet, and much of this traffic is automated and not constrained by users," says Kelly Widdicks, a post-doctoral researcher at the School of Computing and Communications at Lancaster University in the U.K. The direct use of devices, and how they draw power and bandwidth, is not the only factor in understanding how they impact things, however. About 90% of the energy a smartphone uses during its life cycle is embedded in the manufacturing process.d This includes collecting rare materials for batteries, fabricating devices, and recycling and disposing of components. What's more, after a smartphone handset is produced, about 90% of the energy consumption takes place off the phone, including on the network and in the datacenter.e Further complicating matters: fast, persistent Internet connections modify behavior. A 2021 study conducted by a pair of researchers at the U.K.'s University of Sussex, Bernado Calderola and Steve Sorrell, found that the availability of telework may actually encourage people to move farther from their place of work and engage in additional non-work-related travel. The authors noted that such "results provi...
Akamai Technologies is getting into the cloud-computing business. Best known as the leading content-delivery network, Akamai (ticker: AKAM) late . Akamai Technologies is getting into the cloud-computing business. Best known as the leading content-delivery network, Akamai (ticker: AKAM) late Tuesday announced an agreement to acquire Linode, a Philadelphia-based cloud-hosting company, for $900 million in cash. Akamai CEO Tom Leighton said in an interview with Barron’s that Linode is “a...
As far as the record industry is concerned, the existential (and the literal) threat of piracy has not been negated by the rise of streaming. Legal action continues and studies claim the issue steadfastly refuses to disappear despite the very idea of owning MP3s feeling anachronistic to most music . Share to Linkedin As far as the record industry is concerned, the existential (and the literal) threat of piracy has not been negated by the rise of streaming. Legal action continues and studies claim the issue steadfastly refuses to disappear despite the very idea of owning MP3s feeling anachronistic to most music fans. The litigation focus has moved in the past decade away from dedicated pirate sites towards software creators that allow users to “stream rip” tracks from existing services, notably YouTube – which offers a mix of videos uploaded by the content owners alongside UGC that may contain music but which rights owners can claim and monetise. The scale of the litigation against stream-ripping can be enormous. The RIAA, representing US record companies, recently won a case against YouTube-rippers FLVTO.biz and 2conv.com (both of which had were previously required to block access to individuals in the US). This legal action could see the trade body receive $83 million in damages. This legal action coincided with the publication of a white paper published by Muso, a digital piracy monitoring and measurement company. It claims to have analysed 182 billion visits to piracy websites last year to gather the information for its report, adding that this was an increase of 15.2% from 2020 in terms of the data it was processing. MORE FOR YOU ‘Dune’ Tops Foreign Box Office With Promising $77M Cume ‘Shang-Chi’ Box Office: Marvel Movie Tops $360M Worldwide 4 Series Coming To Netflix In October That Are Worth The Binge It stated that the US was the biggest piracy market, accounting for 10.6% of all global traffic here (equal to an average of 68 visits to a piracy site per internet user). The music business can take some relief from the fact that TV piracy dominates, accounting for 50.3% of all traffic globally; film made up 11.2% while music was just 8.1%. “The music industry's decision to not encourage exclusive content on streaming platforms has had a positive impact on music piracy over the past 5 years,” Muso suggested. Exclusives were briefly in vogue in the early days of Tidal and Apple Music where artists would give them exclusive release windows before allowing their music to go onto rival services. Such deals were struck, in part, to try and close the gap on Spotify’s market-leading position. Muso did, however, point to stream-ripping as a growing driver here of music piracy. “These sites accounted for 39.2% of music piracy in 2021, up from 33.9% in 2020,” it noted. For the first decade and a half of the 21st century, coverage of the record business was packed with rolling stories about the threat and impact of digital piracy, as well as the swing into litigation against both P2P services themselves and the serial uploaders who enabled vast numbers of tracks to be accessible for free. Since the arrival of Napster in late 1999, downloading of unlicensed MP3s grew at a phenomenal rate. There were arguments this was killing the record business, but also counter-arguments that users of sites such as Napster and the many which came in its wake were treating such downloading as a “try before you buy” opportunity. The arrival of iTunes Music Store in 2003 was the first success in getting people to pay for downloads at scale. The steady rise of streaming, however, saw consumption of music move to a model based on ownership (of CDs, of MP3s, of LPs) to one built entirely around access (via streaming services that were free, but running on advertising revenue, or based on monthly subscriptions). Streaming is now the bulk of the record business globally and has helped industry revenues to rise again after many years of decline. (How that...
Things like streetlights are handy places to put mobile base stations but they can often be hard to access. The UK government is trying to change . Things like streetlights are handy places to put mobile base stations but they can often be hard to access. The UK government is trying to change that. The DCMS announcement says it wants to ‘slash red tape from 5G roll out’, but in this case it’s referring only to so-called ‘street furniture’. This means publicly-owned things like streetlights, bus stops, CCTV poles and traffic lights. These elevated structures can double as towers for enterprising mobile network operators but it looks like that process is encumbered by bureaucracy and unhelpful jobsworths. So the department of fun is going to chuck a few quid at eight projects that will aim to ‘simplify local authority processes’. A focus of these projects will be in digital asset management platforms, from which we can infer an absence of them from the local authorities whose job it is to maintain this stuff. The ultimate aim seems to be to bring them into the 21st century in the hope they’ll be a bit more helpful. “Everyone gets frustrated when their mobile signal is poor, particularly when patchy coverage holds up important work and social calls and makes it harder to do stuff online,” empathised Digital Infrastructure Minister Julia Lopez. “That is why we are determined to get the UK the connectivity it needs by rolling out better mobile coverage as quickly as possible. “Currently, mobile companies are finding it difficult to get the data they need to check that a lamppost, bus shelter or public building is suitable for hosting their kit. These eight pilots will help solve this by modernising the way local authorities and operators work together in a way that ultimately delivers faster, more reliable mobile coverage for millions of people. It is all part of our joined-up strategy to deliver world-class connectivity to every corner of our country.” The eight projects will be respectively led by Dorset Council, North of Tyne Combined Authority, Scottish Futures Trust, West Berkshire Council, West London Alliance, West Midlands Combined Authority, West of England Combined Authority, and West Sussex County Council. No timescales have been shared and operators would be wise to resist the temptation to hold their breath in anticipation of radical reform any time soon.
Hong Kong (CNN Business) — SoftBank's record-breaking sale of a prized chip designer to Nvidia has officially been called off. At an initial value of $40 billion, the US chipmaker's acquisition of British design firm ARM would have been the largest semiconductor deal on record. But regulators around . Hong Kong (CNN Business) SoftBank's record-breaking sale of a prized chip designer to Nvidia has officially been called off. At an initial value of $40 billion, the US chipmaker's acquisition of British design firm ARM would have been the largest semiconductor deal on record. But regulators around the world have long raised concerns about the deal, eventually leading to its collapse on Tuesday. In a statement, SoftBank cited "significant regulatory challenges" that prevented it from completing the deal. It said that it would instead prepare ARM for a public offering within the fiscal year ending March 2023. Under the terms of the agreement, SoftBank had already received a deposit of $1.25 billion during the signing. That payment was non-refundable, and "will be recognized as profit" in the Japanese conglomerate's earnings for the quarter ending this March, it said. FTC sues to block Nvidia's $40 billion takeover of Arm AAPL) and other major smartphone makers. The firm is based in Cambridge and is known as one of Britain's most successful tech companies. ARM designs chips used byand other major smartphone makers. The firm is based in Cambridge and is known as one of Britain's most successful tech companies. The transaction was first announced in 2020, four years after SoftBank bought ARM for $32 billion, marking the largest foreign takeover by a Japanese firm at the time. It was originally expected to close within 18 months, which would have been around this time. But it ran out of steam as it became a subject of global regulatory scrutiny, including from China and the United Kingdom. Just days after the announcement, an opinion piece in Chinese state-run tabloid Global Times had dubbed the move "disturbing." "If ARM falls into US hands, Chinese technology companies would certainly be placed at a big disadvantage in the market," read the op-ed. In December, the US Federal Trade Commission sued to block the deal, saying it would stifle competition and give the combined company too much control over chip technology and designs. The European Commission also launched an investigation into the deal late last year. The deal would have had to pass regulatory approvals from the United Kingdom, the European Union, the United States and China. Had it gone through, it would have been the semiconductor industry's biggest-ever deal, topping Avago's acquisition of Broadcom in 2015, according to Dealogic. SoftBank COO Marcelo Claure is leaving after a reported pay dispute SFTBF) CEO Masayoshi Son remained optimistic about future plans for ARM. Speaking at an earnings presentation on Tuesday,CEO Masayoshi Son remained optimistic about future plans for ARM. While he acknowledged that his company was now pivoting toward a "plan B," he said that SoftBank had originally hoped to take ARM public after acquiring it years ago. "[So] this is [the] original plan again," he said. Still, the billionaire hit out at those who had opposed the deal, arguing that critics had appeared "eager to block" a deal between "two totally different businesses." In the history of antitrust complaints, "this could be the first case" involving claims about two such "different companies," he said, likening Nvidia and ARM to the makers of car engines and tires. "Why do they have to block this transaction?" he asked. ARM also announced a new leader on Tuesday, saying that longtime CEO Simon Segars would be replaced by executive Rene Haas. In a statement, Son thanked Segars for his 30-year tenure at the company and said that "Rene is the right leader to accelerate ARM's growth as the company starts making preparations to reenter the public markets." Rishi Iyengar contributed ...
As the athletes take to the ski slopes and ice rinks to compete in the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, the eagerly awaited games have been a TV . The study noted that with so many viewing options available, viewer expectations for a good experience streaming have never been higher, particularly for marquee live events. It noted that despite slightly longer start times and a significant increase in buffering, streaming viewers were treated to 4% fewer start failures and 0.2% higher picture quality on the day of the Opening Ceremony as compared with an average Friday. That said, plays were up 9% and concurrency up 6%. The study observed that while ceremonies in previous years stretched to four hours with extended pomp and circumstance, the brevity of this year’s Opening Ceremony condensed viewership in 2022. Almost three-quarters (71%) of viewership was captured in the middle two hours of the Opening Ceremony. In another key change since 2018, the study discovered that tablets accounted for a 28% share of viewing during the Opening Ceremony. Only weeks days ago In addition to showing the streaming surge over the last four years, According to research from Conviva, the 2022 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony recorded a 349% increase in viewing time as compared with the same event in 2018.The study noted that with so many viewing options available, viewer expectations for a good experience streaming have never been higher, particularly for marquee live events. It noted that despite slightly longer start times and a significant increase in buffering, streaming viewers were treated to 4% fewer start failures and 0.2% higher picture quality on the day of the Opening Ceremony as compared with an average Friday. That said, plays were up 9% and concurrency up 6%.The study observed that while ceremonies in previous years stretched to four hours with extended pomp and circumstance, the brevity of this year’s Opening Ceremony condensed viewership in 2022. Almost three-quarters (71%) of viewership was captured in the middle two hours of the Opening Ceremony.In another key change since 2018, the study discovered that tablets accounted for a 28% share of viewing during the Opening Ceremony. Only weeks days ago Conviva released data showing that tablets only had 5% of viewing time of global streaming time in Q4 2021. Connected TV devices, such as Roku, Chromecast, and Amazon Fire TV, tied the top spot and desktops came in third with 17%. Smart TVs with 14%, mobile phones with 12%, and gaming consoles with 1% rounded out the rest of the devices. 55% of viewers preferred watching the opening ceremony on Apple iPads.In addition to showing the streaming surge over the last four years, the research also made clear just how massive social is in video. It found that social engagement was up 370% for official national Olympics accounts from over 120 different countries compared with the average for the previous six weeks. Twitter led all social platforms in volume of content posted accounting for 37% share, while Instagram delivered the most engaged audience with 66% of all engagements for Olympic committee accounts in the week leading up to the Winter Olympics.
Following a detailed process to identify the best way to generate investment and strengthen our Sports business, BT Group today announced that it has . Following a detailed process to identify the best way to generate investment and strengthen our Sports business, BT Group today announced that it has entered exclusive discussions with Discovery, Inc. on a deal to create a new sport and entertainment offering for customers in the UK. The new business would be a 50/50 joint venture, bringing together BT Sport with Eurosport UK. The new combined business would remain committed to retaining BT Sport’s existing major sports broadcast rights while BT Sport customers would get access to Discovery’s sport and entertainment content, including the discovery+ app. BT Group are aiming to conclude the exclusive discussions with Discovery, Inc. in early Q1 for the new company to be operational later this year, subject to completion of the deal and approval by the relevant competition authorities. Marc Allera, CEO BT Consumer, said: “The proposed joint venture with Discovery, Inc. would create an exciting new sports broadcasting entity for the UK and would act as a perfect home for our BT Sport business. With a shared ambition for growth, as well as the combination of our world class sports assets along with Discovery’s premium sports and entertainment content, our customers will benefit from even more content in more places.”
Xavier has a wealth of experience in content delivery, and Jill is an avid promoter and supporter of women in the broadcast industy and active in the . Thu, Feb 03 www.smadvancedforum.com Xavier has a wealth of experience in content delivery, and Jill is an avid promoter and supporter of women in the broadcast industy and active in the industry for many years!
A team of sports broadcasters, rights owners and technology vendors, collaborating as part of IBC’s Accelerator Media Innovation Programme, have . A team of sports broadcasters, rights owners and technology vendors, collaborating as part of IBC’s Accelerator Media Innovation Programme, have revealed the initial results from an English Premier League production workflow trial to support the goal of a carbon ‘net zero’ future for live productions. Together, they demonstrate how innovative remote & cloud production workflows can meet ambitious sustainability objectives and reduce the environmental impact of live production. The project team, comprising six broadcast and production ‘Champions’ led by BBC Sport, BT Sport, Sky Sports, Premier League Productions and international rights holders NBCUniversal and SuperSport have come together with the English Premier League, IMG/Premier League Productions and albert (BAFTA’s initiative to support more sustainable production) to experiment with multi-provider cloud technologies, formats and workflows, sharing camera feeds, audio, graphics and human resources to avoid duplication and reduce travel and other energy requirements in the production chain. High level findings from the trial include confirmation that cloud production reduces the amount of technical infrastructure required for the gallery production, for some broadcasters by up to 70 per cent. It also demonstrated that cloud production further reduces the requirements for significant onsite technical facilities as it allows signals to be sent quickly and easily to multiple locations. The project team deployed bespoke workflows and architectures alongside a traditional Outside Broadcast production to compare and contrast carbon footprints, in a collaborative ‘proof of concept’ demonstration during the Premier League game that took place on December 16th 2021, between Liverpool and Newcastle United. The initiative will drive further research that support carbon footprint reduction for the sector, providing industry benchmarks and more measurable insights into live production for the first time. Project technology has been powered by six leading media and technology ecosystem vendor participants: Amazon Web Services, Blackbird, Hitomi, Microsoft, M2A Media, Singular.Live and Zixi. The key findings of the project, revealed and explained by the Champions involved on IBC Digital, IBC’s online content platform, is available on-demand. The panel including representatives from BT Sport, Sky Sports, BBC Sport and the Premier League discuss the results, learnings and potential benchmarks and will share further insights with the industry through the release of a technical paper and discussions at upcoming industry events in the coming weeks. “Improving sustainability has become a number one priority for the media and entertainment production sector,” said Andy Beale, Project Lead and Chief Engineer at BT Sport. “The future of our planet depends on a collective effort to become carbon net zero. With this IBC Accelerator project, we wanted to tangibly experiment together to understand the alternatives to traditional OB production in live sport, in order to make carbon metrics more readily available so companies can benchmark what they are doing and help motivate them to do more to reduce their own carbon footprints.” “Reducing the carbon emissions attributed to the production of our sports programming is of great importance – and a major part of Sky’s ambitions to achieve its goal of net zero carbon emissions by 2030,” added Inga Ruehl, Executive Director, Production Services & Operations at Sky. “The promising results from the trial show that the industry goal of a drastic reduction of emissions through means such as cloud production workflows is very much attainable. If the industry continues to work together towards this goal it can make a huge difference.” The initiative builds upon the significant progress made within the UK TV and f...
Fears of “catastrophic disruption” to flight schedules in the U.S. seem to be coming true after a number of airlines suspended their flights to the . UPDATE: AT&T and Verizon have announced a delay to Wednesday’s planned activation of 5G towers around certain airports in response to safety concerns raised by airline chiefs, and to avert major disruption to flight schedules. But for some airlines — mainly those flying to the U.S. from other countries — the announcement came a little late. Fears of “catastrophic disruption” to flight schedules in the U.S. seem to be coming true after a number of airlines suspended their flights to the U.S. following AT&T and Verizon’s plans to switch on their new C-Band 5G networks starting Wednesday, January 19. The suspension, at the moment, seems to only affect routes serviced by the Boeing 777 aircraft, with four major international carriers issuing statements confirming the same. Emirates seems to be the worst affected of the lot, with the Dubai-based airline suspending flights to as many as nine U.S. cities. Most of its U.S.-bound flights are serviced by the Boeing 777 aircraft, with the rest of the load being handled by the Airbus A380. JAL’s statement mentions it is having to suspend flights flown with a 777. It also adds that it is not in a position to replace the Boeing 777 with an alternative model like the Boeing 787. Emirates is suspending flights to 9 U.S. cities — Boston, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Miami, Newark, Orlando, San Francisco, and Seattle — indefinitely due to the 5G rollout. h/t @AirlineFlyer — Edward Russell (@ByERussell) January 18, 2022 ANA’s statement is also somewhat similar and mentions that all its flights that use the Boeing 777 are canceled until further notice. While stopping short of a complete suspension, Air India’s official Twitter handle sent out a tweet confirming that its operations to the U.S. stand “curtailed/revised.” Interestingly, these airlines have decided to go ahead with the suspension of Boeing 777 flights even after Verizon and AT&T agreed to temporarily limit the deployment of 5G near certain airports — a decision that was hailed by President Biden as well. The latest development in the stumble to 5G: AT&T and Verizon caving to keeping C-Band 5G offline near runways, and airlines canceling flights anyway. The difference seems to be Boeing saying not to fly the 777. — Avi Greengart (@greengart) January 18, 2022 Both AT&T and Verizon originally planned to deploy the new 5G networks starting January 5, 2022. However, following the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) concerns surrounding 5G waves possibly interfering with radio altimeters used on aircraft, both carriers deferred the launch for two weeks. In the meantime, FAA came up with a list of 50 airports and approaches that could be affected by this deployment. On Sunday, the FAA cleared half of those airports for safe operations — but that still meant almost 25 other airports were still deemed unsafe for landing. Several of the airports and approaches are located at some of the busiest and most important cities in the U.S. including Boston, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Miami, Newark, Orlando, San Francisco, and Seattle. However, as the story develops, we may see some of these airlines roll back these decisions now that the deployment of C-band 5G networks near airports has been suspended. Editors' Recommendations iPad Air 5 getting upgraded camera, chip, and 5G in 2022 T-Mobile’s 5G leads the pack in Ookla’s latest speed report Airlines continue to fear new 5G service will cause flight chaos 5G’s big players make bold, exciting predictions for 2022 FAA says 50 U.S. airports won’t get expanded 5G coverage until later in 2022
The streaming giant is faced with slowed growth so it's opting for the easy money. On Friday, Netflix announced it has raised prices on all of its subscription plans, with the highest-quality plan now costing users $19.99 per month. The basic plan, which only allows for standard definition video, is . On Friday, Netflix announced it has raised prices on all of its subscription plans, with the highest-quality plan now costing users $19.99 per month. The basic plan, which only allows for standard definition video, is now $9.99. Netflix says its most popular plan, which allows for 1080p HD video, is now $15.49. "We're updating our prices so that we can continue to offer a wide variety of quality entertainment options," a Netflix spokesperson said. To be clear, "updating" is apparently now a euphemism for "raising," at least when it comes to prices. And, Netflix's reason for raising prices is pretty simple--it has to. The company's share price rose three percent after the announcement, which is really all you need to know about why Netflix keeps upping the price of a service that is essentially the same as it has been for a decade. It has to make shareholders happy. That has gotten harder as subscriber growth has slowed. Of course, there comes a point when you're the largest streaming service, that it's difficult to find people who aren't already subscribers. You'd think that would be considered a win, except that shareholders want to see growth, even when you're already as big as you're reasonably going to get. That's just the law of large numbers. If you already have 214 million subscribers, which Netflix said it had in October 2021, it's very hard to continue growing at the same rate as when it had, say, 50 million, or even 100 million. To be clear, not everyone is a subscriber. Then again, a large portion of people who don't pay for Netflix is streaming Squid Game anyway, using someone else's account--usually a parent, or roommate, or former girlfriend. Some estimates suggest as many as a third of accounts share a password. That means there are as many as 70 million people who are using Netflix without paying. Instead, Netflix has decided the easier path to growing revenue is to simply charge its existing customers more money for the same service. Eventually, however, there will be a point at which people won't continue to pay whatever Netflix decides to charge. I have no idea what that amount is, but I'm honestly a bit surprised we haven't reached it already. Netflix has now raised the price of its top plan by $8.00 in the past five years. The obvious question is whether Netflix is offering additional value for the higher price. I guess that depends on how you define value. The company isn't adding any new features to its plans. At the same time, it continues to invest as much, if not more, than its competitors on new content. Still, adding new movies and television shows feels like it should be a given. It's not really a new feature. Most of Netflix's biggest competitors charge far less than it does. Sure, Apple TV+ doesn't have nearly the library as Netflix, but Apple doesn't charge you more to watch movies in 4K. Apple is also spending billions to build its own content library, despite only charging $4.99 per month. That's half of Netflix's cheapest plan. I suppose Netflix's strategy is that it plans to continue raising prices until net growth becomes negative, meaning that more people are dropping the streaming service than signing up. Clearly, the company has a problem with no real solution in sight. It's the biggest streaming service, with the largest content library, with very few options for growth. Netflix can only turn up the heat on the proverbial frog (that would be its subscribers), for so long before some of them decide they're not sticking around any longer. Is anyone going to pay $20 per month for Netflix's mid-tier plan? At this rate, we're only a few years from finding out. Netflix says the change in pric...
Streaming records continue to be broken with BBC iPlayer recording a new record of 141 million programmes streamed during the week of the New Year . Streaming records continue to be broken with BBC iPlayer recording a new record of 141 million programmes streamed during the week of the New Year (27 December – 3 January). The figure represents a 6% uplift on the same week in 2020/21. Charlotte Moore, BBC’s Chief Content Officer says: “2022 on the BBC has started with a bang with record viewing across Christmas and New Year on BBC iPlayer. Millions of people chose to watch our unrivalled range of box-sets and Christmas specials live on our channels, or binge on-demand across the festive season – paving the way for the BBC’s centenary, a landmark year that will look forward and celebrate British creativity across the whole of the UK.” BBC iPlayer had its best-ever day over the Christmas holiday period with 22 million streams Sunday 2 January, boosted by the debut of thriller The Tourist, starring Jamie Dornan. The series is currently the third most successful drama launch of all time on iPlayer – having been streamed over 18 million times to date. The Girl Before (1.6 million) was also popular, along with Christmas Day staples including the Call the Midwife Christmas special (1.6 million) and EastEnders (1.5 million). Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) Related
A fresh batch of rumours claim UK sports media company DAZN is really close to buying BT Sport, and that an agreement could be reached this . A fresh batch of rumours claim UK sports media company DAZN is really close to buying BT Sport, and that an agreement could be reached this month. Reuters reported late on Wednesday that the long-running negotiations are expected to culminate in an $800 million (£582 million) deal that will give DAZN those much-coveted rights to show English Premier League and UEFA Champions League football in the UK. The sports streaming service has supposedly been in the frame to acquire the unit since last April, when BT first confirmed it was exploring its options. Reports in September claimed the parties were in advanced talks and that a deal was weeks away from being announced. Then it all went quiet. This led to yet more speculation, this time that the talks had stalled due to the complex issue of BT’s commercial arrangements, which let rival TV operators carry BT Sport. Sources cited by the Sunday Telegraph reported in December described DAZN’s bid as “chaotic”, and that Eurosport parent Discovery hoped to capitalise on the situation by offering BT a ‘plan B’ that would combine their respective sports businesses into a joint venture. According to this week’s rumours, Discovery is not entirely out of the running, but DAZN has seemingly gotten its act together and is considered the leading contender. If the reported value of the nearly-done-deal is on the money, so to speak, it would represent a somewhat meagre return on the amount of cash BT has splurged on sport over the years. The UK incumbent’s well-documented entry into sports broadcasting began with a £738 million bid for a chunk of football broadcast rights. By the time BT Sport went live ahead of the 2013 Premier League season, the telco had already spent more than £1 billion, not just on broadcast rights, but on studios and the equipment and staff that comes with those. It also spent considerable sums to build a stable of expert presenters and pundits – plus Michael Owen – to provide their opinions on key moments. A widely-cited figure from Jefferies analyst Jerry Dellis puts the annual cost of BT Sport at around £800 million. Selling the division would remove those hefty annual costs from the balance sheet and bring in a tidy £582 million, some of which BT could quite easily divert towards its ongoing 5G and fibre network deployments. On the downside, its TV service would certainly lose some of its curb appeal. As we all know, cross-selling content like high-profile sport helps funnel in more broadband customers, the same customers that BT needs to help pay for its aforementioned network rollouts. DAZN is available as an app on Android and iOS; games consoles; and pretty much every streaming platform you care to mention: Android TV, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV Stick, Google Chromecast. the list goes on. The millions of punters who live and die by what happens when 22 men chase a ball around on some admittedly lovely grass will become much more likely to quit BT broadband if a better deal should come their way. Meanwhile, if content is still king, then DAZN looks set to play king-maker in Spain. News agency EFE reported this week that Telefónica is in talks to secure access to the 45 percent of La Liga matches it doesn’t already have. In December, Telefónica and DAZN won 55 percent and 45 percent respectively of broadcast rights for La Liga for the next five years, in a bidding process that raised €4.95 billion. Telefónica has made it a mission to ensure that its customers can watch every game, and to that end it has made an approach to DAZN. According to EFE, talks are ongoing and an agreement is expected to be in place by June. Rival Orange, which also shows La Liga matches – thanks to an agreement with Telefónica – is also said to be keen to hammer out a deal with DAZN. Whether or not the BT Sport deal goes ahead, DAZN is clearly keen t...
For watchers of the NFTs phenomenon, it's been a wild couple of weeks. "All apes gone," tweeted art gallery owner and crypto evangelist Todd Kramer . Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share via Email For watchers of the NFTs phenomenon, it's been a wild couple of weeks. "All apes gone," tweeted art gallery owner and crypto evangelist Todd Kramer on Dec. 30, after someone swiped his collection of "Bored Ape" NFTs. Then Eminem was reported to have purchased one of those same apes for a cool $462,000 in cryptocurrency — just the latest in a long string of celebrities getting in on the craze. (Matt Damon also appeared in a crypto ad during prime time football Sunday night.) As an NFT skeptic, some guy getting scammed out of his collection of objectively hideous procedurally-generated ape cartoons was amusing. But it's all getting steadily less funny. Real non-rich people are putting a lot of money into these things, and there are good reasons to think sooner or later most of them are going to lose their shirts. The details of how NFTs work are a fascinating study in how utopian technobabble, heavy advertising, and the appearance of instant effortless wealth can convince millions of people to fling money into an incredibly dubious "investment." To create one, you inscribe some metadata about a piece of art (like a link to an image) onto the blockchain of some cryptocurrency (typically Ethereum) with a smart contract, requiring payment of a "gas fee" (using up something like 48 kilowatt-hours of electricity, or as much as the average U.S. household uses in a day and a half) which puts a time-stamped permanent record of the metadata onto the blockchain, naming you as the owner. Hey presto, you "minted" a new digital . thing that, unlike any normal piece of data, can't be replicated, but can be sold. NFT boosters say the resulting tokens are a new way for people to own unique digital assets — one of those classic libertarian schemes trying to engineer around the need for social trust or the state. But in reality, NFTs have nothing to do with real ownership. They are essentially just an electronic "receipt" that anyone can make pointing to anything. (People are constantly making "fake" NFTs on art they do not own in real life, though I would argue they're all equally fake.) Boosters will tell you forthrightly that any artist who mints one still retains all normal copyright powers. In terms of the actual art itself, anyone with a web browser can go and look at the entire collection of those appalling ape cartoons, and even save the image files to your computer — indeed, just looking will create a copy of the original ape image simply because of how the internet works. An NFT isn't even really scarce. Nothing is stopping someone from minting another NFT of the same image or whatever — the two would be distinguishable of course, but nothing on either token would indicate one is better or more legitimate than the other. Or they could use a different cryptocurrency and blockchain (or set one up themselves) and do the same thing. The only actual limitation is the mind-boggling amount of electricity required, and perhaps whether the resulting carbon emissions will end up drowning the servers hosting the image file with rising sea levels. One might even argue that it is not possible to steal an NFT, because theft implies trust and interface with the legal system that NFTs are explicitly designed to avoid. There is no difference between a smart contract and a hack in terms of the internal logic of NFTs and crypto — in each case you have some machines executing pieces of equally-brainless code. The difference is in the intention of the participants and their relationship to society. In a trustless system where "code is law," possession is proof of ownership. Kramer, of course, was very upset about losing all his precious apes, and so convinced OpenSea (the third-party service where he had hosted his NFTs, allegedly worth some $2.2 million) t...
Amazon Web Services leads the pack by a large margin, at 32%. When we talk about regulating big tech, the discussion usually centers on online privacy . When we talk about regulating big tech, the discussion usually centers on online privacy and location tracking, but we never seem to discuss the control these companies have over a vast majority of the internet. We use free apps and services every day but fail to mention where all that data is stored—in the cloud. If we want big tech to have less control over our daily lives, maybe we should start worrying about the stranglehold these few companies have over our data. According to data collected by the Synergy Research Group, four companies own 67% of the world's $130 billion cloud market. Leading the pack by a large margin is Amazon Web Services, which enjoys a whopping 32% market share against the competition. This is followed by the 20% share enjoyed by Microsoft's Azure infrastructure. So these two companies alone make up 52% of the market. Behind the two dominant companies, Google Cloud at 9% and Alibaba Cloud at 6% round out the top four, which together own over half of the market. IBM Cloud, Salesforce, Tencent Cloud, and Oracle Cloud combined make up 12%. Between the infrastructure-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service schemes employers subscribe to and the hosted private cloud services we use every day, these companies have ultimate control over our data. Google may not be viewing everything you upload to Google Drive, for instance, but the companies do gain access to our personal data through the free services you use. Recommended by Our Editors The Reckoning Is Coming: Regulating Big Tech The Best Cloud Storage and File-Sharing Services for 2022 Would You Sell Your Own Personal Data—and What Would You Charge? In the fourth quarter of 2020 alone, cloud infrastructure services brought in a total of $37 billion as the world solidified its work-from-home strategies. This was a $4 billion jump from the previous quarter, indicating that these companies continue to thrive off our data while many other businesses suffer. Get Our Best Stories! Sign up for What's New Now to get our top stories delivered to your inbox every morning. This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links. Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe from the newsletters at any time. Sign up for other newsletters Your subscription has been confirmed. Keep an eye on your inbox!
During the pandemic, multiple in-person events had to be canceled and rethought for virtual platforms. Even now there are still many virtual and hybrid events being held, and since this is a trend that is here to stay, the popular video conferencing platform Zoom has acquired broadcast tools to . During the pandemic, multiple in-person events had to be canceled and rethought for virtual platforms. Even now there are still many virtual and hybrid events being held, and since this is a trend that is here to stay, the popular video conferencing platform Zoom has acquired broadcast tools to enhance the coverage of these hybrid events. As announced by the company on its official blog, Zoom has acquired two assets from Liminal, a startup company that offers tools based on the Zoom SDK. The two tools acquired are ZoomOSC and ZoomISO, both add-ons that help users create and organize virtual and hybrid events. While ZoomOSC enables integration of Zoom’s platform with OSC controllers and media servers, ZoomISO brings advanced controls to generate individual HD video output of participants in a Zoom conference. Amongst other things, Liminal’s software can connect multiple HD video feeds from Zoom to production-grade hardware and applications. By adding these capabilities and more to our events management and production offerings, we believe we will continue to be the leading comprehensive, one-stop, hybrid events management platform in the market. In addition to the acquisition of ZoomOSC and ZoomISO, two of Liminal’s co-founders, Andy Carluccio and Jonathan Kokotajlo, will also join the Zoom team. Earlier this year, Zoom announced “Zoom Events” to help users host virtual events, so the acquisition of Liminal’s tools will certainly enhance related features. Read also: Zoom launches ‘pilot program’ to test showing ads to free users Zoom announces new ‘Focus’ mode to keep students from getting distracted Check out 9to5Mac on YouTube for more Apple news:
CES, the world’s largest technology show, is pressing on, but with fewer major exhibitors appearing in-person than expected due to rising COVID-19 cases in the United States. On December 22nd, exhibitor Lenovo announced that it would “suspend all on-site activity in Las Vegas,” following . CES, the world’s largest technology show, is pressing on, but with fewer major exhibitors appearing in-person than expected due to rising COVID-19 cases in the United States. On December 22nd, exhibitor Lenovo announced that it would “suspend all on-site activity in Las Vegas,” following announcements from T-Mobile, Amazon, Meta, and others that they’d be ditching as well and despite CES organizers’ statements that the show would go on. T-Mobile was the most prominent exhibitor to bail early that week. CEO Mike Sievert, one of the Consumer Electronics Show’s featured speakers, publicly announced on Tuesday that he would no longer be doing a keynote and would “significantly limit our in-person participation.” Amazon decided not to attend the show in-person entirely, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, and AT&T also dropped out on Wednesday, according to Axios’ Ina Fried. Hisense typically has a large press conference and significant presence in the LVCC’s central hall, but on Thursday morning, Hisense announced it decided to make its January 4th press conference fully virtual “to ensure the health and safety of our team.” The company still plans to have a booth at the show, with in-person walkthroughs for those attending and virtual ones for those covering it from home. It was followed closely later in the day by Waymo, as Alphabet’s self-driving car company updated its blog post to explain the decision. “Based on quickly rising COVID-19 infection rates, Waymo has made the difficult decision not to participate in person at CES 2022. We are aiming to still virtually participate in some CES-related events. In particular, as part of our Self-Driven Women series, our co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana and our Global Head of Public Policy Michelle Peacock will speak at several virtual panel discussions with the Female Quotient, the official equality partner of CES 2022.” Chipmaking giant Intel said on Thursday afternoon that “[after] consulting with health officials and in the spirit of Intel’s safety policy, our plans for CES will move to a digital-first, live experience, with minimal on-site staff.” Gaming accessory maker HyperX also said it’s pivoting away from in-person plans and will support conversations and activities virtually. The dominoes continued to fall on Thursday, as General Motors announced its presence will be all-digital. Less than a day ago, GM confirmed to The Verge that it still planned to attend CES, where CEO Mary Barra was scheduled as a keynote speaker, and it planned to debut an electric version of the Chevrolet Silverado, but now that has changed. A statement from the company says, “We have decided to move to an all-digital approach with our activation at CES 2022 in January. CES is an important technology platform, and we are continuing with our plans on January 5 to share our significant company news including the reveal of the Chevrolet Silverado EV.” GM was closely followed out the door by Google, which has frequently used CES to host larger and more extravagant showcases for its new hardware. It had planned to have a booth at the event, but Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman tweeted on Thursday that, like its corporate sibling Waymo, it is backing out of the in-person event. In a statement given to The Verge, Google communications manager Ivy Hunt says, “After careful consideration we have decided to withhold from having a presence on the show floor of CES 2022. We’ve been closely monitoring the development of the Omicron variant, and have decided that this is the best choice for the health and safety of our teams. We will continue to collaborate closely with both CTA and our partners to identify and support virtual opportuni...
GreeningofStreaming on BBC News www.smadvancedforum.com flipped this story into Greening of Streaming39d
As we reach the end of 2021, and as I sit and type in that weird lull before Christmas when no one is quite certain if anyone else is working or not, . Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. The Streaming Industry's Stellar 2021 Opens the Door to an Even Better 2022 As we reach the end of 2021, and as I sit and type in that weird lull before Christmas when no one is quite certain if anyone else is working or not, compounded by yet another cycle of complications caused by COVID, it seems important to spend a moment reflecting on the year past and thinking about the year ahead. Several things stand out from 2021. The streaming industry itself had a year of fundamental continued organic growth, propelled by widespread adoption of streaming as part of life for the general public over 2020, and muted new business growth thanks to the lack of opportunism and serendipity provided by real-world conferences. The lack of major marketing events and skewed timing of major live sporting events has meant that innovation cycles are no longer in sync. Any company may introduce any innovation at any time. This is increasing the role of industry groups who try to create collaborative attempts and focused momentum in specific areas to innovate at a macro level. The Streaming Video Alliance is doing wonders to bring harmony across multiple other industry groups, the newly formed CDN Alliance also is gathering momentum quickly, and I personally was overwhelmed by the response to the launch of Greening of Streaming, to the extent that we made a full-time hire to run the project. Remote live production and video workflow engineering in the cloud, and more generally moving towards virtualized strategies, has become the norm rather than the new. That said, there are many questions about adoption strategy, and it feels in general like we are in the first iteration (if you like the initial rush to market from all the new entrance), with some significant changes to come to improve the global resilience of the world’s streaming infrastructures. Indeed a few notable significant outages in the CDN space, while shocking the general public, highlighted how the core of this industry is still very small and the group of friends and network of engineers in the community is still surprisingly close-knit, given that we have collectively a huge impact if things go wrong. Sometimes this hides the fact that we are always (well very nearly) having an unsung but major impact for at least four of the five nines of time! As for my predictions for 2022: While the core of the established industry will continue to patiently innovate and collaborate and make real-world differences, there is a new component to the streaming sector. I would venture it almost exclusively consists of finance from new entrants who have joined the industry within the last two years. In recent months it’s been evident to me that there has been a significant amount of venture capital invested into what some may call Web3 start-ups. As far as I can tell, the Web3 topic has been emerging from an investment community that seems to rotate around Andreesen Horowitz. It is driving a great deal of speculative new interest where the technology behind cryptocurrency (namely blockchain) can be promoted in such a way that it offers the hope of disintermediation to startups in the media sector. I think back to my first adventures with streaming in the late 90s, centred around MP3. MP3 represented a disruptive opportunity for me, one that still fuels much of my excitement in streaming today. However much of what I have seen in this Web3 space seems to be taking what I would call (in their language) Web 2.0’s centrally controlled infrastructure and renaming parts of it and calling it Web3. Calling a distributed database performing a digital asset management function a “decentralised fabric” does not create anything new technically, even if it communicates some dream to venture capital...
Vodafone says it will turn off its VodafoneTV service on September 30 next year. Around 100,000 customers are on the service, Vodafone says. Vodafone says it will turn off its VodafoneTV service on September 30 next year. Around 100,000 customers are on the service, Vodafone says. Source: VodafoneTV being switched off in September next year, Sky to pick up crumbs – NZ Herald Share this: Like this:
Celebrating our 10th re:Invent As the 10th edition of re:Invent gets started here in Las Vegas, we take a look back at some of the event’s most . Cloud is the opportunity to reimagine everything What do Angelo-Giuseppi ‘Hank’ Luisetti, an American college basketball player; Florence Nightingale, a British nurse, social reformer, and pioneer in statistics; and Roscoe Brown, one of the first Black aviators to serve in the U.S. Army Air Corps, all have in common? Whether it was Luisetti pioneering an early version of the jump shot in the 1930s, to Nightingale driving huge reforms in healthcare in the late 1800s, to Brown breaking racial stereotypes as a distinguished, trailblazing pilot in World War II, they were all considered innovators in their specific field. And according to AWS CEO Adam Selipsky, they were all pathfinders: people who refused to accept the status quo and looked for a better way to do things–transforming their fields and communities in the process. Pathfinding was the theme of Selipsky’s keynote at re:Invent this morning, his first since taking over as CEO earlier this year. Selipsky said AWS had come a long way in 15 years, looking back at how it disrupted the information technology industry when it launched in 2006, when the concept of cloud hardly existed. He described how IT and infrastructure was inflexible and slow, and suffocated innovation. AWS knew there could be a better path forward, then—and now. And according to Selipsky, the company is running as hard and fast now as it was back in 2006. During his keynote, Selipksy made a suite of new service announcements showcasing AWS’s continued commitment to innovation, as well as inviting customers Nasdaq, United Airlines, Dish Wireless, and 3M on stage to share how AWS is helping them forge entirely new paths in their own industries. AWS CEO Adam Selipsky makes six major service announcements during keynote Photo by Colin Young-Wolff New instances powered by AWS-designed chips lower costs and increase energy efficiency In 2006—when cell phones could flip, but they weren’t yet smart—a team of AWS engineers set themselves an ambitious goal of making almost infinite computing power available to anyone in the world. And they did it. The service they created, Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), revolutionised the way people build businesses by offering on-demand access to the kind of compute power previously only available to Fortune 500 companies. Fifteen years on, and EC2 shows no sign of slowing down. Today’s announcement of three new Amazon EC2 instances (virtual servers that mimic the functionality of physical servers) powered by three new AWS-designed chips—AWS Graviton 3, AWS Trainium, and AWS Nitro SSD—will help customers: Significantly improve the performance, cost, and energy-efficiency of the workloads they run on EC2 Speed up the time it takes to train machine learning models at lower cost Ensure optimum storage performance for data intensive workloads As part of the announcement, Selipsky said: “AWS is working with SAP to power SAP HANA Cloud with AWS Graviton processors.” Read the press release to find out more. Making it easier to move off a mainframe For those of us not so well-versed in the language of information technology, a mainframe, or ‘big iron’ as they are sometimes referred to, is a high-performance computer typically used by large companies for critical applications—such as storing and processing large amounts of customer data. While mainframes have been used for decades in industries including banking and healthcare, they are complex, expensive, and difficult to scale. That’s not to mention the fact that applications written for mainframes are increasingly hard to manage, as fewer and fewer engineers specialise in what’s essentially an outdated technology. Many organizations want to modernize their systems and move from mainframes to the cloud, but are held back by the sheer complexity and time-consuming nature of the process. T...
The interview with Gil Santaliz from NJFX and Peder Nærbø from Bulk Infrastructure will bring you a step forward in understanding how digital . Where to put high-density compute for AI? Join us for a deep dive into a real world, industry 4.0 solution, and the location options for deploying high-density compute for AI. With an enterprise's needs and constraints in mind, and publicly available pricing, we'll show you "back of the napkin estimations" which demonstrate magnitude and ballpark for implementation options. Learn how not all options meet the enterprise needs and constraints, as well as the significance in the numbers. This presentation is designed to stimulate thought and further investigation for solutions present and future.
Taken from the January 2021 issue of Physics World. Members of the Institute of Physics can enjoy the full issue via the Physics World app. The Internet . Physics World. Members of the Institute of Physics can enjoy the full issue Taken from the January 2021 issue of. Members of the Institute of Physics can enjoy the full issue via the Physics World app The Internet will use a fifth of all the world’s electricity by 2025 – and that’s no bad thing, says James McKenzie I recently went on a canal holiday, drifting on a hired narrowboat through the pretty Staffordshire countryside. Travelling by canal is the fastest way to slow down, they say, because the sedate pace, tranquillity and wildlife all give you time to think. As I meandered past factories, potteries and mines, I started to reflect on the Industrial Revolution and the reasons why the British canal network was built. From today’s perspective, canals seem cataclysmically slow – you’re limited to a top speed of four miles per hour and it takes about 20 minutes to get through a lock. But back in the 18th century canals were a spectacular breakthrough, allowing companies to move raw materials and goods at low cost. A single horse could tow a boat with 50 times as much cargo as it could pull by cart. The canal heyday didn’t last. Soon came steam engines and railways, which were much faster. They in turn were usurped by cars, lorries and trucks, with the road network providing an even faster, cheaper and more convenient way of delivering goods and services, driving productivity and economic growth. But every mode of transport – even canals – faced initial opposition to their creation, routing and impact. Misleading sensationalism Today’s modern communication infrastructure – the Internet – has also suffered. I’ve seen headlines like “Silicon Valley’s dirty secret”, “How to stop data centres from gobbling up the world’s electricity” and “How viral cat videos are warming the planet”. One old favourite is “Google searches can generate the same amount of CO2 as boiling a kettle”, even though the maths is out by several orders of magnitude and it’s wrong to assume that energy consumption is directly related to CO2 emissions. I’ve read articles about web-server data centres, such as those used by Google and Facebook, being blamed for 2% of greenhouse-gas emissions, which is about the same as air travel. The BBC website even had a recent story suggesting we should send fewer e-mails to “save the planet”, though it added it won’t make much difference as the infrastructure to send e-mails – your laptop, the WiFi and the network itself – are all “on” anyway. 20% of the world’s total electricity consumption may be used by the Internet by 2025. Some may find this appalling, but to me, it’s absolutely fine. The beauty of e-mails is they are so quick and cheap. In the UK it costs 85 pence to post a letter (plus envelope, paper and the effort to get to the post box) whereas an e-mail costs almost nothing (and has a lower environmental impact) and doesn’t take two days to arrive. Of course, when something is nearly free, people consume more of it. Known as the Jevons paradox, it was first applied in the 1800s to coal, but communications are price-elastic too. According to a recent report from KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden, about 10% of the world’s total electricity consumption is currently used by the Internet. The figure has risen from 8% in 2012 and may reach 20% by 2025. Some may find this appalling, but to me, it’s absolutely fine. The Internet, after all, is driving the next step in productivity and economic growth plus it underpins carbon reduction across the economy. And don’t forget that if all of us drove electric vehicles, we’d need twice as much electricity as now. Even data centres – those buildings filled with servers and hard disks that are the physical manifestation of cloud computing – are doing a good job. Yes, they require lots of energy: a large centre typi...
Ben is a regular host and contributor to many conferences and particularly interested in 8K, and Megan has a pile of experience with streaming in a . Live on the first Thursday of each month at 5pm UK / 12noon ET / 9am PT - on www.smadvancedforum.com - Informal chat and opinions on the business and technology of streaming.
NESTED 5G project brings together innovative French companies Orange, Viaccess-Orca, ENENSYS Technologies and IETR to develop solution for greener . NESTED 5G project brings together innovative French companies Orange, Viaccess-Orca, ENENSYS Technologies and IETR to develop solution for greener delivery PARIS, 23 NOVEMBER, 2021 – ATEME, the leader in video delivery solutions for broadcast, cable TV, DTH, IPTV and OTT, today announced that it is leading NESTED (New vidEo STandards for Enhanced Delivery), a consortium aimed at developing a high quality-of-experience (QoE) and sustainable video-streaming solution over 5G. The innovative NESTED 5G project is headed by ATEME in collaboration with Orange, which tests the efficiency and sustainability of the NESTED streaming solution in real use cases over 5G. The project brings together leading French companies Viaccess-Orca, contributing its secure video player, QoE analytics enabler suite and targeted advertising solution, and ENENSYS Technologies with its MediaCast Mobile and its CubeAgent Mobile. Renowned French institution IETR (Institut d’Electronique et des Technologies du numéRique), the research unit at French engineering school INSA Rennes, also participates by providing a VVC decoder. In addition to leading the project, ATEME plays a vital role in bringing the new solution to life with its latest compression technology, its Just-in-time packager and its CDN. The consortium will leverage the latest advances in video compression and delivery technologies, and their expected benefits in terms of reduced environmental impacts, among which: CMAF chunk sharing to reduce the traffic burden on the CDN The latest VVC video encoding with its promise of halving bitrates Multicast/unicast convergence enabling peak audience reach In addition, this collaboration will highlight the benefits of an e2e pre-integrated, best of breed multicast ABR solution, notably in terms of QoE and personalized viewing experience. Ultimately, it will therefore enable multicast for 5G, allowing operators to take a greener approach to streaming. Driven by Orange’s goal to distribute video and manage bandwidth efficiency and delivery over 5G, the solution looks to increase the sustainability of streaming over 5G and to reduce broadcasting infrastructure costs for service providers while delivering the best quality of experience to viewers. The two-year project, supported by France’s Brittany region (Région Bretagne), is due to end in 2023, by which time the consortium is confident it will be able to demonstrate the benefits of its solution when it comes to offering sustainable streaming over 5G and reducing the environmental impact of delivering video. Mickaël Raulet, Chief Technology Officer, commented: “We are proud that Orange has turned to us to help them achieve their sustainability goals. There is an ongoing debate about the environmental impact of streaming over 5G and this project will help to lessen that. It also highlights the innovation taking place within the French market and once completed, we look forward to helping other organizations around the world leverage that innovation through our new streaming solution.” Julien Lemotheux, TV&Video Senior Standardization Manager, Orange, said: “The impact our actions have on the environment is front of mind for everyone within our organization. By working with the NESTED 5G taskforce, we hope to make streaming more sustainable, reducing our energy footprint and allowing our customers to enjoy high-quality content.” “The reduction in environmental impact, together with the management of QoE and the provision of more personalized viewing experiences, are the determining factors for a sustainable future in video streaming; as an innovation leader, Viaccess-Orca is glad to contribute its unique expertise and technology enablers to help Orange and the other consortium partners explore innovative routes for video streaming.” said Alain Nochimowski, CTO a...
As (hopefully) many readers will know Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen, Tim Siglin, and I have been strong vocal supporters of Women in Streaming Media and . Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Where Are the Women in the Streaming Media Industry? As (hopefully) many readers will know Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen, Tim Siglin, and I have been strong vocal supporters of Women in Streaming Media and more broadly of our ‘sisters-in-streaming’ for many years. In programming conference sessions and panel discussions, webinars, and more we always proactively try hard to reach out to those women we know in the industry to ensure there is frequent representation for women in public events. Photo above: Speakers on the "Future of Monetization" panel at Streaming Media West Connect earlier this month. Top row, L to R: Nadine Krefetz, Consultant, Reality Software and Contributing Editor, Streaming Media; Damian Pelliccione, Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Revry TV; Elizabeth Parks, President, Parks Associates. Middle row, L to R: Mike Woods, SVP - Ad Products, Amagi; Daniel Schneider, SVP, Revenue, Cinedigm; Gene Pao, Senior Vice President, Digital Enterprises, Shout! Factory. Bottom: Chris Yates, General Manager, Redbox On Demand We attended the launch of Women in Streaming Media at IBC in 2018 as invitees of Alicia Pritchett, Diane Strutner, and Peggy Dau (who drive the initiative). We have always held one of two guest seats for them in SMAdvancedForum.com—our monthly catchup with ‘characters’ from the industry, and we traditionally try to hand over the reins of the show to an all-woman crew specifically for International Women’s Day each March. When interviewing for articles, we keep our ears out for opportunities for womansplaining to take the priority over mansplaining, and (unknown to you all) we have protocols for keeping an eye out for when women are getting squeezed out in panel discussions where we are moderators, to ensure their voices are heard. And if you think it is bad across the streaming sector as a whole, once you dive into the CDN sub-sector, the situation is seriously dire. In fact, no event has even been more painful for me to programme than the Content Delivery Summit, the latest iteration of which ran earlier this month. Just look at the agenda. Great topics with really engaging speakers, and a dense day of exciting engagement across the sector. But we had only two women on the program—kudos Elsa Pine from EdgeConnex and Nino Doijashvili from Tulix). On publication of the agenda, this issue was raised directly with me by both Ian Wagdin from the BBC (whose PR department raised it on a ‘non-discrimination’ concern) and by active support of Vanessa Vigar, who is a member of Women in Streaming Media and has pointed out the issue in events beyond Streaming Media and SMAF. And absolutely rightly so. But I had to clarify the back story, which I want to share a little with you all here. We initially worked with sponsors to place their participants. Elsa has been a frequent panelist at CDS, and so she and her company were very much involved from the outset of this event. And while a couple of the other sponsors initially did put forward women speakers, in both cases they switched them out for male representatives before the programme was finalised. We don’t really have much control over who sponsors put forward to speak, so at that stage we took that on the chin, and decided to focus on the panels and non-sponsor placements in the event. So we put out the call for speakers in August/September, and we had about 3 dozen responses. The respondents were 100% from men. Not a single woman replied—and that call was distributed on StreamingMedia.com and its associated feeds with no (known of) bias. This is the first time that has happened, and it ties up strongly with evidence I have seen in SMAdvancedForum (SMAF) too; while up until this summer we have never had any issue reaching out for and finding f...
WarnerMedia has announced plans to launch a measurement alternative to Nielsen in 2022. Speaking in an interview with Variety, the company’s head of . WarnerMedia has announced plans to launch a measurement alternative to Nielsen in 2022. Speaking in an interview with Variety, the company’s head of data, research and insights Andrea Zapata said that WarnerMedia is in talks with 10-15 measurement vendors and that it plans to work with media buying agencies to test potential options in Q1 2022. Nielsen, long the standard-bearer for measurement, has come under fire in 2021 as broadcasters such as NBCUniversal accused the company of misreporting figures in the streaming era. Nielsen’s CEO has since admitted that “we haven’t been perfect”, while the company last month relaunched its streaming measurement suite. Warner however sees an opportunity to fill the gap, Zapata said. She told Variety: “We are doing this because we believe that there has got to be a better alternative in measurement solutions, and we have a responsibility to our investments, to our clients and partners, and to counting the value of our audience.” While it is investigating its only solution, WarnerMedia is not entirely abandoning Nielsen though. Zapata confirmed that the companies are in talks over renewing their existing deal and that Nielsen “can earn a place in our future.”
The impact of Qualcomm shutting down its Reciva internet radio aggregation platform earlier this year continues to reverberate through the internet . The impact of Qualcomm shutting down its Reciva internet radio aggregation platform earlier this year continues to reverberate through the internet radio manufacturing industry. The loss of this platform means Reciva-enabled internet radios can no longer connect to audio streams on the web — rendering them effectively useless. Sangean Electronics is one of the manufacturers left stranded by the Reciva shutdown. “The official date was April 30, 2021,” Sangean Marketing Director Andrew Wu said. “The response we got [from Qualcomm] was, ‘We have decided to withdraw this discretionary service, for business reasons. We wish you well in finding alternative solutions’.” “It’s not the first internet radio platform to shut down,” said Wu. “But it is the first time for a supplier to not offer any viable solutions.” “The shutdown was difficult on both the brands and customers who used Reciva-based devices,” said Greg Fadul, CEO and cofounder of Grace Digital, another internet radio manufacturer. “For Grace Digital, it’s been very difficult. We are a family-run business and we were partners and friends with the Reciva team. However, over the years Reciva was sold twice and the companies that acquired them decided that they would no longer support the legacy servers.” Why did Reciva shut down? Qualcomm has not responded to Radio World’s requests for interviews about the Reciva shutdown. However, internet radio manufacturers who supported this platform have offered several reasons for its demise. First is the complexity and cost of running the Reciva platform. “Back in 2003 the processors in internet radios were extremely slow and had little memory, so Reciva’s strategy was for its servers to perform the heavy lifting with the radio only performing the basic streaming function,” said Fadul. “Their server system was not simply an internet radio station aggregator, but a high-end global array of dozens of servers located in key cities around the world. The server network provided radio authentication, managed log-ins for premium services, and various settings and configurations for the radios, among many other functions.” Fast-forward 18 years and quality internet radios perform all those functions on the radio itself without the costs of an intermediary array of servers. To make matters worse, “there was no path to upgrade due to the age of the code and its incompatibility with new hardware,” said Bob Crane, president of radio equipment firm C. Crane. “In addition, there are no longer people who fundamentally understand the ins and outs of this proprietary code and programming. The original software was also burdensome and slower than new chips.” Despite this, Crane said he believes the driving force behind Qualcomm’s Reciva shutdown was the cost of maintaining its global server system. With manufacturers having moved to newer and more self-contained internet radio-tuning systems, Qualcomm had to cover this cost without receiving any revenue to pay for it. “The Reciva problem happened in part because there was no recurring income for the founders,” said Crane. “This is why every software developer on the planet — think Adobe, Microsoft, and Oracle — has switched primarily to subscription-based purchases because there has to be some way to fund ongoing maintenance and future development.” As reported by Radio World in March 2021 (“Reciva Internet Radio Platform Shutting Down“), internet radio manufacturers are doing their best to assist Reciva-stranded listeners. At C. Crane, “we accelerated our new CC WiFi 3 internet radio into production as quickly as possible based on Skytune.net,” said Crane. “We also developed a program to take care of our Reciva-based CC WiFi owners, offering them a graduated discount that took into consideration how recently they’d purchased their older sets. We tried ...
I’m Dr. Krishna Rao Vijayanagar, and I have worked on Video Compression (AVC, HEVC, MultiView Plus Depth), ABR streaming, and Video Analytics (QoE, . Basic Steps to HLS Packaging using FFmpeg. Resize a Video to Multiple Resolutions using FFmpeg ffmpeg -i brooklynsfinest_clip_1080p.mp4 \ -filter_complex \ "[0:v]split=3[v1][v2][v3];\ [v1]copy[v1out];\ [v2]scale=w=1280:h=720[v2out];\ [v3]scale=w=640:h=360[v3out]" Transcode a Video to Multiple Bitrates for HLS Packaging using FFmpeg. -map [v1out] -c:v:0 libx264 -x264-params "nal-hrd=cbr:force-cfr=1" -b:v:0 5M -maxrate:v:0 5M -minrate:v:0 5M -bufsize:v:0 10M -preset slow -g 48 -sc_threshold 0 -keyint_min 48 \ -map [v2out] -c:v:1 libx264 -x264-params "nal-hrd=cbr:force-cfr=1" -b:v:0 3M -maxrate:v:0 3M -minrate:v:0 3M -bufsize:v:0 3M -preset slow -g 48 -sc_threshold 0 -keyint_min 48 \ -map [v3out] -c:v:2 libx264 -x264-params "nal-hrd=cbr:force-cfr=1" -b:v:0 1M -maxrate:v:0 1M -minrate:v:0 1M -bufsize:v:0 1M -preset slow -g 48 -sc_threshold 0 -keyint_min 48 \ -map a:0 -c:a:0 aac -b:a:0 96k -ac 2 \ -map a:0 -c:a:1 aac -b:a:1 96k -ac 2 \ -map a:0 -c:a:2 aac -b:a:2 48k -ac 2 \ Creating HLS Playlists (m3u8) using FFmpeg. -f hls \ -hls_time 2 \ -hls_playlist_type vod \ -hls_flags independent_segments \ -hls_segment_type mpegts \ -hls_segment_filename stream_%v/data%02d.ts \ -var_stream_map “v:0,a:0 v:1,a:1 v:2,a:2” stream_%v/stream.m3u8. Create an HLS Master Playlist (m3u8) using FFmpeg. -master_pl_name master.m3u8. Final Script for HLS Packaging using FFmpeg – VOD ffmpeg -i brooklynsfinest_clip_1080p.mp4 \ -filter_complex \ "[0:v]split=3[v1][v2][v3]; \ [v1]copy[v1out]; [v2]scale=w=1280:h=720[v2out]; [v3]scale=w=640:h=360[v3out]" \ -map [v1out] -c:v:0 libx264 -x264-params "nal-hrd=cbr:force-cfr=1" -b:v:0 5M -maxrate:v:0 5M -minrate:v:0 5M -bufsize:v:0 10M -preset slow -g 48 -sc_threshold 0 -keyint_min 48 \ -map [v2out] -c:v:1 libx264 -x264-params "nal-hrd=cbr:force-cfr=1" -b:v:1 3M -maxrate:v:1 3M -minrate:v:1 3M -bufsize:v:1 3M -preset slow -g 48 -sc_threshold 0 -keyint_min 48 \ -map [v3out] -c:v:2 libx264 -x264-params "nal-hrd=cbr:force-cfr=1" -b:v:2 1M -maxrate:v:2 1M -minrate:v:2 1M -bufsize:v:2 1M -preset slow -g 48 -sc_threshold 0 -keyint_min 48 \ -map a:0 -c:a:0 aac -b:a:0 96k -ac 2 \ -map a:0 -c:a:1 aac -b:a:1 96k -ac 2 \ -map a:0 -c:a:2 aac -b:a:2 48k -ac 2 \ -f hls \ -hls_time 2 \ -hls_playlist_type vod \ -hls_flags independent_segments \ -hls_segment_type mpegts \ -hls_segment_filename stream_%v/data%02d.ts \ -master_pl_name master.m3u8 \ -var_stream_map "v:0,a:0 v:1,a:1 v:2,a:2" stream_%v.m3u8. #EXTM3U. #EXT-X-VERSION:6. #EXT-X-STREAM-INF:BANDWIDTH=5605600,RESOLUTION=1920x1080,CODECS="avc1.640032,mp4a.40.2" stream_0.m3u8. #EXTM3U. #EXT-X-VERSION:6. #EXT-X-TARGETDURATION:2. #EXT-X-MEDIA-SEQUENCE:0. #EXT-X-PLAYLIST-TYPE:VOD. #EXT-X-INDEPENDENT-SEGMENTS. #EXTINF:2.002000, data00.ts. #EXTINF:2.002000, data01.ts. #EXTINF:2.002011, data02.ts. #EXTINF:2.002000, data03.ts. #EXTINF:2.002000, data04.ts. #EXTINF:2.002000, data05.ts. #EXTINF:2.002000, data06.ts. #EXTINF:2.002000, data07.ts. #EXTINF:2.002011, data08.ts. #EXTINF:2.002000, data09.ts.
EXTINF:0.041711, data10.ts. #EXT-X-ENDLIST. Live HLS Packaging using FFmpeg. #EXTM3U. #EXT-X-VERSION:6. #EXT-X-TARGETDURATION:2. #EXT-X-MEDIA-SEQUENCE:1. #EXT-X-INDEPENDENT-SEGMENTS. #EXTINF:2.002000, data01.ts. #EXTINF:2.002011, data02.ts. #EXTM3U. #EXT-X-VERSION:6. #EXT-X-TARGETDURATION:2. #EXT-X-MEDIA-SEQUENCE:2. #EXT-X-INDEPENDENT-SEGMENTS. #EXTINF:2.002011, data02.ts. #EXTINF:2.002000, data03.ts. Other useful HLS Packaging options in FFmpeg. Conclusion.
Basic Steps to HLS Packaging using FFmpeg. Resize a Video to Multiple Resolutions using FFmpeg ffmpeg -i brooklynsfinest_clip_1080p.mp4 \ -filter_complex \ "[0:v]split=3[v1][v2][v3];\ [v1]copy[v1out];\ [v2]scale=w=1280:h=720[v2out];\ [v3]scale=w=640:h=360[v3out]" Transcode a Video to Multiple Bitrates for HLS Packaging using FFmpeg. -map [v1out] -c:v:0 libx264 -x264-params "nal-hrd=cbr:fo...
The management team at IBC has announced its pleased the December event can go ahead in a “safe and comfortable way” (Amsterdam 3-6 December). It . The management team at IBC has announced its pleased the December event can go ahead in a “safe and comfortable way” (Amsterdam 3-6 December). It follows a revision of Covid regulations by the Dutch government. As of 6th November, the public will be required to wear face masks in public areas where no Covid entry pass is used, including supermarkets, shops, libraries, theme parks, and train stations. Source: IBC all set for Amsterdam Share this: Like this:
US streaming company fuboTV has announced the acquisition of French SVOD Molotov. fuboTV will pay €164.3 million for Molotov, which currently has 17 . US streaming company fuboTV has announced the acquisition of French SVOD Molotov. fuboTV will pay €164.3 million for Molotov, which currently has 17 million registered users across France and select markets in Africa. The company, which offers a sports-oriented cord-cutting service in the US, said that it will leverage Molotov’s “unique direct-to-consumer live TV streaming service” along with its complementary AVOD platform Mango. In a press release, fuboTV said that Molotov will introduce a freemium model to its business, with Molotov’s strategy and low-cost marketing acting as a funnel for international growth. Molotov will continue to be based in Paris and led by co-founder JeanDavid Blanc who has been named president of Molotov. Its approximately 100 employees will remain with the company, with plans to expand its Parisian engineering team. David Gandler, co-founder and CEO, fuboTV, said: “Molotov has set the benchmark for ad-supported and subscription streaming platforms in Europe. We believe this strategic asset will help accelerate our goal of achieving global scale and operating leverage as we continue to improve and innovate on our live, interactive streaming TV experience for sports fans and their families.” Blanc said: “We’re thrilled to scale Molotov with fuboTV with whom we share the same ambition and vision for a live TV streaming platform. Our goal is to provide consumers with a best-in-class streaming experience with premium television content on a global scale.” The announcement came from fuboTV alongside its Q3 earnings where it announced it has surpassed 1 million subscribers.
The data center industry has a large electricity appetite, accounting for at least 1% of electricity use worldwide1. Demand for data center services . The data center industry has a large electricity appetite, accounting for at least 1% of electricity use worldwide1. Demand for data center services is rising with the expansion of data-intensive technologies such as artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, and smart energy systems. Given the current and growing impact of the sector, finding and implementing sustainable energy solutions in data centers will be crucial to reduce their carbon footprint. Enter the data center customer. Nearly every company uses data, and many purchase space in colocation data center facilities or contract with public cloud service providers. This buying power affords customers substantial leverage to make asks of their data center providers that accelerate the decarbonization of the data center industry. In addition, pushing for renewable energy solutions in their data services contracts can help companies advance their own emissions goals, often more easily than by addressing emissions sources that are deeper in their supply chains. Data center customers can ask some probing questions to help accelerate renewable energy procurement and initiate conversations with their service providers: What are my company’s emission reduction goals, and how can working with my data service providers help advance those goals? Do I have a Scope 2 goal? A Scope 3 goal? Understanding your company’s goals will help guide your conversations with your data service providers. Are my data service providers measuring their electricity usage? If so, how is this usage measured? Do I have access to electricity data that is relevant to my data usage? Do my data service providers offer renewable energy solutions? What are these solutions? Can I make renewable energy claims based on the renewable energy my data service provider procures? By asking these foundational questions, companies can advance their own energy and sustainability goals while also accelerating the decarbonization of the data center industry. Requesting renewable options and pushing for customer-provider collaboration is crucial to inform data center providers that there is customer demand for more sustainable energy solutions, and to ensure the feasibility and mutual benefits of these solutions. REBA’s Future of Internet Power (FoIP) program brings together data center customers and providers to create collaborative solutions to renewable energy procurement in data centers. Most recently, REBA members participating in FoIP made key updates to the Corporate Colocation & Cloud Buyers’ Principles and Toolkit to reflect the increasing presence of outsourced cloud service providers in the market, and to support corporates in taking more aggressive action on climate and renewables. The Principles outline six criteria that companies using colocation or cloud services would like to see their service providers meet, and the Toolkit provides tactical guidance on how data center customers and providers can put the Principles into practice. Get Involved REBA members are encouraged to join the FoIP initiative to get more involved with the effort to power the internet with 100% renewable energy. All data service customers, regardless of REBA membership, are encouraged to use and sign the Corporate Colocation and Cloud Buyers’ Principles listed on the FoIP webpage. If you have any questions about FoIP, renewable energy in data centers, or other ways to get involved, please contact supplychain@rebuyers.org. 1 Energy Innovation (March 2020). How Much Energy Do Data Centers Really Use?
There is no arguing the cloud and streaming microservices radically changed the way operators engineer their streaming services. Traditional . There is no arguing the cloud and streaming microservices radically changed the way operators engineer their streaming services. Traditional broadcasting involves lots of hardware racked and stacked in data centres because those companies service viewers only within their geographic reach. Streaming, though, is a loosely-federated collection of different technologies which can be installed and operated from anywhere in the world. This makes streaming technology ideal to service viewers wherever they wish to watch content. Although this approach to delivering content represents the future of how people watch video, it also introduces a host of new challenges, such as scale. Massive numbers of simultaneous users can, unlike in traditional broadcast, overwhelm resources if there isn’t enough capacity. That’s what makes the cloud so important to streaming. Streaming product developers and operations engineers understand the need for the cloud which is why most of the stack is already there: encoders, transcoders, DRM servers, caches, monitoring probes, etc. Everything that can be virtualised has been so that delivery capacity is dynamic. The stack can scale up and down depending how many users are requesting content and at what bitrate--obviously, this is something impossible to achieve with hardware, on the same timeline, and with the same elasticity. The cloud is the only feasible way streaming operators can meet regional and global demand for content without spending unpredictably high amounts of money on physical infrastructure. In that sense, the next step towards true scalability and redundancy are streaming microservices. The cloud has evolved Although the streaming video tech stack is an evolution of the broadcast tech stack, it too is evolving because of how the cloud is changing. When streaming operators first adopted the cloud as their primary infrastructure, it was all about virtualised instances. What they realised was that it was much easier (and cheaper) to manage, maintain, and monitor virtualised infrastructure. For example, the number of server instances could be increased programmatically in relation to demand. That’s a stark contrast to using physical servers which need hands to rack-and-stack. The problem is, virtualization doesn’t provide the kind of scale that streaming really needs. Spinning up a new server instance still requires quite a bit of time, and in some cases, a reservation with the cloud provider (there are only so many instances available for specific configurations). The cloud is less about virtualised servers and more about containers. These are slimmed down operating systems tailored to run a specific application. Using Docker and Kubernetes, streaming engineers are able to quickly and easily scale technology components within the workflow. With DevOps and CI/CD pipelines, streaming technology teams have so much more control over the elasticity of their infrastructure and the deployment of the technologies in the stack. Still, scale is a challenge. Yes, containers are better at scale than virtualised instances, but there are resource constraints. Think about it like this: a bare metal server used by a cloud service provider may be able to host 100 virtual machines, but it can host 1000 containers. Why you should use containers and streaming microservices Many streaming operators, if not most, have embraced DevOps and containers to develop and deploy their technology stack. However, this has only worked up to a point, with the problem being that the tech stack is growing in complexity. A combination of device proliferation coupled with non-standard protocols and codecs means a fragmented workflow where software is being continually expanded to ensure it can handle the complexity. This means bigger, fatter containers which is exactly opposite of the v...
The scheme to rate mobile phone models based on eco-friendly criteria is ready to be launched globally but there is one device maker that still does . The scheme to rate mobile phone models based on eco-friendly criteria is ready to be launched globally but there is one device maker that still does not appear on the list of participants. The Eco Rating scheme unveiled by Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica, Telia Company and Vodafone in May was initially rolled out in 24 European countries, followed by South Africa and Brazil, via Vodafone’s Vodacom and Telefónica’s Vivo respectively. The telcos said they are now ready for global expansion, although the countries next on the launch list are all in South America: Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay. That those locations are next up suggests that Telefónica, which offers mobile services in all of them, is the driving force behind this next phase of expansion. As well as rolling out the scheme in additional markets, the operators have secured buy-in from more vendors. At launch, there were a dozen phone makers on board, including big guns like Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi and Oppo. Apple – you guessed it – was conspicuous by its absence and remains so, as does Google, although another three brands have joined the party: Fairphone, Realme and Vivo. In all, more than 150 mobile phone models are now covered by the Eco Rating initiative. That’s more than double the number included at launch. So, what does it actually do? The overriding goal of the initiative is, in the words of the telcos, “to provide consistent, accurate information at retail on the environmental impact of producing, using, transporting and disposing of smartphones and feature phones.” There’s a detailed Eco Rating methodology through which devices are scored across 19 different criteria designed to assess the environmental performance of a device through its lifespan. Theoretically, the maximum score a device could achieve is 100, although we gather that’s virtually impossible. The system also rates devices under five headings including durability, repairability, recyclability, climate efficiency, and resource efficiency. As for which devices are scoring highly, well, that’s hard to say. A quick trawl round the domestic sites of some of the founder members of the scheme shows that the information is not readily available. I’m happy to be corrected, but I didn’t find it anywhere. When the scheme launch the telcos said it would guide customers at the point of sale, which possible means only in retail outlets. But if that’s the case – or indeed if the information exists online but is buried somewhere – then the scheme loses much of its efficacy. In an era in which consumers are becoming much more environmentally aware, with an increasing number keen to make purchasing choices based on such criteria, the Eco Rating scheme is a big step in the right direction. But if the information is difficult to find, then this is just a CSR box ticking exercise. What’s the point?
Streaming has a dirty secret. The carbon footprint produced by fans watching a month of Netflix’s top 10 global TV hits is equivalent to driving a car a hefty distance beyond Saturn. The world’s largest video-sharing site, YouTube, is responsible for emitting enough carbon dioxide annually to far . Streaming has a dirty secret. The carbon footprint produced by fans watching a month of Netflix’s top 10 global TV hits is equivalent to driving a car a hefty distance beyond Saturn. The world’s largest video-sharing site, YouTube, is responsible for emitting enough carbon dioxide annually to far surpass the equivalent greenhouse gas output of Glasgow, the Scottish city where world leaders will be gathering from Sunday at the Cop26 climate summit. While much of the focus of campaigners falls on sectors that emit the most CO2 – such as aviation, automotive and food – the explosion in popularity of services from Disney+ to Netflix is raising the question of just how bad the streaming boom is for the planet. Every activity in the chain required to stream video, from the use of huge datacentres and transmission over wifi and broadband to watching the content on a device, requires electricity – the majority of which is generated by emitting greenhouse gases. “Strangely, environmental impact is a very young story in the streaming industry,” says Dom Robinson, the founder of Greening of Streaming, a fledgling body that aims to address the sector’s energy impact. “People talk about the bottlenecks in internet traffic caused by the growing demand for streaming and gaming services, but there is plenty of capacity, it is actually about the growing demand for power supply.” Netflix paid just £4m in UK corporation tax on £1.15bn from British subscribers Read more Netflix has estimated that one hour of streaming by one user on its platform produces “well under” 100g of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) – a unit of measure that indicates carbon footprint. More specifically, the Carbon Trust says the European average is 55g to 56g of CO2e for every hour of streaming video. That is equivalent to driving about 300 metres in a car. Netflix recently gave a rare insight into its most popular global hits by total hours viewed, a metric it said last week it intended to publish more frequently. It reported that fans clocked up more than 6bn hours watching the top 10 shows – which included Squid Game, Stranger Things, Money Heist and Bridgerton – in the first 28 days after each show was released. This equates to about 1.13bn miles (1.8bn km) of travel in a car based on the Carbon Trust estimate – the approximate equivalent of the current distance between Earth and Saturn. As for YouTube, a report by researchers at Bristol University based on estimates of the streaming site’s usage in 2016, calculated that watching videos on the streaming site produced CO2e of more than 11m tonnes a year, similar to a city the size of Glasgow or Frankfurt. Given YouTube had 1.4 billion users that year, and now has more than 2.4 billion users globally, the company’s carbon footprint will be significantly bigger today. Earlier this year, Netflix announced its aim to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by the end of 2022. The move follows similar climate-friendly aspirations announced in recent years by the large Silicon Valley companies such as Microsoft, Apple and Facebook. In the UK, companies including BT, the BBC and Sky have promised to hit net zero by 2030. Robinson says such strategies must involve major reductions in emissions rather than just investing in green projects if they are to achieve carbon neutrality. “Net zero has become the new carbon tax off-setting, to be able to say: ‘This is not my problem.’ There has to be a reduction engineered within businesses, not just an accounting trick, to make a difference,” he says. “We have created Greening of Streaming because we know there is sufficient appetite within the streaming sector to make positive changes to...
And they say it's the world's fastest. It appears a quantum computer rivalry is growing between the U.S. and China. Physicists in China claim they've constructed two quantum computers with performance speeds that outrival competitors in the U.S., debuting a superconducting machine, in addition to an even speedier one that uses light photons to obtain unprecedented results, according to a recent study published in the peer-reviewed journals Physical Review Letters and Science Bulletin. China has exaggerated the capabilities of its technology before, but such soft spins are usually tagged to defense tech, which means this new feat could be the real deal. China's quantum computers still make a lot of errors The supercomputer, called Jiuzhang 2, can calculate in a single millisecond a task that the fastest conventional computer in the world would take a mind-numbing 30 trillion years to do. The breakthrough was revealed during an interview with the research team, which was broadcast on China's state-owned CCTV on Tuesday, which could make the news suspect. But with two peer-reviewed papers, it's important to take this seriously. Pan Jianwei, lead researcher of the studies, said that Zuchongzhi 2, which is a 66-qubit programmable superconducting quantum computer is an incredible 10 million times faster than Google's 55-qubit Sycamore, making China's new machine the fastest in the world, and the first to beat Google's in two years. The Zuchongzhi 2 is an improved version of a previous machine, completed three months ago. The Jiuzhang 2, a different quantum computer that runs on light, has fewer applications but can run at blinding speeds of 100 sextillion times faster than the biggest conventional computers of today. In case you missed it, that's a one with 23 zeroes behind it. But while the features of these new machines hint at a computing revolution, they won't hit the marketplace anytime soon. As things stand, the two machines can only operate in pristine environments, and only for hyper-specific tasks. And even with special care, they still make lots of errors. "In the next step we hope to achieve quantum error correction with four to five years of hard work," said Professor Pan of the University of Science and Technology of China, in Hefei, which is in the southeastern province of Anhui. China's quantum computers could power the next-gen advances of the coming decades "Based on the technology of quantum error correction, we can explore the use of some dedicated quantum computers or quantum simulators to solve some of the most important scientific questions with practical value," added Pan. The circuits of the Zuchongzhi have to be cooled to very low temperatures to enable optimal performance for a complex task called random walk, which is a model that corresponds to the tactical movements of pieces on a chessboard. The applications for this task include calculating gene mutations, predicting stock prices, air flows in hypersonic flight, and the formation of novel materials. Considering the rapidly increasing relevance of these processes as the fourth industrial revolution picks up speed, it's no exaggeration to say that quantum computers will be central in key societal functions, from defense research to scientific advances to the next generation of economics.
Office Hours, a decentralized support group where anyone can meet and ask technical questions about producing audio, video, and online media, has . Whether you're new at producing video or an old hand, imagine a tech support site staffed by the leading lights of audio, video, and online production, where you could go and ask for help whenever you wanted. It actually exists: Office Hours is an ongoing series of remote Zoom sessions for media producers that run every day, seven days per week. It launched at the beginning of the pandemic and has been growing ever since. Origin of a Great Idea Office Hours is the brainchild of Alex Lindsay, a 51-year-old Northern California tech industry veteran whose career includes pit stops in gaming, movie special effects, and animation. Lindsay has also done pioneering work in the field of streaming video. Many of the tech pros in the Office Hours community have known of Lindsay for years because of his association with the MacBreak Weekly podcast on the TWiT network. His video streaming clients have included Adobe, Facebook, Google, Salesforce, and the Obama White House. Shortly before the pandemic was officially declared, he was hired as head of operations at 090 Media, a live events and video streaming company in La Jolla, CA. “This organization wouldn’t exist if the pandemic hadn’t happened,” Lindsay said of Office Hours, which he didn’t think would last more than a few months. He initially assumed that he’d be answering all the tech queries himself “What I didn’t expect was the caliber of the people who were going to show up,” he said. “Within a couple of weeks, it became less about me giving advice and us having a discussion.” Alex Lindsay. (Office Hours) Here’s an example. Tlaloc Lopez-Waterman, a professional lighting, projections, and scenic designer based in New York City, recently parked his Fifth Wheel camping trailer at a Walmart outside Minneapolis and went online to help shade some video cameras for a cooking show in South Africa. Shading involves adjusting a camera’s exposure, white balance, saturation, and contrast. “I just thought, ‘Okay, we actually live in the future,’” Lopez-Waterman recalled with a chuckle. Lopez-Waterman was in the Midwest for a freelance gig. But he did the camera shading pro bono because the cooking show’s host and her doctor husband were friends from Office Hours. Numbering several thousand technophiles from practically every continent on the planet, the community was born on March 25, 2020, as a response to the coronavirus pandemic. Lopez-Waterman, who has worked in theater and opera for 20 years, is one of the dozens of regulars who provide free advice on audio, video, and online production. At the start of the pandemic, his company, Light Conversations, LLC, saw four months of work vanish in a few days. In a process he referred to as “trial by fire and a lot of quick learning,” Lopez-Waterman prepared for a job that involved 10 remote performers—university students in their homes and dorm rooms—with more than a thousand video cues. In subsequent gigs, Lopez-Waterman used proprietary software for Zoom developed by another regular on the Office Hours panel of professionals. Looking For Deals On The Latest Tech? Enter your email now to receive the best bargains around delivered right to your inbox. Thank you for signing up! Your newsletter will arrive shortly. Subscription failed, try again! This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links. Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our. Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time. “This is less a testament to technology and more a testament to community,” Lopez-Waterman said. How the Sessions Work Office Hours runs for two hours on weekdays, beginning at 7:00 a.m. PT. The first hour consists of questions put to a panel of between 15 and 25 knowledgeable tech people. While the conversation is open to everyone no matter what level their degree of te...
Swedish kit vendor Ericsson has launched some new software that claims to guarantee consistent low latency for things like VR and remote control.If . Swedish kit vendor Ericsson has launched some new software that claims to guarantee consistent low latency for things like VR and remote control. If anything is considered to be truly novel about 5G it’s low latency. More bandwidth and arguably better IoT support are merely refinements of was is already available but the near-eradication of delay across mobile networks is expected to unlock all kinds of whizzy new use-cases such as mobile-enabled virtual reality and the ability to remotely control things over 5G. That technological new dawn has been slow to arrive, however, which is what Ericsson is seeking to address with its new Time-Critical Communication software toolbox. The vendor claims it ‘will guarantee the consistent low latency and high reliability demanded by time-critical applications and services,’ according to the press release. “Ericsson continues to introduce innovative 5G solutions that fuel the global uptake of 5G,” said Per Narvinger, Head of Product Area Networks. “Now we are taking 5G to the next level with Time-Critical Communication, a solution that will give our customers the tools to expand their offerings for the consumer, enterprise, and public sectors and further monetize 5G effectively.” We were a bit surprised to learn such a thing was necessary after all the hype around 5G and low latency, so we spoke to Marie Hogan, Head of Mobile Broadband Voice & New Business at Ericsson, to seek a bit of clarification. “Current mobile networks including with 5G are built for mobile broadband type of services, optimizing for data rates or high throughputs without any guarantees regarding latency,” explained Hogan. “In contrast, Time-Critical Communication is designed to secure data delivery within specific latency bounds with the desired reliability. By introducing Time-Critical Communication in 5G Networks, the latency aspect has been prioritized over throughput, which is a fundamental difference when comparing with enhanced mobile broadband, which is best effort only. “Ericsson has identified six major causes of latency and interruption in mobile networks, which include congestion, radio environment, mobility, standards or protocols, power saving, network topology. Ericsson approaches Time-Critical Communication by addressing these sources of latency and interruptions while efficiently co-existing with enhanced mobile broadband and other services in the network.” Presumably this software comes into its own during network slicing, when a customer is seeking to prioritize the low latency capabilities of the network over all others. It is, however, an add-on to the broader Ericsson RAN offering that you have to pay extra for, so it’s only available to Ericsson RAN customers. Ericsson trotted out a few of them to talk about their low latency adventures and, suffice it to say, they all said it’s great. We’re not aware of any equivalent launches from Ericsson’s main competitors, so this could give Ericsson an advantage in this space. Having said that, many of the use-cases, such as mobile VR, are still some way from proving their commercial viability. It’s obviously a big deal for Ericsson though, they even got the main man to do a vid about it.
UK pubcasters the BBC and ITV have announced a range of measures to deliver on climate action commitments. The BBC has set its sights on achieving net . UK pubcasters the BBC and ITV have announced a range of measures to deliver on climate action commitments. The BBC has set its sights on achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 by pursuing a deep decarbonisation’ strategy that drastically reduces the amount of carbon produced by the organisation. Details of the strategy include: switching to renewables and electric vehicles; reducing business travel; continuing to implement more sustainable production methods, such as BBC Studios’ use of hydrogen and battery powered generators on Winterwatch; and working collaboratively with the BBC’s suppliers to reduce emissions within their own organisations. The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) also approved the BBC’s targets to reducing emissions for scope 1 and 2 (direct operations such as those from buildings and general energy use) by 46% by 2030, while the broadcaster also plans to reduce scope 3 emissions – such as business travel and those of its suppliers – by 28% over the same time frame. ITV has agreed to the same targets as the BBC, while also becoming a zero waste and zero single use plastic business, and running a 100% sustainable supply chain. The broadcaster said that it will introduce climate action targets into the bonus scheme, and also committed to ensuring that all programmes produced and commissioned by ITV from 2021 onwards will go through sustainable certification through BAFTA’s albert carbon calculator. Of its pledges, Tim Davie, BBC Director-General, said: “At the start of the year we shared our ambition to reach net zero by 2030. Since then, there’s been a huge amount of work to put in place a credible and achievable plan. We are now converting that plan into action. This will be a huge collective effort. It won’t be easy, but we must act, and act now, to reduce our environmental impact.” Carolyn McCall, ITV plc CEO, commented on the announcement: “Our Social Purpose ambition of shaping culture for good is integral to our overall strategy, informing both what audiences see on-screen and what happens behind the scenes. In the area of Climate Action, we’re making good progress on our ambitious goals, including being Net Zero by 2030.”
Damien has been a thought leader in the sector for many years. While relatively new to the sector, Nakchidil has a wealth of experience in Product . Thu, Nov 04 www.smadvancedforum.com Damien has been a thought leader in the sector for many years. While relatively new to the sector, Nakchidil has a wealth of experience in Product Management that she is bringing to the space..
The future of television is carbon neutral. “The idea of bringing computing capacity closer to energy production while still tapping into unused space . What’s this project about? Since 2020, one of Zattoo’s data centres has been located right inside a wind turbine. With the windCORES project of the wind farm operator Westfalenwind, we’re not just relying on renewable electricity from wind energy. The data that is generated when streaming via Zattoo runs through our own data centre, located right inside a wind turbine. This project is a real innovation and the first of its kind in the world. Why is this so important? Zattoo has around 3 million active users per month and up to 350,000 users per day. At peak times and during certain TV highlights, there are even around 600,000 users. In addition, Zattoo also makes its technology available as a TV-as-a-service platform to media companies and network operators worldwide. In Germany, Zattoo’s customers include 1&1 Telecom and NetCologne, and in Switzerland the network operator Salt Mobile. This makes Zattoo one of the largest TV streaming providers in Europe. More than 80 million hours are streamed via Zattoo every month. This generates more than 5 million gigabytes of data – every day! This meant our old data centres were using around 1 million kilowatt hours per year. What’s the current status and what’s happening next? The move of our first servers into the wind turbine took place at the end of 2020. First, we carried out various tests on our systems before putting the first servers into operation in mid-January. For our next step, we want to find out whether operation can be as stable, secure and reliable as it is in traditional data centres. This is extremely important for us because we have to ensure our service can be used around the clock. Gradually, more and more content will run through this green data centre. As the first streaming provider worldwide to move its servers into a wind turbine, we’re entering completely new territory with this project. If our expectations for the project are fulfilled, it’s likely the wind turbine will be our main location for our data centre.
At Netflix, we want to entertain the world. Whatever your taste, and no matter where you live, we give you access to best-in-class TV shows, movies . At Netflix, we want to entertain the world. Whatever your taste, and no matter where you live, we give you access to best-in-class TV shows, movies and documentaries. Our members control what they want to watch, when they want it, with no ads, in one simple subscription. We’re streaming in more than 30 languages and 190 countries, because great stories can come from anywhere and be loved everywhere. We are the world’s biggest fans of entertainment, and we’re always looking to help you find your next favorite story.
Sky is to launch its own range of smart TVs, removing the need for customers to use a satellite dish or set-top box, as the pay-TV company shifts its offering to remain competitive in the streaming era. The broadband-powered TV set, called Sky Glass, will be launched in the UK on 18 October and in . Sky is to launch its own range of smart TVs, removing the need for customers to use a satellite dish or set-top box, as the pay-TV company shifts its offering to remain competitive in the streaming era. The broadband-powered TV set, called Sky Glass, will be launched in the UK on 18 October and in Sky’s other European markets next year. The new service will aggregate content from streaming services such as Netflix and Disney+, as well as Sky channels and content from other broadcasters. Dana Strong, the group chief executive at Sky, said: “The streaming revolution and the explosion of content has brought a whole new set of challenges. “Sky Glass is the streaming TV with Sky inside. Most people use multiple apps to find the content they want. But the apps are not connected, and the experiences are fragmented. So we spend more time searching for content than enjoying it.” The TV aims to simplify the largest screen in the house by doing away with the need for multiple boxes, separate speakers and a mess of cables, while modernising it with smartphone-like features. It detects your presence to wake when you walk in the room and responds to voice commands with “Hello, Sky”. It will learn from your family’s watching habits and show you the right content at the right time to reduce the number of clicks you have to make, even if it is within apps such as Netflix or from another device such as an Xbox. Software updates will give it new features, while a Zoom-capable video chat camera add-on coming in spring 2022. It boasts an integrated Dolby Atmos surround sound system with six speakers, and promises to automatically adapt to the content being broadcast and ambient light in the room to offer the optimum speech and picture quality. The remote has also been simplified. Sky said Glass would cut electricity consumption by about 50% by doing away with multiple boxes, while it claims its recyclable, plastic-free packaging and off-setting make it be the first carbon-neutral TV. The launch of the TV service signals Sky’s attempt to get ahead of the “cord-cutting” phenomenon in which tens of millions of US customers ditched their traditional pay-TV bundles of channels in favour of cheaper offerings from streaming services such as Netflix. Sky, which was acquired by the US pay-TV giant Comcast three years ago for £30bn, said the new service would be competitively priced, with consumers able to pay for the TV as part of a monthly subscription. “You can now buy your TV just like you buy your mobile phone, with a range of flexible monthly payment options,” she said. Sign up to the daily Business Today email or follow Guardian Business on Twitter at @BusinessDesk Monthly subscription packages will start at £13 for the TV with the cheapest device and TV content package priced at £39 a month. When the company launched its premium Sky Q box in 2017, it said it was working on an offering to make its full TV service available via a broadband connection, which would enable it to target 6m homes across Europe who do not have a satellite dish. In the UK, Sky offers the Now TV streaming platform, which allows consumers to buy monthly passes for access to entertainment and sports content, but it does not provide access to all Sky’s services. The cost of TV and streaming services Netflix: From £5.99 a month to £13.99 (excluding broadband) Amazon Prime Video: £79 annually, £6.58 a month Disney+: £7.99 a month ITV’s Britbox: £5.99 a month Discovery+: £4.99 a month Sky’s Now TV: From £9.99 a month to £33.99 depending on package BT TV: From £12 to £40 a month Virgin Media TV: From £5 to £41 a month Source: Ampere Analysis
A new data center firm is planning to develop a large hyperscale campus in the City of Temple, Texas. The Temple Economic Development Corporation . Completing the CAPTCHA proves you are a human and gives you temporary access to the web property. What can I do to prevent this in the future? If you are on a personal connection, like at home, you can run an anti-virus scan on your device to make sure it is not infected with malware. If you are at an office or shared network, you can ask the network administrator to run a scan across the network looking for misconfigured or infected devices. Another way to prevent getting this page in the future is to use Privacy Pass. You may need to download version 2.0 now from the Chrome Web Store.
Now that our platforms are up and running as usual after yesterday’s outage, I thought it would be worth sharing a little more detail on what . Now that our platforms are up and running as usual after yesterday’s outage, I thought it would be worth sharing a little more detail on what happened and why — and most importantly, how we’re learning from it. This outage was triggered by the system that manages our global backbone network capacity. The backbone is the network Facebook has built to connect all our computing facilities together, which consists of tens of thousands of miles of fiber-optic cables crossing the globe and linking all our data centers. Those data centers come in different forms. Some are massive buildings that house millions of machines that store data and run the heavy computational loads that keep our platforms running, and others are smaller facilities that connect our backbone network to the broader internet and the people using our platforms. When you open one of our apps and load up your feed or messages, the app’s request for data travels from your device to the nearest facility, which then communicates directly over our backbone network to a larger data center. That’s where the information needed by your app gets retrieved and processed, and sent back over the network to your phone. The data traffic between all these computing facilities is managed by routers, which figure out where to send all the incoming and outgoing data. And in the extensive day-to-day work of maintaining this infrastructure, our engineers often need to take part of the backbone offline for maintenance — perhaps repairing a fiber line, adding more capacity, or updating the software on the router itself. This was the source of yesterday’s outage. During one of these routine maintenance jobs, a command was issued with the intention to assess the availability of global backbone capacity, which unintentionally took down all the connections in our backbone network, effectively disconnecting Facebook data centers globally. Our systems are designed to audit commands like these to prevent mistakes like this, but a bug in that audit tool prevented it from properly stopping the command. This change caused a complete disconnection of our server connections between our data centers and the internet. And that total loss of connection caused a second issue that made things worse. One of the jobs performed by our smaller facilities is to respond to DNS queries. DNS is the address book of the internet, enabling the simple web names we type into browsers to be translated into specific server IP addresses. Those translation queries are answered by our authoritative name servers that occupy well known IP addresses themselves, which in turn are advertised to the rest of the internet via another protocol called the border gateway protocol (BGP). To ensure reliable operation, our DNS servers disable those BGP advertisements if they themselves can not speak to our data centers, since this is an indication of an unhealthy network connection. In the recent outage the entire backbone was removed from operation, making these locations declare themselves unhealthy and withdraw those BGP advertisements. The end result was that our DNS servers became unreachable even though they were still operational. This made it impossible for the rest of the internet to find our servers. All of this happened very fast. And as our engineers worked to figure out what was happening and why, they faced two large obstacles: first, it was not possible to access our data centers through our normal means because their networks were down, and second, the total loss of DNS broke many of the internal tools we’d normally use to investigate and resolve outages like this. Our primary and out-of-band network access was down, so we sent engineers onsite to the data centers to have them debug the issue and restart the systems. But this took time, because these facilities are designed ...
The digital world is a universe in its own right and a very fast moving one at that. Myriads of downloads and uploads, posts and searches, messages . The digital world is a universe in its own right and a very fast moving one at that. Myriads of downloads and uploads, posts and searches, messages sent and received, listens and streams happen every minute on the world wide web. According to data compiled by Lori Lewis and published on the site AllAccess, 60 seconds on the web in 2021 consist of more than 500 hours of content uploaded on YouTube, 695,000 stories shared on Instagram and nearly 70 million messages sent via WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. That same internet minute also contains more than two million swipes on Tinder as well as an incredible 1.6 million U.S. dollars spent online.
Facebook and its sister properties Instagram and WhatsApp are suffering from ongoing, global outages. We don’t yet know why this happened, but the how . Facebook and its sister properties Instagram and WhatsApp are suffering from ongoing, global outages. We don’t yet know why this happened, but the how is clear: Earlier this morning, something inside Facebook caused the company to revoke key digital records that tell computers and other Internet-enabled devices how to find these destinations online. Doug Madory is director of internet analysis at Kentik, a San Francisco-based network monitoring company. Madory said at approximately 11:39 a.m. ET today (15:39 UTC), someone at Facebook caused an update to be made to the company’s Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) records. BGP is a mechanism by which Internet service providers of the world share information about which providers are responsible for routing Internet traffic to which specific groups of Internet addresses. In simpler terms, sometime this morning Facebook took away the map telling the world’s computers how to find its various online properties. As a result, when one types Facebook.com into a web browser, the browser has no idea where to find Facebook.com, and so returns an error page. In addition to stranding billions of users, the Facebook outage also has stranded its employees from communicating with one another using their internal Facebook tools. That’s because Facebook’s email and tools are all managed in house and via the same domains that are now stranded. “Not only are Facebook’s services and apps down for the public, its internal tools and communications platforms, including Workplace, are out as well,” New York Times tech reporter Ryan Mac tweeted. “No one can do any work. Several people I’ve talked to said this is the equivalent of a ‘snow day’ at the company.” The outages come just hours after CBS’s 60 Minutes aired a much-anticipated interview with Frances Haugen, the Facebook whistleblower who recently leaked a number of internal Facebook investigations showing the company knew its products were causing mass harm, and that it prioritized profits over taking bolder steps to curtail abuse on its platform — including disinformation and hate speech. We don’t know how or why the outages persist at Facebook and its other properties, but the changes had to have come from inside the company, as Facebook manages those records internally. Whether the changes were made maliciously or by accident is anyone’s guess at this point. Madory said it could be that someone at Facebook just screwed up. “In the past year or so, we’ve seen a lot of these big outages where they had some sort of update to their global network configuration that went awry,” Madory said. “We obviously can’t rule out someone hacking them, but they also could have done this to themselves.” Update, 4:37 p.m. ET: Sheera Frenkel with The New York Times tweeted that Facebook employees told her they were having trouble accessing Facebook buildings because their employee badges no longer worked. That could be one reason this outage has persisted so long: Facebook engineers may be having trouble physically accessing the computer servers needed to upload new BGP records to the global Internet. Update, 6:16 p.m. ET: A trusted source who spoke with a person on the recovery effort at Facebook was told the outage was caused by a routine BGP update gone wrong. The source explained that the errant update blocked Facebook employees — the majority of whom are working remotely — from reverting the changes. Meanwhile, those with physical access to Facebook’s buildings couldn’t access Facebook’s internal tools because those were all tied to the company’s stranded domains. Update, 7:46 p.m. ET: Facebook says its domains are slowly coming back online for most users. In a tweet, the company thanked users for their patience, but it still hasn’t offered any explanation for the outage. Update, 8:05 p.m. ET: This fascinating...
This whitepaper, sponsored by Dolby/Hybrik, tracks cloud encoding pricing for H.264 and HEVC output and reveals dramatic price differences among . This whitepaper, sponsored by Dolby/Hybrik, tracks cloud encoding pricing for H.264 and HEVC output and reveals dramatic price differences among popular services. I’ve just completed a whitepaper sponsored by Dolby/Hybrik to compare pricing for multiples of one hour of H.264 and HEVC encoding using the recommended encoding ladders in the Apple HLS Authoring Specifications. You can download the whitepaper here. A few points about the methodology (covered in detail in the paper). The paper compares costs for the highest-quality output available from each service, usually two-pass encoding (though one service only offers single-pass encoding). You may be able to achieve lower pricing by opting for single-pass, though we didn’t encode files to measure the quality delta. The paper compares the lowest published pricing for all services; as stated in the paper, most larger customers can negotiate much better pricing than shown. The paper compares SaaS pricing; several vendors (AWS Elemental, encoding.com) offer Platform as a Service pricing, while others (Bitmovin, encoding.com) offer reduced-cost plans that enable you to run their software on your own hardware. You probably can achieve much lower pricing from these services by exploring these plans. Here are the results for H.264 encoding. Here are the results for HEVC encoding. As the paper concludes, “for most high-volume streaming producers, encoding is not yet a commodity, as most companies require features, workflows, and outputs that not all vendors support. Still, when multiple vendors check all the required boxes, price and quality become critical differentiators. Remember that you really can’t assess price without considering output quality, so to get to an apples-to-apples pricing comparison, you’ll have to roll up your sleeves and perform test encodes on all services that make your shortlist.” You can download the whitepaper here.
More details are starting to leak our way as Sky UK (Sky Broadband) get closer to taking the wraps off their future TV via internet connection . More details are starting to leak our way as Sky UK (Sky Broadband) get closer to taking the wraps off their future TV via internet connection (instead of a satellite dish) service. We now understand that the Sky over IP (SoIP) service will launch as part of an integrated QLED TV product line (pictured), called Sky Glass. Source: Sky’s Broadband IP TV Service to Launch as Part of Built-In TV Share this: Like this:
Young people are watching much less of the BBC – less than an hour a day, according to data from Ofcom. They prefer streaming content, and Netflix is . Young people are watching much less of the BBC – less than an hour a day, according to data from Ofcom. They prefer streaming content, and Netflix is used weekly by 66 per cent of 15-24 year-olds in the UK. Just 28 per cent of them use BBC iPlayer. The BBC has pledged to take action, and better, more secure, personalisation might be the key. The broadcaster has been placing greater emphasis on data-driven personalisation for its online services since 2017, when it began requiring users to be logged in to use iPlayer. More recently it has been pushing people to login to the BBC website to personalise the news they see. Now the BBC has built an experimental system that allows BBC, Netflix and Spotify data to be combined to present people with personalised music, podcast and gig recommendations based on data they control. It’s hoped that, in the future, similar technologies could encourage younger people to engage with more BBC content. Building new technology to drive views is a priority in online media. Netflix spent about $1.8 billion (£1.3bn) on tech development last year. The BBC has just £236 million allocated across all of its online services, including tech development for iPlayer. And while the national broadcaster isn’t subject to quite the same competitive commercial pressures as Netflix or Amazon Prime Video, its recommendation engine has a more complicated job. As well as presenting quality entertainment, it’s in the BBC’s remit to expose its audience to a broad range of content. “If personalisation or recommendations are making people's access to any content difficult,” says Tom Harrington, a senior research analyst at Enders Analysis, ”and therefore [limiting their exposure to] new ideas, programmes that are socially important ... the BBC is failing at one of its core jobs.” But the BBC has bigger ambitions. A crack team of BBC researchers has been working on a project that would allow you to save and import everything online services know about your viewing and listening habits, and use that data to create customised recommendations of series to watch, music to listen to and gigs to go to. Specifically, they’ve been building technologies on top of Solid, an open-source Personal Data Store (PDS) developed by Inrupt, to provide a model of how you can have personalised services based on shared data that you control. The work has been led by BBC Research and Development’s personal data products lead Eleni Sharp and principal engineer Bill Thompson. Solid is built around personal ‘pods’, controlled by a user, who grants permission to external apps and services to read and write data to them. Pods can be set up on a specialist hosting service, or self-hosted by more tech-savvy users. The BBC has called its project My PDS. Sharp says people in focus groups repeatedly said that they were “in too deep with the data, that they didn't know what to do, they felt like it was out of control.” “Holding people's personal data in order to be able to shape your services carries regulatory risk,” Thompson adds. “The security model that we are implementing around the demo of My PDS, we think, reduces that level of risk.” The main benefit users identified from the My PDS project was that it gave the ability to see and organise the data services held on them. To the team’s surprise, the user groups immediately understood the benefits of the data store model. My PDS pulls in viewing data from Netflix, your listening data from Spotify, and iPlayer and Sounds history from the BBC and. It gives users control over how they share and use very specific sets of personal data, but the original copies of that data are still held by Netflix, Spotify and the BBC. The experimental app invites users to create a Solid pod or sign into an existing one, and grant My PDS permission to read and write...
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I’m Dr. Krishna Rao Vijayanagar, and I have worked on Video Compression (AVC, HEVC, MultiView Plus Depth), ABR streaming, and Video Analytics (QoE, . Inter and Intra Prediction. What is an I-frame? What is a P-frame? What is a B-frame? Reference B-frame and Non-Reference B-frames. Use of I, P, and B-frames in Video Compression & Streaming. Where do you use I-frames? Refreshing Video Quality. Recovery from Bitstream Errors. Trick Modes (Seeking Forward and Back) Where do you use P and B frames? Conclusion. The concept of I-frames, P-frames, and B-frames is fundamental to the field of video compression. These three frame types are used in specific situations to improve the codec’s compression efficiency, the compressed stream’s video quality, and the resilience of the stream to transmission and storage errors & failures. In this tutorial, we look at how I-frames, P-frames, and B-frames work and what they are used for. If you are into video compression, do read our tutorial on the discrete cosine transform, why video compression is important, and a layman’s explanation of what a video codec is and how it’s created. Okay, with that, let’s get started with a couple of fundamental aspects of modern day video compression – Intra and Inter prediction. Table of Contents Inter and Intra Prediction What is an I-frame? What is a P-frame? What is a B-frame? Reference B-frame and Non-Reference B-frames Use of I, P, and B-frames in Video Compression & Streaming Where do you use I-frames? Refreshing Video Quality Recovery from Bitstream Errors Trick Modes (Seeking Forward and Back) Where do you use P and B frames? Conclusion I won’t do a deep dive of Intra and Inter-prediction in this article, but, I’ll give you an idea of why these exist and what they are meant for. Take, for example, the image below. It shows two video frames (adjacent to each other) with a rectangular block of black pixels. In frame 1, the block is on the left-hand side of the image, and in the second frame, it has moved to the right. If I want to compress Frame #2 using a modern video codec like H.264 or HEVC, I would do something as follows – Break the video into blocks of pixels (macroblocks) and compress them one at a time. In order to compress each macroblock, the first step is to find a macroblock similar to the one we want to compress by searching in the current frame or previous or future frames. The best-match macroblock’s location is recorded (which frame and its position in that frame). Then, the two macroblocks’ difference is compressed and sent to the decoder along with the location information. With me so far? Good! Take a look at the image below. If I want to compress the macroblock in Frame #2 (that I’ve marked with a red square), what do you think is the best option? Or how should it be done? First, I can look in frame #1 and find the matching block. It appears to have moved by a distance approximately the frame’s width (a little less, I know) and approximately at the same height. Good, we have the motion vector now. I can search within the same frame and quickly realize that the block above the one marked in red is IDENTICAL to it. So, I can tell the decoder to copy that one instead of hunting in another frame. The motion vector (if any) is also minimal. Now take a look at the next example. We want to compress the macroblock containing the blue sphere in frame #2. How should we go about doing this? Search within the same frame or search in previously encoded frames? First, I can look in frame #1 and find the matching sphere. It appears to have moved by a distance approximately the frame’s width (a little less, I know) and moved up a little. This gives us the motion vector. The difference between the two blocks containing spheres appears to be very small (guesstimate!) Second, I can search within the same frame and realize no other block contains a sphere. So, bad luck searching for a match within the same frame! So, what did we learn from these toy exa...
Bitcoin mining produces electronic waste (e-waste) annually comparable to the small IT equipment waste of a place like the Netherlands, research shows. Miners of the cryptocurrency each year produce 30,700 tonnes of e-waste, Alex de Vries and Christian Stoll estimate. That averages 272g (9.5oz) per . Globally just over 17% of all e-waste is recycled. However, the number is probably less in some of the countries in which most miners are based, where in many cases regulations on e-waste are also poor.
Thu, Oct 07 www.smadvancedforum.com Stef goes back to sepiatone webcasting! And Peggy is the mad brains who helps us keep the WiSM seat full!!
Richard Kendal/RTSLen Blavatnik’s DAZN is in advanced talks to buy BT’s Sport’s channels.A deal would push DAZN to the top table of the UK premium . Sir Leonard Blavatnik’s DAZN is in advanced talks to buy BT’s Sport’s channels. A deal would push DAZN to the top table of the UK premium sports market, a position it has held in Italy since it outbid Sky Italia, since it bought the rights to Serie A earlier this year in a deal worth €2.5 billion. BT Sport has rights deals that include Premier League, Premiership Rugby and Ashes cricket. It said in April that it was in talks with potential partners over the channel’s future. The telco wants to concentrate core business including the deployment of 5G and fibre-based broadband. Talks are also understood to have taken place with Amazon, ITV and Disney. Streaming service DAZN is widely available in the UK, where its principal attraction is boxing. However the app is not yet present on Sky Q. Last week DAZN’s chair, the former Disney executive Kevin Mayer (pictured), told the RTS Cambridge convention he would “possibly” be interested in acquiring BT Sport. “We would love to have EPL. Ultimately, there are many paths to get there.BT Sport is a great business and a good sports service”. Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) Related