Avigilon to acquire VideoIQ for $32 mln

On the New Year's Eve day of 2014, Avigilon Corporation (“Avigilon”) (TSX: AVO), a leader in high-definition (HD) surveillance solutions, announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire the video analytics company VideoIQ, Inc. (“VideoIQ”) for cash consideration of US$32 million. The transaction is expected to close in early January 2014. 

VideoIQ is a seven-year-old video analytics company based in Billerica, Mass., a suburb of Boston, with 30 employees and 23 patents granted or pending. VideoIQ’s proprietary technology includes live detection, event verification and instant notification, and self-learning capabilities.  Its main product is the iCVR camera and encoder family with features of

• Proactive surveillance:  identify people, vehicles and boats from objects, animals and scene movement, ensuring the most accurate real-time threat detection on the market. 
• Network efficiency: By storing video within the onboard NVR, iCVR cameras and encoders can record at full resolution and frame rate – even full high definition with 1080p/30fps resolution – using no bandwidth at all. The overall system needs less than 10% of the bandwidth of high definition and conventional IP cameras, allowing customers to deploy over existing networks, wireless networks and cellular connections. And as every iCVR continuously records, they are always ready to send real-time alarms when threats are detected, stream live video on demand and perform sophisticated search.
• Simple installation: with fully integrated, onboard NVR storage and an advanced VMS, iCVR cameras and encoders eliminate the need for expensive centralized storage – reducing deployment costs, system complexity, infrastructure, time and resources. Additionally, it automatically calibrates in minutes, getting more accurate with each object detected and further reducing installation time and resources. 

"VideoIQ’s analytics solution complements Avigilon’s innovative line of products,” said Alexander Fernandes, president and CEO of Avigilon. “The acquisition will give us sophisticated, commercially proven analytics technology supported by one of the leading analytics development teams in the industry. VideoIQ is transforming the future of intelligent surveillance and I am pleased to welcome the team to Avigilon.”

"We believe there is an opportunity to increase the sales of both VideoIQ and Avigilon surveillance systems in the near term by bringing VideoIQ’s existing products into our established global distribution channels,” Mr. Fernandes added. “Over time, as we integrate VideoIQ’s technology into the Avigilon system, we will expand our end-to-end high-definition surveillance solutions to include robust analytics capabilities, giving end users the ability to prevent crime proactively and more effectively analyze large amounts of data.” 

Global Combo-chip for Tablet market to grow at a CAGR of 41.3% in next four years

Combo-chips have become a vital component for wireless connectivity devices such as tablets and smartphones. The increasing need among consumers to communicate and access data has increased the demand for combo-chips in tablets. Combo-chips that integrate Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS, FM radio, and NFC technology provide tablet users with faster connectivity and consume less power than stand-alone chips. 

The analysts forecast the Global Combo-chip for Tablet market to grow at a CAGR of 41.3 percent over the period 2014-2018. One of the key factors contributing to this market growth is the increasing sales of tablets worldwide. The Global Combo-chip market for Tablets has also been witnessing technological convergence. However, the high cost of integration could pose a challenge to the growth of this market. 

See more detail in "Global Combo-chip for Tablet Market 2014-2018".

A Free Online Android Programming Course by University of Maryland

Started from January 21st 2014, University of Maryland will offer an eight weeks of online Android programming course, "Programming Mobile Applications for Android Handheld Systems". 

Tentative Schedule

Week #1:

•  Lecture #0 - Handheld systems, their use, and how this affects the design of handheld applications

•  Lecture #1 – The Android Platform

•  Lecture #2 – The Android Development Environment

•  Lab #1: Setup: Students identify required software & install it on their personal computers.  Students perform several tasks to familiarize themselves with the Android Platform and development environment. 

Week #2:

•  Lecture #3 – Application Fundamentals

•  Lecture #4 – The Activity Class

•  Lab #2 – The Activity Lifecycle & Reconfiguration: We'll build applications that 1) trace the lifecycle callback methods issued by the Android platform and that 2) change the application’s layout when the device configuration changes (e.g., when the device moves from portrait to landscape mode).

Week #3:

•  Lecture #5 – The Intent Class

•  Lecture #6 – Permissions

•  Lecture #7 – The Fragment Class

•  Lab #3a - Intents & Permissions:  We'll build several applications that require starting multiple Activities via standard and custom Intents, and that require non-default permissions.

•  Lab #3b – Tablet User Interfaces: We'll build two applications; one that has a series of Activities for use on a phone; one that has a multi-pane user interface for use on a tablet.

Week #4: 

•  Lectures #8 – User Interface Classes - Part I

•  Lectures #9 – User Interface Classes - Part II

•  Lab #4 – ToDoManager:  We'll build a ToDo list manager using the user interface elements discussed in lecture. The application will use custom views for creatively displaying ToDo items in a list. The application will display two different types of user interfaces, based on whether the device on which it’s running is a small phone or a larger tablet.

Week #5:

•  Lecture #10 – User Notifications

•  Lecture #11 – The BroadcastReceiver Class

•  Lecture #12 – Threads, AsyncTask & Handlers

•  Lecture #13 - Alarms

•  Lecture #14 - Networking

•  Lab #5a – Threads: We'll write concurrent, multi-threaded code to load ToDo items from a networked server via background threads (i.e., without blocking the main UI thread).

•  Lab #5b - Broadcast Receiver: We'll build an application that uses a BroadcastReceiver to react when events such as connecting and disconnecting the charger occur.

Week #6:

•  Lecture #15 – Graphics & Animation I

•  Lecture #16 – Graphics & Animation II

•  Lecture #17 – Multi-touch & Gestures

•  Lecture #18 – MultiMedia

•  Lab #6a - Gesture Sampler:  Students build and application that accepts gesture input, such as using an "X" gesture to delete, using a "?" gesture to show help, etc.

•  Lab #6b - Bubble Popper: We'll write an application to display and animate bubbles (graphics that look like bubbles) on the device's screen. When users touch the screen where a bubble appears, the bubble pops.

Week #7:

 •  Lecture #19 – Sensors

•  Lecture #20 – Location & Maps

•  Lab #7a - Obstacle Course: Students build an application that uses the orientation of the device (tilting, rotating, etc.) to guide an object around obstacles. 

Week #8:

•  Lecture #21 – DataManagement

•  Lecture #22 – The ContentProvider Class

•  Lecture #23 – The Service Class

•  Lab #8a - Data Management (SQL): Students develop a database for storing and retrieving multimedia notes with textual tags.

•  Lab #8b - Mutlimedia Notes Content Provider: Students extend the multimedia notes database so multimedia notes can be shared via a ContentProvider across multiple applications. 

Android NDK GDB Client/Server Graphical Debugging for Native C/C++ Executable with ddd

1. Install gdbserver on device

Assuming the Android NDK is installed in ~/android-ndk-r8e, and the device is rooted, su and change the system permission command for to be writable, for example, for Asus Transformer TF201,

mount -o rw,remount -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mmcblk0p1 /system

Then push android-ndk-r8e\prebuilt\android-arm\gdbserver to /system/bin.

2. adb push the native executable app_executable to /data/data/app_name

3. In device sdcard, make a working directory /sdcard/app_name

4. On the device or emulator, go to /sdcard/app_name, launch a new command (port number 5039 is an example)

gdbserver : 5039 /data/data/app_name/app_executable some_command_line_options_defined_in_exe

5. On the host, forward port 5039 to the device with adb:

adb forward tcp: 5039 tcp: 5039

6.  Assuming the executable build directory is exe_build_directory, set source path with "set solib-search-path ~/android-ndk-r8e/platforms/android-9/arch-arm/usr/include ~/android-ndk-r8e/sources/cxx-stl/gnu-libstdc+/4.6/include: ~/android-ndk-r8e/sources/cxx-stl/gnu-libstdc+/4.6/libs/armeabi/include: exe_build_directory"

7. Go to the exe_build_directory, start a special version of gdb client that lives in the "prebuilt" area of the source tree with ddd, for example,

 ddd --debugger ~/android-ndk-r8e/toolchains/arm-linux-androideabi-4.7/prebuilt/linux-x86_64/bin/arm-linux-androideabi-gdb

8. Then "file app_executable", the source code trees are brought in ddd window,

9. Connect to the device by issuing the gdb command in ddd window:

target remote: 5039

and then have fun with ddd

Comparison Between H.264/AVC, H.265/HEVC, VP9 and Daala

H.264/AVC

H.264/MPEG-4 Part 10 or AVC (Advanced Video Coding) is a video compression format, and is currently one of the most commonly used formats for the recording, compression, and distribution of video content. The final drafting work on the first version of the standard was completed in May 2003. It has been widely adopted.

H.265/HEVC

High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) or H.265 is the current joint video coding standardization project of ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group (ITU-T Q.6/SG 16) and ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group (ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29/WG 11). It is an evolution of current industrial H.264/AVC standard and was developed to increase AVC compression efficiency by two times and endorse the development of UHD systems. HEVC is expected to replace AVC in newly developed video systems.

VP9

VP9 is an open video compression standard being developed by Google. It basically shares common features with AVC coding like VP8 did.

Daala

Daala is the current working name of a video codec under development by the Xiph.Org Foundation. Daala is intended to be a high-efficiency codec for use cases similar to those of High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC or H.265) and VP9. Daala is using a lapped transform to reduce the blocking artifacts characteristic of other video codecs that use the discrete cosine transform directly.

Comparison

	H.264/AVC	H.265/HEVC	VP9	Daala
Estimated Current Compression Efficiency for General Video	50:1	100:1	60:1	30:1
Complexity	High	Very High	Medium	Medium
Current Performance	Fast	Slow	Fast	N/A
Royalty	Almost free now	Some	Free	Free
Transform Coding	DCT/ Hadamard	DCT/DST	DCT/DST	Lapped (linear discrete block)
Prediction Coding	8 Modes for intra predictions	33 Directional modes for intra predictions + planar and DC intra prediction modes	10 Modes for intra predictions	Frequency domain predictor
Entropy Coding	Context-adaptive binary arithmetic coding, Context-adaptive variable-length coding (CABAC), VLC	Context-adaptive binary arithmetic coding (CABAC)	Arithmetic bool coder with largish probability range
Block Size	16x16	Up to 64x64	32x32
Max Resolution Support	4,096×2,304	8,192×4,320
Bits	8-14	8-12	8
Implemented Color Spaces	YUV 4:2:0 -4:4:4	YUV, RGB, YCbCr	YUV 4:2:0	YUV

Semiconductor Market Could Grow 15% in 2014

According to Bill Jewell at Semiwiki.com, the world semiconductor market could grow 15% in 2014.

Other forecasts shows

Detailed Overview of HEVC/H.265

Currently a real HEVC/H.265 usually outperforms AVC/H.264 above 30% at bit rate.

Shevach Riabtsev provided a great presentation about HEVC/H.265 in

https://app.box.com/s/rxxxzr1a1lnh7709yvih

In his presentation, he described HEVC/H.265 as follows

HEVC/H.265 Encoder

Shevach said "In addition to AVC/H.264, SAO and SAO Params Estimation added. 

SAO Params Est. can be executed right after deblocking or right after the reconstruction 

as shown in the figure.

HEVC similarity with AVC/H.264 allows quick upgrading of existing AVC/H.264 solutions

to HEVC ones."