Comparison Audio Formats

In our world today, audio formats are one of the most important things related to technology. The release of the iPod especially, increased the demand of audio that occupied less space but without loosing quality, therefore many audio formats appeared, such as the famous and probably most used MP3, but others such as AIFF, WAV, WMA and RA.

In this post I am going to explain the characteristics of each of these audio formats and their differences.


MP3 (.mp3) : Probably the most famous audio format, MP3 is the name given to the file extension of the type of file MPEG, audio layer 3. Layer 3 is one of three coding schemes for the compression of audio signals. Layer 3 uses audio coding to eliminate any unimportant or irrelevant parts of the sound signal, thus eliminating the things that humans cannot hear. It also increases the frequency resolution by 18 times compared to that of level 2. The result of all of these characteristics, is that it shrinks the storage space of the sound by a factor of 12 from something like a CD, without sacrificing its sounds, therefore allowing users to have more songs in the iPods for example. It can be opened and used practically on every device.

WMA – Window Media Audio (.wma) : This audio format is a Microsoft file format for encoding digital audio files, and is similar to MP3. However, though being similar, it can compress files at a higher rate than MP3. A really good aspect of this audio format is that the file extension can be of any size compressed to match any different connection speeds, or bandwidth. It is often used to play music from the Web. However, this audio format cannot be played on an iPod.

WAV (.wav) : WAV is the format used for storing sounds in files developed by Microsoft and IBM together. Originally, the support for WAV files was built into Window 95, and it was the de facto standard for sound on PCs. These .wav files can be played nearly by all Windows application that supports sound. It is often saved in a 44.1 KHz, 16-bit, stereo format, usually used for CDs. Therefore this format is really similar to AIFF, explained below.

RA – Real Audio (.ra .ram .rm) : Real Audio is a proprietary format, and is used for streaming audio that enables you to play digital audio files in real-time. To use this type of file you must have RealPlayer (for Windows or Mac), which you can download for free. Real Audio was developed by RealNetworks. 

AIFF – Audio Interchange File Format (.AIF or .IEF) : AIFF is a common format for storing and transmitting sampled sound. It was developed by Apple and if the standard audio for Macintosh computers. It is also used by Silicon Graphics Incorporated (SGI). A big difference from the rest of formats, is that AIFF format does not support data compression, so AIFF files tend to be large. Its quality audio is similar to that of a .wav file and it is commonly used to store standard CD audio.It has a sampling rate of 44.1 KHz and are 16-bit.




I hope this post has been helpful. Thank you for reading!

Tips for Podcast Fans

This is a summary from the following link from Apple about podcasts: Tips for Podcast Fans

Discovering Podcasts

The first step in order to download and listen to free podcasts is by going to the iTunes store, that is on the far right of the iTunes navigation bar. Then, select the Podcast page, you can even search specific podcasts by using the search tool. As well, another feature that the Podcasts page in iTunes Store allows you to do, is to search for the Top Podcasts, either audio or video, or even by category. In addition, this allows you to find more of your favorite podcasts by clicking on the author of the podcast.

Playing podcasts

There are various options to listen or view your podcasts. You can stream an episode directly from iTunes or you can also download it. As well, another good option, is subscribing to a podcast you like, and therefore, new episodes will be downloaded automatically. By using iCloud, you can resume the viewing or listening of the podcast in another device from the one from which you paused it.

In addition to either video or audio podcast, iTunes also features text-based podcasts, which come in the format of PDF or ePub files and can be opened up on your computer on in the Apple iBooks app that can be used in the portable devices such as iPod, iPhone or iPad.

Whenever iTunes encounters a problem when downloading a podcast episode,  one will see and exclamation mark to the left of the title of the episode. Do not worry, this means that the person uploading the podcast is having problems with the uploading of the file, and the episode will be available in about a day.

In order to know whether you have watched the podcats entirely, watched it half way, or a quarter of it, there is a blue circle that indicated how much of the podcast you have watched. This circle disappears once you have watched it entirely.

iTunes also allows you to change the EQ setting for playback which may be handy when you are listening to amateur podcasts since distracting noises may be heard in the background of the audio.

Managing Podcast Subscriptions

By default, iTunes does not play another podcast when one has finished playing. Therefore, there is an option of creating a podcast playlist, or even a Smart Playlist which allows you to include podcasts with many different kind of filters, such as artist, genre, episode length and many more. In order to build an all-podcast Smart Playlist, click on New, and then on Smart Playlist from the File menu.

Another similar service is creating your own station. In My Station, you can create a personalized station of your favorite podcasts in which new episodes will be downloaded automatically, and choose from which podcast you want it to play from. There is also an option, marked by a gear icon, that allows you to save the podcasts you like. By using the “Episodes to keep” menu, you can select those that you want to keep in your library. In addition, click the Do Not Auto Delete button in order for the podcasts to remain in your library.

You can as well subscribe to podcasts on the Internet that are not in the iTunes store by choosing Subscribe to Podcast from the file menu, and the only thing you need to do is enter the URL, and then the podcast will begin to download automatically.

One can also choose the frequency at which iTunes looks for new episodes. This can be changed from weeks, to days, to hours by going to Podcast Settings and changing the rate of search.

As easy as it is to subscribe, you can as easily unsubscribe from the podcast. You do this by selecting the podcast and clicking on the Unsubscribe button. As well, iTunes stops downloading episodes automatically once it sees there are more than 5 episodes without watching, in order for the viewer to have time to catch up.

Sharing Podcasts

Sharing podcasts with iTunes is easy. Although it requires having an iTunes account, you can just send an email to a friend with the link to the podcast by clicking on the triangle next to the Subscribe button and selecting Tell a Friend, or just simply copying the link and sending it to your friend. In addition, the sharing can be done via the popular social networks Facebook and Twitter, and this is done in the same way as mentioned above, but instead just clicking Share on Faceboor or Share on Twitter. Lastly, you can share an individual podcast you have already downloaded by dragging this podcast to your desktop, and then sending this .pcast file to your friend as an attachment via email.

There is also an option of exporting a list of all your subscription. This is useful especially when introducing someone to podcasting. To export a list of your subscriptions, right-click on Podcasts in the Sidebar in iTunes and select expoert. Choose OPML as the format since it is a mostly recognized format for sets of subscriptions. Then name the file and save it, and then send it to yourself or your friend as an attachment. In order to subscribe to an OPML file, choose the Add to Library option and choose the OPML file you have, and iTunes will begin to download the episodes automatically.

I hope you have enjoyed this post and that you found it useful in order to start with your podcasting!

Summary about lesson on podcasting 27/11/2013

Today, the 27th of November of 2013, the technology lesson has been about podcasting.

We have discussed the basic characteristics of podcasting. To start with, it is normally an audio file, usually mp3, which is uploaded to the internet for free, and is then downloaded on the internet for free as well. The use of podcasts has become popular due to the format mp3. However, podcasts are not only limited to audio. Vodcasts, which are podcasts that include video, are becoming now very popular, and are supported by the format mp4.

There are many programs that can be used to do podcasts, but having many Mac people in the classroom, Garage Band seemed like a good program in which one can produce a podcast.

As well, in this lesson, we took a look at some professional podcasts. We took a look at podcasts of probably the Spanish master of podcasts, Juanma Ortega, who now works for the radio. His podcasts are full of special effects as well as jingles, which are really shortened pieces of songs. As well, we commented on how the voice of these people in podcasts is modified, giving more depth to the voice as well as a kind of echo. Professional podcasts are full of effects and full of editing. We also commented on how people can even make a living from making podcasts, since it is becoming something very similar to the radio.

Lastly, we took a look at programs that are platforms for podcast downloading, such as iTunes. However, we took a look at the program inside iTunes called iTunesU. iTunesU is designed for students since it has thousands of podcasts from universities from all over the world, some of them the most prestigious in the world.

In class we had to subscribe to a podcast in iTunes U, so therefore I subscribed and I have shown also how to subscribe. Since I am interested in Electronics and circuits, I have subscribed to an MIT course about this subject. Below are the subscription confirmation.

What is podcasting?

A podcast is a digital audio file, mostly Mp3 but other formats such as AAC are also common, which are made available for download on the internet. The word podcast derives from the words "broadcast" and "pod" because after the success of the well-known iPod, audio podcasts were usually listened on these portable devices. Podcasting, for example, is similar yet somewhat different to webcasting, in other words Internet streaming, which unlike podcasting, is not usually designed for offline listening content.

Now lets get into context and give some historical background about podcasts. The term "podcasting" was first mentioned by Ben Hammersley in The Guardian newspaper in 2004. He used this term for this medium that was usually reproduced in iPods, as mentioned before. However podcasts existed before the introduction of the iPod or even the famous iTunes.

The thing that really makes podcasts different from just downloading a music file and listening to it, is that podcasting is all about having the files come to you through syndication instead of having to search files through the internet search. The benefits of podcasting is that you subscribe to podcasts just as you would subscribe to this blog for example. What this does is that you even have the option of making your reader download new podcasts whenever new are available, and then transfer these files to your portable device for example. The case would be for example now with iCloud, in which you can download a podcast from iTunes to your computer for example, and have it instantly in your iPhone, iPod or iPad.

Podcasts are now somewhat competing with radios. What more and more people are doing is recording talk-back shows from home and distributing this to people all over the world, with audiences reaching the thousands, and maybe in the future, the millions. This is why podcasting is a revolutionary technology that leads, with blogs, to a new content distribution revolution on the web, that will be even greater in the future.

Finally, although podcasts are usually referred as to audio files, there are also video podcasts, called "vodcasts."These type of podcasts have the same function as the mentioned audio podcasts, but instead consist of usually short clips of video that are shared on the internet. Vodcasts are now very common for example on the Web Tv. Other types of podcasting include enhanced podcasts or podcast novels.

Here is a link to a podcast I did several years ago:

PODCAST

OS X Mavericks and iCloud

Apple has recently released its new desktop software called OS X Mavericks. This upgrade on Mountain Lion presents several new features that make it yet better, although these new features do not really differ greatly from Mountain Lion.

First of all upgrading to this new software is free. This is something new in the California company since previous actualizations cost me. For example, the upgrade to Mountain Lion cost its users 20$. This new feature is pretty important since it will increase competence with Microsoft, who charges for software upgrades. We want every Mac user to experience the latest features, the most advanced technologies, and the strongest security,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice-president of Software Engineering in a statement. “We believe the best way to do this is to begin a new era of personal computing software where OS upgrades are free.”

Other features that make one's computer perform more efficiently include that is makes your battery last longer as well as it liberates memory, around 5 gb most people are commenting.

As for other features that are completely new, this new software includes iBooks in your computer. This means that the popular application that before could only be used in iPhones, iPads or iPods is finally available for your computer. As well, other new software includes a new mapping tool and a password manager called iCloud keychain.

Lastly, software used in mobile devices has now reached the computer. For example, the introduction of Pop-ip notifications, which lets users respond to or delete messages or answer Facetime calls without leaving the app they are using. In addition, new organizational tools have been added. In this category the biggest of all these tolls can be considered the new feature called Finder Tabs, which is used to combine multiple windows into a single window with multiple tabs. Users can also "tag" files with keywords to make it quicker and easier to search for them later.

These are the most important features among the 200 new features that Apple claim Mavericks to have.

As well, Apple has released new software in terms of iCloud. There is a new website, called icloud.com that makes it possible for users to use apps such as Pages, Keynote, Numbers, Notifications or other in the computer, thus making the experience of iCloud even better. This is very useful because in this website one can also share these documents with other people, making the sharing process even faster via de Internet. 

I hope this post has been helpful!

Can Google Solve Death?

Recently, the Times Magazine has published an article titled "Can Google solve death?" The theme of the article basically talks about the new company that Google is going to create, called Calico (California Life Company), and which is going to try to investigate if death is something not inevitable.

From what commentators say, this new company is going to have a different focus than other life-extension research companies; it is going to try to combat death by focusing on aging itself, rather than focusing on finding cures for single diseases, such a cancer, alzheimer, or others. This is the key, as many biologists single out.

As a new company, and without any further information about how it is going to work, many different reporters have discussed on which technologies and therapies Calico is going to focus on order to solve this question that has pursued humans since the very start. Some of these methods include the following: cryonics, cryotherapy, self-healing worms and telomeres, cloning and body part replacement and nanotechnology.

Cryonics

This technique is based on freezing your body, sometimes only ones head, in order to have your body preserved after death. This method is somewhat similar to what the famous Walt Disney did. The hope of this technique is that the body will be preserved until a future in which nanotechnology and further developments will be able to revive the patient by changing organs and tissues.


Cryotherapy


The use of cryotherapy is very typical in athletics, and many sports are starting to use this technique. It consists in submitting ones body to freezing cold temperatures for a short period of time, which makes the body recover quicker.


Self-healing worms and telomeres

A group of scientists at Nottingham University discovered a species of flatworm, the Planarian worm that can divide potentially forever, and this has caused that this may be a key to alleviate aging in human cells. Human cells undergo aging when stem cells divide to heal wounds, during reproduction
or for growth. The key to stop this aging process may lie in the telomeres, the ends of a chromosome that protect cells against degradation; if scientists can find a way to preserve telomeres, then this can be a huge step towards defeating aging.


Cloning and body part replacement 

This area of investigation has to do with the organ creation and replacement. A replacement of lab-grown kidneys has already been done to rats, and if this can be replicated for humans, it could mean a significant way of fighting age.


Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology is what many consider to be the science of the future. One example of how this could fight against aging is by deploying tiny robots (nanorobots) in the body which would help overcome problems of incorrect DNA replication, which is one of the central causes of aging.







In my opinion, although this is something that we would all apparently like, there are many motives to which I personally doubt this can either be impossible in the next 50 years, or that it would be detrimental for human society as we know it. I believe that by solving the problem of death, somewhat life would lose the exhilarating moments and all those moments one those in order to enjoy life to its optimum point. If one knows that he/she can life forever, then there is no meaning in trying to walk through life doing the things you enjoy or even living life to its fullest, since you are going to live forever. As well, how would this affect society, and not only that, the Earth. Considering that this would increase dramatically the Earth's population because nobody is dying while people are always being born, then sooner that we would think the Earth would reach its famous biological limit. The consequences on society can be so great that it would be too long to write now, but the structure of society and how we know humankind would change completely. People would be reckless all the time, for example. Therefore, although this science might be thought as a good idea, I would doubt whether it is a good or bad idea due to all of the consequences it can have.



Source for writing this article:

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/03/tech/innovation/google-calico-aging-death/

Tips to for a short movie

How to make a good short video: university of santa fe 

1. Do not cramp too many ideas
2. A twist at the end 
3. Ideas come from everyday life 
4. Convert idea into something we want to say
5. Ideas can come from drawings you randomly do
6. Crowdfunding = raise awareness on the web kickstarter.com and indiegogo.com ; 

For the short movie itself:

• Create a treatment (outline)
• Create a screenplay (script) - can use celtex
• Storyboard (where things go on the screen) by drawing with the different angles and where everything goes on the screen - medium shots, wide scenes, close shots
• Pre-production = look places to see where to film, location of where all scenes take place
• Production = filming of the film, having a schedule and stick to it, filming outside has too many variables, therefore filming inside in a studio is much easier; make sure you have enough shots, have as many as you can 
• Post-production = need to be organized, categorized, named, sound separate and then synchronizing the sound, and then editing (this usually takes pretty long) and use programs such as iMovie or Movie Maker / garbage in and garbage out, meaning that if you filmed something that you think is not good quality then you can not include it in the post production
• Getting the film seen = upload to youtube or in film festivals 

More Tips: not afraid of someone else’s idea, be open

• -Go with your instinct, don’t be close
• -Collaborate with others

Good examples of famous short movie films:

For the birds

One man's band

Geri's game