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Twitch Introduces New VOD Features & Copyrighted Music Blocking System

Posted: 11 Aug 2014 07:00 AM PDT

Twitch logo

The popular live video streaming site for gamers has announced dramatic new features that could have major consequences throughout its community.

UPDATE: Twitch has recently responded to the issues highlighted in this story, making what was known at the time of this writing old by the time of its posting. The changes reflected since then have been updated below this original account of events.

Some big, possibly community-effecting changes are being planned for Twitch. The popular live video streaming site, which caters to video game playthroughs and major gaming tournaments has revealed on Wednesday new guidelines about their Video-On-Demand system, and a controversial copyrighted music tagging software that mutes any rights-violating videos.

Let's address Twitch's new VOD system first, which will have some new welcomed features for broadcasters and viewers: such as higher quality videos, the ability to watch archived content on smart phones and other platforms, a new and easier way of exporting videos to YouTube, plus more options that promise to make video discoverability all the better.

In exchange for these new features though, Twitch will be removing the option for users to save their livestreams as archived videos forever. Beginning three weeks from now, Twitch will delete all broadcasts for nonpaying Twitch members after 14 days; turbo members, meanwhile, can have past broadcasts saved in their library for up to 60 days.

Only highlights, which can stretch for up to 2 hours in length, can be saved from being deleted past their Twitch-mandated expiration date. The culling, so to speak, will begin in three-weeks time, so it's important to hurry and trim down any broadcast to fit the 2-hour highlight specification, preventing it from getting erased. Like, right now would be best.

A good part of Twitch's upheaval of their archival system is based on new research complied by the company, which found that 80 percent of its storage capacity is composed of past broadcasts that never get watched. Even more justifying, archived videos that do get watched, users only do so within the first 14 days of a video's posting 84 percent of the time.

With the high cost of storage, keeping so much unwatched content was a financial burden with no real benefit to Twitch. And keeping the archival status quo harshly limited the audience a playthrough could reach due to their extraneous length. Up till now, Twitch app users on Xbox 360, iPad, and smart phones could only view live broadcasts on Twitch.

That changes now that most saved streams will be limited to highlights, opening up the full buffet of video content on their site, be it through an Internet browser, a video game console, or on a mobile device/tablet to everyone with online access. So ultimately, a good thing for views and perhaps a small headache for broadcasters who are now given few options in regards to archival methods.

Now a real potential big headache? That would be Twitch's new audio tagging system, which scans and targets licensed audio in a video that infringes upon any copyright claim (thankfully, live broadcasts are exempt from this software). In place, the tagging system will now mute any copyrighted material in a video for 30-minutes.

YouTube has a similar copyright catching method in place for its videos, and for the content creators   there, it has been a great thorn in their collective sides, giving full unchecked power to license holders for even the slightest of violations.

Twitch is still fleshing out these new policies issued on Wednesday, and have said to be openingly hearing feedback through its social channels. And judging from the immediate, heated reaction from Twitch users, some of whom include popular Let Play-ers with massive followings, since these new policies have been revealed, the company is getting it thoroughly.

UPDATE: Twitch has apparently come out and course-corrected some of its latest decisions in the past few hours.

Through their official Twitter account and official blog, the company is reportedly eliminating the 2-hour limit on highlight videos (giving back some archival functionality to its broadcasters), and the addition of a VOD audio removal appeal button that is meant to ease the concerns over the misuse of the newly in-placed copyright music tagging system.

We will keep you up to date on any further announcements from Twitch as they become known

Source: Twitch.com

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11 Sweetest Artworks of Rocket & Groot

Posted: 11 Aug 2014 06:00 AM PDT

Matching Outfits

Now that Guardians of the Galaxy has become a mainstream thing and not just for comic book fans, the world can enjoy the wonderful partnership of Rockets and Groot, and appreciate the awesome art to celebrate this friendship between a potty mouth raccoon and a sweet, bodyguard tree.

As Calvin and Hobbes

Huggin’ means Lovin’

Matching outfits are cute too

Groot can be scary without wanting to sometimes

Nurturing of Nature

Something weird about the scale in this one

Crayon Style

 

The Raccoon Version of Al Pacino

The Otis Frampton Version

 

A book, not a comic book

A Bird Joins Them

 

Hat tip

For more awesome fan art, check out the best of 2012 and 2013 which as you can expect has plenty of other Marvel superheroes.

Self-assembling origami robots are among us

Posted: 11 Aug 2014 05:00 AM PDT

origami-robots

The relaxing, ancestral art of Origami has received its biggest revolution since its inception: now it assembles itself. Sure, this kills most of the romanticism about it, but it is quite a sight to behold.

A group of robotics researchers have come up with a way to create a unique brand of robots: origami figures that autonomously self assembling and roaming around. As if inspired by Transformers, capable of disguising themselves becoming regular vehicles, these robots instead turn into origami figures. Careful, they might be hiding amongst your paper cranes and bunnies.

The footage uploaded by the team shows a couple of batteries and motors folfing the paper into classic origami figures without any human involvement. The robots do move on their own, and use “shape memory polymers” that contract when heated. It takes it about four minutes to fully transform from scratch, so, luckily, you’ll be able to spot them. You know, before they enslave you.

You can see the process unfold right below these lines.

Via Geekologie

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories at 16 Totally Geeky Paper Origami Designs and WTF Of The Day: Dude Pays For Ticket With Origami Bills.

Disney Research Found a Way to 3D Print Human Hair Accurately

Posted: 10 Aug 2014 01:56 PM PDT

Disney Research 3D printed hair

It may seem that the things invented or developed by Disney Research aren’t in any way related to what The Walt Disney Company does, by eventually, the concepts are seen either at Disneyworld or in the movies produced by this corporation.

This will also probably be the case with 3D printed stylized hair, the latest feat of Disney’s research labs. The deed is even more spectacular as until now it was believed that reproducing human hair through 3D printing was impossible. Mind you, Disney Research’s approach may not be perfect, as they haven’t managed to 3D print individual strands of hair. Instead, they proceeded to getting an accurate impression of a person’s hairstyle by fitting it on bust.

The result will make its way to souvenir shops from around The Magic Kingdom, as the masterminds at Disney Research claimed that the 3D printed hair will be used on figurines. More than that, facial hair will also be easy to reproduce using this method. I know that it’s not from a Disney movie, but I’d love to see Community’s Star-Burns as a figurine.

The paper detailing how 3D printing was used to achieve this will be presented at ACM Conference on Computer Graphics & Interactive Techniques (SIGGRAPH) 2014. Dr. Derek Bradley, associate research scientist at Disney Research Zurich, one of the participants at this project, explained that “Almost as much as the face, a person’s hairstyle is a defining characteristic of an individual. The resulting figurine loses a degree of realism when the individual’s hairstyle isn’t adequately captured.”

Along with Bradley, other scientists that were part of the team include Jose Ignacio Echevarria and Diego Gutierrez from Universidad de Zaragoza, as well as Thabo Beeler (DR Zürich).

Disney Research admits that 3D printing human (or animal, as there are plenty of animals in Disney flicks) hair fiber by fiber is impossible using current 3D printers. I’m pretty sure that in the not-so-distant future, we’ll have the technology for that as well. The advancements in bio-printing will enable people to 3D print wigs, and maybe even get rid of baldness, in the process. We just have to be patient, as there are plenty of brilliant minds willing to make the world better, one 3D printed object at a time.

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about Disney Aireal, which enhances Kinect with tactile feedback, and Disney Research animatronic robot that plays catch.

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