Sainsbury`s says the technology is part of efforts to identify shoplifters to curb retail crime. Read...

Streaming images can really pop when the contrast-boosting Dolby Vision is on the case, but Dolby’s HDR technology is also the target of a frequent complaint: It’s too dark.  The issue arises because what content creators see in their production studios can differ greatly from what we see in our living rooms. Video pros work with calibrated reference monitors in perfectly lit conditions; we, on the other hand, watch on consumer TVs with many different makes, models, and display technologies and in myriad lighting environments, from a pitch-black room to a brightly lit kitchen.  That means content creators must take a one-size-fits-all approach when “grading” the brightest and darkest images of the picture for Dolby Vision, and in some cases, that means some viewers will be left straining to see what’s happening on their screens.  Now comes the next generation of Dolby Vision—the aptly named Dolby Vision 2—and with the help of AI, it aims to deliver more of a two-way approach (or “bi-directional” tone mapping, as Dolby is calling it) that can tailor Dolby Vision HDR images for your particular TV, and even according to the light in the room where you’re watching.  Debuting this week at IFA in Berlin, Dolby Vision 2 arrives with an important caveat: It will only work on forthcoming TVs with built-in Dolby Vision 2 circuitry. Hisense is the first TV manufacturer to get on board with the upgraded HDR standard, with its first Dolby Vision 2-enabled TVs to land “at a later date,” the brand says.  On the content side, CANAL+ is the first studio to pledge its support for Dolby Vision 2 on its upcoming movies, TV shows, and live sporting events.  Among Dolby Vision 2’s bag of tricks is Precision Black, a feature that measures the ambient light conditions in a content creator’s production area, embeds the information in the Dolby Vision stream, and then matches it with the display capabilities of a given Dolby Vision 2-enabled TV. That way, the images on your set can come closer to looking the way they do in the grading studio.  Taking things a step further is Light Sense, which tailors the HDR images even further by “capturing” the light levels in your living room via “advanced” ambient light detection. With Precision Black and Light Sense working in tandem (both are part of an AI-powered toolkit that Dolby’s calling Content Intelligence), Dolby Vision 2 aims to fix the “too dark” issue that’s been a nagging problem for the first major version of the HDR technology.  Another arrow in Dolby Vision 2’s quiver is Authentic Motion, which (according to Dolby) goes “beyond the benefits of HDR” to help deal with the “challenges of judder.”   Rather than being a ham-fisted motion-smoothing setting that can lead to the dreaded “soap-opera effect,” Authentic Motion allows video creatives to pinpoint “potential trouble areas” of a scene and “adjust the amount of de-judder for the specific shots or scenes they feel best match the look of what they’re trying in convey,” Dolby says.    In addition to straight-up Dolby Vision 2, there will also be a step-up Dolby Vision 2 Max that’s “designed to unlock the full capabilities and best picture quality on the highest performing TVs.” The specifics of Dolby Vision 2 Max will come “at a later date,” I’m told.  A Dolby spokesperson declined to speculate on when we might actually get to see Dolby Vision 2-enhanced videos at home. Read...

The weather may be improving but those who rely on their creativity for survival are facing some daunting challenges ahead, thanks to technology. Read...

However a trial of the technology enforcement options found shortcomings and risks with all of them. Read...

It`s a weird paradox - workers have a lot of technology and yet are still doing too much, says American organisational consultant Melissa Swift. Read...

The new technology could be a `game-changer` resulting in patients being treated sooner, experts say. Read...

There’s a common misconception about PCIe 5.0 SSDs that since they’re the latest-generation SSD storage and boast faster speed and bandwidth compared to PCIe 4.0 SSD, anyone who gets one is going to experience a big uptick in PC performance. That’s certainly not the case as we’ve shown by analyzing things like gaming performance. But there are a few exceptions to that rule. In fact, if any of the below statements are true for you, you may well have a justifiable reason for splurging out on a costly PCIe 5.0 SSD upgrade. Am I working with large datasets? Scientists and other professionals work with very large amounts of data — often terabytes but sometimes even petabytes in size. PCIe 5.0 SSD doubles the bandwidth of PCIe 4.0 SSD delivering theoretical speeds of 14,000MB/s for reads and 12,000MB/s for writes to disk. These faster transfer speeds can help prevent one of the biggest problems data scientists have to deal with nowadays — that is, the bottlenecks that occur on their PCs loading and preprocessing data from storage. Tada Images / Shutterstock.com For data scientists, especially those working with datasets in Large Language Models (LLMs), tasks like running complex queries on a database, accessing files while training models, or saving large model checkpoints should be much snappier with a PCIe 5.0 SSD, therefore reducing the time workers are idle and likely therefore also boosting productivity. Am I a video editor, 3D animator, or designer working with very large files? If your job title is 3D animator, designer, or video editor and, again, you’re working with large files, then a PCIe 5.0 SSD is likely to make your workflow much quicker. That’s especially the case if you work with 4K or even 8K video files, where the speed and bandwidth increases will likely translate to smoother timeline scrubbing and faster rendering. Do I want to future-proof my hardware for gaming? Right now, there’s not much of an advantage gaming with a PCIe 5.0 SSD over a PCIe 4.0 SSD, but as hardware and software applications continue to evolve, it’s likely they will better take advantage of the speed and bandwidth benefits of PCIe 5.0 SSD for gaming. That looks to be the case with the emerging technology of DirectStorage that reduces load times and improves asset streaming in games, especially data-heavy open-world RPGs. DirectStorage allows games to load data directly from the SSD to the GPU, thereby bypassing the CPU. While the technology works on PCIe 4.0 SSDs, PCIe 5.0 SSDs are better suited to utilize the DirectStorage technology when it becomes more widespread. Related content Best SSDs Best PCIe 4.0 SSDs What happened to DirectStorage? Why don’t more PC games use it? 5 useful upgrades for your PC’s unused PCIe slots Read...

The world-first Device Location Information technology will mean the difference between life and death, police say. Read...

The Department of Conservation (DOC) has chosen One New Zealand (One NZ) as a new National Conservation Partner, bringing mobile services and industry-leading technology to the frontline of conservation. Read...

Ingram Micro is simplifying the technology industry`s capabilities to innovate and more securely integrate at scale faster with the launch of its Xvantage Integrations Hub in New Zealand. Read...