Category: Windows

Microsoft Now Accepts Bitcoin

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bitcoins
Microsoft, the famous multinational corporation that powers much of the world’s computing infrastructure with its Windows OS, now accepts Bitcoin online for its digital products. Microsoft users, in America only for now, can even fund their Microsoft/Windows Live or XBox Live accounts using Bitcoin, at the current exchange rate. Once Microsoft’s Bitcoin acceptance is at 100%, businesses and end users alike can pay for services such as Azure or even Windows Phone apps.
Once Microsoft starts accepting Bitcoin worldwide, the frictionless transactions will truly begin to flow. With $86.63 b in annual revenue and $172.38 b in total assets, Microsoft is the new largest company in the world to accept Bitcoin. Microsoft’s founder Bill Gates has previously admitted that “Bitcoin Technology is key.”

Source: https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/microsoft-now-accepts-bitcoin-bitpay/

Microsoft has started to accept Bitcoin payments, allowing customers to buy apps, games and videos from online stores with the crypto-currency.
The new feature, which was quietly added to its website last night, has been enabled by a partnership with payment processing startup BitPay.
Customers can now use Bitcoin to add money to their Microsoft account, but not use it to pay for goods directly. Once you add money to your Microsoft account you can use it to buy apps, games and other digital content from the Windows, Windows Phone, Xbox Games, Xbox Music and Xbox Video stores.
“Most Bitcoin transactions should process immediately. If it doesn’t, please wait up to two hours for the transaction to complete before contacting support,” says a support page on Bitcoin on Microsoft’s website. “Money added to your Microsoft account using Bitcoin cannot be refunded, so make sure to review your transaction before paying with your digital wallet.”
Currently the feature is limited to the US, and those customers here in the UK are not able to add funds to their account with a Bitcoin payment.

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/11286998/Tech-giant-Microsoft-accepts-Bitcoin-payments.html

Hyperlapse: smooth first-person action time lapse videos

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Some really cool technology in the making: take a helmet cam, go running, climbing, whatever action you’d like to film, and this software will reconstruct a smooth time lapse based on some clever algorithms!

“We present a method for converting first-person videos, for example, captured with a helmet camera during activities such as rock climbing or bicycling, into hyperlapse videos: time-lapse videos with a smoothly moving camera.

At high speed-up rates, simple frame sub-sampling coupled with existing video stabilization methods does not work, because the erratic camera shake present in first-person videos is amplified by the speed-up.

Our algorithm first reconstructs the 3D input camera path as well as dense, per-frame proxy geometries. We then optimize a novel camera path for the output video (shown in red) that is smooth and passes near the input cameras while ensuring that the virtual camera looks in directions that can be rendered well from the input.

Next, we compute geometric proxies for each input frame. These allow us to render the frames from the novel viewpoints on the optimized path.

Finally, we generate the novel smoothed, time-lapse video by rendering, stitching, and blending appropriately selected source frames for each output frame. We present a number of results for challenging videos that cannot be processed using traditional techniques.
 ”

Watch this video on YouTube.

And this is HOW it works:

Watch this video on YouTube.

Source: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/hyperlapse/

SkyStudioPro – new version: 1.1.0.27

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I’ve uplodaded a newer version of SkyStudioPro, version 1.1.0.27

What’s new in version 1.1.0.27

– fixed interval times >10 minutes
– added 5 minute interval time
– added warning in case codec changes (happened when you install/uninstall codecs)
– fixed scaling options when using large fonts (feedback welcome)
– fixed quote issue in output filename field in SkyStudioProVideoCompiler

Get it here

About SkyStudioPro

SkyStudioPro is a freeware time-lapse and motion detection application for the Windows® platform. You can use it to capture time-lapse movies using almost any capture device or web cam. It also features motion detection, you can set it to record movie clips when motion is detected.

Freeware

SkyStudioPro is freeware – you can download and use it free of charge.
There are no limitations to the free version, because there is no commercial version.
Of course, if you want to support the development, you could consider making a donation.

SkyStudioPro update to version 1.1.0.25

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An new version of SkyStudioPro is now available.
Besides from a couple of bug fixes and changes, the VideoCompiler has completely been rewritten.

You can use the VideoCompiler to make movies from bitmap or jpg sequences. If you want to make a stop-motion animation, just take snap shots with SkyStudioPro, click on “compile movie” and this brings up the VideoCompiler program.

SetupSkyStudioPro.zip (3.40 MB)

SkyStudioPro is a freeware time-lapse and motion detection application for the Windows® platform. You can use it to capture time-lapse movies using almost any capture device or web cam. It also features motion detection, you can set it to record movie clips when motion is detected.
You can use SkyStudioPro to monitor you camera for motion, and trigger a recording with audio and video when motion is detected. A unique feature is the option to “slow down time-lapse on motion” – this means that when motion is detected, the frame rate of your time-lapse movie is temporarily increased to real-time. When you play back the movie, you will see the time-lapse suddenly “slowing down” to show the moving object.

SkyStudioPro version 1.1.0.24 – updated

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There is a new version of SkyStudioPro available: 1.1.0.24

– a bug fix for the motion detection system, did not work properly in version 1.1.0.23
– you can now add “elapsed time” to the watermark/time stamp

You can download the new version of SkyStudioPro here.

About SkyStudioPro

SkyStudioPro is a freeware time-lapse and motion detection application for the Windows® platform. You can use it to capture time-lapse movies using almost any capture device or web cam. It also features motion detection, you can set it to record movie clips when motion is detected. You can also use SkyStudioPro to make stop-motion movies, by taking manual snapshots of a scene. Use the brand new SkyStudioPro VideoCompiler to make a compressed movie from your saved images.

http://www.skystudiopro.com