Informatique

Un exemple parfait de ce que l'on peut faire avec l'analyse des données et les statistiques.

Ou comment une chaine de supermarché arrive à prédire laquelle de ses clientes est enceinte grâce à ses habitudes d'achats

Thanks to the New York Times, we now know that Target has a system for figuring out which of its shoppers are knocked up. As Charles Duhigg, an expert in habit formation, makes clear, this is extremely valuable data as new parents tend to get hooked on certain brands and become loyal customers during the first few years of a child’s life — when they’re like the cookie monsters of kids’ goods. Target assigns every one of its customers a “pregnancy prediction score,” with an estimate of the due date, so that coupons can be timed to the right stage of pregnancy (e.g., maternity ware in the second trimester, placenta teddy bears near the end of the third). Other pregnancy-product companies would surely love to have access to this data. Or, more nefariously, employers who might want to avoid hiring a mother-to-be. Could Target sell it to them?

Lien : Could Target Sell Its 'Pregnancy Prediction Score'? - Forbes

As our society grows more dependent on computers, the software we run is of critical importance to securing the future of a free society. Free software is about having control over the technology we use in our homes, schools and businesses, where computers work for our individual and communal benefit, not for proprietary software companies or governments who might seek to restrict and monitor us.

Lien : Richard Stallman Was Right All Along

L'importance réaffirmée du logiciel libre au service des libertés de chacun

This software loads recommendations for a given Amzon.com book and converts it into a network. Written in Processing (processing.org) using the open source graph visualization library Gephi Toolkit (gephi.org/toolkit/)

Lien : Amazon Recommendation Network on Vimeo

Amazon Recommendation Network from Christopher Warnow on Vimeo.

Voici quelques outils 3D à tester

Scultris

Sculptris, logiciel de sculpture en temps réel. Je pense fait par ceux qui ont fait Z-Brush http://www.pixologic.com/sculptris/ Pour l'instant gratuit, en beta. Fonctionne terriblement bien

Photo scene editor

Permet de faire des objets 3D à partir de simples photos. Incroyable http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/photo_scene_editor/

Blender

Sans oublier la nouvelle version de Blender (www.blender.org) qui propose une interface utilisateur beaucoup plus simple que les versions précédentes (à mon goût). Je voudrais bien m'y mettre un peu plus.

...franchement ?

Le gestion des textes législatifs est un véritable casse-tête. Qui a changé quoi, comment gère-t-on les addendum, de quand date telle modification, comment trouver tel élément de loi, etc...

Le législateur est confronté à une quantité massive de texte, manipulé et modifié par une multitude d'acteurs, et qui doit être rendu public de la manière la plus transparente possible.

Cela fait un certain temps que j'y pense : les textes de lois et les problèmes qu'ils entrainent ressemblent très fort à ce qui se pose pour les développeurs informatiques dans la gestion du code source. En imaginant que l'on applique les même principes informatiques aux textes de lois on pourrait sans doute faciliter le travail de tout le monde, et rendre le processus un peu plus transparent au passage.

On pourrait par exemple gérer les textes dans un système de gestion de version (type CVS ou SVN). Cela permettrait de savoir qui a changé quoi, à quel moment, et de toujours pouvoir consulter les textes dans une version précédente.

Appliquer les principes du développement open source à la gestion des textes législatifs serait un grand pas pour la démocratie.

J'ai découvert aujourd'hui quelqu'un qui pense la même chose. A lire ici : http://seanmcgrath.blogspot.com/2010/06/kliss-law-as-source-code.html

Something to follow closely, Editshare's lightworks becomes open source ! Lightworks looks like a very advanced video editing software. With support for DPX, red, quicktime and all others video formats. I'm eager to test it.

See http://www.editshare.com

Dans le cadre du podcast hightech (www.lepodcasthightech.com), j'ai été interviewé pour expliquer mon travail à la cellule yapaka (www.yapaka.be) de la Communauté française. Essentiellement autour des options techniques pour nos publications web.

Vous pouvez l'écouter ici : http://www.lepodcasthightech.com/v2/e-business/drupal-belgique/549-yapak...

C'est relativement technique...

I'm curently looking for the best option in video recording, both to have an idea of what to buy at work as video camera, and for the apertus project (more infos here :cinema.elphel.com).

Here is my summary :

- Film image size is usually 2k
- Storage increase very quickly
- It has always been hard to edit intraframe compressed video

We arrive at a point where consumer grade camera can store video in motion jepg or similar codec at full HD (which is near 2K).

Th eonly advantage of ahchd, mpeg2, and similar codecs is the amount of storage needed for them. As storage is quickly becoming irrelevant, and as we don't need more than 2k in most cases, I declare that codec that compress group of frames together are dead for production use.

By production, I mean the day to day use of camera, editing, color correction, etc.

Of course intraframe codecs will still be usefull, but only for distribution of the final production on lower end channels like internet.

Looking at all the avchd, H264 and all bullshit, I had to say it.

A new DSLR from pentax has been anounced.

Indie movie makers, rejoice !

This one has 720P motion jpeg recording, an aps-C sensor size, audio input. All settings can be locked prior to recording.

It only lacks 24P and headphone or audio level meters to be perfect, at least for me.

More infos : http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/K7/K7A.HTM

This is great news, it's a very strong contentder for 5dmark II, the GH1 and even more for the D90 and the new rebel.

For this price point, if video footage confirms my analysis, it's the best option curently.

UPDATE : I received a K-7 by Pentax France for testing. You can read my analysis here
http://www.123piano.com/test-de-la-fonction-video-du-pentax-k-7 (in french, but there are also videos to watch :-)