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Stories and comments across the archive that link to fraunhofer.de.

Comments · 185

Why would you *want* it in MP3? by argent · 2007-06-01 04:15 · Score: 1 · on Music Listeners Test 128kbps vs. 256kbps AAC

1. Are the non-DRM files just Apple's broken AAC "MP4", or can we chose MP3 (or FLAC/Ogg)?

Why would you choose MP3 over MP4?

Referring to MPEG-4 audio (which isn't Apple's format) as "Apple's broken AAC" makes me think you've already decided that because it's what Apple uses it must be broken. I suggest you do a wee bit of research and check out what professional classical musicians prefer to use for distribution. For example:
For the technical side, you can read the web site of the creator of MP3 and MP4, the Fraunhofer Instutut

http://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/pub_rel/presse/2003/m p4/

Practically MP4 is a successor of MP3 that uses a better encoding and sounds superior. In particular, MP4s at ~100 kbps VBR at Kuschnerova's web site sound much better than MP3s at 160 kbps. The difference becomes apparent, though, if you are listening to both on a high-quality stereo system with big boxes.

MP4 can be produced by QuckTime 6 pro and played by the free Quicktime 6. Alternatively you can use a free player/encoder from the Fraunhofer (a limited-time offer).

A drawback of MP4 is the absence of tagging. I believe, however, that this problem will be solved soon.

-- Dmitri Garanin at pianoworld.com, on why he chose MP4 format for Elena Kuschnerova's website in December 2003.
Bjork ReactTable at Coachella by bastianmz · 2007-05-30 13:53 · Score: 1 · on Microsoft's Multitouch Coffee Table Display

The ReacTable has been used recently by Bjork at the Coachella festival.

There are lots of good videos linked from the BoingBoing article including one of Robert Moog interacting with a ReactTable.

The software is available so if you want one have a crack at building your own.

As best as I can tell the only innovation that Microsoft has added to their interactive table is the wireless interface support (Bluetooth etc). All the shape and "domino" tags recognition have been done before. It would be interesting to see how many of the developers of other interactive tables have been involved with this project.

Other interactive tables can be found here.
http://mtg.upf.es/reactable/?related
http://www.tangibletable.de/
http://www.ipsi.fraunhofer.de/ambiente/english/pro jekte/projekte/ineractable.html
http://www.jamespatten.com/audiopad/
http://tecfa.unige.ch/perso/staf/nova/blog/2005/01 /10/space-and-place-a-list-fo-interactive-tables/
Re:Fraunhofer: The people who made piracy possible by Lars+T. · 2007-03-07 02:42 · Score: 1 · on How MP3 Was Born

What isn't mentioned in Herr Brandenburg's interview is that Fraunhofer have been playing both sides. If you've bought an MP3 capable player, you've paid Fraunhofer royalties. But Fraunhofer have been playing both sides: developing tools to track MP3s using watermarks so record companies crack down on piracy Well, for one that are actually different institutes of the Fraunhofer group: He developed MP3 here, now works here, but the watermarks were developped (oddly enough) here, then here, and now here. Which is just a small number of the institutes in the FHG.
Re:Fraunhofer: The people who made piracy possible by Lars+T. · 2007-03-07 02:42 · Score: 1 · on How MP3 Was Born

What isn't mentioned in Herr Brandenburg's interview is that Fraunhofer have been playing both sides. If you've bought an MP3 capable player, you've paid Fraunhofer royalties. But Fraunhofer have been playing both sides: developing tools to track MP3s using watermarks so record companies crack down on piracy Well, for one that are actually different institutes of the Fraunhofer group: He developed MP3 here, now works here, but the watermarks were developped (oddly enough) here, then here, and now here. Which is just a small number of the institutes in the FHG.
Re:Fraunhofer: The people who made piracy possible by Lars+T. · 2007-03-07 02:42 · Score: 1 · on How MP3 Was Born

What isn't mentioned in Herr Brandenburg's interview is that Fraunhofer have been playing both sides. If you've bought an MP3 capable player, you've paid Fraunhofer royalties. But Fraunhofer have been playing both sides: developing tools to track MP3s using watermarks so record companies crack down on piracy Well, for one that are actually different institutes of the Fraunhofer group: He developed MP3 here, now works here, but the watermarks were developped (oddly enough) here, then here, and now here. Which is just a small number of the institutes in the FHG.
Re:Fraunhofer: The people who made piracy possible by Lars+T. · 2007-03-07 02:42 · Score: 1 · on How MP3 Was Born

What isn't mentioned in Herr Brandenburg's interview is that Fraunhofer have been playing both sides. If you've bought an MP3 capable player, you've paid Fraunhofer royalties. But Fraunhofer have been playing both sides: developing tools to track MP3s using watermarks so record companies crack down on piracy Well, for one that are actually different institutes of the Fraunhofer group: He developed MP3 here, now works here, but the watermarks were developped (oddly enough) here, then here, and now here. Which is just a small number of the institutes in the FHG.
Re:Fraunhofer: The people who made piracy possible by Lars+T. · 2007-03-07 02:42 · Score: 1 · on How MP3 Was Born

What isn't mentioned in Herr Brandenburg's interview is that Fraunhofer have been playing both sides. If you've bought an MP3 capable player, you've paid Fraunhofer royalties. But Fraunhofer have been playing both sides: developing tools to track MP3s using watermarks so record companies crack down on piracy Well, for one that are actually different institutes of the Fraunhofer group: He developed MP3 here, now works here, but the watermarks were developped (oddly enough) here, then here, and now here. Which is just a small number of the institutes in the FHG.
Re:Fraunhofer: The people who made piracy possible by richteas · 2007-03-07 01:50 · Score: 1 · on How MP3 Was Born

You'll see computers from Fraunhofer affiliates all over the world taking a peek at what you're downloading.

http://greatinca.net/blog/emule-ip-blocker-hits-04 022006/

Does this mean Fraunhofer's merry band of teutonic scientists can be both co-defendants and expert-witnesses in your case?

No, it could also mean that Fraunhofer's merry band of teutonic scientists is no different than other people in their usage of P2P networks. The fact that computers from some Fraunhofer Institute shows up in some IP list doesn't mean they are on the network to monitor others or operate fake servers. Many of their scientists do research in other fields than compression technology/piracy tracking (http://www.fraunhofer.de/fhg/EN/research/index.js p), for what sane reason would they be tracking you?
Sense of scale by mattr · 2007-02-23 02:00 · Score: 1 · on Microsoft to Pay $1.52 Billion in Patent Suit Damages

1.5 billion USD is exactly the size of Fraunhofer's entire annual research budget, according to their site.

(Assuming 1,2 Mrd euros means 1.2 milliard, or 1.2 billion, and xe.com says that is $1.57 bn)

Does anyone think someone's lost their sense of scale here? It doesn't answer my initial question though of whether MS could just buy Fraunhofer, with its 12,500 employees.
Re:Questions on that. by dkf · 2007-01-13 12:04 · Score: 1 · on New Outlook Won't Use IE To Render HTML

I can recommend using a BSCW to replace sending loads of documents round by email, especially once the documents start to get really large. By just sending around a link to the right place in the BSCW server's document hierarchy, you can let people know where to pick up the document without forcing everyone to deal with it (great for mailing lists!) Other nice features: it can give you a report of who read (or updated) that important file you uploaded, and it can support versioning of documents (useful for where people are working on a document together).

I'm sure other similar (or more capable) systems exist too; maybe even OSS collaboration servers, but I'm not sure of any that are of sufficient quality to really enhance a collaboration the way that the best non-open tools do. I'd be interested to find out that I'm missing out on something good though. :-)
Re:Children of lock-in. by ahillen · 2006-12-20 20:03 · Score: 4, Informative · on Siemens Reaches 107 Gbps Data Transfer Record

I assume that's related to the institute that gave us the "proprietary" MP3?

Well, if you want to call an MPEG-Standard "lock-in". I'm sure most users don't feel very "locked-in", it is probably the most widely supported digital audio standard, I would say. Sure, it is proprietary, and you have to pay license fees, but at least anyone can use it who wants it.

Nevertheless, you are wrong. It is not the same institute that gave you MP3. That was the Institute for Integrated Circuits in Erlangen (http://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/index.html). This is the Heinrich-Hertz-Institute in Berlin (http://www.hhi.fraunhofer.de/english/). There are about 60 institutes of the Fraunhofer Society in Germany (http://www.fraunhofer.de/fhg/EN/profile/index.jsp ), with widely varying research topics. More info as usual on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraunhofer_Society).
Re:Children of lock-in. by ahillen · 2006-12-20 20:03 · Score: 4, Informative · on Siemens Reaches 107 Gbps Data Transfer Record

I assume that's related to the institute that gave us the "proprietary" MP3?

Well, if you want to call an MPEG-Standard "lock-in". I'm sure most users don't feel very "locked-in", it is probably the most widely supported digital audio standard, I would say. Sure, it is proprietary, and you have to pay license fees, but at least anyone can use it who wants it.

Nevertheless, you are wrong. It is not the same institute that gave you MP3. That was the Institute for Integrated Circuits in Erlangen (http://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/index.html). This is the Heinrich-Hertz-Institute in Berlin (http://www.hhi.fraunhofer.de/english/). There are about 60 institutes of the Fraunhofer Society in Germany (http://www.fraunhofer.de/fhg/EN/profile/index.jsp ), with widely varying research topics. More info as usual on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraunhofer_Society).
Re:Children of lock-in. by ahillen · 2006-12-20 20:03 · Score: 4, Informative · on Siemens Reaches 107 Gbps Data Transfer Record

I assume that's related to the institute that gave us the "proprietary" MP3?

Well, if you want to call an MPEG-Standard "lock-in". I'm sure most users don't feel very "locked-in", it is probably the most widely supported digital audio standard, I would say. Sure, it is proprietary, and you have to pay license fees, but at least anyone can use it who wants it.

Nevertheless, you are wrong. It is not the same institute that gave you MP3. That was the Institute for Integrated Circuits in Erlangen (http://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/index.html). This is the Heinrich-Hertz-Institute in Berlin (http://www.hhi.fraunhofer.de/english/). There are about 60 institutes of the Fraunhofer Society in Germany (http://www.fraunhofer.de/fhg/EN/profile/index.jsp ), with widely varying research topics. More info as usual on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraunhofer_Society).
Re:GIGO -- Garbage In, Garbage Out by dumol · 2006-12-03 08:35 · Score: 1 · on Does Portable Music Have to be Compressed?

I think there's more to it than commonly known, however. I have one mp3 file that's 22.1kHz, 32kbps, and sounds better than any 64Kbps mp3 I've ever heard. I _can_ distinguish it from 128, but it's not intolerable; no artifacts, just slightly muffled. It takes up 700Kb and is ~3 minutes long. I'm unable to explain it. I wish I knew how it was encoded; I bet that for another 10% in size it would sound as good as 128 That must be a MPEG-2 layer III file. What we call MP3 is usually MPEG-1 layer III. "In MPEG-1, audio compression at 32 kHz, 44.1 kHz and 48 kHz is defined. MPEG-2 extends this by the rates 16 kHz, 22.05 kHz and 24 kHz." [1] MPEG-2 layer III targets bitrates of 32 to 64 kbps but can extend up to 160 kbps.

MPEG-2 layer III has not caught on, although the Fraunhofer encoder was available quite early. I remember encoding at 64 kbps and 22.05 kHz back in '98 because that sounded transparent to me at that time with the listening equipment I had. I still have the files and out of curiosity I'm listening to some of them right now. They sound like played through a good quality big-sized old radio, with a good bass but very weak highs; it's a muffled but warm sound.

The files I've seen around (very few indeed) are 22.05kHz (the players round this up to 22.1kHz on display), most of the time at 64 or 96 kbps.

[1] http://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/amm/techinf/layer3/

HTH,
AAC is NOT Apple's codec. It's by Fraunhofer! by reaktor · 2006-11-26 18:18 · Score: 1 · on Critical Review of the Zune

Both Apple *and* MS would love for you to believe that their codecs can sound twice as good as mp3 at half the bit rate, but unfortunately for them it just isn't true and that double-blind listening test proved it some time ago.

(Apple's AAC fares a bit better, but not a whole lot.)

FYI, for lots of people confused by this: First, the AAC is NOT by apple. It stands for Advanced Audio Coding. Not 'apple's audio codec.'

The AAC format was developed by the same people who created the mp3. It was engineered to be the 'next' mp3, and IS technically superior in all aspects. The designed it to be that way. (Duh.) Better quality at a lower bitrate = smaller files. Read the Fraunhofer's page about it (above link). Here are some highlights:

"What is MPEG-2 AAC?

MPEG-2 AAC is the consequent continuation of the truly successful coding method ISO/MPEG Audio Layer-3 developed in Erlangen."

"Even though the basic structure of this coding method hardly differs from the ones of its predecessors, a closer look into the details (see Fig. 2) does reveal some new aspects worth paying attention to. The crucial differences between MPEG-2 AAC and its predecessor ISO/MPEG Audio Layer-3 are shown as follows:

* Filter bank: in contrast to the hybrid filter bank of ISO/MPEG Audio Layer-3 - chosen for reasons of compatibility but displaying certain structural weaknesses - MPEG-2 AAC uses a plain Modified Discrete Cosine Transform (MDCT). Together with the increased window length (1024 instead of 576 spectral lines per transform) the MDCT outperforms the filter banks of previous coding methods.
* Temporal Noise Shaping (TNS): A true novelty in the area of time/frequency coding schemes. It shapes the distribution of quantization noise in time by prediction in the frequency domain. In particular voice signals experience considerable improvement through TNS.
* Prediction: A technique commonly established in the area of speech coding systems. It benefits from the fact that certain types of audio signals are easy to predict.
* Quantization: by allowing finer control of quantization resolution, the given bit rate can be used more efficiently.
* Bit-stream format: the information to be transmitted undergoes entropy coding in order to keep redundancy as low as possible. The optimization of these coding methods together with a flexible bit-stream structure has made further improvement of the coding efficiency possible."
Re:Wow by paxmaniac · 2006-10-08 15:42 · Score: 1 · on Mapping Interior Spaces With Robots And GIS

Impressive! This could be very useful in a lot of situations.. Keeping in mind that this is the very generation, there could very well be later generations that could map rooms in mere minutes, and then other ones to map rubble in minutes.. then when disaster strikes, in goes the robots to map stuff out, and people to follow.

Actually, the current technology is quite capable of mapping a room in a few seconds - essentially as fast as you can drive a robot through the room with line of sight to all the corners. The application described in TFA is nothing more than a commercialised version of technology that has been around for years.

It is also currently possible to generate a 3D map of a complex environment (such as a pile of rubble). Have a look at Kurt3D, which maps using a laser scanner on a tilting or rotating mount. You can also use an infrared time-of-flight sensor such as the SwissRanger to generate the same sort of datasets.

It's interesting that you should mention the Search and Rescue application. There are numerous robotics groups around the world working on this problem, and testing solutions in the RoboCup Rescue competition, which has been running since 2000. Almost every team in this competition has some sort of automatic mapping technology akin to that desrcibed in TFA. Several also have 3D mapping, and there is also a lot of interesting work going on in user interfaces and remote control, as well as autonomous navigation, exploration, victim identification and decision making.
Re:Looks like a pioneer by OtherFarm · 2006-10-08 10:32 · Score: 1 · on Mapping Interior Spaces With Robots And GIS

Kurt2: http://www.ais.fraunhofer.de/KURT2/
Kurt3D: http://www.ais.fraunhofer.de/ARC/kurt3D/
Videomaterial available.

Seen on German television on November 27, 2003
http://www.3sat.de/nano/cstuecke/53575/index.html [in german]
Re:Looks like a pioneer by OtherFarm · 2006-10-08 10:32 · Score: 1 · on Mapping Interior Spaces With Robots And GIS

Kurt2: http://www.ais.fraunhofer.de/KURT2/
Kurt3D: http://www.ais.fraunhofer.de/ARC/kurt3D/
Videomaterial available.

Seen on German television on November 27, 2003
http://www.3sat.de/nano/cstuecke/53575/index.html [in german]
AAC is NOT by Dolby by reaktor · 2006-09-17 10:53 · Score: 1 · on iPod Users Buy CDs, Shun iTunes

Believe it or not, the same folks who created the mp3 created the aac format:

http://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/amm/techinf/aac/index .html

It is technically superior to the mp3 in all aspects, as well, it was created to be that way!!

The Fraunhofer folks intended it to be the successor to the mp3 in every aspect.
A brief list of research sites by nektra · 2006-07-28 04:51 · Score: 1 · on Industrial Labs that Still Do Fundamental Research

BASF Research
Batelle
BBC Research & Development
General Electric Global Research

Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft
Motorola Labs
Microsoft Research
HP Labs
IBM Research
Intel Research
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Philips Research
Corporate Research
The Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
Toshiba Research Europa
Toyota Central R&D Labs
Viewpoints Research Institute
Re:please explain by Luke+Psywalker · 2006-07-20 12:01 · Score: 5, Informative · on Yahoo! Sells, Advocates DRM-Free Music

The tracks have unique inaudible soundwave watermarks that can be traced back to the buyer if they are found on P2P networks. This is the only reason the labels are going for it. The tech comes from Fraunhofer
Paper-thin compound-eye camera by xenn · 2006-04-26 16:31 · Score: 1 · on Apple's All-Seeing Screen

yeah, not much details about the creation of the image (made from a compound eye camera) on this link: a picture but still, I wouldn't say it's great quality. I imagine quality will be the biggest problem with this tech.
Fraunhofer Institute by Lars+T. · 2006-04-22 18:05 · Score: 1 · on U.S. Government Developed the iPod

How nice of Bush "to point out the accomplishments of private companies in the US and abroad, [...] not to mention the Fraunhofer Institute". But the FHG is for a large part public funded.
Re:Fraunhofer & MP3 Development by Anonymous Coward · 2006-04-22 04:03 · Score: 1, Interesting · on U.S. Government Developed the iPod

Actually, a lot of the critical development was done at AT&T Laboratories, a US company.

Crediting Fraunhofer with MP3 is somewhat of a historical injustice. The standard was finalized with contributions from a dozen companies.

According to what I have always read, it is the other way round.

Here is a historical overview of MP3. Granted, it's a Fraunhofer site. Nevertheless, I don't think they would ridicule themselves by making false statements. But I'm interested in your sources.
thought this looked old by Anonymous Coward · 2006-03-25 19:49 · Score: 0 · on New Data Transmission Speed Record

from last year

http://www.hhi.fraunhofer.de/english/gf/press/pr20 05-8/pr2005-8.html
Re:Most problems are best avoided. by AgentDib · 2006-02-27 04:36 · Score: 1 · on Indestructible Super Mug To Save Humanity

The problem with your line of reasoning is that in this case, the point of the contest was to design a mug that would be resistant to sudden impact forces. The 15 foot drop to the ground is nothing but an easy way to test durability.

A much more involved (and expensive) way to test ceramics is with an Edge-on Impact Test. http://www.emi.fraunhofer.de/english/Departments/E xperimentalBallistics/DeptPages/Projects/Edge-on_I mpact_01.asp

You could easily defeat the Edge-on Impact Test with a system that simply moved the test ceramic out of the way of the oncoming projectile. Would that be worth second place too? Probably not, because the solution does not satisfy the goal - that of constructing a durable ceramic.
Re:Surround my ass by hcdejong · 2006-02-20 23:50 · Score: 4, Informative · on The Future of MP3 and Surround

Probably not.

From the FAQ:
Are MP3 Surround files much bigger than regular MP3 files?
No, fortunately not. The algorithm used in MP3 Surround employs psychoacoustics to recreate the surround image out of very compact spatial information. By adding surround information, MP3 file sizes increase by just about 10 percent.

10% still isn't a lot to encode four additional channels, though.
Re:MP3 is dying? Really? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-02-20 23:40 · Score: 0 · on The Future of MP3 and Surround

Secondly, the author clearly doesn't have a solid background in audio technology. I am mystified as to why s/he thought he'd need "full-sized headphones" compared to Shure canalphones to hear the "benefits" of surround sound, when the fact is that with any stereo headphones more than 2 source channels of audio is essentially pointless!

Neither, apparently, do you. Check out ensonido, it's one of the two technologies Thomson and Fraunhofer IIS released to get surround sound from stereo headphones.
Re:huh? by hcdejong · 2006-02-20 23:10 · Score: 1 · on The Future of MP3 and Surround

The Shure E2c is a normal 2-channel headphone.

According to the MP3Surround home page, MP3surround includes a technology for 'virtual surround': Ensonido.

With this technology, the two channels are manipulated to provide the illusion of surround sound. This isn't new technology, techniques like SRS WOW are supposed to do this as well. They involve things like shifting the phase of one channel vs. the other.
Re:huh? by hcdejong · 2006-02-20 23:10 · Score: 1 · on The Future of MP3 and Surround

The Shure E2c is a normal 2-channel headphone.

According to the MP3Surround home page, MP3surround includes a technology for 'virtual surround': Ensonido.

With this technology, the two channels are manipulated to provide the illusion of surround sound. This isn't new technology, techniques like SRS WOW are supposed to do this as well. They involve things like shifting the phase of one channel vs. the other.
A bit too late by gunpowda · 2005-10-08 05:03 · Score: 2, Funny · on The Intelligent Door Handle

It combines a camera, buzzer, RFID locks and various other systems inside the door...
Maybe they're compensating for the lack of DRM in the MP3 format!
Re:Quick, time to Patent by Pius+II. · 2005-09-02 07:19 · Score: 1 · on Apple Is Accused of Violating Software Patent

Already done. (link is in German, sorry)
By the same people who brought you MP3. There's even several companies who already market this: you call a number on your cellular, hum the tune, and get the artist/title as a text message.
Re:Not so free after all by gambit3 · 2005-08-19 01:37 · Score: 2 · on Australian Linux Trademark Holds Water

hmm... isn't that generally what the makers of mp3 did?

http://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/pub_rel/presse/2005/m p3/index.html
Thermally driven cooling machines by Anonymous Coward · 2005-07-14 00:09 · Score: 0 · on How to Build a 17-ft Wind Turbine

The solar thermal industry (and not only this industry) is doing a lot of research in this field. As others have pointed out: This concept is not only known but also applied already. Larger sorption chillers are available from two Japanes companies (e.g. http://www.yazakienergy.com/waterfired.htm).

Especially in Europe interest in this technology has increased immensely in the last couple of years with ~10 companies now working on smaller machines, which could be used in single family dwellings.

For some of the latest research results have a look e.g. at Germany's Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (http://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/) or Google for "Solar Cooling", "Solar Assisted Cooling", "Solar Air Conditioning".

You will be amazed how far this technology has been developed already.
the email that started it all... by dettus · 2005-07-13 23:47 · Score: 2, Interesting · on 'MP3' Celebrates its Tenth Anniversary

the official birthday for mp3 is july 14th, 1995, at 12:29: gmt+2.
at this time the fraunhofer institute for integrated circuits released the following (internal) email:
http://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/pub_rel/presse/2005/m p3/index_d.html

translation:
Subject: Filename extensions for Layer3: .mp3
Hello,
according to a huge ammount of opinions in our poll: The extension for ISO MPEG Audio Layer 3 is .mp3. In other words, we should watch upcoming WWW-pages, shareware, demos etc., for them not to use .bit-extensions. There is a reason, believe me :-)
Juergen Zeller
where to send the beer by gunpowder · 2005-07-13 14:31 · Score: 1 · on 'MP3' Celebrates its Tenth Anniversary

BTW, forgot to mention that I actually know one guy that was involved in the MP3 development (Jürgen Koller). Haven't met him for several years however, but he seems to still work at that place ... here you can find a picture of him and an address where to send the beer ;)
mp3 Memories ... by beach_mon · 2005-07-13 12:56 · Score: 1 · on 'MP3' Celebrates its Tenth Anniversary

I'm going to take this opportunity to reminisce.
I remember meeting Karlheinz Brandenburg (Picture here - he's second from the right). Those guys over at Fraunhofer IIS really did something good.

He was the hard core engineer type; complete with powerful glasses, and greasy hair. He seemed tired of all the politicking. He was probably frustrated that so many people were using mp3 and Fraunhofer wasn't seeing a dime. Maybe he was frustrated by lack of credit; I'm not sure. That genie was out of the bottle, and it wasn't going back in.

Anyway, a younger, less tactful member of our group, who felt strongly about non-proprietary codecs was talking with Mr. Brandenburg, and, well - the guy just went ballistic. I remember the words "vy don't you start a company, and ve'll see how you do!" shouted loudly and with a good bit of spittle. Hee hee. I'll never forget that look. That young buck was like a deer in the headlights. I was really surprised that someone with that kind of fame (well, ok, nobody knows who this guy is. But co-inventor of mp3 gets you major geek points in my book) would lose his cool like that. Poor guy must've been under pressure.

The look on my colleague's face as he staggered back over to us was worth it, though.
i've seen some by mjbkinx · 2005-04-16 10:02 · Score: 4, Informative · on 3D Flat Panel With No Glasses

Has anyone seen these screens in person?
not these, but i've seen a model from these guys on a fair in helsinki in late 1999. i always thought it would be nice to have a 3d display that worked without glasses, and all of a sudden i found myself standing right in front of one. it was quite impressive, good image quality and yes, a convincing effect. only when i moved my head it took a very short moment to retrack my eyes and readjust the prisms (there are prisms in front of each vertical pixel row. they direct the light so that one eye sees the even and the other the odd numbered pixel columns). the guy peresenting it told me they had played quake III on it :)
i came across their displays again on cebit a few years later, there also were some by the fraunhofer institute (the ones i've seen are probably not on the page, they had one or two that tracked your eyes and adjusted to your position, and one that only worked at a specific position, iirc).
anyway, while searching for the seereal link above, i came across this list of 3d displays, there even are price quotes for a few.
Re:Support freedom of music! by ahillen · 2005-01-07 00:08 · Score: 1 · on iTunes User Sues Apple Over Lock-In

It was not created by Fraunhofer but Dolby Laboratories.

According to the Fraunhofer website: "Fraunhofer IIS has been the main developer of the most advanced audio coding schemes, like MPEG Layer-3 (MP3) and MPEG AAC (Advanced Audio Coding)."

AFAIK, the main developers of AAC are the same group that developed MP3 before. Of course it was developed in collaboration. To quote Dolby (PDF file):
"Dolby Laboratories serves as a worldwide patent license administrator for AAC licenses on behalf of the technology's co-developers, which include Dolby, AT&T, Sony Corporation, and the Fraunhofer Institute of Integrated Circuits."

AAC is already an open standard - you can download the specs right now and get started making an encoder/decoder as you wish, royalty free.

Are you sure? What's then the point in handling the patent licensing by license administrator. (which by now seems to be Via Licensing, btw, not Dolby anymore)?

Fairplay is an additional encryption wrapper around AAC

That's what I meant by saying "adding DRM". But you expressed it more clearly and accurately. :)
Re:Support freedom of music! by ahillen · 2005-01-07 00:08 · Score: 1 · on iTunes User Sues Apple Over Lock-In

It was not created by Fraunhofer but Dolby Laboratories.

According to the Fraunhofer website: "Fraunhofer IIS has been the main developer of the most advanced audio coding schemes, like MPEG Layer-3 (MP3) and MPEG AAC (Advanced Audio Coding)."

AFAIK, the main developers of AAC are the same group that developed MP3 before. Of course it was developed in collaboration. To quote Dolby (PDF file):
"Dolby Laboratories serves as a worldwide patent license administrator for AAC licenses on behalf of the technology's co-developers, which include Dolby, AT&T, Sony Corporation, and the Fraunhofer Institute of Integrated Circuits."

AAC is already an open standard - you can download the specs right now and get started making an encoder/decoder as you wish, royalty free.

Are you sure? What's then the point in handling the patent licensing by license administrator. (which by now seems to be Via Licensing, btw, not Dolby anymore)?

Fairplay is an additional encryption wrapper around AAC

That's what I meant by saying "adding DRM". But you expressed it more clearly and accurately. :)
I sounds like crap by skamp · 2004-12-03 02:04 · Score: 1 · on Thomson Releases MP3 Surround

Has anyone actually listened to the demo? Their 192 kbps "surround" MP3's show the same kind of ugly distortion as 96 kbps stereo MP3's... I was much more convinced by the 5.1 aacPlus streams that used to be available on Tuner2.com.
Re:Screw Potential! by Alsee · 2004-12-03 01:43 · Score: 1 · on Thomson Releases MP3 Surround

does it have DRM?

Google says yes, to the tune of 717 hits. In particular PCMagazine reported it 8 months ago!

It's called LWDRM - Light Weight Digital Rights Management.

On Fraunhofe's MP3 Surround download page we even find their whitepaper for LWDRM. Unfortuantely it only appears to be available in German. If anyone can find an english version please replay with a linky linky.

What is Slashdot coming to? The Slashdot story ABSOLUTLEY should have reported that MP3 Surround was nothing but a gimmik to to get people to move to DRM'd "MP3" files. I can excuse that as the story submitter not knowing about it, but I REALLY can't believe I'm the first person to document this in the message area! The story has been up over 12 hours and I'm the first to point this out? WTF? Has the entire Slashdot community fallen asleep on DRM issues?

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Re:Screw Potential! by Alsee · 2004-12-03 01:43 · Score: 1 · on Thomson Releases MP3 Surround

does it have DRM?

Google says yes, to the tune of 717 hits. In particular PCMagazine reported it 8 months ago!

It's called LWDRM - Light Weight Digital Rights Management.

On Fraunhofe's MP3 Surround download page we even find their whitepaper for LWDRM. Unfortuantely it only appears to be available in German. If anyone can find an english version please replay with a linky linky.

What is Slashdot coming to? The Slashdot story ABSOLUTLEY should have reported that MP3 Surround was nothing but a gimmik to to get people to move to DRM'd "MP3" files. I can excuse that as the story submitter not knowing about it, but I REALLY can't believe I'm the first person to document this in the message area! The story has been up over 12 hours and I'm the first to point this out? WTF? Has the entire Slashdot community fallen asleep on DRM issues?

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Re:Control by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-03 01:04 · Score: 0 · on Thomson Releases MP3 Surround

MP3 and AAC is developed and controlled by the same people.
Re:More Channels != MP3 Surround by mmortal03 · 2004-12-02 21:36 · Score: 1 · on Thomson Releases MP3 Surround

Here is a link to the subjective listening test that they performed, showing that it beat out Pro Logic II fairly convincingly. http://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/amm/download/mp3surro und/technology/introduction_to_mp3surround.PDF

So, maybe I jumped the gun a little on my judgements and accusations. Regardless, I'd still like to see how it does versus Circle Surround, and hopefully my previous posts were informative. That test I linked to isn't the end all be all, but I commend them for at least putting it out there.
The download link by Amsterdam+Vallon · 2004-12-02 11:53 · Score: -1, Troll · on Thomson Releases MP3 Surround

I interned at Thomson and am still on their developer email list.

This morning I got a message about their downloadable software supporting multichannel mp3, and I got really stoked.

Here's a direct link to our FTP:
ftp://ftp1.fraunhofer.de/institute/iis/amm/mp3surr ound/MP3SurroundSetup.exe
Re:I'm a little confused... by Sandor+at+the+Zoo · 2004-11-13 13:03 · Score: 1 · on A Projection Display For Your Pocket

See the large version of the picture here.
Re:Monopoly? by ahillen · 2004-09-02 03:40 · Score: 1 · on Microsoft Opens MSN Music Store

If you want to write a software AAC encoder or player, you need to pay Dolby.[...]The same applies to Fraunhofer for MP3 if I believe,...

Just as a side note, I think you pay at least partly the same guys for MP3 or AAC, at least according to the Fraunhofer website:"Fraunhofer IIS has been the main developer of the most advanced audio coding schemes, like MPEG Layer-3 (MP3) and MPEG AAC (Advanced Audio Coding)."

Their licensing page is here, of course mentioning Via Licensing corporation as licensing administrator...
Re:Monopoly? by ahillen · 2004-09-02 03:40 · Score: 1 · on Microsoft Opens MSN Music Store

If you want to write a software AAC encoder or player, you need to pay Dolby.[...]The same applies to Fraunhofer for MP3 if I believe,...

Just as a side note, I think you pay at least partly the same guys for MP3 or AAC, at least according to the Fraunhofer website:"Fraunhofer IIS has been the main developer of the most advanced audio coding schemes, like MPEG Layer-3 (MP3) and MPEG AAC (Advanced Audio Coding)."

Their licensing page is here, of course mentioning Via Licensing corporation as licensing administrator...
What's it gonna cost me? by mnemotronic · 2004-07-25 02:12 · Score: 2, Interesting · on 3D Sound by Creator of MP3

Fraunhofer Gesellschaft IIS has a history of defending their IP (MPEG 1 audio layer 3 e.g. MP3). As most /.-ers know, MP3 decoder licensing is free, but a "commercial" encoder will cost ya (licensing info). I wonder what the scam will be for losono.....