TwinTechs

For all our friends in the beautiful, albeit windy city, of Chicago; Twin Technologies is now proud to be a member of the Chicago Flex Developers Group.

Check out the Chicago Flex Web site here: http:\\chicagoflex.org

And be sure to check back to the Chicago Flex Developers Web site to see details on Twin lectures and other exciting events in the Chicago area.

At Twin Technologies we are very proud about having our DigiNodes DAR (Digital Asset Review) win the honor of becoming Adobe’s first Endorsed Partner Solution.  Now we are exciting to see Adobe’s expert marketing team at work spreading the word about the DigiNodes DAR product.   We are always happy to promote our own products, but it’s nice hearing that our partners are exciting about our products and services as well.

See what Adobe has to say for yourself in the attached PDF slick, here:

TwinTechs.DigiNodesDAR

Recently Twin Technologies was contracted by 19 Entertainment (the production company behind American Idol) to provide a custom multimedia software solution that could record, ingest, transcode and stream 60 high definition video streams into an integrated workflow in order to produce this groundbreaking new Web series.  Twin used our proprietary DigiNodes technology to accomplish this feat with impressive results.

In a recent press release by 19 Entertainment Twin was recognized for our efforts:

TECHNOLOGY & DIGITAL INNOVATIONS THAT REPRESENT INDUSTRY“FIRSTS” POWER NEW SHOW “IF I CAN DREAM” FROM THE CREATORS OF “AMERICAN IDOL” TO BUILD GLOBAL VIEWING AUDIENCE IN JUST 12 WEEKS

May 26, 2010 — 19 Entertainment, the industry powerhouse that created “AMERICAN IDOL,” has achieved a fresh milestone by building a global audience for its new show IF I CAN DREAM in over 210 countries in just 12 weeks by launching a series of digital innovations that represent industry break-throughs.  Designed with the web site at its center, IF I CAN DREAM is at the cutting-edge of an emerging trend that has the potential to change the media landscape: Launching network quality shows online and building a global audience faster than ever before.

IF I CAN DREAM is designed to pull back the curtain and reveal the truth behind what it takes to “make it” in Hollywood and invites the world to follow 5 aspiring artists as they pursue their dreams. In just 12 weeks, since its debut on March 9, as Hulu’s first episodic show to be made available to international audiences, IF I CAN DREAM has steadily built a loyal audience with fans in more than 210 countries around the world and expanded the boundaries of mainstream entertainment by putting the power in the hands of a global audience on a scale that is unprecedented.

In order to achieve this and create a show that offers viewers unparalleled access, the site architects built a unique system for the online broadcast. IF I CAN DREAM delivers to its audience the choice of 60 streaming cameras, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week positioned virtually everywhere throughout the IF I CAN DREAM House via its one-of-a-kind live streaming system and website for ultimate viewer access. This system brings together, for what is likely the first time, HD surveillance cameras, delivered in multiple bitrates via custom software, for presentation in an engaging web application.

The website allows users to choose between fully guided and self-guided viewing experiences by giving them three navigation modes. “House” mode provides a 3D model of the house with flags that tell the user what is happening and who is in each room. “All Cameras” mode gives more direct access to the cameras with a dynamic grid of camera previews, and “Just Watch” mode is a directed, switched feed of the best live content.

From the IF I CAN DREAM Control Room, a 24/7 production staff tracks the location and every move of the guests within the house and selects which camera is available in “Just Watch” mode. In this way they can provide data for assisted viewing and directed viewing modes alike. They also provide valuable data to the post production staff for the weekly show.

To provide the highest level of quality and access for online viewers, the streams are distributed over multiple Content Delivery Networks and managed by client-side software that can switch resources based on quality. This, combined with direct monitoring of over 350 streams across 3 CDNS allows the technical staff to manage the property in real-time.

With a weekly 30 minute Hulu episode, short daily clips and viral pieces created from in-house and out-of-house footage, expedited turn-around of media is facilitated by a custom IP based post production work-flow. Live streams are simultaneously recorded to hard drives so story producers can mine the recorded media’s meta-data, and story notes are generated by constantly monitoring staff, for ingest into a custom Final Cut workflow.

This system was designed from the ground up to meet the requirements of this new model of internet content creation. It supports a continuous flow of video assets, related notes and metadata from moments after it is captured through its delivery, while making the necessary tools available to the creative staff to tell the story. In building this window into the lives of aspiring artists, IF I CAN DREAM has introduced a whole new way of producing content.

To augment the experience, viewers have full access to the artists through MySpace, Twitter and Facebook in real-time.  As the artists succeed or fail, their places in the DREAM house open up and will be taken by new hopefuls chosen via MySpace auditions – empowering the new generation of entertainment fans to decide who has what it takes and who should have the opportunity to become a star. The ultimate cultural experiment, the show opens up the American Dream and democratizes the process through technology. Global audiences are following, embracing the concept, and making their voices heard.  The show has already hit #3 on Hulu – and several clips from the show have hit #1 on Hulu.

19 Entertainment worked closely with our partners to innovate, create, and execute If I Can Dream.

POKE New York is a design and technology services company that deeply collaborated and partnered with 19 Entertainment to create, develop and bring to life If I Can Dream as an innovative digital, interactive entertainment experience for both consumers and marketers alike.

AEG Digital Media brought their experience with some of the internet’s largest webcasts and provided consulting, technical project management, systems design and oversight for the video and data delivery systems for If I Can Dream. AEGDM architected many of the systems and assisted in managing the contractors and vendors to bring this technical achievement to life.

Twin Technologies provided custom software development of its DigiNodes technology and consulting integral to If I Can Dream’s unique platform. Systems developed enabled ingest, recording, transcoding and streaming from 60 cameras simultaneously, at multiple bitrates, and the delivery of high-quality audio and video recordings for integration into an advanced post production workflow.

If I Can Dream’s Content Delivery Network partners Highwinds, BitGravity and Akamai, seamlessly deliver the 60 High Definition on-demand live streams to our audience 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. BitGravity provided proof of concept support to If I Can Dream during the initial development stages of the project. Highwinds played an integral role in developing the CDN integration and workflow, and provided on-site support in the production studio during the launch of the show.

Conviva’s Telemetry & Insights service provides If I Can Dream with continuous, real-time information about each viewer to avoid poor quality issues. Conviva’s Distribution Management service is used for the consistent delivery of live streams by switching between If I Can Dream’s CDN partners.

Adobe Flash Media Interactive Server is the backbone of If I Can Dream’s video distribution system, enabling viewers to watch a truly immersive online broadcast.

Reliam provides comprehensive Internet Application Management services to power the IICD application. Powering IICD is a custom designed, scalable infrastructure using Reliam’s private cloud as well as high performance dedicated resources.

tw telecom was able to deliver a 135-megabit Metro Ethernet connection to the IICD house; a considerable feat for such a secluded private residence. This unique application required a significant fiber-optic network expansion, provisioning, permits, construction, and equipment testing.

Walkabout Communications provided If I Can Dream with a 100Mbps wireless link, as back-up, to ensure the video never stops.

DZ Solutions, a full-service systems integrator, provided the storage and networking hardware and software, post production systems, and assisted AEGDM in the full design and integration of the video systems both at the DREAM House and the Post-Production Facility and continues to provide ongoing support services.

There has been a lot of buzz around Twin and Adobe about Twin Technologies, Inc.’s new DigiNodes ^TM Digital Asset Review (DAR) technology, the in-line video commenting, review and approval system for the Adobe LiveCycle architecture. Previous blog posts have given an overview of what the DigiNodes ^TM DAR system offers, but seeing is believing.

To that end, please take a moment and enjoy this video created by David Ladd Twin’s SVP of Sales demonstrating the DAR technology. Better multimedia collaboration is just a click away.

Simply contact our sales team for more information: David Ladd, SVP Sales or phone: 518.391.2663

FCEE Executive Summary Example

Twin is happy to announce a new product for companies interested in forms-conversion projects is now being offered.  The Forms Conversion Effort Estimation (FCEE) product is a new tool that allows Twin’s consultants to be able to accurately estimate the work-effort involved in a forms-conversion project.

Twin has consulted with various Fortune 500 companies and Government Agencies in their large-scale efforts to convert the libraries of existing static, paper-based forms into truly dynamic electronic, “eForms”; primarily for the Adobe LiveCycle platform.  From these experiences we have learned that one of the biggest roadblocks to any size forms conversion project (on any platform) is knowing where to start.

Large organizations often have libraries of forms numbering in the tens of thousands, with varying levels of complexity and frequency of use.  It is not uncommon for companies to reach a point of “analysis paralysis” when trying to determine where to start on a forms-conversion project of this nature.  It is also not uncommon for an organization to understand the value of a paperless system, and invest in the licensing and infrastructure, just to have the project held up during the eForms development phase. The FCEE product is able to clear this roadblock by accurately determining how much work effort is required to convert forms from their current state to the desired end state as an eForm.

FCEE is able to:

• Make assessments either individually (per form) or by group (by analyzing batches of forms)

• Take into consideration the form as it is currently designed versus the desired end-use functionality of the form

• Break-out the different levels of functionality so that a company can determine what eForm functionality best suits their organization, and what options are not required

• Make effort-savings predictions based on the use of re-usable form objects between forms

• Puts the planning of the project back into the hands of the business-side project owners and  reduces the decision-making burden often placed on the form-implementers (and IT)

This exciting new product is already being offered at an amazing price-point, with smaller engagements starting around $3000.

How much would this information be worth to your organization?

Keep an eye out for the official product information coming soon to Twin’s main website:  Twin Technologies Home Page

If you can’t wait for the Web page update, more information is available right now!

Simply contact our sales team for more information: David Ladd, SVP Sales

So, the folks at Google have been as busy as ever.  They just released a new language Go.  It has a loosely C-like syntax, compiles directly to native code, and is meant to be a low-level “systems” language.

I happened to be right in the middle of performance-tuning a FastCGI library in Python, with a focus on concurrent I/O problems.  This means I was also right in the middle of being frustrated with Python’s poor support for concurrency.

So, when I read about Go’s emphasis on concurrency without threads (a focus of my current efforts to use asyncore to avoid threads in Python), I couldn’t resist learning enough of the language to compare it’s network I/O performance with Python.

I wrote a quick Echo server (40 lines of code) this morning, and was impressed at how quickly it was going.   Then I looked at the executable, 850kB!  Ok, so, we will have to forgive them for having some unoptimized build tools for now.  At this point I was already not excited about the potential for getting a meaningful performance comparison, but I was still interested to learn more so I decided to get more coffee, and go ahead and do a quick and dirty implementation of FastCGI.

The server works by running one master loop that accepts connections, creates new “goroutines” to handle each connection, and since in FastCGI each connection can potentially multiplex requests over one connection, each of these handlers spawns a “goroutine” for each request.  I’m pretty sure that I am using a couple too many, or too few, channels, but it’s a working library in one day.

For a language that is not intended to be about coding productivity, I am quite impressed at how quickly I was able to do the things I needed.  The documentation is decent, and every documentation page links directly into the source code, so it encourages reading the source, which can be very helpful with something this young.

So far, I would describe the language as immature, but promising.  Other people have complained about the lack of generics, but for a “systems” language, I can understand why they aren’t a priority.

My biggest problem  is that their asynchronous implementation of network I/O is incomplete.  While all the main socket system calls like Read, Write, Listen, Connect, etc. are internally made safe for use by “goroutines”, the Close() system call exposes a race condition when one “goroutine” is creating sockets, and another is closing them.  Hopefully, this is just a growing pain that will be ironed out soon.

For now, my Go implementation doesn’t come close to my Python library (the Go is about 40% the speed of the Python)… but it’s nothing close to a fair fight yet.

Drew Shefman, a Houston based senior flex consultant and manager of the Houston Adobe Users Group, recently had fantasic attendance at the MAX09 roundup  meeting where he presented tips and tricks and sneeks from the latest Adobe conference.

It’s official. Rails is starting to look like a shiny new hammer* in my toolbox. Actually, it’s been that way for a while. An insane level of productivity, easy to understand persistence framework (unlike hibernate), baked-in REST, lots of community support, opinionated development guidelines, works on the JVM, etc. What’s not to like? It’s probably at the top of my list of considerations for any new web application. Of course, I know that part of my fondness is because I’ve gained a good level of familiarity and expertise with it.

Tools you’re familiar with tend to be the tools you use for most jobs. We (the development community) like to expound about having the right tool for the job and how some frameworks and languages are better suited to certain problems than others. This is true, of course, although not always practical. When you are unfamiliar with a certain tool then you have to weigh the costs of having to spend time learning about it in relation to a project timeline. You may also find that the new shiny thing you’ve learned to use doesn’t quite crack up to be what the salesman made it out to be. Another negative outcome is that you might end up wasting time learning something that produced no real benefit (other than learning what not to do or use [struts2 and JSF come to my mind]) and drops out of favor in the community; i.e. you just spent months wrestling with some framework and nobody wants to pay you to use it anymore and now you somehow feel dirty from the experience.

I realize I’m oversimplifying a bit. I just found myself wondering about what kind of strategy I take in selecting new things to learn or recommending new solutions. I think it boils down to direct analysis and a good deal of hearsay and gut feel.

* i.e. when you have a shiny new hammer, everything starts to look like a nail so you’ll use your hammer even when something is clearly not a nail. But hey, maybe pounding it will work anyways.

User Design Expert Will Evans was elected to the Information Architecture Institute today. His term will last three years, and he’ll be responsible for developing and leading initiatives that provide networking opportunities for information architects, education and mentoring, and driving awareness around the evolution of user experience and design.

Will has been a member of the Information Architecture Institute for years, but this is the first time he’s been elected to the board. He’s a frequent guest and popular speaker at IA conferences. Will serves as Twin Technologies’ Director of User Experience, providing visionary creativity and guidance for clients that are interested in redefining how users experience their brand online. Will’s designs explore how people engage on and off-line, which tools act as the right catalysts for online engagement, and what factors contribute to social traction.

The IA Institute is a professional organization dedicated to advancing the state of information architecture through research, education, advocacy and community service.  IA Institute sponsors the IDEA conference each year, that explores the convergence of experience design with social and user experiences, and the growing importance of aligning expectations.

Congratulations, Will!

Twin Technologies Director, George Jagodzinski competed in the Louisville Ironman this weekend.  He finished the 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, and full 26.2 mile marathon in a blazing, but grueling 11 hours and 52 minutes.   George had competed in a marathon, several half Ironmans, and a few half-marathons, but this was the first time he’d attempted the full course.  

After a swim in the Ohio river with 2000 other competitors, the bike course wove through rolling farmland in Kentucky with lots of spectators cheering for the riders on the 112 mile journey. The marathon course was fairly flat and very well supported by volunteers.  It followed a two lap route that gave runners more exposure to the high energy spectators but made the final lap difficult mentally.