DLNA Media Servers and Players

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Last update : March 12, 2013

The following list provides links to informations about DLNA media devices, especially Media Servers :

A list of additional media servers and client applications is available on Wikipedia which provides also a comparisons of UPnP AV media servers.

Apple developed its own proprietary streaming protocol stack/suite, called AirPlay, that is not compliant with DLNA. Another solution to stream multimedia files is based on the SMB/CIFS networking protocols, re-implementated with Samba to open windows to a wider world.

I recommend the Serviio DLNA server which I installed a week ago on my two Windows 7 desktops to replace Windows Media Players.

Internet Hall of Fame

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The Internet Hall of Fame is an annual awards program that has been established by the Internet Society in 2012 to celebrate it’s 20-year anniversary. The Internet Hall of Fame publicly recognize a distinguished and select group of visionaries, leaders and luminaries who have made significant contributions to the development and advancement of the global Internet.

The inductees are segmented in three groups : pioneers, global connectors and innovators. The Internet history revolves around four distinct aspects :

  • technological evolution (ARPANET and related technologies, current research about scaling, performance and higher-level functionalty)
  • operational aspects of a global and complex operational infrastructure
  • social aspects with a broad community of internauts working together to create and evolve the technology
  • commerzialisation aspects resulting in an extremely effective transition of reasearch results into a broadly deployed and available information infratsructure

The Internet Society convenes an Internet Hall of Fame Advisory Board of esteemed Internet industry professionals to vote on the annual inductees. Inaugural inductees were announced on April 23, 2012 at the Internet Society’s Global INET conference in Geneva, Switzerland.

The Internet Society is the trusted independent source for Internet information and thought leadership from around the world. With its principled vision and substantial technological foundation, the Internet Society promotes open dialogue on Internet policy, technology, and future development among users, companies, governments, and foundations. Working with its members and Chapters around the world, the Internet Society enables the continued evolution and growth of the Internet for everyone.

Windows Media Player DLNA Configuration

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Last update : June 17, 2012
A personal computer running Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7 can be used as a DLNA certified media server simply by activating this capability in the Windows Media Player (WMP) 11 or above. Some tutorials how to configure the WMP are listed hereafter :

In the past the media server components, now integrated in the WMP, were called Windows Media Connect (WMV) or Home Media Ecosystem (HME). The Windows Media Center (WMC) includes a digital video recorder.

Late April 2012 I set up a DLNA system in my home network with a Fritz!Box Media Server and two Windows Media Players 12 running on Windows 7 personal computers.

Six weeks later I replaced the Windows Media Player system by the outstanding Serviio DLNA server. I disabled the Windows 7 Media Player Network Sharing Service (wmpnetwk) to avoid conflicts in media sharing and to speed up the system’s perfomance. A tutorial how to turn off wmpnetwk.exe is available on numerous websites.

DLNA : Digital Living Network Alliance

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Last update : June 17, 2012;

DLNA logo

The Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) allows consumers to connect and enjoy their music, videos and photos from any consumer device (computers, printers, cameras, cell phones, and other multimedia devices) from anywhere in their homes. DLNA (website : dlna.org) is a non-profit collaborative trade organization established by Sony in June 2003, that is responsible for defining interoperability guidelines to enable sharing of digital media between these devices . The private guidelines are built upon existing public standards and specify a set of restricted ways of using the standards in order to achieve interoperability.

Today there are 26 promoter members and 199 contributor members. In early 2011, DLNA began a Software Certification program in order to make it easier for consumers to share their digital media across a broader range of products. Today there are over nine thousand products on the market that are DLNA certified.

DLNA uses Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) for media management, discovery and control.

The DLNA Certified Device Classes are separated as follows :

  • Digital Media Servers (DMS) store content and make it available to networked media devices
  • Digital Media Controller (DMC) find content on digital media servers and play it on digital media renderers
  • Digital media renderers (DMR) play content received from a digital media controller
  • Digital media players (DMP) find content on the network and provide playback and rendering capabilities
  • Digital media printers (DMPr) provide printing services to the DLNA home network

Examples for DMS include personal computers or network-attached storage (NAS) devices. All DLNA devices can be mobile (wireless). Bridges between mobile handheld device network connectivity and home network connectivity are provided by  Mobile Network Connectivity Functions (M-NCF). Content transformations between required media formats for home network and mobile handheld devices iare provided by Media Interoperability Units (MIU).

DLNA is a refinement of UPnP, a set of rules and restrictions in the name of interoperability. Full DLNA specifications are available only to DLNA members who pay for. UPnP specifies the abstract device interfaces, the specifications for UPnP are available at the UPnP forum.

RESS: Responsive Design + Server Side Components

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Last update : June 26, 2014

In Responsive Web Design implementations, Web URLs are consistent across devices and adapt their content based on the capabilities of the browser in which they are displayed.

Server side solutions, on the other hand, only send what a client needs. But server-side solutions generally rely on user agent redirects to device-specific code templates. Each device class that warrants adaptation needs its own set of templates and these templates may ultimately contain duplicative code that actually applies to every class of device.

JavaScriptObject

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JavaScriptObject is an application to publish 3D models in a userfriendly way. The principle is simple: A 3D model is rotated by a given step width around two axes. An image of the model is rendered at each step. After a full revolution around both axes one has a “complete” frameset of the object. Finally the JavaScript shows a single frame out of the image pool in relation to the mouse position and thereby creates the illusion of an 3D object.

JavaScriptObject was developed by Finn Rudolph from Germany. The current version is 0.9.3 released in 2009.

 

Google Art Project

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The Google Art Project is a unique online art experience, using a combination of various advanced Google technologies and expert information, provided by 151 acclaimed art partners (museums, galleries, …) from across 40 countries.

Google Art Project

Users can

  • explore a wide range of artworks at brushstroke level detail
  •  take a virtual tour of a museum or gallery (with Street View images and navigation)
  • build their own collections to share (user gallery)
  • enjoy over 30 000 artworks from sculpture to architecture
  • explore over 150 collections
  • edit, reorder, upload Youtube videos and more in the “My Galleries” section
  • use a dedicated Education section providing simple tools to learn about the artworks featured on the Google Art Project

The Google Art Project was launched on 1 February 2011. Seventeen galleries and museums were included in the launch of the project.

In France, the Centre de recherche et de restauration des musées de France (C2rmf) launched in 2009 the project 3D*COFORM to advance the state-of-the-art in 3D-digitisation and make 3D-documentation an everyday practical choice for digital documentation campaigns in the cultural heritage sector.

WordPress Post Formats

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Post formats have been around since WordPress 3.1. They specify the format applied to a content. Post formats are different from Post Types which specify the type of content : post, page or maybe a custom type like books or products.

The following Post Formats are supported :

  • standard : post with title, date and author
  • aside : post without title and data, with the hint “aside”
  • link : post without title and data, with the hint “link”
  • gallery : first picture of a native gallery and number of pictures in the gallery
  • status : format like Twitter, with a gravatar
  • quote : post without title and data, with the hint “quote”
  • image : special format for photoblogging
  • video : special format for videos
  • audio : special format for audios
  • chat : special format for chat logs

Post Formats

The WordPress theme Twenty Ten supports the standard, aside and gallery format. The new theme Twenty Eleven supports all formats, but video, audio and chat need to be activated by adding them to the post formats array in the theme file functions php :

// Add support for a variety of post formats
add_theme_support( 'post-formats', array( 'aside', 'link', 'gallery', 'status', 'quote', 'image', 'chat', 'video', 'audio' ) );

They need to be styled further in the corresponding css-file.

To add the Post Formats in a child theme, you must ensure that the childtheme setup occurs after the parenttheme setup. This is the code :

function childtheme_setup(){ add_theme_support( 'post-formats', array( 'aside', 'link', 'gallery', 'status', 'quote', 'image', 'chat', 'video', 'audio' ) ); add_action( 'after_setup_theme', 'childtheme_setup' );

The following list shows links to useful tutorials and documentation about WordPress Post Formats :

Hereafter are some older posts about WordPress themes and templates :

LA Re.Play : an exhibition of mobile media art

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LA Re.Play, an exhibition of Mobile Art, took place in Los Angeles, February 22-29, 2012. 

Playing upon the dynamic relations between physical place, digital space, and mobile access via smartphone, the mobile artworks highlighted in the exhibit and the panels adopt elements of location-based performance, mobile gaming, and mobile, networked activism to highlight the embodied performance of hybrid place and the social and collective politics of networked space. LA Re.Play explored art that incorporates cell phones, GPS and other mobile technology, revealing the complex social, political, technological and physiological effects of new mixed reality interactions.

LA.Replay was curated by Hana Iverson, Mimi Sheller and Jeremy Hight.

Central dogma of molecular biology

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Last update : August 9, 2013

The central dogma of molecular biology is not really a dogma, but a framework for understanding the transfer of sequenced information between biopolymers in living organisms. There are 3 major classes of such biopolymers :

  • DNA
  • RNA
  • Protein

In it’s simplest form, the dogma of molecular biology states that DNA makes RNA and RNA makes protein. The dogma was first stated by Francis Crick in 1958 and re-stated in a Nature paper (Vol 227) published in August 1970.

There are 3×3 = 9 conceivable direct transfers of information that can occur between these biopolymers classed into 3 groups :

  • general transfers
  • special transfers
  • unknown transfers

The general transfers describe the normal flow of biological information :

  • DNA Replication : process by which one double-stranded DNA molecule produces two identical copies of the molecule
  • Transcription : process by which the information contained in a section of DNA is transferred to a newly assembled piece of messenger RNA (mRNA)
  • Translation : process by which the messenger RNA (mRNA) produced by transcription is decoded by the sites of protein synthesis, the ribosomes, to produce a specific amino acid chain, or polypeptide, that will later fold into an active protein

Special transfers occur only under specific conditions in case of some viruses or in a laboratory. These transfers are RNA replication, reverse transcription and direct translation from DNA to protein.

Francis Crick believed that protein could not encode for DNA or RNA or other proteins and classed these processes in the unknown transfers. Prions, discovered in 1982 by Stanley B. Prusiner, are proteins that propagate themselves by making conformational changes in other molecules of the same type of protein. While this represents a transfer of information from protein to protein, prion interactions leave the sequence of the protein unchanged, and so are not technically considered an exception to the central dogma of molecular biology of Francis Crick.