Something different from Canon
Posted: Thu Apr 01, 2010 12:36 amI mentioned in a couple of other posts that Leigh and I met with Canon and their PR last week, and that we had a very fruitful discussion with them. This month's challenge prize is just one of the outcomes from that, as is the 550D that we currently have for testing.
One thing I wasn't aware of is that Canon has, at North Ryde, an R&D lab. I knew that Toshiba has one there, in Macquarie Park (I was working there for a while) and during our chat it transpired that Canon, who are just down the road from Toshiba, also have an R&D facility. The logic is that they want to commit to the country, which I think is great; they're backing up their words with actions, and, of course, serious funding: R&D is not cheap.
So, the question arose as to what do Canon do in their R&D lab? Turns out that much of their work is similar in scope to what Toshiba does - develop the firmware for a number of their products.. But where Toshiba develops the firmware for their multi-function printers, it came as a bit of a surprise to us to learn that Canon's Aussie R&D facility develops the firmware for .... yep ... their cameras. It's not the sole facility for this sort of development, but it's a major one.
The upshot of this is that apart from the inevitable firmware releases and updates, a lot of their development of future models happens here, and that's where this gets interesting: we were invited to have a look at their lab, and to have a play with some of their toys.
Including a variant of a 550D, with some very interesting firmware installed: voice control!
You say "Shoot" and it makes an image. The "Focus" command gets it to acquire focus. "Zoom, Tele", and "Zoom, Wide" ... you get the picture. Pun intended.
To set ISO you say "ISO two hundred", or "ISO Eight Hundred". For aperture mode, "Mode, AV", or "Mode, TV" for shutter speed mode. In Tv mode you could then say "Shutter two hundred" for 1/200, and so on, and in Av mode, "Aperture, five point six"
This actually works quite well - it was no less responsive than the standard 550D that Leigh currently has - and being developed locally, the speech recognition seems to have very few problems with an Aussie accent.
Please remember that this was a very early proof of concept sample that we were playing with, and it left both Leigh and myself somewhat impressed. I'm unconvinced that it's better than the traditional methods of camera use, but I can see how it could be very useful where the camera is being used in a remote(ish) location ... say tucked in a corner of a room, where you want the camera to be operated in a semi-autonomous mode.
I just thought y'all might like to know of this, and Canon did ask me to ask you what you thought about the concept. Would you find this facility useful? Are the commands and the command format reasonable?
Would you see yourself maybe using such a camera?
One thing I wasn't aware of is that Canon has, at North Ryde, an R&D lab. I knew that Toshiba has one there, in Macquarie Park (I was working there for a while) and during our chat it transpired that Canon, who are just down the road from Toshiba, also have an R&D facility. The logic is that they want to commit to the country, which I think is great; they're backing up their words with actions, and, of course, serious funding: R&D is not cheap.
So, the question arose as to what do Canon do in their R&D lab? Turns out that much of their work is similar in scope to what Toshiba does - develop the firmware for a number of their products.. But where Toshiba develops the firmware for their multi-function printers, it came as a bit of a surprise to us to learn that Canon's Aussie R&D facility develops the firmware for .... yep ... their cameras. It's not the sole facility for this sort of development, but it's a major one.
The upshot of this is that apart from the inevitable firmware releases and updates, a lot of their development of future models happens here, and that's where this gets interesting: we were invited to have a look at their lab, and to have a play with some of their toys.
Including a variant of a 550D, with some very interesting firmware installed: voice control!
You say "Shoot" and it makes an image. The "Focus" command gets it to acquire focus. "Zoom, Tele", and "Zoom, Wide" ... you get the picture. Pun intended.
To set ISO you say "ISO two hundred", or "ISO Eight Hundred". For aperture mode, "Mode, AV", or "Mode, TV" for shutter speed mode. In Tv mode you could then say "Shutter two hundred" for 1/200, and so on, and in Av mode, "Aperture, five point six"
This actually works quite well - it was no less responsive than the standard 550D that Leigh currently has - and being developed locally, the speech recognition seems to have very few problems with an Aussie accent.
Please remember that this was a very early proof of concept sample that we were playing with, and it left both Leigh and myself somewhat impressed. I'm unconvinced that it's better than the traditional methods of camera use, but I can see how it could be very useful where the camera is being used in a remote(ish) location ... say tucked in a corner of a room, where you want the camera to be operated in a semi-autonomous mode.
I just thought y'all might like to know of this, and Canon did ask me to ask you what you thought about the concept. Would you find this facility useful? Are the commands and the command format reasonable?
Would you see yourself maybe using such a camera?
