Telematics Freedom Foundation -

XBMC Architecture Summary

giovani — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:16:52 +0100

In July we have sponsored a paper to describe the XMBC Architecture. We needed it to use in a grant proposal so why not paying the XBMC Community to have it?

During the time we were writing the proposal and working on the paper, we noticed that many other people were looking for something similar. Of course all information you will find in this paper is available somewhere on the XBMC wiki, support pages, foruns and trac... What we intended to have was one summary document that can serve as a base for new developers and companies when researching or planning to get involved in the project.

Hope it could be useful to you, or anyone you know that might be interested.

XBMC Summary Architecture
Download PDF

Microsoft Finally Joins HTML5 Standard Efforts

giovani — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 11:37:45 +0200

In a recent message that has come as a shock to many, Microsoft endorsed the use of <video> and <audio> tags. Adrian Bateman, the Program Manager for Internet Explorer, posted about this a few weeks ago.

The new HTML5 specification includes these <video> and <audio> tags to allow for both video and audio to be played from the browser without the use of a plugin, like Flash or QuickTime. This allows for open, royalty-free codecs like Ogg Theora to be widely utilized. It also frees video and audio from its current, largely proprietary grasp, which reduces the legal and technological costs of entry, allowing for more participatory media. Many new browsers support these HTML5 elements, such as Firefox 3.5, Safari 4, Chrome, and Opera 10. Internet Explorer, which holds the largest market share for browsers, was conspicuously missing from this list. By announcing its support, IE has potentially allowed for a much larger base upon which this new HTML5 framework can be built—though what will actually happen remains to be seen.

Source: Open Video Alliance

TFF presents updated FLOSS Media Center Study at OVC

giovani — Fri, 29 May 2009 11:42:08 +0200

Since the first publication in September 2008 and the last 2 revisions, our study on FLOSS Media Centers State of the Art was downloaded over 35,000 times.

It is now time for a third revision, and we found no better place to present it than the Open Video Conference in New York City from 19-20 June.

With 60 different features under comparison in the 10 most prominent media centers in the free/open source community, we consider all the aspects that matter to you - the end user - to pick your preferred system. Whether it runs on a HTPC or in a set-top box, you have all the parameters to ensure the right choice spending little or nothing. Oh, did I mention this work is released under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license?

So stay tuned, we see you at the OVC.

Open Video Conference

giovani — Mon, 11 May 2009 21:22:16 +0200

Telematics Freedom Foundation will be present at the Open Video Conference, in New York City, June 19-20, promoted by the Open Video Alliance. Don't know what the Open Video Alliance is? Take a look at the Promo Video:

20.000 downloads in 120 days

giovani — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 01:11:08 +0100

We launched the first version of our FLOSS Media Center Comparison Chart last year, on September 18. Four months later, we are pleased to announce that we just passed 20.000 downloads.

This is an impressive number for a niche used to see fragmented, disconnected initiatives here and there. Some flourishing, some dead. Free/Open Source Media Centers suffered for a long time from the lack of dedicated (and compatible) hardware to run on, and we are glad to see that 2008 brought us new players (like Boxee) and new products (like Neuros LINK), aiming to increase awareness and use of such home entertainment applications.

We bet 2009 will bring FLOSS Media Centers to a next level. From Home-Theater PC's to set-top boxes, we hope they reach the consumer mass-market pretty soon, and help users to discover new media, enjoy high quality content and connect even more using the internet.

So, thank you for your interest in our work. Thank you specially for those who are constantly telling us about the new features within your community. We'll be compiling the next paper update pretty soon, and we'll let you know through this blog. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

Tiscali TV Shutdown: a strong opportunity for Open Source Set-Top Boxes

giovani — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 19:50:00 +0100

The recent decision taken by Tiscali Italy to shutdown their IP-TV service, and the few subscribers acquired during the period in which the company promoted its Internet+IP-TV package is an important signal to the Free Software community.

It's a sign that the already fragmented market for Set-Top Boxes leaves no room for closed solutions (the so-called "walled gardens"). There are many solutions available today for those who want to bring to the living room a system to manage their multimedia content. The problem is, however, that all these solutions are closed in some way or have major limitations, because of the difficulties in development and production processes.

Perhaps it is time now that the big players in the market start thinking why not building a large "Open Garden" for entertainment. An open standard for interoperability, development and distribution of multimedia applications. A system that can run on "old" Tiscali boxes, TiVo boxes or any other box which can be purchased on the web (like the Neuros LINK, for example). A new approach to entertainment that could give Set-Top Boxes the same flexibility the PC has, to stimulate creation of new multimedia applications (like p2p tv services, voip, email, web, social networking...), but without compromising the nature, usability and comfort of being able to enjoy media from our couch.

We're working on a project proposal for the drafting of such standards and the development of a back-end and middleware layers that will offer a stable and interoperable platform for Set-Top Boxes. As Facebook and Apple have managed to create their basic platforms for the distribution of applications for Social Networking and on mobile devices (iPhone, iPod touch), the idea is to create a new channel of distribution (an open channel this time) where producers and consumers can interact without intermediates, creating and consuming media (either free or paying for it).

If you want to know more, please visit the project page or participate using Facebook.

The Library Overview

giovani — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 11:52:23 +0100

The Universal Audiovisual Library (AVU – Audiovideoteca Universale or simply the “Library”) aims to realize the widest European Digital Archive of audio and video contents, with a specific emphasis towards Italian and English material available in public domain or subject to copyright but released either publicly or to the Library under free and copyleft licenses: contents which can be freely seen, shared and reused, even in their integral form, at least for non-profit use.

Proprietary contents with heavy potential for reuse and remix, within the scope of the "right to report" will be considered exceptions, together with "degraded" versions of proprietary contents granted under free and copyleft licenses, which are at least a good ADSL "web" quality.

A web portal with strong functions for collaboration, sharing and socialization, and public spaces will produce a dynamic community of audio&video micro production centered on search, editing and remixing, composed by small and medium producers, youths, students, researchers, journalists, and private citizens.

The main Library's activities will center upon the acquisition, safekeeping, conversion, indexing, diffusion and promotion of contents with most cultural, social, and political value, to promote its dissemination and reuse through new digital channels. It will give public and free access to such contents in read, acquisition, contribution and reuse modes, through the following channels:

Internal Gigalan (100 times faster than DSL) in the Audiovisual Telematic Park, with 400sq.m of consultation and media editing spaces available, and in all companies located therein;
Web portal with content streaming and download features, through a high usability web interface;
Legal peer-2-peer networks managed by partners or third-parties;
Distribution partnerships with: ISP's, private and public sphere web portals, IPTV providers, digital video libraries (swapping), Set-Top Boxes providers.

The final aim is to create a wide and energetic community - both local and web-based - of students, young amateurs, small and medium remix producers, around the Library as a resource for inspiration, research, and reuse of contents as a flywheel for the productive creativity.

Consensus Building and Decision Making using Free/Open Source Software

giovani — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 17:58:03 +0100

We created Rule2Gether to demonstrate a simple, immediate and practical use of a Free Software platform (Drupal) in the hard task of collecting and organizing feedback from a group of citizens on matters that may directly affect all others. In our specific case, commenting and rating on Italian Chamber of Deputies Agenda Items and collecting proposals for new items that are taken into consideration for the next meeting only if the majority of the users support them directly through a vote, or indirectly through rating and comments.

But consensus-building, in any group, goes far beyond this simple feedback process. There are countless situations where decision-making by a group or by its representatives may go through endless types of stages (ie: anyone can propose topics, users x, y, z can sort the proposals, only users j, f, k can comment on the proposals, the committee of experts A must assess the feasibility of each proposal, voting: the "n" best proposals are elected and the selected proposals can be rated and commented by all users; all actions are suspended for "x" days; users a, b, c need to attend a video-conference... etc ...). That is, it is virtually impossible to think that one can list all the possible steps and then offer a one-size-fits-all solution.

We know this and that's why we designed Rule2Gether's future ready for flexible configuration of decision-making and consensus building stages, which is particularly interesting to political organizations or any organization willing to use a self-management system in a democratic manner. We will slowly publish more about it and carefully listen and discuss your comments through this blog.

In the last days I have contacted some groups (because of our intention to present Rule2Gether as a bid candidate to funds available in the European Union) and analyzed their general goal. I saw that each group has a different approach to solve a more or less the same problem. Many times using the same open source software as common ground (such as a content management system - CMS), but duplicating efforts when it comes to the implementation of features specific to the decision-making and consensus building processes.

The World Parliament Experiment: the site provides a discussion forum and specific functionality for political debate, with the aim of creating a world parliament, where people can propose, vote directly or delegate their vote on any issue under discussion;
Senator On-Line: an Internet political party which will allow everyone on the Australian Electoral roll who has access to the internet to vote on every bill put to Parliament and have its Senators to vote in accordance with a clear majority view;
Efficasync: a theoretical concept for self-management through processes of direct democracy. Users, as in a game, may choose to use their turn to change a "rule" already established, or accumulate "points" to gain more decision power in upcoming decisions;
GlobalDemo.org: a generic groupware for creating discussion spaces with blogs, faq, calendar of events, wall and discussion forum;
Gov2demOSS Light: a modular groupware for the creation of collaboration spaces with forums, petitions, calendar of events and knowledge base;
Global Assembly: uses a numerical evaluation for user's interest in a particular argument and his approval level for the statement, with formula value = interest x approval. The topics are then structured as a regular discussion forum;
DemocracyLab: calculates the general community view (consensus) on current arguments using a numerical scale evaluation (1 to 7) for agreement and importance to users, classified under 3 categories: values, positions and proposals.

Rule2Gether wants to serve as a common platform for the creation and configuration of the stages necessary for decision-making and consensus-building that is useful for most applications (like the ones listed above) using different workflows to achieve more or less the same goals, where the visual interface can be completely themed, and settings for the amount of stages, permissions and functions enabled for each active phase are constructed in such a way as to allow greater flexibility of use and a huge savings in the implementation of each feature. Besides the fact of establishing an open platform on which anyone can develop additional modules (surveys, voip, mini-apps ...), similarly to a large LEGO model.

Telematics Freedom seeking Partnership for European Projects

giovani — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 14:21:55 +0100

The Telematics Freedom Foundation is seeking new partners to kick-off some of its projects in the fields of Innovation Technology, Social Networking, Media and Audiovisual.

Those interested can find the profile of Telematics Freedom on CORDIS platform (the Community Research and Development Information Service for Science, Research and Development on the Seventh Framework Programme).

In particular, the projects for which we seek funds and partnerships are:

Freedom Box: Aims to promote wide dissemination and standardization of TV Media Centers connected to the web that are easy to use and economic for anyone; and by anyone verifiable and customizable. The ultimate goal is to bring to market easy-to-use and economically affordable devices that promote long-term maximization of important constitutional liberties in 2 stages: (1) Freedom of choice of audiovisual content on TV at home; (2) Freedom to communicate via Internet with levels of authentication, privacy and security that are adequate to constitutional rights. The operating system and any programs installed on the box will be distributed using free/open source licenses, preferably GNU Affero GPLv3 or GPL v3.
Universal Audiovisual Library: A Digital Library Database that collects hundreds of thousands of GB of audio and video content in its original language, released under open and public licenses. Created and managed by Telematics Freedom Foundation and several free-content partners.
Rule2Gether: Software for consensus-building, debate and preference expression following the Direct Democracy approach and methodologies. Particularly useful for Electoral Lists and/or Political Parties. Rule2Gether is software developed specifically to allow simple democratic discussions and easy decision-making procedures in any kind of organization.
User-Verifiable Telematics: A research project for the realization of software, hardware and processes that enable ordinary non-technical citizens to affordable access any internet-based telematic communication with pretty high levels of privacy and security that are fully user-verifiable. A model for the democratic control of services and practical means to verify software and hardware for all servers that run these services.
Draft2Gether: A new model for creating documents, annotating and proposing amendments in a democratic and cooperative way. Draft2Gether puts any group of people (10's to 100's) in a position to discuss and approve changes in documents democratically, through e-voting and annotation mechanisms. Draft2Gether is perfect for writing documents within standardization commitees, petitions, legal documents or any other type of document that needs to be approved by a large group of people through a careful discussion and a democratic voting of each change.
Do2Gether: Do2Gether is a Political Social Networking and Groups Management tool. The ultimate goal is to be a Free Alternative to YahooGroups/GoogleGroups™ (or a mix of GoogleGroups™+Facebook™). Do2Gether is a project to create a basic software platform for political networking. A web application focused on the needs of political or democratically-run organizations, which cannot (and must not) use a big player's web services such as YahooGroups or Google Groups for groups management or Facebook, Orkut and MySpace for social interaction and professional networking for obvious privacy issues or because of statutory rules.

IP-TV2.0: Missed? Download the Conference!

giovani — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 14:55:28 +0200

All Videos and Presentations of speakers in the IPTV2.0 conference, held last wednesday in the "La Sapienza" Rome's University are now available for view and download:

in italian
in english

You can also download the full PDF file for revision 1.2 of our FLOSS Media Center State of the Art paper (in italian, english or portuguese).

The UI Remix Video presented is available at: http://vimeo.com/1982143

And, finally, you can subscribe to our RSS feeds to be notified when the next revisions in the Media Center study are published:

in italian
in english

IP-TV 2.0 Conference

giovani — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 19:55:35 +0200

Start: 15/10/2008 - 10:00

End: 15/10/2008 - 18:00

Timezone: Etc/GMT+1

The role of open standards and free software in bringing
the choice of Net TV To Italians' sofas

Specialists in the sector discuss the move convergence of PC and TV, through IPTV and media centers, and the role of open standards and free software to maximize users freedom, as well as the full realization of its potential demand for connectivity and net services.

The Telematics Freedom Foundation will distribute a new Report on the state-of-the-art in FLOSS (free/open source) Media Centers, and much more.

WHEN: October 15, 2008

WHERE: University of Rome La Sapienza - Via Salaria, 113 (get directions)

PROGRAMME

*Chairperson*		Arturo Di Corinto Prof. Communication Science - University of Rome La Sapienza
*Introduction:*		Rufo Guerreschi Telematics Freedom Foundation and Rome's Audiovisual Telematics District
		Video: FLOSS Media Center Remix Advertising the User Interface for some Media Centers featured in TFF Comparison Chart

	Mario Morcellini - Sapienza, University of Rome Dean of the Faculty of Communication Science
	Robert Castrucci - ISIMM "IPTV, User-Generated Contents and the Long Tail"
	Shane Coughlan - Free Software Foundation Europe "The implication of Free Software licenses for the future of IPTV"
	Michele Mezza – RAI Technology Strategies, Vice Director "Open IPTV for dissemination and use of public audiovisual heritage"
	Special Guest: Giulia Rodano – Counselor for Culture, Entertainment and Sport, Lazio Region
	Q&A Session
	Giacomo Mazzone – European Broadcasting Union "Free access from your living room to national public audiovisual archives"
	Luigi Capriotti - XBMC Live "Hands-on demo on XBMC Atlantis and XBMC Live"
	Joe Born - CEO Neuros Technology "Why Neuros OSD2? Open Electronics"
	Q&A Sessiom
	-- Lunch (coffee, juice and snaks will be served during lunch time) --
	Andrea Barsotti - Tiscali IPTV "IPTV 2.0: Walled Garden or Open Garden?"
	Alessandra Poggiani – Director LaitSpa, professor of Interactive Marketing Communications at La Sapienza "The opportunities of IP-TV for information and services to citizens"
	Rossella Lehnus - Italian Ministry for Economic Development and Communications "New measures to guarantee net neutrality"
	Q&A Session
	Sergio Bellucci - Associazione Demote "TV Legislation and liberalizaton via Internet"
	Fabrizio Caffarelli - TVBlob "TVBlob Box: Open Internet TV Box"
	Gianpiero Gamaleri - University Roma Tre Professor in Sociology of Communication, TV and multimedia
	Shane Coughlan - Free Software Foundation Europe
	Dave Mathews - Boxee "BOXEE Demo: The open source, connected, social Media Center"

PROMOTER

PARTNERS

ISIMM, Free Hardware Foundation, Frontiere Digitali, Free Software Foundation, EBU

SPONSORS

Rome'sAudiovisual Telematics District, Lazio Region

Media Center Report: revision 1.2

giovani — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 16:36:38 +0200

It's time for a new revision on our report on Media Centers in the FLOSS community. Among the changes, surely the Apple TV version of Boxee and XBMC is the big one!

With our upcoming event next week about IP-TV's and Media Centers we thought it would be a good occasion to publish the 1.2 revision online and distribute printed copies to event attendees.

We'll have live demos for Boxee and XBMC using the Apple TV, and also: Elisa, MediaPortal and Neuros OSD. Don't miss!

See you soon...

CNN "tech guru" Chris Pirillo reviews our FLOSS Media Center Study

giovani — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 18:07:27 +0200

My email to Chris Pirillo informing about the paper release was read, and here is what Chris has to say about it.

Chris, the 1.1 revision is out, downloads are here.

RSS Feed for Updates on FLOSS Media Center Comparison Chart

giovani — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 18:45:51 +0200

Here it is ... Subscribe this feed to get the latest updates...

Media Center Comparison Chart: revision 1.1

giovani — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 18:17:05 +0200

We have just published a new revision for the FLOSS Media Center paper (v.1.1), based on the feedback we received in these first days. What's new?

Fixed table inconsistency for audio/video player for XBMC, Boxee and Plex+CenterStage;
Got feedback that Plex+CenterStage are not working on EPG/PVR, just waiting until XBMC releases their work which is currently under development;
Added availabilty of XBMC LiveCD (which runs also as a LiveUSB);
MythTV can also listen to web radio though the unofficial plugin Mythstream;
Fixed MMS video player/handling

We will also evaluate if and when to remove or split CenterStage from Plex. It all depends on the success of their collaboration. If they merge (new name?) we'll update the chart accordingly, but if CenterStage becomes a skin for Plex then we will remove it and leave Plex. Please leave your comments about this issue, we'll be watching...

FLOSS Media Center Comparison Chart Published

giovani — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 13:17:10 +0200

Thank you everyone for helping in this work.

We released a first version (1.0) of the FLOSS Media Centers State of the Art paper yesterday, and we'll be posting new updates and revisions in this blog.

In less than 24 hours the paper had more than 1,000 downloads. We got a lot of positive feedback from the community and we will be releasing a 1.1 revision later next week to fix some table inconsistencies.

Stay tuned, and bookmark this blog to always get the latest updates.

We'll be adding the RSS feature pretty soon in this blog, sorry for the inconvenience.

User-Verifiable Telematics at the University of Washington Rome Center

giovani — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 17:19:53 +0200

Today at the Rome Center of University of Washington, the premiere state university of the state of Washington, located in Seattle, USA, the Founder of Telematics Freedom Foundation - Rufo Guerreschi - gave a talk about the User-Verifiable Telematics project.

The event took place at UW's Rome Center at 95 Piazza del Biscione, 3rd floor with post-graduate students.

You can:

Download the Presentation file
Download a 2-page introduction to User-Verifiable Telematics

Media Center Surveys closed yesterday

giovani — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:29:23 +0200

The Surveys for our Media Center State of the Art Comparison Chart compilation ended yesterday (sept. 2nd 2008). We are now concentrating in compiling results within a quick comparison chart, solving and researching the web and each project documentation for controversial answers which are appearing.

By mid/end of this month we expect to publish a first version, under a Creative Commons License. Anyone will be free to download the final paper, the survey raw data (of course without participant's names, emails and any other information that may compromise their privacy) and our most important research links. Anyone then will be able to extend, complement, correct or publish a derivative study, under the same license terms.

FLOSS Survey will close September 2nd

giovani — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 16:43:16 +0200

Our FLOSS Media Center State of the Art Survey was very well accepted within almost all communities, the most active being XBMC and Freevo.

We are getting good and high quality responses and work already started to cross-check all information and build a very practical comparison table, reference notes and useful information on each project.

As we'll have our offices closed from August 9 to September 1st, we decided to close the Survey on September 2nd, and then work on final adjustments and clarifications to be able to publish everything by mid-september. So there's enough time for people in less active MC Projects to participate and make them justice.

FLOSS Media Centers - Collecting Data

giovani — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 10:11:59 +0200

What is the State of the Art in current FLOSS Media Center projects?

To answer this question, we picked the 10 most prominent MC FLOSS projects and we're now asking for your help to collect as much information as possible about their functionality and support.

The 10 selected projects were: XBMC, MythTV, Boxee, Elisa, Neuros OSD, Freevo, My Media System, Entertainer, CenterStage+Plex and MediaPortal.

Because of our limited resources, we can't afford creating a Lab to run and test all 10 media centers. So we are relying on the community collective intelligence to gather all data necessary to provide a broad view on state of the art work in FLOSS Media Center projects.

There is one webform available for each project. The forms are very easy to compile and we invite Project Leaders, Developers and Power Users to actively participate, to provide the most accurate information we need.

You can find more information and links to the web forms in this page.