[tt] CHE: Patent Filing Suggests Apple Is Exploring New Lecture-Capture Software

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Patent Filing Suggests Apple Is Exploring New Lecture-Capture Software
http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/3199/patent-filing-suggests-apple-is-exploring-new-lecture-capture-software?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

July 28, 2008

A patent application filed by an Apple employee details software that 
would capture video and slides from college lectures and automatically 
edit them into video podcasts.

The application, titled "Automatic Content Creation and Processing," was 
unearthed this month by AppleInsider. The name on the patent application 
is Bertrand Serlet, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering. 
An Apple spokesman could not be reached for comment Monday, but the 
company is notoriously tight-lipped about products that are still in 
development.

Apple already runs a free service called iTunes U that helps colleges 
around the country manage online offerings, and several companies sell 
software that helps capture lecture video and slides as well. One unusual 
feature described in the new patent application, though, is the ability to 
determine automatically when to run video footage of the professor 
speaking and when to splice in images of lecture slides. As the patent 
application puts it, the software would determine "a time to switch the 
first and second streams from the event data."

Many college officials are looking for easy ways to record large numbers 
of lectures and offer video or audio recordings to students. The goal is 
to capture and distribute lecture podcasts without requiring professors or 
other staff members to perform time-consuming editing or file 
management.--Jeffrey R. Young
Posted on Monday July 28, 2008

Comments

1. Apple already has a fairly easy option for recording lectures that can 
be automatically posted to iTunes U and/or blogs. It’s called Podcast 
Producer. Kind of a pain to set-up but it’s an interesting solution to 
capturing content.-- Dave O.    Jul 28, 07:02 PM

2. Kinda late to that party, aren’t they?
We (and others) have been offering that service to corporate, educational 
and conference clients for three years. I’m sure their tool will be cool 
though
-- Chance Carpenter    Jul 29, 12:02 AM

3. We have had a home-grown system to capture/retrieve lectures for 8 
years as of this coming Fall semester at McGill University.-- David Harpp 
Jul 29, 07:25 AM

4. A company was formed by the inventors
idealsystems.ca
-- David Harpp    Jul 29, 09:33 AM

5. Hopefully, the Automatic Content Creation and Processing includes 
automatic captioning of the content.-- drive    Jul 29, 02:11 PM

6. And where does this leave those of us who don’t want our students more 
easily capturing our lectures--which are, after all, copyrighted material?

When I create lectures for distribution I record them in a studio setting 
and edit them carefully. How many of us look forward to outtakes from our 
lectures appearing on U-Tube?
-- Plato    Jul 29, 02:14 PM