Video Processing Perspectives

In Portland today, it’s sunny, the trees are green and the tech scene is thriving. Elemental is always actively hiring for a number of positions and looking for ways to get the word out about available opportunities and the benefits of living in Portland, Oregon. What started as a simple idea to create a video showcasing career opportunities in the region’s growing tech cluster was immediately embraced by the local startup community. The result: a collaborative effort and glossy look inside eleven Portland tech firms that communicates not only what they do, but captures the unique attraction and culture of each workplace. Enjoy a fly-through of some of the Rose City’s coolest tech offices.

The growing companies highlighted in the video are (in order of appearance): Viewpoint, Jama Software, Simple, Thetus, Urban Airship, Acquia, Elemental, Act-On, Puppet Labs, The Clymb and Jive. Support from Business Oregon, the Portland Development Commission and the Technology Association of Oregon made this project both possible and successful. 

With more than 10,000 views to date, the Tech Town Portland video caught the attention of Bloomberg Businessweek, which published its take on the piece yesterday: In Portland, Startups Work Together to Recruit Engineers. Geekwire wants to see a video produced in a similar vein for Seattle. The message – startup companies in Portland are looking to recruit world-class people and believe the region holds tremendous allure and livability advantages for those seeking to start, advance or change their careers in tech. 

Looking for more information about the technology landscape in Portland? Join the Tech Town Portland LinkedIn group, follow @techtownpdx and keep an eye on events from Calagator. Come see for yourself what our lovely city has to offer.

Did we mention it’s a beautiful day in PDX and the weekend looks even better?

Today Elemental hosted civic leaders at our downtown Portland headquarters for a discussion of ballot measures slated for the May 21, 2013 Special Election. Participants included Bob Stacey, District 6 Metro Councilor, Dan Mahr, Portland Children’s Fund campaign manager, Kellie Barnes of Clean Water Portland and Mike Plunkett of Healthy Kids, Healthy Portland. Interested in seeing what was discussed? You're in luck! We've made the stream available on-demand here.

Stacey described Measure 26-152, which seeks approval for a levy that improves natural areas and improves water quality for fish, while Mahr provided details about Measure 26-150, which renews a five-year levy to prevent child abuse and hunger. Barnes and Plunkett explored both sides of Measure 26-151, a lightning rod topic that asks voters whether fluoride should be added to Portland’s water. 

“Every voice counts in elections! With voting only two weeks away, we wanted to provide a forum for education and idea exchange for our employees about these important ballot measures. We are deeply appreciative to these leaders for sharing their time and insights,” said Emily Barrett, who runs Elemental’s community ambassador program. “We’re proud to facilitate this kind of dialogue and public engagement.”

Election ballots started mailing May 3 and must be received by county elections office by 8 p.m. on May 21. For more information about the May 21, 2013 Special Election, please visit: www.voteoregon.org.

This year at NAB, Elemental unveils a unique demonstration we like to call the “Strip Cam”. In conjunction with LiveU, we plan to bring live video captured on the Las Vegas Strip to the NAB show floor via our newly announced Elemental Cloud platform.

The Strip Cam demonstration will feature a camera mounted on a fully clothed human tripod roaming the Las Vegas Strip capturing live content, which in turn will be transmitted via LiveU's portable LU40s cellular-bonding unit to Elemental Cloud for multiscreen video processing and delivery. The end-to-end live application will be delivered over the course of the show to mobile platforms in both the LiveU and Elemental booths.

Missing the gorgeous weather outside? Get a live look at the fountains at Bellagio, the roller coaster running full tilt at New York, New York and perhaps even pirate activity at Treasure Island during your visit to the Elemental booth next week. All the Strip has to offer will be on view through a completely untethered and cloud-based demonstration. What happens in Vegas may stay in Vegas, but anything can happen on a Strip Cam live stream!

To learn more about Elemental Cloud, join us for a cocktail reception in the Elemental booth SU2724 on Tuesday, April 9, from 5 to 6 p.m. The reception will feature executives from Amazon Web Services, Elemental and Warner Bros. speaking to the development of innovative cloud-based architectures for formatting large-scale video assets. And we’ll have our Strip Cam running. We look forward to seeing you at the show!

Today Elemental launched Elemental Cloud, its Platform as a Service (PaaS) for securely managing the creation of premium live and on demand content for delivery to every screen. To mark the occasion, we invite you to take a video tour to learn more about the industry’s most advanced architecture for video processing in the cloud, with a platform that dynamically scales resources and provides the flexibility of seamless integration with on-premise video operations.

For the past six weeks, teams of high school students around the world have been designing, collaborating, marketing, animating, programming and building robots to compete in the 2013 FIRST Robotics Challenge regional tournaments. This year, teams are preparing robots for a game called “Ultimate Ascent”, a mix of Frisbee and climbing played between two Alliances of three teams each. Each Alliance competes with robots aiming as many flying discs as possible into goals during a two-minute and 15-second match. Matches end with robots attempting to successfully climb pyramids located near the middle of the playing field. The Oregon regional tournament takes place March 8-9 at the Portland Memorial Coliseum.

Elemental is proud to support this event for the second consecutive year. We’ll be on hand with our live encoder to capture all the action from the pit in the Coliseum and stream it live over the Internet. Thanks to Elemental gear and volunteer staff on-site to run the video streaming portion of the event, you can watch these young engineers operating robots in a tournament setting on your computer, iPad, iPhone or Android device. Check out the live event stream here. 

The Ultimate Ascent competition progresses in stages. On February 19, robots were “bagged and tagged”, signifying the end of the build season. Work continues, however, right up to the regional competition with each team testing and refining their mechanisms and code. Teams also use this time leading up to the regional events to hone their skills at robot operation, alliance strategy and designing additional flair!

Sound like fun? It is. But it’s also hard work giving the students preparing these robots plenty of practical 

experience in engineering, marketing, project management and other skills they’ll be able to use in the world after high school, into college and beyond.

“The experience provided by participation in the FIRST robotics programs is something many professional engineers wish we could have had when we were in high school,” said Don Nelke, principal software engineer at Elemental. “From a personal perspective, two of my children have participated in FIRST Lego League and FRC Robotics programs. The eldest of the two, my daughter, was inspired by this program and is currently enrolled in the engineering program at OSU. My son continues with this year’s FRC season.”

FIRST or ‘For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology’ was founded in 1989 as a non-profit organization to “inspire young people's interest and participation in science and technology”. The FIRST goal is to provide programs that motivate students to explore science, technology, engineering and math through education while laying the foundation for future careers in the technology arena. The program seeks to inspire self-confidence, innovation, and build leadership skills in the student participants and its success can be attributed to the enthusiastic participation of corporate sponsors, mentors, and volunteers from the community.

We can all be proud of the students who choose to participate in the program and the volunteers who mentor these bright young minds. If you're in the Portland area, come by the Coliseum this Friday or Saturday to show your support and see this exciting event up close. Or tune into the live stream from your computer or mobile device to see the young engineers and robots compete. Elemental wishes the best of luck to all competitors in the tournament!