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• The neutering of Google Code-In 2011

  23 octobre 2011, par Dark Shikari — development, GCI, google, x264

  Posting this from the Google Summer of Code Mentor Summit, at a session about Google Code-In !

  Google Code-In is the most innovative open-source program I’ve ever seen. It provided a way for students who had never done open source — or never even done programming — to get involved in open source work. It made it easy for people who weren’t sure of their ability, who didn’t know whether they could do open source, to get involved and realize that yes, they too could do amazing work — whether code useful to millions of people, documentation to make the code useful, translations to make it accessible, and more. Hundreds of students had a great experience, learned new things, and many stayed around in open source projects afterwards because they enjoyed it so much !

  x264 benefitted greatly from Google Code-In. Most of the high bit depth assembly code was written through GCI — literally man-weeks of work by an professional developer, done by high-schoolers who had never written assembly before ! Furthermore, we got loads of bugs fixed in ffmpeg/libav, a regression test tool, and more. And best of all, we gained a new developer : Daniel Kang, who is now a student at MIT, an x264 and libav developer, and has gotten paid work applying the skills he learned in Google Code-In !

  Some students in GCI complained about the system being “unfair”. Task difficulties were inconsistent and there were many ways to game the system to get lots of points. Some people complained about Daniel — he was completing a staggering number of tasks, so they must be too easy. Yet many of the other students considered these tasks too hard. I mean, I’m asking high school students to write hundreds of lines of complicated assembly code in one of the world’s most complicated instruction sets, and optimize it to meet extremely strict code-review standards ! Of course, there may have been valid complaints about other projects : I did hear from many students talking about gaming the system and finding the easiest, most “profitable” tasks. Though, with the payout capped at $500, the only prize for gaming the system is a high rank on the points list.

  According to people at the session, in an effort to make GCI more “fair”, Google has decided to change the system. There are two big changes they’re making.

  Firstly, Google is requiring projects to submit tasks on only two dates : the start, and the halfway point. But in Google Code-In, we certainly had no idea at the start what types of tasks would be the most popular — or new ideas that came up over time. Often students would come up with ideas for tasks, which we could then add ! A waterfall-style plan-everything-in-advance model does not work for real-world coding. The halfway point addition may solve this somewhat, but this is still going to dramatically reduce the number of ideas that can be proposed as tasks.

  Secondly, Google is requiring projects to submit at least 5 tasks of each category just to apply. Quality assurance, translation, documentation, coding, outreach, training, user interface, and research. For large projects like Gnome, this is easy : they can certainly come up with 5 for each on such a large, general project. But often for a small, focused project, some of these are completely irrelevant. This rules out a huge number of smaller projects that just don’t have relevant work in all these categories. x264 may be saved here : as we work under the Videolan umbrella, we’ll likely be able to fudge enough tasks from Videolan to cover the gaps. But for hundreds of other organizations, they are going to be out of luck. It would make more sense to require, say, 5 out of 8 of the categories, to allow some flexibility, while still encouraging interesting non-coding tasks.

  For example, what’s “user interface” for a software library with a stable API, say, a libc ? Can you make 5 tasks out of it that are actually useful ?

  If x264 applied on its own, could you come up with 5 real, meaningful tasks in each category for it ? It might be possible, but it’d require a lot of stretching.

  How many smaller or more-focused projects do you think are going to give up and not apply because of this ?

  Is GCI supposed to be something for everyone, or just or Gnome, KDE, and other megaprojects ?

• C# Bitmap to AVI / WMV with Compression

  5 juillet 2019, par Digitalsa1nt

  Prelude :

  I’m going to preface this with, I have been learning C# in my spare time at work, and that I have been staring at code for a solid two days trying to wrap my head around this problem. I am developing some software to be used with a visualiser that connects by USB to a standard Desktop PC, the software detects the capture device and loads frames into bitmap using a New Frame Event, this is then displayed in a ’picture box’ as a live video stream. The problem as it sits is trying to encorporate the ability to record the stream and save to file, preferably a WMV or a compressed AVI.

  What’s been tried :

  I have considered and looked into the following :

  SharpAVI - cant seem to get this to compress or save the frames properly as it appears to mainly look at existing AVI files.

  AForge.Video.VFW - AVI files can be created but are far too large to be used, due to restrictions on the user areas of the individuals who will be using this software.

  AForge.Video.FFMPEG - Again due to considerations of those using this software I can’t have unmanaged DLL’s sat in the output folder with the Executable file, and unfortunately this particular DLL cant be compiled properly using Costura Fody.

  AVIFile Library Wrapper (From Code Project) - Again can’t seem to get this to compress a stream correctly from Bitmaps from the New Frame Events.

  DirectShow - Appears to use C++ and unfortunately is beyond my skill level at this time.

  The Relevant Code Snippets :

  Current References :

  using System.Data;
  
  using System.Drawing;
  
  using System.Linq;
  
  using System.Text;
  
  using System.Threading.Tasks;
  
  using System.Windows.Forms;
  
  using System.Resources;
  
  using System.Drawing.Imaging;
  
  using System.IO;
  
  //Aforge Video DLL's
  
  using AForge.Video;
  
  using AForge.Video.VFW;
  
  using AForge.Video.DirectShow;
  
  //Aforge Image DLL's
  
  using AForge.Imaging;
  
  using AForge.Imaging.Formats;
  
  using AForge.Imaging.Filters;
  
  //AviLibrary
  
  using AviFile;

  Global Variables :

      #region Global Variables
  
  
  
      private FilterInfoCollection CaptureDevice; // list of available devices
  
      private VideoCaptureDevice videoSource;
  
      public System.Drawing.Image CapturedImage;
  
  
  
      bool toggleMic = false;
  
  
  
      bool toggleRec = false;
  
      //aforge
  
      AVIWriter aviWriter;
  
      Bitmap image;
  
  
  
  
  
      #endregion

  Code for Displaying Stream

      #region Displays the Stream
  
  
  
      void videoSource_NewFrame(object sender, NewFrameEventArgs eventArgs)
  
      {
  
          picBoxStream.SizeMode = PictureBoxSizeMode.Zoom;
  
          picBoxStream.Image = (Bitmap)eventArgs.Frame.Clone();// clones the bitmap
  
  
  
  
  
          if (toggleRec == true)
  
          {
  
              image = (Bitmap)eventArgs.Frame.Clone();
  
              aviWriter.AddFrame(image);
  
          }
  
      }
  
  
  
      #endregion

  Current Code for Recording Stream

      #region Record Button
  
  
  
      private void btnRecord_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
  
      {
  
          if (toggleRec == false)
  
          {
  
              saveAVI = new SaveFileDialog();
  
              saveAVI.Filter = "AVI Files (*.avi)|*.avi";
  
  
  
              if (saveAVI.ShowDialog() == DialogResult.OK)
  
              {
  
                  aviWriter = new AVIWriter();
  
                  aviWriter.Open(saveAVI.FileName, 1280, 720);
  
  
  
                  toggleRec = true;
  
                  Label lblRec = new Label();
  
              }
  
  
  
          }
  
          else if (toggleRec == true)
  
          {
  
              aviWriter.Close();
  
              toggleRec = false;
  
          }
  
      }
  
  
  
      #endregion

  I apoligise if the above code doesn’t look quite right, I have been swapping, changing and recoding those three sections a lot in order to find a working combination. This means that it’s rather untidy but I didn’t see the point in cleaning it all up until I had the code working. That being said really any help that you can provide is greatfully recieved, even if it’s a case of what I want to do just cannot be done.

  Thank you in advance.

  EDIT : 2019 :

  It’s been awhile since I posted this and it still gets the odd bit of interest here and there. Back when I posted this I was teaching myself to code and I had this weird quirk that I didn’t like using 3rd party libraries if I could avoid it, I wanted to do my own work, since then I’ve learnt a lot and one of those things is that the open source world is immense, impressive and kind. So if there is a 3rd party library that does what you want just use it, it’ll save you time.

• Use Google Analytics and risk fines, after CJEU ruling on Privacy Shield

  27 août 2020, par Joselyn Khor — Privacy
  EU websites using Google Analytics and Facebook are being targeted by European privacy group noyb after the invalidation of the Privacy Shield. They filed a complaint against 101 websites for continuing to send data to the US. 

  “A quick analysis of the HTML source code of major EU webpages shows that many companies still use Google Analytics or Facebook Connect one month after a major judgment by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) - despite both companies clearly falling under US surveillance laws, such as FISA 702. Neither Facebook nor Google seem to have a legal basis for the data transfers.”

  

  The Privacy Shield previously allowed for EU data to be transferred to the US. However, this was invalidated by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on July 16, 2020. The CJEU deemed it illegal for any websites to transfer the personal data of European citizens to the US. 

  They also made it clear in a press release that “data subjects can claim compensation for inadmissible data exports (marginal no. 143 of the judgment). This should in particular include non-material damage (“compensation for pain and suffering”) and must be of a deterrent amount under European law.” Which puts extra financial pressure on websites to take the new ruling seriously.

  Immediate action is required after Google Privacy Shield invalidation

  The Berlin Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information therefore calls on all those responsible under its supervision to observe the decision of the ECJ [CJEU]. Those responsible who transfer personal data to the USA - especially when using cloud services - are now required to immediately switch to service providers in the European Union or in a country with an adequate level of data protection.

  As the ruling is effective immediately, there’s a pressing need for websites using Google Analytics to act, or face getting fined.

  What does this mean for you ?

  If you’re using Google Analytics the safest bet is to stop using it immediately. 

  "Neither Google Analytics nor Facebook Connect are necessary for the operation of these websites and could therefore have been replaced or at least deactivated in the meantime."

  If you still need to use it, then you’ll need to inform your visitors via a clear consent screen. This banner needs to make clear their personal data will be sent to the US, and to educate them about any potential risk related to this. They will then need to explicitly agree to this. 

  Another downside of cookie consent screens is that you may also suffer a damaging loss of visitors. After implementing cookie consent best practices, the UK’s data regulator the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) found a 90% drop in traffic, “implying a ninety percent drop in opt-in rates.”

  With an acceptance rate for such consent screens being lower than 10% your analytics becomes guesswork rather than science. 

  Looking for a privacy-respecting alternative to Google Analytics ?

  Privacy compliant Matomo Analytics is one of the best Google Analytics alternatives availalble. 

  With Matomo you’re able to continue using analytics without facing the wrath of both the GDPR and the CJEU. Matomo On-Premise lets you choose where your data is stored, so you can ensure no data is processed in the US. 

  Matomo is privacy-friendly and can be tweaked to comply with all privacy laws. Including the GDPR, HIPAA, CCPA and PECR. The benefits of this include : not needing to use tracking or cookie consent screens (like with GA) ; and avoiding fines because no personal data is collected. You also get 100% accurate data and the ability to protect your user’s privacy.

  Download Matomo

  

  Is your EU business at risk of being fined for using Google Analytics ?

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