Hasta La Gadget!

Sometimes, I feel a little weird reviewing crowdfunded items that have yet to go into production. On one hand, it’s good exposure for the projects, but on the other, the products are usually prototypes and not ready for prime time.

One such device is the Freecast – a system designed to let photographers livestream video from their cameras. The Freecast’s promise is that it will let you live broadcast high quality video from any device that has an HDMI output. The Freecast will come in three flavors, two GoPro specific models, and a Universal model that works with any camera so long as it can be monitored via its HDMI output. Suffice it to say, pro photogs with DSLRs and mirrorless cameras were pretty excited when the project turned up on Kickstarter.

In my case, I tested the prototype of the universal version, so I was able to check it out with both my GoPro Hero 4 Black, and my Sony a6300. This kit comes with two portable devices which can be carried on your belt or in a pocket. One is a transmitter, and the other is a receiver. They’re just a little bigger than a pack of cigarettes, and the hardware already seems very polished.

Out of the box, they’re already set to communicate with each other, so all you need to do to get data flowing from the transmitter to receiver is plug in your camera’s micro HDMI output to the mini HDMI input of the transmitter, then turn both devices on. In this state, you can use the setup to send live content to an HDMI monitor, thanks to the receiver’s mini HDMI output. Both a micro HDMI to mini HDMI cable and a mini HDMI to HDMI cable are included in the box. The transmitter also has a 3.5mm audio input you can use for an external audio device.

This is where signal quality is the best, since it’s not being rebroadcast over the internet. I found that when I fed in a 1080p HD signal, the image quality dropped to something along the lines of a 480p image – maintaining a good frame rate, and with minimal lag, but with a decent amount of pixelation. It’s fine for a live production monitor, but not exactly broadcast quality. Freecast claims their device offers a transmission range in optimal conditions is up to 300-500 meters, though I didn’t get to test from more than about 100 feet away from the receiver.

Now this is where the big “remember, this is a prototype” caveat comes in. The only way to get that video stream to the Internet at this point is using a beta version of the Freecast software. This iOS app is definitely rough around the edges at this point. It works by pairing your mobile device with the receiver over Wi-Fi, which means that you can’t broadcast over Wi-Fi at the same time. Instead, you’re relegated to whatever data service your phone provider can muster. In my case, that’s mostly 4G LTE, with occasional drops to 3G.

The app currently offers rudimentary support for streaming to Facebook, YouTube, as well Yi Live and Mudu, which I assume are popular elsewhere in the world. For my testing, I only attempted to use Facebook Live, since that’s the one I’m most familiar with. For now, the app requires that you go get a Facebook streaming video URL, which you can grab in the desktop video console for Facebook pages, but promises that this will be automated in a later release of the app. For testing purposes, it worked fine for me just cutting and pasting the URL and sending it to my smartphone. The app itself did struggle at times to display the proper resolution for the attached video device as well, and required frequent reconfiguration.

Once connected, video quality was a pretty big letdown on Facebook Live. Now I know Facebook is notorious for dropping some quality to save on bandwidth, but the stream quality I got was sketchy even for Facebook, exhibiting lots of pixelation and stutter. I was quickly reminded of the early days of web video.

I also struggled to get it to save my setting to grab audio via HDMI, no matter how many times I tried. That’s why you hear my dogs barking their heads off in this video clip, since the app insisted on using the audio from my phone which was still sitting inside the house, rather than what I was speaking into my camera’s microphone. The video also cut off when my phone went to sleep, hence the abrupt ending. I had actually attempted a test broadcast from my car earlier in the day, but it also cut off about 10 seconds into my 20 minute video, so nobody got to see it.

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Normally, I can stream a decent 720p video via Facebook Live using my iPhone 7 Plus and LTE connectivity, and it’s totally passable. If I’m fortunate enough to be on Wi-Fi, it’s even better. Now what I don’t know is how much of the Freecast’s quality shortcomings are due to the app, how much is due to my data provider’s signal quality, and how much is due to signal loss going from the receiver to the iPhone over Wi-Fi. I’m hopeful it’s mostly an issue with the app, given the usable quality of the HDMI video output on the receiver. That said, if you expect to use Freecast for live streaming, it is a risk you take should you choose to pre-order one. You might want to hold off until they’re actually in production to see if the live streaming quality has improved. On the other hand, if you just need a wireless HDMI setup for a live production monitor, the Freecast is good to go as is.

Freecast is raising funds for production over on Kickstarter through May 5, 2017, with prices for the entry-level GoPro model starting at $299, and the universal model tested here starting at $499.

Ivanka Trump spent time in Berlin Tuesday talking publicly about the need to support families and the role of female entrepreneurs. The same day, a new report revealed employees of a Chinese factory contracted by G-III Apparel Group, the company that exclusively licenses Trump’s branded clothing line, were working extra-long hours for little pay.

The Washington Post first reported that employees at a G-III-contracted factory in China worked nearly 60 hours per week to make little more than $62 per week, according to an October audit by the watchdog group Fair Labor Association. The FLA cited the factory for two dozen violations of international labor standards after inspecting its operations. 

It’s not known if employees at the Chinese factory were manufacturing Ivanka Trump products specifically during the audit, and the Ivanka Trump company declined to comment on the report. Though G-III also uses factories in other nations, the majority of Trump’s product line is made in China. Over 53 metric tons of Ivanka Trump merchandise was sailing to the U.S. from China during Donald Trump’s “hire American, buy American” inaugural address alone, according to documents obtained by Agence France-Presse. 

Harsh working conditions and low pay at factories abroad is a widespread problem that’s not unique to G-III’s business partners, but it is notable the report about the factory’s violations comes as Trump tries to position herself as a champion of working women and workplace empowerment. As the Post reports:

Though Chinese law sets the limit for overtime at 36 hours per month, workers in all of the factory’s departments exceeded that limit, working up to 82 hours of overtime a month between September 2015 and August 2016.

…Fewer than a third of the factory’s workers were offered legally mandated coverage under China’s “social insurance” benefits, including a pension and medical, maternity, unemployment and work-related injury insurance, inspectors found. The factory also did not contribute, as legally required, to a fund designed to help workers afford housing, inspectors said.

Workers earned five days of leave a year, though a small fraction of experienced employees were eligible for more. 

Management at the unnamed factory told the FLA it would implement steps to legally adhere to overtime laws and provide required insurance, according to the agency’s report. 

Trump, meanwhile, continues to make millions as the sole beneficiary of her personal brand, taking only superficial steps to distance herself from the business over conflict of interest concerns. An annual report from G-III shows net sales of Ivanka Trump-licensed merchandise increased by more than $17 million in 2016. 

G-III has not responded to an inquiry from HuffPost. Read the entire FLA report above. 

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Evin Cosby has written a strong defense of her father, Bill, ahead of his June 5 trial. 

In a piece for Black Press USA, Cosby wrote about the toll that the accusations against her father have taken on her family, and denied that her father has ever been sexually violent with women. More than 50 women have accused Bill Cosby of sexual abuse or rape, and in an upcoming trial, he’s facing charges for drugging and molesting former Temple University women’s basketball coach Andrea Constand in Pennsylvania in 2004.

She placed much blame on “the cruelty of the media” for targeting her father.

“The public persecution of my dad, my kids’ grandfather, and the cruelty of the media and those who speak out branding my father a ‘rapist’ without ever knowing the truth and who shame our family and our friends for defending my dad, makes all of this so much worse for my family and my children,” she wrote. Cosby also said that the media was “only interested in the stories of women.”

She wrote nostalgically about her childhood with her famous father, and credited her parents for keeping her and her siblings down to earth in the midst of their father’s success.

“I felt loved and remembered loving the moments that my parents shared with us by exposing us to all types of people from all walks of life,” she wrote. “We grew up appreciating my father’s success because we knew the prejudice and racism he endured getting to where he got and how hard he worked for our family.”

Cosby also paints a very, very different picture of her father than the one that has been painted by the many women who spoke up about his alleged abuse. She writes: 

My dad broke barriers and raised the conscious of America on important topics, especially for the advancement of women. On “The Cosby Show” he only depicted women as smart and accomplished. On “The Cosby Show” and on “A Different World,” he took on then taboo subjects like menstrual cycles and rape, and even did a show on AIDS before anyone else would bring it up. I am his fourth daughter. He raised me to go to college, start my own business, and be my own woman. He is helping me raise my children and teach them family values. I know that my father loves me, loves my sisters and my mother. He loves and respects women. He is not abusive, violent or a rapist. 

Billy Cosby will go to trial on June 5 to defend himself over Constand’s accusations. Of his 50+ accusations, this is the only one for which he is being criminally charged. 

Read the rest of Cosby’s letter over at Black Press USA.

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H/T Jezebel 

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NEW YORK CITY ― As the Trump administration continues its attempts to clamp down on reproductive rights, women across the U.S. are taking matters of reproductive justice into their own hands.

They are running for office, crowding local town hall meetings, and protesting all over the country. But one group of women is taking a different approach altogether: bowling. 

Sponsored by the National Network of Abortion Funds, the National Abortion Access Bowl-a-Thon is a month-long fundraising initiative that encourages women and men to raise money for their local abortion funds. The bowl-a-thon has, at the time of publication, raised $1.4 million ― an amount way higher than their goal of $1 million.

After the election, thousands of dollars poured into Planned Parenthood ― much of which was donated in honor of Vice President Mike Pence. Many also donated to independent abortion providers that function outside of Planned Parenthood.

Many of these donations go to legislative or organizational support ― for exmaple, donations to Planned Parenthood Action Fund exist to “ensure that elected officials support policies and programs that help women and their families make responsible choices about family planning and reproductive health.” But what’s so special about NNAF’s model is that funds go directly to abortion clinics so that they can subsidize the cost of abortion procedures for women who can’t afford them, thus directly helping low-income women. 

And as legislators attempt to make access to abortion more and more difficult, fundraising goals went up. 

New York Abortion Access Fund (NYAAF) board member Brittany Caballero explained to HuffPost that “the goal is larger this year than before because the stakes are higher.” 

And Caballero said that people across the country are galvanizing in ways she hasn’t seen before. She told HuffPost that, last year, NYAAF’s bowl-a-thon raised less than $200,000. This year, they’ve raised well over $240,000.

Abortion funds all over the country from the Bay Area to New Orleans to Buffalo are fundraising with bowl-a-thon events, and on April 23 in New York City, over beers and wings and black-light bowling, many were anxious to share why they were supporting their local funds and NNAF overall. 

One family, pictured below, wanted to support the cause because women’s bodily autonomy is “just common sense.”

Josh and Julia, and their daughter Lucy, were part of the team “Sextina Awkwafina Goes to Planned Parenthood,” a playful take on the abortion-themed episode of Netflix’s “Bojack Horseman.” By the time the bowl-a-thon happened last Sunday, they’d raised close to $3000 for NYAAF.

They told HuffPost that, after Donald Trump won the presidential election, they felt “an urge to become more involved.” They credited the Affordable Care Act for allowing them to plan for their 6-month-old baby daughter, Lucy, and want all women to have access to family planning like Julia did.

Other teams, with names like “The Notorious RBGers” and “Women to the Front” also raised around $3000 for the cause, and did so in support of women being in control of their own futures and health. 

Barbara Kass, part of team “Knock Down the Pinheads” and highest ranked on the bowl-a-thon roster for fundraising, told NNAF that,” [t]his year I felt a bit daunted because of the enormity of the fight ahead of us but I’ve been motivated to aggressively raise money for NYAAF because without access, abortion rights are not a reality for large numbers of people.”

Her team has raised over $13,000, but she raised $11,000 on her own. 

And while the New York-based fund is skyrocketing past its fundraising goals, Caballero told HuffPost that part of what’s so wonderful about NNAF’s model is that it allows for donations to go to the neediest funds. NYAAF has thus far raised over $240,000, but NNAF may disburse much of those funds to others in less abortion-friendly cities and states. That way, the women with the most need will be given the most support.  

“People working in abortion funds are on the front lines of [reproductive justice],” executive director of the New Orleans Abortion Fund Amy Irvin said. “We are talking to those most impacted, and living in the communities hurt most by unfair and unjust health care policy.”

And there’s no question about it: women need support now, more than ever, as legislators continue to push “unfair and unjust” policy. 

As one bowler, from the team “D&C You Next Tuesday,” plainly put it: “We need a team because the world is ending.” 

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Police in Michigan will no longer be allowed to have sexual relations with sex workers during prostitution investigations, if a new bill is signed into law.

The bill — SB 275 — passed unanimously in the Michigan State Senate on Wednesday. It takes away immunity that previously made it legal for cops to have sex with sex workers if it happened during an investigation, MLive reports.

Michigan is the last state to allow a free pass to undercover officers under these circumstances. The exemption was intended to protect officers working on sting investigations of prostitution rings, according to the Detroit Free Press.

However, officer immunity can have disastrous consequences, according to Mary Katherine Burke, an international human rights lawyer and advocate for victims of human trafficking.

Burke told the Independent that law enforcement officers have been known to abuse their power to coerce victims into sex acts.

“I’ve heard of stories of adult sex workers being detained by law enforcement and having them offer to release the sex worker without arresting or charging if the sex worker performs some sort of act… and then arresting the sex worker on prostitution charges anyway,” she said.

Bill sponsor State Senator Judy Emmons doesn’t think Michigan police officers are taking advantage of the immunity, but said it’s better not to take any chances.

“I don’t think it’s probably a problem,” she told the Free Press. “From what law enforcement tells me, nobody is trained in this, but it’s still on your books and it looks bad. And there could be a rogue [cop] who might take advantage of it, so let’s just get rid of it.”

Michigan is the last state of the union to allow this exemption after Hawaii passed a similar ban in 2014. At the time, Honolulu police claimed they needed the legal protection because otherwise prostitutes would insist on sex to identify undercover officers. Law enforcement experts disagreed, saying the agreement to exchange money for sex is sufficient evidence of a crime.

Although the bill passed unanimously in the Michigan Senate, it will need to pass the House of Representatives and be signed by Gov. Rick Snyder to become law.

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