See original here:
Google Goggles Can Now Read Print Ads. Oh, And Play Freaking Sudoku!

Read the original post: 
Prezi Launches A Precious Presentation App For The iPad

Google’s YouTube video site is negotiating with Hollywood’s top movie studios to launch a pay-per-view movie service by the end of this year, according to the Financial Times.

YouTube is the dominant online destination for user-generated content. But the Google division wants to turn it into an international on-demand movie service in an effort to head off Apple in the digital distribution of film and TV shows.

Google has been emphasizing its advantage of having the world’s most popular search engine and YouTube, the FT said, citing unnamed sources.

“Google and YouTube are a global phenomenon with a hell of a lot of eyeballs – more than any cable or satellite service,” one executive with knowledge of the plans told the FT. “They’ve talked about how many people they could steer to this … it’s a huge number.”

Negotiations have been taking place for a few months, but they have taken on more urgency because Apple could be launching its own counter-move this week. Rumors suggest that Apple will upgrade its ailing Apple TV service this week at a press conference in San Francisco on Sept. 1. Google will likely have to compete with Netflix and Hulu as well.

The Hollywood studios, meanwhile, want to launch new movie services to make up for the decline of DVD movie sales and rentals. The FT said viewers of the Google movie service would stream rather than download movies at a rate of $5 for new films. YouTube has been beta-testing a film rental service since January.

Source: MediaBeat

YouTube's new 'end of video' screen

Youtube is today rolling out a new-look screen which displays at the end of every video, showing related videos and further interactions including the ability to “like” and “share” the just-watched clip.

Capping off one of the biggest re-design periods in YouTube’s history, the YouTube team have reportedly begun the roll-out of a refreshed splash screen — which has remained largely unchanged for some time — that features the ability to interact further with the video, bringing it up to scratch with the rest of the new-look site.

The previous iteration of the screen showed less information and didn’t allow users to “like” videos, although the ability to comment and share the video (e.g. embed codes) were shown.

While it’s not showing on all videos just yet, and an official announcement is still pending, select videos across YouTube when visited are now displaying the new screen (there’s a screenshot of the screen below).

The past three months have been extremely hectic for the YouTube team. They’ve rolled out a new mobile site, launched the beta of YouTube Leanback, made the video pages cleaner and simpler, launched a new “Playlist  Bar”, support for local music listings, upgraded support for annotations, a new video manager and promotional badges, new embed codes, and support for Google Buzz.

Source: neowin

Judging by this screenshot taken by an IE6 user who was watching some videos on YouTube, it appears the Google company will be phasing out support for the browser shortly. I don’t have Internet Explorer 6 installed on my computer, so I can’t verify this first hand, but illogical it seems not and a simple Twitter search shows multiple people confirming the news. Heck, some are even downright ecstatic over the news.

The online video behemoth is pointing to ‘modern’ browsers like Google Chrome (twice on the same page even, unsurprisingly), Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox 3.5 as alternatives.

With the impending move, YouTube follows in the footsteps of that other Web 2.0 poster child, Digg, which recently hinted at wanting to cut support for the browser too. Digg’s User Experience Architect Mark Trammell at the time wrote that the site is strongly considering removing essential features like digging and commenting for IE6 users. He explained that while IE6 users make up around 5% of site traffic, it only accounts for 1% of diggs, buries, and comments.

YouTube so far hasn’t officially communicated about the desire to drop support for IE6, but it’s conceivable that like Digg it would rather have its developers spend time optimizing the service for newer, better browsers than wasting man hours on the oft-despised Microsoft browser. We recently reported that Internet Explorer is losing market share to Firefox and Safari at a rapid pace.

Source: TechCrunch

Continuing its quest to bridge the world’s of broadcast television and the Web, Syndicaster is adding several online distribution options for local TV stations, including the ability to publish video clips to YouTube, AOL (via Brightcove), Yahoo and other sites. Syndicaster is an online editing and video-clip management service that allows TV stations to any broadcast news clip and repurpose it for the Web by publishing it to their own Websites or through its sister service ClipSyndicate (both Syndicaster and ClipSyndicate are divisions of Critical Media).

Now Syndicaster is adding one-click distribution options to the major video sites so that local TV affiliates or station groups can post their videos to AOL Money & Finance or their YouTube channel, and manage it all from one place. One feature that TV customers will appreciate is the ability to set embargo windows for each service, allowing a TV station to publish hot news immediately to its own site, then 24 or 36 hours later to video partner sites where it makes the most money, and then maybe finally to YouTube.

Syndicaster has also recently added an on-location feature which allows TV reporters and crews to upload clips directly from wherever they are capturing the footage, and making that footage available as Web video clips even if it never gets airtime. Affiliated stations can also go to Syndicaster to find footage and use it either on the Web or on-air, depending on their arrangements with each other. When that airplane crashed in Buffalo, NY recently, a local station put all of its footage on Syndicaster, and other affiliated stations around the country used it to grab video footage for their own on-air reports.

Syndicaster charges a flat subscription fee of about $850 a month per TV station or news organization. With 60 paying customers, that comes to about $50,000 a month a few months after launch, with a lot of runway for growth. Syndicaster is exploring ways to bring its online editing and video distribution platform to consumers, but so far it is stumped in that area. CEO Sean Morgan admits:

Look, I don’t know how to make money on the consumer. I’d like to make money on this. We are getting great traction from broadcasters. Bringing it to newspapers is obviously the next path forward.

In May, the company plans to expand its reach to newspaper sites with Syndicaster for Newspapers. As news organizations of all stripes make video a bigger component of their online offerings, Syndicaster is hoping to become the industry standard for ingesting, editing, and distributing these videos. Maybe the A.P. should look into it.

Source: TechCrunch – by Erick Schonfeld

Disney has agreed to post short-form video content on YouTube, a deal that might come as a bit of a disappointment to those who had hoped to watch full-length ESPN sporting events or episodes of ABC’s “Gray’s Anatomy” on YouTube.

But those people shouldn’t lose heart. This could be the start of something bigger.

Disney announced on Monday that it would launch “multiple ad-supported channels featuring short-form content from ESPN and the Disney/ABC Television Group.” Under the terms of the deal, Disney can sell its own ads that run with its content if the company chooses. Disney’s material will begin showing up at YouTube sometime in April.

PaidContent broke the news. The news blog’s Staci Kramer wrote that YouTube and Disney are discussing long-form content but that a deal is not yet done. Hulu, the video portal owned by NBC Universal and News Corp., is trying to secure Disney material.

What’s interesting is that it appears YouTube’s long-form deal would eliminate Hulu’s chances of landing full-length Disney shows, according to PaidContent.

CNET reported late last year that YouTube had shed its image in Hollywood as an enemy to copyright content and was in a position to obtain long-form content. MGM has already begun posting a few feature films on YouTube.

As for the short-form deal with Disney, I’m not sure having ESPN and ABC channels advances the ball much. Many of Disney’s competitors already operate YouTube channels. The move appears to be more of a test. YouTube’s hopes of becoming more Hulu-esque and becoming a platform for full-length features and TV shows could be threatened if the big film studios and TV networks retreat from the Web. Much has been written lately about whether the major entertainment conglomerates are being pressured by cable companies to cut back the amount of ad-supported content they post online.

The cable companies say this is contributing to the decline of cable subscribers.

Another concern of network and studio suits is whether it’s possible to generate a reasonable return from Web ads while managing to avoid overloading viewers with commercials.

Some studios are also concerned about YouTube’s ability to protect full-length features from piracy. An entertainment industry source said some studio heads worry that YouTube lacks any copy protections on its video streams. The source said once the DRM issues are solved, YouTube could be “a real competitor for the likes of Hulu.”

verybody’s doing it. Even YouTube has succumbed to Twitter mania. Below every video if you click on the “Share” link you will find three options: MySpace, Facebook, and now Twitter. You can expand the box for even ore sharing options, but those are the main three and Twitter was just recently added.

Clicking on the Twitter button opens a pop-up window that takes you to your Twitter account and fills in a Tweet telling your followers to “check out this video,” along with the title and URL. The URL is not shortened, but YouTube is working on that. (Youtube URLs are short anyway, so it is not a huge issue). Adding Twitter as one of the key sharing options is a no-brainer. Now, if they could actually embed the videos in the Twitter stream like you can on Facebook and MySpace, that would be something.

YouTube announced some other tweaks today as well. The upload status bar is now fully rolled out. You can watch lectures and educational videos on YYouTube EDU, and it updated its mobile landing page and simplified the process of uploading a video from your phone to YouTube.

As of Monday, YouTube is unavailable in China, an unexplained move apparently made in response to the existence of a video of Chinese soldiers beating Tibetan monks, says the BBC.

Leslie Harris, president of the Center for Democracy and Technology, responded that:

China’s actions fail to live up to international norms. China’s apparent blocking of YouTube is at odds with the rule of law and the right to freedom of expression. Anytime a country limits or takes down content online , it must be forthright and specific about its actions and do so only in narrowly defined circumstances consistent with international human rights and the rule of law.

Google declined to criticize China, saying only: “We don’t know the reason for the block and are working to restore access to users in China as quickly as possible,” in the words of spokesperson Scott Rubin.

The Committee to Protect Journalists criticized the move, calling on China to explain itself and remove the block immediately.

We are deeply concerned that millions of Chinese Internet users have been deprived of an important information resource without being told why,” CPJ Deputy Director Robert Mahoney said. “The blocking of YouTube is a sign of escalating restrictions on media freedom that we have witnessed this month in China. Authorities must explain why YouTube is inaccessible.”

And the Global Network Initiative made a similar statement:

Freedom of opinion and expression is a human right and guarantor of human dignity. The right to freedom of opinion and expression includes the freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Broad public access to information and the freedom to create and communicate ideas online are critical to the advancement of knowledge, economic opportunity, and human potential.

The video of the attacks on the monks was graphic and brutal, according to the BBC’s report.

The graphic video was released by Tibetan exiles and showed hundreds of uniformed Chinese troops swarming through a Tibetan monastery. It included footage of a group of troops beating a man with batons.

In another scene a group of men, including a monk, were beaten, kicked and choked, while they lay on the ground. Some had their hands tied and appeared to be unconscious.

The date and locations of the film have not been confirmed.

Without acknowledging any action, China said it was acting legally.

We encourage the active use of the internet but also manage the internet according to law.

Source: ZDNet

Gmail has four new items in its labs section, all of which enhance the links people have included in their messages. You’re now able to flip on support for Yelp, Flickr, Picasa Web albums, and YouTube. Doing so will turn a link from one of those sites into a full-quality preview of the content you’d find on that site.

For instance, if someone has included a YouTube link, it simply shows up at the bottom of a message, just as if they had included it as an attachment. (You are less likely to get Rickrolled, that way.) The same goes for Yelp reviews, and individual photos and albums from Picasa and Flickr.

Gmail had previously done this for information embedded within messages, including package-tracking numbers, dates, and addresses, all of which led to a related Google service. However with the addition of Yelp and Flickr, Google is opening this up to third parties.

In fact, the official Gmail blog is encouraging interested parties to submit their own site to be added as a preview, which could lead to a whole new subcategory within Gmail labs.

With this addition, it also brings the tally of Gmail labs add-ons past 40. It may be time for a better way to sift through all that information, especially if the company intends to add more of these site preview options. In a meeting I had with Google back in December, Gmail product manager Todd Jackson had said this was something that was being considered.