YouTube, in an effort to tame and restrict some of the naughtier bits of content that make it onto the site, announced new community guidelines today. –Sniffle– Our little YouTube is getting all growed up.

Accordng to a YouTube Blog post, the new rules are:

• Tightened standards for what is “sexually suggestive.” Anything deemed as such will be not viewable by those under 18 (good luck with that).
• Sexually suggestive videos and videos that contain swearing will be “algorithmically demoted” on the Most Viewed, Top Favorite and other browse pages.
• Thumbnails will now be selected algorithmically. You can choose from three different options, but the images will not be automatically picked from the quarter-way, halfway, and three-quarter-way points in the video.
• Stricter enforcement of video information. No more gaming views by creating misleading video description, tags or other metadata.

From the copious use of the term “algorithmically,” it looks like YouTube is using its copyright ID system to analyze other forms of content on the site, though it’s not going so far as to remove offending content, just demoting it. Ironically enough, actively monitoring what goes up on the site and removing what’s deemed to be objectionable sounds an awful lot like what YouTube, in its ongoing legal battle with Viacom, is saying it can’t and/or won’t do.

Like the pimply-faced teen wearing his first tux for prom, YouTube is also cleaning up its act to persuade Madison Ave. that the site is advertiser-friendly. After all, the company needs to start monetizing those 344 million global uniques. The vestiges of the Wild, Wild West, video free-for-all that YouTube once was are disappearing, making room for professional content such as that of networks, full-length films, and a even a high-falutin’ classical music contest. Even the YouTube L!ve event a couple weeks back was a slickly produced event that was just as much (if not more) about Katy Perry as it was about Michael Buckley.

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/96515?ns=guardianpageName=Environment%3A+EU+reaches+compromise+deal+on+car+emission+capsch=Environmentc3=guardian.co.ukc4=Travel+and+transport+environmental+impact%2CEnvironment%2CCarbon+emissions+%28Environment%29%2CClimate+change+%28Environment%29%2CFossil+fuels+%28Environment%29%2CBusiness%2CAutomotive+industry+%28Business%29%2CEurope+%28Business%29%2CWorld+newsc5=Motoring%2CNot+commercially+useful%2CBusiness+Markets%2CClimate+Change%2CEnergy%2CEthical+Livingc6=Ian+Traynorc7=2008_12_02c8=1127544c9=articlec10=GUc11=Environmentc12=Travel+and+transportc13=c14=h2=GU%2FEnvironment%2FTravel+and+transport" width="1" height="1" //divpEuropean leaders have agreed a deal relaxing new rules to cut car pollution and reduce the penalties for the automotive industry if their vehicles continue to spew out high levels of carbon dioxide, while setting a more ambitious longer-term target for slashing emissions from new cars./ppUnder the deal reached by French officials and members of the European parliament late on Monday, the big European car companies will be given a longer leeway to reduce CO2 emissions from new cars while fines levied on those breaking the new law have been dramatically cut./ppGreen pressure groups denounced the deal as capitulation to the powerful car lobby led by Germany. But EU officials, MEPs and European governments hailed the agreement as a breakthrough in a crucial part of the EU's ambitious climate change package./pp"This is one of the most important results the EU is bringing to the [UN climate change] conference in Poznan," said Guido Sacconi, an Italian socialist MEP who led the negotiations with the French government that currently holds the EU presidency./ppMonday night's agreement comes the week before a major EU summit which is supposed to approve the European climate change package aimed at cutting greenhouse gases by 20% by 2020. The complex negotiations surrounding four pieces of legislation which are to make the targets binding for 27 countries and European industries have hit several hurdles./ppFrantic mediation is going on in Brussels, with the French haggling with the parliament and with the 27 governments over renewable energy commitments, the EU's emissions trading scheme, the auctioning of permits for the scheme, whether or not they should be free or which industries should be exempted. Another thorny issue is over how to finance around a dozen pilot carbon capture and storage schemes, which would bury the emissions from coal-fired power stations./ppPoland and eight other central European countries are in an insurrectionary mood, complaining that wealthy western Europe should bear the brunt of the package, that their electricity bills will rocket if they sign up for the scheme and that Poland in particular is being unfairly penalised because 94% of its electricity is coal-based./ppItaly is also threatening to block agreement on the grounds that the package will prove too expensive at a time of economic recession. Germany is also driving a hard bargain./pp"This will go down to the wire at the summit," said an EU diplomat./ppPresident Nicolas Sarkozy of France is to go to Gdansk on the Baltic coast at the weekend to try to finesse a compromise with the nine central European countries in what a senior Polish official described as "the moment of truth"./ppDespite the air of tension and nervousness in Brussels, the agreement on car pollution suggests that Sarkozy will cobble together an overall package that preserves the key targets ndash; a 20% reduction in greenhouse gases with 20% of Europe's energy mix also coming from renewable sources by 2020./ppThe conflicts are not over the targets, but over how to achieve them and how to divide the costs and burdens. /ppIn the case of the rules for car emissions, the initial proposals from the European commission last year called for all new cars were to emit 130g/km of carbon dioxide by 2012, as an average across a manufacturer's fleet. That compares to current levels of almost 160g. Cars are responsible for around 10% of Europe's CO2 emissions./ppUnder the compromise now reached, the targets are being staggered over three years ndash; two=thirds of cars are to reach that target by 2012, three-quarters by 2013, 80% by 2014 and all by 2015./ppFines on companies exceeding the target were to have kicked in at €20 per excess gram on a rising scale, but are now to start off at €5./ppYesterday's deal also set a new and lower target of 95g/km for emissions by 2020 - that had not been stipulated in the draft legislation./ppSmaller or niche car manufacturers that produce only high emission vehicles, such as the UK's Jaguar and Landrover, will be able to ask for special "derogations" exceeding the mandatory targets as long as they reduce emissions by 25%./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/travelandtransport"Travel and transport/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/carbonemissions"Carbon emissions/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/climatechange"Climate change/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/fossilfuels"Fossil fuels/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/automotive"Automotive industry/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/europe"Europe/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/lIGFWeN9AqllYauFKdzssuK_hSA/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/lIGFWeN9AqllYauFKdzssuK_hSA/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

Usually when we recap events we start them off with, “as expected” but no such comment will be made this time as Nokia announced the N97 at their Nokia World event in Barcelona, Spain today. The phone will be $550 Euros before carrier subsidization and its being described as the Noka 5800 on Steroids.

But what we’re most interested in here are some jabs that Anssi Vanjaki, Executive Vice President (Markets) for Nokia, took directly at Google. Three quarters of the way into his monologue which he delivered in dramatic fashion, he made some direct barbs at Google which I have tried to republish word for word but for which I can only be credited as paraphrasing:“There is a company that wants to index the world. We are going to go deeper and coordinate the world. Not just standard like a standard GOOOOGLE Map. A map that is dynamic with vector graphics…. etc…”
Notice all the O’s in Google? Yeah… he said it like that and with a spooky, ominous tone that came off as a “yucky” kind of “nanny-nanny-boo-boo”. First of all perhaps Mr. Vanjaki should be a bit more familiar with Google’s goals. Here is Google’s actual mission statement:Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.
I think “indexing the world” and “organizing the world’s information to make it universaly accessible and useful” are quite different. I think Nokia is perhaps just a little ticked off that a little website that just conducted internet searches at a weird sounding URL is now threatening their market share.
Taking Google head-on by name was an interesting approach but not one that I think serves Nokia best. When you go out of your way to insult another company at your own companies self-proclaimed revolutionary announcement, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out why. Nokia is obviously nervous that Google’s Android seems poised to take off while the Symbian Foundation still has a lot of groundwork to lay. Those words made Nokia seem vulnerable and threatened.
I don’t want to take TOO much away from Nokia. To their credit the device looks pretty darn sweet, its packed with multimedia capabilities and seems quite functiona although you need to really play with one for awhile to determine that. But I felt that this whole Nokia-Google comment needed to be addressed because it stuck out like a sore thumb in the presentation… or am I the only one who was slightly shocked by the comparison?


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HEAVEN AND HELL — the band featuring BLACK SABBATH members Ronnie James Dio (vocals), Tony Iommi (guitar), Geezer Butler (bass) and Vinny Appice (drums) — has entered Rockfield studios in Wales, England to begin recording its new album, the group's first since SABBATH's Dehumanizer (which was also recorded at Rockfield) in 1992.