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StreamTransport Grabs Hulu Videos for Offline
Viewing (Windows) It may not stick around that long once the powers that be find out, so if downloading and
watching Hulu videos offline could help you out, grab StreamTransport. The tricky little app
provides full-quality captures of streaming shows and movies.
ExtensionFM Is a Very Cool Browser-Based Music
Library, and We've Got Invites (Chrome) Chrome extension ExtensionFM automatically collects MP3s from sites you visit and adds them
to a browser-based library within the extension, allowing you to find all sorts of cool, new
music without cluttering up your local library until you buy them.
NetBalancer Prioritizes Network Traffic by
Application (Windows) Ever wish you could guarantee your BitTorrent download didn't choke your streaming YouTube
video-or vice versa-but don't feel like setting up Quality of Service rules on your
super-router ? NetBalancer shapes bandwidth allocations for different apps on your PC.
Gnome Gmail Tightly Integrates Gmail into Linux
Desktops (GNOME-based Linux) There are work-arounds to set Gmail as a default mail app in Linux, but they don't cover
right-click file sending and complex mail links. Gnome Gmail does a much better job of
integrating Gmail.
MusicBee is a Powerful, Easy-to-Use Music Manager
(Windows) Despite the many great media players out there, MusicBee earns itself a spot high on the
list with super tagging, managing, browsing, ripping, syncing, and converting powers, all on
top of an intuitive interface familiar to any iTunes user.
WeatherBar Integrates Weather Forecasts with the
Windows 7 Superbar (Windows 7) Like to keep the eye on the weather but never been too keen on sidebar gadgets or system
tray apps? WeatherBar is a simple app that puts the weather in your Windows 7 taskbar, offering
quick access to the forecast.
TestDrive Virtualizes Brand-New Ubuntu Builds for Easy
Testing (Ubuntu) Want to try out the latest build of the next Ubuntu release with almost no hassle at all?
TestDrive is a one-shot tool that downloads, virtualizes, and keeps daily Ubuntu builds up to
date.
Etacts Adds Contact Info, Social Networking, and Handy
Statistics to Your Gmail Sidebar (Chrome/Firefox) If you ever thought previously mentioned Xobni looked cool, but you prefer Gmail to
Outlook, free Gmail plug-in Etacts adds many of the same features. You get social information,
conversation history, and advanced sending preferences right in your Gmail sidebars.
LastHistory Graphically Visualizes your Last.fm
History Through Time (Mac) Just when you thought you couldn't possibly need more statistics on your music listening
habits, free Mac app LastHistory comes along and graphically analyzes your Last.fm logs, over
time, while also integrating with other Mac apps like iPhoto and iCal.
StreamTransport Grabs Hulu Videos for Offline
Viewing (Windows) It may not stick around that long once the powers that be find out, so if downloading and
watching Hulu videos offline could help you out, grab StreamTransport. The tricky little app
provides full-quality captures of streaming shows and movies.
ExtensionFM Is a Very Cool Browser-Based Music
Library, and We've Got Invites (Chrome) Chrome extension ExtensionFM automatically collects MP3s from sites you visit and adds them
to a browser-based library within the extension, allowing you to find all sorts of cool, new
music without cluttering up your local library until you buy them.
NetBalancer Prioritizes Network Traffic by
Application (Windows) Ever wish you could guarantee your BitTorrent download didn't choke your streaming YouTube
video-or vice versa-but don't feel like setting up Quality of Service rules on your
super-router ? NetBalancer shapes bandwidth allocations for different apps on your PC.
Gnome Gmail Tightly Integrates Gmail into Linux
Desktops (GNOME-based Linux) There are work-arounds to set Gmail as a default mail app in Linux, but they don't cover
right-click file sending and complex mail links. Gnome Gmail does a much better job of
integrating Gmail.
MusicBee is a Powerful, Easy-to-Use Music Manager
(Windows) Despite the many great media players out there, MusicBee earns itself a spot high on the
list with super tagging, managing, browsing, ripping, syncing, and converting powers, all on
top of an intuitive interface familiar to any iTunes user.
WeatherBar Integrates Weather Forecasts with the
Windows 7 Superbar (Windows 7) Like to keep the eye on the weather but never been too keen on sidebar gadgets or system
tray apps? WeatherBar is a simple app that puts the weather in your Windows 7 taskbar, offering
quick access to the forecast.
TestDrive Virtualizes Brand-New Ubuntu Builds for Easy
Testing (Ubuntu) Want to try out the latest build of the next Ubuntu release with almost no hassle at all?
TestDrive is a one-shot tool that downloads, virtualizes, and keeps daily Ubuntu builds up to
date.
Etacts Adds Contact Info, Social Networking, and Handy
Statistics to Your Gmail Sidebar (Chrome/Firefox) If you ever thought previously mentioned Xobni looked cool, but you prefer Gmail to
Outlook, free Gmail plug-in Etacts adds many of the same features. You get social information,
conversation history, and advanced sending preferences right in your Gmail sidebars.
LastHistory Graphically Visualizes your Last.fm
History Through Time (Mac) Just when you thought you couldn't possibly need more statistics on your music listening
habits, free Mac app LastHistory comes along and graphically analyzes your Last.fm logs, over
time, while also integrating with other Mac apps like iPhoto and iCal.
Charles Arthur investigates how the ways in which we watch sport, read magazines and do business
with each other could change for ever
Don't act too surprised if, some time in the next year, you meet someone who explains that their
business card isn't just a card; it's an augmented reality business card. You can see a collection
and, at visualcard.me, you can even design your
own, by adding a special marker to your card, which, once put in front of a webcam linked to the
internet, will show not only your contact details but also a video or sound clip. Or pretty much
anything you want.
It's not just business cards. London Fashion Week has tried them out too: little symbols that
look like barcodes printed onto shirts, which, when viewed through a webcam, come to life.
Benetton is using augmented reality for a campaign that kicked off last month, in which it is trying to find models from among the
general population.
Augmented reality – AR, as it has quickly become known –
has only recently become a phrase that trips easily off technologists' lips; yet we've been
seeing versions of it for quite some time. The idea is straightforward enough: take a real-life
scene, or (better) a video of a scene, and add some sort of explanatory data to it so that you
can better understand what's going on, or who the people in the scene are, or how to get to where
you want to go.
Sports coverage on TV has been doing it for years: slow-motion could be described as a form of
augmented reality, since it gives you the chance to examine what happened in a situation more
carefully. More recently cricket, tennis, rugby, football and golf have all started to overlay
analytic information on top of standard-speed replays – would that ball have
hit the stumps, the progress of a rally, the movement of the backs or wingers, the relative
flights of shots – to tell you more about what's going on. Probably the most
common use is in American football where the "first down" line – the distance
the team has to cover to continue its offence – is superimposed on the picture
for viewers.
But those required huge systems. AR took its first lumbering steps into the public arena eight
years ago: all that you needed to do was strap on 10kg of computing power –
laptop, camera, vision processor – and you could get an idea of what was
feasible. The American Popular Science magazine wrote about the idea in 2002 – but the idea of being permanently
connected to the internet hadn't quite jelled at that point.
"AR has been around for ages," says Andy Cameron, executive director of Fabrica, an interactive
design studio which works with Benetton, "maybe going back as far as the 1970s and art
installations that overlaid real spaces with something virtual." He mentions in particular the
work of pioneering computer artist Myron Krueger.
What's changed in the past year is that AR has come within reach of all sorts of developers
– and the technology powerful enough to make use of it is owned by millions of
people, often in the palms of their hands.
The arrival of powerful smartphones and computers with built-in video capabilities means that you
don't have to wait for the AR effects as you do with TV. They can simply be overlaid onto real
life. Step forward Apple's iPhone, and phones using Google's Android operating system, both of
which are capable of overlaying information on top of a picture or video.
Within the small world of AR, one of the best-known apps is that built by Layar, which – given a location, and
using the iPhone 3GS's inbuilt compass to work out the direction you're pointing the phone
– can give you a "radar map" of details such as Wikipedia information, Flickr
photos, Google searches and YouTube videos superimposed onto a picture you've taken of the scene.
For Americans, it will also pull in details from the government's economic Recovery Act
– so that if you're on Wall Street and want to see how many billions went into
which building, it will show you.
Or, more usefully, Yelp offers an augmented reality
application that will show you ratings and reviews for a restaurant before you walk in
– the sort of thing that could make restaurants quiver with delight, or
shudder in horror.
Or maybe it wouldn't need to know where it is; only who it's looking at. A prototype application
demonstrated at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February took things a little further
again. Point the phone at a person and if it can find their details, it will pull them off the
web and attach details – their Twitter username, Facebook page and other facts
– and stick them, rather weirdly, into the air around their head (viewed
through your phone, of course). "It's taking social networking to the next level," says Dan
Gärdenfors, head of user experience research at The Astonishing Tribe, a Swedish mobile software company.
And there are fabulously useful applications: at Columbia University, computer science professor
Steve Feiner and PhD candidate Steve Henderson have created their Augmented Reality for
Maintenance and Repair (Armar) project. It combines sensors, head-up displays, and
instructions to tackle the military's maintenance needs: start working on a piece of kit, and the
details about it pop up in front of
you. Imagine if you could put on a pair of special goggles when you needed to investigate
your car's engine, or a computer's innards, and the detail would pop up. That's the sort of idea
that Armar is trying to implement, though for the military at first..
Yet it's fashion which seems to have leapt quickest into this technology. The T-shirt with AR in
London Fashion Week was developed by Cassette Playa, a label that has been worn by Lily Allen,
Rihanna and Kanye West. Carri Munden, who designed it with the Fashion Digital Studio at the
London College of Fashion, described it as "mixing reality and fantasy". Adidas, too, has
launched trainers with AR symbols in the tongues: hold them to a webcam and you are taken to
interactive games on the Adidas site.
The process by which the strange symbols get translated into images is simple enough: the website
takes the feed from your webcam (you have to explicitly allow it to do so, so there are no
security worries) and analyses it for the particular set of symbols that the program is looking
for. (Some easy calculations mean the symbols can be detected whichever way up you hold the
item.) Videos and pictures are then sent back to you.
Andy Cameron says that the arrival of an open-source, hence free, AR tool kit has let companies
build their own AR applications, using Flash – the pervasive animation and
video technology used for many online ads and YouTube's videos – "which
immediately meant you had huge penetration, because Flash is everywhere". (Something like 98% of
all computers are reckoned to have Adobe's Flash Player installed.)
"If you build your AR application with Flash, then you can get it out to everybody in the world
with a computer with a webcam," says Cameron.
Benetton is using AR in its latest campaign, called "It's My Time" which aims to get members of the public to put themselves forward as
potential models, and uses AR to show more details about existing models. But its first most
visible use of AR was last year in issue 76 of Benetton's Colors magazine, a quarterly
fashion product. Dozens of pages have AR symbols: hold the page up to a webcam, and you see film
and more photos of the person on the page. "The Colors editor and the creative director
of Fabrica got very excited about it," says Cameron.
Cameron can see huge potential which could even revive the fortunes of print advertising. "Think
of a commercial page, an advert, in a fashion magazine. It's pretty expensive. With this
– and this is the way that the more hard-nosed people in Benetton saw the
advantage – it means that you can get more products on the page." Print an AR
code, get people to come to the site, and you can show them so much more, while measuring the
return from your effort.
The technical cost is a tiny part of the overall effort. "The printing and photography cost [of
the advert] is the same. And the development cost is pretty small."
And of course where advertisers go, the publications that house them are sure to go as well.
Esquire magazine in the US and Wallpaper* in Europe have done "augmented
reality" editions, with Robert Downey Jr coming to life on the cover of the former, and AR text
providing videos and animation in the latter. But there are more possibilities for journalism
using AR: for example if you "geotag" newspaper articles (so that you say that an item relates to
a particular place) then someone visiting a site could learn about events relevant to the area
via their smartphone.
Book publishers too are leaping in: Carlton Publishing will release an AR book in May, featuring
dinosaurs that pop out of the pages when viewed, yes, through a webcam. Future releases include
war, sport and arts titles which will also have extra AR elements.
Yet in media it's the advertisers who are most excited. The possibilities of geotagged, targeted
adverts – which in effect hang in the air until someone comes along to find
them with a smartphone – or of AR adverts which open up a whole new world of
opportunities (and perhaps discounts or loyalty bonuses) when you follow them through
– are yet another glimpse of the holy grail ofads that know exactly who and
where you are.
Is there a risk that we'll all become AR'd out – that it will become boring as
advert after advert invites us to hold it up to a webcam? "What's hot today is ancient history
tomorrow," says Cameron. "There have been a lot of bad uses of this technology with a rush to use
it. We have had the chance to reflect on what it means and how to use it. The key is that it
should be an enhancement of the stuff on the printed page."
Even so we're still in the early stages, he argues. "It's very primitive –
having to use a webcam, holding a magazine up to it. Obviously we're really interested in the
opportunities with handheld devices. It's very frustrating that the iPhone doesn't allow access
to the live video stream." (Nor does it run Flash, another problem for would-be AR designers.)
"People in design are very annoyed with Steve Jobs," he observes. "We don't really understand why
Apple won't allow that."
Given that access, he says, "you could hold your iPhone up to a billboard and get something
amazing right there". What about the alternative, such as Google's Android-based Nexus phone? "It
looks like you could do it on that," he says. But of course the iPhone is a target market. "Maybe
Apple wants to keep that for itself," Cameron says. "Maybe they're lodging patents. Or maybe the
processor on the iPhone isn't fast enough."
Yet there are some who think that AR has already had its brief time in the sun. At the Like Minds
conference in Exeter at the beginning of March, Joanne Jacobs, a social media consultant,
described an AR application that demanded you buy a T-shirt and then go and sit in front of your
webcam – so you could play Rock, Paper, Scissors. By yourself.
"It's hopeless," Jacobs said.
Cameron admits to some uncertainty about AR's measurable impact. "I don't know if it sells more
things, but it seems clearly a good thing if we can get people who may be customers to
participate in the adverts." But, he adds: "If people start to play with the adverts in a way
that exposes them to more products, that's got to help bring a commercial return."
Attention baseball fans, the date that is no doubt etched
in your brain — the start of the 2010 Major League Baseball Season — is fast
approaching. To get you ready for April 4 (when the Boston Red Sox will take on the reigning
World Series champion New York Yankees at Fenway Park) we’re pitching you five handpicked
iPhone apps that will hit a home run with baseball fans.
If you are partial to America’s national sport — and let’s face it, it’s
almost unpatriotic not to be — then these apps are an absolute must for your iPhone or iPod
touch. However, in case we’ve struck out and missed any of your faves, then do let us know
in the comments below.
Although criticized for its $15 price tag, MLB’s official iPhone app is a great all-rounder
for fans, and an even better option for fans that have a paid-up for MLB.TV because, with
portable access to your MLB.TV account, you can watch live streaming games on the go. As with
last season’s offering, anyone can use the app to listen live to games, as well as get a
virtual idea of what’s happening at the park with MLB’s blow-by-blow Gameday updates.
The app also offers scores and stats, as well as some in-game highlights and a video library
that’s searchable by both player and team. If you really can’t stretch to that $15,
then a free “lite” version (MLB.com At Bat Lite) offers real-time MLB scores,
schedules, news and standings — but no audio or video — that will keep you informed
through to the end of 2010 World Series.
If you’re the type of fan that can rattle off ground ball to fly ball ratios and stolen
base percentages like Rain Man reciting phone numbers, then quite simply you will love this app.
Claiming to offer the most detailed player statistics available on an iPhone app, FanGraphs will
let you look back and analyze every major player in baseball history, as well as look forward
with live win probability graphs based on game data for the 2010 season.
Favorite players can be tracked with full, live box scores that link through to past stats, every
play can be analyzed to see how it impacts the game, and there’s even up-to-date advanced
fielding metrics via FanGraph’s “Ultimate Zone Ratings.”
It could be argued that the stadium is as much a character in baseball as the opposing teams or
the crowd. A celebration of the nation’s ballparks is offered in one neat little app
— Ballpark Envi — spanning baseball’s geography as well as its history from
Shibe Park to the new Yankee Stadium. Browsable by team, or by American and National League,
every current Major League baseball stadium is detailed with stadium pics and slide shows,
seating charts (super useful for booking tickets) as well as the ability to see the park’s
location on a map.
Whether you want to glimpse Dodger Stadium’s wavy roofs on the outfield pavilions or the
orange foul poles of the Mets’ new Citi Field this app will give you an insider glimpse of
America’s amazing ballparks with all their quirks and characteristics.
If you consider a baseball scorebook will set you back $5 at the absolute minimum (and more if
you buy it at the park) then the $10 price tag for this app does not seem quite so steep. There
are a dearth of 99 cent alternatives available in the App Store, but for looks and an intuitive
interface (the app works on an “interview” premise asking you for all the data it
needs to build a complete picture of the game) the iScore Baseball Scorekeeper is the champ.
As well as appealing to those hardcore fans that like to sit and score every game, this is also a
good option for those new to baseball scorekeeping – you don’t have to learn all the
abbreviations and symbols and iScore offers a full set of tutorial
videos to get you using the app like a pro.
If you want to keep your favorite Major League Baseball team in your pocket then FanMisery.com
offers an Index App for each and every MLB team. Working on the basis that being a fan is in fact
misery (the agony of defeat and all that jazz) the apps make sure you are kept as absolutely
up-to-date as possible with a comprehensive set of stats, opinions and news drawn from national
and local papers, broadcast media and blogs.
One nice touch is that if a blog or news source you follow isn’t currently included in the
indexing, the developer (Discover Motion) will add it in for you on request — just the kind
of helpful option that warms the cockles of an iPhone owner’s heart.
In the
next few weeks, the ReadWriteWeb events guide will take you from New York City, to San Francisco,
to Portland, Oregon. Along the way you'll find a conference on search engine strategies, a
showcase for startups, an in-depth look at the freemium business model, and a day filled with of
social media case studies.
How do you like your events calendar? As a
world map? As an
iCal (and Google Calendar-importable) file? You can also import individual events using the
link beside each entry. Know of something cool taking place that should appear here? Let us know
in the comments below or contact us.
Go beyond search at Search Engine
Strategies New York. Learn the newest trends, strategic action plans, and technology that
industry leaders are employing today. Our experts will trace the natural evolution of search
exploring topics such as: digital asset optimization, mobile application development, transition
from search to discovery and more.Book your pass today. Enter RWW15 to save 15% off the
registration. Sessions include:
After a long winter's hiatus, S.F. Beta is back, for its forth year straight! Join
hundreds of founders, investors, developers, and technologists for a lively evening of demos,
drinks, conversation, and new connections. Early bird
tickets are available, and they're going fast. Register now for discounted admission. As
always, we feature startup demos all night. This time around, the theme is Search &
Discovery. If you're building the next Google (or the next Google acquisition), we want you here!
Email cperry@sfbeta.com for more info.
The first Freemium Summit is a one day
event focused on exploring what it takes to succeed under the freemium business model. Across all
segments of the media landscape, entrepreneurs and executives are pioneering models that combine
a free offering with a premium, paid offering. This hybrid business model is one of the most
exciting areas of business model innovation impacting the world of media and the Freemium Summit
will explore the most important topics on the minds of leading practitioners.
Confirmed Speakers: Toni Schneider, Automattic (WordPress); Matt Brezina, Xobni; Aaron Levie,
Box.net; Phil Libin, Evernote; Tom Conrad, Pandora; Drew Houston, Dropbox; Ranjith Kumaran,
YouSendIt; Ben Chestnut, Mailchimp; Lance Walley, Chargify; Isaac Hall, Recurly; and Lincoln
Murphy, Sixteen Ventures.
The social media conference for marketers, Social Fresh is not about concept, but focused purely on
case studies from the front lines. Learn what social media can really do for business bottom
lines. Over the course of the day, you'll hear from 35 speakers from companies like Intel, Ford,
Comcast, Nike and many more, as well as keynote Peter Shankman. Register now and use coupon code RWW15 for 15% off.
4 April 2010: Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania
TEDx CMU is an independently
organized TEDx event that will be held on April 4th, 2010 at Carnegie Mellon University and will
feature a full day of talks by prominent speakers as well as recorded videos from past TEDTalks.
Confirmed speakers include Jonathan Fields (author, blogger and entrepreneur), Stacey Monk
(founder of Epic Change, a startup nonprofit), Chase Jarvis (photographer, director and social
artist) and Nathan Martin (CEO of Deeplocal, an innovation studio in Pittsburgh).
The theme of the event is "Fearless", and we are inviting speakers from cross-disciplinary
backgrounds to talk about their experiences, and tell us a little about what inspires them to be
fearless in the pursuit of goals. We hope to spark discussions and foster connections between
participants, encouraging aspiring individuals to follow their dreams and make a difference. The
event is free to attend, and the application deadline is March 21, 2010.
For more information about the event, visit tedxcmu.com or email
info@tedxcmu.com. You can also find TEDx CMU on Facebook
or follow us on Twitter.
ConnectNow brings together international
specialists and thought leaders in social media, emerging technologies and their intersection
with business. Learn how the realtime web, location based services, augmented reality, ubiquitous
computing and personalised services are changing marketing and communications. Understand the
importance of trust in relationship marketing and what is "social currency". For more info email
info@connectnow.net.au.
PubCon, the premier search
and social media conference, features the industry's biggest names and key players shaping the
future of the Web. PubCon South will include
cutting-edge panel sessions exploring tracks dedicated to search, social media and affiliate
marketing, an intensive professional search and social media training program, and some of the
world's top keynote speakers. PubCon South at Dallas will also hold a one-day, two-track slate of
intensive educational training programs led by some of the industry's most respected search
professionals. The event takes place at the Richardson Conference and Civic Center. Register
here.
Under the Radar: Cloud is must-attend
event for dealmakers and heads of IT from large enterprises, SMBs, service providers, carriers
and media companies who are responsible for helping their companies leverage new technology and
innovation in the fast-evolving IT ecosystem. Join us for the 15th Under the Radar conference,
featuring a hand-picked selection of the world's most innovative cloud startups among 350 top
tech, media, telcom and finance executives. For ticket and more information, visit http://undertheradarblog.com.
FutureMidwest is the region's largest technology and knowledge
conference. Founded by Adrian Pittman, Jordan Wolfe and Zach Lipson, FutureMidwest is the fusion
of two successful conferences held in Michigan in 2009 - the Module Midwest Digital Conference
and TechNow.
Both conferences highlighted how technology and digital tools have dramatically changed the way
we do business and the effect this transition has had on companies. FutureMidwest kicks things up
a notch with presentations, group breakout sessions, relationship-building opportunities and
influencers who are taking action to redefine business in the digital age. Register here.
The social media conference for marketers, Social Fresh is not about concept, but focused purely on
case studies from the front lines. Learn what social media can really do for business bottom
lines. Over the course of the day you'll hear from 35 speakers from companies like Ford, Best Buy,
Scottrade, Hardees, CMT and many more. Register now
and use coupon code RWW15 for 15% off.
DrupalCon is
the premier conference focused on Drupal, the award-winning open source content management
framework that is galvanizing social publishing and web development today. For a registration fee
of $195, attendees get three full days of sessions led by the best and brightest Drupal
experts.
Drupal has been downloaded over 2 million times since its inception, and project growth has
doubled annually for several years. Drupal is used to deliver a wide variety of application types
including blogs, wikis, community networks, digital media portals, and web content publishing and
management.
The Future of Money & Technology
Summit will bring together the best and brightest thinkers around money, including
visionaries, entrepreneurial business people, developers, press, investors, authors,
solution/service providers, and organizations who work where cash and commerce collide. We meet
to discuss the evolving ecosystem around money in a proactive, conducive to dealmaking
environment. Featured speakers include Jolie O'Dell from ReadWriteWeb, as well as representatives
from Wells Fargo Bank, Kiva, SharesPost, Jambool, Founders Fund, Outright.com, SoftTech VC, and
many more.
Use discount code "rww" to get 10% off registration.
The ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit 2010
will be an exploration of the latest Mobile development trends - both the technology and the
emerging business applications. Get ready to explore, think and create the future of Mobile with
the brightest in the industry, your peers! As in our last Summit, The Real-Time Web, the
ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit is an unconference.
An unconference is a participant driven conference where the agenda is created
on the day, in real-time and discussions are lead by conference participants. Read about the history of unconferences.
We will have two main tracks at this Summit - Development and Business - so the Summit will be of
interest to managers, marketers, developers, innovators, entrepreneurs and thought leaders alike.
Here's a sample of some of the topics we'll explore in both of these tracks.
FinovateSpring 2010 will again showcase the most cutting-edge
financial and banking technology innovations to Silicon Valley and the world. With Finovate's
signature mix of short, fast-paced onstage demos (no slides are allowed) from handpicked
companies and intimate networking time with their executives, this conference packs a ton of
unique value into a single day.
Come see the cutting edge of banking and financial technology and network with hundreds of the
leading financial executives, venture capitalists, press, industry analysts, bloggers and fintech
entrepreneurs. Early bird registration
rates are available.
The SF MusicTech Summit
will bring together 700-plus visionaries in the music/technology space - the best and brightest
entrepreneurs, developers, investors, service providers, journalists, musicians and organizations
who work with them at the convergence of culture and commerce. We meet to discuss the evolving
music, business and technology ecosystem in a proactive, conducive-to-dealmaking environment.
Enter the discount code "rww" to get 10% off.
Glue is the only conference devoted
solely to exploring the problem-sets facing architects, developers and IT professionals in a
"post-cloud" world. Glue focuses on the APIs and protocols (Twitter, Facebook, Websockets,
PubSubHubBub, XMPP), formats and standards (RDF/Linked Data, JSON, Microformats, HTML5),
platforms and providers (Amazon, Rackspace, Google App Engine, Salesforce.com, Eucalyptus),
Identity Protocols (OAuth/WRAP, SAML, OpenID, SPML) emerging NoSQL data models (Cassandra,
CouchDB, MongoDB, Riak, HBase), and other mechanisms that are building the post-cloud world.
ReadWriteCloud will be blogging live from Gluecon and CloudCamp, and ReadWriteWeb's Alex Williams
will be moderating the "Managing Complexity in the Cloud" session. Please join us May 25-27 in
Denver, Colorado. ReadWriteWeb readers can receive 10% off of
registration by using the code "RWW12".
The Corporate Social Media Summit is a
two day conference focused exclusively on how big businesses can take advantage of social media
to enhance their marketing/comms strategy. Featuring:
Practical and relevant insights from peers who have already used social media successfully
20-plus corporate speakers (including
PepsiCo, Whole Foods, Dell, McDonald's, General Motors, Citi, Johnson & Johnson),
Best practice, benchmarks and practical next steps you can use to take advantage of social
media in your business
A tightly-focused agenda with 14 in-depth,
practical workshops giving you knowledge on only the most critical business issues surrounding
corporate use of social media
Save $400 if you quote RWW400 when booking. Book here.
The 2nd annual Cloud Computing World Forum is
the perfect event to learn and discuss the development, integration, adoption and future of cloud
computing and SaaS. Building on the success of the 2009 show, this two day conference and
free-to-attend exhibition will provide a focused platform for the global cloud and SaaS industry.
Show highlights include:
Co-located with CloudCamp London
Co-located with Green IT conference
Free-to-attend exhibition with seminar and scenario theatre
FinovateFall will return to Manhattan on Tuesday, October 5 to
showcase dozens of the biggest and most innovative new ideas in financial and banking technology
from established leaders(...)
We’ve received many tips regarding the OK Go video that features a Rube Goldberg machine.
If you haven’t seen it yet, check out
their video after the break. This is the rare instance when a YouTube video features an audio
track with the full endorsement of the artists that recorded it.
Our first thought when watching this? Who are the lucky dogs who got paid to design and build
that contraption? You don’t have to scratch your head over that one, the Band has posted a
four-part video series talking about the machine and documenting the design meetings and build
process (those videos also after the break). The engineer artists at Syyn Labs were tapped to pull off the meticulous mayhem and we think
they did a stellar job. There’s been a lot of press about the work, but our favorite was over at Wired
because it details the process, not the end product.
We still need to wait for some time before we’ll be able to get Adobe’s Flash 10.1 on
Android 2.x devices, but that doesn’t stop videos of folks who have managed to get
Adobe’s Flash 10.1 running on Google’s Nexus One from surfacing. As can be seen from
the video (after the jump), Flash seems to be running rather comfortably on the Nexus One, and is
almost as good as on the desktop, albeit with a little bit of lag, but that’s probably due
to the 3G connection used to stream the video. Is getting Flash on your mobile device a top
priority for you?
iCalamus 1.20iCalamus is a desktop publishing solution that allows you to create
documents with text, photos and other visual elements. Some demonstration videos are available.
The unregistered version of iCalamus already offers a cool feature: You can create professional
photo books and calendars like in the full version and order high-quality prints at the
Photographerbook company. The Photographerbook document service in iCalamus even supports iPhoto
calendars (and iPhoto books coming soon) which can be printed at Photographerbook at a lower
price.
iCalamus has been developed completely new for Apple's operating system. iCalamus is an excellent
choice for all layout purposes from simple posters and business letters over complex layouted
magazines up to books and scientific works. Complete Unicode support and the smart PDF import
offer easy access to creating and layout work. The reasoned user interface with its low learning
curve guarantees for fast success. iCalamus doesn't limit your layout freedom by offering
prepared layouts. Its practical tools offer all options for your own creative and productive
layout work.
iCalamus is a modular program which will grow in future by external modules, even from
third-party developers. Therefore invers Software will create an Open Development Area (ODA) and
publish the plug-in interface. iCalamus has been developed in Objective C with intensive usage of
Apple's Cocoa library.
You can import all image and text formats which are supported by Mac OS X into iCalamus
documents. Images from digital cameras scanners or iPhoto libraries can be imported as well as
whole web page content and PDF documents. Grab text content from large PDF documents easily for
further text processing. Elaborated masking options and many predefined, partly dynamically
changeable frame shapes offer freedom for creativity. Working in precise measurement units is the
other side of the iCalamus world. Use virtual copies for multiple document elements and change
them afterwards with a few mouse clicks.
Print output uses all printers which are supported by Mac OS X. Optionally output documents in
various PDF formats (e.g. PDF-X, encrypted PDF, PDF Fax).
WHAT'S NEWVersion 1.20:
Operating System Compatibility
New: [650], [651]: Snow Leopard is now supported.
Fix: Many memory leaks fixed.
Photographerbook
New: [655]: iPhoto 09 is now supported.
New: Leather books can be ordered.
New: Books can get book corners and wadded covers.
New: Books pages can get UV lacquer on both front and back sides.
New: Photographerbook's product prices have been lowered up to 40%.
Fix: Document uploads > 2GB are no longer allowed, due to PDF standards which do not allow
larger PDF documents.
Document Views
Fix: [639]: Images without embedded dpi resolution are no longer re-scaled to 72dpi by
default.
Text Style Inspector
New: [644]: Dialog Edit Text Style redesigned and enhanced.
New: [79]: The dialog Edit Text Style shows a font preview now, using all available text
style parameters.
Text Ruler Inspector
New: [640]: New function Create and Apply Text Ruler Styles from Selection in the action
menu.
New: [641]: Dialog Edit Text Ruler redesigned and enhanced.
Text System
Fix: [252], [253], [469], [658]: Text formatting rewritten and enhanced.
Fix: [593]: Text frames with page text field contents can be copied in all available methods
correctly.
Fix: [610]: Text frames with text field contents can be vectorized.
GUI
New: [418]: Three new Toolbar icons are available now: Document Grid, Page Guides, and Frame
Guides. These three icons are equivalents for the relevant View menu items.
New: [609]: Windows menu offers a Zoom entry now.
New: [642]: New View sub menu added to Context menus. It reflects the three View menu items:
Show Document Grid, Show Frame Guides, Show Page Guides.
New: A Swedish version of iCalamus is also available now, localized by Karl-Johan
Norén.
New: [671]: The Preferences window dispenses with the still redundant switch Show All.
Fix: [643]: Number of pages in dialogs New Document and Default Document can no longer be
< 1 and > 9999.
Ten years ago this week, online music pioneer Justin Frankel released a little application dubbed
Gnutella that enabled file sharing through a distributed P2P network. Frankel, whose previous claim
to fame was programming the then hugely-popular Winamp MP3 player software, supposedly named the
client after his favorite hazelnut cream spread, and the first version published online was really
more of a proof of concept than anything else.
Still, Gnutella hit a nerve. Napster had been sued three months before, and many file sharers were
rightfully fearing that the music industry would eventually prevail in court and force Napster to
switch off its servers. With Gnutella, no such switch existed, as the client was allowing direct
P2P connections without the help of any centralized server. Add to it the fact that Gnutella,
unlike Napster, allowed users to swap videos and software as well as MP3s, and you begin to see why
many immediately viewed Gnutella as the next step in P2P file sharing. Continue
reading on Newteevee.com.
Tags: gnutella,, justinfrankel,, newteevee,, limewire
Ten years ago this week, online music pioneer Justin Frankel released a little application dubbed
Gnutella that enabled file sharing through a distributed P2P network. Frankel, whose previous
claim to fame was programming the then hugely-popular Winamp MP3 player software, supposedly named the client after his favorite hazelnut
cream spread, and the first version published online was really more of a proof of concept than
anything else.
Still, Gnutella hit a nerve. Napster had been sued three months before, and many file sharers were rightfully
fearing that the music industry would eventually prevail in court and force Napster to switch off
its servers. With Gnutella, no such switch existed, as the client was allowing direct P2P
connections without the help of any centralized server. Add to it the fact that Gnutella, unlike
Napster, allowed users to swap videos and software as well as MP3s, and you begin to see why many
immediately viewed Gnutella as the next step in P2P file sharing.
A step, one should add, that made Frankel’s employer AOL more than a little nervous. It
only took the Internet giant a day to force Frankel and his colleagues to take down
Gnutella – but even that was too long, as countless sites quickly started to first
mirror, then build upon Frankel’s official Gnutella client. There’s always been a
little bit of mystery surrounding the exact happenings of those days, but some people have been
musing that a person with a surprising amount of insider knowledge showed up in one of the first
IRC chat rooms dedicated to Gnutella soon after AOL pulled the plug, only to provide some very
detailed information about the inner workings of the client’s P2P protocol.
Speaking of IRC: Early versions of the software didn’t really have any way for users to
connect, save for entering another user’s IP address, which is why IRC quickly became an
integral part of the early days of Gnutella. It was also in those IRC chat rooms that the myth of
Gnutella as a seemingly invincible P2P protocol was born, and the fact that AOL tried but
couldn’t contain the software seemed to fit right into that picture. Gnutella was one of
the very first P2P apps I ever wrote about, so I lurked in those chat rooms as well, where people
were cheering the fact that someone finally found a file sharing solution that couldn’t be
shut down. I still remember one IRC user saying: “We’ve started a damn cult
again!”
Only Gnutella wasn’t really ready to be a cult. The network routed search requests from
peer to peer, leading to an exponential growth of traffic as its network became bigger. Napster
programmer Jordan Ritter described the problem early on in a paper titled “Why Gnutella Can’t
Scale. No, Really,” and Frankel himself, who has hardly ever gone on the record about
Gnutella, once stated that he was
fully aware of “how poorly it would scale” when he released the client.
Still, Gnutella captured the imagination of many, one of them being Mark Gorton, founder of the
New York-based Lime Group. Gorton was at
the time pursuing a vision of automating businesses through structured data, and Gnutella, as
something that could, for example, distribute real estate listings wrapped in XML, seemed to fit
that image quite nicely. Early versions of the Gnutella client of Gorton’s LimeWire venture were still written with this
vision in mind, hoping to build a P2P network that could eventually be used to do all kinds of
things with which we’re now familiar on the web, thanks to web services.
LimeWire’s engineers joined a growing group of developers loosely connected through web
sites like the long-defunct Gnutella.wego.com (whose admin Gene Kan tragically committed
suicide in 2002) and mailing lists like the one for the Gnutella Developer Forum, and one of
the first issues to be tackled was scalability. The introduction of a two-tiered system of
ordinary clients and so-called Ultrapeers helped grow both the network as a whole and each
user’s search horizon. The idea was also later adopted by the developers of KaZaA, whose
own take on this two-tiered approach still lives on in Skype’s P2P network.
Technical improvements like these helped Gnutella to grow, but the competition was quick to catch
up. Bram Cohen unveiled a first version of
BitTorrent only two years after Frankel had published Gnutella, and BitTorrent quickly became the
file sharing client of choice for sharing videos online. Part of BitTorrent’s quick rise to
fame was its modular simplicity: Cohen had outsourced much of the search and indexing of files to
torrent web sites, only handling the actual distribution of data within the client. Gnutella on
the other hand was meant to work without any web server. That made it much more invincible, but
also much less accessible to users who migrated from apps and clients to a world of web services.
Another issue that has plagued Gnutella from the beginning is not technical, but legal. The
protocol was supposed to outsmart trigger-happy lawyers, but the mere fact that there
wasn’t a central switch to turn off the Gnutella network didn’t stop rights holders
from going after people and companies associated with it. Lawsuits and legal threats forced Morpheus, Xolox, Bearshare and
a number of other companies and developers to throw the towel.
LimeWire got sued by the music industry as well in 2006, but that hasn’t
stopped the company from continuing with the development and monetization of its client.
LimeWire’s client also utilizes BitTorrent these days, but LimeWire’s VP of Product
Management Jason Herskowitz told me during a phone conversation that Gnutella has “worked
really well” for the company, and that its engineers are looking into ways to make Gnutella
once again more attractive to developers by exposing some of its functionality through web
services. “There is still a long future ahead for Gnutella,” he predicted.
Not everyone agrees with that outlook. Adam Fisk, who was hired by LimeWire as one of its first developers in the summer of
2000, but left the company in 2004 to eventually start his own P2P venture dubbed Littleshot, believes that some core assumptions
of the Gnutella protocol are outdated. “I don’t think that distributed P2P search
makes any sense,” he told me, explaining that the very server-less search functionality
that made Gnutella superior to Napster also ended up being its biggest burden, and that it would
be much easier to have servers handle search and just use P2P to deliver data – a recipe
that has already helped BitTorrent succeed.
Sure, LimeWire and some other Gnutella clients could still stick around for a long time, Fisk
admitted, but he was skeptical that we would ever see any significant new project based on
Gnutella. “That would be shocking,” he said.
This article has been published at RLSLOG.net - visit our
site for full content.
Here is a new version of well known and award winning sonne DVD Burner, so if you
need high quality and reliable cd/dvd burning tool this is a good choice for you, beside that you
can in sonne video converter create your own dvd menu’s an other cool stuff..
Description: Sonne DVD Burner is an almighty DVD burner designed to meet all
your needs in burning video, ISO Image file and VIDEOTS to DVD disc and burning all files to data
disc creating DVD from other video files. For the more, it can capture videos to burn or create
to DVD. It’s necessary to add an intact capture function to meet users need. Users can
easily capture video or image from other devices, DV and TV Tuner. Auto shot, overlay, audio
settings volume and balance can be adjusted by easy-to-use buttons…
Features:
Create a DVD disc with DVD menu.
Capture video or image from other devices like USB webcams, TV tuner and DV in real time.
Snapshot pictures with hotkeys.
Set properties for each capture device.
Burn data to disc.
Burn DVD (VIDEO_TS) folders to DVD disc.
Burn video files to DVD disc without menu.
Show information about recorder.
Release name: Sonne.DVD.Burner.v4.3.0.2010.WinAll-LAXiTY Size: 52.38 MB Links:Homepage,
NFO Download:Hotfile, NT
I’ve put together a few links to find even more of the horniest amateurs around. You will
either find videos and pictures of real women and/or couples doing what they love best for the
whole world to see, or you will easily be able to find the highest quality sites for homemade and
amateur content. Best of all, these sites listed below are all totally
FREE! Enjoy!
JVC of Japan is back with a spanking new Everio camera which will go one up on all of its other
rivals – why do we say so? Well, it comes with integrated Bluetooth wireless technology
that allows it to “talk” to other similarly equipped wireless devices. Of course, let
us not get sidetracked by this and focus on what the Everio GZ-HM550 can do as a camcorder first
before moving on to see the capabilities of Bluetooth connectivity. The Everio GZ-HM550 will
sport a 10.6 megapixel CMOS sensor for recording high quality Full HD video and nine megapixel
digital stills, and 32GB of internal flash memory which can be further expanded thanks to an
SD/SDHC memory card slot.
Right, on to the Bluetooth now – it basically allows you to control the camera using
nothing else but a smartphone, while you can also geo-tag your recorded videos as well as snapped
photos through a compatible Bluetooth headset. Needless to say, you will still need to install
the application which it ships with before it is able to pair up with a compatible
Bluetooth-equipped smartphone. Using this software, one can control the camera remotely, letting
you record, zoom and play operations. With a GPS device in tow, it is a snap to record location
data of where movie and still files were recorded. All relevant data stored will be synchronized
with Google Earth when viewing the file on a PC, and you can also take advantage of a
Bluetooth-equipped headset to monitor the recorded sound or for voice recording. Hmmm, sounds
fine and dandy for the rest, but don’t you think a regular remote control would work just
fine for this camcorder if you want to operate it from afar? Guess having the Bluetooth option
allows you to lose the remote without feeling a tinge of regret or panic.
Other hardware specifications include a 10.62 megapixel Back-illuminated CMOS sensor, 1920 x 1080
Full HD video shooting, real nine megapixel digital stills, a KONICA MINOLTA HD LENS with 16x
dynamic zoom without suffering from any degradation of picture quality, an LED light and a flash
for shooting in dark situation, Advanced Image Stabilization and advanced shooting functions. All
that shooting could prove to be painful on your arms, which is why the Everio GZ-HM550 comes with
a redesigned grip belt that works in two ways, as that of a conventional handle-style grip when
both ends are snapped in place, or as a strap when one end of the belt is released. Expect to
pick up the JVC GZ-HM550 Bluetooth-enabled camera for $799.95.
Viacom’s $1 billion lawsuit against Google over
copyright infringement on YouTube is coming to a head, with a court battle likely to ensue
sometime this year. For now, the accusations made by both sides have been released. And they pull
no punches whatsoever.
A Brief History Lesson
Viacom Vs Google can be traced right back to May 2005 before YouTube was under the protective wing
of Google. A clip from
Paramount Pictures’ Twin Towers was uploaded to the site, and Viacom demanded to
know who the uploader was.
In October 2006 YouTube made a deal with Viacom to syndicate content. Then Google bought YouTube
for
$1.65 billion. February 2007 saw Viacom retract the previous deal and pull everything off the
site.
March 2007 saw Viacom sue Google for 63,000 counts of copyright infringement, for which it was
seeking $1 billion in damages. Google argues that YouTube is protected under the Safe Harbor provision of the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act.
BetaNews
has the full timeline with many more twists and turns. But it all builds to this point when
Google and Viacom’s documents pertaining to the court case have been released. And they
make for interesting reading, to say the least.
Google’s Claims
Google claims that
Viacom wanted it both ways, continuously uploading its content to YouTube while publicly
rallying against it. Google claims Viacom uploaded roughed up versions of videos so they looked
stolen, hiring marketing agencies to do the dirty work.
Google claims that Viacom even uploaded many of the clips which it is now suing over. And
maintains that it is protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act as it removes videos
suspected of infringing copyrights.
Google also makes the claim
that Viacom was interested in acquiring YouTube at one point.
Viacom’s Claims
Viacom dismisses the DMCA defense as it insists YouTube is more than just a passive content host
and is therefore responsible for what videos were being uploaded to the site.
What’s more, Viacom also accuses YouTube’s founders of at the very least turning a
blind eye to copyright infringing clips, suggesting that traffic was sought by any means
necessary in order to ensure a quick sale. Viacom also claims Jawed Karim (YouTube co-founder)
himself uploaded infringing videos, using email correspondence between the founders as evidence.
In essence, Viacom argues that YouTube was “intentionally built
on infringement,” and deserves no leniency in court despite the measures put in place to
clean up the site since the lawsuit was issued.
Conclusions
The documents feel very much like each side is attempting to score points from the other. And
it’s almost inevitable that the case will now end up in court.
The sides have until April 30 to file opposing arguments to each other’s motions, with a
trial then set to take place later this year. And it’ll be a trial whose verdict could set
a landmark in terms of copyright owners vs. online video sites.
Click above to view the video
after the jump
The 57th running of the 12 Hours of Sebring is set to begin tomorrow at 10:30 AM, and with Audi out and Peugeot already dominating the LMP class in the
qualifying sessions, the attention turns to the ALMS GT cars - specially the Porsche and Corvette teams.
After the jump you'll find a video documenting the Lizard's practice session yesterday,
including Hans Herrman - the winner of the 1960 race - taking a lap around Sebring in a immaculate
Porsche RS 60 Spyder. If you're planning to tune in tomorrow, you can download Andy Blackmore's stellar spotter's guide in all its
high-res glory here and read our breakdown of this
year's season here.
Lamborghini
Gallardo LP550-2 Valentino Balboni on mountain roads - Click above to watch the video
after the jump
Talk about a perfect way to spend an afternoon. The boys over at Motor Trend got their
hands on Lamborghini's hottest
two-wheel-drive creation, the
LP550-2 Valentino Balboni, but instead of taking it to the track or recording performance data,
they decided to show what this car does best - attack winding roads with brute force and staggering
beauty. We'd be lying if we said we weren't just a wee bit jealous.
We highly suggest you take three minutes out of your day to watch this example of Italian supercar
hotness storming through the mountains of California. It's a treat for both the ears and eyes, and
you can experience it for yourself by
clicking through the jump.
I had pointed this out in a comment yesterday, but with
so many press reports suggesting that Viacom's filing found some sort of "smoking gun" in the
YouTube emails concerning founders talking about "stealing" videos, it's worth pointing out that
Viacom appears to have taken these quotes totally out of context. Thankfully, TechCrunch is putting
some of them right back into context and noticing that Viacom is clearly misrepresenting what YouTube's founders were talking about.
The key quote that Viacom (and many in the press) are highlighting is the following: In a July
29,2005 email about competing video websites, YouTube co-founder Steve Chen wrote to YouTube
co-founders Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim, "steal it!", and Chad Hurley responded: "hmm, steal the
movies?" That looks damning, right? Except the context shows that they weren't talking about
copyright infringement of big name Hollywood content at all. They were talking about looking at
other viral video sites that were popular on the fringes at the time -- usually showing
random silly homemade videos that went viral and putting those videos on YouTube.
Furthermore, when you see the full discussion, you can see that in the context, they were
joking about taking that content. Really, they were discussing what kind of site they
wanted YouTube to be: should it be for more serious videos, or should they focus on those kinds of
traffic-getting viral videos. In fact, in the context of the discussion, they play up the fact that
their content is user-generated, rather than pulled from outside sources: SUBJECT:
Re:http://www.filecabi.net/
Jul 29, 2005 1:05 AM, Steve Chen wrote:
steal it!
Jul 29, 2005 1 :25 AM, Chad Hurley wrote:
hmm, steal the movies?
Jul 29, 2005 1 :33 AM, Steve Chen wrote:
haha ya.
or something.
just something to watch out for. check out their alexa ranking.
-s
Jul 29, 2005 7:45 AM, Chad Hurley wrote:
hmm, i know they are getting a lot of traffic... but it’s because they are a
stupidvideos.com-type of site. they might make enough money to pay hosing bills, but sites like
this and big-boys.com will never go public. I would really like to build something more valuable
and more useful. actually build something that people will talk about and changes the way people
use video on the internet.
Jul 29 2005 6:51 AM, Steve Chen wrote:
right, i understand those goals but, at the same time, we have to keep in mind that we need to
attract traffic. how much traffic will we get from the personal videos? remember, the only reason
why our traffic surged was due to a video of this type. i’m not really disagreeing with you
but i also think we shouldn’t be so high & mighty and think we’re better than these
guys. viral videos will tend to be THOSE type of videos.
-s
Jul 29 2005 6:56 AM, Steve Chen Wrote:
another thing. still a fundamental difference between us and most of those other sites. we do have
a community and it’s ALL user generated content.
-s Not quite the discussion that Viacom implies. In fact, the more you look at the full
context of almost every quote that Viacom and the press are playing up, the more and more Viacom's
entire argument crumbles.
If you’re a photographer and use a Mac, chances are you’re using Lightroom or
Aperture. Probably Lightroom, since Aperture is less popular among pros — and the latest
version seems to be an acknowledgment of that. The features added in version 3 are clearly
intended to draw casual shooters using iPhoto to the paid image editing honey pot. Since so many
of these amazing new features are direct side-loads from iPhoto, it smooths the process and makes
the program as a whole more approachable, though whether existing Aperture users will find them
helpful is questionable. Brushes, on the other hand, are a welcome addition to any
photographer’s toolset, and depending on how dedicated you are, may be worth the price of
admission.
Invasion of the iPhoto features
As long as I’ve been using Aperture, I’ve considered it a processing
application. Its photo management was troublesome here and there, and iPhoto had the best ways of
showing off your shots, but I dealt with it since maintaining two separate libraries of the same
photos would be disk space suicide. I’ve only used Lightroom a little bit (and a version or
two back) but all my friends say that it just has a better workflow for serious photo work
— importing a couple hundred shots, scrubbing through them, doing the necessary
adjustments, and outputting to the necessary format. Not that I have trouble doing that in
Aperture, but apparently it’s faster and better in Lightroom.
Confronted with such a fearsome opponent, Apple decided that it would be better to flank than to
risk a frontal assault. Hence the expansion of Aperture’s incorporation of iPhoto features
Faces and Places. I question their relevance in a photo processing application, but given
Apple’s tendency towards coalescing functionality, I’m guessing that iPhoto will
eventually be Aperture: Gimped Edition, and the only real choice for organizing and messing with
large numbers of photos will be Aperture.
There are some kinks to be worked out. Faces plainly doesn’t work. After it spent literally
five hours going through my photos (about 1000 per hour), this is what it has come up with:
No, it didn’t have a lot to go on (I hadn’t “trained” it much yet) but
really now. After giving it a few more pointers on what I looked like, it still mistook
a three-year-old tow-headed girl, my friend Monica (who is Indian, and in a wedding dress), some
E3 booth babes, and Casio president Kazuo Kashio for pale, bearded, Devin Coldewey. The
cork board background is jarring and the interface for going through your shots is terrible. I
realize this is a technology still being perfected, and that is why I am wondering: what is it
doing in my RAW editing program?
Places is useful if you have a geotagging
camera (still rare) or want to spend a few hours dragging and dropping stuff onto the map. It can
be fun, actually, if you take a lot of pictures of your friends, and want to drag and drop this
or that night onto the location you went to; it’s like creating a different kind of album
(“Linda’s Tavern”), and indeed you can make a browsable smart album from
locations. If you’re like me, you won’t feel complete until the photos are more or
less where they were within the city, and not all grouped in a single pin, smack in the middle of
the city. This could have some promise, but with a backlog of several thousand shots, getting a
library up to date in Places is a task I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.
It’s a mistake to judge Faces and Places by simply saying “well we were fine before
them,” because it may just be that we found ways of working in the old system of
organization (Project>Folder>Album) that approximated what these new features do. But I
don’t think it’s wrong to say they just don’t really do much, and feel out of
place to boot. You have to work at them, or shoot for them, in order for them to really be
worthwhile. Still I have to give credit where credit’s due: if you just consider Faces and
Places new columns to organize by (like rating or date) then they’re worth their salt. As
flagship features, though, they’re duds.
Lastly, the slide show thing. It’s like finding a trout in the milk. Not that it
doesn’t work — it works as well as iPhoto’s thing, and I suppose
it’s better to have than not. It’s just a little weird to have a sort of…
aftermarket feature popped in there next to the serious editing tools. Its little presets are,
like in most Apple programs, 25% solid, 75% fluff. Who in the name of all that is holy is going
to pick “Shatter” as their slide show transition? It’s ghastly.
The new features are very well explained in little videos accessible through the
“Welcome” screen, which will be handy for new users — if they can find the
screen after they close it (it’s in Help>Welcome to Aperture).
The good stuff
So if the iPhoto features are icing, the actual cake is the RAW editing, adjustment tools, and
user interface. Let’s start with what I would say is the best new feature: Brushes.
You can see a pretty thorough overview of the feature at Apple’s site, but the gist is that
it allows you to apply certain effects in limited areas using a brush of adjustable size and
intensity. That’s great! I can’t count the number of times I’ve vacillated
between two versions of a photo where an adjustment necessary for one part ended up blowing out
another, or I just wanted to bring out the color in the eyes but not in the background. A lot of
fiddling could usually approximate the effect I wanted, but it would be so much easier to just
use a brush. I’ll be using the hell out of this feature, and it’s perhaps the only
real step Apple took against Adobe in this update.
(combination Brushes and Help Video screenshot)
The brushes are non-destructive, like any of the dials and curves you can play with in the
adjustments panel, so you can feel free to experiment, layer, and try out different effects. One
thing I often have to do when shooting review shots is emphasize the color of LEDs, but if the
subject is well-lit, the LEDs are going to be barely visible. No problem; make a little brush,
add in a little contrast right there, bump the saturation just in the one area, and boom, it
sticks out like a sore thumb. Brushes are useful for lots of little things like that.
The new full-screen browser is handy but not really a revolution. They’ve added the ability
to get around your library a little more, which is nice, but it’s not as streamlined as the
regular browser, which is always accessible by a single keystroke. The fullscreen presentation
has definitely been improved, however, and when showing off photos to friends or clients,
it’s a better option than either the plain editing window or a slide show.
The preset adjustments, I think we can agree, are being blown way out of proportion. These are
the same kind of “professional adjustments” that you have been able to apply on cheap
point-and-shoots since the beginning of time. There are a few quick adjust things like
high-contrast black-and-white or exposure +1 that are nice to have previews for (the live preview
window is handy), but let’s be honest, these are just filters. I’d like to be able to
say that they’re carefully adjusted so you won’t see weird color effects, blackouts,
or blowouts, but the fact is every one I tried looked cheap and overdone. The others, like white
balance and so on, seem pretty redundant considering the actual controls for adjusting those
aspects are mere pixels away in the same window.
Click to see it larger. You can’t really tell here, since this photo isn’t very high
contrast, but in several of the other shots I tried this on, the vintage look was really
purple, cross-processing was really green, and toy camera pushed the contrast
way too far. Subtle adjustments these are not.
The good news is that people new to the program might try a couple, see that they were created by
dragging curves and color bars around, and then make their own. I’ve had my own
“base” adjustment for years now, which was just as easily accessible and just as
customizable. Putting together a “look” for a shoot using this feature might be
easier now than before, but it’s still just a toy at this point.
The ability to have multiple libraries is nice; splitting work and personal stuff would be my
move, so that if a meteor crashed into TC HQ (or, more likely, I’m fired for
insubordination), I could free up a couple gigs in one clean sweep. It’s also convenient
for backing up and sharing; “here’s my whole ‘wedding’ library, feel free
to do what you like with it” rather than “here’s a folder full of RAW
files.”
A quick note
Just a PSA: installation of Aperture 3 took ages. Plan on losing at least a working day to 100%
processor usage as it converts your library, searches for Faces, and reprocesses your RAW files
with the new profile. I’m not holding this against Apple (it’s a LOT of data to sift
through) but it’s just something to be aware of.
Conclusion
Aperture is still a great program, in my opinion, and the budding photographer would be a lot
better off with this than with iPhoto if they’re planning on doing anything more than
collecting snapshots. I’ve gotten used to Aperture’s workflow and they haven’t
changed it much in 3, in fact they’ve provided a couple serious improvements with Brushes
and potentially Places and Faces — you know, if you’re into that kind of
thing.
The trouble I see is that Aperture, once a rather single-minded program, is being diluted with
features that have nothing to do with its core functionality. Why not have a new program, called
“Collection” or something, that hooks into all your libraries, allows for creating
robust slide shows, exporting directly to Facebook, and all that sort of thing? Putting all this
junk into Aperture is doing to it what Apple has done to iTunes: once a sleek and straightforward
program, it has now grown bloated beyond comprehension; it’s a bit like seeing a once-great
fighter gone to seed. I have more of an attachment to Aperture than to iTunes, but if Aperture 4
continues along the vector indicated by Aperture 3, you can consider me a Lightroom conversion.
Let’s say it’s 2005 and online video is in its infancy. If you’re a Chad
Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim, how much would it cost to start up and run a video sharing
site with the hopes of flipping it for more than $1.6 billion? As of this week we know, thanks to
confidential Profit and loss information released as part of
filings that have been made public in the copyright infringement case between Viacom and
YouTube.
Based on those filings, we were able to put together some numbers about how much it cost to run
YouTube leading up to the Google acquisition. During the first 18 months of YouTube’s
operations, from February 2005 when the domain was first purchased through August 2006 when it
was desperately seeking acquirers, the fledgling video company spent more than $11.5 million to
grow its user base big enough to become attractive to Google.
Most of that money — about $8 million or so — went to paying for infrastructure
needed to run the site, with a vast majority of that money going toward the site’s web
hosting costs. In the three months from June 2006 through August 2006, the company was spending
about $1 million each month on hosting costs alone, and that wasn’t even taking into
account data center costs that YouTube was also paying for or ad serving costs as the firm began
selling its own advertising.
In addition to web infrastructure costs, YouTube had other operating expenses and personnel costs
to contend with. In the first 18 months of its existence, YouTube spent about $3.6 million on
employee compensation, travel, facilities, costs and the like. By November 2005, its regular
operating expenses were about even with infrastructure costs — at a little more than
$130,000 per month, but not long after that, the company’s web hosting bills really started
to take off as the video sharing site gained traction.
It wasn’t until December 2005 that YouTube started clocking revenue — a meager
$15,000 during that month — and by that point, the company had spent more than $400,000 on
operating and infrastructure expenses. But costs began to increase rapidly after that, and topped
out at about $2.6 million during August 2006 — just two months before Google’s
purchase of the company was made public.
YouTube was never profitable before the Google acquisition — in fact, it pulled in just $5
million in revenues during its first 18 months — but it came close in August 2006, which
might have been one reason that Google had an interest in the firm. That month, it posted
revenues of $2.5 million. The site did post a gross profit of more than $575,000 during the month
if you don’t take into account its monthly operating expenses. Otherwise, with total opex
of about $2.6 million, the site fell about $100,000 shy of hitting profitability.
The site raised about $11.5 million in two rounds of financing before being bought by Google in a
deal valued in excess of $1.65 billion in October 2006 — which wasn’t a bad return on
investment for YouTube’s investors or founders. Famously, though, YouTube has yet to reach
profitability, in part because Google had remained committed to growing its user base after its
acquisition.
As reported in Viacom’s filings, Google CEO Eric Schmidt mandated for the company to focus
on aggressively growing the site, aiming “to grow playbacks to 1b/day [one billion per
day].” That mandate remained in place until early 2008, when Schmidt decided the site
should shift its focus to monetization of its video assets. Since then, the company has been
increasingly focused on bringing more premium content to the site and increasing
the number of videos it can place ads against. That focus means that the online video site
might finally become
profitable this year, according to some analyst projections.
About a year ago, we covered the Taga Stroller Trike, which is
essentially exactly what it says that it is: a way of putting your little kids on a much easier
method of transport.
As you can see from the video, the Taga can now transform from bike into stroller. This looks
like a new feature, as I did not see that feature when I reported on it the first time. I
remember saying that it folds up, but they said nothing about its transforming feature.
This must be why the company has put out all these videos of the Transforming Taga. Especially
since it can do its shape-changing feat in just 20 seconds. Considering the struggles that I have
had with my strollers, I would say that is pretty good.
As I have said before, my experience with strollers isn’t always pleasant. I found that
strollers didn’t turn when they should, and were horrendous to push uphill, even if there
was only a slight slope. This particular Taga is like one of those awesome ones with three spoked
wheels, easy to move, and get around.
Of course, all of this costs, and costs plenty. Price of the Taga Transformer: $1,495. Dang!
Unless you are those parents from 18 Kids and Counting, I don’t see this as a wise
investment.
Great. We're pretty
certain Square Enix is going to make another one of these
videos now. With sales of "more than one million units in North America over the first five
days," Square Enix has good reason for that smug look on its face. Taking into account European
sales, Final Fantasy XIII has
"recorded the largest first-week sales in franchise history."
A number of factors undoubtedly contributed to the record-breaking success of the latest iteration
of the JRPG series. Not only is it the first numbered Final Fantasy game on a current
generation system, but it's also the first game in the franchise to appear on two platforms -- and
two continents -- simultaneously. Finally, it's been nearly four years since the release of
Final Fantasy XII on PS2. Fans were clearly hungry for a real Final Fantasy
fix.
Luckily for Square Enix, there's much, much more Final Fantasy in the works: Final Fantasy XIV is due this year and
Final Fantasy Versus
XIII should be ready by the time Square Enix is done counting all this money.
Great. We're pretty
certain Square Enix is going to make another one of these
videos now. With sales of "more than one million units in North America over the first five
days," Square Enix has good reason for that smug look on its face. Taking into account European
sales, Final Fantasy XIII has
"recorded the largest first-week sales in franchise history."
A number of factors undoubtedly contributed to the record-breaking success of the latest iteration
of the JRPG series. Not only is it the first numbered Final Fantasy game on a current
generation system, but it's also the first game in the franchise to appear on two platforms -- and
two continents -- simultaneously. Finally, it's been nearly four years since the release of
Final Fantasy XII on PS2. Fans were clearly hungry for a real Final Fantasy
fix.
Luckily for Square Enix, there's much, much more Final Fantasy in the works: Final Fantasy XIV is due this year and
Final Fantasy Versus
XIII should be ready by the time Square Enix is done counting all this money.
The key issue at the heart of Viacom's case against Google and YouTube, filed in March 2007,
concerns whether an Internet service that probably knows that files are traded or shown
illicitly or without license there, deserves the "safe harbor" provisions of the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act that protect ISPs from liability for their customers' actions. In a
summary judgment motion filed yesterday with US District Court in New York and unsealed this
morning, Viacom is bidding to have the judge wrap up the case -- an obvious signal that it
believes its case is already strong enough.
As US law stands now, a service such as Grokster or the original Napster (not the Best Buy
division that today uses that name) is liable when it intentionally establishes its service for
the express purpose of trading in illicit files. It's especially liable when it finds some way to
advertise itself for that purpose. An Internet Service Provider such as Comcast or Cox is not
liable when its service is used for accessing one of these sites, when it doesn't advertise or
offer these services explicitly, and when a customer can access them without direct intervention
from the ISP. And a video site such as Veoh
is not liable when any measure it might take to stop customers from sharing illicit files may
also conceivably infringe upon the free speech rights of other customers who may not be trading
such files.
Google, the current owner of YouTube, has been arguing the Veoh case in its own defense. But
Viacom's argument -- which courts have been wrestling with for over two-and-a-half years and
which we now know today -- is that YouTube is a different, special case. It's more like Grokster,
it argues, in that it was founded on the principle of gathering an audience around illicit files.
"Defendants are liable under Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. v. Grokster Ltd., because
they operated YouTube with the unlawful objective of profiting from (to use their phrase)
'truckloads' of infringing videos that flooded the site," reads the opening passage of YouTube's
founders single-mindedly focused on geometrically increasing the number of YouTube users to
maximize its commercial value. They recognized they could achieve that goal only if they cast a
blind eye to and did not block the huge number of unauthorized copyrighted works posted on the
site. The founders' deliberate decision to build a business based on piracy enabled them to sell
their start-up business to Google after 16 months for $1.8 billion. The Supreme Court in Grokster
found no legal or societal justification for such intentional copyright infringement."
In a talking points document released today (PDF available
here), Viacom cites various e-mails from various YouTube and Google executives, including
YouTube founders Chad Hurley (CEO) and Steve Chen (CTO). Assuming these excerpts were not taken
out of context, which is possible, they indicate that YouTube's founders were clearly building up
a high-audience business with illicit files at their core, with the intention of selling out to
somebody as soon as possible.
One excerpt has Chen suggesting that YouTube, apparently during its startup phase,
"...concentrate all our efforts in building up our numbers as aggressively as we can through
whatever tactics, however evil." Another suggestion, by an unnamed YouTube exec in response to an
non-excerpted suggestion -- apparently asking, where should be get all this content -- reads,
"Steal it! . . . We have to keep in mind that we need to attract traffic. How much traffic will
we get from personal videos?"
And one excerpt attributed to Chen suggests that the whole legal process of handling DMCA
takedown notices is so long and dragged on, that by the time YouTube should ever comply with one,
it would be too late anyway: "But we should just keep that stuff on the site. I really don't see
what will happen. What? Someone from CNN sees it? He happens to be someone with power? He happens
to want to take it down right away. He get in touch with cnn legal. 2 weeks later, we get a cease
& desist letter. We take the video down."
Viacom's argument that Google knows what kind of trafficking goes on via YouTube is substantiated
by evidence in the form of e-mails, evidently sent prior to its acquisition of YouTube, from
executives objecting to elements of what they perceived to be its business model. One message
from Google's then-VP of Content Partnerships David Eun (now with AOL) to CEO Eric Schmidt
cautioned, "I think we should beat YouTube . . . but not at all costs. [They are] a video
Grokster." And in another excerpt, an unnamed Google executive asks, "Is changing policy [to]
profit from illegal downloads how we want to conduct business? Is this Googley?"
Evidence cited in Viacom's motion for summary judgment tells the story of how Google Video failed
to be competitive against YouTube, even though its engineers persisted with efforts to filter out
illicit content. One memo cited says Google Video may have been throwing out 90% of its uploads,
for containing suspected copyrighted material or for being generally indecent.
"But Google's good intentions and compliance with the law were not paying off," Viacom argues.
"YouTube was way ahead of Google Video in the race to build up a user base. Google executives
understood that YouTube's success was largely due to what they euphemistically labeled its
'liberal copyright policy' of freely allowing infringing material. Losing the user race to
YouTube because of the latter's copyright infringement, Google Video executives engaged in a
'heated debate' in 2006 'about whether we should relax enforcement of our copyright policies in
an effort to stimulate traffic growth.' A top senior executive, Peter Chane, Google Video's
Business Product Manager, argued point blank that Google Video should 'beat YouTube' by 'calling
quits on our copyright compliance standards.' Chane specifically advocated switching Google Video
to YouTube's 'reactive DMCA only' policy because 'YouTube gets content when it's hot
([Saturday Night Live's] Lazy Sunday, Stephen Colbert, Lakers wins at the buzzer)' and
it '[takes us too long to acquire content directly from the [legitimate] rights holder.'"
It is that statement which Viacom appears to present as a smoking gun: a suggestion from a Google
Video executive that it should acquire its competitor solely because its allegedly illegitimate
business model is more successful than its own, legally compliant one.
In Google's memorandum in support of summary judgment in its favor, filed after Viacom, its
attorneys do not take the tack or rebutting Viacom's scorching citations -- which, if
substantiated, could theoretically become the basis for future criminal complaints.
Instead, Google reiterates the argument that it's a service provider which, like Veoh, is
entitled to safe harbor since it looks the other way, and does not actively seek infringing
uploads.
Citing the Veoh finding, Google's attorneys argue, "What matters is that Veoh 'established a
system whereby software automatically processes user-submitted content and recasts it in a format
that is readily accessible to its users...Inasmuch as this is a means of facilitating user access
to material on its Web site,' Veoh did not lose the safe harbor 'through the automated creation
of these files.' YouTube is indistinguishable from Veoh in these respects."
YouTube, Google argues, did not have direct knowledge of the circumstances whereby the specific
content Viacom claimed was infringed upon (much of it from Paramount) was shared with YouTube
users. Since Viacom's arguments must, at some point, focus themselves upon the specific
infringing of the content in question, the DMCA protects YouTube on that count as well, Google
continues. But all that may be moot, Google points on, by virtue of the fact that under current
US law, the alleged infringers must have directly profited from their actions. YouTube gains
revenue through advertising.
Writes Google, "A service provider loses safe harbor eligibility only if the plaintiff can show
both that the service provider had the right and ability to control the alleged
infringements and received a financial benefit directly attributable to those
infringements...As with knowledge, the DMCA's control inquiry is specific, not general. The
analysis focuses on the service provider's legal and practical control over the particular
infringing activity at issue. The statute's text makes that clear: The question is whether
the service provider has the right and ability to control "the infringing activity"
alleged by the plaintiff and to which a financial benefit is directly attributable."
A number of declarations in support of both motions were filed today. One supporting Google was
particularly interesting, because it goes to specifically that last paragraph: It's from the
owner of a marketing firm who promoted the works of recording artists who appear on MTV, a Viacom
property. He claimed that some of the very works Viacom claimed were infringed upon through
unauthorized uploading to YouTube, actually were authorized by none other than MTV
itself, as part of the promotion of the artists under his contract.
If Google's interpretation of the law is affirmed, and if this gentleman's claims are proven,
then this whole case could become history faster than a judge can even say "summary
judgment."
We narrowed down the results to the most important points:
Use gamelike features to keep users engaged and refreshing your Web site.
Work with city citizens and dig deeper into the data that is all around us.
Manor Labs in Manor, Texas "turned the town of 6,500 people
into a virtual R&D lab to tackle major civic innovations via crowdsourcing and game-driven
mechanics." Amazing.
Learn how to support different Web fonts with each browser and
create rich graphics on the iPhone without Flash.
The Deck, an all-sponsorship ad network teaches us to
stop selling CPMs and only use sponsorships, so advertisers will "pay for time
in front of your audience rather than impressions."
Infuse creativity into every aspect of your work.
Learn that vision is our strongest sense, and humans are wired to process
images quickly. Move beyond text.
Social media is exciting. But sites "like Facebook give us a limited set of
choices for our participation, and we shouldn't be lulled into a false sense of
control."
"Geeks care about journalism."
Measure reader engagement in hours, not minutes like online. "That allows for
higher ad rates; it's another reason publishers should move faster in developing for tablet
devices."
Don't just shuffle content onto an iPad and add videos and graphics. Really think
about reinventing content. And add social media.
Web applications will probably win out over installed apps. "That may be
unpopular to the folks who think iPhone/iPad apps will save journalism or make them rich, but
developers are growing weary of developing for three to seven different platforms."
The Web is accessible everywhere, especially on mobile devices.
Social gaming is going to be huge. Use it in all aspects of your site,
including comments.
"Those who can't or won't reinvent themselves don't really have a place in a culture that
places such a high value on innovation."
Here's one more point concerning the motions filed in the YouTube case
by Google and Viacom. We had mentioned in our analysis that Google highlights the details of
Viacom's rather large "stealth marketing" campaign to upload videos to YouTube, but Eric Goldman
points out that the practices Google uncovered certainly sound
like they cross the line of what the FTC says is legitimate: YouTube also scored points for
its descriptions of Viacom's stealth marketing practices. Although these facts only help YouTube's
legal posture a little, the lawsuit's discovery process has unveiled some non-public information
about Viacom’s practices that should be interesting to the FTC and state attorney generals.
Viacom's alleged stealth marketing practices are aggressive--close to the permissible line, if not
over it. As a result, they might be exactly the kind of consumer misdirection and inauthentic
online content that the FTC has been railing against, and we know the FTC is looking for test cases
in this area. So, a lawsuit that began as Viacom v. YouTube might morph into FTC v. Viacom. This is
one of the known risks of picking a fight--once started, you can't control where it goes.
Indeed, Google presents rather detailed evidence of the lengths Viacom went through to fool users
into thinking that clips were uploaded by people other than Viacom. Among Viacom's actions:
Hiring "an army of third-party marketing agents to upload clips on its behalf"
Having the uploads come from names that are made to look like random users
Using non-Viacom email addresses to sign up for accounts -- with the company admitting that
it wanted to use email addresses that "can't be traced" back to the company.
Leaving Viacom offices to go elsewhere to do the uploads (such as Kinkos) to avoid connecting
the uploads to Viacom.
Altering the footage of videos to make them appear unauthorized: "so users feel they have
found something unique."
While certainly helping Google make the point that it's ridiculous to expect it to know which
videos were legit and which were infringing, these also seem to certainly violate the spirit of the
FTC's recent guidelines on
questionable "stealth" marketing practices. As Goldman notes, if the FTC is looking for a high
profile test case, they may have just been handed a ton of useful evidence.
Who says you
can’t attract a substantial number of users on a shoestring budget?
Spain-based social networking platform provider Genoom,
which lets family members communicate amongst each other on private online community sites, is
about to sign up its millionth user.
This isn’t exactly a huge milestone, but I think it is noteworthy since the startup is
operating on a mere $80,000 in seed
funding, which it raised from Midatel roughly 3 years ago.
Genoom was launched in July 2007 and will cross the 1 million registered users mark by this
weekend. According to company spokesperson Bob Samii, the site is now available in 17
languages and counts more than over 10 million profiles from families all over the world.
On the Genoom website, users can add family trees, personal information, photos, videos, and
related documents about ancestors and living relatives alike, limiting access to uploaded
information through invitations and custom group privacy settings. This makes the service
effectively a marriage between genealogy and social networking.
Genoom offers a handy Facebook application,
allowing users to access their family tree and communicate with family, all while logged into
their Facebook account.
Given how bad most people are at driving, I have to wonder why car companies keep
giving us tools of distraction — ways to make phone calls when driving, to watch DVDs when
driving, etc. Add to that list sharing your
geo-location when driving. After adding real-time
news headlines to the dashboard of its cars, BMW has added social networking features which
can be accessed via the iDrive
feature. You can even email your location and destination. Putting aside my snark hat, this
feature could actually be useful as it can tell your friends and family where, exactly, you are
— though at a cost of $199 a year.
As one of ReadWriteWeb's
iPhone users, I'm always looking for new applications to try out. Some get downloaded for a day
and then deleted right away, others slowly inch their way closer to my homescreen. Even rarer are
the ones that become actively used on a regular basis. Occasionally, we like to share our
findings regarding our favorite new apps. (See, for example, last month's list here).
Although I can't guarantee that all of the ones on the list below will become favorites
forever, they piqued my interest enough to get a coveted spot on my iPhone this month.
Let us know what you think about their potential for long-lasting success.
Sponsor
1. Miso
I've been playing
with Miso off and on for a week or so. Dubbed a
"Foursquare-Like App for Homebodies" by yours truly, this app lets you "check-in" to the TV shows
and movies you're watching and earn badges. While I like the idea, I've found that the app
suffers from the lack of an easy way to find and follow other users. That leaves us TV-watching
"stay-at-home" folks feeling a little too isolated when already taking part in a rather
non-social, non-interactive activity. However, if the app can improve the ability to find and
follow other like-minded entertainment consumers, there's potential for a fun "niche use" type of
app here. (Review:Miso: A
Foursquare-Like App for Homebodies)
2. MediaServer
MediaServer seems so promising,
but I've had trouble getting all aspects of it to work properly. The app is designed to be an
easy way to view your iPhone media on your TV set by way of a Media Center-type hardware device
(XMBC, Boxee, etc.) or game console (PS3, XBox 360). And it is easy to use. You install
the app, launch it, and boom!, your media console sees your iPhone - no configuration
required. As far as viewing user-created videos or photos, the app excels. But streaming music or
video? Not so much. Due to varying degrees of DRM applied to the files themselves and codec
support on the hardware device, playing media on your TV is harder than it should be. (I tried
with the Xbox in my tests.) Whether it's the app that's to blame or the hardware, I can't tell.
However, MediaServer did become a great way to do iPhone photo slideshows on the TV and that
alone is keeping it on my phone for now. Hopefully the rest will be improved in time.
3. Sticky Bits
The RWW bloggers who attended the recent SXSW festival have come back raving
about the barcode-scanning Stickybits app (iTunes link).
The app, which debuted at the conference, goes hand-in-hand with the online service that lets you
either print your own barcodes or buy pre-made stickers which you can then associate with
real-world objects. Using the Stickybits iPhone application, anyone encountering these stickers
in the wild can scan them to discover whatever data theyv'e been associated with. Will Stickybits
actually stick around though? It's too soon to tell, but it sure is fun to play with in the
meantime. (Review:
Stickbits: Portal to Another Dimension or Graffiti for Nerds?)
4. Siri
Although not
brand-new, the Siri app which debuted in February on the iPhone is
rapidly becoming one of our all-time favorites and therefore has to make this list again. If you
have not installed Siri yet, do so now! Built with artificial intelligence technology, Siri
functions as a personal assistant which can provide information on a variety of topics from
weather to movie listings to restaurants, events and more. You can either type into the app's
search box or speak your query to get started. And the more you use it, the smarter it gets. The
voice recognition works well, too, although it never understood "Alice in Wonderland movie" no
matter how many times I said it. (Maybe it already knew I wouldn't like that movie?) We'll give
it a pass there, though - voice recognition is a tough nut to crack. Still, the intelligence of
this app will soon have you relocating the apps it replaces (movie listing apps, restaurant
finders, etc.) to back screens of the iPhone. (Review:Siri:
Your Personal Assistant for the Mobile Web)
5. Tweeb
Obsessed with ego-tracking
your Twitter stats or tasked with managing a corporate account of some kind? Then Tweeb's new Twitter analytics tracker
(iTunes link) is a handy app to have. For $1.99, you get access to real-time, on-demand
statistics including tweet counts, follower counts, retweets, mentions and clickthroughs on your
tweeted links. You can also use the app to tweet, manage your friends, block or unblock users,
view Twitter profiles, view your following lists and manage multiple Twitter accounts. The data
is presented in clean, easy-to-read layouts and there is even a history section so you can
measure your growing influence over time. Well worth a couple of bucks if you access this data on
a regular basis!
6. Buzzie
The first app
to access Google Buzz natively is pretty great, but I'll admit that I'm more likely to switch
over to Buzz from Google Reader's mobile website than launch a standalone app. If the iPhone had
app multitasking though, that would be a different story. Still, Buzzie has a few standout
features - photo-sharing and photo browsing, most notably. It also feels "a lot snappier" than
Google Buzz's web app, noted Frederic earlier this month during his demo. (Review:Buzzie:
The First Native Mobile App for Google Buzz)
7. SpringPad
Part of Springpad's service, this Evernote competitor functions as a mobile
note-taking and reminder app. Similar to Evernote's offering, you can write a note or snap a
photo to remember something (which is then added to your online account), but it also introduces
barcode-scanning as another way to "remember" an item. You can use the app to access all your
saved data, too - handy for accessing shopping lists, recipes and restaurants you want to try
while you're out and about. (Review:Springpad Takes on Evernote with Semantic Technology, Barcode Scanner)
Honorable Mentions
Other apps getting demoed on our iPhones include the following:
Brizzly for
Twitter: Will we leave Tweetie 2 for this new Twitter iPhone app? It could happen!
Feathers: Want to have a
little fun with your tweets? Feathers lets you decorate them with symbols, icons or even post
them upside-down.
Notifio: Just launched, this app tries to bring Android-style
notifications to one central place on the iPhone, but it's dependent on others to use its API
to do so. If successful, it could be amazing...but that remains to be seen.
You can see all the apps on my iPhone courtesy of AppsFire
here.
This week, documents from Viacom's billion dollar lawsuit against YouTube for copyright
infringement were published, and the three-year-long-and-counting lawsuit has again been brought
to the public's attention. In case you haven't been following the case, here's a quick timeline
of the major events that led up to the lawsuit, and those that occurred since the original
complaint was filed:
May 24, 2005- Viacom subpoenas YouTube for information about a user who uploaded
clips from Paramount Pictures' "Twin Towers."
June 2005- Viacom's board of directors approves a plan to spin off assets, which
become known as the new Viacom, Inc. That new company is given control of Paramount, while the
core company reforms as CBS Corp.
January 2006- 20th Century Fox sues YouTube to have content from Fox TV shows
such as The Simpsons and 24 removed from YouTube.
June 2006- YouTube and NBC partner to create NBC channel on
YouTube for Internet exclusives, clips, and trailers.
July 2006- Viacom and NBC Universal back journalist Robert Tur in his suit
against YouTube for illegally posting his videos of the 1992 L.A. riots. The legal brief said,
"YouTube incorrectly contends that the DMCA permits it to avoid any responsibility for the
content on its commercial website and completely shift the burden to content owners to discover
and notify it of infringements."
March 2007- Viacom General Counsel Michael Fricklas in a Washington Post op-ed says that YouTube was not just a passive content
host, and that it is fully aware of what it does. "If the public knows what's there, then
YouTube's management surely does. YouTube's own terms of use give it clear rights, notably the
right to take anything down."
May 2007- British Premier League files class action suit against YouTube for
copyright infringement, says Google "knowingly misappropriated and exploited this valuable
property," when it allowed users to post footage from its football games.
June 2007- YouTube introduces Content ID to help content owners identify if
their content is being used, gives them the option to remove unauthorized content, or monetize
it.
August 2007- Google asks Comedy Central personalities Jon Stewart and Stephen
Colbert to testify against Viacom in copyright hearings.
Comedy Central is a Viacom property.
March 2008- Viacom President and CEO Phillippe Dauman says "We've already
achieved a number of things with this lawsuit. It took a long time, but because of our actions,
YouTube has moved in the right direction. They're where they should have been all along."
June 2008- New York District Court rules that Google has to turn over user IDs
and IP addresses to Viacom. Angry users upload nearly 5,000 "Viacom Sucks" videos to
YouTube. Google is later allowed to make this data anonymous.
July 2008- Movie studio Lionsgate partners with YouTube for a branded channel
with ad-supported official content from the studio.
April 2009- Content owners discus "TV Anywhere" plan to tie Web-based video
content into cable subscription fees. Viacom CEO Dauman says, "People are used to paying for
video subscriptions," sees it as a good idea.
June 2009- "TV Everywhere" network scheme launches.
July 2009- Some claims from the Premier League's 2007 suit against YouTube are
dismissed, but claims for "statutory damages for works not registered in the US" are allowed.
September 2009- Google gives individual copyright holders access to the Insight
metrics of YouTube videos that contain their intellectual property according to Content ID.
October 2009- Viacom presents "smoking gun" evidence for its case: internal
e-mails from YouTube staff that show "actual knowledge" that copyright infringement was taking
place on the video sharing site.
November 2009- Google announces YouTube Direct, a
system where media outlets can directly communicate with users and arrange rebroadcasting rights
on a one-to-one basis.
March 2010- Some of Viacom's "smoking gun" documents go public, company claims
"YouTube was intentionally built on infringement."
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Attention baseball fans, the date that is no doubt etched
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In the
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Go beyond search at 
After a long winter's hiatus, 
The first 
The social media conference for marketers, 
The social media conference for marketers, 
The 
The 
The 
The 2nd annual 
Here is a new version of well known and award winning sonne DVD Burner, so if you
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can in sonne video converter create your own dvd menu’s an other cool stuff..
Viacom’s $1 billion lawsuit against Google over
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Great. We're pretty
certain Square Enix is going to make another one of 
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Given how bad most people are at driving, I have to wonder why car companies keep
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As one of ReadWriteWeb's
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I've been playing
with 
The RWW bloggers who attended the recent SXSW festival have come back raving
about the barcode-scanning 
Although not
brand-new, the 
Obsessed with ego-tracking
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The first app
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Google Buzz's web app, noted Frederic earlier this month during his demo. (Review:
Part of 
Recommandations
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and reject those that you are not interested in
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