NBC Universal, Fox News Network and Fox Television Stations have filed copyright infringement legal action against Redlasoo, a site that makes video content from TV available to bloggers and provides tools to embed the clips onto Web sites.
Continue reading Redlasso Gets Copyright Legal Action From Fox and NBC
We were putting a video up yesterday (Virtual Mirror) and we saw that YouTube had introduced a new function – allowing video publishers to add annotations to their pieces.
Hurrah – we’ve been waiting for a feature like this for a long time and had it as a ‘one day’ project for ourselves, for the last five or so years.
Zattoo is a P2P applications for all three computer platforms (Linux, Mac and Windows) that lets you view live streams of many TV channels.
Continue reading Zattoo Mini Review: Live TV Streaming On Your Computer
Just as it appears that the whole of America goes mad over the blooming iPhone, there are some there who have different priorities.
Fox News was in the street in New York interviewing Steven Levy of Newsweek who had an iPhone before their release (BTW, He’s posted on his blog how unsatisfactory he found blogging from his iPhone was).
Just as the ‘news’ watching people hear from the reporter that Steven was one of only four people who got to test the phone before it was released, some tricky rascal comes along and pinches the reports Mic – _Not_ the iPhone! (Brings to mind the iDon’tWantOne coverage that we published back in January).
Watch the video after the jump
Continue reading FoxNews Mic Nicked – iPhone Left Untouched!
This morning my daughter was having a look around for some pictures of medieval castle’s on Google Images. She’s six and a half.
My Wife was sitting with her while she browsed the index, and as the results looked quite reasonable, she left the room to let her browse around the search results.
Next thing, our daughter was calling out that she didn’t like what was on the screen – and seeing what was there, no wonder. It was a porn site.
Continue reading Porn Scum Stoop Ever Lower
In a long line of partnerships deals, designed to improve their standing – and income – within Mainland China, Google has signed a deal with China’s number one portal, Sina.com.
Continue reading Google, Sina Sign Search And Ad Deal: China
Tivo have released a new search function that searches over not only the content on the box or that provided by the broadcaster subscribed to, but stretches beyond this to encompass relevant results from the TiVoCast service and Amazon Unbox™ on TiVo.
Continue reading Tivo Swivel Search Launched: Content Beyond The Box
It is perfectly logical that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp that owns MySpace would use it to trial new features and services that will be of use across their vast empire of media companies.
To this end, MySpace will be launching MySpace News, expected to launch into Beta later today.
They will be scraping news site across the world and presenting them in the same way that Google News does so successfully.
Once the stories are presented to the MySpace users, they’ll be able vote on the quality and content of the stories, in much the same way as Digg users currently do.
So it looks like they’ve taken Google News and Digg and glued the two together.
We’re not sure if Rupe has this one right, as it’s widely known that the younger end of the population doesn’t really care that much about news.
Time will tell if they choose to spend their leisure time (as that’s what MySpace is) reading news stories and voting on them.
Myspace News (still currently private)
Apple has released a significant upgrade to its Final Cut Studio package, a high-end bundle of video editing applications for pros and rich enthusiasts alike and Final Cut Server.
The Final Cut Studio 2 package includes Final Cut Pro 6, Motion 3, Soundtrack Pro 2, Compressor 3, DVD Studio Pro 4.2 and a new app called Color, described as a, “professional colour grading and finishing application.”
Also new is ProRes 422, a new full raster, 10-bit 4:2:2 post production format that produces stunning HD quality at “SD file sizes,” with Apple claiming that industry heavyweights like Panasonic, Sony and RED are also feeling the love for the format.
Motion 3 now offers a 3D environment, paint and new drag-and-drop camera behaviours, vector based paint tools, and a match moving tool for mapping images or effect to the path of any other object.
The Soundtrack Pro 2 audio editor adds tools for multitrack editing and surround mixing with a new Conform tool which makes it easier to precisely align effects and dialogue with footage.
Apple’s encoding tool, Compressor 3 offers a more streamlined interface with a simplified workflow, and extends support for codecs such as MPEG-2 and H.264 with presets for television, Web, iPod, Apple TV, DVD and mobile phone delivery.
Finishing off the package is DVD Studio Pro 4.2 which takes care of SD and HD DVD authoring.
In line with its professional status, Final Cut Studio costs a ruddy packet, retailing for a whistle-inducing £849 (current version users can upgrade for £329, otherwise it’s £449 for all other Final Cut Studio users).
Gordon Brown has announced that a new labelling system for media content is in the works, designed to help parents protect their children from dodgy digital content.
The idea is that a system similar to cinema classifications would be introduced to classify content on websites, video games, TV shows and other media content.
Backed by industry regulator Ofcom, Brown intoned that the system would offer practical help to parents concerned about their little darlings being exposed to new media outlets seemingly stuffed to the brim with violent imagery, drugs and hot, hot sex.
Commenting on the veritable torrent of filth that virtually seeps out of every child’s PC as soon as they connect to the web, Brown said that it is an “issue we must address with practical proposals to address the challenges we face.”
“We want to promote a culture which favours responsibility and establishes boundaries: limits of what is acceptable and unacceptable.”
“We can’t and shouldn’t seek to turn the clock back on technology and change. Rather we need to harness new technology and use it to enable parents to exercise the control they want over the new influences on their children,” he added.
As part of the scheme, Ofcom will introduce common labelling standards covering cinema, TV, radio, computer games and the internet.
These will be backed up by an awareness campaign advising parents about content filtering software for PCs, and information about TV set top boxes which can limit what can and cannot be seen by little Timmy and Tabatha.
Brown added that they’ll also be looking at persuading technology manufacturers to provide better information on software to block content unsuitable for children, as well as investigating new methods to restrict access to saucy and violent content shared over the t’web.
Brown recognised that it’s a fat look of good trying to implement restrictions on just a national scale, pointing out that agreements need to be struck at the international level.
“We need to support all those broadcasters and providers doing a huge amount and of course we need to recognise there are global markets where we need international agreement,” he said, somewhat understating the importance of worldwide standards.
Of course, many companies and public institutions already use web filtering software but their methods can often resemble a 300 ton sledgehammer cracking a dwarf-sized peanut.
Scunthorpe. Arsenal. And Sex
The denizens of Scunthorpe and fans of Arsenal football club have already famously fallen foul of none-too-smart naughty word blockers, and many sites have complained about being blocked for the most spurious of reasons, with very little chance of retribution.
Some sites about UK counties have also found themselves banned from libraries and internet cafes because the word ‘sex’ has appeared in their domain name – even though the sites are about subjects as unerotic as Sussex, Essex and Wessex.
More about word filtering mistakes here: The Scunthorpe Problem