YouTube
”10 Percent of Broadband Subscribers Suck Up 80 Percent of Bandwidth But P2P No Longer to Blame
The most consistent rationale for ISPs to throttle p2p applications or charge by the byte is that a small minority of users drain a vastly disproportionate amount of bandwidth, like the planet-raping aliens in Independence Day. Om Malik pulls a few of these numbers out of Arbor Networks' CTO, who develops all the traffic management tools your ISP probably uses, so while there's a conflict of interest (portents of internet doom sell more stuff) they have the data. Ten percent of subscribers consume 80 percent of bandwidth, a super-leeching 0.5 percent swallow 40 percent of bandwidth, and the rest like your mom, 80 percent, sip less than 10 percent. But p2p isn't the culprit. More »Japanese Multi-Level Bicycle Parking
The Multi-level bicycle park at Tokyo's Kasai Station might sound like a crazy overblown way to tidy up the streets, but the woeful lack of available parking spaces at most Japanese train stations is a real problem. In some places legal parks are impossible to find and private security guards are known for performing periodic sweeps where bicycles are tossed in the back of a truck and impounded. At 100 Yen (about $1) per day or 1,800 Yen (about $18) for a month, a multi-level parking spot is a lot cheaper than the impound fee. Here's hoping that they proliferate. [Japan Probe]Visual Search Engine Coming to iPhone in June
Evolution Robotics ViPR visual search technology is coming to the iPhone this June. ViPR allows you to take a photo of any movie, CD or book, send it to a server, and automagically get an email back loaded with information and links pointing to YouTube videos or iTunes Music Store links. It will also be deployed in Japan on KDDI's au camera phones this Spring. As you will see in the iPhone demo after the jump, it works incredibly well, even when the object is partially occluded: More »Adobe Media Player 1.0 Arrives, Sorta
About a year after its beta launch, Adobe Media Player is in full effect, or almost. Adobe's little Flash-only scheme for making money on the internet has lined up CBS and Viacom properties MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon, plus PBS, Universal Music Group and a few others, though not all of them show up yet in the list of stuff to watch. (That tantalizing Daily Show you see in the promo pic—not available yet.) Remember, unlike other similar programs, this one lets you watch online or off. But like all the rest, it's only as good as the content it brings to the table. And its interface. And the picture quality. Any beta testers out there want to comment? We'd love to hear your impressions. [Adobe (download) via CNet]
Flickr Adds Videos Long Photos
As of last night, Flickr/Yahoo has finally bit the bullet and added video support to their service. A cynical response might be that they clearly would like to compete with YouTube. But when reading through the FAQ and examining the system's limitations, it seems that they really are sincere in supporting "long photo" as opposed to real videos. The kind that come from your cameras, not camcorders.
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Gateway "Spots" Contest Ends, One Tattooed Jackass Reigns Supreme
Gateway's Show Us Your Spots contest is at an end, and the winner is picked: some kid named Matt, who permanently brands himself a Gateway fanatic, all to win the system and spite his jerk friend Billy who calls him a Noob all the time. (Guess it worked.) Check out the runners-up, and our impressions of their noble but misguided attempts: More »YouTube Living Legends Gives Us Excuse to Talk Rolling Stones Shine a Light
At last it's Friday. And not any Friday. Today is the Friday, the worldwide release of Martin Scorsese's Shine a Light. And like Keith said: you've got the sun, you've got the moon, and you've got the Rolling Stones. All of them probably created at the same point in time. YouTube is riding the Scorsese/Stones shockwave to launch their new YouTube Living Legends, a new channel in which you will be able to ask any question you want to legendary rock stars. I doubt there are any questions left to ask Mick, Keith & Co., but who cares. Screw YouTube. It's Shine a Light. Go and watch it. Twice. I'll do that this evening—then go exercise Richards-style: grab a vodka bottle and play air guitar. In the meantime, you can watch Mick and Keith in bloody Stella St. After the jumping, jack flash. More »iPhone Firmware 2.0 to Have YouTube Plugin for Safari, Says BGR
BGR is claiming iPhone firmware 2.0 will provide a YouTube plugin for MobileSafari.app. They aren't citing their source, but they're pretty confident in their assertion: More »TiVo Getting YouTube
Good news, kind of. TiVo has just announced that their networked Series 3 and TiVo HD subscribers will be getting YouTube access through their boxes sometime "later this year." While new media features are always a plus, TiVo's more recent advanced service offerings (like Rhapsody integration) have been a bit buggy. Here's hoping YouTube rolls out smoothly.
Here's the full announcement:
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wga strikes back
Striking Writers Form Online Video Company Visual Artists, I Still Want New "Heroes"
Led by the writer of Air Bud (that bodes well), a large posse of out-of-work WGAers is looking to launch the online video company, Visual Arists, later this year with over $30 million in funding with Silicon Valley types. Supposedly a bunch of A-listers are on board, which gives small hope that they punch out fare along the lines of name-checked Juno and The Office. More »Panasonic Keynote Bits: Wireless HDTVs, YouTube, Wireless Lumix Camera and Comcast Cable Box Inside
•The keynote highlight was the monster TV you see above, but those details came out today too. •There's a portable DVR and DVD player that can hook into the Comcast content as well.
•Youtube partnership, Steve Chen is here. The UI looks as clean as Apple TVs. But blurry YouTube on a giant plasma is going to be ugly.
•There's a Wi-Fi lumix coming that can upload to YouTube.
D-Link DPG-1200 PC-on-TV Player Brings Lousy Amateur YouTube Video to Your TV
The Pitch: D-Link's PC-On-TV (DPG-1200) player can stream YouTube, Google Video, Veoh and other streaming video sites from your PC to your TV. It can also watch MPEG-4, AVI, or any video content using any video player on your computer to stream over either 802.11g or a 10/100 Ethernet connection. Price: $199.
The Catch: Supporting all these formats means they're probably capturing an area of your screen (by a VNC-ish proprietary software) and then streaming it to the unit. Not bad, but it requires you to have control of your PC while you're watching stuff.
Microsoft Leaves Comments Open on YouTube (oops)
Qik Streams Live Video From Nokia Phones, Beats YouTube By a Parsec
Here's a video Lam streamed to me live, direct from his Nokia N95 phone in Tahoe using the qik system. Not only could I see and hear what he was doing in real time, I could even type to him and have the words show up on his phone. It only works on Nokia phones (N70, N80 and N90-series included), but just imagine the implications. You can be shopping and get someone's advice in real time, or snowboarding and showing off to everyone else back at Giz HQ how you tumbled and ate it. Much better than having to upload and wait for your YouTube movie to process. [Qik] More »Helio's YouTube 2.0 Client Hands-on and Impressions (Verdict: It's Good)
YouTube and Helio aren't strangers in the least, but compared with the iPhone's gorgeous implementation, Helio's first version was found to be a little lacking. No more. The latest release, available today, bumps Helio up onto the same tier as Apple's offering. Here's what we think.
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What YouTubeHD Might Look Like
We know that a higher definition version of YouTube is on its way. But just how hi def will YouTube go to keep video streaming instantly and a bit of bandwidth coin left in Google's pockets? Above is an example of a precompressed 960x540 video (not even HD) at 6000kbit/s that's been snuck onto YouTube servers.
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