Judge refuses to order removal of anti-Islam video from YouTube
A judge in California refused on Thursday to order YouTube to pull down a controversial anti-Islam movie trailer that has sparked violent protests at U.S. diplomatic missions in many Middle East countries, according to a spokeswoman for the plaintiff's attorneys The Armenta Law Firm.
An actress who appears in the trailer asked the court to impose a temporary restraining order against YouTube and the person alleged to have doctored the film to give it an anti-Islam slant.
In a complaint filed Wednesday before the Superior Court of the State of California for the county of Los Angeles, Cindy Lee Garcia alleged that she was cast in a film titled "Desert Warrior" and that defendant Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, also known as Sam Bacile, a resident of Los Angeles county, told her that it was an adventure film about ancient Egyptians. Read more...
YouTube app wrenched from next Apple iPhones, iPads
YouTube has been unceremoniously dumped from iOS 6, the latest beta version of Apple's mobile operating system reveals.
The Google-owned video website's native app for iPhones and iPads is bundled with Cupertino's shiny gadgets, and pops up to play video on behalf of other applications, but this cosy relationship is coming to an end - quite possibly a casualty of Apple and Google's ongoing thermonuclear war in the mobile sector.
Fanbois will eventually be able to download an app capable of playing YouTube videos - Google is working on one right now - but it won't be integrated into Apple's iThings.
Google's YouTube app follows Google Maps, also tossed out of the iOS party, revealing the increasing rift between the two tech titans. Read more...
Flipboard for Android arrives with Google+ and YouTube integration
Flipboard is now available for Android. The app, which aggregates content in a magazine-like format, also integrates content from Google+ and YouTube, a Flipboard blog post said on Friday.
The application can be downloaded from Google's Play store, Amazon's app store for the Kindle and the Barnes & Noble Nook App Store.
In the U.S., Flipboard will come pre-installed on Samsung's Galaxy S III smartphone when purchased from carriers including AT&T. Read more...
YouTube’s very first video turns 7 years old today
With a service as big as YouTube — with literally dozens of hours of new content popping up every minute — it's easy to forget how it all began. Today marks the seventh birthday of YouTube's very first clip which, like much of the site's user-generated content, is a bit humorous but almost entirely pointless. Read more...
Google AdWords for video rolls out of beta and is now available for every business
Two weeks after YouTube opened its partner program to everyone to let people monetize their uploads, the Google-owned video platform has now announced that Google AdWords for video is now leaving beta, having launched initially last September.
For the uninitiated, AdWords for video follows the same model as its Google Search counterpart, in that you only pay when someone clicks to view your video, and when they watch the entire ad. So, for example, if they click ‘skip’ in the first thirty seconds, you don’t pay a bean. You can create and manage video campaigns from the very same platform as your search and display ads. Read more...
YouTube’s Content-ID Piracy Filter Wreaks Havoc
YouTube describes its Content-ID anti-piracy filter as a state-of-the-art technology, but those who look closely can see that in some cases it creates a huge mess. The system invites swindlers to claim copyright on other people’s videos and make money off them through ads. It automatically assigns thousands of videos to people who don’t hold the copyrights, and its take-down process appears to be hugely biased towards copyright holders.
In recent years Google and YouTube have gone to extremes to protect copyright holders. Perhaps the greatest achievement thus far is their state-of-the-art Content-ID system.
Content-ID allows rightsholders to upload the videos and music they own to a central ‘fingerprint’ database. YouTube will then scan their site for full or partial matches, and if there is a hit the copyright holder can automatically take it down, or decide to put their ads on it.
Although the above sounds like a fair and honest solution, not everything Content-ID does goes to plan. Of course some errors are expected when pioneering a new system, but the problems are more severe than that. Welcome to the world of YouTube swindlers, mass misattribution of copyrights and an unfair bias towards stubborn copyright holders. Read more...
Russian Minister: YouTube and Google Should Be Shut Down For Copyright Infringement
Recently leaked confidential diplomatic cable has revealed that not only is the United States government unhappy with the level of intellectual property rights enforcement carried out by Russia, but also that the reverse is true. Russia’s Deputy Minister of Economic Development said that not only do U.S. sites continue to offer pirated Russian movies, but that YouTube and Google should be shut down for not respecting local laws.
When it comes to the protection of intellectual property, it’s well known that the United States is almost continually unhappy with just about every other country’s regimes. A huge amount of lobbying is carried out on a continual basis by government and the private sector in the hope that one day everyone will adopt US-like approaches to rights enforcement. Read more...
How to Effectively Use Social Media When Job Hunting
Employers and recruiters are relying more and more on social media to find valuable employees. In a survey of 600 employers, conducted by Jobvite.com in 2010, 73% of respondents stated they use social networks or social media to support their recruitment process.
Also, an additional 9% stated they plan on using social networks in the near future. Beef up your old strategy of relying on Internet job boards by incorporating a few social media platforms. Don’t be content with simply peppering companies with your resume and hoping for the best.
The majority of jobs are not posted on the Internet. Some studies report that 80% of jobs are found through networking. Employers typically use a list of employee referral candidates before taking the time to check out resumes submitted online. Read more...
YouTube Ready To Launch New Mainstream Movies On Demand Rental Service
Last year YouTube started offering movie rentals but unfortunately not for mainstream movies. But recently Google has been quietly adding mainstream movies to its YouTube service. The new mainstream rentals are now available from $1.99 to $3.99
The new service will be indirect competition with Apples iTunes rental and streaming service and major Hollywood studios including Sony Pictures Entertainment, Warner Brothers and Universal have already licensed their movies to the new YouTube service. Read more...
YouTube transcodes all its videos to WebM / VP8, H.264 still supported
We did know that Google is really in love with WebM since it added support for it and its codec, VP8 in Chrome. Now, Google is ready to take it one step further and begun a huge effort of converting their entire video portfolio (and we have no idea how many terrabytes of data that is – 6 years of uploads to WebM as well. Higher priority will have the files with more views and, like in everything else, the top 10% will get 90% of traffic. Until now, about 30% of the files are already converted through the usage of a cloud video processing infrastructure that can use massively parallel computer networks to spread the converting tasks around. Read more...