It’s only available to those in the Xbox Live preview program at the moment, but you can officially add the Xbox 360 to the list of platforms that offer access to YouTube videos. Beta participants should be now able to download the app from the console’s new Apps Marketplace, and find all the usual personalized features you’d expect from YouTube, plus the Kinect controls you’d expect from an Xbox app. Still no word about a roll-out to everyone else, nor is there any word on a firm release date for all those other new video services slated to hit the console (they’re still just promised for “later in December”).
The bandages are barely off after a recent nip-tuck and the internet’s biggest time sink is going under the knife again with its new YouTube EDU initiative. Imagine your favorite video site with all the fun stuff stripped off — it’s essentially that. Gone are comments and related videos, and all the non brain-enhancing stuff, leaving just what’s good for the grey matter. Why? Well, in the VHS era teachers had control, but now it’s a minefield. With its wealth of knowledge, YouTube is an obvious choice for educators, but with so many ways to get RickRolled, or catch-up on the latest keyboard cat, pupils’ attention can be lost in seconds. The project has content provided by over 600 educational outlets such as TED and the Smithsonian, with subjects broken down into more than 300 teacher-friendly playlists. We’re not sure if “national constitutions“is going to be one of them, but hit the promo video after the break to find out more.
The internet was created for us to easily express our contempt and malice. We love to hate people, and the internet makes it easy to do so without wearing pants. A prime target? Videos. Here are the most loathed ever. More »
From rumors to reality: YouTube is taking a crack at original programing. Sources close to the Wall Street Journal say that the streaming outfit is partnering with a broad mix of media firms, production companies, and savvy content creators to launch 100 channels, generating over 25 hours of original content each day. Most of these channels aren’t slated to launch until next year, but when they do they are said to be backed by names like Ashton Kutcher, Tony Hawk, Jay-Z, and Madonna. YouTube is reportedly paying content partners over $100 million to jump-start this project, and hopes to create quality that can be sold to Advertisers. YouTube’s blog confirmed that the first of these premium channels is set to launch next month, with subsequent channels coming in waves over the next year. Hit the source link below so see YouTube’s official announcement and an early list of channels and content providers. We know you’ll join us in giddy anticipation of Shaquille O’Neal’s Comedy Shaq Network .
It has been a long year for Google TV. The first (and only, so far) round of hardware started shipping in October 2010 and at the time, promised the Android Marketplace with its wealth of third party apps early in the next year. That clearly didn’t happen, and it quickly became most notable for what it was being blocked from doing, like streaming video from TV providers like Hulu and various network TV websites. After various false starts and delays, Sony Google TV and Logitech Revue hardware will finally receive updates to Android 3.1 Honeycomb (congratulations Google, now where’s Ice Cream Sandwich?) starting this weekend with Sony up first and Logitech “shortly thereafter.” The biggest additions are the aforementioned apps, a new interface, and a refocused system for content discovery that starts with the new TV & Movies app pictured above. Check out the gallery for more pictures of the new Google TV, while more details and videos follow after the break.
This article was written on September 18, 2007 by CyberNet.
Time Saving Tuesday
Last Thursday we showed you how to make Windows Live Writer portable, and today we are going to show you how to create powerful text templates that will save you incredible amounts of time. Unfortunately the plugin you’ll need to install, Dynamic Templates, won’t work with the portable version.
Dynamic Templates was created by Joe Cheng who happens to be one of the primary Live Writer developers. For that reason I had expected the plugin to be good, but I didn’t expect it to be this good!
As of two-weeks ago I was using the free Post2Blog software for writing all of my articles, and it had a built-in template manager. It was designed to let users quickly enter in some HTML code that would otherwise be found repetitious. It was limited to doing what Dynamic Templates can do in the first example below, so if the plugin doesn’t seem special from that demo make sure you move on to the others!
Before we get started with the four demonstrations I want to give you a heads up that there is some C# code involved in some of the examples. I’ve never actually programmed in C# before, but I’ve done 7 or 8 other languages so I was quickly able to pick up on the basics. The Dynamic Templates page has some instructions on how to insert the syntax, but you’ll probably learn the ropes from the videos.
–HTML Templates–
This is a basic HTML template that is what most of you will probably want. We use these all the time to insert things we frequently use in posts, such as our daily CyberNotes logo. That way we don’t have to insert the image every time we want to use it.
The Dyanmic Template plugin has a command, "_selection", that lets you insert the highlighted text anywhere in your template. You might be asking yourself how that would be useful, but I think you’ll be surprised at how many things you can do with it. In this example we show you how to wrap multiple HTML tags around the text that we’ve highlighted thereby creating a one-click colorful header.
This is using the same "_selection" command mentioned in the previous demonstration, but now it is really starting to tie in some of the C# programming. More specifically this code will send the highlighted text through an HTML filter which will transform any plain text HTML tags into valid HTML.
Code:
<%= HtmlDecode(_selection) %>
–Advanced Video Insertion–
This demonstration shows you why I love the plugin so much, but you’ve got to know a little bit of programming to completely understand what it’s doing. Here I setup the plugin to prompt the user for a Google Video ID and the desired width/height for the embedded video. If no dimensions are entered in it will fall back on some defaults which can be designated in the code.
Tip: This code can easily be configured for use with any video service, but sites like YouTube specify the ID, height, and width twice in the embed code. Make sure you replace all necessary instances if you want it to work properly.
Code (there are also a few variables which you can get from the video):
While the plugin is very complete in my eyes there are a few things that could make this even better:
Hotkeys! Oh man, it would be really sweet if you could assign hotkeys to some of the templates you use the most often.
I would like the option to set the size of the window which lists all of your templates. I have about two-dozen templates, and I don’t really like having to scroll to get to some of them.
To wrap things up Dynamic Templates is a great way to remove the strain of repetitive tasks, but to harness the true power you’ll need to sit down for an hour or so and learn how to write code that works well with it. Believe me, you won’t be sorry!
This article was written on April 17, 2007 by CyberNet.
YouTube is just about done with their automated copyright filtering system that was originally supposed to launch last year. Google CEO Eric Schmidt calls it “Claim Your Content” and it will help keep copyrighted material off of YouTube by preventing it from being uploaded in the first place. Schmidt says that they’re “very close to turning this on.”
The sooner Google is able to get this implemented, the better. So far, the copyright issues are just costing Google more money than good. Schmidt was asked about the whole Viacom lawsuit over copyright issues, and he responded saying “Ah Viacom. You’re either doing business with them or being sued by them… we chose the former, but ended up the latter.”
Also funny is that Schmidt was asked about Microsoft raising concerns over the DoubleClick deal, and he responded with “Microsoft?” As though he hadn’t heard of them before…
There is something about anonymity on the internet that turns ordinary every day people into lumpy faced trolls. People can’t seem to help themselves when it comes to insulting someone else’s work or opinion. It is enough to make one pull the Ethernet cord from the wall sometimes. Trolling is the dark underbelly of the […]
This article was written on April 18, 2008 by CyberNet.
Some of you may have experienced this before: you go to watch a video on YouTube only to get a message saying “This video is not available in your country.” Unfortunately there are some videos that people in certain countries aren’t able to watch because the person/company that added the video put geographical restrictions on it. With a very simple change in the URL, you’ll now be able to watch those videos without any problems.
This tip comes from the Google Operating System Blog who explains that all you have to do is replace the original URL which would look something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEOIDwith a URL that looks something like this:
http://www.youtube.com/v/VIDEOID
And of course you know that the video ID would be the 11-character set of numbers and letters that are in a video URL, right? Essentially what you’re doing with this trick is entering in the URL of a video as though it was being embedded. When you enter in the modified URL and press enter, you’ll see a player maximized to your browser. Apparently YouTube hasn’t figured out a way to verify your country if you watch a video using the embedded video player.
If you’re wanting to try this out for yourself and you live outside of the United States, this Madonna video will be a good example. The normal URL for this video is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9ciR9qR1dU and so to get it to work outside of the United States, you’d need to enter the following URL:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=I9ciR9qR1dU
If you know of any other videos that are banned in countries outside of the United States, give this trick a try.
Know what beats selling CDs (or USB sticks) and swag out of the trunk of your struggling band’s party wagon? Striking a deal with Google to pitch those wares on the interwebs, that’s what. Rolling out to official YouTube partners over the next few weeks, the newly created Merch Store will offer fans from all across the globe an opportunity to purchase MP3s, tickets for concerts and gatherings, and, of course, merchandise straight from your dedicated page. Helping ol’ Mountain View make these coffer-filling goodies available are a handful of established online retailers like Amazon, iTunes, Songkick and Topspin. So, if you just can’t wait for the Rebecca Black arena rock tour to blitz through your small town, keep clicking refresh on that artist channel for the inevitable slew of merchandising, merchandising.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
YouTube is just about done with their automated copyright filtering system that was originally supposed to launch last year. Google CEO Eric Schmidt calls it “Claim Your Content” and it will help keep copyrighted material off of YouTube by preventing it from being uploaded in the first place. Schmidt says that they’re “very close to turning this on.”
Some of you may have experienced this before: you go to watch a video on YouTube only to get a message saying “This video is not available in your country.” Unfortunately there are some videos that people in certain countries aren’t able to watch because the person/company that added the video put geographical restrictions on it. With a very simple change in the URL, you’ll now be able to watch those videos without any problems.
