Google just unveiled its “YouTube Creator Space” in London.
The high-tech studio will essentially allow YouTubers to create premium content for Google’s video-sharing platform. They will have access to technical equipment, and other YouTube content producers, which will undoubtedly encourage quality videos based on fresh, collaborative ideas.
“We’re delighted to announce that in the next few weeks we’ll be opening the doors to our new creator space, housed in the offices of Google London’s Soho office,” announced the company on its YouTube Creator Hub channel.
Our partners from all over Europe, Middle East and Africa will be able to book time in the space to create and collaborate with other creators, learn new techniques, as well as gaining access to state-of-the-art audio visual equipment, to help them generate great new content for their channels. The creator space is complete with the latest equipment such as DSLRs and cinema cameras, two studios including a green screen and fully staffed editing suites.
The YouTube Next Lab, which is a team “focused on accelerating the growth and development of channels and creators on YouTube,” will oversee the London studio.
We told you last month that the Vizio Co-Star received a $99 price tag, but the set-top box is now officially available for pre-order starting today.
Those who are interested in the Google TV-streaming box can go to www.vizio.com/costar to pick it up. It is exclusively sold on Vizio’s website for $99.99 USD with introductory free-shipping while supplies last. The current estimated shipping date is pegged around August 14.
The Co-Star goes beyond the typical Google TV experience by providing a skinned user-interface with an HTML5 Chrome browser, Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, iHeartRadio, and OnLive built-in. The box even comes with a dual-sided Bluetooth remote that boasts a full QWERTY keyboard and a touchpad.
We are happy to announce that the VIZIO Co-Star is available for pre-order today. Visit VIZIO.com to pre-order the Co-Star for $99.99 (US) and take advantage of the limited-time offer of free shipping.
The VIZIO Co-Star turns any HDTV into the ultimate smart TV. With 1080p and 3D support; Co-Star offers the distinct advantage of connecting to a cable or satellite box. This feature allows viewers to enjoy full screen web browsing with Adobe® Flash® Player and HTML 5, access to entertainment apps such as the OnLive® Game Service, Netflix®, YouTube® and more3 without switching inputs or remotes thanks to the universal touchpad remote with keyboard.
The VIZIO Co-Star is the first stream player to offer video games on demand. Through OnLive,® users can demo, watch and play hundreds of top-tier video games directly from the “cloud,” eliminating the need for an independent game console. In addition, the VIZIO Co-Star offers popular apps such as Amazon Instant Video, YouTube®, iHeartRadio and more – all available for download through the Google Play Store.
The Vizio Co-Star’s first commercial—which debuted yesterday—is atop.
As BetaBeat first noticed, Google is attempting to peel back the anonymity cloak that surrounds YouTube.
The search engine, which seems to dabble in all things Web, mobile, and tech, now displays a pop-up box to YouTubers who try to leave a video comment. The notice prompts users to start surfing the video-sharing platform with their full name instead of a username or pseudonym.
Google appears to crop names from Google+ profiles, which is likely a byproduct of the Google+ integration from last year that required all YouTubers to login with their Gmail account credentials.
YouTube just launched a face-blurring feature for when “footage requires anonymity.”
The new addition to the video-sharing platform is self-explanatory. It is a tool that allows users to muddle faces in videos with just the click of a button.
“Whether you want to share sensitive protest footage without exposing the faces of the activists involved, or share the winning point in your 8-year-old’s basketball game without broadcasting the children’s faces to the world, our face blurring technology is a first step towards providing visual anonymity for video on YouTube,” explained the official YouTube Blog.
To blur faces: Go to Additional Features under Video Enhancements, and then click the “Apply” button below Blur All Faces. Users can see a preview before publishing, and a new copy is created with the blurred faces when saved. Users have the option to delete the original video.
YouTube warned that the tool is an “emerging technology,” so Face Blur may have difficulty auto-detecting faces.
Get the full breakdown at the officialYouTube Blog.
Of course, that is Google’s own statistic. The folks in Mountain View took to the official Google Translate blog to explain how its, well, Google Translate tool now offers example sentences for those newly created words. The examples are aggregated from “fresh new stories around the web,” wrote Google Associate Product Manager Etienne Deguine.
To use the feature, type into the left-hand text box of Google Translate, and then click on the example sentence icon on the bottom right (screenshot above).
Last spring, as part 2012’s 24 Hour Film Race presented by HTC One, Director Frank Hannah shot a four-minute film with the manufacturer’s popular Android-powered smartphone.
The challenge occurred from May 18 to May 19, where over 750 teams around the world were given the following criteria:
Create an original short films (4 minutes max) in just 24 hours based on a theme (one), action (listening to music), and prop (the number one).
Hannah interpreted and completed the challenge, and then HTC honored his work by recently posting the short film on YouTube (above). A second video even documents the behind-the-scenes footage (below). Check ’em out!
Google wanted to stop YouTube-MP3.org last month from ripping audio embedded in YouTube’s videos, but the conversion website’s 21-year-old owner is not ready to roll over and admit defeat.
YouTube-MP3.org received a letter from the Mountain View, Calif.-based Company last month that threatened to take legal action. Google’s video-sharing platform is free and provides content that is embeddable or accessible through its API, while YouTube-MP3.org is also free and pulls audio from YouTube videos. The website then converts those files into downloadable MP3s. Apparently, despite the API that gives developers access to many features, pirating any sound directly violates YouTube’s Terms of Service agreement.
The June 8 “cease and desist” letter from YouTube’s Associate Product Counsel Harris Cohen addressed the website’s Germany-based owner, Philip Matesanz. Cohen cited the platform’s terms for API in the legal notice, and he noted separating, isolating, or modifying “the audio or video components of any YouTube audiovisual content made available through the YouTube API” is strictly prohibited. Cohen warned of “legal consequences” for YouTube-Mp3.org, and he gave the website a week to comply. However, Google immediately blocked the website’s servers from accessing YouTube.
Matesanz took to his website yesterday, conveniently on the United States’ Independence Day, to give a “Situation Update” on the, well, situation:
After numerous reports questioning the legality of this service I have decided to get case studies from two highly reputable lawyers in Germany to prove the difference. I have asked them to create English reports about the legal situation of this service and the accusations Google has made. They agree that there are no copyrights of a third party violated by providing this service and it has to be considered legal. It might be surprising to some but they also agree that all claims Google has brought up so far are not justified: There is no TOS violation. They even question if Google can take action against so called “YouTube Converters/Recorders” since they seem to be protected by federal law. Google would have to make massive changes to their public broadcasting service to demand that such services shut down e.g. no more embedded videos, restrict access to registered users who have agreed to the TOS[..]. There are also doubts about the legitimacy of the section Google is accusing me to violate: Section 6.1K is designed to abandon a fundamental right all German citizens have. According to federal law you have the unquestionable right to create a private copy of certain media; including YouTube. Google’s attempt to abrogate the rights of the public in their TOS has to be considered as illegal and is in a strong contrast to their public self-representation.
Matesanz further disclosed to readers that YouTube-mp3.org is officially operated through PMD Technologie UG, which is a company registered in Germany, and he has tried to contact Google “multiple times,” but all of his attempts have failed. A recent call to Google’s main legal head was even blocked by an assistant, Matesanz wrote, who claimed Google would only communicate in written form but allegedly did not respond to three e-mails sent.
“I don’t have any marketing or public relations experts […] I am just an IT guy with no experience whatsoever,” Matesanz added, while referring to the case as a “David vs. Goliath situation.”
The computer science student-turned-Google arch nemesis is now attempting to level the playing field with a petition on Change.org, where he asks Google to permit third-party recording services to access YouTube. The petition has over 343,000 signatures.
Google announced that it will shut down five services today, and two of the most noteworthy include Google Video and iGoogle.
Google Video has been on its way out for a while now having stopped accepting uploads in 2009, and most users hosting content on the service already received notifications to move their content to YouTube. The Google Video team has since worked on video search, and Google even outlined in a blog post today its plans for the service. Google Video will officially close “later this summer”:
Later this summer, all remaining hosted video on Google Video will be moved to YouTube. Google Video stopped taking uploads in May 2009 and now we’re moving the remaining hosted content to YouTube as private videos. Google Video users can rest assured that you won’t be losing any of your content as it will be fully available on YouTube, and you can choose to make those videos public on YouTube if you’d like.
Google explained users will have the opportunity to manually migrate or delete their content by August 20: Expand Expanding Close
Google launched Search by Image last year, and then updated algorithms for it almost every week since, but now the search engine will use its Knowledge Graph to power the popular feature.
Search by Image allows users input an image, and then Google offers images and search results related to that image. Users select an image through the ‘ole drag-and-drop, and then uploading, or even inputting a URL. Meanwhile, the Knowledge Graph is new technology that allows Google to provide search results for concepts linked between words, rather than showing results for just the query term.
With the recent launch of the Knowledge Graph, Google is starting to understand the world the way people do. Instead of treating webpages as strings of letters like “dog” or “kitten,” we can understand the concepts behind these words. Search by Image now uses the Knowledge Graph: if you search with an image that we’re able to recognize, you may see an extra panel of information along with your normal search results so you can learn more. This could be a biography of a famous person, information about a plant or animal, or much more.
Google wants to improve its image search. When a user uploads an image of a specific type of flower, for instance, Google would previously give general flower search results. Now, Google will try to guess the exact type of flower. Google will also show the most recent content in search results, which is helpful for news images.
CamUp filed a lawsuit late last week that claimed Google ripped its video-chat feature for Google+ and YouTube.
The lawsuit filing revealed Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president, along with a few Mountain View engineers, approached the New York-based startup at the South by Southwest Festival in March 2011. They later met in London to negotiate adding a Hangout-like button, called “Watch with your friends on CamUp,” to Google’s popular video-sharing platform, YouTube. Despite receiving accolades on its product, CamUp did not hear from the Googlers after the meeting.
By May 2011, CamUp detected an alarming amount of visits from Google’s headquarters in California. The startup suggested that the traffic is evidence of Google beginning to examine its product for copying purposes. Google launched Hangouts with a “Watch your friends” button just one month later, which were allegedly indistinguishable from CamUp’s offerings.
CamUp is seeking damages, an injunction to remove Hangouts on YouTube and Google+, and it is suing Google UK’s Director of Business and Markets Richard Robinson.
Along with a ton of other updates today, the crew in Mountain View pushed out their latest update: YouTube for Android version 4.0. Announced on the YouTube Blogthis evening, the update includes a load of new features. Most notably, YouTube for Android has a new, sleek user-interface. There is a guide on the left side of the app that lists your favorite channels, including a “feed constantly updating with new videos,” called the “Channel Feed.” There you will find the latest videos from your subscriptions, so you will never miss a beat. Another big feature in today’s update is the ability to cache videos over Wi-Fi, which allows for smoother playback and less loading time for later. The feature can easily be turned on through the Settings menu by enabling “Preloading.” The YouTube team made it clear that you will still need a connection to playback the video. This is not offline by any means, but load time should be noticeably improved.
Another cool feature the YouTube app gained is a remote functionality that allows you to send videos and control playback on your TV. There is no information about which TVs are now supported, but Google told us to “stay tuned for updates.” Hopefully we get a clear list soon, but we would say most Google TVs are supported for now. Are you ready to check the update out yourself? You can now hit up the update button right from the Web. Check out the full release note after the break.
Google X Laboratory scientists have worked on a simulation of the human brain for the last few years, and now they are using it to indentify cats.
According to The New York Times, Google researchers created “one of the largest neural networks for machine learning by connecting 16,000 computer processors, which they turned loose on the Internet to learn on its own.” More specifically, Google turned the “brain” to 10 million images found in YouTube videos about cats:
The neural network taught itself to recognize cats, which is actually no frivolous activity. This week the researchers will present the results of their work at a conference in Edinburgh, Scotland. The Google scientists and programmers will note that while it is hardly news that the Internet is full of cat videos, the simulation nevertheless surprised them. It performed far better than any previous effort by roughly doubling its accuracy in recognizing objects in a challenging list of 20,000 distinct items.
The research is representative of a new generation of computer science that is exploiting the falling cost of computing and the availability of huge clusters of computers in giant data centers. It is leading to significant advances in areas as diverse as machine vision and perception, speech recognition and language translation.
Google’s brain eventually constructed a digital patchwork of a cat by cropping general features from the millions of images that it identified. The method could eventually prove useful in image search, speech recognition, and language translation. The Googlers maintained caution, however, about whether their research is, as The New York Times put it, “the holy grail of machines that can teach themselves.”
The research project is no longer a part of Google X laboratory, but rather search business and related services.
Google just introduced a new online course for those interesting in “power searching” with its search engine.
The free course offers:
Six 50-minute classes.
Interactive activities to practice new skills.
Opportunities to connect with others using Google Groups, Google+, and Hangouts on Air.
Upon passing the post-course assessment, a printable Certificate of Completion will be emailed to you.
“Google Search makes it amazingly easy to find information. Come learn about the powerful advanced tools we provide to help you find just the right information when the stakes are high,” explained Google Senior Research Scientist Daniel Russell on the registration page.
Course registration opens today and closes July 16, but the first class starts July 10. New classes begin Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and all course-related activities end July 23.
Check out the schedule below:
For more information about becoming a “great Internet searcher,” visit the course page at Google Insights.
We all know Google I/O is just around the corner with yet another Nexus tablet leak today and news of some fresh Google TV products hitting the market soon. We will be on hand this week with live coverage of the event, and Google will make things even easier this year thanks to a new blogging tool it is unleashing specifically for the conference. As noted on Google’s developers website, you can now create your own embeddable Google I/O keynote live blogging gadget that will pull the event’s live video stream, and then it will post from your Google+ account:
Google unveiled its “Project Re: Brief” ad campaign in March, which re-imagined four classic commercials, and now the company has published an hour-long documentary of its marketing venture on YouTube.
The four re-imagined classic commercials are Coca-Cola’s “Hilltop” from 1971, Alka-Seltzer’s 1972 commercial, Volvo’s “Drive it like you hate it” from 1963, and Avis’ “We try harder” campaign from 1962. Google’s in-house advertising team and several other agencies— including the creators of the original campaigns—re-created all the ads. Each video is available on Google’s Project Re: Brief website.
“Re: Brief is not just about the ads themselves. It’s also about the creative process behind them: bringing ‘old school’ advertising legends and technologists into the same room to create digital ads that consumers love as much as they loved the iconic campaigns of yesterday,” explained Project Re: Brief Lead Aman Govil on the Official Google Blog. “To share this experience, today we premiered the documentary film Project Re: Brief, directed by Emmy winner Doug Pray, at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity—also available on YouTube.”
Govil continued:
The documentary follows the story of the five art directors and copywriters who made the original ads as they come out of retirement to “Re: Brief” their classic campaigns: Harvey Gabor (Coca-Cola’s “Hilltop); Amil Gargano (Volvo’s “Drive it like you hate it”); Paula Green (Avis’ “We try harder”); and Howie Cohen and Bob Pasqualina (Alka-Seltzer’s “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing”). While major shifts in technology have reshaped the advertising business, as we learned from our heroes of the past, the basic tenets of storytelling haven’t changed. We found these icons’ ideas, wisdom and passion for great advertising inspiring and hope you do as well.
After years of major record labels keeping the revenue from their ad-supported content on YouTube and VEVO, HollywoodReporter reported today that the National Music Publishers’ Association announced a deal with Universal Music Group (one of the owners of VEVO), which will see the label pay indie music publishers for the content:
The NMPA termed the agreement, which covers North America, a groundbreaking model licensing deal because it will allow songwriters and music publishers to share in revenue from music videos. Up until now, while Youtube and VEVO were making money on their ad-supported services, indie music publishers had not shared in that revenue because the major labels long considered videos as promotional tools and never paid for licensing the songs used in the videos. But as it became a growing revenue stream, indie publishers began to grumble that the major labels paid the major publishing companies but none of the independent music publishers.
The specifics of the deal have not been made public, but the report claimed that sources said publishers would get 15 percent of advertising revenues related to their content. It also claimed the deal would be “retroactive back to 2008” with the amount for 2008 and 2009 set at 10 percent. The deal is said to cover not just music videos, but also “concert footage, backstage videos and artist interviews.”
Google wants to stop YouTube-MP3.org from ripping audio within YouTube’s videos.
TorrentFreak obtained a June 8-dated letter where the Mountain View, Calif.-based Company threatened to take legal action against the conversion website, which, according to Google’s numbers, rakes 1.3-million daily visitors.
Google’s video-sharing platform is free and provides content that is embeddable or accessible through its API, while YouTube-MP3.org is free, pulls audio from YouTube videos, and then converts those files into downloadable MP3s. Apparently, despite the API that gives developers access to many features, pirating any sound directly violates YouTube’s Terms of Service agreement.
The leaked letter addresses the website’s owner, Philip. In the warning, YouTube’s Associate Product Counsel Harris Cohen cited the platform’s terms for API, where he maintained that separating, isolating, or modifying “the audio or video components of any YouTube audiovisual content made available through the YouTube API” is strictly prohibited.
Cohen threatened “legal consequences” for YouTube-Mp3.org, and he gave the website a week to comply. TorrentFreak spoke with Philip, who said YouTube does not want to negotiate. He also mentioned Google immediately blocked his website’s servers from accessing YouTube.
Speaking at the Reuters Media and Technology Summit yesterday, YouTube chief Salar Kamangar talked about the video service’s desire to include subscription-based offerings that would possibly rival traditional cable channels. Reutersexplained:
Cable channels with smaller audiences will in the future migrate to the Web and become available on an “a la carte” basis, Kamangar said at the Reuters Media and Technology Summit on Thursday… Some of those channels, which Kamangar said receive little or no affiliate fees from cable distributors, could be one of the viable offerings for Google-owned YouTube as it weighs selling subscriptions to some of the hundreds of millions of people who watch videos on the website every month.
Hangouts on Google+ are often touted as one of the social networks flagship features, which is why it is not too surprising that Google has now integrated YouTube into the feature. Available through a “YouTube” link at the top of the Hangouts screen, after users have allowed access to the app, members of the hangout can add videos for everyone to view in a familiar YouTube playlist on the right. The playing video airs in the large part of the screen above the active members, while everyone sees and can edit the same videos or playlist. Google explained:
Everyone can add videos in the Hangout through a search tool in the app, or remove the videos you don’t like. All your friends in the Hangout can drag and drop videos to sort the order in the playlist, or skip forward or backward to play the next one. Click the “Push to talk” button to chat with the group to give props to the best curator, or to hand out reprimands to the friend who keeps adding the 10-hour Nyan Cat video.
For those looking to watch this year’s Olympic games, but do not have a cable subscription or just like the feel of YouTube a little better, the International Olympic Committee has you covered. AP reported that the IOC would live-stream over 2,200 hours of the Olympics on to YouTube for those across Asian and in Africa. According to the report, the streaming is primarily for countries that the IOC does not have rights to broadcast in, such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Thailand, and Singapore. The program will run from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. London time with 10 streams of different events. Viewers in 64 territories can check the games out on the Olympics channel when they begin July 27.
Google TV Developers announced on Google+ today that they are rolling out a new over-the-air update to Sony Google TV-enabled devices over the next couple of days.
Version 2.1.1 now allows users to watch movies rented through Google Play and at YouTube.com/movies on YouTube. The notice also revealed that further update news for Logitech Revues is on the horizon.
Mega-agent Ari Emanuel (you know—the conceited big shot who Jeremy Piven played in the hit HBO show “Entourage“) just wrote an open response to Google asking for the company, along with Silicon Valley and Hollywood, to join forces and develop a solution to the country’s piracy and copyright issues.
Emanuel appeared at the AllThingsD D10 Conference with hosts Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher on Wednesday, where he called out Google and YouTube during the interview for filtering child pornography, but allowing pirated media content.
In lieu of Emanuel’s assertions, Mossberg asked Google’s advertising head Susan Wojcicki today why the search engine does not find and filter copyrighted material. She called Emanuel “very misinformed,” and then said the problem with filtering content is not technical, but rather a complicated business problem.
Two Google senior vice presidents appeared on stage at the AllThingsD D10 Conference yesterday to discuss all things YouTube and Chrome with co-host Walt Mossberg.
Mossberg asked Google’s ad wizard Susan Wojcicki why the search engine does not find and filter copyrighted material. The topic came in leiu of Hollywood agent Ari Emanuel’s assertions from Wednesday, while at the conference, when he claimed YouTube filtered child pornography, but allowed pirated media content.
“The problem is identifying which copyright belongs to who… is very complicated,” said Wojcicki, while mentioning that filtering copyrighted content is not technical, but rather a complicated business issue. “At the end of the day, in order to know what to do with that content, we need to hear from the copyright owner.”
