Tag: Entertainment

Watch: Life in a Day (The YouTube Movie)

Remember “Life in a Day,” the YouTube movie project from director Kevin MacDonald and produced by Ridley Scott, that got people all over the world to take video of themselves doing stuff on one particular day to create a documentary about a single day on earth?

Well, that movie is here, and it’s now available to watch for free on YouTube (or right here if you wish):

The film was gleaned from 4,500 hours of footage recorded and uploaded to YouTube, and turned into a 90 minute film.

It was actually released in select theaters and at various film festivals, but now it’s on YouTube for all to see. It’s available with subtitles in 25 languages.

Here are a couple of videos from Macdonald and Scott talking about the project:

YouTube said last year that it had received 80,000 video submissions from 192 countries for the film.

October 31, 2011
Netflix, Amazon Announce New Deals with Disney-ABC
Netflix has extended its partnership with Disney-ABC, and Amazon announced a new partnership with the group.

“Disney and ABC have been and continue to be an innovative and supportive partner for Netflix,” said Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos. “The diverse but always excellent programming from the different channels and networks are favorites of our members and we are thrilled to broaden the scope and extend the terms or our relationship.”

New content to come out of the deal for Netflix includes:
- ABC Family’s “Switched at Birth”
- Prior season episodes of Disney Channel’s animated series “Kick Buttowski”
- All episodes of the ABC thriller “Alias”
The following will continue on Netflix as part of the extended deal:
- Prior season episodes of “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Desperate Housewives,” and “Private Practice”
- All episodes of “Lost,” “Brothers & Sisters,” and “Ugly Betty”
- Prior season episodes of “Army Wives”
- “The Secret Life of the American Teenager,” “Melissa & Joey,” and “Make It or Break It”
- Various content from the Disney Channel including: “Phineas and Ferb,” ” Good Luck Charlie,” “The Suite Life on Deck,” and “Hannah Montana”
Amazon lists the following as new offerings for Prime members:
- Prior seasons of “Grey’s Anatomy”
- All episodes of “Lost”
- Prior seasons of “Phineas & Ferb”
- Prior seasons of ABC Family’s “The Secret Life of the American Teenager,” including the most recently aired episodes from summer 2011
- Prior seasons of Marvel’s animated shows “Spider-Man,” “X-Men Evolution,” “Thor & Loki: Blood Brothers” and “Iron Man: Extremis”
- All episodes of ABC Family’s “Greek”
- All episodes of “Felicity” from ABC Studios
“We are excited to add some of the very best content available from Disney-ABC to Prime instant video,” said Brad Beale, director of video content acquisition for Amazon. “This includes every episode of past seasons from the ABC hits Lost and Grey’s Anatomy, fan favorites like Felicity and Greek, the popular Disney Channel show Phineas & Ferb and great animated series from Marvel. We’re working hard to add even more selection for Kindle Fire customers and Prime members leading up to the holidays, and expect to have nearly 13,000 titles available in Prime instant video by early next year.”

Financial terms of either deal were not disclosed.
October 31, 2011
YouTube’s Push For Quality TV

Following rumors for the better part of the year, YouTube has finally made the official announcement regarding a set of forthcoming channels aimed at creating a higher quality YouTube with channels that could rival those of cable television (though Google maintains it is not trying to replace cable just yet).

Google says more talented creators and original entertainment are joining YouTube’s existing channel lineup, and that this will include channels created by “well-known personalities and content producers from the TV, film, music, news, and sports fields, as well as some of the most innovative up-and-coming media companies in the world and some of YouTube’s own existing partners.”

“These channels will have something for everyone, whether you’re a mom, a comedy fan, a sports nut, a music lover or a pop-culture maven,” says Robert Kyncl, Global Head of Content Partnerships.

“Our goal with this channels expansion, along with the grants and educational programs we’ve launched in the past year, is to bring an even broader range of entertainment to YouTube, giving you more reasons to keep coming back again and again,” he adds. “And for advertisers, these channels will represent a new way to engage and reach their global consumers.”

You may recall that Google was said to be trying to acquire Hulu, though Hulu took itself off the market.

This announcement comes on the heels a big Google TV update announcement, further emphasizing Google’s push into the living room. More on that here.

Of course YouTube is far bigger than Google TV, and probably bigger than it ever will be, and there are a lot more avenues into the living room that YouTube has access to, not that you have to be in the living room to enjoy quality content.

It’s going to be interesting to see just how good these channels are, and if they can gain the kind of viewing that well-known TV networks get.

Google says the first of the channels will appear next month, with more coming over the next year.

October 29, 2011
Big Update for Google TV

Google announced a new software update for Google TV aimed at reaching four goals: keeping things simple, making it easier to find something worth watching, making YouTube better on TV, and bringing more apps to TV.

“We look forward to announcing more hardware and chipset partnerships in the months ahead and shipping new devices at new price points in 2012,” a Google spokesperson tells WebProNews.

“The initial version of Google TV wasn’t perfect, but launching it gave us the opportunity to learn. These are still early days, and we’re working hard to move forward with each update,” Google says in a blog post discussing the new update.

“We also worked to put in place some fundamental components that will make more frequent and more powerful software updates a reality,” the company says. “We know it will take time to get it right — this is a marathon, not a sprint — and with each update, we take another step forward.”

The update itself comes with a simpler interface and a customizable home screen (pictured above) designed to let users get to their favorite content more quickly. There are also shortcuts within “all apps,” like with Android.

There are search improvements for both live TV and apps like Netflix, YouTube, HBO GO, etc. Along with that, there’s an app called “TV & Movies” that lets you browse through as many as 80,000 movies and TV episodes across cable/satellite and web services.

There have been various reports about upcoming YouTube channels to be more TV-friendly, and it looks like that is a part of this update too. “We’re launching a new YouTube experience specifically built for Google TV,” Google says in the blog post. “It is now fast and easy to get to your favorite HD-quality YouTube entertainment. And we’ve integrated YouTube more closely with Google TV search, so that you can turn virtually any topic – mountain biking, cooking, etc. – into a channel.”

On the apps front, Google is now letting Android developers bring existing mobile apps or entirely new apps to Google TV. Those that require a touch screen won’t appear on Google TV.

The next version of Google TV is tentatively scheduled to begin shipping to consumers on Sunday (October 30). It will start on Sony devices, and then go to Logitech devices.

October 28, 2011
Redbox Prices Go Up! 20 Cents!

First Netflix raised its prices creating a huge amount of backlash from members earlier this year. Now, Redbox announced that it too is raising prices.

Redbox users got an email from the company saying:

Redbox is making an announcement about its prices today, and we want to make sure that you hear it from us first.

Starting on Monday, October 31, the daily rental charge for DVDs will change to $1.20 a day.* The price change is due to rising operating expenses, including new increases in debit card fees. Daily rental charges for Blu-ray™ Discs and video games won’t change.** Additional-day charges for DVDs rented before 10/31 won’t be affected, either.

In order to make the transition easier, Redbox will discount the first day of all online DVD rentals to $1.00 from 10/31 through 11/30. Additional rental days will be $1.20.***

If you have any questions, please visit redbox.com/pricechange. There, we’ve provided additional information.

This marks our first price change in more than eight years as we work hard to keep prices low for our customers.

Thank you,

Redbox

Though this is technically a 20% price increase, somehow it seems much easier to swallow, given that it’s not a monthly fee that users pay, but just a dollar (now $1.20) for a movie at any given time. Depending on how many movies you rent from Redbox in a given month, this could still have a more significant effect, but I don’t think Redbox is going to lose a lot of users over paying 20 more cents for a movie.

Netflix recently revealed that it lost 800,000 subscribers.

I’ll leave you with some Twitter reaction to the Redbox price increase:

@bmk
Brian KRedbox is raising prices. I think the next step is you have to get the 2nd half of the movie from a different box across the street. 1 minute ago via Twitter for Mac · powered by @socialditto

@YoPaulieNJ
Paul BoudreauIt’s pay-per-use RT @IAmRoot: So Redbox increases prices 20% overnight, nobody says a peep. Where’s the netflix-level outrage? V @kgoyette 3 minutes ago via Echofon · powered by @socialditto

@jaysonbailey11
Jayson BaileyRedbox changing prices to one night dvd rentals to $1.20. What commies 11 minutes ago via UberSocial for Android · powered by @socialditto

@joshratcliffe
RatcliffeWith Netflix and Redbox raising prices, movie theaters should lower prices now to drive consumers back to the theaters. #justmyopinion 40 minutes ago via TweetDeck · powered by @socialditto

Of course there are still some companying. Here’s one response from Redbox:

@redboxcare
Redbox Care@shawnw Sorry you feel that way. This is the first time redbox raises prices in 8 yrs. This will help enhance services like phone apps, ect. 15 minutes ago via TweetDeck · powered by @socialditto

October 28, 2011
Netflix Posts Record Revenue, But Huge Subscriber Loss

Netflix reported a record $822 million in revenue for the third quarter, but the company’s Q3 earnings report was hardly a success, as it also reported losing 800,000 subscribers.

Naturally, the loss in subscribers led to the company’s stock taking a hit. The stock was down nearly 35% in pre-market trading.

Wondering why the company lost so many subscribers? I would say a couple of good guesses would be the controversial pricing changes and the whole Qwikster ordeal. The company’s deal with Starz falling apart probably didn’t help much either, considering that was a source of a significant portion of Netflix’s newer movie offerings.

There’s also just a rise in competition. The recently launched Blockbuster Movie Pass probably isn’t going to do much to help Netflix either.

Netflix did just announce a UK streaming service, however. They’re also looking to get more into exclusive content. And being available across more devices should certainly help. Last week, Netflix launched a new Android app for Honeycomb tablets.

The jury is still out, however, on if Netflix will continue to be able to thrive in the face of increasing competition. For more on that, read this.

The company expects to continue to lose subscribers. It expects by the end of the year to have between 20 million to 21.5 million streaming customers and 11.3 million DVD subscribers (U.S.), compared to the current 21.5 million and 14 million respectively.

Audio is available of the company’s earrings Q&A session here.

October 25, 2011
The Perfect House Gives Facebook an Exclusive Movie Rental Launch

There have been a handful of announcements about movies being available for rent on Facebook this year, and now, Facebook is even getting an exclusive movie launch today. Milyoni announced that the new horror flick The Perfect House is being exclusively launched via its Social Cinema technology on Facebook.

“The Perfect House is a brand new chilling saga about the history of a couple’s supposed dream house that, well, isn’t too perfect after all,” a Milyoni representative tells WebProNews. “Share, comment and experience the spook with your close and not-so-close friends on Facebook.”

“Milyoni has also rounded up some of the scariest flicks available to make sure everyone gets in the spirit of Halloween by renting, streaming and sharing horror classics, including Saw, Blair Witch Project, Orphan Killer, among many others,” she tells us.

Perhaps the real news here is that you can now watch the amazing Jennifer Aniston film Leprechaun on Facebook as part of this as well.

“Milyoni offers an unmatched social experience for movie lovers on Facebook,” said Kris Hulbert, executive producer of The Perfect House. “Thanks to Social Cinema, terrified fans don’t need to brave the movie alone. They can spread their fear and excitement by sharing clips, quotes, and comments all while watching the movie from the convenience of their own home or mobile device.”

Each title is available to rent for 30-40- Facebook credits.

October 20, 2011
Netflix Launches Android App for Honeycomb Tablets

It’s been something of a bumpy road for Netflix on Android. They’ve faced challenges in making the Android app compatible with all Android devices. They talked a bit about this in a blog post last fall, when Netflix’s Greg Peters said, “The hurdle has been the lack of a generic and complete platform security and content protection mechanism available for Android. The same security issues that have led to piracy concerns on the Android platform have made it difficult for us to secure a common Digital Rights Management (DRM) system on these devices.”

Luckily, a lot of progress has been made since then. Throughout the course of this year, Netflix has gotten its Android app on more and more devices. Last month, it was declared that “Netflix now supports all Android 2.2 and 2.3 devices.”

Now, today, Netflix announced that it has launched a new app in the Android Market to support Android 3.x (Honeycomb) tablets.

“This new app also extends Android support to Canada and Latin America for the first time,” says Netflix Director of Product Management Roma De. “Now Netflix members in US, Canada and Latin America can enjoy Netflix on both their Android smartphones and tablets.”

More good Netflix-related news, at least for fans of Kevin Smith: Netflix also announced the exclusive availability of his latest film Red State to watch instantly in the U.S.

October 19, 2011
Netflix Dumps Qwikster Idea, Keeps DVDs

You may recall a couple weeks ago when Netflix announced it would be separating its DVD-by-mail service into a separate entity called Qwikster. Yeah, that’s not happening anymore.

A post on the Netflix blog written by CEO Reed Hastings says:

It is clear that for many of our members two websites would make things more difficult, so we are going to keep Netflix as one place to go for streaming and DVDs.

This means no change: one website, one account, one password… in other words, no Qwikster.

While the July price change was necessary, we are now done with price changes.

While the whole thing comes off a bit disorganized, it’s probably a smart move on Netflix’s part to keep the DVD business, as many were speculating that separating it was only setting it up for a sale. The company is facing increasing competition, and it would do well to keep any competitive advantage it has.

While DVDs may eventually go away as a technology, the DVD-by-mail plan has long been Netflix’s strong point. In fact, it wasn’t that long ago that it just WAS Netflix. Then the streaming offering came along as a nice bonus (until they made it not a bonus anymore, earlier this year).

After Netflix announced the Qwikster separation, DISH Network announced its new rival Blcokbuster Movie Pass, which according to Blockbuster’s announcement includes: access to over 100,000 DVD movies, TV shows and games by mail (with no additional charge for Blu-ray), 3,000 streaming titles to the TCV, over 4,000 streaming movies to the PC, hundreds of on-demand TV shows, over 3,000 games by mail for Xbox, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3 and Wii, unlimited exchanges of DVDs and games at participating Blockbuster stores. It also includes over 20 premium channels like MGM, Epix, Sony Movie Channel, PixL, etc.

Perhaps Netflix decided it would not be wise to offer less formats while competitors offer more.

Netflix may also have to contend more with studios simply offering their own movies through Facebook or even their own websites.

Hastings did note in the blog post that Netflix has recently added “hundreds of movies” from Paramount, Sony, Universal, Fox, Warner Bros., Lionsgate, MGM and Miramax. “Plus, in the last couple of weeks alone, we’ve added over 3,500 TV episodes from ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS, USA, E!, Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, ABC Family, Discovery Channel, TLC, SyFy, A&E, History, and PBS,” he added.

Last week, the company announced that it is getting past seasons of The Walking Dead.

October 10, 2011
Beavis & Butt-Head, Facebook Insights & The Milwaukee Wolverine

I think today’s video collection is a pretty entertaining mix.

I’m running a little short on time this afternoon, so I’ll forgo the quick descriptions and let the videos explain themselves (along with their titles and page descriptions).

View other daily video round-ups here.

Get More: Beavis and Butt-Head, MTV Shows, Full Episodes

Everything Is A Remix: THE MATRIX from robgwilson.com on Vimeo.

Landscapes: Volume Two from Dustin Farrell on Vimeo.

October 7, 2011
YouTube Expands Movie Offerings to UK

YouTube has had movies available for a long time, but for quite a while, it was mostly just old stuff that wasn’t too much in demand, but then in May, they announced that they were doubling their movie offerings, and including new releases, which it would charge users for. Essentially, YouTube entered the movie rental business.

Later, they added the service in Canada.

Google announced today that over 1,000 full-length feature films are now available on YouTube in the UK as well.

“We’ve got some cracking films to keep everyone entertained through the upcoming winter months and beyond,” says YouTube Business Product Manager Matteo Vallone. “From blockbusters like The Dark Knight and Reservoir Dogs, to new releases such as Hanna, Fast Five, and Red Riding Hood, and even British classics like Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.”

“There’s always more to explore on YouTube,” Vallone adds. “Many movie pages also feature YouTube Movie Extras with free behind-the-scenes videos, cast interviews, parodies, clips and remixes from YouTube’s unique community of content creators. Over time we’ll also be adding additional videos and features to YouTube Movie Extras so that you can get even more into movies on YouTube.”

According to recent reports, Google is spending about $100 million to develop new original content for YouTube.

October 7, 2011
Google, Playstation, Elmo & Celebrities Saying the F Word

A video round-up is hardly complete without one of Google’s webmaster help videos featuring Matt Cutts dropping some knowledge on site owners, but beyond that, there’s quite a mix here in today’s. I’ll just let you look at them.

View other daily video round-ups here.

Google’s Matt Cutts talks about how Google treats the .co TLD:

Google celebrates 1 billion downloads for Google Earth:

Pretty cool Playstation ad:

The “Being Elmo” trailer:

Occupy Wall Street gets a rap with a Radiohead riff:

The “strange power of the placebo effect” – this has been around a while, but it’s getting shared around a lot today:

Celebrities talking about famine:

Google shares a multi-platform advertising case-study for Animal Planet:

Autolib’s car sharing initiative is getting some attention:

Google talks feature update for Google+:

IAB CEO Randall Rothenberg talks to Microsoft:

Wolfram/Mathematica talks generating random numbers:

October 5, 2011
Myspace Wants to Be Hulu for Music
I’m not exactly sure how this is much different from what Myspace was already trying to be, but Specific Media, which purchased the social network for $35 million is making music the focus of Myspace going forward.

Before the sale, Myspace had already tried to rebrand itself as an entertainment hub, largely dominated by music-related entertainment. When the company went ahead and submitted to Facebook by letting users login with their Facebook accounts, I believe I said something along the lines of, “Myspace is more like MTV.com now than Facebook.”

It appears it will continue to go in such a direction.

The media has been waiting for Advertising Week, when Specific Media would talk about Myspace, and that has come. They pitched the idea and had a special concert with performances from Far East Movement, B.o.B. and Natasha Bedingfield, according to the LA Times.

Liz Gannes got ahold of Myspace’s pitch deck:

Myspace pitch deck

View more presentations from lizgannesATD

Within, it reminds us that Myspace has just as large an audience as it did in 2005, when News Corp. acquired it. The decline in traffic is mentioned, but it says traffic has steadied and “is currently trending with the market”.

One slide in the presentation says “no single player possesses all the capabilities that Myspace offers,” and that points to the following bullets:
- The Hulu of Music: Unique content rights with Big Four labels and 20K independent labels allows for ad-supported music video and audio streaming
- Owned and operated property engaging 70M+ global consumers online each month
- Database of 325M+ active email addresses
- User registration data enables targeted content and advertising based on consumer interests
- Ranked second-most popular music site, well ahead of Vevo and Spotfiy
Myspace says its vision is to “become the #1 online community music destination,” and that its mission is to “feed the energy youth culture everywhere.” Its target audiences are fans, artists, music/brand ad partners, and “cultural influencers”.

I guess we’ll see how it goes.
October 4, 2011
Catwoman Pics, Google, Dead Sea Scrolls, LEGOs & Dr. Seuss

Today’s video round-up features a project Google is involved with in putting the Dead Sea Scrolls online, a full-sized Ford Explorer made out of legos, some other Google-related endeavors and a picture collection from the set of the highly anticipated The Dark Knight Rises.

View other daily video round-ups here.

Google celebrates the launch of The Dead Sea Scrolls Online project:

More Catwoman photos from the set of the Dark Knight rises have emerged:

Google is now letting Google+ users share their Circles:

Google also launched the Google Earth Outreach program in Canada. The company points to this video as “a great example of a Canadian organization using Google Earth to communicate their cause to a larger global audience”:

WebProNews interviewed Michael Brito, SVP of Social Business at Edelman:

The Daily looks at a dentist who is obsessed with Dr. Seuss:

Ford social media guy Scott Monty shows how the Ford Explorer was recreated in actual size with LEGO bricks:

September 26, 2011
True Blood, Long Distance Relationships & Page 1 Search Rankings

One of the reasons we thought it would be nice to do a daily roundup of infographics is that it is a quick way to take in a lot of information in a very visual way. Doesn’t it make learning more fun?

So, while we’ll certainly include the business stuff, we won’t be shy about dropping in some more fun stuff like vampire shows and breakfast cereal. You can still learn from them. But don’t worry, there’s plenty of business stuff too.

This one from ScreenRant takes a deep look into the mythology of True Blood:

A look at the evolution of technology and its impact on the long distance relationship from ROUNDS:

Search Engine Journal provides a look at the evolution of making it on the first page in search results:

MTV points us to the birth of the breakfast cereal box:

Visible Technologies looks at Pew Research info on how social media tracks your every move:

This one from CB Insights (via ReadWriteWeb) looks at problems in the Daily Deals industry:

Experian Hitwise looks at if UK Internet usage was just 1 hour:

DDB Paris and OpinionWay look at why users unlike brand pages on Facebook (via AllFacebook):

Edelman looks at health around the globe (via Mashable):

Progress Software looks at how businesses deal with change:

September 20, 2011
Netflix DVD Service Becomes Qwikster

As you may know, Netflix recently announced that its DVD-by-mail and streaming services, once available to customers together as one package, would become two separate services, and customers would have to pay more if they wanted to keep both. This was a hugely controversial move among members, but the new pricing plan went into effect at the beginning of the month.

Now, suddenly, CEO Reed Hastings has offered an apology for the way things went down. “It is clear from the feedback over the past two months that many members felt we lacked respect and humility in the way we announced the separation of DVD and streaming, and the price changes,” he says. “That was certainly not our intent, and I offer my sincere apology. I’ll try to explain how this happened.”

“For the past five years, my greatest fear at Netflix has been that we wouldn’t make the leap from success in DVDs to success in streaming,” he added. “Most companies that are great at something – like AOL dialup or Borders bookstores – do not become great at new things people want (streaming for us) because they are afraid to hurt their initial business. Eventually these companies realize their error of not focusing enough on the new thing, and then the company fights desperately and hopelessly to recover. Companies rarely die from moving too fast, and they frequently die from moving too slowly.”

Of course, this apology was just a prelude to another announcement that users are already trashing. The company has decided to separate the two services even further by turning the dvd-by-mail service – you know, the original Netflix – into its own company called Qwikster with Andy Rendich taking the reins as CEO. He’s been working on Netflix’s DVD offerings for 12 years.

If they were going to do this, why they changed the name of the service that everyone signed up for Netflix for to begin with, instead of the bonus service that they later added on, is beyond me. But that’s what they’ve done.

“We chose the name Qwikster because it refers to quick delivery,” says Hastings. “We will keep the name “Netflix” for streaming.”

They are adding video games (Wii, PS3, Xbox 360) to Qwikster, but users will have to go to qwikster.com to access their queues.

“A negative of the renaming and separation is that the Qwikster.com and Netflix.com websites will not be integrated,” says Hastings. “So if you subscribe to both services, and if you need to change your credit card or email address, you would need to do it in two places. Similarly, if you rate or review a movie on Qwikster, it doesn’t show up on Netflix, and vice-versa.”

At least pricing remains the same. For now.

September 19, 2011
Emmys & Scarlett Johansson Parodied, Media Boss Punches Guy

Some more good videos for you today. We’ve scoured the web for you to put together the collection below. Go here for other recent daily video collections.

Mayweather vs. Ortiz wasn’t the only big fight. Below, you’ll find punches thrown by a Russian media mogul. There’s also some emmy-related humor and Taiwanese animation from NMA. It’s not all hilarity though. There is some good stuff for the tech enthusiasts and business folk too.

As you may have heard, nude photos of Scarlett Johansson were leaked this past week, and Next Media Animation, which parodies a lot of tech news with its signature Taiwanese animation style, took the story on in its latest video:

The Emmys are tonight. Here are some pre-Emmy fun videos (via Kara Swisher):

Bing Director of Search Stefan Weitz talks about the search engine’s new personalized search feature “Adaptive Search” with WebProNews:

Alexander Lebedev, who owns UK publications the Independent and Evening Standard, punched businessman Sergei Polonsky on Russian television:

Interesting things going on with Google+ Hangouts, courtesy of Hangout Academy:

Engadget shares a “hands on” with Toyota’s Prius plug-in hybrid from the Toyota Green Drive Expo:

Martin Bryant at TheNextWeb shares some highlights from the Picnic Festival in Amsterdam, which he refers to as “a geekier, more accessible version of the World Economic Forum.”

Windows 8 Developer preview (via ZDNET):

Windows 8 Developer Preview from Off The Broiler on Vimeo.

Talk Android shows off a colorful live wallpaper for Android:

And this one of the Tron Legacy bike:

September 18, 2011
George Costanza, Google Wallet, Nanoparticles & A Guy In A Wing Suit

We’ve got an interesting mix of videos today.

If you haven’t seen our other video round-ups from this week, you can find them at:

09/16
09/15
09/14

Microsoft may have tapped Jerry Seinfeld for an ad campaign in the past, but Google has gone the George Costanza route to sell Google Wallet:

Business Insider’s Henry Blodget points to this video of what he describes as an “Insane Video Of Guy In Wingsuit Flying Through Trees.” That about sums it up. Somehow this seems worth passing along. Don’t let the title “Grinding the Crack” fool you.

How to make quantum dots (nanoparticles) (via Slashdot):

This one was shared by Adobe’s John Nack on his blog. It comes from Junebum Park:

The Adobe Carousel team answered reader questions in this video:

Webcam 101 for Seniors has been trending all week, but we haven’t included it yet, so if you haven’t seen it yet, here it is:

Jeff Jarvis shared this one on Google+. As he notes, the punchline is in English:

This apparently won YouTube’s Next Up contest in Japan

From the Ellen Degeneres Show, David Beckham went under cover selling cologne at Target:

September 17, 2011
iPhone 5 Concept Features, Stevie Wonder, Robots & the Evolution of Music

This week, we started a new series of articles where we look at some of the most interesting videos in tech and business that we come across in any given day. You can see yesterdays’ here. While it’s only day two, the response has been good so far, so we will likely keep it up.

Update: Don’t miss day three’s videos here.

I’m not going to waste a lot of time talking about. Let’s just get to the videos.

This CG iPhone 5 concept video , which features an iPhone with a thin design, a laser keyboard and holographic display has been trending pretty hard. Today, it made it on YouTube’s own Trends blog.

Speaking of the iPhone, Stevie Wonder thanks Steve Jobs at the “WONDER-FULL” event in LA. It’s making its way around the blogosphere (4:39):

AOL’s Money and Happiness speaks with an expert for tips on racking up free airline miles:

Panasonic demonstrates EVOLTA robots to compete in Iron Man Triathlon:

Sphero is a robotic ball that you control with your smartphone. Business Insider shared this video of the ball rolling around its HQ:

This game, Phone Story, was banned from iOS but has apparently been approved by Android:

Google is letting Gmail users get their chat log data out of Gmail. They released this video about it:

Interesting look at the evolution of music, with statistics:

Here’s a new interview our own Abby Johnson did with Mary Song of Yuupon about the date of the daily deals industry:

Here’s the future of shopping according to PayPal:

I think I still prefer the zombie apocalypse version:

Adobe’s VP talks about extensibility and the future of web conferencing:

The Windows Phone Blog shared a look at the HTC TItan with video chat:

Intel demoed its Pair and Share technology, which lets iOS and Android devices share video and pictures to Intel computers wirelessly:

September 15, 2011
mSpot: We Have the “Holy Grail” of Mobile Movies

mSpot has announced what it is calling the “Holy Grail of Mobile Movies”. In other words: instant streaming and progressive downloads. It will first be offered on newly shipping Lenovo tablets.

“While there is growing competition for streaming movies – it’s mostly on PCs and web-enabled TV –very little downloading is available on mobile devices,” the company says. “Movie DRM for the mobile is not the same as movie DRM for PC, (companies like Amazon/Blockbuster have created their own players to solve the download problem on PC, but are unable to both stream and download movies to mobile devices).”

Lenovo and mSpot have together developed their own DRM solutions for mobile movie downloads, using Microsoft’s PlayReady.

According to mSpot, it’s the only player that is able to serve the “very fragmented market” cross platform with both iOS and Android.

“Amazon, Apple and Blockbuster boast the ability to download and instantly watch – but they are actually referring to TV shows; movies require a full download before you can watch them, (Apple states in their video tutorial, that you can start watching right away -while downloading), but fail to mention this doesn’t apply to movies,” mSpot says. “Amazon and Blockbuster have built their own DRM-enabled movie players, but users must still download the entire movie before watching.”

The company also points out that Blockbuster used to support iOS devices, but no longer offers this.

August 31, 2011
Celebrities on Google+ – 15 More to Add to Your Circles

Celebrity use may prove to be a big driver of general Google+ use. It certainly helped with Twitter. We live in a society that is obsessed with celebrity, and we tend to want to follow people on social networks who have updates that may be of interest to us.

Last month, we looked at a list of early adopter celebrities on Google+ and more have joined since then. Google’s Pedro Dias provided a helpful list including some that weren’t in the previous article.

The previous list included William Shatner, Britney Spears and Newt Gingrich to name a few. Here are some more (click on the images to go to the profiles).

Trent Reznor

Google+” src=”https://img.ientry.com/webpronews/pictures/trent-reznor-google.jpg” title=”Trent Reznor on Google+” class=”alignnone” width=”616″ height=”452″ />

Alanis Morissette

Google+” src=”https://img.ientry.com/webpronews/pictures/alanis-google.jpg” title=”Alanis Morissette on Google+” class=”aligncenter” width=”616″ height=”294″ />

Madonna

Google+” src=”https://img.ientry.com/webpronews/pictures/madonna-google.jpg” title=”Madonna on Google+” class=”aligncenter” width=”616″ height=”368″ />

Paris Hilton

Google+” src=”https://img.ientry.com/webpronews/pictures/paris-hilton-google.jpg” title=”Paris Hilton on Google+” class=”aligncenter” width=”616″ height=”293″ />

Mariah Carey

Amanda Palmer

Google+” src=”https://img.ientry.com/webpronews/pictures/amanda-palmer-google.jpg” title=”Amanda Palmer on Google+” class=”aligncenter” width=”616″ height=”392″ />

Rose McGowan

Mark Hoppus

Google+” src=”https://img.ientry.com/webpronews/pictures/mark-hoppus-google.jpg” title=”Mark Hoppus on Google+” class=”aligncenter” width=”616″ height=”440″ />

Chris Tucker

Google+” src=”https://img.ientry.com/webpronews/pictures/chris-tucker-google.jpg” title=”Chris Tucker on Google+” class=”aligncenter” width=”616″ height=”388″ />

T-Pain

Google+” src=”https://img.ientry.com/webpronews/pictures/t-pain-google.jpg” title=”T-Pain on Google+” class=”aligncenter” width=”616″ height=”356″ />

Felicia Day

Google+” src=”https://img.ientry.com/webpronews/pictures/felicia-day-google.jpg” title=”Felicia Day on Google+” class=”aligncenter” width=”616″ height=”343″ />

Jeri Ryan

Taylor Swift

Google+” src=”https://img.ientry.com/webpronews/pictures/taylor-swift-google.jpg” title=”Taylor Swift on Google+” class=”aligncenter” width=”616″ height=”390″ />

Dolly Parton

Sasha Grey

Google+” src=”https://img.ientry.com/webpronews/pictures/sasha-grey-google.jpg” title=”Sasha Grey on Google+” class=”aligncenter” width=”616″ height=”374″ />

All of the celebrities on this list are verified. Google announced late last week that it was beginning to verify accounts, starting with celebrities and public figures (though they will roll this out to more people in time).
Know of other celebrities that weren’t on either of these lists? Please feel free to share in the comments.

August 24, 2011