YouTube Launches Human Rights Channel

YouTube has launched a Human Rights channel, with non-profit partner Witness and video playlist creator Storyful, the company announced Thursday. The channel will curate footage of human rights-related stories, uploaded by citizen users, shedding light on under-reported stories and, potentially, fueling activism. [Via Mashable]

According to YouTube, 100,000 videos were uploaded during the height of the revolution in Egypt, representing a 70% increase over the previous three months. And Egypt’s not the only example — we’ve seen YouTube content creation from protests in Syria, Russia and even Chicago.

YouTube press release.

YouTube: 72 hours of video are uploaded every minute

The YouTube team recently celebrated its 7th birthday, and announced an amazing statistic: 72 hours of video are uploaded to the site every minute. .

Users are watching 3 billion hours of video every month. In case you're wondering, that's about 70,000 hours being watched each minute.

[via MSNBC]

Pirate Pay torrent 'blocker' backed by Microsoft

A Russian company has developed software it says can disrupt and prevent people from downloading pirated content, reports the BBC.

Pirate Pay has been backed by Microsoft and has so far worked with Walt Disney Studios and Sony Pictures to stop "thousands" of downloads.

The tool poses as real bit torrent users but then "confuses" peer-to-peer networks, causing disconnections.

Critics argue that the method will be ineffective in the long term.

Read more.

HBO's 'Game Of Thrones' On Track To Be Crowned Most Pirated Show Of 2012

With its popularity swelling and no easy way to watch for viewers without cable, HBO’s hit series “Game of Thrones” is inspiring massive levels of piracy, according to numbers from the BitTorrent-tracking and analysis firm Big Champagne.

By the firm’s rough estimate, the second season of the show has been downloaded more than 25 million times from public torrent trackers since it began in early April, and its piracy hit a new peak following April 30th’s episode, with more than 2.5 million downloads in a day.

[via Forbes]

Dutch court bans Pirate Party links to The Pirate Bay

According to the BBC, the Netherlands' Pirate Party has been ordered to stop publicising ways to circumvent blocks to The Pirate Bay.

The ruling by a court in the Hague follows a complaint by the anti-piracy group Brein.

It had said that the political party was helping users overcome a previous ruling that had ordered two of the country's biggest internet service providers to prohibit access to TPB.

A subsequent order instructed a further five ISPs to block access to the site.

Read more.

New TV remote controls respond to apps, speech and gestures

Fighting for the remote control is about to get a whole lot more interesting. USA Today reports.

TV makers are employing technological developments in the mobile and gaming sectors — voice recognition, gesture sensors and smartphone apps — to redesign the TV remote control, which is overdue for a makeover.

The new remotes are shipped only with the latest (and expensive) generation of smart TVs, and the speak-to-the-TV revolution is mostly limited to early tech adopters who are willing to tolerate early-stage kinks. But industry experts are betting the technology will improve over time to appeal to a wider base of customers who find the traditional remote control cumbersome and poorly designed.

Read more.

ACTA unlikely to be ratified in Europe

The ACTA treaty that has been the subject of street protests around Europe is unlikely to be ratified by the European Union, according to Neelie Kroes, the powerful European commissioner for telecoms and technology.

Speaking on Friday, Kroes said that "we are now likely to be in a world without SOPA" – the US's proposed Stop Online Piracy Act – "and ACTA."

[via The Guardian]

CBS.com launches social TV platform ‘CBS Connect’

CBS.com has just launched CBS Connect, “a new social hub connecting fans with each other and CBS stars.”

The site will be a single destination where they will aggregate content from Twitter and Facebook across all of CBS’ programming. The new platform is aimed to allow fans of CBS shows to connect even further with the stars of the shows. It’s no surprise that CBS is taking their social TV offerings to the next level.

[via Lost Remote]

CISPA: What's The Worst That Could Happen?

The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) makes some very important people mad as hell, while other companies we trust with our personal info every day are cheering it on. Both sides paint a pretty gruesome picture of what happens if it passes or fails. But how bad will it really get, in either case? And is the protection CISPA gives us worth selling out our freedom?

Read full article in ReadWriteWeb.