Hulu and YouTube are giving viewers options in watching commercials

Both Hulu.com and YouTube are offering online viewers the chance to choose which commercials they watch. The New York Times reports.

This month, Hulu introduced a format that gives users the option of clicking an “ad swap” button after a commercial begins and choosing to replace it with one of two or three options. Don’t want to sit through an oil company’s commercial? Then go with one from a cellphone carrier or a razor maker.

YouTube is also offering formats that give users an option, including one in beta testing that provides a choice of three commercials.

Read full article.

Apes in captivity watch TV and favor either ER, Disney cartoons or teletubbies

Some researchers have observed that apes held in captivity watch tv programs. Some of them are fond of the Teletubbies, others favour emergency room dramas or Disney cartoons.

ut is it possible to script, shoot and screen cinema just for primates? That's what Rachel Mayeri set out to discover with her work Primate Cinema: Apes as Family.

[via we-make-money-not-art.com]

What Governments Worldwide Want Google to Take Down

Google published its biannual Transparency Report yesterday showing US Law Enforcement and courts requested the removal of 757 items from Google's servers—mostly Youtube videos depicting acts of police brutality. Check out the full list of American requests—plus those from other countries around the world—here and further analysis at The Register.

[via Gizmodo]

US Copyright bill revives Internet 'death penalty'

A dozen members of the U.S. House of Representatives today announced they've jointly introduced a new bill intended to make allegedly copyright-infringing Web sites, sometimes called "rogue" Web sites, virtually disappear from the Internet. CNet reports.

The bill, called the Stop Online Piracy Act (PDF) represents a long-anticipated escalation by major copyright holders to curb online piracy and counterfeit goods via the law.

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YouTube’s top channels rival cable audiences

Thought online video would never match the audience numbers of traditional TV? Think again: The top five channels on YouTube get the same number of average daily viewers as the top five U.S. cable channels, I was told by a YouTube spokesperson this week. GigaOM reports.

And Sandvine’s Global Internet Phenomena report shows that YouTube is especially making a big dent in mobile, where it is now responsible for 20 percent of all downstream traffic during peak times.

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YouTube Close to Announcing Video 'Channels'

According to The Wall Street Journal,YouTube is expected to announce as early as next week that it has signed a slew of partnerships with media companies and well-known personalities to produce original content for the popular video website.

TV audience will vote with Twitter for singer on X Factor

Next week, for the first time, as an alternative to calling or texting in a vote for a singer on “The X Factor,” Twitter will make it possible to vote with a message to the show’s account. The New York Times reports.

The voting option is the result of a new technological investment by Twitter and is a reflection of the company’s symbiotic relationship with the television industry.

TV producers like Mr. Cowell, who crave the immediate feedback they can get from Twitter, have given the Web site free promotion, helping it to gain more users who will give even more feedback. Over time, the theory goes, having more users will help the five-year-old Twitter turn a steady profit.

Read full article.

Notice Internet connections in hotels are slowing down? blame it on iPads

If you've noticed unusually poor Internet service in hotel rooms lately, you can blame it on the broad use of Pads and other mobile tablets, which are heavy users of video streaming.

According to New York Times, the guest room Wi-Fi networks that most hotels thought they had brought up to standard just a few years ago are now often groaning under user demands.

... David W. Garrison, the chief executive of iBAHN, a provider of systems for the hotel and meetings industries says hotels will have to choose “either to not increase the amount of bandwidth, so everybody will get much slower service to the point where you’ll think you’re on a dial-up connection,” or upgrade and essentially put in a metered fee-based system.

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Netflix Loses 800,000 Subscribers After Price Hike

According to TIME Techland, Netlfix reported a loss of 800,000 subscribers, mostly due to the PR nightmare that came after it raised its prices for its combined streaming and DVD plan by 60%.

Full Walter Isaacson/Steve Jobs Interview From 60 Minutes

MacRumors has posted the full Steve Jobs interview from 60 Minutes.

Free Bieber: campaign to kill proposed law that would send you to prison for 5 years for singing copyrighted music on YouTube

S.978, a new bill in Congress, makes it a felony to post videos that contain copyright-infringing music, with up to five years in prison for violators. boingboing reports.

The clever folks at Fight for the Future have noticed that this law would have put Justin Bieber in jail, since he launched his career by posting videos of himself singing R&B tunes, in violation of copyright.

The Free Bieber campaign is aiming to raise awareness of the campaign to fight S.978 and keep posting videos of yourself singing music legal.

Read more.

Coming to a Gadget Near You: A Movie for All Your Screens

After three years of negotiations, last week a consortium of large Hollywood studios, gadget makers and retailers launched a cloud-based service that lets people watch online or mobile versions of the movies they bought on DVD or Blu-ray. This free "digital locker" called UltraViolet keeps track of movie purchases and gets copies of them onto laptops, smartphones and more.

[via The Wall Street Journal]

Parents Urged Again to Limit TV for Youngest

Parents of infants and toddlers should limit the time their children spend in front of televisions, computers, self-described educational games and even grown-up shows playing in the background, the American Academy of Pediatrics warned on Tuesday, reports The New York Times.

Video screen time provides no educational benefits for children under age 2 and leaves less room for activities that do, like interacting with other people and playing, the group said.

Read more.

YouTube Merch Store to Sell Songs, Concert Tickets and Merchandise

YouTube has launched The Merch Store, to be rolled out globally over “the coming week", sa tool allowing musicians to sell digital downloads, concert tickets, branded merchandise and more directly from their respective YouTube channels. Mashable reports.

The Google-owned video platform partnered with a number of different companies to enable the ecommerce add-ons, including Topspin (for merchandise, concert tickets and other experiences), Songkick (for concerts), and Amazon and iTunes (for music downloads). The company did not disclose whether it would be taking a cut of sales made through those services.

Read more.

Chinese spend more time online than watching TV

Chinese living in even the smallest communities are widely going online for entertainment and communication, spending about as much time on the computer as their peers in Shanghai and Beijing, according to a new study of lower-tier markets that seeks to provide a comprehensive profile of China's consumers. AdAge Global reports.

... What researchers didn't expect to find was that media consumption in some of these communities was not far off from trends in the biggest cities.

... A 21-year-old woman in rural southern China said she hasn't watched TV in a year. Instead, she gets everything she needs on her computer.

"There's a real concern that TV in the lower tiers has become a bit obsolete, I feel," Jeffrey Tan said. "Right now with content in the hands of people, they're choosing the computer more so than the TV."

Read full article.

Tablets turned into Braille keyboard by US researchers

A team of US researchers from New Mexico University has devised a way for people with impaired vision to use the touchscreen of a tablet such as an iPad as a Braille keyboard. The BBC reports.

Instead of using a keyboard or mechanical writer, users type directly onto the flat glass.

Instead of having fingers that find the buttons, we built buttons that find the fingers," said Stanford's Sohan Dharmaraja, one of the researchers on the project.

Users place eight fingers on the screen and the keyboard appears. Shaking the device activates a menu, and further interaction is achieved by regular touch gestures.

Read full article.

BT and TalkTalk to appeal Digital Economy Act

BT and TalkTalk will launch a fresh challenge against the controversial Digital Economy Act. The BBC reports.

The companies have been granted permission to appeal against a High Court ruling that upheld most of the anti-piracy law.

Like many service providers, they believe that the law unfairly compels them to police users' behaviour.

Read full article.

A Body, Blood and Computers: Just Like TV

CSI: The Experience, a new exhibition at Discovery Times Square, lets you step into the shoes of Grissom, Willows and the other forensic celebrities of the “CSI” TV franchise.

The exhibit will be traveling to several cities, click here to find out where and when.

[via The New York Times]

Google to launch YouTube Politics

Google-owned YouTube is launching a special site Thursday that it hopes will be a one-stop online spot for political junkies to watch the good, the bad and the ugly of the 2012 presidential campaign. Politico.com reports.

The site, YouTube Politics, will include videos from the candidates’ official YouTube channels and a mix of videos produced by media outlets and everyday citizens so people can follow every speech, gaffe and interview of the 2012 campaign.

Read YouTube blogpost.

YouTube launches online movie rental service in the UK

YouTube has launched its movie rental service in the UK with thousands of blockbusters including The King's Speech and The Dark Knight. The Guardian reports.

Film fans in the UK can now rent new releases for £3.49 ($5.45) and older titles for between £2.49 ($3.88) and £3.49 ($5.45) from YouTube.

The move puts the Google-owned site in direct competition with Amazon's LoveFilm, which claims some 1.6 million customers in the UK and Europe.

France acts against net pirates

Sixty French net users could have their connection turned off for a month after ignoring letters telling them to stop infringing copyright. The BBC reports.

They are the first to reach the end of the controversial process France operates as a way of tackling pirates.

About 650,000 people have received one warning and a further 44,000 are on their second warning.

The statistics were revealed in the annual report from the French agency that runs the scheme.

Read full article.

YouTube Goes Professional

According to The Wall Street Journal, YouTube is finalizing deals with well-known personalities, such as skateboarder Tony Hawk, and major media companies to produce original content for its popular video website, as it seeks to become a next-generation cable provider that oversees dozens of free online "channels" with professional-grade shows.

Read more.