Video

TelePresence is way better than you think it is

Have you seen Cisco System's TelePresence? If you haven't, you should. TelePresence is a next-generation video-conferencing offering from Cisco and to call TelePresence "technology" minimizes its scope. TelePresence includes television monitors, desks, chairs, and everything you need for connectivity. Once installed, you get a Star Trek-like experience. Cameras react to voices and focus on the person speaking. Television monitors display remote participants across a virtual table as if they were in the same room. Geek heaven!

TelePresence is nothing like any video-conferencing technology I've ever seen or thought about. The first time I heard about … Read more

iPhone App: Videos 4 iPhone

Videos 4 iPhone provides a solution for the iPhone's incompatibility with flash video. This app converts flash videos, helps you organize your favorite videos for easy access, and lets you submit videos to the developer's site. You can also choose to play videos over the Edge network or using local Wi-Fi.

iPhone Link: http://videos4iphone.com/

Web site link http://videos4iphone.com/about.php

Vringo video ringtones, the ultimate caller ID

David Goldfarb's phone won't stop ringing.

The Vringo CTO is giving me a demo of Vringo's video ringtone service, now in public beta, to demonstrate how users can assign phone-formatted video clips as their outgoing ringtones. David has chosen a humorous singing cartoon of a green bear as his video calling card. He's set it up so that any phone he calls with a Vringo client will light up with his chosen video. If so desired, he could limit the output to his wife and send everyone else a much more sober video to announce his call.

Vringo reverses the conventional ringtone concept of users choosing songs to differentiate between contacts, entertain themselves with favorite songs, or make a stylistic statement. Here individuals control how they're perceived by friends, and can use "vringos" as a gift or personalized greeting. Users can upload their own clips on Vringo.com or record clips from within the Vringo phone app. It's easy to see how users could create happy birthday messages or video gifts.… Read more

Are kids getting dumber thanks to TV and video games?

As someone who had hoped that Tivo and the internet were going to raise my child, I have to say that I am disappointed by this SF Gate article that says kids today are dumber than ever and may in fact be getting dumber as we go on.

As for the rest, well, the dystopian evidence seems overwhelming indeed, to the point where it might be no stretch at all to say the biggest threat facing America is perhaps not global warming, not perpetual warmongering, not garbage food or low-level radiation or way too much Lindsay Lohan, but a populace … Read more

'Roommates' on MySpace.com: A review

Roommates, the new MySpace TV original Web series, has all the plot dexterity, acting ability, and subtlety of a low-budget porno flick, without any of the payoff. Parents, the chances of your child encountering an actual sexual predator or engaging in actual criminal activity on MySpace.com are pretty low, statistically speaking. But if your kids are watching Roommates, you want to put a stop to that pronto. This is some psychologically damaging stuff.

The premise of the "show," which launched yesterday, is that four aspiring model/actresses...er, recent college grads...are living together in a house … Read more

NBC Universal confirms end of YouTube deal

The shaky relationship between NBC Universal and YouTube has collapsed once again, as an NBC representative confirmed on Monday that the network has decided to stop posting promotional clips on the video-sharing site.

According to the representative, NBC Universal pulled out of the deal on Friday to support the upcoming launch of Hulu.com, the Internet video service founded by NBC and News Corp. that could compete for eyeballs with Google's YouTube. A test version of Hulu, which will stream full-length TV shows, is expected to make its debut within the next two weeks.

The breakup is important because … Read more

More than 100 times faster than Wi-Fi?

Radio scientists at IBM Research and MediaTek are teaming up to develop a wireless transmission protocol that will deliver files more than 100 times faster than Wi-Fi.

The idea is to take advantage of the 60GHz spectrum, according to Mehmet Soyuer, the lead researcher on the project, who is based in IBM's T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York. These chips will be able to transfer files at around 2.5 gigabits per second, compared with the 11 to 54 megabits of Wi-Fi. Hence the 100 times faster calculation, Soyuer said.

Put another way, these chips … Read more

MySpace original series 'Roommates' debuts Monday

MySpace.com is testing out the director's chair with a new Web-based series, Roommates, which debuts Monday at 1 p.m. PDT. Through December 21, a new three-minute episode of the show will be available each weekday on the MySpaceTV portal and through the Roommates profile page.

The series, co-created by MySpace and new-media production studio Iron Sink Productions, marks the first time that the News Corp.-owned social-networking site has been behind the development of a scripted Web show. Roommates is a show within a show, as four recent college graduates move to Los Angeles and enlist in … Read more

Turn junior into an indie filmmaker

Any parent who's walked in on a kid playing Jackson Pollock on a wall in the house will appreciate this. Rather than bottle up that creative energy--not to mention the fingerpaint--it might be worth investing in one of these digital camcorders made especially for children, complete with 18 special effects and audio tracks that they can incorporate into their first noir classics.

Don't expect any full-length features with only 32MB of built-in memory, though it can be expanded by up to 2GB with an SD card. Once done, you can view the clips on the TV or computer … Read more

MySpace series 'Quarterlife' unveiled

NEW YORK--Marshall Herskovitz, co-creator of the upcoming Web series Quarterlife, calls his decision to distribute the show on MySpace.com a "deal with the devil."

At a Thursday screening of the first six eight-minute episodes of the show as part of the CMJ Music Marathon and film festival, Herskovitz--best known as one half of the team that created the critically acclaimed TV series Thirtysomething and My So-Called Life--emphasized his aim to bring creativity to the world of professional online video.

"What I'm seeing on the Internet right now is really boring, and I think these big companies are missing it in a big way," he explained in a question-and-answer session following the screening. "All these new things, Hulu and even Joost, they're creating these platforms as though that's the goal. But they're not creating interesting programming. They're reusing content from television."

He continued: "There aren't any very good ideas coming out of it, and I haven't seen anything that really interests me."

Then, according to Herskovitz, there's the YouTube problem.

"People are quite fascinated by user-generated content on the Internet right now, and I'm not against that. And we want that on our site. But I believe that user-generated on the Internet, just like reality shows on television, are not completely satisfactory," he asserted. "There are reasons why we've had classical storytelling for 2,500 years, and across so many cultures. And there are reasons why we've had a film grammar for the past 100 years about how we shoot a film, and there's a place for that."

Which is why he and Zwick saw a window of opportunity for Quarterlife, a series about a half-dozen 20-somethings working in "creative" industries like acting, writing and filmmaking. Divided into eight-minute episodes, the Web series will be the center of a planned social network for fans as well as young creative people in general.