video

Chat in living color using Video Calls with Facebook

There are a few video-calling options for the iPhone. The built-in FaceTime functionality works very well but is only an option if the person you are calling is using an Apple device (iPad, iPhone, or Mac). Similarly, Skype is a powerful video chat tool, but without a good connection and if your quarry doesn't use Skype, you're out of luck. So, a video chat tool using Facebook is very enticing. Seen - Video Calls for Facebook promises just that, but does it deliver or is it yet another feature-rich, connection-starved video chat app?

Upon installation, you are prompted … Read more

Windows Blue upgrades may be shown in leaked videos

Leaked videos that hit the Web today hint at a host of possibilities for Microsoft's next Windows release, codenamed Blue. Not only does it look like there might be improvements across the operating system, but also the speech recognition feature in Windows Phones could get a noteworthy upgrade.

The videos come via MSFTKitchen, which got its hands on internal videos from Microsoft's TechFest event a couple of weeks ago.

In the video that is presumably about Microsoft Blue, the company's chief technical strategy officer Eric Rudder hints that Microsoft has plans to boost their touch feature on … Read more

YouTube breaks records with 1 billion monthly users

What does 1 billion monthly YouTube users signify? It means that nearly one out of every two people on the Internet worldwide goes to YouTube.

That's a serious amount of people.

Google's video hosting service announced today that for the first time, it's driving these colossal numbers -- more than a billion unique users on the site, every month.

"If YouTube were a country, we'd be the third largest in the world after China and India," YouTube wrote in a blog post today. "Our monthly viewership is the equivalent of roughly 10 Super … Read more

Next Xbox won't support optical drive game playback -- report

Microsoft's next Xbox won't allow gamers to play titles from an optical drive, according to a newly leaked document.

The folks over at VGLeaks recently released what they claim is the Microsoft documentation for its next console, code-named Durango. In the long-winded document, which makes mention of enhanced graphics and an improved Kinect sensor that will be sold with the console, Microsoft notes that only hard drive-based game playback will be offered.

"Every Durango console will have a hard drive, although its exact capacity has not been chosen," the company wrote in the documentation. "It will be large enough, however, to hold a large number of games. All games will be installed on the hard drive. Play from the optical disc will not be supported."… Read more

Yahoo looks to buy stake in video-sharing site Dailymotion

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is working on buying a controlling stake in video-sharing site Dailymotion, The Wall Street Journal reported today.

Unnamed sources told the Journal that Yahoo is in talks with France Telecom, the company that owns Dailymotion, to buy as much as 75 percent of the site. The site may be valued at about $300 million.

It's far from a done deal at this point, according to the Journal's sources, but Yahoo could use a boost in the video-sharing space, which is mainly dominated by services like Google's YouTube.

Although Mayer purchased a recommendations startupRead more

T-Mobile changing the contract game

CNET Update will pay you Tuesday for a smartphone today:

Google Reader is shutting down in July, and its demise can impact citizens who have Internet access restricted by their government. The Change.org petition to keep Google Reader has about 12 percent of its signatures from people living in countries that have Internet censorship. People in Kazakhstan and China have left comments urging Google to keep the Reader tool because it's the best way to access banned websites and uncensored news.

Also featured in Tuesday's news roundup:

- Next week, T-Mobile is expected to announce a new way to pay for smartphonesRead more

Add simple text or a logo watermark to any video with VideoMark for Mac

Watermarking publicly released videos can prove to be beneficial in a wide range of circumstances. VideoMark for Mac helps you both protect your videos with a digital watermark as well as create brand awareness by promoting your business logo while advertising your products or services.

VideoMark for Mac installs easily, and the setup takes no time. On the main interface, you can drop the video to be watermarked and choose between a text watermark or an image watermark. Only basic options are available such as text color, stroke color, font, and transparency. Transparency is supported for both images and text, … Read more

Add your videos to iTunes and watch them on all Apple devices thanks to VideoDrive for Mac

Not all video-capable devices support every format, which sometimes makes conversion a real pain. VideoDrive for Mac allows you to easily manage all your videos via iTunes and play them on your iPhone, iPad, iPod, and Apple TV in just a few steps, making it easy and fast to take your videos with you anywhere.

At first launch, after a spooky warning, VideoDrive for Mac will propose to install both Perian and Handbrake to be able to function properly. The installation process is smooth. Thanks to Handbrake, the conversion is fast and will make use of every available core on … Read more

Battlefield 4 reveal set for March 26

According to an official invitation sent to GameSpot, Electronic Arts and DICE plan to "celebrate a new era of Battlefield" at an upcoming Battlefield 4 event in San Francisco on March 26 at 7 p.m. PT. The event occurs during the 2013 Game Developers Conference that takes place from March 25-29.

For those craving more information about the upcoming shooter, well, there isn't much to work with at the moment.… Read more

Telly is more than just a Vine clone

Telly is a video app that gives you a way to shoot and share video with effects and watch popular videos posted to Facebook, Twitter, and Telly's own network.

Instead of a YouTube client or other video player, Telly shows you a feed of videos taken from your friends' posts on Facebook and Twitter, and those of other Telly users. If you follow celebrities, sports figures, or television networks on Twitter, you'll also get whatever videos they post as part of your feed. Basically, depending on your friends and who you follow, you'll have a place where … Read more