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A couple months ago, Pure Digital Technologies hinted to us that it would soon have a new version of its inexpensive, YouTube friendly Flip digital camcorder, and good to its word, the company announced a new line this morning called the Flip Video Ultra.

The Flip Ultra comes in orange, pink, black, and white (we got a review sample of the white version this morning) and the press release says the "higher-end addition to Pure Digital's line of pocket-sized, easy-to-use camcorders features upgrades to all its software, including DVD quality video and advanced editing features. Still affordable, the … Read more

Yesterday MyStrands, the music discovery service/social network launched MyStrands.TV, a new offering that serves up music videos related to your tastes. If you've ever used Last.fm, the idea is similar--just type in an artist name and you'll get a playlist full of their videos, along with several recommendations for similar artists or genres. The service keeps track of which videos you've watched, and shows you a listing of members who have added that artist to their own playlists. There's also a social element with user pages full of custom band picks you can … Read more

This morning, Apple unveiled the iPod Touch, this year's latest must-have gadget that's the first bona fide iPod to have built-in Wi-fi, the Safari Web browser, and the YouTube app iPhone owners have come to love. That's not the most groundbreaking aspect, though--this thing's got a full version of the iTunes Music Store that you'll be able to use for shopping right on the device. You can preview and buy songs that will sync up to your iTunes library when you plug it in back at home. The idea is similar to the Music Gremlin, … Read more

Conceptual artist Jonathon Keats has few qualms about exploiting the behavior of nonhumans. For one of his projects, presented last year, he choreographed a ballet danced by honeybees. For his latest project--video pornography for plants--he has gone even farther off-species and, many would say, farther still off the deep end.

Keats calls the genre Cinema Botanica and billed its gallery premiere, scheduled for September 10 at the 1078 Gallery, in Chico, Calif., as the "world's first porn theater for house plants." The logic behind the project, which now includes a trailer on YouTube showing plants being pollinated, … Read more

Thailand has lifted a ban on YouTube about five months after videos mocking King Bhumibol Adulyadej prompted the military-installed government to block domestic Web surfers' access to the site.

But there's a catch, of course.

In a Friday interview with the Financial Times, the Southeast Asian nation's information and technology minister attributed the restoration to an agreement that the Google-owned service will block any clips that the government flags as illegal. Thai law, among other things, forbids mocking monarchs, an act punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

According to the advocacy group Human Rights Watch, Thai … Read more

Viacom includes video footage from an indy filmmaker on one of its TV shows and calls that Fair use. The filmmaker then posts to YouTube a copy of the TV show in which his work appears and Viacom calls that a copyright violation.

Viacom bashers are sure to paint this as the height of hypocrisy, but a review of the situation could be important to Web videographers.

The entertainment conglomerate, which filed a $1 billion lawsuit against YouTube earlier this year for allegedly encouraging copyright violations, says it used only heavily edited snippets of Knight's work as part of … Read more

Apparently, blenders aren't just for smoothies and margaritas anymore.

Ever try blending golf balls? Light bulbs? Cell phones? A rake handle? An iPod? I bet not, but I have a sneaking suspicion that you have watched Tom Dickson from Blendtec blend some of these things on YouTube.

A few months ago, I used the "Will It Blend?" campaign for an article on Marketing Profs.

Since then, the campaign has continued on (Tom blended an iPhone this summer, for instance) and is now arguably one of the best examples of YouTube-based social-media marketing (SMM) to date.

The YouTube-based … Read more

The presidential crawl back and forth across the country is less of a race and more of a marathon. At this point, there are a lot of candidates on both sides, and likewise an onslaught of news coverage. To help keep track of it all, there's a new site, aptly named Map the Candidates, which does just that. It's a Google maps mashup of where candidates are, and what they're doing in the form of news feeds and video clips.

Each candidate gets an icon to match their campaign branding, and various map markers around the country … Read more

Note: This post comes by way of Crave UK. Some links have been changed to reflect their CNET U.S. counterparts. The original post can be found here.

LG isn't renowned for high-end camera phones, but that doesn't mean that the company behind the fashion-centric Chocolate phone can't make one. It can--and it has--and no, we're not talking about the LG KG920. The LG KU990 Viewty, formerly known as the NYX, might have an awful name, but it features a whopping 5-megapixel camera with a nifty touchscreen interface and YouTube functionality.

Similar to the LG Prada phone, … Read more