livestream

Imagine if Google Earth could take users under the ocean. People on laptops sitting hundreds of miles away from any body of water could dive down and spot colorful reef fish, coral forests, sea snakes, and rare turtles. A program just like this was officially announced today.

In a partnership with Google, the global insurance company Catlin Group Limited and nonprofit Underwater Earth launched the Catlin Seaview Survey. The goal is to let people explore the ocean from afar and also carry out the first detailed study about the composition and health of coral reefs. The mapping expedition is expected … Read more

Ford is planning to grab a large piece of the electric vehicle market pie. The U.S. automaker today announced plans to triple production of its electrifying platforms.

In a press conference on Livestream, Jim Farley, group vice president of marketing, sales and service said the company will triple production capacity of electrified vehicles in the U.S. by 2013. Ford plans to invest more in the C-Max Hybrid and C-Max Energi plug-in hybrid vehicles, but will not be bringing the C-Max mini van to production.

"Customers have come to expect fuel efficiency with every new vehicle Ford delivers … Read more

Facebook has launched a live-streaming channel designed to provide its users with content detailing what's happening at the company's headquarters.

Dubbed Facebook Live, the new service is basically a PR channel for the company. According to a representative, Facebook Live "is a natural extension of our blog and is a way to communicate with our users more directly." Facebook will be airing interviews with people that stop by its headquarters, highlighting its new products, and trying to capture the "activity already happening at Facebook." Whereas it was doing all this before with text, now … Read more

It's not spring yet, but Justin.tv is cleaning house. On Tuesday the video host is rolling out a new version of its broadcasting tool that makes it easier to get a live video stream going.

According to the company, a simple change has led to a 700 percent increase in the number of people who make it from clicking the "broadcast" button on Justin.tv's front page to actually beginning a live stream. At least that was the metric for a beta test the company ran on 10 percent of new users who were beginning … Read more

As we speak, the Foo Fighters are playing a live show on Facebook, live from their own Studio 606, for their fans on the site. The concert is utilizing the same live-stream module we have seen in used in a variety of situations in the past, including CNN's live stream of Barack Obama's inauguration. This is combined with a live video module from Livestream to complete the experience.

This is a really cool thing for the band to do for its fans and something I hope we see more of in the future. As the Foo Fighters play, they are keeping an eye on the stream of status updates coming in, sometimes responding to comments and taking song requests.

There is an undeniable trend of live events moving online. The potential audience that can be reached is fairly significant and the costs are low. As shown by the Foo Fighters, a band can just broadcast a live show for their fans, from their own studio. The social element of Facebook, combined with this event, only enhances the experience.

If you want to check out the show, we have embedded the Livestream widget below (while the show lasts).… Read more

The folks at the video broadcasting service Livestream have a new tool out for Twitter users called Twitcam that lets anyone with a Twitter account start streaming their own show, complete with live chat.

Each page the service creates gets its own URL, which users can come back to at any point and watch once the live-streaming portion of the show is over.

As for the chat, it's all handled via tweets. Anytime someone replies to one of your tweets where the link to the show is included, the app counts it as a reply. It then aggregates these in one place, so everyone who is watching your show can see the entire conversation. It's not exactly the best way to handle it, since sometimes it's nice to have some basic text chatter that doesn't fill up your Twitter stream with stray tweets, but it's done in a way that keeps everything tightly-organized.

Livestream says that Twitcam was built in about a week and uses new player tools that are going into an updated version of its API that will be released in the near future. The company hopes these will let anyone build a similar service with their own branding, and audience tools--preferably with a chat system that does not require so many tweets.

An archive of the live chat I used while testing this service out is embedded after the jump.

See also: Justin.tv's CamTweet (which is in private beta)… Read more

Live-streaming platform Justin.tv now supports high-resolution videos using H.264 encoding. The codec, which has made headway in consumer electronics, is also a great format for the Web since it can fit high resolutions in relatively small file sizes--making it ideal for something like streaming.

For now there are a few caveats that keep it from being accessible to the average user. For one, videos streamed in high resolution H.264 will not be saved into user archives, and there is no way to do it without using special software to process the stream before it hits Justin.tv'… Read more

Qik, the mobile phone-based video-streaming service favored by blogger Robert Scoble, is coming to the Windows Mobile platform.

Previously only available for Nokia phones like the horrendously overpriced N95 ($500 unlocked), the service will soon roll out for the millions of Windows smartphones now on the market, like the Samsung Blackjack (free with activation) according to Qik co-founder Bhaskar Roy.

While still in private beta, Qik for Windows will soon be available as an open download. Roy told me that he hopes to sign some carrier deals soon too, getting Qik preinstalled on phones.

Qik turns anyone with a capable … Read more

We're wrapping up the last day of the Web 2.0 Expo, on a live stream at about 10:00 a.m. today and at 2:00 p.m. Tune in...

Video is hosted by a Webware media partner, the Blogtropol.us Bloggers' Lounge.