So what’s new in version 5?

Mars in 3D
This is the latest stop in our virtual tour of the galaxies, made possible by a collaboration with NASA. By selecting “Mars” from the toolbar in Google Earth, you can access a 3D map of the Red Planet featuring the latest high-resolution imagery, 3D terrain, and annotations showing landing sites and lots of other interesting features.

See global changes with decades of historical imagery
If you’ve ever wondered how your local area has changed throughout time, Google Earth now gives you access to the past. With a simple click, take a look at suburban sprawl, melting icecaps, coastal erosion and more.

Dive beneath the surface of the ocean
In the new ocean layer, you can plunge all the way to the floor of the sea, view exclusive content from partners like BBC and National Geographic as well as explore 3D shipwrecks like the Titanic.

Track and share your paths with others
Take placemarks a step further and record a free-form tour in Google Earth. Simply turn on the touring feature, press record and see the world. You can even add a soundtrack or narration to personalise the journey.

Sounds to me like it’s a good time to upgrade or try this one out. Feel free to let me know what you think, or share a “trip” with the rest of us…

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Mobile technology is, as the name suggests, technology that allows consumers and business users to perform computing and communications related tasks without being tied to a single, fixed location. The concepts of work, and working hours, for example, are becoming less well-defined, as mobile telecommunications technology and wireless Internet connectivity allow the possibility of telecommuting – that is, working away from a traditional office environment, either at home, or elsewhere – saving travelling time, and costs, and increasing productivity.

Mobile Devices

Mobile devices, nowadays, take many forms. Perhaps the most useful of all, however, are those which run an operating system akin to that found on a conventional desktop PC, or, in other words, notebook or laptop computers. Laptops are available in a number of different shapes and sizes, but all essentially involve a compromise of some kind; very small, lightweight laptops may be easy to carry around, but may lack processing power, and additional extras, while larger, heavier laptops may be faster, and have all the “bells and whistles” you could ever need, but are correspondingly less portable. A handheld computer, or PDA (“Personal Digital Assistant”) – running a “cut-down” operating system, such as Windows Mobile – is, of course, another possibility. These devices typically lack a standard keypad, and are operated via a touch screen, with a fingertip or stylus. Mobile telecommunications technology is available, obviously, in the form of the mobile phone, but the concept of !
a “smart phone” – essentially a mobile phone, but with advanced capabilities, above and beyond voice telephone calls – has continued to expand in recent years.

Mobile Broadband & Beyond

Mobile devices can be enabled for use with a wide range of technologies. These may include EDGE (“Enhanced Data for GSM Environment”), an enhancement for 2G (“2nd Generation”), or 2.5G, GPRS (“General Packet Radio Service”) telecommunications networks, or, more recently, truly 3G, or 3.5G, GSM technology. Bluetooth and WiFi – the generic name for IEEE 802.11 compliant wireless networking technologies – are also available for the wireless connection of mobile devices.

Typical sales, or customer service, applications may include presentations given to prospective customers using a laptop – possibly streaming media from a web server, if the laptop has mobile broadband capability – transferring product literature, wirelessly, to a client`s computer, remotely accessing a diary, or allowing, say, restaurant customers to pay via a wireless payment terminal, rather than a fixed till.

Mobile broadband technology is becoming very popular, not least because it is fast, convenient and flexible. A laptop, or notebook, computer can be equipped for mobile broadband access simply by plugging in a lightweight USB (“Universal Serial Bus”) broadband modem, or “dongle”. This allows Internet access, at speeds approaching those of traditional, fixed line connections, anywhere where there is sufficient coverage. This can be particularly advantageous for anyone who wishes to access the Internet, but has no permanent place of residence – students, for example – and/or no landline telephone line. Indeed, mobile broadband technology is advancing at such a pace that laptop and notebook computers equipped with integral modules – which increase 3G speed, and are “future proofed” for 4G technologies, such as HSPA (“High Speed Packet Access”) and “Long Term Evolution” – are starting to become available. The new mobile broadband technologies support download speeds of up to 7Mbp!
s (“Megabits per second”).

For more information on mobile broadband visit – http://mobile.broadbandgenie.co.uk/

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Ware shuttered the doors to a San Jose, Calif., hearing pitting Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg, probably the world’s youngest self-made billionaire, against Harvard University classmates who claim Zuckerberg stole ideas and source code from a similar venture called ConnectU. Ware took this extraordinary step without notice, without a formal request from either side, and without even specifying why it was necessary.

So what’s so special with this hearing that calls for a private status? Follow the story on CNet News.

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More specifically, YouTomb continually monitors the most popular videos on YouTube for copyright-related takedowns. Any information available in the metadata is retained, including who issued the complaint and how long the video was up before takedown. The goal of the project is to identify how YouTube recognizes potential copyright violations as well as to aggregate mistakes made by the algorithm.

These videos are not available for viewing/downloading, thumbs only. Once again, this is simply a research project that seeks to find out more details about how YouTube locates and takes down videos accused of copyright violation.

However, it’s quite interesting what kind of movies people are submitting…

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Major television broadcasters and leading content publishers, including CBS, MTV Networks, Universal Music Group, PBS, CondéNet, and Scripps Networks have worked with Adobe to provide a broad range of television programming and entertaining video content to viewers. Additionally, Adobe announced Adobe TV, a network in Adobe Media Player with a series of shows that provides expert instruction and original series programming about Adobe products to the worldwide creative community.

For the first time, consumers can download video outside the browser in the Adobe Flash format, which can be viewed in 1080p, 720p or 480i video display resolutions with the most advanced audio quality. Users can also subscribe to television shows and other online video content and then automatically receive new episodes of the shows as they become available.

Adobe Media Player is available for immediate download at www.adobe.com/go/mp.

Adobe Media Player is a key part of Adobe’s ecosystem for the creation and delivery of next-generation broadcast entertainment.

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The service works like any other social network where you can add contacts and leave video messages. Think of your TokBox link as your phone number or email address – once you give it out to someone, they can call or email you at any time.

TokBox have also released their API which means that developers can integrate the system to their own websites. You can download the documentation at www.tokbox.com/view/developer.

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The new resolution isn’t set as standard as of yet, but by applying the simple parameter above, or by installing the Firefox add-on Better Youtube (all automatic), you will get the new higher-quality version (if the video’s been made available as MP4).

For registered users it’s even simpler. In the account settings there’s now a section where you can adjust the “Video Playback Quality”. Choose “I have a fast connection. Always play higher-quality video when it’s available” and you will get the MP4 version if available. It does however require that you have an account and are logged in.

However, the benefits of this upgrade strongly relies on the quality of the uploaded movie. Thus it’s the users that in the end determines the outcome of this. Maybe it would be better to have the videos shown in as high quality as the source allowed? Most users have blistering fast connections these days anyway, but I assume Youtube might be somewhat concerned about bandwidth…

What’s your take on this?

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Supported sources:

• Any DVD-like source: VIDEO_TS folder, DVD image or real DVD (encrypted or unencrypted, but protection methods other than CSS are not supported and must be handled externally with third-party software), and some .VOB and .TS files
• PAL or NTSC
• AC-3, DTS, LPCM or MPEG audio tracks

Outputs:

• File format: MP4, MKV, AVI or OGM
• Video: MPEG-4 or H.264 (1 or 2 passes or constant quantizer/rate encoding)
• Audio: AAC, MP3, Vorbis or AC-3 pass-through (supports encoding of several audio tracks)

Misc features:

• Chapter selection
• Basic subtitle support (burned into the picture)
• Integrated bitrate calculator
• Picture deinterlacing, cropping and scaling
• Grayscale encoding

Visit their website for more information, screenshots and to download the latest version of Handbrake.

Note! In order to convert encrypted DVD’s you will need something like AnyDVD or DVD43 in addition to the converter itself.

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Mark moved in early morning Monday January 7th to the IKEA in Paramus, New Jersey and will stay for the week through Saturday January 12th. You can follow his daily routine on marklivesinikea.com.

Mark Malkoff is best known for his video “171 Starbucks,” in which he is shown visiting and consuming purchases at each of the ubiquitous coffee chain’s locations in Manhattan in a single day. It can be viewed at www.171starbucks.com. Mark currently works as the audience coordinator on Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report.” You can check out his work at www.markmalkoff.com.

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John Lewis

Oxfam

Macy’s

Tesco

Apple Macintosh Computers

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Take look at 54 reasons why 2008 will be an awesome year for movies and an even better year than 2007. This is a comprehensive list of what will make 2008 a truly memorable year for movies.

Here’s my top 5 from the list (in no particular order):

• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
• James Bond 22
• Star Trek XI
• Babylon A.D.
• Adventureland

If you know of any other movies, or just like to post your own top 5, feel free to do so below

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Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne, co-chairmen and co-CEOs of New Line, says Jackson – the director of the smash hit Lord of the Rings series – and producer Fran Walsh will both executive produce a Hobbit movie and a sequel, but no decision has been made about who will direct the films.

According to IMDB the first Hobbit movie is scheduled for 2009.

Source: ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

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The way you do partnerships here, everyone’s a block away or 20 minutes away in Palo Alto. If I need to set up a partnership with [micro-blogging service] Twitter, I call them, we have coffee, and two hours later the deal is done. If I were in France, there’s a nine-hour time difference and it’s like you don’t matter.

Included in the post are his ten rules for start-up success. Reprinted below:

1. Don’t wait for a revolutionary idea. It will never happen. Just focus on a simple, exciting, empty space and execute as fast as possible
2. Share your idea. The more you share, the more you get advice and the more you learn. Meet and talk to your competitors.
3. Build a community. Use blogging and social software to make sure people hear about you.
4. Listen to your community. Answer questions and build your product with their feedback.
5. Gather a great team. Select those with very different skills from you. Look for people who are better than you.
6. Be the first to recognise a problem. Everyone makes mistakes. Address the issue in public, learn about and correct it.
7. Don’t spend time on market research. Launch test versions as early as possible. Keep improving the product in the open.
8. Don’t obsess over spreadsheet business plans. They are not going to turn out as you predict, in any case.
9. Don’t plan a big marketing effort. It’s much more important and powerful that your community loves the product.
10. Don’t focus on getting rich. Focus on your users. Money is a consequence of success, not a goal.

These “rules” may not fit any business profile, but they do make sense and could very well serve as guidelines for anyone. Feel free to add to these rules or share your success story!

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Official web-site.

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Enjoy!

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