Webware

Pandora's largely undisputed reign on Palm WebOS-based phones may be over.

On Thursday, Slacker Radio released a version (.0.9.4) of its streaming radio app to the App Catalog in the U.S. and Canada. As with Slacker Radio for other mobile platforms, the free app gives you the run of more than 100 curated stations, or it lets you go into discovery mode a la Pandora and ilk by creating "custom" stations based on songs or artists you like.

Artist bios with photos are on Slacker's Palm menu, as are the buttons to rate songs as favorites and skip ahead. Slacker's premium subscription service is ad-free and lets you view song lyrics.

After logging into our Slacker account, the familiar app interface--which is now well standardized on Slacker apps across the BlackBerry, Android, and iPhone platforms--was easy to navigate and played stations as promised.

So far, one of Slacker's best features, caching music to listen to offline, is still only available for BlackBerry and is on its way to iPhone.

In a decision that deprives open-source foes of some rhetorical fodder, the group that licenses patents for the widely used H.264 video-encoding technology chose to renew a streaming-media freebie through 2015.

MPEG LA licenses more than 1,000 H.264-related patents on behalf of 26 companies that hold the patents. The group's existing policy, which runs through the end of 2010, has been not to charge royalties to Internet sites that streamed video using the technology--as long as the video was free for viewers.

Many have been waiting to hear what MPEG LA would announce for the licensing terms beyond 2010. On Tuesday, the group said it extended the free-streaming policy until December 31, 2015.

That extension could help encourage Web sites to use it instead of rivals such as Ogg Theora, which isn't encumbered by patents, or On2 Technologies' VP7 or VP8.

H.264, Ogg Theora, and VP8 are what's called codecs--technology that encodes and decodes digital information. In the case of digital video, codecs compress the original material for storage or transmission, then expand it again for viewing. The highest-profile Web streaming site using H.264 is a doozy: Google's YouTube.

H.264 opposition
Given some significant opposition to H.264 in Web streaming that contrasts with its widespread use, it's not too surprising MPEG LA chose not to add the new royalty.

Google is trying to acquire On2 but hasn't disclosed in detail what it hopes to accomplish beyond saying, "We believe high-quality video compression technology should be a part of the web platform."

But the more overt rival at this stage is Mozilla, which has been agitating against H.264 and promoting Ogg Theora, which it uses for handling video built into Web sites with new HTML5 technology under development. Mozilla had been raising the specter of new streaming video royalty payments, but the MPEG LA decision defangs that argument for the time being.

Still, the rhetoric continued Wednesday, when Mozilla Chief Executive John Lilly tweeted, "Regarding that MPEG LA announce: it's good they did it, but they sort of had to. But it's like 5 more years of free to lock you in 4ever."

Why so opposed? Patents on Web plumbing raise a big red flag for those who remember when Unisys started seeking licensing revenue for the GIF format based on its image compression patents. The didn't start until 1999, years after the format grew popular. Mozilla wants to steer clear of patents

But the ambitions of HTML5 video fans is complicated by this codec issue. Firefox supports Ogg Theora, and Opera Software is working on following suit. But Apple's Safari supports H.264. Google's Chrome supports both, and Microsoft's Internet Explorer supports neither.

Consequently, in 2009, HTML5 specification editor and Google employee Ian Hickson reluctantly decided that HTML5 couldn't specify a particular codec.

Not just about the money
MPEG LA offers the patents under what it calls the AVC/H.264 Patent Portfolio License. It's also known as MPEG-4 Part 10.

Although that's been royalty-free in the Internet-streaming context, it costs money for commercial streaming, cameras, video editing software, media players, and Web browsers. MPEG LA plans to announce later this year the new royalty rates for those uses, it said.

And browsers is one area H.264 gets complicated: open-source software typically may not use patented technology unless license agreements explicitly permit it. That's not the case with H.264, which is one reason Mozilla doesn't support the technology in Firefox, which is distributed not just by Mozilla but also by Linux companies and others who use Firefox derivatives.

Even if Mozilla wanted to license the code, it's not a simple matter: Mozilla said the H.264 license would cost $5 million.

Open-source software such as Firefox or free software such as Adobe Systems' Flash Player, which includes H.264 support get no special treatment, according to a comment by Allen Harkness, MPEG LA's director of global licensing.

"Licenses do not make any distinction for products offered for free (whether open source or otherwise)," he said.

And although companies making products with H.264 support must pay royalties, Harkness raised the specter of much broader consequences for those using unlicensed H.264 technology. "While our licenses are not concluded by end users, anyone in the product chain has liability if an end product is unlicensed," Harkness said.

Among the companies whose patents are licensed through the H.264 policy are Apple, with a single patent, Microsoft, with dozens, and several consumer electronics companies that also have dozens of patents involved. A full H.264 patent list in PDF form is available on the MPEG LA site.

Update 1:48 a.m. PST: Added more detail about H.264 licensing and open-source software.

When President Obama hits the airwaves Wednesday night to give his State of the Union address, YouTube viewers can do more than simply watch.

According to YouTube, "this year's State of the Union speech will also make history." During the speech, those viewing the address on YouTube will be able to ask questions about the speech's content. The address will be displayed on the company's Citizentube page, where people can submit questions via text or video.

YouTube said that people will be able to continue to ask questions of the president for an additional few days, as well as vote for their favorite questions.

But here's the best part: next week, President Obama will answer the top-voted questions in a YouTube interview from the White House. It will be broadcast live on Citizentube.

For now, YouTube hasn't provided an exact time or day when President Obama will answer the questions. It plans to make that information public when it irons out the details.

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 a stream from Justin.tv's front page.

Now, when a user clicks the large, red broadcast button on the front door of Justin.tv, the site takes them to a page that requires just a few settings to get going--many of which can now be skipped. That quick transition means more streams, and a bigger potential to turn first-time Justin.tv users into frequent live streamers.

Another part of the change entails putting everything in one window, whereas before the options were spread out. For publishers, this means no more jumping back to their channel pages to stay on top of user chat, which now sits to the right of the video player. Also, the publishers now get a better view of what they're streaming since it displays the same sized viewer and chat window their viewers will be looking at. Previously the show controller tools looked akin to an airplane cockpit (see the side by side below):

What I think is more interesting than the tweaks to Justin.tv's broadcasting tools is the shift in what its users are broadcasting. A Justin.tv representative told me that one of the biggest changes in the past year has been the growth of people who start live streaming themselves playing video games--be it consoles or on the computer they're streaming from.

For Justin.tv this ends up being a boon, not only for being able to sell the often-lucrative game related ads, but also for its users who can often see a game ahead of its street date release as gamers in "future" time zones can get the title a day early in some cases. More importantly, Justin.tv is filling in the gap left by places like Vimeo, which actually banned video game clips back in 2008, and YouTube, which does not yet offer live streaming with chat.

Justin.tv's revamped broadcasting tool should be out to all users Tuesday morning.

Google Voice just got a little better on the iPhone, thanks a new Web site for iPhone users, google.com/voice/m. As iPhone users will painfully recall, Apple last year rejected Google's iPhone-native Google Voice app, leaving those who wanted to use Google Voice with what was at first a bare and limited Web-based app. But one of the big advantages of the new HTML 5 spec, which the iPhone's Safari browser supports, is that it lets Web developers bring more application-like functionality to Web apps. The new site is proof of that. (News story)

The new Web service works on iPhones running the 3.0 operating system. It also works on on Palm's WebOS for user with the Palm Pre.

The new mobile-specific Web site for Google Voice is app-like in key ways. It's fast and it can use local storage, so it doesn't have to load in your entire Google Voice inbox every time you launch it. There's a dialer and a directory (tied in to your Google account) for looking people up. And, finally, you don't have to deal with Google Voice's dial-around service (where, to make a connection, the Google Voice service dials both the person you are calling as well as your phone). Through some telco trickery, Google Voice dials out from your phone, and displays your Voice account's phone number as the caller ID the phone of the person you're calling.

The app does a nice job of displaying transcribed voicemails, missed calls, and SMS messages in one inbox. You can also send SMS messages from the app for free, which trumps AT&T and its ridiculous fees on text messages.

But even a great Web-based app still can't get deep into your iPhone the way you'll want it to. The new Google Voice app can't access your phone's native directory, for example. The Google Voice native apps available for Android and BlackBerry can also highlight words in transcribed voicemails as they play them back. On the iPhone mobile Web site, voicemails play through the browser's linked media player with no visual cues.

If you have a Google Voice account and an iPhone, this new site makes using Voice a much better experience than it was before. But Android and BlackBerry users still get much neater, better-integrated real apps. There remain some things that even good Web sites cannot do.

Yfrog, ImageShack's image- and video-hosting site for Twitter, has a new trick up its sleeve. It can now cross-post whatever you've just uploaded over to both MySpace and Facebook.

Users will see the new option to post to one or both of these services if they're uploading directly through Yfrog.com. Once you've given either service authorization, Yfrog will then cross-post whatever you've uploaded, from anywhere--be it a desktop or mobile app.

The system worked well enough in my testing. Though, out of the three social networks, it's the hardest to find your photo back on MySpace, as it shows up as a rather nondescript link wherever your status updates are set to appear. Another small quibble is that if you're uploading from a third-party Yfrog publishing app, it will automatically post the photo to these services--that is, once you've authorized them through Yfrog.com. The only way to make sure an image you're uploading won't show up in these other places is to upload it directly through Yfrog. Hopefully an API update can change that.

Those who are serious about cross-posting something from one social network to another should check out a service like Ping.fm, Updating.me, or Tarpipe. All of these can be set to watch one feed and transmit them elsewhere. This can be a huge help if you don't feel like fiddling with options on each specific network.

Screenshot by Josh Lowensohn/CNET

Sharing alert on YFrog

As a former record store clerk turned cubicle drone, I'm all too aware of how out of touch I am with today's underground music scene. Really, my only tether to the music world beyond iTunes is a site called The Hype Machine, which aggregates the audio streams from hundreds of influential music blogs, and throws them into a big ol' jukebox.

Aside from working like a Cliff Notes for indie music hipsters, The Hype Machine has proven itself as a valuable tool for artists and music labels. Just like trending topics on sites such as Digg or Twitter, songs that spend time on Hype Machine's popularity chart tend to spin under their own momentum, getting retweeted, embedded, passed around Facebook, and maybe even purchased a few times.

But the path to getting your music listed on The Hype Machine isn't easy or reliable. Songs need to find their way from the site's preferred independent music blogs, who act as middlemen for encoding the song, adding the correct track information (hopefully), and hosting it on their blog. The resulting audio file is out of the control of the artist or label, and all the valuable stream data is lost to the content creator.

Fortunately, a new partnership with Web audio host SoundCloud should put some control back in the hands of artists and labels. By making the SoundCloud audio player detectable by The Hype Machine's music aggregator, artists and labels can now create and control the streaming audio player directly, leaving bloggers to just cut and paste the embed code.

If the symbiosis of SoundCloud and The Hype Machine takes root, bloggers can spend less time encoding and hosting files, and artists and labels will gain the stream analytics and control they were missing before. But for the system to work, musicians and labels will need to embrace SoundCloud and consistently release their legitimate streams before pirated material becomes available. Indie music label Domino Recordings has already committed to the arrangement, but it remains to be seen if other labels will follow suit.

The biggest roadblock to the venture's success is that content creators are required to hold a premium SoundCloud account. At minimum, a premium SoundCloud account runs 29 euros ($41) per year, however, active musicians and labels are encouraged to upgrade to a less restrictive "Solo" account, for 9 euros ($13) per month. Free accounts are available to all users, but only premium accounts are compatible with the new The Hype Machine partnership.

It's HTML5 week in video land, and the latest entrant is Vimeo. Less than a day after competitor YouTube announced that it would begin rolling out an HTML5 video player to videos on its site, Vimeo is doing the same.

Beginning Thursday, the site will be offering its users the option to play videos without the need for Adobe Flash--a plug-in that was previously required to watch videos on its online player. The new option to switch to the HTML5 player will appear as a link below each video. The site will then remember a user's preference from session to session.

Browsers that Vimeo will be supporting from the get-go include the latest versions of Apple's Safari, Chrome, and Internet Explorer with the Chrome frame installed. Other browsers will simply not show the HTML5 link.

Vimeo says that the new HTML5-friendly version of its player will work with 90 percent of Vimeo's library that has been uploaded within the past year. That number should grow higher going forward.

The move to HTML5 comes a little more than two months after Vimeo began offering a limited selection of mobile phone-friendly videos. These clips could be played outside of Adobe's Flash player container. But more importantly this opens up Vimeo's content (and site) to what could end up being a much larger number of devices that may not be able to run Flash, but will be HTML5 video-friendly.

Coming up next from the company is support for 1080p uploading and playback, which is due by the end of this month.

YouTube on Thursday is launching a refreshed version of its video playback pages. Similar to the company's efforts with its "Feather" program, the new look requires that users opt in while the company fine-tunes things--a process it says will run its course over the next few weeks before it decides to push it out to all users.

Like Feather, the new pages are leaner, cleaner, and put more of a focus on the video. But where Feather tends to strip out some of YouTube's features, this new look simply tucks them away.

What's new:
• Nested information. Big blocks of text, sharing menus, and embedding options are all now minimized. Users can expand each module to see more information.
• Simplified share buttons. YouTube has finally put the quick links that let people share videos on Twitter, Facebook, etc., front and center.
• A quick size toggle on the video player that lets users change a video from small to large. This is separate from the quality controls and full screen toggle.
• A quick look at other videos by that user. This new menu is on the very top of the page, and expands into a slideshow of thumbnails.
• The list of related videos on the right side of the page now changes depending on how the user got there.

What's moved:
• The box on the right that shows who made the video, and info about that video. That can now be found underneath the video, akin to a photo caption. However, like most of the other changes, this comes minimized by default.

What's gone:
• Five-star rating system. In its place is a like, don't like system where users give the video a thumbs up or down--just like they do for comments. The company says it's in the process of figuring out a way to convert existing ratings into the new system.
• Differing font styles. All fonts on the page are now the same.

What it looks like (click to enlarge):

Along with the change, YouTube is also experimenting with a new way to let users search from a video page, without actually leaving the video they're watching. For instance, if a user starts a new search from any page, it will bring the video along with it on the left side of the results page. Then, when users click on a video from the results, it will bring those results back to the video page, where they'll sit on the right side of the page.

YouTube says the new look scales better than the old one both in terms of performance, and with additional features the company plans to add. The company also says that its Feather program will remain, due mostly to its prowess at serving up videos for people with shoddy connections. Beyond that, Feather will serve as a test bed for other ways to simplify and speed up pages, advances it says will later be carried over to the normal viewing pages.

To try the new program you can opt in here.