sharing

Issuu is like Scribd's hotter cousin

One of my favorite document sharing services is Scribd. However, there's another document sharing service that has been around since early 2006, and boy if it doesn't have some good things going for it. It's called Issuu (pronounced "issue") and it's all about documents. In this case, it's only the ones in PDF format. Users can put together compilations of content and share them as they would photos or videos on other hosting services.

Issuu's big appeal is its media viewer, which presents the content like a real magazine. We've seen … Read more

uvLayer puts Web videos on your desktop

If you've ever wanted to run a bunch of video widgets on your desktop, there's a new service for you called uvLayer. It's a tiny Adobe AIR application that lets you search, view, and organize Web video clips on your desktop and share them with others. The videos come courtesy of YouTube and Truveo--the AOL-owned video search tool.

What sets uvLayer appart from basic Web video browsing are its sharing features which are robust. The application lets you cobble together a instant-messanger-like friends list and drag and drop any video you think they would enjoy. If they're using the application, your shared video will simply show up on their desktop like a new e-mail would in your in-box. Likewise, you can simply hop over to see what they're watching if they're online.

For bookmarking addicts, uvLayer also lets you share entire sets full of Web videos via URL. If your recipient has the application installed, their screen will simply fill up with your video picks, complete with your original groupings. You can then syndicate these Webtops to both your uvLayer buddies, and your Facebook friends who will be able to view it right in the Facebook application.

The entire uvLayer experience is very reminiscent of OS X's Dashboard for widgets, as you can flip each item around and get access to some of the metadata like the rating and any user comments. It's very flashy. In fact, if you're running the latest version of OS X, then uvLayer might not be that interesting considering you can rip out nearly any Web video and put it on your Dashboard using Safari's Web clips feature.

I'm not sold on the value of watching videos in a virtual desktop environment. While convenient, I think there's a ton of added value to the community of users where the video's hosted. Admittedly when a video hits the front page of Digg or Fark, the user comments from those sites are usually much more entertaining, but the same can't be said when you're passing it along to a just handful of people.

I've embedded a live version of uvLayer after the break (taken from Ryan Stewart's first look over at his blog on ZDNet). Be sure to check out its stacking feature, which lets you group together several videos at once by drawing a box around them with your mouse.… Read more

YouTube sucks: 4 sites that do video better

YouTube may be the best-known mainstream video-hosting site on the Web, but it's certainly not winning any awards for the visual quality of its content. YouTube's creators have said higher-resolution videos are on the way, but until then, there are a handful of other services that do a much better job at making your uploaded video look a little less Webby.

There's another problem at hand: size. Video files are big, and a lot of the most popular services place tedious size restrictions. Those restrictions mean that you are either going to have to compress your video through third-party software before uploading or make smaller, lower-quality source recordings to begin with.

We've handpicked four services that have pretty lenient size limits and that don't force you to download software clients just to graduate up to the higher caps. To be fair, we're also comparing all four to the YouTube status quo.

So here's the deal. We took a source video of just less than 2 minutes at full VGA quality at 30 frames per second. It came off a recent-model Canon digital camera that saved it as an approximately 200MB AVI file. Your results for source material may vary, but based on the popularity charts on Flickr, Canons rule the roost both overall and in the point-and-shoot camera category, so we felt that it was a good control.

It's worth noting that Casio has several models of digital cameras with "YouTube capture" modes, though these are simply recording video in MPEG-4 H.264 at smaller resolutions, which takes up less space. You can accomplish a similar feat, albeit using a different video codec, if your camera has a "compact" or "e-mail ready" video-capturing mode.… Read more

Power Downloader's FTP client is secure and free

As Power Downloader sifted through an enormous amount of e-mails recently, he ran across one from a friend who wanted some software advice. Apparently, his friend was designing a Web site and had looked around for a free FTP program for transferring files, but had not yet found anything very promising.

Firing up his trusty Web browser, Power Downloader immediately began searching for the perfect free FTP client. Accessing Download.com, Power scanned the file lists and quickly came to the app he was looking for: FileZilla. With this powerful open-source FTP client on his computer, Power's friend would … Read more

Photobucket stats show Democrats like to search more

One of my favorite things to get in my e-mail each week is the data report from News Corp-owned Photobucket. Think of it like the Google Zeitgeist, but for people's searches on the popular photo hosting site. While the report doesn't offer up every statistic, the creators pick a few interesting or pertinent things that make good reading. This week's tidbit? Politics.

The Democratic and the Republican presidential nominees (Edwards now obviously excluded from that list) are represented with several thousand search hits each. So what do the numbers show?

Democrats: 1. Hillary Clinton (25,400) 2. Barack Obama (24,736) 3. John Edwards (1,829) Republicans: 1. Ron Paul (10,589) 2. Mike Huckabee (2,064) 3. John McCain (1,986) 4. Mitt Romney (1,785)

Clearly the Dems like to search. Despite getting more love from the media, Huckabee, McCain, and Romney combined don't come close in searches to Ron Paul. Take that for what it's worth. However, it could mean that people are trying to figure out what the guy looks like.

I would like to see other popular social sites release weekly or even daily stats. The very nature of site stats are similar to Digg, Delicious, and others, in providing entertainment and a window into the habits of other users.

The rest of the report is posted after the break.

Congresswoman: Let ISPs probe for pirates

WASHINGTON--Congress must not interfere with Internet service providers that are trying to filter pirated content from their networks, a Republican politician said Wednesday.

The recommendation from Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R-Calif.) came in a steadfastly pro-copyright speech at an Internet policy conference here, during which she railed against what she described as rampant online piracy.

"I believe the best chance we have for achieving any success against digital piracy is to allow those entities and individuals who manage networks to have the flexibility and agility to take necessary and lawful steps to stop piracy online before it starts," … Read more

Panasonic aims for top-tier camera status

LAS VEGAS--Panasonic is a relative newcomer to the camera business, but the electronics giant outlined strong ambitions for the business Monday.

"We will try our best to achieve 15 percent market share by 2009," Tokihazu Matsumoto, director of the company's digital still camera business unit, said at a news conference at the Photo Marketing Association trade show here. "We aim to become one of the top camera brands in the industry."

The company also is hoping to reach 15 million units globally during the fiscal year, which for Panasonic runs through March 2010.

That's … Read more

Free and legal file-sharing...psych!

Peer-to-peer file-sharing generally involves free software, and much of the technology is certainly still legal in the United States (for now). However, once you start trading copyrighted material like music and movies, that's where legal problems arise. If you're trafficking, uploading or downloading copyrighted digital material without consent of the owner, you are infringing. You are also risking the possibility of massive penalties, more if the work in question has not yet been released.

This weekend, a company called Qtrax made a big splash by announcing "the world's first free and legal peer-to-peer digital music site.&… Read more

Qtrax offtrack with all the major labels

UPDATE: 7:12 A.M. (1-28-08): Qtrax continues to delay the launch of its much awaited legal file-sharing site as more record labels confirm that the startup doesn't have permission to sell their music.

For weeks, Qtrax, an ad-supported P2P site, had promised to offer free and legal music downloads from all four of the major record labels when it opened for business.

But despite earlier reports, Qtrax's Web site will apparently not feature legal downloads from any of the majors when it debuts. On the eve of the site's launch, Warner Music Group and Universal Music … Read more

Report: Canon aims to reclaim top SLR rank

Canon hopes the new EOS Rebel XSi will help it reclaim the top spot in SLR camera market share in 2008 in Japan, according to a report Thursday.

Canon lost the top spot in Japan to Nikon, but the new entry-level Rebel XSi (called the 450D in Europe and the Kiss X2 in Asia) should help the company fight back this year, according to Canon director Masaya Maeda, quoted by Thomson after a Canon press conference.

Canon's ambitions are broader than just Japan and SLRs, though its lead isn't as threatened in other segments. "In 2008, we … Read more