Storing video content can be a pain. Next month Real Networks will release RealPlayer 11, which will greatly simplify storing, finding, forwarding, and sharing content. It will support downloads of Flash, QuickTime, Windows and Real clips, having a “Download This Video” button. Later this year, it will be offered the ability to save video to portable devices, including the iPod.
For $30, RealPlayer 11 Plus will support burning that file to a CD or DVD. The online video movement has been toward Flash. But Real will try pulling things out with its last upgrade. “For online video fans, the ability to capture, store and forward content is going to be transformative,” an analyst of Gartner said.
On the other hand, a Real executive said: “Unlike others, we are universal in our approach, supporting content in multiple formats. Consumer shouldn’t have to care or even know what format they’re watching a video in; they just want to experience the content.” “Think of it as like Tivo for the web,” added.
Steve Jobs and Bill Gates Together
For the first time since 1983, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were together on the same stage at the same time. This meeting took place Wednesday night at the Wall Street Journal’s All Things Digital Conference in Carlsbad, California. See the clip on YouTube.
The two tech pioneers showed they have more in common than many people might have thought.
CBS partners with video community sites
CBS has decided to partner with video distribution community sites and social application providers to allow users to share and embed video in various ways: Automatic, Clearspring, DAVE Networks, Goowy Media, meebo, MeeVee, Musestorm, Ning, RockYou!, Slide, VideoEgg, Voxant and vSocial.
“We are taking the CBS Audience Network directly to the user,” said its president. Video syndication with large sites will allow CBS to grow ad revenue, and it will build buzz and loyalty.
CBS has become the most widely distributed professional content provider on the Web.
Upgrading the video player to improve local reach
Local CBS sites have decided to upgrade their video player. They added new features like continuous play of clips, a rotating list of thumbnails, category listing, length of clip counter, a play button layered over the top, improved sharing functionality and a “pop out” player option that allows the user to watch clips in a pop-up player. Take a look at this sample.
CNN to launch redesigned site and online TV channel
CNN.com will launch soon its new design, with new features and functions. “Our goal is to make it easier to get more news in more ways than ever before. (…) Highlights include an immersive video experience and an integrated multimedia, storytelling model,” they say.
Among the new features: a bigger video player, improved weather section, local news section. In our view, this design is clean, simple, easy to navigate, and well organized. Video functionalities are better than CNN’s current site. Here’s the beta site with afeatures tour.
Microsoft unveiled table-shaped touch screen computer
Microsoft has unveiled last week its new technology product called Surface. It is tabletop computer 30-inch screen that responds to touch, and it identifies and downloads content from handheld devices and cell phones (both with Wi-Fii capabilities) placed on top of it.
You can watch video, manipulate photos, play games and surf the web. It will start working in November in Sheraton hotels, Harrah’s casinos, and T-Mobile stores, but the applications as an information kiosk and handle things like basic customer service are endless. It is a touch screen point-of-sale, under a hard-plastic tabletop that will cost between $5,000 and $10,000. It can rread bar codes and identification tags embeded in objects like hotel membership cards.
This “surface computer” is the result of Bill Gates’ view of a future where the mouse and keyboard are replaced by more natural interaction using voice, pen and touch.
"We see this as a multibillion dollar category, and we envision a time when surface computing technologies will be pervasive, from tabletops and counters to the hallway mirror," Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said in a statement.
