Google Adds Video Chat To Gmail
Google continues to roll out the new features for Gmail by adding free video conferencing.
It was announced today that Gmail can now provide you with free video conferencing by simply installing a video conferencing file which you can find here. The service is completely free and supports formats such as XMPP, RTP, and H.264 so that it is compatible with third-party applications. You can check out a short video about the new feature.
As we said, the service is completely free, and they are certainly making it more and more difficult to ever want to leave your Gmail window to do anything else. Now if they could just get the Gmail SMS feature to work.
What Is I.C.E.
What is I.C.E., and why should everyone have it on their phone?
After the London bombing attacks in 2005, a British paramedic named Bob Brotchie tried to think of a way it would have been easier to contact loved ones to let them know if people were in need of help after such a disaster. He came up with the In Case of Ermegency plan, also known as I.C.E..
The idea is that you make an entry in your contacts list of your cell phone with either ICE or I.C.E. as the name, that was medical personal will know instantly which number to call. If you have multiple people to be called, you name them ICE 1, ICE 2, etc or ICE Home, ICE Work and so on.
While this is an excellent idea, and something that all of us here at StarterTech have done, it doesn’t replace an old fashoned contact card in your wallet. There is always a chance of being seperated from your phone, or it being damaged beyond use, so it never hurts to have a piece of paper in your waller as backup. In the meatime, what are you waiting for? Grab your cellphone and get to creating those entires.
MGM And YouTube Partner Up For Content
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) has beenrevealed to be the film studio partnering up with YouTube in a content deal.
As we reported the other day, YouTube had been negotiating with an unnamed movie studio to add films and television shows to their video site. The New York Times has revealed that sometime on Monday the studio will be revealed to be the struggling MGM.
The company will start off slowly by posting episodes of the original American Gladiators from 10 years ago, films such as The Magnificent Seven and clips from more recent films like Legally Blonde. While the actual content isn’t that exciting to begin with, the interesting twist is that MGM will now work with YouTube to comb through any copyright infringing clips, and while some will be pulled, others will be allowed to stay on the site with MGM being allowed to sell advertising to go alongside them.
This entire maneuver is an attempt to combat the success NBC and Fox are having with their video streaming site, Hulu. However, Hulu is succeeding due to a much nicer interface, a huge catalog of properties and the fact they launched with the image of high quality, and YouTube is still known as the place you go to watch videos of people’s pets. This deal may improve YouTube’s profile some, but it is going to take more than decade old episodes of a show that involves people battling with giant q-tips.
Facebook Passes 120 Million Users… Maybe
Popular social network Facebook is saying they have passed 120 million users, but one has to wonder how many of those people are real.
According to CNet, Facebook added 30 million users between the end of July 2008 and the beginning of November 2008. In addition to their existing 90 million users, this brings their total to 120 million, or approximately 2% of the Earth’s population. This means that in the past three months, they added more users than they did in the entire first three months of the social network’s existence.
While this is all fascinating, I wonder how many of these users are either a) real people or b) users ever did more than sign up for an account. I personally know of one person who has two accounts because she forgot her log in information, and after getting into her new account, she decided it wasn’t for her and never logged back in. I know other people who have created multiple accounts just so they can do better on some of the 280,000 applications on the network, whether those be games, trivia ones or other things
In short, a lot of Facebook’s supposed $15 billion dollar market valuation is based on their number of users, so it is certainly in their interest to show high numbers of members, but people need to think about how many of those numbers are false. This isn’t to say that Facebook is necessairly intentionally giving out numbers that are partially false, but it is something for investors and advertisers to consider before throwing any money Facebook’s way. If even half of those users are real, though I imagine it is higher, 60 million active users would still not be anything to sneeze at.
Walmart and Kmart Start Their Black Friday Sales Early
It appears that some of the big retailers in the United States are going to try to get an early jump on the holiday shopping season.
Traditionally one has to wait until the day after Thanksgiving, also known as “Black Friday”, to find really good deals on electronics, but it seems Kmart and Walmart have some different ideas this year. Starting this weekend, November 8th and 9th, both retailers are going to be putting some items on special that are of particular interest to technology and gadget enthusiasts.
KMart
The big item of interest here is going to be a 32 inch Sylvania LCD HDTV LC320SS9 for $499, normally it is $550. While this set is in the low end of HDTVs, it is certainly a great price to jump into having a nice flat screen TV in your home.
Other items of interest include:
- Nextar Q4 GPS for $99.99
- Kodak M763 camera for $129.99
- Wii Fit for $89.99
Considering there have been shortages of the Wii Fit in some places, that will probably be the hottest item of this weekend.
Walmart
Walmart is coming out with their guns blazing by offering a Compaq CQ-139WM 15.4″ laptop with 2GB RAM and 160GB hard drive for $298.00. Unfortunately there is no information about this laptop on their website, and we have no idea on its processor, operating system and so on, but at $298, we wouldn’t suggest you expect much out of it. Compaq used to be a uality company until HP bought them up, so it will probably be pretty lackluster. I would suggest you buy this as a backup or possibly using it to doing things like just streaming video to your TV.
Other items of interest include:
- PlayStation 3 for $399 with a $100 Walmart gift card
- PlayStation 2 for $129 with a $30 Walmart gift card
- Selected PS3 games for $19.82 each
- Magnavox Blu-ray player for $198, was $229
The PlayStation 3 might make a good way to get a decent Blu-ray player, but the actual player is also tempting.
Anything listed here would be a great way to get an early leap on your holiday gift shopping, and with these sales not being widely known, you won’t even have to fight crowds!
Windows 7 May Release As Soon As Holidays 2009
It looks like we may be saying “Vista? What Vista?” as soon as the 2009 holiday shopping season.
According to Sam Diaz at ZDNet, Microsoft director Jim Howe dropped the information that Windows 7 is just around the corner during Windows Hardware Engineering Conference in Los Angeles this week. That being said, Mary-Jo Foley, also of ZDNet, is saying that one source told her it may be in time for the back to school computer sales for next year.
Before the program can be released to the product, it does have a timeline to follow.
- Feature-complete, public Beta 1: The week before Christmas 2008 (Microsoft is saying Q1 2009)
- No public Beta 2 (Microsoft isn’t saying whether there will be a Beta 2)
- Release Candidate: Q1/Q2 2009 (Microsoft is saying there will be “a release candidate” but offering no due date)
- RTM: Mid-2009 (Microsoft is saying “early 2010″)
Following this timeline, it would be approximately three years or less since the debut of Microsoft’s troubled operating system, Vista. As an interesting side note, that will mean Vista had a longer development cycle (5 years) than it had lifespan as the primary Windows product. Seeing as I have been extremely critical of Vista, I will admit that made me chuckle.
On a good note, instead of the problems people had moving their device drivers from Windows XP to Vista, but Microsoft is taking great pains to make sure that this doesn’t happen again.
My personal suggestion to everyone right now would be to milk your computers for as much life as you can, and see if you can make it until Windows 7. While we are still lacking in details on the OS, I am hopeful we will see the faults of Vista go away and 7 will finally be a worthy successor to Windows XP.
YouTube Adds To The Death Of Physical Media
It looks like you will soon be able to add YouTube to the list of companies trying to bring an end to the need for physical media.
According to CNet, YouTube is finishing the legal side of an agreement with a major film studio to provide full copies of their movies on the video sharing site. The movies will be supported in some way with advertising, but no announcement has been made yet as to which form it will take.
While it is certainly a nice idea to watch movies you want on demand without having to buy yet more physical media, how often do you find yourself doign it at the computer? Hulu has been doing it since it launched over a year ago, and while I know some people have taken a peak, I have yet to talk to anyone who has watched a full movie on Hulu. Streaming video on a computer screen may be good for things as long as a TV episode, but movies could be rough. Now, if you can stream these movies to an Apple TV, that would be interesting.
Expect more announcements before the end of the year.
Hacked Keyboard Added To An iPhone
Some intrepid iPhone lover has figured out how to hook up an external keyboard to his beloved phone.
At this time this is most assuredly for people who have hacked (more commonly known as “jailbreaking”) their iPhone, and then the added problem is that it does not currently work with any applications. This does show it is possible, and it also shows that it is desired by fans of the phone.
As I have mentioned before, I use an iPod Touch, and while the onscreen keyboard is servicable, it is not something I relish using when I have to type out an email reply to someone. Considering how Apple has touted the iPhone/iPod Touch as mini computers, it has been surprising to me we haven’t seen some sort of physical keyboard come out for the device. Once Apple does that, you will see sales of both devices surge even higher than they already have as more mobile people adopt them over their laptops. 9to5Mac.com hints that we may see some items in 2009, but it can’t come soon enough for me.
Walmart Sends Mixed Signals About The Future Of Physical Media
While Walmart reduces their music CD sales areas, they are going to increase other forms of physical media.
According to Home Media Magazine, Walmart suffered a 23% drop in music CD sales in the first four weeks of the fourth quarter of this year. To combat this drop, the gigantic retailer is going to reduce the presence of music in select stores, while moderately increasing the selection of DVDs, including Blu-ray. In stores where they plan to reduce all physical media, they will be increasing their selection of electronics.
It is unclear what exactly Walmart’s position is on physical media at this point, but with Circuit City closing 155 of their stores, it is not looking good for the future of things on shiny discs.
Well Known Domain Name Stolen
MakeUseOf.com, a well-known tech blog, had their domain name not only stolen, but held for ransom today.
While the domain name is now back under the rightful owners control, they had a lengthy and draining battle to get it back after GoDaddy, a major web registar, transferred the title far faster than they should have. All of the details of what exactly happened still are not 100% clear, but MakeUseOf kept their readers updated with a temporary blog of the happenings as the information rolled in. This should be considered essential reading by anyone who owns domain names.
Until it is fully known what exactly happened, it’s difficult to tell you how to protect yourself from something similar happening, but if something like this does happen:
- Do not panic.
- Do not pay the ransom.
- Contact the company you registered the domain with immediately.
- Follow their instructions to the letter.
Domain names are your identity on the web, and having yours held hostage can probably feel as bad as having a loved one taken from you. Stay calm and try to follow all of the domain registars instructions as best you can.
