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Half of Americans will spy using cam phones

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Cameras have become the de rigeur feature for practically every portable electronic device out in the market today. You can find it in tablets, music players, and probably 99 percent of every phone that is being manufactured today. But such a benign tech feature is being used for more creepy purposes, if we’re to base it on a new survey released by Harris Interactive.

The survey, which was conducted with more than 2,300 people in the United States, revealed that half of American adults would have no qualms filming secret videos of other people without their knowledge. The surveyed people didn’t necessarily get into a situation or an opportunity to film or spy on others, but they did mention several scenarios that will compel them to bring out their smart phones and film other people. [Read more…]

YouTube Rolls Out “Unlisted” Video Upload Option

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YouTube is a great site for hosting your videos, no doubt about that. But the problem with it is that when you upload a personal video that you just want to share with a few people, you can do so but then that video is searchable by any video who visits YouTube and chanced upon your video. In short, the videos you upload can be found by the whole world. There was no privacy setting that will let you restrict access to the video you uploaded in YouTube to only the people that you want to share your video with, not until now.

YouTube has just rolled out a new video upload option that will enable you to “unlist” the video you upload from being found by other people. Once you’ve unlisted a video after you uploaded it to you YouTube, only the people who have the link to the video will be able to watch it. It will never be displayed in any of YouTube’s public pages. Not in search results, on your personal channel or on the browse page.  Only you and the people you share the video link with will be able to watch it. Well, of course other people can find it if the link is shared by the people whom you shared the link with.

YouTube unlisted video is a private video. And what’s good about this is that the person you share the link with does not need a YouTube account to view your video. All they need is the link to it.

You’ll get the link to your unlisted video after you the upload process is finished.  Once you’ve unlisted a video and share it with someone else, that person will know that the video is unlisted by the “annotation” just below it when they’ve visited the video link you shared.

So, will you be uploading your personal video to YouTube now? Will you be using YouTube as a personal video storage from now on?

YouTube Overhauls its Video Page, Hoping We Will All Like It

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YouTube is currently overhauling its standard video page view into something that it considers as one of the site’s biggest redesigns ever. Basically once the redesign is finished, you will noticed two major changes – new playlist interface, search queue and integrated comments.

The new playlist interface will now include an option for autoplay mode which if turned on will automatically bring you to the next video once the current video has finished playing. If you don’t want like this feature, you can always turn it off anytime. But if the search results consist of robusts set of videos You Tube will automaticall play these videos one after the other. This will now become a standard in all of the YouTube videos.

As for the search queue, this feature will let you add videos to your queue. While the integrated comments will now lists both text and video responses to trigger conversation around a video.

The new video page view is currently being tested by selected individuals. Once testing is done, expect the new video page view to appear the next time you check out YouTube.

Or, if you can’t wait that long, check out this preview site to prepared yourself for the coming changes in the way you watch video on YouTube.

Hope you like the new page view. Honestly, it’s way cleaner and more organized than the current interface.

Via Business Insider

 

Google to Force Users to Stop Using IE6

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If Microsoft could not make Internet Explorer 6  users to upgrade to IE8 Google might actually succeed in doing so. And what could be a better way of forcing users to let go of the old IE6 web browser? – By disabling YouTube support. But Google is not doing this to make IE6 users upgrade to IE8 but rather to a more advance browser which could either be Google’s own Chrome browser, IE8, Opera Mini 10, Safari 4 and Firefox 3.6.

So if you’re still using IE6 and try to visit YouTube, you will see a message prompting you that you are using an older browser and that while you may still enjoy watching videos, after March 13, YouTube will stop supporting it. And unless you upgrade to newer browsers you will no longer enjoy new features that will be introduced after the said date. The message will appear for three weeks until you upgrade to a newer browser.

Interestingly, while Microsoft is not really that active and pretty succesful in convincing IE users to upgrade to the latest version, Google’s strategy might actually work. I’m pretty sure majority of these IE6 users will not want to miss out on the good things that YouTube is about to offer in the future.

Another interesting point here, which I think Microsoft should be thankful for is the fact that Google is forcing users to abandon IE6, it is still suggesting IE8 as an alternative browser.

Let’s see whether this strategy will gain Google more users for its Chrome browser  and whether users will finally stop using IE6.

Watch Super Bowl XLIV Tonight, Rate the Ads at YouTube AdBlitz

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Tonight marks the most important game of the year in all of American sports scene. Super Bowl XLIV kicks off in exactly 11 hours from now. Most if not all of you are probably gearing up to watch it where ever you may be tonight.  But tonight is not only the most important sports gig in all of America but  also in the advertising industry.

Aside from the game, the Super Bowl ads that will be airing tonight are also highly anticipated. It is perhaps one of the most prestigious advertising spot that every brand have been eyeing for in their entire lives.  Even Google is rumored to be airing their own “search stories” ads tonight. That adds some more excitement to the event later.

And while we wonder whether Google is indeed airing a commercial tonight, YouTube on the other hand has also prepared for the event via its AdBlits channel. Co-sponsored by Kia Motors  YouTube AdBlitz is your one-stop shop for everything about Super Bowl XLIV.

Later on as the Super Bowl commercials air one by one, YouTube will be posting them on the AdBlitz wall for everyone to rate and vote for their favorites. Voting ends Monday, February 15, and the winner will be announced  on Thursday, February 18.

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