Search Results for: youtube

Access to YouTube has been restored in Pakistan after the country ordered local Internet providers to unblock the site. The move comes two days after a mistake by one of the telecommunications companies that caused it to identify itself as the fastest route to YouTube, breaking the site around the world.

The problem was corrected after briefly knocking out access to YouTube on Sunday, but the ban within the country remained in effect until Tuesday. While other videos featuring Dutch politician Geert Wilders will still be available to Pakistani users, the offending video that led to the blocking order has been removed by YouTube parent Google.

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After a two hour stretch yesterday of refusing service to YouTube users across the globe, the Google-owned site said Pakistan is to blame.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority ordered ISPs to re-route traffic away from a specific YouTube URL pointing to a trailer for Dutch Politician Geert Wilders' anti-Islamic video.

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Wednesday's announcement of YouTube getting a Korean language portal may not have as big of an impact on the PC consumption of videos as it will on the country's mobile television standards.

South Korea is home to the world's first mobile TV standard, DMB, (digital multimedia broadcasting) that comes in terrestrial and satellite varieties. Broadcasting officially began on the DMB platform in 2005. Mobile TV penetration is logically higher there than in other countries, especially since T-DMB is provided free of charge in select regions.

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The official explanation for a Turkish court once again banning citizens' access to YouTube over the weekend was the presence of new videos insulting the name of one of Turkey's founding fathers. But that video's been there awhile, and there could be another reason.

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk is as genuine a hero to Turkey as George Washington is to America. Considered the father of his country, Ataturk laid the foundation for Turkey's metamorphosis away from the Ottoman Empire that was the focus of World War I, to an active component of a modern European Union. As a beloved figure in his country, defacing his name or his image is illegal there, under laws similar to those being considered in the US with regard to defacing the American flag.

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If you're tired of watching out-of-focus YouTube videos on your computer screen, now you'll be able to watch out-of-focus YouTube videos on your TV.

Matsushita's Panasonic unit is working with Google to develop high-definition televisions that let you browse and view videos from YouTube and photos from Picasa Web Albums. Google will set up servers for the purpose and the remotes for the TVs will have YouTube and Picasa buttons.

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YouTube is planning to upgrade the quality of its videos within the next three months, but it will not be high-definition video.

The social video company has been testing higher quality video, but it does not want to alienate its traditional users with long load times. YouTube provides content to everyone, co-founder Steve Chen said at the NewTeeVee conference.

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With social media becoming increasingly popular on the Web, Microsoft is looking to ensure that it does not fall behind its rivals. A job posting appeared on the company's Web site Friday -- and has since apparently disappeared -- looking for a program manager for a photo and video sharing website. The service would be part of the Live family and work across several services including Spaces, SkyDrive, Messenger, and Hotmail.

"This feature team is building a next-generation photo and video sharing service that will compete with Flickr, Smugmug and other photo web solutions today," the job posting read. "This is a 'v1' opportunity." Microsoft had attempted to compete in the space before with Soapbox, however it never seemed to take off and only received cursory attention from the Redmond company.

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YouTube announced yesterday that it had increased the size limit for videos to 1 GB, and also introduced new software that allows users to simultaneously upload multiple videos.

Users may still opt to upload their videos to the site through the browser form if they do not wish to put a piece of YouTube software on their hard drives, or in the case of Mac users, if the software isn't supported at all.

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Google is making efforts to allay criticism over its YouTube video site by implementing new video identification that would help to find copyrighted content.

As in the past, the Mountain View, Calif. search company is framing its fight against copyrighted work on its site as going "above and beyond our legal responsibilities." Google itself will not use the application to identify videos: rather, the content owners need to use it themselves.

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Thailand's on-again off-again relationship with YouTube has taken another bad turn, as the government said it will go to court to have two videos blocked that it says were a threat to national security. The videos are actually a two-part series, and run about 17 minutes in total. It accuses former Prime Minister Prem Tinsulanonda of leading a government coup that occurred in September 2006, not the generals who claim to have headed it.

Supporter's of Tinsulanonda's rivals have often accused the former chief of such an act. However, the Thai government sees the talk as confusing to citizens and that it could cause public unrest. Thus it it moving to ban the videos, and is asking ISP's to voluntarily block links while it seeks a court order. YouTube could not be reached for comment on the latest dustup.

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Pop star Prince said Thursday that he plans to sue social video site YouTube, online auction site eBay, and file trading site Pirate Bay in an attempt to reign in piracy of his work on the Internet. On a statement on his Web site, Prince said that while YouTube was already filtering out pornography, it was not filtering music and film content because it "is core to their business success." The move is somewhat surprising, considering Prince has had a history of challenging the music industry and its business practices.

Prince is working with British company Web Sheriff to assist in having the offending material removed. So far, it has successfully had about 2,000 unauthorized videos of Prince removed, however it said that new content is constantly appearing on the site. It had also removed about 300 items from eBay. "Prince strongly believes artists as the creators and owners of their music need to reclaim their art," the statement read.

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A four-month ban on YouTube in Thailand was lifted on Friday, its government said. The prohibition on the Web site was lifted after the site's officials agreed to monitor and remove any videos that may be against the country's laws or found offensive by Thais. The issue started in April when YouTube refused to remove videos that were derogatory toward King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

A Thai spokesperson said that the video site had created a program that prevents offensive clips from being displayed to Thai users. Google said that it respected the King, and "likewise respect Thailand's law and tradition and hope that we will be able to reach a mutually acceptable resolution to the current controversy."

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YouTube said Thursday that it had agreed with the MCPS-PRS Alliance, the UK organization that distributes royalties to the record industry, on a system to compensate artists for music using on the UK version of the site.

About 10 million pieces of music would be licensed for an undisclosed sum, which analysts say is likely in the tens of millions of pounds. The deal would also shelter the social video site from any possible legal actions as a result of music used on its site.

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Members of the National Music Publishers Association said Tuesday that they planned to join a lawsuit against YouTube over copyright infringement, signaling more legal trouble for Google's video site.

The original lawsuit was filed by British Soccer organization Premier League in May, and sought class-action status. Since then, music publisher Bourne has joined, and Robert Tur, owner of the Los Angeles News Service also plans to join the suit shortly.

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Lawyers for Google's YouTube subsidiary told a New York District Court judge that it would have a method to "fingerprint" videos in the fall.

The new functionality will help the site find copyrighted videos easier by looking for similarities. It is being developed in conjunction with content providers, and YouTube said it will begin using the new technology by autumn, possibly as early as September.

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