The Financial Times is reporting that Google is currently in negotiations with major Hollywood movie studios to launch a streaming pay-per-view service on YouTube by the end of the year. Google is pitching the idea of the on-demand service being intertwined with existing Google products.
Sources close to FT say that the service will more-than-likely launch in the United States first, with other countries “added over time”. The search company is looking to its search engine and YouTube to market the new service.
The movie rental service has been in beta testing since January, claimed one source, and has been in discussion for months. Competition from Netflix’s streaming service and Hulu have created a deeper interest and a greater urgency from movie studios and Google.
Apple is also set to unveil its new Apple TV and a $99 version of its set-top box at an event this week, which will connect TV sets to the Internet, and users being able to download apps — like on an iPad — and purchase/rent movies straight from the studio.
Google has been searching for YouTube’s next big thing since the search conglomerate acquired the video sharing website in 2006.
A North Korean media site called Uriminzokkiri has made its way to social media, by establishing the first North Korean presence on Twitter: @uriminzok. The website is one of the few foreign news outlets to be written in English.
It is still not clear on who exactly updates the website, but some believe the North Korean government updates the website, and who registered the official Twitter account. Uriminzokkiri means ‘Our Nation’ in Korean.
Not much is known about the nation, other than Kim Jong II’s extreme dislike for anything American. Uriminzokkiri is said to be one of the few websites that the government owns. If that is the case, then the website is also the closest thing that the government has to a homepage.
The first tweet that the news website submitted, through Twitter’s Web client on August 12, declared (in Korean) that “Our Naion” now has a Twitter account. Other tweets contained links to documents about North Korean history or news from the Uriminzokkiri website.
This isn’t the first time that Uriminzokkiri has made online presence for Anti-American propaganda, last month the country set up a YouTube account. The account currently has 78 videos, while neither accounts interact with other members.
YouTube is getting a massive overhaul in its looks, and has rolled out a new-look screen which will display at end of videos. The popular video website also rolled out other features like the abilities to “like” and “share” a video.
This is one of the biggest re-designs in YouTube’s history. The website’s design department has begun the roll-out of a brand new splash screen that allows video interaction like everything else. The splash screen really hasn’t changed to much in the 5-year history of YouTube.
Other redesigns and features include a new mobile website, the YouTube Leanback beta, the video player loads faster, new embed codes, new promotional badges, and among other things, included support for Google Buzz.
Since the roll-out is still unofficial, not all users will be able to take advantage of the new re-design just yet.
Image Courtesy of: TheNextWeb [via Neowin]
YouTube has caved in and increased its uploaded video length limit, one of the most requested changes to the Google-owned video-sharing service.
“Without question, the number one requested feature by our creators is to upload videos longer than 10 minutes. We’ve heard you, and today we’re pleased to announce that we’ve increased the upload limit to 15 minutes,” said Joshua Siegel, YouTube’s project manager, in an official blog post on the website.
The length of uploaded YouTube videos is restricted due to the amount of copyrighted material that the website has to combat. The concern for the limit has decreased as Google has improved YouTube’s Content ID system, which will automatically flag copyrighted content.
TG Daily commented on the fact that even though YouTube’s video length has increased, the max file size limit remains the same. So videos can be 15 seconds, but still have to remain under 100 MB in size.
An Easter egg found by a Kotaku reader allows users to play the classic game Snake on any YouTube video playing (or paused).
Kotaku first reported that it was not entirely sure as whether or not Snake could be played through an embedded video or if you had to be on the physical video website. The game is available to play on both embedded videos and on YouTube.com. To play, all you need to do is hold down the left arrow on any video that loaded. The game can be played with the video playing or with the video paused.
First thought to be tied in with YouTube’s “gaming” category, the Easter egg can actually be played on any video — no matter what the category is set to. No one is sure how long this has been available to play.
Ed. note: The game seems to only play on certain videos in different categories, so who knows. Just try it and enjoy.
