October 17, 2006, 7:38 PM PDT
Camtasia launches screencast hosting site
Posted by: Rafe Needleman

Here at CNET, we believe in video (just check out CNET TV). So we're also fans of screencasting, where you record video directly from your computer's desktop (see, for example, the screen images in this video). There's no better way to show off software or an online service. We use TechSmith's Camtasia at CNET, and we've been mostly happy with it. Yesterday the company released version 4, which adds several useful features, including support for the iPod's M4V format and workgroup tools that ensure consistency among multiple Camtasia users in the same company. A review of the product is forthcoming.

But to me, the most interesting thing the company did this week was add an online service to Camtasia, Screencast.com. The site is one of literally hundreds of video sites, but since it's built to display screencasts, there are a few differences.

First of all, Camtasia 4 posts directly to Screencast.com. With previous versions of Camtasia, you could create great screencasts, but it was up to you to find a place to host them. That presented two problems: First, you lose control and ownership of your video when you post to a public site like YouTube; and second, most public sharing sites resize videos and can make full-screen captures unreadable.

Screencast is a video hosting service, not a community or sharing service, so you retain ownership of your content. TechSmith won't put ads on your video pages nor make your files available to the public at large. TechSmith CEO Bill Hamilton calls Screencast.com the "anti-YouTube." Another big difference: You have to pay for hosting. Fees start at $6.95 a month and go up as you consume bandwidth. Camtasia, though, will produce your screencasts in the best format for online streaming, so you don't waste bandwidth and money.

Screencast.com is a logical adjunct to Camtasia. It also showcases the benefit of hybrid software/online products: You do interface-intensive work on your local PC, and when it's time to share your work, you upload it to a site that's tightly linked to the application. I expect we'll be seeing more hybrid products, especially from Microsoft and other vendors who are trying to get on the Web 2.0 bandwagon while also making products that leverage local computing power, not to mention the business model of selling software. Plus, this way, vendors get to charge users twice.

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October 17, 2006, 2:25 PM PDT
Splice lets you mix and mash up music online
Posted by: Elsa Wenzel

Splice is an online music production community for editing, mixing, tagging, and collaborating on original songs. Its Flash-based audio sequencer lets you throw together beats and melodies even if you've never edited music before, then share the results with other users. Automatic beat matching allows you to layer, say, a house groove onto a hip-hop track in a matter of moments. Mixing very different tempos can yield some wacky results.

An amateur could use Splice, for instance, to compose a soundtrack to a homemade YouTube video. Or an electronic musician on the road could grab some original loops and preview how they'll sync together by logging onto Splice. This song took about 10 minutes to make.

Creative Commons licensing means that everyone's work is fair game for the Splice community to use, as long as you give credit where it's due. So far you can peruse the profiles of about 120 of Splice's more than 5,000 registered users, but you can download from the larger pools of DRM-free tunes at CCMixter or Freesound, and then mash them up in Splice.

Splice displays waveforms to help you line up beats, allowing you to drag and nudge sequences and use keyboard shortcuts, such as the spacebar for playback. It handles basic time-stretching and looping functions, with up to eight channels per song. You can upload MP3, WAV/AIFF, OGG, FLAC, and other file types to your account or download MP3s from Splice; ID3 tags are coming soon. You can even record directly to the site using your computer's built-in microphone.

Personal profiles include a picture of yourself (with Che Guevara as the default) and a description of your musical tastes to encourage mingling with other users. Since MySpace has become a sounding board for musicians of the moment, imagine if it put mixing in all of its users' hands like Splice does.

This beta service is built for Firefox but also works in Internet Explorer and Safari. Any song you save will be available for other users to remix; unfortunately you can't hide your work. For now, Splice is a bit slow and lacks some essential editing functions such as zooming. But music aficionados and would-be producers can have a lot of fun surfing other people's creations and concocting new tunes.

Source: Music Thing (thanks, Miguel)

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October 17, 2006, 12:40 PM PDT
Another CNET blog to crave
Posted by: Lindsey Turrentine

Rev up your RSS reader--CNET has a brand-new blog. Its name says it all: Crave (http://crave.cnet.com) will cover the hottest and coolest digital gadgetry that you must have. Check it out (over and over and over again) for the latest in freaky, funny, or just plain awesome consumer electronics.

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October 17, 2006, 11:03 AM PDT
Averatec's $849 dual-core ultraportable
Posted by: Michelle Thatcher

No, that's not a typo. In a world where ultraportables regularly hit the $2,000 mark, Averatec has created a niche with its small, inexpensive systems that are loaded with some pretty compelling components for the price. Thus it is with the just-announced Averatec 2300, a 4-pound system with a 1.6GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-50 processor, a 12.1-inch WXGA display, a 100GB hard drive, and a built-in double-layer DVD burner, all for the low, low starting price of $849.

We're eager to see whether the new laptop improves upon its predecessor, the Averatec 2260, which suffered in our battery-drain tests. Stay tuned for results from CNET Labs.

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October 17, 2006, 10:16 AM PDT
Lenovo wants to keep your data safe
Posted by: Michelle Thatcher

You've read the reports: Someone steals a laptop loaded with personal data. Maybe you've even received a letter explaining that your records were on a stolen piece of computer equipment. Attribute it to media hype if you want, but protecting data on ever-more-mobile hardware has to be a concern to businesses and their clients.

And this is why Lenovo announced plans to load select ThinkPads with software that works in conjunction with the laptop's fingerprint reader to encrypt the data on the hard drive. According to the company, the software meets encryption standards for U.S. government systems. (Take note, ING, Deloitte, EDS, Aetna, HP, Fidelity, the State of Florida, and others whose data has been exposed because of hardware theft.)

Meanwhile, Lenovo has also announced plans to update all ThinkPad lines with the option of Intel Core 2 Duo processors; at this point the manufacturer's Web site is showing the new processors only on T-series and R-series models. We're expecting review units in CNET Labs soon and will let you know how they run--if we can get past the security measures.

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October 17, 2006, 7:53 AM PDT
ATI cleans up CrossFire
Posted by: Rich Brown

Nvidia's SLI dual 3D card technology has become more or less the de facto winner in high-end gaming rigs, not necessarily because its cards are faster (Quad SLI notwithstanding), but because it was out first, and it's had a much cleaner design than ATI's competing CrossFire mode. ATI still has to challenge the perception that SLI is a more robust, stable solution than CrossFire, but at least its technology has finally caught up, by way of the Radeon X1950 Pro, announced today. Now you don't need a special, more expensive CrossFire Edition of a particular 3D card to run two side by side. ATI has also improved the aesthetics by moving the connector between the two cards to the inside. Good-bye, stupid dongle!

ATI pitched this card to us with an MSRP of $199, to compete against Nvidia's new GeForce 7900 GS card. Confoundingly, Froogle turned up prices more along the lines of $299. ATI assured us that it was just speculative preorder pricing and that NewEgg will have the card at or close to the MSRP when it updates its listings. If it comes in at the lower price, early returns on performance are that the 256MB Radeon X1950 Pro is an impressive midrange deal. If it's more like $300, we suggest that you wait to see what Nvidia has up its sleeve with its next-gen cards, due to be announced within the next few months. Our review is almost ready to go, so stay tuned for full performance results and hopefully the final word on pricing.

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October 17, 2006, 6:15 AM PDT
Mozilla releases Firefox 2 RC3
Posted by: Robert Vamosi

It's coming. The next version of Mozilla Firefox will soon be available for mass release, hopefully by the end of the month. Today's release of Firefox 2 RC3 adds more stability to features already seen in the previous release candidates. While Mozilla cautions that these release candidates are still betas and are primarily released for site developers and testers, we've found that Firefox 2 is currently stable enough for our own use. You can read what's new and download a copy here.

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