Audio and video

News Roundup: Digg gets OpenID, Flickr downtime, 37signals Highrise teaser, Blinkx + Sproose partnership

Digg to adopt OpenID. Later this year, Digg will be adding OpenID to its site. OpenID, which we looked at back in September, creates a master password similar to what you get with Microsoft's Live ID, but it's not proprietary. ( TechCrunch)

Flickr outage reveals site's scale. Flickr wasn't working yesterday, but fear not--it's back up. The problem mixed up a large number of photos across the site, which quickly led to Yahoo shutting down the service for several hours. Interestingly enough, the outage revealed that at times, the site serves over a billion photos a day. ( … Read more

Joost fires up its engines with Viacom deal, Mac beta

Hey TiVo, Slingbox, AppleTV, and everyone else who's trying to "bridge the content gap" between TV and broadband video--Joost might really pack a powerful punch. The start-up from the founders of Skype and Kazaa has been all over the news recently with new content deals, a Mac beta version, and an agreement in the works with Viacom to distribute programming from such cable mainstays as MTV and Comedy Central.

Last week, it was announced that the previously Windows-only private beta version of Joost would be available for Intel-based Macs. At the same time, Joost released new … Read more

Enhance your Wii's browser with Wiiminder

Wiiminder is a site that adds functionality to your Wii browser. Navigating to Wiiminder.com on your Wii provides you with multiple tabs, a search tool, an address bar, and a really neat drag and drop favorites folder that's much snappier than the one that ships with the Opera browser. Best of all, all the buttons disappear when not in use, saving precious screen real estate. There's also a tie-in with Finetune, the Internet radio service I looked at earlier this month.

Wiiminder takes care of several issues I found on my comparison of the Opera browser to the Playstation 3's. … Read more

News Roundup: Google ads and stats, browser cookie havoc, Flickr stock photos, soccer fans on YouTube

>> Google Reader and the Google home page now provide readerships. Google's popular RSS reader and personalized home page now lets publishers know how many people have subscribed to their content feeds. Most of the Web has patiently been awaiting Google to provide advanced traffic data, and this might be the first big step. On a related note, if you're using either service you can subscribe to the Webware RSS feed using the link under 'Webware Feeds.' (Official Google Reader Blog)

>> Google snags AdScape for $23 million, source says. AdScape does in-game advertising, the kind … Read more

Blockbuster courts rogue Netflixers...again

In the face of the juggernaut that is Netflix, lagging movie rental giant Blockbuster has tried many an incentive to convince viewers that it's no dinosaur. Since entering the online DVD rental business in 2004, Blockbuster has instituted "Total Access," a system of online-and-offline rentals geared toward Netflix users who may be disgruntled by the fact that they can't just hop in their cars and pick out movies on the fly.

This week, Blockbuster is taking a sharper jab at Netflix. With the President's Day long weekend underway, the rental company is attempting to capitalize … Read more

Photobucket to launch Flash-based online video editor

Photobucket and Adobe Systems on Monday are expected to announce a Web-based video-editing tool available from Photobucket's media-sharing site. The free service will be in beta this month to its premium customers and rolled out to all customers in March.

The service lets people take existing media, including photos and videos, stored in a Photobucket account and remix them with captions, soundtracks and other effects. Like any video-editing package, people can drop items, like video snippets, and place them onto a timeline.

It requires that people have Flash Player 9, the latest version, on their machines.

"When you … Read more

Mosoto turns Facebook into a live chat service

Mosoto is a Web-based app for Facebook, giving you a virtual desktop with chat, music, and file sharing built right in. Mosoto allows you to chat with other Facebook friends and swap photos, music, and videos using a shared storage folder from Box.net. As a service, Mosoto is meant to replace desktop applications for chatting and music.

The music player's user interface takes a design cue from iTunes. Double-clicking a song starts playing it instantly, almost like it's running off your hard drive--a good use of streaming. You also can quickly make playlists with simple drag-and-drop functions. … Read more

Nintendo's new Wii channel brings social democracy to your living room

I got a press release about Nintendo's new social democracy channel this morning, but not before I had already noticed it while checking the Wii's weather channel between bites of cereal (yeah I'm that guy). The new channel--called "Everybody Votes"--is a simple yes-or-no voting system with a gorgeous interface. It might be the most colorful and well-designed Wii channel yet.

Everybody Votes allows Wii users to vote on simple questions. It also allows you to suggest your own poll to be featured on the service. The entire voting process is done using your self-created … Read more

Foonz: Free conference bridge for consumers

Here's a handy tool for close groups of friends and for families: Foonz, a free conference call service.

On the Foonz Web site, you set up your calling groups. For each name, enter a cell phone number or an IM address (or both). Place your contacts in groups (e.g., "Beer buddies," and so on) and when you want to talk to everybody in a group at once, you call the Foonz service and select one of your groups from voice prompts.

Foonz then sends SMS or IM messages containing dial-in numbers to your contacts. People calling … Read more