YouTube grabbed 73.18 percent of all U.S. visits to online video sites in March, representing a 32 percent year-over-year increase, according to new data from Hitwise.

Also gobbling up our eyeballs during March was Hulu, which made climbed to number 22 despite it being public for just half of the month.

While YouTube continues to ride high, the online video category overall slumped from 7 percent of all U.S. Internet visits in March of 2007 down to 1 percent in 2008. But it’s not all doom and gloom, time spent on the sites increased 7 percent for the week ending April 5.

Break.com led the pack of independent video websites, receiving 1.82 percent of all U.S. visits to video sites with Metacafe, Dailymotion, Veoh and Blinkx following, in that order.

I am so excited to find an easy and inexpensive way to watch movies on my iPod, the only high-tech thing I have. No doubt, a lot of movies to iPod converters are queuing up for me in Google. But as careful as I always am, I first searched some pieces of reviews on converting movies to iPod from some “insider” sites and took time to chew them over, and finally decide to use the free trial of PQ DVD to iPod Converter Suite, a software continually praised by other users. After trying it on several DVDs and video files in my hard drive, I have to admit that this movies to iPod conversion tool is a clean, and very easy to use. You will never be annoyed by audio, video or spyware problems as long as you finish the output settings in the right way. The speed I care most, due to my impulse for batch conversion, is super fast, and I even wanted to convert all movies I can imagine to my 30GB iPod. Though other convert movies to iPod software conversion may be good too, but I’m too lazy to lift my finger to try. Whatever, give it a try, and try converting your favorite movies to iPod, you may want to keep the software as well as the converted movies forever.

Yes Lady’s and Gent’s you heard it right… After completing his 100th soccer/football game for England, everyone’s favourite high-pitched voice sports star, David Beckham has received a gold plated iPod touch from his team mates to celebrate the occasion.. The thing is worth over $1,600.00 aussie dollars.. And fortunately they didn’t skimp on the iPod Touch itself :- as its a top end 32gb model..

via

http://www.lamp.edu.au/watercooler/becks-gets-a-golden-ipod/

Apple is planning to be pushing 45 million units per year by 2009. They are basing these projections on the upgrades they intend to make to turn the iPhone into an all-purpose device. Critics are doubtful that they will achieve this lofty goal within a competing, innovative market that will gradually eat into the customer base that Apple is targeting. they cite the fate that Apple has only pushed 4 million of the devices so far this quarter. The House That Job Built is betting that additions like 3G’s of memory, a recorder, better camera, GPS technology, lower pricing, cheaper versions and an open source system will attract the necessary customers needed to meet their projections. They are looking forward to breaking into untapped global markets. CLICK HERE for the rest of the Apple gameplan. In comparison, Apple managed to push 50 million iPods last year, one of its best returns.

via

http://streetknowledge.wordpress.com/2008/04/02/apple-plans-to-push-45-million-iphones-per-year/

Google are offering YouTube Insights, a new tool to analyse traffic for videos hosted on YouTube. In providing metrix, it seems that Google is serious about promoting YouTube as a platform.

According to Adweek “with the new tool, any content producer who posts videos on YouTube can examine which days of the week or hours of the day traffic spikes; which U.S. states account for the most viewing streams; and how long particular clips remain popular.”

You can also review how often the videos are viewed across various geographic regions, and how popular that video is in relation to that particular region, over time.

This tool is available to all users of YouTube.

According to AdWeek this tool is being developed to extend to be able to analyse video traffic on other video sites.

More info can be found on Mashable and the official Google blog.

When talking about how Apple is gonna take over mobile phone industry, one of the things that are very rarely talked about, is iPhone form factor.

Apple is truly aimed at winning the world phone market and the factor that might help it immensely is iPhone form factor. What’s that? Look…the world has already seen hundreds of phones of various shapes and sizes. Some people prefer a clamshell or a slider than a phone of the traditional shape.

So iPhone has come up with a number of solutions:

• A Clamshell:

This image is just a reproductions made by the description in Apple’s recent patent application. What does it mean? Well, it might mean that Apple IS working on a brand new iPhone successor, BUT with a twist in the tale!

The idea is the following: separate the screen and the sensitive touchpad. Then put the touch sensor array on a translucent (transparent) panel, make this panel touch sensitive on both sides - top and bottom and connect them with a hinge

When the screen is closed you see just an ordinary iPhone screen through a transparent touchpad. When the screen is open you get two parts: a multi-touch-active pad and a display proper. Moreover, when the screen is open the device can show the standard T9 keypad.

The trackpad can be sensitive on both the sides simultaneously. Thus you get three axes for action.

When the cover is closed the device works like iPod Touch

So do we really need these additions? Well… the new technology makes the device twice as small as it is now. Moreover, some people just like the shape of a clamshell so iPhone will be even more popular.

At the same time the shape of the new device is very similar to the new generation of iPhone Nano. Perhaps it is a brand new Nano! The same size of the device, but the size of the screen is two times bigger. Sounds great.

• Apple Tablet

The recipe: you take a laptop, put all the working stuff behind the display and turn the bottom part into a transparent dual sided trackpad. iTab is ready.

When closed, it is a device with a multi-touch screen. When open – a standard laptop with the bottom end functioning as a keypad and the top one – as a screen.

What can we conclude? For instance, it is a common knowledge that quite a number of patents remain only on paper. Nevertheless some of them might become the next big thing!

via

http://www.cellmad.com/iphone-magic-new-shape-for-iphone/

authorSTREAM has a new feature available to transfer PowerPoint files into your iPod. Making PowerPoint available on iPod allows for greater flexibility and convenience for those who frequently use PowerPoint for school, business or leisure presentations. PowerPoint users can now easily utilize their iPods to practice, learn and enjoy PowerPoint on the go, without having to use bulky and uncomfortable laptops.

Here are some uses of PowerPoint on iPods:

- Business persons preparing and practicing for an important presentation or meeting with ease and convenience of their iPod.
- Travelers can conveniently listen to iPod PowerPoint presentations as guides about famous sites and landmarks as they travel from place-to-place.
- Teacher can create video podcasts using PowerPoint (with or without narration) and distribute it to further assist educating students outside of the classroom.
- Marketing professionals can create video podcasts from PowerPoint about their products so potential buyers get a better idea of their features and benefits.
- Real estate agents can create PowerPoint slide shows of properties to sell and have potential customers transfer them to their iPods.

via

http://blog.authorstream.com/2008/03/powerpoint-presentations-as-video.html

Have you ever come across “buffering” in watching YouTube videos? I did. Bad luck for me. YouTube has been slow for me for a couple of weeks now. God knows why. Quite annoying, just imagine how it tortures me when it pauses once and again, and I have to wait forever to continue. Nobody for me to turn for help. So I begin to find ways of downloading some videos onto my hard drive. Then I googled out a dozen of YouTube Flv downloader, and have to try one by one. To my disappointment, some programs have so far done nothing to make me watch it easier and everything to delay the playing: The software “buffers” itself, even slower than viewing on line. What’s worse, it seems some carries a load of adware or spyware, nearly making my system freeze. In fear of any unknown virus that may come, this PQ FLV Downloader was my last resort. It turned to be a good download tool. Use-friendly interface, the color green giving you a refreshing feeling. The point is that it can make the download faster and smoother. You will never be annoyed by the buffering offline, right? A lot more to say about this amazing

Try it to download some favorite videos before you buy it, and you will find it an ideal tool.

Responding to the articles iPhone 2.0 SDK: Java on the iPhone? and iPhone 2.0 SDK: How Signing Certificates Work, readers wrote in with additional notes on signed iPhone app revocation by Apple and a comparison of the issues faced by Sun’s Java ME developers in the area of signing code.

Revocation and the Lovely Walled Garden.
Hoty Kesterson II writes: “Good article on code signing. I’ve posited on several posts that I don’t expect Apple to test 3rd party code before installation. I suspect such validation would be a bit cost prohibited. Instead they will be able to detect what app screwed up and either 1) push a corrected version to anyone who purchased the app or 2) revoke the certificate if they detect purposeful malware or a trend of incompetency.

”I’ve wondered just how they will handle revocation (I’m one of the designers of the X.509 certificate and I chaired the international committee that created it for many years). One possibility is a CRL store in the phone. This allows immediate certificate validity checks and if not very many certificates have to be revoked, the CRL’s size wouldn’t be too significant. The CRL could be pushed (either by sync or over the air) to the IPhone (maybe the subset of phones that have an installed app that would be affected by the new revocation) whenever there’s a new revocation.

“Another possibility is as you mentioned; the iPhone would check whenever an application is launched. The check could be via OCSP or equivalent. I don’t like this approach because it would be triggered every time once launched an app. I suspect this approach 1) would slow launch 2) requires one to be in reach of a signal, 3) is another drain on the battery.

”I like the discipline code signing would bring. I understand and don’t object to those who want to open the software but I will never use their stuff. In the early days OS 9 I put dozens of extensions on my Mac (loved boomerang). My system was fragile; any change typically caused crashing and a lot of work to isolate the cause. Since OS X I have run vanilla using what Apple provides and applications that behave properly. It’s remarkably stable for me, sometimes running for weeks before I reboot.

“I will treat my iPhone the same. I have yet to see an application in the wild that I need so badly that I would accept the turmoil that occurs every time Apple puts out an update. Would I like to have voice dialing? Would I like to have my notes taggable and accessible on my laptop? Sure, but I will wait for Apple or a trusted developer to provide the function. I use my phone daily as my business phone. I cannot afford to play with it and I won’t let anyone else do it.”

Java Verified: Expensive.
Elliot Long writes, “I know you’re pretty anti-Java, but i figured at least in an article discussing the difficulties of code signing you might least mention the horrendous hurdles faced by J2ME developers.

”Unlike Blackberry, Symbian, and Windows Mobile signing - J2ME apps are not rolled out on compatible devices, so they involve many more executables. Yet the process for each executable is among the most expensive in the business. The ONLY ubiquitous certificate is that of the Java Verified initiative. And in order to get it, you cannot simply buy it from a company, you need to get your code professionally tested by one of five testing houses for around $200-400 for each executable.

“Even when shooting for a single manufacturer this can be 3 or 4 jars for different screen resolutions. Add in custom key assignments for different manufacturers, fixes for buggy implementations, versions taking advantage of various JSRs, different languages etc, and you are looking at thousands upon thousands of dollars for just a single version of your app. And that is assuming all your apps pass first time, which is almost never the case.

”But of course the story doesn’t end there. In order to get your app on deck on one of the MNOs, you often need to sign it with one of their own certificates in addition to JV. IT’S A TRAVESTY/RACKET and a big reason why even though java has such tremendous market share it’s still a fledgling market. Just my $0.02. Great articles as usual. Keep em coming.