Google posted an article yesterday that explains their thinking on introducing content filtering to YouTube.

“We are beginning tests on an automated system to identify and match specific videos,” writes YouTube co-founder Steve Chen. “We‚Äôre excited about the progress so far, and we‚Äôre dedicated to making these tests successful, but as always with cutting-edge technologies, there‚Äôs no guarantee of success.”

Chen goes on to say that Google plans to continue to put the burden of policing copyright violations on content creators. “Copyright status can only be determined by the copyright holder,” adds Chen. “Our upcoming video identification system will be our latest way of empowering copyright holders.”

Google has been the subject of several lawsuits of the distribution of copyrighted material on YouTube.

The Bush administration on Thursday attacked a congressional bill that would help protect the First Amendment rights of news gathers, including bloggers and podcasters.

According to a U.S. Department of Justice official, the Free Flow of Information Act (pdf) would pose a grave threat to national security and federal criminal investigations by protecting the free speech rights of far too large a segment of the population.

The latest version of the Free Flow of Information Act would protect anyone engaged in journalism, which is defined as “gathering, preparing, collecting, photographing, recording, writing, editing, reporting or publishing of news or information that concerns local, national or international events or other matters of public interest for dissemination to the public.”

“The definition is just so broad that it really includes anyone who wants to post something to the Web,” said the Justice Dept.’s Rachel Brand at a House Judiciary Committee hearing. She also argued it would protect “terrorist operatives”.

Apple today announced that people have downloaded more than 1 million copies of Safari for Windows in the first 48 hours since the free public beta was made available on Monday. Safari has generated a tremendous amount of interest, in part because of people questioning Apple’s speed claims for the browser and because of publicity because of several significant bugs in the new browser.

Apple claims that Safari 3 is the fastest browser running on Windows*, rendering web pages up to twice as fast as IE 7 and up to 1.6 times faster than Firefox 2. Independent tests show Safari’s speed to be no better than Firefox and Internet Explorer.

Several significant bugs with Safari for Windows have been documented by security analysts. The first update for Safari for Windows was released last night and fixes some early reported bugs.Safari 3 for Windows requires Windows XP or Windows Vista, a minimum of 256 MB of memory and a system with at least a 500 MHz Intel Pentium processor.

*Performance will vary based on system configuration, network connection and other factors. Testing conducted on an iMac 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo system running Windows XP, with 1GB of RAM.

Simon & Schuster has turned to YouTube to promote its new books, with a series of videos showcasing their authors and sneak-previews of new releases.

The videos will be featured on a Simon & Schuster-branded YouTube platform and on Bookvideos.tv, a new online video channel dedicated to books and author personalities. The latest videos will also be available via RSS.

The move is a good example of a traditional company realizing the promotional value of releasing free content via the Internet.

Here’s an example of one the videos:

The videos do a good job of giving you a taste of the content without weighing it down with excessive advertising or hard-sell.

A few of the authors participating in the initial launch are Sandra Brown, Jennifer Chiaverini, Philippa Gregory, James Loewen, Santa Montefiore, Kathy Reichs, Blair Underwood, Jeannette Walls, Marianne Wiggins and Zane, and the Newbery Medal winning children’s author Susan Patron. Authors featured in upcoming videos include President Jimmy Carter, Carol Higgins Clark, Mary Higgins Clark, Vince Flynn, Ursula Hegi, Jennifer Weiner, and children’s authors Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi, John Lithgow, and Scott Westerfeld.

“By incorporating online video into our marketing efforts at Bookvideos.tv and elsewhere, we are able to provide our readers with unprecedented access to their favorite authors, foster lasting emotional connections and create dedicated fans,” said Sue Fleming, Vice President, Online and Consumer Marketing for the Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group. “Working with TurnHere broadens our reach across the Web, taps into new audiences and provides an experience for readers that is just plain fun.”

The BBC has published an interesting story featuring blogging and podcasting pioneer Dave Winer.

In the article, one of the topics that Winer touches on is his vision for a better portable media player for listening to podcasts:

In order to really work for podcasting, I think a new kind of player needs to have built-in wi-fi, and when you come within range of a signal, a light comes on and you can press a button to have it automatically connect to the internet and download the latest episodes of shows you’re subscribed to.

It would work much the way a Blackberry gets e-mail, without you having to do anything.

I’d like to pay a few bucks to beam my thoughts to a nearby solar system that might have intelligent life

Also, like blogging, podcasting is a two-way medium, so every portable podcast player would also be able to record, and with a single button-click upload and instantly publish new podcast feeds.

If you think about it, all successful computer platforms have the ability to create the software they play, and a podcast player is definitely a computer.

Another thing I really want from podcast players is that they be open to running new software. Today, if I wanted to add a feature to a player I already own, I need to get into the hardware business, and that’s prohibitive.

But if someone made a player that had a simple scripting language that would run software I (or anyone else) wrote, we would certainly see a huge amount of creativity very quickly.

It is sad that today’s podcast players are all closed boxes and only run the software that the manufacturer supplies. What a waste.

Winer’s packed a lot of ideas into a few paragraphs.

One of the key points is that there’s an opportunity for someone to come out with a portable media player/audio recorder that is really optimized for podcasting. Ideally, a device like this would let you manage your subscription list directly, sync using WiFi, let you record at M-Audio MicroTrack quality, let you publish your podcasts directly, and work with popular blogging/CMS APIs.

Another interesting aspect of Winer’s article is his advocacy for treating podcasting as a two-way medium. One way this could be implemented would be through plugins for WordPress and other blogging platforms that would allow users to leave short audio comments. Another approach might be to extend the idea of Trackbacks to capture audio responses. In other words, if someone published an audio response to your podcast, your site could display links or a player that would let visitors listen to the discussion your podcast generates.

Winer also discusses his desire for web hosts that would guarantee to host your site after you die, and for a service that would publish content to the cosmos.

Apple sent an email today to people that have expressed interest in getting an iPhone. The email offers information about the new mobile device and tips on how to get ready for it. (!)
The biggest news in the message is that Apple says that “To set up your iPhone, you’ll need an account with Apple’s iTunes Store.”

As far as we can tell, this is the first time that Apple has explicitly said that you’ll need an iTunes account in order to use the iPhone. This may be to accommodate billing – but it could raise privacy issues for some potential buyers.

Here’s the text of Apple’s message:

Apple is trying to work out deals with Hollywood studios to let it rent movies as digital video downloads that could be viewed on iPods, computers or Apple TV. But, while Apple may want to become a digital alternative to Blockbuster, Hollywood execs are less than thrilled by the idea.

According to a Fox News report, major movie studios are questioning Apple’s pricing and copy-protection. Some said that, because the film download market remains small, the studios don’t need to rush into a deal with Apple.

“It just feels like the ball is in our court,” said one source.

Apple hopes to rent movies for 30 days for $2.99, a price that could undercut other online rental services and could cannabalize pay-per-view revenues. Studios are also concerned that Apple’s digital rights management software would not protect against unauthorized copies being made for the video iPod and other devices.

Microsoft Zune, meet your biggest fan.

mszunefan, the self-described King of Zunes, has a new tat to show off. Whether or not you think it’s Zunetastic or Zunetarded probably depends a lot on what you think of Microsoft’s not-so-warmly-received portable media player.

In case the above picture isn’t enough to let you make up your mind about the Zune tattoo, here’s an extreme close-up:

We checked Flickr to see if anyone had posted photos of a comparable iPod tattoo. Though we found tattooed babes, hunks, sock monkees and pirates tagged with “ipod”, we didn’t find anything.

Anybody have an iPod tattoo? Let us know in the comments!

Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ WWDC keynote speech is being called the worst keynote ever.

Maybe it was the Leopard update. While Leopard looks like it will feature nice refinements to OS X, enhancements don’t wow, especially enhancements that most people won’t see for months.

Maybe it was the announcement that Apple’s solution for opening the iPhone to developers was to let it run web apps. While this made for a cool demo, most people already expected the iPhone’s “real web” support to include running web apps. Besides, web apps don’t do you much good when you’re someplace with no phone service.

Maybe it was Safari for Windows. Most developers we know use Firefox, because it’s multiplatform, open and extensible. The fact that Safari is now best known for its Windows security vulnerabilities doesn’t help.

Was This Steve Jobs’ Worst Keynote Ever?

We’re not sure if it was Jobs’ worst keynote ever. That may have been the MacWorld keynote where Jobs blew off the Mac platform and announced that Apple wasn’t going to be a computer company anymore.

Our take is this:

• A bad Steve Jobs keynote is better than no keynote at all;
• Apple’s buggy Safari for Windows proves that Apple can make buggy Windows software better than even Microsoft can; and
• If updates to OS X aren’t that exciting anymore, maybe it’s because Mac OS X is already the best damn operating system in the world.

Apple’s made the keynote available now, so you can view it and decide for yourself if you think it was his worst keynote ever. Let us know what you think in the comments.

Media search technology company PodZinger has announced they will re-brand as EveryZing to reflect in its name that its future business operations which will go beyond podcasting. The company also announced a major expansion plan into all forms of online multimedia content.

PodZinger’s speech-to-text technology extracts text from audio and video files, offering additional information for search indexing. While the company has previously focused on podcasting, the technology has broader applications, not limited to podcast media files.

“By unlocking the contents of multimedia files, EveryZing is powering a shift in how multimedia content will be organized, accessed, and monetized into the future,” said Tom Wilde, CEO of EveryZing.

“Search has become the Internet’s operating system, and EveryZing’s solution uniquely bridges the gap between multimedia and search to drive consumption,” adds Wilde. “For our partners, higher consumption translates to an increase in advertising inventory and monetization at a higher value. In addition, with EveryZing’s web-based services platform, media companies can quickly integrate it into their existing content management, ad serving and search infrastructure.”

via Business 2.0