Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Hey, if thousands of people are doing it, it can’t be wrong.....right? That’s the million dollar question about one of the newest music sites on the Web. Songza advertises itself as a “music search engine and Internet jukebox”. Ummm, ok.  Or, one might also say they are a site you can go to in order to search out music and be able to listen to and download it for free. I’m just sayin’.

With 28 million songs instantly playable on the site, 10 month old Songza is luring in the music-seeking crowd pretty nicely.  And they make their songs playable in a rather creative way. When you go on their site and enter the song or band title of your choosing, Songza will search the huge inventory of music videos on YouTube looking for it.  Then, it streams the audio of the song, while hiding the video in an unseen margin of the browser. Pretty dang tricky, but.....is it actually legal?

MORE »

With Google’s new nifty browser Chrome getting all the press, they’ve quietly put out Picasa 3.  Picasa is Google’s photo sharing service and it just got a whole lot of attention with some very exciting upgrades.  And like most of Google’s products, its free and striving to be as simple as possible.

MORE »

Although Samsung’s MX20 SD camcorder may fall a bit behind other camcorders available on the market for not having an HD video recording feature, it still is worthy of our attention and perhaps money because of one outstanding feature. And that is the facility to directly upload video into YouTube or iPod from the camcorder without needing to transcode the video files.

To some, that feature more than makes up for not being able to capture high-definition video but well for some, that would be a turn off. If you’re one of those who don’t mind the lack of HD quality, you’d be glad to know that the Samsung MX20 nonetheless kicks out some high-standard features that include H.264-enhanced video quality, 3D noise reduction technology, a Schneider lens with 34x optical zoom, Hyper Digital Image Stabilization, advanced face detection technology, a 680K CCD sensor, a swivel hand-grip, a 2.7-inch LCD screen, iCheck and iScene modes and a very important SD/SDHC memory card slot.

The Samsung MX20 SD camcorder will be available in the Japanese market sometime in September. And our Japanese pals will have a choice of either black, white, red or blue. Pricing details are not yet available but we expect this to come with a lower price than most of the cheap HD camcorders currently available. For us non-Japanese camcorder-loving geeks, we may have to wait for awhile before the MX20 gets an international release.

Via [Akihabara News]

Despite previous statements declaring that their online service would be offering live video streaming some time this year, a source inside now states that YouTube won’t be going live after all. There goes the business plans of several planning to make a buck off the live streaming idea, like the somewhat cult-popular lifecast justin.tv. Some outsiders have thought this was the next expected step for YouTube, being that they make a killing in the market for pre-recorded Web video. Even Steve Chen, Co-Founder of YouTube, lent plausibility to the leap to live streaming when the idea first hit the public’s ear by telling Pop 17’s Sarah Meyer’s “Live video is something we always wanted to do but haven’t had the resources to do it correctly, but now with Google, we hope to launch something this year.” Well, that was in February, and it isn’t happening, and sources say it won’t be happening next year either.

MORE »

There can’t be many people who have been on the internet, and not also been on YouTube, and the home video craze has really caught on. This is both good and bad: it makes videos more accessible but leaves the door open for happy slapping idiots trying to make a name for themselves. And recently another problem has arisen, it’s starting to get a bit too big.

With a reported 13 hours of video being uploaded every minute it is becoming increasingly difficult to find the video that you want, however specific you are. So new techniques are needed, and there are plans to use voice recognition to automatically convert the words into metadata which in turn is embedded in the video meaning key words can be searched for with increased effectiveness. It also means, if you know what video you are looking for, you can directly quote from the video and thus find it easily.

MORE »

With the new 9.4 TiVo software update, it seems that everybody’s favorite DVR has gained YouTube support.  This brings up the total YouTube compatible devices to, uh, very high.  Subscribers of TiVo’s HD and Series 3 devices will get the update as soon as the next few days, and as late as the next few weeks.  Like the iPhone, YouTube on the TiVo is in the H.264 codec, meaning the TiVo Series 2 (which only supports MPEG-2) cannot use the YouTube application.

Check out the video (hosted on YouTube, where else?) below.

Read [ZatzNotFunny]

Google’s new online virtual world program “Lively” is causing a bit of a stir for some users. It seems it has become a tad too lively in some of it’s rooms. Apparently there have been some “sex rooms” created in the virtual world, and a few users are complaining. Complaints which Google isn’t taking lightly. 

“Our community standards prohibit sexually explicit images and rooms intended for sexual activity, even if virtual. When we become aware of ‘sex rooms’ that violate our Terms of Service, we’ll work to remove them.”

MORE »

Kodak has just added their own pocket sized camcorder, the Zi6 HD, to what seems to be a growing collection, and they have possibly taken the lead in terms of quality. The Zi6 HD from Kodak offers the ability to shoot in HD quality at 720p. This little camcorder is able to capture video at either 30 or 60 frames-per-second and can also capture video at a lower VGA quality, which is better suited for quick and easy uploads to online video sites such as YouTube.

Aside from the ability to capture video at 60fps 720p HD quality, the Zi6 also features a 2.4-inch display, flip-out USB connection, and has software included for easy YouTube video uploads.

The Zi6 has just 128MB of onboard memory, but also has an SDHC slot that supports memory cards up to 32GB in size. Similar to other pocket camcorders, the Zi6 also runs on just two AA batteries.

Look for the Kodak Zi6 HD to be available in August, it is expected to retail for $179.95.

Read [Kodak]

With the popularity of video uploading sites such as YouTube, it is not surprising that camcorder manufacturers has been constantly ensuring that they offer something new for the consumers. This might be what Samsung had in mind when it launched its new compact digital camcorder, the SC-MX20.

The SC-MX20 is a feature-packed camcorder boasting a 680K pixel CCD sensor which gives out a 720 x 480 resolution, a Schneider lens with 34x optical zoom and noise reduction technology, and Samsung’s Advanced Image Stabilization technology, a 2.7-inch LCD, memory card slot for SD/SDHC, USB 2.0, 3-hours of battery life, aspect ratio 4:3 & 16:9, innovative swivel grip. And of course, the YouTube recording mode.

MORE »

Keeping in mind that there are just some things that you should not do. Take “throwing a baby” for example, but assuming you felt the need to do such a crazy thing, then why would you feel the need to not only record it, but also post the video to a popular site as YouTube. Its almost like asking to get in trouble, isn’t it?

The latest teen did just that, he had his friend film himself throwing a baby, well not actually throwing, but sort of launching it. The 16-year old placed the baby on a large inflatable pillow and then jumped on it to send the baby flying across the room. The teens then posted the video online and it was later found by one of the students teachers, who promptly called the police. The 16-year old has since been charged with felony cruelty to a child, and according to Sheriff Harold Breeden;

“It’s not going to be funny when the judge gets through with him.”

MORE »