Science and technology news blog

Following its mass popularity, Youtube’s Presidential Debates page has received almost 3000 replies from people who want to put their questions to the presidential candidates. Will Wrigley, a 17-year-old who will turn 18 in time to vote in November 2008, asked the candidates for their views on stem cell research. There are many more like him. Have a look at the following page:

http://www.youtube.com/contest/DemocraticDebate

Makes for some interesting watching.

As other media companies continue to look daggers at YouTube, CBS has been singing a very different tune.

In recent months, YouTube, the embattled Google subsidiary, has had to contend with a massive request from Viacom to take down more than 100,000 unauthorized video clips, as well as subpoenas from News Corp.’s Twentieth Century Fox and a smaller film studio owned by Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.

But from CBS, it’s been mostly peace, love and understanding.

“There’s unauthorized content on YouTube,’’ CBS Interactive Chief Operating Officer Stephen Snyder acknowledged in an interview this week. “Do we have a problem with it? I wouldn’t call it a problem. Do we have an awareness of it, and is YouTube a good-faith partner in the process right now? Yes.”

Snyder observed that YouTube is “growing like crazy, and when you’re growing that fast, you’re just trying to keep up with the tidal wave of consumer activity. ... They’re running as fast as they possibly can.”

Synder declined to comment on reports that the network recently backed away from a multi-year deal with YouTube that would have expanded the CBS content available on the video portal. He also declined to comment on reported efforts late last year among the major TV networks to band together for a video portal site to rival YouTube.

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A court in Istanbul has issued an order denying access to the video-sharing website YouTube. The state owned Turk Telecom implemented the ban today after an escalating dispute between Greek and Turkish users of the site.

The court order was issued yesterday and most internet users logging onto the site in Turkey are met with a holding page with a Turkish message, which translates as: “Access to this site has been denied by court order ! ...”.

Greek and Turkish YouTube users have been trading video insults over the past few months, attracting much coverage in the Turkish press. Greek videos reportedly accused the founding president of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, of homosexuality; a Turkish user responded by calling Greece the birthplace of homosexuality.

It is illegal to criticise either Ataturk or Turkishness in Turkey and the prosecutor’s office in Istanbul acted despite YouTube’s agreement to take down the offending videos.

Turkey wishes to join the EU in the next round of enlargement and has been criticised for its failure to safeguard freedom of expression. The country’s most famous author, Orhan Pamuk, faced up to three years in jail after being charged with “insulting Turkishness” after talking to a Swiss newspaper about Turkey’s human rights record. The case was dropped in January after international condemnation.

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New Internet TV services such as YouTube and Joost may bring the global network to its knees, Internet companies said today, adding that they are already investing heavily just to keep data flowing.

Google Inc., which acquired online video-sharing site YouTube last year, said the Internet was not designed for TV. It even issued a warning to companies that think they can start distributing mainstream TV shows and movies on a global scale at broadcast quality over the public Internet.

“The Web infrastructure, and even Google’s [infrastructure], doesn’t scale. It’s not going to offer the quality of service that consumers expect,” Vincent Dureau, Google’s head of TV technology, said at the Cable Europe Congress. The company instead offered to work with cable operators to combine its technology for searching for video and TV footage and its tailored advertising with the cable networks’ high-quality delivery of shows.

One cable chief executive, Duco Sickinghe from Belgian operator Telenet Group Holding NV, said it was “the best news of the day” to hear that Google could not scale for video.

Google was welcomed with a mix of fear and awe by the cable TV companies, which are concerned that Web companies will try to steal their lucrative TV business. The Internet on the whole is a mixed blessing, cable carriers said.

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A new video on popular internet video site YouTube has raised a question: Is it fake or real?

The movie entitled Bride Has Massive Hair Wig Out that was released on the 18th of January shows a woman who was going to get married within hours, but instead she cuts off all her hair.

First, the woman named Jodie, who got her hair done at the hairdressers, comes back to a hotel room where three bridesmaids are doing last-minute preparations. She runs in and falls to the ground screaming that her hair is ugly. They try to comfort her but that wasn’t enough for the so called “Bridezilla”. Then, she cuts off her hair with a pair of scissors while the maids’ watch while taping it all on video camera.

The video, which is still on the main page of YouTube, has been watched over 2 million times. The person who posted the video, wigoutgirl, claims to be 25 and from Canada. It is speculated that the video was shot in a Toronto, Ontario hotel room.

Some YouTube users are saying that it is fake, some say it’s real.

Google Inc.’s popular video-sharing site, YouTube has received a subpoena from Twentieth Century Fox which stipulated the former to disclose the identity of a poster who uploaded copies of entire recent episodes of The Simpsons and 24.

The subpoena filed Jan. 18 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California first came to light on the blog Google Watch (http://googlewatch.eweek.com/index.html). It requests that YouTube divulge the required information to identify the subscriber so that Fox can immediately bring the infringing to a halt. Whether or not YouTube has compiled with the request is still unknown.

It is being wondered if the search engine leader would protect the identity of the poster as Google, which paid US$1.65 billion for the video sharing site, has a standing of being sternly shielding of the identity of its users.

According to the subpoena the four episodes of 24 emerged on the site in advance of their TV broadcast but how the user named ECOtotal managed to get hold of those is still ambiguous. 12 episodes of The Simpsons were also uploaded.

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