Double time, Molly.
(Credit: Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)There are some videos that drone on--business presentations, product demos, and online driving school--and others that rush by too quickly. MySpeed is a fun, free-to-try bit of software that serves as a playback remote so you can watch Flash videos at your own pace.
The simple app consists of a sliding bar that's set to 1.0, regular time, when a video plays. Slide it to the left to slow the sound and picture, or to the right to speed both elements to two or three times the original speed. You can also use shortcut keys to quicken or slow the video. Crtl+Alt+F makes it faster; Crtl+Alt+S drags it down.
The audio and video largely remained in sync when tampered with, but original trip-ups in streaming and buffering were more noticeable with the video accelerated. If you don't set MySpeed to start on boot-up, you'll need to open it each session. After that, it'll run in the background from the system tray.
MySpeed is an amusing, sometimes time-saving utility for YouTube and sources of Flash video. However, for the $30 post-trial asking price for the Windows app, it's clearly aimed at very frequent video watchers, especially e-learners who may want to breeze by some sections of a module and stroll through other, more technical segments.
TuneWiki turns song lyrics into subtitles so you can read along while you listen.
Remember Lyrical, the free app that lets you look up lyrics for the currently playing song? TuneWiki does it one better, spooling out lyrics as the song plays. (All that's missing is the bouncing ball.)
If the name sounds familiar, it's because the TuneWiki social music site has been around for a while, and recently unveiled a TuneWiki plug-in for Windows Media Player.
With TuneWiki for iPhone (and iPod Touch), you choose a song from your library (using the TuneWiki interface, not the standard iPod menus), then watch the lyrics scroll past as it plays.
That's assuming, of course, the song has already been "time-synced" by another user. If not, you'll have the option of advancing the lyrics yourself so the app will know the sync points in the future.
TuneWiki also lets you stream music from countless Shoutcast radio stations, and works the same lyric-subtitling magic with most songs.
The app includes a YouTube video search option and supports both Twitter and Facebook: it can automatically update your status to show what song you're playing. It even emulates the TuneWiki site's mapping option to show you who's listening to what in various parts of the world--including yours.
In other words, it's a pretty cool app--or would be, if not for the generally atrocious interface. Browsing your song library is a slow, awkward process, in part because TuneWiki lacks the alphabet-shortcut menu on the right edge of the screen.
Meanwhile, menu options and icons aren't logically designed or organized. Most buttons don't look like buttons; it's too easy to get bounced out of the app by, say, the YouTube or download buttons because you didn't know their functions.
On the other hand, once you learn your way around, it's pretty cool--especially if you like to read lyrics while you're listening to music. The subtitling works pretty well, and it's hard to complain too much about an app that costs nothing to use.
Since Adobe Systems relaunched its AIR marketplace, I've been spending some considerable time there. There are so many great apps, it's hard to pick just a handful worth talking about. But after taking some time to sift through all my apps, I've selected my favorites.
Adobe AIR aps
Adobe Media Player If you're a Photoshop, Premiere, or Dreamweaver user, the Adobe Media Player will come in handy. The app lets you watch a slew of videos that train you how to use Adobe's applications.
Although there are videos for advanced users, there are quite a few videos that help Photoshop novices find their way around the sophisticated program. You can also save your favorite videos and go step-by-step during instruction. It's a great app for anyone who wants to be creative.
Adobe Media Player teaches you how to use Adobe programs.
(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)AOL Top 100 Videos If you're a music lover, you'll love the AOL Top 100 Videos app. Instead of forcing you to go to YouTube to find videos or search through Google, AOL Top 100 Videos lets you watch them all right from the app. Besides having an outstanding design, the app lets you share clips with friends, create a "favorite videos" playlist, and pick the genre of music you like. The videos load quickly, and the quality is stellar.
AOL Top 100 Videos is perfect for music lovers.
(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)Desktop iPhone Desktop iPhone is one of the coolest apps in this roundup. You can experience the iPhone user interface, check the weather, and record voice messages. But the Desktop iPhone app's best feature is the ability to make phone calls from the app with an account from online phone company Ribbit. More features, including Google Maps, Calculator, and other options haven't been enabled.
Desktop iPhone lets you use the iPhone UI.
(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
Track and update all your social networks under Zensify's single roof
"All your networks are belong to us." That could be the tagline for Zensify, a new iPhone app that lets you view, update, and share content from multiple social networks.
In other words, Zensify aims to take the place of standalone apps for the likes of Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr--or at least to save you the time of bopping from one to another just to read and post updates.
In addition to those three popular networks, Zensify can connect you with 12seconds, Delicious, Digg, Photobucket, and YouTube. (Support for more services is in the works, according to the developer.)
After you sign into your various accounts (a slow but one-time procedure), Zensify lists all your friends' updates in a single, scrolling timeline. It also presents a scrolling tag bar (this one along the top) so you can quickly filter the timeline based on current trends.
Then there's also the Tag Cloud view, which displays the aforementioned "trendy tags" in a word cloud. I've never been a fan, but it's definitely a neat way to sift through updates.
Zensify's Track tool lets you search all your networks, complete with modifiers for things like tags, usernames, and types of content. It also provides a handy batch of saved searches so you can quickly look for updates that have, say, photos or links, or that come from Flickr or Facebook.
Want to keep an update for future reference? Tap the star icon to mark it as a favorite. Want to post an update or photo to one or more of your own networks? Tap the Post icon. (Finally, an easy way to update Facebook and Twitter simultaneously!)
Unfortunately, while Zensify lets you share or reply to others' Twitter posts, there's no easy way to do likewise with Facebook entries. You can "tap through" to the friend's Facebook page using Zensify's integrated browser, but that's a slow and awkward process. The app really needs to add a low-level reply option.
Of course, it's technically called Zensify Preview, so a few rough edges are to be expected. As it stands, Zensify looks very promising, and I suspect avid social-networkers will like it a lot.
Apple on Tuesday used a copyright infringement claim to have seven videos, showing features of Snow Leopard removed from YouTube.
As it does with all of its unreleased products, Apple has managed to keep a pretty tight lid on the upcoming version of Mac OS X, code-named Snow Leopard. However, on Monday, at least seven videos were posted to the popular YouTube video service.
The videos showed a number of features, including Stacks, QuickTime, the Dock, the Snow Leopard Welcome Movie, QuickLook, and the Finder Preferences.
Six of the seven videos on Tuesday say they have been removed by the user. One video says it "is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Apple, Inc."
It's not a big surprise that the videos were removed. Developers must sign a nondisclosure agreement, or NDA, before they even get access to Snow Leopard and agree that they will not reveal details of the operating system publicly.
YouTube's policy is very clear too. The company's copyright policy is available from its Web site:
YouTube respects the rights of copyright holders and publishers, and requires all users to confirm they own the copyright or have permission from the copyright holder to upload content. We comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and other applicable copyright laws, and promptly remove content when properly notified. Repeat infringers' videos are removed, and their accounts are terminated and permanently blocked from using YouTube.
While we would all like to see some more in-depth features of Snow Leopard, it looks like we'll have to wait until Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, where Apple is expected to show the operating system during the keynote address.
As part of a series of blog posts, Google has released more information this week about some of the goodies we can expect out of version 1.5 of the Android operating system, which has been going by the code name Cupcake, and which wireless carrier T-Mobile is expected to push out to U.S. customers at the end of next week. High on the list of upgrades is the ability to record videos and upload them to Google-owned YouTube.
Take the video. Share it through YouTube.
(Credit: Google)Based on what we can ascertain from Google's introductory video, shooting a video on the Android 1.5 platform will be nearly as straightforward as taking a photo--except that after framing the picture, you'll need to turn the recorder on and off. After taking the video, you'll be able to share it via e-mail or MMS, or as a YouTube upload. You'll have the chance to type in a title and a caption, and set the viewing access as public or private before sending your recording on its way.
For the time being, YouTube will support one login per person, and you'll need an account before you'll be able to upload video. Those wishing to manage video on a separate account will need to access YouTube from the browser of T-Mobile's G1 phone for now.
Add a title, description, and privacy settings.
(Credit: Google)We also learned more about what's in store in Android 1.5. Following the phone-to-Web upload theme, G1 owners will be able to more easily push photos from the Android device to Google's Picasa Web Albums online. In much the same way you'll upload videos to YouTube, shooting photos to Picasa will be an option you encounter after taking a photo and pressing Share.
In addition, Android's Gmail will gain some batch editing capabilities similar to what's available in Gmail from the desktop browser. Instead of managing messages one at a time on the phone, as is the current mode of operation, you'll be able to select multiple e-mail threads to archive, delete, label, and mute at once.
You can watch more in Google's Cupcake walk-though video, and lick your chops in anticipation of the greater Android computing power that's imminent for T-Mobile's U.S. customers.
(Credit:
CNET)
Apple Insider has unearthed proof that YouTube uploading will be built into the upcoming version of QuickTime that ships with OS X 10.6.
According to beta testers, several video-sharing options will be baked into the latest release of Apple's QuickTime media playback and editing software, including the capability to directly upload to YouTube. With the new QuickTime, you will be able to convert and upload any supported video file type to the online video service and all you will need is to be a registered YouTube user. You also will be able to seamlessly upload supported video to the MobileMe Gallery.
In addition to these new sharing options, iTunes also will offer ways to convert and export your video files to work on your iPod, iPhone, or Apple TV. All of these options will be available to you from the same convenient location and will automatically be imported to iTunes before being synced to your supported devices.
With this latest discovery, Apple will effectively offer built-in support for YouTube across all of its main products. Both the iPhone and Apple TV already offer YouTube support, along with some of Apple's other software including recent releases of iMovie. With the addition of direct uploads through QuickTime, Apple is providing support for desktop and laptop Macs.
I can't think of a worse place to look for editorial than YouTube comments. Historically, they've been so bad that YouTube was forced to create a comment playback feature so users could hear what they had typed before sharing it with the rest of the world.
That hasn't stopped two Firefox developers from coming up with OpinionCloud. This small Firefox add-on will give a video's comments a quick once-over and show you which words are most often used, and the general user sentiment based on a percentage of keywords that are either positive or negative. Clicking on one of the keywords will pull up a list of comments containing that word. All of this appears below the video, and can be toggled on and off.
According to the project page the tool indexed 9 million YouTube comments to help build out its dictionary of slang terms and phrases. And that number is growing each time someone uses it.
Why would you want this? It's helpful on longer videos if you don't have time to sit down to watch them. It also lets you see what people are saying without having to cruise through several pages of comments, which YouTube breaks up to just 10 per page. Of course both of these require users to have commented on the video and left something intelligible, the latter of which you may be hard pressed to find.
OpinionCloud sorts out the good from the bad comments. The ones we've blurred are less than child-friendly.
(Credit: CNET Networks)For a few years now, video playback has been a blistering-hot topic in the mobile industry--both as a roadblock and as an achievement. We can easily count Google's update to its straightforward YouTube for Mobile application (Windows Mobile|Nokia Series 60) as a step forward.
Sure, we have our complaints, but overall the free YouTube application makes searching and browsing for select or top-rated videos a dauntless task. Your biggest hurdle will be with your data connection if you're in a fuzzy zone. We've also got some practical advice you should heed before you begin streaming like crazy. It's all right here in this First Look video.
While not nearly as sexy as YouTube on the iPhone, Symbian and Windows Mobile users have reason to celebrate with a new version of the YouTube's mobile application (download and review). The company boasts that it's 90 percent faster than the previous version in terms of how quickly it starts up, pulls up search results, and when a video begins to play. It also detects what connection you're on and will serve up a quality that will stream in the fastest.
YouTube 2.2 plays videos in landscape and portrait modes on the Samsung Omnia.
In the demo video below, both the application and the selected video begin to play around a second after they're launched. That's a whole lot faster than the iPhone, especially the launch time, which should make clicking on YouTube links in e-mails and while browsing a less painful experience. While YouTube for Mobile is available globally, it's only localized for Australia, Ireland, N.Z., UK, and the US. Regardless, Nokia N95 owners should be pleased:
