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Un componente aggiuntivo del software VoIP e’ in grado di trasformare ogni client Skype in un potenziale delatore delle bugie dell’interlocutore dall’altra parte della connessione.

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Il neonato servizio di video download per Xbox 360 è stato vittima del suo stesso successo, o per lo meno questa è la giustificazione fornita da Microsoft ai diversi problemi tecnici che hanno afflitto Xbox Live Video Marketplace durante la sua prima settimana di apertura.

Tra i problemi segnalati dagli utenti il più grave si è verificato lo scorso venerdì, quando il servizio è rimasto irraggiungibile per circa 24 ore. BigM ha commentato l’accaduto affermando che in quelle ore si è registrato “un numero estremamente altro di download”, il cui traffico ha finito per esaurire le risorse del proprio network. Particolarmente stizziti quegli utenti che, pur avendo già pagato i contenuti, sono riusciti a scaricarli solo parzialmente o a diverse ore di distanza dall’acquisto.

Il big di Redmond ha promesso di risarcire tutti quegli utenti che non sono riusciti a scaricare i filmati acquistati o che ne hanno scaricato una copia corrotta. Alcuni utenti affermano che il servizio ha funzionato a singhiozzo anche in altri momenti, rendendo talvolta difficoltoso portare a termine il processo di acquisto dei video.

Microsoft ha assicurato di aver potenziato la propria infrastruttura in modo che in futuro non si ripetano più inconvenienti del genere. Il colosso ha sottolineato che i video ad alta definizione occupano più banda passante di qualsiasi altro contenuto, richiedendo l’impiego di un considerevole numero di connessioni e di server.

World of Apple pubblica alcuni interessantissimi screenshot della nuova build di Leopard, recentemente inviata agli sviluppatori.

Uno sviluppatore Mac ha lanciato un nuovo progetto per lo sviluppo di
un porting del celebre emulatore MAME sulla piattaforma Mac OS X,
inclusa quella x86. Gia’ disponibile una prima versione del programma.

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Ben 1,6 mld di dollari per i ragazzi di San Bruno in California.

L’annuncio Ufficiale , i commenti di:

• Wired
• BusinessWeek
• La rassegna di Techmeme
• Fastcompany

Update: YouTube’s New Deep Pockets

Le due menti di Kazaa e Skype hanno svelato alcuni particolari sul misterioso progetto: sarà una piattaforma P2P per la visione di IPTV in streaming, aperta ai contributi di qualsiasi emittente televisiva.

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Skype co-founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom are trying their hand at online video, working together on a new software application that combines professionally produced TV and video with the Internet. Called “The Venice Project,” the software connects with the Web and opens a full-screen window that apparently displays near high-definition-quality video images. This is more than just TV. If you toggle your mouse, a variety of tools appear while the video is playing. DVD-like controls appear at the bottom. On the left is a list of preset channels to choose from. Zennstrom and Friis have a history of developing disruptive technologies. They are the co-founders of the controversial peer-to-peer file-sharing program Kazaa, as well as Skype, the Web’s leading voice over Internet Protocol application.

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Perhaps there’s been an abrupt change in thinking, but online video startups are thinking about going public. Some you’ve never heard of, but the momentum of online video is pushing newly public video stocks higher. DivX, for example, is a video-sharing technology provider. It just completed an IPO last Friday, raising $145 million–about $50 million more than Wall Street expected. Yesterday, its shares closed at $18.11, two dollars higher than its opening-day stock price. Other online video IPO candidates include MobiTV, which delivers video to mobile phones and PCs, and BigBand Networks, a video on demand provider for telecom and cable companies. Why are they going public? Well, many of these online video startups are attracting dollars from some of the biggest venture-capital firms. Redpoint Ventures, an early investor in MySpace, has poured money behind MobiTV. To be sure, investors would rather see these companies go public than be acquired, because it provides them with bigger returns. Bruce Sachs, an investor with Charles River Partners, admits that the recent success of Internet IPOs means the window for going public could be opening. “Given how hot video is, we could see some interesting exits in 2007,” Sachs says. Online video should only get hotter. In-Stat, a Web consultancy, estimates that by 2010, user-generated video sites will reel in 65 billion page views–up from 17 billion this year. Ad revenue growth should be even more robust, the firm says–growing from $80.2 million this year to $852 million by 2010. By any measure, that’s solid growth–although admittedly, $80 million is starting with next to nothing. For a little perspective, consider that the click-fraud industry is estimated to make between $300 and $500 million this year.

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It turns out YouTube isn’t the No. 1 video site on the Web after all, according to the most recent comScore figures, which now factor in third-party video providers. And maybe it never was. That honor goes to MySpace, News Corp.’s massive social-networking web within the Web, whose 37.4 million unique users collectively watched 1.4 billion videos in July. That size probably merits its own new paragraph, but we don’t do those here. Any guesses for No. 2? No, not YouTube. Not Google Video, either. Yahoo, which had more total unique streamers than MySpace, actually came in second with 812 million video streams in July. YouTube, then, was third–generating 649 million video streams. These numbers, by the way, don’t include double counting, so YouTube videos streamed on MySpace don’t count toward MySpace’s total, although they would for YouTube. In total, 7.2 billion videos were streamed on the Web in July, 20 percent of them from MySpace.com. Google Video actually placed 8th, below Time Warner’s network, ROO, Microsoft’s sites and Viacom digital. comScore and other research firms never used to take large third-party providers into consideration when doling out online video usage numbers. That’s why we’re seeing MySpace, Yahoo, Time Warner, Microsoft and Viacom included in the top 10 for the first time.

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Google is calling on the computer industry to create a simpler and more efficient power supply standard that it says will save billions of kilowatt-hours of energy annually.

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