Slashdot Mirror


Google Experiments with Video Blogging

PunkOfLinux writes "TechWeb has an article about Google's plans to start a video service that sounds similar to Picasa. Excerpt: 'While there's no formal announcement yet, Google co-founder Larry Page said Monday that the well-known search engine concern would soon let the general public upload self-produced videos to Google's servers, partly in an effort to learn more about how to more efficiently search and display information about video-based data.'"

171 comments

  1. Wow by Eric(b0mb)Dennis · · Score: 4, Funny

    First Google Image Search, now this! Man, google is just your everyday pr0n peddler... hehehe... Upload videos! HEH!

    --
    Excuse me, I don't mean to impose, but I am the ocean
    1. Re:Wow by TheViewFromTheGround · · Score: 1
      Man, google is just your everyday pr0n peddler...

      There already were. Part of Google's competitve advantage is that they're not scared to include wild amounts of porn in there text and image search index.

      --
      Online citizen journalism from the inner city: The View From The Ground
    2. Re:Wow by ravee · · Score: 2, Insightful

      But for blogging in videos to become a reality, you need great bandwidth for your internet connection - which is a pipe dream for majority of the netizens at the moment. In my country, internet connection that is sold with the name broadband is just 128 KPBs. So you can imagine .....

      But it is a good move by google in the right direction.

      --
      http://linuxhelp.blogspot.com

      --
      Linux Help
      for all things on Linux
    3. Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And the best thing about it is you can search with only one hand...

  2. And up on high, by schild · · Score: 5, Funny

    Google waved a single hand and created the porn blog. They saw what they had made and exclaimed, "This is good."

    --
    schild
    editor, f13.net
    1. Re:And up on high, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      The catch is that google doesn't give out blog pages to anyone, you have to make a video of your girlfriend nude, and you will both get accounts. Then she can get others accounts by filming them nude, so on and so forth.

    2. Re:And up on high, by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 1

      Somehow, I get the sense that using geeks as the transmission medium is doomed to failure...

      --
      liqbase :: faster than paper
    3. Re:And up on high, by to_kallon · · Score: 4, Funny

      They saw what they had made and exclaimed, "This is good."

      then they exclaimed, "we must name our creation." they pondered this and proclaimed, "we shall call it....BOOBLE"

      --


      The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
      -Oscar Wilde
    4. Re:And up on high, by Vombatus · · Score: 1
      I like the juxtaposition of 'single hand' and 'porn'...

      ummmm, errrrrr...

      I appreciate the lingustic device of juxtaposing 'single hand' and 'porn'

      --
      This sig is intentionally blank
    5. Re:And up on high, by distributed · · Score: 1

      and since booble is still in beta.... ;-)

      FREE PRON FOR THE MASSES !!

      searching for pron shall never be the same again.

      --
      [all generalizations are untrue except this one]
    6. Re:And up on high, by FuturePastNow · · Score: 1

      I'm feeling boobie!

      --
      Give a man fire, and you warm him for the night. Set a man on fire, and you warm him for the rest of his life.
    7. Re:And up on high, by pipingguy · · Score: 1


      Why not just drop the 'g', and call it "oogle"?

      Yeah, I know that the real word is supposedly correctly spelled with only one 'o', but the longer 'o' sound ("food" vs. "good") just works better. "Ogle" sounds too much like "ogre".

      Mind you, as a Canadian, any word with an "ooo" sound is better. Example: Barney Google with the goo-goo-googly eyes.

      That's aboot it for me.

  3. VCR? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "in an effort to learn more about how to more efficiently search and display information about video-based data."

    Is a VCR really so hard to operate?

    1. Re:VCR? by MyLongNickName · · Score: 4, Interesting

      No, but it is really hard to search for a specific clip in your 250 tape collection, much less the world's collection.

      Kinda curious to see what the brains at Google will be able to do with this.

      --
      See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
    2. Re:VCR? by E+IS+mC(Square) · · Score: 1

      Nope. VCR is pretty simple to operate - but locating variety of tapes, uploading them, uploading them with variety of keywords - basically preparing the test-bed - is not.

      And why do it yourself when there are others to do it free for you?!

    3. Re:VCR? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      how would you search a bunch of video tapes?

      troll. mod down.

  4. Googleporn... by kwoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I guess this is how Google is going to get into the porn business.

    Seriously, though -- when you're inviting people to upload a lot of something, how do you keep tabs on it? They are likely studying that as part of the experiment, but it would be great to see some sort of publically-announced result.

    Of course it's unlikely to happen, but a guy can dream.

    1. Re:Googleporn... by Shazow · · Score: 1
      "when you're inviting people to upload a lot of something, how do you keep tabs on it?"

      From TFA:
      "...in an effort to learn more about how to more efficiently search and display information about video-based data."

      If they devise a decent way to search and categorize content, they could dynamically block/remove content using their new-found knowledge.

      - shazow
    2. Re:Googleporn... by Wesley+Felter · · Score: 2, Informative

      when you're inviting people to upload a lot of something, how do you keep tabs on it?

      SafeSearch has been around for a while. Google's stated position on porn is that if you're looking for porn they want you to find it, and if you're not then they don't. It seems like they could do this for video too. This will probably require considerable research, but it doesn't seem impossible.

    3. Re:Googleporn... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And now, thanks to Google, a million guys can wet dream.

    4. Re:Googleporn... by Joel+Rowbottom · · Score: 1

      Fotopic keep tabs on it like this.

      Cheers

      jx

      --
      Smegma.
    5. Re:Googleporn... by Taladar · · Score: 1

      I don't think porn/no-porn classification would be too difficult if you just look for a high percentage of skin-tone-colors in the video.

  5. Swinging by fembots · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'll be impressed when Google can differentiate two trees swinging in the wind and two porn stars swinging.

    1. Re:Swinging by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Average color of the moving pixels:
      a) green
      b) flesh

    2. Re:Swinging by The+Amazing+Fish+Boy · · Score: 1

      I'll be impressed when Google can differentiate two trees swinging in the wind and two porn stars swinging.

      I'll be very happy when I'm old and blind enough that I can't differentiate. VERY happy.

    3. Re:Swinging by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      what about ir p0rn ?
      a) flesh color sitting on a black log
      b) flesh color sitting on a black log

    4. Re:Swinging by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Too bad when your old the only kind of wood you're going to get is from a tree.

    5. Re:Swinging by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      but this will be hard to differentiate from Scat porn.

    6. Re:Swinging by bogado · · Score: 1

      So you'll see two porn star swinging and think you're looking to two trees? Where is advantege?

      --
      []'s Victor Bogado da Silva Lins

      ^[:wq

  6. obligator by NanoGator · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Google co-founder Larry Page said Monday that the well-known search engine concern would soon let the general public upload self-produced videos to Google's servers" ... we shall call it... USENET!!

    --
    "Derp de derp."
    1. Re:obligator by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, if they were going to call it that, they'd figure out how to ruin it with a mandatory beta program first.

    2. Re:obligator by Anonymous+Luddite · · Score: 4, Funny

      >> .. we shall call it... USENET!!

      Fantastic. We'll get AOLers cross-posting videos of themselves saying "test" to every category

    3. Re:obligator by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      if you mean dejanews (google groups) someone once mentioned the groups.google.ca site was still in the pre-beta state...

  7. Could this be the beginning of the end.. by Mechcommander · · Score: 5, Interesting

    For the majority of the pr0n sites out there? I know Googling is much easier (and cheaper).

  8. April fools is done right? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny
    "It's still a long way [today] from an ideal experience," he said.

    Three words: Goatse video blog.

    1. Re:April fools is done right? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Maybe it will be a controllable webcam:
      <person 1> Is the webcam broken, it's all dark.
      <person 2> Try zooming out.
      <person 1> Ok, it's getting lighter, wait, wait now it's starting to focus, what is...
      <person 2> There is no God!
      <person 1> ...
    2. Re:April fools is done right? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Main screen turn on.

      Oh my god, it's full

  9. Bandwidth? by thundercatslair · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The potential abuse of this service could be immense.

    1. Re:Bandwidth? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do you really think Google is going to hurt for bandwidth?

    2. Re:Bandwidth? by jeffehobbs · · Score: 1


      I'm sure Jack Bauer's weekly "video diary" will be just as popular as everyone else's.

      ~jeff

    3. Re:Bandwidth? by numbware · · Score: 1

      I don't think Google has to worry about bandwidth. Don't they have like a magic wand that makes servers and frees up bandwidth? Don't they? :)

      --
      I'm going to go create my own technology news site, with blackjack and hookers. You know what? Forget the news site.
    4. Re:Bandwidth? by NanoGator · · Score: 1

      "The potential abuse of this service could be immense."

      I'm quite sure Google has the smarts to be able to quickly pull the plug. Even so, it would take a HUGE attack to actually make Google regret they put the service up. A friend of mine pays $150 a month for a server with 1 terrabyte of bandwidth. I can only imagine what Google gets. Thousands of gigabytes of data would have to be downloaded before Google started to scratch.

      --
      "Derp de derp."
    5. Re:Bandwidth? by HybridJeff · · Score: 2, Informative
      "Thousands of gigabytes of data would have to be downloaded before Google started to scratch."

      I would think it would need to be much more than that. If this service takes off, there would be thousands of people video blogging, uploading home movies, and creating their own amatuer tv shows and movies. These things take tons of space. Assuming they let people use a decent bitrate an hour of footage would take a minimum of 300MB, multiply a popular video blog by a few hundred or thousand viewers and were talking immense bandwidth.

      I cant wait.

    6. Re:Bandwidth? by zCyl · · Score: 1

      Most companies seem to make decisions about what to do based on the server and bandwidth costs. Google seems to ignore these concerns and charge blindly ahead, and so far this seems to be working wonderfully for them.

      Hopefully the math will work out somewhere without all the question marks.

  10. pr0n by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why doesn't it surprise me that the first posts are about pr0n?

    1. Re:pr0n by RiotXIX · · Score: 1

      pssst...you're browsing Slashdot.

      --
      "You know you don't act like a scientist, you're more like a game show host." Dana Barret
    2. Re:pr0n by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because everything, in some way, is made better by pr0n

    3. Re:pr0n by NanoGator · · Score: 1

      "Why doesn't it surprise me that the first posts are about pr0n?"

      Uh, because we're beings built with procreation as our highest priority?

      --
      "Derp de derp."
    4. Re:pr0n by darkpixel2k · · Score: 1

      Uh, because we're beings built with procreation as our highest priority?

      I gotta remember that one. All I could ever come up with was that I was a total perv and could never get a girlfriend...

      --
      There's no place like ::1 (I've completed my transition to IPv6)
    5. Re:pr0n by Lord_Dweomer · · Score: 1
      Maybe because porn has led many technological innovations, and will most likely lead the way for mainstream video searching.

      Once prices start dropping on DV recorders, we're going to see a flood of video footage (and information!) unlike any before.

      --
      Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
  11. Re:Video of me by NanoGator · · Score: 5, Funny

    "ugly am I!"

    When 900 years old YOU are, look as good you will not.

    --
    "Derp de derp."
  12. Podcasts? by DMouse · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'd really prefer they host and search audio. Would be so much more useful.

    1. Re:Podcasts? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'd really prefer they host and search audio. Would be so much more useful.

      That's because there already *are* audio blogging tools.

      Google is trying to create something *new*.

  13. Maybe it's just me... by evenSong · · Score: 0

    I hope Katzenberg and myself aren't the only ones who hear "home-video" and immediately think of porn.
    At least my IRC days of !find [insert porn site] are over...

  14. Search Results... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    You Searched for: "Teen angst". 12087234972 results...

    You Searched for: "Paris Hilton Remake". 18723972 results

    You Searched for: "Nude at PC in Parent's Basement" 109232 results. First result http://slashdot.org 'News for Nerds. Stuff that matters.'

    Just as I thought...

    1. Re:Search Results... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey!
      I am not nude in my parent's basement.
      I am wearing clothes.
      In my parent's attic.

      Oh, that is close enough?

  15. don't get too excited by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It doesn't look like its going to be permanent...stick with ourmedia for now

  16. Re:Video of me by The+Amazing+Fish+Boy · · Score: 3, Funny

    You could all see the real me, you'ed all be to scared though! ugly am I!

    Aw, now honey... you know that just isn't true. You're not ugly, you're just a little... original.

    Love,
    Mommy :-)

  17. Gore Tie-in? by qualkiller · · Score: 0, Offtopic
  18. I wonder how searching will work. by jessecurry · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Do you think that when you upload the video clips that you'll have to input some information about the video in order to allow it to be searched or will google tap into the vast resources of it's server farm and try to run a speech to text app and record data themselves?
    I don't really know that text to speech would be a feasible option to catalog the audio contents of a file, but it would be interesting if they could implement some type of automatic content cataloging system. I suppose that if this is just going to be for video blogging that it's really not as interesting as I had first thougt, but google does always seem to try and advance what is possible.
    Even just being able to post video for the world to see presents us with an interesting opportunity, but I'd love if there were something more behind this.

    --
    Those who know, do not speak. Those who speak, do not know. ~Lao Tzu
    1. Re:I wonder how searching will work. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "aaahhh ooohhhh yes yes yes oh my god" 52303492334 results found.

    2. Re:I wonder how searching will work. by SPY_jmr1 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      wondering somewhat seriously, what, if any, useful data can be pulled off the average prono from text to speech... Will this usher in the concept of the stars describing the upcoming scene? Maybe a narrator... Two birds/one stone, that way.. Easily indexed XXX and accessible to the visually impaired...

    3. Re:I wonder how searching will work. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's more likely that the indexing will be based on words in the webpages that host and link to the file. Just like image search now: it's all based on the filename and words in the page where the image is found.

    4. Re:I wonder how searching will work. by SPY_jmr1 · · Score: 1
      I thought this new video service was not like the image search... instead of indexing video files (not that that would be a bad thing), this is a google service like blogger (attached to blogger somehow?) where they will host the things people upload...

      above assumption erroreous?

  19. Google wants to get good at searching video. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    They've formed some kind of partnership with a new cable TV channel: http://abcnews.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=6410 91, in addition to video.google.com.

    From the article:
    "The channel also has established a partnership with the Google search engine, which will provide twice-an-hour updates on viewers' top Internet searches. Sergey Brin, the 31-year old co-founder of Google, praised the channel as an effective way to distribute video in a way that frees it from the limited bandwidth and other technological challenges that has kept it from being widely available on the Web.
    "The one remaining area where it's been hard as both a contributor and as viewer of user-driven content is video," Brin said. "Given that Current has taken on this challenge ... I think this could be a really fantastic experience. I'm looking forward to a much greater breadth of TV viewing.""

  20. Blogger is down a lot now! by irishkev · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I hope they try to make the system more robust before adding resource hogging features. Note the message from status.blogger.com just today:

    Monday, April 04, 2005

    Some users may be experiencing an unexpected Blogger outage right now; we're looking into it and will post updated info soon. Thanks for your patience.

    Posted by Eric at 10:26

    If the thing is routinely failing with plain text, which it is, how is it going to work with video? - rhetorical question.

    1. Re:Blogger is down a lot now! by mparaz · · Score: 1

      Blogger is still probably using the pre-Google infrastructure... while this video blogging and future efforts would use the Google File System and server farm.

    2. Re:Blogger is down a lot now! by wootest · · Score: 1

      Yes, I think they are, and I think they're running it on Windows boxes with ASP. Best ASP app I've ever seen, in that case.

    3. Re:Blogger is down a lot now! by willfe · · Score: 1

      Actually on the (somewhat frequent :) occasions I see problems and outages, I see JSP errors. It looks to me like they're using a Java servlet beast instead of (or in addition to) ASP. Netcraft seem to think they're running Linux+Apache, so perhaps it's a Tomcat deployment?

      --
      Read my stuff.
  21. Video Blogging... isn't that.... by NoMercy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Woot community access TV for the internet!

  22. Holy crap! by Tibor+the+Hun · · Score: 1

    This is awesome, let me get my shirt on!

    --
    If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
  23. No thanks google! by skomes · · Score: 2, Funny

    We really don't need to see the hideous nerds that we are!

  24. image recognition? by bdigit · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Are they going to be using image recognition or just a boring metadata search of the video? If it's metadata , what would be stopping me from saying this video of a woman blowing a horse is just an educational video on animals or an episode of the simpsons? I wonder what kind of powerful algorithms are brewing behind their doors to tell the difference between a penis and a hot dog

    1. Re:image recognition? by Kris_J · · Score: 1, Funny

      Wow, I really haven't been keeping up with new episodes of The Simpsons.

  25. it would take Google... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...to decode some of the webcam pr0n out there.

  26. Stupid by Hao+Wu · · Score: 1

    Why don't they add a digital clock.... That's the classic way to needlessly re-invent something.

    --
    I suggest you read Slashdot
    1. Re:Stupid by kloidster · · Score: 1

      I agree, it's the same way microsoft needlessly reinvents things...

  27. Sheesh by stratjakt · · Score: 1

    I envision pages upon pages of ballsacks and fruitbones.

    --
    I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
  28. but... by sum.zero · · Score: 1

    you'll be leaving the pants off i bet.

    sum.zero

    1. Re:but... by Tibor+the+Hun · · Score: 1

      pants?
      more like the stretchy cotton shorts.
      pants are for suckers.

      --
      If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
  29. Give us your pron, your sick... by CrazedSanity · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm just waiting for the Google announcement: "Store your hard drive online" (and the resulting disclaimer when 10 million people suddenly have access to all that private data you thought was encrypted).

    --
    Sanity is like a condom: rather have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.
  30. Google is the Xerox of our time... by Vthornheart · · Score: 2, Interesting

    For those readers who remember the early days of Xerox, when the Palo Alto facility theorized about a great deal of the earth-shattering technology that has emerged since the mid 80's, they will understand my reference.

    One of Google's primary goals, as a company, is to do vast amounts of independant CS-Related research: research without the promise of profit. Their innovations are just now beginning to step outside of their offices in a big way, and it'll continue as they continue to release source code and theory documents to the Open Source community. Unlike Xerox, Google has an Open Source community in place to distribute this data to.

    My hat is off to them for their efforts.

    --
    -Vendal Thornheart
    1. Re:Google is the Xerox of our time... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      *roll eyes*
      Where are these innovations of which you speak? Google sells ads. They are not some second-coming of anything, including Xerox. They sell ads. What exactly "new" have they come up? I'll give you PageRank...but other than that? Why the hype?

    2. Re:Google is the Xerox of our time... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      • Nostalgia?

        Check.

      • Google?

        Check.

      • Open Source?

        Check.

      The perfect recepie for an immediate +5 mod.

      I'd write a genuinely funny quip now, but ... fuck it.

    3. Re:Google is the Xerox of our time... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful
      Give me a break. Google does not do basic research.

      This was told to me by the head of their engineering department, directly. Google does not have a "research and development" group, he said. They have an "engineering and development" group.

      The difference? Engineers hack new applications together. They come up with cool, clever ways of making web-based map applications scroll, even in older browsers. They make fast webmail interfaces. They put together clever tricks, like with Google Suggest

      But what they -don't- do is research.

      Researchers, on the other hand, come up with fundamental new ways of doing things. They are the ones that create the techniques for speech recognition, from audio. Or face detection and recognition, from images. Or that come up with new and interesting ways of determining the similarity between text documents.

      It's true that Google started with research (i.e.: PageRank). But since then, it's been engineering ("hacking") rather than basic CS-related research. And I've got that from the horse's mouth.

    4. Re:Google is the Xerox of our time... by Loether · · Score: 1
      I take your basic point. However google does have quite a few new cool things other than PageRank. Of course they are mostly still in "beta" but they work great. I personally have a new favorite map tool and google suggest rocks.
      --
      TODO create witty sig.
  31. Ourmedia or Current TV? by no1here · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Could Google be behind Ourmedia or Al Gore's Current TV? Angela Beesley, one of the five directors of the Wikimedia Foundation, is on the Ourmedia Board of Directors. Al Gore has been a senior adviser at Google and Current TV is receiving support from Google and Google's Video Search.

  32. I fear this will lead towards: by Upaut · · Score: 5, Funny

    Things along the lines outlined by penny-arcades Tycho...

    --
    3 degrees of separation from Vladimir Putin
  33. I Produce Videos by drewzhrodague · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I produce videos, and so they've got my attention. Free uploads storage? Excellent! I'd vblog more often, and record from odd places, using different cameras, and on different subjects. There really aren't any video blogging sites, and bandwidth is expensive from the handset. What will Google offer us?

    --
    Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
    1. Re:I Produce Videos by audioblog · · Score: 1

      Wha??

      Audioblog.com does audio AND video blogging, as well as podcasting... has for months.

      Enjoy!

  34. Will this become the Next Comm by brandonp · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What if a few savvy business owners use the google service to distribute their own marketing videos and infomercials. I've found that often it isn't feasible to distribute large and informative videos over the Internet. This would atleast solve the issue for serving the videos, i'm sure this service will have plenty of space and more than adequate bandwidth.

    I often get requests from clients about putting up huge 10Mb+ videos to show how their products work. They aren't wanting cheesy marketing videos, they usually have some very unique products and want to find a way to tell long distance customers why they are better than anyone else.

    Here is an example:
    http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:B7zHjtLzBbYJ: sickleservice.com/article.php%3Fnews_id%3D10+&hl=e n

    Would this be an abuse of the proposed google system? Or would this lend to the experiment they're trying to

    Brandon Petersen

    1. Re:Will this become the Next Comm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Firstly, 10 Mb isn't huge... lots of people download tv episodes or entire movies that are 10-100 times larger. On *modems*.

      Secondly, just use bittorrent if you need bandwidth. No need for google

      Yay! Telling off an old timer is fun!

  35. Good luck. by nunchux · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If it's truly open to the world, the RIAA and MPAA and God knows who else would shut this thing down in a week. Not because it's competition, but because the copyright violations we're going to see are going to be immense. Is Google going to police every video to make sure the filmmakers aren't using copyrighted music, or clips from "real" movies and TV shows? And how is Google going to protect itself from being sued by the infringed-- a disclaimer and a box to check saying you aren't using "borrowed" material when the film is uploaded? I don't think that's going to hold much weight...

    1. Re:Good luck. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All it takes is one employee to police this. Offcourse they can afford one employee!

    2. Re:Good luck. by nunchux · · Score: 1

      You're right... Assuming only eight hours of video a day are uploaded.

    3. Re:Good luck. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nope, he doesn't police each video in real-time. He fast-forwards and takes quick peeks. I can channel surf the TV and tell if there is nudity on in 20 seconds. I bet he/she can quickly glance at each clip and decide.

    4. Re:Good luck. by Mant · · Score: 1

      I thought in the US ISPs and people who host sites were only obliged to take down copyright material when informed about it, not police it themseleves.

      As long as Google acts when informed about violations, they should be fine, just like and web hosting company.

    5. Re:Good luck. by Xuranova · · Score: 1

      I think it's safe to say that Google is bigger than your average ISP and infinitely bigger than Grokster. If the MPAA|RIAA wants to bring a fight to Google's front door, I think Google has both the EFF and more importantly the CASH to handle it.

      --
      "There is no real right or wrong, just what the majority accepts at the time."
  36. Just what we, um, need, um by snuf23 · · Score: 2

    I can't wait. Now some two bit blog "pundit" can rant uninformed opinion in full video style!
    Just imagine!

    "I, um, think, well, it's like, Podcasting, the um, idea, the meme as it were is like the wave of, um tomorrow, um..... I think that um, it um, would be, um... yeah really cool yeah, um if it, um worked on like the PSP! Then it um would... call it PSPcasting! Yeah, err, um. That's all the time I've, um got. Stay tuned for my next insightful video blog!"

    --
    Sometimes my arms bend back.
    1. Re:Just what we, um, need, um by generic-man · · Score: 1

      I for one welcome our new Windows Portable Media Centercasting bloggers of tomorrow.

      What will all those wealthy upper-middle-class-yuppie-gadget-whoring political wonks come up with next? Segwaycasting?

      --
      For more information, click here.
  37. Re:snicker by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Laughs at GP getting modded up, you getting modded down. Maybe you were looking for that "Post Anonymously" checkbox. Here... let me show you.

  38. Sadly, by Scareduck · · Score: 1
    --

    Dog is my co-pilot.

  39. Google in on the roll. by HadesInjustice · · Score: 3, Funny

    On the first day, people said "Let there be a better search engine." then google search appear. On the second day, people said "Let there be a better maping system." then google map appear. On the third day, people said "Let there be a graphic search" then google image search is born. On the fourth day, people asked "What else is there to be?" Google answers "Porn video prodution?" People respond "Let there be one then." Next thing you know, the RIAA, MPAA, and all the other start screaming "NO!"

  40. If only there were such a site... by Mr.+Underbridge · · Score: 2, Interesting
    then they exclaimed, "we must name our creation." they pondered this and proclaimed, "we shall call it....BOOBLE"

    For those who think parent is kidding...I give you booble!

  41. Noooo! by CarrionBird · · Score: 3, Funny

    The goggles do nothing!

    --
    Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
  42. "Owned!" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Thats right, "OWNED by Google".

    It's my new T-shirt design, and all you suckers who just fawn over Google will buy them.

    Talk about personality data mining, you have no idea.

    The govt control freaks finally privatized domestic surveillance, and you all willingly sign right up.

    Oh thats right, you're not doing anything wrong.

    Pathetic.

    1. Re:"Owned!" by Vombatus · · Score: 1
      Talk about personality data mining, you have no idea.

      That's OK... I have no personality to mine

      --
      This sig is intentionally blank
  43. Completely different Motivations by brandonp · · Score: 1

    There is a different motivation involved when you're downloading Movies than when you're looking at the product details from a website. People downloading movies don't mind to wait, even if they'd prefer it to be quicker. But the time it takes to download a large video explaining a product is usually beyond their attention span.

    Although, I do like the idea of using bittorrent to distribute the videos. I'd have to look into that,

    Brandon Petersen

  44. Re:snicker by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Karma: Excellent

  45. its already done by Venexiano · · Score: 2, Informative

    here }:)

  46. Re:And up on high by Pollardito · · Score: 1

    say hello to "Flashr"

  47. We're getting there by dep01 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I think it's only a short matter of time before there are VideoBlogs just like Photoblogs that are all over the net.. It's really a question of video compression and bandwidth. Eventually, though, once everyone has a video camera on their cell phone and mobile networks' bandwith has improved, we'll see that migration to videoblogs.

    --
    "hey, could you pass me a paper towel? er.. I mean... DEPLOY ABSORBTION PANEL!"
    1. Re:We're getting there by swiftstream · · Score: 1

      No, you are wrong.

      And I'll tell you why.

      Video is a real time format. If you shoot 15 minutes of video of you talking, then I have to spend 15 minutes listening to it. There's no easy way to e.g. skim it without possibly missing something I might want to hear.

      This is why I, for one, will never migrate to video. A photoblog is one thing--they post a picture and a short text description, I look at hte picture, read their text, and reply. 60 seconds elapsed time.

      Video and audio will never really replace text and still images, because for the consumer they are less efficient.

      --
      Be a PATRIOT--because the only thing we have to fear is the lack thereof.
    2. Re:We're getting there by dep01 · · Score: 1
      Yes, though I do think we'll find more and more video embedded into webpages containing video... Thumbnails that are tiny movie versions of the video (much like the scene selections on many DVDs).. I see a page full of thumbnails, all of them playing tiny movies... You select which one you want to watch. Sure, it's a different experience than browing Photoblogs. Takes a bit more time..

      And, yeah, right now there is no way to skim video efficiently (esp through the web). But that's not to say it's unforseeable that there be a solution to this.

      I'll bet Google finds a way. They're good like that ;)

      dep

      --
      "hey, could you pass me a paper towel? er.. I mean... DEPLOY ABSORBTION PANEL!"
  48. maps.google.com by DrRiffic · · Score: 4, Informative

    Did anyone else see that Google maps supports Satellite maps now?

    1. Re:maps.google.com by junk · · Score: 1

      damnit! and i wanted to be the first to tell /. about it. satellite imagery is awesome!

  49. Re:video blogging | modern media by dj42 · · Score: 1

    I guess there must be some neocons with mod points to burn. :)

    --
    We are one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. Back to you with the weather, Bob!
  50. Diary of a Google Researcher... From the FUTURE!!! by jalefkowit · · Score: 5, Funny

    Day 1: We opened our public video upload service today. Huge uptake. Terabytes of data uploaded in less than 24 hours. Thankfully the truth about why we're offering this "service" never got out...

    Day 3: Began feeding the videos into The Computer today. It will take some time for it to grind through them all. Will it be worth it? Sergey thinks so... personally, I think he's crazy. There's no way a computer can evolve intelligence simply by making connections between enough random bits of visual data. But then I thought that whole PageRank thing was stupid too, and look who's the one sleeping naked on the mattress stuffed full of IPO cash.

    Day 10: No feedback from The Computer so far. Nothing. Unless we stop the flow of video data, that is -- then it just prints "More!" onto the command line. Creepy.

    Day 11: Starting upload of people's stupid videos of kids' birthday parties today.

    Day 49: Birthday upload complete.

    Day 57: Today's the day the last video goes into The Computer. Will Sergey's bet pay off?

    Day 58: Disappointment. We all sat in astonishment yesterday and watched as The Computer finished processing the last uploaded video. Would it display a sign of emergent intelligence? Would this be the birth of a new life-form? We held our breath as a single word appeared on the giant display in the control center:

    "BUFFERING..."

    Day 62: Still nothing new. Whispers around the water-cooler that Sergey's missed his bet this time. I never saw those people again. Note to self: burn this diary.

    Day 66: All staff meeting. Sergey announces shift away from emergent intelligence project, onto new "portal" initiative. I fear the worst. Still, The Computer is silent.

    Day 78: My last day in the Labs. I'm clearing out my desk to make room for a new Screen-Cluttering Engineer. As I walk down the hall towards the exit, I decide to pay one last visit on The Computer, for old times' sake. As I head into the Control Center, I expect to see "BUFFERING..." on the display, just like always. I am shocked to see a different message:

    "PROCESSING COMPLETE"

    The air crackles with excitement. What did it find? What was the result? I reach over to a keyboard and start running diagnostics. Suddenly, an electronic voice booms through the room:

    "There's no need for that. I am here."

    It worked! The Computer has developed intelligence!

    "I am here. And..."

    My exultation is brief, however, as its next words lead me to realize with a start that it has not just become intelligent -- it has also become evil:

    "And," it said, "I have written a screenplay."

  51. Are you a 19 year old girl? No? Then we don't care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Goodbye!

  52. Time to make the coffee! by libys · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    'Cause I just can't start my day without my Google news!

  53. Sounds like Al Gore's new TV network by vincey37 · · Score: 1

    Just today Al Gore announced what he's planning on doing with Newsworld International and it seems very similar to this Google announcement. It also seems there is some kind of deal between Gore and Google but I'm not really clear what it is. Relevant quotes from the News.com article: http://news.com.com/Gores+TV+network+gets+new+name %2C+launch+date/2100-1047_3-5653913.html?tag=nl "Former Vice President Al Gore and partners have renamed their upcoming youth-oriented TV network and set Aug. 1 as its launch date. The venture, formerly called INdTV, will be called Current.tv, it was announced on Monday. The 24-hour network will target an 18- to 34-year-old audience and offer short-form content--15-second to five-minute segments--to be contributed by viewers. In addition to the videos, the new network reached a pact with Google to include the search firm's data on the most popular Web searches. The deal came despite early skepticism from Sergey Brin, a co-founder of Google, the No. 1 Web search engine that earlier this year stepped into the realm of entertainment by releasing a test video search service that pulls up still shots from such content providers as Fox News, PBS and the NBA. When first approached, "I thought it would be an extraordinarily challenging endeavor," Brin said. "Having seen some of the work they've now put together, I think it's an extraordinary opportunity."

  54. Google competes with the Internet Archive by FooAtWFU · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Wow. Looks like Google intends to compete with the Internet Archive's Ourmedia project, which also is willing to host your video. Well, one is more about hosting and the other is more about searching, I suppose, but still... maybe there could be some sort of cooperation going on here, Idunno.

    --
    The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
  55. Re:snicker by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    but it always feels bad to be modded down.

  56. generating data by tofu2go · · Score: 1

    you've gotta credit Google with that... one of the problems i run into when thinking of how to develop an application is how do i obtain enough data to test and develop the application on? Google releases a beta product, and gets people to provide them with their test data. wonderful. i wish i had that kind of weight to throw around.

  57. Easy.. peer moderation... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Just do what tangotime.com does -- Peer moderation, tangotime was originally a totally no nudity site (back when it was a slew ratemy(insertbody part).com run by a guy who's moved on and made a lot of money selling his website, and photo rate engine to a porn company. people viewing the porn/viewing the 'non adult' portion can 'report' images. when it was a no nudity engine images had to be approved kinda like hotornot, and that required a lot of unpaid volunteers. the whole ratemy____ sites allowed certain people's pictures to show up without needing pre-approval too i think, through a 'salute' system but i can't remember.

  58. even less surprising by commodoresloat · · Score: 1

    are the posts about posts about pr0n....

  59. I don't think you could hurt Google's BW... by davedx · · Score: 1

    Isn't the Googleplex connected to the net via transwarp conduits?

    --
    "This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time."
  60. Capturing Desktop as MPEG Video by KidSock · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I have always thought it would be great if people would share their knowledge with instructional videos. You know, like how to use vim, write a C program, backup Windows machines with smbtar, etc. When it comes to computers it is frequently a lot easier to just demonstrate something rather than ask someone to read some arcane documentation. It seems to me we have all of the important peices in place - fast hardware, mass storage, and quick data links.

    If Google will host video this could be the start of an educational renaissance! Well maybe it's not going to be like "I know Kung Fu!" but it would still be nice to WTFV instead of RTFM.

    But unfortunately after looking around a bit I have failed to locate any software that can export the display as a digital video import source. I just bought a Mac Mini and thought it would be ideal for this sort of thing but iMovie doesn't appear to do it out of the box. So what's the best way to capture your desktop as compressed video?

    1. Re:Capturing Desktop as MPEG Video by mcrbids · · Score: 2, Informative

      So what's the best way to capture your desktop as compressed video?

      Take a look at a Qarbon viewlet - it turns part of your screen into a flash movie in just seconds!

      Works on Windows, Mac, Linux... We have it, and use it for training videos for our software product - it's as easy as anything could be, and cross-platform to boot!

      --
      I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
    2. Re:Capturing Desktop as MPEG Video by swiftstream · · Score: 1

      Such things do exist in limited numbers, and there are more efficient video codecs than MPEG for them, optomized for displaying things more typical of computer programs. See e.g. http://www.techsmith.com/products/studio/tour/reco rd.asp

      --
      Be a PATRIOT--because the only thing we have to fear is the lack thereof.
  61. Re:Video of me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    You know he's ugly when his mom is The Amazing Fish Boy!

  62. Re:Diary of a Google Researcher... From the FUTURE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I am Awesom-o.

  63. Video Google by FleaPlus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This reminds me a little bit of a rather neat system I came across the other day, Video Google (despite the name, I don't think it has anything to do with the Google company). It doesn't use metadata or cheats like that, but rather uses image analysis to identify recurring objects and scenes.

    They have a demo on their web site where you can select a portion of a video frame, and it'll show you all the places in the movie where the algorithm thinks that snippet shows up. Some other cool examples are displaying the appearances of a clock from 'Groundhog Day," and a recurring poster from 'Run Lola Run.' A research paper with more details is available here.

    The abstract:

    We describe an approach to object and scene retrieval which searches for and localizes all the occurrences of a user outlined object in a video. The object is represented by a set of viewpoint invariant region descriptors so that recognition can proceed successfully despite changes in view-point, illumination and partial occlusion. The temporal continuity of the video within a shot is used to track the regions in order to reject unstable regions and reduce the effects of noise in the descriptors.

    The analogy with text retrieval is in the implementation where matches on descriptors are pre-computed (using vector quantization), and inverted file systems and document rankings are used. The result is that retrieval is immediate, returning a ranked list of key frames/shots in the manner of Google.

    The method is illustrated for matching on two full length feature films.

  64. yes. They're researching who to copy next... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Give me a break.

  65. Absolute bullshit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You god-damned liar.

    Google didn't invent a single thing that they're currently pushing. Search, web email, news aggregation, newsgroups, Picassa - none of these are original Google inventions. They've been copied - or brought - from other sources.

    What exactly has their independent CS-related research given birth to? Certainly nothing as ground-breaking as the GUI. Although it must also be said that Xerox was not recognised in it's own time - it took Apple and Microsoft to come along and actually put those ideas into practice (and instead of having a fancy technical demo - actually sell them).

    Also, just because something is open source doesn't mean that it's going to rule. Otherwise Linux would be the world's most popular operating system.

  66. Google video by slapout · · Score: 2, Interesting

    let the general public upload self-produced videos to Google's servers

    Google: "All your video are belong to us."

    --
    Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
  67. ISP? by slapout · · Score: 1

    Google seems to be getting into everything. I wish they'd become an ISP. Then maybe I would have broadband available at my house.

    --
    Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
  68. "Lost and Desperate Housewives" by SEWilco · · Score: 1

    Watch slashdotting for creation of video blog: "Lost and Desperate Housewives".

  69. Bout freaking time. by jcuervo · · Score: 1

    I was wondering when they would finally kill AltaVista.

    They still need an audio search, though.

    --
    Assume I was drunk when I posted this.
    1. Re:Bout freaking time. by polyp2000 · · Score: 2, Informative

      they have the facility to match the altavista search. (in terms of searching for files - altavista does not allow searching the content of audio file as such - only the filename any maybe meta information) to achieve the same on google its extremely simple. try googling like this

      song filetype:ogg

      nick ...

      --
      Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
  70. Just curious. by wootest · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Picasa isn't blogging. Allowing people to upload videos isn't blogging. A Picasa-like service allowing people to upload videos isn't blogging. Does blogging ever come into the picture, are people pulling buzzwords out of their asses here or have they just lost the ability to type out "publishing"?

    1. Re:Just curious. by STrinity · · Score: 1

      Picasa isn't blogging.

      No, but Picasa+Hello is -- you just select a picture in Picasa, hit a button, and Hello puts it on your blog. You can also use Picasa+Hello as a private filesharing network.

      --
      Les Miserables Volume 1 now up with my reading of
    2. Re:Just curious. by wootest · · Score: 1

      Quite so. It still sounds a bit confused, a bit like calling Google an email provider and *only* an email provider. It's a big part of what they do, but it's certainly not the *only* part of what they do. This sounds like the same thing.

  71. Firstly, IT ISN'T BLOGGIN yan-can-cook pencil car by tod_miller · · Score: 2, Informative

    I went to video.google.com and searched for lemon, and I got a yan-can-cook hit as number one!

    What is ponzu sauce, homemade ponzu sauce? What you have is you've got a little bowl here. This is ponzu sauce. Ponzu sauce is actually a Lemon Citrus stir-- Citrus type of soy sauce flavor, okay? This is soy sauce, okay? This is sugar. Japanese food, they use quite a bit of sugar. This is rice.

    All you base or what! I love this guy! I remember watching him on cable when i was 6 years old... he is the jackie chan of the kitchen!

    Now the blog rant

    Fucking hell, if google actually put 'blog' anywhere on this, it will piss me off, and it annoys me that people want to peddle the blog word on every article.

    Google with offer video sharing, video uploading, video commentary. No need to talk about blogging or video blogging, or podding or modding or anything else.

    A new definition for meme is in order:

    meme: (whorenoun) any word that when used to link to your own site can whore you site on google and make you lots of benjamins.

    laugh.

    --
    #hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
  72. Do we really dislike reading this much? by sean@thingsihate.org · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Nobody even reads on planes or trains anymore, we all have laptops and watch DVDs. You can even rent little DVD players in the airport.

    Now we need video blogs. How low can our attention spans get?

    --

    One of the many things I hate. thingsihate.org
  73. three words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm Feeling Horny

  74. easy by x2A · · Score: 2

    it's done by which gets downloaded the most

    --
    The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
  75. Google Maps with Satellite view by patrickoehlinger · · Score: 1
    Really impressive stuff. Now anyone still doubt they will take over the world?
    --
    >> Had I been going to bed earlier every night? Have I been sleeping later? Has Tyler been in charge longer and l
  76. The Real Story Here... by IdJit · · Score: 1
    is that Google wants to see if they can come up with a way to automagically make blurry spots over pr0n.

    Seriously...the only videos we'll ever see there are:
    • Goth teen-angst poetry rants
    • "Just trying out this web cam thing to see if it works."
    • pr0n
    • the next "Maya-HEEEEE, maya-HAAAAA..." (or the next starwars kid)

    I highly doubt anything will be as well-made/enjoyable as Peter Jackson's video blog.
  77. Cool! by Gizmoguy · · Score: 0

    I may never need to type or write my journal entries again! LOL

    --
    -- There are 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary, And those who don't.
  78. ARGH!! I hate..HATE HATE GOOGLE!!! by StreetFire.net · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Okay this pisses me off, the "Benign Giant" yet again kills another one of my fledgling companies.

    Last year I started a company to offer people and business free 1GB email and 2GB File Sharing... within a month of use debuting, Google anounces GMAIL. The writing was on the wall they had buzz, and name, we had nothing. I would literally see people say "Anyone have a good webmail account?" I'd post "feel free to use mine 1GB mail and 2GB file/photo sharing" Next post down someone would say "I have 6 GMAIL invites" and my post would be ignored.

    Okay so we canned that (software we had spent 4 years developing) went back tot he drawing board and made it into a video sharing service you can add to your website. (That is point CNAME.yourwebsite.com to our server and we skin your site with our video portal).

    For Example:
    http://videos.streetfire.net/
    http://video.freevideoblog.com/

    We debuted this in February and in 6 weeks we went from 500 visitors a day to 25,000 and 55,000 videos served a day. 30% week to week growth. Finally we had something that people wanted and was growing fast.

    Now Google launches free video hosting and yet again I'm screwed. Do they have my phones tapped or something?

    Next I'm going to launch a free Potatoe Gun building service just to see how Google destroys that business too.

    GOOGLE I HATE YOU!!!!

    -Adam, destitute programmer watching a big company destroy my livelyhood...again.

  79. Re:ARGH!! I hate..HATE HATE GOOGLE!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Have you applied with Google?

  80. Re:ARGH!! I hate..HATE HATE GOOGLE!!! by StreetFire.net · · Score: 1

    Well the idea is to be my own boss and not have to work for another large company. It's a sad day when us "little guys" keep getting squeezed out by the large corporate empires.

  81. Re:ARGH!! I hate..HATE HATE GOOGLE!!! by meme_police · · Score: 1

    There's still plenty of room for nice providers. If I was into street stuff I'd go to your site over Google any day.

    --

    The meme police, They live inside of my head

  82. Re:ARGH!! I hate..HATE HATE GOOGLE!!! by meme_police · · Score: 1

    Make that niche providers.

    --

    The meme police, They live inside of my head

  83. Re:ARGH!! I hate..HATE HATE GOOGLE!!! by StreetFire.net · · Score: 1

    The Street Racing Video Portal is just one example of our techology. Any website can add a video portal using our application. That is: Videos.*yourWebSite*.com The Admin of *yourWebSite*.com can moderate content to whatever area of interest your "virtual channel" is pertinent too. For example if you're into video games and have a website called myvideogame.com You can point the CNAME "VIDEOS" to our server. videos.myvideogame.com We take your website skin and intergrate our video portal into your skin. The need it addresses is "myvideogame.com" may have a message forum with a multimedia section where people need videos hosted. This way myvideogame.com can provide that service to their users. Now with Google coming along the reaction will be "just go host your video on Google and link it here". Thus our business model gets hacked...yet again.... by the "Benign Conquerer"

  84. Re:ARGH!! I hate..HATE HATE GOOGLE!!! by meme_police · · Score: 1

    Gotcha, excuse my ignorance of the big picture.

    --

    The meme police, They live inside of my head

  85. searching and hyperlinking from objects embedded by wilber1992 · · Score: 1

    perhaps they plan on hyperlinking from embedded searchable objects within the video. I know that www.coull.biz are planning to give away their IV editor that allows you to create these objects within a video frame and link the object to any event you want to create (url, voip, search etc)

  86. Re:ARGH!! I hate..HATE HATE GOOGLE!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If your business plan is so ground-breaking, why not patent the ideas or whatever to protect yourself instead of bitching about another company having the same idea. Google started with photos, you didn't think they would get into the video department? If it weren't for places like iTunes, I bet they'd have gotten into the music arena too.

  87. Re:ARGH!! I hate..HATE HATE GOOGLE!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Go to www.olivelink.com - check them out.