Google creates automatic captions for YouTube videos

Google announced today that YouTube will be able to automatically include captions in videos. Previously, you had to enter the caption manually while the video was uploading, an option that was usually overlooked. That was also a problem for those impaired or might have language barriers that are looking to consumer video.

Google notes that the number of captioned videos does is somewhere in the hundreds of thousands, but with the new automatic caption services, … Continue Reading

Microsoft's Xbox Live chief on banning modders and browsing Facebook photos on TV

Microsoft launched Xbox Live as an online gaming service in 2002 amid great skepticism. It didn’t really take off until Halo 2 launched in 2004, but now the service is huge.

There are now more than 20 million active Xbox Live subscribers (both free users and those who pay $50 a year for multiplayer gaming). That means that more than two out of three Xbox 360 owners use the service. The company has added popular … Continue Reading

Twitter retools prompt, asks "What's happening?"

Twitter unveiled a small marketing tweak today.

The company’s changed its main question from “What are you doing?” to “What’s happening?” It’s more of a cosmetic change to make it clearer to outsiders what Twitter is all about. Status updates have come to encompass a broad range of behavior, not just the much-mocked example of “I’m drinking a latte right now.” People use it share links, videos, images and small, provocative thoughts.

Co-founder Biz Stone … Continue Reading

Google aims to release Chrome OS for netbooks by holiday season 2010

Google gave its first public demonstration today of Chrome OS, the operating system it’s developing for PCs (primarily cheaper netbooks). It presented the demo via webcast from its headquarters in Mountain View, and it looked pretty solid.

Although there’s been some hope that Google might launch the OS in early 2010, Vice President of Product Marketing Sundar Pichai said Google plans to work with manufacturers to bring Chrome OS netbooks to market in time for … Continue Reading

GreenBeat: New startup Locust could crush traditional data storage

Emerging from stealth mode today at GreenBeat 2009, Locust Storage, has developed 90 to 95 percent efficiency in data center energy consumption. CEO Seth Georgion, hailing from the oil and gas industry, says that, like so many game changing ideas, this one was drafted on a cocktail napkin. That was eight months ago.

As a data center manager for an oil and gas concern, Georgion was working in a field where a single survey could … Continue Reading

GreenBeat: Google's Ed Lu declares PowerMeter a humanitarian mission

Google’s Ed Lu said today that his company’s entry into the energy network market doesn’t mean that utilities have to worry about the search giant generating or distributing electrical power.

Lu spoke at VentureBeat’s GreenBeat 09 event today. Discussing Google’s Powermeter with Matt Marshall, Venture Beat Editor In Chief and CEO, he seemed to be playing his cards close to his vest on some topics but was smilingly helpful on others.

Marshall comments that PG&E … Continue Reading

GreenBeat: Utilities eye their own 'iTunes App Stores' for Smart Grid apps

“Every utility will have its own version of the iTunes App Store,” said Austin Energy, CIO of Austin Energy, during this morning’s utility panel at GreenBeat 2009 in San Mateo, Calif. — essentially, every major utility, in order to be at the cutting edge of the Smart Grid, will need to have a full portfolio of applications that can help their customers trim their energy use and their monthly bills. This has become vitally important, … Continue Reading

Boku gains momentum with mobile payments for social games

Mobile payments provider Boku has gained a lot of momentum as a provider of alternate payment for social games.

The company said in September that it’s service was seeing big growth, but it has made more progress now. It’s announcing today that 12 more game developers have signed up to use its mobile payments system. These new companies alone will help Boku reach 200 million more customers who play 250 social and casual games.

With … Continue Reading

Yahoo juices up its news search with Twitter

Yahoo is using Twitter to surface timely and relevant news stories, images and videos starting today.

As news organizations pile into the microblogging service and as shared links and retweets become a decent metric of what’s interesting, the web’s biggest search destinations are incorporating Twitter. (Microsoft and Google both signed data-sharing deals with Twitter last month.)

What’s unique about Yahoo’s approach is that they haven’t built a separate real-time search engine outside of their primary … Continue Reading

Game ad firm NeoEdge merges with game developer, hires new CEO

NeoEdge, a company that offers a way to insert video ads into online games, is going through some big changes — in part driven by the recession in the online ad market, but also by the proliferation of other, cheaper games.

Today, the company is announcing that is merging with casual game development firm Offspring. And Offspring’s chief executive Lesley Mansford will become NeoEdge’s new CEO. Mountain View, Calif.-based NeoEdge will continue to focus on … Continue Reading

Flurry launches AppCircle to help apps get discovered

With 100,000 apps in Apple’s AppStore, it has become ridiculously hard to get an app discovered. At any given time, perhaps 100 apps are easy to find on the featured apps or top apps lists. That’s why analytics startup Flurry is launching a new platform, AppCircle, whose aim is to get iPhone and iPod Touch apps noticed.

The platform is a natural extension of the analytics business that has become very popular. With AppCircle, Flurry … Continue Reading

Runa's new service looks to turn web surfers into sales

Last year, e-commerce retailers spend $21 billion, or 15 percent of their revenues, in online marketing to drive traffic to their websites. The end result — a dismal 2-3 percent conversion rate between visitors and sales.

Mountain View startup Runa, a provider of revenue growth and profit maximization solutions, is looking to help e-commerce retailers to change low conversion rates with the launch of their new conversion marketing solution. The new web application focuses on … Continue Reading

Olive Media launches new way to serve music to home stereos

High-end audio is moving into the digital age. Olive Media announced today it has created an audiophile’s music storage system that can deliver digital music to home stereos.

The San Francisco-based company is launching the Olive 4HD, a high-definition Hi-Fi Music Server. The system serves as a control center for high-quality audio — with 24-bit sound and 96 kilohertz sample rates. It can store 6,000 CDs on its two terabytes of hard disk space. That’s … Continue Reading

Livescribe launches an app store for its Pulse smart pen platform

Inspired by Apple, every hardware maker is creating an app stores these days. Today, Livescribe is launching a beta platform that allows developers to create apps for its Pulse smart pen. There are already 30 cool third-party apps available in the Livescribe store, which is open for shopping.

The smart pen turns ordinary writing into a digital experience. With the smart pen, you can record a lecture as you take notes on a special paper … Continue Reading

5 O'clock Roundup: Office web app impressions, AT&T's legal skirmish with Verizon

Here’s the latest action:

Microsoft releases beta test downloads of Office 2010 — This is basically the first time the public has a chance to play with the much-vaunted web application versions of Office. Due to a bunch of restrictions, I wasn’t able to try the apps out myself, but Harry McCracken at Technologizer took a look and said they were so rough he has to give them “an Incomplete rather than trying to grade … Continue Reading

GreenBeat: Brace yourselves, electricity prices will rise over next 10-30 years, Duke CEO Jim Rogers says

“In the last 50 years, electricity prices have been flat — in the next 10 to 30, the price of electricity is going to rise,” said Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers in conversation with Matter Network’s John Gartner at GreenBeat 2009 this evening. “This is going to lead to a lot of frustration from consumers and political reactions,” he continues. The key, he says, is how utilities, their customers and governments respond to this increase.… Continue Reading

GreenBeat: Save energy (and money!) — leave consumers out of it, energy management companies say

The most obvious answer to how to get consumers to embrace the Smart Grid is “money,” said the startup and demand response company leaders on GreenBeat 2009′s Consumers and Efficiency panel. The invisible hand of economics hath built the empire of Wal-Mart, could it not also raise up smarter utilities?

According to Gary Fromer, CEO of demand response firm CPower, the key is to give incentives. Claiming that big box stores like Wal-Mart, Home Depot … Continue Reading

Imeem — another music streaming story ends in tears?

If I were Spotify, I’d be paying close attention right now.

Imeem, which was one of the first music startups to work out streaming deals with all four major record labels, is going to MySpace for a bargain basement price of $1 million in cash, according to TechCrunch. (Update: Sources tell us the acquisition valuation is closer to a range of $7 to 9 million. That’s $1 million in cash plus earnouts to retain key … Continue Reading

GreenBeat: Accenture's Sharon Allan says U.S. needs to play catch-up in cleantech

Sharon Allan, leader of Accenture’s North America Smart Grid practice, took the stage at GreenBeat2009 to present results to the firm’s survey on attitudes toward and responses to climate change and initiatives to battle global warming. Unsurprisingly, her major points also pointed to the U.S. falling behind other developed countries in battling the emission of greenhouse gases, and supporting the innovations and policies needed to slash carbon output — something John Doerr also decried in … Continue Reading