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French court rules Google isn't liable for YouTube bootlegs of TF1 TV shows
France typically hasn't been kind to Google. Today, though, it's cutting some important slack. A court has ruled that the search firm can't be held liable when YouTube members upload clips of their favorite football matches or movies from local network TF1. As in a case involving Dailymotion last year, the judge saw YouTube as just the host for others' videos rather than having any hand in producing the content itself. Not only does the decision let Google off the hook for a possible €141 million ($177 million) fine, it prevents the company from having to pre-screen every video that might be visible in France -- a difficult challenge for a company that takes 72 hours of new video every minute. Google is still facing less-than-cordial attitudes towards its copyright enforcement in other countries, including a zombie Viacom lawsuit in the US, but it now has some extra ammunition if it wants to cite a precedent. [Image credit: Premiere]
Dropbox adds automatic photo uploads for Windows and Mac, up to 3GB just for using it
Dropbox isn't short of aficionados, but it's undoubtedly lost some of its gleam since Google drove the cloud war into a frenzy. In response, Dropbox's devs have been at the squat rack pumping up their multimedia credentials, recently adding auto photo and video uploads to their Android app and now extending that feature to any camera, tablet, smartphone or SD card via the Mac or Windows utility -- an add-on that was previously beta-only. Access the web interface and you'll see your stills arranged in a handy new Photos page, which displays them as large thumbnails bunched together by month. There's a blunter enticement too: your first auto upload will secure 500MB in extra storage, with subsequent efforts also rewarded up to 3GB. Perhaps that cardboard isn't looking so soggy after all.
Eye-Fi launching new 8GB wireless SD card today, kicking out Direct Mode for iOS and Android next week
Remember how Eye-Fi was cooking up some software to let their WiFi-enabled SD memory cards sling photos directly to your tablet or phone? Here's some sweet news -- starting next week, Direct Mode will be a free download for any Eye-Fi X2 card, and debut alongside companion apps in the Android Market and iTunes App Store. Moreover, the company's celebrating the launch of the new transfer protocol with a brand-new card, the $80 Eye-Fi Mobile X2, which should be available for purchase online momentarily and make its merry way to Best Buy and Apple stores by April 17th. Basically, the Mobile is a redux of the $50 Connect X2, but with double the storage capacity (8GB) and Direct Mode pre-installed -- though a price drop on the top-of-the-line Pro X2 (to $100) will add geotagging and RAW support for just one Jackson more. Need a refresher on how Direct Mode works? Peek our CES video demo (and a hefty press release) after the break.
App review: 720tube
Apple loves to tout the HD video recording and editing capabilities of its new iPhone 4. Shoot.Edit.Share, says the slogan. Unfortunately, something nasty happens between the shooting and YouTube sharing: compression. Apple squashes your magical 720p memory into a rather glum looking 360p video just as soon as you select "Send to YouTube." And there's no easy way around it. That is, until we stumbled upon a little app called 720tube from Drakfyre's Software.
iPhone usage metric for Flickr drops big time
We've posted before how popular the iPhone is as a camera on Flickr, with people uploading tons of photos, both shot by and straight from the iPhone. But now, The Next Web has covered a huge drop in photos referencing the iPhone over on the popular photo sharing site. The suspected culprit? Flickr themselves. TNW suggests that the problem is the Flickr iPhone application, which will upload pictures straight to the service -- but not include metadata information like the fact that the pictures were taken with the iPhone. Still, even they sound a little skeptical: not all of that drop can be attributed to just the Flickr app's shortcomings. They also suggest that the iPhone is wearing out its welcome -- lots of people jumped to use it as a camera when the 3GS introduced a better lens and the video capability, and now in day-to-day use, they're not using it as much. Other commenters to the post suggest that the vastly improved Facebook app may be eating away at the use of the built-in Camera app. I know that my photo habits for the phone haven't changed -- I use the iPhone quite a bit to take pictures, but looking at my own usage, I don't use Flickr nearly as much these days, as I use services like Twitpic and other sites built up directly around the iPhone. A drop in usage on Flickr doesn't mean people aren't using their iPhones to take snapshots -- they could just be sending their photos and media somewhere else. Update: One of our commenters, echoed by our old friend & past colleague Barb Dybwad at Mashable, notes that Apple's change to the EXIF data recording for iPhone photos (breaking out the different iPhone models to indicate which specific phone took the picture) may be partly responsible for the drop.
Sketches updated to 1.5
One of the first applications I used and enjoyed on my iPhone, Sketches, has updated to version 1.5. New in this version is the ability to change the alpha settings for colors (so you can change the opacity of the drawings you make on photos you take), and an edit mode for the corkboard view, to rearrange your drawings with. Additionally, they've moved uploaded photos off of a third-party server and onto their own page, so (for right now, anyway) no ads to get in the way. Not new in this app: a quality, fun, and surprisingly robust photo and image editor designed for the iPhone.We've heard from the devs that there is a version 2 on the way as well, and both this version and that one are free to anyone who's purchased the app. But if you haven't picked it up yet, it is available for $4.99 over on the App Store, well worth it if you often take and share pictures with your iPhone.
12seconds, Animoto release iPhone apps for video slideshows
12seconds.tv is a site that started up a little while ago that seems to be aiming at a "Twitter-for-video" kind of idea -- you upload just twelve seconds of video, whether that's you saying something, video of a short scene, or whatever else you want. The site was in alpha but has recently opened up to beta (so anyone can join), and they've also released an iPhone app, available for 99 cents in the App Store right now."But wait, Mike," I hear you saying, "the iPhone doesn't record video!" And it still doesn't, but it does record pictures and audio, and the 12seconds app will combine a slideshow of three pictures you take with any 12 seconds of audio you record, thus creating a close approximation of a 12 second video. You can see my sample upload here, just a few pictures of my apartment's hallway and some Mountain Goats playing from my speakers. You can use pics you've already taken, and the whole process of recording, combining, and uploading works pretty well. You don't have any control over how the images slide across: it's more of a "throw it all into the mix and hope something good comes out" thing.It's an interesting idea, and while you're paying a buck for a social networking video app that can't actually record video (not that that's 12seconds' fault, Apple), you could probably come up with some pretty creative stuff, from the artistic and witty to the requisite cat videos (because no video site is complete without a cute kitty). It's definitely not a video replacement for the iPhone, but for uploading quick and simple snippets of experience from wherever you are, it does the job.For a different approach to photo-based videos generated on your iPhone, you can check out the free Animoto app, released last week by the website of the same name. Animoto will take 8-16 photos from your iPhone or iPod touch, let you order them and select musical accompaniment (from a provided but fairly ample list of tracks; you can't use your own music or record a soundtrack). The app then uploads your images to the Animoto site and cranks out a 30 second, montage-style video for you. You can stream the video back to your iPhone, or send it along to friends. If Techcrunch gushes about it, well, you know it must be just awesome, right?
PictureSync 2 screenshots posted
The crew at Holocore have seen it fit to begin teasing users of PictureSync, a slick app for both Mac and PC that makes it easy to upload pictures and videos to various social media sites, with screenshots of a forthcoming update to version 2.0. The app has clearly taken on a very i-App UI, placing image and video sources such as iPhoto in a left sidebar, with any services you upload said media to just below that list. The scaling slider in the lower right is a very nice touch, as the current version only displays fixed thumbnails that can sometimes make it difficult to pick out images in a lineup. These new features are, of course, in addition to PictureSync's present abilities which include turning your iPhoto keywords into tags for most services (including Flickr and Vox), as well as being able to edit extensive amounts of metadata, even in batches, and grab geolocation data from Google Earth.PictureSync at present is free when used with one online service at a time, but its real power comes from spending a mere $15 for a license which enables uploading to as many services at once as your heart desires. An alpha of this v2 update is expected to be ready for Windows by the middle of next month, with a beta shortly thereafter. The Mac version will apparently follow a little later.
Fraser Speirs: "who wants me to make an ApertureExport?"
Fraser Speirs, creator of the highly useful FlickrExport and other apps, is asking for feedback on his blog as to whether users would be interested in a similar ApertureExport app. He warns that ApertureExport wouldn't be quite as well tied into Aperture as FlickrExport is to iPhoto, and this is due to the current version of Aperture (apparently) lacking a plugin API.Still, if the idea of being able to point at a feature in your own copy of ApertureExport some day and telling your friends "that was my idea!" sounds appealing, head over to Mr. Speirs' post and toss in your $0.02.
