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Democracy Player changes name to 'Miro'
What's in a name? Lots of things, including the difference between confusing and creating potential users of your application, apparently. That's why the Participatory Culture Foundation is renaming Democracy Player, its open source internet television surfing program, despite sticking with the original name for over a year. "Our early Mac beta versions of Democracy Player were called 'DTV'– we didn't think that we could be 'Democracy' until we had something substantial to offer... In all our debates about whether you could call something 'Democracy' and how people would react to the name, we hadn't realized that so many people would simply assume that the software was for politicians and videos about politics."With that, the new name will be Miro, and a there's a lesson to be learned here in the meantime: if you've got a potentially creative, but ultimately too symbolic and image-burdened name for your software, think twice about it. You can't always expect casual users to look beyond the name of an application to see its real use. Anyway, check out the official word from the folks themselves to get the full lowdown.
Democracy Player 0.9.5.1 update fixes important bug
A bug fix release for Democracy Player has just been posted that corrects some startup problems that a few Mac users have encountered since the 0.9.5 update. Democracy 0.9.5.1 resolves the issues originally caused by a conflict between versions of py2app and some input managers like Growl and a Camino extension. The team has upgraded to the latest py2app and all issues should now be resolved, so users can once again video channel surf to their heart's content. Recommended update.
Democracy Player 0.9.5 now available
For all the video sharers, viewers, and creators alike, Democracy Player version 0.9.5 has been officially released, introducing a host of new improvements and enhancements since the 0.9.2 release back in November of 2006. Here's a brief sampling of some new features: Simpler, more minimal interface New 'Share' menu on each item allows user to email a video or post to VideoBomb, del.icio.us, Digg, or Reddit Video downloads are now stored in folders by channel for better organization New pause and resume download functions Improved BitTorrent performance Drop-down menu feature for auto-download for individual channels Automatic thumbnail generation on OS X for videos lacking thumbnails The application is immediately available for download, and the development team still urges users to keep an eye open for any potential bugs that might be lurking about and to fill out a bug report where necessary. The program has really been shaping up nicely since its inception, and this upgrade will be worth the download. For 'Internet TV' surfing, there is no tighter application than Democracy, methinks. Anyway, check out the full list of improvements at the Democracy blog.
Beta Beat: We all missed the Joost Mac Alpha--but stay tuned
For a very brief time today, Joost opened up to Mac Alpha seeding. They filled their download quota within minutes. Joost nèe "The ViennaVenice[1] Project", if you're not familiar with it, offers high quality free online streaming video channels. It's from the people who brought us Skype and it's fast, clean and watchable. The good news is that next week the "final proper public beta" goes live for OS X users, although I believe it will be limited to Intel CPUs. Keep checking in at the Joost site, and if you're one of the lucky 200 who got in early let us know in the comments how it's going. [1] A famous European city that starts with "V"
Hands on with The Venice Project -- P2P TV from the creators of Skype
While Skype co-founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis might've gotten a bit more respecting of IP over the years, it looks like they still haven't lost their knack for software design and industry disruption. Om Malik over at his GigaOM pad just go his hands on the latest from that intrepid Skype duo: The Venice Project. The basic gist of the app is to act as a distribution platform for next-gen TV, with P2P underpinnings borrowed and improved from Kazaa and Skype. Resolution is near the quality of standard TV, but with bandwidth use at around 250MB per hour, ISPs aren't going to be incredibly stoked about this one. Right now Venice is still in beta, but Om had plenty of love for the simple setup, slick design and ease of use, and while there's a little bit of channel-change lag right now, kinks like that should be ironed out before launch, making for a snappy online TV experience with the already "stunning and crisp" visuals. Unfortunately, it all comes down to content in the end, and there seems to be little of that at the moment, and no major prospects have been unveiled as of yet. A functional, protected and revenue-sharing platform could be just what doctor ordered for media companies looking to break into the currently fragmented market of online TV, but it looks like Niklas and Janus will need quite the winner of an offering, along with some Skype leverage (a bundle, perhaps?) to make this new player ubiquitous enough to succeed.
Sony, Matsushita and others plan to create standard for Internet TVs
Exact deets are still a bit scarce, but the AP recently reported that Sony, Matsushita, Sharp, Toshiba, and Hitachi have joined forces to create a standard for Internet-connected televisions. The alliance has come together under the TV Portal Service Corp banner which, as far as we can tell, is still operating in stealth mode without so much as a website. Sony and Matsushita look to be the major players in the new consortium, with a 35% share each. What we do know is that the Internet TVs will be Linux-based and will be operated just with a remote control instead of a keyboard, although we're guessing that'll still be an option. Despite the lack of details, it appears that things are progressing pretty quickly, with the first Internet TVs expected to go on sale as early as next year, and with sales projected to reach 10 to 20 million units by the year 2011. All of this is in Japan only, of course -- hope you didn't get your hopes up too much.
Girl gamer recruitment good reality TV?
Recruiting a new member for a sponsored girl gaming team can't be easy. When Eekers (one of Ubisoft's Frag Dolls) left the line-up last summer, a nationwide search for her replacement rolled into motion, requiring everything from a gaming CV to glamour shots. Months later, when all but the hopefuls have forgotten the empty space to be filled, the shortlisted candidates have been announced and the final selection procedure outlined.All eight of the finalists will be flown to San Francisco to "join the existing Frag Dolls in a weekend of playing games and interviewing", a party that sounds like good fodder for frazzled nerves -- especially when you add in the filming. For this is no ordinary interview -- instead, the whole thing will be covered by Internet TV site GameTrailers, providing a reality TV glimpse into the mysterious world of girl gamers.