Have you been watching videos lately on Youtube ? A judge ordered Google to hand over all video history data of the website to Viacom which is suing Google since 2007 for publishing copyrighted clips on Youtube. History data includes IPs and possible usernames of users who watched videos on Youtube and third party websites which probably includes every single human being on this planet.

Additionally Google will have to turn in every video that they took down from the website after it was published there. The logs have to be handed over on a set of four Terabyte hard drives but it is very likely that Google will appeal the decision.

It’s interesting to note that Viacom “also requested YouTube’s source code, the code for identifying repeat copyright infringement uploads, copies of all videos marked private, and Google’s advertising database schema.” (according to Wired)

continue reading "Judge orders Google to hand over Youtube User Data to Viacom"

Back in the days when the Internet was just a series of tubes music, movie and book fans had to get their recommendations from magazines, friends and the guy in the store that sold them the stuff. Recommendations on today’s Internet are a big thing. They are highly popular with users and companies alike. Users are happy that they find new bands, actors, movies and books while companies sell more if they offer recommendations.

Taste Kid (via Genbeta) concentrates on books, movies and music which is something that I have not seen that often yet. Normally it’s only one of the three and not all of them. The website consists of a form where the user can enter something that he likes that relates to books, music or movies. This can be an artist or a name of a product.

continue reading "Get Recommendations from Taste Kid"

Many users had a problem with memory usage in Firefox 2 and although Firefox 3 was further optimized it still seems to be a problem for some users. Something that I do not understand for instance is the problem that RAM usage of Firefox is always increasing over time but never decreasing much. I was always under the impression that closing tabs should reduce the memory usage of Firefox (and any other browser of course).

This does not seem to be the case however and RAMBack introduced a routine that reduces the memory usage of Firefox 3. Firefox 3 does keep some files in the cache for performance purposes and RAMBack will cause Firefox to issue an internal notification to free up memory.

A commenter on the add-on page said that this add-on “only clears the internet memory cache of sites not currently loaded in the browser” which makes a lot of sense to me. I had troubles finding a way to find out if the add-on is as useful as it sounds.

continue reading "Free RAM in Firefox with RAMBack"

Normally users check video files and their required codecs to make sure the file plays properly on their system. But there are some users - including myself - who want to know the codecs that are installed on a system. This is useful for compatibility and playback reasons, for example to make sure that a video is always using a specific codec for playback.

Installed Codec (via Shell Extension City) is another fine NirSoft tool that displays all installed codecs of a Windows 2000, 2003, XP or Vista system in a table. All meaning all Codec drivers and DirectShow but not binary codecs which are used by some applications like MPlayer.

The software lists the name of the codec, its installation path and file, the company that developed it and if it is enabled on the system. Each codec in the list can be disabled which has the effect that this codec will not be used to play the supported multimedia files. Excellent if you want to make sure that a specific codec is playing certain videos.

continue reading "Display The Installed Codecs On A System"

I was not really sure if we would ever see Vreel, the semi-official successor of Stage 6, go live but apparently the developers did it finally. Vreel’s doors have opened and anyone can join the Open Beta. Vreel, like Stage 6, is based on Divx technology which means that the latest Divx Web Player has to be installed to play the high definition videos of the video portal.

Speed is excellent currently but it remains to be seen how a massive rush of new users will affect the website. Many blogs will soon start to publish articles about the Open Beta of Vreel. Videos are definitely playing in a nice quality, much better than that of Youtube or similar video portals. Vreel offers the usual rating and comments system but it is quite obvious that not all functions are yet available.

A click on the community link for instance is just stating that this will come soon. What you can do right now is view, upload, comment and rate videos which is probably what most users that visit video sites do anyway.

continue reading "Vreel is live !"