In difficult economic times, we keep paying more attention to what is most important in our lives including our children. Our search engine for kids, Quintura Kids gets a new design for the winter season. We have also updated the site index and populated the initial Search Cloud on the site with graphics to make it even easier to navigate the Internet with a single click. Check it out on www.QuinturaKids.com Quintura Kids is used by thousands of elementary school students in the U.S., Canada, UK and other countries every day. According to site statistics, Quintura Kids has 75...
As we pointed out last week, YouTube is now offering HD quality video on select movies. But one of the hallmarks of HD video is the widescreen aspect ratio (16:9 rather than 4:3) and now the YouTube site has been updated so that all video is now displayed in a new widescreen player. As the YouTube blog notes, this means that the vast majority of videos on the site — which were uploaded as 4:3 — are now displayed with black bars on the sides (the empty space not used by 4:3 videos). You might be wondering why YouTube doesn’t...
Since Flash still isn’t yet available on iPhone, workarounds are needed to enable viewing of video embeds. YouTube already offers a solution, but now, Blip.tv has come up with a workaround too. To make it work, Blip.tv users simply need to “enable iPhone compatibility mode” from their account, which will in turn make video embeds display on the device, without requiring a separate embed code. Justin Day of Blip.tv shows you how to do it in the video below: Blip.tv targets video podcasters, so making embeds work on iPhone is a big deal for them, since that group tends to...
Several readers have e-mailed me and asked for instructions on how to take their HD YouTube videos and embed them elsewhere. As I mentioned before, this isn't an officially sanctioned feature, and as such, the embed code you get on these video pages will still yield the lower-quality, non-widescreen clip. Needless to say, this is completely unacceptable. The good news is that you only need to make a few changes to the stock embed code get the job done. Here's what to do: Step 1: Copy this code and paste it to wherever you intend to embed the video:...
Psst. Hey, wanna know secret? YouTube is offering 720p HD streaming on select videos. We’ve already showed you how to hack YouTube URLs and embed codes to get higher quality video. While those tricks work on most videos, they only bump the resolution up to 480×360px — better, but still nothing close to HD. Well, good news, as our friends over at Epicenter point out, some videos on YouTube are available in full 720p HD glory — the same format that sites like the iTunes Store and Netflix offer. It turns out YouTube has been quietly offering HD for some...
Facebook users can upload and embed videos on the popular social network. Facebook does not provide ways to download or export the videos and they even state in the Facebook faq that users will not be able to download or export videos. Some might want to do so on the other hand for various reasons. Facebook Video is a Firefox add-on that is currently in experimental stage that can be used to download, convert or embed videos from Facebook. The add-on adds a few new options to video pages, wall and inbox. It does that in a very unobtrusive way...
Filed under: Video, Web services, Google, web 2.0 A lot of people don't know that YouTube has high quality videos, as well as the generally poor-quality standard versions. The links to the better (not HD, but still pretty good) versions are easy to miss, but there are a few steps you can take to make sure you're watching (and even embedding) the good stuff. Jason Kottke ran through a few of them recently on kottke.org. First, make high-quality your default setting. You can do this in the Account menu, under "Playback Setup." That takes care of playback, but what if...
This post was sponsored by CEA’s Digital TV: Convert Now! contest The folks at the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) know that the switch from analog TV to digital will be a bit tricky for some people, and so as a plan to help out with getting the word out, they’ve launched a YouTube contest to help drive awareness and promote converting from old analog TV sets to digital before the February 17th deadline. The Contest Make a video no longer than 3 minutes in length that helps family and friends understand how and why they need to convert. The theme...
Thanks to some crowdsourcing on Twitter tonight, I have a nifty new badge for you to put up on your blog. If you’re one of the Rockstars who is part of this community, make sure you add your name to the list (I update the submissions every handful of days). I’d love to make sure people know you’re part of the community here! To that end, I’m proud to share some badges that you can put on your blog, created by some friends. I’d be honored if you want to put them on your blog, and I’ve included the...
For a little over a week now PlayStation 3 owners have been creating thousand of levels in LittleBigPlanet, a platformer where creativity is both encouraged and rewarded using an ever-expanding level making tool set. The only problem is that these tools are relegated to the game, meaning if you're away from your console there's nothing more than a pen and paper for you to design your next masterpiece. Media Molecule, the creators of LBP are attempting to change that, with new online tools that let you get your creative juices flowing right in the browser. Using simple drag and drop...
For Halloween this year, I decided to be Rick Astley. With a little bit of hair spray, spray-on hair color, and some make-up for a widow’s peak, it looks like this: What fun. To make the costume complete, I took my Android G1 phone and bought a copy of Never Gonna Give You Up from Amazon for $.99. Then I put the song on continuous loop and turned on the external speaker. The G1 can really belt out music! Presto, not only do I look like Rick Astley, but I’m Rickrolling everyone who comes within ten feet of me! In...
by Michelle Lentz DocStoc, the online community that lets you share professional documents, is celebrating it’s one year birthday today. In honor of their birthday, they’ve added a new feature that makes DocStoc even easier to use. You can now upload documents to your docstoc account just by sending an email. All you need to do is email uploads@docstoc.com with the attached document. You’ll receive an e-mail confirmation with a link to the newly uploaded document, at which point you can edit tags, titles, or just grab the embed code for your blog or website. Docstoc has also released a...
We honestly haven't kept up with the television documentary Vanguard or its sponsoring Internet/Cable channel Current TV, but this trailer for their upcoming show Japan: Robot Nation has our interest piqued. We're digging all of the robots, the ties of said robots to evolving Japanese culture and the overly dramatic score supporting the whole thing. The show doesn't air until December 10, 10PM EST & 10PM PST on Current TV. But if you've got the channel, now might be a good time to set the DVR. Otherwise it'll probably be viewable on the web at that time, too. Note: We've...
While everyone has their favorite services and networks on the web, there is always room for improvement. This is why we at MakeUseOf are sure to check out every new piece of software and beta webapp in case it becomes the next big thing. A current trend among these services is the combination of popular functions in an easy to use package. If you use Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Delicious, or post content to networks like YouTube or Flickr, this most recent site might be right up your alley. YouAre is a new microblogging service that aims to utilize the current...
