Australian start-up VisualPin allows users to “geocode” their videos by adding a Google Map to each different location in a video, with the map appearing to the side of the video. Here’s one of the best examples on the site.

To be honest, I find the map somewhat distracting from watching the video but I think it could be useful when it comes to documenting travel, news or current events. The technology creates a virtual location table of contents, allowing the user to click on a marked location to find the corresponding video content.

This appears to be a variation of existing technology that embeds YouTube videos in Google Maps listings. Also Google Maps mashups became particularly useful for news media sites during the inauguration; CNN, Oprah.com and WashingtonPost.com all featured geocoded mashup videos from inaugural events in Washington D.C.

Perhaps NBC’s Today show could use this technology for its next Where in the World is Matt Lauer series.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Dell is planning to enter the smartphone market as early as February with several different devices that look to compete with RIM’s BlackBerry and the Apple iPhone, according to the Wall Street Journal. The Dell smartphones will use either the Google Android operating system or Microsoft Windows Mobile, according to the Journal’s sources.
- LOS ANGELES (Reuters) Dell Inc is planning a foray
into the cell phone market as early as next month, hoping to revitalize a
business walloped by crumbling PC sales but potentially pitting the firm
against Apple, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
The world’s No. 2 maker of PCs, which…

In this eWEEK podcast hosted by Mike Vizard, the CEO of Training Camp, Chris Porter, says President Barack Obama needs to do more to create training opportunities for IT professionals who need to stay current more than ever if they want to keep their jobs or find new ones.
- Audio Podcast Content….

You probably love the hands-free and wires-free aspects of your Bluetooth headset. Well there are some disadvantages that come with it and no we don t mean that it makes you look like a cyborg who is talking to himself. We re talking about your cell phone s security and the possibility that someone could hijack your phone for some very long international conversations at your expense. Keep reading for the details including some advice on how to prevent it and what to do if you fall victim to this hack….

The All-New Adobe Creative Suite 4 Now Shipping: Adobe CS4: tools to help students express their ideas in video, on the web, or print.

Although the current trend for GPS devices in making them all-in-one entertainment centers may lessen their navigational abilities this is not the case with TomTom. The TomTom GO 93 GPS continues to perpetuate the manufacturer s philosophy that a GPS is a GPS first and an entertainment device second. Although the 93 GPS does have multimedia capabilities its navigational abilities and features are where it shines….

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If you have an interest in building web sites that can be used by machines keep reading. In this four-part article series you ll learn about the architecture behind Representational State Transfer REST and how to make use of it. It is excerpted from chapter four of the book em RESTful Web Services em written by Leonard Richardson and Sam Ruby O Reilly 2 8 ISBN 59652926 . Copyright 2 8 O Reilly Media Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission from the publisher. Available from booksellers or direct from O Reilly Media….

The All-New Adobe Creative Suite 4 Now Shipping: Adobe CS4: tools to help students express their ideas in video, on the web, or print.

YouTube first introduced annotations last June, but starting today, Google’s popular video sharing site is making it even easier to add text comments into your own videos. Whereas before you had to go into a relatively complicated annotations editor to add your comments, you can now just click on a spot in the video during playback and the annotations editor will open automatically. Google has also made it significantly easier to add links to other content on YouTube into your annotations.

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Now, when you watch your own videos on YouTube, a crosshair appears on the screen and you can start adding annotations by simply clicking anywhere on the video without having to go into the annotations editor.

The new linking options inside the comments now allow you to point to another video, channel page, playlist, group, or search query. You will not be able to link to content outside of YouTube, however. The YouTube team also highlights the possibility of linking to a video response page to gather feedback from your audience.

Is This a Good Thing?

The question, of course, is if this is actually a good thing. Too often, users already overuse the annotations to advertise some of their other videos or to remind us that the video is also available in HD (a note that also pops up when you are already watching the video in HD, by the way). Even Google seems to be aware of this, as they provide a help page with instructions for how to turn these annotations off for embedded videos.

Omnisio

We can only assume that this is the first part of the integration of Omnisio’s technology into the core YouTube service. Google acquired Omnisio last July, though it is important to note that the service did a lot more than just video annotations.

Discuss

As a concept, OpenID has shown a great deal of potential. But that potential has often been hamstrung by the series of hurdles through which OpenID users have been required to jump in order to use their credentials. When Facebook Connect entered the distributed digital identity fray, those OpenID usability problems came into stark relief. Now, Google and Plaxo have responded with a new workflow for OpenID logins that simplifies the process and improves the usability - by adding OAuth and the Google Contacts API to the mix.

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You tend to hear more about OpenID, but OAuth has its own loyal following using the protocol for authentication. OAuth has been implemented by organizations like Flickr and Netflix - and has been promised to be in the works for Twitter. Combining OAuth with OpenID offers an improved user experience by letting each technology do what it does best. The benefits of this technique are demonstrated by registering for a new Plaxo account using your Google account.

How It Works

The “hybrid approach” - currently available in a limited beta - that Google and Plaxo have employed uses OpenID to sign in, then invokes OAuth for delegated authorization, and finally calls on the Google Contacts API to access information about contacts. And it does all of this transparently to the end user.

The first step in the Plaxo-Google scenario involves a new user being invited to Plaxo by a friend via Gmail. The invite understands the user is logged into the Google system and prompts the recipient with a “Sign up with my Google Account” button.

After clicking the button, the new user is directed to a Google Accounts page and asked to confirm their identity. The user is also given the option of allowing Plaxo to remember him or her in the future.

Accepting the sign-in request allows Plaxo to have access to the user’s Google account credentials and the contacts associated with that account. The end result? The user now has a Plaxo account without all the rigamarole generally associated with a new account setup - and without a new username and password to track.

Why This Matters

While the concept of site-specific logins made sense in the early days of the Web, the idea of users being forced to develop a new identity, username, password, and profile on every site they visit - including adding all the same people as connections, over and over again - seems almost laughable today. It’s definitely not scalable. Especially as password requirements become more and more stringent.

With the launch of Facebook Connect, the idea of a digital identity that could follow users from site to site moved from bleeding-edge tech people to a much larger contingent of the general populous. And the ease-of-use demonstrated by Facebook Connect put some friendly pressure on the OpenID contingent to improve the way they were managing the login process.

Plaxo’s and Google’s demonstration is something that could improve usability for all OpenID logins, reducing the series of handoffs that tend to frustrate and confuse users. But as Eric Eldon of VentureBeat notes, there is still more to be done:

“Multi-site sign on, like what the companies are announcing today, will be more compelling when it can bring integration down to one or zero clicks, but this is certainly a step in the right direction.”

Who Wins? Everyone

This isn’t a “winner takes all” pursuit or an “either/or” situation. We are participating in a Web environment where both Facebook Connect and OpenID can co-exist, because there are different applications that make both options viable and useful.

Personally, I’m not likely to use my Facebook account to access my bank and credit card accounts. But I am likely to use my Facebook credentials for social sites that would be enhanced by my existing Facebook connections. Similarly, my OpenID isn’t always the right answer.

Facebook has momentum and a fervent user base. OpenID has a who’s who of tech companies getting behind the concept as the preferred way to manage digital identities. Neither of these identity options are going away anytime soon.

What’s best about the current situation is the rivalry between the two camps: one proprietary and easy-to-use, one open and more complex. It will be interesting to watch the two solutions push one another to become more and more simple for the end user. Because in that case, we all win.

Discuss

In this third part of a four-part series on Python object types we will wrap up our discussion of lists and introduce you to some remarkable things you can do with dictionaries. This article is excerpted from chapter four of the book em Learning Python Third Edition em written by Mark Lutz O Reilly 2 8 ISBN 596513984 . Copyright 2 8 O Reilly Media Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission from the publisher. Available from booksellers or direct from O Reilly Media….

The All-New Adobe Creative Suite 4 Now Shipping: Adobe CS4: tools to help students express their ideas in video, on the web, or print.

Prototype is a popular open source JavaScript framework that is favored by many for its extensive toolset that makes implementing advanced JavaScript functionality a breeze. Prototip is a plugin for Prototype that lets you quickly and easily add fantastic-looking tooltips to your pages with a minimum of code and effort….

Microsoft Tech•Ed North America 2009 - Save $200 Spend 5 days with our innovators, third-party experts, and thousands of your IT peers. Register now!

Hitachi’s new Wooo, part of Japan’s KDDI au Spring line, comes with the unique ability to watch 3D videos. Sounds coool, even if the 3D-induced woooziness will have you switching back to 2D in minutes.

The phone’s 3.1-inch display is the first of its kind to have 3D-capabilities and can be swiveled horizontally to be more TV-like. There’s not a lot of content being offered to accompany the phone right now, which is just as well since Hitachi doesn’t recommend that people use the 3D feature for too long. Kids under the age of 6 shouldn’t use it at all.

Besides the crazy stereoscopic screen, the Wooo also comes with a 5MP camera and a “Global Passport” that will connect you to KDDI au’s network from anywhere in the world except Thailand, Guam and Canada. It’ll be available in three colors by April—in Japan only, of course. [KDDI au]

MobileCrunch has lots of photos of the Helio Ocean 2 for Virgin Mobile, which we last saw in a spy shot a few months back. It’s definitely real now.

They don’t have many details, but you can head over to see lots and lots of photos of it in the open and splayed positions. [MobileCrunch]

Also, it looks like Virgin Mobile is using Britney Spears’ tour to help launch the device. Wha?

In conjunction with sponsorship of the “Circus” tour, Virgin Mobile USA plans to launch its new Ocean 2 multimedia device. Select fans at the private show will be given an Ocean 2 to chronicle the event. This “Ocean 2 Camera Crew” can blog, IM, email, post to social networking sites and send photos from this one mobile phone to share with friends and fans.

Thanks Luis!