YouTube

Everyone can watch videos on YouTube. People can see first-hand accounts of current events, find videos about their hobbies and interests, and discover the quirky and unusual. As more people capture special moments on video, YouTube is empowering them to become the broadcasters of tomorrow.YouTube was founded in 2005 by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim, who were all early employees of PayPal. YouTube is the leader in online video, sharing original videos worldwide through a Web experience. YouTube allows people to easily upload and share video clips across the Internet through websites, mobile devices, blogs, and email.

YouTube received funding from Sequoia Capital in November 2005 and was officially launched one month later in December. Chad Hurley and Steve Chen proceeded to become the first members of the YouTube management team and currently serve as Chief Executive Officer and Chief Technology Officer respectively.

In November 2006, within a year of its launch, YouTube was purchasedby Google Inc. in one of the most talked-about acquisitions to date.

YouTube has struck numerous partnership deals with content providers such as CBS, BBC, Universal Music Group, Sony Music Group, Warner Music Group, NBA, The Sundance Channel and many more.

In March 2007, Viacom introduced its much talked about $1 billion lawsuit against Google and YouTube. In a statement explaining why they were pursuing legal action, Viacom stated that “we must turn to the courts to prevent Google and YouTube from continuing to steal value from artists and to obtain compensation for the significant damage they have caused.” The lawsuit was preceded by a takedown request from Viacom ordering YouTube to remove over 100,000 clips from its stable of networks.

In May 2007 YouTube announced a revenue-sharing arrangement called “Partners Program” to cut in some of its biggest pro-am producers on the revenue generated from their videos. Partners at launch included LisaNova and smosh.

In June 2007 YouTube launched local versions in Brazil, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, and the U.K. Additionally in June, Apple’s iPhone launched with a YouTube application, further extending YouTube’s penetration in the mobile market following its November 2006 partnership with Verizon’s vCast service.

Over the summer and fall of 2007 major announcements were made about advertising models for YouTube. In August, YouTube introduced “YouTube InVideo Ads”, a set of flash overlays displayed on the lower portion of videos. Advertisers are charged per impression, and the resulting revenue will be shared with the clip creator. In October, Google announced the inclusion of YouTube videos in its AdSense product. Site owners using AdSense can select videos from certain content providers, and ads will be served contextually as they relate to either the site or the video. Resulting revenue will be split between content providers, site owners, as well as Google.

In October 2007, YouTube announced a new service called “Youtube Video Identification” in order to assist copyright holders in protecting their content. With the service copyright holders upload full copies of their content to the service and complex algorithms are applied against YouTube’s library of clips to see if any match the uploaded content. Copyright holders can then either have YouTube remove the videos in question or allow YouTube to serve advertising along with the content and split the resulting revenue.

Fix Your Terrible, Insecure Passwords in Five Minutes

A foolproof technique to secure your computer, e-mail, and bank account.

It's tempting to blame the victim. In May, a twentysomething French hacker broke into several Twitter employees' e-mail accounts and stole a trove of meeting notes, strategy documents, and other confidential scribbles. The hacker eventually gave the stash to TechCrunch, which has since published notes from meetings in which Twitter execs discussed their very lofty goals. (The company wants to be the first Web service to reach 1 billion users.) How'd the hacker get all this stuff? Like a lot of tech startups, Twitter runs without paper—much of the company's discussions take place in e-mail and over shared Google documents. All of these corporate secrets are kept secure with a very thin wall of protection: the employees' passwords, which the intruder managed to guess because some people at Twitter used the same passwords for many different sites. In other words, Twitter had it coming. The trouble is, so do the rest of us.

Everyone knows it's bad to use the same password for different sites. People do it anyway because remembering different passwords is annoying. Remembering different difficult passwords is even more annoying. Eric Thompson, the founder of AccessData, a technology forensics company that makes password-guessing software, says that most passwords follow a pattern. First, people choose a readable word as a base for the password—not necessarily something in Webster's but something that is pronounceable in English. Then, when pressed to add a numeral or symbol to make the password more secure, most people add a 1 or ! to the end of that word. Thompson's software, which uses a "brute force" technique that tries thousands of passwords until it guesses yours correctly, can easily suss out such common passwords. When it incorporates your computer's Web history in its algorithm—all your ramblings on Twitter, Facebook, and elsewhere—Thompson's software can come up with a list of passwords that is highly likely to include yours. (He doesn't use it for nefarious ends; AccessData usually guesses passwords under the direction of a court order, for military purposes, or when companies get locked out of their own systems—"systems administrator gets hit by a bus on the way to work," Thompson says by way of example.)Your passwords aren't very secure. Even if you think they are, they probably aren't. Do you use the same or similar passwords for several different important sites? If you don't, pat yourself on the back; if you do, you're not alone—one recent survey found that half of people online use the same password for all the sites they visit. Do you change your passwords often? Probably not; more than 90 percent don't. If one of your accounts falls to a hacker, will he find enough to get into your other accounts? For a scare, try this: Search your e-mail for some of your own passwords. You'll probably find a lot of them, either because you've e-mailed them to yourself or because some Web sites send along your password when you register or when you tell them you've forgotten it. If an attacker manages to get into your e-mail, he'll have an easy time accessing your bank account, your social networking sites, and your fantasy baseball roster. That's exactly what happened at Twitter. (Here's my detailed explanation of how Twitter got compromised.)

Security expert Bruce Schneier writes about passwords often, and he distills Thompson's findings into a few rules: Choose a password that doesn't contain a readable word. Mix upper and lower case. Use a number or symbol in the middle of the word, not on the end. Don't just use 1 or !, and don't use symbols as replacements for letters, such as @ for a lowercase A—password-guessing software can see through that trick. And of course, create unique passwords for your different sites.

Use Mnemonics to Choose a Hack-proof Password

I was listening to Talk of the Nation on NPR and they were interviewing Farhad Manjoo, Slate’s, technology columnist. Farhad described a very clever technique for creating a very secure password. It’s as simple as this; think of a phrase and then use the first letters of the words as your password. For example, “I work at Plug and Play Technologies in Sunnyvale,” so my password becomes “Iw@p&ptis” What could be simpler? As Farhad points out, “These mnemonic passwords are hard to forget, but they contain no guessable English words.”

How to Keep an Eye on Things When You're Not There

Whether you want to keep an eye on your pet, your aging parents, your kids, your vacation home, your boat, or whatever else you feel needs watching, the internet is now the best way to do it.

You can buy security systems of all types and prices including PC or Mac-based systems that can use just about any camera hooked up to a computer. For this roundup, we picked a handful of wireless cameras that make it easy to watch and listen to what's happening anyplace that you are not.



Panasonic BL-C131A 
Yes, the Panasonic BL-C131A camera costs more than most good point and shoot digital cameras, but it's a quality web camera that gets good reviews and has a lot of useful features including a microphone and thermal sensor that can detect when a human or animal enters the room. You can also make it pan and tilt remotely. Set it up to talk to your router, use their free service to create a personal web address like mycamera.viewnetcam.com and then you or anyone you give permission to, can view your camera's live images on the Internet. It costs around $250.


Sharx Security VIPcella-IR SCNC2607 

Users say the Sharx Security VIPcella-IR SCNC2607 camera may not be the easiest to set up especially when you read comments like, “you need to configure some things in your router.” However, users also say it has a very good installation guide and once you get it working, it does a good job of sending video directly to a browser on your computer or phone without going through a service. It includes features like motion detection, a microphone, email alerts, and even infrared night vision which could come in handy when trying to see what’s going on in the dark. It’s a little on the expensive side at $399 (on sale now on Amazon for $300) but it does have all the right features. If you don’t need the night vision feature you can get the less expensive, Sharx SCNC2606 for around $225 but for $75 we say go for the night vision.


Cisco WVC210 (formerly a Linksys product)
When you see the Cisco WVC210 you may want to say, “open the pod bay doors,” but seriously, for $250 this wireless web cam has some nice features including one that most other cameras don’t have which is audio out (you need an external speaker). Imagine being able to tell Spotty to get off the couch, or say "hi" to the kids. The Cisco WVC210 offers remote pan and tilt and email alerts with attached video when it detects motion. Users say it does a good job but has a few quirks like occasional lost connections, a noisy motor, and overly sensitive motion detector, not to mention the fact that the software doesn’t work with Windows Vista and you need to use an ActiveX control to listen to the audio with Internet Explorer (which actually isn’t that big of a deal).



TRENDnet Wireless Internet Camera Server (TV-IP110W)
The Trendnet TV-IP110W  wireless webcam doesn't get the highest ratings and there are many comments saying it's not the easiest device to get working but at a little over $100, the price is reasonable and once you do get it working users say it has pretty good image quality and useful features like motion detection and email alerts.







Linksys WVC54GCA 
Some reviewers rave about the Linksys (now Cisco) WVC54GCA camera while others don't have a lot of good things to say about it. If you’re in the group that makes it through the setup procedure to get it working you will have what one reviewer called an “adequate,” camera for keeping an eye on things. You can buy the Linksys WVC54GCA for under $100.



Coming Soon the D-Link DSC-1130
D-Link, the company known for routers and other quality communication gear is about to release a wireless network camera and companion “portal,” that sounds like it may make setting up and watching the remote camera real simple. You access the video from the camera on your browser via a user account on mydlink.com. The DCS-1130 will have an MSRP of $219.99 but you should be able to find it for less.







Wireless Baby Monitors


These video and audio monitors work on a limited range and are meant to be used within a house. They can be used to watch older people too. The Summer Infant Best View Handheld Monitor has a 2.5 inch screen and costs around $150. Safety 1st High-Def Monitor costs around $230 but offers a higher resolution display. TheSecurityman PalmWatch III offers night vision, gets high marks from reviewers and only costs around $100.


Novelty Web Cams


The WowWee Rovio Wi-Fi Enabled Robotic WebCam costs about $230 but should be lots of fun to use. You move this three-wheeled little bugger around your house via an Internet connection. You can make it go to preset waypoints or self-dock in its charging station. It even has a built-in LED headlight.


Spykee Spy WiFi Robot


The Spykee Spy WiFi robot comes as a kit that you put together. Once it’s up and running, you control it remotely, watch and listen to what’s going on around it, and even speak through it. You can even use it with Skype. Spykee lists for around $250 but you can find it online for a lot less.

Point Your Wireless Webcam at Retrevo
Whether you’re looking for the tools to watch your cat sleeping at your home or you need help deciding what netbook to buy, Retrevo has reviews and manuals for the latest gear and gadgets including digital cameras,GPS, laptops, HDTV, and more.