As many of you know, the Indian Edition of YouTube is now live @ http://in.youtube.com.

Till now there were a lot of YouTube clones which catered to the local video content and some of them even got considerable funding from VC’s

I am not sure if this edition of YouTube is going to pickup in a big way, but the below snapshot of the videos section might say otherwise !

The above is just a partial snapshot; in fact the entire page is filled up similar kind of steamy videos !

If this is the kind of videos we would see on Indian Version of YouTube, there is no doubt that it will be “hugely popular” !

Xobni is an excellent add-on for Microsoft Outlook and has definitely simplified email management for me. Even Bill Gates fell in love with this application and referred it as the next generation of social networking.

(Microsoft did try to acquire Xobni and it failed due to various reasons)

Xobni was initially invite only and today they have made it publicly available to everybody. If you use Outlook and manage a lot of mail, Xobni is a must have.

The following video highlights the unique features in Xobni

I have been using it for quite some weeks now and it has negligible effect on Outlook’s performance. Try Xobni !

The demonstration of WorldWide Telescope made Scoble cry and in his follow up post he did explain as to what made him cry.  I didn’t cry (not to prove that I am stronger than Scoble ) , but was definitely impressed after seeing the following video.

(Note: It’s a lengthy video and the streaming isn’t that fast)

You might also like reading this paper from Jim Gray which triggered the worldwide telescope project.

Pointui (pronounced point-you-i) is a software which brings in a total new user experience on Windows Mobile 5/6 powered devices. Techcrunch notes that this software is probably more for the users who are envious of iPhone; The UI navigation does look very much on the lines of iPhone, but again iPhone is not just about the easy navigation.

As we all know the basic user interface of Windows Mobile sucks big time and it hasn’t improved much in Windows Mobile 6. This post by Gizmodo discusses some of the flaws in the current version mobile OS and also confirms that Microsoft will probably work on these in the future version of Windows Mobile.

I have been using Pointui on my HTC Touch for the past 2 days and I should say I am not un-impressed by the free program. Yes, Pointui is free.

Pointui helps you to go around the OS using finger swipes and it takes some time for one to come in terms with this interface.

Home Screen

The home screen does have all the widgets that will help you quickly launch the most commonly used programs on the devices. It also has options to quickly access the phone settings, change volume levels and lock/unlock the phone.

You can also slide at the center of the home screen to access the time/calendar and your outlook task list.

However it lacks the following:

1. There is no way to “theme” the home screen. The blue background really looked awkward on my HTC Touch I couldn’t find any way of changing this.

2. Windows Mobile 6 has a new feature via which lists the active running programs and you can selectively kill each process or stop all the applications (In windows mobile 5, the same was accomplished more painfully by going into the settings menu). The Pointui home screen removes access to this feature.

3. The battery icon doesn’t tell you if its being charged.

Some screenshots which might inspire you to try out Pointui

Settings Screen and Applications Screen

Unlocking using Pointui

More Help

When Pointui is launched for the first time, it also launches the automated help. The video of the same is embedded below.

You can always access this help via “Settings -> Help”.

Download Pointui for Windows Mobile

Live photo gallery was one of the recent applications which got added to my favorite application list. In my previous post on Live Photo Gallery I had wished that the application provided integration with Flickr.

The Photo gallery team headed by Michael Palermiti has heard to this wish and the latest update of Live photo gallery now supports a powerful Flickr Integration.

Rather than going into the details of the feature, I will just embed the video created by Michael.

One of the best things about this tool is that now you could tag the photos/input captions/photo title and the same would be reflected on Flickr. So if you do have a Flickr Account, its time to switch from the default Flickr Uploader to Live Photo Gallery.

(Note: The Flickr feature is downloaded as part of the Windows update and is not part of the Live photo gallery download)

Other Related Links

• Blog Post on Official Live Blog
• Blog Post on Official Flickr Blog

Check out this ad for the new “futuristic”, “user friendly” email from Indiatimes

After seeing this ad and many other marketing campaigns on print from Indiatimes, I was tempted to checkout what was “futuristic” in this E-Mail service. After reading the “Features” page (which had so many typographical errors) and after seeing the pathetic login page, I just closed the web page.

This is what the Dinesh Wadhawan, MD of Times Internet had to say about Indiatimes Mail !

The new Indiatimes Mail is based on latest AJAX, Web 2.0 technology which offers a user friendly interface and the most advanced features which will allow users to virtually ‘Live out of the Inbox’. The enhanced functionalities and young look will appeal to today’s netizens and new adopters. I am confident that the new Indiatimes Mail with its futuristic features will definitely change the paradigm of e-mail usage.

What is he talking about ? What does “Live out of the inbox” mean ? Young Look ! Yeah right !!

And they just don’t stop. The creative was conceived by Bates David Enterprise and this is what Alok Agarwal, executive VP of BDE had to say:

The new indiatimes mail is a revolutionary product that let’s you do a lot more than just sending and receiving emails. It practically enables you to live out of the inbox. The yellow envelope is an executional idea and a universal mnemonic for mail that appropriately symbolizes the next generation of email experience that the product promises.

“Executional Idea” hmm I’ll stop ! Also check out what Vinay has to say about this lame marketing !

Disclaimer: If you do happen to check Indiatimes Mail, you might be tempted to run like this ! Don’t blame me !

Copyright of the embedded Image and Ad- Indiatimes.com

The success of YouTube has spawned a lot of clones in India. My earlier post here covers some of the popular video sharing sites in India.

Konkan.tv one of the popular sites among that list has now launched “Live Television“. This is what the owner of the site, Rohan Pinto had to say about the new service.

The Live TV service is 100% free and is aimed at bridging the east and the west. There are “desi” channels for folks far away from home to connect with, and international channels for folks back home to enjoy western broadcasts for free.

Streaming speeds are totally dependent on the end users bandwidth speed. Also some channels are not 24/7 and may not be available all the time as the live stream is based on the actual broadcast time.

There are about 35 live TV channels available on Konkan.tv. I hope the site improves on the categorization of the channels, this would make it easier to access content of interest.

I did try to access CNBC TV 18 from my workplace and it did work well with the limited bandwidth.

Watch Live TV on Konkan

Walt Mossberg of WSJ is highly regarded as one of the most influential writers on information technology. After trying out iPhone for 2 week, he has his say on this post

Checkout this video too

Points to note from the video:

• He was able to get in terms with the virtual keyboard after 5 days of usage
• Access to Internet using EDGE is slow (However there is an alternative way to connecting using WiFi which is faster)
• The phone is locked on AT&T and if the AT&T coverage is not good, its not worth going for the lusty phone as of now.
• The web browser is in a league of its own and so is the E-Mail application.

I am wondering how much time it would take for the iPhone to arrive in India !

Meanwhile if you want to know more about Walt Mossberg, read this article. (Thanks to Apurv for pointing out this article)

Of the few sports that I love watching, F1 and Tennis tops the list. Regarding the latter, its not just restricted to watching, I play the game a little bit too .

Yesterday’s French Open final between Roger Federer and Nadal was supposed to be a clash of the “titans” and I expected at least a 5 set thriller. However it turned out to be more of a one sided match. I have never seen Federer play that bad; The number of unforced errors he made were so untypical of him.

After Schumacher’s exit previous year, I was not sure if I would watch Formula1 racing with the same enthusiasm. However the guy who has caught everybody’s attention including me is the rookie Lewis Hamilton !

This guy has had a dream run till now on his debut year. He has stepped on the podium in all the 6 races and now leads the driver championship. The car that he is currently driving (McLaren Mercedes) is definitely of some help, but even then you got to have something to be in the top and win races.

He reminds me a little bit of Jacque Villeneuve when he entered F1 in 1996. His début was nothing less than spectacular; he became only the third Formula One driver in history to achieve both a pole and a podium position in his maiden grand prix.

He led the race until an oil leak, and team orders, forced him to slow and allow team mate Damon Hill to pass. He held on to finish second.

So is Hamilton the next Schumi or the next Jacque ?

P.S. Yesterdays race also had a spectacular crash by Robert Kubica. The fact that he survived with just a sprained leg is a testimonial of the safety standards set in Formula 1. (Move the video slider to 1:10 sec to quickly have a look at the crash)

In recent times Videos, especially streaming videos are becoming extremely popular. There are hundreds of video sharing sites that want to become the Flickr of online video world.

Most of the videos on these sites are encoded in Flash and if someone is interested in downloading the videos, he has to start searching for a video downloading software.

Also if you want to copy this video to your iPod or to your mobile device you need to search for a video converter.

Movavi Video Converter is an easy-to-use, powerful software that lets you convert video files to different formats in no time!

User Interface

The following snapshot gives a pretty good overview of all the features in Movavi Video Converter.

You can add multiple source files into the conversion list and you could optionally de-select items from the list by un-checking the checkbox.

Other than videos, you can also add DVD’s into the source file list. (Movavi video converter can be used to rip DVD’s as well)

Once the candidate for conversion are identified, you can use the Favorites or the Devices tab to choose the output video format. The path for the converted video is set on the “Output Directory” pane.

Movavi provides support for the following output video formats:

Alternatively you can use the Devices tab to choose the target device e.g iPod, Zune, PSP, Mobile Phone.

Any user who is not aware of the technical knowledge of the video formats should use either the “Favorites” or the “Devices” option for choosing the video output format.

The “Advanced” option lets you to customize the output format. For E.g. If you want the output format as FLV (Flash), you can choose the Advanced option and select the output video quality.

Other features

• Rip the audio from the videos (MP3/WMA)
• Using the Gallery option you can capture images from the videos.
• Convert only a segment of the video.
• Join Video files.

Minimum System Requirements

• Microsoft Windows 98SE/ME/2000/XP (installation of all recent updates is recommended)
• Intel or AMD or compatible processors at 1 GHz minimum
• Display graphics minimum resolution of 800x600x 32-bit color
• RAM 128 megabytes (MB)
• Minimum 40 MB of free hard disk space is needed for installation, minimum 300 Mb for proper operation
• Administrative permissions are required for installation
• CD/DVD ROM
• Sound card

However this feature rich video converter is not free and comes at a price. You can find more details on the pricing of the tool here.

Download Movavi Video Converter

No I am not talking about the recent film 300; I am referring to an amazing video on Youtube titled :
100 Movies, 100 Quotes and 100 Numbers.

The “100 Numbers” is what makes the video special. I am not sure how the the creator of the video managed to find references to these numbers. Is there any place where the movie scripts are put online ?

The creator of the video also has put in the list of the movies here

P.S. Thanks to Vasu for sharing the video link

GMail, Google’s free webmail service is a top class service in comparison to Microsoft’s Hotmail or Yahoo Mail.

GMail which was “invite only”, recently opened up its service worldwide to everyone. Now all you to need to get a GMail account is to signup

Now Google is even running Ads to promote GMail !!

No second thoughts, GMail’s spam filter is THE best and they are marketing the same via their ads.

If anyone is not using GMail as their primary E-Mail ID, its time to switch

Checkout this video (from Google) to get a quick overview of GMail’s features

Update

James has found another GMail Ad; this time showing GMail’s search feature

Update: The sofa appears to be made out of hundreds of thin, flat chair-shaped silhouettes, joined together by some kind of membrane in an accordion that can collapse down into a dictionary-think chunk or be spread out for feet on end, as a divan, chair or sofa. (via BoingBoing)

RSS Readers: If you cannot see the video, click here to watch it.

YouTube is the most popular free video sharing Web site which lets users upload, view, and share video clips.

A slew of Indian video hosting sites are also trying to become the YouTube of India. As of now there are 3 4 players a lot of players in this race !

MeraVideo – Redefining Desi Entertainment
ApnaTube – Desi Broadcasting
Infeedia – No Punch Line
AapkaVideo – Director Ban Jao
CanaraVideo – Upload,Watch and share !

I tried to play a video in Meravideo and the browser (Firefox) crashed. Not sure whom to blame ! Infeedia’s home page is slower than my website !

Clones generally don’t work unless there is some unique feature being offered. None of these site have anything unique compared to YouTube ! However some “Desi” videos might show up in these sites faster than YouTube

Update

Since the time I wrote this post many visitors have pointed me to a lot of other video sharing sites. Here is the udpated list:

Konkan TV
WisdomOfIndia TV
BollyWood Tube
LayFile – Seems to be a popular site;primarily because of steamy adult videos !
MotionFlicks – More of bollywood video content
VideoCurry – New kid on the block !
VideoChutney

Thanks to everyone for pointing out these sites, if any of you are the site owners and want to add more description, send the same using the contact page.

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Any Video Converter is an All-in-One video converting tool with easy-to-use graphical interface, fast converting speed and excellent video quality. It allows you to effortlessly convert video files between every format, for FREE! It can convert almost all video formats including DivX, XviD, MOV, rm, rmvb, MPEG, VOB, DVD, WMV, AVI to MPEG-4 movie format for iPod/PSP or other portable video device, MP4 player or smart phone.

Never heard of rm and rmvb formats ! Wonder why Flash is missing !

Videora is another similar tool for converting videos; I have used the Videora iPod converter to convert videos into MP4. (To be honest I hate watching videos on my iPod !)

Mac users might want to checkout Handbrake !

Any other better video converters ? Also didn’t seem to find any nice one for Linux !

Check out the trailer of The Last Legion starring Aishwarya Rai !

I never knew till now that she was starring in a Hollywood movie. If you saw the trailer completely one thing that you will notice immediately is the dialogue delivery by Aishwarya Rai ! Sounds pathetic !  Doesn’t it ?

This is the comment left on IMDB by a viewer who saw an early preview of this movie:

I saw an early screening of this movie. I went because I think Ben Kinglsey is a great actor so I thought it would b a great movie. I was dead wrong. My 2 friends as well as my brother and sister laughed throughout this whole movie because it was very poorly done. It might be one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Honestly, it is hard to ruin a movie that takes place during the Roman empire and the director somehow found a way to do it. The plot establishment is poor, you are left confused about many issues that never become readdressed and visually it looks too much like LOTR. I left this movie very disappointed but laughing due to how bad it was. My friend and I still laugh when we think about some of the horrible lines that were written into this movie. By the way, I was asked to stay in the focus group at the end because I put the movie was fair at best but I was sent home because too many people put fair and they didn’t need me to explain why also. All in all, do not see this movie, save yourself the time and the money.

I stumbled on this video in Youtube and its worth watching !

The video was created by Dony Permedi as a part of his Masters Thesis (Animation)

Scrybe, the online organizer is now open for Beta invitations.

Scrybe™ is a groundbreaking online organizer that caters to today´s lifestyle in a cohesive and intuitive way.

Check this official video, you will definitely be tempted to use it.

Scrybe is a Flash based organizer and off late I am seeing lot of flash based web applications including Gliffy and Laszlomail.

Again the above two app’s are developed using Openlaszlo which are written in XML and JavaScript and transparently compiled to Flash.

Checkout the complete video and if you are impressed signup for the beta here !

As many of the die hard Formula 1 fans might be knowing, last weeks Brazilian Grand Prix was Michael Schumacher’s last career race. I have been watching F1 from around 1995/96 and till now I have watched almost all the races with great enthusiasm.

With Schumachers exit, I am not sure If I will ever watch an F1 race with the same enthusiasm. I happened to see some funny videos on the Raceday Program (Star Sports), which was aired before the Brazil Grand Prix.

Here are the 3 videos:
1. Pit Stop

2. Is He Real ?

3. Club Smart

I am not sure if this guy is crazy or over energetic ! Check out these videos

Steve Selling MS Windows 1.0

Steve Ballmer Dance

Steve Ballmer “singing” developers !

A “video” of How video games are designed (Its a part of one of the episode of Discovery Channels “How Its Made” Series)

Trying out new things in WordPress is really an interesting and a challenging task. Few weeks back I tried to embed videos using Extreme Video Plugin. After a lot of tries and forum digging, I somehow couldn’t get it working. Today I found one more plugin called WPVideo.

Installation/Activation of the plugin went on fine (This is rarely a problem with any WP plugin). However I was not sure whether I could get in running.

The instruction was to use the YouTube Video URL within the video tag. Initially I tried to embed this in the HTML of the post. The WYSIWYG editor used to strip of the

Check out this video

Tags: WordPress Video Plugin, WPVideo, Extreme Video Plugin