Youtube’s popularity was revolutionary. Since then, the site has failed to bring papa Google any happiness and has pretty much dropped the ball in terms of innovation. Youtube recently purchased Omnisio to try to spice things up, but the latest news regarding Youtube’s speech-to-text technology is what I find most promising interesting. Youtube is now capable of “listening” to the audio of a clip and transcribing it into rich metadata whcih can be embedded in the video and can be searchable by users. Pretty cool stuff, and you should try it.
Year: 2008
California Sets Some Standards (and approves a green building code too)
Good news for those who live in the happiest state on earth. California just unanimously approved the first ever statewide green building code that will not only cut the energy usage of new structures but also is looking to tackle the oncoming water crisis by reducing water used in all structures as well as in landscaping. I would be more pleased, however, if the use of eco-friendly construction materials was more than just “advocated”. Things are far from over though for California as this act will not be put into action until 2010 and the fact that California uses more gas than China is still a ridiculous truth.
Disney’s “The Princess and the Frog”
Not a Harry Potter fan? Here’s another recently released teaser trailer that should get you in a tizzy.
Disney is bringing back the hand drawn animated musical feature with “The Princess and The Frog“, a movie set in New Orleans and featuring a black princess. Not sure what Disney is trying to do with this one, but it is directed by the guys who brought us “The Little Mermaid” and “Aladdin” so it can’t possibly fail.
Not a Harry Potter fan or a Disney animation fan? Hopefully the yet to be overhyped James Bond movie “Quantum of Solace” can get your cold heart ticking.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Trailer
Not a huge Harry Potter fan myself but I know some people are pretty excited that the trailer is now out. Would embed it here but can’t find any high quality copies on youtube.
Alzheimer’s Drug Yields Promising Results
Some pretty hopeful results from a new Alzheimer’s drug, Rember. Designed to target the protein tangles inside nerve cells of the brain called Tau, the drug has created an 81% difference in mental decline of 300+ test patients.
Why Would Anyone Want to Work for Diddy?
Editors Note: A sure sign of a slow blogging day – one post covering MTV/VH1 and/or P. Diddy
So one of VH1’s upcoming hot new shows is “I Want to Work for Diddy“. While watching the long trailer during a commercial break, I realized that I will never watch TV again. After those few minutes of anger, laughter, rage, and sobbing, I vaguely remember a contestant saying that having Diddy on their resume was a golden ticket. Diddy also proclaimed that working as his assistant is the best training available to become a future CEO. Considering the public humiliation, the odds of actually winning, and the fact that Diddy has no idea what a CEO is, I am more than content with a college degree and some extracurriculars on my resume. I could rant in more detail, but I’m pretty sure Diddy (with the support of MTV) will give me something to write about in the future.
Cool Cuil
Cuil is a new search engine launched last night by a superstar team of ex-Google employees. The search engine is speculated to be a “Google-killer” with claims that it provides a larger index than Google and better search results with some related-words technology. The site also has an interesting interface and issues with uptime.
My opinion? I hate it. A search for “Jason Chou” produces horrible results. “Misterchou” produces no matches. Google is much more me friendly.