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YouTube Movieclips

Google's YouTube has signed a deal with MovieClips.com to apparently replace the thousands of movie clips users have uploaded with authentic, licensed replacements.

The more than 20,000 licensed movie clips may be found at YouTube MovieClips, a partnership with the MovieClips.com site.

Using the company's proprietary technology, a team of Content Curators assigns up to 1,000 points of relevant data points to every scene relating to everything from action to mood to setting, and prop, the site said. "Our goal is to promote the discovery of movies," said MovieClips co-founder Richard Raddon, in a statement. "By making our clips accessible on the biggest video platform on the web, we unlock the power of movie clips to promote feature film purchase and rental."

What this means, then, is that users can search for "say hello to my little friend" and either see a number of clips on YouTube itself or the licensed, HD version of the climactic, violent conclusion to the Al Pacino classic, Scarface. It's worth noting that the clips on YouTube are just a few seconds long, while the Movieclips.com clip is 3 minutes and 30 seconds.

Click to continue reading 20,000 film scenes now available on YouTube


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comcast Internet essentials

Comcast is tapping into its altruistic side a little bit and deploying a brand-new service tier, one that's designed to bring the Internet to families that would otherwise be unable to pony up $40 to $60 for the company's lowest tiered plan.

Dubbed "Internet Essentials," Comcast's new plan will cost a family only $9.95 per month for a connection that features 1.5 Mbps download and 384 Kbps upload speeds. There's a guarantee of no price increases after-the-fact, as well as no activation fees or equipment rental fees for families signed up for the program. Enrollees will even be able to purchase a netbook computer via the Internet Essentials program for $149.99 (plus tax), and Comcast is offering free online and in-person "Internet training."

To join the program, however, families have to meet four different criteria: They have to be located in an area where Comcast can actually deliver Internet service (obviously), one of their children has to be receiving free school lunches via the National School Lunch Program, families must not have had Comcast Internet service up to 90 days prior to requesting to join the program, and families must not have an overdue Comcast bill or unreturned Comcast equipment.

Click to continue reading Comcast Internet Essentials brings broadband to low-income families for $10 a month


iCloud sign in

Developers can now move their MobileMe accounts over to iCloud. Apple has opened a new portal at me.com/move that allows devs to transition their entire account to the new platform.

When users log in through the portal, and Apple will port their Mail, Contacts, and iCal information to iCloud. It also says that iWeb, iDisk, and Photo Gallery will be accessible until June 30, 2012. However, Dashboard widget sync, dock item sync, keychains, signatures, mail account rules, mail smart boxes, and mail preferences are among the features that are no longer available.

But if you're not a developer, you're going to have to wait a little longer to move your account. Users trying to to log in with a standard MobileMe account and was met with a page telling me "this account is not yet eligible."

Click to continue reading Apple developers now able to migrate from MobileMe to iCloud


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iCloud Storage Pricing

Apple offers 5 GB of storage for free with any iCloud account, which they say should be fine for most users. However, if you've got more storage needs than that paltry 5 GB can handle, Apple has a few extra options on the table:

  • 10 GB for $20 per year
  • 20 GB for $40 per year
  • 100 GB for $100 per year

Do note that these are in addition to your free 5GB of storage. In other words, if you opt to pay for 10 GB a year, you will actually have 15 GB total--the 10 GB that you are paying for, plus the original 5 GB that's included. If you're a developer with an iCloud account, you can purchase your additional space starting now.


Apple just released an update for the Apple TV that brings a couple of new and welcome features to the platform. First, iCloud integration for television shows. There is a new "Purchased TV Shows" area that shows all shows that you have bought, either through the iTunes Store or from the original Apple TV (the current model doesn't allow purchasing, just renting.) You can go into this area for a list of shows you own, and then can drill into that show to see which episodes you've purchased, indicated by the iCloud logo. The other feature that the update brings is Vimeo support. You can now browse and play content from Vimeo, and if you have an account, you can even put in your credentials to access your inbox and mark videos you want to watch later.

The update is available now to all.

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Logitech Revue

The Logitech Revue price drop announced last week went into effect yesterday. The company also issued a clarification to deny that more customers are returning Google TV Revue boxes than buying them.

Starting Sunday, the Logitech Revue with Google TV is available for $99, down from $249. The company also said it will roll out an automatic software update later this summer, which will add Android 3.1, a simplified user experience, and access to the Android Market.

The price drop is the second for the Revue this year; Logitech dropped it from $299 to $249 in May. That, however, did not help sales and during a recent earnings call, the company said that "returns of the product were higher than the very modest sales."

Logitech later issued a clarification to say that it did not mean that more Revues were being returned than purchased.

Click to continue reading Logitech Revue dropped to $99, company clarifies customer returns comment


spotify invites

Spotify launched in the US last week to much fanfare, but the problem is that it's currently an invite-only service if you wanna use the free music streaming part of it. If you've been crestfallen while watching your friends get their jam on while you've been left out, there's hope! We've got fifty (that's 5-0) Spotify invites to hand out, and we're hooking our Twitter followers up. Do you wanna win one? Of course! Here's how:

We'll DM the first 50 people who get that tweet out there with a Spotify invite code, so watch your inboxes!


netflix mad menWe told you that Netflix had secured Mad Men for a July 27th debut on Watch Instantly, and now we're here to remind you that the first four seasons of the hit show will be available to instantly stream starting tomorrow. Now that Netflix Watch Instantly is a $7.99 per month product, it's good to see some quality content appearing on the service, right?

Read More | TV Envy

Google Labs closingGoogle is shutting down its Google Labs experimental project incubator as part of an effort at "simplifying and streamlining" the company's product lines, the search giant revealed on its official blog Wednesday.

Referencing Google CEO Larry Page's recent memo to employees explaining the company's decision to retire its Google Health and PowerMeter services, Bill Coughran, a Google senior vice president for research and systems infrastructure, wrote that shuttering Google Labs was also part of the company's new agenda of "prioritizing our product efforts."

"While we've learned a huge amount by launching very early prototypes in Labs, we believe that greater focus is crucial if we're to make the most of the extraordinary opportunities ahead," Coughran wrote in a blog post titled "More wood behind fewer arrows."

"In many cases," he wrote, "this will mean ending Labs experiments—in others we'll incorporate Labs products and technologies into different product areas. And many of the Labs products that are Android apps today will continue to be available on Android Market."

Click to continue reading Google closing Google Labs to streamline product lines


bing twitter

Having recently lost a Google contract that added tweets to the company's search results, Twitter is treading shaky waters in ongoing negotiations with Microsoft over a similar use arrangement.

According to All Things D's Liz Gannes, there are a few pain points over which the two companies are currently chatting. But, if successfully negotiated, Microsoft could ultimately land the keys to the real-time kingdom: long-term access to the real-time updates provided by both Facebook and Twitter, which would accompany the site's standard search results.

The two companies have six extra months to hammer out the details—Twitter signed real-time search contracts with Google and Microsoft in the fall of 2009, but Microsoft got a slightly longer timeframe than its big competition. Twitter is allegedly asking for an increased licensing fee for use of its real-time information: $30 million, or double the cost of the company's original contract with Microsoft.

Click to continue reading Microsoft and Twitter working on new deal for Bing integration


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