Youtube - Now With Captions

YouTube announced on November 2009, on launching a new automatic caption service. The service was good but limited, it offered English captions but those were found only on 13 of YouTube’s streaming channels. These include National Geographic, Columbia, as well as most Google and YouTube channels. But, from this day and on, all users will be able to use Google’s speech recognition technology, in order to create subtitles for their content.

Google already admitted that the new technology is not perfect, nevertheless it still provides a better solution than manually captioning the content. In a demonstration held the phrase “sim card” became “salmon” in text, but Google also promises that the technology “will continue to improve with time”.

Automatic captioning, will allow the hearing impaired to enjoy video content over the web, without any need for additional help or program. In addition, the service will allow watching content with no need for speakers, that might intrude the surrounding environment. The automatic captioning service, is currently supporting only English soundtracks, but Google says that making it international is its top priority and it is only a matter of time before they will achieve that.

Still, that does not mean you won’t be able to enjoy the clips in your own language. The English subtitles could be translated with one button click to any of the 50 languages supported by Google’s translation service.

How will it work? Upon uploading a video to the site, the user would be able to create an automatic caption of the clip’s soundtrack and then fix it manually, if there is a need. The user then, would be able to download the subtitles file to the personal computer in a SUB or SRT file format. Users who already uploaded content, are expected to find a new button for requesting captions for their existing content. According to Google, processing each video could take some time. Hence, Google promises to add more servers if users will experience a slow service.

One of the big challenges of the video medium is whether it can be made accessible to everyone, and now Google is raising the standard and doing just that. In the web 2.0 age, where “content is king”, Google- the web’s searching giant, will become even bigger by “writing down” and indexing every video we have got.

Omer Shachnai

The CEO Game.

Apple had launched the iTunes Music Store for the first time in the US in April of 2003. By the end of that year, Apple had sold more than 25 million songs. Three years later, on February 2006, business was still a booming and sales reached one billion. Now, seven years since iTunes’ debut, another achievement was reached: 10 billion songs sold. Amazingly and even more, if you recall that it was only a while ago Apple was celebrating crossing the five billion songs sold barrier. On February 24, 2010, just a couple of days ago, Apple’s song download counter hit the mark, something it has been counting down to for the last two weeks.

iTunes

The tenth billion song was sold on February 24, as aforementioned, which happens to be Steve Jobs, Apple’s well famous CEO’s birthday. The 10 billionth song, “Guess Things Happen That Way” by Johnny Cash, was downloaded by Louie Sulcer of Woodstock, Georgia. As the winner on Apple’s 10 Billion Songs Countdown contest, Louie will receive a $10,000 iTunes Gift Card, which can buy some 7000 of the hottest songs, or 14,500-20,000 songs on sale. Simply, Plenty. The card can also be used to buy iPhone apps from the app store.

The iTunes online music store is considered one of the “saviors” of the music industry: it revolutionized the entire industry and the way we consume music. Moreover, it has been the first online store which reached such widespread sales and thus, made all label companies shift their activities to the Internet. The sales increased rapidly and constantly and on the last quarter, Apple made a hefty profit of 520$ million from songs sold.

“This has been the birth of legal downloading,” Apple CEO Steve Jobs said, when it was first launched in 2003. “We are going to fight illegal downloading by competing with it. We aren’t going to sue it. We’re not going to ignore it. We’re going to compete with it. With iTunes you are supporting artists. You’re not stealing. It’s good karma”. Clearly, it is good karma. Especially for Apple which has used the store to become America’s number one music vendor in a short time.

To celebrate the milestone, Apple published the all-time bestsellers in the store’s history. Leading in the top of the list, is the song, “I Gotta Feeling” by the Black Eyed Peas, that also take the third place with “Boom Boom Pow”. Between them, in the second place you can find “Poker Face” by the provocative Lady Gaga. In the fourth place, “I’m Yours” by Jason Mraz and in the fifth place “Viva la Vida” by the British band of Coldplay.

But, It isn’t Apple’s only milestone lately. Just a month ago, the app store (Apple’s online application store) passed three billion downloads, a huge feat, particularly when you consider that the app store is younger than iTunes.

In conclusion, that’s billions in revenue that iTunes has generated for the entire music industry, but also billions that Apple has done for itself and while competitors came up, none even reached Apple’s dominance. Well “Guess Things Happen That Way” indeed.

Omer Shachnai

The CEO Game.

Carson River Community Bank from Nevada held 51.5 million dollars in assets and 50 million dollars in deposits, while Rainier Pacific Bank from Washington held 717.8 million dollars in assets and 446.2 million dollars in deposits. The closing of River bank will cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund 7.9 million dollar, while closing Rainier bank will cost 95.2 million dollar to the fund.

Rainier Pacific Bank.

According to estimations  by fund officials, closing bank rate is expected to overcome in the coming months. The “problematic” banks list of the insurance fund in the fourth quarter climbed to 702 from 552 in the previous quarter, although the industry recorded a small profit.

The banks earned 914 million dollars in the fourth quarter, compared to the loss of 37.8 billion dollars during the same period last year, which is considered the climax of the crisis. Still, nearly one in three banks has reported a loss last quarter.

During the year of 2009- 140 banks were closed, the highest number since 1992. These closers have cost the Deposit Insurance Fund more than 30 billion dollars. In comparison, during 2008- 25 banks were closed, while during 2007 only 3 banks were closed. The Deposit Insurance Fund estimates that the cost of closing the banks will climb to 100 billion dollars during the next four years.

Lucy.

The CEO Game.

The US armed forces are connecting to Twitter, Facebook and other web 2.0 social networks that are based on users’ content. The Defense Department, had announced on Friday, on a new policy, which authorizes the use of social networks from military computers that aren’t connected to the army’s intra-secured network. The Pentagon officials behind the announcement, also claimed the new policy will allow to quickly share information and data and will increase the cooperation among the different armed forces.

Farmville

The new policy comes after a seven-month long review, in which the Defense Department looked over the threats and benefits of allowing the use of these Internet services. The new directive practically seeks to manage the risks while recognizing the Internet is a powerful tool for a great number of tasks such as recruiting, cooperation with a wide range of people, communication between soldiers and their families and even, yes, public relations, which are in need, in these days.

Nevertheless, the announcement protruded the importance of data protection. The new policy gives commanders the right to cut off access to the web for a specified time only, in order to guard security and the integrity of military operations. The policy also standardizes all the previous web related commands across the entire department. Workers of the Defense Department and the army, still are prohibited to visit certain sites such as gambling, pornography and hatred sites on military computers.

Up to this point, the official policy of the Defense Department was not to allow access to social networks and other services, in order to prevent the leakage of classified data. Moreover, access to YouTube, MySpace and more than a dozen other sites was blocked due to bandwidth usage and now will be allowed to use once again. David M. Wennergren, US deputy assistant secretary of defense for information technology, says the Pentagon can no longer treat social networks as a safety threat only and the new policy recognizes the need to be both “responsible and use these tools to help get the job done”.

Makes you wonder, whether the guys at the Defense Department ever took into consideration the implications on the soldiers’ personal time usage and priorities.

Omer Shachnai

The CEO Game.

In the heart of downtown Chicago, in the corner of LaSalle street and Washington street, lies the historical town center which was founded in 1911. Its architecture tries to replicate the classic era, with Roman pillars who surround the building from all around. But, the most interesting thing about the building can only be viewed from high above: the building has 1,886 square feet of gardens on top.

Chicago's City Hall

Those gardens are botanical gardens in fact, which are composed of 20 thousand plants of 150 different species, with vines and apple trees, and beautiful pastures amongst them. The entire irrigation system of the gardens is based on rainwater. The man behind the roof, is Chicago’s mayor, Richard Dally, who had promised to make Chicago the “greenest city in America”. He gathered the funds from compensations the town hall had received from the local electric company ComEd. According to him, since its completion in 2001 the green rooftop saves some 3,600$ yearly on cooling in the top floors of the building and moreover, it is considered a popular tourist attraction in the city.

“It wasn’t easy to explain to anyone what a green rooftop is, in those years”, comments Kimberly Warthington, a chief executive in the environment department of Chicago’s town hall. “In the fire station, they refused to give us permissions cause they thought it was too weird. I also recall one of the contractors thought a green roof meant a rooftop that is actually painted in green!”.

Since the foundation of this “hanging garden”, more than 300 additional gardens where planted on Chicago’s rooftops. Altogether they sum up to 1.5 million square feet. Chicago’s lovely roof gardens not only look good, they also improve the isolation of the top floors of the buildings which on top they are planted, and save a lot of air conditioning expenses. In addition, they turn CO2 to oxygen, attract birds, take advantage of rainwater which otherwise would have been wasted, reduce the amount of noise drawing from the building and also will help fight the urban “heat islands”-metropolitan areas which are significantly warmer than its surrounding rural areas because of the bare concrete which attracts heat.

In conclusion, the green rooftops seem to be a bright new environmental growing trend and one of the first green initiatives the world’s cities and countries are actually pulling off.

We will continue next time, to see how is this initiative doing over in other countries. Another green project you might like: winds of change, on a new self powered, wind driven tower in London.

Omer Shachnai

The CEO Game.

Who would have thought that a 2.5£ million penthouse will be offered to take in Elephant and Castle? One of London’s more controversial districts, that many believe is a disaster sprung from plans that went wrong way back in the 60’s. The southern district which is less than 3.2 kilometer far from Westminster, was always described as simple, grayish and ordinary. On the contrary, the new emerging tower in the heart of it, the “Strata SE1″ residential block is anything but ordinary. The 43 floor tall building will be the highest residential tower in London according to the “Financial Times”.

London's New Hope?

The skyscraper’s height is “174.9 meter”, said Karl Debenfort from Chestreton Homberts real estate agency, “but he looks almost twice as tall, you can see it from any street corner in London. It is a symbol for a better future throughout the area”. The tower is the most protruded project out of many regeneration projects, which are the goals of an ambitious plan to change the area. The Strata, which is expected to be open in April, contains 408 apartments, amongst them you can find: studio apartments for 285£ thousand, one bedroom apartments for 369£ thousand, two bedroom apartments for 495£ thousand and penthouses for 2.5£ million.

The first ten floors are given over to affordable housing and the top eight boast penthouses with views across London. The tower which is already nicknamed by the locals as the “Razor” because of its similarity to an electric shaver, was designed by the architecture firm Hamiltons and is both revolutionary and functional- the building’s rooftop will include three wind turbines which will provide the electricity need for the entire building (it will still be connected to the city’s power lines, just in case). When the blades, nine meters across, are lifted into place later this month they will help create the first “wind farm” of its kind to be integrated into a building.

Nick Stanton, leader of Southwark council, which is the driving force behind the regeneration of Elephant and Castle, says: “We want to give people space and smaller buildings on smaller developments that are green and safe, with better homes, shops, community facilities and a new park.” In conclusion, the Strata is a bright positive change set in the heart of an urban catastrophe which is now undergoing a green make over and is hoping to wind up just like Pittsburgh did a few years ago.

Want to learn more? Try the Elephant and Castle Regeneration Project on Wikipedia.

Omer Shachnai

The CEO Game.

What's all the fuzz about?

Here are some opinions we gathered from users who already made up their mind about Google Buzz:

• Google CEO must apologize: “Whoever made the decision to make all our contacts visible to all other contacts in Google Inc. should apologize profusely, because that person doesn’t have a clue about what privacy means. If the person, even if it is the CEO, doesn’t apologize, he/she should be fired.”
• Excellent work Google: “Who would have thought it’d be possible to juxtapose Google and Microsoft for the roles of “evil corporate entity” and “solid technological concern!” Wow, you out evil’ed MS just as they started getting their shit together and are bringing competitive tools to the table. Fantastic!”
• Like having a really terrible day- every day: “Facebook is you stepping out to greet the day with shoes, socks, pants, a full tummy, some coffee and a shower. Buzz is you being dragged effing directly out of bed and onto the front porch naked at 5am.”
• Force-fed features are a NO-GO: “I did not want. I immediately scrolled to the bottom to turn it off. It of course it re-loaded the next time. I am REALLY mad about the privacy issue.”
• Breach of trust: “I am a lawyer. The names of clients, witnesses, investigators, and expert witnesses are all confidential, and Google just breached the trust that my clients have in me to keep ALL of their information confidential. I signed up for email. Not social networking. We can no longer trust Google. They do not appreciate our privacy. Lawyers must immediately cease using Google provided services since they breach our client’s privacy.”
• What happened to Wave: “What happened to Google Wave, a seemingly far superior service, one that could actually change the way we socially network and not merely augment e-mail with broadcasting? Wave is way better- more private, more content, better interface. Why they forced Buzz on people but have kept Wave in sem-private beta is beyond me.”

In conclusion, although Google’s shot at creating a social network seems like a bright idea, many users have already turned away from the service. The most recurring comments talk about a breach of trust or how Google simply did what it preached against all along.

So if you have been Buzzed, and want to share as well like these guys did on the web, please tell us how it made you feel, whether you liked or disliked it, whether you found some bugs or just made a revelation about the service that everybody has got to know.

Omer Shachnai

The CEO Game.

Eric Schmidt.

• Congress should help start-ups. He claims that smaller businesses should be able to compete with their larger rivals: “They don’t need favors, just a level playing field. Congress should ensure that every bill it passes promotes competition over protecting the interests of incumbents”.
• We need to realize that not everything we do will succeed. “If we want to be a leader in new industries such as green energy, we have to accept that some of our investments won’t pan out.” Schmidt says there are no 100 percent successful innovative programs and society must become tolerant to failure on the way.
• Extend R&D taxes. Schmidt wants more emphasis on our knowledge base: “The decision by Congress to double science funding last year was a big step in the right direction. Now we need to extend the R&D tax credit so businesses can confidently invest in their future.”
• More government support for broadband is critical. “Government-funded research should be made public through “a Wikipedia of ideas,” so entrepreneurs can harness ideas commercially.”
• Let me hire foreigners. Eric requests to hang on to talented people: “The best and brightest from around the world come to study at U.S. universities. After graduation, they are forced to leave because they can’t get visas. It’s ridiculous.

In conclusion in his letter the searching giant’s CEO lays out what he thinks should be done in order to fight the high unemployment rate, the lack of innovation which is also known as the “innovation deficit” and more. He believes we have everything we need in order to climb out of this downhill, and that information and innovation are the keys to success.
Omer  Shachnai

The CEO Game.

Fancy buying a circus?

Times also reports the sell is intended to raise money which will help deal with the massive debts that “DubaiWorld”, the investment capital of the Persian Gulf residing emirate, has accumulated. The debts sum up to 22$ billion, and experts predict that the DubaiWorld’s financial advisors will try and sell each property seperately instead of trying to locate a single purchaser for the entire portfolio. “Istithmar World” which is a private investment arm of DubaiWorld holds most of the properties which will be put up for grab.

Just like DubaiWorld, Istithmar World was founded in order to make hefty profits in a time of prosperity in the world’s capital markets, which ended with the beginning of the sub-prime crisis and the credit absence which followed. Amongst the rest Istithmar purchased Barney’s, New York’s W and Oriental Mandarin Hotels (which was sold 283$ million short lately) and as aforementioned prime real estate in the heart of London. By the way, 2.2% ownership of the Standard Chartered Bank is worth a nice round billion dollar.

Istithmar funded all these by investing some 18$ billion between 2003 and 2007. “Only” 3.8$ of this sum was funded by Istithmar own money, as for the rest of it- loans did the trick. In that shopping spree, Istithmar acquired its crown jewel the QE2 luxury boat- which is one of the biggest of its kind. The boat was bought by the foundation in June 2007 for 100$ million, in order to make it a floating luxury hotel near the coast of Dubai.

The plan never succeeded and now the boat itself is offered for purchase. All the sales will be conducted by the major accounting firm Deloitte and Touche, which is in charge of DubaiWorld’s entire debt “rendition” operation. One last thing, in case you do decide to buy the circus or the boat if you wish, you must get a permission first for DubaiWorld’s biggest creditors: HSBC, Lloyds and the Royal Bank of Scotland. “Bona fortuna” and enjoy your shopping.
 

Omer Shachnai

The CEO Game.

Go search for your friends in Google. The goal of the new service is to allow sharing friends with links, RSS feeds, media content such as Picasa’s galleries or YouTube clips, addresses books and to allow status updates as well, just like in Twitter. Buzz will be mobile friendly and even support the iPhone and it’s URL is buzz.google.com.

Anytime Anywhere. Those mobile users will also be able to inform Buzz of their Geographic whereabouts, and therefore not only update what’s going on but where. The social network will also be available as a new GIS layer in Google’s maps service, Google Earth.

Security and Privacy. Google promises to advanced and easy security settings and moreover privacy settings such as blocking user from watching your updates, and removing them from the loop, the friend update list. Of course you will be able to watch the updates of other users who aren’t your friends, but have made their updates and statuses public.

Google has also announced future plans to create an enterprise version of Buzz which will be designated for inner organization communication. The company said that Gmail users, will soon start seeing the social network’s features in their mailboxes, while other users will be able to get more information from the site which will launch soon.

In Conclusion Google’s new Buzz, will definitely fuel the raging feud amongst the social networks and it might just be the next big thing. It sounds promising and definitely something to watch out for especially when Google says the next step is “to dial Buzz”.

Omer Shachnai

The CEO Game.