The free account limits your videos to 60 seconds, and your messages are cleared from your inbox after 30 days, though you can save the videos to your PC. For $30 a year you can upgrade to an account that allows you to send videos as long as 5 minutes, and they are never purged from your inbox. A paid account also loses the advertising that accompanies your free videos, and offers mobile access, along with a few other additional services.

You can then take a snapshot to use in your profile, and which will accompany your videos, and provide other personal information, if you wish, though keep in mind that this will also be seen on your public page. However, your videos are private unless you check the “Publicly viewable” option in your inbox.

Tomorrow: your best desktop-search options.

My only question is how the increased use of video mail via such services as Eyejot will affect network throughput. For many years the people who manage the Internet backbone, and the many private networks that connect to it, have warned that video would ultimate clog the networks, which were designed to handle text and other simpler data types. I have a strong feeling that the Internet will find a way to accommodate the growing demand for video, whether by migrating to such technologies as Internet2 or IPv6, or by finding ways to squeeze more bandwidth out of current methods.

When e-mail was young (and dinosaurs ruled the earth), no doubt some IT managers swore that there was no way the people in their organization were ever going to have access to that time-waster. “Haven’t we already provided them with telephones?” Same for Web browsers, which some workplaces still ban, or at least restrict severely.

The Flash-based service works with all operating systems and most webcams, and it follows the TrustE privacy policy. Eyejot has recently added a Site Widget that lets you add the service to your own Web site, as well as the ability to receive Eyejot messages via iTunes and RSS. There’s even an Eyejot browser toolbar, though I didn’t try this service, in part because on my 17-inch monitor I need all the browsing room I can get.

View Eyejot's Flash-based videos in your browser off the company's server, or download them to your PC.

When you receive a video message, you simply click the image to open the video in a new browser window. As the video plays you’re given the option to download it to your PC, or you can click the download link for the file in your Eyejot inbox.

After you sign up for your Eyejot account, the video mail you received is waiting in your inbox on the site.

But the topper is that the service our son uses to send us the videos is free, and one that he uses in his business as a commercial real estate broker to connect with clients and associates. Eyejot has been in beta for about a year, but it couldn’t be easier to use. Simply create an account by providing an e-mail address and a name, and then log into your inbox. If you’ve already received Eyejot videos at the e-mail address, they’ll be waiting in your inbox, along with a “Welcome” video.

I’m sure they have their reasons, but for most workers it would be difficult to deny the productivity boost these new technologies provide. Now the same restrictive IT mentality may be blocking the playback and recording of video. Yes, much corporate bandwidth is clogged with highlights of last night’s Timberwolves-Raptors game (an epic matchup, no doubt), but other companies are using video to gain an edge on the competition.

Sony Ericsson’s newest secret agent–the C902

Bumpy start for China’s homegrown 3G

Corporate giants push into clean-tech venture investing

Legendary video game designer Will Wright’s new game Spore, which has been in the works for years, is almost out. But just how well will it fare in the wild? CNET News’ Daniel Terdiman explains.

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Can ‘Spore’ meet its lofty expectations?

If you’re a James Bond fan–and c’mon, who isn’t?–there are lots of high-tech toys you can buy. But how about one that also offers real-world applications: (And no, it won’t explode if it falls into the wrong hands.)

Google’s translation center: humans helping the search machine?

We’ve seen more than a little interest in Dell’s radically revamped Latitude line of business laptops. Our new review of the 14-inch Latitude E6400 is already one of the most-viewed laptops on CNET.

The previous Latitude design

While we liked the excellent battery life and copious security features (and the backlit keyboard), you can get most of those from any decent business-minded laptop. What really stood out is the new brushed-metal design, which is a serious departure from the previous gray Latitude look, a staple of cubicle culture for several years.

Another view of the E6400

Same pose, with the D630

The new Latitude E6400

(Credit:
Daniel Terdiman/CNET Networks)

But now, the company is expanding the XNA offering to allow the best community-created games to be uploaded to and distributed from Xbox Live.

Satchell also offered up another of the most notable pieces of news in the Microsoft keynote. He said that it would now be possible to take games created using the XNA tools and put them on Zunes, the company’s portable music players.

For Microsoft, the Xbox 360–which has become a hard-to-find game machine recently–has been a winner, with seven titles selling more than a million copies during the 2007 holiday season. The Xbox is currently the leader in total sales among the three next-gen consoles.

“This is gaming created by the community, managed by the community, and enjoyed by everyone,” Satchell said.

There are more than 100,000 clips uploaded every day, a number he said was 30 percent higher than the number of YouTube clips added daily.

Microsoft is calling the new offering its “Creators Club,” and the idea is to present the Xbox Live and XNA communities with a way to create games using the XNA tools, submit them for peer review, and then put the best of them up on Xbox Live.

Microsoft unveiled its Creators Club, an initiative that will allow community members to have their games distributed on Xbox Live.

In addition, he said that one feature built into Microsoft’s hit game Halo 3–a tool that would allow players to upload video clips from their play to Xbox Live–has generated unprecedented popularity.

All told, Satchell said, the XNA Studio initiative has proved to be a success. He said that since the tools were first introduced in 2006, there have been more than 800,000 copies downloaded.

For his part, Schappert began the keynote with some impressive statistics about the video game industry.

Essentially, he explained, just about any game created by someone in the community would be eligible to be included in Xbox Live, though he did say that peer reviewers would be tasked with excluding those with “objectionable” content. He didn’t define it. It’s probably a little bit of that old Supreme Court definition of obscenity.

There were a few additional tidbits, such as the fact that Grand Theft Auto IV would be available for the Xbox on April 29, and that Gears of War 2 would be released this November.

For several years, Microsoft has been working on its XNA Studio, a platform that allows anyone to create games for the
Xbox and for Windows.

That was pretty much the noteworthy news from what was altogether a fairly mundane keynote address.

He said that the industry netted $18 billion in revenue in the United States in 2007, a figure that now not only eclipses Hollywood box office figures, but also worldwide music revenues.

SAN FRANCISCO–In a frenetic keynote address at the Game Developers Conference here, Microsoft showed off the next phase of a strategy it claims will “democratize” game development and distribution.

And because the
Zune is a wireless device, he added, Zune games can be multiplayer. Additionally, music from someone’s Zune library can be used as the soundtrack for a game.

He talked at length about the Creators Club initiative, explaining how game developers in the community would be able to get their games examined for possible inclusion.

And while Microsoft Corporate Vice President John Schappert was designated the actual keynote speaker, the most important news that emerged from the talk was delivered by Chris Satchell, head of Microsoft’s game development group.

The New York Times is reporting that HBO is launching its own online distribution service for a portion of its content both past and present. Starting this week, lucky residents of Green Bay and Milwaukee, Wisconsin will be the first to get dibs on the new software application that can be set up to download and stack episodes old and new that can be watched on their PCs. Cable provider Time Warner (the same folks working on the lovely bandwidth metering down in Texas) is sending out the application on an CD to current HBO subscribers “soon.”

HBO Subscribers are getting a slightly better end of the deal than their Showtime counterparts as long as they’re willing to watch the shows on their PCs and forgo bringing the programming with them on portable devices. I’m still interested to see how much legacy programming HBO intends to offer in its first few months, as two of the key reasons for piracy are people simply not wanting to buy DVDs or missing the episode within its initial TV window. Isn’t this what they created on-demand programming for in the first place?

Already there are a few caveats to using the fancy new software. For one, the application is limited to Windows machines, and unlike standard network television channels, Internet users can’t access the programming without being an HBO subscriber–a system that’s likely to be checked with activation servers. The downloaded content is also given a self-expiration date of one month, regardless of whether or not it’s been watched. In many ways it’s similar to the BBC’s efforts with the iPlayer project, both in helping people catch up on old episodes, and attempting to curb piracy with easy access.

commentary

One firm with whom I’ve never formally worked but would engage in a heartbeat is Benchmark Capital. Matt Aslett of The 451 Group gets it exactly right in calling out Benchmark as the secret sauce behind a majority of the industry’s successful open-source ventures…and exits:

There are a range of venture capitalists that I like and would work with in a venture. At Alfresco I’ve been fortunate to work with Robin Vasan (Mayfield) and Kevin Comolli (Accel). I’d happily work with either again. They are entrepreneurial and empathetic. They’re also helpful in cracking into a wide range of companies.

[Peter] Fenton made his investments in JBoss, Zimbra and XenSource while at Accel. Benchmark also invested in Zimbra, via Kevin Harvey who led the investment in MySQL [and Red Hat]. JBoss, sold to Red Hat for $350m; XenSource, sold to Citrix for $500m; Zimbra, sold to Yahoo for $350m; and MySQL, sold to Sun Microsystems for $1bn. Whether you are a supporter of the current consolidation in open source vendors or not, you’ve got to hand it to Fenton/Benchmark when it comes to picking winners.

P.S. Matt (Aslett): Here’s a little-known fact. It was actually Benchmark Europe that got John Newton and John Powell together for the first time to start a company called Activiti. When that didn’t pan out, the two stayed together to start…Alfresco. Benchmark has its hands in more fruitful open-source companies than maybe even the formal record would show.

The Illusion PC, entry No. 911 in the Next-Gen PC Design Competition.

The design makes the PC appear to have no inner components. The designer says the aim was to make the computer not look like a computer, and when turned off to look just like a household decorative object.

The cube measures 8.25 inches on each side and uses a Mini-ITX mainboard, 200-watt mini-PSU, and slot-loading DVD burner meant for laptops. It has room for up to two standard desktop hard drives. The Illusion can also come with a mini 6-inch monitor and TV tuner card as options. A small wireless keyboard and air mouse are used to control the PC.

(Credit:
NextGenDesignComp.com)

While it’s intended as a home theater PC, it could also be custom built to consumers’ tastes, the designer says.

This prototype design can. The Illusion PC is one of thousands of entries into the Next-Gen PC Design competition sponsored by Microsoft. Gizmodo spotted it, and I have to agree that it pulls off a pretty nifty visual trick.

Click here to see the other equally awesome finalists in the competition.

In case you’re unfamiliar with them, VoIP services leverage your broadband Internet connection to let you make and receive phone calls. The experience is virtually identical to using a landline, and in most cases you can keep your existing number.

If you’ve been thinking about saving money on phone service by switching to voice over IP, allow ViaTalk to entice you: Sign up now for the standard $199-per-year rate, which includes unlimited local and long-distance calling, and you’ll get a second year free.

A Linksys phone adapter is included free when you sign up for ViaTalk

(Credit:
Linksys)

Bottom line: ViaTalk was already a deal at $199 per year, but $199 for two years? Well, that’s twice as good. Of course, if you really want to talk cheap (and don’t need all the fancy features), look no further than the MagicJack, which offers a full year of service for just $40 (and $20/year after that).

ViaTalk provides a boatload of calling features as part of their “vt_unlimited” plan, everything from voice mail and caller ID to call recording and scheduled wake-up calls. You also get a free phone adapter, which plugs into your router or broadband modem.

Find more deals, coupon codes, and bargains on CNET’s Shopper.com.

The app’s not out yet, unfortunately.

Somewhat related: Those trying to get to the wedding can use the Carpool app.

What I really like is that Connected Weddings will create seating charts for your wedding reception, based on the Facebook connections between your invitees. You can overrule the placements, but this concept is just cool. As anyone who’s planned their own wedding knows, figuring out who to seat where is a difficult topology problem, and it’s great to see the “social graph” applied to this real-world exam test.

Nothing could have caused more uproar in the blogosphere about Twitter than followers suddenly disappearing. We have all complained about and tolerated Twitter’s downtime issues, but seemingly losing your hard-earned followers is something that users might not stand for.

Even if Twitter is able to fix this problem, it is clear that confidence in the company is shaken. The ever-enthusiastic Louis Gray chimed in, saying, “Every time I think they’ve captured the market on a single route to failure, they find another way.” There is no doubt that Twitter’s service is a crowd favorite and everyone is dying to see them succeed and break into the mainstream, but they just keep shooting themselves in the foot with incidents like this. Individually, these sort of problems are tolerable, but when they are all lumped together, like they have been with Twitter, people are not going to stand for it. If Twitter fails, it’s not going to be because of other sites like FriendFeed. It’s going to be because of themselves.

Sarah Perez, at ReadWriteWeb, speculates that the problems arose due to a malfunction of the “Twitter anti-spam bot.” As you can see in the image above, I lost 13 percent of my Twitter followers in one fell swoop. Other users have reported a drop in followers still as high as 28 percent, although it appears that the problems are being fixed even as we speak.

Update
We just received an update on the situation from Biz Stone, over at Twitter. He writes, “Some users lost followers as a result of an error during a database upgrade. We replaced followers last night and will be replacing followers today. This is not related to the spam initiative we blogged about the other day.” At least Twitter is hard at work trying to remedy the situation.

In an update on the issue on Twitter’s status blog, the company said that they are working on restoring the correct follower/following counts. They go on to say that, “Even after this recovery is complete, your counts may appear lower than previously…The counts we display on your profile page are not always up-to-date…when we remove spammers from the system (which we’ve been doing a lot lately), the follower counts are not updated in real-time.” Even though it’s great that Twitter is trying to sort through its problems with spammers, decreasing someone’s number of followers is going to cause some backlash if it is not communicated properly. The removal of followers, due to spam, may have even gone unnoticed if it wasn’t for this larger issue highlighting it.