VLC 2.0 first look: Video player app features new single-window UI and robust media support

A few days ago we told you VideoLAN was readying version 2.0 of its popular video player and now the company has made the final version available for download. This latest version is a major update which features a completely re-designed UI, full-screen support on Lion and experimental support for Blu-ray discs.

I've been a long-time fan of VLC and gave this latest version a test run. As expected, VLC lives up to its reputation as the media player that can handle just about everything. I have a video library with a wide variety of file formats and VLC was able to playback every file I threw at it. It handled the standard .mpg, .avi and, of course, .mov files. It also played some oddballs that most Mac players don't support including .swf, .asf, and .wmv files.

DVD played back in full-screen mode with full menu support. Besides discs, VLC also played ISO and VOB files from ripped DVDs. Location of the media didn't matter either as I was able to play local media, media on a network attached storage drive, and files on the Internet. The app has a slick, single-window UI that lets you easily switch between your library and the video that is playing. If you don't like the single-window look you can always change back to the traditional UI in the options. Speaking of options, VLC has a lot of them. You can spend at least 15 minutes poring over the preferences and tweaking the app to your liking.

The best part about VLC is that it's easy to use, but chock full of features that'll please even the videophiles in our midst. It plays a wide variety of file formats which makes it an excellent companion (or replacement) for QuickTime. VLC 2.0 is available for free from VideoLAN's website.

VLC 2.0 first look: Video player app features new single-window UI and robust media support originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sat, 18 Feb 2012 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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from TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog http://www.tuaw.com/2012/02/18/vlc-2-0-first-look-video-player-app-features-n...

Pissed at Your Neighbors? Now You Can Nuke Their House [IMAGE]

People have built some really strange things off of Google Maps API, but this is definitely the most morbid.

NUKEMAP, which allows users to detonate a virtual atomic bomb on Google Maps, can show you the far-reaching effects of just what a nuclear bomb would do to your neighborhood were it to be dropped on your hometown. And yes, the effects are pretty scary.

from BostInno http://bostinno.com/2012/02/19/pissed-at-your-neighbors-now-you-can-nuke-thei...

3 Boston Geniuses Present at ‘Solve for X’, Google’s TED Competitor

Last week Google announced its new ‘Solve for X’ initiative, a “forum” in which some of the world’s top thinkers speak about the nexus between major world problems and breakthrough technology. Solve for X has been compared to the popular TED conference and video series, and kicked off with a small face to face event last week out of which a series of initial videos have been posted.

Among the first batch are three Boston visionaries, whose videos are posted below:

David Berry on efficient nutrition production

About the speaker: David Berry is a Partner at Flagship Ventures and CEO of Essentient. David has MD & PhD degrees and has founded several life science and sustainability ventures.

About the topic: The cow is, to put it mildly, not the most efficient mechanism to turn basic ingredients like CO2, water, and sunlight into calories and nutrition. Soy beans are better, but it is still an extremely inefficient process. What if we could skip many of the intermediate steps and directly convert the basic components of food into calories and nutrition. Such a solution would leap us forward by more than an order of magnitude in our ability to feed the world.

Nicholas Negroponte on learning by themselves

About the speaker: Nicholas Negroponte founded the MIT Media Lab (1980), WiReD Magazine (1990), and One Laptop per Child. Nicholas has recently launched a reading experiment to learn whether poor, remote and primitive kids (5-10 years old) can learn to read on their own with a solar powered, Android tablet suitably loaded with immersive and constructionist material.

About the topic: Few people question that education is the most critical problem for to solve – both in the developed and in the developing worlds. The temptation is to see this as a social engineering questions and not as a technology challenge though. What if you just asserted it was possible for a device to be smart enough, cheap enough, rugged enough, and connected enough that it could be dropped into any village square and could not only teach children how to read, but teach them how to learn and inspire them that learning was fun. What would that take?

Kevin Dowling on stretchable electronics

About the speaker: As VP of R&D at MC10, Kevin Dowling is responsible for driving high-performance stretchable electronics technology into products and applications.

About the topic: Every time we find a way to reduce the size of electronics by a factor of 10, we reinvent what electronics means in our lives and how much more they can be used to solve the world’s problems. At this point, the fragility of electronics has become a bottleneck – the housing to protect the electronics we make is now usually more than 90% of the scale of the device. What would happen if we could break this assumption? We would have to totally rethink medical imaging, wearable computers, ubiquitous computing and so much more.

from BostInno http://bostinno.com/2012/02/18/3-boston-geniuses-present-at-solve-for-x-googl...

Week in tech: hacktivism, Slowloris, warrantless spying, and insecure keys

From encryption to darknets: As governments snoop, activists fight back: Governments around the world routinely track and monitor cell phones and Internet use. Activists—some funded by the US government—are fighting back with secure communications tools that can be had on the cheap.

High Orbits and Slowlorises: understanding the Anonymous attack tools : Putting the Low-Orbit Ion Cannon behind them to better protect themselves from being tracked down, members of Anonymous have put together a package of DDoS tools and security best practices that aims to make them more effective and less of a target for law enforcement.

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from Ars Technica http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/02/week-in-tech-hacktivism-slowl...

5 Key Trends Supercharging Today’s Digital PR


In 2012, Social Media will move beyond growth to saturation. This means that digital public relations is changing quickly.

Recently, I had an opportunity to speak about the opportunities and trends in digital public relations at the PR News Digital Summit. Here’s a quick look at what I think social media saturation and mobile growth mean for public relations this year.


1. Beyond the Second Screen: 24 Hours of Screens


According to Comscore’s recent social media study, the social media category as a whole is on the cusp of becoming the dominant form of online content; it accounted for 16.6% of Internet time in 2011. And this year it is expected to surpass portals as the most engaging online activity. Engagement is the key word there.

Social media saturation coupled with the rapid growth of mobile, tablets and connected TVs mean we are beyond the second screen — we are now at more than 24 hours’ worth of screens per day. There are even apps to influence your dreams!

People are constantly connected and consuming media, which sounds daunting but it is great news for media creators. And now PR professionals are not soley pitching the media, but they too are media creators.


2. Think Like PR People. Measure Like Mad Men.


This means online media formarts are converging. “P.O.E.M.” (Paid, Owned, Earned Media) is now really the future. (Paid being advertising and sponsorships. Owned being content created by brands/corporations. And Earned being press placements and media partnership).

Earned and Owned have always been sexier than Paid media because they are inherently social (and usually free!). But Advertising has always been immediately measurable and metrics drive the budgets and digital strategy.

Lucky for PR Professionals, the measurement tools for Owned and Earned are getting better and better. Just look at how much the Facebook Insights product has evolved since it launched.

The future of media strategy is the best of all three: Paid, Owned, Earned. And pubic relations professionals can lead the strategy. They have the most experience in strategic communications, cross platform media and rapid response. The future is to think like PR people but measure like Mad Men.


3. Find Your Peeps. These Are The New Influencers


Once upon a time the Internet was populated only by early adopters. They were passionate about the new technologies so they created forums to share their passions. They had the biggest microphone on the Internet. It seemed predominantly male and mainly dedicated to Apple products.. They became lovingly known as fanboys.

Now, more and more people around the world have access to the Internet or mobile technologies. And everyone is passionate about something. We each have opinions and preferences and now we have social graphs that are growing.

PR professionals need get on board with their peeps. Find the people who are most passionate about what you’re doing. These are the new “influencers.” The next great influencers campaigns will not be about trying to get a celebrity to retweet you, but tapping into your base. 60% of Facebook users surveyed by digital agency Beyond said they’d be willing to post about a product if they were given a discount or free trial. Now that will be influence.

And you can find your peeps much more easily with the rise of niche networks such as Tumblr — now reaching more than 20 million monthly users — and Pinterest, which just passed 12 million monthly users. These niche social networks are creating mini communities for everything related to topic, brand and subject. Your peeps are there. Find them and engage.


4. The Rise of Fanwomen


All great marketers know that reaching the female demographic is key to campaigns. This has been one of the phenomena of Pinterest’s rapid growth — the high percentage of females on the platform. Females have always been a powerful audience for print and TV;. study after study shows they have the buying power in the majority of households. Now they too are online; they have communities and they have influence.


5. Small Teams FTW!


An age-old complaint within the PR industry has been lack of budgets and small staffs. That’s likely not going to change anytime soon. But there are new ways PR executives can make their small teams more powerful with fewer resources.

  • First, embrace the machine. “Automation” is no longer a scary word. Companies such as SocialFlow are developing algorithmic tools to share content to social media channels based on relevance. PR professionals are still responsible for developing the messages and strategy, but now the algorithms tell us when the messages are relevant to the conversation. It just like trying to get your company into a trend piece.
  • Second, take meetings and ask for what you want. There are many smart people and companies working to develop new products to help manage and measure social outreach. Don’t look at these requests for meetings as a nuisance. Take the meetings. Give these developers your list of complaints and have them go think about them. Likely they’ll come back in six months with a product that was developed with your wants and needs in mind — maybe even with a discount for the service.
  • Finally, maximize the media hits you do get. Did you get a spot on the Today show? Good job, but not a job well done. Not until its been shared everywhere.

    If your CEO is backstage, snap a photo in the green room and share it on Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter and Facebook. Check in on Foursquare. Once the video is on the Today website, get it on your blog, YouTube, Facebook and everywhere else.

Because, increasingly, if it didn’t happen on the Internet, it didn’t happen.


1. Welcome


Mashable's Stacy Green gave the opening Keynote at the PR News Digital Summit in SF #prndigital

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from Mashable! http://mashable.com/2012/02/17/key-trends-digital-pr/?utm_source=feedburner&u...

Gnip Authorized to Sell Access to Historical Tweets [VIDEO]

Twitter is about the here-and-now, but data aggregator Gnip thinks users might be interested in the past, too.

Gnip announced on Tuesday it will be the first company to offer a 30-day history of tweets. Want to see who searched for a particular topic two weeks ago? Or, what topic was trending a month ago? Now, Gnip will offer that service — for a fee.

Gnip COO Chris Moody told AllThingsD that it’s difficult to estimate the cost of historical tweets because the service will be offered with existing products.

Gnip can provide up to 30 days of tweets (currently, you can only search as far back as one week ago). The “bread-and-butter” of their business is social media monitoring companies, Moody said. Reaching a month back in Twitter could help these companies better pin-point campaigns, target pitches and get a general sense of what the Twitterverse is buzzing about.

“In fact, Gnip works with 8 of 9 of the top social media monitoring companies,” he said. “These companies work with big brands to understand what is being said about them in social media.”

Gnip is seeing a growing number of companies in the financial community utilizing social media data. It works with about a dozen large hedge funds who use Twitter data for sentiment analysis and research on individual stocks. Gnip is also serving clients in business intelligence, government and ad tech, Moody said.

Twitter opened-up its “firehose” — a full data feed of all public tweets — to seven start-ups in 2010. This data gleamed from the firehose is made possible by Twitter’s Streaming API.

Gnip, based in Colorado, provides social media data. Gnip was the first company authorized to resell Twitter’s data in 2010. Gnip is working with the Library of Congress to add historical tweets.

“Obviously, this is a new method of archiving for them and they’re still working on the technical challenges of making that data available,” Moody said.

Facebook’s Timeline also allows users to get a better glimpse of past happenings and conversations.

How do you think businesses will benefit from accessing 30 days of Twitter data? Tell us in the comments.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, RomanOkopny

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from Mashable! http://mashable.com/2012/02/17/gnip-authorized-to-sell-access-to-historical-t...

How to Create a Compelling Browser-Based Presentation in Minutes with Deck.js [How To]

Traditionally, creating presentations requires using an app like Powerpoint and can cause various compatibility issues, but with the free, open source tool deck.js, you can create an elegant set of slides that can run in any browser either online or off. All it takes is minimal knowledge of basic HTML, and we've created a starter kit to help you put your first deck together in just a few minutes. More »


from Lifehacker http://lifehacker.com/5885901/how-to-create-a-compelling-browser+based-presen...

LLC vs. S Corp: Which Is Right for Your Startup?


Choosing the right business structure can be a daunting task for the small business owner or entrepreneur. You may have heard that the traditional C Corporation is overkill for most small businesses, and results in higher overall tax payments through something known as double taxation. But if the C Corporation isn’t right, then what is?

In my last post, I discussed how the LLC (limited liability company) and S Corporation are popular structures for small businesses since they avoid this double taxation burden. With these business structures, the company is taxed like a sole proprietor or partnership, meaning the company itself doesn’t file its own taxes; all company profits are “passed through” and reported on the personal income tax return of the shareholders or, in the case of an LLC, the members.

Most importantly, both the LLC and S Corp will separate your personal assets from any liabilities of the company (whether from an unhappy customer, unpaid supplier, or anyone else who might pursue legal action).

The similarities between these two business entities are significant, but the differences can be even more striking. While circumstances vary for each individual and his or her business, here are some general guidelines to help you understand the differences and their impact on your business.


1. Business Formality


With its roots as a C Corporation, the S Corporation involves structure, formalities and compliance obligations, which can be too burdensome for the solo entrepreneur, in other words, a “payroll of one.” If you incorporate as an S Corporation, you need to set up a board of directors, file annual reports and other business filings, hold shareholder’s meetings, keep records of your meeting minutes, and generally operate at a higher level of regulatory compliance than your business might need or want to deal with. With the LLC, this isn’t the case. LLCs just use an informal operating agreement.

What to know: If you want less red tape and formality, the LLC can provide greater simplicity.


2. Who Can Be a Shareholder?


The S Corporation has more restrictions in terms of who can be a shareholder. For example, an S Corp cannot have more than 100 shareholders. Of course, this limitation is probably not of much consequence to many small businesses. In addition, all individual shareholders of an S Corp must be either U.S. citizens or permanent residents.

What to know: If you have foreign owners (or would like an LLC to be a shareholder), you cannot form an S Corporation and should opt for the LLC.


3. Income Allocation



In an LLC, income and loss can be allocated disproportionately among the owners. By contrast, in the S Corp, income and loss are assigned to each shareholder strictly based on their pro-rata shares of ownership.

This is an important distinction to understand. For example, let’s say Sally and Heidi open a micro-brewery, each owning 50%. As the year progresses, Sally needs to focus her time elsewhere, while Heidi does all the work. Their business becomes more profitable than they ever imagined, and they want to divide up the profits. Because Heidi has put in the bulk of the work, the two decide she should keep 75% of the profits, and Sally should get 25%.

With an LLC, this type of agreement is fine. The two owners simply agree to the arrangement and they will be taxed accordingly to their “operating agreement.”

But this type of flexible arrangement won’t work with an S Corporation. Because Sally and Heidi are each 50% owners, each will be allocated 50% of the corporation’s income, at least when it comes to computing income tax.

What to know: If you need flexibility when it comes to divvying up profits among owners, the LLC is the preferred structure.


4. Pass-Through Losses


With LLCs and S Corporations, members and shareholders are able to pass company losses to their personal income reporting. In some circumstances, the LLC lets you pass more loss than in an S Corporation, most notably when it comes to real estate. In an LLC used for real estate investments, members are allowed to add the amount of the mortgage to their basis for the purpose of computing a loss. Clearly, that can add up to a significant difference in your tax statement. 

What to know: If you’re setting up a business structure for real estate investments, the LLC lets you write off more losses on your personal tax reporting.


5. Class of Stock


In an S Corporation, all shareholders own only one class of stock. An S Corporation can have voting and non-voting shares, but cannot have distinctions like common stock and preferred stock. In an LLC, however, these priorities and preferences are allowed, and you can have different membership classes.

What to know: You cannot offer common and preferred stock classes in an S Corporation. Thus, if you’d like flexibility in ownership classification, go with the LLC.


6. Reinvesting Profits


There’s another twist regarding the LLC, S Corp and your taxes. As pass-through entities, individual owners of an S Corporation or LLC are liable for any taxes owed on profits — whether that money is retained in the company or put in their wallets.

For example, if you own 50% of an S Corporation or LLC and that company makes $80,000 in profit, you need to report $40,000 in income on your personal tax return. And it doesn’t matter whether that $40,000 actually ended up in your pocket. This is known as “phantom income,” and can obviously cause a problem for some shareholders.

What to know: If you plan on retaining money in the company (and would prefer not to have shareholders be personally taxed on this money), you should consider the C Corporation over both the LLC and S Corp. Of course, your specific situation may vary, so it’s always best to consult your accountant.


7. VC Funding


If your company is considering raising venture capital down the road, VC firms will most likely choose the C Corporation as the type of legal entity for their investments. This doesn’t necessarily mean your business needs to start as a C Corp, but be advised: If you are considering raising venture capital and start out with an LLC or an S Corp, you will need to convert the business to a C Corp (if your state allows conversions) at some point. This conversion will require additional filings and fees within your state. If you choose this route, you may want to consider the S Corp as your option, since converting an S Corp to a C Corp can be done in a day with a single tax form (you’re basically unchecking the box for S Corp tax election on an IRS form).

Choosing the right business structure is a multi-faceted decision, and will ultimately depend on all the unique aspects of your particular business needs, vision and circumstances. And remember that tax treatment varies between states.

Consulting with an accountant or tax advisor can go a long way in helping you determine which business structure offers the biggest advantage for your situation. Take note that the deadline to elect S Corp treatment is March 15 for existing companies (or 75 days from the day your company is formed). Get your legal structure squared away early on, and your company will be set for years to come.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, YinYang, hidesy

More About: Business, Corporation, features, incorporation, Small Business

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from Mashable! http://mashable.com/2012/02/17/small-business-incporporation/?utm_source=feed...

Social Media Advertising Startup Compass Labs Raises $6M From NEA And Presidio

CompassLabs-1

Compass Labs, which aims to provide targeted advertising on social networks like Twitter and Facebook, has raised $6 million from NEA, and Presidio Ventures. This brings the startup’s total funding to $12 million.

Launched at TechCrunch Disrupt two years ago, the startup provides a self-service advertising platform called CLIQ (Compass Labs IQ) that allows brands to serve targeted social media ad campaigns on Twitter and Facebook.

Compass Labs says that the startup differentiates itself from other social advertising options because it has created technology to identify audience segments in granular manner. For example, brands can target advertising based on household income. Founder and Google and Yahoo veteran Dilip Venkatachari says that the startup analyzes public data and mines look alike models to enhance advertising.

The new funding will be used towards product development and sales and marketing.


from TechCrunch http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/16/social-media-advertising-startup-compass-lab...

HBO Go rolls out to most Samsung Smart HDTVs -- but not through all providers

It's been nearly a year since Samsung first announced HBO Go access would be coming to its Smart TVs, and today the company announced on all forms of social media (Twitter, Facebook, Google+ -- there may be a YouTube video out there somewhere) it's finally available. Most should be familiar with HBO's TV Everywhere offering that opens its archives to users on various internet devices and has already been well received on iOS, Android and Roku platforms. The official HBO Go Twitter account mentions news on the Xbox 360 client is "coming soon" but for now subscribers can just grab the app and start watching -- with a few caveats.

For reasons not mentioned, the HBO Go app doesn't play nicely with every Smart TV, with access available on all 2010 and 2011 models with the exception of several from last year (listed after the break). Also key to remember is that not every TV provider has given its blessing to allows customers access to HBO Go in the living room, so it seems Comcast, DirecTV and Time Warner customers are still out of luck. If you've got the right combo of service provider and hardware go forth and download from the Samsung Apps marketplace right now, we'll be busy trying to figure out where the old episodes of Arli$$ are.

Continue reading HBO Go rolls out to most Samsung Smart HDTVs -- but not through all providers

HBO Go rolls out to most Samsung Smart HDTVs -- but not through all providers originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Feb 2012 21:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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from Engadget http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/16/hbo-go-samsung-smart-tv/