YouTube Brings Video to Global Masses

YouTube is going global. Although the original site is often visited by video viewers from around the world, the Google property is launching international versions to cater to the linguistic needs of a global audience.Local versions of YouTube are now available in Brazil, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, and the UK — the first step toward fully localized sites in each of the nine countries.

The first stage of the rollout offers translated content with local homepages and search functions. Over time, YouTube said, each local site will offer an entirely “local” experience, complete with country-specific video rankings and comments, as well as country-specific video, channels, categories, and community sections.

“Video is universal and allows people around the world to communicate and exchange ideas,” Chad Hurley, YouTube’s cofounder and CEO, said in a statement. He noted that the expansion was about relevance and accessibility and hinted at additional international sites to join in the months ahead.

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Add comment June 20th, 2007

Court Mandates Warrant for E-Mail Search

In a landmark ruling that has privacy advocates standing in applause, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided that the government must have a search warrant before it can secretly seize and search e-mails stored by ISPs.In Monday’s unanimous ruling, the court found that e-mail users have the same reasonable expectation of privacy in their stored e-mail as they do in their telephone calls. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is the first circuit court ever to make that finding.

Over the past 20 years, the government has routinely used the federal Stored Communications Act (SCA) to obtain stored e-mail from ISPs without a warrant. But this week’s ruling found that the SCA violates the Fourth Amendment.

Click here to read the rest of this story on NewsFactor.

Add comment June 20th, 2007

The Quest for Influence

“To sit back and let fate play its hand out and never influence it is not the way man was meant to operate.” — John Glenn, astronaut

Add comment June 20th, 2007