Movie recommendation: "Afghan Star"

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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1334510/

"Afghan Star" is a TV show modeled on the UK's "Pop Idol." We join the 2008 contest when it's down to nine contestants, and we focus on two women, Setara and Lema, and two men, Hameed and Rafi. We watch the two women in particular: Satara sings with emotion and includes dance in her final performance, an action that puts her life in danger; Lema is traditional, but her very appearance brings death threats. The three finalists are from different tribes, and each makes a plea for Afghan unity. The camera visits families watching the competition, there are comments from people in the street, and we return home with a nervous Setara. In Afghanistan, singing is an expression of freedom." Written by <jhailey@hotmail.com>

Users Engage Video More on Tablets vs. Desktops

Ooyala: Users Engage Video More on Tablets vs. Desktops

Just how is video viewed? It's a timeless question with an ever-changing answer as new devices and services enter the market. And don't forget about the users, either: They're ultimately the ones doing all the viewing, and their preferences are what device manufacturers, Web services, and advertisers have been trying to nail down for years.

Ooyala, a video hosting platform, thinks it has the answers as the result of a deep dive into its database of viewing statistics – the results of which have been distributed in the company's first-ever quarterly report on video viewership. And here are the big takeaways for Q3 2011: Here come the tablets, here comes the iPad, and here comes a lot of Facebook sharing.

Specifically, Ooyala's metrics found that users viewing videos on tablet devices were "most engaged" with videos over any other medium, including smartphones, desktop PCs, and living room devices (consoles, set-top boxes, et cetera). By that, we meant that tablet users were most likely to continue watching a video anywhere from one-fourth of its duration all the way to its very end. In total, tablet users watched an average of 28 percent more video per play than their desktop counterparts.

Desktop video viewing still reigns supreme for total videos played and hours watched. However, desktop and laptop users were far more likely to watch short clips – 52 percent of all recorded video views were for clips under three minutes, on average. A total of 42 percent of all videos watched on tablets were greater than 10 minutes in length. But that's almost a drop in the bucket compared to videos viewed on set-top boxes and gaming consoles, where 75 percent of all videos watched were greater than 10 minutes long.

Focusing in on tablets, the iPad took the lion's share of video viewing in Ooyala's report: 97.4 percent of all tablet video plays and 95.7 percent of all video hours streamed. But Apple's commanding presence isn't quite so powerful in Ooyala's smartphone analytics, where iPhones only accounted for 56.2 percent of all video plays (to Android's 36.8 percent) and 44.4 percent of total hours played (to Android's 49.1 percent).

When it comes to finding and sharing videos, Ooyala found that Facebook generally beats Twitter. However, the ratio of Facebook video shares to Twitter video shares – as measured by Ooyala – differs dramatically by region. Italian video watchers were 17 times more likely to share videos on Facebook than Twitter, whereas the ratio became nearly 1:1 in countries like Japan.

Ooyala's study focused on video metrics measured between July 1 and September 30, taken as a cross-section of the company's consumer and partner database. According to Ooyala, more than 100 million unique users watch a video delivered by the company's platform each month.

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Apple Email Suggests iTunes Match Launch Nearing

Apple Email Suggests iTunes Match Launch Nearing

| November 12, 2011 | 1 Comment

 

 

While most Apple enthusiasts expected iTunes Match to launch nearly one month ago, the service has remained in developer beta exclusively. That could change in the near future. Apple sent an important email to developers yesterday, a message that appears to suggest the beta is coming to a close soon.

First announced in June, iTunes Match was supposed to arrive late last month. So far, however, the song matching service has been limited to a select number of app developers.

Today, however, Apple sent the following message to developers.

As we prepare for the launch of iTunes Match, we will be deleting all current iCloud libraries on Saturday, November 12th at 10 AM PST.

Please turn off iTunes Match on all of your computers and iOS devices. On your computer, choose Store > Turn off iTunes Match. On your iOS device, tap Settings > Music, then turn off iTunes Match. On your Apple TV, please choose Music > Turn off iTunes Match.

The songs on your computer should not be affected. As always, please backup regularly and do not delete the music you add to iCloud from your computer.

Best regards,

Apple Developer Program Support

This hopefully means iTunes Match is arriving very soon in the United States, with a worldwide release to follow.

 

CanIStream.it: Search Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, Amazon, and iTunes for streaming movies

Can I Stream It?

Let's say you are a regular techie with a Netflix account, a Hulu account, and since you only shop online, you also have an Amazon Prime account. Now let's say you want to know if a movie you're dying to watch is available to be streamed instantly, using any of these accounts.

With CanIStream.It, you can search across all of these services and pick the one you want to use. And if the movie you're looking for is not available, just sign-up, set a reminder and voila we will shoot you an email when your chosen service makes the movie available. It's simple and fast.

CanIStream.it also searches iTunes, Vudu, and Amazon OnDemand stores; so if a movie isn't available you might still be able to digitally rent or purchase it.

Just type in the movie title you want to search for and then select "Streaming", "Rental", "Purchase", or "DVD/Blu-ray" from the menu to check for availability. If the movie is available, simply click on the icon and it will take you to the movie page, for the service you selected. If not, then sign-in and set a reminder and we'll let you know when it becomes available.

CanIStream.It is a free service created by the UrbanPixels crew for the community. We were missing a service like this, so we built it and now hope that other people find it useful too.

Contact us at info@urbanpixels.com if you have any questions or just want to tell us what you think about CanIStream.It.

 

Film/TV recommendation: "Page Eight" (excellent, from PBS Masterpiece Contemporary)

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I watched this last night on my (free) PBS app on my iPad, but it's also available to watch online at: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/watch/pageeight.html

I've read and watched a lot of espionage (non-fiction as well as fiction). This was excellent with some top-flight actors. No chase scenes, gun battles, or explosions, but very well-plotted and..cerebral.