By Omar L. Gallaga

YouTube is rolling out a video upgrade to its users -- over the next few days, the company said on its official blog, 1080p video will be available for viewing. The site currently tops out at 720p, which is 1,280 x 720 pixels. 1080p video has a resolution of 1,920 x 1,080.

Increasingly gone are the days when we could all complain that Web video looks crummy and lives in a tiny box when viewed on a big-screen TV. Most large HDTVs sold these days have a 1080p native resolution. As we'll discuss next week on All Tech Considered, our options for viewing Web content on our TVs seem to increase by the day and this is certainly one way YouTube plans to stay in that loop.

Of course, videos shot on camera phones are still going to look like garbage, so don't expect the 1080p magic wand to improve the quality of content that already looks terrible at lower resolutions. For videos uploaded at 1080p, however, you'll be able to fill up that big screen as soon as you can figure out how to get that computer to interface with that HDTV. Good luck to you.

(My favorite response about it so far is the Christian Science Monitor's headline which reads, in part, "Um, sure.")

Below is a sample 1080p video from YouTube (much smaller than 1080p, of course, but you can click on it to get to the larger version). My computer monitor won't even display it at 1080p because mine tops out at 1,680 x 1,050.

My worst nightmare. (iStockphoto.com)

By Viet Le

I don't have a baby, nor am I a baby person -- a cat person, yes... baby person, not so much. (Although, let me know if you come across a baby that purrs and can kill mice.) Knowing this, my wonderful friends who are parents like to prank me when I come over for visits, sitting their toddlers on my lap and then tee-heeing as they race out of the room leaving me alone with their babies. It's like they've tossed a grenade at me that could explode in tears at any moment. That's why when I read about the Cry Translator, a new iPhone app, my first reaction was "where have you been all my life?"

Continue reading "Don't Be A Cry-Baby" >

By Omar L. Gallaga

This bluebird asks, 'Would you like to buy a ringtone?' (clipart.com)

If you're as inundated with technology as I am, you may have forgotten that tweets didn't originally come from Twitter; they are actually sounds that birds make. Up in trees, I suppose.

Sprint is hoping to remind its customers with a new set of bird call ringtones, including such sure-to-be chart-toppers as "Downy Woodpecker" and "Kentucky Warbler." The 28 ringtones come in association with the Audubon Society and hurt my sensitive ears.

That probably means I should go outside more often.

You can preview the bird calls here, or text "BIRD" to the number 1111 if you're a Sprint wireless customer.

By Omar L. Gallaga

Google has done something quite amazing this week: it has created a hysteria for a product that people want, even if they don't know exactly what it is.

Google Wave is an online app that combines aspects of e-mail, instant messaging, the kind of collaborative editing you'd find on Wikipedia, document sharing and other info-rich features. At least, I think that's what it is. Like millions of curious others, I still haven't tried it out for myself, although this article on Lifehacker (with helpful screen grabs) explains Wave better than any other I've seen to date.

Unfortunately, Google has limited who can check it out to 100,000 invites it sent out to people who applied for a shot at the early look months ago (primarily developers who would build upon Wave by the time it gets to a wider audience).

A market of demand has emerged, with desperate Twitter users (apparently bored with Twitter itself) begging for a Google Wave invite, retweeting accounts that likely aren't affiliated with Google for a chance at one and even trolling eBay for a coveted invitation to the service. Announcing on a social network that you have a Google Wave invite has become an online victory lap performance akin to the dance-and-squeal American Idol contestants do when they find out they're going to Hollywood for the semifinals.

Google Wave is certainly intriguing, but people need to calm down. It'll get here soon enough to inundate the masses with information overload and to destroy (or enhance!) the world's productivity, depending on how many of us figure out how to properly ride the Wave.

Just a guess.

by Laura Sydell

AT&T says it wasn't us. The wireless carrier sent a letter to the FCC in response to an inquiry about Apple's decision to keep Google Voice out of its app store. The FCC is looking into whether or not AT&T and Apple are conspiring against competition.

Google Voice is an application that ties all your phone numbers into a single Google phone number. It lets users manage and make calls and send text messages at a cheaper rate than the AT&T phone service connected to the iPhone. It seems to have a VoIP ability and that means is you can make phone calls using AT&T's network without being charged by AT&T.

AT&T is the exclusive carrier of the iPhone.

About three weeks ago, Apple rejected the Google Voice app from its app store. At the time, Apple claimed that it was pulling the app because it duplicated features that were already on the iPhone.

Even if Apple didn't talk to AT&T before it pulled the plug on the Google Voice app, AT&T isn't really blameless here. Just read the letter that AT&T sent to the FCC AT&T says that there is a clause in their contract that requires Apple to pull down applications that use its network for phone services.

It is also interesting to note that on page 8 paragraph 2 of AT&T's letter to the FCC it says it is reviewing its ban on phone applications such as Skype or other VoIP.

Apple says it has not rejected Google Voice but it's just reviewing the situation.

It's an interesting case because it provides fodder to the critics of the current wireless system who say that the carriers have too much control over the devices that use their networks. Tim Wu at Columbia Law School believes that the carriers should not be able to control the applications users put on devices any more than the phone companies can tell you what kind of phone to put on your land line.

When I found out that USAA, a bank my wife uses, had a new Deposit@Mobile feature allowing you to deposit checks via an iPhone camera, I was incredibly excited.

Then I found out she only has a credit card with them, not a checking or savings account. Plus, she has no iPhone. Excitement dimmed. I really wanted to try it out and tell you about it.

Luckily, it is for situations exactly like this that we have Internet video: the YouTube clip above (from the company itself) walks you through the deposit-via-iPhone feature, which is nothing short of amazing. What else will we soon be able to do by camera phone? Will getting your picture taken at the DMV be a thing of the past? Perhaps you'll be able to qualify as a beauty pageant contestant with just a few keystrokes on your phone. Three words: whole-body teleporation!

It's stuff like this that makes me giddy about the future.

Edited, Aug. 13, to add: USAA tells me today that checks totaling $1.5 million have been deposited by customers via the iPhone app since it was released Tuesday.

By Omar L. Gallaga

If the only story you read about Tuesday's bombshell Google announcement that it is releasing an operating system next year was this very odd New York Times piece, you might already be convinced that Google will win an OS war in which it hasn't even begun to compete.

Lost among the breathless predictions of a shift in the PC market in the article is that Google's "Chrome" operating system -- which will expand its browser to be brains of smaller netbook computers -- won't compete against Microsoft and Apple on high-end PCs or workstations (so much for that IBM/Sun comparison) and that the Chrome OS won't be out until the second half of next year. That's an eternity in computer industry time; the landscape could change significantly in the time it takes for Chrome OS to get here.

I have a feeling the demand for netbooks -- smaller, underpowered laptops designed primarily for Web surfing -- might wane by this time next year, especially if Apple or some other innovator releases a better product that fills the middle space between full-powered laptops and increasingly powerful smartphones. A keyboard-less tablet with 3G Internet built-in? A super-compact laptop without all the performance of a larger PC? Maybe something like that.

Another thing that may work against Google's favor is that based on what we've seen with its Android phone platform, the Big G is not infallible when it comes to getting hardware partners to jump on board. It's been eight months since the first Android-based phone was released and we're only now starting to see others hit the market. I imagine Chrome OS will be similarly slow to take off and be embraced.

For an even more level-headed analysis of what might happen, check out Peter Glaskowsky's more sober take on Google strategy, posted on CNet.com. He raises some great points; this is a new, tough battle for Google and one that's not automatically theirs to win.

The bottom line is that Chrome OS is a long way off and may be late to the party, especially if netbooks fall out of vogue by the time it arrives. Stay tuned.

Further reading: NPR's story on the Google OS announcement.

By Bill Chappell

OS 3.0-equipped iPhones and other devices will be able to show their users candid photos of nearby scenes. Flickr

When you're planning a trip, the Web is a great way to get a feel for your destination -- whether it's a foreign country or the DMV across town

Google Maps can help you do that; so can Microsoft's Bing.

But many people want to know what a specific place looks like to a regular Joe -- not to a sophisticated car-mounted camera array. Google and Bing are working on that.

In the meantime, you can use a site like Flickr, searching around on its map for photos that the site's users have tagged to a specific location -- whether it's a park, a shoe store, or a coffee shop.

And as of Thursday, Flickr is making it easier for people to see those images while they're on the move -- provided they have an iPhone (with OS 3.0) or Android device. Flickr just released its "Nearby" feature, which splits a phone's screen to show a map in one half -- and photos in the other.

I haven't tried it yet, but the idea is a good one. And if you're reading this on an iPhone or Android phone, you can just go to the Flickr Mobile site and click the link titled "Photos taken nearby."

By Laura Sydell

Microsoft has been nervous about Google's growing power for a long time. The software giant hasn't really been able to make a dent in Google's colossal share of the search market. Now, Google is taking on Microsoft where it lives -- in the operating system business. Acer, Elitegroup Computer (ECS), and Asutek plan to introduce new low-cost netbooks that run on Google's operating system Android. The Acer netbooks with Android will be cheaper than the ones that run on Windows, presumably because Acer won't have to lease the operating system from Microsoft.

Google has also been challenging Microsoft with its cloud applications that provide online based document, spreadsheet, and other office applications.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer can't be feeling very happy about all of this. A few years ago he told me that "Google was a nice little company." Balmer explained that he meant that Microsoft had once been a nice little company and then they became the subject of anti-trust law suits. It was shortly after that comment that Microsoft began raising red flags about Google's growing power and pushing for anti-trust suits against the search engine giant.

Microsoft had its own announcement today. It's going to release its new operating system Windows 7 on October 22nd. Hopefully, consumers will be happier with it than they were with Vista, which had many computer users staring cross eyed at their computer screens.

By Krishnadev Calamur

Internet giant Google has unveiled its plan for a new tool that is a hybrid of e-mail, IM and document sharing. Dubbed Google Wave, the tool takes another stab at real-time online communication.

In his blog, Lars Rasmussen, the man who developed Wave with his brother Jens, says Wave is "equal parts conversation and document, where people can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more."

Google plans to make the code open source, giving developers the opportunity to help in its evolution.

The public can access the service later this year.

By Bill Chappell

There's a great phone app out there called Sports Tracker that never fails to impress my friends.

It uses GPS to track your workouts -- running or cycling, for instance. Afterward, it lists your average and maximum speed over the distance. It also charts speed, time, distance, and altitude.

Some of my bike routes, from the Sports Tracker site.

 

If you pause along the way, the program can pause with you. And it can handle laps and favorite routes.

Continue reading "The Best Damn Workout App Money Can't Buy" >