YouTube’s IPL Cricket Streams Near 50 Million Views, Blow Away Internal Expectations

YouTube’s IPL Cricket Streams Near 50 Million Views, Blow Away Internal Expectations:

Last January, news broke that YouTube had signed its first international sports streaming deal, gaining multi-year rights to broadcast the Indian Premiere League’s 45-day cricket tournament worldwide. We’re now closing in on the conclusion of the tournament — the finals begin on Sunday morning — and YouTube has shared some initial stats.

Right now, YouTube’s IPL channel has over 49.5 million views. That far exceeds the company’s internal expectations: we’re told that their stretch goal was to get 10 million views over the course of the tournament. Viewers from 200 countries have watched the streams. Unsurprisingly, India has the most views overall; coming in second is the United States — YouTube had expected that spot to go to the UK or Australia, where cricket gets far more attention.

When the IPL deal was first signed it granted YouTube live streaming rights for every country except for the United States, where matches have been posted fifteen minutes after they ended. However, YouTube is streaming both the semi-finals and finals live (we’re told YouTube’s biz dev people worked “around the clock” to make that happen). All of which means the final view tally is going to be way more than 10 million.

Reuters Retracts Icelandic Volcano Photo

Reuters Retracts Icelandic Volcano Photo:



Last week when Reuters released photographs of the volcanic activity at Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland, one photograph stood out to Wade Laube, the photo editor of The Sydney Morning Herald.

After making a few calls, Reuters decided to investigate. Laube writes on his blog,

Reuters had made contact with the photographer, an Icelandic local, and sought access to the original. It transpired that before being acquired by the wire service, the photograph had been in the possession of an Icelandic newspaper and it was there that some fairly liberal digital dodging and burning took place. When a comparison was made with the original, it became obvious that post production had been applied to sufficient extent that it violated Reuters’ very firm position on digital enhancement. So they retracted the picture and supplied the original in its place, and we dropped that image into the Herald for later editions.

Looking at the before and after photographs shown above, you can see that post-processing was done in order to make the plume of ash look extremely dramatic.

What are your thoughts on how far post-processing can go before it becomes too much?

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Image credits: Photographs by Reuters

Is Handset Radiation Bad? COSMOS Will Tell You in 30 Years

Is Handset Radiation Bad? COSMOS Will Tell You in 30 Years:



The Cohort Study on Mobile Communications, potentially the largest research effort to understand the effects of radiation from cellular phone use, is now underway in five European nations. COSMOS, as it’s called, hopes to enlist more than 250,000 volunteers over for up to 30 years in Britain, Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark.

Although prior studies have examined the effects of radiation from handsets, none have tracked data for as long as the COSMOS study plans to. A 21-year effort studying radiation and cancer instances in Danish handset owners wrapped up in 2006 and found no ill effects, while short-term proactive studies have failed to find any from wireless phones either. Countries often limit the radiation levels of approved devices, however. Here in the U.S., the FCC allows for a specific absorption rate of 1.6 watts per kilogram. European nations follow the higher International Electrotechnical Commission guideline of 2 watts per kilogram.

By researching over a long period of time, COSMOS can help identify radiation risks as they manifest themselves, not after, such as with handset radiation studies in which cancer patients are asked about their cell phone usage. Success of the COSMOS study is highly dependent on a large number of volunteers, so its organizers are working directly with carriers to help solicit consumers.

Air Force launches X-37B space plane

Air Force launches X-37B space plane: "The unmanned X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle heads into space on its first mission, as the Air Force scopes out how it might eventually serve 'warfighters' needs.'"

iPad Is First Computer 100-Year-Old Woman Bought [Ipad]

iPad Is First Computer 100-Year-Old Woman Bought [Ipad]:

The iPad is so easy to use, a cat can play with it. So can a dog! But what about a centenarian? Virginia of Oregon bought her first computer—an iPad—and as the video shows, she's a whizz. More »

YouTube Quietly Adds Movie and TV Show Rentals From 99 Cents [YouTube]

YouTube Quietly Adds Movie and TV Show Rentals From 99 Cents [YouTube]:

After tinkering with movie rentals in January, YouTube's added a bunch of movies and TV episodes you actually want to see. We're not just talking art-house Sundance Film Festival flicks—now, you can get a bit of anime too. More »

It's Happened: The First Full Face Transplant [Medicine]

It's Happened: The First Full Face Transplant [Medicine]:

Logins for sale: be wary of Facebook friends in need

Logins for sale: be wary of Facebook friends in need:


Facebook users may not consider their accounts to be worth anything on the black market, but a group of 1.5 million logins are currently being hawked by scammers. According to a new report from VeriSign's iDefense, a scammer going by the name of "Kirllos" claims to have gathered the login information for one out of every 300 Facebook users and is trying to sell the accounts to others. The incident is just a reminder that social networking users can't just ignore strangers anymore—they should be able to recognize a phishing attempt from a "friend" when they see it.

VeriSign says that Kirllos appears to have already sold some 700,000 Facebook accounts, asking for between $25 and $45 per thousand accounts (the higher amount is for users who have more friends). That means your account could go for almost five whole cents (don't let it all go to your head!). As noted by IDG, this is obviously quite low—bank account credentials can go for hundreds of dollars, while e-mail logins can go for up to $20 per account.

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FarmVille Could be Headed to iPhone, iPad and Android

FarmVille Could be Headed to iPhone, iPad and Android: "

Soon you’ll be able to play FarmVille on your mobile phone, not just your desktop web browser. Supported devices will probably include the iPhone, the iPad and Android smartphones, and some sort of text messaging-based play could be in the works too.

Speculation about this bubbled up when Tumblr blog Supererogatory discovered that the domain names farmvilleandroid.com, farmvilleipad.com, farmvilleiphone.com and farmvillesms.com were registered with DNStination Inc. DNStination is the third party that also holds farmville.com, the official website for Zynga’s very successful and popular online game.

We followed up with a spokesperson for Zynga, who said, “Zynga plans to expand to various mobile platforms. We cannot provide additional information at this time.”

That’s a confirmation that the company intends to offer mobile versions of the game, but those missing “additional details” include the platforms and the time frames. It’s also possible that some or all mobile versions could have only limited functionality compared to the Facebook and desktop web browser editions. We’ll have to wait to find out exactly how mobile virtual farming will work.

FarmVille has more than 80 million users, and it has achieved that primarily by becoming staple on Facebook. It’s so popular that non-players often search Google to find out how to block FarmVille updates from appearing in their news feeds.

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