News Lab By Google

Final Cut Pro (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Better video editing tools on YouTube would go a long way. 

News Lab

How to Edit Video on YouTube

there are now more than 1 billion smartphones in the world, and YouTube video views surpassed 1 trillion in 2011. Basically, the world has video fever. .... The YouTube editor is rudimentary, even when compared with simple video editing programs like Movie Maker and iMovie. Let's not even talk about how it stacks up to Final Cut Pro — it doesn't. .... The only way to edit the length of your videos is by trimming from the beginning or end. Unlike most video editing programs, YouTube does not let you split and cut parts out from the middle of the video. ...... Also, be aware that the trimming process isn't always smooth. While you're adjusting the slider on the timeline to trim a video, the video constantly reloads on the display. The best way to trim a video is to pre-decide the exact startpoint and endpoint, rather than trying to eyeball it while dragging the trim bar. ..... Thinking About Adding a Soundtrack? Proceed With Caution ...... Another shortcoming is that you can't trim the audio clips at all. If a song is longer than your video, the song will simply end awkwardly at the point where the video ends. ...... The secret to great YouTube videos, if there is one, is to start out with solid footage. As with anything, post-production techniques generally won't yield any miracles.

Being able to tap into what words and phrases people are putting into that Google Search box I would think would be the number one help item. If you can zero in by geography, and by timeframe, that would be a big help. By country, by city, district. What were people searching for today, this past week, and so on. This past year.

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Fred Wilson, Google, Facebook, Apple, USV

English: Apple iPad Event (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Fred seems to have taken some flak for his comment that in 2020, Google and Facebook will be among the three biggest tech companies in the world, but not Apple. When asked if one of his portfolio companies will be among the top three he said, I most certainly hope so.

I am bullish on Google. I see it becoming the first trillion dollar company in the world. Usually when companies get big, they get innovation lazy. In Google's case when they have become big they have innovated at large scales. They have tackled problems that small startups just can't because they don't have the huge resources.

I disagree with Fred on Facebook. I am not sure Facebook will be among the top three in 2020. Facebook has been a one trick wonder. They have the option to be among the three, but I have not seen it yet.

I agree with him on Apple. Apple will milk the iPhone and the iPad as much as it can, but that momentum will last only a few more years, and then funny things might start happening to its standing in the stock markets. The next sexy hardware is not coming from Apple.

As for Union Square Ventures, I don't think they have a portfolio company that will be among the top three in 2020. I would love to be proven wrong. But that is a judgment call I am making. Point be noted I am not up to date on USV. I don't have a good knowledge of their investments in the recent two years.



Devices vs Cloud

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The Natural User Interface And The Differently Abled

English: NASA StarChild image of Stephen Hawking. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I think the Natural User Interface, of which the touch is just the beginning and gesture is the next big step, though not the final step, not by a long shot, is a big gift for all of us, but it might be extra promising for the differently abled. Senior homes can make use of drones and robots. Voice commands would cut language barriers. The Internet is not meant for English only, and should not dump you into your particular language silo. You communicate, let the Internet translate.

The keyboard, if you think about it, does feel unnatural.

The ultimate is being able to command your computing environment with your eye movements, Stephen Hawking style.

At some level we are all differently. A lot of start wearing glasses early on. As soon as you put one on, you have gently stepped into the differently abled zone. Smart, robotic limbs are not a challenge anymore. They are not innovation challenges, they are simply now scaling challenges.

Your brain is one of the last parts of your body to give up on you. Which means the NUI taken to its logical conclusion will allow us to raise the retirement age. And since retirement is voluntary anyways, a lot of us could hope to live long productive lives through NUI.

Education remains the great unsolved mystery of our knowledge age, ironically. The industrial era education engines/structures don't recognize concepts like people learn at their own paces with their own styles. That individualization is now possible. But there are old institutional structures that get in the way.

There are enormous implications on education and health because a knowledge economy puts a major, unprecedented emphasis on human capital. Human capital is a concept much bigger than human rights because it takes human rights for granted.

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Marissa Mayer Doing Search Could Get Interesting

Marissa Mayer (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Search is, after all, the fundamental operation on the web. Steve Jobs left the PC to Bill Gates when he returned. But there is no post-Search like there was a post-PC. Search is here to stay. She does not have to become number one. All she has to do is become a strong number two and shine elsewhere. Mayer seems to be saying the Yahoo search results are already pretty good, but search results presentations could be vastly improved.

Marissa Mayer Aims Yahoo’s Guns at Google Search

Yahoo search was one of three parts of the company Mayer called out as in most urgent need of an overhaul, along with Yahoo Mail and the Yahoo.com homepage ..... by far the most lucrative business at Google, where Mayer once headed its search product ..... All of the innovations in search are going to happen at the user interface level moving forward and we need to invest in those features both on the desktop and on mobile .... Yahoo, presumably, can improve its search engine by simply wrapping Microsoft’s search infrastructure in an improved user interface. ..... Yahoo helps power searches on the Siri digital assistant included with Apple iPhones and iPads.

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Has Apple Peaked? (2)

Image via CrunchBase

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"Has Apple Peaked?"
Has Apple Peaked?
Has Apple peaked?

at one point some $57 billion was wiped off Apple’s market capitalisation, roughly the equivalent of the entire value of Ford, a carmaker..... First, Steve Jobs, Apple’s founder and creative genius, is dead. The iPhones and iPads he sired still generate gargantuan profits. But his successor, Tim Cook, has yet to prove himself capable of bringing new breakthrough products to market. Second, Apple’s fantastic profit margins—38.6% on sales of $55 billion—attract competitors like sweetshops attract six-year-olds. ..... The firm’s price-earnings ratio—11.6 at close of business on January 23rd—is not much different from Microsoft’s .... Only one of 60 analysts tracked by Bloomberg had a “sell” recommendation on Apple before this week’s stockmarket fallout. ..... Apple bungled the introduction of its new mapping app, and there were rumours of cuts in component orders for the iPhone 5. ..... Apple could produce an iPhone for less than $150 to broaden its appeal. .... the best way for the company to prove it is not past its prime would be for it to disrupt another big market ..... All eyes are on television (though Apple is also exploring the potential of other markets, such as wearable computing ..... Competition is now tougher in its core markets. Rivals will not let it disrupt new ones so easily. ..... Apple won’t crumble, but it has peaked.

Suing Samsung was the beginning of the end of Apple. That was Apple saying it was not going to innovate anymore, not fast enough, not for enough people. Apple suing Samsung was a symptom.

Apple messing up maps on the iPhone was also a symptom. Apple firing Scott was another symptom. Scott messing up maps was Scott telling Tim Cook, you are no Steve Jobs. If Scott had apologized as Tim Cook had demanded Tim Cook would have kept him around? That is not the tech way. It is not about apologizing. It is about "simply working."

Apple is no longer in the lead in either the smartphone or the tablet space. And it is not going to be able to do TV. Apple is done. To put it politely, Apple has matured.

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I Like To Read, I Like To Take Pictures

Nexus 4: My First Smartphone
Nexus 4 Is Way Too Cool

I have been playing with my Nexus 4 for days now. It is such a joy.

I have downloaded and organized a whole bunch of apps. I have discovered that I really like to read. Some of my favorite apps help me read. I also seem to like to take pictures. I have discovered. These are not revelations to me. More like confirmations. But confirmations I am happy about.

I really like to read. Pocket is a good one. It beats Flipboard in my book. I like the idea of saving in Pocket on my laptop to read later on the phone. My private homepage on my laptop already has an excellent curation of read destinations.

Amazon Kindle is awesome and easily my favorite app on my seven inch tablet. I am glad to have the Wikipedia app on the phone. Wikipedia is an awesome aspect of the Internet.

I have tried and loved several game apps. I played for hours, one of them overnight, it seemed like. But I did not find myself going back to them the following day. Chess I have gone back to. That is a good classic game in which to want to climb levels.

Path pictures are good, as Instagram pictures. The smartphone is such a poor camera that it has to make up for through filters and effects.

It is a treat to be able to download apps for your phone while sitting in front of a laptop.

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