A year ago this weekend, Tehran erupted in protest at the disputed results of Iran’s tenth presidential election. In the severe government crackdown that followed, documented on cameras and uploaded by citizens to YouTube, no moment has been seen more than the death of Neda Agha Soltan, a young musician whose brutal killing by a sniper became the rallying cry for Iran’s opposition Green Movement. The anonymous videos of her death even won the prestigious George Polk prize for journalism last year.
How has video become such an important part of human rights advocacy worldwide? In the past, we mainly saw these kinds of images in the nightly news or in documentaries – and even then only occasionally. But now that access to the Internet is much more widespread (even in many developing countries), and billions worldwide have access to ever more powerful cellphones and digital cameras, we encounter human rights images much more directly – on YouTube, in Google searches, in Facebook feeds, through links shared on Twitter.
Today the YouTube blog begins a series of posts exploring the issues around human rights and video in partnership with WITNESS, an international human rights organization that supports people using video to document and expose human rights violations. We encourage you to learn more.
Posted by Steve Grove, Head of News & Politics, YouTube
Remember when Western Digital picked up SiliconSystems for a song during the height of last decade’s Great Recession? Here we are a year later looking at the first fruit of that relationship, as WD has just introduced its first consumer-oriented solid state drive in the SiliconEdge Blue and its enterprise-ready SiliconDrive N1x. Both 2.5-inch families feature a native SATA 3.0Gbps interface along with read speeds as high as 240 – 250MB/sec and write rates peaking at around 140 – 150MB/sec, and the former has already hit the test bench on a number of occasions. For those considering the upgrade, you should probably dive into those links below — most everyone came away feeling that the SiliconEdge Blue was a wee bit underwhelming for the price, with Hot Hardware noting that the “Micron C300 and Intel X25-M were measurably faster overall,” and the lofty MSRP just left ‘em looking for more. Here’s hoping for a price drop and / or a SiliconEdge Black, eh?
WD’s first SiliconEdge Blue SSD launches, gets reviewed originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Mar 2010 12:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Oh, you haven’t been introduced to Mr. Murkycam? He’s the darker, more mysterious cousin of Mr. Blurrycam; his services occasionally called upon to show off products like the new AAXA L1 laser pico projector. The device just started shipping and, according to the video, this is the first one captured in the wild. AAXA promises perfect focus on any surface, even curved ones, and while it’s a bit difficult to tell from the video we’ve embedded below it certainly looks to do a decent job. The L1 also features built-in media player functionality and even includes a 2GB thumb drive for you to load up with whatever you like before slotting it in the side. Photo and PowerPoint performance seems a bit mediocre, and sadly the video doesn’t show the thing playing any footage, but it does look like it works as advertised — as it should for that $599 MSRP.
Continue reading AAXA L1 laser pico projector hands-on by Mr. Murkycam (video)
AAXA L1 laser pico projector hands-on by Mr. Murkycam (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Mar 2010 09:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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For a device with as much superphone street cred as the Milestone, you’d think a basic task like listening to music through the headphone jack would be a cakewalk. No problems, right? So straightforward, really, that it’s not even worth testing thoroughly — and therein lies the problem, it seems. Milestone owners on both sides of the pond are reporting en masse that music playback occasionally skips over the jack — though stereo Bluetooth, ironically a more CPU-taxing operation, seems to be fine. For many owners, particularly those who don’t carry a separate PMP, that can totally be a deal-breaker. It’s said you can work around the issue by putting the phone into airplane mode, which effectively makes it a dedicated PMP anyhow — not an optimal solution, right? Yeah, Moto, this seriously isn’t shaping up to be your week, so let’s just make sure you earn some brownie points with awesome customer service through this rough patch.
[Thanks, Vlad G.]
Motorola Milestone skipping on music playback, perfect for Billy Joel’s ‘Movin’ Out’ originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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We had a great time in Anaheim this past weekend checking out the Photo Marketing Association’s trade show spectacle. Hundreds of cameras and thousands of pictures later, we’re finally back and getting settled. Let’s take a look back at all that we saw this week, and then kind of wrap up a few loose ends.
GE’s ‘Create by Jason Wu’ camera collection unveiled, we go hands on
Joby Gorillapod Magnetic flexible tripod hands-on
Nikon CoolPix ‘Style’ and ‘Life’ series hands-on
Pentax’s rugged W90, ultra-zoom X90 now all but official
Samsung TL500 and TL350 hands-on
Samsung PMA roundup: hands on HMX-U20, eyes on AQ100 and SL605
Sony Alpha ultra-compact concept hands-off: leaves much to the imagination
Sony’s ultra-durable DSC-TX5 hands-on: ice, ice, baby
Sigma trio espied at PMA, COO expresses interest in supporting ‘mirrorless camera systems’
PMA 2010… and that’s a wrap, folks originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 07:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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