YouTube Extends Automatic Video Captioning

WASHINGTON – YouTube, in a significant development for millions of deaf Internet users, extended automatic caption capability Thursday to all English-language videos on the video-sharing website.

YouTube users have been able to manually add captions to videos since 2008 and in November of last year the site began offering machine-generated captions for about a dozen partner channels.

Hiroto Tokusei, a YouTube product manager, said in a blog post on Thursday that the automatic caption, or auto-caption, feature was now being expanded to all videos on the site in English.

Auto-captioning uses speech-to-text technology to generate subtitles.

"Making video easily accessible is something we're working hard to address at YouTube," said Tokusei, citing studies that predict that over 700 million people worldwide will suffer from hearing impairment by 2015.

The auto-captioning feature will make YouTube videos "more accessible to people who have hearing disabilities or who speak different languages," the YouTube project manager said.

While the auto-caption feature currently only works for videos where English is spoken, Tokusei said users can use Google's automatic translation service to simultaneously translate the captions into 50 other languages.

Auto-captioning in more languages will be added "in the months to come."

The YouTube project manager noted that auto-captioning is not yet perfect and a "clearly spoken audio track" without background noise is needed to create quality captions.

Video owners do have the capability, however, of downloading auto-generated captions, improving their accuracy and then uploading a new version.

One of the chief advocates for captioning capability at YouTube has been Vint Cerf, the Google vice president who has been described as the "Father of the Internet."

Cerf, who is hearing impaired and has been wearing hearing aids since the age of 13, made a personal appearance at the unveiling of the YouTube auto-caption features at Google's Washington offices in November.

Veoh Filing For Bankruptcy Protection

WASHINGTON - Video website Veoh, which has been locked in a two-year legal battle with Vivendi's Universal Music Group over copyright infringement, is filing for bankruptcy protection, its founder announced.

"The distraction of the legal battles, and the challenges of the broader macro-economic climate have led to our Chapter 7 bankruptcy," Dmitry Shapiro, founder and chief executive of Veoh Networks Inc., said in a blog post.

"While we made every effort to convince (UMG) that we were not their enemy and had not infringed on their content, they pursued a relentless war of attrition against us in federal court," Shapiro said.

"We eventually prevailed in a decisive summary judgment that has set an important precedent for the entire industry.

"Unfortunately, great vision, a passionate team, tens of millions of users, millions in revenues and victory in court were not enough," Shapiro added.

The southern California-based Veoh launched in September 2005 as a platform for professional video content and user-generated video like that offered by Google's YouTube or France's Daily Motion.

Veoh's partners include ABC, CBS, ESPN and Warner Brothers.

Shapiro said Veoh's audience had grown to more than 28 million users per month and investors had put 70 million dollars into the company.

Veoh's investors include Shelter Capital, Spark Capital, Michael Eisner's Tornante Co., Goldman Sachs and Time Warner Inc. among others, according to its website.

Veoh's demise comes eight months after that of another online video portal, Joost, which was launched by the creators of Skype, the popular Web telephony service.

House Passes Cybercrime Bill

MANILA, Philippines—The House of Representatives has passed on third and final reading the cybercrime prevention bill, which intends to punish people who commit computer fraud and other cyber-related abuses.

There was hardly any opposition to the measure, except from Kabataan party-list Rep. Raymond Palatino, who explained during the voting Monday night that passing the measure would give the government a dangerous weapon.

“We are dangerously granting the government the legal basis to invade the privacy of individuals,” Palatino said.

The bill, co-authored by 21 lawmakers, lists the prohibited acts relating to the use of computers and other electronic devices. These include illegal access, illegal interception, system and data interference, computer fraud, cybersex activities and child pornography.

But according to Palatino, the bill contains provisions that affect people's civil liberties.

For one thing, cybercrime is defined vaguely, he contended. The measure encompasses the recording and distribution of recorded private acts not limited to sexual acts. But he said this will have an impact on media exposes where they use hidden cameras to catch acts of corruption.

He added that even the “Hello Garci” phone call that snagged President Macapagal Arroyo, who was caught in a wiretapped conversation with an unidentified election official during the counting of votes during the 2004 polls, would be considered a private act.

He also warned that the proposed law would allow government authorities to monitor people's personal accounts on various sites, including e-mail. If a person is suspected of engaging in cybercrime the authorities could open his accounts for surveillance on his actions, he said.

In such instances, the government could access activities and files not related to the suspicious activities.

“This is dangerous because it gives the government an excuse to justify illegal fishing expeditions against ordinary citizens and allows the wanton violation of the strict requirements in criminal procedure,” he said.

Palatino said the measure should be revised to remedy the vague provisions on the definition of cybercrime, and to make the bill more technical.

By Leila Salaverria