Flash powers almost all the video on the web nowadays, so it’s obviously good enough. But is there a better way? YouTube , and now Vimeo , who’re both giddily jumping into bed with HTML, sure seem to think so. Vimeo’s new HTML5 system is just like YouTube’s, in both execution and technical details, in that it’ll only work with a few browsers—Safari and Chrome, for now—and that it’s compatible with most, but not all, of the company’s video libraries. It’s something that most people won’t bother to try at this point, and if they do, they’re probably be underwhelmed, since HTML5 video playback is almost indistinguishable from Flash video playback. (Moving pictures!) But it’s primed to be something that everyone ends up using, and that would be a Very Good Thing. Flash video performs terribly on Mac OS X and Linux, and on the few mobile devices that do support it, playback is uniformly terrible.

Months after Verizon Communications began issuing warnings to accused file sharers, the company has acknowledged that multiple offenses could result in a service interruption. “We’ve cut some people off,” Verizon Online spokeswoman Bobbi Henson told CNET. “We do reserve the right to discontinue service. But we don’t throttle bandwidth like Comcast was doing .

Editor’s note : This guest post is by Andrew Keen, the author of Cult of the Amateur and an advisor to Arts and Labs , a collaboration between entertainment companies, software providers, telecommunications providers, artists and creators. Some people don’t like TV Everywhere , Comcast’s and Time Warner’s plan to bring cable TV to the Web. They are just paranoid. Allow me to explain. In his 1964 Harper’s Magazine essay “The Paranoid Style in American Politics”, Columbia University historian Richard Hofstadter argued that American politics has often been a stage for excessively conspiratorial and suspicious minds from both the left and the right. What disturbed Hofstadter most of all was the sanity of the paranoid. “It is the use of paranoid modes of expression by more or less normal people that make the phenomenon significant,” he explained

The most amazing thing about the Internet is how many industries it’s wrecked. File sharing and iTunes forever changed music’s economics; blogging and other forms of online content have killed old media; and open source and software-as-a-service have brutalized the expensive, on-premise enterprise software products. In all these examples companies suffered and good people have lost their jobs, including many of my friends when it comes to media. But mostly, the Internet has acted like Robin Hood—taking big fees from greedy fat cat middlemen, giving more value for a lower price for the end users, and breaking the barriers for new entrants. Here’s the second most amazing thing about the Internet: The fact that there are still industries it’s barely touched. One of those is finance. Sure we had eTrade, Ameritrade and Scottrade in the early days, but opaque, confusing, regulated finance is still largely the same.

Just as CES is wrapping up, we managed to get some hands-on time with the AirStash wireless SD card reader, which is targeted at iPhone OS devices (but does work with other WiFi-enabled devices). Like many of the mysterious products from Vegas we have no price, release date or battery life, but what we do know now is that it’s indeed very light (1.5 ounces), fits nicely in our hands and supports up to 32GB SDHC cards. As for wireless connection the AirStash acts as a WiFi 802.11b/g access point — a cunning way to dodge the Apple dock connector license fees or the lack of Bluetooth profiles. Sadly, the prototype wasn’t working properly due to “some RF interference,” but as you can see above, the AirStash is accessed via a browser (UI design not final). Sure, this would mean you’d lose Internet connection via WiFi, but if the AirStash is cheap enough, then we’ll live with it. Let’s hope they hurry up with the release, though. Gallery: AirStash wireless SD card reader hands-on AirStash wireless SD card reader hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 11 Jan 2010 04:38:00 EST.

Bad news, Droid owners. Android OS version 2.0.1, which all up-to-date Droids are running, has a bug that makes it fairly easy to bypass the phone’s screen-lock security mechanism. The security feature, when working, requires users to input a pattern using onscreen dots before they can access most of the phone’s features (the iPhone offers a similar option). Exploiting the bug is fairly simple: while receiving an incoming call on a Droid that has its Lock screen activated, you can simply hit the dedicated ‘Back’ button to bypass the lock and jump to the homescreen. This, of course, gives access to the owner’s Email account, cookied web pages, phone directory, and everything else stored on the phone.

Skype has already made an impact on the home phone, mobiles and PC desktops (couldn’t do our podcast without it) and now it’s taking on the living room. LG and Panasonic are already lined up to deliver new HD webcams for their internet connected plasma and LCD HDTVs that will enable living room-to-living room calling in 720p. With support for the service’s standard features like free Skype-to-Skype calling, voicemail, receiving inbound calls and more, using the TV to make calls should be just as easy (but likely more embarrassing, try some HD makeup — just a tip) as we’re used to. PC users haven’t been left behind with 720p HD streaming built into the latest client and new webcams on the way from faceVsion and In Store Solutions.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is investigating the privacy and security implications of cloud computing. That could be quite an inquiry as the debate is still open about how to actually define cloud computing in the first place. Sponsor The investigation should raise some concerns with the enterprise community. Such an investigation could cover aspects of Internet communications that have been in use for years. How would the FTC distinguish between the rights of the consumer and businesses that also use cloud computing services? What regulations would drift into the enterprise sector? Any service provider could be viewed as part of the investigation under such a broad umbrella

Two years after finishing up version 1.0 WirelessHD ( WiHD ) is still trying to come out on top of the no-cables-necessary high definition streaming dogfight, and it’s going to get a boost in that effort now that the 2.0 standard is available. Backwards compatible with existing WiHD hardware, the bandwidth has been upped to 10 – 28 Gbps (up from initial specs of 4 Gbps with a theoretical 25 Gbps limit) – enough to handle 4K resolutions, Deep Color, a newly specified 3D over WirelessHD set of standards, HDCP 2.0 DRM and even 1 Gbps file transfers between devices. Out of this world specs are just a matter of course for new hardware, but our focus is still on the group’s ability to get the price down this time around if it ever plans on going mainstream . With an investment from Best Buy just announced and a spot in VIZIO’s LCD lineup already confirmed , existing cable manufacturers may want to start developing Monster Air (10x higher transmission speed due to special platinum ionized molecules, of course) to sell sooner rather than later. WirelessHD 2.0 spec speeds up to 28 Gbps to make room for 4K, 3D, portable devices originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 05 Jan 2010 01:04:00 EST

Remember when ioSafe unveiled its original Solo right around this time last year? Man, that thing’s looking mighty sluggish now. This year, the company is introducing the Solo SSD, which is hailed as the planet’s first solid state external drive built to protect data from a building collapsing on it. Yeah, a building collapsing on it . It’ll be available with capacities as large as 256GB and will get connected via eSATA or USB, and if you care to know, the ruggedness is due to the firm’s own proprietary ArmorPlate steel outer casing.

Facebook has just released its list of top status updates for the year, and they’re pretty interesting. This is a new feature that Facebook plans to release yearly called “Memology,” the study of how memes are spreading on Facebook. Specifically, the Facebook Data Team looked at status updates in the U.S. for this year’s list. For this list, Facebook grouped together similar items to make it a more comprehensive one. As such, the first item on the list should be a surprise to no one: “Facebook Applications.” The specific words that Facebook grouped together here include Farmville, Farm Town, and Social Living, they note. The fact that Farmville has 72 million month active users who update their statuses with info from the game was probably enough to give Faceboook Applications the top spot. But below that, things start to get interesting.

Various consumers have been impotent to access the internet on their Applephone, creating numerous of the popular relevances – which consent clienteles to shop, check train times or catch up on the news – redundant. Customers trying to access appliances or the internet were met with the message: “Could not activate cellular data network.” O2 would not say

Google has made a change to Chrome OS to move the user login from the machine to the browser. Our guess is Google is, or will eventually use, Google Friend Connect to facilitate login. The feature was first mentioned on October 13: “Using Chrome as our login manager has a number of potential benefits. Explore these tradeoffs and decide what to do about the login manager.” The code was checked in on December 14: “An early version of this change is finally in. It’s not ready for daily use yet, and we haven’t gotten the network picker on there or anything yet, but at least we’ve got a baseline in there.

Opera Software was second only to the ruling that the European Commission announced in dealing with the Microsoft bundling of IE with XP, Vista, 7. Now, not really cell phone news but Opera being a leader in mobile OS i felt it appropriateto give kuddos to the efforts of Opera. Back in December of 2007, Opera urged the EC to look into the almost monopolistic features that Microsoft features in its beginning set up. Now, though, after a two investigation Microsoft’s hand has been forced to have the popular Internet Explorer program to not be the only choice available when a user is to load up the computer for the first time.

Fresh from the official Google blog , we have news that Google is taking a group of online scammers to court. We’ve all seen the ads: “Use Google to Make 1000s of Dollars!” “Easy Cash with Google: You Could be Making up to $978 a Day Working from Home!” Finally, the search giant has announced it’s going to do something to protect its trademark and help spare a few suckers from getting scalped. Google is suing Pacific WebWorks and a rash of unnamed defendants. Sponsor In a joint post from search quality engineer Jason Morrison and senior litigation counsel Stacey Wexler, the company stated, “Google hasn’t created or endorsed any of the sites like those described in our complaint. Misleading ads try to take advantage of consumers…