YouTube is rolling out a new feature that will check for potential copyright violations and whether it can be monetized – even before a video is uploaded. The new tool is called Checks, and it will appear as the last step before a video goes live on the platform. However, users will be able to publish their videos while the check is still running. The idea is to warn creators in advance, rather than receiving a copyright notice or their video being restricted from using ads due to unsuitable content.
You will be able to publish even while the Checks tool is running
The company says that the process of checking and flagging potential copyright violations takes three minutes to complete. However, there might still be a chance that your video might be flagged for copyright infringement after going live. As for checking content suitability and deciding whether it can be monetized via ads, the Checks tool will take around 4 minutes.
If a creator sees that there are a few copyright issues detected by the Checks tool, they’ll be able to see all the details such as the portion of content that belongs to someone else, the timecode at which the disputed content appears, and what actions can be taken to fix the issues. Creators can then choose to remove or edit those portions, or dispute the findings if they think the system made a mistake.
Despite passing the Checks stage, manual copyright claims can come your way
Additionally, if your video is flagged by the Checks tool for content suitability issues that go against YouTube’s ad-friendly content guidelines, you will have a chance to go through the content, metadata, and thumbnail again to make the necessary changes However, if you think that the system is inaccurate, you can request a human review as well. Once the video has been reviewed, you’ll be notified about the same via email.
But YouTube warns that even if a video has passed the Checks analysis without any issues, it is still open to manual copyright claims from others, and might be penalized if the claims are verified. Additionally, if you edit your video settings that violate the YouTube guidelines, some restrictions may be applied as well.
YouTube is expanding its parental controls feature for the parents of tweens and teens. The feature is aimed at youngsters who have outgrown YouTube Kids but are still under age for some YouTube content. The company will release these features with a public beta for the supervised accounts feature in the coming months.
It will allow parents to choose from three content settings when they are comfortable enough to let their kids access more content on YouTube. The app will unlock videos – including vlogs, gaming clips, music videos, news and educational content – for kids aged nine and older.
YouTube will give parents the ability to choose from three different settings on YouTube. The Explore setting will feature a broad range of videos generally suitable for viewers aged 9 and above. It will include vlogs, tutorials, gaming videos, music clips, news, educational content, and more.
The Explore More setting will unlock content generally suitable for viewers aged 13+. It will include an even larger set of videos, and also live streams in the same categories as “Explore.” Lastly, Most of YouTube setting will contain almost all videos on YouTube, except for age-restricted content. It will also include sensitive topics that may only be appropriate for older teens.
The company says it will use a mix of user input, machine learning, and human review to determine which videos are included. It will also launch an ongoing campaign that features creators discussing themes like bullying and harassment, misinformation, digital well-being, and more. Parents can also use other controls offered by Google’s Family Link, including screen timers. They will be able to manage watch and search history from within their child’s account settings.
Further, the feature will also limit the abilities of tween and teens’ accounts. YouTube will disable in-app purchases, as well as creation and comments features. Additionally, it won’t serve them personalized ads or certain ad categories. Eventually, the company plans to enable some of those features “through an age-appropriate and parent controlled approach.”
With iOS 14, the YouTube app enabled 4K video playback on iPhones. Yes, no iPhone launched so far comes equipped with a display with a pixel density high enough to match the 4K resolution, but the capability was there. Now, Google has turned its attention to its own mobile operating system and has enabled 4K video playback on the YouTube app for Android.
As spotted by AndroidPolice– and subsequently confirmed by me on multiple devices – the latest version of the YouTube app on Android now shows the option to play videos in glorious 4K resolution. In the YouTube app though, the option to bump video resolution to 4K quality is listed as 2160p, sitting just below 1440p. So far, the YouTube app had limited videos to a peak playback resolution of 1440p, even if they were originally uploaded in 4K quality.
To change the video resolution to 4K, tap on the three-dot menu icon in the top-right corner and click on the Quality option in the window that pops up from the bottom. And oh, if the 4K video you’re watching has been shot in HDR mode, you can of course watch it in 2160p HDR quality as well. Just to make things clear, even if your phone has an HD or FHD display, you can still set the playback quality to 4K in the YouTube app.
Why would you do that? Well, if you got a fast enough Wi-Fi connection and want to test its limits, go ahead and set the video quality to 4K. Is the new capability in the YouTube app for Android useful? That depends on whether your phone has a 4K display. Chances are low that your daily driver phone has a 4K display though.
Right now, the only phone with modern specs and a 4K display that I know is the Xperia 1 II that was launched in February last year. The other one happens to be the Xperia PRO, which went on sale last month with an eye-popping price tag of $2500. Both the Sony phones come equipped with a 4K HDR OLED display with a cinematic 21:9 aspect ratio.
YouTube launched its own version of TikTok-like short videos in India back in September last year. Well, it appears that despite being a brazen copycat, the feature has been well-received, and the experiment was successful enough to warrant its entry into the US market. In an official blog post, YouTube’s Chief Product Officer Neal Mohan revealed that the number of Indian channels that are now making content for Shorts has tripled and that these short-form videos are now being watched around 3.5 billion times globally on a daily basis.
YouTube is doing what Instagram did with its own TikTok-copycat called Reels
Buoyed by the positive response, the company is bringing YouTube Shorts as a beta to the US market in the coming weeks. In case you’re wondering, YouTube Shorts are, well, short clips of 15-second (or lesser) duration that appear as a horizontal carousel nestled between the suggested videos. But once you open one, it turns into a TikTok-like vertically scrolling feed of content.
Talking about features, creators get access to a multi-segment camera that allows them to merge multiple clips together. Those creating Shorts can add a song to the background by picking up music from YouTube’s own licensed track library. There is also a speed control option to let users speed up or slow down their videos for dramatic effect, and a nifty shot timer tool is there as well.
YouTube TV will allow concurrent streams on unlimited screens at your home
Additionally, the company has also announced that its on-demand streaming and TV broadcast service – YouTube TV – will soon allow you to stream content in 4K resolution. Plus, you will also be able to download videos for watching them later. “And there’s more to come, including a new add-on option that lets viewers watch available shows in 4K or download them to their DVR to watch later offline,” the blog post said.
An option to watch concurrent YouTube TV streams on multiple devices simultaneously is also in the pipeline. What this means is you can watch YouTube TV streams on as many screens at home as you want, ending the 3-screen limitation. However, it appears that the aforementioned features will be available only with a pricier subscription plan that will be launched soon.
In what can be called taking a note from Instagram’s books, YouTube is experimenting with a new feature that will let viewers buy a product shown in a video. The company is testing the new shopping trick among a small circle of users in the US market on its Android as well as the iOS app, and desktop too.
YouTube really wants you to go shopping on its massive video platform
“We’re testing a new way for people to easily discover and purchase products featured in YouTube videos. Creators in this pilot can add certain products to their videos. Viewers can then see a list of featured products by clicking the shopping bag icon on the bottom left corner of the video. From there, viewers can explore each product’s page to see more information, related videos, and purchase options for that product,” YouTube says on a support page.
YouTube began testing a similar feature in April this year called ‘products in video’ that was supposed to show the products show in a video with new visual elements such as an icon overlay with the product name and other key details about it. As per aBloomberg report, Google started asking some creators to use its in-house system to tag and track products they show in their videos. These tools will be linked with the analytics and shopping tools provided by Google. Back in December, the YouTube app began testing with a new Shorts icon in the top/bottom row to let users quickly view YouTube Shorts.
This is an experimental feature, and might not see a wider release
But as mentioned earlier, the new product shopping tool is a close circle experimental feature, so it will be visible only to a small number of users. Also, the new shopping feature is part of what the company calls ‘YouTube feature experiments’ which usually involves testing new tools for a very short span of time. And as such, it is quite likely that this feature might never be released widely.
If Google services are not working for you, don’t worry. It’s the same in most regions. And that’s because Google services seem to be. down at the moment. The services affected include Gmail, YouTube, Docs, as well as Play Store and more. Users in India, SEA, Europe, and parts of the USA complaining that they are unable to sign in to any of these services.
It started a while ago when my mails weren’t loading, neither was YouTube. As a reflex, I signed in to Twitter, and there it was – #GoogleDown and #YouTubeDown were trending. As XDA reports Down Detector is showing a spike in complaints related to connectivity issues for Gmail. Here is the outage map for the service at the time of writing:
Google Drive and Google Docs aren’t loading either. There’s no information yet from Google, across some of the prominent Twitter service handles. As mentioned above, most of the Google services are affected. These include the likes of YouTube, Gmail, Docs, Drive, Calendar, Play Store, and more. Currently, there is no information when the services will get restored to normal.
That said, these services including YouTube are working in Incognito Mode. Hence, it could be an issue centering around Google Accounts. We’ll update this story when we get more information on the outage.
We’re aware of a problem with Gmail affecting a majority of users. The affected users are unable to access Gmail.
Google
Update [December 14, 7:55 AM]:
Google says Gmail service has already been restored for some users. They expect to resolve it for all users soon.
Earlier this year, YouTube introduced a new feature called Chapters – which as the name suggests – essentially divides a video into separate chapters using timestamps. I love chapters. They save me the hassle of watching the boring parts or doing hit-and-miss adjustments on the seek bar to get to the interesting part. However, chapters can only be added by creators, so you’re essentially at their mercy to enjoy this little gift. However, that dependence might end soon, thanks to AI.
As part of its latest experiment, YouTube is banking on AI that will go through a video and identify certain visual markers to break a video into chapters. YouTube says it will rely on machine learning to recognize specific text-based signs for automatically generating video chapters. So, if a video has text cues for jumping into the next section, the AI will automatically identify it and use that time-stamp to create a chapter.
YouTube chapters are quite convenient and save a lot of time.
Say for example a smartphone review video, where the creator adds frames with prominent text such as ‘build quality’, ‘camera performance’, and more in order to jump to the next part of the review. With the new experiment, YouTube says that it wants to make it easier for people to navigate videos and quickly jump to the relevant part by taking advantage of chapters.
YouTube is currently testing the AI-generated chapters on a small set of videos. However, the company will let creators opt out of the experiment, and they can also provide some feedback on how it works or can be improved. It can be a tedious task for creators, especially those with a lot of videos on their YouTube channel, to add timestamps and chapter names to each section of their older video. This is where the AI-generated time-stamp feature comes to their aid. And of course, it is a great convenience for viewers as well.
Are you not part of the YouTube Partner Program? Don’t worry, YouTube has a new update for you! It will now show ads on your videos. Oh wait, did you just ask “how much will I earn from it?” Well, the answer is zero. YouTube will show ads on your videos but won’t share the earnings with you since you are not qualified to be enrolled in their Partner Program.
Generally, YouTube shows ads on those creators’ videos who are enrolled in its Partner Program. These creators receive a portion of the revenue. However, the company has updated its Terms of Service according to which, a creator who is not in the partner program “may see ads on some of your videos.”
The company’s Terms of Service now includes granting “YouTube the right to monetize your Content on the Service (and such monetization may include displaying ads on or within Content or charging users a fee for access). This Agreement does not entitle you to any payments.“
Previously, YouTube used to show ads on such videos in limited circumstances, like if they were monetized by a record label as part of a copyright claim.
This update is likely to affect smaller creators without a huge number of views. For the unaware, the YouTube Partner Program (YPP) requires creators to have more than a thousand subscribers and accrued 4,000 total hours of watch time over the last 12 months to show ads on their videos.
The new update is slowly rolling out on a ‘limited number of videos from channels not in YPP.’ You’ll still have the opportunity to apply for YPP as you normally would once you meet the eligibility requirements.
Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, S20 5G and more devices on sale today
Let’s start today off with deals, cause by this time I should find another way to introduce this segment. Anyways, let’s end the week with some Galaxy Note 20 deals because, why not? The Note 20 Ultra is currently $200 off on Amazon, leaving the 128GB model for $1100, and yes this is the US variant. The Galaxy S20 is also getting $200 deals, that leaves the regular S20 for $800 but, you’ll have to go for the Cloud Pink colorway. Moving on to B&H, the Galaxy Note 10 which is still a pretty good buy is down $250 from its original price tag, leaving it at $700 shipped. Finally, the Microsoft Surface Laptop Go is $150 off, leaving that at $759 for the entry level model. We have more deals on other Galaxy Notes, Razer peripherals and more, in the links in the description.
I want to continue the official news on a positive note today so, let’s talk about YouTube and your favorite video every year. The company took to Twitter yesterday to announce that we won’t be getting a rewind next year. They posted a picture explaining how 2020 has been a different year, and they don’t feel like they should treat it like it wasn’t so, they’re taking a break this year. They also said that a lot of good was made this year as creators found ways to switch things up and cheer people so they thank them for making a difference. Now, we know that the Rewind isn’t necessarily people’s favorite video but, I kind of agree with YouTube for taking this position. But like seriously, can you name any particular YouTube rewind that you liked, cause I can’t remember any.
Samsung announces Exynos 1080 5nm chipset for upper mid-range phones
Now how about if we talk about Samsung as the company is sadly not abandoning their Exynos platform, and I doubt that will ever happen now that we got to see what Apple Silicon can do, that said, the company I smaking an interesting move. Samsung has just announced their new Exynos 1080 processor, but before you roll your eyes at me, hold it. This actually seems to be the first Exynos worth talking about, even if it’s designed for mid-rangers, but it actually follows on the 5nm process that’s making Apple Silicon look so good right now.. Exynos 1080-powered smartphones can have support for WQHD+ resolution display with up to 90Hz refresh rate or Full HD+ resolution screen with up to 144Hz refresh rate. As for the cameras, it supports up to 200MP single camera or 32MP + 32MP dual-camera setup or a maximum of six cameras. It also supports HDR10+ and 4K 60ffps encoding and decoding with HEVC. So yeah, technically this chip is to a certain degree more powerful and efficient than even the best Galaxy flagship, but we’ll see how soon we see that extend.
Instagram REALLY wants you to watch Reels and Shop on its app
Now let’s move the spotlight over to what used to be my favorite social network, at least up until Facebook bought it. For those of you, like me, who love Instagram it looks like things are changing.. Again. Can Facebook just leave it alone? The company just announced a new update yesterday which is currently rolling out to users. Basically they are now prioritizing Reels and the Shop, by moving the Likes and Post sections to the top right, next to the DMS and now you get Reels at the center and the Shop where the likes used to be. Both of these features have been a part of Instagram for quite some time but, it looks like they’re really trying to push it now. Instagram has released other major updates this year, like switching to Facebook Messenger for DMs, or adding “Suggested Posts” to the feed. So far, reception hasn’t been so great and I doubt many people are interested in the Instagram Shop for it to switch places with the notification hub. We’ll see how it works out for them, cause yeah, the social network I once used for photos wants to be a mall now?
New iPhone 13 lineup may arrive with a smaller battery
Now let’s talk Apple as yes, happy iPhone day part 2. All of the iPhones are here now, as a matter of fact, we have content coming very soon on the 12 Pro Max and the Mini but, one of the topics people are interested in this year is battery life. The 11 had great battery life because they finally caved and gave us bigger batteries. Thing is that plan shrunk with the iPhone 12 and it sort of makes sense with the 5nm architecture in the new chips. Well, according to a new Ming Chi Kuo report, they’ll be shrinking them again next year. He claims that Cupertino will be using a new battery “soft board” technology for the iPhone 13 and the 13 Mini. This technology helps them save internal space and reduce costs because they have fewer layers than what we currently get, maybe to make the iPhones slimmer or in case they want to bring the headphone jack back. Sadly, this means that Apple is going back to the days were they prioritized slimmer phones over good battery life. Another factor could be that LTPO display we’ll reportedly be getting as it draws less power than current displays. So far, my experience with the 12’s battery has been okay, but it’s definitely not better than the 11 so, let’s hope the 13 isn’t worse than the 12.
Story of the day:
We could get new mini-LED iPad and AirPods 3 in the first half of 2021
iOS 14.3 reveals an icon that hints at the design of Apple’s AirPods Studio headphones
Finally, for the hottest news today, let’s keep talking about Apple and Ming Chi Kuo, mainly because you know that not all the rumors we’ve discussed were launched and we wonder where are those products. Well, let’s begin with the latest developer beta for iOS 14.3 which reveals some interesting things. A developer shared on twitter a “New Pairing” screen video from the Find My App in this beta where there’s a magnifying glass that swivels across some over the ear headphones. Now, there’s no secret that before Apple launches a product, an icon of it pops around somewhere so, it looks like we could finally be getting those AirPods Studios but, according to Prosser those are significantly delayed. But now, moving back to Ming Chi Kuo, his latest research note gives us more information on what Apple plans to do in the first half of 2021. The note mentions that the components destined for a miniLED iPad will be mass produced in the first half of 2021. Now, we’re expecting three different iPads with miniLED displays but, this one should be an iPad Mini or the regular 10.2in iPad, as the 12.9in iPad Pro is slated for Q4 of next year. Moving back to AirPods, he also claims that Cupertino is working on the third generation AirPods which will also go into mass production in the first half of 2021. These will reportedly get a new design to look more like the Pros but, they will still lack Pro features like ANC. If Apple is planning to launch these in the first half of next year, it kinda makes sense for them to launch with the AirPods Studios.
Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, S20 5G and more devices on sale today
Let’s start today off with deals, cause by this time I should find another way to introduce this segment. Anyways, let’s end the week with some Galaxy Note 20 deals because, why not? The Note 20 Ultra is currently $200 off on Amazon, leaving the 128GB model for $1100, and yes this is the US variant. The Galaxy S20 is also getting $200 deals, that leaves the regular S20 for $800 but, you’ll have to go for the Cloud Pink colorway. Moving on to B&H, the Galaxy Note 10 which is still a pretty good buy is down $250 from its original price tag, leaving it at $700 shipped. Finally, the Microsoft Surface Laptop Go is $150 off, leaving that at $759 for the entry level model. We have more deals on other Galaxy Notes, Razer peripherals and more, in the links in the description.
I want to continue the official news on a positive note today so, let’s talk about YouTube and your favorite video every year. The company took to Twitter yesterday to announce that we won’t be getting a rewind next year. They posted a picture explaining how 2020 has been a different year, and they don’t feel like they should treat it like it wasn’t so, they’re taking a break this year. They also said that a lot of good was made this year as creators found ways to switch things up and cheer people so they thank them for making a difference. Now, we know that the Rewind isn’t necessarily people’s favorite video but, I kind of agree with YouTube for taking this position. But like seriously, can you name any particular YouTube rewind that you liked, cause I can’t remember any.
Samsung announces Exynos 1080 5nm chipset for upper mid-range phones
Now how about if we talk about Samsung as the company is sadly not abandoning their Exynos platform, and I doubt that will ever happen now that we got to see what Apple Silicon can do, that said, the company I smaking an interesting move. Samsung has just announced their new Exynos 1080 processor, but before you roll your eyes at me, hold it. This actually seems to be the first Exynos worth talking about, even if it’s designed for mid-rangers, but it actually follows on the 5nm process that’s making Apple Silicon look so good right now.. Exynos 1080-powered smartphones can have support for WQHD+ resolution display with up to 90Hz refresh rate or Full HD+ resolution screen with up to 144Hz refresh rate. As for the cameras, it supports up to 200MP single camera or 32MP + 32MP dual-camera setup or a maximum of six cameras. It also supports HDR10+ and 4K 60ffps encoding and decoding with HEVC. So yeah, technically this chip is to a certain degree more powerful and efficient than even the best Galaxy flagship, but we’ll see how soon we see that extend.
Instagram REALLY wants you to watch Reels and Shop on its app
Now let’s move the spotlight over to what used to be my favorite social network, at least up until Facebook bought it. For those of you, like me, who love Instagram it looks like things are changing.. Again. Can Facebook just leave it alone? The company just announced a new update yesterday which is currently rolling out to users. Basically they are now prioritizing Reels and the Shop, by moving the Likes and Post sections to the top right, next to the DMS and now you get Reels at the center and the Shop where the likes used to be. Both of these features have been a part of Instagram for quite some time but, it looks like they’re really trying to push it now. Instagram has released other major updates this year, like switching to Facebook Messenger for DMs, or adding “Suggested Posts” to the feed. So far, reception hasn’t been so great and I doubt many people are interested in the Instagram Shop for it to switch places with the notification hub. We’ll see how it works out for them, cause yeah, the social network I once used for photos wants to be a mall now?
New iPhone 13 lineup may arrive with a smaller battery
Now let’s talk Apple as yes, happy iPhone day part 2. All of the iPhones are here now, as a matter of fact, we have content coming very soon on the 12 Pro Max and the Mini but, one of the topics people are interested in this year is battery life. The 11 had great battery life because they finally caved and gave us bigger batteries. Thing is that plan shrunk with the iPhone 12 and it sort of makes sense with the 5nm architecture in the new chips. Well, according to a new Ming Chi Kuo report, they’ll be shrinking them again next year. He claims that Cupertino will be using a new battery “soft board” technology for the iPhone 13 and the 13 Mini. This technology helps them save internal space and reduce costs because they have fewer layers than what we currently get, maybe to make the iPhones slimmer or in case they want to bring the headphone jack back. Sadly, this means that Apple is going back to the days were they prioritized slimmer phones over good battery life. Another factor could be that LTPO display we’ll reportedly be getting as it draws less power than current displays. So far, my experience with the 12’s battery has been okay, but it’s definitely not better than the 11 so, let’s hope the 13 isn’t worse than the 12.
Story of the day:
We could get new mini-LED iPad and AirPods 3 in the first half of 2021
iOS 14.3 reveals an icon that hints at the design of Apple’s AirPods Studio headphones
Finally, for the hottest news today, let’s keep talking about Apple and Ming Chi Kuo, mainly because you know that not all the rumors we’ve discussed were launched and we wonder where are those products. Well, let’s begin with the latest developer beta for iOS 14.3 which reveals some interesting things. A developer shared on twitter a “New Pairing” screen video from the Find My App in this beta where there’s a magnifying glass that swivels across some over the ear headphones. Now, there’s no secret that before Apple launches a product, an icon of it pops around somewhere so, it looks like we could finally be getting those AirPods Studios but, according to Prosser those are significantly delayed. But now, moving back to Ming Chi Kuo, his latest research note gives us more information on what Apple plans to do in the first half of 2021. The note mentions that the components destined for a miniLED iPad will be mass produced in the first half of 2021. Now, we’re expecting three different iPads with miniLED displays but, this one should be an iPad Mini or the regular 10.2in iPad, as the 12.9in iPad Pro is slated for Q4 of next year. Moving back to AirPods, he also claims that Cupertino is working on the third generation AirPods which will also go into mass production in the first half of 2021. These will reportedly get a new design to look more like the Pros but, they will still lack Pro features like ANC. If Apple is planning to launch these in the first half of next year, it kinda makes sense for them to launch with the AirPods Studios.
YouTube is bringing new features to its player page on the mobile app. The update includes the relocation of some elements, adds new features and playback controls. Previously, users needed to tap the full-screen button or rotate your phone, but there’s a new action to perform these functions now. You can enable or disable full-screen video by simply swiping up on the video window to enter full-screen and swiping down to return back to the standard player page. However, these gestures will only work if you swipe on the playback window itself.
YouTube’s mobile app is also getting an update to the video chapters, which is essentially an easier way to get to the “good part” of a video. The creators can apply timestamps to their videos and allow users to quickly jump to a specific section of a video. Based on the chapter information that the creator adds to their video’s description, they are automatically enabled as a line of timestamps and titles. Now, YouTube is adding a new list view to the video chapters. This will let you see a complete list of all the chapters included in the video. Each of them will have their own preview thumbnail. To access the list, you can tap on the chapter title in the player. The new update is making it easier for the users to navigate chapters.
The new YouTube mobile app update also brings changes to the player page. Captions button is getting more accessible with a new prominent position on mobile phones. Further, the auto-play toggle has been moved to the top of the playback window making it easier for you to turn it on or off while you’re watching a video. It will also roll out to desktop users soon. The player page improvements also include rearranged buttons and controls. Moreover, YouTube will prompt viewers with “suggested actions” when there’s a way to have a better video experience.
The new features are rolling out to users across both iOS and Android.
Google has today announced a new feature that will automatically enhance the audio output in YouTube Stories by isolating the speech of a video’s subject. The feature is called “Enhance speech” and it will directly be accessible in the volume controls section of the editing tools. Once enabled, it automatically reduces the background noise so that voice of the subject is more clear in YouTube Stories. Also, enabling it will play back the improved speech output in a loop so that creators can compare how their video turns out with the effect applied. Also, it can be turned on and off until you get the desired output.
The new “Enhance Speech” feature for recording YouTube Stories builds upon the ML-based “Looking to Listen” technology that the company introduced two years ago. It relies on audio-visual cues such as mouth movements and facial expressions to separate the subject’s voice. In addition to isolating the subject’s voice, the technology also plays a role in suppressing the noise. Google says it has also tested the technology extensively to make sure that “it performs consistently across different recording conditions and for people with different appearances and voices.”
The company further adds that the machine learning model behind this feature has been trained to handle a wide range of voices, languages and accents, as well as a multitude of visual appearances. To better understand the audio-visual cues, the company also took into account attributes such as the speaker’s age, skin tone, spoken language, voice pitch, visibility of the speaker’s face, head pose throughout the video, facial hair, and presence of glasses to name a few. In addition to “Enhance Speech”, the company is also exploring new ways to implement the technology in more products.
Listed below are a few videos that demonstrate how the new speech enhancement feature comes to life:
Everyone is jumping on the popularity of short videos these days, a domain popularized by TikTok. Instagram has Reels to go against TikTok, and now, YouTube has its own rival called YouTube Shorts. The Google-owned company is launching YouTube Shorts as a beta for the Indian market first, complete with a host of new creation tools. YouTube defines YouTube Shorts as a “new short-form video experience right on YouTube for creators and artists who want to shoot short, catchy videos using nothing but their mobile phones.” So, what’s the whole deal and what are the features it got? Let’s break it all down:
The key premise of YouTube Shorts is content creation. So, in order to make a clip, just tap the “Create” icon at the bottom of the YouTube homepage and select the “create a short” option to instantly record a short video in the mobile app. Or, you can tap on the “upload a video” option to pull up a pre-saved video from your phone’s internal storage. Talking about tools, users will get a multi-segment camera that will allow them to merge multiple clips together. There is also an option to add a song to the background by picking up music from YouTube’s vast library of content. And oh, the videos should be 15 seconds or less in duration.
YouTube Shorts also offers speed controls to let users speed up or slow down their clips for creative effects. And to save users the hassle, there is also a timer and countdown to let users capture short videos without having to hold their device in their hands. However, these are just some of the core features, and more tools for creators are coming with the coming months. YouTube is introducing a new space alongside the stories section where users can watch YouTube Shorts in a vertically scrollable format, similar to TikTok. YouTube says creators can already start making and sharing YouTube Shorts to gain an early edge. However, details about a wider availability are still under the wraps.
YouTube has announced that it will no longer send email notifications for new content such as uploads, live streams, and premieres from channels users have subscribed to. The reason behind pulling the plugs on email notifications is that 0.1% of these emails were opened, says YouTube, and that they simply overloaded the inbox.
On the support page, YouTube also cites creators who claim that the watch time of their content remained unaffected when they turned off email notifications.“In fact, our tests showed that when we don’t send these emails, more people engage with mobile push notifications and their Subscriptions feed,” creators were quoted as saying.
Even though email notifications are now gone, there are still a couple of ways to get notified about new content from your favorite YouTube channels. Users will continue to receive push notifications from the YouTube app on their smartphone or via Chrome browser on their PC if they have enabled these notifications.
Amid the coronavirus pandemic, YouTube in India restricted video streaming quality on its mobile apps to 480p in March. It was done to ensure that the sudden increase in internet traffic didn’t cause any issues. The limited video quality continued in the country even after the lockdown. Many were complaining about it.
YouTube is finally re-enabling 1080p streaming in India. You can now stream videos in 1080p on Android and iOS YouTube app. However, the setting is limited to WiFi network. It would not work if you are connected to mobile data. Further, the default streaming quality is still set at 480p.
To watch YouTube videos in 1080p on mobile, you need to connect to a WiFi network, tap on the three-dot menu button in the top right corner of the video, and then tap on 1080p from the settings.
