YouTube adds seven languages

Steve Chen and Chad Hurley, the two founders of YouTube, announced their video-sharing site would be available in seven more languages, says NYTimes.

The new sites - in French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Japanese, Polish and Dutch - will feature local language home pages, videos, rankings, searches and comments. They will also encompass partners like Rai, the Italian broadcaster, the French magazine Glamour, V2 Music in the Netherlands and Real Madrid, the Spanish soccer team.

Local sites also started on Tuesday in English for Britain and Ireland, with partners like the BBC. Other countries, including Germany, are to follow. "This is just the beginning," Chen said.

Microsoft has agreed to revise its Vista operating system under a compromise with federal and state officials monitoring the company's compliance with a five-year-old anti-trust decree, according to a court filing yesterday, reports Washington Post.

Microsoft's concession came after Google filed a complaint alleging it and other competitors were unfairly disadvantaged by how Microsoft designed the feature for conducting computer-desktop searches. In particular, Google said it was difficult to turn off the Microsoft desktop search and that Google's desktop search ran too slowly when users chose it as an alternate.

Though Microsoft executives denied those accusations, the company said it would make several changes in its desktop search. The feature, which is separate from Internet search, allows users to scan information on computer hard drives.

The BBFC has banned Rockstar's upcoming Wii/PS2 game Manhunt 2, meaning it can't be legally supplied anywhere in the UK, says Monsters and Critics.

David Cooke, director of the BBFC, says: "Rejecting a work is a very serious action and one which we do not take lightly. Where possible we try to consider cuts or, in the case of games, modifications which remove the material which contravenes the board's published guidelines.

"In the case of Manhunt 2, this has not been possible. Manhunt 2 is distinguishable from recent high-end video games by its unremitting bleakness and callousness of tone in an overall game context, which constantly encourages visceral killing with exceptionally little alleviation or distancing. There is sustained and cumulative casual sadism in the way in which these killings are committed, and encouraged, in the game."

Apple has outlined new specs for the iPhone, to be released on 29 June, including upgrades to the battery, and to the surface, says Monsters and Critics.

The iPhone will offer up to eight hours of talk time, six hours of Internet use, and seven hours of video playback or 24 hours of audio playback. In addition, the iPhone will feature up to 250 hours, almost 10 days, worth of standby time.

Apple says the entire top surface of the iPhone, including its 3.5-inch display, has been upgraded from plastic to optical-quality glass to achieve a superior level of scratch-resistance and optical clarity.