In case you missed this story on the Yahoo! homepage today…
Earlier this week, a woman in northern Germany sat down at her computer to tune into the sunset over the North Sea. Tune in? Yes, she was watching via a tourist webcam that overlooks the sea in the town of St. Peter-Ording, Germany.
While she was watching, she noticed periodic flashes of light from the ice. Turns out they were from a man’s camera. He was using it as a sort of S.O.S. beacon after wandering out onto the ice to photograph the sunset. But he quickly became disoriented, unsure how to get back to shore.
From hundreds of kilometers a way, the woman contacted police, who located the man’s signals and guided him into shore by flashing their car lights.
At the time the man lost his bearings, the air temperature was below freezing. He could have frozen to death or fallen through the ice, added police spokeswoman Kristin Stielow.
Stielow said locals are well aware of the risk of disorientation as darkness falls and the beach becomes hard to identify, but vivid sunsets over frozen landscapes often draw people away from the shore.
You can view the St. Peter-Ording webcam here, though the attention from this news story seems to have crippled the site. So bookmark it and check it out in a couple of days. Or check out some of the St. Peter-Ording pics from Flickr below.
This week, we’ve launched the first-ever Yodel Studio where Yahoo! users can come and record their personalized version of our famous brand sound.
That’s right, the catchy Yahoo! trademark, which is part song, part celebration shout, is ready for you to modify, mix and simply make your own. Be loud, be funny, be serious or be seriously silly, but most of all just be YOU! Just head over to the Yodel Studio, plug in your webcam, select a background track and…Yodel! If you need inspiration, there’s some samples to inspire you.
No webcam? Just use your video phone or camcorder to record your yodel, then upload it here. And if you want to really go all out, you can even download the backing tracks to edit and mix your Yodel at home. Then upload it through the site.
We’re also holding live events in New York, London and Mumbai with a little help from local (and famous!) musicians who will help coach eager Yodelers into giving their best performances.
Don’t think there’s much you can do with our Yodel? Check out the samples below by clicking the play button. Inspired? Record your own and share with your friends!
Hopefully you’ve had a chance to try out the new video call feature in Yahoo! Messenger 10 Beta.
Last Friday, the San Jose Mercury News ran a story on Global IP Solutions (GIPS), the company that provides the video and audio technology that powers this new feature. Some of the article is reprinted below; read the full article here.
SAN FRANCISCO — It’s a sparkling morning in the South of Market neighborhood, the city’s tech ghetto. But at Global IP Solutions, the light outside Niklas Enbom’s office is shading toward an evening blue.
Enbom is on a video chat to Global IP Solutions’ San Francisco headquarters from Sweden, where it is nine hours later and dusk is fast approaching. The company, which typically uses its acronym GIPS, provides the underlying video and audio technology for the newly released version of Yahoo Messenger video chat, the service the Swedish executive is using to connect from Stockholm. GIPS also provides the audio technology for Google’s competing service within Google Talk.
Enbom, GIPS’s vice president for software development, is saying that a $70 webcam connected to virtually any PC or Mac built in the last few years with a broadband Internet connection will produce a high-quality video chat experience, even to countries that lack the robust telecom infrastructure of the United States.
“A standard PC can do this in real time, with good quality,” Enbom says over the video link.
Even from Sweden, his lips move in almost perfect synchronization with his words, and the audio quality is comparable to a landline telephone connection. The video is good enough to notice that it’s around sunset in Stockholm, where a large portion of GIPS’s engineers are based.
In short, the technology is good enough that you start to forget about the technology, and concentrate on the conversation.
For decades, ever since Dick Tracy made calls through the video screen on his wristwatch, video chat has been a personal technology everybody could imagine using, but that — for an array of technology, standardization and sociological reasons — few have actually used. A survey this spring by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that only about 20 percent of adult U.S. Internet users have participated in a video chat… Read the full article
As mentioned in several previous posts, we will be retiring Yahoo! Messenger versions 6.0 through 7.5 this Wednesday, September 30.
This means that if you are currently using a version of Yahoo! Messenger that is below 8.0, you will no longer be able to sign in and use it after September 30.
If you are using a version that is set to retire, you have several options for continuing to use Yahoo! Messenger. Please read this article for more information.
This week, Yahoo! announced plans to launch its largest global integrated marketing campaign ever. The core of the campaign is you, the user, celebrating all of your individual wants, needs, interests, and passions. And the many ways you put Yahoo! to work, for you.
Before the official launch next week, we’re releasing bits and pieces of the campaign. The video below was shown to employees on Monday and posted today on our corporate blog. It’s a nice look at some of our users and the many ways they use Yahoo! products.
You’ll see Yahoo! Messenger in a couple of instances. Bodhi is a California grad student from India who uses Yahoo! Messenger video chat to connect with her parents in India every night. Let’s hope she and her parents have upgraded to Yahoo! Messenger 10 with much improved video calling!
And Ted and Vicky used Yahoo! Messenger to court each other – much of it long distance. Enjoy,
In case you missed this story on the Yahoo! homepage today… 
