While the iPhone is an exquisitely designed smartphone, it’s not without its problems, one of which is its utter inability to deal with Flash video. But that problem could soon be solved.

One iPhone Issue To Solve

The Apple iPhone is a wonderful piece of kit that does so much more than its primary function as a mobile phone for you to make calls on. One of its key features is to allow users to surf the Internet.

While its brilliant at surfing most sites, it has some trouble when it encounters sites which include Flash content due to the lack of support from Adobe for the system.

This means that virtually all sites which use Flash video are also a no go area for iPhone users, with market leader YouTube one of those heavy-hitting casualties.

How would you fancy a sub-$100 set-top box that plays all manner of Web video on your home television? That is exactly what Roku is aiming to do with its (former) Netflix player.

Roku Netflix Player

The Roku Netflix player, a cheap set-top box that enables owners to stream movies and TV content from Netflix to their home TV, was launched in May 2008 to a mixed response.

Some loved the affordability and ease of the box, while others insisted on comparing it (unfavourably) with more established set-top boxes such as Apple TV and VUDU.

The First Of Many Netflix Partners

While the Roku box has some problems, particularly its lack of HD options, it’s still a good addition to the set-top box line-up that, through its cheap price point, brings the technology to the masses.

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How do you fancy watching high quality premium movies and episodes of television shows for free on Amazon Video On Demand? I thought so. Then read on and find out how.

Amazon Video On Demand Free?

Amazon’s Video On Demand service is a fine addition to the line-up of companies offering movies and TV shows over the Internet. The one drawback it has it that it costs money to use it, with rental or owned options.

But, thanks to a combination of shoddy security from Adobe and some free software, it is entirely possible to bypass the payment part of the process and capture the content for free.

YouTube may show media companies the way to share videos and make revenue, but it seems these companies then take what they’ve learnt and strike out on their own.

Hulu For Music

The latest to try this strategy could be the Universal Music Group, which is said to want to start a ‘Hulu for music’.

YouTube is one of the most trafficked sites in the world, and by far the biggest video-sharing site on the Web. But being popular doesn’t guarantee success, especially when the companies you do content deals with pack up and ship out.

NBC pulled all of its content from YouTube last year (as well as iTunes) when it set up its own website to host content. And Hulu is doing very well. So well in fact that others now want a piece of the action.

In light of a new YouTube killer going on a shooting spree, should the Google-owned video sharing site be doing more about content of this nature?

Finland Student Massacre

On Tuesday September 23rd, 2008, Matti Saari, a 22-year-old student from the Kauhajoki School of Hospitality in Finland, murdered ten people in the college exam hall.

This is clearly a tragedy of untold proportions, and is a massacre that echoes the Columbine school shootings from 1999 and a similar killing spree by Pekka-Eric Auvinen last year.

Threatening YouTube Videos

But in the weeks leading up to this disgusting act of savagery, Saari uploaded various videos to YouTube that showed him firing a handgun and threatening anyone watching the clips.

So the questions that have to be asked are: Could this tragedy have been prevented by police taking the YouTube clips more seriously?; Should the videos have been on YouTube in the first place?

Peekvid – Links But No Hosting

Peekvid, a website that indexed television content and provided links to the videos on other sites, has disappeared from the Web overnight. But are the cited “unviable server fees” really the culprit, or did the MPAA secretly kill off Peekvid?

Peekvid was a website that never actually hosted any illegal material on its servers. Instead, it provided links to pirated material that had been uploaded to popular video sharing sites such as YouTube and DailyMotion.

MPAA Lawsuit

But this didn’t stop the site being targeted by the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), which launched a lawsuit against the Australian-owned, supposedly Texas-hosted Peekvid in June 2007.

The MPAA filed the lawsuit because American law has usually concluded that linking to infringing material is illegal if you are aware (or made aware) of the infringement. So while Google and other search engines are linking to copyright-infringing material on a daily basis, it is not the purpose of their service and they will remove an infringing link once notified.

Peekvid, and sites similar to it, may not remove links, often replace removed links with similarly infringing links, and serve no other purpose than to provide access to pirated content. While law around linking to infringing content is a grey area this makes their legal position very vulnerable.

While Joost may have been first to launch, Hulu is the television service that has taken off while Joost has been left to die. But, Joost Mark II now seems to have started a new war between the two.

Joost Mark II

Joost was all but dead and buried as a legitimate and viable option for viewers to get their Web television kicks. But, it’s now back, new, improved, and available as a browser-based TV service rather than being a desktop client.

What’s more, Joost Mark II was given a features overhaul, and now comes complete with genre searching, and Facebook-style social networking features.

Hulu Copies

Joost still may not have the volume or variety of unmissable content that Hulu has, but it’s back and competing on an even playing field once again. Or at least it was until Hulu decided to beat Joost at its own game.