The new offerings include an iPod capable of playing video games and storing more full-length movies and a new, half-inch-square iPod shuffle, which the company described as the world's smallest digital player. Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs also unveiled a new deal to sell 75 films from Walt Disney Co. through its iTunes online store. The films — which include those made through Disney's Pixar, Touchstone and Miramax divisions — will be sold for $12.99 on the same day they become available in the DVD format.

"In less than one year we've grown from offering just five TV shows to offering over 220 TV shows, and we hope to do the same with movies," said Jobs in a statement. "iTunes is selling over 1 million videos a week, and we hope to match this with movies in less than a year." The new, top of the line version of the iPod, priced at $349, will feature a brighter screen and enough expanded capacity to hold as many as 20,000 songs or 100 hours of video. The fifth-generation iPod will also be able to play video games sold over iTunes.

While Apple expanded the capacity of the iPod, it shrank the size of its entry level music player, the iPod shuffle, into a half-inch cube priced at $79. The new shuffle, which weighs half an ounce, can hold about 140 songs. The online distribution deal expands the Apple and Disney online relationship. Last year, Disney's ABC television network agreed to sell episodes of some of its most popular shows on iTunes one day after they were broadcast.

Apple is selling films from Disney, Pixar, Touchstone, and Miramax, each studio owned by Walt Disney. Movies will become available on iTunes the same day they're out on DVD. Apple plans to offer over 75 films available online Tuesday, downloadable through an upgraded iTunes 7. Among the movie offerings is the Disney blockbuster "Pirates of the Caribbean."

The new movies are priced at $12.99 when pre-ordered or bought during the first week. Other movie offerings will be priced at $9.99. The videos are encoded in H.264. Previously iTunes video was scaled to 320x240. Apple announced it will now provide 640x480 resolution. Usage rights are said to be the same as TV shows.

"Here we go again! First music, then TV shows, and now movies," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "In less than one year we've grown from offering just five TV shows to offering over 220 TV shows, and we hope to do the same with movies. iTunes is selling over one million videos a week, and we hope to match this with movies in less than a year."

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Savvy Lucasfilm Supports Star Wars Video Spoofs

Fans of Star Wars spoofs and parodies on YouTube were happy when several Star Wars spoofs returned to YouTube after they had been removed. Lucasfilm said they did not request the videos to be removed. Lucasfilm also posted the following message on its blog.

Lucasfilm has been informed that YouTube recently removed from its site several fan-made Star Wars spoofs and parodies. We would like the fan film community to know that this was not done at our request.

Apparently the action was taken by YouTube as a result of a misunderstanding of a request to remove an item containing material taken from starwars.com without our permission. We have asked YouTube to restore any works that they inadvertently removed.

You can see the Star Wars spoofs here. Stephen Colbert has also joined in the Star Wars fun with some jedi action of his own. He created a short video of himself fighting with a light saber in front of a green screen and challenged video makers to turn it into cool Jedi videos. Some of the submissions have been very good so far. You can see them on Colbert Nation website.

Posted on August 25, 2006
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Night of the Living Dead For Free

On2 Technologies is offering a free online showing of George A. Romero's 1968 horror classic, Night of the Living Dead.

We are proud to announce the first full-length feature movie in Flash 8 video--created with our On2 Flix Pro software, of course!

The dead come back to life and eat the living in this classic 1968, low budget, black-and-white film by horror master George A. Romero. Several people barricade themselves inside a rural house in an attempt to survive the night. Outside are hordes of relentless, shambling zombies who can only be killed by a blow to the head.

If you like zombies or you just want to check out On2's software you can see the film here. The film quality looks good and the film loads immediately. A good review of Night of the Living Dead can be found here on HouseofHorrors.com.

Posted on August 17, 2006
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Google Wants Your Break-Up Videos

Google Video has an interesting promotion for the movie, The Break Up starring Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston. Google Video is asking people upload videos about their break-ups. Google says some of the break-up videos will be featured in the Google Video blog.

And that's not all. Heard of the movie The Break-Up? Of course you have because it stars our favorite couple - Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston. It's a romantic comedy that tells a story about what happens after happily ever after.

We want your story, too. In the spirit of The Break-Up and National Break-up Day, we'd like you to upload your funniest, most ridiculous break-up videos on Google Video. Have fun, be creative, and tell us what happened post-boy-meets-girl.

These sound like the kind of videos that could really come back to haunt you, but people are already submitting them. Apparently, there is actually a National Break-Up Day on June 2nd -- at least Budweiser seems to want us to think so. Vince Vaughn was hilarious in Wedding Crashers and Jennifer Aniston is always great in comedies (Bruce Almighty and Friends) so Break-Up should be very funny. We have Da Vinci on the brain these days, but after we've seen The Da Vinci Code we'll definitely be ready for The Break-Up on June 2nd.

Posted on May 18, 2006
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