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Following up on the massive protest yesterday against what seems to be an individual irrational decision, coming from an immature person at the Ministry of Communications, Al-Jarida is providing us more details on the story. My doubts about the letter yesterday turned out to be true. The letter, which seemed very unprofessional sent by a single person, was sent by the head of control department directly to all ISPs for immediate execution, by passing the minister for approval.

The blocking was freezed yesterday for further discussions, which while good, pretty much surprises me even more. First of all, you don’t fire up an official letter to the ISPs and then reconsider. Secondly, if the letter was not signed by the minister, this letter has zero legal value, and belongs to the trash. The person who is on purpose, and still defending his ground, by passing all legal procedures, to block the third largest popular site in Kuwait, from an individual thinking (if that’s what you wanna call it), considering him self probably so smart with this crap, should be punished and blocked from his position, stripped out of all responsibilities, after showing such immature level in his management.

Kuwait is a multi-million nation, and if one small individual unkown person thinks he can run the country as he likes, think again! If you don’t like YouTube, don’t use it. However I am hundred percent positive, when this chaos is over, you could see this very same person using YouTube for his own interest.

Popularity: 31% [?]

After years of struggling against piracy, the move is finally happening. If you can’t beat them, join them, a wise man once said. And who can beat a free digital download that could play any where I want? The fact that it’s pirates makes some people hesitate, but the majority want. And for those people who like to obey the law, they eventually get frustrated when they pay for something they can only play on a single device from a single manufacturer. Makes absolute no sense.

Now, after the studio industry realized it, ofcourse they can’t offer FREE videos to compete with piracy, but they are doing the best thing they can in this move. The group is being formed, with the goal of allowing “purchased video content to play seamlessly on any device or screen that the buyer owns and to allow access to a “virtual library” of purchased content accessible from anywhere on the ‘Net”. Now how awesome that could be? People who complain about the DRM will have no further excuse, and a much larger amount of people I bet would be welling to spend few dollars for leitimiate DRM-FREE copy, or what ever they may come up with, allowing you to move your video anywhere freely.

The initiative is led by Sony CTO, Mitch Singer, and he is joined by all major players in the game, except for… You guessed it. Apple! This is despite Jobs being previously quoted saying “Apple would welcome a DRM-FREE world”. Well, maybe it’s true, but now that they are tasting the glory, perhaps they welcome the money they are making for them selves more.

Popularity: 27% [?]

YouTube for most parts of the world is the magical mirror on the web. You tell it what you want, and it will show it. I stopped downloading clips to my computer but in rare cases, cause they are all on the net ready for quick streaming anytime/anywhere.

Recently however, this message started showing gradually more often:

At first, I would go to the top left, click on Worldwide -> Worldwide (All Regions) and it would work. It would solve it, it’s a bit annoying, and it would make embedded videos mostly useless but as links to original video url. Now, even that Worldwide option is not working, and more and more videos are being blocked. And I’m not talking about offensive content, or even debatable content. Regular trailers, video game music play, such as the one above, and many such similar things. If those videos are banned for all regions, then why am I able to see them using a proxy? Because those videos are only not availale in Kuwait, and I’m not sure on what basis and on who’s request are those videos being blocked. Is MOC hiring full time employees just randomly picking videos to be banned! This is seriously making YouTube non-usable, or else so annoying to use. Another thing is, why wouldn’t YouTube be clear with their message “This video is no longer available in your area”. Their message is kind of decieving.

People who were not aware of it, anoter big video streaming site, VEOH has also blocked all Kuwait traffic as well.

My first guess was, maybe it’s porn flooded video site, but the main page shows nothing more than youTube does, perhaps even less offensive in some cases. Does it have porn videos? I would bet yes, same as all other video sites. But it’s also a great place for video games videos. Why would the site stop all traffic from Kuwait, and not even response to my inquiry about it. They probably got sick from us they don’t even care anymore. Does MOC have that strong influence? Why wouldn’t MOC just block it through our ISPs then?

Beware China, here we come.

UPDATE: As some people suggested in the comments, the YouTube problem does seem to be related to Qnet only. Problem seems to be cleared now. Let’s hope.

Popularity: 33% [?]

YouTube have been testing HD videos for some time, and now it seems they are taking it to the next level and informing visitors when the clip is available in HD formats. I don’t know about you, but this is the first time I see this option below:

Not all videos have this option yet though.

Popularity: 38% [?]

Hulu is a new, long anticipated and speculated, service that have just opened to the public after months of private Beta. The site does not just offer another video streaming service, but it separates it self by offering full-length original legal content for streaming on the web. You get to watch many of your favorite TV series and movies there, without paying a single dime, and in pretty good quality too. Only thing is, you have to stream it and can’t download, which is pretty much OK with me as long as they are offering it for FREE. You do not get ofcourse latest movies, but some good movies such as Master & Commander, Ice Age, and more. Stuff that we wait for our subscription cable channels to show are not available online. The collection is not large yet, but hopefully with time, and if people respect streaming and don’t attempt to download it, the collection will get bigger and bigger. Another thing is, and here is the bad side of it, it’s currently limited to US only, but they seem to be planning on worldwide release later on as they say:

” For now, Hulu is a U.S. service only. That said, our intention is to make Hulu’s growing content lineup available worldwide”

So how is the trend and reaction to it inside the US only? Rank 5,497 worldwide, 575 inside the US, and the chart speaks for it self.

Popularity: 38% [?]

First of all, this post is from Kuwaiti citizen, so please foreigns just keep a blind eye on the speeds, we’re paying a lot for them!

One of the things I noted when I upgraded to 512 kbps is I was able to watch YouTube videos without waiting. Downloading goes faster than playing, so you don’t get the annoying idle waiting time. Now is there a need for extra speed if you just like YouTube? For me there is more reasons than just that, but with YouTube testing new HD streaming, this extra bandwidth could sure come in handy. Why would I download few hundreds of MB just to watch a trailer, when I can just stream it on the fly? The link shows picture of the HD and normal streaming, and tips on how to stream using HD. In a nutshell, all you need to do is add a &fmt=6 to the end of the url, like this:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=CQzUsTFqtW0&fmt=6

Add the &fmt6 to the end of any video URL you like, and you may get the HD format. Then again, maybe not. It’s only testing.

By the way, Qnet is having special offer right now double speed for same price for 256 & 512 kbps valid until mid March. Could be the only good thing in Hala February. See if it fits you. And no, I wish I was getting paid to link it :)

Popularity: 54% [?]

I think this is what the poor dog was trying to convey.

Popularity: 32% [?]