Webby News

Looking to turn your PC into a live video production studio? Ustream has just launched a new desktop application to help make that happen. Today, the company is launching a new desktop client called Ustream Producer that boasts high video quality and editing tools that can help give your streams an added layer of polish. The application is available for both Mac and PC, and you can grab it here.

Now, you’ve always been able to broadcast to Ustream via your web browser, which uses Flash to access you PC’s webcam. But Ustream says that the desktop client offers both increased video quality (you can stream in HD and H.264), and perhaps more importantly, it allows you to create broadcasts that can be far more complex than just a single stream from your webcam. The application includes support for Picture In Picture, which means you simultaneously show two streams at the same time.

Next weekend Peyton Manning will lead the Colts to a victory over the New Orleans Saints in Super Bowl XLIV. Hot new commercials will run and there will be remembrances a-plenty about Katrina. Retailers are hoping that you witness all this on a brand new HDTV. And you might want to think about it, too. After all, right now is the best time of year to buy a high definition TV — as long as you follow these six rules.

Don’t pay the price on the tag

This is an important time of year for retailers and most will bend over backwards to get a sales. Smart negotiation is your friend. Most of the time all you need to do is say “Will you match Sears’s price? They said they would give it to me for $xxx.” Keep the statement simple and free of any stipulations like “if I take it today” or “if I pay for delivery.”

Obviously, yesterday was all about the iPad. Actually, today is too. There have been thousands of stories already written about the device (including something like two dozen on TechCrunch alone), but a few points seem to be completely overshadowed by the glow of the iPad itself. Let’s revisit those.

The A4

While only a few people really picked up on it, in my mind, the biggest news yesterday was not about the iPad itself, but rather about what powers it. Apple has created a new processor, the A4, a customized ARM A9 processor. Never mind that it appears to match the specs of the Snapdragon (the chip inside the Nexus One), the key point is that Apple is now in control of their processors. Is there really any doubt that these Apple-designed chips will end up in the next iterations of the iPhone from here on out?

Microsoft has just posted the results of its fiscal 2010 second-quarter, which ended December 31. The company reported $19.02 billion in revenue and diluted earnings of $0.74 per share, beating analyst expectations of revenues of $17.8 billion and $0.59 per share. Operating income was $8.51 billion, and net income was $6.66 billion.

Microsoft says that it sold over 60 million licenses of Windows 7 through the second quarter. Sales were driven by growth in the consumer PC market, which is up over 20% year over year.

The Online services Division reported a 5% year over year decline. Online advertising revenue is down 2%. Microsoft notes that Bing’s marketshare has been up for 7 consecutive months, and that while there is growth in search revenue, display revenue has been hurt by declines in international rates.

href="http://api.tweetmeme.com/share?url=http://mashable.com/2010/01/28/chris-matthews-forget-he-was-black/&service=bit.ly"> href="http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/matthews.jpg">Oh man, just another reason to be hyper-aware of what you say while on TV in this Internet age: Last night, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews awkwardly tried to compliment President Obama and the country at large following the State of the Union by saying, “I forgot he was black tonight for an hour.” Naturally a Twitter backlash ensued, and the video is now all over the ‘net like white on rice.

Chris Matthews is no stranger to on-air blunders — remember that whole href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKBDOLdU-Ug" target="_blank">Erin Burnett thing? — but this one appears to have been a doozy.

Last night, after the State of the Union, Matthews was chatting on air with Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann when he started waxing poetic on how President Obama has come into his own as the leader of this country, and how racial divides seemed to have evaporated when he addressed U.S. citizens and politicians alike last night. That’s when the journo came out with the now oft-repeated phrase: “I forgot he was black tonight for an hour.”

Latching on to that one sentiment, href="http://mashable.com/social-media/twitter">Twitter commenters went for the jugular — there’s href="http://twitter.com/#search?q=i%20forgot%20he%20was%20black" target="_blank">still shocked tweets coming in— prompting Matthews to come back just 90 minutes later to clarify. The journalist explained that, having grown up during a time of racial strife, it was striking to him that skin color had no impact on the interactions among the assemblage: a black president and a mostly white audience.

Despite posts to the contrary, Matthews was not seeking to make a racially derogatory comment in any respect, but perhaps he should have chosen his words more carefully. Later on in his ruminations, he himself goes on to say: “It’s so hard to even talk about; maybe I shouldn’t talk about it, but I am. I thought it was profound, that way.”

Yes, race is an exceedingly hard topic to talk about, especially when the increasingly plugged-in world is listening as closely as it does. The fact that Matthews came on back so soon after speaking because of what people were saying on a microblogging site is particularly noteworthy, though, and truly demonstrates how people can make themselves heard via social media. Take a look at the video below and let us know your thoughts on everything from Matthews’s sentiments to the public’s reaction in the comments.

[via href="http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=9686974" target="_blank">ABC News]

Reviews: href="http://www.blippr.com/apps/336651-Twitter" target="_blank">Twitter

Tags: href="http://mashable.com/tag/politics/">politics, href="http://mashable.com/tag/social-media/">social media, href="http://mashable.com/tag/state-of-the-union/">state of the union, href="http://mashable.com/tag/twitter/">twitter, href="http://mashable.com/tag/viral-video/">viral video

src="http://api.tweetmeme.com/imagebutton.gif?url=http://mashable.com/2010/01/28/chris-matthews-forget-he-was-black/" alt="" />

A recent AT&T earnings call consisted of a lot of talk talk talk but one slide stands out: it essentially admits that 3G in San Francisco and New York sucked ween AKA were both far below their official performance objective.

Although I can’t figure out what the actual “Performance Objective” truly is based on this slide, those lines do seem to be going up. While anyone can make up a statistic, for AT&T to come out and say “we suck in those areas” is big news. Good on you, lads.

Intelius, a site that helps users find information about others, continues to have more bad news around its senior execs. John Arnold, a cofounder and EVP, has been indicted on a charge of lying to a grand jury about having sex with a dancer.

The company has been trying to go public despite hundreds of scam complaints, and the atrocious legal record of CEO Naveen Jain. We covered many of the issues back in 2008. Last year the U.S. Senate began an investigation into the post transaction marketing offers that drive much of Intelius’ revenue.

The new charges are somewhat ironic, since Intelius recently launched an iPhone dating application called datecheck.