video

When Yahoo acquired Tumblr for $1.1 billion ... was it because of the GIFs? In our media-saturated Internet landscape, the 5-second animated GIF may be the most essential entertainment currency. If a picture can paint a thousand words, the animated GIF can tell 10,000 stories in 10 frames or less. (Isn't Vine (for Android or iOS) mostly just video-based animated GIFs?)

Newbies who want to dip their toes in the GIF-creation waters no longer need fancy image-editing software like Adobe Photoshop--a freeware app called GifCam lets anyone easily produce animated GIFs from on-screen activity, i.e. streaming videos, … Read more

SMPlayer gives you all of the playback support of more popular downloads with an extra touch of style. It has a sleek menu that's loaded with features and some really cool playback options. Setup isn't the easiest thing in the world, but the robust download is worth the time you have to put into it.

As you might expect, this is a bigger download that will take a minute or two on slower connections. The app's installation will try to swap your home page and search through Bing if you're not careful, too. Once you've … Read more

A brief YouTube video showing off an unannounced PlayStation 4 augmented-reality game called The Playroom just might make you giggle.

The video, released by Sony's Japanese PlayStation division Tuesday, shows how the upcoming PlayStation Eye camera can track the DualShock 4's "light bar" to provide a PlayStation Move-esque motion gaming experience. Judging by the video, The Playroom features a series of interactive augmented-reality minigames ranging from a souped-up Pong to a close encounter with a floating orb that may -- or may not -- virtually light your hair on fire.… Read more

iVideo for Mac helps you easily locate, organize, and play back all of your video files. The application supports all known video formats and offers plenty of options for customizing video files and the way you search for them.

Since it's around 30MB in size, iVideo for Mac takes a couple of minutes to download. After a quick installation, the app opens to a basic but neat video organizer. The interface is customizable and you can show or hide a sidebar and information bar to your right. In the upper-right corner there is a search option, which helps you … Read more

The iPhone 5 and the Samsung Galaxy S4 -- two sparkling smartphones at the top of their game. But which mobile is tougher? That's what our in-depth and brutal destruction video aims to discover. Hit play on the clip above to witness the world's greatest mobiles drowned, scratched, dropped, and crushed -- with surprising results.

For our first test you'll see both phones, which were kindly donated by U.K. gadget insurance company Protect your bubble, dunked underwater, an ordeal from which Samsung's mobile made a truly miraculous recovery. Find out exactly how much … Read more

Microsoft's Xbox One might be making a splash at the E3 Gaming expo this week, but it won't be making a splash in Asia until later next year.

The Xbox One won't launch in Asia until late 2014, Microsoft confirmed to The Wall Street Journal in an article published Tuesday. Microsoft's regional vice president of sales and marketing in Asia told the Journal that his company is following a "staged approach," noting that Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and India will be first ones in Asia to get the console next year.

Interestingly, … Read more

With YouTube already shuttered in Pakistan, Google is now reportedly facing an all-out ban in that country, according to The Times of India.

The country's new IT and telecommunication minister, Anusha Rahman Khan, announced that unless Google removes "blasphemous and objectionable material" from YouTube, the country will block access to all Google sites.

"It all depends on our negotiation clout," Khan said, according to The Times of India. "If they persist with their stance, we can block Google in Pakistan as a last resort as there are many alternative search engines available on the … Read more

To the delight of many gamers at E3 on Monday, EA DICE showed off Star Wars Battlefront -- a next-generation "Star Wars" video game that uses the Frostbite 3 graphics engine. DICE uses the same graphics engine in Battlefield 4.

As the 30-second trailer kicks off, you can clearly see a snowy tundra on the ice planet Hoth, presumably set during the battle seen in "Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back," or perhaps a different time in the canon. … Read more

Clipster is a combination of social video creation and tutorial tool, streamlining the process of making videos while giving you enough tools to make them unique to your personality and vision. The result is an easy-to-use app that helps you craft engaging videos in just a few quick seconds, while building a library of clips you can use for future videos.

Clipster starts with a fairly basic but comprehensive five-part tutorial, walking you through how to create your first clips. You can then either use the existing clips that Clipster loads with or start recording your own right away. Recording … Read more