YouTube adds slow-mo feature to its editing tools

How do you add a dramatic flair to your mundane video clips? You play it in slow motion, that's how. And now that YouTube has introduced a built-in slow-mo feature, you don't even need to capture footage using a high-speed camera. Just click Edit, navigate to Enhancements and hit the icon emblazoned with a turtle to make footage crawl at 12.5, 25 or 50 percent of its original pace. Note that resulting clips can last no longer than 10 minutes, and the feature might not be available in some countries outside the US just yet. Head past the break to compare two samples and see how the new feature can transform your YouTube vids, Dave Chappelle-style.

Earth, as seen by Raspberry Pi camera attached to weather balloon

The Raspberry Pi camera has been out for less than two weeks, and it's already skirted the final frontier. Armchair astronaut Dave Akerman strapped the $25 shooter to the equally inexpensive Raspberry Pi, put it inside a protective case shaped like the berry that inspired the product's name, and then attached it to a weather balloon. Three hours and quite a few vertical miles later, his experiment was recovered by a stranger not too far from the launch site, who called the phone number written on the side of the Linux powered microcomputer. The resulting photos are beautiful (see more at the source link), and required no help whatsoever from NASA.

 

Canon 50D gains video recording through Magic Lantern RAW hack

It may be time to dust off that Canon 50D you purchased back in 2008. The folks behind the Magic Lantern firmware add-on have pulled yet another rabbit out the proverbial hat (or is it lantern?) by enabling RAW video recording on the APS-C-based DSLR. What's even more impressive is that the 50D lacks video support out of the box, so this new-found functionality is truly magical. This hack comes hot on the heels of the Magic Lantern team coaxing the Canon 5D Mark II / III into capturing 24 fps RAW video. With the firmware add-on installed, the 50D is capable of shooting video up to 1592 x 1062 pixels at 30 fps. There are some caveats, though. First, there's no audio recording since the camera lacks a microphone input and associated electronics. Second, capturing RAW video requires fast CF cards (at least UDMA 6). Third, we now fully expect to see the 50D skyrocket in value on the used market

BBC iPlayer should support radio show downloads sometime next year

It turns out there's a reason why iPlayer hasn't supported downloads for radio shows in the UK: the executive wing of the BBC couldn't implement this feature without explicit permission from the BBC Trust, which in turn had to seek advice from the national regulator, Ofcom. Fortunately, these hoops have been hurdled and the Corporation now says it expects to enable downloads for iPlayer users "in 2014," giving them seven days to download a show after broadcast, up to 30 days to store it, and then seven days to listen to it once it's opened. This'll no doubt prove to be a popular feature, but since regular TV downloads still don't work on the iPlayer app for Android, we're kinda hoping the devs get that fixed first.