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Users of Video sharing site, YouTube.com will soon be able to access Christian sermons on worship services, due to the efforts by Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.
According to the Telegraph (UK), the Church of England aims to counter the dwindling presence of youth and churchgoers with its ‘Fresh Expression initiative’ to reach the Internet generation via YouTube. The church also plans to upload another video on YouTube later this month, urging other churches to adopt the contemporary style of their services.

Church of England has lost nearly eight per cent of its worshipers between 2000 and 2002. Since YouTube sees upto100 million clips daily and over 20 million visitors each month, Rev Steve Croft, team leader of Fresh Expressions, says the popular video sharing site could provide the perfect way to reach teenagers.

Also, the Bishop of Lichfield has posted a message YouTube to encourage more people to attend Sunday services. He also called for support for a national Back to Church Sunday campaign in September which will invite local people to give their churches another try.

The founders of revolutionary Internet telephony firm Skype unveiled a test version of an online television service on Wednesday that will be free to users.
Niklas Zennstrvm and Janus Friis said they “combined the best of TV and the best of the Internet” in a venture called Joost to enable people to watch television online with “choice, control and flexibility.”
Joost was a “piracy-proof” Internet platform based on the open-source Mozilla web browser and was crafted to guarantee copyright protection for creators and owners of content, according to its founders.
“People are looking for increased choice and flexibility in their TV experience, while the entertainment industry needs to retain control over their content,” said Joost chief executive Fredrik de Wahl.
“With Joost, we’ve married that consumer desire with the industry’s interests.”
Luxembourg-based Joost claimed to be the first global television distribution platform that brought content owners, advertisers, and audiences together in an interactive, community-driven environment.

Wanna watch Youtube videos on your iPod? Check out iTube!iTube downloads your favorite Youtube videos, converts it to the iPod format and imports it into iTunes with just one click! All you have to do is paste the URL of the Youtube video into iTube and it takes care of everything else… pretty cool, huh? Now you can watch those dumb ass videos wherever you go!

iTube, brainchild of Benjamin Strah, is a neat software and does everything for you in the background. Can be used for downloading videos from Youtube, Myspace, Metacafe or even Blip.tv and transferring them to the iPod.

While Google Video is also supported by iTube, that may not be very useful as Google Video lets you directly download video clips for the iPod or PSP.

Intel Corp has announced its collaboration with media and entertainment company, Eros, to launch on- demand Bollywood service on Intel Viiv technology-based PCs. Eros and Intel demonstrated the new service at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), which delivers access to online selections of Bollywood entertainment content, such as high definition movies, music videos, day and date premieres andclassics, from the Web to Intel Viiv technology-based PCs on large screen TVs. The Eros service will offer rental, subscription, download to own at launch and even download to burn models in the future.

Kishore Lulla, Chairman and CEO of Eros, “Our effort with Intel will give us the opportunity to serve an even broader audience worldwide, enter new markets and gain new revenue streams, while exploring and embracing a variety of exciting new digital distribution technologies, such as Intel Viiv technology. We are a content company that believes in empowering consumers so they can watch what they want, when they want, how they want.”
Intel Viiv technology-based PCs powered by Intel Core 2 Duo processors helps connect the PC and TV, and enables consumers to access, manage, share and enjoy a growing assortment of digital entertainment, including Hollywood movies, TV shows, music videos, sports, games among others.

Kevin Corbett, Vice President, Intel’s Digital Home Group and general manager of the Content Services Group said, “Intel’s goal is to accelerate the availability of broadband-delivered entertainment into every home. And, with Intel Viiv technology, we’re helping to change the economics of distribution and allow more people around the world to enjoy exciting content, irrespective of their physical location.”

Building on the availability of the ‘Bollywood’ service, Eros will debut the broadband premiere of ‘I See You’ on Intel Viiv technology-based PCs within a few weeks of its global theatrical release on Dec. 29 and ahead of its release on DVD.

Google has moved another step in creating a 3D virtual model of the Earth with

its latest version of Google Earth that is Google Earth 4.

The application will now feature a mixture of textured 3D renderings of famous architectural sites and terrain but obviously you will have to turn on the proper layers.

The company has started developing some parts of the earth with some rich 3D renderings of some famous landmarks. But still the mission of a complete model of the earth is a far fetched dream.

To make the dream possible in time Google will also users to create rich 3D renderings of buildings as KML or KMZ files and share them as overlays on Google Earth.

Users can also search for these structures without downloading Google Earth 4. They will also be allowed to rate and comment on the structures.

So far there are many important landmarks that have to be added into the imagery for completing the 3D model.

Source: Cnet