While most Leanback users are currently on Google TV, the app will work with any computer with a full browser and Flash. The key is to log into YouTube on both the mobile device as well as Leanback.

YouTube Remote will initially only be available for Google’s Android OS; plans to include other platforms are in place. According to product manager Kuan Yong, while YouTube Remote is currently a separate app from the standard YouTube mobile browser, the plan is to merge the two once YouTube Remote exits beta. “We want to get this experience out across all YouTube apps,” Yong said.

One advantage that the YouTube Remote has over other remote controls is that all the navigation takes place on the handheld device, as opposed to juggling one’s attention between the remote and the television, which decreases eye strain.

Said Yong, “Only the active stuff happens on the phone, and only the passive stuff happens on the TV.”

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The idea behind iSeeU is pretty simple: Mount a mirror on your cell phone, and you’ll be able to film yourself during a call with a rear-facing camera. Check out the rather charming video below for a quick demo.

The neatest thing about iSeeU seems to be that you can easily swivel it around, making it possible to share all kinds of stuff without having to move the phone (or switch camera inputs on the 4G, for that matter). The company also has a number of additional videos up on YouTube, but there’s really not that much more to explain. It’s a cell phone accessory, after all, albeit a clever one.

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The new application (iTunes link), which went live today, enables users to stream live to Justin.tv from their iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS handsets. For users of Justin.tv’s video viewing app, released earlier this year, the streaming capabilities will be added as a free upgrade to their existing application. That will give a huge boost to the live streaming startup, as it already has more than two million installed users for its old app.

Justin.tv’s live streaming app was built to take advantage of hardware encoding on the devices, and will enable users to record and stream continuously even as they move between 3G and WiFi networks. But the biggest difference between its iPhone app and that of other live streaming companies is that — like its Android app — Justin.tv’s signup, social sharing and chat features are all self-contained, while Ustream or Qik users have to log on to those websites to set up or use some of those features. It also enables iPhone 4 users to switch between front-facing and rear-facing cameras on the fly.

The launch comes as Justin moves aggressively into the mobile space. In the two weeks since it introduced its mobile app for Android devices, mobile streaming traffic has jumped dramatically, with mobile streams now making up about 20 percent of all live broadcasts. The availability of the live streaming platform on iPhone should increase that number even further.

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Velocitude’s technology works by detecting the mobile device on which a user is accessing a website and automagically transforming that website to fit the screen dimensions and capabilities of the device. Since the majority of websites are not currently optimized for mobile delivery — and since the mobile device market is incredibly fragmented, with all sorts of device form factors and operating systems — technology like Velocitude’s makes it easy for publishers to reach all those devices without building new pages or websites for each of them.

According to Akamai’s director of corporate communications, Jeff Young, the new content transformation service should be integrated into Akamai’s network within the next 30 days and will be available as a module along with its existing application acceleration and dynamic site acceleration products. There’s also a heavy e-commerce and m-commerce component to Velocitude’s service, which should fit in nicely with Akamai’s existing small object and dynamic site acceleration capabilities. Akamai serves 90 of the top 100 e-commerce sites online; this acquisition will give them the ability to deliver mobile commerce services without creating applications or websites to target individual devices.

Akamai’s Velocitude buy is similar to rival Limelight Networks’ acquisition of mobile services firm Kiptronic last year. Kiptronic also provides on-the-fly mobile page transformation, enabling Limelight’s customers to create a website that is dynamically formatted to fit different mobile screens.

Mobile is becoming a huge market, as shown by the Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI). In February, the network equipment vendor forecast that by 2014, we will be using 3.6 exabytes of data traffic each month on mobile networks worldwide. And Akamai wants to be the CDN to deliver that data.

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That’s why I thought I would love the Verizon FiOS Mobile Remote. It’s an app that turns your smartphone (currently only two phones, the excellent Motorola Droid and the so-so HTC Imagio, are supported) into a remote control for your FiOS set-top box. As it turns out, though, setting up the app was much more difficult than it should have been — thanks to some weird settings on the HTC Imagio review unit I used for testing — and the app itself left me wanting a bit more.

To use Mobile Remote, you need to install the app on your Droid or Imagio smartphone. Droid users will find the app in the Android Marketplace, while users of the Windows Mobile-based Imagio can download it via their mobile browser. (Note that your phone must be connected to a Verizon FiOS Wi-Fi network in order for the Mobile Remote app to work. ) You then need to enable the Mobile Remote widget on your FiOS set-top box. You register your phone by entering your mobile number on the TV. Once the setup is complete, you just launch the app on your phone and it will automatically connect to your TV; a small icon will appear, briefly, in the corner of your TV to tell you that the connection has gone through.

Getting to this point, though, was difficult for me. I followed the setup instructions to the letter, only to find out that my phone wouldn’t connect to my TV. I uninstalled and reinstalled the app on my phone and tried again. Still no luck. I then exchanged several e-mails with Verizon’s tech support, and talked to them on the phone several times. They checked all of the settings on my set-top box, and said they could find no discernable problems.

I was ready to throw in the towel when the FiOS folks offered to send help directly to my house. Two reps walked in, one of whom already had the app installed on his Motorola Droid. He took a look at my TV, and within minutes had his phone connected to my TV. The problem was, we had discovered, with my HTC Imagio. He fiddled with the wireless settings and was able to get the Imagio connected to my TV, too. Finally. (As a side note, the Imagio review unit that I have for testing has had repeated problems establishing and maintaining a Wi-Fi connection.)

After all that work to get it up and running, the Mobile Remote app had a lot to live up to. And it did deliver, to a certain extent. I was able to instantaneously adjust the volume and channels using the up and down arrows on my phone’s screen; the TV reacted to the phone just as quickly as it did to my actual remote.

The biggest drawback of the Mobile Remote app is that it does not display a numeric keypad on the screen; it shows only arrows or DVR controls. And you’ll need numbers, especially if you’re hoping to switch from channel 103 to 665 in time to catch your favorite show. To access numbers, you hit the “keypad” icon on the bottom of the screen, which brings up an on-screen QWERTY keyboard — letters, not numbers. You then hit the numbers icon to find the numbers themselves, which are laid out in a straight line as if you were accessing them on a keyboard. I’d much rather see the Mobile Remote app display an on-screen replica of the number buttons as laid out on your actual remote. Verizon says this is something that could be added to a future release.

The app does have some nice touches though. For one, it automatically mutes the TV when a call comes into your phone. It also lets you display photos from your phone on your TV, and lets you import your favorite channels from the TV to the phone to make switching to those channels easier.

Mobile Remote is not quite the improvement over my actual FiOS remote that I was hoping for. If Verizon adds a numeric keypad, though, and makes it available on more phones, Mobile Remote could be the answer to my remote control woes. It’s just not there yet.

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The app will be free to download when it launches on an unspecified date in the next several weeks, but the app itself will only offer sneak previews — full content will cost $10 monthly over 3G and Wi-Fi connections. Bitbop will work on devices such as the iPhone, Droid and several BlackBerry models at launch with more handsets on the way. Fox, NBC Universal and Discovery will provide content, along with other yet-to-be-announced partners, and some movies will incur a yet-to-be-determined charge beyond the monthly subscription fee. Read more on GigaOM.

1Cast officially went live in October 2009, allowing users to create personalized playlists of news that interests them. With the service, 1Cast users can search, create personal queues, and share short videos with their friends. 1Cast is seeing continued adoption, with video views growing up to 50 percent per month, and engagement times increasing rapidly, according to CEO Anthony Bontrager. He says the average user spends more than 22 minutes per session watching video on the site — an amount that is virtually unheard of, particularly when talking about short-form, on-demand video clips.

News organizations such as Al Jazeera, Associated Press, BBC World News, Bloomberg, CBC, Reuters, CNBC, Dow Jones, Fox Business News and The Wall Street Journal all make their videos available to the service, providing a wide range of national and international news coverage. The service is also working on integrating local content from local Fox TV outlets and Meredith Corp.

In addition to mobile devices, users can log onto the service online at www.1cast.com. The company also plans to enable users to watch its news clips on the TV by launching the service on Boxee’s media center platform as well as through the Yahoo TV Widget framework.

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FLO TV launched the Personal Television late last year, but the company has been providing mobile TV service via cell phones for a couple of years now. FLO TV service is delivered over a dedicated mobile TV network; it doesn’t piggyback on existing 3G networks used by cellular carriers. The company says this allows it to deliver a higher-quality television experience, one that is more like the TV-watching experience that people are used to having at home.

But using the Personal Television did not quite live up to that standard, even though the $200 device makes a great first impression. It’s small (4.5 inches wide by 3.1 inches tall by .5 inches thick); at first glance you could mistake it for a portable GPS. It features a 3.5-inch touch screen for watching TV, and a neat little kickstand that flips out for propping it up on a table or desk. 

The Personal Television relies on FLO TV’s service for content, and the service is a bit expensive for what it delivers: it costs $14.99 per month (though you do get six months of free service when you purchase the device). FLO TV delivers about 15 channels to the Personal Television, including ABC Mobile, CBS Mobile, NBC 2Go, ESPN Mobile TV, FOX Mobile, FOX News Channel, MSNBC, Disney Channel, and Nickelodeon, among others.

Some of the content is simulcast with what the networks are broadcasting to regular old TVs. If you turn on CBS Mobile at 11:30 at night, for example, you’ll see David Letterman. But some of the content is also “timeshifted,” according to FLO TV. Letterman’s show, for example, is shown again the day after it airs at 11:30 am, so that people can watch it on their lunch break.

The timeshifting serves a couple of purposes. One, it fills gaps that might occur because FLO TV does not broadcast your local programming, like the news you might see at noon every day. It also allows you to watch programs that you’d miss because the Personal Television does not offer any DVR-type recording features, nor does it offer access to any sort of on-demand library — yet. FLO TV says on demand features are likely to be added to future products.

The absence of a DVR and an on-demand library is not a deal breaker for me. But the poor reception I often experienced when testing the Personal Television would be. According to FLO TV’s coverage map, I live in an area with relatively good service. Yet, in some areas of my house, reception ranged from poor to nonexistent. Programs often looked pixelated and smeared, and sometimes the video froze up completely while waiting for a signal.

Reception did improve when I moved around the house, and got even better when I drove to a neighboring town to test the device. At its best, the picture looked as crisp and clear as anything you’d see on a standard definition TV. The 3.5-inch screen can feel small, though, so expect to squint if you’re trying to make out the text in a news report, for example.

The Personal Television is FLO TV’s first dedicated device, and the company says it does not consider itself a “device company,” but rather a company committed to bringing the experience of mobile TV to consumers. To that end, FLO TV is currently working on both an in-car TV system and an iPhone add-on.

The Personal Television is hampered by its high price and mixed reception, but it could also benefit from more programming. I think the idea behind it has promise, though, and I’m very interested to see how well the iPhone add-on works when it’s available later this year. Using a device I already own to watch TV on the go could be a lot more convenient — and affordable — than purchasing an additional device just for that luxury.

Well, I have news for both crowds: When it comes to video recording, the Droid and the iPhone 3GS are nearly identical. While the Droid produces video that is a bit crisper and clearer, the difference between the two is not marked, and the video cameras on both phones offer the same features.

Like the iPhone 3GS, the Droid’s video camera is easy to operate, but skimpy on the extra features. You access it through the Droid’s camera, where you just slide an on-screen toggle to switch to video-recording mode. You can then press a big on-screen button to begin recording. So far, the experience is virtually identical to recording video on the iPhone 3GS; the only difference is that the Droid has a physical button on its right side (or the top of the phone, if you rotate it to record) that you can use as an alternative to the on-screen button. The hardware button is a nice touch as it allows you to stop recording without having to move the phone and look at the screen, which can result in a jerky camera movement.

What the Droid lacks, though, is even the most basic video editing tools. Where the iPhone 3GS allows you to trim video clips on the phone, the Droid doesn’t offer anything. If you want to edit your videos, you have to do it elsewhere. But transferring your video clips to another device from the Droid is a breeze. Once you’ve captured a video, you can click a link to share it, and you’ll be presented with a list of all the accounts or connections available to you, such as MMS, e-mail, YouTube or Bluetooth. It’s similar to the way the iPhone 3GS allows you to share video via e-mail, MMS or through YouTube.

The similarities between the two phones don’t end with the experience of using them as video cameras; they also offer similar specs. The Droid’s video camera offers a slightly higher resolution, as it records video at a resolution of 720 by 480, and captures 24 frames per second. The iPhone 3GS, meanwhile, offers a video-recording resolution of 640 by 480, but captures 30 frames per second.

So, now comes the big question: What does that translate to in actual usage? Take a look at these two videos, shot using a Motorola Droid and an iPhone 3GS held side-by-side (video captured by the Droid is on top; video captured by the iPhone 3GS is on the bottom):

The Droid’s camera picks up a bit more detail, and the colors look brighter; the iPhone 3GS video looks more washed-out. The Droid does handle colors nicely. Here’s another clip captured by the Droid in a more colorful environment:

Where the Droid beats the iPhone 3GS easily, though, is when you’re watching videos on the handset itself. The Droid’s screen measures 3.7 inches diagonally, and it boasts a resolution of 480 by 854 pixels. The screen on the iPhone 3GS, meanwhile, is 3.5 inches in size, but offers a resolution of just 480 by 320. Videos look decent on an iPhone — until you’ve seen them on a Droid. It’s like watching a miniature HDTV.

Neither of these phones is going to blow you away with its video-recording capabilities. The Droid will impress you with its stunning screen, though. So if you plan on watching a lot of videos on your handset, the Droid is the phone for you. If you’re looking for a phone that will serve as a video camera in a pinch, however, both the Droid and the iPhone 3GS will suffice. It won’t please the Droid fans or the iPhone-crazy to hear it, but when it comes to video recording, these two phones are equal.

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