According to an unsourced story from the Telegraph, Twitter's founders have been throwing around the idea of bringing live video posts to the site. The post describes mobile video uploads posted directly to users' profiles, as opposed to posting links to short videos, a la Tweetube or Twiddeo, but there's not much more to the story. If the rumors are true, it's going to bring some speculation about whether this is the best use of Twitter's resources.

Twitter still has spam problems to deal with, as well as at least three other major new features that are rolling out right now: geolocation, user lists and a new format for retweets. Without more details, we don't know where the storage space and bandwidth are going to come from: will video be a drain on the Twitter experience? Now that the service is pushing between 10,000 and 25,000 tweets a minute, there's a lot to consider when building out new features.

So, Download Squad readers, would you use a Twitter video service? Let us know in the comments and the poll below.

UPDATE: Looks like the folks at Mashable got a quote from Twitter founder Biz Stone, denying any plans for video features: "Haven't read the piece but no video hosting. 140 characters of text including spaces. You know the drill!"

Google has been busy rolling out new features for Google Docs over the past few weeks, including the ability to upload and share document templates with other users. But it's a smaller change which could be even more interesting. Under the sort items by type menu, "PDF" has been replaced with "Files." And that could mean that Google is preparing to let users upload and store other file types soon.

There've been rumors that Google was working on an online storage service for years. After all, Google already offers Gmail users over 7GB of storage space. Throw in a Picasa account, Google Docs, and a few other services and you're looking at nearly 10GB of free web storage space. Why not give users an easy way to access all of their uploaded files in one place?

Of course, we've been down this road before, and I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for a day that may never come. But ReadWriteWeb's Sarah Perez does make an interesting point: Google could be planning to launch the mythical GDrive when the Google Chrome Operating System is ready for the public. After all, the OS is designed for netbooks, which are often considered to be secondary computers. It makes sense that a mostly cloud-based OS would include a cloud-based storage system for either storing all of your files or at least synchronizing files between your computer(s) and the web.

[via Google Operating System]

Every time we write a story about Hulu, international Download Squad readers ask us when the streaming television site will be available outside of the US. And I get it. Because that's how I feel every time I see a story about the BBC iPlayer, which lets UK residents watch BBC programming online.

Well, Hulu is working on rolling out service in other countries as soon as it can get broadcast rights and advertising deals in place. The BBC iPlayer thing is a bit more complicated, because British citizens pay a licensing fee to support BBC content, which means that while iPlayer content is available ad-free in the UK, it's geotargeted to work only for computer users in the UK.

But now The Telegraph is reporting that the BBC is in negotiations with Google to roll out an international version of th eiPlayer. It's likely that any international version would either include advertising or a subscription fee.

And of course, there's a chance that this whole thing could fall through or that it's just a rumor. But if it's true, we could soon live in a world where you can watch episodes of Heroes, Doctor Who, or 24 in a web browser without resorting to the shadowy areas of the interenet.

[via Gizmodo]

Google Operating System spotted some code in Gmail that points to an upcoming feature called "Magic Inbox" or "Icebox-Inbox." It's not clear what this mystery feature is going to do, but it looks like it's a new way of prioritizing your incoming mail based on senders you've interacted with frequently. Commenters at gOS have been attacking the feature based on speculation about how it might work, but I'm not jumping to any conclusions.

As evidence for their theory that Magic Inbox is based on some kind of friend priority algorithm, gOS cites a feature called Friend Finder that Google is known to be working on. They explain that "Friend Finder analyzes a user's email traffic and indicates the friends with whom a user has strong email connections based on incoming/outgoing traffic and the frequency and speed in which two parties respond to each other," which would be a good way to determine which messages belong at the top of a busy inbox.

As I said, I'm not jumping to conclusions about the exact way this is going to work. There already seems to be a strong reaction both for and against this feature, and we don't even know what it does yet. Any inside tips, readers? Do any anonymous Gmail team members out there want to tell the real story?

Sure, we're still waiting for Windows Mobile 6.5 to actually ship. But word on the street is that Windows Mobile 7 is going to be much cooler anyway. Unfortunately, it's not likely to show up on any cellphones until 2010 at the earliest. But an anonymous tipster sent a few screenshots to wmpoweruser that may give us an idea of what the next, next generation version of Windows Mobile will look lke.

It looks like the battery and volume meters have moved to the bottom of the display, while a WiFi indicator is still visible at the top of the screen. The home screen has a series of icons that users can flip through to launch programs, and perhaps most intriguingly, nothing that looks like a Windows Start Menu. There's also a picture of a map application that doesn't look quite like any existing app available for Windows Mobile.

I'd take these images with a grain of salt. They could be real, but they could also be concept designs from Microsoft or just a mockup from some random person who enjoys spreading rumors on the internet.

[via Electronista]

TechCrunch is at it again, posting things about companies that the companies themselves aren't even aware of. This time, it was a report that the popular social browser Flock, which is currently built on Firefox, is switching to Chrome. Not so fast, Flock says. TechCrunch updated their post with this comment from Flock CEO Shawn Hardin: "We haven't ceased development efforts on the Mozilla platform. Our upcoming release of Flock 2.1 is built on the Mozilla platform. Having said that, the browser space is heating up, and we've seen a variety of exciting technologies emerge over the last several months that are appealing."

A friend at Flock tells me that no final decisions have been made about Chrome. It looks like Flock's CEO isn't being dodgy when he says it's too early to comment; they really haven't made the final call yet. If Flock makes a decision, we'll be sure to let you know. For now, any speculation is just jumping the gun.

Have you torrented the new U2 album? We won't tell, and neither will Last.fm, if those unreleased tracks show up on your listening profile. That's not what TechCrunch is saying, though. Earlier today, they incorrectly reported that Last.fm turned over listener data to the RIAA as part of an investigation into piracy of the U2 record. According to TechCrunch's anonymous source, "I heard from an irate friend who works at CBS that last.fm recently provided the RIAA with a giant dump of user data to track down people who are scrobbling unreleased tracks."

But according to one of Last.fm's founders, commenting on the TechCrunch post, "This is utter nonsense and totally untrue. As far as I can tell, the author of this article got a "tip" from *one* person and decided to make a story out of it. Techcrunch is full of shit, film at 11." I'm not attacking TechCrunch's reporting here, I'm just doing some reporting of my own to make sure everyone knows that this story should apparently be downgraded to rumor status, and there's no need to dump your last.fm account over it.

UPDATE: Despite it being past 1AM at Last.fm's London HQ, the Last.fm staff have posted in their forums: "Of course we work with the major labels and provide them with broad statistics, as we would with any other label, but we'd never personally identify our users to a third party - that goes against everything we stand for. As far as I'm concerned Techcrunch have made this whole story up."

Release candidates of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 have been available for a couple of months. But if you've been holding off on updating your Vista system until SP1 gets the official Microsoft seal of approval, it looks like you may not have to wait much longer.

There's a rumor going around that Microsoft is set to release Vista SP1 on February 15th. This shouldn't come as a huge shock. Microsoft had already said that the operating system update was on track for a Q1 2008 release. That said, we always take software release dates with a bucket of salt.

SP1 adds some stability, bug fixes, and hardware compatibility features to Windows Vista. Users shouldn't expect too many new features, as that was never the goal for this update. Microsoft, of course, is neither confirming nor denying that the service pack will be ready for release on February 15th.

Last week we started to hear a rumor that Windows 7, the successor to Vista could be on schedule for a 2009 release. And it's also rumored that early builds of Windows 7 are making the rounds to early testers and developers. So it should come as no surprise that someone claiming to have access to Windows 7 surfaced this weekend and posted his initial thoughts on the web.

A member of the Neowin forums says that he installed Windows 7 this weekend and was less than impressed (which wouldn't be surprising for such an early build). But that member has not presented any screenshots and has since deleted his post, so we're going to take anything he says with a grain of salt. Of course, it's possible that his post was legit but that he was contacted by a team of lawyers.

In a nutshell, he said that installation was difficult and the driver support was lacking. The GUI, he says looks a lot like Vista, but Gadgets are integrated into Explorer, rather than hosted in a separate sidebar. In other words, you can add, or hide gadgets by right clicking on the desktop. There are also reportedly some changes in the start menu and search box.

The most interesting bit is that Windows 7 aims to streamline the integration between the operating system and Microsoft's online services. For example, you should be able to sync your Internet Explorer settings with your Windows Live account so you can use them on any PC. This is and other online features are on a list of goals though, and aren't currently integrated into Windows 7. If in fact, Windows 7 is even out there right now.

OK, time to put your salt shakers down. What we do know is that Microsoft is already working on the next version of Windows. We also know that Microsoft has been playing up its Windows Live online services. It's not much of a stretch to imagine that Windows 7 will bridge the gap between desktop and online software. But whether the Neowin report is a leak or a pretty decent guess of what Windows 7 will look like, it's too early to say.

[via istartedsomething]

Michael Arrington of TechCrunch is reporting that Yahoo! has paid $350 million to purchase Zimbra. The official announcement isn't expected until this evening, but Arrington's in a pretty good position to pick up gossip today. He's hanging out with a ton of industry insiders today at a little software conference Arrington put together with Weblogs Inc. founder Jason Calacanis called TechCrunch40.

So we're going to assume his information is good and enter the world of wild speculation.

Zimbra makes some impressive open source communication tools for online/offline use. The company has a powerful e-mail client, calendar, and VoIP features.

While it's unlikely that Yahoo! plans to completely overhaul its e-mail client yet again, we could see Zimbra features showing up in Yahoo! services. Particularly the slick AJAX interfaces, the powerful collaboration tools, and the online/offline functionality.

There's this nasty rumor going around that Amazon may be in talks to purchase Netflix for $1.5 billion or so. The rumor was enough to drive Netflix stock up yesterday by about 5 percent or $1.06.

The San Jose Mercury News has already reported that spokespersons for Netflix and Amazon have already dismissed the rumor as, well... as a rumor. Of course, that's exactly what they would say even if there were some truth to it.

But there's at least one good reason to think this deal may be nothing more than idle speculation. Right now Amazon can sell products to buyers in most states without charging sales tax. But U.S. law says that if you have a bricks and mortar operation in a state, you have to charge sales tax. Since Netflix has 43 distribution centers across the country, that could mean Amazon would have to begin charging sales tax to millions of customers.

Just hours after we learned that Microsoft was in negotiations to take over Yahoo! the talks ended. The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) reports that the talks were more of a quick chat.

Of course the blogosphere went crazy Friday (slow news day) with speculation on what this would mean for both companies. Microsoft jsut lost its bid to purchase DoubleClick, while Yahoo! is expanding its own advertising network. And while Microsoft has been trying to build its brand online to the point where it's as ubiquitous as the company's desktop software, Yahoo! already has as strong a presence as anyone online.

Could we see talks resume in earnest at some point? We wouldn't rule it out. But as of today, there's nothing to see here, so move along.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs tells Reuters he has no plans to offer a subscription option for iTunes customers, despite claims that Apple was working on just such a system.

To be honest, the rumor seemed a bit unlikely, coming from an unknown company. And it's not like Apple would really need to involve a third party if it wanted to implement a subscription model.

Jobs says the subscription model has failed for most other companies that have implemented it. Apple, on the other hand has sold more than 2.5 billion songs over the past four years through the iTunes store.

Subscription service allows the record labels to collect money on an ongoing basis and provides users with a large music library. But Jobs says there's not much consumer demand for subscription based services where, if you stop paying, you lose all of your music.

Widgets on Facebook. Is this a way to add clutter, or add valuable content?

There is a rumor buzzing around the WorldWideWeb that Facebook users could start to see the ability to add in widgets to their profiles. This could be seen as a disaster, or an improvement. I'm voting for the disaster. Currently the site is extremely clean and easy to navigate. Facebook serves its purpose to a T at present, hooking up friends and staying in touch. Cluttering the space with audio, video, and other distracting content pushes it to the mess that is now evident on the MySpace social network.

What are your thoughts? Would widgets benefit the user experience? Or wreck it?

Did Google buy SpaceshipOne? Michael Arrington has a scoop that Google has acquired the ship and is planning on storing it in building 43 at the Googleplex. The Ship is rumored to be still in the Smithsonian museum, since it won the $10 million X prize in 2004, but could be on the way to Mountain View California. We all know that Google can afford it with their sizable bank account, especially after the recent third quarter earnings released on Thursday. Larry Page is on the board of trustees of the X Prize foundation, so he does have some insides there if indeed it came onto the market. If you have a picture of SpaceShipOne taken on October 21st, Arrington wants it, and he's willing to give an iPod shuffle to the first person with evidence. This would be a great investment for Google, and then they could get back on track with their interplanetary operations. Stay tuned for further developments.

UPDATE: It looks like Google bought a full scale replica of SpaceShipOne. If you feel the desire, you too can get one from here.