In an elaborate April Fool’s prank, YouTube announced on Sunday it was going dark for a decade, and that the site was merely an eight-year contest to find the best video.
“It’s finally time to pick the winner,” YouTube representatives announced in a 3:32 minute video posted on its homepage.
The message was simple: The world’s most popular video-sharing Web site would close at the end of the day to review all the video submissions it has received over the years, and would announce the best one in 2023.
“We are so close to the end. Tonight at midnight, YouTube.com will no longer be accepting entries. After eight amazing years, it is finally time to review everything that has been uploaded to our site and begin the process of selecting a winner,” said Tim Liston, named as “competition director.”
YouTube CEO Salar Kamangar said that “we started YouTube in 2005 as a contest with a simple goal: to find the best video in the world.”
Users have uploaded more than 70 hours every minute to the site, YouTube estimated.
“I encourage everybody to watch as many videos as possible before YouTube deletes everything tonight,” said Antoine Dodson, who became an Internet sensation when a musical version of his 2010 TV interview about a house intrusion was posted on YouTube.
“Distinguished” film critics, YouTube celebrities and several of the site’s “most prolific” commentators are on the judges’ panel, Liston said.
The Google-owned online video sharing venue said less than two weeks ago that more than a billion people now use YouTube each month, with viewing on smartphones helping drive growth.
The YouTube team said that nearly one out of every two people on the Internet visits the Web site, which has grown into a global hit since its launch.
Google bought YouTube in 2006 for US$1.65 billion and has yet to disclose whether the service has turned a profit.
YouTube has gradually added professional content, such as full-length television shows and movies to its vast trove of amateur video offerings in a bid to attract advertisers.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
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