Corel offers WordPerfect Lightning beta

Corel recently releases a free public beta of WordPerfect Lightning, which adds collaboration and storage features, its designed to serve as a key component to its online-services model. WordPerfect Lightning beta, a free, downloadable word-processing and note-taking software application, aims to provide a new distribution and online-services model for Corel WordPerfect Office. The WordPerfect Lightning beta builds on Corel's earlier efforts to create applications such as its modular components that are designed to work in an online environment while remaining on the desktop. It also comes with a "Viewer" tool which can store several document formats including PDF, WordPerfect and MS Word files.

Corel has also thrown in a Navigator tool to go through these saved documents and objects. The company said that the users of this application would be able to access files stored by Corel when they are on a different desktop. They are offering the customers of this tool 200 Megs of web space to backup their data online. The company is also offering a free trial version of its WordPerfect Office X3 productivity suite with this package.

Free offerings such as Writely and WordPerfect Lightening are seen as a challenge to Microsoft's Office programs, which dominate productivity applications and brings the company much of its revenue.

With WordPerfect Lightening, Corel is offering a free trial version of its WordPerfect Office X3 productivity suite, whose standard edition retails for US$269.99.
Download Link

Software to Identify Copyrighted Video Clips on the Internet

Identification of the copyrighted content has always been the major challenge for media companies and the online video sharing sites. Now, a Californian company dubbed Audible Magic has developed new content-recognition software that they claim to be a new weapon in web war over piracy. The technology could address what the entertainment industry sees as one of its biggest problems.. songs and videos being posted on the Web without permission.

How the new software works? Well.. when any new clip is being uploaded to a site, the content-recognition software checks the database for relevant matches via a technique called digital fingerprinting. Copyrighted material can then be blocked or posted, depending on whether it is licensed for use on the site. Once it checks for the matches, copyrighted material can be blocked or posted.

Though Audio fingerprinting technologies have been put in use in the recent times to identify copyrighted music on video-sharing networks like MySpace, it would be interesting to see whether the new content recognition software does the work with total adeptness.
Nevertheless, some file-sharing networks and smaller video sites like Guba.com and Grouper.com are already using more basic filters that monitor video soundtracks and music files, hoping to appease copyright holders and stay out of the courtroom.