Verizon deal gets YouTube going
YouTube videos will be viewable on cell phones for the first time under a deal with Verizon Wireless, which will also allow users to upload videos shot with their camera phones.
The partnership to be announced Tuesday marks the first big distribution deal for YouTube since the young video-sharing Web site was acquired earlier this month by Google Inc. for $1.76 billion.
The mobile YouTube service, to be launched in early December, will be offered for no additional fee as part of Verizon’s V Cast service, which costs subscribers $15 per month or $3 per day. The companies declined to provide an exact launch day, saying the technologies being employed are still being tested.
Washington
U.S. revives Canada beef plan
The Agriculture Department is trying again to increase cattle and beef imports from Canada, reviving a plan that had stalled amid evidence that Canada’s safeguards against mad cow disease were not working.
The plan was on hold while authorities weighed the risk of importing older Canadian cattle, which carry a higher risk of having mad cow disease than younger animals.
On Friday, the department quietly sent its plan back to the White House for final consideration.
At issue is a ban on using cattle remains in cattle feed, the primary firewall against the spread of mad cow disease. The only known way for cattle to get the disease is by eating feed containing diseased cattle tissue, a practice largely outlawed in Canada and the United States in 1997.
Pittsburgh
“Twelve Days” costlier than ever
The cost of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” is on the rise – again.
Buying each item in the song just once – from a partridge in a pear tree to a dozen drummers drumming – will cost you $18,920, or 3.1 percent more than last year, according to PNC Financial Services Group.
The total cost of items gifted by a True Love who repeats all of the song’s verses costs more than ever before – $75,122 – for all 364 items, up from $72,608 in 2005, a 3.5 percent increase.
Each year, the Pittsburgh-based bank does a tongue-in-cheek tally of how much the swans, geese and drummers would cost if you purchased them at today’s prices. PNC has been calculating the cost of Christmas since 1984.