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Rip Empson is a writer at TechCrunch. He covers startups, because he loves them. In an unhealthy way. Coverage includes music, social, mobile, healthtech, edtech … listen, if you’re not obnoxious, you’ve got an innovative idea, you want to change the world (while maintaining a sense of humor), he’ll write about your company. You can reach him at rip[at]techcrunch[dot]com ? Learn More

Last month, Google began showing the new versions of Google TV at CES, giving the press a taste of what was in store. One particular panel discussing Google TV’s new capabilities led Rupert Murdoch to take to Twitter, bemoaning the pirating ways of the search behemoth. Forbes has the backstory here. Google TV posted on its Facebook page yesterday, saying that it has some big announcements in store for Monday.

Today, it announced that it is upgrading the YouTube experience on Google TV with a new, revamped app. The YouTube app for Google TV is available for download on the Android Marketplace. The initial drive behind Google TV was to create a user experience that seamlessly blends web video with the boob tube, to change the way consumers interact with TV, but the first Google TV fell flat. Matt Burns reviewed the version, saying that, while it’s getting closer, it still has a long, long way to go.

In its announcement today, Google is promising some “big improvements” to its new YouTube app, among them that navigation is smoother and faster, along with some much-needed additions to its UX, like the new “Discover” feature, which basically just brings YouTube channel categories to Google TV, enhancing their browse-ability within the app. They’ve also brought its new channel pages, enabling users to navigate playlists and videos and subscribe to favorites.

Google says that users can also now view related videos from the same user by pressing the up and down arrows on their remote controls, or to find the “Info screen” to leave a thumbs up, add to your playlists, or to leave a comment.

The new app looks good, and this certainly stands to improve the YouTube experience on Google TV, though it’s certainly not the “big announcement” that many were hoping for. We’ll be keeping our ears out in the event that there’s more Google TV news in store for Monday.

Google TV is a new experience made for television that combines the TV you know and love with the freedom and power of the Internet. Watch an overview video below, sign up for updates, and learn more about how to develop for Google TV.

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Google provides search and advertising services, which together aim to organize and monetize the world’s information. In addition to its dominant search engine, it offers a plethora of online tools and platforms including: Gmail, Maps and YouTube. Most of its Web-based products are free, funded by Google’s highly integrated online advertising platforms AdWords and AdSense. Google promotes the idea that advertising should be highly targeted and relevant to users thus providing them with a rich source of information....

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YouTube was founded in 2005 by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim, who were all early employees of PayPal. YouTube is the leader in online video, sharing original videos worldwide through a Web experience. YouTube allows people to easily upload and share video clips across the Internet through websites, mobile devices, blogs, and email. Everyone can watch videos on YouTube. People can see first-hand accounts of current events, find videos about their hobbies and interests, and discover the quirky...

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Google TV Gets A New YouTube App

ANDOVER, Mass., Feb. 13, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Enterasys Networks, a Siemens Enterprise Communications Company, announced today that project isaac, the industry's first social media interface that connects the IT network to the social network, received the 2011 Product of the Year Award from Technology Marketing Corporation's (TMC®) Internet Telephony magazine.

"With social media quickly becoming the mainstay of online communications, Enterasys developed isaac to integrate the cloud and mobile infrastructure with the social network. This enables IT to provide real-time responses to business needs anytime, anywhere," said Vala Afshar, Chief Customer Officer at Enterasys Networks. "Receiving the Internet Telephony product of the year award validates the power of isaac to leverage social media for secure, predictive management and control of their wireless and wired IP networks to improve the user experience."

Enterasys isaac is a social media interface that securely enables networks to communicate with humans in the language of social networking. Enterasys' isaac enables the IT network to communicate its status and receive your commands all from pervasive social networks including Twitter, Facebook and Salesforce Chatter. Enterasys isaac is available with NetSight, a key component of Enterasys OneFabric™ Control Center delivering single-pane of glass management for end-to-end application delivery assurance.

"I am happy to grant Enterasys with a Product of the Year Award. The editors of Internet Telephony have verified that isaac displays quality and innovation plus provides real needs in the marketplace," stated Rich Tehrani, CEO, TMC. "I would like to congratulate the entire team at Enterasys for their commitment to advancing IP communication technologies."

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About Internet Telephony magazine
Internet Telephony has been the IP Communications Authority since 1998™. Beginning with the first issue in February of 1998, Internet Telephony magazine has been providing unbiased views of the complicated converged communications space. Internet Telephony offers rich content from solutions-focused editorial content to reviews on products and services from TMC Labs. Internet Telephony magazine reaches more than 225,000 readers, including pass-along readers.  For more information, please visit http://www.itmag.com.

About Enterasys Networks and Siemens Enterprise Communications
Siemens Enterprise Communications is a premier provider of end-to-end enterprise communications, including voice, network infrastructure and security solutions that use open, standards-based unified communications and business applications for a seamless collaboration experience. This award-winning "Open Communications" approach enables organizations to improve productivity and reduce costs through easy-to-deploy solutions that work within existing IT environments, delivering operational efficiencies. It is the foundation for the company's OpenPath® commitment that enables customers to mitigate risk and cost-effectively adopt unified communications. Jointly owned by The Gores Group and Siemens AG, Siemens Enterprise Communications includes Cycos and Enterasys Networks. For more information about Siemens Enterprise Communications or Enterasys please visit http://www.siemens-enterprise.com or http://www.enterasys.com.

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Enterasys Receives 2011 Internet Telephony Product of the Year Award

Heavy Internet Users Could Be Targeted for Prevention or Early Detection of Substance Abuse

Newswise — Philadelphia, Pa. (February 13, 2012) – Adolescents who are "internet addicts" may also be at increased risk of substance abuse, suggests a study in the March issue of Journal of Addiction Medicine, the official journal of the American Society of Addiction Medicine. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.

Teens with "pathologic Internet use" are more likely to have past or recent use of illicit substances, according to the study by Dr Georgios D. Floros of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and colleagues. The new research also points toward "some common personality characteristics" among adolescents who are abusing the Internet and have a history of substance use.

Heavy Internet Users More Likely to Report Substance Use
The researchers surveyed the entire adolescent population (aged 14 to 19) of the Greek island of Kos regarding Internet use, substance use, and personality factors. Internet addiction means not just heavy Internet use, but also consequences such as losing track of time spent online, neglecting other activities, and having difficulty cutting down on Internet use.

Of the 1,221 teens who responded to the survey, about fifteen percent were heavy Internet users while five percent had signs of Internet addiction. Thirteen percent reported past substance abuse, including a seven percent rate of substance abuse within the past month. The researchers looked for possible links between Internet use and substance use, along with potential related factors.

As the severity of excessive Internet use increased, so did the likelihood of substance abuse. Males had higher rates of substance abuse than females. Seeking online pornography was the only specific type of Internet activity that was more frequent among teens with recent substance use.

Evidence of Common Personality Factors
Both substance use and heavy Internet use were associated with "distinct personality profiles," including higher scores for characteristics classified under the label of "psychoticism." According to a well-known personality theory (the Eysenck model), psychoticism includes traits such as nonconformity, aggressiveness, and impulsiveness.

Previous studies have linked other addictive disorders to high psychoticism scores, consistent with an "addictive personality." The relationship between Internet addiction and substance use remained significant, even after controlling for sex, age, ethnicity, and personality factors.

Internet addiction has not been formally accepted as a psychiatric diagnosis. However, it has many features in common with other addictive diseases, such as "a compulsive need for Internet use with lack of related control and disregard over the obvious adverse consequences." Some common biological factors—perhaps involving the dysfunction of dopamine and "reward pathway" of the brain—are possible as well.

Especially since excessive Internet use that interferes with daily activities is readily observable at home, the results have implications for the early identification of teens at risk of substance abuse, Dr Floros and coauthors believe. They write, "Those adolescents eager to try any illicit substance are a prime target for early intervention programs." They even raise the possibility of promoting abuse prevention and early detection programs in the typical online venues where Internet overuse occurs—for example, online gaming sites, social networking sites, and hacking communities.

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About Journal of Addiction Medicine
The mission of Journal of Addiction Medicine, the official journal of the American Society of Addiction Medicine, is to promote excellence in the practice of addiction medicine and in clinical research as well as to support Addiction Medicine as a mainstream medical specialty. Published quarterly, the Journal is designed for all physicians and other mental health professionals who need to keep up-to-date with the treatment of addiction disorders. Under the guidance of an esteemed Editorial Board, peer-reviewed articles published in the Journal focus on developments in addiction medicine as well as on treatment innovations and ethical, economic, forensic, and social topics.

About Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW) is a leading international publisher for healthcare professionals and students with nearly 300 periodicals and 1,500 books in more than 100 disciplines publishing under the LWW brand, as well as content-based sites and online corporate and customer services.

LWW is part of Wolters Kluwer Health, a leading global provider of information, business intelligence and point-of-care solutions for the healthcare industry. Wolters Kluwer Health is part of Wolters Kluwer, a market-leading global information services company with 2010 annual revenues of €3.6 billion ($4.7 billion).

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Internet Addiction Could Be Warning Sign of Substance Use in Teens, Reports Journal of Addiction Medicine

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Most computer users in Iran were blocked from accessing email, social networking and other services in recent days, U.S.-based Internet experts said on Monday, raising fears the government is extending the reach of its surveillance on ordinary citizens.

Internet service providers presumed to be acting at the Iranian government's behest began blocking the most common form of secure connections on Friday, according to the outside experts and Iranian bloggers. Traffic rebounded to normal levels on Monday.

The cutoff apparently affected all encrypted international websites outside of Iran that depend on the Secure Sockets Layer protocol, which display addresses beginning with https, according to Earl Zmijewski of Renesys, a U.S. company that tracks Internet traffic worldwide.

Google, which uses SSL for its Gmail service, reported that traffic from Iran to its email system fell precipitously.

Gmail use, which typically drops by about 80 percent at night, dropped by roughly 95 percent Friday and remained that low during daylight hours through the weekend before recovering Monday, according to Google's publicly posted access statistics.

Tor, a system for hiding the location of Internet users, saw a similar falloff first in the Iranian capital of Tehran and then throughout the country, said Tor executive director Andrew Lewman.

Though other countries, including Belarus and Myanmar, have blocked SSL access before, Iran is the largest country to have tried it, Lewman said. Egypt turned off the Internet completely a year ago during the uprising there, and China has done that in some regions.

It was unclear why the blocking stopped. Some Iranian politicians complained and businesses might have objected, but most tracking the situation said it was likely that the experiment had run its course.

"The government is testing different tools," said Hamed Behravan, who reports on Iranian technology issues for the U.S. government-funded Voice of America. "They might have wanted to see the public reaction."

Behravan said Iranian sites using SSL remained available, including banking sites.

Tor has been developing a version of its program that is encrypted but does not need an SSL connection, and it distributed that over the weekend to people inside Iran who reported that it worked well, Lewman said.

Iranian officials have said they do not intend to block all connections to the outside world from a new national system they are developing. But direct links could be made to run very slowly, Behravan said.

The new network could help Iran ward off spying or attacks from other countries and keep a closer eye on domestic activities.

The country already has built up one of the most sophisticated infrastructures for monitoring and controlling Internet content, with the ability to dig deep into communications and change various protocols.

During political protests in the past, Iran reduced bandwidth so that posting videos took hours.

With the SSL shutoff and recent remarks by officials, Behravan said the new network could launch within a month.

"I will not be surprised if it happens tomorrow," said Iranian computer scientist Arash Abadpour of Toronto, who blogs under the name Kamangir.

(Editing by Doina Chiacu)

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Iranians' Internet access blocked temporarily: experts

Access to the Internet's most-used sites and tools is being choked in Iran at a politically charged period, blocking communication channels for local businesses, bank clients, scientists and foreign media.

Attempts to get on Facebook, Gmail, Yahoo and foreign news pages were either met with an Iranian page saying in Farsi that "Access to this page is a violation of computer crime laws" or the connection was slowed to such an extent to make it nearly impossible.

The restrictions add to the online censorship that authorities have long imposed in the Islamic republic.

Until now, sophisticated Internet users had been able to get around the blocks by using software known as a Virtual Private Network (VPN) -- the sale of which is illegal in Iran.

Since last week, though, even most VPNs offered no solution. Internet service providers (ISPs), under the control of the state, seemed to be targeting the Internet's most popular social networks and communication sites.

While authorities have given no reason publicly for the systematic curbs, the extra filtering came at a politically sensitive time for them.

Iran last week celebrated the anniversary of its 1979 Islamic revolution, and in less than three weeks' time it is to hold legislative elections.

A call has gone out -- on the Internet -- for "Green Movement" opposition demonstrations on Tuesday, exactly a year after protests that resulted in a severe crackdown and arrests.

On top of that, the Iranian government has said for some months that it is preparing to launch a "national Internet" that reportedly would exclude almost all non-Iranian or non-Muslim websites.

However, one member of the Iranian government's net filtering committee, Mohammad Sadegh Afrasiabi, denied the initiative was linked to the Internet problems.

"This network will only be put in place in four years' time and the blocking of emails isn't part of it," he was quoted by the Hamshahri newspaper saying.

More broadly, Iran is in a worsening showdown with the West over its suspect nuclear programme. It has accused the United States and Israel of conducting covert operations against it, including through Internet subversion and the deployment of computer viruses.

Whatever the motives, the strangulation of the Internet is making life very difficult for many Iranian businesses, especially those needing to access emails and documents online through services such as Gmail.

Importers were "angry or desperate" at being cut off from communicating with suppliers abroad, said one source in the trade sector.

Businesses in Tehran were being forced to turn to fax machines and motorbike couriers to send or receive invoices and other documents, the source said.

"I'm waiting for urgent documents to prepare a contract with a Turkish company and my Internet is completely blocked," said the owner of a small Iranian electronic import firm who demanded anonymity.

The Hamshahri daily said the additional restrictions were "provoking disturbances in commercial and scientific exchanges in the country, with evident consequences even for urban traffic and for banking."

Foreign journalists and diplomats in Iran were also finding it difficult or impossible to communicate via the web, several told AFP.

The few Tehran cafes offering wi-fi connections regretfully told laptop- and smartphone-toting customers that their Internet service was off-line.

Iranians with family living abroad were despairing. "I haven't had any connection with the outside world for several days. I don't have any more contact with my son who works in France," said one mother living in Tehran.

A top conservative lawmaker in Iran, Ahmad Tavakoli, warned that "such annoying filtering will cost the regime dearly," according to the Mehr news agency.

"If there are justifications on security grounds, officials should explain them clearly to the people," he said.

But the head of one ISP, Mohammad Hassan Shaneh-Saz of the company Shatel, was quoted by Mehr saying the added restrictions were "not related to the quality of service from the ISPs."

He claimed that the proposed "national Internet" would improve the situation when launched, by increasing available bandwidth.

The Internet is widely used Iran, where nearly half the 75-million strong population is connected.

It played a major role in a wave of anti-government protests that rocked the country after the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009.

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Iran chokes Internet at politically sensitive time