YouTube Confidentiality Banner - An Accident?

Yesterday when I was surfing YouTube for videos, I came across a rather curious banner:

Naturally, I tried to find out whatever I could about this. What is it? Why is it there? Is there really confidential content in my search results? Many people suggested a number of preposterous ideas, such as that the U.S Government have taken over the internet and are spying on us...

Soon after this began, Yahoo News released this article.

This banner would appear indiscriminately with a YouTube search, but as far as I know, this was only happening in the late hours of yesterday; I first noticed it at 21:48 - 9th May 2013 GMT.

Later that night, YouTube released the following statement through their official Twitter account:

Seeing this, I initially thought that this was correct - just a bug, until I right-clicked on the banner in YouTube and click "Inspect Element" to view the HTML. For those of you who are unfamiliar with HTML, any "element" can be named, so to speak, to whatever the creator wishes to call it, so that it can be identified later should the creator wish to style it a particular way in what is called CSS, or make it functional using JavaScript etc. YouTube named this particular element "alert-banner-trick" or if I remember correctly, I do however remember that it contained the word trick - this is the one thing I didn't take a screenshot of, what could be the most important part of finding out what this is - nice going James!

One idea I have heard, which seems perfectly feasible, is that this is really an experiment. As YouTube and Google are owned by the same people, it would be dead easy for them to monitor trends, so it could be that this is simply an experiment to see how quickly information travels over the internet.

Those of you who watched/read the news or listened radio this morning will know that YouTube have announced that users can now make their channels require a paid monthly subscription, National Geographic now requires a 60p subscription per month and Ultimate Fighting Championship costs £4 per month to watch. Are these two events coincidental? Confidential information banner promptly followed by announcement of subscription, could the two be related? If so, what kind of confidential information could be disclosed via YouTube? YouTube is not exclusive or premium, so anybody can access it, therefore all results are available to anybody, so it doesn't make sense that YouTube would mark them as confidential.

Perhaps this was just a genuine glitch, but there are still a few things unexplained, so leave any ideas in the comments box below.

Apocalypse Not Now

There has been much speculation about the world ending on the 21st December 2012. As we have seen, it did not. But why was there so much hype surrounding this date? Let's find out.

NASA released a video intended to be watched on the 22.12.2012 about why the world didn't end yesterday. It shows that if the world were to end soon, we would know about it and explains some of the reasons why this canard has been going on for so long and why some people have been believing it since 1975.


First of all, let's start with the Mayan Calendar. The Mayan Calendar is an ancient system used by the Mayan civilizations. It was developed approximately 5,125 years ago and the Mayan creation date is said to be 13.0.0.0.0. and on the 21st December 2012, it will be the end of the 13th b'ak'tun (a Mayan measure of time) and that will draw the conclusion of the Great Cycle of the Long Count, but just as your calendar at home ends and you buy a new one, a new long count begins.. According to the Mayan beliefs, there have been three worlds before our's and on the final day of the 13th b'ak'tun, each world was destroyed by the Gods as they were unhappy with them. We are now the 4th world and the Mayans believed the same fate would befall us.


Rumours of how the world will end are varied, but the most common story is of Planet X and Nibiru (both fictional) colliding with the Earth and annihilating the human race and causing cataclysmic destruction on Earth. This obviously didn't happen and scientists have repeatedly disproved the existence of these planets. Another rumour is of alignment of the planets, an innocuous phenomenon that has happened many times before, most recently in the 1960's. And the final one is solar flares, which as I'm sure many of you know are harmless and have no current potential to eradicate our planet.


To conclude, no extermination imminent, nothing to worry about. If ever the Earth is at risk of destruction, I'm sure no-one reading this now will be here in 3.5 billion years.

Star Wars 7,8 & 9 - Good News?

There is going to be more Star Wars! Yay, right? It's what every Star Wars fan has been waiting for, but are we sure it's the right thing for the saga? The original Star Wars trilogy was created in the 70's and 80's, leaving so many questions unanswered: Where did Darth Vader come from? How did the Emperor build his empire? Who is Luke's mother? What was the Jedi Council? I could go on for a lot longer. All of these questions were unanswered before the prequels were made. The prequels were necessary to answer those questions and tie-up loose ends. But with every possible anomaly solved, do we really need more sequels?


Disney bought the Star Wars franchise a couple of months ago and have announced their plans to make more films, but why do we need more? Star Wars ended in Return of the Jedi with the death of Yoda (sorry for the spoiler, but if you didn't know that, you really shouldn't be reading this post!) and Luke being the last of the Jedi. How will they make three more films with that preset? It will certainly be a challenge. It is rumoured that the stories will be about Luke's son, although Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher have all said they would be willing to return. If the three protagonists do return, it would be somewhat unnerving to see the beloved characters middle-aged and beyond, as when we last saw them, they were in there late twenties, so it would feel peculiar seeing them at any other age. On the other hand, leaving Luke, Han and Leia out of the films would make it feel too distant from the original films, and would make it feel like a new set of films entirely. I sincerely hope that they keep C-3PO and R2-D2 will continue on in the films to maintain the tradition.


Although the prospect of further episodes seems relatively new, George Lucas had in fact been planning the episodes since the 1980's. Lucas stated in 1980 that the new films would begin between 20 and 30 years after Return of the Jedi and would be about the rebuilding of the Republic. Lucas abandoned the idea in 1999, telling Starlog Magazine:

Q. Does that mean you won't do episodes seven, eight and nine?

Lucas: I will not do seven, eight and nine.

Q: You will not? Will they be made by somebody else?

Lucas: No. They will not.

Q: So this trilogy ends it?

Lucas: This is it. This is all there is. 

Now onto directors. A director has not yet been confirmed, but there has been much speculation as to who it could or should be. Peter Jackson seems a bit implausible, but many other Sci-fi and noted film writers could be a possibility. Who do you think it should be?

Who do you want to be the director to the Star Wars sequels?

Jon Favreau

David Yates

Louis Letterier

Brad Bird

Barry Sonnefield

Create your own poll

The purchase of Star Wars by Disney is thought by many to be a big money-making scheme, and the film will be of poor quality because they were poorly thought out and as long as they have made films, Disney will be rolling in the money. But is that the intention? Or are Disney just trying to reinvigorate the magic of Star Wars? Who knows? We'll find out in 2015!

iPhone 5

The new iPhone 5 has been the centre of so much recent hype, but is it all it's cracked up to be? The main changes from the iPhone 4S are higher-quality images, more memory and faster internet. But who really cares if their phone's graphics are slightly lower quality, or they can't take as many photos before having to upload some to their PC, or they have to wait a bit longer for internet. The new iPhone 5, the second iPhone to be equipped with voice-recognition software Siri is sure to make you dig deeper into your pockets than an iPhone 4S would, which has the same capabilities but with slower internet (which with the new 4G networks being distributed across Britain now, should not be too much of  a problem) and lower quality graphics. The reason it is expensive is because, well, because it's an iPhone and it carries the trusted iPhone and Apple name.

Every review site you go on will always mention how "crisp" the image is and the speed of the internet, and especially emails. Personally, I check my emails at home, but for someone who needs it for their work, the iPhone 5 may be suited to you, but for the average citizen, I think the iPhone 4S should more than suffice! What are your views and personal experiences? Share them in the comments section below:

Underwater Hotel

The above picture is of the underwater hotel recently completed by Poseidon Resorts. Altogether, there are 24 suites, each suite measuring at 50 square metres. Also, there is a restaurant, bar, a larger suite measuring at over double that of the standard suite, a conference room, a theatre, a wedding chapel, a lounge, and a library! If you're reading this list out loud, the chances are you have now run out of breath! If not, read on. Although it's not Dubai's Hydropolis or Shanghai's Shimao Wonderland, the Poseidon Sea Resorts will certainly be formidable.


It doesn't come cheap though, as the minimum stay (1 week) cost US$30,000! This money does include use of the company aeroplanes, 4 nights in their beach bungalows, and just 2 nights underwater! This price includes, a submarine expedition, as well as the use of a personal submarine to explore the 5,000 acre lagoon.

It all sounds great (if you overlook the price!) but would you really want to have an underwater holiday? Cabin fever and hydrophobia kicking in at the same time, while you are thinking, "Could this thing run out of air?" If you are ok with living underwater, this would be your thing. There would certainly be some spectacular views, but would you want to stay there?