The voice recognition software that creates the closed caption is still flawed, but that won't stop millions of users from enjoying the benefits of the auto-captioning service that YouTube recently made available to all users.

I tested it out on a couple of my videos and some of the results were hilarious. If there was any background music, the captions were absolutely worthless. In a perfectly clean sound environment, the results were pretty good - as long as the speaker went slowly. If there was any background noise, not even every other word was correct.

Despite its limitations, the service is very valuable, and stands to improve over time. You can download the transcription for editing, though with some of my results I'd be better off starting from scratch! Overall, the move will increase the accessibility of YouTube videos for hearing impaired viewers, and the translation service will open up videos to international audiences.

I just ran across this fun video short, Memoirs of a Scanner, which is a minute-long tale of "alienation, sex and violence," as seen from the perspective of a scanner.

The cool thing about the film is that no video camera was used - all of the images come from the scanner. It just goes to show that if you have a creative idea and some tenacity, nothing can stop you from getting a movie made!

I was sad to learn that I'll no longer be able to watch The Daily Show and The Colbert Report on Hulu. Viacom has reportedly decided that the revenue from streaming through Hulu isn't enough, so the shows will be removed from the site next week.

You can still watch the popular faux-news shows online, but only through Comedy Central's website. I hope this isn't a sign of things to come for Hulu. After all, a major advantage of the site is that it aggregates programs from all over the web. It's so much easier to find everything in one place, instead of searching several sites for your favorite programs.

I don't think I'll stop watching The Daily Show once it leaves Hulu, but I'll probably watch it less frequently. After all, Hulu is my destination for online TV. Comedy Central may become a pit stop, but not one I'll remember to make every day.

Nearly 10 years ago, when I was considering transitioning from a career in print journalism to videography, I stumbled across the Platypus courses started by photojournalist-turned-multimedia-man Dirck Halstead. The three-day-long courses are designed to teach still photographers and journalists working in other media how to incorporate digital video into their storytelling. It's a hands-on workshop teaches shooting, editing and other video techniques participants need to become effective video storytellers.

Instead of signing up for Platypus, I opted to go for a more intensive, year-long master's program in video production. I question my decision every month when I pay my student loan bill, and every time I see the impressive videos that come out of the Platypus program. Most of what I learned in school I learned outside the classroom, so I suspect I'd have developed the same skills if I had spent three days in the classroom instead of nine months!

But all regrets aside, I recommend that anyone interested in working as a video journalist check out the Platypus Theater, which features work from previous graduates. Even if they don't inspire you to sign up for the course, they'll inspire you to more ambitious video storytelling.

Courses will be run this year in Las Vegas, Maine and Prague.