PATREONItems tagged with Tor
The MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) has won a default judgment against Valence Media's download site Torrentspy. The judgment is handy for figuring out exactly how much all those free movies everyone's downloading are worth. According to a federal judge, $110 million dollars ought to about cover it. In 2006 TorrentSpy was more popular than any other BitTorrent site, but this changed quickly in August 2007, when a federal judge ordered TorrentSpy to log all user data. The judge ruled that TorrentSpy had to monitor its users in order to create detailed logs of their activities, and hand these over to the MPAA.In a response to this decision - and to ensure the privacy of their users...
Read more...
While some reports seem to point to NBC returning to iTunes, that seems unlikely, as the Zune Marketplace, along with the changes to the Zune 2.5 software, has added NBC to the fold.Notable in the deal is NBC Universal's inclusion, as the company's programs disappeared from Apple's iTunes Store in December following disputes over pricing and bundling. "Partnering with Zune will allow us to develop innovative content offerings for their customers, including flexible pricing and packaging options beginning this fall," said JB Perrette, president of NBC Universal Digital Distribution. NBC Universal will offer NBC's "The Office," "Heroes" and "30 Rock." Also on offer will be programming from Viacom's...
Read more...
Earlier this year we stumbled upon a widely circulated You Tube video (at least in tech circles), in which a man is seen ruthlessly abusing a poor LCD monitor. The protagonist starts by letting a child draw on the screen with a black permanent marker. Taking matters into his own hands, the man then proceeds to take a pen-knife to the surface of the screen, followed by multiple strikes with a hammer. The abuse of a perfectly good LCD monitor isn't what struck us about this particular video, however. The unique element that caught our eye and set it apart from similar videos is that the LCD monitor survived the episode completely unscathed. The monitor was ASUS' LS201. After seeing...
Read more...
Earlier this year we stumbled upon a widely circulated You Tube video (at least in tech circles), in which a man is seen ruthlessly abusing a poor LCD monitor. The protagonist starts by letting a child draw on the screen with a black permanent marker. Taking matters into his own hands, the man proceeds to take a pen-knife to the surface of the screen, followed by multiple strikes with a hammer. Deciding that he isn't quite done, he gets out the big "guns" and holds up a crossbow. To show us he means business, he puts two test shots into a piece of wood. The metal crossbow bolts easily penetrate the surface and lodge in the wooden block with an audible thud. Finally, he turns the crossbow on the...
Read more...
DailyGame reports that the Spore Creature Creator--precursor to the long-awaited Spore Creature-- will start shipping on June 17: Gamers worldwide will have their first chance to create their own Spore space amoeba on June 17, when Electronic Arts will ship the complete retail version of the Spore Creature Creator. A free Spore Creature Creator demo will be available for download on the same day. DailyGame goes on to report that the Spore Creature Creator will cost only $9.99 U.S. The free demo will be limited to 25-percent of the available creature-making parts. Gamers will be able to share their creature creations with other users. EA/Maxis' obvious motivation here is to start whetting the...
Read more...
ASUS Eee PC 4G Windows XP Hits Selected Best Buy Retail StoresFREMONT, CA (April 21, 2008) – ASUS Eee PC 4G pre-installed with Microsoft Windows XP is available immediately in selected Best Buy retail stores in the United States. The wide availability in Best Buy retail stores will provide a hands-on experience for potential users to explore this new addition to the Eee PC family.Easy to Learn, Work and PlayThe portable and affordable, ASUS Eee PC is built on the concept of Easy to Learn, Easy to Work and Easy to Play. Its compact form factor is engineered to accommodate both experienced and inexperienced PC users. With the addition of the Windows XP interface, existing PC users can now utilize...
Read more...
WD ANNOUNCES WD VELOCIRAPTOR -- THE WORLD’S FASTEST SATA HARD DRIVE Next-generation 10,000 RPM, 2.5-inch, 300 GB SATA Hard Drive, WD VelociRaptor is 35 Percent Faster and Twice the Capacity of the Previous Performance King LAKE FOREST, CALIF. - Apr. 21, 2008 - WD (NYSE: WDC) announced today that it is now shipping WD VelociRaptor hard drives, the next generation of its 10,000 RPM SATA "Raptor" series of drives. Designed with an enterprise-class foundation, the new WD VelociRaptor hard drive is modified specifically for PC and Mac® enthusiasts and professional workstations. Destined to become the new high-performance favorite of these groups, the WD VelociRaptor hard drive comes packed with...
Read more...
Western Digital is unveiling a brand new enthusiast-class hard drive today, the 10K RPM Velociraptor WD3000GLFS. Like the previous generation WD Raptors that came before it, the 300GB WD Velociraptor shares the aforementioned 10K RPM spindle speed, and they have the same 16MB buffer, reliability ratings, and acoustic and environmental characteristics as well. The WD Velociraptor sports a completely new design, however, that offers significantly increased performance, in terms of access times, IOPS, and data transfer rates. Click the link below and check it out...Western Digital Velociraptor WD3000GLFS 300GB SATA HD...
Read more...
Western Digital's Raptor line of high performance hard drives has been a long-time favorite of PC enthusiasts since its introduction several years ago. When WD's Raptors first hit, their 10K RPM spindle speeds allowed for much lower access times than the more common 7200 RPM desktop drives of the time, and overall relative performance was strong. Many users were put off by the relatively low capacities of the Raptor, which debuted at 36GB and topped out at 150GB, but they were still wildly successful amongst enthusiasts regardless.As time wore on though, Western Digital's competitors introduced faster and faster, high capacity drives, that began to out-perform the Raptor...
Read more...
AMD Provides Quick Time-to-Market Platform for Growing Networked Storage Market - Storage Bridge Bay Reference Design and new AMD Athlon X2 Dual-Core processors deliver more options for high-end embedded customers - ORLANDO, FL - April 7, 2008 - At the Storage Networking World conference AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced availability of the first Reference Design Kit (RDK) for the Storage Bridge Bay (SBB) 2.0 Specification based on the AMD Athlon(tm) processor. This RDK can simplify the design process and provide a standardized platform powered by AMD's unrivaled Direct Connect Architecture. AMD expects to help storage vendors deliver low power, high performance, entry-level networked...
Read more...
AT&T First to Introduce Microsoft Surface in Retail Stores to Enhance Mobile Shopping Experience First commercial Microsoft Surface launch to begin April 17 in select AT&T stores with expanded deployment planned throughout 2008. LAS VEGAS — April 1, 2008 — AT&T (NYSE: T) and Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) today announced a collaborative alliance that will transform the way consumers shop for mobile devices. AT&T will become the first company in the world to bring Microsoft Surface to life in a retail environment, giving customers the ability to explore their mobile worlds using touch and device recognition technology. Microsoft Surface is the first commercially available surface...
Read more...
The end of an era may be upon us as yet another major BitTorrent site has closed down:Friends of TorrentSpy,We have decided on our own, not due to any court order or agreement, to bring the Torrentspy.com search engine to an end and thus we permanently closed down worldwide on March 24, 2008.The legal climate in the USA for copyright, privacy of search requests, and links to torrent files in search results is simply too hostile. We spent the last two years, and hundreds of thousands of dollars, defending the rights of our users and ourselves.Ultimately the Court demanded actions that in our view were inconsistent with our privacy policy, traditional court rules, and International law; therefore,...
Read more...
Ah yes, the good news is they are collaborating. The bad news is ... wait for it ... The deal comes as BitTorrent, which became known for developing software technology widely used to illegally share files, is trying to reinvent itself. The companies are in talks to collaborate on ways to run BitTorrent's technology more smoothly on Comcast's broadband network, and allow Comcast to transport video files more effectively over its own network in the future, said Tony Warner, Comcast's chief technology officer. Comcast and BitTorrent have been at odds since the cable operator said it was delaying traffic from BitTorrent at peak times. Legislators and some advocacy groups argued that Comcast's efforts...
Read more...
If you're old, you have a soft spot for Motorola. Plenty of people still remember Motorola vacuum tubes, and all sorts of hobbyists remember buying semiconductors and various electronic components for their projects with the spiky Motorola "M" logo on them. Lots of people are walking around with Motorola phones in their pockets, too -- yours truly included. But Motorola is being dragged down by the handset portion of their business, and are planning on splitting the company into two separate publicly traded companies to lose the cellphone albatross from around their neck. Motorola has been losing handset market share and is now ranked third in the world. The two entities it plans to split into...
Read more...
It'll be a cold day in ... well, you know where before this happens in the U.S. Or will it? Following closely on the heels of Norway, Canada's public broadcasting service is adopting DRM-free BitTorrent distribution for a major prime-time show.On March 24, CBC will use BitTorrent to distribute this year's broadcast of Canada's Next Great Prime Minister. This will make Canada the first country in North America to release high-quality, DRM-free copies of a prime-time show using the popular P2P file-sharing technology.Canada's Next Great Prime Minister, an annual competition in which young adults propose ways to improve the country in hopes of winning 50,000 Canadian dollars, attracted more...
Read more...
Not living in Kentucky? Count yourself lucky. A bill filed in the House would keep Kentuckians from posting anonymous comments to Web sites.House Bill 775, filed Tuesday by Rep. Tim Couch, R-Hyden, would require anyone who contributes to a Web site to register a real name, address and e-mail address with that Web site. The person's full name then would be used whenever he or she posted a comment.Web site operators who violate the disclosure law would be fined $500 for a first offense and $1,000 for each subsequent offense.All right, all right, don't get too excited. Couch admitted that his bill most likely won't pass muster in terms of the First Amendment, but he's trying to make...
Read more...
We're getting to be nags here at HotHardware news about this facet of computer upgrades, but once again, it's proven to be true: Bigger monitors make people more productive. Researchers at the University of Utah tested how quickly people performed tasks like editing a document and copying numbers between spreadsheets while using different computer configurations: one with an 18-inch monitor, one with a 24-inch monitor and with two 20-inch monitors. Their finding: People using the 24-inch screen completed the tasks 52% faster than people who used the 18-inch monitor; people who used the two 20-inch monitors were 44% faster than those with the 18-inch ones. There is an upper limit, however:...
Read more...
Soft errors, they sound a little less ominous than hard errors, don't they? Actually, both are not a lot of fun for the average computer processor or memory chip. A soft error, relative to semiconductor technology, is corruption inside of the memory structure of a device where bits are flipped inadvertently. Soft errors have become much more of a concern than ever before, as chip technologies shrink smaller and smaller. And the chip manufacturer with the most skin in the game right now is of course, Intel. Bleeding-edge 45nm process technology allows for more powerful, complex chip designs but also brings with it, higher risk of soft errors...
Read more...
OCZ Technology Group Exhibits New Industry-Leading Innovations at CeBIT 2008 Including the Highly-Anticipated Neural Impulse Actuator Hannover, Germany - March 4, 2008 - OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a worldwide leader in innovative, ultra-high performance and high reliability memory, computer components, and systems, today unveiled its next generation of pioneering products to the global PC market at CeBIT (Hall 21, Booth 29). Proving its innovative solutions are always ahead of the curve, OCZ will showcase its group of leading-edge products that have been greatly anticipated by the enthusiast community. “This year OCZ is showcasing a myriad of ground-breaking products, designed to improve productivity...
Read more...
Gary Gygax, acknowledged by many as the father of the role-playing game, has passed away at 69.Gary Gygax, one of the co-creators of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, died Tuesday morning at his home in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, according to Stephen Chenault, CEO of Troll Lord Games. Gygax designed the original D&D game with Dave Arneson in 1974, and went on to create the Dangerous Journeys and Lejendary Adventure RPGs, as well as a number of board games. He also wrote several fantasy novels.Although he was not directly involved with D&D since 1985, he was still involved in creating games to be used within its rules. Of course, many video games owe much to him, with some...
Read more...
Nine Inch Nails has released its new album, Ghosts I-IV, online and in a somewhat Radiohead-eque way. You'll recall Radiohead released its In Rainbows album with "you" naming the price. Nine Inch Nails doesn't go quite that far, but it's still the sort of experimentation more bands should be trying with digital distribution becoming more popular.Nine Inch Nails has just released the first volume of their new album “Ghosts” on BitTorrent sites as a free download. The band encourages its fans to share the album with friends, post it on websites and play it on podcasts.In the release notes the band writes: “Now that we’re no longer constrained by a record label, we’ve decided to personally upload...
Read more...
Comcast has drawn a lot of attention to itself since it decided to throttle BitTorrent traffic, and most of it negative. Customers complained to anyone who would listen, and one of those was the FCC and another may just be House Internet Subcommittee Chair, (D) Rep. Ed Markey:“This time, the Federal Communications Commission will depart its headquarters just off the National Mall in Washington and head north to a courtroom on Harvard Law School's campus in Cambridge, Mass. (The FCC wouldn't comment on why the site was selected, but Boston is the home turf of Democratic Rep. Ed Markey, who chairs a House Internet subcommittee.)The hearing, which will be open to the public on a first-come,...
Read more...
