Author: Gary Cutlack
The Pirate Bay has a new enemy – International Olympic Committee asks Swedish government to remove torrents
Here’s another vague threat for The Pirate Bay to laugh in the face of – the International Olympic Committee wants the Swedish piracy-enabler to remove all copyrighted Olympic content from its comprehensive listings.
The IOC has requested assistance from the Swedish government, asking the Minister of Justice to help force the Bay…
Woman made example of – fined £16,000 for illegally downloading a game
Poor old Isabella Barwinska just wanted to have a bit of fun playing pinball on her PC with her friends, but she’s ended up with a £16k fine after being tracked down via the P2P network she used.
Isabella unwisely chose to nick a copy of Pinball Dreams 3D off the internet, no doubt attracted by its wide variety of tables and realistic arcade gameplay! But she was rumbled, and recently ordered to pay damages of £6,086.56 and costs…
A guitar photocopier, for effortlessly making clones of famous bits of wood
Technically, this is a “wood carving duplicator” but the description “guitar photocopier” seems to fit the automated drilling machine so much better.
“A guide pin follows the contour of the original while a carbide bit does the cutting,” says the listing, creating a precise wooden recreation of your original once it’s finished. It’s so precise it leaves the newly created version only requiring…
Quantum of Solace product placement update – Ford signs on to promote its new Ka
The imminent 90-minute product advertisement that is Quantum of Solace has just got a little more rammed with unique marketing opportunities, thanks to car-maker Ford signing on to feature its products in the movie-cum-advert.
So as well as whoring himself dry by using a Sony Ericsson C902 to phone HQ every few minutes, Bond will also be looking on approvingly as love interest Camille rolls up in a gold Ford Ka…
Microsoft revealing "technical information" regarding Windows 7 in October, says W7 dev blog
Fantastic. Just when we’ve finally turned off everything in Vista, deleted half of it and got it working and looking something like good old XP again, Microsoft starts preparing to change the game once more.
According to the nerds working on it, MS will “provide in-depth technical information” regarding the…
eBay Nutcase of the Week: Woman sells cheating husband's condom wrapper and "the tart's knickers"
A spurned wife is currently selling a photograph of a pair of knickers she found in her bed, along with a “small” condom wrapper her husband foolishly left behind as evidence of his adultery.
The angry lady’s listing originally offered the actual knickers, but was taken down due to eBay laws regarding the selling of used underwear. An eBay spokesman said “We let her know about the policy and instead she’s now selling a photograph of the offending knickers…”
Make Xbox 360 cooler (as in, less likely to melt through the floor) with Lan-Li's PC Modding Case
That anonymous aluminium box to the left there is the Lan-Li Xbox 360 Modding Case, a roomier bedsit for your Xbox 360 hardware to sit in.
The PC-XB01 comes with the bare-minimum spec, specifically for Xbox 360. So you get ONE 5.25″ external bay along with ZERO 3.5″ bays, but there is one saviour – a decent fan. A quiet fan. So, for once, playing…
Japanese Olympic medallist used Nintendo's Wii to get himself used to the stadium
This is a gift. A gift to Nintendo from Japanese swimmer Kosuke Kitajima. He won the Olympic gold medal in the 100m breaststroke, and, Nintendo and SEGA’s PR people will be pleased to hear, name checks Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games as his motivation.
Well, kind of. He mentioned it. He said he used it to help him have a look around the swimming venue. Here’s exactly what he said…
BBC's iPlayer upgraded to H.264 codec – download speed and picture quality boosted
The BBC has been blowing your license fee on further developing its iPlayer service, announcing today that it’s starting to use the open source H.264 codec for its streaming telly service.
This has allowed the Beeb to boost the encoding bitrate of streamed shows from 500kbps to 800kbps, so it should all look a little sharper and cleaner when you catch up with such classics…
iPhone confirmed as a serious games machine – SEGA's Monkey Ball sells 300,000 in three weeks
SEGA, maker of the legendary Super Monkey Ball series, told moneyman blog the Wall Street Journal that it’s sold 300,000 copies of Monkey Ball via the App Store in the 20 days since launch. At $9.99 a pop, that’s one hell of a cash cow for all involved.
“It gives iPhone a justifiable claim to being a viable gaming platform, ” said Simon Jeffery, president of Sega’s US arm. It also means Nintendo and Sony might…
