Category: Intellectual Property
The Pirate Bay hits 15 million downloaders and 3 million registered users
How appropriate. Just a few days after Talk Like a Pirate Day 2008, the Pirate Bay – the world’s most notorious bittorrent tracker – has announced that it has hit 15 million peers, and 3 million registered users. For those of you unfamiliar with bittorrent terminology, that means that they’ve got 3 million uploaders, and 15 million downloaders. That’s more than the populations of Norway and Sweden put together…
Government says Phorm is phine – the spying ad software can be rolled out in the UK
The UK government has said the incredibly controversial Phorm software can be rolled out in the UK – but users must be told first and allowed to opt-out if they wish.
The Phorm system, which anonymously tracks your internet usage so it can offer you targeted advertising, was secretly tested on a small group of BT users without their knowledge, creating uproar among the sort of people who like to create uproars about privacy issues. The EU then got involved, asking for clarification about the hows and whys of Phorm, thinking that it might be a BAD THING.
So, the UK government investigated and has decided it’s OK and that Phorm is fine. Here’s what it told the EU investigators about its Phorm phindings and how users will be put in charge of turning it on and off…
The European Union is investigating the Yahoo/Google ad sales deal – anti-trust action on the way?
The EU is getting angry again – and looking daggers the way of Yahoo and Google. Transatlantic daggers. Intercontinental ballistic daggers.
The bureaucratic RAGE is thanks to the two companies and their deal to sell Google ads on Yahoo in the US and Canada – a right old stitch-up which…
Google to start archiving 30 glorious years of Page 3 stunnas, with its Newspaper Search
Google will soon start the mammoth task of scanning in decades worth of old newspapers, allowing us to finally search information and news from before the internet period. Everything that happened in the 1980s will start to exist again.
In a similar fashion to Google’s impressive but under-the-radar Book Search, the newspaper service will let us browse through old papers, bringing entire pages up as zoomable, Google Maps-style images. The Times already does…
British man invented iPod in 1979. 3.5 minute storage capacity failed to impress. Apple stole idea
That poor bloke there invented the concept of iPod back in 1979. He’s British, although his alarmingly American-sounding name – Kane Kramer – suggests otherwise. Kane lives in Hitchin.
Mr Kramer came up with the idea of a portable music player, called the IXI, when he was 23. However, technology wasn’t ready for this in 1979. Kramer’s player could only store 3.5 minutes of music on its memory chip…
Spore has been hacked, cracked and dumped on Bittorrent for world to have for free
It was inevitable. The only question was "How long will it would take?" Before release? Hours after? In the case of Spore, the hot new life/universe/everything simulator from The Sims creator Will Wright, the answer to that question is "24…
EMI adding over 400,000 new tunes to We7's free streaming library
We7, the free-to-use ad-funded music site that’s famously the brainchild of musical wildcard Peter Gabriel will, finally, soon feature the Peter Gabriel back catalogue in its listings.
This is thanks to music goliath EMI announcing a deal to stick 400,000 of its songs up on the streaming service before the end of the year, a move which will significantly boost the amount of content on the rapidly-growing free music site. Sony BMG…
Band X (The Smashing Pumpkins) releasing new single G.L.O.W. in video game Y (Guitar Hero World Tour)
It is, in case you’re not down in the vicinity of where all the fashionable kids hang out, the cool thing. Release your record via Rock Band and/or Guitar Hero, so that instead of being seen as some crusty old group reforming once more to pay off a few debts, you are, in fact, bleeding-edge innovators who have STILL GOT IT.
Next to try it is The Smashing Pumpkins, who will be releasing two old songs a few people have heard of – 1979 and The Everlasting Gaze – alongside one ALL NEW SONG called G.L.O.W.
Disappointed eBay PC buyer finds boring old banking data stored on the hard drive
Honestly, what a disappointment. Of all the exciting things you could hope to find on the hard drive of a PC bought off eBay, rubbish old bank passwords has to be the last thing you’d want.
The computer in question was bought for £35 off the auction site, and apparently came pre-loaded with user data from the Royal Bank of Scotland and NatWest. Both banks have confirmed that the data is indeed genuine…
Facebook blocks Scrabulous worldwide
In a not-entirely-unexpected development of the story of the grim fate of Scrabulous, Facebook have blocked the Scrabble-clone application in every country except India. Mattel, who own the rights to Scrabble outside of North America, formally demanded the block due to copyright concerns…
