Posting and boasting his way to prominence, Irhabi007 started appearing on radical Islamist bulletin boards and in chat rooms. For his user I.D., he melded “irhabi,” which means “terrorist” in Arabic, to the code number of the world’s most famous, albeit fictional, British secret agent. Like radar in the last century, the Internet is a [...]

Microsoft Friday said that this week it will begin charging US$1.50 for users to download a copy of the Office 2007 beta 2. “In just the past two months since its launch, more than 3 million people have downloaded the 2007 Microsoft Office system beta 2,” the company said in a statement sent via e-mail. [...]

So far Nintendo have done a very credible job in keeping information regarding the Wii to a minimum. Well all that has just changed! An anonymous Wii developer has sent to us slurry of information regarding Nintendo’s next-gen console, all that’s left now is a confirmed release date and price to complete the puzzle. Believe [...]

France’s Constitutional Court has ruled that certain sections of the country’s controversial new copyright law are unconstitutional. The principle effect of the court’s 12-page legal review is to ensure that Apple will receive monetary compensation if it is forced to licence the DRM technology that it uses to restrict playback of iTunes Music Store downloads [...]

Podtropolis, the popular “Ipod” torrent site had to close its doors a couple of weeks ago. Podtropolis had financial problems and wasn’t able to pay the bills. But it looks like things changed for the better. Gary from Isohunt.com came to the rescue and bought podtropolis for $3000. At Podtropolis we read: Well, I just [...]

In the universe of file sharing technologies, Usenet – in particular the binary newsgroups – has become one of the top methods for downloading files, having a combination of high speed, wide file variety, and near-absolute safety – since unlike traditional P2P networks such as Gnutella, eDonkey and BitTorrent, there is no sharing or uploading [...]

Evil wrapped in Miami Vice. I HAD THE misfortune of seeing the new Miami Vice movie Thursday night, but the experience wasn’t all wasted, I stumbled upon the newest stealth rights removal reeducation campaign from the people that brought you DRM. Yes, the MPAA, RIAA or BSA, I am not sure which are behind this [...]

Kathy Hartness is a 47-year-old grandmother, churchgoer and gardener who had never been in trouble with the law — until she was served with papers in June for something she did more than a year ago. She is one of three Kentuckians sued so far this year by national recording companies for violating copyrights by [...]

Verizon Wireless is eliminating the monthly $15 fee for its music download service in conjunction with the launch of a cell phone featuring an iPod-like click wheel and a memory card that can hold up to 1,000 songs. The new “Chocolate” handset, made by LG Electronics Inc. of Korea, features software that will let users [...]

The smash success of Apple’s iPod is paying huge dividends for a less-well-known music industry player, online retailer eMusic. Apple has sold nearly 60 million iPods since 2001, and music fans regularly frequent the company’s iTunes online store to buy songs for their iPods – giving iTunes a nearly 70% share of the music-download market. [...]

India is expanding a government-led program to provide free, local language software to all of its citizens, as it tries to broaden computer use in the country. India is expanding a government-led program to provide free, local language software to all of its citizens, as it tries to broaden computer use in the country. The [...]

Yeah, everybody’s been grasping at straws (including us) for possible info on the iPhone for, well, the last couple of years now, and the latest adds fuel to the speculative fire without providing any answers. So what else is new? Anyhow, in the June 28th iPod updater package, apparently if one were to analyza few [...]

China could block the operations of some of the internet’s biggest names in an apparent bid to take more control of the net economy. Yahoo!, eBay and Google all operate in China. Foreign companies must already allow Chinese investors to own 50 per cent of all ventures in the country, and the government has begun [...]

AOL plans to announce on Monday it will test launch a new Internet video service in an attempt to demonstrate how much it has learned from mistakes that cost the once reigning king of the online world its leading position. The new service, AOL Video, aims to be the one-stop shop for online videos and [...]

Christoph Mohn, the heir to the Bertelsmann media empire, has called for Europe to create an Airbus of the internet, to compete with US giants such as Google and Ebay. Mr Mohn, chief executive of Lycos Europe, said his online community and search company would introduce some products to the US market in the next [...]

Crockett and Tubbs — the crime fighting duo of “Miami Vice” — woulda been proud. West suburban police busted a Chicago man at a midnight showing of the new film “Miami Vice” as he allegedly tried to film the flick with a camcorder. “We never had one like this before,” said a spokeswoman for the [...]

The popular bittorrent client Azureus received funding by BV Capital, a company that previously supported del.icio.us and peerflix. Azureus is currently implementing a “content layer” where commercial downloads will start to appear. Users will be able to search for certain keywords, or browse through the available content by tags. Azureus is downloaded almost 2million times [...]

Web sites like Amazon.com and MySpace.com may soon be inaccessible for many people using public terminals at American schools and libraries, thanks to the U.S. House of Representatives. By a 410-15 vote on Thursday, politicians approved a bill that would effectively require that “chat rooms” and “social networking sites” be rendered inaccessible to minors, an [...]

The international record industry has been heralding as a great victory their deal with P2P software producer Sharman networks, the makers of the KaZaA P2P client. Read for example this note from FT.com, where the settlement is described as as one of the biggest victories against online piracy for the music industry. Under the terms [...]

IF WE WERE to tell you that a pioneering live music service that lets fans listen to their heroes’ live performances over the phone at a significant cost to the consumer is to broadcast a concert tour – or “gig” for you readers under 40, if we have any — by one of the biggest [...]