File sharing has been used mostly for “illegal” purposes in the past, but many are finding legal uses for P2P software. Peer-to-peer file sharing is an excellent way to pass large files across the internet. In comes Torrent Swapper. This software claims to be the “improved software” for file traders. Encouraging the social aspect of [...]

The word on the tech-street is that the co-founder of BitTorrent, Ashwin Navin, believes that DRM is not the answer to legal online video services. I completely agree with him on this opinion. DRM encourages the use of BitTorrent to get your “money’s worth”. Why are consumers being punished and disabled from using the products [...]

Ashwin Navin, co-founder and president of file-sharing software developer BitTorrent, thinks that advertising-supported content will win out over digital rights management (DRM) in the long run for movie and TV show downloads. But his company is embracing DRM as it opens a new movie download Web site that will compete with the Unbox store launched [...]

Seattle indie titans Death Cab For Cutie and their hometown brethren, the revered Sub Pop Records, have both posted exclusive material via controversial P2P service Bittorrent. Death Cab posted an exclusive EPK featuring videos, interviews and assorted behind-the-scenes footage. Similarly, Sub Pop has set up a profile offering high-quality music videos and mp3s from the [...]

Sure, you’ve use Firefox and Internet Explorer. You may have even dabbled in Flock and Opera, or even become a devotee of one of these lesser-known applications. But have you ever browsed the web with Deepnet Explorer? How ’bout SeaMonkey? And when’s the last time you used Netscape? Did you even know that it was [...]

Zinoku offers an extensive collection of Magazines. The site lists magazines covering all kinds of topics, including Science, Maxim, FHM, PC Magazine, Newsweek, Penthouse and Playboy It’s not really a big surprise, but as expected, the adult themed magazines are the most popular. All magazine downloads are packaged in some kind of a custom magazine [...]

A trio of security flaws in Apple Computer software that runs wireless-networking hardware could allow Macs to be hijacked over Wi-Fi, Apple said Thursday. The Cupertino, Calif.-based company released security updates to repair the problems, which together affect the AirPort wireless driver in Mac OS X 10 Panther version 10.3.9 and Mac OS X Tiger [...]

Those Redmond folks are sure on a good news streak. After announcing 1080p upscaling and a delightfully low-priced HD DVD drive for their 360, they’re offering a helping hand to early adopters who haven’t had quite as much fun with the console. Microsoft is offering free fixes to all problematic Xbox 360s built in 2005, [...]

THE MPAA KNOWS a good thing when it sees one. Stories of computerless single mums being dragged screaming and penniless to the courthouse for allowing their daughters to listen to music online are all grist to its mill. Its campaign to make people pay for stuff they can get for nothing thrives on the oxygen [...]

Microsoft is planning free-web based versions of its word processing and spreadsheet programs. The online versions of the programs will lack many of the features found in the full versions found in Microsoft’s Office suite of applications. Although the programs will be free to use, Microsoft is planning to fund them via advertising. The move [...]

Sony Corp said Friday it will slash the price of its much-anticipated PlayStation 3 video game console in Japan by 20 percent, heating up the competition in the next-generation gaming war against rivals Microsoft and Nintendo. The announcement comes just days after Microsoft Corp. announced that it would roll out an external high definition DVD [...]

An effort by San Jose State University to ban the Skype phone service has been put on hold in the face of fierce objections from students and staff. Administrators said they would meet with eBay, the owner of Skype, on Tuesday in order to give the San Jose-based company an opportunity to address the university’s [...]

Back in May, we mentioned the emergence of Intel roadmaps featuring the mysterious Conroe-L, a single-core processor from Intel aimed at the very lowest end of the PC market. Even though Conroe-L is based on the Conroe/Merom microarchitecture that powers the Core 2 Duo line, the budget-oriented processor will have only one core, which will [...]

In its latest strategy for dealing with illegal file sharing on college campuses, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is asking for help from college administrators to deal with the growing trend of students sharing copyrighted files on local area networks (LANs). LAN file sharing allows students to download large amounts of copyrighted music [...]

Fred von Lohmann sez, SoundExchange (which is in charge of collecting and distributing royalties collected from satellite radio and webcasting) can’t seem to locate the artists to whom these royalties are to be paid. If the monies are not disbursed, SoundExchange gets to keep them. Apparently SoundExchange was worried about publishing the list for fear [...]

Internet music piracy not only doesn’t hurt legitimate CD sales, it may even boost sales of some types of music. Those were the counterintuitive findings released in March by Harvard Business School professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee and his co-author Koleman Strumpf, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Their paper, “The Effect of File [...]

What if you could build a set top box, that could take high definition video input from satellite, and at the same time be able to take standard definition Internet video over Broadband and display both of them on your television? And while you are at it, throw in a personal video recorder for good [...]

THINK DRM WAS bad already? Think I was joking when I said the plan was to start with barely tolerable incursions on your rights, then turn the thumbscrews? Welcome to Windows Media Player 11, and the rights get chipped away a lot more. Get used to the feeling, if you buy DRM infected media, you [...]

Adobe suggests a ban incorporating free competing software into new operating system, while Symantec due to discuss security features to regulators next week. Two U.S. software firms are asking the European Commission to take action against Microsoft’s new Vista operating system, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. Adobe Systems (Charts) has told EU regulators that [...]

Apple is widely expected to release an iPod phone, and more details are now surfacing. The highly-anticipated device, already the source of constant chatter, will offer a natural progression for the current iPod lineup. Already, Apple has brokered a deal with Motorola, a move that resulted in several iTunes-enabled devices – including the recent MotoRAZR [...]