When your company poisons peer-to-peer networks for a living, public relations usually takes a back seat to discretion; quiet is the rule in the P2P content-protection industry. That’s why Jonathan Lee, the company’s VP of business development, isn’t worried that the corporate web site is down when I reach him in his Santa Monica office. [...]

Apple on Monday began shipping its Apple TV home media hub to customers for $299. The set-top box streams content over the Internet to home televisions via Ethernet or wireless networks, and supports the new 802.11n wireless prestandard. Apple TV includes a 40 GB hard drive for storing multimedia content and includes a remote control. [...]

Radio Stations and Online Broadcasters Challenge Copyright Ruling on Internet Royalties. A wide array of broadcasters and online companies on Monday challenged a ruling from a panel of copyright judges that they say could cripple the emerging business of offering music broadcasts over the Internet. Clear Channel Communications Inc., National Public Radio, and groups representing [...]

News from the halls of BitTorrent Inc was rampant yesterday, with news of it launching an ad-supported Net TV service by years end, Bram Cohen blaming Windows implementation of DRM for playback problems, and also saying that the BitTorrent Entertainment Network has the largest catalog of digital video on the Web. In both Northern and [...]

Hilarious PSA from 1992 with a rapper singing “Don’t Copy that Floppy!” Get ready to hit the floor laughing. I about fell out of my chair laughing when I saw this PSA direct from 1992, not only because it reminded me about how cheesy we used to dress, but also how funny it is that [...]

The India-based freelance software and web developer takes the time to answer a few questions about his BitTorrent ratio-exploit software and to offer his opinion on why its use is sometimes necessary. I recently wrote an article describing GreedyTorrent, the latest and greatest ratio-exploit program to hit the streets of the BitTorrent community. Some of [...]

Security company Kaspersky claimed that Vista’s User Account Control (UAC), the system of user privileges that can be used to restrict users’ administrative rights, will be so annoying that users will disable it. Natalya Kaspersky, the company’s chief executive, said that without UAC, Vista will be less secure than Windows XP SP2. “There’s a question [...]

In an open letter to university students on the Inside Higher Ed website, the RIAA tries to justify its recent crackdown on university students who use P2P and file-sharing services to swap music. Mitch Bainwol and Cary Sherman, Chairman and CEO of the RIAA, and Cary Sherman, President of the RIAA, recently submitted an op-ed [...]

The United States generates more malicious computer activity than any other country, and sophisticated hackers worldwide are banding together in highly efficient crime rings, according to a new report. Researchers at Cupertino-based Symantec Corp. also found that fierce competition in the criminal underworld is driving down prices for stolen financial information. Criminals may purchase verified [...]

Google Inc is developing its own mobile phone, according to industry insiders and analysts, while a Google official in Spain last week acknowledged the company is “investigating” such a project. Google isn’t commenting directly on leaks from Europe and the United States which describe a low-cost, Internet-connected phone with a color, wide-screen design. Newspaper and [...]

Deutsche Telekom’s Musicload, one of the largest online music stores in Europe, has come out strongly against DRM on account of its effects on the marketplace and its customers, according to German-language Heise Online. Musicload said in a letter distributed last week that customers are having consistent problems with DRM, so much so that 3 [...]

In a frank TV interview which has not been put to air yet, Sony boss Sir Howard Stringer has said that he would not bet up against Apple boss Steve Jobs. He has also talked about how Sony missed out on the portable music boom. Sir Howard Stringer, chairman/CEO of Sony, and Brad Anderson, vice [...]

MICROSOFT’s formerly tame blogger has bitten the software company that made his name when it employed him as a “technology evangelist”. Robert Scoble writes the Scobleizer web log, one of the most-read sources of technology commentary on the internet. He owes his status to the three years he spent at Microsoft, where he was given [...]

I love this letter, it makes me, and I’m sure Howard Stern as well, laugh out loud every time that I read it. In case you’re not familiar with what I’m talking about, there is a proposed merger under way between the satellite radio broadcasters XM and Sirius. Being that there are supposed “anti-trust” issues [...]

At the core of our perceptions of the mafia lie greed, the pursuit of profit and the bullying of the weak and innocent. But if that is our definition, then the insidiousness of people like Al Capone or Lucky Luciano pale in comparison to the ethics of our corporate royalty. The mere fact that certain [...]

One of the world’s leading security technology companies breaks down the world’s countries that have the most number of web sites with malicious downloads, browser exploits and spam. McAfee recently announced the results of its SiteAdvisor research report which created a global road map of the riskiest, and the safest, places to surf and search [...]

There’s another bad boy on the block and his name is GreedyTorrent. Following in the footsteps of RatioMaster and the like, GreedyTorrent is the latest and greatest ratio cheating software program to shake the BitTorrent community. The freeware software program that pledges to help you boost your BitTorrent upload ratio was developed by Alex N [...]

A coalition of big technology companies wants to bring high-speed Internet access to consumers in a new way: over television airwaves. Key to the project is whether a device scheduled to be delivered to federal labs today lives up to its promise. The coalition, which includes Microsoft and Google, wants regulators to allow idle TV [...]

Pennsylvania’s Democratic Representative Mike Doyle made a moving statement on the congressional floor last week in defense of music mashups and mix tapes.   Doyle discussed remix artist Girl Talk, arrested mix tape maker DJ Drama and even Paul McCartney’s admission that he used a bass line right out of a Chuck Berry song.  The statement was [...]

The RIAA has now brought suit against a stroke victim in Michigan in Warner v Paladuk. Summons in Warner v Paladuk* Although the defendant John Paladuk, an employee of C&N Railroad for 36 years, was living in Florida at the time of the alleged copyright infringement, and had notified the RIAA that he had not [...]