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The Motion Picture Association of America suggests popular Bittorrent tracker site The Pirate Bay pay $15.4 million in damages for aiding in the public distribution of four movies and thirteen television episodes. Add the amount to $2.5 million in damages already requested by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, plus another $1.1 million by Sweden's Anti-Piracy Agency.
Pirate Bay’s Peter Sunde (Brokep) is not impressed by Hollywood's claims, he told TorrentFreak in a response: "They know they are losing, and try to make us look like big criminals by adding some zeros to a claim for a made-up crime."
"The worst thing is that I lost 100 kronor on a bet on the number they would come up with," Sunde added. "And, it sucks that they didn’t claim more than for Napster and the other sites. It’s cooler to break the record."
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Regardless of whatever Microsoft ultimately decides to do, many feel Yahoo! could still benefit from an immediate cash infusion. One asset of particular interest is Flickr. Yahoo! acquired the photo sharing site for an estimated $40 million in 2005. Given the current, albeit somewhat disturbing uptake in dot come valuations, Flickr could now potentially be worth billions of dollars based upon monetization from proven traffic growth and already established premium accounts.
If Flickr could get $5/CPM, that would generate $10-million in advertising/year based on the assumption it’s getting about 100 million global pageviews/month. It’s not a lot of revenue given the conservative approach to how much advertising Flickr would present and how much it would charge but, nevertheless, it would give Flickr an additional $250-million based on Blodget's formula. Then, you're looking at a company worth $1.75-billion to $3.25-billion. Add on a takeover or IPO premium of perhaps 25%, and you’re looking at a valuation of $2.2-billion to $4-billion.
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Looking to sell a piece of high-end electronics? As Timothy has found out the hard way, there could be better venues than attempting to secure legitimate bids for a notebook computer via an eBay auction. The online auction house remains a strong player in cheap merchandise and even profitable niche market items, but these days one could perhaps be just as well off posting truly big-ticket items on Craigslist or similar.
The cool thing about eBay's support system is it will always answer your question; unfortunately, that answer will always be a form letter on how to reset your password, as Timothy discovered when he tried to figure out how to sell his laptop to someone who wasn't a Nigerian scammer. [....] Timothy's email went on for about two weeks, so we've tried to edit it for length.
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Nearly all of the data on a Seagate 400GB hard drive discovered following the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster was recovered by Kroll Ontrack specialists, enabling NASA to obtain important data about gas flow in microgravity.
The Kroll people managed to recover 90 percent or so of the 400MB of data from the drive with its cracked and burned casing. Now, a few years on, Berg and his team have analysed the data and reported the experiment and its results in the April edition of the Physical Review E journal. These showed that, rather liked whipped cream which changes from a fluid to a near-solid after being whipped or stirred vigorously, the gas Xenon change its viscosity from gas to liquid when similarly treated in very low gravity. The phenomenon of a sudden change in viscosity is called shear thickening.
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While the core enthusiasts among the Linux community are unlikely to migrate any time soon, Sun Microsystems is poised to increase market share among the corporate sector of the open source community by today launching the first official release of the OpenSolaris operating system. The platform has been in preview status for quite awhile, but going gold could attract the interests of companies. Either way Sun Micro is learning from the Linux crowd, and OpenSolaris could be a compelling corporate solution given the company's well earned track record with the UNIX platform in small business and enterprise-class environments alike.
OpenSolaris is based on the Solaris kernel and uses many of its features like the Zettabyte File System (ZFS) and Dynamic Tracing (DTrace), which offers predictive self-healing capabilities. Although Sun’s Solaris OS is most often associated with large business clients, OpenSolaris is aiming for a different audience, one that has traditionally used Linux — startups and developers working with popular new web technologies like Ruby on Rails. OpenSolaris ships with the new image packaging system, which works much like apt-get on Linux, making it easy to download and install Solaris packages like Apache, Ruby on Rails, PHP and other development tools.
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Despite paying $35 billion for Nextel back in 2005, Sprint is now reportedly considering either spinning off or potentially even selling the ailing division. Speculation points toward Deutsche Telekom AG, the parent company of T-Mobile, being interested in a possible Nextel acquisition.
Sprint Nextel is the third-biggest provider of cell phone services in the U.S. and has a market capitalization of approximately $22 billion. AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless are the top two U.S. providers. T-Mobile is No. 4 in the U.S. market, but the unit has proved key to Deutsche Telekom, given that just slightly more than 50 percent of its annual sales now come from markets outside of Germany, its home base. Last year, the company posted sales of $100.8 billion worldwide, including $29.8 billion from T-Mobile.
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Microsoft retracted its Yahoo! acquisition offer over the weekend, but word on the street is Yahoo! executives were somehow unaware of the final $33 per share offer even being available. Whether a true miscommunication or a brute force tactic, Yahoo! is now facing an relatively uncertain future. The Internet giant is not likely to disappear anytime soon, but it eventually could be forced to pursue corporate partnerships with Google, News Corp., and others if Microsoft does not return to the negotiating table in the upcoming months.
People close to Yahoo said that Microsoft indicated at Wednesday's meeting it could raise its bid per share a "couple" or a "few" dollars. But Yahoo learned that Microsoft was willing to make a specific offer of $33 a share only in Mr. Ballmer's letter to Mr. Yang Saturday, these people said. "We did not know what the offer was," said one person close to Yahoo. Naturally, Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang says the company would be open to a new round of bidding, be it from Microsoft or other interests. The previous level set by Yang and his associates was $37 per share, but now he is offering little public guidance. Microsoft's $33 per share offer was certainly fair enough, or at least investors seemed to think so given the market's subsequent response.
Yahoo, the most-visited U.S. Web site, turned down a $33 a share offer from Microsoft, which withdrew its bid on May 3. Yahoo was cut to "sell" by Citigroup Inc. and ThinkPanmure LLC analysts today, and its stock dropped 15 percent. [....] Yahoo fell $4.30, the most in almost two years, to $24.37 at 4 p.m. in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The shares have gained 4.8 percent this year. Yang, who co-founded Yahoo in 1995 with fellow Stanford University student David Filo, lost $232.7 million in the value of his Yahoo holdings today.
Many investors are non-too-thrilled either, and it would not be surprising to see even more lawsuits filed due to Yahoo! executives' rather poor handling of the situation. The company is already facing seven lawsuits related to the ordeal, and those were filed even before Microsoft issued the competitive $33 per share offer.
"I think it's pretty hard for the Yahoo board to turn down $33 when they've shown no ability to turn around their stock price," said Stuart Grant, managing director at Grant & Eisenhofer, a law firm that specializes in bringing investor lawsuits. "There's going to be breach of fiduciary duty lawsuits and I must tell you they are looking pretty good right now," he said.
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After a week of waiting, additional information about the eBay lawsuit against Craigslist has finally surfaced. eBay has published a related complaint document, which details how Craigslist forced a stock restructuring following a series of business breakdowns originating when eBay introduced its Kijiji classified advertising site in the United States last year.
In October 2007, the two Craigslist directors began meeting with their lawyer on corporate governance issues, without eBay’s involvement. On January 1, 2008, they reorganized the company’s stock structure, issuing one "reorganization" share of Craigslist stock for every five shares of common stock. That diluted eBay’s stock from 28.04 percent to 24.85 percent and, as specified in Craigslist’s bylaws, eBay lost its ability to elect a director. Thus, the lawsuit.
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While the official word remains to be seen, there are numerous reports of AT&T Wireless customers with Apple iPhones now having free WiFi access at Starbucks and perhaps other AT&T hotspots. For those with local Starbucks still being serviced by T-Mobile WiFi service, the popular coffee house should have most of its hotspots migrated to AT&T sometime this summer.
Reader Brian Zushi tipped us off a little while ago to the fact that AT&T WiFi hotspots offered not only an iPhone portal, but apparently free, unlimited access for the device. This evening, Brian sent us the screenshots you see here. Apparently, no AT&T hotspot account is necessary, as users are simply prompted to enter their 10-digit mobile number to gain access. We assume this means the hotspot checks the phone number against AT&T's iPhone account records, which leads us to assume that unlockers may be left out in the cold on this one.
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Mainstream movies from several leading studios will now be available via Apple iTunes on the same day as their official DVD release.
ew releases and catalog titles will be available from 20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Lionsgate, Image Entertainment and First Look Studios. Movies purchased from iTunes can be viewed on an iPod with video, iPhone, Mac or PC or on a widescreen TV with Apple TV®, with new releases priced at $14.99 and most catalog titles at $9.99.
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A federal court has established a licensing rate owed by AOL, RealNetworks, and Yahoo! to the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) and its associated members for the online performance of musical works. The fee works out to 2.5% minus traffic acquisition costs and other expenses, with the total bill for back payments and expected future licensing possibly totaling upwards of $100 million combined for the three Internet firms.
"Musical works both support and enhance the business models of many major technology- and Internet-driven organizations - especially those that derive advertising revenue from consumer traffic and engagement," according to ASCAP CEO John A. LoFrumento. "This historic decision, for the first time, provides a clear framework for how the online use of musical works should be appropriately valued. This decision also provides clear validation of the flexibility and applicability of the ASCAP blanket license model relative to the use of musical works on the Internet - something the Court itself specifically noted in its written decision."
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Microsoft has developed the Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor, an USB key device that is claimed might "dramatically cut the time it takes to gather digital evidence". Suposedly it can decrypt passwords and analyze a computer's Internet activity, as well as data stored in the computer. It works only on Windows and will not work on a TrueCrypt encrypted drive.
The device contains 150 commands that can dramatically cut the time it takes to gather digital evidence, which is becoming more important in real-world crime, as well as cybercrime. It can decrypt passwords and analyze a computer's Internet activity, as well as data stored in the computer. It also eliminates the need to seize a computer itself, which typically involves disconnecting from a network, turning off the power and potentially losing data. Instead, the investigator can scan for evidence on site.
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After a delay since the holiday season last year, Amazon has remained quiet about a possible restock of its Kindle ebook reader - until now. On the front page of the Amazon web site, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos announced the company has a fresh stock of the ebook reader ready for shipment. The Amazon Kindle costs $399.
Amazon received harsh criticism after building up hype for Kindle's launch during the holiday season, then selling out in less than six hours with a very large back order. Officially released on November 21, 2007, Amazon promised the availability of more units on November 29, quickly apologizing for the miscommunication and lack of units available for purchase.
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Futuremark Corporation today launched 3DMark Vantage, the latest iteration of its popular 3D graphics benchmark. The company expended about $5 million in development to integrate numerous advanced features, such as introducing ray-tracing rendering effects and native support for up to 32 simultaneous threads.
3DMark Vantage is composed of four full-bore benchmarking tests (2 different CPU tests and 2 different GPU tests) and 6 feature tests. Four presets, a groundbreaking new feature, vastly augment the variety of PCs that can be tested with the product. Presets range from value through performance to high end cinematic rendering resolutions and features. By creating a new set of high end presets, 3DMark Vantage is future proofed for the new multi-core CPU and Graphics Processing Unit products as well as supporting the Physics Processing Unit to expand the range of technology, testing and prevent the benchmark from being bottlenecked for its users.
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Noted copyright expert Howard Knopf has been surprisingly uninvited from the important Public Policy Forum symposium on Canadian intellectual property rights. The forum claims to be an neutral environment, yet apparently "neutral" could be a keyword for preferring the attendance of specific multinational and corporate interests, as represented by people like U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins, Michael Shapiro of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Perrin Beatty of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, and Glen Bloom - a lobbyist for Time Canada Ltd., Warner Bros. Entertainment Canada Inc., AOL Canada Inc., and the Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association.
Here is that paper, which documents several weaknesses in American copyright law and some 15 areas in which Canadian copyright law is already stronger and better than American law, many of which result in very substantial outflows of money to the USA. The paper also points out hypocrisy and inconsistencies in American positions on IP, including with respect to the US '301' mechanism. I was also asked to address a some points in patent and trade-marks law. However, it seems that some interests do not want to hear about these points at this conference. I have done a lot of research in this area, and nobody has suggested that anything in the Fordham paper was inaccurate in any respect. In fact, it was well received.
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The Indian Space Research Organization has managed to successfully deploy a record-setting ten satellites using only a single Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). Russia held the previous single launch mission record with eight satellites.
At the end of the 52-hour countdown, the PSLV-C9, with a lift-off mass of 230 tonne, blasted off from the launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre and soared into the clear sky in a textbook launch. Fourteen minutes after lift off, the fourth stage of the ISRO's workhorse launch vehicle, in its 13th flight, injected the ten satellites, into the 635 km polar Sun Synchronous Orbit (SSO).
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Given the explosion of "Web 2.0" content and features, statistics analyzed by Website Optimization LLC indicate the average web page size has approximately tripled since 2003.
The size of the average web page has more than tripled since 2003. From 2003 to 2008 the average web page grew from 93.7K to over 312K (see Figure 1), some 233% (Domenech et al. 2007, Flinn & Betcher 2008). During the same five-year period, the number of objects in the average web page nearly doubled from 25.7 to 49.9 objects per page. Longer term statistics show that since 1995 the size of the average web page has increased by 22 times, and the number of objects per page has grown by 21.7 times.
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Dell and Lenovo are prepared to utilize downgrade rights found within the End User Licensing Agreement for Windows Vista Business and Windows Vista Ultimate to continue offering Windows XP Professional for mainstream desktop and notebook product lines.
Users must select either "Genuine Windows® Vista Business BONUS" or "Genuine Windows® Vista Ultimate BONUS," for Dell to install Windows XP Professional. The computer will ship with a backup media disc for Windows XP Professional, as well as the media for Windows Vista for upgrade purposes (since the computer is licensed for that OS as well). Dell will provide technical support for both operating systems.
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In what could be an upsetting move for Advanced Micro Devices, supercomputing firm Cray Inc. has inked agreements with Intel to deploy Xeon processors in the company's upcoming Cascade product line.
Cray said this deal was not a reaction to AMD's struggles getting out four-core versions of the Opteron chip. Although, the supercomputer maker was forced to delay the release of recent systems due to AMD's woes. So, it must be comforting to bring Intel on as an option. Cray declined to say whether or not Opterons will also sit in the Cascade units, as has been the plan.
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