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Sunday, February 26, 2012

Top 5 Action Games On Android


With devices getting smarter and processors getting faster, gaming has turned out to be a bigger, more prominent avenue of interest for smartphone owners. And not just simple gaming like in the olden days - today smartphones offer detailed graphics, immersive sound and realistic controls, aided by devices like Sony Ericsson Xperia Play, and Sony Tablet that have cutting edge technology.

Brothers in Arms 2 

Brothers in Arms 2 is a war game where your role is of a solider on his way to becoming a war hero. Set in World War 2, the game puts users in the middle of the battle field where they have to strategise and outsmart the enemy to be victorious. The story is simple, yet intriguing. Users not only fight on foot, but get to play on different vehicles, which have their own limitations. They can shoot with rifles, flamethrowers, or can also use heavy machine guns found in the bunkers.
Players can choose to play solo in the story mode or can kill with friends over the internet as well. Also included is the Bluetooth game play option, so you can team up with your friends against the enemy. With the game, users get to experience every front of the war with 50 missions to unlock across five locations: the Pacific, Normandy, North Africa, Germany and Sicily. To unlock missions, users need to earn dog tags, which in the context of the game are experience medals.


Line Runner

Line Runner is based on a stick figure whose only task is to jump over and roll under obstacles in a variety of combinations, and that is what this game is about. But as easy as it might sound the game throws some real challenges at you while playing. The combination of jumps and rolls that you have to do get really challenging with each stage, and there are ten stages in all. The controls provided for this game are two buttons placed on the sides, one for rolling under obstacles and the other for jumping over them.
Although the game does not feature an elaborate story or detailed graphics, it offers some great gaming in which the player needs to be really alert and active.

It takes time getting used to the game. You will find yourself getting killed by hitting obstacles in the face or legs often. The number of stages or tracks provided in the game is enough for hours of fun and excitement. You will not find yourself easing on the controls at any point during the game and the difficulty just keeps on increasing. The game has a total of ten tracks that offer ample gaming time. Even after that you have the random track for additional fun if you finish or get bored of the ten preset tracks.

In the options you will find the graphic tweaks that allow you to move the city in the background as you advance on the track and the grave tombstone that marks the point where you died the last time so you can monitor your progress. You can compete with players across the globe and stack up some real cool numbers to flaunt on OpenFeint as well.

Cartoon Wars 

As silly as it might sound, Cartoon Wars is based on the story of a fight between cartoons and the monsters that have caged and tormented them for ages. The cartoon characters, after years of slavery, have decided to gather all their efforts and fight the monsters. You play on the cartoons' side and to do this you train new fighters while protecting the castle, which stands as a symbol of victory and revolt.

The black and white cartoon characters defend the blue side while the monsters attack from the red side. The game is based on a simple objective and that is to beat the opponent. All you need to do is create troops and send them to fight with monsters while they do their best from their side.
The game is based on a magical source of energy called Mana power, which is used to create troops. Mana power is the life blood of this game, especially for cartoon characters, and is generated by the Mana generator that is placed right behind the tower.

The power is generated every second, but there are times when you need more power, and that is why you must upgrade the power and skills of characters when you really need it. For doing so, you require money and forging stones. You earn gold and forging stones after each battle and these you can use either to upgrade, or to unlock new characters. However, forging stones can only be earned if the player finishes the fight in less than ten of the total 20 minutes of battle time.

Paper Zombie 

Killing zombies, those pesky non living creatures, has always been fun. Another addition to zombie killing action is Paper Zombie, and as the name hints, the zombies are now made of paper, which needs to be cut or burnt properly to kill zombies. What makes the zombie killer game a super hit is that it gives much needed freedom to players to choose how to kill the nasty zombies.

Paper Zombie has been acclaimed as one of the top ten games on iOS, and we are sure it will hit the same mark on Android as well, with its superior game play. The game doesn't have a story, but players need to kill the waves of zombies they face in over 70 levels of this game.

Paper Zombie is an action shooter game where your main motive is to slay and burn. Well, payers must improve and innovate to tackle the zombies. Players need to upgrade weapons, which can be done by earning money within the game, and players need to outsmart the zombies before they get out of hand.

Talking about weapons, Paper Zombie includes three weapon styles that have their own uniquenesses and weaknesses. Players must use the right weapon at the right time to survive the zombie attack, but be very careful as to when you spend the money as every wrongly spent penny might prove fatal and you will have to start all over again.

Gun Bros

Gun Bros is the story of a fight between the TOOL (Tyrannical Oppressors of Life) and the FRAGGED (Freakishly Rugged Advanced Genetics Galactic Enforcement Division) forces, wherein the only objective for players is to kill or else get killed, and for the rugged and the tough ones it is to lay their weapons. The game gets a few more brownie points being absolutely free to play. 

You play as the FRAGGED solider whose sole mission is to scout the planets and rid them of TOOL creatures. Game play involves shooting and making some clever moves when the heat seeking missiles and plasma bursts from enemies come your way. The newest addition to the game is real multiplayer capability, which a player can use to play with a fellow Bro both in online and offline modes.

The game starts with the basic levels first, but as you gain experience you open up newer and more difficult stages.

Keep in mind that if you do not upgrade your player there is only so much you can play in this game as the enemies grow stronger and harder to kill by each passing wave. But at the same time do not get carried away with the design of the gun as sometimes smaller guns cause more harm than the dangerous looking big guns.

Google And Microsoft Asked For Internet DRM

There seems to be dark murmurings on the W3C HTML mailing list, because a number of Internet giants, including Google, Microsoft and Netflix, announced that they are willing to bring copy protection mechanisms to the Internet.

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Titled the Encrypted Media Extensions, the suggestion defines a framework for enabling the playback of protected media material in the Internet browser. One will understate the issue when saying that such a concept is controversial – indeed, it looks like the largest web corporations will have a fight to get this document adopted. There are people who believe that the proposed framework is entirely insecure. Mozilla has asked the developers about whether it could be possible to introduce such a proposal in an open-source Internet browser.

Still, there’s a kind of dispute even among the organizations as to whether it should go through. For instance, Ian Hickson from Google, the WHATWG HTML specification editor, said that the Encrypted Media proposal is at least “unethical” and wouldn’t even meet the necessary technical requirements.

The industry experts confirm that the proposal is similar to a DRM platform, but it could provide the needed components for a generic key-based content decryption system. The platform would work with pluggable modules running the decryption mechanisms. In addition, it would require for a new set of API extensions for HTMLMediaElement.

Still, even if the document is stomped on, it indicates that there are moves to have some form of material protection for online films. As for Netflix, the company needs to abandon plugins in favor of standards-based HTML5 video. However, Netflix has been stuffed by the lack DRM mechanisms that the entertainment industry requires before it releases the films to them. 

America Will Switch Off Millions Of PCs

The United States might have to switch off around 3 million of PCs all over the world that are infected with the DNSChanger trojan. That is, unless the court gives it an extension.

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The government of the United States doesn’t actually want to do so, and decided to approach the courts to allow it to manage servers able to be connected to the DNSChanger Trojan. Nevertheless, if a court refuses, the services may go dark and the uses of the affected computers may lose their broadband connections.

6 individuals accused of operating and profiting from the botnet are likely to be extradited from their native country (Estonia) to face charges in the US. The DNSChanger trojan can modify settings on a host computer which tells the PC how to find online services on the web. The malware hijacks users’ search results and prevents them from visiting security websites that could help detect and delete the infections.

A New York district court ordered a private American firm to assume control over these servers. The plan was that Internet service providers and organizations would have time to identify and clean infected computers.

According to security experts, the surrogate control servers will operate until the 8th of March, but the cleanup process is expected to take much longer than expected. Over 3 million systems across the globe, including 500,000 in America, are still infected with the trojan. That’s why the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and NASA, is asking the judge to extend the deadline by over 4 months to provide broadband providers, private companies and the authorities with more time to clean up the mess. However, there are people believing that extending the deadline isn’t a good idea, because nothing will focus the people’s minds on cleaning up their PCs as well as a computer that doesn’t work.

Search Giant Google Hit Out At P3P Claims

Search giant Google has defended its bypassing of privacy protection in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. The latter complained that the search engine was blocking a feature in the browser that stops cookies from tracking users.
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Internet Explorer by default blocks 3rd-party cookies unless a website presents to it a P3P Compact Policy Statement telling how the website would use the cookie and asking not to track the user. Nevertheless, the search giant sends a P3P policy which failed to inform the Internet Explorer about Google’s use of cookies and user data, which is actually a text statement that it isn’t a P3P policy.

The company has defended its actions saying that P3P is considered impractical to comply with while allowing modern Internet functionality like cookie-based features. Google benefited from a technical feature in the P3P specification that has to leave room for future developments of privacy policies. The P3P specification reads that web browsers should ignore any undefined policies they face, but P3P compliant browsers regard Google’s policy as indicating that the cookie won’t be used for a tracking or any other purpose.

Rachel Whetstone, senior vice president of communications and policy for Google told in the interview that Microsoft’s policy was actually “non-operational”. She explained that new cookie-based features are broken by the company’s implementation in Internet Explorer. For example, things like social networks’ “Like” buttons and the ability to sign-in to online services using a Google account are all triggered by P3P.

Whetstone also said that it was well-known among the developers that it was largely impractical to comply with Microsoft’s demand while providing this Internet functionality. The search giant has been honest and open about its approach on P3P, and so have other online services including Facebook. The company uses cookies in order to secure and authenticate the subscriber’s Google account, and to store their preferences, which might be served from another domain than the site the user is visiting.

Nobody could even dream about it when the P3P protocol was invented. So the search giant had to insert a link into cookies directing the Internet users to a page where they could read more about the privacy practices associated with the cookies.

French Anti-Piracy Law Is Working

The entertainment industry is again celebrating – a study into French anti-piracy legislation revealed that it appeared to be working. Regardless of the fact that the agency responsible for tracking the cases of copyright infringement, HADOPI, only sent its first cases to the courts last week, the research indicated that the appeal of piracy has reduced in the country since the law was passed.
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According to the results of the study, digital sales that were previously slow to start in France, are now growing and music industry profits are starting to stabilize. The head of Universal Music France confirmed that French citizens started to realize that content creators should get paid for their work. The reason is that a lot of people have friends who have received a notification saying that they could be cut off, which creates a buzz and causes an educational effect.

HADOPI had sent over 800,000 notifications by email to alleged infringers by the end of last year. There were also 68,000 second warnings that had been issued through registered mail. Finally, as many as 165 cases reached the 3rd stage, where the courts are allowed to both impose fines of $1840 and to suspend broadband connections for a month.

The representatives of HADOPI believe that the relatively low number of 3rd-stage infringers proved that the system had succeeded. The pro-copyright outfit was given a budget of almost $15 million and employs 70 people. HADOPI claims that it has been watching a sharp decline in file-sharing in the country.

Another study, conducted by Wellesley College in Massachusetts and Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh revealed that HADOPI gave a boost to the Apple iTunes store. Although there was no evident proof that the boost was caused by anti-piracy law, the case for a link was demonstrated by the fact that sales of musical genres suffering from high levels of piracy, such as hip-hop, increased significantly more than the sales of low-piracy genres, such as Christian and classical music.

The estimations are that HADOPI gave Apple over $18 million per year worth of iTunes music sales in the country. The “three-strikes” law was brought in by the President, Nicolas Sarkozy, who believes that post-SOPA supporting such rules is creating opposition. His opponents claim that HADOPI infringes on civil rights and they are actually getting a lot of support.

Saturday, February 25, 2012

BSNL Launches Aakash Tablet's Rival


BSNL has launched three tablets including two 7 inch resistive screen based tabs with Android 2.3 operating system while the third tablet comes with an 8 inch capacitive touchscreen.

Made by Noida based company - Pantel, the tablets will be sold with discounted data plans from BSNL. The three tablets are priced at Rs 3,250, Rs 10,999 and Rs 13,500.
The cheapest model is Panta Tpad IS 701r which is priced at Rs 3,250. Notably, Aakash is priced at just Rs 2500. However, Tpad has better specification than the Datawind's low cost tablet.

Panta Tpad is a WiFi only tablet with Android 2.3 operating system, it has a 1 GHz processor (ARM11 IMAP210) clubbed with 256 MB RAM. The tablet also offers HDMI port through which it can be connected to a TV. Its 7 inch resistive touch screen comes with 800x600 resolution and 16:9 aspect ratio.
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The tablet has a 3000 mAh battery and 2 GB internal memory which can be expanded through micro SD card. The tablet also has a VGA front facing camera for video calling. While Panta Tpad IS 701r has the BSNL branding, the other two tablets images do not have.

The second tablet is named 'Panta Tpad_ws704c'. It has the same specification as its cheapest cousin (701r) but offers added 3G connectivity which supports both CDMA/EVDO and GSM, inbuilt A-GPS, Accelerometer and Bluetooth. It also comes with a 2 megapixel rear camera and also has bigger 512 MB RAM for faster performance.

The costliest amongst the three is the Tpad WS802C which has an 8 inch capacitive screen. It comes with a faster 1.2 GHz processor and 512 MB RAM. The internal memory is also bigger at 4 GB. Rest of the features like GPS, camera and Bluetooth are same as the 704C.

Apple CEO Says 'Company Has More Money Than It Needs'


Apple CEO Tim Cook has acknowledged that the tech giant has more money 'than it knows what to do with'.
Cook said that Apple's current 97.6 billion dollars in cash and investments had grown by nearly two-thirds in a year and was "more than we need to run a company".
While speaking in the firm's annual general meeting in California, Cook said that Apple was in 'active discussions' about what to do with the cash pile.
"The board and management team are thinking about this very deeply," The Telegraph quoted him, as saying.
According to the report, some shareholders have called for the money to be returned to investors, in the form of a dividend or share buyback.
Analysts have suggested it could buy a film or television production business to help support its supposed ambition to do for TVs what it has done to the music and mobile industries with the iPod and the iPhone.

Happy Birthday, Steve Jobs

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The late Steve Jobs' birthday is today - passionate, prickly, and deemed irreplaceable by many Apple fans, Steve Jobs made a life defying conventions and expectations. Had he been alive, he would have been 57 years old. 

Starting at the dawn of the personal computer age, Jobs’ visionary moves at Apple rippled across the technology industry and helped ready the economy for the information age.

Jobs left Apple in 1985 only to return a decade later when the company was on the brink of failure. He quickly honed Apple’s product lines and killed projects across the company. 

Beautiful design was one of Jobs’ highest values though it sometimes led him astray. Jobs made many mistakes in his illustrious career but he learned from the errors and did his best to fix them along the way.

Jobs inspiried many with his charisma and his contribution to the technology world. Here's a look at Apple innovations powered by Steve Jobs:

Facebook Hacker Locked Up

The UK judge has just sent a man to prison for proving that security of the world’s social network Facebook was not up to scratch. So, Glenn Mangham was sentenced for 8 months for hacking Facebook, because the company complained it had to spend $200,000 to fix the flaws the hacker uncovered.
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26-year-old guy admitted infiltrating Facebook from his parents’ house in spring 2011. Glenn Mangham told the UK judge he had wanted to find out the vulnerabilities in the Facebook’s system to later alert the company. Moreover, he did the same on Yahoo to demonstrate how it could improve its security.

Facebook complained that Mangham’s actions had risked destroying the whole company, sparking fears among US authorities of industrial espionage. The UK court heard how the guy had unlawfully accessed and hacked into the social network and its servers in April to May last year and had stolen invaluable content that he downloaded on to his external hard drive.

Glenn Mangham, a Sherlock Holmes fan, targeted numerous servers, bypassing the network’s security. He managed to hack into the account of the company staff member and obtained restricted internal information through it when the employee was on holiday. He made a mistake when he tried to delete the traces he had left behind, which led to destroying some information. This was uncovered during a routine security review by Facebook. In a few months, the police knocked on his door, because apparently the United States has rights to deal with hackers in the United Kingdom.

Mangham’s lawyer claimed that his client was an “ethical hacker” who regarded everything as a challenge. Indeed, the defendant hadn’t tried to sell any of the data he managed to obtain or to pass it on to anyone else. Instead, he was going to hand over the data to the company when he could present them with a way of fixing his hack.

Passing sentence, the UK judge told the defendant that the hack wasn’t really harmless and had real and serious consequences, which might have become a disaster for Facebook. However, the sentence was lighter than usual, as Glenn Mangham never intended to profit from the obtained information. It means that the ethical hackers in Britain that carry out such operations will now have to leave messages clearly indicating that they always intended to help the company out rather than damage the data.

The Pirate Bay Will be Banned In Britain

Thanks to the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), which asked a judge to ban the world’s largest BitTorrent tracker, The Pirate Bay could well be blocked in the United Kingdom soon.

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A London judge has ruled that the largest P2P service in the world breaches copyright legislation on a large scale, and that both the service and its users are engaged in unauthorized sharing of copyrighted content like films and songs.

The local media claimed that the ruling by High Court Justice Arnold would clear the way for the country’s pro-copyright outfit to request all Internet service providers in the United Kingdom to block the website. The matter is that High Court Justice Arnold decided that the administrators of The Pirate Bay authorize consumers’ infringing acts of copying and communication to the public. The judge believes that the BitTorrent tracker operators go far beyond just enabling or assisting.

The head of the British Phonographic Industry, Geoff Taylor, claimed that the ruling would help clarify the legislation on online services blocking and it would now continue with its application to have The Pirate Bay blocked.

Actually, the case against the world’s largest BitTorrent tracker was laid open after the High Court ruled that a United Kingdom’s file-sharing service Newzbin2 was violating copyright on a large scale. This allowed the entertainment industry to attack Internet service providers in court and demand them to block access to other file-sharing services, including The Pirate Bay. However, it is starting to look like the entertainment industry might just score another hollow victory for which it is rightly renowned.

By the end of the current month, The Pirate Bay will no longer serve torrent files, instead shifting to magnet links. This will allow users download the original torrent file right from their peers. In addition, anyone willing to get access to The Pirate Bay is able to do so from any proxy. For instance, bans in Italy have appeared to have no effect on reducing torrent traffic.

At the moment, The Pirate Bay seems to be headless with the giant’s co-founders sent to jail and ordered to pay $6.3 million penalties. However, against an operation like that, the entertainment industry is largely powerless.

Bulgaria Changed Its Mind Over ACTA

Bulgaria decided to no longer adhere to the terms of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement it signed a month ago after a wave of protests under the view that the online surveillance and prison terms it draws up infringe basic human rights.
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Bulgaria refused to endorse ACTA treaty in any way, and announced that it wouldn’t participate in it until EU clarifies its position on the pact that is targeted at subduing digital theft of copyrighted material. The country’s Economy Minister admitted he was a pessimist when it came to regulating an industry that failed to adapt to the digital age via sanctions rather than market tools. He believes that copyrights shouldn’t be placed above fundamental human rights.

Currently, the campaign against online surveillance, prison terms, and some other radical measures foreseen in the attempt to discourage free Internet songs, films and books, is active all over Europe. For instance, there were thousands of the treaty contestants on the streets of Sofia, Berlin, Warsaw, and Paris 10 days ago to make their voice heard.

The treaty was signed by the United States, Australia, Japan, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore, Korea, and Morocco. ACTA delineates civil and criminal measures committed by signatory countries to carry out against threats to copyright. The treaty brings forth the strategies targeted at strengthening relations between customs authorities and conjures up a special body to track implementation of the treaty.

Bulgaria was among 21 EU countries that signed ACTA last month in Tokyo. Meanwhile, Germany, Estonia and Slovakia refused to sign the pact, and the Czech Republic and Poland have removed their endorsement. Bulgaria claims it changed its mind upon the lack of unanimity on the matter in the European Union. It promised not to take any action about implementing the agreement, including endorsement, until all European states have reached a consensus.

The media reports describe massive street protests last week in a number of countries throughout the Europe, including Spain, Germany, Romania, and Poland. Internet users demand transparency and their righteous say in the issue, things that are no more than natural attributes of the “democracies” held as supreme in the above mentioned countries and refuse to tolerate the fact that the treaty that will infringe their privacy and basic right to freedom of speech was signed without public debate.

MegaUpload Co-Founder Released On Bail

Mathias Ortmann, the co-founder of the world’s known cyberlocker MegaUpload has been finally released on bail by a court in New Zealand. However, he is obliged to adhere to some strict conditions, like the absence of Internet access. The government of the United States will handle extradition of the cyberlocker’s team depending on a United Nations treaty. In addition, it turned out that raids carried out month had been remotely supervised by the FBI itself.
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Having got arrested around a month ago, Mathias Ortmann has been conceded bail after all. The co-founder of the closed MegaUpload cyberlocker was expected to be freed in the end of January, after the previous hearing, but the court decided to delay the order because of the inconsistencies in Ortmann’s finance reports.

The FBI accused Ortmann of making about $14.5 million from MegaUpload service within 2005-2010 time period, plus another $3 million last year. However, Ortmann’s accounts indicated an unjustified excess of $3.5 million. The co-founder of the service was set free last Thursday and will join his fellows Bram van der Kolk and Finn Batato at the former’s house in Auckland. All of them are bound to harsh bail conditions, which include a complete ban on web access.

So, thus far the only member of the cyberlocker team who remains detained following the last month’ s raids is Kim Dotcom, the founder of MegaUpload, who will have to appear in court next week. American authorities claim that they are going to use a United Nations treaty targeted at combating international organized crime in order to extradite all the New Zealand-based MegaUpload members to the United States.

An attorney representing the US government has disclosed that the extradition treaty doesn’t cover copyright offences in particular, but has also pointed out that the local Extradition Act still lists certain offenses, including trans-national crime.

New Zealand legislation considers crimes carrying a 4-year prison sentence as extraditable. Meanwhile, copyright infringement carries a 5-year maximum sentence. Nevertheless, the industry observers believe that because of its ground breaking status, the extradition campaign for the Dotcom and his fellows will likely to be both complicated and prolonged, and might even go all the way to the Supreme Court.

Google Against Australian Internet Filtering

Australian politicians seem to be obsessed with censorship, trying to back a daft report calling for the web to be regulated just like television.
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According to the local media reports, search giant Google is currently trying to fight the plan of Australian politicians based on the much disgraced Internet censorship filter. Iarla Flynn, Google Australia’s head of public policy and government affairs, announced that it was unclear how any regulation could be imposed on the online material without the rejected filter.

However, even then there’s no case for regulating Internet media, and Google fails to work out how the one-size-fits-all model suggested by the convergence review would work in nowadays real life. Meanwhile, the industry observers still remember the Communications Minister Stephen Conroy – this person was apparently a little miffed when its despotic-style Internet filter was quietly shelved as being too silly for the country. Still, Stephen Conroy appears to believe that repackaging the filter as a TV-style regulation can play well.

Conroy confirmed last week that his plan to govern the web was still under work, and pointed out that the government should work out the technology after getting an Australian Law Reform Commission report on the country’s classification scheme. However, Conroy still fails to realize that the legislation has to work around which technologically is possible, not the other way around.

Senator Conroy pointed out that a number of broadband providers, including Telstra and Optus, have already been filtering the material, blocking “'illegal child abuse matter” depending on a list made by Interpol. However, the problem has never been child porno websites, but rather other services the Australian government wanted on 

American Publishers vs Irish File-Sharing Sites

A coalition of American publishing groups has started legal action in Ireland against file-sharing websites they accuse of copyright violation. The targets of the suit are a music-sharing service and a couple of sites accused of sharing copyrighted ebooks.
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The Serious Organized Crime Agency of the United Kingdom has seized the domain name of one popular music website, thus enacting their statement that they would consider unauthorized file-sharing services as organized crime threats.

A week ago, the court had Ireland-based online service Library.nu and ifile.it closed down, after two largest publishing groups have blamed them of making illegal money in excess of $10 million annually. The action against suspected file-sharers was taken in the frame of fresh opposition to anti-piracy legislation in the European Union. Online advocacy groups have been heavily disputing Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement for a while now, which has already been signed by 22 European states, including the United Kingdom.

The Association of American Publishers, in cooperation with the International Publishers Association, suggested that one of the targeted sites was liable for releasing more than 400,000 copyrighted ebooks for free. The representatives of the outfit claim they consider the lawsuit a considerable step in closing down a couple of the largest “notorious” websites stealing the works of the publishers and others, while also capturing the enormous investment of time and cost the copyright holders need to protect their work. They pointed out that for any notorious website that is shut down, there were always hundreds more of the similar services demanding similar effort.

The shut-down of the music service RnBXclusive and the issuing of a warning to the website’s visitors revealing the risks of unauthorized downloading have pushed prompted the online advocacy organization, Open Rights Group, to demand an urgent meeting with Serious Organized Crime Agency’s representatives. Last week, the pro-copyright outfit also confirmed that the lawsuit has also targeted 3 other services. Meanwhile, police reports say that the first of the anonymous services had voluntary closed down, the second was considering shutting, and the last one kept insisting it was only distributing legitimate content.


Sweden Introduced A Bill To Track File-Sharers

The Swedish government is currently developing new methods of supporting police and prosecutors in their battle against unauthorized file-sharing on the web. It wasn’t a big surprise for the industry observers that one of the main priorities was not to encourage new business models but to strengthen cooperation with ISPs to help disclose the identities of Internet users.
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Current legislation forbids Internet service providers from revealing their users’ personal data to a 3rd party unless the suspected crime under investigation is punishable by prison or a suspended sentence.

Nevertheless, the country’s government keeps trying to simplify the pursuit of file-sharing users, and the most recent attempts have led it to a new bill, according to media reports. The bill in question not only targets unauthorized file-sharing, but also aims to decrease bullying and “grooming” online. These forms of Internet harassment are recognized as escalating problems in the country.

If the suggested legislation gets enforced, police and prosecutors will obtain easier access to personal data on users alleged of unauthorized file-sharing, regardless of the gravity of the crime in question. Cooperation with ISPs will be strengthened, and they will have to provide the police with all requested IP addresses.

When it comes to the suspected violations of copyright legislation, rights owners are entitled to solicit data about suspected file-sharers from a court in a civil law trial. Nevertheless, if the draft were to become law, the prosecutors would be able to avoid that last step by applying directly to Internet service providers to obtain the data they need on the subscribers under investigation. It is expected to become easier to round up suspects in cases where the police will have other evidence than a raid.
usually interested in people downloading one movie or a couple of songs.

Despite the fact that the bill concerns all acts of unauthorized file-sharing, the government believes that it won’t really affect local subscribers who occasionally download an illegal movie. The security experts admitted that the users would be worried to the extent that there is a chance they can be identified, but the experience shows that the companies tracking copyright violation crimes are not

Taiwan Will Switch From WiMAX To LTE

It appeared that Taiwan’s experiment with WiMAX is currently on a road to nowhere, according to the information revealed by a newly appointed minister.
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Despite the fact that Taiwan has had working WiMAX for a while now, the industry admits that the subscription rates haven’t impressed. As a result, the country will need to offer LTE along with global trends.

An ex-Google exec who made it to minister, Simon Chang, confirmed during the interview that LTE would most likely race past WiMAX in Taiwan. Simon Chang claimed that a country-wide shift to LTE would most likely leave the operators who have already invested in WiMAX technology in the dark. In addition, there will also be questions regarding the way of building the LTE networks with 3rd parties as contractors. The local legislation says that potential 4G operators are obliged to be able to offer at least 70% coverage, which the minister concedes is a sort of a problem of technical nature.

According to the media reports, in 2011 Taipei Computer Association chairman J T Wang revealed that the Taiwan’s 6 WiMAX operators would have no way out except of merging, because they stand no chance of staying competitive on their own merit. Within the five last years, since the operators have gained their licenses, there have been only a little over 130,000 subscribers by the end of 2011.

One day, WiMAX was the favorite 4G standard for Intel. The latter has been promising time and time again that Intel would always "remain committed" to WiMAX, but eventually the giant shifted to LTE. So, Taiwan – the country which thought it had Intel’s support – is ultimately waking up to LTE as the most convenient network to go with.

Web Freedom To Depend On European Court’s Ruling On ACTA

The European Commission asked the European Court of Justice to legally assess the legitimacy of the so much discussed anti-piracy agreement.
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The controversial agreement is in the news again. The number of protests against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, to which twenty-two European countries, the United States, Japan and Canada have adhered thus far, has already reached unbelievable levels, because people keep trying to defend their freedom of expression on the worldwide web.

In their effort, the rights campaigners went as far as to ask the European Union’s highest court to find out whether the anti-piracy treaty respects the European basic human rights and freedoms. Meanwhile, the protests all over the world didn’t pass unnoticed – for instance, thanks to the protesters who took to the streets massively, a number of countries, including Denmark, Germany, and Bulgaria, have already officially withdrawn their support of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, at least till the moment when the European Union makes its final decision on the treaty. At the same time, the protests continue across the globe, and a range of other countries may follow the path of Germany or Bulgaria.

The treaty says that each country who has signed off the agreement is able to individually validate its terms and conditions. However, the importance of European support for an implementation of the legislation that complies with standards for copyright enforcement means apparently can’t be overlooked.

All we know right now is that the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement has been scheduled for debate in European Parliament this summer.

Pro-Copyright Attorney Practiced Law Illegally

A week ago, the Northern District Court of Florida suspended more than two dozen copyright troll cases against over 3,500 unknown defendants because of suspicion that the copyright lawyer, Tarik Hashmi from the Transnational Law Group, might not be allowed to practice law in Florida. Hashmi represented such companies as SBO Pictures, Third Degree Films, Patrick Collins, and others. The cases are the same as usual – illegal file-sharing of the copyrighted content online, with requests to the Internet service providers to disclose the personal information about their subscribers, so that the copyright owners could charge them with copyright infringement or threaten them with an offer to settle.

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Several Doe defendants pointed at the aberration. They called attention of the judge to a Cease and Desist Affidavit that Tarik Hashmi submitted to the Florida State Bar in 2010. It asserted that this attorney wasn’t properly licensed to practice law in the state of Florida. Therefore, the defendants asked the court to halt all trials at issue until the attorney was licensed by the state.

The attorney will have until March 9 to respond to the complaints of the defendants. So, anyone involved in the cases should note that the lawsuits have been discontinued. Media confirmed that over the course of Tarik Hashmi’s investigation by the court, all proceedings with future deadlines was suspended. At the same time, District Judge Hinkle, the legal authority responsible for the audit, also prohibited the attorney and the companies he represented to take any future action regarding the Doe defendants until Tarik Hashmi proved his status as a qualified state attorney. In the event of Hashmi failing to bring forth the proof of his qualifications, the court will most likely bring all lawsuits to a close.

That’s not the first time that the controversial business model of copyright trolls appears to be brought into question. For instance, the courts have appealed for higher awareness towards such speculative legal conduct many times earlier. Fortunately, the attorneys representing Doe defendants exposed this attempt timely, thus saving their clients from filling the ranks of numerous other copyright troll victims out there.

Canadian Copyright Legislation vs American

Canada’s copyright law envisions another approach to copyright violation, as opposed to the controversial US model. It appeared that the Canadian government has declined the suggestion to adopt the same aggressive measures as the US Stop Online Piracy Act promoted.

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The perception of the Canadians on Bill C-11, the legislation aiming to adjust the copyright act, is basically positive, but there’s still fear that the country’s government’s point of view might grow aggressive later on because of the pressure by the United States. As opposed to the controversial SOPA, which allows for immediate removal of the copyrighted material upon complaint by the rights owner, Bill C-11 requests that ISPs notify their subscribers on behalf of the copyright owners before taking further measures.

Advocacy outfits are largely satisfied with the legislation, though they have expressed concern regarding the digital locks provisions. The matter is that the Canadian legislation does tolerate the copying from one device to another, but it still considers the breaking of eventual digital locks against the law. The suspicions are that this measure can actually prevent consumers from accessing both their own services and legitimate content.

The critics of copyright and digital issues believe that the suggested bill is flawed, because the digital lock provisions won’t just interfere with the legal rights of the citizens, but will also hinder the ability of digital development. But regardless of all the criticism, no-one has suggested a viable amendment for the digital locks provision, which means that the creative industries will have to decide how they want to resolve this issue themselves. In addition, the music industry doesn’t rely much on digital locks, in contrast to the video gaming industry, which depends on them heavily.

The proposed legislation stipulates the reconsideration after 5 years, so it can receive revisions and additions if the Parliament thinks they are necessary. A special committee responsible for examining the legislation is expected to meet this week in order to establish a preliminary list of witnesses to invite. The bill will be examined in depth by the middle of March, and the study will be concluded by the end of March, when it will be reported back to the House of Commons.

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Apple Working On 8 Inch iPad


Apple, the California based computer and mobile equipment manufacturer, reportedly is working on a smaller version of its iPad tablet. The smaller tablet apparently will not be similar to any other tablets in the market and will feature an 8 inch display.

Wall Street Journal got the information from several of the hardware suppliers who supply components to Apple. According to the suppliers, the resolution of the new iPad will be similar to the one featured on the iPad 2 that comes with a 9.7 inch display.



The report, however, does not reveal much about the hardware configuration of the device. With theiPad 3 expected to be revealed during the upcoming Mobile World Congress, it is highly anticipated that this smaller variant will also feature a faster processor better than the one on the iPad 2 and fourth generation mobile network connectivity options as well.

With a smaller iPadApple will surely take on a bigger chunk of competition which presently is being ruled by 7 inch tablets and even the smaller 5.3 inch screen sized ones like the Samsung Galaxy Note.




But even though the suppliers hint towards the making of a new tablet there is a possibility that this product might also not reach its approval stage as Apple keeps on experimenting with various devices and features which are also scrapped if not found feasible. But hopes are high as the Mobile World Congress approaches and more light on this matter will be shed on this topic as well.

Apple Tops World's Most Innovative Cost List


Two Indian Firms also rank among 'The world's 50 most innovative companies' list published by Fast Company.



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No points for guessing this one. Apple has been ranked as the most innovative company in the world. "iPads dominate the tablet market; Apple is winning in greater China; and new CEO Tim Cook is reportedly bringing a more humane leadership style. Until someone outplays Apple, it’s the starter," Fast Company said. Click on 'Next' to view some of the other most innovative companies in the world..


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India-based Narayana Hrudayalaya (No.36) and RedBus (No.48) have been ranked among 'The world's 50 most innovative companies' list compiled by US business magazine, Fast Company. "Narayana Hrudayalaya is Walmart meets Mother Teresa," Fast Company said.


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According to the magazine, the list is a “guide to the businesses that matter most, the ones whose innovations are having an impact across their industries and our culture.”
Both Narayana Hrudayala and RedBus are based in Bengaluru.

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This choice may get many 'Likes'. Mark Zuckerberg-led social networking site ranks at No,2. But, there's a flip side. "We assign Facebook a few demerits for its habit of overreaching into users’ privacy, apologizing, and then only slightly rolling back the offending policy," Fast Company said.


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"Since returning to the big office last spring, CEO Larry Page has created an executive brain trust--and now they’re transforming Google from a single product into a diversified web power," says Fast Company about the third-ranked Google.

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Amazon grabbed the No.4 spot after "Kindle Fire grabbed the No. 2 tablet slot; the rapid expansion of Quidsi from diapers and drugstore goods to pet supplies, toys, and groceries; and the expansion of Amazon’s streaming-video service to include CBS and Fox programming

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quare's (No.5) tiny product is changing the way people do business. According to Fast Company, it is a "simple credit-card reader that looks like a business-card holder with a headphone jack. Plug it into an iPhone, though, and anyone could accept credit-card payments."

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@ 6 is mcroblg srvce Twtr! With more than 300 million users as of 2011, the online social networking service and microblogging service is generating more than 300 million 'tweets' per day.

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The Occupy Movement has been ranked at No.7. The protest movement that spread across US and Europe is primarily directed against economic and social inequality. It began on September 17, 2011 - and still continues

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In China, Tencent dominates the internet messenger market. "It makes $1bn a quarter, much of it through virtual-goods sales, and is now the world’s third-largest publicly traded Internet company," according to Fast Company.

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California-based company, Life Technologies is ranked at No.9 on the list.
Fast Company’s view: "The $3.6bn company introduced 2,000 products since 2009 and has incentive to work fast: It expects the market for its biowares to hit $30bn by 2015.

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At No. 10 is Solar City, based in California, USA.
Fast Company’s view: “Rather than just make panels, it is a full-service operation - designing, installing, financing, and maintaining every system. That’s how to ease new customers into an unfamiliar technology.