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Jon Martindale

France could drop its three strikes anti-piracy law

French Three Strikes

One of Europe's proponents of the controversial three strikes anti-piracy law could be set to drop it, after an announcement by French culture minister Aurelie Filipetti described it as “too expensive to justify.” Hadopi is both the name of the anti-piracy law itself and the organisation that is in charge …

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Nasa wants you – to make infographics

Nasa Wants You

NASA is an organisation that likes to look at space, take pictures and take notes. In other words, looking up at that big black canvas, Nasa has determined a lot of things, which means a lot of data. In-fact, NASA has so much data that it's difficult to sift through …

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Demonoid still down, directing some to malware

Demonoid

One of the world's most recognisable and popular torrent websites, Demonoid, along with its tracker, is still down. However some are now reporting that upon visiting the URL, they are being redirected to other websites infected with malware. Demonoid has now been down for almost a week, following a large …

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Digg is reborn with Facebook integration

Digg

Digg has returned to the internet after a month and a half of development from new owners Betaworks. Bought for half a million dollars on 12th July, despite the fact that it was once valued at $164 million and was considered the forefront of web news sharing, Digg is trying …

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Valve tweaks T&Cs to protect against lawsuits

Steam Subscriber Agreement

Valve has updated the Steam terms and conditions, in order to help protect itself from potential lawsuits from its customer base, specifically the class action kind. “It's clear to us that in some situations, class actions have real benefits to customers. In far too many cases however, class actions don't …

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Square Enix announces Ouya support

Ouya Controller

Square Enix has announced its intentions to support the Ouya console at launch, making the iPad and and DS version of Final Fantasy III available on the android powered home console at its debut. Currently still running through its Kickstarter campaign, the Ouya device is now approaching six times its …

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Filesonic and Oron in court over porn

Filesonic Oron

File locker websites Filesonic and Oron have been served with legal papers by pornographic company Flava Works. In court with the sites' representatives, are 26 individuals that purportedly shared links of the copyright protected content on the sites as well as publicising links to it elsewhere. Flava works is alleging, …

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Ubisoft uPlay has big vulnerability

uPlay

Ubisoft's online service, uPlay, has had a real vulnerability exposed, that can be used to view customer files and information. While it was initially thought that this was a deliberate backdoor hidden by programmers of the service, it seems more likely now that it is an unintentional vulnerability. IT “experts” …

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Torrent trackers to come back online

Open Bit Torrent

Two of the world's biggest torrent trackers, OpenBitTorrent (OBT) and Public BitTorrent (PBT), have announced their plans to return to operation, concluding the protest against uTorrent parent company BitTorrent Inc. A couple of weeks ago, we reported on how both trackers voluntarily ceased operation in an attempt to force the …

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Big enough? Getty planning 20 gigapixel Olympic image

Superbowl

Getty has announced the intention to take a 20 gigapixel image of the London 2012 Olympic opening ceremony, in a similar fashion to the 2011 FA Cup football final and Superbowl. However, while that image took days to get online, this picture will purportedly be up within hours thanks to …

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Apple has not patented a game controller

Apple Controller

While quite a few sites have been reporting that Apple has patented the design for a traditionally PlayStation like video game controller, it looks like that's not exactly true. In reality, Apple has been investigating turning other devices, like the iPhone and iPad into controllers for systems like Apple TV …

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GameStop considering resale of digital content

US video game retailer GameStop and owner of the Impulse digital download platform, has said that it is currently mulling over the idea of allowing the resale of digital games. “It’s very interesting,” said GameStop CEO Paul Rains while speaking with GameSpot. “There are some technologies out there in Europe, …

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Ubisoft helping kids enter communications

I Am Alive

Hot off the back of our piece on Sony offering scholarships, Ubisoft has now announced a programme to help young people get into the communications industry. Out of 30 applicants, eight 18 and 19 year olds have been chosen through a series of workshops and interviews. The scheme that was jointly …

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Attempting to stop Olympic Piracy

NBC Olympics

While many users around the world, including those at home in the UK will have no problem watching the Olympics and its opening ceremony,  US viewers will need to be cable subscribers to watch the bought and paid for footage on NBC. Understandably the network is keen for people to …

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Google helping create intelligent rooms

Google Room

Google has announced the release of a new bit of open source software designed to help develop interactive and intelligent rooms, that are able to tailor certain things to where a person is standing, what they're looking at, as well as incorporating timed or triggered events. Wired had a couple …

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Global anti-piracy strategy revealed in leaked report

IFPI Report

A secretive report written by the IFPI – that purports to represent the music industry worldwide – has been inadvertently made available online. In it, the group and its leader detail plans to deal with piracy and major recording labels around the world. The 30 page document is dated for …

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Sony offering PlayStation scholarships

Gamer Camp Pro

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe has teamed up with Birmingham City University to offer students there the chance to win an academic scholarship that will lead to them having half of their fees paid to attend Gamer Camp Pro – a master's degree programme with gaming as its focus – as …

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UK shipping surveillance tech. to Iran, Egypt, Syria

Scanner Darkly

The UK government is being called out by a privacy charity, which is threatening legal action unless the MPs explain why they are shipping surveillance equipment and technology to repressive regimes in Iran, Egypt and Syria. Privacy International is the name of the group spearheading this campaign and it is …

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Apple patents “5D” technology

Apple 5D

Apple has been granted a host of new patents, one of which describes a technology that the document terms “5D”, allowing the fruity firm to potentially make use of both fourth and fifth dimensions. This isn't time and some other as yet undiscovered dimension however, but term is used to …

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Mobile networks respond to OfCom 4G plan

OfCom

OfCom released its report on the 4G spectrum auction earlier today, suggesting that it would take place later this year, finally bringing the high speed network to consumers sometime in late 2013. In response, several of the big mobile operators have commented on the news. With over 1,000 pages to …

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Wi-Fi at seven Gbps coming soon

WiGig

Wi-Fi that can operate at up to seven gigabits per second could be just around the corner, as chipset firms Marvell and Wilocity have announced a partnership to develop the new high speed wireless technology. The standard, known as IEEE 802.11ad operates in the 60Ghz band and was originally created …

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File sharers vs porn actor Ben Dover

Ben Dover

Acting on behalf of pornographic film producer and actor Ben Dover, Golden Eye International is preparing to send out copyright infringement notices to just under 3,000 individuals in the UK, alleging that they illegally downloaded copies of Mr Dover's movies. The purpose of the letters is to solicit cash from …

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Red Dwarf X teaser trailer appears online

Red Dwarf X

The first teaser trailer for Red Dwarf series X has appeared online, prompting the usual avalanche of comments, criticisms and feedback from fans. Commissioned by Dave, not the BBC, in the same fashion as the three part “Back to Earth” episodes were, the new series will be the tenth, skipping …

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THQ appoints ex EA boss

THQ Logo

THQ has announced a new vice president of production, Rob Moravek, who previously headed up EA Canada. Working directly with current THQ president, Jason Rubin, the pair are set to try and turn around the poor fortunes of the publisher, that has over the last 12 months met with many …

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Amazon opening London based R&D centre

Amazon UK

Amazon's business expansion is looking to go multi-national, especially in the UK. Announced today, the retail giant plans to open a new R&D centre in London, with an emphasis on development of services relating to TVs, consoles, smartphones and PCs. As well as fostering other businesses in the Glasshouse Yard …

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Can you spot a psycho in a tweet?

Patrick Bateman

A team of researchers at the Florida Atlantic University, working with the Online Privacy Foundation and Kaggle, have been trying to discover if psychopathy can be detected through a person's tweets. So far, it seems like if the context is right, it's possible. The study used previous research from Cornell …

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Amazon signs Warner Bros. Kindle deal

Amazon Prime

Amazon has slipped under the sheets with Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution, in a bid to bring TV programmes like The West Wing and Fringe, to the Amazon Prime Instant Video library. Now with this deal locked down, Prime Instant Video users and owners of the Kindle Fire tablet, will …

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Kim Dotcom calls out Obama through song

Megaupload founder and current defendant facing money laundering and copyright infringement charges, Kim Dotcom, has released a music video entitled “Mr President,” that challenges Barack Obama to weigh in on the cloud storage firm's case. Arrested in the early days of 2012 shortly after Megaupload was taken down, Mr Dotcom's …

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