Was the European Justice Court's decision to force Google to process right to be forgotten requests unreasonable? According to the House of Lords here in the UK the ruling is both “unreasonable” and “unworkable”. The lords made this argument in the EU Data Committee report on Data Protection law and …
Read More »Amazon spells out why e-book prices should be lower
Amazon has officially explained its reasoning behind trying to lower e-book prices, claiming that lower prices will end up being more beneficial to publishers, authors and retailers. In an update on its Forum, the Amazon Book store team said: “Many e-books are being released at $14.99 and even $19.99. That …
Read More »Opportunity Rover breaks Mars distance record
Curiosity might be the current darling of the science world, having only landed on Mars in 2012, but its older brother Opportunity is making headlines today, because it just became the most travelled Rover in the history of space exploration, beating out the Soviet Union Lunokhod 2, which landed on …
Read More »Facebook to shut down gift shop
Facebook has announced that it's going to shut down its voucher filled gift shop after just a few years of operation. However, that's not the end of the experiment, with the social network stating that it has plans to improve on what it's offered before. “We'll be using everything we learned …
Read More »UK could lead the way on driverless cars
We're on the cusp of fully automated vehicles, with manufacturers pushing ever more advanced features like lane-assist and automatic braking and Google showing off fully working, entirely autonomous prototypes to the world, but there's one thing holding them back from the next stage of adoption: legislation. While the US has …
Read More »Amazon: lower prices of e-books benefit authors and publishers
Although electronic books are easier to make and sell than printed books, they sometimes cost similar or even the same amount of money as printed books. Lagardere SCA's Hachette Book Group, which is one of the top U.S. publishers, disagrees that e-books should be more affordable and wants to continue charging up …
Read More »UK police to hijack banner ads to warn against piracy
The police are getting involved with the UK's new anti-piracy initiative it turns out. Right now the Police plan to take over banner ads on piracy sites to display warnings advising users to close the page and not proceed to download anything. This is part of a campaign led by …
Read More »Games Workshop CEO is stepping down
Longtime Chairman and CEO at Warhammer maker Games Workshop, Tom Kirby, has announced in a recent chairman address, that he's stepping down from his roles, though he does plan to stay on in a non-executive chairman role if possible. The reasoning for the move isn't quite clear, though perhaps the …
Read More »Pirates had Expendables 3 for a week before leak
The next old-action-star pay-cheque-generator, Expendables 3, isn't set for release until 15th August in America, with the première here in the UK on the 4th. However many people have seen it already, as the film was leaked in its entirety at DVD quality on torrent sites just a few days ago. …
Read More »Human Rights Watch declares NSA surveillance unlawful
The Human Rights Watch and American Civil Liberties Union have come out with a report to condemn the actions of the US government and spy agencies like the NSA, which have been mass collecting data on American and international citizens. The 120-page document is titled, “With Liberty to Monitor All: …
Read More »ReviveAPhone launching full phone repair
The makers of Reviveaphone, the £15 solution for bringing a water damaged phone back to life, have today announced that they're soon to launch a new full phone repair service and a mobile repair van that can be called out, if you don't want to wait for the postage option. …
Read More »Google criticised by Obama over EU tax avoidance
Tax avoidance is a difficult topic, not least because anyone that's ever filed a tax return through an accountant is likely engaged in it one way or another. However while many morally deplorable newspapers like to point the finger at rich individuals who have dodged tax on their several millions, …
Read More »Rob Zombie and Tony Moore collaborate on AC: Unity history
Musician and director Rob Zombie isn't necessarily the man you'd associate with explaining the real history behind something as nuanced as the French Revolution, but that's what's happened. He's teamed up with comic book artist Tony Moore (of Walking Dead fame) to give the world an animated, comic and violent …
Read More »Amazon losses point to tough year ahead
Amazon is just one of those web entities that you assume is big enough to support itself almost indefinitely. It has the world's most recognisable web retail outlet and has its fingers in so many pies, something must be going well, right? Not so, as this last quarter it posted …
Read More »Torrent streaming now possible on Apple TV
Despite being a decade plus old technology, torrents are still one of the most popular ways to share pirated copies of movies and TV shows, but in recent years, thanks to influences from popular streaming services like Netflix, torrents have too entered the streaming game. That's often something handled by …
Read More »Russia offers multi-million bounty for Tor hacks
The Russian interior ministry has offered a bounty of just under four million roubles (£66,000) for information that allows the government to track users of the Tor browser anonymising network. It's believed that the authorities were keen to not only find out who's using the technology and what hardware they're …
Read More »IBM rejects GlobalFoundries’ proposal for semiconductor assets
International Business Machines Corp. and GlobalFoundries have ended negotiations regarding acquisition of IBM’s semiconductor manufacturing assets by the contract maker of chips. The two companies failed to agree on the price, according to a media report. Earlier this year it was reported that IBM wanted $2 billion for its money-losing …
Read More »Oculus VR announces Rift DK2s shipping, new SDK
Despite assurances that the second development kit for the Oculus Rift, dubbed DK2, would be arriving around the middle of July to the earliest of buyers, delays caused a bit of a push back – until today. We've just gotten word that the Oculus Rift DK2 is now shipping and …
Read More »Amazon expects to lose half a billion dollars next quarter
Amazon may have spent a little too much money developing new services and acquiring companies as the Online retail giant is expected to report a $500,000,000 loss over the next quarter. Amazon's earning reports have been relatively stable over the last few years with big increases in revenue but little …
Read More »Google rumored to buy Twitch for $1 Billion (again)
Google is one again rumored to be acquiring Twitch for $1 billion according to sources close to the deal. News of the potential buyout originally hit the Internet in May, the deal really shows the value of live-streaming and sharing game content on the Internet. Twitch has become a huge source of …
Read More »Kim Dotcom pledges Internet Party will stop mass snooping
Surveillance, snooping, the mass collection of data and the oppressive oversight of governments around the world has been a big topic over the past year. Kim Dotcom is someone that knows about it all too well, considering he himself was spied upon illegally before being arrested with an invalid warrant …
Read More »Pirate Bay users help director get his film seen
The most oft-cited reason for movie and music lobby groups to go after torrent sites, is that they take money away from artists, by “stealing,” content. However what those same lobby groups don't talk about, is how copyright law can do the same thing and that in those situations, piracy …
Read More »ISS astronaut tweets ‘sad’ picture of Gaza conflict
While most of the world has to turn on a TV or pull up a news site to have a close up view of the ongoing conflict in Gaza, astronaut aboard the ISS, Alexander Gerst, can simply look out his window. Just a few hours ago, he tweeted his “saddest …
Read More »Japan wants to host the first Robot Olympics in 2020
Japan's Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, wants the country to host the world's first Robot Olympics in 2020. Tokyo is already the host of the regular 2020 summer Olympics so Japan is in a unique position to make this happen but the question is, will the rest of the world play along? …
Read More »Google offers million dollar prize for tiny power inverter
Google isn't a stranger to giving away money to those that impress it with their ingenuity, so it's not that surprising that it's looking to dole out a million dollars to someone once again. This time though it's not trying to send robots to the moon, but is looking to …
Read More »‘Department of Dirty’ parody mocks Porn Filters
The Open Rights Group has launched a new campaign of mockery aimed squarely at David Cameron's porn filters, with a video promoting its “Department of Dirty.” In the fictional – but not far off – world portrayed, accessing anything remotely sounding like adult material is much harder and much more …
Read More »Dell gives free tablet with PC or electronics purchase
For a limited amount of time the Dell Venue 7 media tablet will cease to be a product and will become a competitive advantage of Dell. The PC maker on Wednesday kicked off a campaign that grants every U.S. student who purchases a personal computer, a large display, or a …
Read More »Dotcom’s legal team ask to postpone MPAA lawsuit
When it looked like MegaUpload founder Kim Dotcom's legal team might actually win his extradition trial, the MPAA and RIAA announced new law suits to try and cripple his funding. Those suits are still ongoing today, but now Dotcom's representatives want them delayed, since once again, the extradition trial has …
Read More »Bonsai and flowers on the edge of space, for art
I'm sure I wasn't the only one who watched Felix Baumgartner take that leap from the edge of space nearly two years ago. Amazing right? Beautiful really. Well that's what some artists have been hoping to replicate with a project called Exobiotanica, which involved sending plants up to similar sorts of …
Read More »Watch out for fake MH17 scam pages
If you're looking to find out more about the Malaysian Airlines MH17 crash over the Ukraine recently, then try not to do it on Facebook, as many of the pages set up in memorial for victims – especially children – are turning out to be scams that send you to …
Read More »