The MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) has won a default judgment against Valence Media’s download site Torrentspy. The judgment is handy for figuring out exactly how much all those free movies everyone’s downloading are worth. According to a federal judge, $110 million dollars ought to about cover it. In 2006 TorrentSpy was more popular than any other BitTorrent site, but this changed quickly in August 2007, when a federal judge ordered TorrentSpy to log all user data. The judge ruled that TorrentSpy

A story in the New York Times had the blogosphere up in arms, but Microsoft indicates we shouldn’t believe it. The Times said that Microsoft is working to implement an anti-piracy filter into its Zune media players, which would prevent playback of unauthorized videos.In fact, J. B. Perrette, the president of digital distribution for NBC Universal, made just that statement.However, a post on a semi-official Microsoft blog written by an employee working on Zune denied any such plans:We have no plans or commitments

Mozilla has found and removed a virus from its Vietnamese language pack for their Firefox 2 browser. The virus loads remote content, showing the unwitting users unwanted advertising, but does not propagate the virus itself to others. Everyone who downloaded the most recent Vietnamese language pack since February 18, 2008 got an infected copy.  While we cannot determine the exact number of compromised downloads, there have been 16,667 total downloads of the Vietnamese language pack since November 2007, so

AMD has released its product roadmap for the next two years and the company appears to have gone core crazy. Plans for several multi-core chip releases over the next two years will culminate in a 12-core CPU to be released in the first half of 2010. The first new product from AMD will be code-named “Shanghai,” and is expected to see the light of day in the second half of this year. This will be AMD’s first 45nm sever processor, and will support HyperTransport 3.0 as well as sporting a whopping 6MB of Level-3

OCZ Introduces New Additions to the Reaper HPC Series, with High Density DDR3 Kits Featuring Incredible SpeedsSunnyvale, CA—May 7, 2008—OCZ Technology Group, a worldwide leader in innovative, ultra-high performance and high reliability memory, today announced two new Reaper HPC solutions for enthusiasts upgrading to next generation of cutting-edge platforms. The PC3-14400 and PC3-12800 Reaper HPC Series are now available in both 2GB and 4GB dual channel kits to meet the specific needs of customized gaming systems

NVIDIA’s VP of Content Business Development, Roy Taylor, recently commented on plans to simplify the company’s product range.”It is a challenge that we’re looking at right now. There is a need to simplify it for consumers, there’s no question,” Taylor explained.”We think that the people who understand and know GeForce today, they’re okay with it – they understand it.  But if we’re going to widen our appeal, there’s no doubt that we have to solve that problem,” he added.Will AMD follow suit and simplify their

When we first heard about Psystar and their Open Computer that could run OS X, we were understandably skeptical.  It didn’t help that numerous news agencies around the country were having difficulty tracking the company down.   But all of that is the past, Psystar is shipping units and a review site has finally gotten their hands on one.While review sites that focus mostly on Apple products tend to be unimpressed with the overall unboxing and boot experiences, they are claiming that the machines deliver on what

All those of you who are using generic, and in particular, high-capacity batteries with your Eee should watch out.  It seems you might have an explosive combination. Second- and third-tier battery makers in China have begun to manufacture batteries designed to be used with the Eee PC. Some vendors are offering batteries with capacities up to 10,400mAh, which can support up to 5.5 hours of usage, priced around 500-600 RMB (US$71-86), according to channel vendors. However, reports claim that one of these

Just yesterday, Dell unveiled some new Art Series Inspiron 1525 notebooks that feature artwork from Mike Ming Designs on theirs lids.  Although the machines hit the Dell website only yesterday, we had a chance to get our hands on a couple of the units and snap off a few pictures.As you can see, the appliques applied to the lids were vibrant.  They also seemed like they’d stand up well to typical daily abuse.  Below are a couple of photos, along with the official press release…    

Not only did Id Games announce today that it is hard at work on the next installment of the first-person shooter DOOM series, DOOM 4, but the company is looking to hire designers, artists, animators, and programmers to develop the new title.”DOOM is part of the id Software DNA and demands the greatest talent and brightest minds in the industry to bring the next installment of our flagship franchise to Earth,” said Todd Hollenshead, CEO, id Software.  “It’s critical for id Software to have the best creative minds