freaks

The 404 1264: Where we try and stay Glassy (podcast)

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Public's first reaction to Google Glass summed up by SNL.

- Can you really make money online by playing competitive games?

- Busting online piracy group has led to increase -- in piracy.… Read more

'Game of Thrones' sets piracy record, report says

"Game of Thrones," the wildly popular fantasy drama on HBO, has set an all-time record via BitTorrent, according to data collected by Torrent Freak.

The site, which tracks the world of BitTorrent and piracy, was tracking uploads and downloads of the first episode of the latest season of "Game of Thrones." It found that just a few hours after the first torrent was shared on the site, 163,088 people were sharing just one torrent. The so-called "swarm" of people sharing the torrent outpaced the previous titleholder, "Heroes," which had 144,663 … Read more

View your system in Hardware Freak

System information utilities are freeware favorites around here, with multiple PCs to monitor. Hardware Freak is a new one to us, but it's a lot like the others, extracting and displaying a lot of useful information about your computer and software in a centralized, easy-to-use interface. Also like the others, it's portable freeware, which makes it a useful addition to your USB drive's portable toolkit.

While system info tools tend to display the same data, that's what they're supposed to do. Where they differ greatly is in layout and look, and Hardware Freak's Main … Read more

BitTorrent downloads linked to RIAA, DHS IP addresses

The TorrentFreak blog has outed the RIAA and U.S. Department of Homeland Security as harboring downloaders of pirated songs by hip hop artists and crime-based TV shows, but the RIAA denies it.

TorrentFreak said it used the YouHaveDownloaded.com site to find instances of IP addresses within the RIAA and the DHS linked to downloads of copyrighted content from BitTorrent.

Six RIAA IP addresses were linked to downloads of music by Jay-Z ("American Gangster") and Kanye West ("My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy"), as well as the first five seasons of "Dexter," a "… Read more

Facebook bumps up privacy controls

The new iPhone may land on Sprint by mid-October, developers can start submitting apps for Windows Phone 7 "Mango" due out next month, and Facebook has announced new privacy controls.

Links from Wednesday's episode of Loaded:

New BlackBerry Curve arrives

RankMyHack.com lets hackers brag about their latest endeavors, the iPhone 5 is rumored to be a dual-mode device, and Research In Motion has released a new BlackBerry Curve.

Links from Tuesday's episode of Loaded:

RIAA wants revived LimeWire dead and buried

The four largest recording companies claim in court papers that Lime Wire, the company behind the LimeWire file-sharing service, has thumbed its nose at a court injunction that requires the peer-to-peer network be shut down, CNET has learned.

"Defendants have demonstrated in no uncertain terms that they either will not or cannot do what the injunction commands," wrote lawyers working for the Recording Industry Association of America.

The RIAA, the trade group for the major labels, asked the court yesterday in a 20-page document to appoint a "receiver" to ensure that Lime Wire complies with the … Read more

Upcoming Violight cell phone sanitizer zaps germs

In recent years, you may have seen a story or two about how toilet seats are cleaner than your cell phone. Well, there may not be an app for eliminating those teeming germs from your mobile, but Violight, a company that specializes in UV toothbrush sanitizers, has developed something called the Cell Phone Sanitizer to execute microbes.

Violight says it's the first UV sanitizing device designed to "eliminate up to 99.9% of germs and bacteria on your cell phone," as well other small electronic devices, including earbuds and Bluetooth headsets.

According to the company, the germicidal … Read more

The sky isn't falling: Scrabble rules aren't changing

Don't worry, everyone. The Scrabble you know and love isn't changing.

When I read this morning that starting this July, the Scrabble rules will change to allow the use of proper nouns, I had to check today's date to make sure it wasn't somehow still April Fools' Day.

But no, according to every calendar I could find, today is April 6, and so the story from the BBC seemed to have been the real deal. In that story, a Mattel spokesperson is quoted as saying the rule change, which is expected to be introduced in a … Read more

Six months later, no ISPs joining RIAA piracy fight

Last December, the music industry's message to song writers, publishers, and musicians was that antipiracy help was on the way. Hopes soared after the major labels announced that they had convinced a group of telecoms to work with them.

Filing lawsuits against individuals accused of illegal file sharing was, for the most part, a thing of the past, said the Recording Industry Association of America, the trade group representing the top music companies. The new strategy was to enlist Internet service providers, the gatekeepers of the Web, to issue a series of warnings meant to increase pressure on alleged … Read more