If you like yourself some BitTorrent downloading action, we recommend you help Azureus fight BitTorrent throttling ISPs like Comcast, Adelphia, SusCom, and others by installing the Network Status Monitor plug-in for Azureus / Vuze. The plug-in monitors your network traffic for anything that might prohibit your computer from utilizing its broadband connection to the fullest.
Lately, some ISPs have been using BitTorrent throttling techniques to prevent BitTorrent programs from working properly. It is understandable that ISPs need to manage their networks in order to ensure that every customer gets a fair share of the bandwidth pie, but as individuals, traffic throttling techniques take away from the service we were promised when signing up.
If you choose to share the data collected via the Network Status Monitor, the Azureus team may analyze and compare it with the data collected from other users in order to develop ways of circumventing BitTorrent throttling. The plug-in only works on Windows machines for now, but Mac support is coming.
Due to another company trademarking "G-Mail" in Germany, similar to Google's "Gmail" in the US, the search engine giant lost an appeal to use "Gmail" in the European Union. G-Mail stands for "Giersch Mail" in Germany, where Daniel Giersch runs an electronic postal delivery service -- if that's not email, we couldn't say what it is.
As a result, Gmail is now known as Google Mail in Europe. Google's email service is also known as Google Mail in the UK, where another company trademarked "Gmail" shortly after Google launched the service.
And the moral of the story is: The next time you launch any product or service, make sure to trademark the name before. As for Google, the company "got caught slippin" -- as we say in the hip hop world -- so too bad, so sad.
Well, you got to hand it to them for trying. On Wednesday Vonage requested a new trial in their patent infringement case. Verizon claims that Vonage's internet telephony technology is based on patents held by the phone company. But Thursday, the appeals court denied the request for a retrial.
Vonage had hoped that a recent Supreme Court ruling would give reason for a new trial. The Supreme Court basically said too many patents have been given out for obvious technologies. The appeals court said Vonage can cite that ruling in its appeal, but that there weren't sufficient grounds for trying the case over again.
If you're getting whiplash from the back and forth, here's the score: Vonage can still continue business as usual while the appeal is pending. If it loses the appeal, there's a good chance the company will be put out of business.
Getting a $20 Million paycheck for having your photo used on a Yahoo sign in page is not a bad deal, if you're a celebrity that is. That's what one Ohio woman and her legal team are hoping for. It seems like "Mary" discovered her photo being used without her permission on a sign up confirmation page for Yahoo's email system and nabbed up three law firms to fight her battle. Whats in it for the law firms? Exposure, and possibly a big payday.
Apparently "Mary's" right of publicity was violated. Now keep in mind she isn't a celebrity, just your average everyday woman from Ohio who wants her payday from a multi billion dollar company.
It seems odd that Yahoo would use her photo if it wasn't part of a stock photo library; there are tons of generic looking stock people out there to choose from. If they did use her photo from a service like Flickr or Yahoo Image search there most likely is something in the small print to protect Yahoo. We'll have to see how this one pans out.
Google is reportedly telling major entertainment companies that they have allocated over $100 million as special licensing deals if the companies promise they won't sue them for the next three years. Time Warner, News Corp., NBC and Universal, would agree not to sue Google over any YouTube copyright infringements and the payments in question would be some kind of holdover until Google can figure out how to make serious money through revenue sharing and advertising. If Google can get these major companies to sign the deal, not only will it be the premier location for video and change viewing patterns, but this could potentially open the eyes of entertainment companies to try out more deals that could potentially benefit their audience. There have been no lawsuits from major entertainment companies yet, so it seems as though they could be trying to negotiate some deals.
The beloved, and sometimes hated, browser cookie has been entered into evidence in a Texas court. A Texas man actually used the cookies on his computer as a trail of time stamped data of his web activities to try and prove his innocence and where he was at the time prosecutors say he was somewhere else. Mr. Texas had a court restraining order in place from his ex-wife, and Mrs. Ex-Texas claimed to have seen him stalking her. Mr. Texas had a great excuse, he was checking out the Home Depot website that morning, and could not have possibly been stalking. Mr. Texas made a disk showing his online actions stamped by cookies embedded on his computer. The trail of data didn't prove effective however. The jury agreed with the prosecution that the cookie data could have been altered, and poor Mr. Texas has to face 365 of confinement, and a $2000 fine. Why his legal representatives didn't try and use the actual computer logs from the websites in question and his internet service provider data is unclear. He might have had a chance to be a free man.
Another one bites the dust folks, well not yet. Morpheus, the p2p file sharing network owned by StreamCast, lost its case in court. The network, like many others is now in danger of being shut down because of copyright infringement charges. LimeWire was similarly sued by the RIAA in August, as well as Grokster, Napster, Kazaa, and many others. Some of these networks have been shut-down, had to shut-down, or have regrouped and come back reborn like Napster. Morpheus still holds out hope for some sort of appeal to work in their favor, but at this point the prospects don't look too good, at least from my small corner of the great and powerful blogosphere. Where Morpheus ends up remains to be seen, and despite their court loss, there seems to be some light at the end of the tunnel at least for consumers, with a few studios and companies starting to see that DRM-less music may be the way to boost sales.
It's been a long time coming, but Google has finally handed over Orkut data to Brazilian authorities. Google is complying by surrendering data on users with the requests that were requested by Brazilian courts.
Brazilian prosecutors are investing illegal activity that might be going on inside of Orkut, Google's social network, and sued Google for the requested information. Google has been fighting the requests because Brazilian prosecutors had requested information from Google's Brazilian subsidiary, but Google US owns and runs Orkut from the US. Thus extending the process because all requests had to be sent to the California offices.
Farid Essebar and Achraf Bahloul were jailed after a court ruling in Morocco for creating and spreading the Zotob worm last year which did a lot of damage in the United States. They were convicted of conspiracy, theft, using forged credit cards and illegal access to computer systems. Along with Nathan Peterson of iBackup.net, these guys are the latest we've heard on computer criminal rulings in the courts. All the people who were affected by the worm should know that justice has now been served. Everyone seems to think that virus-writers get off Scot-free. The truth is many times these guys are caught and justice is served. Isn't it good to know that after virus-writers cause so much destruction to countless people's computer systems, the IT headaches, and the recovery efforts needed, someone goes to jail? It doesn't seem like that is enough punishment sometimes. At least they won't be touching a computer anytime in the future. That's worth something I suppose.
Playing Solitaire while reading Download Squad seems like an acceptable form of multitasking. As does playing Solitaire while, say, doing phone support. But playing Solitaire while presiding over the federal trial of John Gotti? That might be pushing it. But it's what Manhattan Federal Court Judge Shira Scheindlin has been accused of by radio host Curtis Silwa, who was nearly killed in a 1992 shooting that Gotti is accused of planning, and who noticed Judge Scheindlin's gaming habbits while on the witness stand. Silwa says he noticed the judge playing during the last two trials, but didn't speak up "until Scheindlin dumped cold water on the government's third try" to convict Gotti. Silwa wants Scheindlin to recuse herself from the case, but at this point it seems unlikely.
If you like yourself some BitTorrent downloading action, we recommend you help Azureus fight BitTorrent throttling ISPs like 
