Iphone news

So I’m hearing that there are lots of problems with the iphones. If you have one and are having problems please lets us know. I’ll find a good in depth review of one soon, since I’m too poor to afford one. Heres a site where they have taken the iphone apart for those who haven’t seen this:
http://stream.ifixit.com/

iPhone facts from the first reviews

-from Engadget

Posted Jun 26th 2007 8:19PM by Ryan Block
Well, the first reviews are in. But you may have missed some of the more interesting factoids unearthed by the trio of gadget reporters deigned worthy by El Jobso to get a pre-launch iPhone. Here’s a few fresh n’ interesting iPhone facts right off the presses:

* The mobile version of OS X or whatever it is the iPhone runs takes up 700MB of the device’s capacity. Damn son!
* There’s no way to cut, copy, or paste text! WHOA! Big, big mistake.
* No A2DP support. That, friends, is such a huge bummer right there.
* Sorry, music can’t be used as a ringtone — even if it’s just a raw MP3. No additional ringtones will be sold at launch.
* On a PC the iPhone syncs with Outlook for calendars AND addresses! Noice.
* It supports Exchange in some capacity, according to Walt, but he doesn’t exactly say how.
* Pogue again confirms document file reading — but not editing — for PDF, Word, and Excel (only).
* Adobe Flash support is officially out. It’s just not in the browser. Neither is there any other kind of embedded video support. Sorry everybody, that’s that.
* It will take snaps, but won’t record video. How can Apple love YouTube as much as it does and not realize cellphone-shot movies make up a sizeable chunk of the crazy crap you find on there?

More after the break!

* Oh, and no MMS. And sorry, no voice dialing, either.
* Contact groups can’t be emailed as contact lists.
* Apple sez between 300-400 charges the iPhone will lose battery capacity — you’ll send it in and get the cell replaced for a fee. Meh. We knew this would be the case, but still, meh.
* Apple can (and supposedly will) be rolling out periodic updates — no surprise there.
* Battery life is, somehow, almost as mind-blowingly good as Apple claims for calls, music, and movies.
* As we suspected, users are prompted with lists of WiFi networks if you’re not nearby a trusted hotspot. We’ve seen this on other phones, and we’re afraid this would get friggin annoying.
* It’s said to be very scratch resistant. The facade both front and rear apparently just doesn’t pick up marring like regular iPods do.
* Voice quality is said to be good — not great.

Anything else we missed from in there?

Iphone video review

Bye Bye TorrentSpy and ISOHunt Both Plan to Start Filtering Copyrighted Content

-from Zero Paid

TorrentSpy decides to not block US visitors and chooses to filter pirated content from its search results instead, something which ISOHunt plans to do as well.

It’s a sad day for those in the US who use TorrentSpy or ISOHunt, two of the world’s largest public trackers sites, to find movies, music, and more to download for it seems the party’s nearing an end.

It’s being reported today that TorrentSpy and ISOHunt plans to use a hash-based system called FileRights to automatically filter BitTorrent trackers that link to pirated content from its search results to help satisfy a suit brought against them by the MPAA for the illegal facilitation of copyrighted material.

FileRights will use file hashes provided by individual copyright owners of their content that will detect and remove any torrent trackers that link to unauthorized copies. Copyright owners sign up for an account with the system and then enter the hash values of their content into the system database. FileRights will then automatically remove any links to this content.

The site says it works as follows:

FileRights.com maintains a large database of copyrighted works managed by the content holders themselves. This database forms a master list of copyrighted materials that should be removed from BitTorrent sites. When a content holder uploads information about the works they have found on a bittorrent site FileRights then distributes this information to our website subscribers so that work can be removed (filtered) from their search results. The entire process is automated to minimize the effort required by both the content holder and website operator.

“With FileRights we used the community networking power of the Web to automate and aggregate the entire copyright filtration process,” said Justin Bunnel, one of TorrentSpy’s founders and CEO of FileRights. “Torrentspy now uses the FileRights cooperative filtering process to filter search results on its popular search engine.”

“No longer will site by site DMCA affidavits be required for copyright owners to remove links to allegedly infringing files. With FileRights we used the community networking power of the web to automate and aggregate the entire copyright filtration process,” he continued.

Ira Rothkin, TorrentSpy’s attorney, also notes that ISOHunt, the subject of an MPAA lawsuit as well, will so too be using FileRights to filter copyrighted material from its search results.

Jacqueline Chooljian, a federal judge for the Central District of California in Los Angeles ruled on May 29th that TorrentSpy must begin tracking users’ activity on the site, a ruling which TorrentSpy is still appealing but, which will most likely stand due to the fact that the US Govt has gone to great lengths to ensure copyright protection despite the costs to the privacy of consumers and to the neutrality of the internet as a whole.

If TorrentSpy and ISOHunt do start filtering pirated content as stated, it will most likely simply mean more traffic for those file-sharing Swedes at The Pirate Bay and to increased usage of Newsgroups and private BitTorrent tracker sites instead. As is always the case with a crackdown on a specific file-sharing program or site, it merely means that users turn to alternative sites and programs but, never do they usually throw in the towel and go legit.

So far I haven’t notice any filtering of either site’s search results but, it’s hard to believe they would do this instead of merely blocking access to US visitors and stand up for the principles of user privacy and net neutrality. By eliminating copyrighted video content as requested by the MPAA they will only lose traffic to competing sites like the Pirate Bay and others and merely be reduced to glorified porn and PC game hubs.

**UPDATE:

ISOHunt has posted a response in regards to filtering copyrighted content

First of all, we do filtering on links that’s been identified for various reasons. It maybe virus infected files in torrents, it maybe copyright owners requesting takedown of links to their material. For copyright takedowns, we’ve long had a copyright policy and procedure for it. This is not censorship on content, this is filtering for identified abuse. Although DMCA has often been used as a way to censor, that’s a problem with the DMCA and the “request and takedown” regime itself, and the way some websites blindly accept takedown requests.

While I claim to be no saint, we do random sampling on requested links and verify against the identity of the owner requesting their takedown. We have on occasions rejected requests due to situations like music companies requesting takedown of torrents that looks like porn. That also goes into problems of how do you know whether torrents are what they claim to be by their filenames, but that’s another issue.

On the recent news of our partnership with FileRights.com, some clarification on a lot of misinformed reporting and comments. We haven’t started using their database yet, the system is still being developed. The idea is to take some pain away from the current “email takedown request, verify links, respond” process to “establish identity as copyright holder or its agent once, use API’s to automate the requests, and we random sample the legitimacy of the requests”. Nothing more or less is done to our copyright policy for filtering based on identified, unauthorized links to copyrighted works. It’s not DRM and it’s not censorship. It’s to automate the process so it’s easier for content owners (request once instead of 100 different BitTorrent trackers and sites), and easier for us (verify and process once for multiple sites, and no need for legalese in emails).

If you don’t like it, take it up with your congressmen about the DMCA if you are in the US. Or, seed torrents of stuff that you produced, and no problems for any of us. Wink Bram Cohen did say something about BitTorrent not designed for piracy, and I think he’s right.

>> This reply by ISOHunt brings up some interesting questions and responses, not the least of which is the statement about “BitTorrent not being designed for piracy”(Say what?).

In a response to this posting on ISOHunt a Canadian has the gumption to note how insane the whole affair is, that as a CANADIAN visiting a CANADIAN SITE why is it that it is allowing an AMERICAN LOBBYING GROUP to tell it what to do?

Perhaps the real blame lies in us, the American people, for consistently allowing by default our corporations and our country to tell others what’s best for them and how to run their show. Net neutrality may just be a pipe dream after all if we’re allowed to scare the whole world into complying with our own self-interests.

Zune Reviewed

Ok, sorry this has taken so long, but between school and work, it’s been hard to do anything. I know there are tons of reviews for the Zune already out there but I just wanted to write one on my own.

First off the software took two or so lifetimes to install and update. When it was done I had my 3rd player (Itunes, WMP, and Zune) but what I liked about this was the interface of the Zune player. It didn’t make copies of my entire library like Itunes did. The library was nice and split up into 3 categories, music movies, and pictures. First thing it did after i told it what music to upload, was to sync that music. The biggest issue I had with this was that if you reformat your comp then your Zune losses the feature of automatic syncing. Unless you want to delete everything on the Zune to change it’s home. I blame RIAA and DMCA for that…
Next videos are good to watch on the Zune. I mean the quality is good, and everything. My issue here is that I haven’t found a decent video converter so my movies or clips have a nice metallic tone to them. other than that The sideways interface it perfect. The whole menu was good, a bit laggy in parts but still good and easy to navigate.
The wireless feature is very cool in my own opinion, my friend has a Zune and we share music and movies. The 3 plays in 2 days thing is horrible, but I can flag it so next time I get on the marketplace I can find and buy the song. Another cool thing is if you close the player you can still charge the Zune and you can listen to your music at the same time. The remote doesn’t seem to work if it’s not dock with the computer though so it was kind of pointless to buy it unless, you have good computer speakers.

Size is a big issue for some people, for me not so much since I make sure my pants have big pockets. But the Zune is considerably larger than the Ipod even though , the screen is a bit bigger.
All in all I’d give the Zune 8.5/10

E3 news and crap

So as we all know E3 is coming up, and we will try to get updating news around the clock as we try to do with other conferences. Another one I want to do is the Tokyo game show, I know that this is a tech blog, but I believe that video games belong here too, just in news and previews not reviews.

Blu-ray disc coatings starting to rot?

So when I come home from work today I see all this news on Blu-ray disc starting to rot. As is turns out several copies of “The Prestige” have black stops that won’t come off. This sound really weird, but I guess if you’re having trouble with this you could go and try to return the disc and get a replacement. to me this sounds like Blu-Rays are zombies now.
AVS fourms

Downloadsquad responds to RIAA threats

from Downloadsquad
Posted Jun 15th 2007 4:07PM by Grant Robertson
Recently, when a counterclaim was filed by Ms. Del Cid against the RIAA containing allegations of Trespass, Computer Fraud and Abuse, Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices, Civil Extortion, and Civil conspiracy, we published a short editorial on our perception of the unfolding events. Del Cid’s allegations are quite serious; in her and her lawyer’s view the RIAA broke serious criminal statutes while amassing evidence for their case.

Our editorializing seems to have ruffled the feathers of an IFPI executive who is now threatening action, not against us, but against another blog who simply linked to our piece. In an effort to quell what Paul Birch of Revolver Records calls, “malicious statements and blogs on the internet” he has threatened Andrew Dubber of the blog New Music Strategies with veiled words about lawsuits, and by directly threatening to file a formal complaint against him with the University of Central England, Dubber’s employer. All because in the course of discussion on the topic Andrew Dubber’s blog follows exclusively he felt it relevant to link to something we wrote.

Shame on you Mr. Birch.

We may not like hot dogs Mr. Birch. However, when we see someone eating one we don’t attempt to knock it out of his hand, we simply continue to eat our hamburger and remind ourselves that the hot dog eater is free to hold whatever belief, preference or opinion he wishes. If the juicy hamburger of opinion we attempted to share with our readers offends you, you have every right to say so. Threatening the career of another human being who shares our distaste for hot dogs is unethical and wrong. Just as it would be if we slapped the hot dog from your hand.

The defendant in this case has every right to file counterclaim against your sister organization, the RIAA and we have every right to offer opinion on that counterclaim. Andrew Dubber has every right to link to our opinion in the course of conversation. These are all luxuries we enjoy and obligations we undertake as members of an advanced and free society. You also have the legal right to complain to anyone about whatever you deem worthy of complaint; Ethically and professionally however, you’ve planted yourself on rather shaky ground.

Let me make perfectly clear; We’d do it again. I’ve personally followed the RIAA/BPI/IFPI’s litigious nonsense for years, writing many widely read and well respected articles on the subject. I’ve never, nor has anyone who writes for this blog, made any threatening statements — as Paul Birch claims — or given more than opinion from the perspective of a music fan, computer expert and hobby-grade legal analyst. RIAA lawsuits are a subject we feel passionate about; Not because we support widespread and rampant piracy but because we are dedicated to individuals like ourselves who increasingly come under attack from corporate interests, and the erosion of fair use rights. We firmly believe that the RIAA’s legal tactics are unfair, advantageous and despicable, and we know quite well the stories of lives which have been torn apart financially and, emotionally by their incorrectly aimed “scattergun” approach to legal action.

If Paul Birch would like to discuss how he feels we’ve been wrong — how we’ve “singled out RIAA management” for malicious statements — we welcome his inquiry. I’d personally love to discuss the concept of malice with a high-ranking executive in the music business.

Paul, you can personally reach me, Grant Robertson, the Lead Blogger of Download Squad by email or through our comment system. I look forward to your reply.

Update: Andrew Dubber’s blog has gone off-line for reasons which are still unclear. Jon Newton of P2Pnet has republished the email exchange between Dubber and Birch in full, Thanks Jon!

AT&T is pushing limits

So by now we all should have heard about the AT&T thing. I think this is a total invasion of privacy, so now nowhere is safe from the eyes of big brother. if it were me I’d call for a boycott of this company, since I have nothing else to suggest.
What do yall think about this latest news about AT&T

Poll Who wants an IPhone

Just talking with a friend about this topic, and then I wanted to see, out of the 80 plus views I get, how many of you want the IPhone? if you want please explain why or why not