'Explore The Galaxy' From The Comfort Of Your Internet Browser
As a continued testament to the power of current generation web technologies, a Chrome-experiment dubbed ‘100,000 Stars’ lets you explore our local cluster and the Milky Way beyond, all from the comfort of your browser.
Virginia Man Handed $1.5 Million Fine For Sharing 10 Adult Movies
In a court case that has resulted in the largest ever damages penalty awarded in a BitTorrent case, a court in Illinois has ordered a man from Hampton, Virginia to pay $1,500,000 ($1.5 million) to adult entertainment company Flava Works for sharing just 10 of its gay porn movies on the popular file-sharing website.
Anonymous Plan To Take Down Facebook On 5 November?
Remember, remember, the fifth of November. Given the hacker groups' affiliation to the Guy Fawkes mask, the decision by hacker collective Anonymous to take down Facebook on bonfire night seems far from coincidental. But posting a warning to Zuckerberg and co. and social gaming giant Zynga in a stern warning message earlier this week, that's exactly what it intends to achieve.
Kim Dotcom's 'Mega' To Launch On The Anniversary Of Raid?
If copyright laws were a protagonist, then MegaUpload would be the baddie that just won’t die. Though the original site has long since been taken down – the much-publicised court case has followed, with its owner still fighting extradition to the US – plans which will see founder Kim Dotcom launch what he himself calls “the ultimate file hosting solution” in follow-up 'Mega' seem, finally, to be coming to fruition.
Notorious Reddit Troll Looks For Employment In The Porn Industry
He was behind the popular aggregating website's most egregious and downright perverted subreddits – including but not limited to r/rapebait, r/incest and r/jailbait – and is now of the most notorious Internet trolls since being outed by Gawker. But now having lost his job and apologised for the majority of his online actions, 'Violentacrez' is looking for employment in the porn industry. And he's using his 'credentials' as a Reddit moderator to get him there...
The Pirate Bay Heads For The Clouds
For some years now, there’s been a repeating cycle to The Pirate Bay's operations. Get shut-down, move domain, perhaps change business practices, start up once again. Wash, rinse, repeat. And it largely worked, at least up until the high profile trial in 2006 which culminated in four defendants being found guilty of copyright violations, sentenced to a year in jail, and ordered to pay around $3 million in damages.
Since, it’s tried to put a barrier between itself and a shut-down by the authorities. The latest move is a bold one to say the least: ditch the servers and head for the clouds above.
Is Pheed The New Twitter?
Hand-picking features from a wide-range of the most popular social networks across the web (from Facebook, Tumblr, SoundCloud, to of course Twitter), ‘Pheed’ is all set to become the new Internet darling; having already picked up over 250,000 unique users and celebrities alike in just days, with Paris Hilton, David Guetta, Miley Cyrus and Chris Brown a few noteworthy names.
New Web Security Protocol HSTS Protects Us Against ‘Internet Hijacks’
A brand-new security protocol geared towards protecting Internet users from ‘Internet hijackings’ has won over approval by the Internet Engineering Task Force as a new proposed standard.
Torrenters Beware, You're Likely Being Tracked
There aren't many people in such Internet-savvy times who would plead ignorance to ever using a BitTorrent client to download pirated music, video or programs. But even so, our behaviour online is likely drawing us a whole lot of unwanted attention from copyright-enforcement agencies, according to a new study by a group of computer security researchers from the University of Birmingham.
[Infographic] The Internet, A Decade Later
The Internet has come a heck of a long way in the short 10 years since 2002. Ultra-fast broadband has taken the place of the blips and bleeps of 56Kb dial-up systems; flashy ads, high-resolution pictures and interactive banners have replaced basic HTML coding; while the introduction of ‘Web 2.0’ has changed the way in which we interact with the World Wide Web forever.
Podcasters Out To Troll Fifty Shades Of Grey With Crowd-Sourced Sex Novel
The staggering success of erotic novel Fifty Shades Of Grey is one sure to baffle reading trends analysts', let alone this twenty-something male. But for two US podcasters, the rise in popularity of the sex novel just had to be exploited...
Teen Tweets, Rather Than Helps, Dying Man In Street
A teenager in Edinburgh, Scotland could face criminal charges after witnessing a man dying in the street and, without calling the police to report the incident, nor going over the help the man, tweeted a photo of the hit-and-run victim with the caption “Eeeehm wtf? Some guy just casually lying outside Ocean Terminal.”
Analyst Blames Parents For Facebook's Unconvincing IPO
Facebook was hardly the most adored of companies before going public in May, but few could have predicted the landslide in stock price that has greeted the company since it started trading on May 18. Wiping billions of dollars from founder Zuckerberg’s personal fortune; the social network company is now the second-worst performer of all IPOs in the US so far this year (according to IPOScoop.com).
Behold The Scrollable, Zoomable 2D ‘Map’ Of The Internet
Though it might at first glance appear to be a colourfully-drawn visualisation of our solar system, the above image has in fact been created by Russian technology firm Positive Communications and is a fully-interactive 2D ‘map’ of the Internet. It’s one in which each circle is a unique website, and each ‘cluster’ of entities are site’s with a similar connection; be it videogames, technology, global news, or popular search results.
From The Guys Who Brought You 'Date A Gamer' Comes Shag A Gamer.com!
From everyone's favourite gamer dating site (not entirely verifiable) Date A Gamer comes a new match-up website dedicated to just one thing: bringing together geek gamer boys and girls for, in their own words, a “quick shag”. Chivalry really might be dead...
Might The Days Of Facebook Stalking Be Numbered?
Having already introduced changes to Facebook Chat that sees users informed when a message has been seen by a recipient – to the chagrin of avoidant types – now Facebook has announced an overhaul to Groups which allows users to identify exactly who and who has not seen certain posts. Were the company to roll out the feature to the rest of the site, could Facebook ‘stalking’ soon be a thing of the past?
Monumental eBay Videogame Collection Sells For €1 Million
As videogame collections go, few would be able to match this frankly staggering listing by eBay seller collectors_king (a well-deserved moniker, if ever there was one). In full, the sale includes all games ever released for Nintendo home systems (from the Famicom to Gamecube), all games ever released for Sega systems, and every single game for NEC systems – all ‘factory sealed’. And now, it has sold, for a truly staggering €999,999.99 with €1,000 shipping charge.
Wikileaks Releases Two Million Emails On Syria
Wikileaks is back with 2 million new emails, coming from various prominent public and private sector Syrian figures dating back over the last six years.
Will We Soon Need To “Opt-In” At Broadband Sign-Up To View Online Pornography?
Under-18s may soon have to pluck up the courage to ask their parents to remove that block on internet pornography if ministers of the UK government get their way in approving a change in the law that would give parents even more control over the type of content their broadband provider provides.
Online Retailer 'Taxes' IE7 Users On Purchases, Implores Them To Upgrade
In an attempt to “help make the internet a better place” and encouraging those stuck in their particular internet browser ways to upgrade to more up-to-date software, Australian online retailer Kogan.com has started a scheme to ‘tax’ those using Microsoft’s long-running (and painfully out-dated) Internet Explorer 7 to purchase items with a 6.8% charge placed on top of anything they buy through the store.