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Acer is updating its 11.6 inch Chromebook lineup for 2018 with a new model sporting two USB 3.1 Type-C ports, an Intel Celeron processor, a fanless design, and up to 10 hours of battery life. The new Acer Chromebook 11 will be available starting in Mar…
Acer is updating its 11.6 inch Chromebook lineup for 2018 with a new model sporting two USB 3.1 Type-C ports, an Intel Celeron processor, a fanless design, and up to 10 hours of battery life. The new Acer Chromebook 11 will be available starting in March for $249 and up. The Chromebook can be charged […]
Acer Chromebook 11 gets a 2018 refresh, coming in March for $249 and up is a post from: Liliputing
Acer is updating its Spin line of mid-range laptops with new models sporting 8th-gen Intel Core processors. The new Acer Spin 3 convertible laptop also comes with support for an optional 14 inch full HD display, a resolution that had previously only be…
Acer is updating its Spin line of mid-range laptops with new models sporting 8th-gen Intel Core processors. The new Acer Spin 3 convertible laptop also comes with support for an optional 14 inch full HD display, a resolution that had previously only been available on the company’s 15.6 inch model. The Acer Spin 3 should […]
Acer Spin 3 (2018) convertible notebooks launch this month for $599 and up is a post from: Liliputing
Mit dem Nitro 5 hat Acer ein Spiele-Notebook im Angebot, das einen Ryzen Mobile als Prozessor mit einer Radeon-Grafikeinheit kombiniert. Das 15,6-Zoll-Gerät dürfte gut 1.000 Euro kosten. (Acer, Core i5)
Mit einer Bauhöhe von 8,98 mm hat Acer erneut das dünnste Notebook überhaupt im Angebot. Neu beim Swift 7 sind unter anderem ein LTE-Modem und eine beleuchtete Tastatur. (Acer, Notebook)
In the fall of 2007, BitTorrent sites like isoHunt, Mininova, and TorrentSpy were dominating the Internet. Today they are all gone and their former operators have moved on. We talk to isoHunt’s Gary Fung to see how he views those turbulent times and what he thinks about the current media landscape.
Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN discounts, offers and coupons
Ten years ago, November 2007 to be precise, we published an article featuring the four leading torrent site admins at the time.
Niek van der Maas of Mininova, Justin Bunnell of TorrentSpy, Pirate Bay’s Peter Sunde and isoHunt’s Gary Fung were all kind enough to share their vision of BitTorrent’s future.
This future is the present today, and although the predictions were not all spot-on, there are a few interesting observations to make.
For one, these four men were all known by name, despite the uncertain legal situation they were in. How different is that today, when the operators of most of the world’s largest torrent sites are unknown to the broader public.
Another thing that stands out is that none of these pioneers are still active in the torrent space today. Niek and Justin have their own advertising businesses, Peter is a serial entrepreneur involved in various startups, while Gary works on his own projects.
While they have all moved on, they also remain a part of Internet history, which is why we decided to reach out to them ten years on.
Gary Fung was the first to reply. Those who’ve been following torrent news for a while know that isoHunt was shut down in 2013. The shutdown was the result of a lawsuit and came with a $110 million settlement with the MPAA, on paper.
Today the Canadian entrepreneur has other things on his hands, which includes “leveling up” his now one-year-old daughter. While that can be a day job by itself, he is also finalizing a mobile search app which will be released in the near future.
“The key is speed, and I can measure its speedup of the whole mobile search experience to be 10-100x that of conventional mobile web browsers,” Gary tells us, noting that after years of development, it’s almost ready.
The new search app is not one dedicated to torrents, as isoHunt once was. However, looking back, Gary is proud of what he accomplished with isoHunt, despite the bitter end.
“It was a humbling experience, in more ways than one. I’m proud that I participated and championed the rise of P2P content distribution through isoHunt as a search gateway,” Gary tells us.
“But I was also humbled by the responsibility and power at play, as seen in the lawsuits from the media industry giants, as well as the even larger picture of what P2P technologies were bringing, and still bring today.”
Decentralization has always been a key feature of BitTorrent and Gary sees this coming back in new trends. This includes the massive attention for blockchain related projects such as Bitcoin.
“2017 was the year Bitcoin became mainstream in a big way, and it’s feeling like the Internet before 2000. Decentralization is by nature disruptive, and I can’t wait to see what decentralizing money, governance, organizations and all kinds of applications will bring in the next few years.
“dApps [decentralized apps] made possible by platforms like Ethereum are like generalized BitTorrent for all kinds of applications, with ones we haven’t even thought of yet,” Gary adds.
Not everything is positive in hindsight, of course. Gary tells us that if he had to do it all over again he would take legal issues and lawyers more seriously. Not doing so led to more trouble than he imagined.
As a former torrent site admin, he has thought about the piracy issue quite a bit over the years. And unlike some sites today, he was happy to look for possible solutions to stop piracy.
One solution Gary suggested to Hollywood in the past was a hash recognition system for infringing torrents. A system to automatically filter known infringing files and remove these from cooperating torrent sites could still work today, he thinks.
“ContentID for all files shared on BitTorrent, similar to YouTube. I’ve proposed this to Hollywood studios before, as a better solution to suing their customers and potential P2P technology partners, but it obviously fell on deaf ears.”
In any case, torrent sites and similar services will continue to play an important role in how the media industry evolves. These platforms are showing Hollywood what the public wants, Gary believes.
“It has and will continue to play a role in showing the industry what consumers truly want: frictionless, convenient distribution, without borders of country or bundles. Bundles as in cable channels, but also in any way unwanted content is forced onto consumers without choice.”
While torrents were dominant in the past, the future will be streaming mostly, isoHunt’s founder says. He said this ten years ago, and he believes that in another decade it will have completely replaced cable TV.
Whether piracy will still be relevant then depends on how content is offered. More fragmentation will lead to more piracy, while easier access will make it less relevant.
“The question then will be, will streaming platforms be fragmented and exclusive content bundled into a hundred pieces besides Netflix, or will consumer choice and convenience win out in a cross-platform way?
“A piracy increase or reduction will depend on how that plays out because nobody wants to worry about ten monthly subscriptions to ten different streaming services, much less a hundred,” Gary concludes.
Perhaps we should revisit this again next decade…
—
The second post in this series, with Peter Sunde, will be published this weekend. The other two pioneers did not respond or declined to take part.
Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN discounts, offers and coupons
Fewer than half of the dozen humans who walked on the Moon are now alive.
Enlarge / John Young on the surface of the moon during Apollo 16. (credit: NASA)
John Young was an astronaut's astronaut—quiet, reticent, and utterly reliable in space. During his long and incomparable career as an astronaut, he flew three different vehicles into space: the Gemini capsule, the Apollo capsule, and the space shuttle. He died Friday night, at the age of 87, from complications of pneumonia.
With a tenure that spanned 42 years, Young had the longest career of any astronaut. He piloted the first fight of a Gemini spacecraft, alongside commander Gus Grissom, commanded another Gemini mission, then flew two Apollo missions to the Moon, and finally commanded the first and ninth flights of the space shuttle. During Apollo 16, he spent 71 hours on the surface of the Moon, and also flew the lunar module. With his passing, just five living human beings have walked on the Moon: Buzz Aldrin, 87; Alan Bean, 85; Dave Scott, 85; Charlie Duke, 82; and Harrison Schmitt, 82.
After earning a degree in aeronautical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1952, Young joined the US Navy. He was not eligible for the initial Mercury class of astronauts in 1959, but he was a member of the next nine selected in 1962, a legendary class that included Neil Armstrong, Jim Lovell, and others who flew many of the Gemini and Apollo missions.
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We’re probably crazy for seeing any light at the end of Bright’s orc tunnel.
If you thought nothing in this world could make your head explode more than the orcs-as-juggalos weirdness of last month's Will Smith film Bright, its distributor at Netflix had a surprise doozy to announce this week: the movie has already officially become a franchise. The straight-to-Netlfix flick, which debuted on December 22, had its sequel confirmed on Wednedsay.
Smith didn't even have time to establish a series of "welcome to Earth"-level quotes and memes before an executive decided that we needed more modern-day Tolkien in our lives. After seeing the film, we don't necessarily agree. Still, the sequel's news gives us an opportunity to give the buddy-cops-and-orcs film a post-holiday examination. What was actually decent about Bright? What good stuff might a sequel pull off? And why don't I feel all that optimistic?
Read 23 remaining paragraphs | Comments
We’re probably crazy for seeing any light at the end of Bright’s orc tunnel.
If you thought nothing in this world could make your head explode more than the orcs-as-juggalos weirdness of last month's Will Smith film Bright, its distributor at Netflix had a surprise doozy to announce this week: the movie has already officially become a franchise. The straight-to-Netlfix flick, which debuted on December 22, had its sequel confirmed on Wednedsay.
Smith didn't even have time to establish a series of "welcome to Earth"-level quotes and memes before an executive decided that we needed more modern-day Tolkien in our lives. After seeing the film, we don't necessarily agree. Still, the sequel's news gives us an opportunity to give the buddy-cops-and-orcs film a post-holiday examination. What was actually decent about Bright? What good stuff might a sequel pull off? And why don't I feel all that optimistic?
Read 23 remaining paragraphs | Comments
Offshore federal land requires state infrastructure.
Enlarge / Aerial view of an oil production platform in the Gulf of Mexico with a flare of the coast of Port Fourchon, Louisiana's southernmost port, where land loss due to coastal erosion is estimated to be more than the size of footaball field every hour. (Photo by Julie Dermansky/Corbis via Getty Images) (credit: Getty Images)
On Thursday, the Department of the Interior (DOI) announced a proposal to expand federal offshore drilling areas substantially, which could put more than 90 percent of the federal offshore land known to contain oil and gas up for auction in the five years between 2019 and 2024.
The offshore drilling areas include areas off the coast of Alaska, in the Pacific Region, in the Gulf of Mexico, and in the Atlantic Region. But states like California, Oregon, and Washington, as well as Virginia and Florida, are likely to push back on federal approval to drill off their coasts—even if the state itself doesn't have jurisdiction over the federally-owned ocean floor being sold.
This week's announcement comes just a week after the Trump Administration's DOI proposed a rollback of rules promulgated after the Deepwater Horizon explosion in 2010. The Deepwater explosion killed 11 oil rig workers and resulted in millions of gallons of oil spilled in the Gulf of Mexico, followed by widespread environmental devastation. After the spill, the Obama Administration proposed rules requiring third-party certifications of certain equipment used on oil rigs, expanded failure reporting requirements, and new system design safety requirements among other things. The Trump Administration contends that these requirements are burdensome for oil drillers (PDF).
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Another year, another road test for my work gear. The Consumer Electronics Show officially kicks off on Tuesday, but I’m currently on my way to Las Vegas because pre-show craziness kicks off on Sunday. As usual, I’m trying to keep my report…
Another year, another road test for my work gear. The Consumer Electronics Show officially kicks off on Tuesday, but I’m currently on my way to Las Vegas because pre-show craziness kicks off on Sunday. As usual, I’m trying to keep my reporting kit pretty light-weight, since I’ll be lugging it around in a backpack all […]
Brad’s mobile reporting kit for CES 2018 is a post from: Liliputing
Mit dem Nitro 5 hat Acer ein Spiele-Notebook im Angebot, das einen Ryzen Mobile als Prozessor mit einer Radeon-Grafikeinheit kombiniert. Das 15,6-Zoll-Gerät dürfte gut 1.000 Euro kosten. (
Mit einer Bauhöhe von 8,98 mm hat Acer erneut das dünnste Notebook überhaupt im Angebot. Neu beim Swift 7 sind unter anderem ein LTE-Modem und eine beleuchtete Tastatur. (
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