By way of comparison, Diablo IIItook nearly six months to sell 10 million copies after its troubled launch back in 2012. But that game sold for a $60 MSRP, making it hard to compare directly to a free-to-play game that has so far brought in an estimated average of less than $5 in earnings per download, according to Appmagic.
TPB AFK followed the co-founders of The Pirate Bay during their infamous trial in Sweden and 10 years later, legendary Indian piracy phenomenon Tamilrockers is set to make its own screen debut. A teaser for the new Sony thriller series lifts the veil on the shadowy world of torrent site operators as they take on battalions of cops, beautiful women, and chaotic gunfights in the street.
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
Notable for their rise and public demise, piracy-related brands such as Napster, LimeWire, and Megaupload are still widely recognized today, despite their shutdowns long ago.
Then there’s The Pirate Bay, a site that has endured almost 20 years of chaos yet still hasn’t fallen, largely due to the groundwork of three instantly recognizable figureheads – Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm.
Part of their remarkable story is told in the excellent Simon Klose documentary ‘TPB AFK‘ but despite that being a great film, in some respects it fell a little short. For example, the Pirate Bay co-founders were never shown in an armed shoot-out with police in Stockholm.
Admittedly, that never actually happened but in this day and age, there’s less need for facts to get in the way of a good story. Especially when that story is about another infamous torrent site, one that in spiritual terms is the closest thing India has to The Pirate Bay.
Thrill, Drama, Crime: Tamil Rockers Has it All
Tamil Rockers launched as a torrent site in 2011, offering all of the usual types of pirate booty. In common with The Pirate Bay, over the years Tamil Rockers gained a cult following, with folklore recalling the group’s humble beginnings in a Chennai shed, a great setup for any movie.
Like its Swedish counterpart, Tamil Rockers soon became enemy number one for the local movie industry and in 2015, there was even talk of movie releases being suspended to ensure the site had no content to pirate.
Since then the site has been blocked by ISPs and numerous proxies, mirrors, clones, and copycats have emerged. Police have also made many arrests, often claiming to have detained key Tamil Rockers staff.
In 2020, however, it was still one of the most popular torrent sites in the world so the next logical step for irritated entertainment companies was to make a Tamil Rockers TV series with glitz, glamor and chaotic police shoot-outs – obviously.
Tamil Rockerz – The TV Series
Headquartered in Chennai, allegedly just 15 minutes from the original Tamil Rockers shed, sits AVM Productions, the veteran movie and TV show company behind the upcoming series ‘Tamil Rockerz’.
“Tamil Rockerz deep dives into the dark side of the piracy world and unravels the industry’s constant battle against identifying the group that is involved in releasing pirated content,” AVM says.
The series will be released on streaming platform SonyLIV and promises to ask the big questions right off the bat.
The plot seems to center around Rudra, a cop struggling with an inevitably troubled past. His mission – should he choose to accept it (spoiler: he did) – is to stop the TamilRockerz piracy group from leaking an upcoming, big-budget, blockbuster movie.
A movie called ‘Singadurai’ is mentioned in the trailer but whatever the movie’s name, Rudra has just 10 days to prevent a looming disaster for the local movie industry. The rumor is that TamilRockerz, whoever they are, might be invincible.
TamilRockerz stars Arun Vijay and Vani Bhojan, who was once voted the most desirable woman on Indian TV. It will stream on SonyLIV but a firm release date is yet to be announced.
AVM Productions is clearly aware of the nature of its target audience so has presumably made peace with the 100% chance the series will appear on TamilRockers sites and thousands more like them.
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
Imagine an online world where what users want matters, and interoperability reigns. Friends could choose whichever messaging app they like and seamlessly chat cross-app. Any pre-installed app could be deleted on any device. Businesses could finally access their Facebook data, and smaller tech companies could be better positioned to compete with giants. Big Tech could even face consequences for not preventing the theft of personal info.
As the US struggles to pass legislation to protect Internet consumers, in the EU, these ideals could become reality over the next few years. EU lawmakers today passed landmark rules to rein in the power of tech giants such as Alphabet unit Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook (Meta), and Microsoft, establishing a task force to regulate unfair business practices in Big Tech.
Amazon said that the company plans to evolve with Europe's "regulatory landscape" and review what the new legislation means for Amazon, its customers, and its partners. None of the other Big Tech companies mentioned immediately responded to a request for comment for this story.
Amazon Prime Day is still a week away, but just like Black Friday, Amazon’s annual sales event has a way of creeping forward. Case in point: Amazon is already running a bunch of “Early Prime Day Deals” that will let you pick up older…
Amazon Prime Day is still a week away, but just like Black Friday, Amazon’s annual sales event has a way of creeping forward. Case in point: Amazon is already running a bunch of “Early Prime Day Deals” that will let you pick up older Fire tablets for as little as $30, current-gen Echo Dot smart […]
New Gmail is coming to your account, but things are adjustable.
The new Gmail. It's blue and has a big sidebar, but there are options for both of these big changes. [credit:
Google ]
The new desktop Gmail design started rolling out this weekend. If you use the default theme, you'll know it has arrived when your entire Gmail interface turns blue. Gmail's new design first entered an opt-in preview in February, and after gathering feedback and fixing a few things, Google is pushing the design out to everyone. Everyone dislikes Gmail changes, so let's talk about what's different and how to turn it back.
A few things have changed between now and the February preview. The most striking change is the all-blue color scheme. Google's blog post says: "You’ll notice the new navigation now features Material You, our updated, fresh look and feel for your Google apps." "Material You" launched with Android 12 as a color-coordinated theming system that matched your OS color scheme with your wallpaper. There's no color-matching with Gmail's "Material You," though, just the blue color scheme.
Gmail still has a theme system, so you can change the color to whatever you want. Click on the settings gear in the top right and then under the "theme" section, click "view all." The background closest to the old Gmail is the solid "soft gray" background option. To truly match the Old Gmail background, you would want "white," but that's not an option. (You can also pick from your Google Photos collection via a "my photos" link at the bottom, and I tried uploading a solid-white background, but trying to apply it only brings up an error message). This "theme" screen is also where you can apply Gmail's weirdly hidden dark mode: Just pick the black background option, and everything will switch over to light text on a dark background.
A recent media release from market research firm IDC predicts that Meta (the parent company of Facebook) may not be able to compete in the mixed-reality business in the long run if its strategy remains unchanged.
The media release offers a bird's-eye view of the virtual reality hardware marketplace. In the release, IDC research manager Jitesh Ubrani said that, while "Meta continues to pour dollars into developing the metaverse, [the company's] strategy of promoting low-cost hardware at the expense of profitability isn't sustainable in the long run."
A similar concern was raised by tech industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo late last month. Kuo predicted that Meta would make moves to scale down investment in virtual reality, creating an opening for Apple and other competitors. He also wrote that Meta's practice of selling VR headsets at a loss is unsustainable.
The world's first laptop to use the RISC-V open source instruction set architecture (ISA) will reportedly start shipping in September.
The Roma laptop is available for preorder on Xcalibyte's website, but the site merely takes interested parties' information without providing much detail or any pricing. The laptop will start shipping in September, according to spokespeople from Xcalibyte, which did system tuning for the laptop; a company called DeepComputing, which engineered the laptop; and RISC-V International in a report Friday from The Register.
According to the announcement from DeepComputing (which shares the same CEO with Xcalibyte, The Register reported), the Roma uses an unspecified quad-core processor with a 28 nm or, for the "pro" version, 12 nm node in a system-on-module (SoM) package. There's also an Arm SecurCore SC300 security enclave processor, an unnamed GPU and neural processing unit, and a feature accelerator.
Eine schnelle und zuverlässige IT-Sicherheitsaussage für die geprüften Produkte, das verspricht das BSI. Doch welche Produkte sind betroffen? (BSI, Huawei)
Eine schnelle und zuverlässige IT-Sicherheitsaussage für die geprüften Produkte, das verspricht das BSI. Doch welche Produkte sind betroffen? (BSI, Huawei)
Die Kollaboration in virtuellen Teams lässt sich durch den cleveren Einsatz von Microsoft Teams optimieren. Der Online-Workshop der Golem Karrierewelt zeigt, wie’s geht. (Golem Karrierewelt, Microsoft)
Die Kollaboration in virtuellen Teams lässt sich durch den cleveren Einsatz von Microsoft Teams optimieren. Der Online-Workshop der Golem Karrierewelt zeigt, wie's geht. (Golem Karrierewelt, Microsoft)
Eine schnelle und zuverlässige IT-Sicherheitsaussage für die geprüften Produkte, das verspricht das BSI. Doch welche Produkte sind betroffen? (
Das schicke Baumhaus soll zu nachhaltigem Reisen anregen. (
Die Kollaboration in virtuellen Teams lässt sich durch den cleveren Einsatz von Microsoft Teams optimieren. Der Online-Workshop der Golem Karrierewelt zeigt, wie's geht. (
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