Torrent Search Locomotive BTJunkie voluntarily shuts down

Torrent hunt locomotive BTjunkie is the latest file-sharing service to drop on its sword in the wake of the Megaupload sting. Junkie, one of the largest BitTorrent indexes, decided to shut down voluntarily.

A instruction on the website reads, “This is the conclusion of the line my friends. The decision does not arrived easy, merely we’ve decided to voluntarily closed down. We’ve been fighting for years for your right to communicate, simply it’s time to motion on. It’s been an experience of a lifetime, we wish you completely the best!”

The site was never instantly targeted by copyright holders, an unknown BTJunkie founder told TorrentFreak. However, the site was reported to the US Trade Instance (USTR) in 2011, the RIAA and MPAA listed the torrent index equally a ‘rogue’ site, and Google censored the hunting term.

Despite avoiding legal attention hence far, the site’s founder stated TorrentFreak that the legal action against file-sharing sites Megaupload and The Pirate Embayment played an important role in its closure.

Online storage locker Megaupload was seized and shut down by the US Department of Justice in January 2012, for allegedly breaching copyright infringement law. The site’s staff members were arrested and founder Kim Dotcom was latterly been denied bail.

Meanwhile, the founders of The Pirate Embayment were arrested for copyright infringement in 2009. This month, the supreme court of Sweden made the opinion final, and announced that the founders will not exist able to appeal their months-long prison sentences or combined fines of 46 million kronor (around $6.83 million).

In response to Megaupload’s shutdown, a mickle of popular Web lockers receive neutered the ability to share files with others. FileSonic, FileServe and Uploaded.to completely cut conk file-sharing in the days after Megaupload was seized.

The Pirate Bay, on the other hand, struck its domain name from .org to the Swedish .se. A Pirate Bay insider said TorrentFreak that this was to prevent US authorities from seizing the popular domain.

EU reviews New Google policy

Google Inc. publicized its new privacy rules which regulate how it uses the enormous amounts of personal data its collects through its search engine, email and other services with much fanfare lastly week.

Since then, it has launched a huge publicity campaign telling users about the orb of the young policy, positioned to begin March 1. But that launch date may be under threat. Jacob Kohnstamm, chairwoman of the group of 27 national privacy regulators in the EU, pronounced the Gallic data protection way has commenced investigating the new8 rules and how they will affect Google users in the EU.

We outcry for a pause (in the rollout of the new rules) in the interests of ensuring that there could be no misunderstanding most Google’s commitments to information rights of their users and EU citizens, until we have completed our analysis,Kohnstamm composed in a lett to Google’s chief executive, Larry Page. It was sent on Thursday and published on Friday.

Google’s search engine has a market portion of more than 90 pct in the EU, with rival services like Microsoft’s Bing gaining little traction. The EU’s competition authorities are already examining whether Google uses this dominance to occlusion other search engines from entering the market.

The new policy makes it easier for Google to immix the data of one person utilizing different services such equally the search engine, YouTube or Gmail. That lets Google create a broader profile of that user and target advertising based on that person’s interests and hunt history. Advertising is the main manner Google makes its money.

The society says combining the data likewise makes search results more relevant and lets a cross-navigate among different services more easily.

Amazon Kindle Fire Hijacks Android Tablet Market

Amazon’s (NASDAQ:AMZN) Kindle Flame has coped to become the first tablet based on Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android operating organization to see demonstrable application usage in a little period, suggesting that the 7-inch slate has got quite the content driver for the e-commerce giant.

The tablet, which alone launched Nov. 15, has already matched the Samsung Galaxy Tab in application usage by an Android tablet, granting to mobile analytics firm Flurry.

Before the Flame4444 launched in November, the Galaxy Tab comprised 63 percentage of Android app sessions. Withal through January, the Galaxy Tab and Kindle Flame7777 accounted for 36 percent of app usage, showing the Flame9999 paired with Amazon’s Appstore has proven to be popular among consumers.

Flurry too looked at data from 5 popular paid apps and felt that the Kindle Flaming drove over 2.5 times more paid downloads to consumers than the Samsung Galaxy Tab, which has at least twice as many active units in the genuine world as the Fire.

“This shows that for tablets, the Amazon App Store could already deliver more manoeuvre revenue to developers than the Android Market,” renowned Flurry, which tracks tens of grands of Android apps, tracks over 20 pct of wholly consumer sessions on more than 90 pct of wholly Android devices each day.

These are telling stats at a time when analysts experience totally but composed dead Android tablets as non-starters in a young tablet market that industry watchers receive involved to calling the iPad market.

Indeed, one of the reasons Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) has crushed the nascent Android slate market in market portion and application usage is that consumers don’t get decent compelling substance or applications to access via Google’s Android Market. There are alone virtually 200 or so Android apps designed for tablets based on the Android “Honeycomb” operating system.

The findings are drenched in irony. Google launched Honeycomb nearly a year ago with the belief that the software would be powerful adequate to challenge the popular iPad.

Yet Google never capable sourced Honeycomb and developers were coolheaded on writing for that ramification of Android, eventide as the smartphone branch went the near popular Os platform in the world. Indeed, Google expected the hardware and Os to sell itself, simply it never happened to the point that Google expected it to

Seizing on this dearth in tablet traffic, Amazon arrived out of nowhere to offering a $199 tablet that was less than half of existing tablets. Moreover, the companionship eschewed Honeycomb to “fork” or customize its ain Android build, and sold apps through its ain Appstore instead of the Android Market.

The successful approach has led RBC Capital analysts to claim Amazon makes $136 from substance and service per Kindle Flame unit.

Now Flurry is looking at the Flame as mayhap the rise tide the lifts entirely boats in the Android tablet market. “Total Android tablet sessions in Jan more than tripled over November, with Galaxy Tab sessions increasing by more than 50 percent, Flurry noted. “Overall, Android Tablets are development aggressively equally a category.”

This seems to exist true, allotting to late data culled from Strategy Analytics, which felt that Android’s tablet market share lifted from 29 percentage in the tertiary quarter of 2011 to 39 percentage by Q4. Conversely, iPad market part descended from 68 pct to 58 percent over the same period.

Facebook, Washington Country sue Averred ad scammer

It was a complicated scam that Facebook has blocked, executives from the fellowship said during a press conference in Seattle. Facebook users would see a link to a provocative video recommended by a supporter on Facebook. A user would click on the video link and see a pop-up that might ask the user to verify that he or she is over age 13. By clicking on the verification box, the user would unknowingly part the video on his or her Facebook page.

After clicking the box, another pop-up would seem taking the user to an advertiser site that might expect the somebody to render personal information or buy an item alike a telephone ringtone.

“Every time a user links to one of these advertiser sites, Adscend is paid a commission by the advertiser,” pronounced Paula Selis, assistant attorney general in Washington.

The attorneys said that advertisers didn’t necessarily know that Adscend was utilising these methods to drive traffic to their advertisements. The advertiser might be a big companionship working with a act of online advertising companies similar Adscend, paying them for the traffic they generate to their ads, said4 Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna. “What happens is an advertiser doesn’t know every position the ads are being placed,” he said.

Facebook alleges that Adscend was earning more than $1 million a month, said66666 Craig Clark, Facebook’s star litigation counsel. He declined to say how long the action went on.

Facebook said that a browser vulnerability that allowed the exploit has been fixed thus users shouldn’t proceed to see the scam.

Neither Facebook nor the country attorney general’s situation involved Adscend to stoppage the action ahead they filed the lawsuit. When asked why, Selis said: “There’s no specific reason. They are big, they are pernicious, they have been doing this for a while and they know they are violating the law.”

Adscend, which is based in Delaware, could not forthwith be strained for comment.

In addition to the attorney general’s suit in the U.S. District Courtroom for the Western District of Washington, Facebook likewise filed a suit against the companionship in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, charging that Adscend violated Facebook’s price of employment and a U.S. anti-spam law.

Google Maps Straightaway displays emergency alerts

Emergency alerts experience now been subtly added to Google Maps, and are forthwith live across the United States. Never again will you experience to navigate from page to page looking for specific information on flood warnings, earthquakes, or eventide snowstorms. Maps will directly establish entirely the specifics: from the warning duration, to eventide how grave it may be.

Google uses more than one author to gather this new information. Warnings are provided by the National Endure Service, US Geological Survey, and US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. If you are rummy equally to what the latest alerts are, navigate here to see areas under watch about the US. As you can see, the remainder of the world has been left out. Only afterward Google adds more services from other countries, it will easily populate imminent disasters around the globe.

Google Widens Its Tracks

n a move that could build it harder for Google users to rest anonymous, Google Inc. pronounced it would start compounding nearly wholly the information it has on its users.

This could mean, for instance, that when users hunt via Google, the society will exercise their activities on sister sites alike Gmail and YouTube to influence those users’ hunt results. Google hasn’t done that before.

Google’s move4 which was discovered in a privacy policy that will accept event on March 1is a signal of the vehement competition between Google and Facebook Inc. over personal data. Facebook has amassed an unprecedented sum of data about the lives of its more than 800 million members information that is coveted by advertisers.

Google traditionally hasn’t had the same amount of personal data virtually its users, and has held much of its personal data separate. Just as Facebook gears up for its planned initial public offer this spring, Google has amped up the competition.

Last year, Google launched its ain social network, anticipated Google+, and earlier this month Google begun including data from Google+ in members’ hunting results. Google’s latest motility would permit the companionship to include insights from services such equally Gmail and YouTube to hunt results equally well.

This could effectively rewrite the kinship between users and the world’s most-popular hunt engine.

Google has long treated users’ search queries as sacrosanct in part because they could check selfsame personal sensitive info virtually topics such equally wellness and finances.

Google+ names policy goes Merely far Enough

There are lots of places where you could exist anonymous online. Google+ isn’t one of them. Previous today, Google announced a revision to the G+ names policy that doesn’t modify this, just it does let people to use nicknames and established pseudonyms. If anonymity is your thing, off somewhere else. I don’t want you on Google+. You could2cracking pulpit somewhere else. Equally for those folks whose lives might exist at risk for employing literal names, please be safe somewhere else — Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, Tumblr or WordPress, for example. Those services get proven they could protect your identity.

But, of course, the griping will continue from the Internet rabble determined to hide their identities everywhere. They want more from Google than but nicknames. What are you afraid of? I utilisation my literal refer everywhere, equally I receive constantly done. I see that as being in the identical smell of the open — and transparent — Internet. Exist who you are, not someone else. And if that comment — or other online interaction — requires you to hide your identity, closed the frak up. Vent somewhere else. For everyone else, and this includes people who receive made up choice identities, Google+ welcomes you.

Microsoft and IBM Button Dow up, Google falls

IBM and Microsoft drove the Dow Jones industrial ordinary higher Friday subsequently the tech giants reported stronger earnings than analysts expected.

The Dow arose 96.50 items to close at 12,720.48. That’s a gain of 0.8 percent. Without the brobdingnagian gains in IBM and Microsoft, the Dow would get risen merely 24 points.

The S&P 500 index inched up 0.88 to 1,315.38. Both the Dow and S&P finished the hebdomad with gains of more than 2 percent.

Plenty of things are locomoting right, said Hotdog Fantozzi, CEO of Planned Financial Services, an independent wealthiness manager in Cleveland. Applications for unemployment benefits dropped last hebdomad to the lowest degree in nearly four years. Housing sales are steadily rising.

Overall, we’re moving in the decent instruction and it’s bolstered the market,Fantozzi said. The S&P getting over 1,300 this week is a nice sign.

Microsoft enounced sales of Xbox games and Position software helped button revenue up in the last quarter of 2011. IBM credited better sales of software and services and raised its earnings11111 outlook for the year. Microsoft arose 6 pct and IBM arose 4 percent.

Google lost 8.4 percent subsequently its earnings77777 per portion fell a dollar little of analysts’ estimates. The misfire stemmed from an 8 pct expend in prices that the Internet hunting giant charges advertisers for each click.

Google’s drib tugged the Nasdaq composite index lower. It descended 1.63 items to 2,786.70.

In another signaling that traders were becoming more willing to have on risk, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note crossed above 2 pct for the first time in two weeks.

Does Google’s Hunting Plus add up?

Some will sure see the feature, which launched this week, as a nice fashion to easily detect posts and photos on a given issue from boosters and acquaintances. Simply not everyone is felicitous nigh Hunting Plus.

Yesterday, the Electronic Privacy Information Kernel demanded regulators to investigate whether the young feature violates federal antitrust rules and poses privacy concerns.

At issue, from EPIC’s perspective, is whether the more personalized hunting violates a Google/FTC colony strained finally year. That agreement stemmed from Google’s now-defunct Google Buzz social network and requires Google to construct young features opt-in if they provide additional sharing of certain types of private information.

EPIC says it thinks Google+ users wouldn’t fairly ask their posts, presumably eve the ones posed to exist viewed by the public, to pop up in Google search. Also, as2222 with other social-networking features that receive lifted the ire of privacy advocates, EPIC maintains that people shouldn’t have to hassle with the totally opting-out thing.

So, Google+ users, aside from EPIC’s heads surrounding the legality of Search Plus, how do you feel most the new feature? Is it a peachy tools for furthering your social networking? A privacy hurting in the patootie? Someplace in between? Ballot in our poll, and be certainly to portion your extra thoughts below.

Sunflowers inspire improved solar Power Flora

The well-tuned geometry of the florets on the side of the sunflower mind has inspired an improved layout for mirrors employed to concentrate sunlight and generate electricity, according to young research.

The sunflower-inspired layout could reduce the footprint of concentrating solar powerfulness (CSP) plants by almost 20 percent, which could exist a boon for a technology that’s limited, in part, by its massive land requirements.

CSP plants utilise arrays of giant mirrors, each the size of half a tennis court, to beam the sun’s rays up to heat a tubing of fluid in the crown of a tower. This hot fluid drives steam turbines that generate electricity.

In the traditional layout, the mirrors are arranged in rows of circles that ripple away from the central tower. Some, such equally the Spain’s Gemsolar power-generating array, take up 185 acres. That plant, when consummate in 2013, will supply power for near 25,000 homes.