You tell us: The best tech gifts of 2011
Regardless of what you celebrate, you almost certainly gave and received a number of presents this vacation season. Amongst individuals presents, we’re betting that (considering that you’re reading Geek.com and all) some of them have been rather geeky. So fill us in: What was the best tech present that you gave or received this year?
It doesn’t matter if it is something that you made, someone we’ve never heard of, or a thing that absolutely everyone has, it is all about the thoughtfulness of the gift and the effect it will have. Was it a copy of Skyrim? How about an great LED bulb? This is your chance to geek out, to brag about that perfect gift you gave to the geek in your life, and even to display off a tiny.
Personally, I believe the best tech gift I gave this year was an Amazon Kindle Touch. My dad is an avid reader but had nevertheless to jump on the ebook reader bandwagon. What can I say — I attempted to convince him, but he goes to the library all the time, buys utilised books when they are readily available, and couldn’t believe that ebooks bought from Amazon weren’t transferable to other readers.
Then why get him a Kindle, you ask? First off, he’s doing some traveling soon, so good luck taking that stack of books on a plane. Up coming, my mom informed me that with those “free” library books he’s been getting killed with late fees. Third, I was going to buy him a $ 26 book that ended up becoming free by way of Amazon’s Cost-free Book Collection (it is an out of copyright perform). This shaved a third of the value off the Kindle from the begin. Finally, my parent’s are Amazon Prime subscribers, so that have complete access to the Kindle Lending library, which is over 60,000 operates at this point — with no late costs or driving to the library. (So yes, I gave this a lot of believed.) I’m pretty certain that he loves it (the text-to-speech was a major hit) and it’s going to have a optimistic effect on his studying.
I usually ask people not to get me tech stuff as presents — for the clear reasons — the finest tech gift that I received this year was an awesome La Crosse battery charger. It operates with NiCd and NiMH, various battery brands, and different battery sizes. And I believe absolutely everyone is aware of that you can in no way have as well several AAs lying about.
‘Late 2011 iMacs’? (Updated)
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Lucasfilm Shuts Down Local Star Wars Marathon Over Copyright
A group of Star Wars fans in New York had been organizing a marathon of all six movies at their regional bar, but have canceled the occasion right after receiving a cease and desist letter from Lucasfilm. The letter apparently declared the marathon in violation of copyright, and said they’d forbidden public screenings.
I do not know about you, but I don’t believe I’ll be giving Lucasfilm any of my money for a whilst. Believe about it, Lucasfilm. Every thing you have is because of people like these guys, who have been just attempting to put with each other a really like-fest for your golden-egg-laying goose. This kind of factor does not go more than well.
[via TechDirt]
US demands UK student extradition to face copyright infringement charges
Richard O’Dwyer, a 23-year-old student studying computer science at Sheffield Hallam University, created the website TV Shack. Its sole purpose was to offer links to thousands of movies and TV shows from around the web. In return, he generated advertising revenue from the site, but also caught the attention of the US government who have now shut it down.
The problem the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement department had with the site stems from the fact the sources O’Dwyer linked to were not legitimate and therefore formed a copyright infringement. Even though TV Shack did not host any content, O’Dwyer has been targeted by the US government and wants him extradited to face charges. If they succeed, he could face up to 5 years in a US prison.
While O’Dwyer clearly did something wrong by linking to illegal content, it’s unclear why he is facing the charges of copyright infringement when he has done no such thing. His crime is linking to such content and therefore advertising it exists, he did not illegally copy and distribute the content himself.
O’Dwyer’s mother is asking for “common sense to bear” and hopes the UK government will not allow the extradition to go ahead. The family has hired lawyer Ben Cooper, who also represents the now famous hacker Gary McKinnon.
U.S. Copyright Group suing 23,000 BitTorrent downloaders
If you’re a BitTorrent user and you’ve illegally downloaded the 2010 action flick The Expendables, you may be receiving word soon from the U.S. Copyright Group that you’re being sued. There are thought to be over 23,000 BitTorrent users who have been caught pirating the movie.
The pirates were found thanks to permission from a federal judge to subpoena Internet service providers to find the identities of the illegal downloaders. Each person that’s notified may face up to a $ 150,000 fine, but most settlements usually end up being around $ 3,000. Still, $ 3,000 for a movie that got a 41-percent rating on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer, is quite a lot to pay. Okay, so the movie stars Sylvester Stallone, Mickey Rourke, Jet Li, Bruce Willis, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, but still, I wouldn’t want to pay that much money for it.
When Thomas Dunlap, the head of the Copyright Group in Washington, D.C., first started the court case in February, he had 6,500 IP addresses. As of last Wednesday, he had 23,322. That’s quite the increase in number in just a few months. Now that the Copyright Group has the subpoena, that number could grow even more.
But this 23,000-strong case is nothing compared to the over 140,000 BitTorrent users facing lawsuits in the U.S. for pirating files. Most of the files are porn or B-list films. Since film companies can make so much money off of these types of cases, some have apparently started paying people to troll BitTorrent sites and find the IP addresses of people who are sharing.
Let this be a lesson to our readers that film companies are cracking down even more. Since it’s become a form of profit, companies aren’t just sitting idly by anymore; they’re actively looking for ways to make money. And whereas you’re thinking you’re saving a few bucks by pirating a movie, the company is thinking how many thousands of dollars it can get out of you for the same thing.
Incoming search terms:
- incredibles downloads stallone to sue
Ralph McQuarrie Star Wars paintings are a must have
Ralph McQuarrie is the guy who conceptionalized visually the entire Star Wars trilogy. Here is a small collection of artwork which has played a major role in the Star Wars trilogy as we have seen it.
Each of the images you see after the jump will open up upon clicking to become high-resolution versions for your download and/or use. They’re under copyright to Ralph himself more than likely, so don’t go printing them up and selling them, but feel free to use them as wallpapers n such. Mr McQuarrie is a kind fellow who would love for you to use his artwork to liven up your digital device.
Incoming search terms:
- star wars painting
- star wars paintings
- ralph mcquarrie high resolution scans
- hi res ralph mcquarrie gallery
- ralph mcquarrie star wars
- ralph mcquarrie star wars sketches
- star wars ralph mcquarrie art work
YouTube schools copyright infringers with cutesy video
Any YouTube user who receives a copyright notification will be forced to sit through a cutesy cartoon showing them the error of their ways, as part of a new campaign launched by the video sharing site this week.
The mandatory video, titled YouTube Copyright School, is a hard hitting animation which demonstrates just how much trouble an animated otter can get into for submitting copyrighted video.
In it, a hapless sea otter pirate named Russell is desperate to share a video of Lumpy, the singing moose.
Pop quiz, hot shot
Several yarrrrr-extracting video faux pas later, and Russell finally knows what he can upload (his own content) and what he can’t (anything else).
YouTube is keen to avoid any copyright lawsuits and has a stringent process for removing unauthorised content, as well as controls for copyright owners to easily allege an offence.
Copyright Group Wins Legal Right to Subpoena Thousands of File Sharers
Saturday March 26, 2011
If you thought that the era of copyright holders suing individuals for huge sums of money because they shared or downloaded copyrighted material on the Internet were over, think again. The US Copyright Group recently won a court ruling by a federal judge in Washington DC that will allow the group to, on behalf of their clients, subpoena ISPs across the country to turn over the identities of users who have used BitTorrent to trade in copyrighted material at any point in time.
The federal judge ruled only that the US Copyright Group had the legal right to query ISPs for the information and that the ISPs were legally obligated to turn over the material in compliance with a subpoena. He left plenty of room for individuals who are identified in the process to offer their own defenses, have their cases disjoined from the thousands of other users the Group wants to bundle them in with, or have their cases move to the jurisdiction in which they live.
Civil liberties and privacy groups like the ACLU have battled the lawsuit for years and are likely to protest the ruling, but for the time being, the ruling stands and there’s little to stand between the group obtaining file sharers’ personal information, mailing them a letter threatening them with legal action and offering an out-of-court settlement for some sum of money, and eventually scaring those users into submission and out of their money.
Incoming search terms:
- US Copyright Group
