I just happened to stumble across this little article and thought I should share it with you, call it a gimmick, or just a neat email address, or both, it still boasts free 2GB of storage.

I’m proud to present that Bink.nu in colaboration with Windows Live Mail provides free 2 Gigabyte mailboxes for its members. I managed to get this very special domain name vista.aero and I’m sharing it with you!

This can also be your primary Windows Live Messenger ID!

View: Sign Up!
Source: Bink.nu

You think your broadband provider is expensive, try US$3,355 per month for a 1.5Mbps DSL connection. Welcome to the internet in Kazakhstan. With DSL prices like these, it’s no wonder Borat left Kazakhstan behind! A new report from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (PDF) paints a grim picture of Internet access in Kazakhstan and shows how difficult life can be for those in poor and authoritarian countries who want to join the worldwide community of Internet users.

Consider the prices for Internet access, for one. Most users (and only four percent of the country even has access) hook up through state-owned Kazakhtelecom, a company not concerned with competitive pricing for its services. An unlimited dial-up plan costs about €82 (US$111) in a country where the average monthly wage is €292 (US$399). As for DSL, an unlimited 1.5Mbps connection costs €2,458 (US$3,355) a month, and doesn’t even included the required ADSL modem. Want a 6Mbps cable connection? It’ll cost you, to the tune of €16,144 (US$22,032) a month. As the OSCE report drily notes, this is more than a thousand times the price of such a connection in Western Europe.

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Source: Ars Technica via Neowin

Also offers the ability to download video content using a custom client which also scans if the user has downloaded copyrighted files.

MediaDefender Inc, the "leading provider of anti-piracy solutions in the emerging Internet-Piracy-Prevention (IPP) industry" has launched a website called "MiiVi" dedicated to busting those who both like to download copyrighted content as well as those who already have.

The site is apparently the latest ploy in the ongoing battle against illegal file-sharing and literally takes the game to new heights. It offers WHOLE DOWNLOADS of movies as well as the ability to download and install a "miraculous" new program that offers "fast and easy downloading all in one great site." There's just one problem: the site's registered to MediaDefender Inc. and it's army of prying eyes are just nipping at the bud to take down those who are unaware.

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Source: ZeroPaid

Brokep over at the Pirate Bay responds to word that TorrentSpy and ISOHunt have caved in to the demands of the MPAA and he's none too happy.

Just a little while ago Brokep over the Pirate Bay Skyped me about a post he made in his blog about recent reports that Justin Bunnel over at TorrentSpy has created a new system called FileRights to automatically remove copyrighted content from the site.

He doesn't pull any punches, in fact starting with the title "PrivacySpy," and closing with "So f—k you filerights.com. Thank god that technology is smarter than some of it's users."

View: Brokep's Blog
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Source: ZeroPaid via Flexbeta

It's the deal you never thought would happen: MySpace acquiring Photobucket, the "parasite" that fed off MySpace traffic and hosted a massive number of MySpace photos. There’s no word on whether the US$300M price tag, which Photobucket was being shopped around for, was met.

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Source: Mashable via Flexbeta

Until now nobody could have an Gmail e-mail address unless he/she got an invitation from another Gmail user. From today anybody can have a @gmail account. After a period of nearly three years, you can apply for an e-mail address without invitation. Since the introduction of Gmail in April 2004 the web mail service became one of the biggest rivals of Microsoft Hotmail. The big advantage of Gmail was the 1Gb of storage space they had over other providers. Now the storage space has increased to 2814,522021 MB and is still increasing every second.

For now the service still has the beta tag, and if they will get rid of that in a short time isn't known for now. It's also possible that Google has to deliver it's Gmail in Europe under another name because of the law suit filled by Daniel Giersch, owner of the company G-mail. German and British users will have a @googlemail.com account instead of a @gmail.com account, and there is a chance that the whole Europe will suffer this fate.

View: Make your own account
Source: MSFN via Tweakers

The music industry opened up a new front in the war on online music piracy yesterday, threatening to sue internet service providers that allow customers to illegally share copyrighted tracks over their networks.

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, or IFPI, said it would take action against internet companies that carry vast amounts of illegally shared files over their networks. It stressed that it would prefer not to pursue such a strategy and is keen to work in partnership with internet providers.

John Kennedy, the chairman of the IFPI, said he had been frustrated by internet companies that have not acted against customers involved in illegal activity. He warned that litigation against ISPs would be instigated “in weeks rather than months”. Barney Wragg, the head of EMI’s digital music division, said the industry had been left “with no other option” but to pursue ISPs in the courts.

The IFPI wants ISPs to disconnect users who refuse to stop exchanging music files illegally. Mr Kennedy said such activity is in breach of a customer’s contract with the ISP and disconnecting offenders the IFPI had identified would significantly reduce illegal file sharing.

Source: The Independent via Neowin

isoHunt Web Technologies Inc the popular BitTorrent search website has been taken offline by it’s Internet Service Provider. In a statement on their website, which is now hosted on a Canadian ISP they have said that it’s most likely “related to our lawsuit brought by the MPAA” (Motion Picture Association of America).

They haven’t ruled out going back to their original US based ISP but are also looking into a permanent move to Canada.

In an update to their original statement they ruled out moving to Sweden or Sealand with the following statement “FYI, since this is a common topic, no, moving servers to Sweden or Sealand isn’t going to help. I have no intention of hiding. BitTorrent was created for legitimate distribution of large media files, and we stand by that philosophy as a search engine and aggregation. Our current ISP is in the US. Our new ISP is in Canada, where this temporary page is being served. Depending on whether we get our servers back in the US, we will be back in full operation sooner or later.”

ISOHUNT serves both as a legitimate search engine for large BitTorrent files as well as a thorn for hosting torrents that enable guests to download full versions of just about anything available illegally.

View: ISOHUNT Statement
Source: Neowin

A new search engine, Cranky, was launched earlier this week and plans to profit from age-specific ads by targeting the 50-year-old-plus baby boomer. The man behind the site is Jeff Taylor, known for founding the online employment site Monster.com. The name “cranky” was chosen by Taylor - it supposedly illustrates his mood whenever he gets lost searching the web.

Now CEO at Eons, Taylor hopes that the search engine’s design will simplify Web searching by only displaying results pertinent to someone at least 50 years of age. Compete, an online market research company, helped the site find advertisements by identifying and analyzing 5,000 of the most popular Web sites used by a group of 500,000 users aged 45 and up.

Cranky includes a user interface that limits the first page to the top four authoritative sites matching the search term. The sites are rated and reviewed by Eons members and the ratings in turn influence the top sites. The search engine can potentially improve as more users engage with rankings. Of course, any rating system is prone to abuse and Cranky.com will have quite a workout converting users from other search engines already out there.

View: Cranky
Source: InfoWorld via Neowin

One of the lawyers involved in defending cases bought against people by the RIAA claims that if the music industry wins a crucial case, the Internet will have to be switched off.

Speaking on the DefectiveByDesign anti-DRM campaign site, Ray Beckerman said the case of Electro vs. Barker has become very important for the web’s future.

Barker was being defended by Beckerman who made a motion to dismiss the case because the RIAA had forgot to provide any acts or dates or times of copyright infringement as the law normally requires.

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