Ed Oswald

The Pirate Bay has asked a Dutch court to order music industry group IFPI for monetary compensation for a block placed on it by ISP Tele2..

If the site wins its case, any monies received would go towards supporting independent artists who use file sharing to promote their music. Currently the original case between IFPI and Tele2 is under appeal.

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Looking to take on Google News, the Redmond company on Tuesday silently launched its own news aggregator. While Live Search News looks much more basic than what Google currently offers, it's a start.

The layout of the new Live Search News is somewhat similar to Google News, but also may remind some of Techmeme, another aggregator. Sections are listed across the top, with news headlines listed down the left column. Users are able to drill down from the major headlines by clicking "more on this story," which returns news articles having to do with the topic of the headline article.

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Comcast and partner Pando Networks are leading an effort to push the industry to adopt some common practices when it comes to dealing with file sharers.

Pando is providing the cable operator with its Network Aware P2P technology so that it can analyze traffic moving through its network. Comcast plans to publicize those test results so that other cable operators can optimize their networks to better handle P2P traffic.

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Designing according to consumer feedback, and even taking a little inspiration from Apple, Round Rock, Texas' Dell debuted its redesigned Vostro small business laptop.

The new release is part of a larger undertaking by Dell to expand its laptop portfolio by 50 percent during the year. Europe, the Middle East and Africa will be able to purchase the laptops Tuesday, while a launch is scheduled in the Americas for May 1, and the Asia-Pacific region on May 5.

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6:15 pm EDT April 16, 2008 - A first-hand investigation by Gizmodo appears to cast doubt on the identity and even the existence of Psystar as a company, after its team found no evidence of a computer company doing business at the address listed on its Web site, and especially after that address appears to change several times at random over the course of a single day.

4:42 pm EDT April 15, 2008 - Miami-based Psystar is now offering a Mac clone for $399, and is vowing to fight for its right to produce the device should Cupertino's lawyers come a-knocking.

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The press service said Monday that it would be soon offering its stories and videos to mobile users, including a site designed for Apple's iPhone.

Users will input a ZIP code, much the same way as for a weather service now. The press site will return local as well as national headlines. The service will be free and ad-supported, with local papers also able to place their ads on the site as well.

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A developer has found a way to host Google Apps on Amazon's Web services platform, and is open sourcing his solution.

When Google released App Engine, some saw it as a way to lock in applications created within Google Apps from being transferred to to any other Web services provider. This would essentially diminish the attractiveness of start-ups from an acquisition perspective, analysts said, for anyone other than Google, or those who may not mind allowing Google to continue hosting its data.

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Officials for the city say that it has come to the point where Corpus Christi will move ahead with its municipal wireless network without EarthLink.

Corpus Christi signed an agreement with the ISP in March of last year for about $5.7 million in total. While the network was said to be completed in August, plans were thrown into chaos after EarthLink backed out of muni Wi-Fi.

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It's a sign of the times: the city's Wi-Fi network has been turned on, but nowhere near what it was initially billed to be.

The mesh network covers a single square mile of St. Louis' downtown from North Tucker Boulevard to the Mississippi River from west to east, and Carr Street to Highway 40 from north to south.

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Using the NAB's yearly meeting as a backdrop, Sony reaffirmed its commitment to Blu-ray Java by announcing new upgrades to authoring software from in-house and third-party sources.

Sony has hopes that pushing BR-J harder will help silence critics who often pointed out Toshiba's now defunct HD DVD format was far more advanced in authoring functionality. Making BD-J easier to use is likely a top priority for the Japanese company.

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Likely a move to avoid the legal pitfalls besieging other file sharing sites at the moment, YouTorrent has announced that it will only index sites that compile licensed content.

The indexer only launched in early January, but it has quickly become one of the Web's most visited BitTorrent sites. According to the company, the site now averages about 10 million unique visitors a month.

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Analysts from Gartner said earlier this week that Windows is collapsing under its own weight. Talk in the blogosphere keeps pointing to a Windows 7 release date earlier than 2010. Is Vista already a lame duck?

ANALYSIS Certainly Microsoft wants to avoid another debacle on the scale of Windows Me, an operating system release that tilted more toward a mistake than an upgrade, and whose publicity turned into pushback from both customers and the press.

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Even though not a single phone equipped with the OS is available commercially as of yet, Opera said Thursday it had ported a version of its browser to Android.

Interested parties can download the technical preview from the company's website, and are being asked to submit feedback before Opera launches the product in beta.

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The video game "Bully" has been ordered to be taken off the shelves in South America's largest nation following a Thursday ruling.

Produced by Rockstar Games, it is distributed by JPF Magazine in Brazil. A local youth support center requested a ban, which Judge Flavio Rabello granted. Retailers in the country have been given 30 days to comply.

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Those who purchased an HD DVD set-top player through Amazon will be eligible for a $50 credit towards a future purchase..

Customers can choose to spend the money in any way they see fit, including putting it toward Blu-ray player. It is not the first time a retailer has attempted to appease those who may have bought into HD DVD: Best Buy and Wal-Mart have done the same.

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