Romanian ISP blocks torrent site
TF is reporting that Romanian ISP UPC Romania subscribers headed to the large Romanian torrent site Torrentbits.ro will have blocked access, another setback for the site which has been trying to come back since it was raided by the police last year.
The new move by the ISP mirrors that of the more famous case involving the The Pirate Bay in which all Italian ISPs blocked the site at the pressuring of the IFPI. The Pirate Bay successfully won an appeal in court however and is now unblocked in the country.
UPC Romania has over 1 million subscribers currently and users had been reporting problems accessing the site for days. Users from other ISPs receive this message on the frontage however, addressing the problem.
PlayStation Store for PSP coming to Japan
Sony has confirmed that it will be giving Japanese PSP users direct access to the PlayStation Store via the handheld’s built-in Wi-Fi connection.
Beginning on October 15th, users will be able to use the store to purchase and download any game that would normally only be available on UMD from that point forward. The downloads will have faster loading times and get rid of the need to carry around the physical UMD.
There will also be add-ons and in-game items available from the store for current games as well as future games.
No word was given on whether users could download movies or music but the company did promise “more network services” for the handheld by the end of 2008.
There was no word on European or North American launches but it is safe to say we will see the update at some point.
YouTube to play full TV episodes with ads
Google has announced that it will begin offering full-length TV episodes through its YouTube platform beginning this week, thanks to a content deal with CBS.
“This is what the users want,” noted Jordan Hoffner, the director of content partnerships for YouTube.
The videos will of course be free to YouTube users but will have advertisement before, during and after the episode, similar to rival video site Hulu which promotes NBC Universal content.
Shiva Rajaraman, a senior product manager for YouTube, added that the company is still searching for the “right ad format for the right content experience.” For the time being it remains committed to in-video overlays for short clips but is still experimenting with longer videos.
Users heading to the CBS page on YouTube will find classic shows such as “MacGyver” and “Beverly Hills: 90120″ as well as newer shows such as “Dexter” and “Californication.”
BBC iPlayer goes portable
The BBC has announced that its popular iPlayer service has gone portable and will be compatible with a large list of portable devices, including the Apple iPod Touch and iPhone.
“This is the first time that you can play BBC iPlayer TV programmes on a range of portable media devices,” says Anthony Rose on the official iPlayer blog.
Rose says the iPlayer will work on Sony Walkman E and S series, Archos 605 WIFI and Internet Media Tablet, Philips GoGear 52xx series, Samsung YP-P2 and YP-Q1 and Nokia N96 devices. The entire list, which is updated weekly, is available here.
If your device does not have Wi-Fi, you will have to download the shows and not stream, but Rose notes that any PMP that can play “PlaysForSure” media (now known as “Certified For Windows Vista”) is compatible.
“If the device packaging mentions ‘PlaysForSure’, that’s a good sign…for our Mac and Linux users, don’t despair: we have another release coming up very soon, aimed at improving your BBC iPlayer options - stay tuned for updates…” Rose adds.
SlingCatcher finally becomes available
After first being announced at CES 2007, Sling Media has finally announced the availability of the SlingCatcher playback device, 18 months after its initial unveiling.
The SlingCatcher, according to Cnet is a “playback device that’s designed to pull digital content from three sources and display them on your TV. It can play a variety of digital video files from an attached USB storage device (anything from a thumbdrive to a hard drive); display anything on your PC screen (including full-motion video) via the SlingProjector “screen scraping” software; and stream video from any source connected to a Slingbox (elsewhere in the house in high-resolution, or from a remote Slingbox source over the Internet at lesser quality).”
The SlingCatcher, especially with its $300 USD price tag, may seem like a niche product for the time being, but it stands to gain momentum when a few more features are upgraded.
Sling Media’s has already introduced Sling.com which it calls a “premium library of movies, TV shows, and Web videos” which already has content deals with NBC, Fox, CBS, Showtime, Break.com, National Geographic, and MGM. Dave Zatz, a former Sling employee adds “SlingCatcher will eventually tap directly into Sling.com for some web video, perhaps partially taking the PC out of the mix.”
Good to see it finally on the market.
Wal-Mart decides to maintain DRM servers
Last month we reported that Wal-Mart was shutting down its MP3 DRM servers, effectively killing off any music you have purchased from the retailer, unless you burn the music to CD and then rip it back DRM-free.
It appears the giant retailer has done an about face after public backlash and will keep the servers running at “the present time,” according to Ravi Jariwala, a Walmart.com spokesman.
The decision follows that of both Yahoo and MSN who decided to shut down their servers and reversed the decision after public backlash.
“(Walmart.com) will continue to evaluate options and no decisions have been made at this point. In the meantime, we’ll continue to offer MP3 downloads through our online music store and will assist with DRM issues for protected Windows Media Audio (WMA) files purchased from Walmart.com,” added Jariwala.
“New Xbox Experience” coming November 19th
Microsoft VP John Schappert has confirmed today at the Tokyo Game Show event that the Xbox 360 “New Xbox Experience (NXE)” dashboard revamp is coming on November 19th to 26 countries and in 19 languages.
The NXE will completely transform the intrerface of your console but the biggest change is the move to cover flow-esque navigation, working the same way Vista’s Aero task switcher does. From there you can cycle through various channels (avatars, demos, new movies, Netflix, etc) and it appears there will be an expansion of channels, from the current 5.
NXE will certainly include Netflix support with the ability to stream over 15,000 movies, concerts and TV shows to your 360. You can also “stream the movie with up to seven other consoles in a ‘party’ you can also haul around the dashboard, in and out of movies or games.”
The NXE also adds Mii-like avatars where gamers can customize a character to look like them (or anyone else) including the face, hair, body and clothing and accessories.
More notably, NXE will give you the ability to copy your retail purchased game to the hard drive, which slows down load times and also saves your drive’s laser in the long run.
NXE officially adds 16:10 plus 1440×900 and 1680×1050 widescreen VGA and HDMI support. Fans should applaud this as it will remove most black formatting bars and will offer high resolutions for VGA and HDMI users.
The new interface update will also include a new channel called “Xbox Live Primetime” which is basically a party game (think GSN) channel for XBL members.
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Blu-ray external drive coming very soon for Xbox 360?
According to an Xbit Labs report, the popular Xbox 360 console will be getting an external Blu-ray disc drive, and “soon.”
The report says that Toshiba-Samsung Storage Technology Corp. has been contracted by Microsoft to begin manufacturing the drive and that it will sell for the cheap price of $100-150 USD, in an effort to stay competitive with the Sony PlayStation 3, which has a built-in Blu-ray drive.
Of course this isn’t the first time that we have heard of Xbox 360 Blu-ray rumors but it is the first since June.
Microsoft did not comment on the report and has always maintained that their business model was geared towards digital downloads.
Amazon plans to open streaming video store
During his speech at the “D6: All Things Digital conference”, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has been quoted as saying that his company has been working on a pay-per-view streaming service and that the new option should be launching within the next few weeks.
The service is “meant for a subset of people willing to pay to view sans ads.” It is also clear that the service will be in addition to the to the digital downloads offered by Amazon Unbox.
Bezos also added that his company is not trying take down the market leader iTunes but that “sensible owners want alternatives” and with that statement he is very correct.
It should be interesting to see how well this service works and we will keep you updated.
MPAA goes after Newzbin
The premier Usenet indexing site Newzbin has announced that it is now under attack from the MPAA and it seems the the service will either have to change significantly or face a shutdown.
Newzbin is the creator of the NZB format, generally considered to be Usenet’s equivalent of a .torrent file. Usenet was generally considered to be complicated to use before the format emerged.
It seems the MPAA has noticed as well however. Newzbin administrator ‘Caesium’ made this announcement last week:
“Newzbin has today received a letter from the Motion Picture Association (MPA). In the letter, they claim that some editors may be reporting material from Usenet that is infringing the copyright of their members.
While these claims have not been substantiated, it should be noted that Newzbin does not condone the distribution or indexing of such materials. We will immediately act to remove any items that are found to be infringing copyright.
Please take a moment to refer to our Terms and Conditions, in particular sections 4 and 4.2.
Please note that we may revoke privileges, or ban accounts, of users found to be violating these Terms and Conditions.”
The MPAA could have issues however. The company complies completely with UK laws and they remove any infringing files when notified. In the past the MPAA has shut down several US-based NZB sites such as NZB-Zone and forced others to adjust the way they operate.
Caesium also noted that there might have to be changes implemented for the site to keep running, such as having all “.NZB related reports removed.” They could also follow the arrangement of BinNews.com which removed “only the posts related to movies and TV shows,” when the MPAA came knocking.
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