BitTorrent and Joost team up to spice legal downloads

There was a time when the P2P phenomenon, pioneered by avant-garde tech companies like BitTorrent caused most music industry execs plenty of heartaches and sleepless nights. After years of condemnation and a multitude of legal tussles, former bad-boys like Napster and BitTorrent have since changed ways and joined forces with the top entertainment companies.
Through the BitTorrent Entertainment Network (BEN), BitTorrent is now courting past detractors like Warner Bros, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, MGM, MTV and LionsGate to sell legal movies and TV shows downloads. The service will retail TV shows at $1.99 per download and rent movies at $3.99 for new titles ($2.99 for old titles). They are also promising to include High-definition video and Japanese anime to their stable. To add to this, the media content will be protected by Windows Media DRM, in a bid to stem illegal downloads and file-swapping. At the moment, Tinsel town bigwigs are very cautious with this idea of freely distributing films and TV shows over the internet. Especially when using P2P networks, taking into consideration the upsurge experienced in the past.
BitTorrent have now succeeded in striking this remarkable deal with the who’s who in the entertainment business. Aren’t they joining an already crowded arena? We have seen Apple TV, The unbox Amazon on TiVo deal, Walmart stores, CinemaNow and MovieLink among others. What will make them stand out? President and Co-founder of BitTorrent Ashwin Navin says that BEN will go beyond offering downloads of movies, TV shows, videos and games. BEN is planning on enhancing community building where users can post their own media content and make it available for download. This is seen as a noble way for independent filmmakers to gain exposure by distributing their own content. Besides, BitTorrent are not going it alone. They have teamed up with Joost (from the creators of Kazaa and Skype) to improve user experience. Joost, which is currently under test, specializes in ad-supported video streaming. Joost has a greatly enhanced service that features high-quality video display and the incorporation of customized widgets or plug-ins on the video screen to improve user-interactivity. Furthermore, Joost has an army of reputable content-providers namely Warner Music Group (WMG), MusicNation and Viacom. In addition to this, BitTorrent has the numbers (135 million) to give their competitors plenty of food for thought. It is also a given fact that both BitTorrent and Joost use P2P technology, their download speeds are unmatched and is less likely to be bothered by overwhelming user demand. It is for these reasons that this partnership is well poised to tackle the budding download industry with few hiccups.

Save costs with a cheaper, friendlier and a more functional Office suite package

They maintain that it was not their intention, but you don’t need to be an IT geek to see that this could turn out as a direct shot at MS Office. This means a sigh of relief for those small businesses keen to cut software costs for functionality. Google has unveiled Google Apps Premier edition, which features a host of simple yet powerful communication and collaboration tools. Google Apps offers Google Mail (Gmail), Google Calendar tool, Google Talk instant messenger and Google Docs & Spreadsheets among other resourceful tools. All for a competitive $50 per user, per year makes it a worthwhile alternative and a formidable competitor to Microsoft Office.
There is plenty from Google Apps Premier Edition that makes it worth checking out. First and foremost it is fairly easy to learn and use. You need not be a computer expert. Google Apps is hosted by Google, so that means no installation glitches or hardware issues to worry about. Google Apps Premier Edition also includes mobile device functionality with Gmail, personalized User start page combining private, public and corporate info as well as real-time document editing, and collaboration facilities. Furthermore, a host of APIs are included that enable users connect to various data feeds.
Besides, Microcost has joined the Google Enterprise Professional Edition and consequently enhancing it with a complete Web 2.0 platform. Based in France, Microcost is a frontrunner in the migration from traditional legacy systems to ultramodern web technologies. Microcost aims to provide a readily-available and secure access through the personalized Google Start Page user information.
For now, small businesses are most likely to take advantage. In the long run, it is expected that much larger organizations will adopt the revolutionary software package.

A new and innovative Turbo-Charged web search service

There are thousands of search-engines littered all over the web, struggling to grab a portion of the lucrative web search market. Very few people bother to venture out of the big three search-engines; a clear manifestation of the cut-throat nature of this industry. Joining the fray is TWERQ Technology, a search engine and web technology company from Alberta, Canada. TWERQ was founded in March 2006. The company’s goal is to create an exceptional service that combines search engine technology and the state-of-the-art web development techniques.
The TWERQ Turbo charged! Beta RC3 search facility is AJAX-based and combines tabbed-search results and an RSS reader. On the day of its launch, it had recorded a modest but remarkable 10,000 searches (or TWERQs if you like).
So what’s the big deal? Well, TWERQ Beta search enables multiple searches via tabs, without having to open new windows. Moreover, the search results within any session can be retrieved any time. However, you will need to sign up to use the service. The TWERQ Beta RC3 comes with a host of inventive features which include:
• Tabbed Web Search: a resourceful time-saving search technique which facilitates concurrent multiple searches.
• Tabbed RSS Feeds: allows for storage and reading from multiple feeds sources.
• Tabbed Image Search: an imaginative technique to search for images through the use of multiple search terms. Search results are then displayed in multiple tabs.
• Q-Triggers: here comes an interesting concept. This feature allows users to harness the power of advanced multiple searches via a combination of special character combinations and shortcuts. Users will have to familiarize themselves with a dozen or so combinations.
• The portable and converged TWERQ2GO which saves your search results, customized settings, shortcuts, tags, RSS feeds and keyword blacklists. The beauty is you can transfer all these wherever you go and continue with your search.
• TWERQ Safe which filters all info and content, and consequently lists results strictly from trustworthy sources.
• LuckyDay@TWERQ with lots of cash, prizes and goodies to be won. All you need to do is click and claim your item.
Wow, and the list is not even exhaustive. At least I can say that there will be something about Videos in the offing, very soon. That’s one heck of a decked out search engine. Now you get the idea just how intense and super-aggressive this web search business is. Find out more about this advanced seearch service from the TWERQ website.

VW extends their green BlueMotion concept to the Passat

Last year, Volkswagen premiered the innovative BlueMotion notion which delivered an ultra-fuel efficient Polo that does not forgo driving delight. If you liked the compact Polo with 59kW/80 hp output and a fuel consumption rate of 3.9lit/100 km, then you might be interested in the new Passat Blue Motion. The new ride will be unveiled in March this year at the Geneva Motor Show.
The VW folks are not exactly promising us heaven, but they claim that no other vehicle of its size that can match its performance and efficiency. How about this for a little chest thumping? A sedan with a 5.1liters/100 km (55.4mpg) consumption rate, 137g/km of CO₂ emissions, 77kW/105 bhp 4-cylinder TDI engine and 120mph (192 km/h) top speed. The estate variant has a top speed of 190 km/hr. What about 840 miles of fun-driving in between fueling stops? Yeah, you heard me right. I said the full tank will keep you cruising for a cool 1,350 km! That roughly sums up to about 15,000 km a year. Depending on where you live, you could be spending as little as 68 Euros* a month. They are now even talking of fueling your ride 11 times a year. Don’t worry coz the Passat remains as agile as ever. That’s what this BlueMotion idea is all about: environment-friendly, economical, fuel-efficient, agility and unmatched driving pleasure.

Don’t get worried-sick. Let these “Big brother” shoes watch over your kids

Coming in the wake of numerous children abductions and wayward kids, we may have finally found a solution. Though not entirely foolproof, it really does have a high success rate. Inspired by an engineer’s personal experience, Isaac Daniels designed the line of sneakers that comes fitted with a 2 x 3 Inch Global Positioning System (GPS) chip. Luckily for him, his kid was safe, but the incident spurred him to develop this remarkable device.

The wearer of the shoes unknowingly activates the GPS device, which will then transmit location information for as the long as the battery remains active. At the moment, there are some accuracy issues since the GPS device taps into very few satellite systems. However, the technology is improving rapidly. A fair amount of information can be transmitted from enclosed areas, though a clear view of the sky is required for optimal performance. An SMS alert message is sent to your phone when the GPS signal is lost.

The charge on the shoes is capable of lasting several days. They come in six different designs and closely resemble running shoes. Plans are underway to introduce the same in military boots. It is expected that the shoes will be of great assistance when tracking movement and location. That may include curbing lies from errant kids. Who knows, maybe even those cheating spouses claiming to be working late or are out of town on business trips. If you can get your kids to wear these kicks, you need not worry should they outgrow them. The chip can be embedded in larger shoes that are compatible with the device.

Unfortunately, here comes the challenge. You can expect plenty of stiff resistance from your fashion-conscious kids. As for your spouse, better not make it seem too obvious. Moreover, the shoes have a limited production and are pricey, ranging from $325 to $350.

Capture the magic and glamor of Bollywood on mobile

The 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona is awash with mind-boggling tech marvels and ingenious innovations. Someone just stole the limelight from the Nokia-You Tube partnership. There is little doubt that the next untapped goldmine is the so called “fourth screen” (read mobile phone). So what happens when we have on our hands the world’s second most populous nation, which is home to the most prolific movie industry, the fourth largest mobile phone market plus the fastest growing entertainment industry? Add to that a fast-growing cinema industry (roughly 3.5 billion movie ticket sales) that is now making huge waves in North American and European markets, accounting as much as 17% of total share. Err… the math is pretty simple; Umm, something in the range of about 2.6 billion mobile phone screens. Let’s not even think about the possible revenue figures in the offing. Ok, I might have overestimated, maybe by a “few” hundreds of millions.  At least you get the idea.

That is precisely what Bollywood and Hungama’s Mobile Company of India are bent on doing, and they are very serious about the whole thing. The groundbreaking deal will be steered by Roamware, a global leader in the field of mobile communications solutions. It will make use of Media Call Technology from Roamware which facilitates the incorporation of movie content into mobile telephony. Moreover, it also allows for sharing of video clips. From my deduction, this will ultimately elevate the concept of viral video marketing a notch higher. Just to prove that these folks are not bluffing, two Bollywood films, “Zahir” and “Matriomony” have already premiered at the conference.

The movie initiative will definitely give our friends from Tinsel town something to ponder about. This is a pioneering combination of three bigwigs who are global forces in their respective industries. We are talking of a movie industry that is never shy chalking up over a thousand films each year, a telco which is the largest developer cum publisher of Indian entertainment and the fast-rising global leader in roaming & value-added solutions.

With all these rumblings and goings-on coming out of the Barcelona congress, we may have to think of an appropriate name for our dearly loved mobile phone.