You can’t download illegal media content anymore

How many of us download illegal media contents these days? I guess there are most of us. :D Well, the recent news published by Online.wsj.com says that we can still download the illegal media content but you have to be ready that your Web connection will be downgraded – but not to be entirely cut off.

Your Internet service provider will be able to identify whether you are downloading illegal contents or not. If you are found guilty, there will be pop-up windows or email messages warning that you have violated the law. If you continue downloading the illegal contents, your Web connection will be made slower than ever as snail until you contact your ISP for clarification or, if you have enough time and resources, you may take an illegal action to suit your ISP.

There are several ISP and production houses that have joined this agreement. Among them are Verizon Communications Inc. and Film & Television Alliance. Of course this new agreement will benefit the entertainment workers who have worked hard to produce your entertainment media. It will also give the benefit – money profit – for the ISP too. The problem is how is the mechanism to consider whether or not you have violated the copyright law.

It is clear that slowing down the connection of alleged offender’s Web connection will mean a violation of the rights on Internet. Everybody has a right to have an Internet connection as long as they can afford it, right? Now, if your connection is slowed down because your ISP considers you had broken the law, what is the proof for that allegation?

The allegation is of course based on the data recorded by your ISP. But is the data legal? Is it stipulated in your contract with your ISP? Yes, may be it is. But the old contract must have not yet included that. It means that if tomorrow morning your Internet connection walks like a snail and you receive warning email message, you are considered an offender – but you are not guilty because the legal base for slowing down connection is not yet stipulated in your contract.

The allegation will not be fair and just also because it has not yet tested in the court. Without the court consent that agrees that you have done wrong, such slowing down the connection will be unlawful business.

Merged: GFW and Xbox.com

Microsoft on Friday merged its GWF Marketplace, the company's digital delivery store for PC games, with Xbox.com. There is no further details except the statement that "now you can get all your gaming needs in one place".

Tomshardware.com reported that the forum on Xbox.com surprisingly remains calm. Commenters only said that they hope the merge will provide more cross-platform compatibility.

Microsoft's PC games are less lucrative than Xbox 360 and Xbox Live service. The library for game videos, demos, downloadable contents and digital-only PC games, is small.

It is possible that Microsoft will make more mergers in the future and gather all of its diverse game marketplace into Xbox.com. Windows Phone 7 Apps/Zune Marketplace can be the next candidate.

If Xbox.com is really to become a one-stop-shop venue for all of Microsoft's games, there will be greater chance for cross-platform games. If such cross-platform capability is exist, then customers will be able to play the games on Xbox 360 console, a Windows 7 PC and a Windows Phone 7 device.

Facebook's awesome next week is Skype video chat

CEO Mark Zuckerberg earlier this week teased journalists at the company' Seatte office to expect "something awesome next week". The guesses has been a Facebook app for the iPad and to desktop component pointing to a Skype video chat.

It is highly likley that the later will be the true guess. Michael Arrington reported via Techcrunch that Facebook's Seattle office are hiring desktop software engineers. The Seattle office probably has another job as their main task but a person close to the partnership said that next week Facebook will launch a video chat powered by Skype.

It is not yet clear whether the video chat will only work if the Skype had been already installed on the computer or the users should download the necessary app even if the user already uses Skype. Facebook and Skyp has been working together for some times. Skype has integrated several of Facebook's features into its service.

The new parnership will have significant effect for the general Inter-based industry. Facebook currently boasts of 750 million users while Skype only 170 million. Microsoft is a shareholder of Facebook and now having a pending FTC's approval to acquire Skype.

Google launches new anti-phishing attack feature

Google on Tuesday launched a new anti-phishing attack for the Gmail. The new feature will automatically display the address of the senders which previously have not yet made a contact with the user's email.

The launching of a new feature is a part of Google's effort to provide more security measure for the users of Gmail. Last month, Google was able to stop some spear phishing attack which have penetrated Gmail accounts of several high ranking U.S. officials as well as South Korean officials, Chinese political activists, journalists and military members.

If the sender of a message is not yet in the contact list of the user, or if the address of the sender has never been sent a message to, the user will see the address of that user on the message header. Third party sender such as email marketing bulk mailers sending messages for retailers will also be displayed automatically.

The feature actually has been present in Gmail and the user can set it manually. In the email services' interface, the user must click "show details" to see the sender's address. With the feature turned on automatically, Google hopes to help users avoid being trapped by suspicious messages that will try to compromise the user's Gmail information.

Once the user has built a communication with a new address, either by adding the address into the contact list or by replying the message, the full address will not be shown.

HP lawsuit toward Oracle is a publicity stunt

A few times ago Oracle has announced that the company will stop the development for Intel’s software Itanium. HP, which is the largest customer of Oracle, filed a lawsuit against the company over the decision. In a court filing on Wednesday, Oracle’s lawyers retaliated by stating that HP lawsuit is a publicity stunt.

The publicity stunt is meant to lay the blame on Oracle instead of HP. This is because when the Itanium-based server business has been fully stopped, HP will have troubles from their existing customers who require continuous support.

Oracle also stated that HP will be the only one that retains the decades-old Itanium processor. HP also said to spread the myth that Itanium has a 10 years road-map while in fact there is no such thing in Oracle as the developer of the processor.

Another counter-allegation made by Oracles is that HP has told a lie when stating that there is an agreement between HP and Oracle that the later company will continue to support Itanium processor. There is no such agreement and HP makes use of the confidentiality feature to protect a document that practically does not exist.

HP’s former CEO Mark Hurd took a job as Oracle’s co-present a few times ago and this resulted in a kind of corporate hug between the two companies. But the cooperation in the porting department was never stated explicitly in any document. However, Oracle has the document in which it is stated that the company will port some of the sections of HP-UX Itanium-based database.

The agreement was directed for E-Business Suite which contained a potential asset of millions of dollars.

In conclusion, Oracle said that HP’s appeal to force Oracle continues support for the Itanium customers is baseless. Oracle has every right to stop the development of the processor but it has its own support plan for existing customers.

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Sprint struggles to stop AT&T and T-Mobile merger

AT&T announced a few times ago that they want to merge T-Mobile into their management. Experts have been uttering worry about the possibility of the monopoly if the merger really takes place. The merger will make the AT&T and Verizon Wireless hold up to 79 percent of the U.S. market share.

Based on the market share, AT&T counts the second seat while the highest seat is occupied by Verizon Wireless.  Sprint sits on the third in the list so that unsurprisingly they struggle hard to block the merger. Sprint Nextel CEO Dan Hesse has been running through the states and to Washington to convince legislators of 18 states to stop the merger.

While working hard to draw public opinion toward his side, Mr. Hesse is also trying to convince top tech companies that the merger will be disaster for the industry. Sprint recently filed a dissent amounted to 377 pages with the Federal Communications Commission. Sprints’ engineers even also tried to convince AT&T to cancel the merger by showing how AT&T is able to optimize its existing network resources.

AT&T was still convinced that it will have the greater benefits when the merger is successful. Last week, they stated that they are pursuing the way to fully merger T-Mobile USA in March 2012. They are now collecting the information for the second round hearing asked by the Justice Department. Meetings between the company and FCC have been also scheduled.

The merger, if successful, will worth about $39 billion. If it is failed, AT&T will have to pay a compensation of $6 billion in services, cash and assets to Deutsche Telekom.

Al-Qaida network is unsafe

While the organization itself is a danger for most countries, it does not have trusted channel to spread its propaganda and media. Evan Kohlman of Flashpoint Partners yesterday said that the terror group’s latest forum, Shumukh, has been offline since at least three days ago.

There are still many other jihadi forums online but Al-Qaida does not trust them. Some of these jihadi forums also has been mysteriously knocked offline, including the Ansar al-Mujahideen Network, a forum in Arabic. Some mirrors still available for Al-Qaida’s material like aljahad.com/vb.

However, Al-Qaida will need an entirely new route to have a direct relation with any new forum, or the broken forum Shumukh has to be totally restructured, said Mr. Kohlmann. He also suggested that the group must also have the backup copies of the knocked down forum.

Last year, Al-Qaida’s forum Al-Faloja was down but the group immediately replaced the forum with the currently broken Shumukh. Kohlman assured that the group will form another forum once they have found the safer channel. He also listed several suspect, from the Jester to government-sponsored in the U.S. and U.K.

The Jester did not confirm to hack Shumukh.