MoshutZu’s Weblog

A bit of surprising piece of news appeared today on the internet - the format war between HD DVD and Blu-Ray is officially over and one shop after another gets rid of everything with HD DVD logo on it. One would expect Sony and other companies promoting Blu-Ray format to strengthen their position, but exact opposite happened: Sony Corp said on Wednesday it will sell its microchip production facilities in western Japan to Toshiba Corp for 90 billion yen ($835 million), in their latest move to focus on their core businesses. The equipment will be used by their semiconductor joint venture that will make high-performance Cell chips and RSX graphic chips, both used in Sony’s PlayStation 3 game console, as well as other microchips that go into Toshiba products.

The venture will be established on April 1. Sony, which is focusing on image sensor chips for digital cameras and pulling away from heavy investments for cutting-edge chip production equipment, said in October it would sell production facilities for making key microchips used in the PS3 to Toshiba, but the price has been unavailable. It’s also well known that Sony had to pay a lot more money (estimates ranged around $300 / unit) for every PS3 console with Blu-Ray drive, which turned out to be one of the reasons why this format won in the final battle with more than 8 million owners in contrary with only 1.4 million sold HD DVD drives.

Sursa: AP

Albumul care initial trebuia sa apara in Mai,  Ego Trippin’, va apare in Martie

Interscope announced that they would be pushing the album up, which is reportedly to capitalize on the success of Snoop’s current single for the album, “Sensual Seduction.” The song, which is making its rounds on radio and television, is currently No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Ego Trippin’ also features “Never Hafta Worry,” a recently leaked track that has Snoop giving an account of his storied career has an emcee. The song touches on, among other things, his time at Death Row Records and his murder trial.

Ego Trippin’ will also feature the songs “Hollywood Nights” and “Press Play,” the latter of which uses a sample from the Isely Brothers’ “Atlantis.”

After ongoing speculation, it has been confirmed- 50 Cent’s G-Unit clothing brand is no longer in business.

According to Complex magazine, owned by Marc Ecko, the partnership between Ecko Unlimited and G-Unit clothing has come to an end.

When rumors of the failed partnership first broke on Wednesday (Feb. 6) both parties denied it. Now, just two days later, Ecko is saying that the G-Unit line employees have been given notice and the office is closing shop.

Fortunately for 50, sources say the rap mogul will walk away with full ownership of the line and will re-launch it on his own.

Source: SOHH

Microsoft Corp. is giving students free access to its most sophisticated tools for writing software and making media-rich Web sites, a move that intensifies its competition with Adobe Systems Inc. and could challenge open source software’s popularity. The Redmond-based software maker said late Monday it will let students download Visual Studio Professional Edition, a software development environment; Expression Studio, which includes graphic design and Web site and hybrid Web-desktop programming tools; and XNA Game Studio 2.0, a video game development program. The company will also give away SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition and Windows Server Standard Edition.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said the company’s past efforts to arrange educational discounts for these programs limited the number of students who ultimately could use them. DreamSpark, as Microsoft is calling the free software offering, opens up access to many more students. “We give up some revenue, but we gain the fact that we’ll get the feedback of these students, get more courses to incorporate our tools into the programs and get more startups where kids are familiar with Visual Studio, Expression Studio and SQL Server,” Gates said in a phone interview. “It’s a brilliant strategic move on the part of Microsoft,” said Chris Swenson, a software industry analyst with NPD Group. “This is one of the core audiences you have to hit if you really want to make a difference in the rich Internet application market going forward.” The programs are available now to more than 35 million college students. My university already provides a bunch of free software from Microsoft, but this will make things even better!

Source: AP

It has been three months since the popular (semi)private BitTorrent tracker Demonoid went offline. Since then, there has been a lot of speculation about its future, and many feared that the site would never return. Totally out of the blue, however, the tracker is now responding again.

The frontend of Demonoid is still hosted in the US, together with the popular Subdemon forums. Interestingly, the tracker - which has been offline for months - is now hosted in Malaysia, and has started to respond again, approximately 30 hours ago.

It is of course not clear what this all means, but without an official message from the Demonoid team, speculation has started. Could it be that the site has found a new host, and preparing a return? Many former Demonoid members are secretly hoping that this is indeed the case.

Last December, Deimos, the founder and main admin of what used to be one of the most popular BitTorrent trackers, posted a message on the Subdemon forums on the possibility of a return. At the time he wrote: “Money is an issue, but the real problem at the moment is finding a suitable place to host the website. There has been no luck there. And there’s some personal stuff I need to take care of that takes most of my time at the moment, and that does not help.”

For those who forgot, here is a recap of what has happened so far. The trouble for Demonoid started back in June, when the Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN started to put pressure on Demonoid and their ISP, Leaseweb. Deimos decided that the Netherlands wasn’t the safe haven it used to be and he to moved the site to Canada, which resulted in a few days of downtime.

Deimos never really told the administrators or members of the site exactly what was happening. Initially, most members assumed that there was some hardware failure, but after a few days it became clear that Demonoid was more or less forced to move. Maybe there could have been hardware failures too, who knows, but the outcome was the same - Canada here we come.

Relocating the servers to Canada initially solved the problems, but, by the end of September Deimos took Demonoid offline for the second time. Again, nobody knew what was going on until we found out that the CRIA was responsible for the downtime, which was later confirmed by Deimos. It turned out that Canada wasn’t the best choice after all.

After 5 days of downtime the site returned, now blocking all traffic from Canadian users in an attempt to calm down the CRIA. At first it looked like the storm was finally over, but on November 9th Demonoid’s users were welcomed by a disappointing message on the frontpage explaining that the CRIA was indeed responsible for the downtime.

So will Demonoid ever return? The fact that the tracker is back online, in a different location seems to suggest that there is something happening.

Source:  http://torrentfreak.com/demonoid-tracker-back-080219/

Super.

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Cu asa un baraj, nu mai treci nici cu tancul
Cu dedicatie pentru cei care ma cunosc!

http://www.220.ro/Cazatura_la_Big_Brother_in_Croatia-53201.html

Si-a rupt gagica outzele :)))

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Proiectul ordonanţei privind taxa de poluare auto va fi modificat prin introducerea unor reguli care să permită corelarea taxei cu nivelul emisiilor poluante, începând cu luna iulie şi prin consultare cu Comisia Europeană. Declaraţia a fost făcută aseară, la TVR 1, de premierul Călin Popescu Tăriceanu. El a arătat că varianta unei noi modificări a rezultat în urma discuţiilor avute cu reprezentanţi ai organizaţiilor neguvernamentale de mediu.

“Din aceste discuţii a rezultat o propunere care mi se pare acceptabilă şi la care sunt receptiv. Propunerea care s-a degajat este de a face o taxă care să se reflecte într-o formulă simplă, legată de nivelul taxei şi de nivelul de emisii de CO2, după principiul poluatorul plăteşte. Cu cât poluează mai mult, cu atât plăteşte mai mult”, a spus Tăriceanu.

Întrebat dacă proiectul taxei de poluare auto va fi modificat, premierul a răspuns afirmativ.

“Este foarte posibil să facem aceste modificări, să luăm în considerare propunerile de care am vorbit. Există în acest domeniu o legislaţie în domeniu, în Franţa şi Austria. Astăzi am văzut câteva elemente în acest sens pe care le putem include într-o viitoare propunere”, a spus Tăriceanu, care a adăugat că taxa auto a fost gândită pentru a constitui o frână în calea importurilor de maşini de ocazie. (Mediafax)