Brandon Dimmel

Despite very liberal views on sex, drugs, and drinking age, Europe is becoming a conservative force in rooting out peer-to-peer (p2p) file sharing. Just weeks after Spain made it a civil offense for individuals to download music and a criminal ... offense for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to allow it, the British music industry is now demanding that two ISPs give up the names of 59 accounts. Although Spain remains the more aggressive of the two countries in weeding out file sharers, Britain's corporate community is forming its own strong-arm policy in making illegal music downloads a thing of ... (view more)

Only days after the announcement that Ricoh Technologies has developed a device able to play both HD DVD and Blu-Ray discs, rumors quickly surfaced that an Israeli firm (Matteris Limited) is working on a disc that will use holographic technologies ... to hold a whopping 1 TB (or 1000 Gigabytes) of data. (Source: teamxbox.com ) By using the nano-technology at its disposal, Matteris hopes to fit literally millions of bits -- grouped into holograms -- into the volume (instead of the surface) of the medium at hand. Every individual hologram is formed into 1000 x 1000 bits, a process that is allowing ... (view more)

As it attempts to steer consumer attention towards a new Messenger partnership with Yahoo, Microsoft's enormous fine for antitrust practices in Europe has finally been made public. The European Commission, part of the European Union (EU), announced ... Tuesday that Microsoft will be fined a whopping 280.5 million Euros, a levy that breaks down to 1.5 million a day for the period from December 15 to June 20. (Source: betanews.com ) The antitrust fine comes as a result of Microsoft's bitter refusal to share its protocols with competitors, essentially disallowing rival companies the opportunity to ... (view more)

Rumors from the tech world recently suggest that the search engine giant Google is testing an online hard drive, affectionately known as "Gdrive". Although still very experimental (and at this time unconfirmed), the Gdrive would act as a treasure ... chest for client files, essentially freeing up space on a user's computer and accelerating processing speed. For now, "Gdrive" remains the name given by Google's fans, those most excited about the potential project. In reality, it appears the project is codenamed "Platypus", according the one blog investigator who apparently stumbled across the Web ... (view more)

AMD versus Intel, Xbox 360 versus Playstation 3 versus Nintendo Wii, Xplayer versus iPod: all are major Fall and Holiday 2006 clashes, but none has been perceived as mainstream as the movie-player war shaping up between HD DVD and Blu-Ray. Just ... recently, however, one multimedia company announced their intent to release a device that refuses to pick a side in the war. Ricoh Technologies -- a company that has existed for over seventy years building electronic devices from photocopiers to digital cameras -- is boasting about its new product that reportedly plays both HD DVD and Blu-Ray discs. ... (view more)

If you ask the consumers who have been unlucky enough to encounter software created by Direct Revenue -- and the New York Attorney General -- both would agree that the company's sole purpose is to create Spyware. Located in an unexceptional New York ... apartment, Direct Revenue is a modest corporation cleverly run. So well, in fact, that this humble NYC abode has seen an astounding $100 million dollars in sales since 2002. Profits for Patience Direct Revenue boasts that its Spyware programs -- the weeds that essentially infect a computer with incessant advertisements -- have wormed their way ... (view more)

Just as Internet Explorer 7 is receiving some much-needed positive early reviews for Microsoft, Mozilla recently announced that the beta version of Firefox 2 will be available later this week. It is the first beta of the new browser released, and ... Mozilla hopes it will tempt software developers seeking to take advantage of updates to the original Firefox platform. Much of the purpose behind the beta download stems from Mozilla's hope that the new extensions in Firefox 2 are compatible with those used in the previous version. (Source: news.com ) Firefox 2: What's New? Although Mozilla is ... (view more)

In a rather strange -- perhaps even insecure -- move, Bill Gates himself recently stated that there is just a 20% possibility that Vista will miss its newly etched January 2007 release date. The statement was anything but confident, however, as ... Gates reportedly informed software partners in South Africa that a legitimate chance for further delay exists -- especially if beta testers uncover further issues with Vista. (Source: news.com ) Reminder: What is Windows Vista? Known originally for its codename "Longhorn", Vista is the upcoming and highly anticipated operating system from Microsoft. It ... (view more)

Let's face it: Microsoft has been facing an incredible amount of bad press as a result of Spyware lawsuits (Windows Genuine Advantage) and criticisms of its security programs (OneCare Live). However, the impending release of Internet Explorer 7 ... (IE7) might just reverse public opinion of the software giant. Internet Explorer 7 has been in extensive beta testing since July of 2005. Over the course of that year, IE7 has progressed beyond a basic browser framework, showcasing a buggy interface and sluggish performance. Recent beta tests have shown IE7 to be a nearly complete build and with a host ... (view more)

Users of Excel's immensely popular spreadsheets are increasingly having to look over their shoulder. Insiders are today reporting that a new security leak -- for the third this month -- has been discovered within the program. Excel 2000, 2002, 2003 ... and Office 2000, XP and 2003 are all affected, and the fallout is driving accountants into the fetal position. The most recently reported flaw allows attackers to carry out their own commands by convincing a user that a repair is needed on a specific file. Once that file is opened, hackers can do what they wish to an affected users' system. Caught ... (view more)