Facebook Proposed New Data Use Policy

Last week the largest social network in the world announced its proposal for new Data Use Policy. More than 3 years ago, the company introduced a voting system, which enabled users to vote on data usage and privacy policies. While the first vote allowed the network members to vote for the proposal, the second one took place this past June. Actually, the results were surprising: only .038% of the users wanted to get involved.

 

RapidShare Imposed Traffic Cap to Tackle Piracy

The cyberlocker is currently reworking its infrastructure in order to improve the service’s performance, and has announced that it is planning to introduce new traffic policies in a bid to discourage piracy.

RapidShare has claimed that new traffic polices will be enforced this week. For instance, the file-sharing service will limit the daily outbound traffic, while increasing its download speeds, but with a catch to that.

After Kim Dotcom’s MegaUpload was dead, RapidShare promised to introduce slower download speeds in order to discourage people looking for copyrighted content on their site. Three years ago, the German-based cyberlocker received a fine of $33.4 million and was ordered to remove 5.000 songs from its servers. That was the moment the company received an advice to reconsider their strategy to fight piracy.

However, RapidShare’s new traffic limit only works for public traffic, while group traffic is still unaffected. It means that free users will be allowed to download only 1GB a day, but members with a Pro account are allowed to get 30 times more than that. RapidShare promised to fully implement the new traffic limitations in the end of November.


Aside from the company’s efforts to tackle copyright infringement, RapidShare has also been working on the new features. For instance, the cyberlocker announced the launching of a new service called RapidDrive. The latter is basically a Windows-based platform designed to help paying customers to manage their files. However, a release date for this one hasn’t yet been announced.

US Data Usage Increased by 120%

Sandvine has recently conducted a report titled “Global Internet Phenomena Report 2H2012“, based on its customers all over the world – US, Europe, Africa, Latin America, Asia-Pacific, and other regions. The results were not surprising for industry observers.

Asia is leading in mobile data consumption – 659MB of traffic per month. In the meantime, the data usage of North American fixed line networks recorded an increase of 120%, reaching 51GB.

Sandvine’s CEO explained that with a 120% increase rate it is clear that other ISPs will be introducing application-based plans in order to ensure cost certainty and a good quality of popular applications.

As for Europe, over 20% of all video streaming mobile traffic is taken by YouTube, and 33% of the North American fixed networks data traffic is taken by Netflix. Amazon is also popular on North America’s fixed networks (1.8%), as well as Hulu (1.4%) and HBO Go (0.5%).

The report confirmed that audio and video streaming is responsible for 65% of all downstream traffic from 9pm-12am, with half of that belonging to Netflix. It is vital to prioritize real-time apps like live audio and video in order to maintain a high quality of experience. The company’s video quality metrics, which can measure display and transport quality, can also help to understand the impact of the largest events like the World Cup.

In the meantime, BitTorrent accounts for 36% of the overall traffic. The report admits that Real-Time Entertainment continues to soar. Within the last 3 years, on-demand entertainment appeared to consume more bandwidth than “experience later” bulk transfers, and the experts expect this to continue through 2015 and drop to less than 10%.

Another issue is that today such services as Netflix, Pandora, and Hulu can only be accessed in certain areas, but it might change soon. Indeed, it is very frustrating that popular streaming services for some reason restrict the viewing experience for some geographic locations. But now there’s a new extension out there, Media Hint. The latter is able to lift all these restrictions, so that anyone could access all media streaming services from anywhere. The extension doesn’t require any additional set-up – all you should do is just install it and enjoy your favourite shows. This might also have impact on the overall picture of the traffic consumption worldwide.

ET birthday contest 2

As you already know, November, 15 is a birthday of Extratorrent!

Also will remember Extratorrent team decided to hold three contests with gifts for all Extratorrent fans!
The winner of each contest will get a prize iPod Shuffle, iPod Nano, iPod Touch!

Unfortunatelly, the contest #1 - "Suggest the funny interpretation of ET symbols" is over.

Here is the list of nominees!
"Epic Troll" by Chamara Sampath
"Earlobe Tickling" by Josh Arnold
"Endless tracking" by Marc Ferdinand Felix Santiago
"Einstein Tongue" by Sanju Man Maharjan
"Erotic Troll" by Debarpan Msd Panday
"Elephant Testicles" by Nitish Peechen
"Ex Tempore" by Darren Peloe
"Expecting Trouble" by Xtian Mokong
"East India Company Torrent" by Taker RealTaker
"Evil Toddlers" by Scott Allan Murphy

The winner will be declared on November,15!

But You still have a time to win another prize from Extratorrent - iPod Nano!

Here is a contest #2:

Write a poem about Extratorrent (4 lines or more)

The author of the best poem will get a iPod Nano!

AS always all about you can find on official facebook page

We are waiting for your poems! And good luck!

Skype Replaced Windows Messenger

Microsoft took a decision to replace its Windows Live Messenger with well-known and popular Skype. According to media reports, Microsoft’s team of developers is currently working towards retiring its Windows Live Messenger software in the coming months and integrating its functions into Skype.


It looks like Microsoft has slowly been moving Skype users over to the Messenger back end within the past several months. If you are one of those who have been using Skype, you should know that over 80% of those instant messages were processed on Microsoft’s back end. Industry observers expected that the software giant will soon announce the retirement of Windows Live Messenger, perhaps even this week.

Since Skype is using P2P protocol, instant messages could only be sent if both parties were online. However, with Skype running on Microsoft’s servers that problem would go away. This is the first advantage. Then, the Messenger was available from any PC, if the user was logged into their Live account through any browser. On the contrary, Skype required a desktop client which caused problems on Mac and Linux due to bad updates or lack of those. This problem will also be solved with Skype moving to Outlook.com – another apparent advantage at hand.

In fact, the move will mean that the two best pieces of the software will merge: while Skype was great at calls, Windows Live Messenger was better at messaging. In the meantime, the biggest challenge was to get Skype to link Microsoft accounts to its login names. For instance, if you are using Skype 6.0 for Mac and Windows, you will now be greeted with options to log in using a Microsoft or Facebook account.

New MegaUpload Already Under Political Pressure

If was a few days ago that Kim Dotcom announced he was going to opt for a new domain for his new portal so that it could avoid being shut down once again. That’s why instead of opting for a .com or .org domain Kim chose the Gabonese .ga. Nevertheless, the US government isn’t happy with his plans and is already trying to threaten Kim and take measures once the website is launched.

In response, the Gabonese Communication Minister Blaise Louembe claimed that they have to protect IP rights and fight cybercrime, which means that Gabon can’t serve as a platform or screen for anything aimed at infringing copyrights or be used by unscrupulous people like Dotcom.

Blaise Louembe also revealed that the Me.ga domain was originally bought by an undisclosed French citizen, who then transferred it to Dotcom. In addition, an investigation ordered by the Minister found out that the portal was redirecting all traffic to another site, which is also hosted in France. This past Wednesday, the Me.ga domain was shut down. In response, Kim Dotcom said that there should be no worries, as he had an alternative domain.

In the meantime, the redirection in question is believed to have something to do with a hacker group known as Omega, apparently not very fond of Dotcom. In their interview, the hacking collective explained that they were pure in a diogenist way – the true pirates, while MegaUpload’s founder was only taking advantage of them all. Omega called Dotcom a “megalomaniac with lawyers to take advantage of us all – the nobodies, the artists he wants to profit from”. That’s why they consider Kim neither better nor worse than Universal. In fact, they called him a separate industry, only there to pollute.

Thus far, things are not good for Kim, because Ome.ga is now controlling the Me.ga domain. However, it is unclear what they are going to do with it. The hacking collective claimed they will entertain offers from Dotcom’s enemies in the millions of dollars for the new domain. They also promised to donate 10% of the proceeds to FOJEGA (Gabon Youth Forum) if Universal Music decides to buy the Me.ga domain name. We’ll see what plan Kim Dotcom has now, but the experts believe he won’t give up that easy. MegaUpload is not to be forgotten and buried after all.

4G Networks and Piracy

The British Everything Everywhere was the first company to introduce 4G networks. Although many celebrated the faster wireless speeds, some people weren’t so hyped about it. Recently, a few anti-piracy supporters have claimed that it might cause more piracy in the already crowded environment.

For instance, the Federation Against Software Theft claimed recently that 4G networks are sure to launch a new wave of copyright violation. The outfit pointed out that at the time that the DEA had been drafted, mobile networks like 4G and public Wi-Fi weren’t deemed sufficiently conducive for copyright violation on such a large scale. Nevertheless, recent developments like the introduction of 4G networks and the increase of public Wi-Fi services are believed to open up new opportunities for copyright violation. The anti-piracy outfit also suggested that 4G networks justify the legal means for Internet service providers to include mobile network operators into their anti-piracy agenda.

In the meanwhile, the BPI and other industry outfits aren’t yet concerned about 4G networks becoming a new gateway for pirates. And they have no grounds to be, according to a recent study on mobile data pricing: the matter is that networks operators aren’t likely to offer unlimited data plans, as such expenses are too high to be supported by the average person.

Anyway, Everything Everywhere has announced their 4G data plans, which are £36 per month for 500MB and £56 per month for 8GB. Nothing to add – the numbers speak for themselves. In addition, you need too much traffic to be consumed to download music or video files to rely only on 3G or 4G networks. This is not the last argument – you can also take the example of majority of streaming music services, whose revenues normally are derived from monthly subscriptions. At the moment, such subscriptions encourage people to get a premium service by offering free access to music catalogues for limited time. But such offers are unavailable on mobile devices that are becoming more popular than desktops. And this is exactly what businesses are now trying to compensate for, but without apparent success. Strangely enough, nobody has considered an idea of coming up with a worthwhile model for monetizing music based on micropayments, which was announced last year.