U2 Get Their Boots On......

Time to crank up the volume ,Ireland's epic Rockband are back with the proverbial bang. Its been five years in the making after their much accalimed last effort 'all you cant leave behind '. With a total of 11 songs , the sound itself wouldnt be a radical departure from their recent albums. That is to say a few thumping powerful anthemic numbers, with a good measure of slower mellow songs and sprinkling it with a dash of actvisim and you have the quintissential U2 for your audio pleasure.As
Fans wouldnt be disappointed , that includes Nelson Mandela. Glad to find Bono all the while saving the planet and alleviating global poverty does find the time to write songs that keep their leigons jiving. I suggest you get on your boots too...

What January of 2009 had got stored for us? - [saqU]

And we kciked off the new year with "New World Orphans" in which the orange county rapcore band known as (hed) P.E. takes the conspiracy theory approach to another level. Sticking to their "G-Punk" roots (hed) P.E. ups their angered, anti-establishment posturing. NEW WORLD ORPHANS also features guest appearances from Kottonmouth Kings and Midwestern horrorcore rapper Tech N9ne.

Next on the list is Merriweather Post Pavilion, a critically acclaimed studio album by the band Animal Collective. The album seems more focused than last year's Strawberry Jam: bigger textures, suffocating drones, explosive buildups, and booming beats The riotous "Summertime Clothes" will be your summer jam in '09.

And third inline is Tonight: Franz Ferdinand, and as the name gives it away, is by the scottish rock band (formed in 2002) *DRUM ROLL PLEASE* Franz Ferdinand. The album is more of a dance than a rock record. According to the words of Kapranos "It's the opposite of punk/pop, which took something that was wonderful and removed all the dirt." But when you sit down and give the whole album a listen, it sounds dry and superficial, and the songs are too similar to each other....

EPIC WINNING LOL!

The words of an overjoyed Peter Kolmisoppi as he tweeted from courtside. And for good reason due to an unprecedented development, when the prosecutors withdrew "50% of the charges " against TPB.
Much to the humor of TBP founders & their fans ,the prosecuters struggled to explain how the bittorrent technology works ( at one point even confusing between bits and bytes)
Even though it might be a bit premature to say ,the tide is turning on TBP's side ( pun intended) .And as for the catchy tweet " Epic Winning .LoL" could make for a nice t shirt slogan .It would serve the pirate crew well if they could sell some merchandise to bring in much needed cash to their treasure chest in these trying times.

Image source: zdnet

Free Twitter SMS updates for the whole world ( or at least most of it )

Yes folks Twitter is fast becoming the thundering phenomenon these days.Its meteoric rise has spawned its own cult which is swiftly opening the gates of the masses with the likes of Britney Spears and none other than Barrack Obama maintaining accounts.Meanwhile innovative applications like twitpic , tiny url etc. give it the added functionality that far beyond the simplistic status updates that it was originally intended for.
As if that wasn't enough , twe2.com has started the service of sending free - yes free! SMS updates of your Twitter account to your cellphones.The plan covers around 150 countries .Although the tew2 blog states due to tremendous network traffic there may be lags in sending messages. They would shortly sort it out.

This feature got me excited so i thought i should share it. For people still on the fence , i suggest to start Twitterin' now :)

The Pirate Bay goes to court!!! - Raheel

Seems like the crew at The Pirate Bay are sailing in shark infested waters.For the uninitiated TPB is the biggest torrent portal for p2p downloads on the Internet today, with well over 3 million users and many more unregistered ones.
A diverse cadre of supporters, journalists and blogger awaited for the first hearing of what could be a landmark trial on the hot button issue of copyright.The cabal of Warner Bros. Entertainment , MGM, Columbia Pictures, 20th Century Fox Films, Sony BMG, Universal and EMI are dragging TPB to court on copyright infringements and profiteering from it as well as seeking damages amounting to $13 million.The accused Peter Sunde, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Fredrik Neij and Carl Lundstrom- the websites founders remain defiant and have denied all charges.Even pokinng fun at the defense.
In response to their heroes plight activism has gone 2.0 as well with a live twitter feed update by one of TPB's founder during the hearings. The updates for TPB case can be found on #spectrial on Twitter as well as their official blog at http://www.blogpirate.org/.
The entertainment giants with their hamfisted approach have shown yet again their narrow grasp of technology.Instead of using the Internet as their stomping ground to shut anyone down at their whims. If all those resources that go into assembling an army of lawyers could go into devising elaborate marketing plans on distributing their digital content at least they could give the torrent sites a run for their money.
Hulu is an excellent example of how with industry backing delivering copyrighted content could be a viable business model.So why not make an ad supported model for torrents as well.Why drag feet on something that's so obvious ? With the millions of torrent downloads there already exists a market for that .
This case could go on for the while but the entertainment industry which is still frozen in time has a lot of retooling and a whole lot of rethinking for the digital age.The fact is that even if they shit TPB there are going to keep multiplying .
Thanks to the public nature of the trial everything would be up for constant scrutiny and discussion .Would make for quite a spectacle big corporations legal eagles on one side and cyber libertarians on the other side.Will the celebrated pirates jump the shark? That only time would tell... Watch this space for future updates.


Image source :http://www.blogpirate.org/ (MacBue)

Happy Valentine's Day

I know it's a little late for this now and i am to blame for this as i was a little slow on the editing. Anyhoo enjoy the video and have a Happy Valentine's Day. I think from this video my valentine's day message would be clear to all.