A Los Angeles federal court has ordered BitTorrent indexing web site, TorrentSpy, to pay copyright infringement fines of just over $110 million to the MPAA.

The MPAA filed the suit against the website in February of 2006 accusing TorrentSpy of supporting copyright infringement by allowing its users to share pirated files. In an attempt to cover their tracks, TorrentSpy moderators destroyed evidence and lied under oath about the existence of users IP addresses. As a result of these discrepancies, in December 2007 the court was forced to terminate the lawsuit against TorrentSpy for false testimony and destroyed evidence. Shortly after, the website blocked US users from accessing the site.

In March 2008 TorrentSpy shut down for good citing “the ultimate method of privacy protection” as the reason for taking the site offline. While TorrentSpy claims it had nothing to do with December’s ruling, the MPAA claims it was because of the December 2007 ruling.

The $110 million is divided up into $30,000 for each of the 3,699 incidents of infringement it proved in the case against TorrentSpy, which makes it one of the biggest copyright judgments ever handed down.

Aside from the more than hefty fine, the court also issued a permanent injunction which further prohibits TorrentSpy’s parent company, Valance Media from engaging in any activity that encourages, promotes, solicits or knowingly facilitates, enables or assists copyright infringement.

Valance Media and TorrentSpy owners Justin Bunnell and Wes Park have filed for bankruptcy and TorrentSpy has said it will appeal the judgment.

Los Angeles (CA) - Comcast wants to put the brake on its top downloaders and is mulling a monthly transfer cap and overage charges. According to Broadband Reports, the cable Internet company plans on imposing a 250 GB soft cap on transfers and would charge $15 for every 10 GB excess. Customers would get a free pass on one month’s overage in a 12-month period.

The soft cap would affect approximately the top .1 percent of the 14.1 million Comcast customers - about 14,000 customers. While 250 GB may sound a bit low to some people, we did a quick Excel number crunch and found that you would have to sustain nearly 100 kilobytes per second for an entire month to break this barrier. That’s a lot of downloading!

Of course any such plan would necessitate some type of bandwidth calculator or display as to prevent a flood of calls to customer service. Broadband Report’s internal source says there is some talk about having such a tool, but Comcast hasn’t confirmed this point.

Apparently the plan has a lot of internal support and Charlie Douglas, a Comcast spokesman, confirmed the plans to Broadband Reports, but added "We have not made any changes to our current service offerings and have no new announcement to make at this time."

Read more ... Broadband Reports.

China is refusing to guarantee it will not censor Internet access during this summer’s Olympic games. China’s Technology Ministry offered the assurance that the international media will still able to continue to function as they normally would.

Over the past few months organizers of the Beijing Olympics promised international media that they would have “complete freedom” to report the event, which includes removing censorship of the internet. However, China is hesitant on letting go of its iron grip, with many criticizing China’s commitment to the Olympic pledge.

Technology Minister Wan Gang spoke during a press conference after the Mount Everest torch relay saying while the China would be able to grant as much access as possible, there would be no way that the government would turn off its firewalls.

“China has always been very cautious when it comes to the Internet,” Gang said. “I’ve not got any clear information about which sites will be shut or screened. But to protect the youth there are controls on some unhealthy websites. We will guarantee as much as possible. Every country limits access to some websites. Even in developed countries not every site can be accessed.”

Just one month ago the International Olympic Committee had to remind China of its Olympic obligation as host to allow press the ability to freely report the event. The committee was persistent in its efforts to push the government into opening the Internet during the games. At times, the committee was optimistic about China would hold up on its end of the bargain.

"We would hope that people in China would be able to have access to all forms of information that are out there, including those that are available online. And that would apply to those who are full-time residents of China as well as those who might be visiting for the Olympics," said State Department spokesman Tom Casey.

As a kicker to the situation, officials said that they would make no guarantee that the Olympic trademark would not be infringed. Many are worried over unlicensed clothing and accessories with the Olympic logos would be sold on the streets during the games. "The law enforcement authorities are not able to guarantee that infringement never happens. What we are trying our best to do is combat it and crack down when we find it," said Liu Zhengang, head of the Beijing IPR Bureau.

Microsoft drops its bid for Yahoo and, surprise surprise, the third wheel of the search tricycle Google is starting to sound a little cooler about the idea of partnering with Yahoo to serve its ads on their search results.

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Google executive “are now divided over whether to pursue a search-advertising deal with Yahoo,” as they look at all of the potential ramifications: The attentions of regulators (which Microsoft is sure to stoke) as the two largest search companies work together and, potentially, stifle competition in the market. The fact that Yahoo will gain insight into the workings of Google, something the secretive company really isn’t fond of anybody doing. And the fact that Microsoft has now gone away from the potential Yahoo deal, they can just afford to sound less enthusiastic anyways.

It suited Google’s ends for people to be talking about the partnership adding $1 billion a year in cashflow to Yahoo when such talk drove up the valuation that Yahoo wanted to sell itself for. In reality, for $1 billion in cashflow Yahoo would have to outsource its entire web advertising business to Google – something that Yahoo is not prepared to do, and something that regulators are not prepared to see happen.

The $1 billion figure – even the $500 million one – both assume that Yahoo outsource huge amounts of its search advertising business to Google, and fires much of its internal development team working on advertisements to make up cost savings. Yahoo does not want and cannot do this.

Google could do a limited deal with Yahoo still that is very, very, very, very carefully padded to ensure that no regulator can come over the hill with a big stick, Yahoo cannot gain an advantage over Google for knowing how it works, and Yahoo will not be able to claw back its slipping share in search users. The latter point is one also that should deaden Yahoo’s inflated share price after the Microsoft deal – Yahoo has admitted that its search ads don’t work, and it’s losing users to whom they can display any ads, be they Yahoo or Google ones.

The Google executives are signalling that the wild bonanza promised during the bleary-eyed days of the Microsoft takeover bid was just a mirage. Reality will bite Yahoo a little harder in the coming weeks.

Microsoft has plans in the works for a new version of its Xbox 360. Slated for this August, the new console version will utilize the firm’s latest chipset codenamed Jasper. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and IBM have been signed on to make the new Jasper chipset for the game console. The new chip design will feature a 65nm design of the existing chip that uses ATI’s Xenos graphics and IBM’s Xenon CPU. The new design is said to require less power, have a more simplified cooling system, and most importantly produce less noise.

The current revision of the Xbox is based on the Falcon chipset that is equipped with 90nm northbridge and 65nm CPU. Many have pointed out the biggest problem for the Xbox 360 has been due to the big heat from the graphics chip. While heat was reduced in the current revision, Microsoft seeks to bring down the cost and heat even more by using smaller chips. The first generation Xbox used 90nm chips.

Jasper will likely carry a lower production cost compared to Falcon due to the smaller packaging. This may be good news come this holiday, as the lower cost may lead to Microsoft cutting prices. Last fall Microsoft launched Falcon along with a $50 price cut of the Xbox 360.

TSMC is also reported to be the manufacturer for the next generation chipset for the console in addition to its latest contract. The next chip, code-named Valhalla, is rumored to be a single hybrid chip combining the CPU and graphics core into a 65nm package. However, it appears Microsoft would have to disclose IBM’s CPU design processes to TSMC, something IBM may not be too pleased about. The second option would be for Microsoft to rework the CPU. Valhalla, is expected to ship in the fall of 2009.

New York (NY) - Sony’s organic light-emitting diode (OLED) TV has been drawing a lot of attention, but at least according to one research firm Sony has been a little over-zealous with its claims.

The Sony XEL-1 was released earlier this year when it was unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show. The $2500 TV is notable because it is the first in the US that uses OLED technology.

The infant technology allows manufacturers to make TVs that have a super-bright picture and slim form factor, and uses significantly less power.

Sony claims that the XEL-1 maintains its brightness for 10 years, or around 30,000 hours. However, DisplaySearch tested out two units and found that they would lose half their brightness in just 17,000 hours of use.

"The results demonstrate that the Sony display is significantly inferior in many ways to the current designs," said researchers at DisplaySearch. The firm also added that low longevity is one of the big problems with OLED technology.

Sony said it continues to stand by its claims, which are made from its own internal testing.

Chicago (IL) - Apple and Google have concluded a deal that promotes the purchase of iTunes videos: Links to iTunes videos have begun appearing next to certain YouTube videos. Apple has played with this strategy before and put iTunes links in some social networking sites as part of the iTunes referral program.

At this time, it appears that both companies are testing the new feature as there are very few iTunes links yet published on YouTube; and while we have not received a confirmation from either company it seems that those videos are music videos only - such as the new Kanye West video.

Only U.S. users are currently exposed to the iTunes-YouTube promotion. Apple previously ran similar programs on some popular social networks, but it is unclear whether this campaign is a sign of a partnership or simply an extension of Apple’s affiliate program.

A closer relationship, however, should come as no surprise. The two companies have an executive relationship as Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt is a member of Apple’s board of directors. The two companies have also collaborated in the past. For example, Google is the default search provider for the iPhone Safari browser, Apple has integrated a dedicated Google Maps solution into the phone as well as customized access to YouTube.

Consumer navigation is quickly becoming an established consumer electronics category with more and more consumers discovering the benefits of navigation and related services. ABI Research forecasts navigation devices and systems to reach annual sales revenues of $62 billion by 2012.

More here at Digitimes

Beijing (China) - China says it won’t guarantee complete and unrestricted Internet access during this summer’s Beijing Olympics. Technology Minister Wan Gang says the country will protect its youth by restricting access to unhealthy websites. Olympic organizers had promised unrestricted net access for any reporters covering the event, but apparently this doesn’t extend to the public.

Read more ... Reuters.

Sydney - Pope Benedict will go digital at the upcoming World Youth Day in Sydney by sending thousands of text messages a day. The Roman Catholic Church plans on sending daily messages to more than 225,000 worshippers attending the six-day event. Australian telecom firm Telstra will provide the bandwidth and will also erect digital prayer walls.

Read more ... Reuters.

Aiken (GA) - Seven high schools in the Aiken Georgia area will get 40 new iPod Touch devices to help teach history and other subjects. The 32GB player will beam short audio clips and pictures to projectors and monitors and will partially replace PowerPoint presentations.

The iPods are being provided to the schools thanks to a $19,581 AT&T grant. This puts the unit cost of the devices at $489 each - the retail price of the 32GB model is $499. Looks like Apple doesn’t even give schools much of a discount. Any bets on how many of these iPods will go missing after the first week?

Read more ... Augusta Chronicle.

The European Union’s second test satellite in its Galileo bid to rival GPS has begun sending back data to Earth after its successful launch.

Giove-B carries what the European Space Agency is calling the most accurate clock ever put into space, capable of staying accurate to within a nanosecond in every 24-hour period. These extremely accurate clocks are the bedrock of a successful space-based navigational system.

The satellite began to transmit navigational signals after a slight hiccup after launch saw it having difficulty manoeuvring into its correct orbit, though this was later rectified. Now engineers at the ESA will use Giove-B to test the transmission of data across the five spectrums that the eventual Galileo cluster of 30-satellites will use.

They want to make sure that the signal does not interfere with, or is not interfered with by, signals on nearby wavelengths; and that its passage through the atmosphere does not adversely affect the signal.

All of this is on the road to clearing the launch of the first four Galileo satellites in 2010, with the entire 30-satellite cluster expected to be in orbit by 2013. The project has seen many delays and was nearly scrapped before the EU came to its funding rescue.

Galileo, as well as other systems being put into orbit by countries like Russia and China, is designed to compete with the U.S. owned GPS. One of the big reasons for this competition, bar national pride satellite-size comparison, is that the U.S. can scramble the GPS signal to any part of the world. With other countries putting up orbital navigation systems it will be a lot harder to cut off any country – and its military – from having reliable and accurate satellite navigation.

As part of a NASA in-flight education downlink, students and teachers from One Stop Richmond Hill Community Center, Richmond Hill, N.Y., and Valley Christian Elementary School, Bellflower, California will participate in a twenty minute phone call to the International Space Station.

From 11:20 a.m. to 11:40 a.m. CDT on Monday students and teachers from both schools will communicate with Expedition 17 astronaut Garrett Reisman.

NASA’s education downlinks are part of the agency’s efforts to encourage students to study and possibly pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). All of the students involved have spent time designing mission patches, learning about space station science experiments, making models of the space station, and surfing the NASA Web site with the schools collaborating to design comprehensive lesson plans to prepare for the event.

The downlink will air live on NASA Television and be streamed on the NASA Web site here.