File Sharing

Google has proclaimed that the conventional PC will become "irrelevant" within the next three years, and it insists that it puts mobile first in development.

That's a bold statement indicating just how much Google is betting on the mobile Web. But it's also an indication of just how critical synchronization technology is going to become--especially syncing to an open Web.

Traditionally, sync has been that thing you do between your desktop and your one mobile device to ensure that calendars, address books, and even browser bookmarks are current between the two islands of computing. But in … Read more

Hans Pandeya, the man who tried to acquire The Pirate Bay last year, has purchased controlling interest in a tiny U.S. company that makes and sells wall calendars, according to records filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Pandeya paid $325,000 for Business Marketing Services, a printing company that trades its over-the-counter stock on the OTC Bulletin Board (OTCBB), according to the SEC filing.

In January, Pandeya took control of 15 million shares, or 78 percent of the company's stock, records show. Business Marketing Services didn't report any revenue for the quarter ended September 30, 2009, … Read more

As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama was young, a technology fan, and appeared to be an establishment outsider. For those reasons some techies hoped he might be sympathetic to copyright reform.

Those hopes are fading fast as President Obama appears to have lined up on the side of copyright owners. In a speech at the Export-Import Bank's annual conference in Washington, D.C., President Obama told attendees Thursday that his administration is firmly behind producers of creative works.

"We're going to aggressively protect our intellectual property," Obama said. "Our single greatest asset is the innovation and the ingenuity and creativity of the American people...It is essential to our prosperity and it will only become more so in this century. But it's only a competitive advantage if our companies know that someone else can't just steal that idea and duplicate it with cheaper inputs and labor."

The president's comments come as his administration continues to revitalize an improving but still ailing U.S. economy. They echo statements made often by leaders in the U.S. film, music, video game, and software industries. For a while these sectors have claimed piracy and Internet file sharing mean the loss of U.S. jobs and poison the economy. Critics say that the job losses are more due to poor business decisions made by the studios and music labels. … Read more

LimeWire's peer-to-peer file-sharing network is notorious as a malware ghetto, where distributed files that have legitimate-sounding names turn out to be Trojan horses hiding pernicious threats. In an effort to attract more users to the LimeWire premium upgrade and to protect those users better, the company signed a deal with AVG on Tuesday to extend download file scanning and blocking to LimeWire Pro users.

By integrating AVG's antivirus SDK engine, all files that LimeWire Pro users download will now be scanned before they run. A pop-up will appear letting users know when a file has been scanned or … Read more

A few years ago it was a big deal to find a place that would let you share 1 gigabyte files.

Things change, though. Bandwidth keeps growing, and the cost of Web storage keeps shrinking. That's good news for people looking to share increasingly large files, be it an HD video recording or an archive of several files that tops out at over a gig.

There are now a handful of free and paid services that make it easy to host these gigantic files and send them to a friend, family member, or business associate.

The key thing to point out here is the individual file size limit. Many storage services will throw gigabytes at you without any real strings attached except for the fact that you cannot upload files larger than a gig. This really isn't a big deal, that is until that first time you need to do it. Below are a handful of sites, both free and paid, that are up to the task.

The free ones

There's no such thing as a free lunch, but the same cannot be said about storage. You can, with little effort, dump large files in a number of places. The usual caveat there is that there tends to be a lot of on-site advertising and your files may not be saved for very long in case you want to come back to re-download or share them later on.

ADrive (2GB): ADrive is more of a personal file storage service, but files can be shared via a direct link, or via e-mail. The service gives users 50GB of total storage and uploads at up to 2GB a pop. It has both a Web-based uploader and a desktop software version. There's also a paid version of the service that adds more space and FTP access.

File Xpressit (2GB): File Xpressit actually tops out at 300MB a file but will go up to 2GB if you register with the service. It is free, it just requires clicking an activation link in an e-mail. The uploader does not require Flash or Java, which is nice if you're trying to use it on a computer without it installed. The service can also give you an e-mail notification when the file has been downloaded by your recipient.

Worth noting is that to use FileXpressit, you'll need to have an e-mail address for the person you wish to send the file to. This won't actually send the gigantic file to their in-box, but it means you can't start the upload without typing it in first.

Humyo (10GB): Humyo has a free and a paid plan, but the free plan is very generous at 10GB of free storage. There are basically no set-in-stone file size limits, just a cautionary message that encourages files that are over 10GB to be split into smaller segments. We didn't actually test this with a 10GB file (and we doubt you will either), but it's nice to know you could if you wanted to.… Read more

U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel has issued a permanent injunction that bars RealNetworks from selling RealDVD, the DVD-copying software that Hollywood claimed in a lawsuit violated copyright law.

Real and the Motion Picture Association of America reached a settlement, according to statements issued by both companies, that called for Real to stop selling RealDVD or any similar products and to pay $4.5 million to reimburse the studios for legal fees.

"We are gratified by the successful conclusion of this important matter," said Daniel Mandil, the MPAA's general counsel. "Judge Patel's rulings and … Read more

Among the reasons people are cutting back on sharing music illegally on peer-to-peer sites is that some have sated their need for songs, according to a NPD Group survey.

Russ Crupnick, a senior analyst with the research firm, said last week at the Digital Music East Forum that the company saw a 25 percent decline in illegal downloading in the United States via P2P sites during 2009.

"You have a lot of people who have built up their collections," Crupnick said. "They are filled up with both paid music and unpaid and it is something like 'I … Read more

NEW YORK--Hans Pandeya, the Swedish businessman whose attempts to acquire The Pirate Bay last year collapsed amid controversy, is giving digital media another try.

Pandeya, who attended this week's Digital Music East Forum here, said Thursday he's busy creating a base in Boston for his U.S. operations. Asked whether he was still interested in The Pirate Bay, Pandeya said, "I have a lot of secret plans I'm working on."

As for why he was at a digital music conference, Pandeya would only say that his plans include digital media. Last year, Pandeya, CEO of … Read more

uTorrent 2.0 introduces a new look via skins, but really what's important is under the hood.

A new protocol for managing heavily trafficked and bottlenecked torrents, a transfer cap with real-time updates, and a smoother installation will remind you why this torrent client deserves the attention it gets. Check out what it can do in this First Look video from CNET TV.