bittorrent

Join us for a quick rundown of today's headlines. Some of what the tech world is talking about: Time-Warner has confirmed that it will split its AOL access and media units next year; GTA IV is making its way onto PCs this fall; and BitTorrent may be laying off 22 percent of its staff.

Today's stories:

Time Warner: Hiding AOL woes under Joker makeup

Google sells search marketing group

Report: BitTorrent laying off 22 percent of staff

Free Wi-Fi for U.K. MySpace users, kind of

Microsoft releases SQL Server 2008

'GTA IV' making its way onto PCs this fall… Read more

Things aren't going so good over at file-sharing wunderkind, BitTorrent.

According to a report on Valleywag Wednesday, BitTorrent is laying off its entire sales and marketing department, 12 people out of the company's entire staff of 55.

"The immediate cause of the layoffs," according to Valleywag, is "a failure to sell the Torrent Entertainment Network, BitTorrent's attempt at an online media store, to Best Buy for a rumored $15 million."

The story goes on to state that a source told Valleywag that the Torrent Entertainment Network sale fell apart due to the FCC … Read more

Internet papa Vint Cerf said broadband speed limits rather than broadband data caps would be more useful in managing congested networks.

Cerf, who is Google's chief Internet evangelist, on Monday wrote a post on the company's public policy blog blasting the idea of applying data caps and metered rate plans. Instead he proposed a plan that limits network speeds.

His comments come just days after the Federal Communications Commission's symbolic ruling against Comcast for violating the agency's Net neutrality principles. The FCC came down hard on the cable operator for blocking access to peer-to-peer file-sharing protocols … Read more

Let me see if I've got this right. Federal regulators determined on Friday that Comcast broke the law by slowing Internet traffic for subscribers using BitTorrent to swap large files with other people. But then the FCC decided it was enough to issue a press release declaring the victory of the rule of law and now it's time to move on.

Not a penny in fines was assessed and not the slightest penalty suggested.

OK. Post-Enron, post-Bear Stearns, post the subprime debacle, I'm long past being surprised by big corporations trying to cover their posteriors for posterity. … Read more

The Federal Communications Commission came down hard on cable operator Comcast when it said its network management practices were illegal. But what will the FCC's move mean for the rest of the industry and the ongoing debate over Net neutrality?

It's still too early to say exactly what the long-term affect will be. Policy wonks from the phone companies say the decision puts to rest any notion that Net neutrality legislation is needed, but Net neutrality proponents believe that a legal challenge from Comcast will necessitate the need for laws that make it clear the federal government has … Read more

This is truly pathetic. A couple weeks ago, L.A. rock band BuckCherry issued a press release (since removed) complaining that their latest single had been leaked on BitTorrent. But a little clever research by TorrentFreak revealed that the leaker had only uploaded one track--this one--to BitTorrent, and had the same IP address as someone who'd edited the band's Wikipedia entry. When TorrentFreak e-mailed the band's manager to ask his opinion, lo and behold, the IP address matched.

Leaking a track is a valid way of getting promotional buzz for a new album. But complaining about it … Read more

Once upon a time, Mac users got the short end of the stick when it came to BitTorrent clients. Those days are gone, thankfully--and Transmission is a perfect example of that. This excellent open-source client is one of the very best choices for a BT client on the Mac, being both extremely lightweight (some users even manage to run the Ubuntu version on their cell phones) and fairly feature-packed.

Transmission's interface is easy to use--and easy on the eyes. The layout should be familiar, even to PC users, with torrent controls like stop and pause on the top, and … Read more

Formerly the feature-rich Azureus, Vuze takes Azureus' BitTorrent foundation and builds on top of it a network for video discovery and user-created video publishing tied together by social networking.

From XML torrent options to IP filters, firewall tests to UPnP plug-ins to baked-in social networking, Vuze isn't breaking new ground--the original BitTorrent client has gone this path, too--but it is doing it in an innovative and attractive way. When you install the program, you're faced with a Web 2.0-style interface from which you can get a general overview of your torrents and Vuze's latest media. Users … Read more

BitTorrent tracker Mininova has a cool and useful new feature that lets you download any file to your machine at home with just a click of a button from any remote machine. It works by using a new bookmarking option found next to the download link on any file in Mininova's directory. All that needs to be done on your part is to subscribe to a special RSS feed in your local BitTorrent application and it will automatically start downloading as long as you've got it running. You can also share this feed with others in case you … Read more