28
March
2008
|
00:21 AM
America/Los_Angeles

Newswatch 3.28.08: Comcast makes nice

Comcast makes nice with BitTorrent. There's no doubt Comcast needs to manage its network traffic. That's what happens with shared infrastructure like cable. The problem is in how it did it, who it did it on, and what it said about it. Now the cable company has made nice with BitTorrent and promised to only throttle in a "protocol-agnostic" way. Maybe that will get them a better reception at an FCC hearing at Stanford.
(NYT)

Photoshop. Online. Free. Adobe is forging the path in taking a high-end software product into the hyperlinked world of web services, not only allowing users to upload, tweak and filter photos, but building in social networking with links to Facebook and its own gallery-sharing feature. (News.com)

TorrentSpy is dead. Founder Justin Bunnell: 'Ultimately the court demanded actions that in our view were inconsistent with our privacy policy, traditional court rules, and international law; therefore, we now feel compelled to provide the ultimate method of privacy protection for our users - permanent shutdown.' How noble. Or perhaps, having destroyed evidence, it was time to throw in the towel. (Register)

Get some data on your vids. With YouTube Insight, you can find out where your video viewers are coming from, find out how long it takes to get popular and so on. It's the world's biggest focus group, YT product manager says. (InfoWeek)

Safari: Unwanted, unsafe. So first Apple starts shoving Safari 3.1 down Win users' throats via the software update feature in iTunes, which sparks Mozilla ceo John Lilly to call them "malware" vendors, but now a security hacker has discovered two critical flaws in the browser. Weaponization is just around the corner, Andrew Storms of nCircle reported.

News of the stupid. O'Reilly hometown Sebastopol decided not to accept a local ISP's offer to create a free Wi-Fi network in the town, cowtowing to some local New Age psychosomatic fantasy that Wi-Fi causes some kind of health detriment. O'Reilly's Dale Dougherty says if this had played a century ago, the town wouldn't have electricity. (O'Reilly Radar)