The Rise and Fall of The Pirate Bay

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The Pirate Bay has been down for more than six weeks now. The site is amidst constant speculation about its return. Currently, thpiratebay.se is counting down to Feb 1st. And has been sending strong hints that it will return. It's called "world's most resilient torrent site" for a reason. Yesterday, The Pirate Bay reverted to its old and familiar look but the torrent browsing features are grayed out.

On 9 December 2014, the Swedish police raided the site's office, seizing servers, computers and other related sites. But, it is likely that what was on those servers and systems is backed up in the cloud, which is out of law enforcement's hands.  The site ultimately went offline, and it hasn't returned since then. This is the longest period the site has been offline in the history of The Pirate Bay.





It all began in September 2003, when the site was founded by Swedish anti-copyright organisation "The Piracy Bureau". The founders of the site were Gottfrid Svartholm and Fredrik Neij. The Pirate Bay was all about promoting the sharing of information. Initially, Gottfrid Svartholm hosted the website on a server that was owned by the company he worked for.

By the end of 2004, the site gained a lot of international attention. It had outgrew its limited server capacity, drawing around a million users and 60,000 torrent files. In the following year, their service boasted 2.5 million users, and the traffic volume began attracting a lot of attention. Copyright holders came into the scene, sending notices to the operators, demanding to take down certain content, citing copyright infringement. Most of these notices weren't responded to, and the content remained available on the site. Due to this, Swedish police raided the site for the first time.

On May 31, 2006, police officers raided the Stockholm data center of the company, with all intentions of shutting The Pirate Bay down. And they did shut it down. But only for three days. Thus The Pirate Bay survived its first raid.
The raid did so much more than trying to shut it down. It helped the site hit the mainstream, and it grew more popular. As more and more users began to discover The Pirate Bay, more and more law suits started coming in the site's way. Finally, in 2009, the four founders of The Pirate Bay were found guilty of assisting copyright infringement. They were sentenced to one year in jail, facing fines of $3.62 million (that's approximately Rs 200 crores). After appealing to the court, their jail time was reduced, but the fine were nearly doubled. This inspired the site's owners to introduce some technical changes o avoid law enforcement issues in the future. 

In 2012, the company switched its entire operation to cloud-based storage, using a number of servers worldwide. This served two purposes: the site became faster, and it became harder to take down. Harder...but not  impossible. The site being down since 9 December is an evidence of which.


The Swedish investigation has been going on and will probably go on for months. But people speculate the site will return before the investigation's conclusion.


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Internet of Things

04:49 , , 0 Comments

The Internet of Things (furthermore referred to as IoT) is the interconnection of uniquely identifiable embedded computing devices within the existing internet infrastructure. In other words, it is a technique using which objects are provided with unique identifiers (the term objects here can be extended to animals or people as well) and are given the ability to transfer data over a network without actual human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction.

‘Things’ in the IoT includes various devices from all walks of life, for example heart monitoring implants, automobiles with built-in sensors or field operation devices that help fire fighters in search and rescue.

It is estimated that by the year 2020, about 26 billion devices will be making using of this technology. Another study claims this number to be around 30 billion. According to a recent study by Pew Research Internet Project, 83% of technology users accepted the fact that IoT will have widespread and beneficial effects by the year 2025.



In order to minimize the effects of this technology on the environment and reduce the energy consumption, low-power radios will most probably be used for connection of the devices to the internet. In addition to this, the implicit embedded nature of the devices under consideration effectively reduces the cost of running.

Billions of devices across a wide variety of industries will make use of IoT in the near future. A few of the applications are as follows:

Industrial Applications:

Control of network and manufacturing processes, management of manufacturing equipment and assets and situation management are included in the spectrum of industrial applications of IoT.

Smart industrial management systems can also be integrated with the IoT using the SmartGrid. This enables real-time energy optimization.

Measurements, automated controls, health and safety management and other functions are accounted for by a large number of sensors acquainted with the network.



Medical and Healthcare Systems:

In the medical field, IoT is used to enable remote health monitoring, ranging from blood pressure and heart rate monitors to advanced devices capable of monitoring implants (such as pacemakers), and emergency notification systems.

In order to monitor the general well-being of senior citizens, specialised sensors can be installed within living spaces. This initiative ensures that proper treatment is being given to those in need.

IoT expands the possibilities for other pro-health devices such as wearable heart monitors.




Building and Home Automation:

Amongst the various applications of IoT is also the monitoring and control of mechanical, electrical and electronic systems used in various types of buildings, such as public and private, industrial, institutions and residential.

By the term ‘Home Automation’, one usually refers to the control of lighting, heating, ventilation, air conditioning, entertainment and home security devices to improve convenience, comfort and security.


Transport Systems:

Communication, control and information processing across various transportation systems can be integrated via IoT. All aspects of transportation systems, i.e. the vehicle, infrastructure and the driver, are covered by IoT.


The Internet of Things is a widely acclaimed technology which is soon finding its place in various fields. In a few years, majority of the world’s electrical devices will make use of this phenomenon for their smooth functioning. This sure is one technical beast to watch out for!  

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Meet Twitter's 'While You Where Away' Feature

04:19 0 Comments

We usually miss out on most of the tweets on our timeline while we are away. Things will be changing soon as Twitter will implement a new feature called ‘While you were away’, which pins what Twitter considers to be the “best tweets”, at the top of the user’s timeline.

It is a simple recap of relevant tweets that the users have missed since their last login, but Twitter is yet to elaborate the algorithm based on which tweets are displayed. Speculation is that tweets to be highlighted are determined based on metrics like the number of favorites and retweets. With this new feature, twitter aims at making tweets that are interesting to the user easy to discover. Moreover, you don’t have to pay attention to everything, but at the same time you don’t miss the stuffs that matter to you. As the ‘While you were away’ feature gives you a brief rundown of what all happened in your absence, this way important tweets are not drowned out by the rapid flow of tweets and also you are saved from the avalanche of rolling thoughts and pictures.


It works in a similar fashion to Facebook’s news feed, which displays status updates and posts in a ranked manner (usually non-chronological). This recap feature is the first major non-chronological feature to rap Twitter.

                                                                                    
This new feature aims at boosting user engagement
This is certainly not the first instance of people being overwhelmed by such a recap feature. There already exist certain services solely for fishing important posts-Nuzzel, for example, taps into your Facebook and Twitter network to trawl stories that are popular with people you know. In addition, Twitter already has email alerts for that purpose too. News.Me picks out five important tweets in a day from your timeline, and sends them as an email digest.


According to the Twitter CFO, Anthony Noto, “[Tweets being in reverse chronological order] isn’t the most relevant experience for a user. Putting that content in front of the person at that moment in time is a way to organize that content better.”


Ahead of its release, in November, the company described the recap feature saying, “Every time you open the Twitter app, you’ll see something great”. It also mentioned its another upcoming ‘Instant Timeline’ feature, which will offer content without needing users to search for accounts to follow and is scheduled to be released in early 2015.


The new features are a part of Twitter’s plan to rein in Facebook’s lead and to boost user engagement. There are still a lot of things we don’t know about this new recap feature and since Twitter has declined to comment, it might stay the same for a while.

As for the reaction, it has been a mixed bag

Presently, this feature is only available to some users across the globe, but a gradual rollout to more is expected. So far, user reaction has been a mixed bag, ranging from demands for complete rollout to one of confusion and frustration.



Now the big question that arises here is whether Twitter is on the path to becoming Facebook or not. For many, this move seems as an indication that Twitter might be inching closer to becoming a lot like Facebook and losing it's true essence. If so, why use Twitter at all?





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Microsoft to Unveil New Web Browser this year.

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Microsoft to Unveil New Web Browser this year.

Reports suggest Microsoft is working on a new web browser as an alternative to Internet Explorer. Both the scope and timescale of any changes have not yet been confirmed, but it's suggested the launch will coincide with the release of Windows 10.
Most rumors reference two code names for the project: Trident and Spartan. The two names refer to the same strategy: to make Microsoft's web browser better and easier to use on modern websites, while still being able to run web pages designed for legacy systems.
Trident is the web browser engine which already exists and is part of Internet Explorer. In software terms, an engine is a basic framework of computer code. Each new edition of Internet Explorer is based around Trident, even though it comes with numerous tweaks, updates and new features

New, Lightweight Microsoft Browser Expected

Some reports suggest that Microsoft is developing two different versions of Trident for future use, effectively allowing the same computer to run two different forms of Internet Explorer.
One version, which will be very similar to the existing browser, will be able to handle older websites through what's called "compatibility mode". The other version will automatically run on newer web pages where compatibility mode isn't needed. As a result, this newer version will need much less code to operate. In turn, that should mean it runs faster and uses less computer resources.
Some reports go a step further and suggest that Microsoft is ready to ditch the Trident engine outright, with a new browser being designed entirely from scratch. Other reports suggest that the Spartan project may include a few parts of the old Internet Explorer, including the JavaScript engine and the rendering engine.
The new browser will supposedly be speedier, simpler and will retain Internet Explorer's rendering engine, but if earlier leaks are to be believed, will behave more like Chrome or Firefox. Given that Microsoft wants Windows 10 to run on everything from smartphones to televisions, it's highly possible that legacy work will get ditched. There will be both mobile and desktop versions of the new browser, so it will have to facilitate multiple browsing experiences and different input methods. 

Internet Explorer Brand May Need Replacing

The various reports, if true, suggest Microsoft is trying to serve two audiences at the same time. On one hand, Microsoft wants to continue offering some form of Internet Explorer to users which are already familiar with the browser and use it on a daily basis.
On the other hand, having a completely new browser may be the only way to overcome Internet Explorer's tarnished reputation. Many users feel that Internet Explorer is too bloated, uses far too many resources, and is highly susceptible to malware infection.
Whatever changes Microsoft makes, the next edition(s) of Internet Explorer are expected to be unveiled in 2015 and will coincide with the release of Windows 10. It's suggested that it may take several months before any changes to Microsoft's browser go out for public testing. It's speculated that the final version of Windows 10 will ship with both Internet Explorer 11 and Spartan.

Internet Explorer 12: Big changes are coming to Trident


Microsoft has found itself in a peculiar position when it comes to browsing the web. With Internet Explorer facing strong competition from Google and Mozilla, a browser ballot screen that is no more, and a new OS on the horizon, Internet Explorer is in a place where it needs a big showing with Windows 10 to make sure that its market share remains ahead of the competition.

Over the years, Internet Explorer has had a perception problem that is rooted in IE6 and for some, IE7 and IE8 too. It's the legacy applications that are still impacting the brand but as recent data shows, even with the negative connotation, overall, IE still remains incredibly relevant in the browser conversation. And with IE12 on the horizon that will bring an updated interface and browser extensions, there are changes going on under the hood that are expected to improve performance for the application.
Microsoft has made a rather large decision regarding Trident, the engine that powers the browser, and no, it's not adopting Webkit. The team behind the engine has forked Trident into two components that will result in a new .DLL when the browser ships.
The forking of Trident, copying off the code base so there are two version, is a strategic move to have legacy support no longer impact modern webpages. How it works, per our internal sources, is that if a page calls for IE to render in a compatibility mode, this will cause the older, more resource intensive Trident engine to display the page. But, if the webpage does not call for compatibility mode, then the updated IE12 Trident engine will handle all of the lifting.
Because of the fork, the modern component of the IE12 should be lightweight compared to what we have now in IE11, at least, that's the hope because all of the legacy base has been removed.
It's because of this fork, we believe, that the rumors started that Microsoft was releasing a brand new browser that's not Internet Explorer. And as Mary-Jo Foley reports, she is hearing that Spartan, which we reported back on in September that has a new user interface, is lightweight browser that may not be called IE12.
IE12 is a huge project for Microsoft and while every release is a big deal, this is the first browser to come out from the Redmond based company since Nadella took the top job. If they screw this up, it will be a significant challenge to overcome if users find that IE12 is not what consumers want to use to consume the web.
The Trident engine has been forked to allow for a new browser, which is being developed under the internal codename 'Spartan'. This browser name has been spotted in a few leaks but its user interface has remained a mystery to the outside world, until now.The UI looks more like Chrome/Firefox than it does Internet Explorer and that's not necessarily a bad thing.












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