

Thailand to sue YouTube
May 5th, 2007
I previously wrote Will Thailand unblock YouTube now?
According to Mashable Thailand is going to Sue YouTube…
“Today the situation became even more problematic, with the Thai government saying it has plans to sue YouTube. Sitthichai Phokai-udom, the minister of information and communications technology, told The Associated Press that the government will file suit in a Thai court next week on charges of offending the monarchy. The minister’s statement was remarkably blunt: “Thailand is a fairly small country and not the economic or military powerhouse, so we are at the mercy of the greedy businessman in America”.”
If YouTube is still blocked in Thailand you can use YouTubeProxy to access your lonelygirl15 videos.


Microsoft wants to acquire Yahoo for $50 Bn.
May 4th, 2007
Update: The Wall Street Journal says the Deal is not happening!
What could probably be the largest acquisition in IT history, Microsoft is trying to get Yahoo to come back to the table for takeover talk which Yahoo has previously turned away. The lucrative 50 billion USD offer could change things this time though.
Microsoft is really pushing hard as to play catch-up in fields such as search and to counter the ever growing presence of Google on the Internet.
Head over to New York Post for the exclusive…


Automatically Start YouTube Video Playback
May 3rd, 2007
Hack MSN Spaces has an article on how to Auto-start any YouTube video. When you add a YouTube video to your blog or website it does not start playing automatically. With this simple hack it is possible.
- Go to YouTube and search for the video you want to play on your Space.
- Copy the embed code that is given for the video
- Open notepad or a new blog entry and paste the give code
For example, I got:
- Modify the code by adding &autoplay=1 after the URL which is shown highlighted above. (This URL will be different in your case as it is a different video)
I got:
- Paste this modified code on your Space / blog / website and your YouTube will start to play automatically.
- Done!


Amazing Work Touch-Desk Concept by Microsoft
May 3rd, 2007
Microsoft unveiled a Work touch-desk concept at the Convergence 2007 conference. Vista didn’t make me go ‘Wow’, this did!
Watch the video…
[via Ring Nokia]




G33ks show no mercy: DIGG OUT OF CONTROL
May 2nd, 2007
A story that contained a HD-DVD encryption key was submitted to Digg. After it made it to the front page, the site moderators took it down.
Another user posted the number with the title as, ‘The number.Again’. It made it to the front page in record time. That story was taken down as well. Why?
“We’ve been notified by the owners of this intellectual property that they believe the posting of the encryption key infringes their intellectual property rights. In order to respect these rights and to comply with the law, we have removed postings of the key that have been brought to our attention.” (Digg Blog)
What followed totally blew away anything that I have ever seen before. The power of the mob!
Digg was flooded with the HD-DVD stories containing the encryption key and 100 percent of the front page popular stories were on it. We all know how much Diggers hate MPAA and the RIAA and this censoring by Digg caused an uproar and a ‘revolt’. There was also a link made between HD-DVD and Kevin Rose’s Podcast, Diggnation. HD-DVD sponsors this podcast and many Diggers believe that this may be the reason Kevin caved in and moderated the stories.
Kevin Rose, usually loved by all his users has never seen this side of them. He is trying to win back the mob and this is what he blogged:
Digg This: 09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0
Yes! The encryption Key…
Here is what he had to say:
“Today was an insane day. And as the founder of Digg, I just wanted to post my thoughts…
In building and shaping the site I’ve always tried to stay as hands on as possible. We’ve always given site moderation (digging/burying) power to the community. Occasionally we step in to remove stories that violate our terms of use (eg. linking to pornography, illegal downloads, racial hate sites, etc.). So today was a difficult day for us. We had to decide whether to remove stories containing a single code based on a cease and desist declaration. We had to make a call, and in our desire to avoid a scenario where Digg would be interrupted or shut down, we decided to comply and remove the stories with the code.
But now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you’ve made it clear. You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won’t delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be.
If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying.
Digg on,
Kevin”
I personally feel that a number cannot be a copyright infringement. It was the key that protected the copyrights and not the copyright itself! There are so many comments on Digg that I was p*ssing myself laughing. Everyone is trying to get the number up there on digg, let it be through submiting stories, via comments and even pictures! Click here for an example.
Wow! This is what I call the 21st Century Digital Revolt. I think soon the MPAA and RIAA will realise that DRM doesn’t work anymore.


Windows Home Server prototype designs
May 2nd, 2007
One of the leads in the user interface and design of Windows Home Server has a blog. Kynan Antos who works at Microsoft on the Windows Home Server project has posted a few designs he made of what the Home Server Console would look like - very interesting indeed. You can see from the different images how they’ve evolved and how the final view looks. In chronological order - from left to right - all the way through to the current.
Source: antosdesign


Sleep with go-ogl-e for $0.99
May 1st, 2007








