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Filed under: Laptops

Filed under: Laptops

The Pirate Bay case is scheduled to go to court a few months from now, but the controversy surrounding it has started building up like some Hollywood plot.

Sydsvenskan.se reports today that
Prosecutor Håkan Roswall was contacted by a lawyer working for Warner recently. The lawyer announced that he wanted to disclose the circumstances behind the hiring of policeman Jim Keyzer.

Roswall and Warner Bros. now admit what we already reported back in April. Police IT forensics specialist Jim Keyzer started working for the movie studio before the Pirate Bay investigation was closed. Keyzer has now terminated his leave of absence, and is back with the IT Crime Unit in Stockholm.

This contradicts an earlier statement from Warner Bros., as they initially denied that Keyzer was not employed or paid by the movie studio while he was still working on the case. This new information could have serious implications for the upcoming Pirate Bay trial.

Peter Sunde, one of Pirate Bay’s founders told TorrentFreak in a response: “I think it’s obvious that he has been working for them for a longer time during the investigation. Also, the MPA lawyer Monique Wasted has told the newspapers that Jim was hired because he did a good job for them.”

The Pirate Bay crew was not amused by Keyzer’s actions, and filed a complaint. Three weeks ago we reported that “at least” three complaints had been filed, including an alleged attempt to bribe the police.

“I hope the police will take the matter really seriously and fire him from his job. He cannot work for the police after being paid by the anti-pirates for doing anti-pirate work, when that is part of his job at the police,” Sunde said.

The Pirate Bay trial is scheduled to start later this year, and it is likely that The Pirate Bay’s lawyers will use Keyzer’s employment at Warner Bros. to raise questions about the objectivity of the investigation.

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

Warner Confesses: Pirate Bay Cop Compromised

Tucked away in a quiet corner at Computex, ASUS is showing a nondescript laptop with a built-in pico projector. Tiny projectors have made various appearances at the tech show so far, most recently from Foxconn, but no other company has incorporated them into existing products, or for that matter shown many compelling applications for them other than in bulky and unrealistic cellphones. ASUS has provided the first example of what could be a fantastic use for this burgeoning new tech.

For now though, the execution doesn’t seem great. The staff at PC Perspective, who were the first to lay eyes on the device, couldn’t tell much about the exact specs of the projection unit but judging by the photo below (and the capabilities of other miniature projectors) the images won’t exactly be dazzling. The camera is also built into the top of the bezel, which creates two pretty big chunks of wasted space. Speculative reservations aside, built-in projection capability could have serious potential in the business world, so ASUS may be on to something.

[PC Perspective]

Tucked away in a quiet corner at Computex, ASUS is showing a nondescript laptop with a built-in pico projector. Tiny projectors have made various appearances at the tech show so far, most recently from Foxconn, but no other company has incorporated them into existing products, or for that matter shown many compelling applications for them other than in bulky and unrealistic cellphones. ASUS has provided the first example of what could be a fantastic use for this burgeoning new tech.

For now though, the execution doesn’t seem great. The staff at PC Perspective, who were the first to lay eyes on the device, couldn’t tell much about the exact specs of the projection unit, but judging by the photo below (and the capabilities of other miniature projectors) the images won’t exactly be dazzling. The camera is also built into the top of the bezel, which creates two pretty big chunks of wasted space. Speculative reservations aside, built-in projection capability could have serious potential in the business world, so ASUS may be on to something.

[PC Perspective]

I’ve been desparately combing the feeds for something that sparks the creative juices this evening. Given the good run of news days over the last several weeks, the streak of news that caters to my various interests was bound to subside eventually. Just as I was about to give up hope, I found a post from Nick O’Neill’s Social Times on the topic of monetizing Twitter.

I can already hear the groans as a significant portion of the audience readies their mouse for a click to the next story, but this is one of those V8 ideas where you hit yourself in the head and say, “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Blogger and Twitter fan Ian Schafer has decided to see what the market will bear in terms of renting out portions of his Twitter page. Instead of going the route of selling tweets, as Robert Scoble gauged the market for with his Seagate experiment, he’s selling off the graphical portions of his Twitter page: the background image and the profile thumbnail.

It’s a clever idea, and avoids a lot of the issues that caused very vocal protests when the Scobleizer played at selling off his individual tweets.  He’s put an auction up on eBay, and the bidding on the virtual real estate is at present up to $545. What do you get for your advertising dollar?

This is an auction for a one-month sponsorship of my Twitter feed and page that lives at http://www.twitter.com/ischafer. I’ve got hundreds followers, many of whom are amongst the interactive advertising industry elite, including numerous journalists.

This one-month sponsorship includes replacing of the existing background image with the image(s) of your choice, as well as replacement of my handsome photo with another image of your choice (ie. brand logo).

I average about 8-10 outbound ‘tweets’ a day, and your brand would be represented in each.

The ultimate goal for Ian is to find a profit model for Twitter, rather than profiteering.  He’s donating the proceeds to charity.  I think personally, whether or not Twitter is able to do anything with this in terms of coming up with a way to make money, that this is an excellent way for Twitter power users to make cash off the hundreds of hours they while away conversing into the virtual-ether.

But remember, it is us power users who are the problem, right?  Scoble is the reason that Twitter is failing, supposedly. Instead of going with the Calacanis solution (that is, to charge the power users), how about utilizing the amazing amount of marketing power that resides in the personal brands of Twitter power users.

Folks like Louis Gray and Robert Scoble have been able to launch entire Web 2.0 niches just by describing a problem, and then subsequently promoting a company or set of developers that work to solve those issues. Those are just two names I’m intimately familiar with within the hundreds of Twitter users that have several thousand or more subscribers. Twitter should be striking deals with these users and splitting the cash with them.

In the meantime, I’ll be waiting for your call on this, Twitter. If I don’t hear from you soon, don’t be surprised to see my background for rent on eBay soon.

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In its ongoing bid to prove there is a robust and sustainable advertising business in the social networking space, widgetmaker Slide opened a New York City office and hired a big-deal online ad exec.

Of course, because it has to be hip, the office is in the always trendy West Village, instead of uptown in Manhattan on Madison Avenue.

The new director of ad sales is Jason Bitensky, who comes to Slide from his post as director of national sales at AOL Media Networks/Platform-A. Previous to that, he worked at Comcast.

Until this hire, Slide had only four sales people, all located at its San Francisco HQ, who sold campaigns and sponsorships for its third-party apps that are hugely popular on sites like Facebook and MySpace.

Advertisers are most definitely intrigued, experimenting all over the place and interested in different ways of engaging with consumers.

Nonetheless, they are still using tiny “innovation” budgets to test the space and have still not unlocked the treasure chests of big bucks that go to television.

In fact, here is an interesting story on the ad issues apps makers face in The Wall Street Journal tomorrow.

The not-so-much-money quote: “The push by application companies means more players are competing over what is a relatively small pie. In 2007, U.S. marketers spent $600 million advertising on social media, a sliver of the $18 billion spent on interactive advertising that year, according to Forrester Research. The number is forecast to spike to $6.9 billion by 2012.”

Still, said Max Levchin, CEO of Slide, about the move in a statement: “The success of campaigns on our popular products, such as SuperPoke!, Top Friends and FunWall, has attracted the attention of not only top brands, but also top talent like Jason.”

BoomTown shall agree to disagree with our favorite widget king about SuperPoke’s potential as an ad vehicle.

But it is entirely true that Slide and other apps makers have to convince big brands that the social networking phenomenon is here to stay and is effective, well beyond its viral popularity and huge valuations given to companies in the space.

Earlier this year, Slide–founded in 2005–got a $50 million round of funding that valued the company at $550 million.