News and stories

Limewire has announced that they have added 1.2 million legal, DRM-free tracks to their offical store, with the tracks starting at $0.27 USD per track.

As a P2P device, Limewire is by far the most popular with some reports saying as high as 18 percent of all personal computers have the application installed. Today’s news however marks the third time they have expanded their legal download store, this time signing a deal with “The Orchard“, a distributor of 1.2 million songs from Indie labels.

Greg Scholl, President and CEO of The Orchard, added, “We’re pleased to support the LimeWire store, a retail offering that protects copyrights while fairly compensating artists and labels. This exciting entrant to digital retail offers us a unique opportunity to connect our clients with an online audience of potentially millions of new customers.”

Although tracks are $.99 cents individually if you have a “Platinum” subscription plan, you can download 75 tracks for $19.99 a month, for an equivalent of $.27 cents per track.

Although the store has been struggling since its inception it does offer an interesting marketing opportunity for labels because the store is linked to results in the P2P portion of the application. Users will be linked to buy the song if they search for one that is available from the store. However, the Big 4 record labels are hesitant to sign on especially with Limewire’s past.



“LimeWire Store development has been running at full speed to provide a number of exciting new features, and we are enjoying the opportunity to improve our user community’s experience via the feedback they’ve provided,” said Jason Pelzer, the LimeWire store Technical Director.

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Fantom DVD Professional is useful application for cloning, burning, and emulating. Something like well known Alcohol 120% & Daemon Tools Pro.
Description: Fantom DVD, our “C/DVD-ROM simulation” software, has powerful functionality that you couldn’t decline.
The software is easy and practical to use. It not only has C/DVD-simulation function, it also has the function of recording the [...]

General Motors has announced that it will begin offering optional radios in its 2009 models that include USB ports that can be used for media devices such as the Apple iPod.

The radios will let users play music and charge their media devices without the need for special car adapters. The USB ports will be identical to those found on personal computers.

Currently three models have the radios but the company says at least 5 new models will be getting them for 2009. Those that currently offer them are the Chevrolet Cobalt, HHR and the Pontiac G5. The new models will be the Pontiac G6 and Solstice, the Saturn Sky and Aura, and the Chevrolet Malibu.

Making the offering even more interesting is that you can navigate the libraries of your media devices using the radio’s controls and electronic displays making browsing much easier than using the actual device.

Rival car maker Ford has had USB ports in a few of its cars for over a year now, the product of a joint venture with Microsoft.

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From the creators of Bus Driver, Euro Truck Simulator is a truck simulation game set in continental Europe. The player can drive across a realistic depiction of Europe, visiting its beautiful cities, picking up a variety of cargo and delivering them on time!
The road network in Euro Truck Simulator [...]

We’re trying something new @ rlslog. As you may have seen we’ve reorganised the menu a bit. All the games at rlslog have been united in 1 big category with some subcategory’s. You’ll see that the Staff Favorites subcategory is a new one. Every editor can make a post about a game that they liked,… [...]

The private torrent tracker AradiTracker has been closed down by its administrators, exactly one year after having legal action pursued against them by the anti-piracy outfit BREIN.

Last year BREIN forced the shut down of six torrent trackers and had their webhost LeaseWeb hand over all personal details of the administrators of the sites including that of AradiTracker. Surprisingly though the site was only down for a day then reappeared on a new host and seemed to have survived the attack.

Today however the tracker was again down and all visitors received a homepage message saying that the site would not be back.

TorrentFreak was able to find more details, getting in contact with a staff member of the site. The staff said “Early Thursday morning (BST) legal action was taken directly against Araditracker. For the moment we are unable to divulge details. As a direct result the decision has been taken to close the site. It is very unlikely to return as a torrent tracker.”

The site was very proud of its community and thanks everyone for their commitment.



“There are not enough words that can express our thanks for all support from the staff, past and present, Knights, VIPs, Uploaders, and members of all levels that have shared Araditracker over the last three years. Araditracker had a real sense of community and this more than anything will be missed by most.”

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Walt Disney Studios has announced that it plans to release a set of five Blu-ray “Platinum Hits”, a collection of animated classics from the studio.

The studio is one of the staunchest supporters of the HD format and the new decision is based on the company’s efforts to “accelerate consumer adoption” of the format. The studio says the five blockbusters will be released over the next 2 years.

The movies are ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,’ ‘Fantasia,’ ‘Fantasia 2000,’ ‘Pinocchio’ and the ‘Beauty and the Beast’ although it is unclear in what order they will be released. On October 7th ‘Sleeping Beauty” will be released to begin the “Platinum” line.

There was no other details except that each title will be two disc and include extensive bonus features as well as BD-Live interactivity.

“BD Live is not a niche product,” added Bob Chapek, president of Disney Home Entertainment.

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According to a new leak, the next Zune update will mainly just offer higher capacity drives with not much else.

The leak shows the official boxes of an updated 120GB Zune, as well as a 16GB flash-based Zune each of which are almost identical to their lower capacity predecessors with the exception of glossy surfaces.

Microsoft did not comment on the leak but did say that the hardware upgrades would be part of “a larger strategy in the fall that includes software upgrades.” It is still unclear what these upgrades will be however.

The Zune upgrades come at the same time as rumors swirl about upcoming iPod upgrades that will offer completely redesigned iPod Classic and iPod Nano lines.

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Sony is at the heart of another Blu-ray patent lawsuit, this time by Orinda Intellectual Properties USA.

According to an August 20th court filing, Orinda is claiming that Sony infringed on patent 5,438,560 which is a patent pertaining to different methods of recording and reproducing information via Blu-ray optical discs.

Orinda made sure that all subsidiaries of Sony were included in the suit, including Sony Electronics, Sony Computer Entertainment and Sony Computer Entertainment America.

Orinda wants a full injunction on manufacturing, sales and distribution of Sony Blu-ray standalones, computer drives and the PlayStation 3. Orinda also wants royalty payments.

“Orinda has been and will continue to be damaged as a result of Defendants’ infringing conduct,” the company said in the filing. “Defendants’ infringing conduct will continue unless permanently enjoined by this court.”

Last May, Sony was sued in a similar fashion by Target Technology by the suit was eventually thrown out.

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Sony is at the heart of another Blu-ray patent lawsuit, this time by Orinda Intellectual Properties USA.

According to an August 20th court filing, Orinda is claiming that Sony infringed on patent 5,438,560 which is a patent pertaining to different methods of recording and reproducing information via Blu-ray optical discs.

Orinda made sure that all subsidiaries of Sony were included in the suit, including Sony Electronics, Sony Computer Entertainment and Sony Computer Entertainment America.

Orinda wants a full injunction on manufacturing, sales and distribution of Sony Blu-ray standalones, computer drives and the PlayStation 3. Orinda also wants royalty payments.

“Orinda has been and will continue to be damaged as a result of Defendants’ infringing conduct,” the company said in the filing. “Defendants’ infringing conduct will continue unless permanently enjoined by this court.”

Last May, Sony was sued in a similar fashion by Target Technology by the suit was eventually thrown out.

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