Pirate Bay Continues Business as Usual

Just because there's a multimillion dollar fine and a year of potential jail in the potential future of the Pirate Bay's administration, doesn't mean that the world's largest tracker doesn't need some TLC. With at least 22 million peers online at any moment, The Pirate Bay (TPB) continues to rule the file-sharing landscape despite the entertainment industry's legal victory in April. It's not difficult to see the important role TPB plays in the file-sharing ecosystem. Not only does it serve as the largest P2P platform, but provides the cultural and community center that for many years was lacking in the P2P landscape. For better or worse, like SuprNova before it, TPB is the identity of the file-sharing community. Without additional enforcement against TPB's network infrastructure since May 31 of 20006, it's likely that the entertainment industry is finding it difficult to pry this community offline. Blocking at the ISP level seems to be the only recourse, yet even at best, the results of this tactic appears marginal. And winning a multimillion dollar lawsuit doesn't seem like much of a deterrent either.

Source: http://www.slyck.com/story1855_Pirate_Bay_Continues_Business_as_Usual

Prism Firefox extension hits beta

Mozilla Labs has released a beta of a Firefox extension that turns any website application into a desktop app. The not-for-profit outfit launched the standalone web app late on Friday. Dubbed Prism, it comes with its own site and an updated API for developers to play with. Prism 1.0 beta comes loaded with several nifty features including tray icon support, automatic updates and application-specific settings. As with Mozilla’s latest Firefox browser, Prism also allows users to wipe clean their web surfing history with porn private browsing mode. Google’s Chrome browser already has the ability to run standalone web apps on any site, but it doesn’t currently offer add-ons such as those found in Prism. “With the release of Prism 1.0 beta we are ready to start fostering an ecosystem that makes it easier for developers to create and distribute compelling web app bundles,” wrote Matthew Gertner on the Prism development team blog last Friday.

Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/11/mozilla_prism_beta_1_0/