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Vuze 4.2 offers users a drag-and-drop video conversion option.

(Credit: Vuze)

Continuing to stake out a different approach to torrents, the latest version of Vuze integrates an auto-conversion feature for both portable screens and your television. Available for Windows and Mac, Vuze 4.2 offers a device drag-and-drop feature that automatically converts a video torrent from its native format to an appropriate one for iTunes, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360, and then pushes it to your device.

Still in beta, the new Devices tab on the left nav will ask you to install a transcoder and a plug-in. Devices then detects iTunes or any of the devices when they’re connected to your computer. When you choose iTunes, Vuze will push the video without user input. From there, you can sync the video to your iPod or iPhone. Xbox and PlayStation users will see the video streamed directly from their PC or Mac to their game console.

Two weeks ago, when Vuze asked in a poll on its Web site which devices users most wanted this feature for, the iPhone and iPod won by a long shot. With more than 25,000 respondents, the only major system that wasn’t included in this update was the Wii–so you shouldn’t be surprised if Wii support is in the works. There’s no word on automatic support for other popular portable video players.

The conversion process is not particularly speedy, so if you’re more concerned with speed than convenience you might not find the update useful. However, Vuze is certainly giving users who are looking for something between the basic uTorrent and the robust Miro an interesting and feature-rich third option.

See the rest here:
Vuze update auto-converts video torrents

Today we have a new president to lead a new American path through what will be a tumultuous time. But President Obama won’t be able to do it alone. He and his administration need to work together, and communicate with one another and the country, to ensure everything is running well.

That’s why I’ve compiled a “cheat sheet” for the Obama Administration, listing five services it should use in the White House. Sadly, it probably won’t. Record-keeping laws and security concerns will ensure that none of my suggestions take effect.

AIM for White House staff

Why shouldn’t the White House staff be able to communicate with one another over AIM? I’m sure many of them use it in their daily lives and bringing it to the White House to communicate quickly is, in my estimation, a pretty good idea.

Instead of forcing his staff to walk back and forth between wings and offices, what if President Obama was able to instant message his staff from the Oval Office. I can see it now: PrezObama312: “Where’s the dossier on the Russian spy we’ve been tracking?” WHStaffer35: “IDK. BRB.” PrezObama312: “K. G2G. L8r.”

Wouldn’t that be great?

BitTorrent for distributing government documents

I know BitTorrent has been the target of the RIAA and MPAA over the past few years due to its huge supply of copyrighted material, but why shouldn’t the government embrace the technology and use BitTorrent to distribute information to the public?

Sure, there’s always that issue of “pirates” running the service, but I don’t see what all the fuss is about. Who will they tell? President Obama should look to BitTorrent as an ideal way to get the word out. The distributed network reduces the cost of running data centers by allowing all the network’s users to share the load.

It makes sense to me.

Present.ly for internal micro-blogging in groups based on level

Aside from AIM, I think the Obama Administration should use enterprise micro-blogging service, Present.ly, to allow White House staff and the President to communicate.

The real beauty of Present.ly is its ability to allow users to create groups. A top-level aide can put the President, Vice President, and Cabinet in one group so they can discuss world affairs in a Twitter-like format, and the rest of the staff can have their own group to take care of their own work.

Sure, someone might be able to hack their way into the President’s Present.ly group (“Michelle10″ is an easy password to crack, Mr. President), but it still would help the staff communicate far more effectively than walking back and forth between desks.

Did you see “24″ Monday night? That’s all they do.

Stickam for White House room streams

I don’t know about you, but I’m not always convinced that White House staff is really working. I’m not even sure President Obama would ever really know if his staff is working. How could he? He’s busy.

That’s why he needs to install cameras throughout the White House and use Stickam to monitor his employees. At any given time, he can log in to Stickam, find the White House channel, and start viewing all the different rooms in the House.

I’ll bet that would get everyone working.

Ustream with moderated chat for country-wide town hall meetings

Ustream is a fine video streaming service that makes connecting with others simple and fun. It’s also ideal for a White House town hall meeting where President Obama would be on camera and citizens from across the U.S. would have the opportunity to ask him questions in a moderated chat room.

I don’t see any reason why the President shouldn’t exploit Ustream in this way. He has shown time and again that he has a real desire to use technology to connect with the populace and capitalizing on Ustream to give citizens a voice would be just another example of him doing just that.

I realize that allowing citizens from across the U.S. to comment on the President’s policies could be troublesome, considering millions would probably want to join in, but if the room had a cap on the number of people who could join, or an effective team that could moderate comments, I doubt it would be a problem.

I’d certainly like to join in on that chat.

Check out Don’s Digital Home podcast, Twitter feed, and FriendFeed.

See the original post here:
Five technologies the Obama administration should (but won’t or can’t) adopt

A new Firefox extension called Pirates of the Amazon (note: link is currently down) lets users download movies, games, TV shows and MP3s free of charge by cross referencing Amazon’s product pages with torrent files from the Pirate Bay.

If the content can be found on the Pirate Bay’s search index it shows up as a “Download 4 Free” link on the top of the Amazon product page. This links directly to the hosted .torrent tracker file, letting the user avoid having to purchase from Amazon in place of acquiring it illegally via BitTorrent.

The extension developer’s site, along with the link to download the software is currently offline. The extension made the front page of Digg a few hours ago, which likely took the site out instead of legal intervention. I’ve contacted Amazon to see if the company is making any efforts to block the extension but have not heard back yet. As it stands the extension still works, albeit without the “Download 4 Free” thumbnail which is hosted on the developer’s servers.

As blog Torrentfreak notes, this is a really bad time for such an extension. Piracy continues to be a huge problem for movies, music albums, and PC games. Amazon’s online MP3 store is one of the least expensive places to legally purchase DRM-free music, and this extension manages to make it that much simpler to pirate. It also coincides with a time of year when online retailers are getting an increase in traffic due to holiday sales.

That said, anyone who knows how to pirate content probably did not need this to continue their habit.

A similar add-on is available for IMDB users from Userscripts.org that cross references movie titles with torrent sites to find copies of the film online. Despite its clear lean towards piracy, I’d argue that one of its more useful features it is to track down subtitle files, which can provide translations in smaller countries where the content might be legally available but not localized.

Below is a demo of how the extension works. Expect the developer’s site, along with the download links to be back up later today.

Pirates of the Amazon screencast from pirates_of_the_amazon on Vimeo.

Here is the original post:
New Firefox extension turns Amazon.com into an illegal free-for-all

A new Firefox extension called Pirates of the Amazon lets users download movies, games, TV shows, and MP3s free of charge by cross referencing Amazon’s product pages with torrent files from the Pirate Bay.

If the content can be found on the Pirate Bay’s search index it shows up as a “Download 4 Free” link on the top of the Amazon product page. This links directly to the hosted .torrent tracker file, letting the user avoid having to make a purchase from Amazon in place of acquiring it illegally via BitTorrent.

The extension developer’s site, along with the link to download the software is currently offline. The extension made the front page of Digg a few hours ago, which is likely what took the site out (not legal intervention). I’ve contacted Amazon to see if the company is making any efforts to block the extension but have not heard back yet. As it stands, the extension still works, albeit without the “Download 4 Free” thumbnail, which is hosted on the developer’s servers.

As blog Torrentfreak notes, this is a really bad time for such an extension. Piracy continues to be a huge problem for movies, music albums, and PC games. Amazon’s online MP3 store is one of the least expensive places to legally purchase DRM-free music, and this extension manages to make it that much simpler to pirate. It also coincides with a time of year when online retailers are getting an increase in traffic due to holiday sales.

That said, anyone who knows how to pirate content probably did not need this to continue their habit.

A similar add-on is available for IMDB users from Userscripts.org that cross references movie titles with torrent sites to find copies of films online. Despite its clear lean toward piracy, I’d argue that one of its more useful features it is to track down subtitle files, which can provide translations in smaller countries where the content might be legally available but not localized.

Below is a demo of how the extension works. Expect the developer’s site, along with the download links to be back up later today.

Pirates of the Amazon screencast from pirates_of_the_amazon on Vimeo.

Read the rest here:
New Firefox extension turns Amazon.com into illegal free-for-all

Never let it be said that software publishers ignore the demands of their users, at least in the case of BitTorrent client Vuze.

Back in June, the popular BitTorrent client Azureus underwent some serious reconstructive surgery. The familiar layout of top buttons and a spreadsheet interface was wrapped up in a Web 2.0 package, tied off with a bow of peer ratings and reviews and an emphasis on video content. The old UI was kept but de-emphasized, and the application was renamed Vuze 3.1.

Vuze 4.0 has been redesigned in response to user complaints.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Although it kept Azureus’ blue frog logo, fans were not amused. Vuze 4.0 is a direct attempt to incorporate user concerns and still try to push the app forward, although in a blog post today, Chris on the Vuze blog confirmed that the new silhouetted look of the frog is not going anywhere.

On to the important stuff. The new Vuze follows in the footsteps of iTunes, so if you’re new to torrents the learning curve will be less steep than it was in Vuze 3.1. There’s a menubar on the top, with a sidebar on the left for managing torrents and videos. Where you might expect album art in the old iTunes 6 layout, you’ve got a Friends panel for adding people to share your torrents with.

The search bar at the top of the central pane leads the eye directly to the rolled-in playback controls, and feels modern and slick. ShareThis has been built-in, and the former Advanced tab has been renamed My Library. Newbies will appreciate the three-step tabbed tutorial that launches in the main pane, and even experienced torrenters should find it helpful for getting their bearings in an entirely new layout.

There are some other slick touches to the client interface. F7 toggles the sidebar, a useful arrow makes it easy to hide the Friend pane, and using the hotkey combo CTRL+ 2, 3, 4, or 5 reveals a series of otherwise hidden panes. My Tracker, My Classic-Shares, Console, and Statistics are also available under Tools on the menubar. These panes open organically in the main program window or on the sidebar, and have been baked in well. They don’t look like afterthoughts or what-the-hecks.

There are several useful new features. First off, Vuze users can now search a multitude of torrent trackers from within the Vuze interface. In addition to the Vuze tracker, users will see results from MiniNova and other independent trackers. Customizable search templates are not available, but you can now set up a private tracker that supports usernames and passwords. Subscriptions have also been revamped, with the ability to share anonymously and the ability to find a file that’s part of somebody’s torrent, and subscribe to just that file in that torrent.

Memory usage has always been an issue with Vuze and Azureus. The old Azureus clocked in at around 50MB when going full bore, and the new Vuze is around double that. It’s still not as slim as some of the other torrent clients out there, but very few offer similar features. If anything, the new Vuze is most similar to open-source Miro, which is more of a multimedia player with torrenting support features.

If you’re not into toolbars, watch out during the installation process for the Vuze toolbar and the Ask.com toolbar–both are opt-out. Even with those hang-ups, the new Vuze works well, has a slick design, and should appeal to torrenters who are looking for a bit more panache in their BitTorrent client.

Source:
Vuze gets another makeover