Sprint Evo 4G Lands on June 4th, RIAA Crushes Limewire in Copyright Case
Highlights from this morning's other big tech headlines....
- HTC's's much-hyped Evo 4G for Sprint officially arrives June 4th, with a $199 post-rebate price. Yesterday, Sprint revealed the model's default specs, which include a 1-gigahertz processor, an 8-megapixel camera, video chat capabilities and an 8-gigabyte SD card. The phone also awesomely lets users link up to eight other devices via its Wi-Fi signal.
- In what could be a devastating case for peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing networks, a U.S. District Judge has ruled for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in its legal dispute with Limewire. Judge Kimba M. Wood determined that the P2P service has not actively combated the "substantial amount of copyright infringement" that takes place on the site. Following suit with its other exorbitant (and ridiculous) demands, the RIAA wants up to $150,000 per infringement as recompense. [From: Wired]
- Despite waning support from the over-34 crowd, Facebook still experienced tremendous growth -- in terms of user activity -- during 2010. According to the stat wizards at Nielsen, usage of the site climbed by 69-percent. Twitter experienced a gain of 45-percent, while MySpace continued its descent into social networking oblivion as activity declined for at least the third year in a row. [From: Nielsen Wire]
- Facebook hosted another significant increase during the first quarter of 2010, as the site reportedly ranked number one among all websites in terms of displayed advertisements. The site subjected its users to 176.3 billion ad banners during the period, with Yahoo!'s distant 131.6 billion ranking second. Facebook still needs to translate those annoyances into revenue, though, as Yahoo! earned $6.5 billion from its sponsors, compared to the relatively paltry estimated total of $1 billion for Facebook. [From: All Facebook]
- The Boxee media center provides a "compelling" and seamless method for users to combine social networking, music listening and video streaming. The company just announced that it is also implementing a payment system so that users will be able to purchase "premium content" not only from their desktops, but also from their mobile gadgets. [From: Engadget]
- According to Kaspersky (the folks who gave us Jackie Chan kicking virus-butt from a Segway), Facebook is not only the most popular social networking site, but also the most popular in terms of phishing attacks. The site came in fourth overall, with PayPal and eBay claiming the top two spam spots. [From: Kaspersky]
