Hotmail……..Not!!

Microsoft Dumped Hotmail

Microsoft has decided to retire a brand which has been with it for the last 15 years – free Internet-based email service Hotmail. The company took a decision to fold it in under the familiar name of Outlook.
Indeed, Hotmail was one of the first popular Internet mail services, but later had to face the competition from Yahoo, AOL, and Google’s Gmail. This move looks like an attempt to consolidate the company’s consumer and workplace brands: although Hotmail used to be an all powerful force on the Internet, and there are still a lot of active users, Redmond is about the simplistic approach in Windows 8 and decided to bring two brands in under a single and well-known name.

Press reports confirm that Microsoft wants to bring in a product refresh for a brand which has not seen changes for many years. Redmond is going to tie it in closer to other Microsoft services, like the Google and Apple models, thus introducing a central point for contacts, email, and non-Microsoft related services, such as Facebook and Twitter.

In the meantime, the Outlook.com update shows an address book which brings in contacts from the 3rd party services like Gmail, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Like Google, Microsoft is going to include a cloud storage service tied in with Outlook.com. The industry experts point out that the software giant seems to take a direct shot at Google, promising that it wouldn’t show advertisements that fit with email considered “creepy” by the company. It is clear that Microsoft is riding the coattails of the privacy concerns surrounding Google and other Internet services, claiming they believe that “privacy matters”.

As for Hotmail, it will continue working for now, but all of its users will be offered the option to transfer to Outlook.com, while keeping their current usernames. In the meantime, emails sent to Hotmail accounts will be automatically forwarded to Outlook.com. Gradually, the software giant is going to move all Hotmail users to another service.

The experts are agree that the entire move looks like an effort to push a unified, simplified feel for Microsoft’s new oncoming Windows 8 and the Metro interface. The press also adds that this move is going along with the consumerisation of IT trend. It’s up to the users whether to move to Outlook now or wait a bit, but everybody will end up there, after all.

Mexico & Demonoid????

Demonoid Operators Will Face Mexican Court

After being closed down by the police of Ukraine, Demonoid (one of the largest BitTorrent trackers in the world) is not yet off the hook, with the people heading the service now being under criminal investigation and prosecution in Mexico.
Ukraine has confirmed that Demonoid wasn’t just subject to DDoS attacks – the website has also been raided by the police. A week ago the government authorities came to ColoCall (the Toller) – the firm hosting Demonoid – in order to close the service down. The representatives of the company confirmed in the interview to the local media that investigators have copied all the data from the Demonoid servers and sealed them. Apparently, Ukraine had promised the US that it would do its best to improve its efforts towards enforcing copyright and so presented Demonoid on a platter. An anonymous source in the Ukraine’s Interior Ministry confirmed that this action was scheduled to coincide with Deputy Prime Minister’s trip to the US.

Peter Vlasenko, Commercial Director at ColoCall, claimed that his company did warn Demonoid a few times about the complaints filed against the BitTorrent tracker. In addition, Vlasenko warned that this could force the website’s Internet service provider to cut any relations with it, which actually took place last week.

Sergei Burlakov, the spokesperson for the Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, explained that the Division of Economic Crimes has got an international request from Interpol to send a request to the hosting company. After sending this request to ColoCall, the broadband provider decided to stop working with the BitTorrent tracker.

In the meantime, a criminal investigation was started against the operators of the tracker: Burlakov revealed that Mexico had initiated a criminal case against the Demonoid operators. The BitTorrent tracker is being charged with intellectual property rights infringement.

Last year, Mexican authorities raided Monterrey, the capital of the north-eastern Mexican state of Nuevo León, in order to apprehend one of the operators of the notorious P2P service. In result of that raid, access to Demonoid in Mexico was completely shut down.

At the moment the spokespeople can’t say whether the investigation is being carried out against the same person who was arrested last year in Mexico or a different one.

Thanks to TorrentFreak for the source of the article

A Bad Apple??

Apple Started Censoring Books Mentioning Rivals

The software giant decided that the best way to address the rivalry is to censor all books mentioning its competitors. That’s a weird decision, but the company has already enforced the policy based on it. Now, for instance, if you want an ebook to be used in the iTunes store, you can’t mention anything related to Amazon.

According to author Holly Lisle, she found this out the hard way. Holly Lisle has been writing a series of Internet writing guides, and was very surprised when her “How To Think Sideways Lesson 6: How To Discover (Or Create) Your Story's Market” wasn’t accepted by Apple's iBooks store.

Surprisingly enough, the work wasn’t rejected due to the wrong title – Apple rather spiked it because it had “live links” to Amazon. Holly Lisle removed the links and then resubmitted her book, but even then Apple again rejected it, claiming that they don’t want to sell her book because it mentions Amazon.

Of course, Lisle was miffed. She made an official announcement that she didn’t think this could be seen as professional behaviour on a professional market. Perhaps, if Harry Potter had been looking for the Horcruxes on Amazon instead of running around in caves full of dead people, Apple would have been deleted this book too.

Actually, the company basically wanted Holly Lisle to write a writing course which included information on publishing and self-publishing without mentioning Amazon. In fact, it’s just the place where writers were going to make most of their cash. Holly Lisle announced she was pulling all of her books from the iBookstore.

As for Amazon, it remains calm about the competition and continues selling a lot of Apple stuff.

Don’t Mention The War!!

Italian Hitler wine bottles 'offensive'

Wine bottles featuring Adolf Hitler on the label have been called "offensive" after complaints from US tourists in the Italian city of Garda.

Michael Hirsch, a lawyer from Philadelphia, complained to local media after he found a supermarket near his hotel was stocking wine bottles with Hitler in various poses and another bottle featuring an image of Pope John Paul II.
"It is very shocking and startling to us," Mr Hirsch told The Daily Telegraph on Wednesday. "We would think of it as neo-Nazism It makes you wonder about the sympathies of the local people."
One bottle features Hitler with his arm raised in the Nazi, another is labelled 'Mein Kampf" and another was labelled "Ein volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer" (one people, one empire, one Fuhrer), Mr Hirsch said.
Local prosecutors said they have opened an inquiry into the sale of the wine bottles.
"I want to reassure our American friends who visit our country that our Constitution and our culture rejects racism, anti-Semitism and Nazi fascism," said Andrea Riccardi, the Italian integration minister. "This offends the memory of millions of people and risks compromising the image of Italy abroad."
Mr Hirsch and his wife Cindy are travelling through northern Italy on holiday and arrived in Garda on Monday.
He said he noticed the bottles when he was purchasing items at a supermarket and complained to a store employee.
"He told me 'It's just history, like Mussolini like Che Guevara.' I put the bottle down on the counter and left the store."
The father of Mr Hirsch's wife Cindy was born in Czechoslovakia and is an Auschwitz survivor. Her aunt, grandparents, and other family members died there.
"I was shocked," Mrs Hirsch said. "It is not only an affront to Jews, even if my husband and I are Jewish. It is an affront to humanity as a whole".
Prosecutor Mario Giulio Schinaia told news agency ANSA that inquiries were under way.
"The only crime that could be currently attributable to this is that of apologising for fascism," prosecutor Mario Giulio Schinaia told Ansa. "At this point though it would be opportune to invent the crime of human stupidity".
Italy made apologising for fascism a crime in 1952.

Kidsmobile??

Man Drove Drunk With Kids Strapped To Car

Aaron Stefanski pleads guilty to four offences after driving with four kids strapped to his vehicle in Indiana.

A man has been sentenced to 18 months in home detention for driving drunk with his three young children and another girl strapped to the bonnet of his car.
Aaron Stefanski, 29, told a judge that he regretted putting his three children, aged four to six, and a neighbour's seven-year-old daughter on the bonnet of the car.
Police in Indiana, US, arrested Stefanski and the neighbour after an off-licence manager called emergency services when he saw the drunk man use a tow strap to secure the four children and drive away.
Stefanski pleaded guilty last month to three counts of neglect of a dependent and one count of operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated.
In return for his guilty plea, prosecutors dropped other charges including criminal recklessness.
The Journal Gazette reported that Stefanski told Judge Wendy Davis that he regretted his actions every minute of every day since his arrest on May 7.
"I let alcohol make the decision for me," he said.

Bananas??

'Banana' in the bathroom turned out to be boa constrictor

A mother was shocked to discover a "banana" she found in her bathroom was actually a four-foot-long boa constrictor.

A woman was left shocked when she discovered that what she thought was a banana in her bathroom was actually a 4ft long boa constrictor.
Stacey Way, 28, was cleaning the bathroom floor when she noticed a yellow object next to the water pipe.
She assumed it was a banana her toddler had shoved down the side, and went to fetch her gloves to pick it up, but forgot about it.
A few days later she was bathing her two daughters and wiped the floor again when she suddenly saw the object move.
On closer inspection, she realised that the 'banana' actually had a mouth - and that it was a snake.
Horrified, she took the children, aged two and four, out of the bath, and called a friend who arrived with a box.
The pair went to a nearby reptile centre to ask for help but they were forced to call the RSPCA, who told them the floorboards would need to be removed to rescue the beast.
But as the property was rented, the officer advised her to leave a tub full of water on the bathroom floor to entice the snake out.
When Stacey checked a few hours later the creature had fully emerged and the reptile centre were able to collect it from her home in Parkstone, Dorset.
Stacey Way, 28, said: "I was wiping the bathroom floor when I noticed what I thought was a mouldy banana my toddler had shoved down the side of the water pipe.
"I know it sounds ridiculous, but I thought 'I'll get that in a minute with my gloves on' and then just forget all about it.
"Three days later I was bathing my two little ones and wiped around the floor again when I saw that this thing was sticking out more than before but as I got closer it went back in.
"I was so shocked, I couldn't believe it.
"I looked closer and realised that the banana, or now snake, had a mouth.
"We went round to the reptile centre near us, but then had to call the RSPCA who told us we would have to get a builder to remove the floorboards to get it.
"It's a rented property so we couldn't do that, and in the end the officer said to put a box with some water in it, as snakes like water for some reason, and leave it there.
"When I looked in the bathroom a few hours later he was sticking right out the hole so I called the shop and they came and got him.
"It was about three-to-four feet long, I couldn't believe it.
"Now I think I'm seeing snakes everywhere even though we've filled up all the holes.
"I don't mind snakes from a distance, but not in my bathroom."
Boa constrictors originate from Central and South America and can grow up to 13 ft long, but the largest ever found measured a staggering 18 ft.
They eat almost anything they can catch and stretch their jaws to swallow large prey whole.

You Owe Us!!!

Polish MP wants Spain to repay 400-year-old debt

As if Spain didn't have enough debt woes, now a Polish legislator is calling in a 235 million zloty (57.4 million euros, $66 million) debt dating back to the 16th century.
At issue is a 430,000 gold ducat loan taken by King Philip II of Spain (1527-98) from Poland's Italian-born Queen Bona Sforza (1494-1557) to finance the war between Spain and France for control of the Kingdom of Naples, most of which has never been paid off.
Marek Poznanski, a 28-year-old member of parliament with the renegade left Palikot Movement parliamentary caucus has launched a request for repayment which Poland's foreign ministry is currently examining.
"I'm well aware my request might seem odd, but I'd like it to make politicians really think about the consequences of lending money to other countries," Poznanski said on his Facebook page about his unusual initiative.
According to him, during the period in question one gold ducat weighed 3.5 grammes. Using current gold prices, the value of the debt would amount to 57.4 million euros, this not including 400 years' worth of interest.
Poland worked for centuries to recover the debt but by the 18th century it had managed to recover just 10 percent of the total sum.
Some historians even believe that Queen Bona, who died in exile in Bari, Italy, was poisoned on King Philip II's orders so he could wiggle his way out of repaying the money.
In archaic Polish, the term "Neapolitan sums" was used to describe bad debts.
Legal experts quoted in the Polish media are sceptical about the possibility of recovering the ancient debt due to the sheer amount of time that had passed.
Poznanski however notes that Spain recently recovered a treasure of 500,000 gold and silver pieces weighing 17 tonnes.
The treasure discovered on a Spanish naval vessel sunk in 1804 by the US-based Odyssey Marine Exploration firm was returned to Spain after a five-year legal battle in which Odyssey claimed "finders, keepers".

Have You Got The Time!

Watch thieves prey on French Riviera rich

Police on the French Riviera are on the hunt for a gang who have made off with more than a million euros' worth of luxury watches, all ripped from the wrists of their wealthy owners.
The thieves have been operating on the southern French coast since mid-July.
Among their victims has been a Russian who was robbed of his 550,000-euro (673,000-dollar) "Richard Mille" timepiece as he returned to his Cannes weekend residence in a Bentley, and a Ferrari owner who was deprived of a watch valued at 70,000 euros.
The gang's modus operandi involves identifying the owners of valuable watches and then following them to their cars.
As they prepare to drive off, one of the gang whizzes past on a scooter and deliberately clips the car's wing mirror.
When the driver reaches out to put it back in place, a second scooter arrives and its passenger wrestles the watch from the unsuspecting victim's wrist.
Police believe the robberies are the work of Italian criminals.
"We are faced with an operation that is structured and organised," said Jean-Michel Cailliau, the chief public prosecutor in the area.
"We will be putting significant resources into the cross-border investigation."
Police came close to apprehending some of the robbers at the weekend. The men escaped but abandoned their scooters and a car, from which forensics experts have been able to extract DNA samples which may ultimately help to secure convictions.

Let Me Out!!