Internet

The man who hoped to mastermind the transfer of the World Wide Web onto mobile telephones has abandoned his project and revealed that 80% of traffic on his system was pornography. Russell Beattie, who launched 'Mowser' (as in mobile-browser) last ... year, says he now realises there simply isn't any serious demand for a 'mobile-specific web' outside of the Far East. The idea of Mowser was to provide versions of ordinary web pages specifically designed for cell phone displays. Users could simply type in the address of the site they wanted to see and Mowser would automatically 'translate' it into a ... (view more)

The image-hosting site Flickr has launched an online video page that appears to be a natural rival to YouTube. However, most analysts think the move has come too late. It's an extension of the search engine wars: Flickr is owned by Yahoo, while ... Google owns YouTube. Though Yahoo already has a video hosting service, it's only available to media outlets and professionals. The new Flickr service will allow anyone to view videos, but only 'pro' members can upload footage. This will cost $24.95 a year, and even then clips will be limited to 90 seconds. That's in sharp contrast to YouTube, which ... (view more)

After weeks of speculation, MySpace announced on Thursday that it would launch a retail music store. In partnership with the three biggest record labels -- Universal, Warner and Sony BMG -- the social networking site will form a new company called ... MySpace Music. EMI, the smallest of the four music companies, has yet to sign on, but is expected to in the coming months. (Source: informationweek.com ) The new company, while a separate entity, will be fully integrated into the existing online platform providing users with ad-supported audio and video streams, DRM-free downloads, and ringtones. ... (view more)

Amazon has launched a new service allowing customers to buy products via their cell phones. Those who've tested it say the service works smoothly...but is a complete waste of time. The scheme works by allowing customers to text the name of a ... product, the ISBN (for books) or the Universal Product Code (the barcode number for other products) to 262966, which spells out Amazon on keypads. They then receive a text message back with the first two products that match the search and text either 1 or 2 to make their selection, or M for more options. First time users will then need to text the email ... (view more)

Canada seems to be gearing up for a fight between Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Peer-to-Peer file sharing users just as companies in the United States are negotiating common ground. Last year we reported on Bell Canada's practice of torrent ... 'throttling' -- a bandwidth management strategy where users find their file sharing programs suffer significant slow downs or are cut off altogether during peak usage. Despite some minor disapproval, the company has been continuing the practice without serious uproar. However, that was before the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's recent decision ... (view more)

Comcast recently ended hostilities with users of peer-to-peer networks (P2P) last week by agreeing to work with BitTorrent. The agreement, launched hand-in-hand with the one of the inventors of the BitTorrent protocol, is meant to find solutions to ... bandwidth management issues. Comcast and BitTorrent intend to publish their findings so that other P2P's and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) can adapt their solutions. Previously, the cable company had restricted heavy usage of P2P networks using a practice known as 'torrent throttling.' Customers would find their file sharing slow or stop ... (view more)

Adobe has launched a free online version of its popular Photoshop image editing software, combining it with an online picture storage service. Photoshop Express includes basic features such as airbrushing, red-eye reduction and re-sizing, along with ... some fancy effects that turn pictures into sketches or distort them for comic effect. Users also get two gigabytes of online storage, and images can be shared via on-line galleries or integrated with social networking sites such as Facebook. It seems the plan is to introduce Photoshop to new users in the hope of them buying an upgrade to Photoshop ... (view more)

Got a thing for America's most glamorous gadabout? Then take a trip down Facebook lane, where a glitch in the social networking page has opened the door to very private pictures of Paris Hilton for anyone to see. A Canadian computer technician ... recently discovered that a freshly-implemented security measure was anything but secure. The new barrier, designed to prevent random profile visitors from flipping through personal photo albums, can easily be circumvented by simply guessing the ID of a photo. Surprisingly, Facebook never checked to make sure their new barricade actually validated ... (view more)

Movie rental firm Netflix had to delay deliveries by a day after its site was down for nearly 11 hours on Monday. It's thought the problem was caused by a routine weekly maintenance session, scheduled for the middle of the night, mistakenly taking ... place during the day. Engineers noticed the problem at 7am Pacific time and didn't get it fixed until 6pm. (Source: wired.com ) Because the company's distribution centers all rely on the website to access customer data, no deliveries were possible on Monday. A spokesman said on Tuesday that "We're shipping everything that should have been shipped ... (view more)

Have you ever wanted to star in your very own television show? Thanks to the rising popularity of YouTube, it seems as if everyone has their own online show, complete with all the copying, deleting and editing that goes into production. But, have ... you ever wanted to star in your very own LIVE television show? Complete with no script, no rules, absolutely LIVE as it happens? If you own a cell phone, get ready for your close-up! It's inevitable now; every mobile phone will soon have a cellular video camera installed in it. While still in its infancy stage, Qik.com, a small start-up company based ... (view more)