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After months of rumors, and weeks being refined in a beta channel, Google's Chrome notification center is now live and available to the public on Chrome for Windows and in Chrome OS. On Windows and Chromebooks, notifications in Chrome look and work pretty much the same: Everything takes place in pop-up windows outside the main Chrome browser window. The notification center box, which pops up in the lower right hand corner of your screen, displays rich alerts from Chrome apps or browser extensions. This includes formatted text, embedded images, and even a few direct actions. For example, you can respond to an email directly from the Chrome notification center.

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Those who have followed The Pirate Bay over the last decade know that it was founded by the Swedish pro-culture organization Piratbyrån.

Piratbyrån, which translates to Bureau of Piracy, was formed by political activists and hackers in the early 2000s, many of whom had already launched other web projects challenging political, moral and power structures. The group’s members were all friends of friends and in common with The Pirate Bay, there was virtually no structure.

A member who served as an early spokesperson of both Piratbyrån and The Pirate Bay is Tobias Andersson. While Tobias was not active in technical operations, he was a founding member of the site.

Tobias’s involvement has been on and off throughout the years and nonexistent for the last four, a period in which he and his wife had their first child and the focus switched to family life.

Last year he asked the current admins if he could use the front page of The Pirate Bay for an idea of his. That project soon became The Promo Bay, a platform which enables independent artists to expose their work to tens of millions of users from all over the world.

After years of relative anonymity, Tobias is now stepping into the light, not to take credit, but to announce his final “resignation” and to send the site a final message.

The Pirate Bay founder, who spoke last week at the 14th International Forum on Free Software in Porto Alegre, Brazil, tells us that he will also quit his volunteer work on The Promo Bay. At the same time he encourages the others to follow his lead and shut down the site.

Tobias believes that in the near future The Pirate Bay will no longer be able to fulfill the important role it has today. And for other technologies to be able take over, it has to go.

“No, I’m not kidding. I mean it. The Pirate Bay in its current form must end. It is not built and meant for what is coming. The future copy fights will need something better, safer, faster. Something that does not depend on a few persons’ will to sacrifice themselves. The world needs something that is impossible to take down, no matter what raids, laws and scare tactics they will throw at you,” Tobias says.

“I believe that The Pirate Bay hinders the creation of something new. Not actively, but it has made people too comfortable by always being there – by not giving in to threats and so on. If The Pirate Bay would decide to quit, I’m sure something new and better would spring to life quite soon. Sure there are other sites than The Pirate Bay, but it’s the biggest and hundreds of other sites depend on its torrents.”

The concept of centralized BitTorrent sites is vulnerable to pressure from outside, and with increasing enforcement efforts it becomes harder and harder to maintain. New domains are still easy to come by, but the hosting situation is already getting problematic.

Tobias believes that the problems only will get worse when other industries start to feel threatened as 3D printing matures.

“With the MPAA and the RIAA and their likes, there haven’t been any serious problems. There’s actually been more downtime for the site due to drunk admins, than downtime due to raids. But when car manufacturers, oil companies and nations start feeling threatened, we’re going to need something better. Something that is independent and that holds ground, regardless of raids and repression.”

The Pirate Bay founder stresses that he believes that The Pirate Bay has done a lot of good things, from offering support to artists to providing a library of information for people in oppressive regimes. However, this doesn’t mean that the site should continue down the same path – quite the contrary.

“Don’t get me wrong, I love The Pirate Bay. The memories I bring from working with it will last forever. And I DO believe the site have been bettering the world – and still is. But if The Pirate Bay is this important now, you understand why we need something better soon,” Tobias says.

Whether the current admins of The Pirate Bay agree with Tobias remains to be seen, but it’s not the first time that one of the founders has called for the site to die. Three years ago Peter Sunde came out with a similar message.

“We need some form of new technology. So, that’s kind of the future for The Pirate Bay, hopefully dying, and being replaced with something better of course, because the Pirate Bay really sucks,” Sunde said at the time.

So is the end near for the almighty Pirate Bay? Time will tell….

Source: “Shut Down The Pirate Bay,” Founder Says

Up until now, most of what we've seen of Grand Theft Auto V has been about the story and the trio of new characters that dwell within. With its latest trailer, Rockstar has finally provided a better look at how the upcoming blockbuster will actually play. The nearly five-minute-long video provides a good look at the fictional city of Los Santos, which looks to have a nice amount of variety, with everything from urban locations and beaches to what Rockstar describes as "untouched wilderness."

The video also details how having three main characters will influence the structure of the game, and shows off some of the many diversions you'll be able to partake in when you're not pulling off heists, including, golf, hunting, and, um, yoga. You...

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Whether you're feeling nostalgic for the bygone era of Google Reader, or you legitimately need to read through your RSS feeds, Zombie Reader is a tool that lets you do just that.

Zombie Reader works with the previously mentioned Reader is Dead, and gives you a chance to read the archives you downloaded before. It doesn't function as a working RSS reader, but as an archive of your Google Reader days it works fantastically well. Follow the link below for installation instructions.

Zombie Reader | Persistant.info via Lilputing

I used the ASUS Fonepad with my main SIM card — the one people call me on. So how did it go?

For the past few weeks I've had in my possession an ASUS Fonepad. A 7-inch Jelly Bean tablet with Intel internals and, oh yes, an earpiece. For this is more than just a tablet — it has full phone capabilities. ASUS is even marketing the Fonepad as a phone, too. The manufacturer's first promotional videos clearly showed what they envisaged users doing with this device — holding it up to their head.

So I put my main SIM card into it — the one my family calls me on — and tried it out. Is it really so ridiculous to use a 7-inch "phone" in this way? Read on to find out.

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UK carrier to start charging per minute rather than per second for voice calls on PAYG

UK carrier Vodafone is set to change how they charge pay-as-you-go customers. Instead of charging per second as they currently do, they're going to charge per minute. So, even one second over a full minute will cost you for an entire minute extra, of which 59 seconds of it you're not even on the phone. 

Vodafone claims the move is to simplify their charges for their customers, but it has been met with understandable criticism from some of their customers. Rival carriers Orange and T-Mobile already employ such pricing. Simpler or not, from August 1 the new prices will come into effect. Any Vodafone customers out there set to be affected by this? How do you feel about the new structure?

 via BBC News

Android: The HTC One and Galaxy S4 Google Editions ship with a new and improved Camera app that adds features like PhotoSphere and an improved settings menu. Thanks to some enterprising users, that APK is in the wild and available to anyone who wants to give it a whirl.

If you remember the last time a new camera app landed in the wild, you had to have a rooted Android phone to make use of it. This time, you don't need root to install the updated app. The new version features Photosphere, a helper tool for panoramic photos that appeared in 4.2, but it works on more devices. Also, the app lets you use your phone's volume rocker to take photos. The new settings menu lets you switch flash modes, choose front or rear cameras, adjust the white balance, and tweak exposure times.

The new app was reportedly supposed to be part of Android 4.3, but it was moved to the Google Editions of the S4 and HTC One instead, and even though it comes with phones running Android Jelly Bean (4.2), it works on phones running 4.1 and Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0) as well. Your mileage may vary though—in my case, it added a Gallery and Camera app to my phone as opposed to overwriting the original one, and other users have reported having to remove the original camera and gallery apps for the install to work. Some noted that they got some features, like the new UI and settings, but not Photosphere.

Either way, it's just an app install—if it doesn't work for you, you can remove it. If it does, you'll get a great new camera app, completely free.

Thanks to GMapper14, who posted about this (along with a download mirror!) over at Hackerspace!

[APK] Camera from GE devices | XDA Developers via Android Authority

Clayton Seymour, a Navy vet, was outraged to discover that his Freedom of Information Act request to the NSA to see his file was rejected because telling him what information they'd gathered in secret would expose their secret information-gathering techniques. Obama's 2009 Executive Order 13526 requires all government agencies to make all records public, other than in exceptional circumstances. The NSA has effectively crammed all of its information into an exceptional circumstance because to disclose anything would lead to disclosure of its methods. This is the basis on which it is rejecting all FOIA requests.

From accelerometers to compasses, you probably won't really use most of your phone's boring features all that often. Still, a few apps really leverage some of the stranger things your phone can do. Here are a few of our favorites.

Give Your Headphones Super Powers with Awareness

Chances are when you think about using the microphone on your headphones you don't think about much more than using it to talk on the phone or maybe do a little dictation. An exceptionally cool use for it comes with the app Awareness.

Awareness is made for people who like to wear headphones but still need to hear the world around them. By using the the microphone on your headphones, it brings in the sounds of your surroundings when they're loud so you crank up the music and still hear what's going on around you. This is great for joggers and cyclists, but it's also handy for places like the airport of doctor's office where you need to pay a little bit of attention to a loudspeaker.

Make Better Use of the Voice Recorder with Heard

The iPhone has a voice recorder, and it functions perfectly fine for a voice recorder. That said, if you want to turn it into a super human device, then Heard is worth checking out.

At its core, Heard is just a voice recorder. However, instead of you initializing the recording, Heard is simply always recording, all the time. For an in-app purchase of $1.99 you can keep Heard recording for five minutes at a time. So, if you say something brilliant (or idiotic), Heard will have recorded it so you can save it and replay it. That's a pretty killer feature if you find yourself saying brilliant things and forgetting about them, you're trying to capture your child's first words, or you're keeping track of the best jokes at a party.

Use the Accelerometer to Track Your Sleep

The accelerometer is a pretty nifty feature for apps like games, and even fitness tracking apps make good use of them most of the time. One of the more clever uses of the accelerometer comes from the variety of sleep tracking apps out there.

You have a lot of choices for sleep tracking apps, but we like Sleep Time and Sleep Cycle. To use these apps, you place your phone on the bed, and let the app run. It then uses your accelerometer to track how much you're moving around in your sleep. From there, the apps will gauge your sleep cycle, and attempt to wake you up at the optimal time. They don't use anything except the accelerometer, and it's a pretty clever way to make use of a feature most of us don't really need for much.

Use NFC or Bluetooth to Automate Your Day

NFC and Bluetooth are a couple of those phone features that are incredibly cool in theory, but don't really think that far outside the box. That said, you can use both pretty creatively.

It's pretty easy to do something spectacular with NFC. With an app like NFC Task Launcher for Android you can automate all kinds of things in your house. For example, you can set it up so when you swipe your NFC enabled phone across a label your phone will automatically silence the ringer and set an alarm. It's a bit of a process to set up, but the results are pretty interesting and way better than the boring recommended uses for NFC.

Of course, iPhone's don't have NFC, but they do have Bluetooth and you can do a few clever things with it besides just sending audio to a speaker. For example, you can lock your screen when your phone's out of range, instantly transfer files, or use your phone as a number pad. It's not nearly as powerful as NFC, but it gives you the chance to automate at least a few things.

Use the Camera, Headphones, and More to Turn Your Phone Into a Mobile Toolkit

Some of the first apps for smartphones were replacements for items in your toolbox. Now, it's pretty easy to find a flashlight that uses your camera's flash, or a level that uses the accelerometer. Some apps thought well outside the box to use your phone's features in unusual ways though.

For example, Advanced Ruler Pro for Android uses your camera and a picture as measuring tape. For something even a little crazier, Acoustic Ruler Pro for iPhone uses your headphones as measuring tape. We've shown you a ton of clever ways to use your phone in your toolbox, and a number of them use lesser features on your smartphone to work.

The so-called “graduated response” to the file-sharing issue has for years been championed by the mainstream music and movie industries.

According to the theory, Internet subscribers who are continually warned that their behavior is being monitored will, sooner or later, change their attitudes and stop obtaining content from unauthorized sources.

One of the first countries to see value in the idea was France, and under the supportive eye of ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy, Hadopi was born. The taxpayer-funded agency would oversee monitoring of Internet subscribers along with a mechanism for sending them successive warnings, each designed to be more worrying than the last. Controversially, the final warning would result in Internet disconnection.

However, the idea that these threats would entice subscribers into music and movie stores and away from unauthorized sites in a meaningful way never came to be. In June, a nine-member panel lead by former Canal Plus chairman Pierre Lescure produced a 700 page report advising on policies for advancing entertainment industries in the digital age.

Among other things, the panel concluded that the three strikes mechanism had failed to benefit authorized services as promised. It also recommended that the ultimate sanction of Internet disconnections for infringers should be dumped.

That recommendation has now been carried out by the French Government.

Earlier this morning the Ministry of Culture published official decree No. 0157 of July 9, 2013 which removed “the additional misdemeanor punishable by suspension of access to a communication service.”

The changes come too late for the only individual to have fallen foul of France’s disconnection law. In June and after millions of warnings sent, a single Internet subscriber was fined 600 euros and suspended from the Internet for two weeks after failing to respond to “strike” notices.

Today’s changes by the French don’t mean that infringing file-sharers can relax though. The decree goes on to explain that file-sharing offenses may still be punishable by a fine, up to 1500 euros in the case of gross negligence.

To this end, the decree clarifies that ISPs must provide access to names, address and other personal details of subscribers in order to facilitate the implementation of a system for issuing automating file-sharing fines. Disconnections may have been removed, but the war against individuals will continue.

Source: Three Strikes and You’re Still In – France Kills Piracy Disconnections

Talk about trying to cover bases. Korean news outlet ETNews reports that Samsung’s Galaxy Note III isn’t going to be an only child when it launches later this year — instead, it will be joined by up to three siblings that will apparently debut at the same time.

The Google translation makes it bit tricky to discern what’s going on, but ETNews claims that while the four devices will feature the same applications, processors, and hardware platforms, they’ll sport different configurations of displays, cameras, and cases in a bid to appeal to certain sorts of computers. As the report goes, the most premium of these Note IIIs will feature a flexible display and a metal chassis, components that won’t appear in the more cost-conscious variants meant for different markets. What’s more, the size of the display will vary slightly between those different versions — they’ll reportedly range between 5.68 and 5.7 inches.

At this stage though, the Note III itself is still a wild card — techies and pundits expect Samsung to officially reveal the device at the IFA trade show in Berlin like it did with the Galaxy Note II. Earlier rumors also alleged that the Note III would have a 5.9-inch display (which doesn’t jibe with this new report) — either way the device will definitely strain some pockets, but thankfully not as much as Sony’s gargantuan 6.4-inch Xperia Z Ultra. Rounding out the purported spec list is a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 chipset clocked at 2.3GHz and 3GB of RAM, which would propel the phone to the top of the heap in terms of horsepower (though LG’s Optimus G2 may be right up there with it).

As always, you should take all this with a hefty grain of salt, but this is nothing if not a well-worn strategy for Samsung — the company has made a habit of crafting what they imagine will be a popular new smartphone, and then pushing out spin-offs based on that original design meant to appeal to different niches. We saw it with the Galaxy S III and its little brother the S III Mini, and Samsung saw fit to expand the Galaxy S4 family in a big way with three curious variants revealed over the past few months. So far the Note series of phablets haven’t been subjected to Samsung’s desire to endlessly tinker, but it wouldn’t be a surprise to see if that wasn’t the case for very much longer.

Every week we cover new Android apps with Fresh Meat on Wednesday followed by Android Gaming on Thursday and Top 10 app updates on Friday. Now every Monday we will look back and see which ones were the most crowd-pleasing among our audience. Read on for the 10 most popular Android apps among your peers from last week.

1. PowerLine

I haven’t had a chance to try this app yet, but based on your feedback it’s a great little app to get a quick glimpse of various aspects of your device.

2. dialapp: context aware dialer

Dialapp brings a new approach to your standard dialer by predicting who you want to call based on location and other factors. It’s a unique approach to dialing, and it appears to intrigue many users.

3. Kitty Play

Homescreen customization is one of the great aspects of the Android ecosystem. Kitty Play understands this and provides you with a large number of themes and wallpapers to make your Android device uniquely yours.

4. Fonelink

Fonelink is a great way to send SMS messages from your phone using a PC. Simply install the client on your PC, and when your phone receives an SMS message, you can reply using your PC.

5. Spotlight

Spotlight aids you in finding the hottest games and apps available, including free apps and games. Don’t worry if you miss one of the daily free games or apps; Spotlight provides you access to these apps for 5 days after they are made available.

6. #Square

#Square is a great app to help “square up” your images. The application takes square images that are easily exported to Instagram and other services without the need to crop the image.

7. GO Weather EX

GO Weather EX is a well-done weather application with appealing visuals and many customization options available, including several widget sizes.

8. Twilight

The Twilight app has appeared on our Top 10 list almost every week since its debut on our Top 10 New apps series. Be sure to check out this app if you find yourself having difficulty falling asleep.

9. GoBank

GoBank is a new take on the traditional bank. You can signup for a bank account and manage it all from the GoBank application. Finding a nearby ATM should not be an issue;there are over 42,000 ATMs that are accessible free of charge.

10. Taskbar – Windows 8 Style

Taskbar – Windows 8 Style is still hanging around our Top 10. You can now have the familiar Windows Start button on your Android device.

Twitter announced today that it finally added sync across all platforms for direct messages. Now, reading a message on one device should mark it read on all your devices. At last. Read more here.

World's largest pet rodent

Hat tip to Art Scott.

Disneyland Voce 1955 - YouTube:

As if I didn't know it already, I really did grow up in a different world.  These scenes from Disneyland will give you an idea of what it was like in the old days.  No crowds.  And notice how the people are dressed for their day in an amusement park.  Men in suits.  Women in dresses and hats.  It's world that's a long time gone.

Link via Boing Boing.

Google's latest front-page Doodle may be its most ambitious yet — a fully-fledged point-and-click adventure game in which you play an alien attempting to gather items to get its grounded flying saucer back into space. The occasion? It's the 66th anniversary of the Roswell incident, where an unidentified object crashed on a New Mexico ranch and gave rise to countless alien conspiracy theories. The Doodle game is rolling out across various timezones; if it hasn't yet reached your region, you can play it for yourself right now by visiting Google's Australian site.

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Whether or not it sounds like damning the film with faint praise, the greatest virtue of Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim may be that you can always understand what’s happening, what the characters are doing, and why they are doing it. After what seems like years of convoluted megamovies whose pretzel-like twists, turns, and double-crosses confound logic and confuse audiences, it’s incredibly refreshing to watch a film where the setup is simple, the mythology straightforward, and the execution consistently clear.

Working on his biggest canvas to date, the director of Hellboy and Pan’s Labyrinth introduces an entirely new world to audiences with a robots-versus-monsters scenario that includes the same sort of nerdy details and...

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America's 11-judge Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) has made more than a dozen classified rulings that vastly expanded the powers of America's spy agencies, operating under an obscure legal doctrine called "special needs." Under this doctrine, established in 1989 in a Supreme Court case over drug testing railway workers, a "minimal intrusion on privacy" is allowed in order to help the state mitigate "overriding public danger." FISC's rulings have widened this ruling to allow for wholesale spying in the name of preventing "nuclear proliferation," as well as terrorism. The NYT calls this a "shadow Supreme Court" but notes that FISC proceedings only hear from the government -- no one presents alternatives to the government's arguments. Much of the expansion of surveillance turns on whether metadata collection is intrusive (I think it is):

The officials said one central concept connects a number of the court’s opinions. The judges have concluded that the mere collection of enormous volumes of “metadata” — facts like the time of phone calls and the numbers dialed, but not the content of conversations — does not violate the Fourth Amendment, as long as the government establishes a valid reason under national security regulations before taking the next step of actually examining the contents of an American’s communications.

This concept is rooted partly in the “special needs” provision the court has embraced. “The basic idea is that it’s O.K. to create this huge pond of data,” a third official said, “but you have to establish a reason to stick your pole in the water and start fishing.”

Under the new procedures passed by Congress in 2008 in the FISA Amendments Act, even the collection of metadata must be considered “relevant” to a terrorism investigation or other intelligence activities.

The court has indicated that while individual pieces of data may not appear “relevant” to a terrorism investigation, the total picture that the bits of data create may in fact be relevant, according to the officials with knowledge of the decisions.

In Secret, Court Vastly Broadens Powers of N.S.A. [Eric Lichtblau/NYT]

(via Hacker News)

"Lost in Translation," my latest Publishers Weekly column, looks at SiDiM, a new DRM scheme developed by the German Booksellers Association and the Fraunhofer Institute (with funding from the German government). The idea is to produce random variations in the text of ebooks so that each customer's ebook can be uniquely identified.

As I point out, this is an old and long-discarded idea, trivial to break (just compare two copies of the book); but more importantly, it rests on the silly idea that finding "my" copy of an ebook being shared illegally will somehow be bad for me:

The idea that copyright owners might convince a judge, or, worse, a jury that because they found a copy of an e-book on the Pirate Bay originally sold to me they can then hold me responsible or civilly liable is almost certainly wrong, as a matter of law. At the very least, it’s a long shot and a stupid legal bet. After all, it’s not illegal to lose your computer. It’s not illegal to have it stolen or hacked. It’s not illegal to throw away your computer or your hard drive. In many places, it’s not illegal to give away your e-books, or to loan them. In some places, it’s not illegal to sell your e-books.

So at best, this new “breakthrough” DRM scheme will be ineffective. But worse, what makes anyone think this kind of implicit fear of reprisal embedded within one’s digital library is acceptable, or, for that matter, preferable to old-school DRM?

Lost in Translation

Team Telecom is a group of lawyers from the FBI, DoJ, DHS, and DoD who were empowered to enter any US network operations center of companies like Global Crossing on 30 minutes' notice, allowing them to secretly audit and intervene in the maintenance of the Internet's biggest backbones. The employees who dealt with the team were required to be US citizens, sworn to secrecy, and unable to discuss what they did, sometimes even with their own employers.

The security agreement for Global Crossing, whose fiber-optic network connected 27 nations and four continents, required the company to have a “Network Operations Center” on U.S. soil that could be visited by government officials with 30 minutes of warning. Surveillance requests, meanwhile, had to be handled by U.S. citizens screened by the government and sworn to secrecy — in many cases prohibiting information from being shared even with the company’s executives and directors.

“Our telecommunications companies have no real independence in standing up to the requests of government or in revealing data,” said Susan Crawford, a Yeshiva University law professor and former Obama White House official. “This is yet another example where that’s the case.”

The full extent of the National Security Agency’s access to fiber-optic cables remains classified. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a statement saying that legally authorized data collection “has been one of our most important tools for the protection of the nation’s — and our allies’ — security. Our use of these authorities has been properly classified to maximize the potential for effective collection against foreign terrorists and other adversaries...”

...Lipman, a partner with Bingham McCutchen, based in Washington, said the talks with Team Telecom typically involve little give and take. “It’s like negotiating with the Motor Vehicle Department,” he said.

Agreements with private companies protect U.S. access to cables’ data for surveillance [Craig Timberg and Ellen Nakashima/WashPo]

If you want to save a little space in your living room, or use your wall as a massive TV screen, or even if you're interested in building a proper theater at home, you may want to consider switching to a projector instead of a standard set. Thankfully, there are plenty to choose from that are a great bang for the buck and offer bright, vibrant, full HD video. Here's a look at five of the best.

Earlier this week we asked you which home theater projectors you thought were the best. We know it's a huge category, but as always, you came through with great options that hit the sweet spot of quality, price, features, and usability. Here's what you said.

Optoma HD33

The Optoma HD33 is a 3D ready DLP projector capable of full 1080p HD video and bright (at 1800 ANSI lumens), vibrant images on a screen up to 300 inches. It sports a 4000:1 contrast ratio. Its not one of Optoma's newest models and some retailers will tell you it's discontinued but it's still widely available, especially around the $1000 mark, while it retailed closer to $1300 when it was new.

The HD33 hits a nice bang-for-the-buck point, offering a wealth of connectivity options for tons of devices in your home theater, including two HDMI ports, a VGA port, component video, composite video, RS-232 and +12V trigger, and a VESA 3D port on the back. Optoma's projection lamp is rated for 4000 hours of use (3000 in "bright mode,") before you have to replace it, and up until this May, our friends at The Wirecutter listed it as their pick for best projector (that pick has been updated, mind you). If you can get your hands on one, an HD33 is a great option for your home theater, but watch out for the "rainbow" effect that comes from having only one DLP processor.

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Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 8350

The Epson 8350 is another full 1080p HD LCD projector that's small but packs a bright, beautiful picture. It's bright at 2000 ANSI lumens and offers a remarkable 50,000:1 contrast ratio. It stands out from some of the others because it offers 3 different image procesing chips, which can minimize some of the "rainbow" effect that projector lovers know and in many cases, hate. It's still widely available, largely at its retail price of $1299.

The 8350 features two HDMI ports, component video, composite video, S-video, one VGA port, an an RS-232C port, so it's not lacking on connectivity options. Its lamp is rated for 4000 hours of use before it'll need to be replaced. Those of you who praised the 8350 noted it works exceptionally well regardless of where you place it, making it flexible enough to mount on the ceiling, keep on a table in front of the screen, or anywhere else you have space for it. Some of you even commented that you have it displaying screen sizes well over 100 inches with remarkable picture quality. We're not surprised, the 8350 did pick up a PC Mag Editor's Choice Award.

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Optoma HD25/HD25-LV

The Optoma HD25 and its "large venue" higher-lumen cousin the HD25-LV are both successors to the now discontinued Optoma HD20, which was a great model in its day, but has since been surpassed by other, newer, and brighter projectors in the same price range. The only major difference between the HD25 and the HD25-LV is that the latter is meant for larger spaces, and is brighter as a result. The HD25 is bright at 2000 ANSI lumens, while the HD25-LV packs 3200 ANSI lumens in the same package. Both models sport a 20,000:1 contrast ratio. The HD25 retails for $1900, but is available for closer to $1000. The HD25-LV retails for $2499, but is available for $1300.

Both models offer full 1080p HD and are 3D ready DLP projectors, and can project onto screens up to 301 inches. They both also offer two HDMI inputs, two VGA-in, VGA-out port, a 3D VESA Port, composite video, two audio inputs, one audio output, a RS-232C port, and a USB port, which you can use to connect as many devices as you choose. Both models rate their lamp life at 6000 hours (3500 in bright mode) before they need to be replaced. Those of you who nominated it praised it as a substantial update over the HD20, and great bang for your buck, especially if you can find it discounted at Amazon or on sale over at Woot.

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Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 3020/3020e

The Epson 3020 and 3020e projectors are both full 1080p, 3D ready LCD projectors that are on the leading edge of Epson's home theater line. Like some of the others in our roundup, it's picked up an Editor's Choice Award from PCMag, so it's a great model, and even The Wirecutter mentioned it as better than their current pick for the best projector—and subsequently said to avoid it because of the big caveat both reviewers noted: The price. The 3020 retails for $1600 and is available for that much, and 3020e both retails and is available for $1899.

The major difference between the 3020 and the 3020e is that the latter comes with wireless HDMI, and even comes with a wireless HDMI dongle so you can connect other devices to your projector wirelessly. PCMag noted that it takes a while to establish a connection, but when it works, it works well. Aside from that, both models sport 3 chip optical engines, are bright at 2300 ANSI lumens, and feature a 40,000:1 contrast ratio. They promise screen sizes of up to 300 inches. Both models feature two HDMI ports, component video and composite video, VGA out, RCA stereo out, one USB port, and an RS-232 port. Both models rate their lamp life at 4000 hours (5000 in "ECO mode"). They're expensive, and the Wirecutter noted that it's hard to justify their high price, but the quality is definitely on par with a high-end projector.

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Optoma GT750E

The Optoma GT750E is designed to be a gamer's projector for small spaces, but its capabilities aren't limited to full-motion gaming. It's a 720p DLP model, and it's also 3D ready. It packs 3000 ANSI lumens and a 3000:1 contrast ratio, so it'll do you well in a modest space. It does, however, claim to project images up to 322.4 inches across (diagonally). It's also a steal, retailing at $750, but available at Amazon for $700, even less if you look around. Don't be worried about it being a 720p model among a bunch of 1080p projectors—it's still a solid model, and if you don't believe me, it picked up a PCMag Editor's Chocie Award, but it's important to remember it is a shorter throw projector than some of the others here.

The GT750E sports a variety of connectivity options, including two HDMI ports, one VGA port, an S-video input, acomposite video input, one Stereo RCA Audio-in, another Stereo Audio-out, and an RS-232 port. The lamp is rated for 4000 hours in standard mode or 3000 hours in bright mode. At least one of you showed off showed off photos of yours, and notied that it's exceptional for small spaces where you probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference between 1080p and 720p anyway, and if you do any full-motion gaming on your TV, you'll appreciate the minimal lag time. Besides, it even comes with a backpack, just to make it extra portable.

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Now that you've seen the top five, it's time to put them to an all-out vote:

The honorable mention this week include the BenQ W1070 1080p 3D Projector, which The Wirecutter recommends as the best sub-$1000 projector. A few of you nominated a few other BenQ models, but sadly no specific model got enough nominations to make the top five.

One thing we should also mention is that there's so much more to building a great home theater than just a projector. You need a good, dark space, a projector that works well in that space, and a really good screen to project onto- any old wall can work, but it won't look as great as it could if you take the time to get a great screen, or paint specifically for projection. It doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg though, and we have some tips that can help you build it.

Have something to say about one of the contenders? Want to make the case for your personal favorite, even if it wasn't included in the list? Remember, the top five are based on your most popular nominations from the call for contenders thread from earlier in the week. Don't just complain about the top five, let us know what your preferred alternative is—and make your case for it—in the discussions below.

The Hive Five is based on reader nominations. As with most Hive Five posts, if your favorite was left out, it's not because we hate it—it's because it didn't get the nominations required in the call for contenders post to make the top five. We understand it's a bit of a popularity contest, but if you have a favorite, we want to hear about it. Have a suggestion for the Hive Five? Send us an email at tips+hivefive@lifehacker.com!

Photo by Lee Haywood.

Editor’s note: Julien Genestoux is the founder and CEO of Superfeedr. Superfeedr has provided a real-time infrastructure for RSS and Atom feeds since 2009. Julien is also a vocal open web evangelist and has been pushing forward the PubSubHubbub spec. Follow him on Twitter @julien51.

We all know that Google Reader, which used to be the most obvious RSS subscription tool, is now gone. At the same time, we see “follow” buttons on just about every website. We are at a tipping point with two contradictory trends: the decreased visibility of RSS feeds and the popularity of the “follow” feature. Google Reader and its market share was the biggest road block to a world where “following” can be both decentralized (open!) and ubiquitous.

RSS Is Awesome But Hard

Even though it stands for “Really Simple Syndication,” RSS is a very complex tool to use for most. Don’t forget that many people have no idea what a browser is, so don’t expect them to know what a URL is, let alone a feed. Similarly, a vaguely orange icon with a radio wave on it is completely meaningless for anyone who’s not an advanced web user.

Let’s put ourselves in the shoes of a TechCrunch visitor who wants to follow the site in the new Digg Reader. First, they locate the orange icon on the right bar, the feed URL. They then click on that orange icon and arrive at a page that allows them to select what type of content they want to subscribe to. When they pick “TechCrunch,” they’re now shown a scary XML document. It’s hard to not hit the back button. They have to copy the address bar’s URL, head to Digg Reader, click on the add button, paste the URL and validate their new subscription.

To the advanced consumer of RSS feeds, this has become a long but relatively easy process, but for the majority without an understanding of the reason behind these steps, it is prohibitive.

The web needs a decoupled way to consume resources. We need to be able to consume feeds from TechCrunch, the New York Times or even my blog without needing an account or to agree on terms of service. RSS enables that, and in way that cannot be controlled or filtered by any given organization.

A lot of people rightfully argued that RSS complexity is what prevented its adoption by the masses and is one of the reasons Google eventually shut down its reader.

Subscriptions Are Ubiquitous

In the last couple of years, we’ve seen a massive blooming of all kinds of “subscribe” or “follow” buttons. Twitter (one of the first promoters of the idea) allows you to follow other people. On Tumblr, you can follow other blogs. On Facebook, you can follow people and brands. On Quora, you can follow questions, and on GitHub, you can follow code. The list is endless. The “follow” feature has obvious benefits: engagement, notifications and, in the days of “infobesity,” it’s a great way to tailor one’s experience to their needs and interests.

It also helps most services build graphs to organize their data: on Twitter, it’s some kind of influence graph, and on Quora, it can be seen as a popularity graph, for example. Following is a vote of influence.

Unfortunately, these local graphs are not connected, which makes it hard to extract web-scale, meaningful information, which would help organize the world’s information. A well-known web-scale graph is the link graph, which was popularized and embraced by Google’s PageRank. By knowing which page links to which other page, Google was able to rank websites. Understanding what topics, pages and data sources are followed by whom can certainly also help categorize, rank and filter data.

RSS Has The subscription graph?

If we could combine RSS’s decentralized nature and the follow buttons that we’re seeing everywhere, then we can certainly hope to see another web-scale and meaningful graph in the form of the subscription graph. It would bring new types of discovery mechanisms. If two sources are followed by the same people, they could be grouped together even though they may never link to each other. There is also a strong prospective aspect to that, and we could detect trends faster by understanding what path the information takes from a follower to his followers. This signal is already exploited by Klout on Twitter’s data, but a web-scale version of that is also very promising.

Oddly enough we’re not too far from that. First, many services with a follow button do actually offer RSS feeds, as well. Tumblr, WordPress, GitHub, Quora and even Facebook pages have an RSS equivalent to their follow buttons. Most readers are still too “news-oriented,” but tools like IFTTT have interesting RSS-based recipes that can be used to create trigger actions when events happen, highlighting what events are worth being monitored by whom.

While adding RSS feeds to our “following” tool (I like that term more than “reader”) is still overly complex, solutions like SubToMe are here to simplify things without compromising the beauty of the decentralized RSS model.

Google Reader going away is clearly the end of the “RSS Reader” 1.0 era, and it opens the door for a much better, user-conscious era with easier tools to use and a more dynamic ecosystem. And if we stick to the RSS openness and avoid the numerous traps of silos, we can make the web even smarter by embracing a whole new set of linked data.

We take a moment to show off the apps that have been working for us

Just like that, it's Saturday again and that means you're in for another edition of our Apps of the Week column here on Android Central. In case you've been asleep at the wheel and missed previous posts in the series, this is our weekly column where we have writers from the Android Central team chime in with an app that they've been using regularly on their devices in the previous week.

This week we have a couple of games, a tool and  a little follow-up to last week's post from Jerry. Hang with us after the break and see how our picks stack up this week.

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A new study published at Plos One reveals that cockatoos can pick complicated locks, with one bird unraveling the five interlocking components without being given a demonstration beforehand. Jon M Chang, for ABC News:

Alex Kacelnik, a professor of zoology at Oxford University ... and his colleagues, Alice Auersperg and Auguste von Bayern at the University of Vienna, placed a cashew nut behind a window fastened shut by a thin metal bar. The birds had to get through four additional locks that required them to pull a pin, turn a screw, remove a bolt, and rotate a wheel to reach the reward. More importantly, they had to do those actions in the correct order. If a cockatoo completed the first task, the scientists then rearranged the order of the four locks. They wanted to see whether the birds could modify their lock-picking behavior by doing the same four actions but in a different sequence.

Previously features at Boing Boing were the death metal cockatoo and Oscar the naked cockatoo.

Google is facing a little July heat in the U.K. this week, as the Information Commissioner's Office there has ordered Google to update its unified privacy policy by September 20, or face fines of up to £500,000 (approximately $745,000).

On the same day, the Hamburg Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information issued a similar order to get the Internet search company in line with the regional German office's expectations for the privacy policy.

The problem with the privacy policy seems to be one that a lot of governments and their constituents are facing: the policy that Google has in place it too hard to understand.

"In particular, we believe that the updated policy does not provide sufficient information to enable U.K. users of Google's services to understand how their data will be used across all of the company's products," the ICO wrote in a statement.

Google's response to the ICO's order has been the same-old response they have always given: they are working with various government entities to comply with local laws and regulations. And they've had plenty of opportunity to trot out this line: last month, authorities in France and Spain issued similar warnings to Google.

This is not the first time Google has been pilloried for this issue—the company faced quite a bit of criticism in the press and even from U.S. lawmakers when the unified policy was implemented back on March 1, 2012.

Ironically, the unified privacy policy was meant to combine over 60 separate service's policies into one easier-to-use policy. Instead, even more questions have been raised.

How Google will ultimately react to these orders is another question yet to be answered. The fine amounts aren't really anything for Google to be worried about, so there's not much incentive for them to pay anything more than lip service to the various national entities' entreaties. But if Google ignores these privacy concerns too much, they could run the risk of civil action in the courtroom, something that will cost them much more in terms of time, money and ever-precious public relations.

Given the half the planet is looking askance at Google and other Internet companies for their alleged participation in the U.S. intelligence project known as PRISM, reputation is not a currency Google has a lot to spend.

Public privacy and data commissions might be nickel and diming companies like Google, but a major court battle—or worse, unfriendly legislation—is something that can get even Google's attention.

Clove expects first stock in just over a week, priced at £120

Announced on June 25 along with the Xperia Z Ultra, the new Sony Smartwatch 2 features NFC pairing support, as well as the ability to remote-control certain apps on supporting Android smartphones. It's just one of the many Android-connected (or perhaps even Android-based) wearable devices expected this year.

But Sony's offering, it seems, will be among the first to arrive, as UK retailer Clove Technology has today revealed that it'll begin stocking the Smartwatch 2 from July 15, priced at £120 inc. VAT (£100 exc. VAT).

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Chrome: Privacy is a precious commodity, what with companies tracking you on the web and the NSA collecting data at large, so if you'd like a little security, SecureGmail is a Chrome extension that makes it easy to encrypt your Gmail messages with a password only your recipient should know.

Once installed, you'll see a lock icon right next to the "Compose" button in Gmail. Click it to enter "secure compose" mode, where your message text will be encrypted before you send it, and no drafts are saved to Google's servers, so you don't have unencrypted data at rest. You'll be prompted to enter a password that the recipient will have to use to decrypt the message when they get it. You can even enter a password hint for them to jog their memory if they don't remember what it is. Even if they don't have SecureGmail installed, they'll be prompted to install it first, and then enter the password to read your message. Ideally, you'll give the recipient the password by some secure means, like a face-to-face conversation.

The whole project is open source, and the code is available at GitHub if you're interested. SecureGmail uses symmetric encryption to encrypt and decrypt each message, so picking a strong password is key. This method also eschews other, more traditional methods of encryption, like PGP, for example. Still, I tried it out and it works well. For a more in-depth discussion on the development process and how the tool works, hit the Hacker News link below. It's really interesting, and even touches on the limits of the encryption used here.

SecureGmail is an encryption tool by the folks behind Streak, a CRM tool for Gmail. SecureGmail isn't the only tool in town for this though. There's also Mailvelope, a tool we've mentioned before which supports Firefox as well as Chrome, and works with other webmail providers (Yahoo, GMX, Outlook, etc) as well as Gmail and Google Apps. The extension is free, the encryption works like a charm, and you can grab it from the link below.

SecureGmail | Streak via Hacker News

The grand old BBC may sound about as cutting edge as a buttered scone and a cup of Yorkshire Gold but the taxpayer-funded British broadcaster has pushed the boat out on the digital front, with, for instance, its pioneering iPlayer on-demand TV service. It’s also not been a tech laggard when it comes to 3D. Auntie — as the Beeb is affectionately referred to by long-term consumers of its programming (aka the British) — has been running a pilot 3D broadcast program for the past two years. But not for much longer. It’s decided to pull the plug on 3D TV production, in the face of massive audience 3D ennui.

According to a report in the Media Guardian, Kim Shillinglaw, who heads up the Beeb’s 3D pilot, told the Radio Times that viewers were finding 3D too much of a hassle — adding that the time was therefore right “for a good old pause.” Swiftly followed by a nice cup of tea, no doubt.

“I have never seen a very big appetite for 3D television in the UK. Watching 3D is quite a hassly experience in the home. You have got to find your glasses before switching on the TV,” she is quoted as saying.

She also speculated that take-up of the tech might be being held back by difficult economic conditions. When times are tough, a 3D TV set isn’t exactly going to top the shopping list.

“We will see what happens when the recession ends and there may be more take-up of sets, but I think the BBC will be having a wait and see. It’s the right time for a good old pause. I am not sure our job is to call the whole 3D race,” she said.

So, in other words, 3D isn’t going to fly until glasses-killing autostereoscopic TV sets have been honed to headache-free, multiple viewing angle perfection. And are cheap as chips. Which means: don’t wait up for this one.

The forthcoming Wimbledon ladies‘ and mens‘ tennis finals will both be broadcast in 3D by the BBC but Shillinglaw said there are no further plans for the format after the trial period ends. According to the Verge, the last 3D BBC broadcasts will take place in November — and will include a 50th anniversary episode of Doctor Who.

HTC has just announced its unaudited results for the second quarter 2013, and they're not pretty. Despite launching a much-lauded flagship smartphone, the HTC One, the company made just NT$1.25 billion (roughly $41 million) after tax from NT$70.7 billion ($2.35 billion) revenue. In the same quarter last year, the company took in revenue of NT$91.04 billion ($3 billion) and made NT$7.40 billion ($246 million) profit.

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For some time the Federation Against Copyright Theft has been making life difficult for UK-based operators of file-sharing sites.

The movie industry-funded group identifies sites it would like to close, works to identity their admins, and turns up at their homes in order to add weight to their shutdown demands. On the whole, it has to be said, their tactics are effective.

FACT has done a lot of work against Usenet sites in recent times, most recently forcing the shutdown of NZBsRus. Barely a week later and another site has received personalized threats.

NzbX is a public Usenet search engine that has automatically indexed around five million releases. It’s been in existence since December 2012 following the NZBMatrix shutdown and since then has registered 130,000 members and serviced many more. Yesterday lunchtime its admin, Lemon – a 26-year-old recovering from a recent heart attack – had an unexpected visitor.

“I was in bed, recovering, I’m sleeping a lot – my partner is also recovering from surgery that limits her movement,” Lemon told TorrentFreak.

“I heard a buzz at the door. I ignored it twice, thinking if it was important they’d be louder. I heard something go through my letterbox and I stumbled downstairs to find an envelope without a stamp – which I thought was odd. Upon opening the envelope I found a letter from FACT.”

“About 20 minutes later I called the number, and the FACT guy stated he was waiting outside still. He showed up, without the officer from Trading Standards this time. At this point, he pulled out an A4 portrait photo of myself (that I can only find on my highly private Facebook) and asked if that was me. My response was something along the lines of ‘That is God damn creepy’,” Lemon explains.

As usual, FACT were quick to point out their successful prosecution against SurfTheChannel (STC) admin Anton Vickerman hoping that Lemon would see the similarities. He didn’t.

“I [told FACT that] I do not run anything like STC. I do not run a video streaming site. I make available XML descriptor files (.NZB) which describe content posted on newsgroups. We act upon DMCA requests and we do not curate content, I do not actively go out of my way to upload the latest episode of Who Gives a Fuck,” Lemon said.

The FACT officer thought otherwise and indicated that the sites were the same.

“What, so SurfTheChannel was a Usenet indexer?” Lemon questioned.

After some back and forth on the potential for criminal prosecution over profits made by nzbX (Lemon admits making only losses on the site), FACT’s target says he got bored. He informed the investigator that he was in the process of handing the site over to someone else in Europe but he’d be happy to transfer FACT’s paperwork to them. FACT indicated if those new owners happened to be in Sweden, the group had “good relationships” there.

Lemon says that he later spoke with the site’s potential new operators who considered the situation and decided they wanted out. They handed the domain back, but Lemon says he won’t be signing it over to FACT as requested. However, NzbX will be changing dramatically.

“I’ve decided to do the following. Shut down the index, modify the code base – open source it, and make it available as a one-click installer so people can run their own local indexers. I’ll also enable the ecosystem mode so comments, ratings, etc would be shared amongst all installations (if enabled), as well as NZB file sync through the cloud,” Lemon explains.

“The nzbX index itself will be shut down within the next 24 hours. I would like to point out that it is not closing down due to external pressure – but due to my health problems, and the fact that I have a new plan which seems like a far smarter alternative.”

So, another UK-based NZB site bites the dust. The question now is how many people will step up to replace it, with or without Lemon’s code.

Source: FACT Threats Turn Usenet Search Engine Into Open Source Hydra Indexer