Megaupload is now megadown...

Popular file sharing site MegaUpload has been shut down by federal authorities today who executed an indictment against the company and its founder. The indictment claims that the site was responsible for $500 million in losses to copyright holders due to music and movie piracy. Kim Dotcom, founder of MegaUpload maintains that his company has obeyed all due diligence requirements in regards to piracy unsecured loans issues.

For those who have not used MegaUpload, it’s a service that allows its users to upload files that would be too large to send in an email for temporary hosting. The user can then distribute a link to recipients so they can download the files. While this is a totally legitimate practice, MegaUpload was also being used by pirates to upload movies, TV shows, and albums for free distribution. Added to this fact is the issue that MegaUpload has two membership tiers, free and premium. The company collected fees from premium members in exchange for faster download speeds and longer storage times. Because the company got paid for hosting and distributing pirated content, it was open to indictment for piracy charges as well.

Founded in 2005, MegaUpload has been an interesting site to watch bad credit loans in relation to the ongoing global debate about online piracy. Dotcom has been working feverishly to maintain that his company and business is legitimate due to the amount of legal traffic happening on MegaUpload. Going so far as to leveraging endorsements from artists like Alicia Keys who was a victim of piracy on his site, Dotcom knew that MegaUpload was facing trouble but looking to put a good face on the issue.

Although the company was incorporated in Honk Kong, it holds servers in Virginia, giving the US the needed jurisdiction to perform the seizure.

Coming just one day after many sites around the globe shut down to protest the SOPA and PIPA bills that are being deliberated in the US Senate, the timing of the raid is interesting. More on this story as it breaks.

chainsaw lollipop yummy

About a year ago, Warner Bros came to me and asked me if I wanted to be involved with a video game, Lollipop Chainsaw, being developed by the great Goichi Suda AKA Suda51 and unsecured loans Grasshopper.  They showed me some test footage of the chainsaw-wielding high school cheerleader and I was blown away by its mix of graphic violence, fun, and glittery goodness.  Right away I signed on, and helped them to develop a story, dialogue, and characters with James Gunn style and humor while keeping that Suda51/Grasshopper no-holds-barred edge.

Lollipop Chainsaw is the story of young, beautiful zombie-killer Juliet Starling, her sidekick disembodied-head boyfriend, and the entire Starling family of zombie killers as they team up to stop a colossal zombie outbreak. Leading the zombies are a group of zombie rock and roll lords who do battle with Juliet. bad credit loans The game is complete madness, and I love it.  Lollipop Chainsaw will be here in the U.S. on XBox and PS3 within the next year.

What did I do?  I was involved with crafting the story, and helping to create the characters, and writing the dialogue – this was not only stuff that affects the English translation of the game, but the heart of the game itself – so yes, the Japanese version has my imprint on it as well.  I also worked with the American actors and voice artists to create the characters.

Also, I’ll let you know a little secret that hasn’t come out in any of the press releases… but many of the the folks who you see regularly in my films and other projects also have roles to play in Lollipop Chainsaw. I’ll just leave you with that little tease for the moment, but it’s something that made the project even more fun.

Everyone involved – Warners, Grasshopper, and Suda51 have been a joy to work with – it’s been a great process, and I myself can’t wait to play the final result.

bbm, update

Earlier this morning, RIM let us know in a press release announcement that they would be rolling out a new BBM update. BBM6.1.0.49 update has now started to push to users. unsecured loans
What’s new in this build:
Support for BlackBerry Tag is just one of a number of enhancements in the updated BBM app(version 6.1) being released today. Additional features allow users to personalize their experience even more with support for animated avatars (animated GIFs)2, a dozen new and fun emoticons to spice up conversations, and the ability to customize chat bubbles with different colors. In addition, the new BBM app allows users to add customized personal messages of up to 160 characters in their online Profile, more than double the length bad credit loans supported in previous versions. Users can also now set the picture for their BBM avatar directly from the camera app – simply snap a picture and select “Set as BBM Display Picture” from the menu.

Facebook, 1/6 of the worlds population

According to an article from Techcrunch Facebook says they will serve 1 billion “Like’s” over the course of the first 24 hours that this new feature is available.  Facebook is allowing an website to integrate with Facebook so that users can see what their friends “liked” on a site like ESPN, CNN, Pandora, or IMDB.

For example, when I listen to Pandora now in my broswer every time a new song comes on I get a message about which one of my friends “likes” this artist.  This is currently pulling from the “Interests” section of their profiles.  It’s somewhat interesting to see what my friends musical tastes are – especially at a time when unsecured loans I’m thinking about music and am engaged in listening to a song.

I think this concept is great, and I’ll be excited to see more sites implement the tools that Facebook is providing.  What I have a problem with though is that Facebook says it will serve 1 Billion “Like’s” in the first 24 hours.  That’s a pretty huge number, and I just don’t see how you can convincingly claim that anything would happen a billion times on the first day it’s available.  You just can’t expect users to completely understand it right away and start using it the way you expect.

Even with huge partners like ESPN, CNN, Yelp, etc it would be difficult to get to a billion in one day.

Take a look at Compete.com’s data for some of the big partners that Facebook is brining on at launch.  These are all massive sites, but they still only reach a combined 75 million visitors per month.  That’s really only 2-3 million per day.  If only half the visitors used any kind of new “Like” button – that would mean each user would need to do so 1,000 times…in 1 day.

Looking at the math from another way – Facebook has about 400 million users.  Let’s say 200 million of them are actually on Facebook at some point today.  Every single one of those users would need to “Like” 5 different things…in one day.

I’d love to see the actual statistics on how this goes for Facebook.  I’m sure it will bad credit loans eventually be a huge development for the web I think the 1 Billion “Like’s” in one day is a little bit unrealistic for now.

Although I haven’t seen the Facebook integration on ESPN yet, I did my part by hitting the like button on a few new songs in Pandora.  So far that’s the only site involved that I use regularly and would actually contribute anything meaningful.

Silent Hill HD Collection delayed!!!!!!!!!!

How long does it take to port two PS2 games? In the case of Silent Hill: HD Collection, the answer is "a while." Konami's HD remaster of Silent 2 and 3 was originally scheduled to release in September last year, but has since slipped. While it was expected to released in January, Konami has confirmed that the survival horror re-release will now ship in March.

"The game will now be released in March," Konami confirmed unsecured loans. Retailers, however, have pegged a more specific date for the bad credit loans title.

GameSpot noticed that a number of retailers, including GameFly have attached a March 6th release date to the title.

The port is being handled by Hi Jinx Studios and will be available on both PS3 and Xbox 360. Oddly, the Collection will not feature Silent Hill and Silent Hill 4: The Room.