Your Technology News & Reviews Partner
The Pirate Bay has announced that it is turning to the skies to house its servers and is looking into sending a drone into low orbit, so that the only way someone can shut down its operations is by aeroplane.
In a blog post which wouldn't look out of place on 1 April, the folks behind the Pirate Bay are fed up with the heat they are getting on the ground so they have decided to make use of the latest technology – namely Raspberry Pi – and literally take flight.
"With the development of GPS controlled drones, far-reaching cheap radio equipment and tiny new computers like the Raspberry Pi, we're going to experiment with sending out some small drones that will float some kilometers up in the air," explained the post.
"This way our machines will have to be shut down with aeroplanes in order to shut down the system. A real act of war."
It doesn't sound as if The Pirate Bay has quite planned out when it will be taking its servers into the skies but, according to the post they are seriously looking into using the skies much like pirate radio stations used the sea to evade piracy laws.
"We're just starting so we haven't figured everything out yet. But we can't limit ourselves to hosting things just on land anymore," noted the blog.
"These Low Orbit Server Stations (LOSS) are just the first attempt. With modern radio transmitters we can get over 100Mbps per node up to 50km away. For the proxy system we're building, that's more than enough.
"But when time comes we will host in all parts of the galaxy, being true to our slogan of being the galaxy's most resilient system. And all of the parts we'll use to build that system on will be downloadable."
No matter where you stand on The Pirate Bay's actions, you have got to admire the site's gumption and the fact it is embracing cloud computing... literally.
 |  |
Stop worrying gadget fans, the wait is over and what you have been looking forward to for like forever has arrived.
No, not the new iPad silly – One More Thing is here to not only brighten up your Friday and get you ready for the freakin' weekend but also to prove that good things don't have to come in a 2048x1536 resolution.
And what an issue this is – yes, it's an issue and we are compiling the whole set for an annual to be released later in the year.
We have 31 words on the Tron dance, 86 on the CIA spying on you through you smarter-than-the-average home and a whopping 52 words describing the brilliance of an electrifying rendition of Duelling Banjos. Oh and the bit on Jurassic Park is 65 words in the making. All of this plus six more nuggets of tech titillation…
CI, eh? – Not content with bugging your car and spying on you through dark glasses, the CIA has been caught rubbing its hands together in glee at the fact that our homes of the future will make it a lot easier to spy on people. This is all because of that strange phenomena called 'The Internet of Things'. With objects like lights, fridges and washing machines all to be web-savvy, CIA chief David Petraeus believes that smart homes of the future are primed for a bit of spy action. [Wired]
Light fantastic – Just when we thought Tron couldn't get any cooler, someone comes along and invents the Tron dance. The only thing that could top this would be a Daft Punk workout video. [Wired]
Alan would be proud – Jurassic Park is to get a 3D makeover and will be re-released in cinemas in 2013. We had kind of hoped that by next year everyone would have pretended 3D was just a bad dream, like that episode in Lost where they revealed exactly how Jack got his tattoos but it would seem that Spielberg et al want to keep the 3D dream alive. Gits. [Ain't It Cool]
If you like it, then you should have put Turing on it – Judea Pearl, an expert on all things AI and the pioneer of the technology behind Siri and Google's driverless cars, has been given the coveted 2011 ACM Turing Award. In short: if the events in The Terminator were to become true, there's a good chance Pearl was behind it. [Tech Eye]
Sound of silence – Do you want to win an iPad 3? Of course you do, well one of the more exciting ways to do this is through the Silent Film Director app. Simply create your very own The Artist, upload it to http://www.macphun.com/sfdcontest and cross your fingers. See Apple fans, sometimes not talking about your shiny gadgets can be a good thing! [MacPhun]
Facebook's a load of rap – Rapper Adam Tensta has come up with an ingenious way to combat pirates, by putting his song behind an app wall. Essentially, the only way to listen to his music is by installing his app first. That way, only one copy of his song exists and those perilous pirates can't half-inch his work. Good work. [Facebook]
Sonic boom – The new episode of Sonic 4 will be available to play across both Xbox and Windows Phone, so if you start it on your phone you can continue it on your Xbox and so forth. Just don't get the two missed up – holding an Xbox up to your ear is not a cool look, even if the hipsters in Shoreditch tell you it is. [The Verge]
Electric dreams – For most people, the tune Duelling Banjos will conjure up images which would put anyone off eating bacon for life. Lucky then, someone has created a Tesla coil version of the much which brings the piece kicking and screaming into the 21st Century. And it does so without any man rape. Bonus! [YouTube]
People in glass houses – Intel hosted an interesting experiment this week, putting its ultrabooks behind glass casing and seeing what the general public would do when they were given a hammer to break the glass. Yes, it's marketing madness but it can also be seen as a neat psychological look into the nature of man. Or something… [SlashGear]
Apple founder queues like everyone else – Steve Wozniak, or Woz to give him his full Muppet name, queued to get a new iPad like the rest of the great unwashed. This is something he does every year, apparently. Personally, if we were a co-creator of Apple we would have gotten Siri, our robot butler, to queue up for us. [Mashable]
Obligatory TechRadar YouTube video of the day - Speaking of iPad queues, you really must check out our video of the iPad queue in Covent Garden. It's rather special.
| |