The IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry), along with Italian authorities, have announced the shut down of Colombo-BT.org, Italy’s largest BitTorrent site.

Over the course of two days, the tracker’s servers were seized and two bank accounts associated with the site have been frozen. The administrators of the site have been charged with multiple counts of criminal copyright infringement and can face large fines and prison time.

Visitors to the site will be greeted with a new splash screen, “Access denied in execution of an Italian Court Authority injunction.”

“Colombo-BT.org was Italy’s version of The Pirate Bay,” said FPM (anti-piracy group) president Enzo Mazza. “Its operators deliberately facilitated availability of copyright infringing content to line their own pockets. The gang of three now face potential prison sentences and hefty fines as a result of their activities. This police action sends a strong message that Italy will not tolerate serious online music piracy so criminals looking for get rich quick schemes should consider other options.”

Although there are hardly any sites on the planet that can compare with The Pirate Bay, Colombo-BT did have a large presence, especially in Italy. The site had an “extensive collection of Italian music and multimedia, 390,000 music files and 500,000 movie files, including numerous pre-release titles. The illegal service had more than 400,000 registered users and 800,000 unique user accesses each month.”

Although those almost 1 million files are now unavailable, 400,000 users will be looking for a new torrent site to call home. And the cycle begins.

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written by TMP

Xerox has in its product line up today a new desktop document scanner which can scan up to 50 images per minute. It is called the Xerox DocuMate 162 and it runs around $695 .

The Xerox DocuMate 162 comes with a 50-page automatic document feeder and is designed to handle most kinds of documents. It includes a one-touch button so you can scan to the “destination” you so desire, be it to email, the hard drive or another application.

Other features of this desktop scanner include TWAIN and certified ISIS drivers and bundled software which lets you make PDFs from scanned documents. It is available now.

Xerox DocuMate 162

written by TMP \\ tags: drive

Yahoo has finalized the reimbursement options for users affected by the recent shutdown of Yahoo Music Unlimited and has said users can either get their money back or be given credits to use at Rhapsody.

Last week the company said they would be refunding users but did not reveal the alternative reimbursement options.

“For any consumers that have problems with their DRM licenses after the store closes, our customer care group will provide coupons to the Rhapsody MP3 store so they can purchase an equivalent collection of MP3s,” Yahoo added in a statement. “If any users have serious problems with this arrangement, we will provide refunds to them through our customer care service.”

Any interested former users can get reimbursed until December 31, 2008, 3 months after the DRM servers shut down for the Yahoo! Music Store. The offer is only available to those who purchased individual songs from Yahoo Music, as subscribers will have their entire library migrated to Rhapsody for free.

Yahoo even noted that users could strip the DRM from their tracks by burning them to audio CDs and then re-ripping them, but added that users found that to be a hassle.

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written by TMP

Fujifilm is showing off a stylish new little digital camera geared for those who find silver or black body designs boring. The new Fujifilm FinePix Z200fd is priced around $300.

The Fujifilm FinePix Z200fd is a 10-megapixel shooter which is fairly thin in body size. It sports a 2.7-inch display and offers up to 1600 ISO. It also sports Fujifilm’s face detection technology, making it capable of monitoring up to 10 faces at the same time.

Other features of the Z200fd include a self-timer mode which snaps a shot when two faces come close together, dual image stabilization, a rotary dial menu and special scene modes. It will be available in September.

Fujifilm FinePix Z200fd

written by TMP