News written by Jari Ketola (June, 2005)

We have had severe problems with some of the AfterDawn.com servers during the last couple of days and as a result they need to be taken offline for re-installation. We are trying to minimize the inconvenience caused by the downtime by re-allocating services.

In addition to slower response times on the forums and main site, software and MP3 (MP3Lizard.com) downloads may be unavailable for a period of time.

We will keep you updated.

Thank you for your patience and sorry about the inconvenience caused.

Regards,
Jari Ketola
CTO, AfterDawn.com

The innovative DVD Container format/application ratDVD has been updated to version 0.6. The new version includes:

-Windows 2000 support
-AC-3 SP/DIF support (see settings tool)
-Implemented warning for corrupted input material from DVD
-Some optimizations regarding speed
-Tagging for ratDVD movie collections

With its ability to compress complete DVDs incl. all features, menus, navigation, etc. to a high quality 1.x GB file, ratDVD is the ideal format for DVD movie collections and DVD sharing. The new ratDVD 0.6 now enables tagging information like title, actors, director, plot, etc. to be embedded into the ratDVD file.

As we all know from MP3, once you get a huge collection of titles, tagging is the one thing you really need. Until now, downloaded movies were just a filename on your harddisk. With ratDVD tagging information, you can build your own digital library of virtually hundreds of movies and never lose track of which one is which.

Read more...

This is already a bit "old news", but I thought our readers would still be interested in a video showing some very cool technology from Sony. The video shows a modular user interface consisting of pieces that look almost like glass squares that are laid on a table and then interact with each other.

I was quite impressed by it myself. Reminded me of technology seen only in science fiction movies ten years ago.

The video can be seen at:

http://gprime.net/video.php/sonyrevolution

Update: The video shows DataTiles in action. The DataTiles were presented already in 2001.

The DataTiles system integrates the benefits of two major interaction paradigms: graphical and physical user interfaces. Tagged transparent tiles are used as modular construction units. These tiles are augmented by dynamic graphical information when they are placed on a sensor-enhanced flat panel display. They can be used independently or can be combined into more complex configurations, similar to the way language can express complex concepts through a sequence of simple words.

So this is definitely old news, but still interesting and cool to look at. =)

UPDATE! OK OK so you caught us pirate bay, good work ;-) The site was not raided, they are just playing a joke on the BitTorrent community.

According to the front page of The Pirate Bay the site has been raided by Swedish anti-piracy organizations this morning. The Pirate Bay was one of the most active BitTorrent hosting sites in Europe.

The statement on the page reads:

Today the swedish anti-piracy organisations raided The Pirate Bay and confiscated the computers running the tracker. This probably means the end of The Pirate Bay and we, the crew, apologize for all loss of income caused by our activity over the years.