PSA: Western Digital and Seagate commence bonfire of the warranties

Seagate and Western Digital really do have the spirit of the holidays running through their veins, as both companies are slashing the warranty periods on hard drives for the new year. Gone are the days of five-year safety periods, instead owners of Seagate’s Barracuda XT, Constellation 2, ES.2 and Momentus XT drives will have three years protection. SV35 Series and Pipeline HD drives have two years while Barracuda, Barracuda Green and the 2.5-inch Momentus get a measly one year.

Western Digital on the other hand, will be hacking a year off the Caviar Blue, Green and Scorpio Blue drives that ship after January 1st, each coming with just two years warranty. On the upside, you’ll be given the chance to extend the package for a modest fee — nothing like the odd nickel-and-dime to hasten the post-holiday slump, eh?

[Image courtesy of Columbia Pictures]

PSA: Western Digital and Seagate commence bonfire of the warranties originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 19 Dec 2011 10:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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PSA: Western Digital and Seagate commence bonfire of the warranties

North Korean Dictator Kim Jong Il Dead at 70

As reported by numerous sources, Kim Jong Il has died at the age of 70 (69 by some tallies), after 17 years as the brutal head of North Korea. While the cause of death is uncertain, Bloomberg News says “Kim probably had a stroke in August 2008 and may have also contracted pancreatic cancer, according to South Korean news reports.”

Porcupine armor and watermelon monsters: the most psychotic scenes from Taoism Drunkard [Video]

Mr. Sardonicus’ YouTube channel — which is chock full of the most synapse-melting scenes from martial arts cinema — is pretty far up there. Mr. Sardonicus recently picked out his two favorite battles from director Cheung-Yan Yuen’s 1984 opus Gui ma tian shi, which also goes by English names of Taoism Drunkard and Drunken Wu-Tang. More »

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Porcupine armor and watermelon monsters: the most psychotic scenes from Taoism Drunkard [Video]

Facebook app update brings Timeline to the iPhone, iPad version coming soon

Facebook’s Timeline feature has only just begun to roll out across the globe, and now an iOS version has sidled up next to its Android counterpart — making it even easier for us to recheck our social network back stories. The new app is currently only available for the iPhone, but Facebook states that an iPad-friendly update will arrive soon. You will need to have already activated the timeline function on the web-based original, but downloading the latest version will also grant access to your friend lists and subscriptions. Some requisite performance improvements are also promised too. Cringe at some portable post-millennial fashion mistakes by grabbing the download at the source.

[Thanks Christoph]

Facebook app update brings Timeline to the iPhone, iPad version coming soon originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 18 Dec 2011 13:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Facebook app update brings Timeline to the iPhone, iPad version coming soon

RIAA and DHS are hives of depraved piracy

TorrentFreak continues its prolonged spelunk through the database compiled by YouHaveDownloaded, a list of participants in infringing BitTorrent swarms, indexed by IP address. Today, it’s a look at what’s been downloaded by the IP blocks controlled by the RIAA (who have advocated that ISPs should be required to disconnect customers whose networks are used in copyright infringement) and the Department of Homeland Security (who sloppily confiscated several domains without due process because they were believed to be involved in copyright infringement). Predictably, both are hives of depraved piracy.

After carefully checking all the IP-addresses of the RIAA we found 6 unique addresses from where copyrighted material was shared. Aside from recent music albums from Jay-Z and Kanye West – which may have been downloaded for research purposes – RIAA staff also pirated the first five seasons of Dexter, an episode of Law and Order SVU, and a pirated audio converter and MP3 tagger…

By now it probably comes as no surprise that staff at the Department of Homeland Security are also using BitTorrent. In fact, we found more than 900 unique IP-addresses at the Government organization through which copyrighted files were downloaded.

RIAA and Homeland Security Caught Downloading Torrents


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RIAA and DHS are hives of depraved piracy