The folks behind Pioneer One have been busy since the show's pilot release back in June, and it seems as though their hard work is beginning to pay off. The pilot was a campy success, having won Best Drama Pilot at the New York Television Festival -- but it won instant pseudo-historical status as well. It was the first science fiction drama series to be produced entirely off of donation-funding and released freely through torrent networks. Hundreds of thousands of views and five months later, the made-for-torrent drama series is set to move forward with the release of three new episodes, starting as early as mid-December.

Viewers can also expect to see a revised re-release of the pilot, in which one of the main roles has been recast. The upcoming episodes will comprise about half the expected first season -- of a projected four-season offering should the show's success continue. On that note, it's important to remember that Pioneer One, along with other free P2P community offerings like it, are only made possible by donations. So don't be afraid to donate if you like it, and be sure to catch the teaser trailer for the upcoming episodes after the break.

Continue reading Torrent-loving sci-fi drama Pioneer One landing soon with new episodes

Torrent-loving sci-fi drama Pioneer One landing soon with new episodes originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 16 Nov 2010 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Apparently, Apple isn't the only company being emulated these days. Newswall is a feed reader that seems to be heavily influenced by Microsoft's tile-like Windows Phone 7 interface (Metro).

Newswall displays a long list of tiles, each with a striking image, and each tile represents one news item from an RSS feed. When you hover over an item, a bubble with a synopsis pops up. Clicking an image pops up a lightbox with a larger copy of that image -- and when you click an item's title, the whole interface "folds down" into a thin bar at the bottom of the screen, allowing you to read the original item in longer form. Note that this "longer form" is not necessarily the complete text of the item. Sometimes you'll see a Read more link which takes you to the original website.

Newswall is available as a downloadable application, but it's meant to be running on a Web server: you need to have at least a local server for it to work. It's not something I would use as a primary reader, but it can certainly add a bit of flair to someone's day.

Newswall is an artsy feed reader application originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 13 Nov 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Google's newest official Chrome extension is sure to get a lot of use in the coming months. Assuming you've got extension-syncing enabled in a capable version of the browser, Web Clipboard brings a fully synced clipboard to Chrome, and it's pretty nice for an initial -- though somewhat buggy -- release. It copies both plain text and HTML within any Chrome tab, and secures the data on Google servers. Each item copied remains saved for 30 days, or until you clear the clipboard contents through the extension's drop-down menu.

The extension just released today, but Google warns of two major known issues: Gmail isn't yet supported, and neither are pages which contain frames. I've also run into a spot of trouble in getting items copied with the extension to paste inside Google Docs.

On the bright side, text copied using Docs' built-in clipboard will be instantly available in the extension for pasting elsewhere. Last but not least, the extension is currently only able to paste inside form elements. Despite these early obstacles, this is probably one of the more useful extensions in the gallery for people who use more than one computer. Since this is an official Google extension, I would think the bugs will get worked out fairly quickly.

One thing I'm hoping for in subsequent updates is for the extension to work inside the Omnibar, which could make quickly copying a URL and switching computers a much smoother process than it is today. One thing's for certain, Chrome OS was definitely on the minds of Google's extension team when they cooked this one up.

Google Web Clipboard feeds Chrome freshly synced copypasta originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 29 Oct 2010 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

We've seen British police use Twitter to show how busy they are these days, but it looks like the cops in Victoria, Australia have one-upped them in the social-networking arena. Victoria police were forced to use Facebook yesterday to serve an intervention order to a troll who had made locating him in real life too difficult for them.

Australian paper The Age is reporting that officers had received complaints from a woman about her being "threatened, bullied and harassed" by her ex on the social network. The local court issued an intervention order, but police couldn't serve the notice because they couldn't find the guy. The phone numbers they had no longer worked, his last known address wasn't up to date, and they didn't have any information about him in their database.

So, they decided to just use the woman's Facebook account to officially serve the intervention order. A Constable with the Victoria Police read the order aloud in a video that was uploaded to YouTube and, along with typed messages, delivered to the jilted troll. He's since agreed to delete his account.

Victoria Police say this is completely legit as far as the law's concerned, but I wonder if this sort of thing would fly here in the States? You can catch the video after the break.

Continue reading Australian cops get social too - serve intervention order through Facebook

Australian cops get social too - serve intervention order through Facebook originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 19 Oct 2010 21:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Gallery: NYTimes 2.0 for iPad

New York Times iPad app updated with more sections, free until early 2011 originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 15 Oct 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading HTCSense.com is live, does sync, remote lock and more

HTCSense.com is live, does sync, remote lock and more originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 08 Oct 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

While it's by no means a new feature, people are starting to notice what Facebook Mobile's Contact Sync actually does, and it's not pretty. At the very least, it will trash your phone's address book by overwriting it with Facebook contact info and profile pictures. More disturbingly, while it's doing that it sends your phone's entire address book to Facebook, to be hashed and badly matched up with information gathered from other users' profiles and address books.

The feature has been around since January of this year, but it's changed over time. At first, and this was only dealing with iPhones at the time, it would replace contact pictures but it didn't write phone numbers or email addresses to the phone's address book. It did, as Kurt Von Moos pointed out back in February, grab your entire address book and send it back to Facebook servers. That changed over time, and today it freely ravages your iPhone's contacts, while still gathering as much data as it can.

The only saving grace, for the iPhone at least, has been that users actually have to turn the feature on in order for the app to do any of this. Unfortunately, it never warns users that it's going to use their address book for Facebook's purposes.

Continue reading Facebook Mobile harvests entire address books, leaves soiled contact lists in its wake

Facebook Mobile harvests entire address books, leaves soiled contact lists in its wake originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 07 Oct 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced two big changes today, the newly revamped Groups being one of them. The second is that users will now have the ability to download all of their Facebook data, anytime they wish, as a big ZIP file. Expect the new feature to hit your account settings in the next few days.

The option to download your data will show up in your Account Settings, just below the line for Account Security. After clicking it, you'll have to click through an enormous warning about keeping your data safe and secure after downloading it, which acts as some sort of disclaimer. After you click through that, you're given a second "Download" button, after which point Facebook will package your stuff and proceed to email you a download link for the .ZIP archive. The video (after the break) explains it all, now we just have to wait for it to roll out.

Challenge: Try not to snicker too much when the speaker goes into huge emphasis mode about protecting your data once you download it from the extremely secure privacy-vault that is Facebook.

Continue reading Facebook to allow users to download their data

Facebook to allow users to download their data originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 07 Oct 2010 04:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The team at Ubuntu decided to make today a fun Friday, releasing Ubuntu 10.10 RC (Maverick Meerkat) for users to play with over the weekend. The full stable release is due to release on October 10th, so if you don't feel like running the outlandish risk of using a beta version, sarcasm intended, then you don't have long to wait for the real deal.

Changes and additions in this version are plenty, including an upgrade to Linux kernel version 2.6.35. For Netbook Edition, the Unity interface is now default, and desktop users get a revamped Ubuntu Software Center. Shotwell seems to have replaced F-Spot as the default photo-management tool on both. Kubuntu comes with global upgrades to version 4.5 (with a promise of 4.5.1 "soon"), and Rekonq as the new default browser. In Xubuntu, Totem's been replaced by Parole as the default media player, Xfburn is the new default burning app, and Gnome-Task-Manager got ditched in favor of Xfce4-Taskmanager.

The list of known issues is pretty decent, so be sure to go through them first to avoid surprises.

Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat RC now available, full release coming soon! originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 01 Oct 2010 05:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

There were rumors about it yesterday, but today we find out that it actually happened: AOL has purchased TechCrunch, one of the biggest blogs (and blog networks) in the technology industry. AOL CEO Tim Armstrong announced the news this morning at TechCrunch's Disrupt conference, noting that TechCrunch will become part of the AOL Technology Network that includes sites like Engadget, Switched, The Unofficial Apple Weblog, and Download Squad.

Read more about it in the press release posted on TechCrunch by Tim Armstrong himself.

TechCrunch now a sister site of Download Squad originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 28 Sep 2010 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Solve Media's CAPTCHA replacement might have ads, but they're still an improvement originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 20 Sep 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Apple to announce iPad newspaper subscription plans originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 16 Sep 2010 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

EU creates a 200,000 system grid for researchers originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 14 Sep 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Autodesk wins court case, you officially don't own AutoCAD originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 13 Sep 2010 16:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Boxee, everyone's favorite open-source underdog in the emerging entertainment-center-in-a-box market, has been using Gecko for its on-board browser for years now. That's all about to change, according to Boxee's Lead Apps Developer Rob Spectre, who told GigaOM that the team was looking to make good use of HTML5, and saw a shift to WebKit as the best way to get there. Boxee users should expect to see the shift sometime soon, with the release of the anticipated update to version 1.0 -- a milestone that's sure to be somewhat of a momentous occasion all on its own.

Boxee's performance while browsing is expected to "dramatically improve" after the shift, and when the long-awaited Boxee Box finally releases this coming November, it'll be shipping with WebKit firmly in place.

Interesting to note, the Boxee team is so impressed with WebKit, even after so many years of Gecko-use, that Spectre went on to state that it "absolutely should be the future for the browsers you use on your TV." Between Google TV and Boxee, it looks as though a great many living rooms are set to be equipped with WebKit this coming holiday season.

Boxee eyes HTML5 goodness, ditches Gecko for WebKit originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 10 Sep 2010 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Man leaves his very large message on the world with GPS "pen" originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 16 Aug 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

FCC Commissioner doesn't love Google-Verizon net neutrality proposal originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 10 Aug 2010 13:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google and Verizon introduce net neutrality proposal originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 09 Aug 2010 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Wikileaks has been a hot news topic for several months now, largely due to Bradley Manning and his 260,000 page contribution. There are plenty of people in corporate and government positions who want the site shut down (and prosecuted), but most all, they want their leaked data and they want the sources for those leaks.

WikiLeaks' legitimate ability to protect those sources and the data they've divulged has perhaps been the most heated topic of debate, but until now, Julian Assange and the rest of the WikiLeaks team have been able to back up their claims (and stave off the raids). That could all change, however, if what a representative of the Swedish Chancellor of Justice's office says turns out to be true.

Håkan Rustand, a deputy to the Chancellor of Justice, told the Sydsvenskan, a major Swedish newspaper, that WikiLeaks and its sources may not actually be protected by Swedish laws. Apparently, while the laws do indeed protect journalists' sources, the publications in question must be properly registered and licensed to publish content in Sweden, and WikiLeaks is not. Unfortunately, it looks like simply planting its servers on Swedish soil isn't enough to automatically gain constitutional protections.

"If the constitutional laws are non-applicable, ordinary liability laws take effect," said Rustand. He then went on to say that "the question is what WikiLeaks is," and that this very question is quickly becoming a case for the Chancellor herself to decide. That decision would likely decide the outcome of the site, its sources, and the data.

WikiLeaks responded tersely to the article, via Twitter: "The article currently being spun about WikiLeaks source protection legalities is false." I hope they're right.

[the Sydsvenskan via Slashdot]

Swedish Government: WikiLeaks sources may not be protected after all originally appeared on Download Squad on Sun, 08 Aug 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Remember when the Pirate Bay tried to raise enough money to buy the Principality of Sealand? Well, this is a bit different. Torrentreactor.net, one of the most popular torrent sites on the Internet today, says it has bought the small village of Gar, in the Tomsk province of Russia. The single requirement was that the town rename itself to "Torrentreactor."

Whether this is legit or not is still unclear at best. The folks at TorrentFreak, who were first to report on this, say that while they've attempted to contact the authorities in Tomsk, they haven't received any word back yet. This, coupled with the fact that torrent sites in general are notorious for pranks and publicity stunts, makes the whole thing look like a hoax. It certainly doesn't help that the image used by Torrentreactor.net has what appears to be a well-shopped sign that reads "Torrentreactor" in Cyrillic text. When you view the image, note the weathering of the text. The town was supposedly just renamed, so the text should be brand new, shouldn't it?

According to Torrentreactor.net, the village has been sitting in near desolation until now. The 214 inhabitants make a living their selling vegetables in other nearby towns. There are three computers in the whole village; one at the administration office and two at the school -- but only one has access to the Internet and it's via dial-up modem. None of the villagers had any idea who or what Torrentreactor.net was.

The total price of the transaction came out to 4.5 million Rubles, or the equivalent of $148,000 USD, which isn't a bad price for an entire village. The lion's share of the money is apparently to be split amongst the villagers, with the rest going to needed repairs and upgrades for the roads, school, and farm equipment. Torrentreactor.net is also going to pay the equivalent of $30,000 USD to get the town wired for broadband, as well.

Of course, this is all according to Torrentreactor.net, so take it with a grain of salt until there's some sort of official confirmation from the Russians.

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Torrentreactor.net claims to have bought Russian village and renamed it "Torrentreactor" originally appeared on Download Squad on Sun, 08 Aug 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.