Even as part of a big company, and as a consumer, and as a guy who loves technology and loves gadgets and all the interesting things that are happening on the Internet, I kind of agree with [the criticisms] I actually care a lot about fair use… What we're really focused on in our business right now is the exact copy.

I really don't get it. If he really thinks this, why doesn't he advise another course of action? Señor Fricklas, no comprendo. [Ars Technica]

YouTube's Going 1080p So That You Can Watch Silly Videos In High-Def

Unsatisfied with simple 720p, YouTube is going to a full HD experience with 1080p. They're about halfway through the process of re-encoding the current content, so it shouldn't be long before you can watch Rupe Murdoch rant in high-def. [CNET]

Yet Another "Virus" Attacks Unsecured Jailbroken Phones

The number of ridiculous iPhone viruses, worms and hacks is gradually growing as the number of idiots who refuse to change the default root passwords when running SSH on their jailbroken iPhones remains the same. Secure your iPhones already. Please.[BGR]

USB AM/FM Tuner Made By Company Who Hasn't Heard Of Internet Radio

This USB AM/FM tuner is useless without a computer, but if you've got a computer in front of you odds are good that you also have an Internet connection through which you can access most radio stations. And while it's lovely that it allows you to record broadcast content, it would be a bit more handy if the gadget also had some flash memory on board. [OhGizmo!]

Pirates Decorate Their MacBooks With Crossbones

MacBook decals appear to be turning into a trend as even pirates are getting into the game. Arrr, yo-ho-ho matey, or something like that. [Crunchgear]

So says a new survey out of the U.K., anyway. [The Independent via Boing Boing]

The captured pirates' link to the Chandlers is based on a message from "pirate spokesman" Farah Abdi who made claims that his team held the couple captive in the first place, so some skepticism is required. I just hope my favorite sailing livebloggers are safe. [NY Times]

Photo by Suomen Kuvalehti

Perhaps it wasn't the best of ideas for the Chandlers to publicly post their position while going through areas which are known to be frequented by Somali pirates, but at least it gives us their last known whereabouts. Maybe it also gives some hope that it was merely some kind of temporary break in communication that paused their liveblogging instead of a pirate capture, but the cryptic final message of "PLEASE RING SARAH" leaves me fearing for their safety. [Lynn Rival's Voyages via Boing Boing]

For you NXT fans and collectors, here's a parts list for this fantastic creation:

- One Intelligent NXT Brick
- One NXT Rechargeable Battery
- Three NXT Servo Motors
- One NXT Light Sensor
- One NXT IR Link (HiTechnic)
- Two Power Functions IR Receivers
- Two Power Functions Light Sets
- Four Power Functions M-Motors
- One Power Functions XL-Motor
- Three Power Functions Battery Boxes
- Three Power Functions Extension Wires

Creator NextStorm promises a more detailed explanation for this fine creation, but for now this video will do just fine. [NextStorm via Brothers Brick]

The 17 pirates on what is being called a mothership were in the midst of attacking the Egyptian-flagged Motor Vessel Amira with assault rifles and RPGs when the Navy responded to their distress call. Mothership? Seriously? To be honest, it looks like a well-equipped strike force holding up a floating outhouse—but I digress. [The State via Danger Room]

Instead of collecting donations or paying the fee off themselves, Gottfrid Svarholm (anakata), one of the four Pirate Bay founders, has come up with the DDo$—not a DDoS as we know it, but instead, a Distributed Denial of Dollars attack. The plan encourages all people who use the Internet to pay a tiny "internet-avgift" (Internet fee) of $0.13, and send it to the Danowsky law firm, which represented the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) in the Pirate Bay trial.

Because the law firm only has 1,000 free money transfers, if enough Internet users send a fee to them, it will actually end up costing the Danowsky firm and other music companies to handle and process all the payments. So not only will the Pirate Bay founders not have to pay the fine out of their own pockets, but also it could possibly play a role in the outcome of future pirating cases. [BlogPirate via SlashDot]

Some Swedish attorneys believe that Norström's membership of the Swedish Copyright Association and the Swedish Association for the Protection of Industrial Property (where he is a board member) represent a full-on conflict of interest, a charge that, naturally, he denies. I won't pretend to know whether or not these accusations constitute full-on shenanigans (legal term!) under Swedish law, but the fact that a juror on the case was dismissed for membership in the same organizations should raise a few eyebrows.

So, there's a little conspiracy to mix in with your boiling indignation. Enjoy! [The Local—Thanks Jason, Buster, and John!]

The Pentagon has been working on the .50 caliber EXACTO for about a year already, and its main focus is to overcome climate conditions to stay accurate over a longer range. Here's some jargon they've used to describe the kind of tech that might do such a thing:

Fin-stabilized projectiles, spin-stabilized projectiles, internal and/or external aero-actuation control methods, projectile guidance technologies, tamper proofing, small stable power supplies, and advanced sighting, optical resolution and clarity technologies.

Basically, we're talking about bullets that can adjust to weather conditions in mid-air, either through external control or the abilities of the bullet itself.

Currently, snipers are really only accurate up to about 800 meters. Beyond that, it gets much harder to reliably hit a target: At 2,000 meters, snipers can probably hit the side of a barn, but a head shot isn't too likely. This rifle could change all of that, and more importantly, lead to even more badass pirate takedowns than we've seen already. And we're all about the pirate takedowns. [Time]

The video takes place aboard the Yasa Neslihan—a Turkish vessel captured by Somali pirates in October. In that situation, the crew was released after a ransom was paid. Apparently, this sort of thing is common:

"There are many videos like this," the source told Wired magazine contributing editor Scott Carney, who obtained the video. "They make this video before they collect the ransom and leave the ship."

"They make videos to show the owners that they have the ship and that it is still intact," he said. "The pirates are normally very well networked."

In contrast to their recent skirmish with the U.S. Navy, it appears from the video that a hijacking can be a semi-chill affair. Hostages are seen walking around unrestrained and the Somalis are even using the opportunity to kick out the jams. [Danger Room]

More info at CNN. And as if there was any doubt, when we said Navy before, we meant the SEALs.

Update: More from Reuters as additional details emerge throughout the day:

President Barack Obama gave authority to kill the Somali pirates holding U.S. cargo ship captain Richard Phillips, and a commander acted when he concluded the pirates were about to kill the hostage, a U.S. Navy official said on Sunday.

"They were pointing the AK-47s at the captain," Vice Adm. William Gortney, head of the U.S. Naval Central Command, said in a Pentagon briefing from Bahrain.

[CNN]

Update: The American crew has apparently retaken the ship, but the captain of the ship is still being held hostage in a lifeboat off the coast of the Horn of Africa. One pirate is now in custody, while the whereabouts of the other pirates are unknown or "in the water."

[BBC and NYTimes, Gawker, SF Gate]

[Blam- Nobody messes with Bill Murray in a blue wetsuit. Nobody.]

Despite the studio publicly wailing, they actually have a hit on their hands on now: Over 1 million people have downloaded the rough workprint, which, in terms of DVD sales, that's fantastic. But more than that, "the leak" and "the hunt for the perpetrators" has generated more hype and awareness of the film than the studio could have possibly drummed up in their wildest dreams using legit tactics.

No one was excited about this movie, or even talking about it, murmurs about how meh it looked aside. I mean the helicopter scene in the trailers? Ludicrous, and not in the awesome Luc Besson kind of way either, like a shirtless man sliding around in a vat of motor oil killing a gang of dudes.

Even Fox's chairman Tom Rothman admits, Entertainment Weekly paraphrases, that "the conventional wisdom is that the people who download movies also tend to be the alpha-fans who pay to see the same film multiple times in theaters." And you know what? The non-alpha fans who downloaded it because of press coverage—who might've skipped the flick entirely—are going to see it in theaters just for the train wreck factor: "Is it really gonna be as bad as the version I saw online?"

This, ladies and gentleman is how you create a modern blockbuster. Or at least, that's the theory. We'll know in a couple weeks! [Torrent Freak via Switched]

In addition to email, British Naval commanders are always in contact via satellite link to coordinate amongst themselves (and with other foreign military agencies) in figuring out who is nearest and best-equipped to take on any given pirate threat.

The military has even adopted a trick the pirates have been using for the last few years, where they let the naval destroyer serve as a mothership where they deploy smaller, faster boats to run pirates down. They've even resumed the practice of boarding enemy ships for some good ol' fashioned Pirates vs Navy swashbuckling action, minus the swords, puffy shirts and parrots. No word on eyepatches and peglegs. Anyways, the whole article is available over at [Wired].

Things get a little less lighthearted when you realize that the Faina was filled with Soviet T-72 tanks that may have been bound for the shitstorm that is Southern Sudan. A ransom was parachuted down the Faina's decks in a cargo container (which is the ransom delivery method of choice), and the pirates escaped.

The Big Picture today has this and many, many more photos of Somali pirates, detailing what is one of the more fascinating stories around right now. Even more fascinating when you consider who all is making money from this old-world meets new-world banditry. [Big Picture, image: HO/AFP/Getty Images]

The raid, launched on a server owned by the Nordic file sharing ring Sunnyvale, actually took place during The Pirate Bay trial of the epoch. The Swedish Anti-Piracy Agency says that by taking down that server, they caused the collapse of the entire 10-server Sunnyvale ring, which put out about 65 terabytes of pirated goods, from games to TV. The Anti-Piracy Agency claimed further they the Sunnyvale ring was in fact the source of all of The Pirate Bay's pirated material. Uh huh.

TPB's Peter Sunde says "it is possible that it's a major source" but is also dubious the Sunnyvale ring is the sole source of the material that makes TPB tick, since "more than 800,000 people have uploaded to The Pirate Bay."

So, uh, who do you believe? [The Local - Thanks Andreas!]

• To win the case, the prosecution has to provide proof that copyright infringement has happened, and so plaintiffs gave examples of piracy that they committed using The Pirate Bay.
• The prosecution couldn't get powerpoint started at one point.
• The Pirate Bay isn't technically being charged for infringing copyrights, since they don't host any files. Instead, they're being charged with, ""Assisting in and preparing to committing copyright infringement." They pleaded not guilty.
• The prosecution couldn't tell the difference between megabytes and megabits.
• It isn't believed that The Pirate Bay organizers will have severe penalties brought against them.
• That's the bus the defendants, "Pirate Bay founders Gottfrid Svartholm Warg (aka Anakata), Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi (aka Brokep) and Fredrik Neij (TiAMO)" drove up in.
• Seats in the court are being scalped!

I've got mixed feelings about this trial. [Wired and Torrentfreak]