I, with many others, have recently been converted from an evil, “grubby little man” to a life of wondrous joy where downloading anything is a sin, thanks to the highly successful “Knock-Off Nigel” campaign.

Oh yes. I realize that to an American reader, or in fact anyone from somewhere other than the UK, will not have a clue what the hell is going on in this ad. We here almost didn’t know until they rudely interrupted poor old Nigel’s life and ruined his reputation by singing a jolly old song. This IS the UK’s best attempt at combating piracy. Some bloke who looks like he recently came of the cast of “Life On Mars” or “Ashes to Ashes” strolls up and starts singing in some daft way as the whole office join in behind him.

Every time this advert makes it’s way on to my TV, I fail to see how it has stopped anyone from continuing to download or “knock-off” illegally. At all. It is just so badly done. Nothing like, “STOP - Piracy is a crime” or “Would you steal a car? Would you steal a movie?”. Just a message that has been poorly conceived by some idiots on some ad agency somewhere.

What’s worse is that this was probably funded by the UK Government, which means our money has been spent on producing this tripe. Still, I suppose on the bright side, you can get a quick kick out of just how devastatingly bad they really are.

And if you want to know more (I hope to God you don’t), check out Nigel’s very own site.

Despite its supposed pronunciation, the one thing Cuil definitely isn’t, is cool. After the tremendous splash the newly released search engine made on Monday following spectacular media coverage its rating in the online community has dropped to absolute rock bottom. It was heralded as a true ‘Google killer’ and indeed is run by several former Google employees, however, there can be no doubt that Sergey and Larry can sleep soundly in their multi-coloured ball covered beds for quite a while longer.

Billing itself as “the world’s biggest search engine”, Cuil promised to bring a viable alternative to Google, both in terms of how it presented and indexed results and how it protected your privacy. While we cannot yet dispute its claims about privacy, there is no doubt that it has failed to present any kind of alternative to the more conventional, as it would call them, search engines already in place.

One way of looking at it is to say that Cuil’s Monday launch and their subsequent ‘whale tail’ scenario started off rather well for them. We all know how media outlets love to push news of any challenge to Google’s dominance, and also that we as consumers lap them up- this was exactly what happened for Cuil. Scores of users were driven to the search engine resulting in a similar message across the board: “Due to overwhelming interest, our Cuil servers are running a bit hot right now. The search engine is momentarily unavailable as we add more capacity.”- a tantalizing message, serving only to drive even more visitors. Unfortunately for Cuil, they added that ‘more capacity’ in just a few hours and the general public got their chance to size up the search engine. This led to the now universal consensus that, while Cuil may look slightly nicer than some of its competitors, its results are in many cases utterly irrelevant and completely jumbled in its ‘magazine style’ results window.

For example, a search on Cuil for ‘Cuil’ itself yielded results for French breads and Irish cottages- not a whiff of the search engine or, incidentally, any of the bad press it’s been getting. Furthermore, not only does Cuil bestow the reader with irrelevant results, it accompanies these with equally irrelevant images from completely different web pages, take a search for ‘MobileMe’ for instance. The first result actually linking to a page from Apple was alongside this bizarre image of some kind of archaic filing system, sat on what looks to be blue, crushed velvet.

For now, and for the foreseeable future, Cuil will remain a ridiculed and outcast search engine, bettered on almost every front by either Google or other, new and emerging search engines, such as SearchMe. It can be assumed that Cuil will at some point try to branch out into other areas, perhaps attempting to rival Google’s dominance of online mapping, however, it seems some internet users are already predicting dire results for such a venture.

We heard today that Windows 7, the next major version of Windows following Vista, is on track to be released in January 2010, and is going “very, very well”. These are the words of Windows unit head, Bill Veghte after a meeting on Thursday with Microsoft financial analysts.

So far, we have seen new multi-touch software built in to Windows 7 to offer a new way of interacting with your computer, although not much else has been revealed as of yet. At the end of the meeting, a Q&A session was held and Steve Ballmer was asked on how Windows 7 would look like, but he refused to comment, explaining that it would be a “no-win” result for Microsoft.

I will be interested in the development of Windows 7, as Vista was such a disappointment to me. Even now as I moved to OS X, I have kept a virtual Windows Vista installation just for programs that I might need that are not available. I must admit, Vista is much improved from early 2007, but OS X has become my primary operating system. For me, it just makes more sense that Windows. There are interesting stats regarding enterprise penetration by Windows Vista.

The report showed that Vista use among businesses had increased by more than 40 per cent since January, but that most of the installations were replacing versions of Windows that predate Windows XP.

According to Forrester, 87.1 per cent of the companies surveyed for the report continue to use XP.

Microsoft is still very much reeling from Vista, so we can expect a fair amount of criticism of Windows 7 as more and more info is released, but this is Microsofts chance to get it’s act back together and make a better Operating System.

For many months both the U.S. and Canadian iTunes stores have offered a weekly movie rental at a heavily discounted price (typically $0.99). The promotion is similar to Apple’s ‘Song of the week’ promotions in many countries, however this new movie discount will only let you watch the movie within the next 30 days for 48 hours.

Today, this promotion has arrived at the UK store, under the title ‘99p Film of the Week’ (double the price in the U.S.) offering a film rental for £2 less than usual. The first feature on offer is the 1998 movie ‘Ronin‘, starring Robert De Niro.

New statistics from the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) say that there are now 253 million people connected in China, compared to 223 million in the USA, making them the biggest net nation in the world. This figure is up an amazing 56% from the same time last year.

This is particularly interesting as the US has held the record for the most number of people connected to the internet since records began. This also gives us an indication of how fast China is growing as more and more Chinese can afford technologies that up until now were not commonplace in the country.

Broadband is apparently the most used in China, with 95% of those connecting up via high-speed connections. Despite this huge increase, the BBC report that the China’s net economy is still behind other countries.

Despite having a greater number of people online, China’s net economy still has a long way to go to match or exceed that of the US or even that of South Korea.

Figures from Analysys International said China’s net firms reported total revenues of $5.9bn (£2.96bn) in 2007. By contrast net advertising revenue alone for US firms in 2007 stood at $21.2bn (£10.6bn).

It is expected by 2012 that there will be 490 million connected users in China alone.

What with video games being blamed for the extinction of whales and the credit crunch, and of course the good old argument that they make people kill each other, rob houses and generally toss around with people’s minds, it comes as a surprise that prisoners in the UK are allowed to play rated 18 video games whilst in prison. Well apparently not so, anymore. Gizmodo UK reports that a new rule means prisons in Wales and England cannot buy new games or consoles for their inmates, but prisoners who show good behaviour get a little treat and can buy there own. But the question is…

Why are there games consoles in the first place? These people are prisoners for crying out loud! They should serve their time whilst being punished for whatever crime they have committed. Of course, the barmy UK prison system would rather let them mess around on their Xbox 360’s, or draw up evil plans while first-person shooting on their PS3’s.

It further shows why young “offenders” really don’t give a damn about being sent to “Young Offenders Institues”, because it’s like being sent away on a nice, cushy holiday. The complete package with en suite TV and console. As I see it, the only prisoners who should be allowed to play games are those on suicide watch, as the article mentions. Just make sure they have wireless controllers though…

Maybe the UK goverment wouldn’t have to spend so much on GTA IV and PS3’s if they spent money on devising ways to stop people getting in prison in the first place. But I must end my rant here. Needless to say, the logic behind this is baffling.

Remember to share your views in the comments section. Are video games in prisons a silly idea in the first place, or am I just missing something out?

Thanks to Gizmodo UK for the information

Credit to http://resnet.ucsc.edu/besmart/filesharing/

As has been rumoured for a number of weeks in online and print media a group of the biggest Internet service providers (ISPs) in the UK have signed up to a ’Memorandum of Understanding’ drawn up by the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (BERR). This treaty of sorts between ISPs, the Government and the British Phonographic Industry (which acts to serve the interests of the ‘big 4′ music labels in Britain) comes after Virgin Media admitted that it had sent several hundred ‘warning letters’ to customers whom, it had been deemed, had obtained songs illegally on their internet connection.

Unsurprisingly many customers who had received these letters from Virgin, such as this man, began claiming that they hadn’t illegally downloaded the songs Virgin Media said they had and furthermore that they were extremely taken aback by being accused of such an infringement of copyright.

This first attempt at a ‘warning letter’ scheme clearly shows the faults the system would have on a wide scale. Sending a letter of this nature to customers will obviously cause them considerable discontent with the ISP, whether they did perpetrate the crime and are annoyed that their ISP has effectively been ’snooping’ upon their internet usage or whether they didn’t download the songs in the first place, ultimately this looks set to contribute to the ISP losing subscribers (this being the main reason most ISPs have been reluctant to join such a scheme). Another incredibly obvious yet key problem is that in the age of WiFi networks and Foneros it is always a possibility that someone is piggybacking on an unwitting customers network and maintaining illegal activities without their knowledge.

This week, despite numerous causes for concern from all sides, the ‘understanding’ which certifies that ISPs will not only commit to a “significant reduction” in music file-sharing in the UK but also help develop legal music services was signed by BT, TalkTalk, BSkyB, Orange, Tiscali and Virgin Media.It has also been announced that regulation and future amendments to the ‘memorandum’ will be overseen by Ofcom.

To me, the idea of British internet providers attempting their own content delivery services on a large scale when giants like Universal have failed to make a significant mark upon iTunes gargantuan market share seems preposterous, it also veers on being monopolistic. However, there are intriguing whispers of a different method of collecting royalties from users who download music illegally. The Times reports that Ofcom may introduce an annual download tax, similar to TV licensing. This move however would beg the questions: ‘what do those of us who buy content perfectly legally online do?’ and ‘how would this system be policed?’.

Thankfully, there is one glimmer of hope coming from this ongoing crusade against internet users. Several ISPs have made it clear that there was “absolutely no possibility” of them disconnecting alleged pirates from the Internet.

You may ask why I think this a good thing and from it you may assume that I ‘obtain’ my music, but as something of a very small-time artist myself I appreciate the value of music and do pay for all I download. Having said this I wouldn’t be too surprised if I ended up getting my very own warning letter from my ISP, despite zealous protection of my network, and I, like everyone else, wouldn’t want to be disconnected and blacklisted for something I simply didn’t do (or indeed because the ISP or the BPI made a mistake).

We have created a poll on the right in the sidebar too see how many people fileshare and how many steer clear. Take your vote now or leave a comment.