DigitMemo.com

Canadian-hosted torrent site is the next to fall in a series of takedowns

The world-wide crackdown on torrent sites has brought down another major torrent hub. After being forced to close its doors to Canadian users in September due to pressure from the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA), Demonoid.com survived for only slightly more than a month before being having forced offline entirely today.

The previously bustling homepage has been replaced by a single line of text; bereft of much in the way of details, but leaving little doubt as to the fate of the website:

The CRIA threatened the company renting the servers to us, and because of this it is not possible to keep the site online. Sorry for the inconvenience and thanks for your understanding.

Click for more on Demonoid.com Shut Down Again »

The new data centers in Chicago and Dublin are being built on an accelerated schedule; Chicago will be up and running by April.

Prepping for growth in the Internet era can be costly, as Microsoft is finding out. The software company is ponying up more than $1 billion for two new data centers near Chicago and Dublin, Ireland, Microsoft confirmed this week.

These new investments only add to the hundreds of millions of dollars Microsoft’s already spending on server farms around the world to keep pace with online competitors like Google and to make sure it has the capacity to handle a growing online world, which daily checks millions of e-mails, downloads millions of software updates, and shares millions of photos. In each data center, there might be “tens of thousands” of machines, according to Microsoft. The Chicago facility will sprawl over more than 12 acres and draw tens of megawatts of power.

Click for more on Microsoft Spending $1 Billion On New Data Centers »

@live.com Email registration is officially opened and a new live suite launched. 

Windows Live received a comprehensive, Google-like, update to attract more Windows users and convince them to take some of their online activities to Microsoft’s servers. Microsoft itself calls the new Windows Live a “free and fun upgrade for the online and Windows experiences” and promises that the new services “simplify” the digital lives of Windows users. The company claims that more than 400 million users worldwide are using Windows Live already.

Click for more on Microsoft refreshes Windows Live »

Brendan Eich, creator of JavaScript and now CTO at Mozilla, and Microsoft’s Chris Wilson are in sharp disagreement over the next version of JavaScript

Mozilla CTO Brendan Eich, creator of the popular scripting language ECMAScript, better known as JavaScript, and Microsoft’s Chris Wilson, platform architect of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer platform team, are trading heated rhetoric over the proposed next version of the language. Microsoft, whose own version of JavaScript is called JScript, is quibbling with the ECMAScript Edition 4 effort, which is supported by Mozilla, maker of the Firefox browser.

Click for more on Mozilla and Microsoft Battle Over JavaScript »

Google has confirmed that the recent update to its “visible PageRank” system is an effort to crackdown on sites trying to rig this closely-watched web popularity contest.

Over the weekend, Google search engine guru Matt Cutts told Search Engine Journal that the company is intent on punishing web publishers that attempt to sell their PageRank currency to other sites.

A site with a high PageRank can often boost the rank of a less-popular site simply by linking to it. As a result, popular sites will often provide such links in exchange for cash. And Google doesn’t like that.

Click for more on Google explains PageRank tweak »