The Pirate Bay's founders have announced that the world's largest BitTorrent tracker is down for good. While the site has been mired in controversy and legal strife over the past several months, the team says that it's actually pulling the tracker down to replace it with different, more decentralized technologies: DHT and PEX.

Both are supported by most current BitTorrent clients, and they eliminate the need for trackers and torrent files. The founders told TorrentFreak they're talking to other tracker admins to arrange a mutually agreed-upon shutdown date, at which time the entire community will shift to the new tech.

DHT uses "magnet links," which download directly into your BitTorrent client instead of using the browser as an intermediary. As a result, The Pirate Bay tagline has changed from “The world’s largest BitTorrent tracker” to “The world’s most resilient (magnetic) BitTorrent site.” Change never changes.

Continue reading YouTube to stream 1080p video within a few days ›

Major computer manufacturer HP has just announced that it will purchase router manufacturer 3Com for 2.7 billion dollars. The purchase is being made so HP can make headway in the server, cloud computing, and networking fields where 3Com is strong but where HP is only scratching the surface. It looks likely that the deal will go through next year.

We're not sure this will be a huge deal for you if you're merely a personal electronics consumer, but this will have implications for businesses that use network storage and the like. Plus, you don't see a 2.7 billion dollar acquisition every day, you know?

Today was a red letter day for members of the cult of Macintosh. Apple announced several long overdue and rumored product updates in an attempt to steal some of Microsoft's Windows 7 thunder. We've covered most of it here at Obsessable. Here's the information you're looking for.

• MacBook refresh with unibody design and LED-backlit display
• iMac with new design, better specs, and eventual quad-core processing
• Mac mini with specs bump and new, optical drive-less server edition with 2 TB of storage
• Magic Mouse with multi-touch surface and gestures
• Remote with new black-and-silver design

Figure 1: The Zgrip iPhone Jr. in action

If you've ever held your iPhone 3GS shaking slightly in landscape mode in your two hands and had your finger suddenly cover the lens or you've ever been extremely keen on amateur to prosumer level video production, you've probably thought, "I wish I had a tripod for my iPhone 3GS right now." Zacuto has created the Zgrip iPhone Jr., priced at $69, as a handgrip system to help you more easily balance the video you're shooting with your iPhone 3GS with only one hand. Zacuto sent us a demo unit for review, and we've spent the last several days determining if the Zgrip Jr. is worth your $69. 

Continue reading Review: Zgrip iPhone Jr. for the iPhone 3GS ›