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The demise of popular P2P tracker Demonoid reached its epilogue as its main domain name, Demonoid.com, went on sale officially via domain market place Sedo. The URL has a price of $48,000 (around £31,000) at the time of writing and its listing comes after the site was taken down thanks to the concerted efforts of the International Federation of Phonographic Industry (IFPI) and INTERPOL. Two other domain names owned by Demonoid, demonoid.me and demonoid.ph, have also been put on sale
The closure of the site marks yet another step in the gradual “screwing up” of the file sharing community by a global network of law agencies and regulators whose arms extend over frontiers as far as Ukraine (where Demonoid is based) and Mexico or New Zealand (for the infamous MegaUpload) or the whole of Europe (where many Internet service providers have been asked to ban Newzbin2 and the Piratebay).
The sword of Damocles also hangs over the users of the site given that Ukrainian authorities are rumoured to have seized the data logs of the website which could, in the worst case scenario, lead to Demonoid users being targeted in individual lawsuits, a very remote but still very real prospect.
Microsoft has released the penultimate version of Windows 8, commonly known as RTM (or “release to manufacturing”) less than two weeks after it was forced to can the Metro name because of a trademark dispute.
The final version of Windows 8 will be launched on 26 October alongside Windows RT as well as its Surface tablet, but this version is only available to developers and manufacturers, allowing them to roll out Windows 8 in a fully working environment in a form that’s close to the retail version.
There are few differences between the RTM version and the previous offering, Release Preview, with the most notable change being the new tattoos, which allow users to be creative with their “start” screen. Windows 8 RTM will run comfortably on hardware that ran Windows 7 (including, dare we say, the Starter version).
Windows 8 Enterprise, Visual Studio 2012 and Windows Server 2012 Essentials Beta were also released at the same time, although it’s worth noting that Microsoft has not yet release Windows RT to developers via MSDN.
Apple is expected to unveil the follow up to the iPhone 4S, commonly known as the iPhone 5 on 12 September during a special event, putting it immediately on pre-order for prospective buyers. One report also suggests that it would go on sale in the US on 21 September with the device trickling to the rest of the world from October onwards.
Apple launched the iPhone 4S on 4 October 2011 and it went on sale in seven countries including the UK 10 days later, with 22 more countries added to the tally by the end of that month.
The event is also scheduled to include the iPad Mini, a smaller version of the current iPad, which would be expected to compete with the Google Nexus 7 (and would almost certainly become the cheapest iPad on the market).
In related news, pictures of what looks like the motherboard of the iPhone 5 have been leaked online with the most significant change being the implementation of the controversial Nano-SIM format.
Chances are that it is the real thing given that the same user posted a picture of the logic board of the iPhone 4S prior to its launch but we won't know for sure until the first teardown is carried out.
