usenet
Latest
Google Groups still exists and it's getting a redesign
Google has famously killed off a number of social network and messaging services over the last couple of decades (remember Allo? Or Google Talk?). But, amazingly, the Usenet-linked Google Groups setup that's been operational since 2001 is still cranking along. It hasn't had a UI update to match the company's other tools in years though, and a Material-design makeover is incoming. The filtering and search will also be revamped, and they claim it will be easier than ever to start a new group.
British judge doesn't like the cut of Newzbin 2's jib, orders BT to block it
Shiver-me-timbers, it looks like the movie studios' latest legal broadside just scored a direct hit against the big bad pirate ship. A UK judge has ordered telecoms giant BT to block its subscribers from visiting Newzbin 2, a site which aggregates Usenet downloads, on the simple basis that BT knows some of its customers are using the site to breach copyright law and therefore has a duty to stop them. This counts as an unprecedented victory for the Motion Picture Association, who brought the case, and it potentially arms them with a new weapon to force ISPs to block other sites in future. Could that be Newzbin 3 we spy on the horizon?
Shocker! The internet is not egalitarian, popular forum posters have it easy
Researchers at the University of Georgia analyzed six years' worth of Usenet posts, and you know what they discovered? Life ain't fair. The most popular two percent of posters who started discussion threads hogged 50 percent of all replies, while everyone else struggled for attention. What made some thread-starters more attractive than others? Thankfully it wasn't rampant flaming. The distinguishing trait was actually how factual they were: only 12 percent of posts by popular posters contained personal opinions or comments. However, posting a bit of news isn't all it takes to win followers. In a related experiment, 200 volunteers were unleashed onto "simulated" discussion forums and their behavior revealed an even more important factor. The slightly flummoxed researchers called it a "preferential attachment", which pulled readers towards posters who already had an excess of followers. In other words, life still ain't fair. For a delightfully factual breakdown of the full results, check out the PR after the break.
Panic releases Unison 2, improves binaries support
Panic has released a major update to its Mac Usenet client Unison. Usenet is one of those historical districts of the Internet that's a bit off the beaten track these days, but still has its uses. It began as a global message board system and still has lots of folks doing that, but it has also become a huge repository of binaries and a good alternative to bittorrent and other peer to peer systems. Back in the day I was a Usenet fiend, but I'd fallen away until very recently; I returned courtesy of NewsgroupDirect, a good, Mac-friendly third-party Usenet provider that provided a review account for TUAW use (you generally have to subscribe these days for Usenet access). What I was surprised to discover on my return was the advent of NZB files and search engines which make it extremely easy to find binaries (unlike the old days when you had to look for everything manually). The new version of Unison offers native support for NZB searching within the application (via binsearch.info and others). It also automatically takes care of finding missing parts, PAR recovery, and RAR unpacking. In short, Unison is now clearly your best bet on the Mac for Usenet binaries. Of course Unison also retains its older message reading features and adds handy new ones like threading. There's an updated interface and the general level of Mac goodness one associates with Panic. Unison 2.0 is $29 ($18 upgrade from version 1) and a 7-day demo is available. If you need a Usenet subscription, Panic is offering the companion service Unison Access for $9 a month; NewsgroupDirect offers a range of plans from $8 to $20 per month.
Nemo usenet reader
In a lot of ways Usenet is a hold-over from the pre-web days of the internet, but the global bulletin board system is still very active for both discussions and binaries. Almost certainly the best Usenet newsreader for the Mac is the excellent Unison from Panic. Given Panic's overall reputation among independent Mac developers, it takes some gumption to challenge one of their main apps, but that's exactly what Daniele Margutti is doing with his new Nemo newsreader. I haven't been able to fully run it through its paces, but it does already have some interesting features. The focus here definitely seems to be on reading and writing messages rather than binaries, with a Mail.app style three-pane interface. Playing with it briefly, it's clearly not in the same class as Unison, but competition is a good thing, and it will be interesting to see how Nemo develops.Nemo is in beta, but already on sale for €14.99 (~$20); a demo is available for download.
Full version of Gears of War leaked? [update 1]
Gears of War has been pirated and uploaded to an Xbox 360 binaries group on Usenet. The file clocks in at around 7.2 gigs in 157 parts, and will require someone with patience, bandwidth and no sense of morals to download. Is it real? Nobody knows. While it is hard to imagine this being legit, it definitely represents a problem to the developers. We're surprised the feed didn't get the smackdown immediately, but trying to rollout a significant next-gen title might occupy most of your free time.If people could just be patient, this game will be in your hot little hands very soon. So stop wasting your time downloading useless binaries, and just stare at a calendar. Or you could go to a preview of Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, and get hands on with Gears afterwards.[Thank, Bran][Update, took out the link ... we're definitely not encouraging piracy here, folks.]
