The iPhone DevTeam is back once again to release a new version of their excellent PwnageTool for Mac OS X which now adds OS 3.1 support for the iPhone 3GS and iPod Touch 2G.

EenVandaag, a Dutch current affairs TV program, recently conducted a survey on their youth's downloading habits. What the survey found was that a whopping 93% of the youngsters download content in a manner that most laws would consider illegal, citing the use of BitTorrent among other popular download programs.

Sony's Peter Dille has claimed that they are confident in their 2009 strategy for the PlayStation 3 home video game console, both in pricing and in content. Dille also touched on the PSP's rampant piracy problem, calling it "criminal" and "sickening".

The ESA board must have been reduced to tears of joy yesterday - to them, I'm sure, they now believe there is a god. This week, the Swedish court has found the four operators of torrent site The Pirate Bay guilty as charged for copyright infringement and illegal activities (digitally distributing illegal copies of games and media content). Of course, ESA is more than happy with this victory against the ongoing war on piracy - so happy, in fact, that they had to come up with an official press release about it!

We've got lots of great stuff going on in the iPhone's homebrew community, it's not a good thing to miss out on it if you own an iPhone. Here's another good homebrewed application that may just prove to be more than useful to iPhone users: Torrentula, a BitTorrent client for the iPhone (here's another torrent client for Apple's mobile). Hit the full article for more information.

Someone couldn't hold on to their jammies long enough. 2K Games' BioShock (also coming to Xbox 360) demo for the PC hit BitTorrent long before the official channels could snip the red ribbon. Although this isn't a real surprise to the people who call the Internet their second home, it has opened opportunities for other avid uploaders and free download sites, granting downloaders a good collection of sources to select.

 

The BioShock PC demo weighs in at 1.84 GB of data and is currently seeded by 662 (or so) BitTorrent users. Compared to 6,700 downloaders, however, that's a really small number of sources to leech from. Everyone's trying to jump the gun, hoping to get the demo earlier before the really heavy queueing begins when the demo officially releases.

The early lead is soon going to get cut short, however. Time continues to tick down to the prime hour while those packets trickle in through your LAN port, so players who can't seem to squeeze their way through the seeds might have to settle for the usual limited bandwidth downloads. It'll probably be out the same time Midway's Stranglehold PC demo is out, too.

Feedback from gamers of souped up rigs place the BioShock demo as one hot item to grab, and if you've got a capable system, you might want to give it a try. You'll just have to look for that Torrent site providing the leaked BioShock demo though. Happy hunting!

Joel Durnham of extremetech.com informs that in a panel discussion at the Game Developer's Conference 2007, the idea of PC game viability was discussed by a quintet of industry folks that include: Xbox Live Arcade's David Edery, Electronic Arts' Richard Hilleman, Firaxis' Soren Johnson, Epic Games' Michael Capps, and Obsidian Entertainment's Chris Avallone.

As well as the usual PC gaming competing with console gaming debate that's been ongoing for years now, the effect of piracy on the PC gaming market was discussed. Capps in particular notes that PC Gaming is really falling apart and even though it "killed" them to make Unreal Tournament 3 cross-platform, Epic had to do it.

The reason for going multiplatform, of course, is piracy. Big AAA titles usually get stolen and, as Capps says, the market that would buy a US$ 600 video card also knows how BitTorrent works.

The future of gaming on the PC so far looks like it is set to be dominated by "casual" games and MMOs. Of course there's nothing casual about most casual games since the average Chuzzle/Zuma addict plays for 24 hours a week. MMOs are notable since they can't be pirated - unless of course you steal the source code and run your own illegal server. However, those things are easier to monitor than burned CDs.

They also covered the fact that user-generated game content could be big for the PC since console manufacturers try to wield more control over their products.

They end the discussion by noting that even though things look grim, AAA titles might never die on the PC, and that trends are ultimately hard to predict.

Oh well, so much for the good old days.

PC World, a global computer magazine, has recently named some of the most influential people on the internet. Net heads, here's the top five of a list of those persons who move and shake the internet; we've arranged them from the fifth to the first for emphasis.

5. Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia - Admit it:  whatever piece of information that you get/cite, trivial or otherwise, often  comes from Wikipedia. It's even been cited in more than 100 US court decisions since
2004.

 4. Mike Morhaime, President of Blizzard Entertainment - Some say that there are only two MMO's: WoW, and everything else. Eight million people (and still counting) plus a chance to obtain the Blade of Eternal Justice put this guy at number 4.

3. Bram Cohen, Co founder of BitTorrent - This math and programming whiz kid put up BitTorrent, a way to download large files (like movies) by sharing the burden across hardware and bandwidth.

2. Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple -  DRM-free music and internet browsing through iPhone puts him on top - again.

1. Eric Schmidt, Larry Page, and Sergey Brin, Executives of Google - The most trafficked site on the internet is bound to influence internet users the most.

PC World, naming the Top 50 Most Important People on the Web, has placed Blizzard Entertainment's President Mike Morhaime at the top four spot in the list, sandwiched between Wikipedia and BitTorrent. Largely attributed to their blockbuster MMORPG moneymaker World of Warcraft, Morhaime has become an icon to players and critics alike. This is a big improvement since CNN rated him at the lowest four of the "Top 50 People Who Mattered July 2006".

Because of WoW, eight million online gamers look forward to grinds of several hours online, through different modes of play aside from the ordinary RPG levelling chore. Blizzard has shipped out WoW and The Burning Crusade with services provided in America, Europe and Asia. It grosses US$ 1.5 billion every year, taking it a notch higher than before.

Since he's the fourth most influential dude on the Web, perhaps you frustrated WoW folk can get him to patch up your worries. Or did he just use that influence to serve a nerf sandwich to almost every class out there?

The Wii Experience website was recently contacted by one of their readers, and he had quite a story to tell. The reader's ISP was apparently contacted by the ESA because they found him downloading Nintendo-related material through torrents.

Now, the reader swears it was an old Zelda cartoon, but you never know. The virtual console not only meant the beginning of retro gaming on new consoles, but also ushered in a desire increased security among companies who wanted to maintain their intellectual property rights and not have their titles played illegally by different folks.

That being said, you really should avoid grabbing pirated games. Read the ESA letter after the jump, and stay on the right side of the law, alright?