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First time accepted submitter CAKAS writes "After legal actions taken by several industry outfits, BitTorrent traffic has fallen in the United States to the all time low of 12.7 percent of internet traffic. However, this trend seems to be unique to the U.S. — In other parts of the world, like Europe and Asia, BitTorrent traffic continues to rise. 'According to Sandvine, the absence of legal alternatives is one of the reasons for these high P2P traffic shares.' In the U.S. legal content delivery has flourished and provided customers easy access to content. This seems to suggest that due to these alternatives, people are less willing to pirate and pay the publishers for entertainment." (Calling it an "all-time low" seems a stretch, when talking about something released in 2001.)

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An anonymous reader writes "Dallas Mavericks owner and media entrepreneur Mark Cuban thinks he knows the reason for Facebook's disappointing IPO; smart money has realized that 'mobile is going to crush Facebook', as the world's population increasingly accesses the Internet mostly through smartphones and tablets. Cuban notes that the limited screen real estate hampers the branding and ad placement that Google and Facebook are accustomed to when serving to desktop browsers, while phone plans typically have strict data limits, so subscribers won't necessarily take kindly to YouTube or other video ads. Forbes' Eric Jackson likewise sees a generational shift to mobile that will produce a new set of winners at the expense of Facebook and Google."

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How do you top a viral photo that was shot with Google's Project Glass high-tech specs? Shoot a video with the glasses -- while jumping on a trampoline. [Read more]

gollum123 writes with this excerpt from the NY Times: "For more than a decade, almost all processed foods in the United States — cereals, snack foods, salad dressings — have contained ingredients from plants whose DNA was manipulated in a laboratory. Regulators and many scientists say these pose no danger. But as Americans ask more pointed questions about what they are eating, popular suspicions about the health and environmental effects of biotechnology are fueling a movement to require that food from genetically modified crops be labeled, if not eliminated. The most closely watched labeling effort is a proposed ballot initiative in California that cleared a crucial hurdle this month, setting the stage for a probable November vote that could influence not just food packaging but the future of American agriculture. Tens of millions of dollars are expected to be spent on the election showdown. It pits consumer groups and the organic food industry, both of which support mandatory labeling, against more conventional farmers, agricultural biotechnology companies like Monsanto and many of the nation's best-known food brands like Kellogg's and Kraft."

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Contracts valued at $5 million or more are announced each business day at 5 p.m.

A New Jersey judge ruled that it is ultimately the driver's responsibility to operate the vehicle safely. [Read more]

linuxwrangler writes "After mowing down a motorcycling couple while distracted by texting, Kyle Best received a slap on the wrist. The couple's attorney then sued Best's girlfriend, Shannon Colonna, for exchanging messages with him when he was driving. They argued that while she was not physically present, she was 'electronically present.' In good news for anyone who sends server-status, account-alerts or originates a call, text or email of any type that could be received by a mobile device, the judge dismissed the plantiff's claims against the woman."

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Frustrated by the sluggishness and photo quality of your point-and-shoot but not thrilled about toting something the size of a dSLR? These cameras were designed with you in mind. [Read more]

Koreantoast writes "Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway recently purchased 63 newspapers and plans to purchase more over the next few years, noted during an interview that the current free content model is unsustainable and will likely continue pushing toward more electronic subscription models. This coincides with moves by other newspaper companies like Gannett and the New York Times, which are also erecting paywall systems. Buffett notes that newspapers focusing on local content will have a unique product, which would succeed even if they lose subscribers, because their services are irreplaceable. Is this the beginning of the end of 'free content' for local news?"

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Details from the chipmaker indicate that the second half of 2012 will be rife with fast smartphones. [Read more]

First it was shoplifting, then it was ticket-switching, and now it's bar code fraud. Just how easy is it to make a fraudulent UPC? Easier than you think. But getting away with the crime is a different story. [Read more]

redletterdave writes "On Thursday, former Boston Red Sox pitcher and tech entrepreneur Curt Schilling fired his entire staff at 38 Studios, his Rhode Island-based video game company, leaving more than 300 employees without jobs because the company couldn't repay its debt to the state. 38 Studios failed to pay Rhode Island's economic development agency $1.1 million, which was due last week, and also failed to meet payroll for its staff in both its Providence office and its Maryland subsidiary, Big Huge Games." The company's recent action RPG, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, sold 1.2 million copies — which would have been great if they hadn't needed to sell 3 million to break even. An article at Massively goes through some of the lessons the video game industry needs to learn from this situation.

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It was supposed to be the mother of all tech IPOs. Instead of fueling an explosion of dot-com-style madness, Facebook's tepid IPO has kiboshed the nascent tech bubble, at least for now. [Read more]

Looking for a new case or cover for the third-generation iPad? Here are CNET's top picks. [Read more]

With speculation that it'll have a quad-core CPU, 4G LTE capabilities, and a 13-megapixel camera, the LG LS970 promises to be a winner. [Read more]

cylonlover writes "Last year, NASA revealed it was evaluating three potential 'tractor beam' technologies to deliver planetary or atmospheric particles to a robotic rover or orbiting spacecraft. At the time, the third of these, which involved the use of a Bessel beam, only existed on paper. Researchers at Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) have now proven the theory behind the concept, demonstrating how a tractor beam can be realized in the real world – albeit on a very small scale (abstract)."

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There's a trick to keeping location off photos in the new Facebook Camera app; PayPal is popping up at more retailers; and Dish Network is fighting a legal battle over skipping commercials. [Read more]

Wine may come in conveniently sized bottles, but sometimes those 750 ml can be too much. Especially after the first 750 ml. [Read more]

silentbrad writes "An editorial published at CNN is titled 'The Demise of Guys: How Videogames and Porn are Ruining a Generation.' It makes the sensationalized case that not only do game addiction and porn addiction share similar characteristics, but they're also both damaging to young men, destroying their ability to connect with women, and therefore threatening the future of our entire species. A response by IGN dissects the idea that pornography and videogames are pretty much the same thing. 'The article, by psychologist Philip G. Zimbardo and Nikita Duncan argues that young men are "hooked on arousal, sacrificing their schoolwork and relationships in the pursuit of getting a tech-based buzz."' Zimbardo, has danced this jig before. At the Long Beach TED conference last year he told a delighted audience that "guys are wiping out socially with girls and sexually with women." He added that young men have been so zombiefied by games and porn that they are unable to function in basic human interactions. "It's a social awkwardness like a stranger in a foreign land", he said. "They don't know what to say. They don't know what to do."'"

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For metaphorical purposes, lets say the big red guy is the ballooning loan payments that 38 Studios (in armor) was fighting to stave off. 38 Studios / EA

For many first-time game developers, selling 1.3 million copies of their first game in 90 days would be a major accomplishment. For Kingdoms of Amalur developer 38 Studios, though, that sales performance wasn't enough to pay back sizable loan guarantees from the state of Rhode Island, or to prevent the company from having to lay off all 379 staffers in the state and at Maryland-based subsidiary Big Huge Games late yesterday.

The layoffs effectively end one of the most prominent experiments in direct state support for game development in the country. Rhode Island had to issue $75 million in bonds to help attract the studio, founded by former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, from its original home in Maynard, Mass., on the promise that the move would create hundreds of jobs in the state.

Signs that the financial arrangement was in trouble first appeared earlier this month, when 38 Studios failed to make a scheduled $1.125 million payment on that loan, prior to asking the state for even more financial assistance. Though the studio was eventually able to scrape together that loan payment, it was reportedly unable to make its payroll last week. Despite these problems, the company was still acting publicly as if it was business as usual, even releasing a trailer for planned MMO Project Copernicus last week.

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