Audio/Video

More than any other big technology company, Google is building for the future, undertaking blue-sky projects like wearable computers and self-driving cars that don’t have an obvious place in today’s world because it believes they’ll be ubiquitous in tomorrow’s.

Chromecast, the new $35 widget that lets you stream web video from your computer or mobile device to your television, isn’t that kind of product. It’s more of a bridge technology, a stopgap measure — a bit of a kludge, really. It’s certainly not the watch-anything-on-any-screen solution we keep hoping will arrive.

Google unveiled Chromecast on Wednesday, a device that looks set to rival Apple TV.

Google Chromecast, essentially little more than an HDMI dongle, is Google's first foray into the media streaming market, and it works in a similar way to Apple TV and the firm's Airplay technology.

The organizers of the Hack In The Box (HITB) security conference have managed to publish the complete videos of all the talks from #HITB2013AMS.

So, in case you haven’t made it to the conference, or if you want to take another look at one of the many interesting presentations, check out the official HITB YouTube channel.

Aereo, a service that streams over-the-air channels to its subscribers, has now spent more than a year serving residents of New York City. The service officially expands to Boston tomorrow and is coming to many more cities over the next few months, including Atlanta and Washington, DC. Aereo seems like a net-add for consumers, and the opposition has, so far, failed to mount a defense that sticks.

All movies have heroes and villains and Alex Gibney's documentary, We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks, felt like vintage silver screen. Two-thirds of the way through, the film established clear roles. Our protagonist is Julian Assange, WikiLeaks founder and underdog hacker hero. His evil nemesis is actually information-silencing bureaucracy but the US government largely plays this role (voiced often by Michael Hayden, former director of both the NSA and CIA). It's a classic conflict: a battle waged over censorship and the public's right to know.

Windows 8 no longer comes with Windows Media Center. To get it, you’ll need to purchase both the Pro Pack and Media Center Pack upgrades from Microsoft for a total of $110. Consider using a free, Linux-based media center system instead.

Once you have paid all this money, you’ll just have the old version of Windows Media Center without any improvements. Microsoft will probably discontinue Windows Media Center eventually, anyway, as they’re no longer focused on it.

Officers from the cyber crime unit of the Royal Malaysian Police arrested a 27-year-old man on Wednesday for hosting links to illegal downloads on the popular local message board and file-sharing site, SYOK.org.

According to the police, the suspect, who is from the city of Kulim, is believed to be the operator of SYOK.org, which counts registered users in the hundreds of thousands (according to the website’s own Facebook page). In order to participate on the forum, users must register a username and password.

The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) is seeking to block file-sharing sites Fenopy, H33t and Kickass Torrents, the BPI said on Tuesday.

"We are seeking court orders requiring ISPs to block access to three infringing websites," said BPI Director of Communications, Adam Liversage, in an email. The BPI wants the U.K. ISPs BT, Sky, Virgin Media, O2, Everything Everywhere and TalkTalk to block access to these sites, Liversage said.

 Less than a week after Twitter unveiled Vine, the video-sharing app apparently has developed a porn problem.

Released Thursday, the app for iPhone and iPod Touch lets anyone create and share six-second clips, but it also has become a popular venue for male genitalia and pornographic movies taped off TVs and laptops. As first pointed out last night by The New York Times' Nick Bilton, searches for #porn, #sex, and other associated tags brings up a handful of videos featuring male exhibitionism and other activity.

A few months after jumping in to the free music streaming sector, Nokia is getting ready to give its Lumia-only service a jump-start with a premium upgrade.

Nokia Music+, an upgrade to the free Mix Radio service that Nokia launched last September, will offer Lumia owners unlimited skips and unlimited downloads, the Finnish handset maker announced in a company blog post today. The service also will offer higher-quality streams, allowing downloads at eight times the existing quality.