Want to get in on the eBook action, but don’t have $360 to drop on a Kindle 2? Then definitely check out Shortcovers. Unlike Amazon’s nifty but way overpriced electronic book reader, Shortcovers focuses primarily on the mobile market, capable of delivering hundreds of thousands of titles straight to your mobile phone. (more…)

Beastie Boys fans (aka, everybody), get excited: the reissue of their ‘92 classic, Check Your Head is now available for download! The re-release includes 36 remastered tracks, including 16 B-sides and rare tracks, and is also available in a 4 vinyl set, eco CD and a 2 vinyl set (as well as MP3 format). But to get in on the action immediately, just head over to BeastieBoys.com, where you can…

• stream all the tracks off Check Your Head and all of the B-sides, too
• listen to the audio commentary about Check Your Head
• watch nine videos- both CYH music videos and Beasties TV appearances
• play the game Wave Skate, where you collect records and change characters by hopping through the clouds
• add a picture of yourself to a collage (just like the album art for CYH)
• add your Beastie Boys story to the world map
• grab some online trading cards
• play with a mixer for “Gratitude”- drag the cursor around to hear different instruments/vocals
• purchase the album as a Digital Download, Ecopack Double CD, Standard Double Vinyl, Exclusive T-shirt Combo, or Collector’s Vinyl

We here at COED are big fans of video games and procrastination – which is why we’re now obsessed with Mousbreaker.com, brought to you by our good friends at Nuts Magazine. Mousebreaker has dozens of awesome online games that will keep you from doing anything you’re actually supposed to be doing for hours on end.

Not only can you play a wide array of games on the Site, from driving games to things like soccer, billiards and some solid shoot ‘em ups, but you can download a ton of games straight to your PC. So head over to Mousbreaker now and forget all about that job of your’s. (What? You’ll probably be getting fired anyway.)

Okay, so a monk walks into a Best Buy. This isn’t a joke.

He buys three CDs, eight movies, two computer games, Adobe Illustrator CS3, the entire X-Files series, Microsoft Office Professional, and Rosetta Stone v3, so he can learn Swahili to communicate with his half-sister. The cost of all that? Easily over $2,500. Two weeks ago he bought Autodesk Maya Unlimited for his son who just got into graphic design–that was over $5,000.

Well guess what? He could have gotten all that in about two days or less for free. It’s all about the torrents–transferable pieces of data (like on Limewire, kids)  that anyone with a computer and the Internet can access, click on, and wait for a few hours (or even minutes) to download. Literally type, click, and wait. Music, games, movies, applications, books, porn–you name it, it’s there. For free.

Now. What is wrong with this picture? You tell me. Limewire’s legal. uTorrent’s legal. Azureus is legal. Think about it for a minute. I could get all those things in an hour or two while I go to the gym or go to school or sleep. When I get back: TADA! (more…)

Twist of the year, including last year: The FCC has actually ruled in favor of personal rights over giant corporations.

Comcast, a cable television and Internet provider (and bane of many a customer with no other choice), was trying to stop the usage of peer-to-peer sharing (BitTorrent and other services) by using a tricky combination of hardware and software to stifle that type of Internet traffic. This is speculation but I’ve always believed this was because they were receiving pressure from the RIAA, but whatever. Either way, this practice could render your upload and download speeds completely impotent if you chose to use certain types of data transmittance, regardless of whether or not you were participating in ‘illegal’ activity.

In a ridiculously badass and unexpected decision, the FCC totally fucking facepalmed Comcast by ruling the behavior illegal. (more…)

As many of you already know, Mozilla is attempting to break the Guinness World Record for the most downloaded program in one day. But at 1:00pm today, when the downloading storm was scheduled to begin, Firefox 3 was nowhere to be found. A trip to the Mozilla Site brought you the same ol’ Firefox 2 download option, and a whole lot of disappointment.

In the real world, the problem was fixed in a short amount of time. But in Internet time, this was a massive, highly publicized, extremely counter-productive f**k-up. Something tells us that heads are rolling over at the Mozilla office for this one. But such is life, and no one will care tomorrow. So head over to Mozilla.com, and download the new version now. Maybe you can help save someone’s job.

(Image source: RealGeek.com)

Learn how to romance a girl with one semester of Spanish put to a catchy song.

Download the exclusive mp3 for free at www.runawaybox.com

If you can’t beat them, (reluctantly) join them – or don’t.

New P2P website Qtrax was scheduled to launch this morning with support from the four major labels – Universal Music Group, Sony-BMG Music, Warner Music Group, and EMI Group – but alas, they all dropped out last minute. One can guess the reason had something to do with not being super profitable, or maybe they’re all just being the man that wants to keep the people down.

While similar P2P sites have been around forever (with varying results), Qtrax is unique to an extent. The network exclusively relies on advertising that comes with their software for profit. (According to Qtrax the ads are not AdWare or SpyWare – how nice of them!) If you can live with a few annoying pop-ups and banners here and there, you’ll be treated to over 25 million downloadable songs for free – and 100% legal to boot. No shady subscriptions, no major problems.

Well, that was until the majors dropped out. (more…)

We live in a “you heard it here first” kind of world, where artists are hyped for all the wrong reasons. Internet music mags and blogs fawn over the Next Big Thing every other week, with little to no regard of the actual music in some cases. Bloated press-kits, inaccurate descriptions and fanboy enthusiasm over a new artist – you can smell the deafening hype/impending backlash a mile away – is what makes the music world go ’round in these fickle settings.

The Sixty One, a new music site where you vote your music all the way to the top, seems to be banking on the same scene.

The Sixty One is a Digg-inspired website that allows users to upload their favorite songs and wait for the cavalry to march in and rate your music of choice. If your pick is taken with positive feedback, it appears on the site’s front page; if not, then buried it will be. (more…)

So you fancy your downloaded music? Well, guess what, you pirating son of a beyotch: the Man’s gonna getcha. Believe me – I know firsthand.

One moment, I was floating through the web, using Kazaa and Limewire to download my favorite Ace of Base songs, then BOOM! I’m doin’ time (well not really, but you’ll see).

Let’s backtrack a bit. I had just persuaded my mother to bring my desktop to the fraternity house. Let the guiltless hiding-of-the-porn-in-a-separate-folder, illegal downloading free-for-all commence! An album here, a movie there – it was cooler than penguin sh*t, which is way cool. My roommate wanted in. “Do you mind if I download this new song I love?” (more…)