Advertisement

HindustanTimes Sat,25 May 2013
RssFeed

Business Computing

Advertisement
Kim Dotcom poised for return with Megaupload successor
AFP
Wellington, January 19, 2013
First Published: 11:44 IST(19/1/2013)
Last Updated: 12:23 IST(19/1/2013)
Share more.
 comments   
Kim Dotcom gestures after an interview with Reuters in Auckland. Dotcom is launching his new cloud storage service "Mega" at his Dotcom Mansion in Coatsville, Auckland tomorrow (Sunday). Reuters
Internet tycoon Kim Dotcom will launch a new file-sharing site at his Auckland mansion on Sunday, exactly a year after armed police arrested him at the same venue in the world's largest online piracy case.
   

Dotcom's new venture, mega.co.nz, aims to recreate the success
of his Megaupload empire, which boasted 50 million daily visitors and accounted for four percent of all Internet traffic before it was shut down after the police raid.
   
The 38-year-old, who changed his name from Kim Schmitz, remains free on bail in New Zealand as US authorities seek his extradition on a range of charges including money laundering, racketeering and copyright theft.
   
They allege Megaupload sites netted more than $175 million in criminal proceeds and cost copyright owners more than $500 million by offering pirated copies of movies, TV shows, music and other content.
   
Dotcom denies any wrongdoing and the charges, which carry jail terms of up to 20 years, have not discouraged him from launching the new Mega service, which he has enthusiastically promoted on Twitter in recent weeks.
   
"I think you will be very happy with the new #Mega," he tweeted Friday. "It's like time travel. We'll take you to the future!!!"
   
The tech entrepreneur has promised an "epic" launch for the new site and even impersonated Willy Wonka to promote it at an Auckland shop on Thursday, handing out tubs of ice cream with golden tickets to the event hidden in them.
   
Details of the planned service are scarce, but the site promises to use state-of-the-art encryption methods that mean only users, not the site's administrators, know what they are uploading.
   
That would theoretically stop authorities from accusing administrators of knowingly aiding online piracy, the central allegation facing Dotcom.
   
Dotcom has said Mega will offer users 50GB of free storage, significantly more than similar sites such as Dropbox and Google Drive, but most details remain under wraps until they are unveiled Sunday at the Dotcom Mansion.
   
The German national was preparing for his birthday party at the lavish Auckland property in January last year when armed police staged a dawn raid, tracking him down in a hidden panic room running off his bedroom.
   
Officers seized more than a dozen luxury cars, including a 1959 pink Cadillac, along with valuable artworks and a sawn-off shotgun, while Dotcom's bank accounts were frozen and he spent more than a month in jail.
   
Eventually freed on bail, his legal team have enjoyed a number of successes challenging the prosecution case, including a ruling that the police raid was illegal and a government admission that Dotcom was illegally spied upon before his arrest.
   
The extradition hearing is due to be heard in August.

Share more.
 comments   

comment Note: By posting your comments here you agree to the terms and conditions of www.hindustantimes.com
blog comments powered by Disqus

Advertisement
Google to add Galapagos Islands to Street View

Google has followed in the footsteps of Charles Darwin to gather images of the beauty and biological diversity of the Galapagos Islands for the Internet titan's online maps.

Review: Toshiba Kirabook

Last year, Apple added a visually stunning option to its MacBooks: screens with ultra-high resolution. These "Retina" displays reveal four times as much detail as any Windows laptop screen until now. Toshiba just released a new laptop line with a Retina-level display.

more »
How Flipkart broke India's online shopping inertia
It was meant to be a portal that compared different e-commerce websites, only there weren't enough of them in the first place to be compared. Thus was born Flipkart, making sure that online shopping would never be the same again in India.
Smartphones: Android trumps Apple, Windows edges up
Google's Android mobile system boosted its lead in the global smartphone market over Apple in early 2013, while Microsoft's Windows edged into third place, a survey showed.
more »
Advertisement
Advertisement
Copyright © 2013 HT Media Limited. All Rights Reserved