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The extradition hearing for MegaUpload founder Kim DotCom has been postponed to next year over questions about the legality of evidence seized with search warrants later declared invalid.

The hearing, which was scheduled to occur in August 6, was delayed Tuesday by a New Zealand judge until March 2013.

DotCom attorney William Akel told Reuters the postponement was due to two judicial reviews currently under way regarding the search warrants and evidence disclosure.

"It was inevitable that the hearing for August was going to be vacated because we have two existing cases in the High Court," Akel said. … Read more

Less than a month after Face.com was acquired by Facebook, the social network is shutting down the facial-recognition software company's APIs.

The software company made a splash in 2009 when it released Photo Tagger, a free third-party application for Facebook that uses facial recognition technology to automatically tag photos of people, as well as a recognition-based alert service for Facebook. In 2010, Face.com released an open API to the public that allowed third-party developers to incorporate the technology in their apps.

However, according to an e-mail reprinted by The Next Web, Face.com representatives have begun notifying … Read more

Vice President Joe Biden did not orchestrate the criminal case against MegaUpload, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Kim DotCom, the founder of MegaUpload, a cloud storage service accused of trafficking in pirated materials, said this week that he has proof Biden ordered the prosecution against him and six other MegaUpload managers.

"There was no White House involvement in the decision to charge this case," the office of Neil MacBride, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, wrote in an brief e-mail to CNET. MacBride is the federal prosecutor who filed a criminal … Read more

The film industry is laughing at allegations made by Kim DotCom, the founder of accused pirate site MegaUpload.

DotCom claims leaders from the major Hollywood studios gathered last June in Washington to discuss MegaUpload with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden.

In an interview with TorrentFreak on Tuesday, DotCom produced White House records that showed some of the chiefs of the six largest film studios, including Brad Grey, CEO of Paramount Pictures, and Ron Meyer of Universal Studios, met with Biden at the White House on July 27, 2011. He noted that also in attendance was Mike Ellis, an executive … Read more

MegaUpload founder Kim DotCom, a man indicted by the U.S. government for criminal copyright violations, conspiracy, money laundering and wire fraud, alleges that Vice President Joe Biden ordered a U.S. Attorney to pursue its aggressive case against him and his company.

If true, that shouldn't come as a big surprise to even the most casual follower of the antipiracy debate. (DotCom cited no evidence for his claim, telling the site TorrentFreak only that a "credible source" informed him Biden ordered the crackdown.)

Whether or not Biden was involved -- and my sources say he wasn'… Read more

A law firm that has worked with Apple now is in possession of the iPad3.com domain.

Fusible yesterday reported that the Whois record for the domain name has changed, and now, Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton (KTS), a multinational law firm, owns it. KTS has represented Apple in the past, most notably helping the company in its legal fight against Psystar, the Florida company that was selling computers running Mac OS X.

Although the Whois record doesn't show Apple as the domain's owner, it's quite possible that the company will soon take it over. DomainWire reported last … Read more

Space is a premium in your car's cabin, even more so when we're discussing your windshield. You don't want to go cluttering up your view of the road with too many devices. It's easy to get out of hand with a navigator, a Bluetooth speakerphone, an audio source, and a fuel economy meter.

That's why we've rounded up five portable GPS devices that do more than just navigate.… Read more

The big news today on the antipiracy front is that a New Zealand court has ruled that police enforced illegal search warrants when they seized the assets of MegaUpload founder Kim DotCom.

What hasn't been made clear in the initial press reports is that this is not a final victory. Far from it. The ruling as it stands today does not impact DotCom's extradition hearing on August 6 or the charges facing him in the United States, according to legal experts. A hearing on the MegaUpload case is scheduled for tomorrow in U.S. District Court.

On January … Read more

Kevin Mitnick can certainly empathize with Kim DotCom.

Mitnick, one of the best-known computer hackers of all time, knows what it is to be hunted by the American government and to face jail time as a result. That may be why Mitnick cheered DotCom on via Twitter.

DotCom, the founder of cloud-storage service MegaUpload is trying to fend off attempts by U.S. officials to extradite him from New Zealand and try him on various charges, including criminal copyright violations and wire fraud.

"I hope you win," Mitnick wrote to DotCom last night. "I saw this on … Read more