View Netflix movies on your Xbox 360

OK, we talked about this a little bit ago and I said that I'd let everyone know how well it worked. After a little delay (mostly due to the fact that my stuff was pilfered), I have installed vmcNetflix and I can say whole-heartedly, it works great. Not only can you watch the streaming movie, you can download it to watch later without worrying about lag or bandwidth.

Here's a list of features.
* Stream WatchNow movies directly to the Media Center player.
* Download WatchNow movies to a "Watch Later" gallery.
* Support for Vista Extenders on both x86 and x64 platforms.
* Support for Netflix Instant Queue.
* Support for Episode listings.
* Search for movies by keyword.
* Browse DVD and WatchNow movies by genres.
* Sort Gallery by Title, Year, or Star Rating.
* View your queue, history, and recommendations.
* Add, remove, move movies in your queue.
* Supports DVD/Movie Parental Controls

What You'll Need
1. An Xbox 360
2. Windows Vista with Vista Media Center (it's included by default in Vista Home Premium and Ultimate)
3. A Netflix subscription
4. The freeware vmcNetflix plug-in

[LifeHacker via Joystiq]

Trent Reznor: Steal My Album!!!

Talk about being pissed off at a record company.

Head man Trent Reznor of 'Nine Inch Nails' states that high prices of CD's are hurting his bands sales. And he thinks that his record label 'Universal' isn't doing anything about it either! So Trent has decided to take a different approach. Check the quote that Trent recently posted on theninhotline.com:

"Last time I was here, I was doing a lot of complaining about the ridiculous prices of CDs down here, And that story got picked up and got carried all around the world and now my record label all around the world hates me, because I yelled at them, I called them out for being greedy f**king a**holes. I didn't get a chance to check, has the price come down at all? I see a no, a no, a no... Has anyone seen the price come down? Okay, well, you know what that means - STEAL IT. Steal away. Steal and steal and steal some more and give it to all your friends and keep on stealin'. Because one way or another these m*therf**kers will get it through their head that they're ripping people off and that that's not right."

Uh....Wow!!!

[NIN says: “Copy our music because CDs are too expensive” via G4TV]

'SpiralFrog' Free Music and Movie Downloading Site

SpiralFrog is a free music and movie download site that is ad-supported, and is out of beta and is finally live. It has the user put in their personal information (age, gender, zip, ect.) and it targets ads to your demographic. The files on SpiralFrog are copy protected, so you cannot burn them, but you can transfer to two portable music players and or compatible phones (sorry, no Apple devices).

You have to login to Spiral Frog at least once a month or the files that you've downloaded will be lost. None of the Major labels have signed on with SpiralFrog but it claims that it will hit the 2-million music track mark within a few months.

Free online music service launches [Yahoo! News/AP via Crunchgear]

'WarHawk' Available Tonight

One of the few games that was shown before the launch of the PS3 was 'Warhawk', and it looked great. Well since then, the game has gone through a few changes, mainly the co-op part was removed. Once the focus was placed on the single player game, developers created the best game that they could. So if you're looking forward to finally playing this game, the full version will be available to download tonight at 12:00am ET or you can pick up the game in stores tomorrow morning. It will cost an extra $20 to buy, but it comes with a headset and bluetooth.

Very cool!!!

[G4TV]

Franz Ferdinand: File Sharring Friendly

Amazing concept....

When singer/guitarist Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand was asked about illegally downloading music, he said…

“I like the idea that, because of downloading, people are going to buy songs only if they are good. I think that’s a positive thing. It means lazy bands aren’t going to get away with giving you one hit single and an album full of filler. We like the idea that every song should stand up in its own right so you don’t have to listen to a song in the context of an album to understand it. I suppose that’s why I’m sympathetic to the download environment.”

According to Crunchgear.... 'the band went so far as to explicitly encourage fans to download their new David Bowie cover via file sharing services. I’m not sure how their record label feels about these recent comments, but I seem to remember back in 2000 that The Offspring tried to make their “Conspiracy Of One” album a 100-percent free download and Columbia Records blew a gasket.

Just goes to show you that although the labels are against free music downloads, the bands themselves don’t always feel the same.'

Thanks to Crunchgear for this article and information.

Franz Ferdinand Encourage Fans to Pirate New Track [TorrentFreak via Crunchgear]

AllofMp3 Returns From The Dead: Sort of

As reported yesterday one of my favorite sites AllofMp3.com was pressured by the Russian government (rather the U.S. Government) to close its doors.

Well happy day!!! Like a phoenix rising from the dead.

Now there is a new web site that has appeared called Mp3sparks.com, which offers the same low price for downloading mp3s. It just so happens to be owned by the same people who owned AllofMp3.com, and they say that this time they're legal (sure, Ok). This site offers MP3 downloads at around .15 cents a song, beat that itunes!!!

Hit the jump for the new site. [Mp3sparks]