A new survey from PayPal Australia about Christmas shopping habits reveals that we’re still pretty conventional when it comes to gift buying online (DVDs, books and lingerie top the list). However, the study (which covered 1274 adults) also revealed an interesting detail: of the online shoppers who planned to use PayPal, more (51%) planned to use money linked from a bank account than via a credit card (32%). I’m not sure whether that’s due to careful credit management or paranoia about credit card details getting stolen, but it’s definitely a sensible move.
Web site file ai supports instantaneous file sharing for large files, allowing the file recipient to begin downloading the file as soon as you begin uploading it. Similar to previously mentioned EatLime, that means you don’t have to wait an hour for a large file to upload to the site’s servers before your friend or co-worker can start downloading it. Unlike EatLime, file ai has no limit on file size—presumably because the file never actually goes through the site’s servers.
Instead, file ai uses a BitTorrent-style transfer protocol that goes directly from you to your peer. Like BitTorrent, if you’re sharing the file with more than one person, file ai will create a swarm, speeding up the download. The downside is that if you do have plenty time to upload the file to a site’s server, your recipient won’t get the benefit of the fat download pipe that other file sharing servers boast. file ai is free to use, works in any Java-supported web browser.
file ai [via Download Squad]First there was iiNet. Then there was Internode. Then there was iPrimus. And now Westnet is offering unmetered access to the ABC’s iView TV catchup service. Given that Westnet is owned by iiNet, which is the pioneer of the unmetered approach for iView in Australia, it’s perhaps a little surprising that it’s taken this long, but now isn’t really the time to grizzle. Like the parent company, Westnet customers can also now access iTunes content and Xbox live without chewing into their caps. Sadly, like many Lifehacker readers, I suspect Telstra won’t be jumping on this bandwagon just yet. [via Whirlpool]
The Gmail Twitter Gadget lets you tweet your heart out from directly inside Gmail, complete with saucy emoticons. Thanks Wyn!
Windows only: Google’s new web browser, Google Chrome, has officially left its beta tag in the dust, graduating to a full-fledged 1.0 release today (just 100 days after the initial release).
Yesterday we told you Google Chrome would be leaving beta soon, but we had no idea it would be this soon. According to the Official Google Blog:
New MP3 market site Bopaboo says it has a legal means of letting owners of non-restricted MP3s sell them, for prices starting at 25 cents a track, to other users. The site’s founder says users are protected under the US “first-sale doctrine,” as in re-selling a CD, and that the site prevents selling a track more than once. Only time (and lawsuits) will tell what comes of this unique tack on music sales. [via Cnet]
Windows/Mac/Linux: Despite the rising popularity of BitTorrent, for many people there’s still just one name in file sharing: LimeWire. The widely used LimeWire actually does support BitTorrent these days, and yesterday, LimeWire released an alpha version of the new and improved LimeWire 5, adding private file sharing features that will allow user to privately share folders with friends. As Wired is quick to point out, LimeWire 5 still supports the downloading from strangers features that made LimeWire popular, but the new default settings publicly shares only files you downloaded from the public network. You can specifically set permissions for all the rest, including which files you want to share and with whom you’d like to share them. How does it know who your private contacts are? Through your Gmail account, of course!
newVideoPlayer("/iphonecopypaste2_gizmodo.flv", 506, 423,""); With a little Javascript ingenuity, a new service called Pastebud aims to bring the long awaited copy-and-paste functionality to the iPhone and iPod touch. Pastebud’s copy and paste only work between Safari and Mail (or Safari tabs), but since that’s where most of us are looking to do copying and pasting, it’s not a bad start. Check the video for a full demonstration. Pastebud is slated to launch this week.
[via Gizmodo]iPhone/iPod touch only: VLC Remote Free lets you play, pause, and skip tracks on the mighty VLC Media Player on any computer from your iPhone or iPod touch. Its (currently) 99-cent sibling, VLC Remote, gives you full playlist control. Both are fairly simple to set up on your computer and hook up over a wireless network, and work well in conjunction with the new playlist features in the latest version of the open source player for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Setting up remote access requires only a quick plug-in download on all three platforms, and the Free edition can then skip forward and backward on a pre-loaded play list, as well as control the volume and move around a video or audio file. The full app, however, allows selecting playlist items, and even remotely browsing your system’s entire hard drive for media. Read on for a walkthrough and screenshots of both VLC Remote versions.
Not quite sure how your hard drive actually pulls data from a super-spinning disk? Confused about SATA, ATA, eSATA and the like? Sister site Gizmodo has a great Giz Explains post delving into the nuts and bolts of magnetic media.
