eBay seller claims to be auctioning a Microsoft Xbox Durango development kit

A seller on eBay posted a listing for what they claim is a Microsoft Xbox Durango development kit today, with the current bid for the Alpha Tower at $15,000.

The tower, which is supposedly for the next-gen Xbox, was posted by eBay user SuperDae earlier this morning and listed additional items like a wireless controller and power supply. The auction includes only a single image of a non-descript tower, with no further details on its contents. The starting price for the tower was set to $1, and when contacted by The Tech Game, SuperDae said: "All proceeds go to charity. And by charity, I mean my new car." A Twitter user with the same handle tweeted images of what he claimed to be Kinect for the Durango over the weekend, although Microsoft did not officially confirm that they were legitimate.

According to Kotaku, SuperDae is policing the bids for the supposed Durango Alpha Tower, saying, "I only expect people who know what it is to buy it. Otherwise you have no reason to bid." We have contacted Microsoft for comment and will update this story when more information is available.

UPDATE: The Durango development kit was sold for $20,100. Earlier today the auction has six days to go, but the status of the auction switched to "sold" at 17:32 PDT after 43 bids had been placed

[Source: The Verge]

Google to downrank sites hit by valid copyright claims

Google has been dogged by claims that it facilitates the piracy of content through its search results pretty much since day one. Starting next week, the web giant will be taking a much more aggressive approach to sites hosting pirated material by downranking frequent offenders. The new results algorithm will take into account the number of valid copyright notices received against a site and penalize them appropriately in the rankings. Google says that this will allow consumers to more readily find legitimate sources of content such as Hulu and Spotify, but it's hard not to see the move as one intended to appease studios, content producers and government officials that routinely threaten to hammer companies like Google with lawsuits and restrictive legislation. Mountain View was also quick to highlight how responsive it's been to industry concerns -- citing the fact that it receives and processes more copyright complaints in a day than it did in all of 2009 combined. For more details, hit up the source link.

Update: The MPAA has issued the following statement from Michael O'Leary, Senior Executive Vice President for Global Policy and External Affairs, in response to Google's move:

We are optimistic that Google's actions will help steer consumers to the myriad legitimate ways for them to access movies and TV shows online, and away from the rogue cyberlockers, peer-to-peer sites, and other outlaw enterprises that steal the hard work of creators across the globe. We will be watching this development closely – the devil is always in the details – and look forward to Google taking further steps to ensure that its services favor legitimate businesses and creators, not thieves.

[Source: Engadget]