Streamcast yesterday released Morpheus 4.0, the latest version of my once favorite p2p file sharing program. Over the past two years this app has declined to almost obscurity after it was booted off the Fasttrack Network in early 2002.

But this time, Morpheus is really back with a bang. It now has the ability to connect, search and download files from all major p2p networks, including Fasttrack, Gnutella, eDonkey, Overnet, iMesh and NEOnet, Streamcast's homegrown p2p technology. This multi-connect feature is sure a major development, and one that to me in the true spirit of p2pUnited.

The software also has whole lot of other features - including VoIP - and I would surely give it a try when I get home. For now I'm just pondering through tech news and wondering why yet again inter-corporate lawsuits are among the days headlines. But thankfully Microsoft is not a named party this time. Instead, this time around it's Forgent, the current owner of an algorithm inside the JPEG format, that is suing 31 heavyweights like Adobe, Apple, Xerox etc. for infringing upon it's patent.

Some say this latest battle might end up in abandonment of the JPEG format altogether, fears similar to those when Compuserve was seeking royalties on LZW compression patent in the GIF format. Now that's fucked up.