While reading a post on Slashdot this weekend about video coverage of Mario Kart Double Dash, a link in the post brought me to a site where I could download a file containing the video coverage. Also available was a .torrent file for the file and I was curious as to what this .torrent file was. After a bit of investigation I concluded that I had just come across an amazing new peer-to-peer type of technology, that supports the transferring of files, in pieces, the connections of which are managed via a central server, or tracker. The server knows nothing about the content of the files being shared, since they contain only connection information, hence the .torrent files. The executable which runs on your local box is called BitTorrent, which has versions available for Windows, Mac OS, and Linux/Unix. For more information on this interesting technology, check out this FAQ.

Cool stuff!