After bouncing around several top-level domains over the past couple of months, BitTorrent tracker The Pirate Bay has finally found a home in Iceland, mashable.com reports.

The Pirate Bay’s search for a TLD — initiated as the site’s owners’ fear Swedish authorities might seize its .SE domain name — recently brought the site to the Greenland-based .GL domain. That didn’t last long, however, and TPB was forced to find a new home, which it did — in Iceland.

For now, The Pirate Bay is safe here, as the Icelandic domain registry ISNIC spokesperson told TorrentFreak they will not take action against the domain — unless ordered to do so by a court.

For the average user, all of this simply means the official Pirate Bay domain is nowthepiratebay.is, where the site is operating as usual.

The World Economic Forum’s Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report 2013 was published earlier this month. Iceland and New Zealand were considered most welcoming towards foreign tourists in a ranking of 140 countries.

The attractiveness and competitiveness of each country’s travel industry was ranked in different categories, including ‘Attitude of population toward foreign visitors’ where Iceland and New Zealand shared the top spot, cnn.com reports.   Both countries scored 6.8 points on a scale of 1 (very unwelcome) to 7 (very welcome) and were followed by Morocco, which scored 6.7.

Photo by Bernt Rostad

Trolls may not be the most reliable source for news.

There are no breaking news at this time on volcanic activity in Mt. Hekla, one of Iceland’s largest volcanoes. Contrary to what many Icelandic Facebook users believe, the volcano has not erupted. This morning, the National Commissioner of the Icelandic Police declared an uncertainty phase, the lowest level of warning, because of seismic activity in mount Hekla.

One hour later, Internet trolls in Iceland started posting an old news article from Iceland’s largest online news service, about the Hekla eruption in 2000. It looks like April’s fool has arrived a little early this year.

Photo by Börkur Sigurbjörnsson

If you are in Iceland today, or on your way here in the next two days, be prepared for the show of a lifetime. Yesterday, the sun erupted with an Earth-directed coronal mass ejection, a solar phenomenon that can send billions of tons of solar particles into space and can reach Earth one to three days later. This causes beautiful aurora activity around the Arctic circle. Iceland is one of the best places in the world to witness this phenomenon, due to small amount of light pollution.

“Not to be confused with a solar flare, a coronal mass ejection is a solar phenomenon that can send solar particles into space and reach Earth one to three days later. Earth-directed CMEs can cause a space weather phenomenon called a geomagnetic storm, which occurs when they connect with the outside of the Earth’s magnetic envelope, the magnetosphere, for an extended period of time,” says a NASA spokesman.

Photos by NASA and Örlygur Hnefill

A raft of Icelandic talent – including Thorunn Antonia, Ásgeir Trausti and Apparat Organ Quartet – will be appearing at Canadian Music Week next month as part of a stellar line-up including Rihanna, Ron Sexsmith and Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds.

Also appearing are metal titans Endless Dark and the ever magical Sóley. Canadian Music Week is Canada’s largest and longest running music festival, and this year boasts more than 1,000 artists from Canada and around the globe scheduled to play in 60 venues throughout downtown Toronto between March 19 – 24.

source: icelandmusic.is

Fireworks in Iceland

The Huffington Post travel blog has selected Reykjavík as one of the 20 best places in the world for celebrating on New Year’s Eve. Among the other cities named are New York, Hong Kong, Las Vegas and Cape Town.

“With a mere four daylight hours over the Christmas season, the northernmost capital of the world has plenty of excuses to get the party started early for the New Year. Reykjavik’s New Year’s Eve celebrations traditionally kick off with evening mass at Reykjavik’s Cathedral, before locals join forces around huge bonfires to play music, sing and dance as they countdown the end of 2012. As the clock strikes midnight, the city erupts with fireworks and huge crowds gather around landmarks like the Hallgrímskirkja church, Perlan (The Pearl) and Landakotskirkja church for an extravaganza that aims to rival the northern lights. It’s after midnight that the city’s renowned nightlife swings into action, with bars and clubs blaring long into the New Year.”

Photo by Logi HG

I think it was in 2006 that I discovered a website with links to live cameras around the world. There were some categories to choose from, cameras from Asia, cameras from America, cameras from Europe and more. Among the categories was one that caught my eye; Cameras from Islands. The first link in that category was “live camera from Stykkisholmur, Iceland“. That was the first time I saw the most beautiful place I had ever seen, a little town with an amazing skyline – with a small harbor and far mountains in the background. I was hypnotized by the view of this place.

I started to watch it every day. I saw the sunny days of summer and the midnight sun, even though it was very late here at my home in Israel. I saw the land turning from brown to green in spring and I saw the snow cover the land in the winter. For almost two years, I watched Stykkisholmur like I live there and saw what people were doing and how the seasons were changing.

While watching the camera, I started to dream about the day I would visit Iceland. The day I would see the little harbor and the little cliff that protect it. I was dreaming about the day I would see where this live camera was located and I was dreaming about the day I would see the skyline of this little place that had become a part of my life and my heart.

In July 2008, I came to Iceland for the first time. I will never forget the moment the Icelandair Boeing went through the clouds and revealed to me the gray ocean water and the dark brown land of Iceland. “Heima minn” were the first two Icelandic words I whispered to myself when I saw Iceland from above. And I can not describe the feeling when I first walked on the land of my dreams.

Iceland was amazing! Every waterfall, every mountain, river, cloud, road sign, stone – everything was so exciting for me. This place got into my heart and I was the happiest person in the world. People say that they can’t see god and don’t know if he is really exist, but after I saw Iceland I realized that god is the nature and Iceland is the proof of that (we say in Israel “God is watching us” and for me it’s like that if god is watching us so he is doing it from Iceland).

After ten days in Iceland, finally I saw Stykkisholmur. Unfortunately I could not spent a lot of time there, but you can imagine how it feels to make your dreams come true and see for real the things you always dreamed of. After I visited Iceland I understood that Iceland is a perfect analogy for my life. I am like Iceland, far away from people – mysterious and unknown – but when you discover it you can find a lot of nice things and see the beauty of it.

I can’t wait for my 4th visit to Iceland.

Photos by Teo Romera and the Stykkishólmur Webcam

The song Dirty Paws by Icelandic indie pop band Of Monsters and Men is featured in new iPhone 5 commercial released today. The 7-minute commercial shows the features of the new iPhone.

Of Monsters and Men won the 2010 battle of the bands competition in Iceland and their song Little Talks reached number 1 on US Alternative Songs chart the following year. Their debut album My Head Is an Animal peaked at number 6 on the US Billboard 200 album chart in 2011.

In 1965 and 1967, two groups of American Apollo astronauts visited Iceland to study geology and practice collecting samples, under the guidance of Icelandic and American geologists. The Apollo geology field exercises were intended to develop the astronauts observational skills in recognizing basic geologic structures.

Nine of the twelve men who would later set foot on the moon between 1969 and 1972, came to Iceland to train for their missions.

Photos by Sverrir Pálsson, Kári Jónasson and NASA

In the summer of 1967, a group of American astronauts visited Iceland to study the islands’ geology under the guidance of Icelandic and American geologists. This was the second group of astronauts to visit Iceland, the first group had been there two years earlier.

Neil Armstrong inside the Lunar Module on the lunar surface. Photo by Buzz Aldrin.

One of the young men who set foot on Iceland on July 5 in 1967 was Neil Armstrong. He would later become the first man to set foot on another world.

Armstrong enjoyed his stay in Iceland. “He was a quiet man and had a good presence,” says photojournalist Sverrir Pálsson who photographed the astronauts during their time in Iceland. Pálsson traveled with Armstrong and fellow astronaut Bill Anders to River Laxá where the two went fishing for trout.

In 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon. When asked how he felt that day, he replied “very, very small”. Eleven men followed in his footsteps. Nine of the twelve men who set foot on the moon from 1969 to 1972 had traveled to Iceland to train for their missions.

With time we will come to realize how big Armstrong’s accomplishment was. I think future generations will regard him as mankind’s greatest explorer.

In commemoration of Neil Armstrong who passed away today, we share with you a few pictures from the astronauts visits to Iceland.

More photos: Apollo Astronaut Training in Iceland

Photos by Sverrir Pálsson and NASA