7/24 Ars Technica - All Ars Technica Content

Canada: We actually want to hear from public on copyright July 23, 2009 at 11:00 pm In 2008, the Canadian government discovered a new "third rail" of politics: copyright reform. Long considered a wonky subject of interest only to legislators and rightsholders, interest in copyright has exploded in recent years, and Canadians showed a keen interest in talking about term length, time shifting, DRM circumvention rules, format shifting, mashups, remixes, the public domain, and the levies that Canadians currently pay on things like blank CD-Rs. When Bill C-61 was introduced in June 2008, though, it was instantly clear that consensus would be hard to find. Consumers wanted rights and flexibility, while copyright holders wanted... well, I'll let them explain it. "We would be deeply concerned if the Bill allows people to copy artists' work onto media devices like iPODS without compensation for creators; and, also if existing levies and royalties are affected by this Bill," said Brad Keenan, Director of the Performers' Rights Society and Sound Recording Division at the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA). EFF's new lawsuit, and how the NSA is into social networking July 23, 2009 at 9:15 pm The government could be building a giant map of social networks using Facebook and Twitter, scraping MySpace pages, or mining the metadata associated with cellular phone calls in order to look for communication patterns. On the other hand, all of that computer power that the NSA is aggregating at the datacenters that are coming online could just be for the limited purpose of snooping voice calls and e-mail coming into and out of the US, but such narrow use is unlikely.  What the NSA is doing with its massive and growing capabilities is still a secret, but it's probably an extension of DoD efforts at mapping social networks that extend back to the early part of the decade. A new EFF lawsuit filed this week could finally shed at least a little more light on the nature of these classified activities, so that we can know for sure whether some descendent of John Poindexter's Total Information Awareness program lives on at the NSA. Atom migration plans spur N270 regicide, N450 confusion July 23, 2009 at 9:10 pm Intel's Atom processors have rocked the global computing market since their release last year, but plans for migration from the existing N270 and N280 parts to the successor Pine Trail platform, are not as clear. The Pine Trail platform consists of the new netbook CPU and southbridge which will reduce Atom to a two-chip system and cut netbook power consumption while increasing performance, but the timing of the platform's rollout has run up against conflicts between the interests of different players in the netbook segment. Current Atom platforms like Intel's aging Menlow and GN40 use three chips: a CPU, Northbridge/GPU, and Southbridge, while NVIDIA's Ion platform uses only two: Atom and NVIDIA's 9400M Northbridge/GPU.  N270's end-of-life notice has been issued, with last orders taken in February and shipments ending in March.   Like Ion, Pine Trail uses only two chips, a 45nm CPU/Northbridge/GPU called Atom N450 and an I/O hub that will probably be fabbed on a legacy process. Although Ion is higher-performing and parsimonious in chip count, it consumes more power than Menlow or GN40, while Pine Trail will use significantly less.  Microsoft, Apple, others sued over touchpad patent July 23, 2009 at 8:15 pm Apple, Microsoft, and 18 other companies are being sued for patent infringement by Texas-based Tsera which claims to have invented the touchpad. The lawsuit, filed last week in the US District Court Eastern Texas Division, claims the company owns "all right, title, and interest in" patent 6,639,584, which was filed in 1999 and granted in 2003. Here is the abstract of the patent in question: Green diode lasers a big breakthrough for laser-display tech July 23, 2009 at 7:44 pm Ever wonder why projector systems and televisions doesn't use laser illumination? It isn't for safety reasons, and it isn't for efficiency reasons—laser diodes have efficiencies ranging from 30 to 50 percent. No, the problem is green light. We have red laser diodes, and blue laser diodes turned up nearly 15 years ago. But green—where the heck is the green laser diode? A group of Japanese researchers have answered that question: in our lab. Yes, they have the first "true green" laser diode. It doesn't work that well yet but, based on past history, expect rapid progress from here and commercial laser diodes before the end of next year. Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 release dates July 23, 2009 at 7:02 pm Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 had hit the Release to Manufacturing (RTM) milestone at build 7600.16385 yesterday. Microsoft this week also disclosed the dates for when different groups will be able to get their hands on the final builds of both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. It seems, however, that there is some confusion for getting access to the RTM build: the dates aren't the same for both operating systems. Therefore, we've taken the time to put all the dates into a clear table that you can easily refer to: Microsoft 4Q 09 revenues hammered, earnings hold steady July 23, 2009 at 5:25 pm At the close of trading Thursday, Microsoft announced the results for its fiscal fourth quarter. Its revenue, at $13.1 billion, was a 17 percent drop-off from the same quarter last year, and all the other financial measures—operating and net income, earnings per share—dropped anywhere from 25 to 30 percent. On the positive side for the company, there are some signs that the drop in revenue that began earlier this year is leveling out; Redmond has also managed its expenses to bring earnings per share up slightly from last quarter. The economic slowdown hadn't been apparent at this time last year, so Microsoft had yet to see any significant effect on its bottom line—all its major financial numbers went up between the third and fourth quarters, with the exception of earnings per share (that held steady). But Microsoft's third quarter this year saw significant year-over-year drops, especially in earnings per share, from the year before. AT&T activated 2.4 million iPhone users in 2Q 09 July 23, 2009 at 5:20 pm AT&T has reported the results of another respectable quarter and is still crediting the iPhone with driving several key factors as wireless revenue inches closer to almost half of the company's total revenue. The launch of the iPhone 3GS a month earlier than the iPhone 3G launch last year resulted in enormous year-over-year growth in iPhone sales, and netted 2.4 million activations with only 11 days of sales of the new model included in the second quarter. The iPhone still serves as a catalyst for positive growth in subscribers for AT&T, as 35 percent of the 2.4 million iPhone activations were new to AT&T. The makes the iPhone responsible for about 60 percent of the company's overall 1.4 million net subscriber increase for the quarter, and roughly half of net subscriber gains for the past year. Those customers also drive up the average revenue per user, which topped out at over $60 per month, and helped drive a nine percent year-over-year increase in wireless revenue. And those higher-paying customers stick around longer, thanks to AT&T's exclusivity for the iPhone—the churn rate for post paid subscribers is down to just 1.09 percent. Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz praises Bing July 23, 2009 at 4:44 pm During Yahoo's second quarter conference call, CEO Carol Bartz was again asked what she thought about Bing. Curiously enough, she didn't give the typical PR statement one would expect. In fact, she went ahead and actually praised the competition: "I actually think Bing is a good product. I think they've done a good job, but unfortunately they are only a month into it. I think Microsoft should be given kudos for Bing." The only other thing that could make hell freeze over faster is if such a statement came from Google. Sharing calendars with Google Calendar, iCal, and the iPhone July 23, 2009 at 4:12 pm My five-year-old iPod can sync with iCal, and the iPhone/iPod touch have had this capability from day one. MobileMe took this capability a bit further by syncing the calendar application on the iPhone with iCal more or less immediately and over the air. The Microsoft Exchange support that came to the iPhone a year ago then propelled calendaring to the next level with the ability to share calendars with other Exchange users.  Now, over the past year or so, Apple and Google have steadily added building blocks to bring the same functionality to those of us living outside the Microsoft universe. This is accomplished by sharing calendars with others in Google Calendar and then syncing those to your Mac and iPhone. First a bit about Google Calendar, then the syncing. Deep Zoom Composer finally released July 23, 2009 at 4:01 pm With the release of Microsoft Expression 3 this week, Microsoft has also finally released the Deep Zoom Composer. As of version 2, Silverlight includes a feature called Deep Zoom, which attempts to make browsing images, no matter how large or how many, a speedy, seamless, and smooth experience. The Deep Zoom Composer is a tool used for preparing content to use with Silverlight's Deep Zoom feature.  Version 1.0 of the Deep Zoom Composer (4.95MB) is finally available on the Microsoft Download Center. As always, Microsoft asks that you uninstall all existing versions of Deep Zoom Composer before installing the new version. Apple nabs 91% of "premium" computer revenue in June July 23, 2009 at 3:13 pm If you need any more reasons why Apple isn't jumping into the cheap netbook fray, a look at some analysis form NPD on recent computer sales should make Apple's point of view crystal clear. For the month of June, slightly more than 9 out of every 10 dollars spent on a computer over $1,000 went to Apple. That's a significant increase from the share of revenue Apple had of the higher-end PC market last year, which was already an impressive 66 percent. While netbooks get a lot of attention and have rocketed Acer up the ranks of top PC manufactures by units, the inexpensive mini laptops have lowered the average selling prices of Windows-based PCs. Based on NPD's data, the ASP of a Windows laptop was $520—$569 if netbooks are excluded. The ASP of a Mac laptop is $1,400. Similar trends hold for desktops as well—the ASP of a Windows-based desktop PC in June was $489, while the ASP for a Mac was $1,398. Dutch drama: antipirates sue Pirate Bay, are sued in return July 23, 2009 at 2:37 pm There are occasions on which I suspect that the entire raison d'être for The Pirate Bay is to provide content for a wacky reality TV show focused on how to create Internet drama. This week was one such occasion, as a strange lawsuit in the Netherlands brought charges against the site, its operators, and its (possible) future owners, even as Pirate Bay operators filed a defamation lawsuit in Sweden against the main Dutch antipiracy group. BREIN, or Bescherming Rechten Entertainment Industrie Nederland, is one of the main Dutch trade groups representing copyright owners. It has taken on all sorts of lawsuits, including cases against BitTorrent search engine Mininova and local Usenet providers. It's also trying to convince a Dutch court to make The Pirate Bay block access to Dutch users after the Bay's administrators were convicted in Sweden this spring of aiding copyright infringement. Musician angry after BPI forces YouTube to pull his video July 23, 2009 at 1:30 pm YouTube takedown drama is back this week, thanks to British musician Calvin Harris and the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). The organization, which represents the recording industry in the UK, apparently had one of Harris' music videos removed from YouTube due to a copyright claim. The problem, however, was that the video was created and posted by Harris himself. After his discovery that the video was missing, Harris had many colorful words for BPI in his Twitter stream (hat tip to The Music Magazine). "The BPI are the worst organisation to ever walk the earth and their setup is shambolic," Harris wrote in one tweet. "There are videos up there that other people have uploaded of the same song, and they haven't been removed!? But mine does!" Microsoft tells Windows 7 testers the journey is over July 23, 2009 at 1:17 pm A couple of hours after announcing on Wednesday that Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 had hit the Release to Manufacturing (RTM) milestone, Microsoft sent out an e-mail to participants in the Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Beta Program, telling them that the time had come to close the program down. The company outlined three changes beta testers need to keep in mind that will take effect on July 24: UAE cellular carrier rolls out spyware as a 3G "update" July 23, 2009 at 12:25 pm With the proliferation of ever more capable smart phones, many security experts are predicting that the cellular world will be the new malware frontier. Always-on Internet connections and direct SMS messages do provide a lot of opportunities for external parties to inject malware into a user's phone. But in what may be developing into the most disturbing instance in the relatively short history of cellular malware, Blackberry users in the United Arab Emirates have had a spyware package placed on their devices through the actions of their carrier, which claimed it was necessary for a service upgrade. Etisalat is a service provider in the United Arab Emirates, which includes Dubai, a major international finance center. Earlier this month, Blackberry users on its network received texts from Etisalat, saying that an update was available that would improve the handoff between 2G and 3G networks. Not surprisingly, many users installed the software. A number of users, however, began to have significant problems with battery drain afterwards, which caused some people to dig into the contents of the software update. Guitar Hero 5 songs detailed, with strong set list July 23, 2009 at 12:10 pm It used to be so easy to slag on Guitar Hero 5. There didn't seem to be enough new features to keep our interest over past rhythm games, it's coming with a glut of other rhythm games, it didn't show very well at E3.... the list goes on. Of course, now Activision goes and sends us a list of 24 tracks that will be included in the game and sadly we're excited again. It's clear that taste in music is subjective, but take a look at the song list. Apple ships new Final Cut Studio with advanced codec support July 23, 2009 at 12:08 pm In addition to a new version of Logic Studio, Apple has also announced a major upgrade to its suite of professional video and film editing tools known as Final Cut Studio, last updated two years ago. Included in the suite is Final Cut Pro 7, Motion 4, Soundtrack Pro 3, Color 1.5, and Compressor 3.5. Unsurprisingly, DVD Studio Pro stays at version 4. The entire suite, which got over 100 new features, also got a $300 price drop. Final Cut Server, used in larger production environments to manage assets and workflow, was also updated to version 1.5. Final Cut Pro 7, the latest and greatest in non-linear editing, includes major updates to codec support. Apple has extended its ProRes family of codecs, including a ProRes 422 Proxy format for remote editing. Apple also added a ProRes 4444 format at the high-end for compositing, effects, and digital cinema work. FCP 7 also has native AVC-Intra support for working in real-time with footage from the latest top-end Panasonic cameras, and optimized rendering for XDCAM HD, XDCAM EX, interlaced HDV, and interlaced XDCAM HD 422. Assassin's Creed, Halo short films in the works July 23, 2009 at 12:00 pm Game publishers are becoming more ambitious when it comes to expanding franchises beyond the realm of games, as recent films like Resident Evil: Degeneration and Dead Space: Downfall show. Now Ubisoft and Microsoft are jumping on the bandwagon, as the Los Angeles Times is reporting that short films based on both Assassin's Creed and Halo are in the works. Sensationalist legal brief aims to revive CA game law July 23, 2009 at 11:20 am Since 2005, California has been fighting to pass a law that would criminalize the sale of violent games to children. The bill was passed by the state assembly in 2005, only to be thrown out on constitutional grounds by the US District Court. Governor Schwarzenegger sought an appeal, but the attempt was rejected by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Governor then vowed to fight the issue in the Supreme Court, and most recently state senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco/San Mateo) has filed an amicus curiae brief in support of those efforts. The document contains some fascinating insights into how opponents of video games view the art form. Logic Studio update offers improved effects, Flex Time July 23, 2009 at 11:08 am Apple today announced the newest version of Logic Studio, the company's professional audio production suite which includes Logic Pro 9, Main Stage 2, and Soundtrack Pro 3. The group of applications is available from the Apple Store for $499 (full retail), an upgrade price of $199, or an academic price of $449.  Despite Apple's absence from the National Association of Broadcasters annual conference this year, some expected the software to be updated during that same period of time in late April. That didn't happen, so then the software was rumored for release last month at WWDC. Clearly, Apple was trying to throw everyone off by releasing in late July instead. "Advertars" coming to the Xbox 360 July 23, 2009 at 11:00 am Microsoft has begun to increase the amount of advertising on the Xbox 360, including ads with sound and video on the dashboard. However, it turns out that the company has plans to make console advertising even more of a presence, based on an announcement to make advertiser-generated avatars for MMOs available to players. The idea appears to be a bit of a viral marketing campaign, and players who appear as walking advertisements will receive, "compensation as payment for interacting with other avatars." Exactly what this compensation would be has yet to be revealed, though it could include real-world currency or Xbox Live items like "virtual food to keep a virtual pet, such as a virtual dog... alive and functioning." Scribblenauts coming to DS September 15, now with fact-sheet July 23, 2009 at 10:40 am Scribblenauts is one of the rare games that gets us almost giddy with excitement; the game actually feels new and unique... something that is a rarity in this business. Now we have a release date: the game will be available on the Nintendo DS on September 15. Here's the rundown on what to expect from the game: Create Your Own Interactive Experience: Objects you write down in the game are only limited by your imagination. Everyone Can Play: Pick-up-and-play fun for everyone. Touch-screen Controls: Easy to pick up and play on Nintendo DS™. If you can tap, you can play! Unlimited Replay Value: Use less objects to increase your score, or experiment with different objects for endless replay value. Write anything; solve everything! Playground Mode: Play the entire game in a sandbox style right on the title screen. Create and Share Levels Online: Share levels you create with the Level Editor via Nintendo DS™ Wi-Fi Connection. Innovative New Title from Leading Developer: 5TH Cell, the creator of the Drawn to Life franchise and Lock's Quest, has experience creating high-quality, innovative DS games. If you want something a little less canned, check out our hands-on impressions from E3, as well as our interview with 5TH Cell cofounder Jeremiah Slaczka. US' total energy use dropped in 2008 July 23, 2009 at 10:35 am A report, issued by the Department of Energy and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, reports that the total amount of energy used by the United States dropped between 2007 and 2008. In 2008, the US used 99.2 quadrillion BTUs of energy, as compared to 101.5 quadrillion BTUs in 2007—a 2.7 percent drop in usage. In 2008, less fossil fuels were used, and more energy was derived from renewable resources such as solar, wind, and nuclear. Broken down in a sector-by-sector analysis, the amount of energy used for transportation and industrial uses—which is mainly petroleum—dropped in 2008. This drop, the largest absolute change between years for any energy source, was attributed to the high spike in oil prices that occurred last year. The amount of energy used in commercial and residential sectors, however, saw a slight increase. FCC: TV ad content for kids back on the regulatory table July 23, 2009 at 10:05 am The chair of the Federal Communications Commission told the Senate on Wednesday that interactive ads on television that target children should not be allowed without some kind of parental consent mechanism. New advocacy group pushes OSS for the USA July 23, 2009 at 8:40 am A group of commercial open source software vendors and various nonprofit advocacy organizations have joined forces to encourage broader use of open source software and open standards in government IT. The coalition, called Open Source for America (OSA), aims to educate government officials and promote procurement policies that give open source software solutions equal priority to proprietary competitors. The group has not yet disclosed a lot of specific details about how it will pursue its mission, but it is actively seeking volunteers who are willing to contribute to the effort. The organization's Web site has a registration form that prospective participants can use to gain OSA membership. The registration form describes several ways that members can help, including open source software development, organizing town hall meetings, and assisting with recruitment activities. The OSA clearly intends to grow its ranks and leverage community-driven grass-roots activism as a vehicle for encouraging open source adoption. "Net neutrality" gets white hot as FCC drafts broadband plan July 23, 2009 at 7:11 am The downside to opening up the US broadband plan to "public comment" is that, sooner or later, you're actually going to get some. The FCC's docket on this issue is stuffed with comments from individuals, most of which appear to be verbatim copies of a form letter, with the rest consisting of items like this: One of the human current "owners" of the United States of America, I am outraged that Government regulatory agencies, including the FCC, continue to transfer OUR control of OUR airwaves and OUR communication over to for-profit corporations. If you don't start listening to the PEOPLE and OUR wants, rather than to special interests, soon there wont be an FCC. Its not your agency...its OURS, and you will run it OUR way, or else!