New server platform and 12-core Opteron keep AMD in the game
The x86 server wars heated up significantly in March, with the end of the month seeing a major processor launch from each vendor: AMD launched its 12-core Opteron 6100 processor, codenamed Magny-Cours, on the 29th, and Intel then finished off the month with the launch of the 8-core Nehalem EX Xeons.
These were pretty major launches, but I've covered Nehalem EX previously so I want to focus on AMD this time around.
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iPad jailbroken already, using leftover security flaw
The iPad, scarcely two days out of the gate, has already been jailbroken. By Sunday afternoon, one day after its launch, MuscleNerd of the iPhone Dev-Team announced that he had cracked the iPad using security flaws that were left over from the previous iteration of the iPhone OS, iPhone 3.1.3 (via MacNN).
The crack MuscleNerd used on the iPad's OS, iPhone 3.2, was a variation of the "Spirit" jailbreak used on 3.1.3 that would allow users to get root access through the browser and run unsigned apps on the iPad. Between versions of the iPhone OS, Apple usually plugs any holes that allow hackers to jailbreak their devices, but this time Apple left some of the security holes in iPhone 3.2's Safari, allowing some old cracks to work.
It's unclear how easily the Spirit variation could be made into an automated program, though Apple generally frowns upon jailbreaking and is likely to patch up the relevant holes in the near future. It's curious that Apple left flaws in 3.2 that made it relatively easy to defile its precious new product; still, the company had to know it was only a matter of time before users began to dig around.
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Google fiber losers, unite! (And then build your own network)
Now that Google has wrapped up the application period for its open access, 1Gbps fiber testbed, we know that more than 1,000 US cities want the network. Only a couple will get it, though; what's going to happen to everyone else?
Broadband consultant Craig Settles and Greensboro, North Carolina fiber booster Jay Ovittore have joined forces to start "Communities United for Broadband." The idea is simple: create a place where communities can share strategies for moving forward with high-speed broadband plans—even if Google says no to their bid.
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Apple tops 300,000 iPad sales in one day
Initial sales figures for the iPad are in, and Apple says that by midnight on Saturday, April 3, it sold over 300,000 iPads. iPad users have also downloaded over 1 million apps and over 250,000 e-books during that same time period.
The iPad sales include deliveries of preordered iPads, sales in Apple Stores, and deliveries to "channel partners," which include limited quantities sent to Best Buy stores and a few select authorized Apple resellers. It doesn't include any preorders for WiFi + 3G models, which are set to be released later this month. Along with a planned launch of the iPad in select countries internationally on April 24, there's likely to be other similar burst of sales.
The frenzy on Saturday had Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster predicting sales as high as 700,000. Analysts expected Apple to have roughly 300,000 iPads built in time for launch, however, which suggests the first batch may be nearly sold out. We haven't heard any details of Apple Store being out of stock, though, and Apple doesn't have an iPad stock tracker like it has had in the past for iPhone launches.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs was predictably ecstatic with the results. "It feels great to have the iPad launched into the world—it's going to be a game changer," Jobs said in a statement. "iPad users, on average, downloaded more than three apps and close to one book within hours of unpacking their new iPad."
Jobs is known for hyperbole, and we're not quite ready to dub the iPad a "game changer." We have several iPads being put through the gauntlet here in the Orbiting HQ, and most of us are liking it more than expected. Keep your eyes peeled for our extensive review and analysis, which we expect to have ready Tuesday.
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Modeling cyberattack deterrence on nuclear deterrence fails
The National Academies of Science functions in part to provide independent scientific advice to the US government. In that capacity, the office of the Director of National Intelligence contracted with the NAS to look into the prospects of developing cyberwarfare capabilities that are sufficient to deter an attack on its national infrastructure. The NAS has recently submitted a progress report on its efforts, and the dry text of the introductory letter (the report is termed, "The first deliverable for Contract Number HHM-402-05-D- 0011") obscures a sometimes fascinating look into how the cold-war thinking that drove the development of the concept of nuclear deterrence fails to scale to the networked world.
That may seem like a statement of the obvious, but the report points out that deterrence was actually a fully fleshed-out conceptual framework, and there is a significant parallel between cyber and nuclear weapons that's a major component of this framework: it's much easier to engage in offense than defense. "Passive defensive measures must succeed every time an adversary conducts a hostile action, whereas the adversary’s action need succeed only once," the text notes, and recent history is replete with evidence that hostile actions can easily succeed far more often than once.
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Why Microsoft did the right thing in ditching XP for IE9
I recently expressed a lack of surprise that Internet Explorer 9 will almost certainly not be supported on Windows XP. In Redmond's words, a "modern browser" needs a "modern operating system," and Windows XP doesn't qualify. Much to my surprise (well, not really, I know that XP is still used and, apparently, loved by many), many doubted my characterization of XP as "obsolete," and they questioned my lack of surprise at this decision.
Simple things first. Windows XP is not a new operating system. Windows XP was released in 2001, and it has been succeeded by not one, but two newer operating systems: Windows Vista, and Windows 7. The other major desktop platform vendor—Apple—doesn't even begin to support anything that old, and the company routinely restricts its software compatibility to only the most recent version or two of its operating system.
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feature: The future of gaming: up the beanstalk and into the cloud
Many non-gamers and casual gamers who've heard the cloud computing hype might be surprised to learn that the cloud is actually changing the way we play games. From the ever-evolving Steam and Impulse to upcoming services like OnLive, the cloud has already had a serious impact on the games industry, and with a slew of new services on tap for later this year and next, that impact is slated to grow enormously. This shift to the cloud has implications far beyond the gaming experience—every aspect of the multibillion dollar business of gaming will be affected, from distribution and sales to quality assurance to anti-piracy controls.
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AT&T's forgotten plot to hijack the US airwaves
This just in: Ars Technica has uncovered a campaign by AT&T to completely dominate the nation's system of broadcasting. The telco's plan would make it almost impossible for broadcast license holders not affiliated with the carrier to operate. The plot involves an elaborate system of patent lawsuits, corporate alliances, and deals with local politicians.
Oh, sorry—before we get too far into this exclusive, we should probably add that the scheme was hatched in 1922 and abandoned by 1926. But if it's not a breaking story, it's still relevant history. Right now the Federal Communications Commission is proposing a massive transfer of broadcast spectrum to the wireless industry, whose principals, AT&T included, are providing all of the services offered by television and radio broadcasters—with voice and Internet too.
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Albedo and greenhouse managed the faint young Sun problem
Over two-and-a-half billion years ago, the Earth was warm enough to have liquid water and teemed with bacterial life, even though the sun was only radiating at 70 percent of its current strength. Scientists have battled with this seeming paradox, which dates to the Archean eon—it's picked up the name the "faint young Sun" problem. Some previously thought that the relatively high temperature was a result of extra greenhouse gases, but a group of researchers published a paper in Nature this week that indicates greenhouse gasses may have been only a very small component. Instead, the high temperatures at the time may have been largely a result of the Earth's diminished albedo, or reflectivity.
Scientists know that, during the Archean, the Sun was still in the flush of youth, and yet was able to sustain an Earth's worth of liquid water. This time period predates the oxygenation of the atmosphere, so the suspected culprits were greenhouse gases that helped trap the sun's light, such as carbon dioxide and ammonia. However, according to some new evidence, there wasn't nearly enough of the two gases to keep the earth sufficiently warm.
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LaDiDa: how an iPhone app can replace your backing band
When Microsoft Songsmith promised to provide a custom backing track to anything that you sang, the Series of Tubes known as the Internet quickly used the tool to record versions of popular songs. They were laughably bad, filled with cheesy beats and backing synths plucking out "oom-pa-pa" rhythms.
As a research problem, Songsmith was a success; as a creative tool, it was (let's just admit it) a big fat failure.
But Parag Chordia, the director of the Music Intelligence Lab at Georgia Tech, sees promise in such tools, enough so that he turned his own research into an iPhone app called LaDiDa that takes what Songsmith did and makes it mobile... and cool.
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iPhone OS 3.2 references new iPhone, iPod touch, iPad models
The iPad is out, and the staff has been locked in the bowels of the Orbiting HQ until our review is finished. In the meantime, folks are already digging into configuration files hidden deep inside the iPad-only 3.2 version of iPhone OS and turning up references to Apple's next-generation mobile hardware.
Now included in the growing collection of hardware supported in USBDeviceConfiguration.plist are two new fourth-generation iPhone models, iPhone3,2 and iPhone3,3. These are in addition to the iPhone3,1 model that was previously referenced, and suggests that Apple plans to have multiple versions of fourth-gen hardware. This may be another clue that Apple will make a CDMA-compatible model that rumors have long indicated is destined for Verizon's network.
A third hardware item could suggest a WiMAX-compatible model, which could be offered on Sprint's network. Most bets are hedged on the expectation that Apple will wait for LTE to be rolled out before building a 4G compatible iPhone. Alternately, it could be the other long-rumored iPhone variant, the "iPhone nano." Of course, it could be something that no one has even guessed at yet.
(A quick note for those not familiar with Apple's naming pattern: Apple uses a ProductNameX,Y pattern for product IDs. The first number, X, is the main product revision, while Y is a minor variant. While the iPhone 3G is considered the second-generation iPhone hardware, Apple labeled it iPhone1,2 since most of the changes were minor compared to the original iPhone. The iPhone 3GS, the 3rd-gen iPhone hardware, has a product ID of iPhone2,1.)
Also in the list is iPod4,1, the first reference we've seen to fourth-gen iPod touch hardware. That would most likely be revealed in the fall—the typical iPod launch window—after the fourth-gen iPhone hardware is released in the summer.
Finally, the updated list includes iProd2,1. References to iProd0,0 turned up in late 2008, and it was suspected to be a prototype Apple tablet. iPhone OS 3.1 revealed a reference to iProd1,1, and that was later confirmed to be the iPad. So iProd2,1 is most likely the next major iPad hardware revision. When that hardware is ready for release is anyone's guess—we wouldn't bet on it happening before 2011—though we aren't really surprised that Apple is already working on it.
The iFPGA is still listed as well. Chances are good that this some kind of test bed or prototyping board, as FPGA stands for field programmable gate array. An FPGA is a chip that can be "programmed" to perform specialized operations as needed, and is often used in hardware development work.
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Coming home: a Bad Company 2 server to call your own
It costs $210 to rent a Bad Company 2 server for six months from Game Servers. Two months of that was wrangled from our gaming budget, I paid for a month out of my own pocket, and three months were paid for by other members of the ArsClan community. We chose Chicago as the location of our server, to try to keep the pings low for as many people as possible. The night the game went live I began experimenting with the server tools, and soon gave admin rights to a few other gamers to keep the server going when I wasn't around.
Bad Company 2 allows for dedicated servers, but you can't run them on your own hardware. Unlike the servers I've run for Left 4 Dead and Killing Floor, I wouldn't have access to the .ini file to adjust settings on my own; you need third-party admin tools to adjust your server and change the settings. This is a step down from what we're used to, but it's still worlds better than Modern Warfare 2's completely hands-off solution.
Still, why go to the trouble?
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Weird Science goes on a bender, performs remarkably well
Binge, but no (knowledge) purge: Apparently, if you're worried that binge drinking could have a negative impact on your academic performance, you can rest easy. College students from the Boston area were given booze or a placebo, then hit with the GRE the next day. Even a high blood alcohol content didn't hurt test performances the next day, although the researchers noted that various tests of "mood state" seemed to indicate the bingers were not quite as happy as their placebo-pounding peers.
Apes get meta about what they know: One of the more useful items in humanity's mental toolkit is termed metacognition. Excepting those afflicted by the Dunning-Kruger effect, people have the ability to gauge how certain they are about a bit of knowledge, and hedge their bets accordingly. It looks as though we don't have a neurological exclusive on that one: metacognition is widespread among the apes. Given an opportunity to get some food hidden inside a tube, the apes tended to check the tube first when either the snack was of high value or a longer time had elapsed since they observed the food being placed there.
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iPad review status update; request for comments
It's one day after the US launch of the iPad and many of our readers have been eagerly asking us via Twitter, e-mail, IM, and more: where's the Ars review!? It's true—we have been quiet about the device ever since we got our grubby little hands on it, especially in comparison to many other sites.
Rest assured that a very thorough review is coming and we promise you that it will be extensive, measured, and perhaps more important, of sober judgement. To achieve this, we have many Ars staffers putting the iPad through its paces. We have staff who have no plans to buy an iPad, others who pre-ordered, and others on the fence. We have Windows and Mac users testing this.
Why the full court press? The iPad is a new kind of device, hitherto unseen. We believe it takes more than a few hours (or even a day or two) to truly get a feel for something so different, and multiple perspectives are essential. For some people, the iPad is a toy. We view it as an expensive yet potentially game-changing device that deserves sober consideration over several days. We know you understand, as this is how we've typically approached all major reviews, be it the Zune, the PS3, the Xbox, or the original iPhone.
As we're doing our testing, we want to hear from you on any particulars you'd like to see covered or investigated. Maybe you saw something in another review that you question, or maybe you want to know about a specific app? Let us know in the comments and we'll do our best to address what we can. (And, if there's anything you think merits a video treatment to see how it moves, be sure to let us know about that too.)
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