IT-Code-News: IT News HeadLines (Ars Technica) 29/04/2010

Thursday, April 29, 2010

IT News HeadLines (Ars Technica) 29/04/2010

Comcast: net neutrality should be less filling, taste great

The star ISP in the drama over the Federal Communications Commission's proposed Open Internet rules filed comments with the agency on that subject this week (as did every other stakeholder in this fight). Comcast comes to the task after having convinced a Federal court to overturn the FCC's order sanctioning it for P2P throttling.

You might think, then, that the cable giant's comments would be full of triumphant swagger. Quite the contrary, they're diplomatic and make recommendations based on what Comcast sees as the consensus among filers in this proceeding. That broad agreement, the company thinks, boils down to two major points—the agency should come up with Open Internet policies for everybody, and they should be as unobtrusive as possible.

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LLVM project's 2.7 release out with a Clang

On Tuesday, the LLVM team announced the availability of its 2.7 release. LLVM is an open source project with a license similar to BSD's; it offers front ends for a number of programming languages, compiling them to intermediate code that can be interpreted by a Just-in-Time compiler or immediately compiled into native code. The 2.7 release marks a major milestone for LLVM, as it's the first time that its C language compiler, Clang, has sufficient C++ support to self-host, meaning that it can compile a functional version of itself.

Although the C++ support is considered alpha-quality, LLVM considers Clang's C and Objective-C compiling to be ready for production use. The relatively high quality of Objective-C shouldn't be surprising, as Apple was one of the early commercial backers of the project. The influence of Apple may also be felt in the progress made in supporting ARM processors, which has been given a beta designation. New in this version are support for both the Linux and Darwin ARM ABIs, as well as improved code generation for the ARM vector instruction set, NEON.

But Apple isn't the only game in town. LLVM has been used by Google, for its Unladen Swallow Python project, and Adobe, which adopted it for its ill-fated attempt to get Flash applications running on the iPhone/Pad platform. With 2.7, Linux and Darwin support arrive in the same release, and the Objective-C compilation can now target non-Apple platforms thanks to use of the GNUstep runtime. There's also vastly improved support for VMKit, which allows static and JIT compilation that supports both Java and Microsoft's Common Language Infrastructure. 2.7 brings a new garbage collection architecture with significantly improved performance.

There are some other interesting tidbits scattered throughout the release notes. Significant progress has been made in developing a plugin that will replace GCC's standard optimizers and code generators with those derived from LLVM. There's also initial support for a soft-processor that operates on field-programmable gate arrays.

The growing number of projects that rely on LLVM seems to indicate that the project is attracting much wider interest than it was just a few years back.

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ISVs to blame for Vista/7 infections; Office updates ignored

Monday saw the release of the eighth edition of Microsoft's Security Intelligence Report, a sizable examination of malware trends and software vulnerability data, covering the second half of 2009. The 248-page report makes interesting reading, and paints a detailed picture of the malware patterns seen around the world. It also contains information on the efficacy of various strategies to mitigate the malware problem.

The report, the first to include Windows 7 in its analysis, makes interesting reading. It shows that the security improvements that Microsoft has made in Windows Vista and Windows 7 appear to be working well, and that even though users are now tending to update the core operating system, applications (both first- and third-party) are often lagging behind, remaining unpatched for years.

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WWDC June 7-11: heavy on iPhone/iPad, light on Mac

Apple has, at least a month later than usual, announced the dates for its annual Worldwide Developers Conference. WWDC 2010 kicks off on June 7—five days of iPhone, iPad, and Mac OS X developer goodness at San Francisco's Moscone West conference center.

In addition to the usual hobnobbing among developers and Apple engineers, this year's WWDC will feature training sessions and labs that focus on five different areas:

Application Frameworks covers all the built-in frameworks that developers can easily leverage to build applications, such as Core Animation and Core Data. It will also cover new iPhone OS 4 frameworks like multitasking services, Game Center, Event Kit, and the new Core Location features.
Core OS will cover under-the-hood stuff like networking, I/O Kit drivers, security, and optimizing multitasking.
Developer Tools covers getting the most out of Xcode, Interface Builder, Instruments, and advanced techniques with Objective-C 2.0.
Graphics and Media touches on OpenGL, OpenGL ES, AV frameworks, editing media, game design, and HTTP Live Streaming.
Internet and Web will focus on tools for developing and deploying Web-based apps, including HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, using Safari's developer tools, Dashcode, and adding touch and gesture detection for mobile Web apps.

While there will be plenty of sessions focusing on development on Mac OS X, there's a clear indication that WWDC this year will focus heavily on iPhone OS, with many sessions geared towards development for iPhone and iPad. The annual Apple Design Awards won't even be given for Mac apps this year; instead, five awards will be given to iPhone apps and five to iPad apps.

Though there has been no announcement about who will be there, WWDC usually kicks off with a keynote on Monday. We expect that Apple will unveil the next iteration of iPhone hardware then, though we aren't likely to be very surprised by what is shown. Rumors have suggested the new hardware will be available around June 22.

WWDC costs $1,599 to attend, not counting flights or hotel accommodations for developers that come from all over the world. Despite the price, the event has sold out the previous two years.

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Infinity Ward staff sues Activision for up to $500 million

The fallout between Infinity Ward and Activision has taken yet another dramatic turn, as a large number of IW employees—both current and former—have filed a class-action lawsuit against the publisher for between $75 million and $125 million in unpaid bonuses.

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Hands-on with Bento for iPad

Bento is the consumer version of popular database software FileMaker Pro. The new iPad version of the software joins the Mac version, currently at version 3, as well as the iPhone version in the growing stable of Bento implementations. At $4.99, the iPad application is 10 percent of the price of its desktop sibling, but the desktop software isn't necessary in order to make use of it.

Creating a database from scratch in Bento for iPad is simple thanks to the 25 different templates included with the software. These templates are made for people who are looking to track things like recipes, expenses, customers, and inventory. Each template can be edited to meet the needs of a specific user and can be helpful starting points. For those who want to start from scratch, there is also an option to start from a blank slate.

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Recent observations show dark matter unobserved again

One of the things that isn't widely advertised in science is that progress often looks a bit like this video—things get done, but the results are rarely quite what you expect. A recent example of this two steps forward, one step back progress may be the study of the recently observed excess positrons coming from the center of our galaxy.

Although there are many possible astrophysical explanations, none of them were that clean or appealing, leaving one alternative attractive: dark matter. Dark matter is thought to be made up of weakly interacting massive particles, which every now and again collide and annihilate. One particular pathway for the annihilation results in positrons with about the same energy of those seen coming from the core of the galaxy. Hey, presto! thought some scientists. We may have seen dark matter decays, which then allow us to pin down dark matter. Oh and incidentally, the medal should be pinned on my left—that's your right—lapel.

But, as a recent Physical Review Paper shows, the excess may be real, but if it comes from dark matter, we have some serious cosmological problems on the horizon.

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RIM takes aim at consumer market with new BlackBerry OS 6.0

RIM has announced a substantial upgrade to the operating system powering BlackBerry devices. BlackBerry OS 6.0 is intended to bolster BlackBerry's appeal to consumers, with web browsing in particular a focus. The new OS will be released in the third quarter of this year.

Consumers now make up a large proportion of RIM's sales. Though the BlackBerry platform offers a very strong e-mail experience, the web browsing experience—so important in the consumer market—is much weaker. In February, the company announced that its next web browser would use WebKit, the same browser engine as is found on both Android handsets and Apple's iPhone.

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Mac software updates: Transmit, BBEdit, and Opera

Several popular Mac OS X apps received significant updates Tuesday—many of them favorites of the Ars staff. Among them are the FTP client Transmit, text editor BBEdit, and the Mac OS X version of Opera's Web browser.

First up is Panic, which announced a new major version of its flagship FTP software, Transmit. Transmit 4 boasts improved file transfer speed, as much as 25 times faster when dealing with bulk transfers of small files. The interface—Transmit is arguably one of the best looking FTP clients for Mac OS X—has been overhauled with little touches everywhere, including easier file browsing, better path access, and enabling server-to-server transfers via drag and drop. Perhaps besting those improvements, however, is the new Transmit Disk feature, which will mount your favorite servers as disks within the Finder for direct file access and drag-and-drop transfers—even when Transmit isn't running.

Bare Bones software also announced a point release update to BBEdit 9 that amounts to a pretty major upgrade to its venerable text editor. Live searching, vastly expanded scripting capabilities, .zip and .tar archive browsing, and Objective-C 2.0 @property declaration recognition are just a few of the many feature additions and improvements included in the update. The update also has an exhaustive list of bug fixes big and small.

Finally, Opera has released an updated version of its eponymous Web browser. Opera 10.52 for Mac OS X (the official version of 10.5 beta) incorporates a number of improvements, including the big leap in JavaScript performance that Windows users got early last month thanks to the new Carakan JavaScript engine. It also boasts improved speed and standards compliance with the latest version of the Presto rendering engine and an updated Vega graphics library. For Mac OS X users in particular, Opera 10.52 also adds improved platform integration, leveraging more native Cocoa frameworks and adopting a look-and-feel that is more at home with other Mac software.

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Apple purchase of Intrinsity confirmed

So the rumor is true, and Apple has indeed bought Intrinsity. Apple confirmed to The New York Times today what Linkedin profile updates have already indicated, with Intrinsity's employees naming Apple as their new employer. As for the price, NYT cites MPR's Tom Halfhill, who claims that the purchase price was $121 million. Halfhill has been around the processor scene since forever, and he has great sources, so this number is probably in the ballpark.

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Senators complain about Facebook privacy changes

Facebook's latest privacy policy update has once again gotten the company in hot water, this time with four US senators. Senators Al Franken, Charles Schumer, Michael Bennet, and Mark Begich wrote an open letter to Facebook on Tuesday, urging the company to take "swift and productive steps" to make user information more private and warning that the Federal Trade Commission may get involved if certain concerns aren't addressed soon.

Being questioned is Facebook's decision to categorize a user's hometown, current city, "likes," interests, friends, and other info as "public information." Now, even the most private user cannot have a Facebook account to communicate with friends while also keeping this information hidden from public view, and the senators believe this creates a "potential gold mine of data for unsolicited advertisements."

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Red Hat Cloud Access makes RHEL contract transferable to EC2

Red Hat is strengthening its position in the cloud computing market by augmenting its support for Amazon EC2 users. Red Hat Cloud Access will make it possible for the company's customers to transfer their Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) subscriptions between their own self-hosted infrastructure and Amazon's elastic cloud.

That kind of operational flexibility is a welcome improvement to Red Hat's commercial Linux offering. The company has also committed to making its EC2-compatible images available at the same time as conventional Red Hat releases. The company says that this will help improve consistency between the computing environments that customers have deployed on-site and in the cloud.

"Red Hat brings enterprise-class software, subscriptions and support capabilities all built into a business model that was designed specifically for the cloud," said Red Hat cloud business unit manager Scott Crenshaw in a statement. "With Red Hat Cloud Access, our enterprise customers can run their applications on the type of server capacity that best suits their needs: physical, virtual on-premise or in Amazon Web Services. Red Hat is continuing its efforts to help more enterprises move to the cloud."

Cloud computing is an increasingly important market for Linux. The major Linux vendors are cashing in on the trend and offering a variety of services that are specifically tailored to simplify management and deployment of Linux in elastic cluster environments.

Canonical offers an Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud package and is partnering with Eucalyptus, an open source framework that allows companies to roll out their own self-hosted EC2-compatible clusters. Novell is integrating EC2 support into its compelling virtual appliance technology, which makes it easy for customers to build custom SUSE platform images.

Red Hat has long been a close partner of Amazon. Enabling RHEL customers to transfer their subscriptions to EC2 is another step forward for Red Hat's cloud strategy.

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"Fair use" generates trillions in the US alone

When pressing Congress to ratchet up the legal screws on infringers, copyright holders are fond of touting apocalyptic reports about how piracy is destroying their industries—and the US economy.

But strengthening the nation's intellectual property laws isn't just a matter of cracking down ever harder, of limiting the limitations and giving increasing power to rightsholders. Fair use and other limitations on copyright themselves generate significant economic activity—$4.7 trillion in 2007.

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Data suggests it's out with the old, in with the new iPhone

Mobile advertising firm AdMob's latest Mobile Metrics Report for March continues to show how the release of new Android-based smartphones in the last few months has affected the market: competition has heated up as Android has pushed past iPhone OS in the US. Historical data suggests an iPhone surge may be coming this summer, but Apple's recently announced iAd may also introduce a wrinkle in AdMob's data. Breaking down data between different iPhone OS devices and OS versions reveals some interesting details about the strength of the iPhone OS platform, including a clear reason why first-gen iPhones and iPod touches are being left out of the iPhone OS 4 party.

Worldwide, things aren't much different than the last few months. According to AdMob's traffic data, iPhone OS still has a commanding lead among smartphone platforms, though its share has dropped 5 percentage points in the last month. Android is still strong in second with a steady increase in share. Symbian also has a nice uptick, as did RIM. Windows Mobile and webOS dropped even further, with Palm's future uncertain and Window Phone 7 release still to come later this year. (We debated even keeping the latter two on this chart, with only 1 percent share each worldwide.)

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Feds celebrate Intellectual Property Day with more IP cops

Yesterday was World Intellectual Property Day. Though not usually thought of as a gift-giving holiday, the US did take the opportunity to give something to IP rightsholders: 35 new federal officials focused on domestic and international IP crimes.

The Department of Justice has created 15 new Assistant US Attorney positions, all part of the Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property (CHIP) program. The new attorneys will be scattered across the country.

The FBI also gets 20 new Special Agents that will focus on "four geographic areas with intellectual property squads, and increase investigative capacity in other locations around the country where IP crimes are of particular concern." The four locations are LA, San Francisco, New York, and Washington, DC.

Given that the FBI only has 31 existing special agents focused on IP crimes, this is a major increase in Bureau manpower.

"Theft of intellectual property—from inventions to trademarks and copyrights, to industrial designs and trade secrets—is a worldwide problem," said Assistant Director Gordon M. Snow of the FBI Cyber Division in a statement. "It affects individuals and corporations financially and can threaten public safety. The additional FBI agents will significantly strengthen the efforts of our squads investigating intellectual property rights violations and help bring to justice those who seek to profit from intellectual property theft."

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Google demands neutrality (just don't apply it to them)

Google doesn't care. The FCC wants to regulate net neutrality under Title II of the Communications Act? It wants to try again under Title I? It wants to get frisky and try Title VI? Google's down with that; just git-er-done.

In a filing yesterday, the company said that its concern is net neutrality, and it supports whatever legal theory "is most sustainable legally."

But let's not have any crazy talk about extending "neutrality" beyond the ISP and out to application and search providers, as some ISPs have proposed.

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Split/Second demo wild ride, may not carry whole game

In Split/Second, you're a participant in a sick reality show, where racers compete in a volatile environment to try to be the first to the finish line. You build up your Powerplay gauge by drafting, by drifting, and by getting air. Once you have a few levels built up, you can cause explosions and environmental attacks around the track to destroy your opponents.

That's the main gimmick, and the execution lets you feel just how dangerous your actions can be. The camera rumbles and shakes behind your car, giving you a sense of speed and energy without edging into shaky-cam territory. The in-game information floats a tiny bit behind your car, but seemingly stapled onto your rear bumper. Seeing your Powerplay levels, position in the rankings, and lap number is as easy as glancing at the back of your own vehicle. Very nice.

The scale of the explosions and options available to you during the race is great: you'll take down entire structures, blow up gas stations, planes will crash around you... and the racing itself is up to the task. It may be an arcade-style racing game, but it feels great after a practice round or two. Drifting is likewise fun, and a good way to fill up your Powerplays.

The thing is, after playing the demo a few times, it feels like everything to do and see in that track has been done and seen. The game looks and plays great, but will the full version be enough to keep your attention in the long run? We look forward to finding out.

The Split/Second demo is available on the Xbox 360 right now, so go play!

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Google goes transparent on Street View data collection

Google is attempting to clear the air on exactly what kind of data it collects when its Street View cars roll in front of your house, and how it uses that information. The company isn't just taking photos of the street, but it's not broadcasting a complex database on all your known locations either. Google's revelation about its data collection practices is valuable to those concerned about how the data is used, but the company has once again demonstrated that more transparency earlier in the game is better.

Google's Street View remains controversial in many parts of the world, but especially in Europe, where the service has long received national and EU-wide scrutiny over privacy. In a blog post Tuesday, Google's Global Privacy Counsel Peter Fleischer explained that Google's Street View cars gather information in three categories: photos of the street, WiFi network information, and 3D building imagery. Google maintains that all this information is public and that numerous other services catalog the same information—in some cases, for much longer than Google.

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