BlackBerry bans violate "right of free use," says Clinton
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is getting involved in the dispute between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Research In Motion (RIM) over UAE's BlackBerry ban. Clinton said during a press conference Thursday that the US government was helping to work out a compromise between the UAE and RIM on the matter, but the issue may get more complex as more countries hop on the BlackBerry-banning bandwagon.
The UAE got the ball rolling earlier this week with its decision to block the use of RIM's services unless the government could get access to encrypted e-mails sent and received by BlackBerry users. That ruling was quickly followed by a similar one in Saudi Arabia, and now Lebanon's Telecoms Regulatory Authority says that it, too, is considering the security implications of allowing BlackBerry use within the country. India is also said to be putting pressure on RIM to allow government access to user data.
Clinton described the situation as a "complex set of issues" and said that the US was working on a solution with several countries.
"We are taking time to consult and analyze the full range of interests and issues at stake because we know that there is a legitimate security concern, but there’s also a legitimate right of free use and access," she said. "So I think we will be pursuing both technical and expert discussions as we go forward."
The issue involves RIM's strong encryption and the fact that BlackBerry messages are immediately sent to external servers (many in Canada) that make it difficult for some governments to get access to the information on them.
UAE's ban isn't expected to go into effect until October 11, so there's time to work out a deal, though Saudi Arabia's ban is supposed to take effect today.
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Why is this a Metroid game? Hands-on with Other M
After getting my hands on the upcoming Wii title Metroid: Other M at a recent media event in Toronto, there's really just one word to accurately describe my reaction: conflicted. While it was definitely a great-looking and fast-paced action experience, it's not necessarily what I want from the series, which raises the question of why this is even a Metroid game to begin with.
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Hands-on: Jolicloud 1.0 makes Web apps equal desktop citizens
Jolicloud, a Web-centric Linux distribution for netbooks, reached an important milestone this week with the launch of version 1.0. The platform, built atop Ubuntu, offers intriguing synchronization capabilities and comes with its own distinctive user interface shell that is constructed with standards-based Web technologies.
We first looked at Jolicloud last year when the original alpha version was made available for testing. The software has matured modestly since that early preview release, but there isn't quite enough differentiation from the underlying Ubuntu environment yet to make Jolicloud truly compelling. Still, it's definitely headed in the right direction.
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Machinarium suffers 90% piracy rate, offers $5 amnesty sale
"We released the game DRM-free which means it doesn’t include any anti-piracy protection, therefore the game doesn’t bother players serial codes or online authentication, but it’s also very easy to copy it," Amanita's Jakub Dvorsky explained. "Our estimate from the feedback is that only 5-15 percent of Machinarium players actually paid for the game."
In an attempt to give those 85-95 percent of players a chance to make amends, Amanita is having what it's calling a Pirate Amnesty sale. Until August 12, the game—which is playable on PC, Mac, and Linux—and its soundtrack will cost just $5, which is 75 percent off the regular $20 asking price.
Of course, this sale doesn't just apply to pirates. So if you happened to miss out on the game the first time around, now is your chance to experience one of last year's best titles for an absurdly low price. You can try the demo and purchase the game here.
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Capo 2 for Mac: music learning software done even better
Last year we wrote about a new product from SuperMegaUltraGroovy Software called Capo. The well-designed software was essentially a tool to help users learn to play music by ear, and it worked by slowing down songs without changing their pitch. Capo restored our confidence that not all competent developers were focusing on the iPhone, and that there could still be high quality software for the Mac. Now, Capo 2 has launched. While one developer can’t support an entire platform, Chris Liscio is still making really great software.At its root, Capo 2 still focuses on slowing down music without changing the pitch, enabling users to practice along with difficult passages of music. The technique has been used since the days of record players, and is one that many budding musicians are familiar with. The core functionality of Capo is still there, and if you are interested in learning more, you can read what we had to say about the original version of Capo.
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Squeezing precision out of magnetic detectors
Magnetic fields play some really important roles in modern life. We store information in the alignment of magnetic fields on hard disks, we use the molecular response to magnetic fields to determine the shapes of proteins and image inside the body. In these cases, we apply a magnetic field and measure a response to that applied field. However, a lot of information could potentially be gained just by measuring naturally occurring magnetic fields. But, in biomedical applications, anyway, these fields tend to be pretty weak. Once you consider that the information you want is buried in the fluctuations of that field, you realize that a pretty sensitive and fast magnetometer is the order of the day if you actually intend to detect anything.
Usually, modern magnetometers are based on the Hall effect, where a magnetic field bends a current flowing through a conductor, creating a small voltage perpendicular to the current flow. The problem is that the voltage is subject to all the usual environmental noise from surrounding electronic devices so, for better sensitivity, you need to use an optical method.
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Extinction spreads like a fungus among North America's bats
White Nose Syndrome, a fungal infection that kills bats by interfering with their hibernation cycle, was first spotted in a cave in New York in 2006. In just four years, it has spread over 1,200 km through the US and Canada, reaching from Quebec to Missouri, and killing off as many as 90 percent of the bats in infected areas. Those precipitous declines would seem to be unsustainable, and a new study in Science indicates that they are indeed: even in many scenarios where the virulence of the disease tails off, a common species of bat appears headed for regional extinction, perhaps in as little as 15 years.The species in question is the little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus), which is among the most common in North America, and lives in the areas being ravaged by WNS. At least six other species of bats have been affected by WNS, but the little brown bat has an advantage for scientific studies: there are 30 years of data on the animal's numbers at major hibernation spots, and another 16 of breeding and mortality data from a single site. These can be combined to give decent population estimates, and integrated into a model of the impact of WNS.
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Can Uncle Sam track its $7 billion broadband investment?
The deadline for the last round of Recovery Act grants for broadband stimulus projects is September 30, less than two months from now. But the Government Accountability Office isn't sure that the key federal departments handing out these funds have the resources to keep tabs on where that money's all going. These agencies "will need to oversee far more projects than in the past and these projects are likely to be much larger and more diverse than projects funded under the agencies' prior broadband-related programs," the GAO warned in a report issued on Tuesday.
And both departments "face the risk of having insufficient resources" to oversee these Recovery Act-funded broadband projects—in particular to make sure that award winners roll out Internet service to everyone in their designated areas, not just the most profitable cities and towns.
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StarCraft 2: help us mourn the death of content freedom
StarCraft 2 comes with a powerful set of tools for making your own maps and game modifications, but there is no local storage; you have to upload your content to Battle.net and let users grab that content from Blizzard's servers. If your content is considered inappropriate or obscene, Blizzard can take it down. The story is making its way around the gaming press, but this shouldn't be a shock... gaming content has long fallen under the control of the company that created the tools.Does this hurt us as gamers? Absolutely.
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Net neutrality fans cheer as FCC gives up on "backroom" talks
It's official. The Federal Communications Commission has thrown in the towel on its world-famous-secret-hush-hush net neutrality stakeholder talks. "We have called off this round of stakeholder discussions," FCC Chief of Staff Edward Lazarus declared today. "It has been productive on several fronts, but has not generated a robust framework to preserve the openness and freedom of the Internet—one that drives innovation, investment, free speech, and consumer choice. All options remain on the table as we continue to seek broad input on this vital issue."
But net neutrality supporters say the only option they want is the Commission classifying ISPs as common carriers based on Title II of the Communications Act.
"We hope this marks the end of the era of backroom deals at the FCC," Andrew Schwartman of the Media Access Project quickly wrote to us. "Chairman Genachowski has promised transparency, and we expect it going forward. We repeat—yet again—that the best thing for the FCC to do is to reclassify broadband under Title II. That may open the way for much more productive discussions, especially if they are held in the open."
One of the last of those stakeholder meetings included Google and Verizon, whose widely watched negotiations may or may not result in some sort of recommendation to Congress for compromise legislation on net neutrality.
But even those discussions are being met with suspicion.
"We welcome the FCC's decision to end its backroom meetings," declared Free Press. "Phones have been ringing off the hook and e-mail inboxes overflowing at the FCC, as an outraged public learned about the closed-door deal-making and saw the biggest players trying to carve up the Internet for themselves. We're relieved to see that the FCC now apparently finds dangerous side deals from companies like Verizon and Google to be distasteful and unproductive."
The FCC's invited discussions on the issue were about kicking the net neutrality ball over to Congress, which is where some players say it belongs. Kyle McSlarrow of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, cable's largest trade group, called for "targeted legislation" in Congress and applauded the FCC for "their leadership in fostering discussions that had this very reasonable goal in mind. We believe these conversations produced significant progress toward a consensus on a variety of difficult issues, and are disappointed that all issues could not be resolved."
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Why the latest iDevice rumors don't add up
We're just about one month away from Apple's usual fall iPod event, wherein the company typically introduces new iPod models in time for the holiday buying season. iLounge recently rounded up several rumors from a reportedly solid source, while Hardmac posted a photo illustration of a purported new iPod touch from a case manufacturer. These rumors were also accompanied by alleged details of revised iPhone and iPad models expected in early 2011.That Apple is already working on such products is no surprise, but we're doubtful of some of the revealed details.
iPod rumors
Regarding new iPods, iLounge's source said to expect a new iPod nano and an iPod touch, as well as third iPod that may or may not be a new iPod shuffle. The last iPod shuffle—which relegated all controls to a small inline control on the headphones to achieve a monolithic design—garnered a lukewarm response on its unveiling. iLounge posited that Apple will make a complete 180 on the shuffle, designing it around a tiny 1.7" Apple-branded touchscreen that turned up recently.Read the comments on this post
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In e-reader accessibility race, new Kindle, iPad in front
E-readers are becoming increasingly popular, due in part to plummeting prices and the growing availability of books in various digital formats. One area where these companies are notoriously weak, however, is accessibility—and we're not talking about the Internet kind.One of the big strengths of digital books should be their easy support for technologies like screen reading and large print, tools that can help the visually impaired. But as it turns out, such progress has been slow and unsatisfactory for many users.
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Google, Verizon deny priority access deal, but still talking
"Say it isn't so!" The Kid famously pleads to The Slugger as rumors fly that the ball game he just lost was fixed.That's pretty much what everybody has been shouting at Google following a New York Times story suggesting that the search engine giant has cut a deal with Verizon in which the former will accept "pay for speed" priority access arrangements. Critics say that would kick net neutrality hopes in the knees.
But, unlike the fictional power hitter who walks away in shame, Google actually says it ain't so.
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Google Wave: why we didn't use it
With Google pulling the plug on the development of Wave, its meant-to-be-revolutionary communications protocol, Ars staffers pondered Wave's collapse. The ideas in Wave were undeniably cool, the vision was ambitious, and Google backed it. So why did no one use it?We looked to our own experiences of using Wave for clues as to what went wrong, and we found plenty.
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Patch Tuesday: Microsoft's most security bulletins ever!
According to the Microsoft Security Response Center, Microsoft will issue 14 Security Bulletins addressing 34 vulnerabilities on Tuesday. It will also host a webcast to address customer questions the following day.Eight of the vulnerabilities are rated "Critical" and six are marked "Important." All of the Critical vulnerabilities earned their rating through a Remote Code Execution impact, meaning a hacker could potentially gain control of an infected machine. At least seven of the 14 patches will require (yeah!) a restart.
The list of affected operating systems includes all supported versions of Windows; almost all supported Microsoft Office suites are also vulnerable, including Office 2004 for Mac and Office 2008 for Mac. Those who have upgraded to Microsoft Office 2010 may breathe easy. Silverlight 2 and Silverlight 3 are also on the list, but the latest version, Silverlight 4, is not.
Compared to last month's minor Patch Tuesday, this one is massive. In fact, this is the most bulletins Microsoft has ever released in one month.
This month's Patch Tuesday does not include a fix for the Windows Shortcut flaw because Microsoft released an out-of-band patch for that one earlier this week.
Along with these patches, Microsoft is also planning to release the following on Patch Tuesday:
- One or more nonsecurity, high-priority updates on Windows Update (WU) and Windows Server Update Services (WSUS)
- One or more nonsecurity, high-priority updates on Microsoft Update (MU) and WSUS
- An updated version of the Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool on Windows Update, Microsoft Update, Windows Server Update Services, and the Microsoft Download Center
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BusyBox takes out bankrupt opponent in GPL lawsuit
The person behind a set of GPL-licensed Unix utilities called BusyBox has been engaged in a lawsuit against a dozen consumer electronics companies, accusing them of violating his copyright. The companies allegedly have been distributing hardware (including HDTVs) that includes BusyBox, but then licensing it to consumers under GPL-incompatible terms.In late July, the judge in the case issued a summary judgement against one of the defendants, Westinghouse Digital Electronics, which stopped participating in the case when it entered bankruptcy protection. The ruling isn't a sweeping victory for the GPL, but it does show that the GPL is compatible with the standards for summary judgement.
BusyBox is a set of command line utilities that are specifically designed to run in constrained embedded environments. At compile time, different capabilities can be left out, reducing the size of the binaries, and efforts are made to make them memory efficient. This makes the software an excellent candidate for use in consumer electronics devices, which seem to have been the items of interest in this case.
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