Linux Foundation tries making license compliance even easier
The Linux Foundation has launched a new open source licensing compliance program with the aim of simplifying some of the legal complexities faced by commercial Linux adopters. The initiative, which was unveiled today at the Linux Foundation's annual LinuxCon event in Boston, seeks to supply tools, training, and a venue for pursuing standardization.
The open source Linux platform is gaining considerable popularity in the consumer electronics market due in part to its flexibility and the relatively low cost of adoption. It enables hardware vendors to collaborate on a shared underlying platform stack but it also allows for differentiation because each vendor can develop its own individual user experience on top. Although the technical aspects of building a custom Linux-based platform are increasingly well-understood in the hardware industry, there is still considerable confusion over the legal issues.
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Safer lithium ion batteries: add water, lose the oxygen
A safer, lower-cost variation on the lithium ion battery has become a realistic possibility, now that scientists have found a way to add water to it. A group of researchers has found that by eliminating the oxygen in a lithium-sulfate-and-water electrolyte solution, they were able to significantly improve the batteries' capacity retention—but only for very small capacities.Aqueous lithium ion batteries are a less-dangerous, inexpensive replacement to standard lithium ion batteries, which use electrolyte solutions that can be toxic and flammable. However, battery makers typically avoid aqueous electrolytes for one reason: they don't work well at all.
A typical aqueous lithium ion battery retains only 50 percent of its charge capacity after one hundred cycles. As any notebook computer owner can tell you, a capacity of 50 percent after a thousand cycles is hardly acceptable in a battery, and less than that is cause for loud complaint.
However, by playing around with the aqueous solution, a group of scientists found that the pH of the liquid didn't matter much to the effectiveness of the battery. They tried removing as much oxygen as possible from the battery and readjusting the pH, and found that, in combination with carbon-coated electrodes, the batteries' capacity retention improved to 90 percent after a thousand cycles.
So will notebook batteries soon last forever, impervious to trifles like charge cycles? Unlikely— the battery with the impressive retention only provided about 10 minutes of power. Another similar battery that lasted eight hours at low current output retained 85 percent capacity after only 50 cycles.
So, the aqueous lithium ion battery is still a long way from replacing its toxic brethren. Still, the authors speculate that cheaper batteries may find use in "short-distance city-buses" and as storage for energy from wind turbines and solar panels. Notebook users will continue to wait for a capacity retention hero.
Nature Chemistry, 2010. DOI: 10.1038/NCHEM.763 (About DOIs).
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Hands-on: KDE 4.5 launches with tiling, new notifications
The developers behind the KDE project have officially released version 4.5 of the KDE Software Collection. The update brings some improvements to the environment's stability, performance, and functionality. The KWin window manager and Plasma desktop shell have both gained some particularly significant new features in this release.
The panel notification area in the Plasma shell has been overhauled with the aim of simplifying the manner in which notifications are presented. Notification bubbles for completed actions and ongoing operations are accessible through a single streamlined drop-down menu. It will show a count of the current notification bubbles and will display a busy indicator when there is a long-running operation in progress. You can use the notification area to control and monitor the progress of file operations and other similar activity.
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AMD Fusion won't kill the GPU, but what if it kills the CPU?
AMD's Godfrey Cheng has a post on the company's blog, saying that AMD's upcoming CPU + GPU "Fusion" chips will not, in fact, kill the venerable and much-loved discrete GPU. Cheng claims that he's frequently asked if AMD's "APU" plans—where APU stands for "Accelerated Processing Unit," and is AMD's term for a chip that includes a CPU and GPU on the same die—will result in the eventual demise of discrete graphics. It's plausible that he's asked this quite a bit, because this has been a common misconception since the idea was first floated with the AMD/ATI merger.
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Little, colorful, lighted: a comfortable Wiimote for kids
The Wiimote is a great controller, but for a system designed to appeal to so many people it certainly doesn't fit into every hand. I may have dismissed the Pro Pack Mini when it was first shipped to us for testing, but then I opened it up, my wife and kids tried it, and now I'm convinced this is a product that Nintendo should have released itself.There's nothing fancy going on here; this is merely a Wiimote and nunchuk set that's a better fit for smaller hands, and feels great when used. Oh, and it lights up. Points!
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Bright flashes and heaps of ashes: a new X-ray laser source
Back where I grew up, the old men had a saying: "It'll come in handy, even if I never use it." Ever since I had to store my own stuff, I have come to be more and more skeptical of the value of keeping old stuff. The good people at the Stanford Linear Accelerator (SLAC) have been listening to the same old men though, and some good stuff has come of it. Back in its day, SLAC was king of the hill among particle accelerators. But, once past its prime, the question of what to do with all that expensive equipment was raised. In a flash of inspiration, the SLAC researchers proposed turning it into a very bright X-ray laser that could be used by other researchers to study physics, chemistry, and biology questions. A shiny new acronym arose from the ashes of SLAC, as it became the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), a type of free electron laser. Now, 18 years after it was first proposed, it has been switched on. And, much to everyone's surprise, it actually works really well.
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Feature: How Star Trek artists imagined the iPad... 23 years ago
One interesting characteristic of Star Trek: The Next Generation—one that separated it from the original series and most of the early films—was its widespread use of smooth, flat, touch-based control panels throughout the Enterprise-D. This touch interface was also used for numerous portable devices known as PADDs, or Personal Access Display Devices. These mobile computing terminals bear a striking resemblance to Apple's iPad—a mobile computing device largely defined by its smooth, flat touchscreen interface.To understand the thinking that lead to the design of the Star Trek PADD, we spoke to some of the people involved in production of ST:TNG (as well as other Star Trek TV series and films), including Michael Okuda, Denise Okuda, and Doug Drexler. All three were involved in various aspects of production art for Star Trek properties, including graphic design, set design, prop design, visual effects, art direction, and more. We also discussed their impressions of the iPad and how eerily similar it is to their vision of 24th century technology, how science fiction often influences technology, and what they believe is the future of human-machine interaction.
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"Keep mustache out of the opening": a history of phone etiquette
Not long ago I was out of town, sitting in an unfamiliar neighborhood cafe and talking with a buddy on my mobile phone. Quick as a text message, the proprietor rushed in and pointed to a sign over the door forbidding such activities in her establishment. I obediently nodded, said my goodbyes, and shut the device down.I then spent the next fifteen minutes listening to a couple at the adjacent table have a loud argument, about which the owner said nothing.
Still, I try to be accommodating in these situations. It makes no sense to argue with folks about this stuff. Once people get it in their heads that checking tomorrow's weather on your iPhone or Android device at the table is rude, it just is—until the day that it isn't any more.
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New solar cell uses that other thing the sun emits: heat
A team of scientists has invented a new type of solar cell that converts both the sun's heat and light into electricity, potentially giving a boost to the efficiency of solar energy harvesting devices. The cell combines a photovoltaic process that turns light into electricity with another that converts heat; combined, they beat the current record for solar energy efficiency, as well as the theoretical efficiency limit of a cell of this design.The most popular type of solar generator in use today is the photovoltaic cell. Photovoltaic cells operate by taking in solar photons of certain energies and using them to excite electrons into racing to conductors, creating current. While photovoltaic cells have been an important step towards harnessing the sun's energy, they are fairly inefficient and leave a lot of room for improvement.
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New Windows kernel mode flaw points to future attack vectors
A new Windows flaw that allows all current, supported versions of Windows to be crashed was published on Friday by Israeli researcher Gil Dabah. The bug allows a local user to cause a system to suffer a blue-screen of death crash. In principle, this may also allow attackers to run code of their choosing with kernel privileges, though in practice, the looks as if it would be difficult due to the nature of the flaw.The bug is in a kernel-mode component called win32k.sys, which handles many key Windows features like window management and 2D graphics. This specific flaw is in the component's handling of the system clipboard; by placing specially malformed data onto the clipboard, the system can be made to corrupt the screen or crash outright. In the early days of Windows, the component in question did not run in kernel mode; it was moved there for Windows NT 4, as doing so made 2D desktop graphics substantially faster.
win32k.sys has remained in kernel mode ever since, and as a result, this flaw affects Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 R2, for both x86 and x64, both with or without Service Packs.
Microsoft is aware of the flaw but has not announced when a patch might be made available. Due to the nature of the problem, it has been assigned a "Less Critical" rating by security group Secunia. This rating is a result of the lack of remote exploitability and the difficulties in using the flaw to execute an attacker's code.
So far this year, Microsoft has patched a number of similar flaws in the Windows kernel, including bugs in the win32k.sys component. The company tends to give them an "Important" rating, again due to the requirement that the attacker be logged in to perform the attack. Researcher Tavis Ormandy went so far as to suggest that so far this year, Windows has not gone more than a few days at a time without a known, published kernel flaw of this kind.
If the flaw could be exploited in such a way as to allow arbitrary code execution, an attacker with a regular user account would be able to increase his privileges. This does not directly increase the risk of the flaw—the ability to log on is still required—but it does make the flaw more useful, as it allows attackers to break out of system sandboxes such as those used in Web browsers like Chrome and Internet Explorer. This in turn magnifies the risk of those browser flaws.
It is precisely this dual technique—a browser flaw to allow malicious code to run, coupled with a kernel privilege escalation flaw—that is being widely used to jailbreak iPhones and other Apple devices. The privilege escalation is needed because the iPhone runs software in a sandbox; merely being able to attack Safari is not enough to make the system changes required to jailbreak.
Though Internet Explorer 7 and 8 and Chrome both incorporate this kind of sandboxing on Windows Vista and Windows 7, typical attacks on Windows systems don't bother attempting to use kernel flaws to escalate their privileges. The widespread use of Windows XP and users running with full Administrator rights makes it not worth the effort. As Windows XP finally starts dying off and sandboxing becomes more common, we could start to see greater attention paid to, and exploitation of, this kind of flaw, just as we already do on locked-down phone platforms.
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Google-Verizon NN pact riddled with gaping loopholes
Even before Google and Verizon published their sweeping new Internet proposals for Congress, the net neutrality troops were out in force against the alliance. "DON'T BE EVIL," proclaimed the Monday morning banner headline announcing the delivery of a petition signed by 300,000 people urging the search engine giant to back away from its alliance with Verizon.
"Google has always presented itself as a different kind of corporate entity," warned Justin Ruben, executive director of MoveOn.org. "The fact that they are involved in a deal that would kill Internet freedom directly contradicts this image. We hope that Google will reconsider before they are seen as just another giant corporation out to make a buck regardless of the consequence."
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Kill Screen justifies price of print; game writing grows up
Kill Screen is an expensive publication: each issue costs $20, and the four-issue subscription with a T-shirt is $75. It's ridiculous when we're used to getting our writing for free online, but the talent here is formidable, and the writing is incredible. This doesn't look or feel like a magazine, it's more of a journal: a collection of meditations on different aspects of gaming, and you'll want to take it from the shelf to read again and again.
- J. Nicholas Geist with a story of marriage, judgment, and World of Warcraft addiction.
- Jason Killingsworth is schooled by an eight-year-old Guitar Hero prodigy—and uses the opportunity to grow up.
- Gus Mastrapa battles anxiety and finds rescue in EverQuest.
- Rob Dubbin digs up the strange, hilarious fan fic of internet legend Stuart Michigan, starting with his latest work, "Some Russian."
- Majed Athab takes on the Six Days in Fallujah controversy, and asks: why is it easier to make a ridiculous war game than a realistic one?
Some tips from the submission page are darkly funny if you're familiar with most writing about games. "At this time, women probably don't make up a full half of the audience for a video game magazine. But you should write as if they do—and as if they brought the beer. 'My girlfriend doesn't understand games' articles don't work for us," is one hint. "Sometimes we joke around the office that we never, ever need to see another pitch about BioShock. We laugh, and laugh," reads another. "But maybe we're not joking."
These aren't reviews, or news, or even standard interviews... each piece makes you think of some aspect of gaming in a different way; it's a delightful way to spend an afternoon. The writers come from the Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, GQ, The Daily Show, The Christian Science Monitor, LA Times, The Colbert Report, The Onion, and Paste. No, it's not cheap, but these are stories that are going to be as interesting five years from now as they are today. When I finished the first issue I put it up on my bookshelf, and I can't wait to put the second right next to it. I haven't been excited about collecting magazines since Next Generation.
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Verizon iPhone likely, 7" iPad dubious, AMD Apple TV doubtful
It seems nearly impossible to go a week without a new Verizon iPhone rumor, and TechCrunch has new sources pointing to a well-known CDMA chip supplier readying a big order for Apple. Additionally, DigiTimes Research has gotten into the rumor business with a number of purported details about a CDMA-equipped iPhone, a new iPad size, and an Apple TV with AMD inside.TechCrunch cites sources "with knowledge of the entire situation" stating that Apple has placed an order for millions of CDMA chipsets from top supplier Qualcomm. The timing suggests a launch around January 2011, a date we've now heard multiple times. We wouldn't be surprised if Qualcomm is the supplier for chips used in a Verizon-compatible iPhone, but we don't think this rumor tells the whole story.
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Google and Verizon unveil private net neutrality deal
After a week of speculation and denial, Google and Verizon unveiled their own version of net neutrality in the form of a "suggested legislative framework for consideration by lawmakers," as Google's public policy guy Alan Davidson and Verizon Vice President Thomas Tauke put it on Google's public policy blog. "Ultimately, we think this proposal provides the certainty that allows both Web startups to bring their novel ideas to users, and broadband providers to invest in their networks," they wrote. We're guessing that lots of people will disagree with that assessment.
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Cheap ($300) fluorescent microscopes for developing world
For those of you who haven't visited the websites of Carl Zeiss or Nikon lately, fluorescent microscopes are expensive. Typically, microscopes of the sort required by pathologists to make diagnosis are around $2,000, weigh something on the order of a small child, and require mains power. So lugging the microscope to a remote Indonesian clinic to carry out timely diagnosis of tuberculosis, for instance, is a bit problematic. Naturally, the microscope manufacturers have no problem with this situation, because their microscopes still get purchased. Patients in many areas, however, may have issues, since they're required to travel to clinics, which is a journey that may be impossible to undertake immediately and may require several days of travel in each direction. In the meantime, the deadly bacillus is multiplying, making treatment more expensive and longer.
There are, therefore, excellent reasons for developing a cheap, portable, battery-powered fluorescent microscope. This is exactly what researchers at Rice University describe in recent PloS One and SPIE proceedings.
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FTC settles suit against Canadian domain name scammers
A group of Canadian con artists caught scamming US individuals, small businesses, and non-profit organizations for millions in phony domain registration and search engine optimization fees has been shut down by the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC announced Monday that has reached settlement agreements with most of the defendants in the case, while another defendant, Steven E. Dale, received a default judgement to the tune of $4.3 million.A Toronto-based company going by the name of Internet Listing Service sent fake invoices to thousands of US consumers designed to look like they came from a legitimate domain name registrar, requesting fees for domain name renewals and "search optimization" designed to drive "a substantial increase in traffic." Many of these customers believed they could lose their domain name if they didn't pay the invoice, while others were enticed by the promise of better traffic.
The FTC charged those involved in the scheme in June of 2008, claiming that "most" consumers who fell for the ploy did not get a domain name renewal and that the claimed "search optimization" never happened. A federal district judge signed a temporary injunction against the defendants and froze their assets pending trial.
The settlement and default judgement orders signed today end that litigation, according to the FTC. Defendants Isaac Benlolo, Kirk Mulveney, Pearl Keslassy, and 1646153 Ontario Inc received a suspended judgement for $4,261,876, the total amount the group bilked. The FTC told Ars that the settling group of defendants are unable to pay the full amount, and as part of the settlement agreement the group will pay $10,000. Default judgment against Dale is for the full amount. Charges against two other defendants in the case were dropped. All parties are permanently barred from attempting to sell domain registration or search optimization services in the future.
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"Amorphous" metal alloys to slip into Apple products soon
Future iPhones, iPods, and other Apple-flavored gadgets may be made out of "amorphous" metal alloys thanks to a deal that Apple has made with Liquidmetal Technologies. Liquidmetal revealed that it has entered into an exclusive agreement with Apple via an 8K filing it made with the Securities and Exchange Commission, giving Apple access to its entire intellectual property portfolio.Liquidmetal's technology is used in the fields of sports, medicine, space, jewelry, and of course, electronics. Whereas a typical metal has a crystalline atomic structure (a repeating pattern of crystals), an "amorphous" metal alloy basically has no crystals. This allows manufacturers to tweak the precise configuration of the alloy without worrying about the usual structural or strength limitations.
As such, Liquidmetal brags that its products are not only strong and resistant to impact/fatigue, they are also lighter than comparable products made out of normal metals.
The agreement between the two companies was signed last Thursday, but was not revealed until the publication of the 8K this morning. Liquidmetal's technology has previously been used in Nokia and Sandisk products, but no more—Apple now has "perpetual, worldwide, fully-paid, exclusive license to commercialize such intellectual property in the field of consumer electronic products."
In addition to potential uses in Apple's handheld gadgets, the company may also put the amorphous metal alloys to good use in its popular notebook line. MacBook Pros and MacBook Airs have already gotten stronger and more durable thanks to Apple's decision to switch to unibody enclosures, but notebook users usually welcome stronger and lighter machines whenever possible.
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Silicon Sisters: gamer women for women gamers
Are women getting what they want from video games? Although they are playing games in large numbers, few companies are trying to appeal to women, and most of those that do merely release pink controllers or stereotypically "girlie" games. Silicon Sisters wants to help change that, with the first "female owned and operated video game company," operating out of Vancouver.We got in touch with Kirsten Forbes, the COO and founding member of the company, to get our questions answered. First, how do you create games for women without pandering to them?
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The road to a better thermometer is full of potholes
Temperature is the thermodynamic property we deal with the most often. What is the temperature today? Is the oven set to the right temperature? Is my beer cold enough? Yet it turns out to be a surprisingly difficult to pin it down in a consistent way. Temperature measurements are still some of the most troublesome, illustrated by an aphorism from combustion physics: "A researcher with a thermometer knows what the temperature is; a researcher with two thermometers is confused." That saying riffs on the idea that temporal and spatial scales play an important role in giving real measurements meaning. But, when we get down to the barebones of the theory, temperature leaves us dealing with quantum mechanics and counting populations of particles in discrete states. Just how accurately can we measure temperature anyway?
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Android next up to get streaming Netflix goodness
Netflix is working on an official app that would allow users to stream movies and TV shows directly to Android devices. The company hasn't made a formal announcement about its plans, but a recent job listing for an Android Video Playback Expert spells it out: Android will likely be the next mobile platform to get Netflix streaming.Netflix CEO Reed Hastings spent the first quarter of 2010 swearing up and down that the company was not focused on streaming to smaller screens; there were no immediate plans to implement an iPad or iPhone version—much less any other mobile version—of the service. When the iPad launched in April, however, Netflix had an app ready to go on day one. Since then, the company said that it's planning an iPhone version of the app for sometime this summer.
A significant percentage of responses to Netflix's iPhone app announcement consisted of requests for an Android version, and now those users will finally get what they want. When that will happen is up in the air, but it's possible that Netflix plans to time it with the release of the iPhone version, which has yet to see the light of day. And, even though the job description doesn't offer many details, it seems likely that the Android app will allow streaming over both WiFi and 3G, since the iOS versions do. Anyone up for a BlackBerry version next? And when will Hulu Plus catch up with Netflix and offer an Android version?
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Continuous quantum variables for computing, communications
We talk a lot about quantum computation and quantum key distribution here at Ars, but when we do this, we're usually talking about a discrete logic system. That is, the quantum system uses a set of two discrete states designated a logical one and a logical zero. Quantumness is included by creating superpositions of the two states—a superposition places a quantum system in both states simultaneously to form a qubit—and by entangling different qubits together. But just like classical systems, computation and communication don't have to use discrete logic; instead, a continuous analog system could be used. In a classical system, this would involve something like a continuously varying voltage or current. In a quantum system, something like phase could be used. The phase—essentially the relationship of wavefronts between different waves—is a quantum property that can be put into a superposition state, and two different continuous variable qubits can be entangled.
So why haven't I written about this before? Because, apart from noting its existence and doing a bit of theoretical work on it, physicists have largely ignored continuous variable quantum systems. They've mostly done so because it's hard to make a continuous variable qubit and use it. But in the last few weeks, physicists have finally shown continuous variable quantum computation a bit of love, with a number of experimental papers having come out.
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Microsoft keeps Mac vs. PC battle going on Windows 7 website
Microsoft has added a PC versus Mac section to its Windows 7 website. The webpage is under the Compare tab, where users can match up the three main Windows 7 editions, read a Top 10 list of reasons to buy Windows 7, and read Microsoft's thoughts on why it believes Windows 7 has the advantage over Mac OS X. According to the new page, Microsoft says it has Apple beat in six categories: Having Fun (Macs might spoil your fun), Simplicity (Macs can take time to learn), Working Hard (Macs don't work as well at work or at school), Sharing (Macs don't like to share), Compatibility (Macs might not like your PC stuff), and Choice (Macs don't let you choose).
Each area makes a couple valid points, though Redmond makes sure to avoid naming any potential strengths Cupertino may have: this is strictly a pro-PC show. Each page ends off with a note to visit the Windows PC Scout to help the user find the right PC for them.
Microsoft also points out that many PC games are not available for Mac OS X
It's worth noting that the Windows 7 webpage does not mention "I'm a PC" at all, but the distinction between Mac and PC that Apple first trumpeted is heavily emphasized. Microsoft seems perfectly happy to continue using the PC label if it means easily distinguishing itself from Apple's offerings.
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