Argentinian court applies common sense to search defamation lawsuit
Google and Yahoo have been cleared of defamation charges in Argentina, at least as they relate to Argentinian entertainer Virginia Da Cunha. The National Chamber of Civil Appeals in Argentina has ruled that the two search companies can't be held liable for defaming Da Cunha simply by serving up websites that contained sexually explicit content, though Google and Yahoo will likely still find themselves fighting an uphill battle in the Argentinian courts.The ruling overturned a lower court's decision that ordered both companies to remove all content that had any kind of sexually explicit reference to Da Cunha by name or photo. At the time, Da Cunha's lawyers had said that Google and Yahoo were violating her privacy and Argentina's copyright laws by allowing these sites to use her image without consent.
Google had argued that doing so would be impossible, as any sort of solution would undoubtedly catch non-sex-related content about Da Cunha as well. The company appealed, and the appeals court agreed: it said that Yahoo and Google weren't responsible for content posted by Internet users, and they would only be liable if the content was clearly illegal and they did not respond to requests to remove it.
Google's Legal Affairs Manager for Latin America Maria Baudino said in a blog post that the decision helped define the responsibilities of Internet content providers when it comes to user-generated content, and was a "major advance towards the legal certainty" needed for the industry to grow.
Google and Yahoo's troubles are far from over, though. Da Cunha's case is only one of many similar ones in Argentina, as noted by Baudino. According to the New York Times, there are at least 130 other cases going back to 2006 wherein someone wants something about them removed from the search engines. Only two have been decided thus far, but Da Cunha's lawyers plan to appeal the case again to Argentina's Supreme Court—a decision there would have an effect on all the other cases.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
Torchlight 2 trailer gives us exactly what we want
With Gamescom sending new information and trailers from Germany, and Andrew attending a preview event in Canada, things have been heavy on the preview content this week, but we have to share this Torchlight 2 trailer. Why? It knows what we want, and we are given that thing. Behold!There is no release date more specific than 2011, but a safe bet would be to travel into the future, see when Diablo 3 is released, and then subtract two years from that date. These games are not competing with one another; it's more like you'll be given the world's best appetizer before your steak is served.
Plus, if this game is released at $20, you'll be able to buy a copy for you and two friends for the same price as one copy of Diablo 3. There are many "ifs" here, but the takeaway is that Torchlight 2 looks great and is actually coming in the forseeable future. Dungeon crawler fans, this is a very good time to be gaming.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
Supreme Court told P2P users can be "innocent infringers"
Two prominent lawyers in the fight against RIAA P2P lawsuits have taken their battle to the Supreme Court. Today, Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson and "Recording Industry vs. the People" blogger/lawyer Ray Beckerman joined with a few other law professors to ask the Supreme Court not to gut copyright law's "innocent infringer" defense.The case concerns a woman named Whitney Harper. Several years ago, when she was a teenaged cheerleader, Harper downloaded music using P2P networks. She was caught by MediaSentry, which investigated file-sharing for the major music labels, but she claimed to be an "innocent infringer" under US copyright law, saying that in her early teen years she had thought P2P use to be just like listening to free music on the radio. That defense, accepted by the judge in her case, reduced the statutory minimum damages against Harper from $750 per song down to just $200.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
PS3 Top Gun mixes old movie with older gameplay
The film version of Top Gun is filled with epic dogfights, testosterone-infused volleyball games, and Tom Cruise before he became whatever he is today. It's a classic that's slightly cheesy, but still fun as hell to watch and quote. Then you play the PlayStation Network Top Gun release and you hear the following: "Negative, Ghostrider. There is too much traffic."Really? REALLY? This is the Goose's response when IceMan tells Maverick he is dangerous. "That's right, we are dangerous! If you don't like you can go home and pull the covers up over your head!"
Here's how the game works: you play a generic mission, and then a scene from the film is shoe-horned in with terrible voice acting and an oddly rewritten script. Then you play another mission.
That was some of the best flying I've seen to date, right up to the part where you got killed
The controls feel stiff, the story jumps all over the place while mangling famous quotes, and I couldn't find anyone playing online. Basically, there isn't much fun to be had here. For $15 it's not even worth laughing at the terrible dialogue. Sadly, Top Gun seems dead on arrival.
It does, however, make me look forward to a Doublesix Games Spider-Man title.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
Franken goes ballistic on Verizon, Google, Comcast, and NBCU
"I believe that net neutrality is the First Amendment issue of our time," declared Democratic Senator Al Franken at Thursday's public hearing on the Internet, held in his home state of Minnesota."Unless it's freedom of religion," he added, "which, until last week, I thought we had kind of worked out."
The audience at Minneapolis' South High School cracked up over Franken's reference to the Ground Zero Mosque slugfest. But this was a warm-up rally for their own cause—getting the Federal Communications Commission to pass rules that would partially reclassify ISPs as common carriers and apply various neutrality provision to their activities. Two Democratic members of the FCC also attended the event: Michael Copps and Mignon Clyburn.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
Bad news for AMD as Intel gains server share
AMD just can't seem to catch a break. After two profitable quarters (amid a multiyear string of losers), a product transition causes it to miss out on the big first-quarter server market rebound that propelled Intel to record profits. According to a new market share report from IDC, Intel managed to take critical server market share from AMD, with the former company seeing a year-over-year jump from 89.9 percent last year to 93.5 percent this quarter. Meanwhile, AMD's market share dropped from 10.1 percent to 6.5 percent.
AMD's slow transition to the Opteron 6000 series, and the subsequent market share losses, are practically the mirror image of Intel's success in getting its 32nm Westmere and 45nm Nehalem EX server parts into the waiting hands of server makers who finally were ready to open their wallets and start purchasing again.
What makes this situation especially ugly for AMD is the fact that the server market is the company's bread-and-butter. During the worst of the downturn, AMD notoriously jettisoned every part of the company that didn't involve designing x86 processors and GPUs, and it focused in particular on its server business because that was one place where it was still fairly healthy. Server is AMD's absolute core vertical, which means that the company can't really afford too many missteps of this type.
AMD's fortunes could still turn this year, though. The traditional IT upgrade cycle usually happens in the fall, so September will be a big month for the company—at least, it will be if the normal seasonal buying patterns have really returned to the market.
Most PC buying on both the consumer side and corporate side happens in the second half of the year, particularly in the last quarter, as students go back to school and businesses upgrade their machines. This seasonal cyclicality actually halted altogether in 2008, but most of the component suppliers claim to have seen signs that it's returning. Still, we won't know until the fall how much of that normal seasonal surge in buying we'll see this year—the only thing that's certain is that AMD needs that surge to happen, and the company needs to participate in it.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
ISP's top data hog gobbles 2.7TB of data in a month
ISPs sometimes complain about "data hogs," often in the service of ridiculously tight-fisted data caps on Internet service. But there are users who deserve the porcine label, and Belgian ISP Telenet recently offered a rare picture of them. Can you imagine downloading 2,680GB of data in a single month?One Belgian can. Between July 4 and August 6 of this year, Telenet's single largest user slurped up 2.7TB of data. He was followed by similarly impressive downloaders who transferred 1.9TB, 1.5TB, and 1.3 TB.
These numbers drop off quickly, though. Only a single user on the entire network topped 2TB in a month, while another seven topped 1TB.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
Gulf oil spill plumes big, have staying power
Today's issue of Science contains one of the most detailed assessments of the oil plume that was released into the Gulf of Mexico by the damaged oil well. The work, performed with a remotely operated submersible, showed that the plume remained intact for at least 35km and was subject to very little breakdown by microbes. Although that's bad news in terms of the persistence of the oil, it's good news for fish, in that the plumes are less likely to result in oxygen depletion. The work was performed by researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute who (along with a lone Australian) were in the region of the blown oil well in mid to late June. Using a tethered sensor set and the autonomous submersible Sentry, the authors performed over 5,800 mass spectrometer readings of the chemicals present in the area down-current of the leak site. Operations took place over approximately 10 days, until the arrival of Hurricane Alex ended the cruise.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
Privacy groups, Facebook already facing off over "Places"
Facebook's new "Places" have been a long time coming, and privacy groups were ready to pounce when the company finally announced the location-based feature. Several privacy advocates say that the settings are unnecessarily complex and that users could have certain personal info exposed without their consent."There is no single opt-out to avoid location tracking; users must change several different privacy settings to restore their privacy status quo," the Electronic Privacy Information Center said in a statement on its website. The organization also notes that it and many other consumer privacy organizations still have complaints pending with the FTC over Facebook's "unfair and deceptive trade practices, which are frequently associated with new product announcements."
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
Everything's scarier with children: a look at Dead Space 2
When I first started playing Dead Space 2, it was a little hard to spot what exactly was new. Sure, the game took place in a new location—in this case the freezer section of what is apparently a giant space station—with more wide-open space, but other than that it felt a lot like Dead Space. I was slowly creeping around corners, shooting the limbs off of necromorphs, floating around in zero-gravity environments, and solving simple environmental puzzles. Not much new. Then I took the elevator up to the Chapel.This new area felt very different. It's a lushly decorated space that made me feel more like I was in a church or mansion, as opposed to floating around in space. It didn't feel out of place, just different. A change of scenery.
It was here that I came across the only boss in the demo, a hideously mutated, giant necromorph that pinned me down to the ground, rendering me unable to move. All I could do was aim and shoot. I had a limited amount of time to get some shots off before the creature would pick me up and slam me back down, so I had to aim both quickly and precisely to defeat it. It was pretty simple and left me with an unwarranted sense of relief. Why unwarranted? It's simple: I had to think of the children.
From what I got a chance to see, it looks like EA isn't straying too far from the path laid down by the first game. Dead Space 2 looks and feels much like its predecessor, but with an increased focus on action and a change of setting. DS2 will be coming to the PS3, 360, and PC on January 25, 2011.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
Apple may be looking to lock out unauthorized iOS users
Apple has applied for a patent on a method to differentiate between authorized and unauthorized users of a particular iOS device. Once an unauthorized user is detected, the device can then automatically disable certain features or send notifications to Twitter or other services.The patent, titled "Systems and Methods for Identifying Unauthorized Users of an Electronic Device," describes several ways a device could sense who is using an iPhone or iPad. Among the methods considered are voice print analysis, photo analysis, heartbeat analysis (!), hacking attempts, or even "noting particular activities that can indicate suspicious behavior."
If the various analyses detect someone who is not authorized to use the device, it could set off a number of automated features designed to protect the device's data, suss out the offending party, and alert the device owner. Sensitive data could be backed up to a remote server and the device could be wiped. The device could automatically snap pictures of the unauthorized user and record the GPS coordinates of the device, as well as log keystrokes, phone calls, or other activity. That information could be sent along with an alert to any useful service, such as e-mail, voicemail, Twitter, Facebook, or a "cloud service" like MobileMe.
As AppleInsider notes, Apple apparently experimented with enabling the iPad to recognize different authorized users and automatically change some settings for that particular user. Such a feature could be somewhat useful on iPads, which are sometimes shared among family members in homes and among several users in schools and businesses.
This proposed patent takes the capability one step further, by effectively locking out snoopers and thieves altogether, and alerting the device user of possible improprieties. The features would no doubt be welcome to enterprise users, who need safeguards around data that may be on a mobile device.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
Gravitational lens makes dark energy less mysterious
The concept of a cosmological constant—a tendency for empty space-time to either expand or contract—picked up a bad rep in part because Einstein apparently called it his greatest blunder. Einstein's problem, however, was that he included it in order to create a static Universe. When it became clear that the Universe was expanding, he quickly dropped the term from the equations he used to describe space-time. Over the past decade or so, the cosmological constant has seen a bit of a renaissance, as cosmologists have found that the Universe isn't just expanding, but that its expansion is accelerating.We're still stumped as to what constitutes dark energy or how it produces a repulsive cosmological constant. But we are beginning to figure out just how much of the stuff is out there. A new paper, being released by Science today, provides a new and independent measure of the value of the cosmological constant. And, because it overlaps with those from different sources, it reduces the error on that estimate by 30 percent.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
The PS3 jailbroken? USB hack allows homebrew, copied games
The PlayStation 3 has long been a popular plaything for modders due to the ability to run Linux on the hardware, a feature Sony has since removed, supposedly out of fear of software piracy. Unfortunately, it looks as if Sony is facing the worst-case scenario as a new product called "PS Jailbreak" claims to be able to unlock your system to allow game backups, custom firmware, and all other sorts of shenanigans.Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
Intel agrees to buy McAfee, decides that security matters
In a deal valued at $7.68 billion, processor giant Intel has agreed to buy security and antivirus firm McAfee. The chip company will pay $48 a share for McAfee, a premium of 60% over Wednesday's closing price, and the size of the deal makes it the largest of Intel's history.The purchase is a reflection of the growing importance of security. Intel president and CEO Paul Otellini said, "In the past, energy-efficient performance and connectivity have defined computing requirements. Looking forward, security will join those as a third pillar of what people demand from all computing experiences."
The company says that current security systems are unable to handle the proliferation of Internet-connected devices—not just computers, but phones, TVs, cars, and more. Security will now be as important to the company as energy-efficiency.
McAfee will be operated as a wholly owned subsidiary within Intel's Software and Services Group. Over the last decade, Intel has been expanding its software group to position itself as more than just a chip company. With McAfee's combination of end-user software and cloud services, this purchase further strengthens both the software and service sides of that diversification.
Both boards of directors have agreed to the deal, and it will go through assuming that McAfee shareholders and regulators give it approval.
The company's claim that security will now be on equal footing with power consumption would certainly represent a marked change in strategy. Intel has a history of selling security features as a premium—including them on some parts (typically the more expensive, corporation-oriented ones), but not others.
In the past, it did this with its VT-x virtualization technology; low-end variants had it disabled, mid- and high-end parts did not. Today, it still does the same with its VT-d virtualization and TXT technologies. Though the practical application of these is limited, they are being used in security research that could show the way to an altogether more secure, robust computing environment.
Just as the company's segmentation of VT-x caused headaches for virtualization software, its restrictions on VT-d and TXT may similarly deprive users of access to cutting edge security solutions.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
RIAA: Google/Verizon deal needs yet another gaping loophole
Plenty of people are worried that the Google/Verizon net neutrality proposal has too many exceptions. The recording industry is worried that it doesn't have enough.In a letter sent today to Google CEO Eric Schmidt, the RIAA and other music trade groups expressed their concern that the riddled-with-gaping-loopholes policy framework nevertheless might put a damper on ISP attempts to find and filter piratical material flowing through the Internet's tubes. Failure to allow for this sort of behavior would lead to an Internet of "chaos."
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
A blood-soaked cartoon: hands-on with XBLA, PSN Shank
Shank is as violent as they come, filled with buzzing chainsaws, flying bullets, and buckets of blood. It's also a lot of fun. Ars recently had the opportunity to go hands-on with the upcoming downloadable title and came away both impressed and disturbed at just how enjoyable cartoon-style carnage can be.Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
RIM to use QNX-developed OS for upcoming "Blackpad" tablet
RIM just released its first device leveraging the consumer-focused BlackBerry 6 operating system, and more are expected soon. But a new report from Bloomberg says the company will use a custom OS developed by recent acquisition QNX to power its upcoming "Blackpad" tablet device slated for launch later this year.QNX is perhaps most well-known for its real-time operating system (RTOS) software, which is used in automotive navigation systems, cardiac monitors, networking hardware, and even Crusher tanks. RIM bought the company this past April, ostensibly to drive tighter integration with cars and other smart appliances. However, three separate sources told Bloomberg that the company will power its tablet device with an OS based on QNX's RTOS and geared specifically for the tablet.
Apple and Google have already demonstrated the benefit of adapting a mobile phone OS to larger touchscreen tablets. Using BlackBerry 6 seems like an obvious choice for this reason, especially given its new focus on media handling features. However, one of Bloomberg's sources noted that it contains "legacy code" that could make adapting it to a tablet difficult. Starting with QNX as the foundation could give RIM the ability to launch the device faster, critical given the iPad's head start and the prospect of numerous Android-powered tablets expected to launch in the next six months.
The still-unannounced Blackpad is expected to leverage BlackBerry's enterprise-friendly features while still appealing to a broader consumer base that have flocked to iOS and Android devices over the last couple of years. "As long as it's a 'good-enough' product, they should have a fighting chance," Rodman & Renshaw analyst Ashok Kumar told Bloomberg.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
Hands-on: Motorola's Droid 2 sequel is a worthy update
Motorola set the standard for Android-based QWERTY sliders when it launched the original Droid last year. An aggressive advertising campaign, excellent specs, and an appealing form factor propelled the Droid to the top of the charts and made it one of the best-selling Android smartphones. Motorola is sticking to its winning formula for the product's sequel, the Droid 2, which recently launched on Verizon's network.Like its predecessor, the Droid 2 has a solid QWERTY keyboard and a 3.7-inch LCD. The form factor is largely unchanged, but Motorola has boosted the specs to make the device more competitive relative to the latest Android offerings from other handset makers. The Droid 2 has a 1GHz OMAP 3630 processor, 512MB of RAM, and 8GB of internal storage.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
Feature: Being a behemoth: how Microsoft (and 9 others) make their billions
It has become a bit of a cliché: really innovative technology comes from garage-level startups. Once a company gets too large, it focuses its energy on keeping its existing customers happy, and loses its edge. But, for the most part, the technology we rely on for getting things done—providing the hardware and networking infrastructure, for example—comes from mature, profitable companies. So, we thought it might be interesting to take a step back and look at what tech companies are among the most successful at marketing products and services that are widely put to use. Of course, any measure of "success" is inviting argument. Should it be profits, units sold, recent growth? We settled on two measures. The first is the market capitalization, which provides some sense of how the financial community views both a company's current fiscal strength and its potential for future growth. To provide some sense of how much of that is growth potential, we chose the price-to-earnings ratio as our other measure—the higher the number, the more the company's perceived growth potential factors into its market cap.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
Facebook adds geolocation, check-ins to iPhone and Web apps
Facebook has finally joined the rest of the social media world by announcing "Places," a feature that lets users "check in" to a geographical location and broadcast that info to friends. Made for use with mobile devices, Places also allows users to see who else has checked in at a particular location and even tag friends who are there with them. As usual, however, certain groups are already criticizing some of Facebook's settings, saying that the defaults are too fast and loose with users' privacy.
The Places feature is allegedly already available to Facebook users—all that's required is the latest version of the iPhone app, or a browser that supports HTML5 and geolocation, and is pointed at http://touch.facebook.com. (We say "allegedly" because we can't seem to find the feature on the aforelinked site, nor is the latest iPhone app showing up for us yet.) From there, tap the "Check in" button, which will show a list of places that the app identifies as being near you based on the location data sent from your phone. If the place you're at doesn't show up on the list, you can add it or search for it manually.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
Probabilistic processors possibly pack potent punch
A DARPA-funded processor start-up has made bold claims about a new kind of processor that computes using probabilities, rather than the traditional ones and zeroes of conventional processors. Lyric Semiconductor, an MIT spin-off, claims that its probabilistic processors could speed up some kinds of computation by a factor of a thousand, allowing racks of servers to be replaced with small processing appliances.Calculations involving probabilities have a wide range of applications. Many spam filters, for example, work on the basis of probability; if an e-mail contains the word "Viagra" it's more likely to be spam than one which doesn't, and with enough of these likely-to-be-spam words, the filter can flag the mail as being spam with a high degree of confidence. Probabilities are represented as numbers between 0, impossible, and 1, certain. A fair coin toss has a probability of 0.5 of coming up heads.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
iOS still receives majority of independent mobile ads
With AdMob no longer releasing analytics data while it waits for the fallout from Apple's policies on collecting device data, and Quattro Wireless now under Apple's wing, Millennial Media is left as one of the largest independent ad networks still providing data on its mobile ad business.
The company's latest Mobile Mix report shows Apple devices still garnering a commanding share of ad requests, even as Android experiences explosive growth. And the mobile ad business is only getting bigger as smartphones and "connected devices" like the iPad continue to sell.
Like AdMob, Millennial breaks down its data based on the number of ad requests on its entire network. Nielsen says the company reaches approximately 80 percent of the US mobile audience, which gives us the largest data sample outside of Google or Apple.
According to Millennial's latest data, the iPhone still dominates ad requests, pulling in 55 percent of them in July. However, Android is growing with 19 percent of all mobile ad requests, enough to move it ahead of RIM (16 percent) for the number two spot. Windows Mobile, webOS, and other platforms continue to only account for a very small percentage of Millennial's ad traffic.
The mobile ad business in general is booming, judging by the growth in overall number of ad requests. Smartphones now account for half of all ad requests on Millennial's network. Android has experienced explosive growth to reflect its move up Millennial's rankings, with ad requests up a whopping 690 percent since the beginning of the year.
Android's gain in overall share has resulted in iPhone and BlackBerry share among smartphone platforms dropping slightly. Even so, both platforms experienced growth in the overall number of ad requests. Since January, total requests from iPhones have increased 15 percent, while requests from BlackBerrys grew 66 percent.
Connected devices—which include touch tablets like the iPad as well as handhelds like the iPod touch and Nintendo DSi—are also increasingly responsible for ad requests. All such connected devices account for 19 percent of ad requests (with the remainder going to feature phones). Data for the whole year isn't available, but Millennial said that the iPad experienced a 327 percent growth in ad requests just since June, not surprising for a device that has just launched and has sold in limited numbers. With several Android-based tablets expected to launch later this year, connected devices will be an important space to watch.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
Cell phone makers could cave on FM radios—if price is right
Could the consumer electronics manufacturers, the ones who crank out our cell phones, actually cut a deal on including a mandatory FM tuner in every device they produce? They certainly could—if the price is right (and legislation looks inevitable).Earlier this week, we reported on the compromise talks underway between the National Association of Broadcasters (radio) and musicFIRST (artists and labels). The two sides have been talking for almost a year, trying to work out some deal to free up the Performance Rights Act from its legislative logjam in Congress.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
Get, get, get down: 911 revenue's no joke in your town
If you take a close look at your mobile or landline phone monthly bill (which you should—right, Nate?), you'll note a list of "Government Fees and Taxes" somewhere on the statement. This should include a tithe typically labeled "9-1-1 emergency services," which presumably subsidizes just that—the agencies that answer the phone and connect to first responders when you call 911 for help. But does the money really go there? A new survey by the Federal Communications Commission indicates that in 2009 over a dozen states did not or may not have spent these funds on 911 or "E911" services, which zone in on caller locations.
For example:
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
34 new stem cell journals since 2004: is this a good thing?
Five years ago, it would take a lot of effort just to find a single scientific journal devoted to stem cells. Now, the authors of a survey of the field found 34 of them without even trying that hard; meanwhile, major results can find a home in less-specialized journals like Development, Nature, and Science. The authors consider two possible outcomes of this proliferation of journals, both of them potentially disturbing for the scientific community: either the new journals pay host to a lot of low-quality papers, or abuse of peer review is driving otherwise good work into obscure outlets.To a certain extent, a growth in stem-cell-focused journals is no surprise. The field produced a number of well-publicized results that made stem cells easier to work with, and their potential for use for medical therapies has excited both the public and biomedical community. Both of these things have contributed to a huge growth in the number of people studying stem cells, and a corresponding need for them to have a place to publish their results.
Read the comments on this post
Read More ...
No comments:
Post a Comment