Ivy the Kiwi on the Wii, DS is a wonderful, addictive surprise
Ivy the Kiwi was created by Yuji Naka, the co-creator of Sonic the Hedgehog. Sonic is a character that continues to enjoy a strong following, and the series gives any follow-up work a huge shadow to live under. Don't worry, this game is up to the challenge.
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We're trudging down the long road to universal 4Mbps broadband
Judging by the Federal Communications Commission's latest survey, we're still pretty far away from the FCC's National Broadband Plan goal of 4Mbps Internet download speeds for everyone. The agency's newest statistics indicate that out of 71 million wireline household connections, less than half (44 percent) matched or exceeded that benchmark, with its upload goal of 1Mbps. Meanwhile, the number of consumers with full mobile wireless Internet accounts shot up by 40 percent from January through June of 2009, to 35 million subscribers. Twenty-five million had such access at the end of 2008.
But among those 35 million wireless connections, only 45 percent met the Department of Commerce and Agriculture's $7.2 billion broadband stimulus program's definition of "broadband"—advertised speeds of 768Kbps downloads and 200Kbps uploads.
Of the 113 million Internet connections out there all told (residential and business), 87 million or 76 percent reached that level. If you look just at fixed-location connections, 91 percent met that goal.
There were a few bright spots in the statistical picture. There are now four million fiber connections—a 23 percent jump, and the largest increase among fixed-location broadband services.
But cable modem connections only grew by three percent to 41 million and DSL by a mere one percent to 31 million (not that DSL is much of a measure of progress any more).
All-in-all, this latest survey offers the portrait of a nation whose consumers access the 'Net at relatively slow throughput rates. Keep in mind that another benchmark of the National Broadband Plan is 100Mbps to 100 million homes by 2020. We're a long way from that goal.
The data comes from information submitted to the FCC every six months by all ISPs.
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The virtual play-by-play: talking StarCraft 2 with Mike Husky
StarCraft 2 has been doing some serious business: Blizzard has recently announced that the game has sold 3 million copies in the first month of availability. Mike Husky is certainly doing his part to keep the game popular; his YouTube channel has just under 200,000 subscribers, and his videos have over 64 million lifetime views.The demand is there for high-quality commentary on StarCraft 2 matches, and Husky wants to help fill it. "It is my goal to support and promote StarCraft as much as possible," he told Ars, and his success shows the promise of "on-air" personalities in competitive gaming.
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Chrome reaches second birthday, version 6 goes stable
When Google launched its Chrome Web browser in 2008, it was clear that the product had considerable potential. Its emphasis on performance and its intriguing minimalistic user interface attracted a lot of well-deserved attention. Today, exactly two years later, Chrome has over 80 million users, a 7.52 percent global market share (21.87 at Ars, making it the second most popular browser here behind Firefox), and is gradually creeping into the mainstream.It wasn't entirely clear at first if the browser would have real staying power or if it would be cast aside unfinished like so many of Google's other ambitious *cough*Wave*cough* experiments. But Google's commitment hasn't waned, and it's increasingly evident that the browser is an important part of Google's platform strategy and long-term aspirations for the future of the Web. To mark Chrome's second anniversary, Google has announced the official release of Chrome 6, a new major stable version of the browser.
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New malware detects browser, shows fake malware warning page
Microsoft is warning about a new piece of malware, Rogue:MSIL/Zeven, that auto-detects a user's browser and then imitates the relevant malware warning pages from Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Chrome. The fake warning pages are very similar to the real thing; you have to look closely to realize they aren't the real thing. The ploy is a basic social engineering scheme, but in this case the malware authors are relying on the user's trust in their browser, a tactic that hasn't been seen before.
Beyond the warning pages, the actual malware looks like the real deal: it allows you to scan files, tells you when you're behind on your updates, and enables you to change your security and privacy settings. Performing a scan results in the product finding malicious files, but of course it cannot delete them unless you update, which requires paying for the full version. Attempting to buy the product will open an HTML window that provides a useless "Safe Browsing Mode" with high-strength encryption. To top it all off, the rogue antivirus webpage looks awfully similar to the Microsoft Security Essentials webpage; even the awards received by MSE and a link to the Microsoft Malware Protection Center have been copied.
While the malware is a pretty good attempt, it's not perfect. The goal is to get the user to download and install something, shelling out some cash in the process, which neither of the three browser vendors would ever recommend. The Firefox warning page, meanwhile, has an obvious typo ("Get me our of here"). In addition, it's suspicious that a webpage is going out of its way to tell you it is protecting your purchase. It's also not hard to check that the supposedly detected files do not actually exist on the user's computer. All of these missteps should raise red flags immediately; having said that, we've still not before seen this level of detail and effort from the bad guys.
Malware progress
Just two years ago, a fake malware warning page and a fake antivirus looked like this:
Now, we've got a much more believable malware warning that changes based on which of the top three browsers you are using (compare Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome):
We have a full-blown webpage that tries to sell a fake antimalware product and rips off Microsoft's own offering:
Finally, here's the fake antimalware product which uses various Microsoft security icons:
Malware authors have come a long way recently and this latest effort is worrying because even informed users can easily be tricked by something like this. Thankfully, there's a universal rule that still applies: don't download something simply because a webpage says you should.
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Drumroll, please: the top Web scams of the decade
"Men," said he, "must have corrupted nature a little, for they were not born wolves, and they have become wolves." —Voltaire, Candide
One of the less pleasant aspects of our online Age of Anxiety is that most of us now get anonymous e-mails on a daily basis from people who, given their druthers, would rob us silly as fast as technologically possible. Of late, I've been getting a frenzy of bogus missives thanking me for the five thousand dollars or so worth of software, gadgets, self-help books, and lingerie I supposedly purchased on a famous online shopping service over the last five minutes.
Of course, if this message was a mistake, I'm helpfully directed to an online form, where, upon disclosing my credit card data, someone will presumably clean my financial clock in nanoseconds.
What fun. Good to know that there are so many people out there who care. But better to know what the most common scams look like. Here is security vendor Panda's new list of the biggest Web scams of the decade.
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Hands-on: Twitter officially comes to the iPad
When we interviewed Tweetie developer Loren Brichter in June, he made two things clear: 1) Tweetie (now branded simply as "Twitter" after the company was acquired by the microblogging service) would definitely be coming to the iPad, and 2) Loren was really looking forward to exploring the larger screen touch interface. Now, the official Twitter client for iPad is finally out in the form of a universal app. The team has clearly put some effort into utilizing parts of the multitouch experience in ways that third-party Twitter apps have not, and the app is certainly feature-rich. However, the interface can be confusing at times, and many of the features are not easily discoverable without some help.
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White space broadband to be finalized (at last) this month
"White spaces" broadband has been in hibernation—the rules governing unlicensed use in empty TV channels have never been finalized, and therefore no devices have yet appeared. This despite the fact that the idea was approved under previous FCC Chairman Kevin Martin in 2008.That's about to change at last. At its next open meeting on September 23, the FCC will vote on the "TV White Spaces Second Memorandum Opinion and Order" that will "create opportunities for investment and innovation in advanced WiFi technologies and a variety of broadband services by finalizing provisions for unlicensed wireless devices to operate in unused parts of TV spectrum."
The tech is ready to go; trial deployments have already been rolled out successfully. But lingering issues, including the question of who would administer an Internet-connected geolocation database that would help prevent interference, have kept the rules from becoming final.
We're looking forward to see what designers and engineers come up with once the tech is open to widespread deployment.
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Apple's trouble with TV
Apple TV has been a persistent loser from a company that usually only tolerates winners. It's clear that Apple wants to do something "in the living room," but damned if it can figure out exactly what that is. Yesterday, Apple took another run at this thing, announcing an "all-new" Apple TV.As with any new electronic gadget, I must be of two minds about the new Apple TV. The first, most difficult question is, will the new Apple TV be a successful product for Apple? The second question is easier: is this a product I want to buy for myself?
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Hands-on with iTunes Ping, sans Facebook Connect
Because we all need another social network in our lives, Apple introduced "Ping" as part of iTunes 10 during its big media event this week. Described by Steve Jobs as "Twitter and Facebook meet iTunes," Ping aims to let the already-existing (and quite massive) audience of iTunes users friend each other, stay up-to-date on their friends' musical tastes, and like/comment on things found around iTunes.Getting started with Ping is fairly easy, although it takes some time to figure out how to do all the things you would want to do with the service. Ping requires iTunes 10 and is not turned on by default—it looks as if Apple is trying to head off complaints about privacy by making users turn it on themselves. Once you install iTunes 10, you can click on "Ping" in the everything-is-now-gray left-hand sidebar to get started.
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