Strange summer melt leaves Arctic ice near record low
At a rough level, the ice cap in the Arctic acts a bit like a metronome. During the sunless months of the winter, the ice grows, reaching a peak in early March. As the sun returns, it melts, bottoming out in early September. But a closer look shows that there are both long-term trends and short-term variations in the seasonal swings, and this year was no exception: after flirting with a return to historic averages, ice levels plunged to below the record low in the spring before flattening out. The end result was the third-lowest ice coverage since the satellite era began.
The best place to go for tracking Arctic ice is the National Snow and Ice Data Center, based at the University of Colorado. The Center constantly updates plots of the satellite data, and compares it to the average ice coverage from the period 1979 to 2000. Every month or so, it provides an overview of how things are progressing; the NSIDC's latest entry indicates that the melting has probably bottomed out for the year.
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Tokyo Game Show in trailers: Devil May Cry, Steel Battalion, Ni No Kuni
We may not be at the Tokyo Game Show this year, but thanks to the power of video we can still enjoy all of the new announcements. Day one of TGS has already seen a deluge of new information, including the announcements of brand-new games, sequels to big franchises, and the return of Steel Battalion. Oh, and a new look at The Last Guardian. Here's day one of TGS in trailer form.Read the comments on this post
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What's faster than rural Internet uploads? Carrier pigeons
Trefor Davies isn't disguising the fact that the carrier pigeons—named Rory and Tref—are anything more than a rank publicity stunt. Not only that, but it's a derivative publicity stunt, having already been run once in South Africa. But that's fine, because it nicely illustrates Davies' complaints about the state of rural broadband in the UK.The idea was simple enough: Rory and Tref would be tagged with RFID chips, fitted with microSD memory cards containing several hundred megabytes of video, then released from a Yorkshire farm. The pigeons would fly about 60 miles with the memory cards, while the farm's Internet connection would be used to upload the same video to YouTube. Would the pigeons carry their data back to their loft before the farmer could upload the clip?
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Internet proves too irresistible during weddings, church
The first step in fixing a problem is admitting that you have one, and we think much of the population has one. According to new survey results from security software firm PC Tools, many US adults are all too happy to log into the Internet during weddings, honeymoons, dinners, and more, but they'd much rather do just about anything else than take care of their own computer maintenance.PC Tools sells software to end users in order to help combat spyware, improve performance, set up firewalls, muck with the Windows registry, perform backups, and more. Though the survey was carried out by Harris Interactive, PC Tools' goal here is to push an agenda, and that is that people should be taking care of their machines (*cough* buy more software!). That said, Harris Interactive surveyed 1,012 adults in the US, controlling for age, sex, and region, in order to compile the results.
What the companies found was that 29 percent of Americans are OK with being "plugged in" while honeymooning (a descriptor that other news outlets seem to interpret as "all sex, all the time"), while six percent say it's OK during a wedding. Eight percent are cool with checking the Internet during a religious service—hey, gotta set those fantasy football lineups before the benediction—while 41 percent think it's acceptable while having dinner with family and friends.
PC Tools says that these are surprising statistics, given that more than three-quarters of those surveyed said they would rather do just about anything other than maintenance on their own PC. The list included going to the dentist, waiting at the DMV, sitting in traffic, getting a colonoscopy (Really? Twelve percent would rather do that than install a personal firewall?), changing a diaper, or doing laundry.
"While some of these results may seem amusing, they show that staying connected is a very serious issue to many, no matter what the circumstance," PC Tools VP of sales and marketing Stephanie Edwards said in a statement. "[W]e entrust our computers and the Internet with our most intimate details—even if we don’t have the time or inclination to worry about computer maintenance or safety."
These results reflect those seen in other surveys conducted by Retrevo and JWT. Retrevo's survey from earlier this year said that a quarter of users under 25 were OK with being interrupted during a meal by electronic messages, and 11 percent were fine with it during sex. JWT's results from 2007 said that 20 percent of users knowingly spent less time having sex as a result of Internet use, and 28 percent acknowledged spending less time with their friends thanks to gadgets.
Are you guilty of any of these behaviors? I am (does it count if it's someone else's wedding?), but I also already admit that I have a problem.
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Shadow of the Colossus HD release confirmed, new Last Guardian trailer
The Ico/SOTC HD collection has been rumored for quite some time—we even caught a glimpse of what the collection could look like—but now it's official. And it looks like Sony is doing more than just a simple HD facelift. It will also feature support for 3D and Trophies, the framerate will be locked at 30fps, and the game will include the European ending. It's expected to be released in spring 2011.
We also finally have some new details on Team Ico's third game, The Last Guardian. Though a firm release date has yet to be announced, Sony says that the game will be available to PS3 owners during the 2011 holiday season. The company also unveiled a much-anticipated new trailer, which shows off some of the gameplay. The game appears to be a cross between Team Ico's previous two efforts, with the cooperative elements of Ico and a giant creature that makes a much more cuddly colossi. It also appears to be much more lighthearted than the developer's previous games, though knowing Team Ico, The Last Guardian will most likely find a way to make you cry.
The Last Guardian
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Drilling for controversy: indie games tackle offshore oil drilling
The recent disaster off of the Gulf of Mexico has put the environmental issues related to offshore oil drilling at the forefront of the national consciousness, so it’s probably just about the worst time to release a video game centered around oil rigs. But a pair of games this year are doing just that. Ars spoke to the developers behind the recently released The Oil Blue and the upcoming OilRush to find out why they decided to tackle this issue in a game and whether the negative attention might actually be a good thing.Read the comments on this post
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Feature: Hunting virtual animals with plastic guns inside a giant truck
For a gaming writer, there is nothing better than having enthusiastic people introduce you to games you know next to nothing about. This is what I know about Cabela's library of hunting games: they make a lot of them, they feature all sorts of virtual animals to shoot, and they sell a ton of them every year. Back in my retail days, these games were hard to keep in stock, but I was in Kentucky, so that may have been partially geographical.We are a proud, hunting people, you see.
I recently got a call from a contact in the gaming business who told me that Cabela's and Activision were taking the latest hunting release on tour with a lavishly decorated bus, and said they'd swing it by my house if I'd like to take a look. I live in Ohio, so it's rare that I get to see games without first getting on a plane, and I've never actually played a hunting game outside of a bar. So I said yes, and gave them the address of a local shopping mall so as not to annoy my neighbors with a huge truck.
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Bing could get access to anonymized Facebook data
Microsoft and Facebook are in talks to further strengthen their search partnership, possibly resulting in Bing gaining access to anonymized data generated by Facebook users to better personalize its search results, according to anonymous sources cited by All Things Digital. Microsoft would be able to use the information from Facebook's Like buttons, which the social giant has managed to have plastered all over the Web. When a user likes a webpage, their Facebook friends are notified; if this deal goes through, Microsoft would also be able to know which webpages users are appreciating, and would be able to work that into Bing's algorithms (it could be particularly useful for Bing News), instead of just relying on spiders scouring the Internet. With Facebook's 500 million users, such a deal could give it quite a boost over Google, which presumably would be excluded from the data. The sources did point out an important hurdle though: because of Facebook's many privacy issues, the possible expansion of the search relationship would only be able to encompass information which users have already agreed to make public.
The deal works very well with Microsoft's strategy for social networking: partner rather than compete. "Nobody wants another Facebook," Dharmesh Mehta, Windows Live Director of Product Management, recently told Ars. Furthermore, Microsoft's strong relationship with Facebook is a thorn in Google's side, which benefits the two companies since they are both competing more and more with the search giant.
The Microsoft-Facebook partnership has been a roller coaster ride so far which has included a $240 million investment from Microsoft, Live Search powering Facebook, Microsoft winning and then losing ad platform exclusivity for the site, and finally Bing search result integration.Â
All Things Digital emphasizes there's no deal yet—the talks could fall apart. Both Microsoft and Facebook declined to comment on the report.
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Feature: Five years of iPod nano reviews: a retrospective
"Didn't you run over the first iPod nano?" an old friend who I haven't talked to in a decade asked during our recent high school reunion. "That was hilarious."
His statement echoed similar ones that I have heard from both distant friends and strangers consistently for the last five years. In 2005, Apple introduced the first iPod nano, a flash storage-based successor to the then-popular iPod mini. Everyone was curious about it—it was so thin and fragile looking! Could it withstand the punishing experience of everyday use? Could it really compare to the true iPod experience?
That's what we here at Ars set out to discover back then when we reviewed the original iPod nano. Since then, Apple has made annual revisions to the iconic device. Each year, there has been something new to talk about.
Our recent review of the sixth-generation iPod nano was published almost five years to the day from our original iPod nano review, so we thought we'd look back on five years of nanos to see how they have changed, for better or for worse.
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MeeGo a no-show at NokiaWorld, but CTO says it's "critically important"
One of the oddest things about the keynote presentations during the NokiaWorld conference was the conspicuous absence of commentary about MeeGo, the Linux-based mobile platform that is expected to eventually displace Symbian as the dominant operating system on Nokia's high-end products. During the major product announcements on the opening day of the conference, the only time that a Nokia executive mentioned MeeGo was to say that there would be no MeeGo-based products announced this week.Virtually all of the company's remarks about platform strategy related directly to Symbian. It's obvious that Symbian still has a major role to play in Nokia's business, but it's not entirely clear yet how Nokia is going to move forward with its MeeGo plan. Earlier this year, Nokia executives said that MeeGo is the future of the company's premium N-series products and that the recently-launched N8 would possibly be the last phone in that line to ship with Symbian. At the LinuxCon event in San Francisco last month, the company reiterated its commitment to MeeGo and confirmed that it will be delivering its first MeeGo device this year.
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BSA: reining in software piracy would add half a million new jobs
Want to boost the world's sagging economies? Here's one strategy: if governments reduced the piracy rate for computer software by 2.5 percent each year over the next four, it would stimulate most nations to the tune of $142 billion, add almost half a million new high tech jobs, and produce about $32 billion in new tax revenues by 2013.This assessment comes from the Business Software Alliance's new study: The Economic Benefits of Reducing Software Piracy, which tracks the phenomenon in 42 countries that represent almost the entire global market for software.
Four out of every ten programs installed on computers last year were stolen, BSA claims. Some of this came from companies buying software licenses for ten installations on a site, then using it for many more. The rest flowed from the purchase of outright bootleg fare over various web sites, or off line.
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Announcing the Ars/Wired/Reddit/Sprint Android App contest
If you're an Android App developer, then you're going to love today's news; and if you aren't, then you have until November 5 to get crackin'. The reason? Ars Technica, WIRED, and Reddit have linked together to form a giant, Japanese robot of awesome... ok, not really, but close. We're running an Android App contest for developers, in partnership with Sprint. The idea behind the Sprint 4G App Challenge is straightforward: submit your app in one of five categories, and it will be judged by me, along with some folks from WIRED, Reddit, and Sprint. Take a look at the prizes below:
- $50,000 grand prize
- an HTC EVO(TM) 4G with one-year of Sprint service (includes applicable taxes and surcharges)
- a one-year membership to the Sprint Professional Developer Program (including 250 hours in the Virtual Developer Lab)
- an invitation to WIRED's VIP party during the 2011 International CES in Las Vegas
The contest starts today, and you have until November 5 to make your submissions. The winners will be announced on December 16 at an event at the WIRED store in NYC, and Ars editor-in-chief Ken Fisher will be on-site to hand out the prizes.
We're looking forward to seeing what you guys come up with, so head over to the contest site and make your submissions.
Update: Due to legal matters, this contest is only open to US residents. We're sorry about that. Also note that if you enter, you retain any and all copyright on your work and your code. (I.e., "The copyright in any Submission shall remain the property of the entrant...") We will have an update later today with more on the legal language, for those concerned.
Update 2: Indeed, your code is yours and yours alone. We've confirmed this with legal. The rights involved only relate to submission materials (which does not include the app itself).
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Craigslist: adult services dead; good luck with other guys
Craigslist did not provide an explanation for its sudden decision to pull its "adult services" category during its testimony in front of the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday, but did emphasize that the section was permanently closed with no plans to reopen. Craigslist said that it will continue to work with law enforcement as much as it can, but said that without the strict oversight that existed in the adult services section, those working on behalf of exploited children may get even less help. Craigslist director of law enforcement relations William Clinton Powell, as well as Craigslist attorney Elizabeth McDougall, testified during a hearing on domestic minor sex trafficking. Powell listed out the numerous ways Craigslist has worked with state attorneys general, law enforcement, and child protection groups over the years to ensure that child trafficking on the site remains at a minimum.
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4GB Xbox 360 systems choke on Halo: Reach co-op
Raise your hand if you have the 4GB Xbox 360 without a hard drive! While Halo: Reach does not say the hard drive is required on the back of the box, it looks like you won't be able to access some of the multiplayer features without it. Here's what the official FAQ says:Q1: The error "One or more players do not have an Xbox 360 Hard Drive. An Xbox 360 Hard Drive is required to play co-op on Xbox LIVE or system link" occurs when I try to play. Why?This is a bummer, as apparently co-op mode—a large draw for Reach—requires the hard drive. Upgrading an existing system with a hard drive isn't an inexpensive option, either.
A1: One or more players do not have a certified Xbox 360 hard drive attached to their Xbox 360 console. Some multiplayer aspects of Halo: Reach require an Xbox 360 certified hard drive.
Our advice going forward? It's time to stop treating the 360 hard drive as an option, both from the point of view of Microsoft and gamers. According to Eurogamer Microsoft is working on a fix for the issue, and we'll be sure to let you know when the situation has been resolved.
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Test networks offer glimpses of "white space" future
One week from now, the FCC will vote on—and presumably approve—final rules for unlicensed "white spaces" broadband. The hope is that by opening the terrific spectrum in empty TV channels to entrepreneurs, the government can create another WiFi-style success story. But what will these first white spaces deployments look like? Operating under experimental FCC licenses, trial white spaces deployments around the US show us what's possible. If you're a WiFi user who has ever been frustrated by a flaky connection, get ready for good times.Read the comments on this post
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Google hopes to launch music service with downloads, streaming
Google's rumored music service could offer both digital track and album downloads as well as a "digital locker" streaming service, according to a new report from Billboard. Anonymous music industry sources told the trade magazine that Google has been circulating a document to record labels detailing the proposed service.According to Billboard's sources, the Google proposal outlines a service that would offer traditional downloads, Ã la iTunes, on a per-track or per-album basis. However, Google would also like to license music to allow users a $25 per year digital locker service which would give them online access to their music library via desktops or mobile devices. The service would scan a user's computer and automatically add any tracks in their library that Google has licensed to their online locker. The service seems to mimic the features of the new streaming service Rdio, though any tracks purchased via the download option would also have those tracks automatically added to the locker as well.
One linchpin of Google's plan is that it wants a license to allow users to listen to a full-length preview of any song once, after which they would be limited to 30-second previews. Additionally, users could create playlists to share with friends that would allow them to listen to each track in the playlist once before being limited to 30-second previews. The idea is that the sharing of favorite tracks among users could lead to increased sales, though labels have been reluctant to license longer reviews to Apple for its iTunes Store.
Industry sources say no deals have been made, and details about royalty rates and revenue splits are still unknown. It's expected that details of how the service works could change as negotiations may result in a limiting of features that Google hopes to offer. Licensing issues have been cited as the main reason that Apple has yet to capitalize on an iTunes streaming service built on technology acquired from Lala late last year.
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iOS 4.2 will give all iOS devices wireless printing in November
Apple announced on Wednesday that it has released the first iOS 4.2 beta to developers with its new AirPrint wireless printing framework, a feature first mentioned at Apple's iPod media event earlier in September. AirPrint will allow not just iPads, but also iPhones and iPod touches to print to compatible printers connected to a WiFi network when the iOS 4.2 update is released in November.AirPrint technology allows automatic discovery of printers on local WiFi networks, and eliminates the need for installing or configuring printer drivers. The downside is that manufacturers must enable their printers to work with the technology. When iOS 4.2 launches next month, only Hewlett-Packard ePrint-compatible printers will work with AirPrint. However, an Apple spokesperson told Ars that more printer makers will be adding support in the near future.
Apple said that AirPrint is designed to work with a variety of printer models, from entry-level inkjets up to workgroup laser printers. It can also access printers that are shared via a Mac or PC connected to the local network, so the printer itself doesn't need to be WiFi-enabled.
Wireless printing was seen as an important missing feature for the iPad in particular, especially for enterprise and educational use. Though it may take some time for a wider variety of printers to work with AirPrint, the technology should make iOS devices more useful in office settings.
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Liveblog: Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 beta event
SAN FRANCISCO — Ars is on-site here for a Microsoft press event that kicks off at 10:30am PDT (click here to see when the event happens in your time zone). You've had the chance to read our take on the Internet Explorer 9 beta, now see what Microsoft has to say about it as the company formally introduces it.
Bookmark this page or enter your e-mail address in the box below to get a notification when we start covering the event live.
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Google planning to ape Facebook for "Google Me" social network
Google plans to incorporate more social networking features across its services this fall according to comments made by CEO Eric Schmidt during the Google Zeitgeist conference on Tuesday. The initiative is internally referred to as "Google Me" inside the company, though according to Schmidt it won't be a separate service.Google has had mixed success with social networking in its past. In the early part of the last decade, it bought social networking site Orkut, but it failed to take off in most markets as rivals MySpace and Facebook gained the bulk of users. The company bought video sharing site YouTube a few years ago, and it remains one of the most popular online video sites. Its most recent overture—Google Buzz—mostly fizzled after the initial configuration caused an uproar over privacy concerns.
Critical to the success of Google's plans, said Schmidt during the conference, is accessing contact list data from rival Facebook. While Facebook offers APIs that allow other sites to share data with Facebook, that sharing isn't a two-way street. "The best thing that would happen is for Facebook to open up its data," he said. "Failing that, there are other ways to get that information."
Some of the planned features include alerting users when friends view their YouTube videos, accessing data from other sites like Twitter and Flickr, and playing social networking games such as FarmVille.
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Twitter.com redesign mirrors useful parts of iPad client
Social sharing-too-much service Twitter has unveiled a major site redesign that is modeled after its client for the iPad, but without the "WTF" factor. Instead of providing one centered column of Tweets on the website, with links for images, conversations, and tags appearing on new pages, there are now essentially two panes where users can view the main timeline and see related content at the same time.
The redesigned Twitter.com is not yet available to all users—it's rolling out as a "preview" over the next several weeks, Twitter says—but you'll know it when you see it. For one, the right hand column looks mysteriously and unnecessarily huge until you click on something to see why it's so wide. If you click on a tweet that replies to another user, you can view the whole back-and-forth conversation on the right-hand side without ever leaving your main timeline.
The same applies to tweets with hash tags, displaying other tweets with the same tag underneath the one you clicked. Additionally, the new site also displays photos, video, and other media content right there on the page instead of forcing you to open a new tab or leave the site (see the screenshot at the top of this post for an example).
For anyone who has used the Twitter client for iPad, you no doubt recognize all of this. The iPad client's unique way of displaying information has essentially been mirrored on the website, but (in our opinion) the behaviors are more predictable and make more sense to a typical user. In fact, we're happy to see that the best parts were taken and reused on the Web without (yet?) incorporating some of the more confusing elements of the touch interface.
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Feature: Inside Internet Explorer 9: Redmond gets back in the game
Microsoft today released the first beta of Internet Explorer 9. Coming after four developer-oriented preview releases, the new browser brings a streamlined user interface and a core that is more standards-compliant—and orders of magnitude faster—than any previous version of Internet Explorer.With Internet Explorer 9, Microsoft is imploring us to "unlock the beauty of the web," and indeed, IE9 is a fast and attractive Web browser. But it has its work cut out if it's going to return the Redmond browser to the unassailable leading position it once had.
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Skeptics discount science by casting doubts on scientist expertise
Most surveys of the US public indicate that scientists are popular, trusted figures. The same, however, cannot be said about some of their conclusions, as topics like climate change and evolution remain controversial with many segments of the population. A recent Pew survey gives an indication of why: even though the scientific community's opinion is largely unified on these topics, the public thinks that there is significant dispute among the researchers. A study published by the Journal of Risk Research attempts to explain why this might be the case.The people behind the new study start by asking a pretty obvious question: "Why do members of the public disagree—sharply and persistently—about facts on which expert scientists largely agree?" (Elsewhere, they refer to the "intense political contestation over empirical issues on which technical experts largely agree.") In this regard, the numbers from the Pew survey are pretty informative. Ninety-seven percent of the members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science accept the evidence for evolution, but at least 40 percent of the public thinks that major differences remain in scientific opinion on this topic. Clearly, the scientific community isn't succeeding in making the public aware of its opinion.
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