Windows Phone Marketplace bans the GPL, and the App Store should too
A blog post made Wednesday by Red Hat employee Jan Wildeboer argued that the terms and conditions that developers agree to before submitting software to Microsoft for inclusion in Xbox LIVE Arcade and Windows Phone 7 Marketplace prohibits the use of copyleft licenses like the GPL. Any license that mandates source code redistribution or a compulsory right to produce derivative works is banned.
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A step closer to Skynet? Pentagon wants fighting robots to talk to each other
Over at the Department of Defense, they've got lots of robots. Most of them aren't scary and glamorous like the lethal Drones you read about all the time. Perhaps the most useful land-based bot is the Tanglefoot, a short, roving critter that sneaks up on Improvised Explosive Devices, then graciously allows itself to be blown up for its trouble. Then there's the Autonomous Platform Demonstrator (APD) a nimble, 9.3-ton, unmanned ground vehicle that can turn on a dime and accelerate to a top speed of 50mph.But the next step for the Pentagon is getting these machines to autonomously talk to each other. And so the DoD is working on a Collaborative Unmanned Systems Technology Demonstrator (CUSTD) system, which was discussed at the latest Robotics Rodeo, held at Fort Benning, Georgia. The U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) hosted the event.
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Feature: How the atom bomb helped give birth to the Internet
Johnny Ryan's A History of the Internet and the Digital Future has just been released and is already drawing rave reviews. Ars Technica is proud to present three chapters from the book, condensed and adapted for our readers. This first installment is adapted from Chapter 1, "A Concept Born in the Shadow of the Nuke," and it looks at the role that the prospect of nuclear war played in the technical and policy decisions that gave rise to the Internet.Read the comments on this post
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Feature: Ten years on: why a complete human genome mattered
Open a recent edition of Science or Nature, and you're likely to be bombarded with articles about a significant anniversary: ten years have passed since the announced completion of the human genome.These articles tend to focus on how the genome is (or isn't) transforming medicine, science, or society. Sure, it sounds like a terrific milestone, but did it change anything about life in the lab?
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Forgotten lore: Ars reviews newest board game obsession, Crows
Crows is a brand new tile-based board game from Tyler Sigman, the man who brought the excellent PlayStation Network game Hoard to life. Sigman is never going to get rich designing games like these, but I'll be damned if he's not making our lives just a little bit more fun. That's definitely worth a tip of the hat.The concept behind Crows is simple, and the game is easy to learn. You must use your shiny object to draw the attention of the birds and get them to flock to you, and the more crows that end their turn on your square the higher your score. Each round has the players pick and play a tile, place their shiny object, use a special tile, and then the birds flock. It's deeper than it sounds on paper.
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Why I don't care very much about tablets anymore
I've realized recently that I'm just not very excited about tablets—anybody's tablets, no matter the OS or maker. I first realized I felt this way when I was only mildly disappointed (as opposed to heartbroken) to find myself too sick to attend the long-awaited (by me, anyway) webOS tablet unveiling. Since then, I've thought a lot about the roots of my tablet ennui, and I've narrowed it down to a few reasons. Read the comments on this post
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Weird Science is no hero
If you've done anything good, it might be best to keep it to yourself: Or, why it's probably a good idea to check yourself into rehab after doing something stupid. This study looked at situations where an individual had clearly done something wrong, and examined different strategies of handling the fallout. Those who took the "hero" route and emphasized past good deeds basically ended up screwed: "the hero strategy was at best ineffectual and at worst harmful." In contrast, portraying yourself as a victim of past hardship caused actually caused people to forget what it is you did wrong in the first place. We'll leave it to our readers to litter the comments with bone jokes: In women, estrogen levels have a significant impact on the health of the skeleton. In males, things appear to work in the opposite direction: a bone-specific hormone called osteocalcin signals to cells in the testes, causing them to increase their production of testosterone, and boosting the health of male germ cells. Previously, the hormone was simply thought to help promote the growth of bone.
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Feature: Black ops: how HBGary wrote backdoors for the government
On November 16, 2009, Greg Hoglund, a cofounder of computer security firm HBGary, sent an e-mail to two colleagues. The message came with an attachment, a Microsoft Word file called AL_QAEDA.doc, which had been further compressed and password protected for safety. Its contents were dangerous.Read the comments on this post
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Feature: Ask Ars: How should my organization approach the IPv6 transition?
Whenever Ars runs an article about the increasing global scarcity of IPv4 addresses or an IPv6-related topic, we inevitably hear from some readers that they would like to see Ars available over IPv6. We thought we’d explain why we haven’t made that move yet.Why should you care?
First though, we want to help your organization or business decide if it should be pursuing the goal of making your websites or applications available on IPv6. There are so many kinds of businesses and applications out there that it's hard to generalize, but the first question you should ask yourself is whether making this transition even makes sense right now.Read the comments on this post
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Week in gaming: video game Grammy, PlayStation Phone, MvC 3
Is Marvel vs. Capcom 3 too easy for new players? You can certainly do neat things by mashing buttons, but there is also depth to find if you're willing to learn the new systems and tactics. We had a full review of the game this week, so take a look. The new trailer for Alice proves the game still has a large following, and that's the good news for the week. The bad news is that almost no one in the comments had anything nice to say about the Xperia PLAY, Sony's so-called "PlayStation Phone." Physical controls on a phone are a very good thing, but pricing on the older PlayStation content is going to be key if that's going to be a selling point.
Also, take a look at the newest Dungeons and Dragons board game: we interviewed the game's designer. I ran an adventure last night, and have... thoughts.
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Week in Apple: iPhone symbols, how do they work!?
The top Apple news was all over the map this last week. Apple announced its new (controversial) subscription system for the iOS App Store, iPhone nano and MobileMe rumors ran rampant, Apple published a new supplier responsibility report (with bonus "involuntary labor"), and we spent time analyzing what the symbols on the back of the iPhone mean. Read on for the roundup:Ask Ars: What are those symbols on the back of the iPhone?: What are all those tramp stamps on the lower back of the iPhone and other gadgets? Ars gets waist deep in regulatory statutes to bring you the answer.
Verizon v. AT&T: dueling iPhone launches, and what Verizon did right: Verizon's iPhone launch was chill compared to the past chaos that rained upon AT&T's iPhone launches. Why such a stark difference? Ars takes a look at how the launches differed and why Verizon's customers seem so much happier days later.
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Week in tech: Anonymous speaks
Anonymous speaks: the inside story of the HBGary hack: After interviews with the hackers from Anonymous who invaded HBGary Federal last week, Ars brings you the inside story of how the attack went down—and what it means for the rest of us.Spy games: Inside the convoluted plot to bring down WikiLeaks: The CEO of security firm HBGary Federal had big plans for helping a US bank take down WikiLeaks and silence its supporters. "If they support the organization we will come after them," he wrote. And this was just the first of many questionable ideas.
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Week in science: buckyballs and antilasers
Measuring a kilogram by counting atoms: Project Avogadro seeks to change the definition of a kilogram from the weight of a hunk of metal that currently resides in France to a measurement based on fundamental constants (like every other unit of the SI system).The "unit effect" makes 31 days seem better than a month: Is it better to pay more to have something delivered in a month or 31 days? If you're like most people, you'd choose the latter without really knowing why.
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Navigating the US National Broadband Map
It's here. Commissioned by the Obama Administration's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (remember that?), the Department of Commerce rolled out its National Broadband Map right on deadline.The DoC announcement comes with the requisite bad news and we've-got-to-do-better commentary. The map indicates that up to 10 percent of Americans still don't have access to broadband speeds that support basic broadband uses like video and video conferencing, notes the DoC's National Telecommunications and Information Administration.
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iPhone may get cheaper, but not smaller
Recent rumors suggesting that Apple was planning to release a smaller, less expensive iPhone model—dubbed the "iPhone nano"—don't appear to be true, at least according to a new report. Apple is said to be exploring making a less-expensive iPhone model, but it won't be making a significantly smaller device to achieve that goal.Sources speaking to The New York Times said that Apple won't shrink the iPhone "anytime soon" in order to offer a less expensive model. One source in particular noted that simply shrinking the iPhone wouldn't necessarily make it less expensive. Historically, making a device with the same functionality significantly smaller often costs more (in the short term), not less, and the source suggested that little or no savings in manufacturing costs would be realized by building an "iPhone nano."
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