Slownet: most Americans get less than 4Mbps
A new broadband usage survey released by the Federal Communications Commission says that, as of June 30, 2010, 60 percent of high speed Internet connections in the United States were slower than 4Mbps—that's the download speed identified by the agency as the "minimum bandwidth generally required to accommodate today’s uses: high-quality voice, data, graphics, and video."In addition, growth in fixed (wireline) broadband connections "appears to have flattened" at one percent by that date. Fixed links grew to 82 million subscriptions, up from 81 the previous year.
On the other hand, wireless connections shot up by 27 percent, from 56 to 71 million.
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Duke Nukem Forever includes butt-slapping "Capture the Babe" Mode
The last time we were able to play Duke Nukem Forever—at a strip club no less—we weren't able to see the multiplayer, but we were told it would be an important part of the game's release. A few more details have been released via the latest issue of the Official Xbox Magazine, as reported by the Duke4 forum. Guess what? You'll be slapping women. Great.
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Feature: HTTPS is great: here's why everyone needs to use it (so we can too)
This past weekend we ran a piece from Wired that looked at the issues surrounding unencrypted HTTP traffic and wondered why all websites don't use HTTPS by default. The article puts forth an interesting premise—the wholesale encryption of all HTTP traffic—and lists a number of reasons why this hasn’t happened yet.The only problem is that many of these issues, mostly technical in nature, are red herrings and can be easily handled with cleverness by an engineering team focused on transmitting its entire application over an encrypted channel. The real issues begin to arise, however, when your application must include assets served by servers which also do not support SSL. We’re going to discuss some of the issues raised by the article, correct some of the more specious arguments, explain how an organization can work with the real constraints of HTTPS, and give some insight into what we consider to be the real barriers to wholesale HTTPS encryption of the Web.
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How Operation b107 decapitated the Rustock botnet
The Rustock botnet, responsible at its height for sending 30 billion spam e-mails a day, went silent last Wednesday. Its command and control servers, responsible for telling the millions of machines recruited into the network which spams to send, were taken offline. With the botnet now headless, the deluge of spam was halted.Security researchers tracking spam production immediately noticed the drop in spam volume. But what they didn't know was why the botnet went silent. Rustock's spam output had declined before, only to bounce back. Was this latest drop a temporary hiatus as the botnet's operators prepared to unleash a new torrent of spam, or was it something more?
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Apple sues Amazon over "App Store" trademark
Apple is suing Amazon.com for trademark infringement and unfair competition over its use of the term "App Store." The complaint, filed in US District Court for the Northern California District on Friday, asks that Amazon be ordered to stop using "Appstore" to refer to its Google Android Market alternative, set to launch Tuesday."Amazon has begun improperly using Apple’s App Store mark in connection with Amazon's mobile software developer program," Apple wrote in its complaint. Amazon hinted at its intentions to launch its own service to sell apps for the Android platform, and in January of this year told developers to begin submitting apps for what it calls the Amazon Appstore for Android.
Apple since asked Amazon to stop calling its store an "Appstore" three times, according to the lawsuit. "We've asked Amazon not to copy the App Store name because it will confuse and mislead customers," Apple spokesperson Kristin Huguet told Bloomberg News.
Apple filed for a trademark on the term App Store in 2008, and after an initial rejection and an appeal by Apple, it was approved in early 2010. Microsoft filed an objection in July 2010 on the grounds that the term was too generic, and later asked the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board to issue a summary judgment denying Apple's trademark application.
Apple fired back, noting that App Store is no more generic a term for a mobile app store than Windows is for a WIMP-based operating system. Microsoft then complained to the Appeal Board that Apple's response was set in too small a typeface, requesting the court force Apple to resubmit its response to Microsoft's objection. That dispute is still ongoing.
In the meantime, other companies have so far avoided Apple's legal ire by using variations on the App Store theme, including HP's webOS App Catalog, RIM's BlackBerry App World, Google's Android Market, and Microsoft's own Marketplace.
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The mouse, on a pedestal: Ars reviews the Whirl Mini Laser Mouse
The first time I saw the promotional materials for the Whirl Mini Notebook Laser Mouse before we had one in the office, I assumed it would be a gimmick where you control your computer's cursor by tilting your wrist. In reality, you use this product the same way you would any other mouse, and the raised design and tilting action of the base are only there to add comfort. This works well, but the product has a few shortcomings that temper our enthusiasm.Read the comments on this post
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BlackBerry PlayBook launching April 19, pre-orders start at $499 for 16GB
Research in Motion used a press release this morning to announce that the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet is officially available for pre-orders starting today, with a launch on April 19. The WiFi versions of the PlayBook will be priced at $499, $599, and $699 for 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB, respectively. The announcement is a joint production between RIM and Best Buy, the only retail outlet tapped to carry the tablet so far. The Wifi PlayBook will also be available in Canada on April 19 in Best Buy and Future Shop stores.
The PlayBook keeps pace with the recently announced iPad 2 in at least a couple of measures: its dual-core processor and support for 1080p video playback. The PlayBook has a 7" screen and a unique active bezel that allows a user to bring up sets of controls by swiping fingers from just off the screen. We found the tablet a little rough the last time we crossed paths, but we reserve judgement for the final product.
No dates or prices have been announced for the Sprint 4G version of the PlayBook, which we first learned about at CES in January. But if you're fed up with getting behind long lines at 4am at your local Apple Store, the PlayBook may soon let you strike a blow at all that is Steve Jobs.
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Feature: The Linux graphics stack from X to Wayland
In the early 1980s, MIT computer scientist Bob Scheifler set about laying down the principles for a new windowing system. He had decided to call it X, because it was an improvement on the W graphical system, which naturally resided on the V operating system. Little did Bob know at the time, but the X Window System that he and fellow researches would eventually create would go on to cause a revolution. It became the standard graphical interface of virtually all UNIX based operating systems, because it provided features and concepts far superior to its competition. It took only a few short years for the UNIX community to embrace the X windowing system en masse.In this article, we'll take a look at the development of the Linux graphics stack, from the initial X client/server system to the modern Wayland effort.
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Japan earthquake has implications for Moore's Law, too
This past Friday, as the market struggled to get its collective head around the potential supply chain disruptions resulting from the Japanese megaquake and nuclear crisis, Nomura Securities released a report detailing the status of various Japanese tech companies' facilities. Ars obtained a copy of the document, which gives a glimpse of some of the challenges involved in bringing the tech industry back online after this super-catastrophe. The industrial electronics/semiconductor sector was hit fairly hard by the quake, and we'll give a company-by-company summary below. But first, it's worth looking at the potential impact of the quake on two specific areas: digital cameras, and Intel's coming transition to even smaller transistors in its processors.
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Appeals court revives lawsuit challenging NSA surveillance of Americans
It’s easy to forget these days, but former President George W. Bush’s illegal warrantless surveillance program was never halted by Congress, nor by the Obama administration; it was merely legalized in a 2008 law called the FISA Amendments Act. That means the surveillance of Americans’ international phone calls and Internet use—complete with secret rooms in AT&T data centers around the country—is likely still ongoing.On Monday, a federal appeals court reinstated a key legal challenge to that surveillance: a lawsuit filed by the ACLU and others within hours of the FISA Amendments Act (PDF) being signed into law. The lawsuit attacks the constitutionality of the legislation, which allows the government to electronically eavesdrop on Americans without a probable-cause warrant, so long as one of the parties to the communication resides outside the US, and is suspected of a link to terrorism.
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Size matters: small groups fight harder, but lose anyway
While ants can be irritating to humans, they don't generally pose a huge danger to us. However, groups of ants are often extremely aggressive to one another, frequently fighting to the death. A new paper in Proceedings of the Royal Society B studies the how ants' fighting tactics change when facing opposing groups of different sizes.Red wood ants (Formica rufa) are very antagonistic, engaging in knock-down, drag-out brawls with other colonies. In the spring, the workers emerge from their burrows and often come across groups of workers from rival colonies. The groups will generally fight until one side is rendered helpless, and the group left standing wins the territory. But when the stakes are this high, what happens when the groups are unevenly matched?
By setting up battles with different numbers of ants on each side, the researchers found that ants in smaller groups fought much harder than those in larger groups did. When a small group of ants (five individuals) went up against larger groups (ten or more), ants in the smaller groups captured and attacked enemies at much higher rates than individuals on the opposing side did.
So, how does this happen? It seems that ants are capable of “numerical assessment,” and can somehow figure out whether they are in the smaller or the larger group. While scientists already know that animals such as lions, hyenas, primates, and birds have this ability, they aren’t yet sure how this cognitive skill works in any or all of these species.
However, despite their relative lack of enthusiasm, the larger groups still came out on top, exhibiting higher overall levels of aggression and lower numbers of fatalities. Despite fighting harder, the small groups couldn’t overcome their numerical disadvantage. While small groups may not be able to beat large ones, their higher individual levels of aggression can put a pretty big dent in their opponents’ fighting forces, and might be able to limit the overall success of these big groups.
Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 2010. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2011.0062 (About DOIs).
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Latest MacBook Pros suffering from GPU-related freezes
Numerous owners of the latest 15" and 17" MacBook Pro models have taken to Apple's support forums to report an issue that causes their systems to freeze, with one user going so far as to successfully reproduce the problem on every floor model at a local Apple Store. Apple hasn't officially acknowledged the issue, but the company is allegedly working on the problem, according to another customer. Although Apple has fingered drivers as the culprit, the problem appears to be related to running GPU-intensive tasks that lead to overheating.
In an Apple Discussions thread that began March 1, a user reported that the fans in his new 17" MacBook Pro kicked in and "suddenly I could use nothing but the cursor." Only a hard reboot could get the machine back to a useable state. "I wasn't doing anything unusual," user Rensoom noted, "but I had 7 apps open and was amid an auto-backup to TimeMachine."
Other users quickly began chiming in, noting new MacBook Pros would freeze often, especially when engaged in certain GPU-intensive apps like playing games or encoding video with iMovie or Handbrake. That discussion thread now has nearly 700 replies.
User ND381 narrowed down the problem to using discrete AMD Radeon GPUs—his tests repeatedly showed the issue would occur when CPU intensive operations coincided with running apps that cause Mac OS X's automatic graphics switching to move from Sandy Bridge's integrated Intel graphics to the discrete GPU. User Chullo then performed similar tests on all the 15" and 17" MacBook Pros on display at his local Apple Store. "[T]hey all failed—much to the surprise of the genius helping me," he wrote.
Apple appears to have flagged the issue in its internal support database, and it is said to be a "priority issue." While iFixit noted in its teardown of the 2011 15" MacBook Pro that "gobs" of poorly applied thermal paste on the CPUs and GPUs could cause problems down the road, Apple is convinced the issue is related to firmware or drivers instead. Engineering is reportedly working on a fix, and has suggested it could be fixed with a software update.
The freezing problem doesn't appear to affect MacBook Pros using only the Intel IGP, and for this reason the latest 13" MacBook Pros aren't suffering from the issue. However, users of the latest 13" MacBook Pros do report having issues with hotter CPUs and in some cases fans that operate at higher RPMs than older models. That issue could be at least partially related to the "absurd amounts" of thermal paste noted in iFixit's teardown. Users attempting to reapply it themselves have noted temp drops of about 5-10آ°C, though it doesn't appear to keep the fans from spinning at higher RPMs.
Update: Apple has released Mac OS X 10.6.7, and is targeting a specific version for 2011 MacBook Pros. The description says that the update addresses graphics stability, among other things. If you've been affected by freezes and the update clears up the issue for you, let us know in the comments.
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Internet explodes with snark, anger, despair over T-Mobile's sale
Reaction to the AT&T/T-Mobile Mega-Merger of Doom has been, at least among consumers, overwhelmingly negative. Fortunately, those depressed about the news can now cheer themselves up by reading Twitter, which currently features the funniest commentary.- Anil Dash: "On the plus side, it'll be fun to watch the government break up AT&T again in a few years. Keeps re-forming like the T1000 in Terminator 2."
- Matt Binder: "Nothing says 'we love our customers' like airing commercials about how AT&T blows & then selling the company to them. #tmobile"
- Mike Tito: "AT&T acquired T-Mobile? This is a monopoly of [the] dropped call market!! #att #tmobile"
Brett Arends, a columnist for MarketWatch, asked readers to write their Congresspeople, the FCC, and the Department of Justice.
"Tell them this takeover must not be allowed," he said. "No, not with conditions. Not with asset disposals. Not with commitments. It must never be allowed. Ever. No way, no how. The absolute bedrock of capitalism is competition. The whole essence of our free market system lies in consumer choice… Take away that choice and the consumer is powerless."
Tech journalists have also been eloquent in their opposition. GigaOm called the deal "bad for wireless innovation, which means bad news for consumers." It added: "T-Mobile has been pretty experimental and innovative: It has experimented with newer technologies such as UMA, built its own handsets and has generally been a more consumer-centric company. AT&T, on the other hand, has the innovation of a lead pencil and has the mentality more suited to a monopoly: a position it wants to regain."
Gizmodo also lamented the swallowing of T-Mobile. "They take chances on phones! Remember, they were the first carrier to introduce Android to the masses in the T-Mobile G1. (AT&T was the last). They have cheap plans! Their Fav 5 plan was a huge selling point that spurred other carriers to buck up and offer better deals. Their UMA Wi-Fi calling was awesome. They had really good customer service! No seriously, talking to T-Mobile service reps was not a disgusting experience in humanity like the other big carriers. All that's going to be gone."
As for AT&T's claim that adding T-Mobile cell towers will substantially increase its network coverage, Gizmodo's snark was in full effect: "Which is to say, pinch yourself if you've heard this before, AT&T might really improve their sh--crap service in New York and San Francisco and other areas. That's about the only upside we to see this deal."
The usual DC tech policy groups blasted the buyout, but so did Penn State law and telecoms professor Rob Frieden. "I predict that months from now the FCC will find a way to frame this merger as something really great for consumers," he wrote. "Bogus!"
What says the Ars hivemind—will anyone stand up for the deal, or is it rotten to the core?
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Woman spends $10K on fake boyfriend: Cyberbullying or 419 scam?
Imagine being part of a typical Internet community and striking it up with another member over your favorite TV show, Deadwood. Things become more serious after a few friendly chats, and next thing you know, you have an Internet boyfriend who you're planning to move in with sometime in the future. Then the boyfriend dies of liver cancer—but not before you sent him and his circle of friends and family $10,000 worth of gifts. Then you discover the whole thing was a sham, and your former Internet boyfriend was actually someone else you knew from ye olde Deadwood forums.This narrative played out for California resident Paula Bonhomme, who is suing the person behind the fake boyfriend for fraudulent misrepresentation. The case had bounced around the courts since 2007, with the trial court ultimately dismissing her most recent amended complaint. But Bonhomme's lawyer was able show an appeals court that the fake boyfriend had the intent of tricking her, and that real damage was caused by the series of lies. As a result, the case is headed back for another trial.
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Analysis: higher prices, fewer choices if AT&T swallows T-Mobile
In a slide deck (PDF) released this morning as part of a conference call for analysts and journalists, AT&T defended its $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile USA by stressing five "opportunities" the deal will provide. Number one is boilerplate: "Further improve the customer experience." So is number five: "Seize new opportunities."But it's the middle three "opportunities" that give us pause. Number two is "grow ARPU," or average revenue per user. Number three is "reduce churn." And number four is "expand margins." They could be recast as "you'll pay us more money each month, you won't leave, and we'll make more profit on each dollar you pay."
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