Spotting social networks before they disintegrate
Although the term "social network" has been applied to services like Facebook, real social networks, as defined by common interests or shared experiences, exist within subsets of the service's users. For example, I've now got a tenuous connection with tens of thousands of users who have also chosen to like Ars Technica. For most of those people, however, that's as far as our association will ever go. There are small communities of those users where the connections are more significant—like among the rest of the Ars staff.
The latest issue of PNAS has two papers in it that provide a glimpse into the dynamics of these smaller communities that form within a larger social network. One focuses on our ability to identify communities within the larger population graph based purely on the number of connections they share. The second demonstrates that if there's a tendency for people to avoid people they don't have enough in common with, these communities will inevitably fragment.
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MobileMe, iWork deals disappear, suggesting updates are imminent
Apple has long offered a $30 discount on both MobileMe and iWork to new Mac buyers. But according to a memo sent to resellers, both promotions were discontinued effective Monday night, which is a likely signal that updates to both the MobileMe service and Apple's iWork software suite are imminent.
MobileMe has been rumored to be slated for a major upgrade as far back as mid-February, when the Wall Street Journal reported that "Apple is considering making MobileMe a free service that would serve as a 'locker' for personal memorabilia such as photos, music and videos, eliminating the need for devices to carry a lot of memory." Since then, rumors have suggested wide-ranging changes, including new social media services, cloud storage services, and streaming audio or video which may or may not be linked to iTunes. The new service is expected to be cheaper than the old $99 per year price—perhaps even free—to better compete with Google's cloud services which are heavily used by Android.
Other factors add fuel to the fire that a MobileMe update is coming soon. First, Apple removed MobileMe from its online store and ceased shipments of retail MobileMe boxes in late February. The company has since continued to offer free 60-day trials too, suggesting the update could be timed for the end of April. Furthermore, Apple said during its annual shareholder meeting that its $1 billion data center in North Carolina would finally come online this spring. Combined with the cancelled discounts, a launch appears imminent.
Apple has also discontinued the $30 discount for its iWork suite of productivity software, which includes Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. The individual apps have been available via the Mac App Store since day one for $20 each, itself representing a $20 discount off the $79 suggested retail price. However, iWork hasn't been updated on Mac OS X since early 2009. In the interim, Apple has launched iOS versions for the iPad, and slightly updated its iWork.com "collaboration" service, which after over two years is still in beta.
Best Buy in Mexico kicked off rumors of an update earlier this year when it briefly showed an iWork '11 update scheduled for February 19 on its website. That date came and went, but with the synchronized discontinuation of the $30 discount promotion, Apple may be readying an update around the same time as MobileMe—perhaps with updated iWork.com cloud services—or in time for WWDC in early June.
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Portal 2: Ars shares the correct way to do science
Portal 2 is out right now. That means you can go to the store and buy a copy. You can unlock your copy on Steam. This is not a joke—the game is out, right now! When you get home from work you can hug your kids, grab a nice beverage, and then go do some science. You monster.
Our copy came a little later than we had hoped, but I've been pouring hours into the single-player game and I have some advice for how to do things once you finally have the game in your hand and begin to play. Don't worry, this will only hurt one of both of us.
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Hive mind can now contribute to Google Maps in the US
Have you ever been looking for something on Google Maps, only to find your favorite restaurant mislabeled, or an excellent hole-in-the-wall bookstore completely missing? Google users in other parts of the world have been using a tool called Google Map Maker in order to add roads, schools, businesses, and more to Google's mapping database, and now US users are being allowed in on the fun.
According to a post on the official Google Blog, users in the US can not only add descriptions to businesses or fix errors, they can also add bike lanes or entire buildings. Google then reviews each contribution for accuracy, and if they are approved, they will appear in Google Maps "within minutes." (Google allows other users to review edits as well, helping to expedite the process. In a way, it's a bit like a wiki version of Google Maps.)
That's just the basic feature set that has been available to more than 180 other countries for some time. Google also announced that it's adding some new features to the Map Maker, including the ability to use Street View within Map Maker so you can be as accurate as possible with your edits. You can also use satellite view, which is especially helpful for adding accurate roads or pathways.
In my short time playing with Google Map Maker here in Chicago, I already managed to approve someone's edits regarding a club that has been closed, change a friend's address from a restaurant to an apartment building, and map out a few bike paths. Map Maker did toss me a few errors when I was navigating around, though—they went away after refresh—so it seems that Google might still be catching up to the influx of new users.
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Ask Ars: Finally upgrading to Windows 7—should I go 32- or 64-bit?
Ask Ars was one of the first features of the newly born Ars Technica back in 1998. And now, as then, it's all about your questions and our community's answers. Each week, we'll dig into our bag of questions, answer a few based on our own know-how, and then we'll turn to the community for your take. To submit your own question, see our helpful tips page.
Question: I'm finally ready to drop Windows XP and move to Windows 7. Should I go with the 32-bit or 64-bit version of the operating system?
Short answer: 64-bit.
Long answer: 64-bit, but you may not see much real difference. Before explaining why, there is an important contraindication to be aware of: if you use any 16-bit Windows applications or DOS applications, you'll have to either stick with 32-bit Windows, or run those applications in a virtual machine (or, for DOS programs, an environment such as DOSBox). 64-bit Windows supports 64-bit and 32-bit applications, but 16-bit ones are consigned to the trash can of history.
In practice, the only advantage of using 64-bit Windows is that you can install more physical memory. 32-bit versions of desktop Windows are limited to 4GiB of physical memory, and thanks to dubious compatibility restrictions, they can't even offer that much. Every byte of memory in a system has a physical address, a number representing that byte of memory, and on 32-bit desktop Windows, those addresses are only 32 bits long (or rather, the addresses are between 36 and 64 bits long depending on which bit of software is manipulating them, but only 32 bits are actually used by Windows). This should allow 232 addresses, and hence 232 bytes—4GiB—of memory.
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Army surveillance bot approved for use by police, firemen
You can send it into buildings where hostages are being held, then move it from room to room as it transmits video via its miniature camera. Sleek and unobtrusive, the gadget can slip under furniture and roll down stairs. Only eight inches long and 1.2 pounds, it can be tossed through windows or onto burning roofs without sustaining damage.
Used in Iraq and Afghanistan for several years now, the Recon Scout Throwbot could be of great use to domestic police and fire departments, but there's one thing the little machine can't do—apply for a spectrum use waiver from the Federal Communications Commission. Without that waiver, the bot can't transmit its live video feed.
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For paranoid Androids, Guardian Project offers smartphone security
The Guardian Project is an open source initiative which aims to take advantage of Google's Android operating system to bring smartphones the same sort of security and privacy that savvy users have come to expect from laptops and desktops. Featuring capabilities like full-disk encryption, secure instant messaging, and anonymous Web browsing, the project hopes to give people better control of their personal information on mobile devices.
For years, security professionals and researchers have been advising users to encrypt everything. Data storage, communications, removable media—keep everything locked down. (As recently as two months ago, California's Supreme Court ruled that police officers can lawfully search the phones of persons they arrest.) However, this sort of security has long been unavailable for mobile devices.
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Microsoft urges SCOTUS to make patents easier to kill
The Supreme Court on Monday heard oral arguments in the massive patent dispute between Microsoft and Canadian software company i4i. According to i4i, XML-related features of Microsoft Word infringe one of its patents. Microsoft is on the hook for more than $200 million in damages if the Supreme Court does not see things Redmond's way.
The argument focused on the standard of evidence for invalidating patents. Right now, a defendant seeking to invalidate a patent faces a high burden of proof. Microsoft argues that the bar should be lower. The decision will hardly transform the patent system, but a ruling for Microsoft would add another notch to the Supreme Court's patent-reform belt.
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Feature: Despite all my rage I am still just Johnny Cage: Ars reviews Mortal Kombat
Playing the past few Mortal Kombat games was like watching an ex-girlfriend get into a series of bad relationships—there's really nothing you can do to improve the situation, but you remember what it was like when you were together in better times. But for this installment of the popular fighting game series, there is no number at the end of this game; it is just called Mortal Kombat. This is a reboot, a return to form, and a chance for these characters to get back some of the dignity they may have lost in the past.
I can sense your skepticism from here, and it's well earned. This is a game that was first introduced to me at a meeting that I took mostly as a courtesy, but the more I dug in, the more I fell in love with what had been done with the game. Those of us in the press walked out of that room as if we had a secret, and over drinks everyone shared their enthusiasm as if it were shameful. Did a Mortal Kombat game really grab everyone's imagination at this year's Game Developers Conference? Hell yes it did.
Here's what the game does right.
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Judge: was WiFi packet sniffing by Google Street View spying?
The question of whether Google is liable for damages for secretly intercepting data on open WiFi routers across the United States is boiling down to the definition of a “radio communication.”
That appears to be the legal theory embraced by the Silicon Valley federal judge presiding over nearly a dozen combined lawsuits seeking damages from Google for eavesdropping on open WiFi networks via its Street View mapping cars. The cars had been equipped with WiFi-sniffing hardware to record the names and MAC addresses of routers to improve Google location-specific services.
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Streaming growing, but consumers still love DVDs
Online and digital video options continue to grow in popularity, but people still love their "old fashioned" physical discs. According to new data from market research firm NPD Group, the overwhelming majority of video consumers still watch and spend money on DVD or Blu-ray "more than all digital-video options combined," even though they are constantly faced with newer and more feature-rich alternatives.
NPD surveyed 9,636 US consumers over the age of 13 on their personal video usage trends between January and March of this year. Seventy-seven percent reported that they watched a movie on DVD or Blu-ray over that period of time, with an average of about four viewing hours per week. Comparatively, only 49 percent reported seeing a movie in a theater during that time, and only 21 percent said they used some kind of video-on-demand service through their TVs.
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Bad TouchWiz? Apple sues Samsung for patent violations
Apple is continuing its crusade against competitors that it believes are ripping off its ideas. The company filed a lawsuit against Samsung on Monday, alleging that the electronics giant violated Apple's intellectual property in its Android-powered devices like the Galaxy Tab, Nexus S, and Epic 4G.
"Rather than innovate and develop its own technology and a unique Samsung style for its smart phone products and computer tablets, Samsung chose to copy Apple's technology, user interface and innovative style in these infringing products," reads the complaint seen by the Wall Street Journal. (The lawsuit doesn't yet appear to be in PACER, and Apple did not respond to our request for a copy of the complaint.)
The Journal's writeup is short on details, but we believe Apple's complaint is referring to Samsung's "TouchWiz" user interface, which (among other things) lays out the device's apps in a grid of icons. The app drawer is particularly Apple-like, and a brief discussion about TouchWiz among the Ars staff left us in agreement that TouchWiz is toeing the line in its mimicking of iOS.
Apple's language when describing Samsung's alleged follies is reminiscent of the language used when Apple sued Nokia for patent infringement. In December of 2009, Apple said that Nokia had "demonstrated its willingness to copy Apple's iPhone ideas" when creating its own devices. More recently, Apple went after Amazon for using the term "App Store," arguing that Amazon is riding on the tails of Apple's success.
There's no doubt that Apple is applying the same logic to Samsung's own UI choices. The iPhone (and increasingly the iPad) are Apple's headline products now, and the company has shown a continued willingness to sue competitors who use what it considers to be its own innovations.
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Office 365 enters public beta
Office 365, the rebranded, expanded successor to Microsoft's Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), today entered public beta. On top of the cloud-served Exchange Server, SharePoint Server, and Lync Server (formerly Office Communications Online) found in BPOS, Office 365 adds licensing for Office itself, both through Office Web Apps and the full desktop Office 2010 suite.
The service will eventually offer a range of pricing options, each with different levels of functionality; for the beta, services equivalent to two of the pricing tiers, one aimed at professionals and small businesses, the other aimed at enterprises, will be on offer. The small business offering is equivalent to the lowest pricing tier, "Plan P1," which will start at $6 per user per month. This offers e-mail and calendaring, SharePoint collaboration, Lync messaging, and access to the Office Web Apps—notably excluding access to desktop Office 2010.
The enterprise offering is equivalent to what will be the "Plan E3" pricing tier, at $24 per user per month. On top of the features of P1, this includes local licensing rights for the various server applications, Active Directory integration, unlimited e-mail storage, voicemail hosting, 24/7 phone support, and the full Office 2010 Professional Plus suite.
The full range of Office 365 pricing hasn't been announced yet; though enterprise-oriented plans will range from $10 to $27 per user per month, only the bottom P1 plan for small businesses is public at this time. In addition to these price tiers, there will be schemes for kiosk workers—those who do not have their own dedicated computers—starting at $4 per month per user for "Plan K1," which gives access Exchange and SharePoint, and an as-yet unpriced "Plan K2," which adds the Office Web Apps to the K1 scheme. There will also be a plan or plans for educational institutions, though pricing for this has not been announced.
The beta is currently available in 38 countries and 17 languages. Though the beta is open, and all applicants will be accepted, the registration site notes that applicants will have to wait an average of two to four weeks before their account is actually created.
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Righthaven reeling: secret doc could doom a copyright troll
If a company's entire business model is predicated on bringing copyright infringement lawsuits, you might expect that company to make sure it actually has the right to sue first. But a newly unsealed court document casts some doubt on Righthaven's rights; defense attorneys are already using the new document to say that Righthaven cases are a "sham" and are "invalid."
And Righthaven's moves to keep this document secret have angered the judge in the case, who ripped into Righthaven in spectacular fashion last Thursday as he unsealed the document.
"The use of phrases, in the Motion to Strike, such as 'underhanded,' 'a ruse,' 'blatantly ignored,' 'brazen attempt,' 'fumbling attempt,' 'purposefully muddle,' and 'complaint reeks of hypocrisy,' is a very unprofessional attempt to attack counsel rather than address the issues," wrote the judge. "There is an old adage in the law that, if the facts are on your side, you pound on the facts. If the law is on your side, you pound on the law. If neither the facts nor the law is on your side, you pound on the table. It appears there is a lot of table pounding going on here."
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Automated game ratings: how a form will affect the games you download
Rating a video game is a time-intensive, expensive process. People need to watch the content in question, assess context, take into account the realism of a game, and then use all the data at their disposal to assign the game a rating that will determine who will be able to buy the game at retail. The problem is one of scale: more games are being released via various online stores, and keeping up with that onslaught is a tricky problem.
The Entertainment Software Ratings Board thinks it has a solution, and it's a bold step forward for game ratings: what if there was a form that developers and publishers themselves could fill out that allowed a rating to be assigned in a timely and accurate way? "Starting today, publishers of these downloadable games will complete a different submission form than is used for all other games," the ESRB announced. "The new form contains a series of multiple choice questions designed to assess content across all relevant categories, such as violence, sexual content, and language, among others." I've spent a few minutes playing with this form, filling out the questions about a fictional game, and to my surprise it allowed for a certain amount of subtlety. Welcome to the future of automated game ratings.
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Apple shipping newer, faster SSDs in latest MacBook Airs
Apple launched revised MacBook Air models in the fall of 2010 by going SSD-only with speedy, but custom, small outline SSD modules made by Toshiba. However, some users are now reporting that the most recent MacBook Airs are using what appears to be a Samsung-made module, which is capable of 20-25 percent faster read and write speeds.
According to testing by AnandTech, an SSD that carries the model name SM128C turned in a read speed of 261.1 MBps and a write speed of 209.6 MBps. Those speeds are 24 percent and 19 percent faster, respectively, compared to the Toshiba-made SSDs (model TS128C) that originally shipped in the MacBook Air.
While the manufacturer hasn't been confirmed yet—Apple has not responded to our request for comment—AnandTech believes the "SM" in the model name refers to Samsung. The site noted that the tested speed ratings are comparable to other SSD drives built by Samsung.
We felt that the 11" MacBook Air was very responsive with its equipped SSD module in our review last fall, but a little extra performance never hurts. For now, though, there is no way to guarantee which SSD module you'll get when buying a MacBook Air, and neither Samsung nor Toshiba appear to be offering their modules to consumers. Well-known Mac upgrade source Other World Computing offers the only known replacement SSD modules for the MacBook Air, which are rated at similar performance levels as the purported Samsung modules. Our full review of that upgrade option is coming soon.
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Who's buying? Evidence mounts that white iPhone launch is near
April 26 will be "white iPhone day," at least if the latest batch of rumors are to be believed. Evidence is mounting that the device will launch soon, and Apple keeps promising that the device is on track for this spring.
The date comes from a "reliable source" speaking to iPhoneItalia, with no further details included. By itself, it's not particularly compelling. When combined with a Bloomberg report from last week saying that the white iPhone will be available by the end of April, however, April 26 doesn't look too far fetched. Adding fuel to the fire is the fact that the white iPhone has apparently shown up in Verizon's inventory system, as posted by 9to5Mac.
Apple continues to promise that the device is coming this "spring," but hasn't committed to a specific date. When we polled Ars readers about the white iPhone in January, 10 percent said they would definitely buy if it came out soon. (Others said they never wanted one in the first place, gave up and bought the black one, or are now waiting for the iPhone 5.) Are you still one of those people holding out hope?
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Pirate Bay becomes "Research Bay" to aid P2P researchers
The Cybernorms group at Sweden's Lund University has partnered with The Pirate Bay to "help researchers to better understand habits and norms within the file-sharing community"—and the site has temporarily rechristened itself "The Research Bay" in response.
Cybernorms started in 2009 at Lund as a research project from a PhD student in the Sociology of Law department. The idea was to look at how real-world norms interact with laws concerning file-sharing, and early work in the field came to a stark conclusion.
Furthermore, the research found that 75 percent of 15-25 year olds had no plans to stop swapping copyrighted files just because it was illegal. "Almost as many state that more stringent legislation will not stop them from downloading," the report concluded. "This reveals a large discrepancy between the viewpoint of copyright legislation and of young people regarding what is right and wrong. File sharers do not believe copyright legislation should interfere with how they use the Internet in their living rooms. If we choose to ignore this discrepancy, we run a clear risk of diminishing younger generations respect for rule of law."
The Cybernorms group now seeks more data on file-sharing behavior through a brief survey linked on The Pirate Bay's front page. It hopes that more data will help it explore "the gap and the distance that today is at risk of emerging between the traditional society’s rules and the social norms that are generated within the framework of young net cultures."
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Legal this time? Startup offers local TV on the 'Net, with a twist
Several years ago, Chet Kanojia was enjoying a brisk career providing data collection and ad exchange services to broadcasters and cable companies. He'd sold his business to Microsoft, and was working on integrating his operation into the huge firm.
Then something occurred to him. Why should consumers have to rely on unreliable home antenna systems or expensive cable services for access to local broadcast television, when they could get it over the Internet?
"I have sort of a real passion for the video sector in general and in particular solving some key consumer access problems," Kanojia explained to us in an interview. "The light bulb went on in my head that if you could solve the consumer's access to broadcast television in a smart way that they did not have to get it exclusively from the cable or satellite company, you really had a great starting point for any over the top service, because then a consumer could combine that with Netflix and Hulu."
And once someone had both over-the-air network channels plus access to Hulu and Netflix--well, why bother with cable TV?
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Available Tags:Portal , Ars , Google , Windows 7 , Windows , smartphone , security , Microsoft , Apple , Samsung , download , MacBook , iPhone , TV ,
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