Microsoft takes ASP.NET MVC into the open with community patches and bug-fixes
Scott Guthrie, Vice President in Microsoft's Developer Division, has announced that ASP.NET MVC and related Microsoft projects will now be developed in the open, using the Apache license, and hosted on CodePlex using the new git support.
ASP.NET MVC, Microsoft's Web application framework, has been open sourced since its first version, and was switched to Microsoft's permissive license in 2009. However, there's a difference between open development and mere open source (as those following Android's development will be well aware). Previously, the source was available, but its development was Microsoft's sole concern; third parties had no ability to suggest changes or contributions of their own, and little ability to comment on the work that Microsoft was doing.
Under the new development model, developers will be able to see the product as it's being created, right down to the level of individual code changes, bug-fixes, and new features. Perhaps most significantly of all, for the first time Microsoft will be accepting patches and contributions from third parties to the product. If you have a fix for a bug or some code for a new feature, you could see it integrated into the mainline ASP.NET MVC tree. The first such update has already been accepted. This patch came from Miguel de Icaza, founder of Mono, the open source implementation of the .NET stack.
In addition to the open development of ASP.NET MVC, Microsoft has also opened the source and development of two closely related projects: the ASP.NET Web API, and ASP.NET Web Pages v2 (Razor).
This is the second project that Microsoft has operated in this way. The Windows Azure SDK for the company's cloud computing service is also an open project, hosted on github, that allows third-party contributions.
Microsoft will still be the final arbiters of what gets integrated and what doesn't, and ASP.NET MVC will remain a supported, Microsoft-developed framework. The closer community involvement should produce a system that is more responsive to developer needs, and more innovative to boot.
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Microsoft announces cloud building with TFS, Feature Packs for Visual Studio
At Visual Studio Live today, Microsoft announced a new cloud-based building service for its forthcoming version control and application lifecycle management-in-the-cloud product, Team Foundation Service, and announced the first of what will be a series of updates for the Ultimate edition of Visual Studio 11.
TFS currently supports distributed builds, but each (virtual) machine used for building must be set up and configured individually. With the new cloud building service, this process is automated, making spinning up new build servers trivial. The preview currently supports building and unit testing C++ and .NET applications in Visual Studio 2010 and Visual Studio 11 beta, with support for Java builds coming soon.
Putting Microsoft's on-premises Team Foundation Server into the cloud to create Team Foundation Service already offers certain advantages, especially to distributed development teams: it provides a centralized location, accessible globally, for things like source control, building, unit testing, bug tracking, and more. One of the big selling points of cloud systems is easy scaling through the ability to trivially instantiate new virtual machines on an as-needed basis. With the new cloud building service, this benefit is now available to Team Foundation service users.
For Visual Studio, Microsoft announced that over the course of Visual Studio Ultimate 11's lifetime it would be releasing a number of Feature Packs. These are substantial, supported updates that include significant new features. The first announced Feature Pack will extend the IntelliTrace look-back-in-time debugger to allow for finer-grained data collection, and will extend Visual Studio's support for developing applications that use SharePoint. The Feature Pack will include a load tester for SharePoint, unit testing facilities, and SharePoint-specific IntelliTrace enhancements.
Microsoft plans multiple kinds of enhancement for Visual Studio 11. The Feature Packs will be supported, localized extensions available only for the most expensive Ultimate edition. At the other end of the scale are add-ins and extensions such as the Visual Studio Power Pack. These are a little more experimental and unsupported, and Microsoft will use them to test out new concepts and features with a view to integrating them into the next edition of the product.
In between, the company will also be releasing supported updates to the core product to improve things such as C++ standards compliance. Native code developers have a lot to look forward to on this front. At release, Visual Studio 11 will not include some of the more exciting C++11 features such as variadic templates. But the company has said that these features should be made available without having to wait for the next version of the product.
Microsoft is still to announce a release date for either TFS or Visual Studio 11. TFS is currently available in an invitation-only beta, though it is authorized for use in production environments. Visual Studio 11 is available in beta, and is likely to be released to approximately coincide with the release of Windows 8, since development of Windows 8 Metro applications will require Visual Studio 11.
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Feature: Death of a data haven: cypherpunks, WikiLeaks, and the world's smallest nation
A few weeks ago, Fox News breathlessly reported that the embattled WikiLeaks operation was looking to start a new life
under
on the sea. WikiLeaks, the article speculated, might try to escape its legal troubles by putting its servers on Sealand, a World War II anti-aircraft platform seven miles off the English coast in the North Sea, a place that calls itself an independent nation. It sounds perfect for WikiLeaks: a friendly, legally unassailable host with an anything-goes attitude.
But readers with a memory of the early 2000s might be wondering, "Didn't someone already try this? How did that work out?" Good questions. From 2000 to 2008, a company called HavenCo did indeed offer no-questions-asked colocation on Sealand—and it didn't end well.
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UK ISP forced to hand over details on IP addresses to porn producer
British ISP O2 was ordered by the Chancery Division of the British High Court to hand over the customer details belonging to a portion of 9,124 IP addresses. These addresses supposedly used BitTorrent clients to illegally download porn created by the British Ben Dover Productions and 12 smaller porn copyright holders.
The claim for all 13 production companies was made by a copyright holding company called Golden Eye International Ltd. Lindsay Honey, co-founder of Ben Dover productions, happens to be a 50 percent owner. A consumer rights watchdog, Consumer Focus, represented the intended defendants (the so-far anonymous users of the 9,124 IP addresses).
The Honourable Mr Justice Arnold rejected the claims of infringement made by the 12 smaller production companies, in part because he thought the partnership between Golden Eye and the other claimants existed only to make money off the High Court's litigation. The Justice noted accepting the partnership between the smaller 12 companies "would be tantamount to the court sanctioning the sale of the Intended Defendants' privacy and data protection rights to the highest bidder."
Golden Eye primarily exists to hold copyright ownership and seek litigation against peer-to-peer file sharing networks. The company's home page reads, "If you are reading this, then more than likely you have infringed our rights already."
Golden Eye compiled the list of the more than 9,000 IP addresses it claims have illegally downloaded its copyrighted material. With the 12 smaller production companies' claims thrown out, however, Golden Eye will be sending letters only to those O2 customers that may have illegally downloaded Ben Dover Productions films—likely a much smaller pool of potential defendants.
Golden Eye demanded the right to ask for £700 per illegal downloader, but the High Court refused. The court decided Golden Eye must allow O2 customers the opportunity to show they have not committed copyright infringement. If they indeed illegally downloaded Ben Dover Productions' porn, remittance for infringement would be negotiated on a defendant-by-defendant basis.
O2 is one of the six largest ISPs in the UK, run by Telefonica UK Ltd. Golden Eye hoped that if they could not demand £700 per infringing IP address, O2 would throttle the user's traffic. However, Consumer Focus successfully argued that since the bill payer or subscriber may not be responsible for the infringement, such an award would be considered unfair.
The BBC reports that "in a similar speculative invoicing case two years ago ACS Law sent out around 20,000 letters... But the cases unraveled as they came to court."
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Cue KC & The Sunshine Band: RIAA celebrates a (small) sales increase
The Recording Industry Association of America announced their first overall sales increase since 2004. Total shipments for 2011 surpassed $7 billion—a "boom" of 0.2 percent when compared with the previous year.
The RIAA released the 2011 year-end statistics this week, suggesting the industry's losing streak has finally ended.
There's no decisive reason cited for this growth, but certainly a number of likely factors exist. Subscription music services increased their revenue 13.5 percent, supporting the popularity of services like Spotify or Rdio. Music downloads also increased, both in singles (13.3 percent revenue increase) and albums (25.1 percent). Chief responsibility there could lie with Adele, whose 21 smashed many digital sales records including "Rolling In The Deep" becoming the second biggest digital single ever ("I Gotta' Feeling" from The Black Eyed Peas still eclipsed it as of early March. Weekend Ar(t)s weeps for America).
The RIAA's welcomed news should still be taken with a grain of salt. The industry is still reporting less than half the total value of its high in 1999. Revenue from physical sales was down 7.8 percent overall, with CDs down 8.5 percent in particular.
CD sales still account for more than $3 billion in revenue, compared to slightly over $1 billion for album downloads. Overall digital shipments do account for half of total shipments however. Audophiles can find some solace in the rise of vinyl revenue though, up 34 percent in 2011 (accounting for $119 million in sales).
One last interesting piece of RIAA data: this marked the first year royalties from "synchronization of recorded music with other content (such as movies, TV, video games, or other media)" was included. The RIAA mined data back to 2009 in order to compare. These royalties were up 4 percent, reaching $196 million for 2011.
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Links to Pirate Bay temporarily fall foul of Live Messenger's malware blocking
Over the weekend, users of Microsoft's Windows Live Messenger instant-messaging service found themselves unable to send and receive links to torrent site the Pirate Bay, as reported by TorrentFreak, leading to speculation that Microsoft had singled out the Pirate Bay as a target for censorship.
Though the block now appears to be lifted, at the time it was in place, attempts to send links to the site resulted in an error message that read "The link you tried to send was blocked because it was reported as unsafe." This was experienced with both Microsoft's official client and third-party software.
Was this a deliberate attempt to block a site infamous for its role in distributing pirated media? Probably not. Windows Live Messenger has long used Microsoft's Smart Screen system to filter the URLs used in Messenger. Malware that distributes itself through Messenger is not uncommon—a friend appears to message you with a link to some great new Web page/application/whatever, with the link leading to some kind of malicious code—and Microsoft uses the ability to block these URLs to hinder the spread of such malware.
According to a Microsoft spokesman, "We block instant messages if they contain malicious or spam URLs based on intelligence algorithms, third-party sources, and/or user complaints. Pirate Bay URLs were flagged by one or more of these and were consequently blocked."
The filtering doesn't care about the content of the blocked sites per se, just that it has been flagged as malicious by some combination of user reports and algorithmic analysis. The spokesman continues, "Our filtering systems can block all URLs from a given domain if we observe a sufficient number of abusive URLs from that domain. We do this to protect our users from likely additional abusive URLs in the same domain."
While this might raise some privacy concerns—Messenger conversations are not subject to end-to-end encryption, and Microsoft could, in principle, read messages sent over the system—it doesn't appear to be any deliberate attempt to censor the Pirate Bay or block access to its content.
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Rise in allergies linked to war on bacteria
"Allergic diseases have reached pandemic levels," begins David Artis's new paper in Nature Medicine. Artis goes on to say that, while everyone knows allergies are caused by a combination of factors involving both nature and nurture, that knowledge doesn't help us identify what is culpable—it is not at all clear exactly what is involved, or how the relevant players promote allergic responses.
There is some evidence that one of the causes lies within our guts. Epidemiological studies have linked changes in the species present in commensal bacteria—the trillions of microorganisms that reside in our colon—to the development of allergic diseases. (Typically, somewhere between 1,000 and 15,000 different bacterial species inhabit our guts.) And immunologists know that signaling molecules produced by some immune cells mediate allergic inflammation.
Animal studies have provided the link between these two, showing that commensal bacteria promote allergic inflammation. But these researchers wanted to know more about how.
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Supreme Court orders appeals court to reconsider gene patents
In the wake of last week's ruling striking down medical diagnostic patents, the Supreme Court has asked an appeals court to reconsider a year-old ruling allowing patents on human genes.
In the 1990s, a company called Myriad Genetics obtained patents related to two genes, known as BRCA1 and BRCA2, that are linked to breast cancer. They have used those patents to establish a monopoly on BRCA gene testing services.
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Blizzard struggles to hold the MMO throne with Mists of Pandaria beta
"I hold a flame in my hand," says Master Shang Xi, a bipedal, anthropomorphic panda in a blue ceremonial dress and sedge hat, surrounded by dozens of sparring pandas practicing their martial art. "Gather your wits, and when you think you are ready, attempt to snatch the flame." It's a scene that seems ripped straight out of an obscure 1970s Bruce Lee film (minus the pandas) and it typifies the type of Kung Fu melodrama that is rife in World of Warcraft's new land of Pandaria, which I sampled as part of a beta test this weekend.
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Mozilla launches multiplayer browser adventure to showcase HTML5 gaming
Mozilla has teamed up with Web design studio Little Workshop to develop a Web-based multiplayer adventure game called BrowserQuest. The game is built with standards-based Web technologies and is designed to be played within a Web browser.
With the technical capabilities offered by the latest standards, Web developers no longer have to rely on plugins to create interactive multimedia experiences and application-like user interfaces. As we reported earlier this month, modern standards are making the Web an increasingly viable platform for game development.
BrowserQuest, which is built with JavaScript and HTML5, is a compelling demonstration of how existing standards can be used to create browser games. It uses the HTML5 Canvas element to render a tile-based 2D world, HTML5 audio APIs to support sound effects, WebSockets to facilitate communication with the backend server, and
localStorage to save the player's progress.The game's remote backend, which enables the real-time multiplayer gameplay, was coded in JavaScript and runs on top of Node.js. The load is balanced across multiple Node.js instances on three separate severs. At the time this story was written, the backend was successfully handling over 1,900 simultaneous players. The status of the BrowserQuest backend can be monitored through the game's real-time dashboard interface.
The developers focused on using widely-supported standards so that the game would work well across a wide range of desktop and mobile browsers. It works just as well on a tablet device, for example, as it does on a desktop computer.
The future looks even brighter, as there are a number of pending Web standards that will greatly enhance support for building games on the Web in the future. Features like 3D graphics and support for game controller peripherals, for example, could eventually take the browser beyond the realm of casual gaming. You can refer to Mozilla's wiki to see an overview of the work that the organization is doing to improve browser-based gaming. For more details about BrowserQuest, see the Mozilla Hacks blog or check out the backend server code on GitHub.
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Google's Chrome Web store used to spread malware
Crooks have found a new venue to push malware: the official Google Chrome Web Store. It was recently used to hawk Chrome browser extensions secretly hijacking users' Facebook profiles.
According to Kaspersky Lab expert Fabio Assolini, one malicious extension hosted on Google's own servers contained hidden code that "can gain complete control" of the user's Facebook profile. The extension then used that access to spread malicious messages and register Facebook Likes for certain items, also inviting fellow users to install it. The same operators advertised a service that delivered Likes of companies looking to promote their profiles. It costs about $27 per 1,000 Likes.
The company distributing this malicious extension was unnamed in the report as was the specific app. Assolini said Google personnel removed the malicious extension shortly after Kaspersky reported it to them. "But we noted the bad guys behind this malicious scheme are uploading new extensions regularly, in a cat and mouse game," he warned. He didn't elaborate on the number of extensions or how long he's been observing them other than to say the malicious app Kaspersky discovered had 932 users.
Over the past few years, the openness of Google's Android Market has represented one of the more conspicuous ways its users are attacked. As the software equivalent of a Wikipedia-like bazaar to which anyone may contribute, it has repeatedly been seeded with applications that take liberties with end users' phones and data. Kaspersky's report suggests similar attacks are exploiting Google's Chrome Web Store.
"It is against the Chrome Web Store Content Policies to distribute malware," a Google spokesman wrote in an email. "When we detect items containing malware or learn of them through reports, we remove them from the Chrome Web Store and from active Chrome instances. We've already removed several of these extensions, and we are improving our automated systems to help detect them even faster."
Last month, Google unveiled a cloud-based service called Bouncer that scours the Android Market for malicious smartphone apps.
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EPA's carbon rules to grandfather existing coal plants, limit new ones
Although the EPA has not yet made an official announcement, it is apparently ready to issue its first regulations regarding carbon dioxide emissions. The process dates back to the Clinton years, when states first asked the EPA to use the Clean Air (CAA) act to regulate greenhouse gasses as pollutants, with carbon dioxide getting extra attention due to its role in ocean acidification. After years of delay, the Supreme Court ruled that the EPA must determine whether CO2 is a pollutant according to the CAA's definition. The Bush Administration's EPA found that it was, but its findings were never made public or acted upon (they have since been obtained by the press). The Obama EPA reached a similar conclusion, but deferred acting on it, at least until now.
According to various press reports, the EPA has been briefing stakeholders on its planned regulations. They would put the limit on emissions at 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour of electricity produced, but will only apply to new construction. A modern natural gas plant should be able to meet that limit with little difficulty. Most coal plants in existence, however, produce roughly double that amount, and will not be able to meet it without adopting some form of carbon capture and storage technology.
The regulations will send a clear signal to the market: either find a way to capture carbon cheaply, or don't build new coal capacity. Although they do very little for existing emissions directly, they're likely to have an indirect effect, since many of the oldest and least efficient plants in use burn coal at costs that are significantly higher than that of natural gas. In addition, the renewable energy mandates adopted by many states will displace some existing power sources; these old plants will again be the primary target.
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Entertainment apps now more popular than multiplayer gaming on Xbox Live
Mark your calendars folks; today is the day that Microsoft officially succeeded in its efforts to transform the Xbox 360 from merely a video game system to a bona-fide general purpose living room set-top box. That's because, for the first time ever, Microsoft now says that time spent on general "entertainment" use of Xbox Live has officially surpassed time spent on multiplayer gaming.
The total hours spent on Xbox Live have increased 30 percent year over year, Microsoft said, growing to an incredible 84 hours a month average for Xbox Live Gold members (that average stood at 60 hours last June). Most of that growth came from increased use of entertainment apps such as Netflix, Hulu Plus, ESPN and Zune Marketplace on Xbox Live, which Microsoft says saw more than double the usage over the last year. With today's release of new entertainment apps including Comcast, HBO Go and MLB.tv, that rate of increase seems likely to continue.
For those worried that Microsoft's focus may now start to slowly shift away from the Xbox 360's once-primary gaming functions, it should be noted that multiplayer gaming usage on Xbox Live also grew in the past year, though Microsoft didn't say precisely how much (Xbox Live reportedly served up over 4 billion person hours of multiplayer gaming through last March, so further growth is almost gravy at this point). Also keep in mind that these stats don't take into account time spent playing single-player Xbox 360 games, which might tip the usage balance back towards gaming.
Still, we should probably have taken Microsoft at its word when it said before last year's E3 that "Xbox used to be solely in the games business, but the business is on a different trajectory now. What was launched as the ultimate gaming machine has quickly evolved to become an all-in-one entertainment device with something for every member of the household."
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Fake Elsevier's complaints about academic publishing leads to fake takedown notice
Currently, any research funded by the NIH is made open access within a year of its publication. Many academic publishers have been pushing to have the policy reversed, and a bill introduced earlier this year would have done exactly that. This triggered a public backlash, including a boycott of medical and scientific publisher Elsevier. The publishers have since backed off, and the bill was withdrawn. That hasn't, however, stopped the boycott—its support of the bill was just one of a long list of issues academics have with Elsevier. And, in the intervening months, one researcher has turned to a bit of guerilla public relations, starting a Fake Elsevier blog and Twitter account.
Yesterday, however, the Fake Elsevier parody took a turn for the absurd. Via Twitter, the account received notification that it was violating Elsevier's trademark. Even as other users pointed out that the account was an obvious parody and was unlikely to be confused with the real thing (two relevant legal standards), Fake Elsevier stumbled across the account of the real version's company spokesman, Tom Reller.
Reller, for his part, seemed surprised to hear about the kerfuffle. In a series of tweets, he detailed his efforts to work his way through the company hierrarchy, trying to find out who had actually filed the complaint. After coming up blank, his most recent status report indicated "we're trying to tell Twitter the official trademark holder wants it withdrawn." The whole incident reveals how social media platforms can allow one grumpy academic to set the wheels of a large, for-profit institution moving, simply due to the threat of bad PR. At the same time, it points out the limitations of many of these platforms, which often feel compelled to act without first determining the facts behind a complaint.
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Modern muggles rejoice! Harry Potter e-books finally on sale
Author J.K. Rowling's "Pottermore" website has finally put the entire Harry Potter series on sale, including both digital audiobooks and e-books compatible with all major electronic book reading devices.
Despite their massive popularity, Harry Potter books have remained off-limits to the Amazon Kindle store and other major e-book platforms. But starting today, the books are being sold directly by Rowling's online shop, with prices ranging from $7.99 to $9.99 for each e-book, or $57.54 for the whole set of seven books. The audiobook prices range from $29.99 to $44.99 each, or $242.94 for the whole package.
The books are being sold in both ePub and Kindle format, and as such will work across all Kindle devices and reading apps, Barnes & Noble Nooks, iOS and Android, Sony Readers, Kobo, and other devices. Buyers will be allowed to download the books for personal use "up to eight times," with no time limit, allowing for reading across devices. Parents can share purchased e-books with their own children, as long as they're under 18.
"You might want to download a copy to your laptop, your tablet, and your child's eReader—whatever the combination—you have eight available downloads per book," Rowling's site says. "Eight downloads will normally be plenty, so you won't need to buy again. However, if you do download a book more than eight times, or want to buy it as a gift, you will need to purchase it again."
The books are available in English only for now, with French, Italian, Spanish, and German versions coming soon. Since this article was posted, some of our readers who purchased the e-books have reported that they are, fortunately, free of digital rights management restrictions, making it easier for buyers to use the files on different devices. The books do, however, have personalized watermarks that will allow the publisher to track the source of pirated versions.
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Anatomy of a leak: how iPhones spill the ID of networks they access
An Ars story from earlier this month reported that iPhones expose the unique identifiers of recently accessed wireless routers, which generated no shortage of reader outrage. What possible justification does Apple have for building this leakage capability into its entire line of wireless products when smartphones, laptops, and tablets from competitors don't? And how is it that Google, Wigle.net, and others get away with publishing the MAC addresses of millions of wireless access devices and their precise geographic location?
Some readers wanted more technical detail about the exposure, which applies to three access points the devices have most recently connected to. Some went as far as to challenge the validity of security researcher Mark Wuergler's findings. "Until I see the code running or at least a youtube I don't believe this guy has the goods," one Ars commenter wrote.
According to penetration tester Robert Graham, the findings are legit.
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Sony tries cutting off homebrew exploits, takes down Vita game downloads
Sony's never-ending battle to control the content that runs on its hardware has moved to a new front on the Vita, with the company taking down downloadable versions of two PSP titles in response to reports that they include programming holes that allow the Vita to run unsigned, homebrew code.
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Australian regulators taking Apple to task over LTE compatibilty
Apple is reportedly misleading Australian customers about LTE compatibility in its 4G-equipped third-generation iPad, according to the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission. As a result, the watchdog group plans to file a complaint in Australian Federal Court on Wednesday seeking injunctions, fines, corrective advertising, and refunds to consumers who were misled.
Apple sells a version of the iPad with built-in cellular networking dubbed "iPad WiFi + 4G." According to the ACCC, Apple's promotion of the iPad WiFi + 4G in Australia is "misleading because it represents to Australian consumers that the product 'iPad with WiFi + 4G' can, with a SIM card, connect to a 4G mobile data network in Australia, when this is not the case."
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"Siri, does anyone still use you?" Yes, says survey
Roughly half of iPhone 4S owners using Siri are "very satisfied" with the service, according to a newly published survey. Market research firm Parks Associates published its report about Siri users on Tuesday, noting that the most common uses for Apple's "virtual personal assistant" are still pretty standard, like making phone calls or dictating text messages.
According to the survey of 482 users, 87 percent of iPhone 4S owners are still using Siri at least once per month, despite only 55 percent describing themselves as quite satisfied with Siri's functionality. (Nine percent were unsatisfied and the rest fell in between.) Parks Associates Consumer Analytics Director John Barrett said that users tend to like Siri "because it's convenient, easy to use, and helpful for remembering important information (e.g., birthdays)," but according to the firm's own numbers, setting up meetings or reminders is hardly how the majority of owners use Siri.
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Boston pays $170k to settle cell phone recording lawsuit
The City of Boston has agreed to pay Simon Glik $170,000 in damages and legal fees to settle a civil rights lawsuit. Glik was arrested in 2007 on Boston Common for using his cell phone to record the arrest of another man. Police then arrested Glik, too, and charged him under the strict Massachusetts wiretapping statute. They eventually dropped the charges, but with the help of the Massachusetts ACLU, Glik filed a civil lawsuit against the city for false arrest.
Last year, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit unanimously ruled that Glik had a "clearly established" First Amendment right to record the actions of public officials on a public sidewalk. Boston finally admitted it had made a mistake earlier this year, and Boston taxpayers will now be paying for the screw-up.
"The law had been clear for years that openly recording a video is not a crime," Glik said in a statement. "It's sad that it takes so much for police to learn the laws they were supposed to know in the first place. I hope Boston police officers will never again arrest someone for openly recording their public actions."
Glik claims that officers in Boston's Internal Affairs Division made fun of him when he filed his original complaint with the police department; he says they suggested he'd be better off filing a civil lawsuit instead. They probably aren't laughing today.
The Massachusetts ACLU says that the City of Boston has changed its practices since Glik filed his lawsuit. The city "developed a training video based on facts similar to the Glik case, instructing police officers not to arrest people who openly record what they are doing in public."
An Massachusetts ACLU spokesman tells Ars that Glik himself will receive $50,000 of the money; the rest will go to cover the costs of his legal case.
We've also sought a comment from the City of Boston and will update our story if they respond.
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Single molecule circuit controlled through quantum interference
In typical electronic devices, temperature is the primary physical variable that controls conductivity. Resistance tends to increase with temperature. However, things are different on the nanoscale. Even at room temperature, the energy difference between quantum levels within a molecule can be much larger than the thermal energy. This means it is possible, in principle, to manipulate the wave function of electrons in a way that tunes the conductive properties of a material on the molecular level.
In a newly published experiment, Constant M. Guédon et al. managed to promote destructive quantum interference between electrons in a single molecule, reducing the molecule's ability to conduct current in the process. They compared the conductive properties of molecules that have an identical primary structure, but have differences in their electronic quantum states. In a molecule where the electrons interfered destructively, it suppressing the flow of electric current. This experiment opens up the possibility of room-temperature molecular devices based on quantum interference.
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