Sony, PS3 hacker George Hotz reach settlement
Over on the official PlayStation Blog, Sony has announced that it has reached a settlement with infamous PS3 hacker George "GeoHot" Hotz. The settlement was actually reached back on March 31, and while the terms were not fully disclosed, Sony did say that Hotz agreed to a permanent injunction.
"Our motivation for bringing this litigation was to protect our intellectual property and our consumers. We believe this settlement and the permanent injunction achieve this goal," Sony's general counsel, Riley Russell, said in a statement.
"It was never my intention to cause any users trouble or to make piracy easier," said Hotz. "I'm happy to have the litigation behind me."
Sony was also quick to point out that Hotz was not connected to the recent attacks made by hacker collective Anonymous, which were made in retaliation to the Hotz lawsuit. Those attacks, bundled together under the banner "Operation Sony," were to include a worldwide public boycott at Sony retail stores on April 16. Whether that will still go ahead in light of the settlement is unclear.
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Judge to copyright troll: your "business model" isn't my problem
Ars Technica freelancer Eriq Gardner was recently sued over a photo that appeared in a piece he wrote for us last year. The flimsy lawsuit was quickly dismissed, but the company behind it lives on—and has sued 50+ people in Colorado for their use of the same photo. Now, the federal judge overseeing all these cases has made it clear that he sees through the company's "lawsuit as revenue generation" strategy, and that he's not interested in enabling it. Righthaven is already backing down.
The company at issue here is a Las Vegas litigation firm that finds allegedly infringing newspaper posts and images online, contracts with the newspaper in question for control of the the copyright, and files federal lawsuits against its targets. Since its inception, Righthaven has made the obviously outrageous demand that the entire domain name for the site in question be locked and then turned over to the company. This has never happened, but the threat of massive damages and of losing one's Web address seem calculated to force people into settlements of a few thousand dollars.
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Authorized biography of Steve Jobs to arrive in early 2012
There have been many biographies about Apple CEO Steve Jobs, each of them attempting to examine Jobs' life and work philosophy from different angles. None have gotten an official stamp of approval from Jobs, though—until now, that is. Best-selling author Walter Isaacson was able to obtain Jobs' blessing to author iSteve: The Book of Steve Jobs, which is now scheduled for release in early 2012.
Isaacson's book isn't a secret among the Apple crowd. It has been rumored for well over a year, but with no publication date in sight, it was anyone's guess as to when it would see the light of day. On Sunday, however, Isaacson's publisher Simon & Schuster revealed the expected release date to ABC News, but declined to comment any further on the details.
What is known about the book, then? Isaacson—a former Time magazine editor who has authored biographies about Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin—was able to interview Jobs directly, in addition to others at Apple and members of Jobs' family. The latter is the most surprising; Jobs has historically been very protective of his family, and has been hesitant to allow the media much access his private life. With a year to build anticipation, it wouldn't be surprising if fans line up to buy Isaacson's book when it hits the shelves, if only to read a previously unexplored angle on what goes on behind the curtain in the life of Steve Jobs.
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The four enemies of indie Internet TV
Trying to assess the prospects for independent online video entertainment—video that doesn't come from one of the established outlets—is a day-to-day process. On some days the future looks bright; on others, less so.
On the exciting side, Google just launched an experiment in live broadcasting, including a real time safari in South Africa's
Djuma Game Reserve, a cricket match between the Delhi Daredevils and the Mumbai Indians, and a Mortal Kombat tournament. Most of the participants in this beta test look decidedly indie. We'll reserve judgement on how the Wing Girls Answer Your Dating Questions show will work out.
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StarDrone is a forgettable sci-fi puzzler on PSN
StarDrone attempts to merge the zen-like peg smashing gameplay of Peggle and the gravity-focused movement of Osmos, but never comes close to matching either of those two titles. While the game occasionally has moments of intense fun, it's not quite enough to raise it above being a forgettable sci-fi action puzzler.
It works like this: you control a tiny spaceship that can latch on to nodes located throughout each level, allowing you to swing around to wherever you need to go. You start each level by firing your ship out of a cannon, and from there your only control is indirect—using the nodes to change direction and aim your ship.
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Nokia transitions Symbian source to non-open license
Nokia is transitioning Symbian away from the open source software model and will distribute it under more restrictive terms going forward. The source code is still available for download, but it's only available to approved persons and it's under a new license that pretty obviously doesn't match the open source criteria.
Groklaw used a blog post to give Nokia a much-deserved beating for characterizing the code availability as "open," prompting the handset maker to issue an official clarification. Nokia says that Symbian is no longer open source, just "open for business." The definition of "open" in the mobile space is apparently completely different than it is everywhere else in the software industry. Nokia says that the new model will simplify matters for the few remaining Japanese OEMs that are still using the platform. This is likely a reference to Fujitsu, which still uses Symbian on feature phones.
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Feature: Ars reviews GarageBand for iPad: a killer app for budding songwriters
When Apple announced the new iPad 2, it also announced two major new content creation apps for the platform: iMovie and GarageBand. iMovie is an extension of the iPhone app that Apple introduced with the iPhone 4 in 2010, adapted to the iPad's larger touchscreen. But GarageBand is a completely new app that brings a slimmed down, slightly re-imagined version of Apple's entry-level audio recording software from the Mac to the iPad.
GarageBand for iPad is an 8-track recorder, virtual synth, drum machine, virtual guitar, complete virtual amp modeler, competent virtual sampler, and a fun, loop-based song-making app all in one. At just $4.99, GarageBand could potentially replace at least a half dozen or more music apps, all the while integrating with its 8-track recording ability for songwriting on-the-go.
While it doesn't include all the features of the full desktop version of GarageBand, the iOS version is an array of music-making tools all translated to the iPad's touchscreen interface. While there are some interface issues and limitations that might frustrate more experienced musicians or recording pros, the breadth of GarageBand's music creation capabilities will certainly appeal to mobile music professionals as much as they might fascinate budding musicians, or even just those with the inclination to explore and experiment.
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Feature: Meet the senator blocking Big Content's Web censorship plan
Start talking about the Web censorship legislation currently being drafted in both chambers of Congress, and Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) becomes an instant quote machine. This isn't just another of the many political issues Wyden has to juggle; the man cares about the Internet. And in his passion to defend it, he's not afraid to ruin his chances of becoming the next ex-senator to head the Motion Picture Association of America.
"You get a lot of folks expressing increasing concern that essentially one part of the American economy, the content industry, is trying to use government as a club to beat up on one of the most promising parts but the economy of the future—the Internet," Wyden told me last week when we talked about the issue. "These major content lobbyists shouldn't be provided the authority to cluster bomb on the 'Net."
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Addictive but accessible: free-to-play, co-op RPG Spiral Knights
As we've seen before, the fact that a game is free doesn't necessarily mean it's worth your time. Free-to-play games are forced to find a balance between providing enough free content to be engaging and monetizing enough of the experience to make a profit. And from what we've seen so far, Spiral Knights—a co-op RPG from the developers of Puzzle Pirates—appears to be doing just that.
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Masterpiece: Duck Tales on the NES
The 8- and 16-bit eras were famous for dull, dreary 2D platformers created to latch onto the success of any and every popular license a publisher could find. If it was popular in the late '80s, there was likely a god-awful platformer based on it. How many of those games can you name now, and how many do you remember actually enjoying?
Very few games of that era did much with the properties they were based on, but there is at least one very prominent exception: the NES game Duck Tales. It took the Disney cartoon and did some amazing things with it, and every inch of the game was memorable and unique. Everyone who grew up gaming in that time period remembers the title, but they may not realize the talent that went into making it so enjoyable.
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Weird Science drinks itself to death to avoid a heart attack
Upping the booze intake is a net win: What happens when a population's alcohol consumption goes up suddenly? Finland was kind enough to do the experiment for us by dropping the tax on booze by roughly a third. Now, researchers have run the numbers in the years following the shift. Alcohol-related deaths do go up among the middle-aged, with the biggest boost coming in women between 50 and 70, where the rate jumped by 40 percent. However, the number of alcohol-induced deaths per month was small, so the total increase is about 7 deaths per 100,000 people a month. That's easily offset by the benefit to the elderly, though, where those over 70 saw a big drop in deaths due to cardiovascular problems.
Blind, living in a cave, and an insomniac, but still dominant: That's dominant genetically. Lots of species that adapt to life in caves avoid burning the energy involved with supporting an eye that will never be used. Mexican cave fish are a great model for studying that, since they evolved from species that are still present on the surface nearby and can interbreed. It turns out the cave populations are insomniacs, at least compared to their surface relatives, and if you breed hybrids, those animals are also insomniacs—low sleep requirements are apparently genetically dominant. The odd thing about this is that different cave populations seem to have a different set of mutations that let them forgo sleep.
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Source: Anonymous attacks on Sony annoying, not much more
The total amount of firepower used to flood Sony websites this week? It's only "medium strength," says a source at Sony's hosting provider who is not authorized by his employer to speak on the record.
The hacker collective Anonymous has been hammering Sony all week—both online and off—over the company's lawsuit against PlayStation 3 hacker George Hotz ("GeoHot"). The online attacks have largely used the Anonymous tool of choice, the Low Orbit Ion Cannon (LOIC), to flood Sony's servers with enough information to create a distributed denial of service attack. LOIC was built as a network stress-testing tool but has been repurposed by Anonymous to create voluntary botnets in which Anons contribute bandwidth to take down a shared target.
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Week in Apple: patent disputes, unauthorized accessory makers, and more
Our top Apple news from the last week included discussions about dropped calls on AT&T, calendar syncing on Outlook for Mac, and a possible iPhone 5 "delay." Apple also came out victorious in a patent dispute over Cover Flow, and is now going after unauthorized iPod accessory makers. Read on for the full summary:
WebKit best option for Camino as Mozilla drops Gecko embedding: Developers behind the Camino Web browser are planning to switch to WebKit-based rendering after Mozilla pulled the plug on Gecko embedding. What that means for the future of the browser is unclear.
AT&T iPhone 4 users report over twice as many dropped calls: Recent survey results maintain that Verizon iPhone 4 users—and all Verizon users—suffer from far fewer dropped calls than AT&T users.
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Week in gaming: Battlefield: Play4Free, Super Mario 2, Minecraft in the classroom
Here's what I've learned this week: don't give Peter Bright an assignment if you want to get content out in a timely fashion. I asked for a few hundred words on the new free-to-play Battlefield title for the early afternoon, but he hated it so much he turned in a few pages of bile aimed at what proved to be an ugly, unfun cash grab. Sure, it came an entire day late, but if you read the feature, I think you'll agree it was worth it.
Mr. Bright is a great writer when he's annoyed. Which is pretty much all the time.
We also looked at how multiplayer reviews are written, PopCap's new studio, and 3D photography with the 3DS. Take a look!
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Week in tech: Anonymous vs. Sony edition
"Anonymous" attacks Sony to protest PS3 hacker lawsuit: Outraged by Sony's lawsuit against PS3 hacker George Hotz, the hacker collective Anonymous has taken down Sony's Playstation.com site—and it plans real-world protests in two weeks. In doing so, Anonymous made it personal... very personal. Not content simply to flood Sony's websites this week, some members of Anonymous set out to learn where Sony execs live, who they married, and where their kids go to school. They then sent pizzas, ordered condoms, made phone calls—and much worse was suggested.
The Drobo FS in-depth, Part 2: day-to-day use: In Part 2 of this in-depth review of the Drobo FS, Ars looks at what it's like to use the device on a day-to-day basis.
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Week in science: little particles, big gravity
Is gravity not actually a force? Forcing theory to meet experiments: Is gravity a result of differences in informational density? Or is this theory too far out there to address all the issues present in modern physics? Here, we take a look at a recent proposal that purports to change how we view the world, and a counter-proposal that says nothing has changed.
Tevatron data suggests new, unknown particle—but not the Higgs: Researchers find signs that a particle with a mass of around 144GeV is producing jets of particles in the Tevatron's detectors. This is a bit surprising since we don't know of any particle that has those properties.
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Apple exploring hybrid e-ink/LCD display for iDevices
A recently published patent application suggests Apple is exploring ways to incorporate e-ink display technology into its iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. And unlike other e-ink devices, Apple's hybrid system would be able to display sharp text in a range of lighting situations without sacrificing the ability to display full color, video, and graphics.
The application, Systems and Methods for Switching Between an Electronic Paper Display and a Video Display, was originally filed in October 2009. It describes a hybrid system that employs a combination of "electronic paper" with a more traditional color LCD or OLED display to gain the advantages of both display types. Such a display would be formed by sandwiching a transparent e-ink screen between a backlit color LCD or OLED panel on the bottom and a touch-sensitive glass panel on the top. The color display could display full color graphics and video, while the e-ink layer could display sharp text.
While that description sounds somewhat similar to Pixel Qi's hybrid e-ink displays which can switch between e-ink and color LCD modes, Apple's patent takes things a couple steps further. Control circuitry would analyze the video input and could switch modes depending on the type of content. Furthermore, the control circuitry could independently switch different areas of the screen to either mode as needed. For instance, a webpage may have a range of text with an inline video. The system could display razor-sharp text using e-ink, while the video is displayed using the underlying color display.
One particular feature of the system, according to the application, is that the control circuitry in particular analyzes the video input to determine how fast different elements are changing. If the rate of change exceeds the refresh rate of the e-ink display, the color display would take over. Imagine the webpage in the preceding example: if you scroll the page quickly, the color display would be used to smoothly animate the scrolling. Once the scrolling stopped, however, the e-ink display would take over for the text once again.
Apple files numerous patents every year, so the mere fact that Apple filed a patent for a hybrid e-ink display is no guarantee that it will incorporate the technology into a future product. However, the technology could particularly enhance the iPad for e-book reading purposes. The iPad's current display is great for reading books heavy on color images or that contain motion graphics or video, but the relatively low pixel density and backlit screen still makes reading long passages of text tiresome for many users. Many readers tend to prefer e-ink based devices like Amazon's Kindle for this reason.
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DoJ green-lights Google takeover of ITA with several conditions
The US Department of Justice says Google won't be able to move forward with its acquisition of airline software maker ITA Software unless it agrees to a set of rules designed to ensure continued competition in the market. The rules come as part of the DoJ's proposed settlement for the antitrust suit it filed against Google, but if Google agrees to the terms, the DoJ says its competition concerns will be resolved. Competitors, while somewhat pleased, still want more scrutiny.
Under the proposed settlement, Google must continue licensing ITA's popular QPX software to airfare sites at "commercially reasonable terms," while also continuing research and development of QPX at a similar rate as ITA has. Google can't restrict airlines from sharing seat or booking class information with Google's competitors, and must set up a reporting mechanism for complaints about Google's behavior once it assumes control of ITA.
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Louisiana-style "teach the controversy" bill advances in Tennessee
Each year, dozens of states have bills introduced that target science education, mostly focused on the teaching of biology. Working off a template provided by a pro-intelligent design think tank, the bills would encourage the use of nonstandard teaching materials or targeted criticism of evolution; in some cases, they throw in climate change and the origin of life. In most states, they never make it out of committee, but Tennessee has made an exception this year, as the state's House passed a bill by a wide margin.
So far, the only state to enact a law that targeted "evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning" has been Louisiana. For the last two years, schools in that state have been able to approve supplemental materials that cover these topics, giving local authorities the legal (but not necessarily the intellectual) ability to decide what might constitute valid scientific criticisms.
The Tennessee bill is somewhat different; rather than seeking to introduce new material into the classrooms, it effectively removes the ability of administrators to determine how a subject is taught. No school authority in the state "shall prohibit any teacher in a public school system of this state from helping students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories covered in the course being taught." Even though it's supposedly about science education, there's an entire clause (one of only five) devoted to saying the whole thing has nothing to do with religion.
Tactically, that is probably a good decision for the creationists who are pushing for the bill. Supplemental materials are open to objective analysis of their scientific merit, which might go badly in court; verbal classroom instruction can be much harder to parse, and might come down to the words of students against those of their teacher. The shift may also be inspired by recent events in nearby Ohio, where a teacher was fired for conduct that included distributing creationist material to his science classes.
The state Senate is currently considering a similar bill. The National Center for Science Education is tracking the events there and in other states.
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New tech shows Einstein wrong: we can watch Brownian motion
The seemingly random movement of Brownian motion just got a little
more classical. Scientists have been able to image the ultrafast
motions of a
trapped particle, revealing the underlining trajectories causing Brownian
motion. This is the first time inertial Brownian motion of a
particle in a fluid have been measured.
In 60 BC, the poet Lucretius described the motions of dust in a dark
room and speculated on the existence of atoms. In 1827, Robert
Brown described the random motions of pollen in water, the motion which
now bears his name. It took until 1905 for Einstein to fully describe how
Brownian motion arises from instantaneous imbalances in the forces from
collisions with water molecules.
At its heart, Brownian motion is still described by classical
Newtonian physics, even if we cannot
define a classical velocity and can only measure mean square
displacement. Einstein said, "It is therefore impossible... to ascertain the
root mean square velocity by observation" because the timescales of the instantaneous velocity are vanishingly short. Einstein
calculated that the time for a particle to decelerate significantly is about ~100ns, impossibly fast to measure at the time.
But that was then. Now researchers have been able to probe
time scales an order of magnitude faster. By holding a micron-sized
sphere in a optical trap and measuring the scattered light with a high
speed position detector (75MHz), a team was able to measure the
motion
of the spheres with a resolution of 0.2 angstroms and a temporal
resolution of ~10ns. At these resolutions, they were able to
track the inertial Brownian motion of the sphere.
Nature Physics, 2011. DOI: 10.1038/NPHYS1953
(About
DOIs).
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Time Warner, Viacom aim legal guns at each other over iPad app
Time Warner Cable is taking the dispute over its live-TV-streaming iPad app to court. The company has filed a request for declaratory judgment, asking the judge to rule that the cable giant has the rights to stream content to any of its subscribers' devices, whether it's a TV set or an iPad. Viacom, in turn, also filed its own lawsuit against Time Warner, arguing that the two companies never agreed to such rights.
"[W]e are very confident in our rights to distribute our programmers’ feeds over our cable distribution infrastructure to any digital device within our customer’s home. And some of our programming partners have taken the position that our interpretation is wrong," Time Warner's director of digital communications Jeff Simmermon wrote on the company blog. "To be completely clear: this is not a hostile lawsuit... We’re at an impasse with a handful of network owners, and we need an impartial third party to referee the situation and confirm that our interpretation is correct."
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Acer's new Honeycomb tablet to compete with iPad on price
With the debut of the Iconia Tab A500, Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Acer is the latest to throw its hat into the tablet ring.
As of Friday morning, the A500 is up for preorder on Best Buy’s web site for $450. It will be ready for purchase in Best Buy retail stores beginning April 24.
The tablet will run Android version 3.0 (Honeycomb) on its NVIDIA Tegra 250 1GHz dual-core processor, supported by a gig of RAM.
The price ranks in at just below the cheapest iPad 2, which costs $500 and is Wi-Fi only with 16GB of internal storage (just like the Iconia A500). At $600, Motorola’s WiFi-only Xoom remains the most expensive Honeycomb-powered tablet option (though the extra hundred bucks will buy you a full 32GB of internal storage, among other things). Acer plans to eventually release a 32GB model, although no details on this have been given.
Acer’s tablet won’t be competing with those in the 4G realm yet—the A500 will be available in a Wi-Fi version first, and a 4G version will eventually make its way to AT&T’s network.
The A500’s 10.1-inch display boasts a 1280×800 resolution ratio (equal to that of the Xoom, and better than the iPad 2). You can watch HD 720p video on the screen, or use the HDMI output to view stored media on external screens. A 5-megapixel rear facing camera comes for shooting photos and video, while the 2-megapixel front facing camera allows for video chat.
Like the other Android tablets to debut in 2011, the A500 will trail Google’s flagship Honeycomb device, Motorola’s Xoom, to market. Samsung’s currently available version of its seven-inch Galaxy Tab runs Android version 2.2—we won't see Honeycomb on a Samsung device until the 10.1-inch version ships (although delays have pushed back the larger version’s release).
And in what seems to be the beginning of a disturbing trend in tablet debuts, the A500 will support Flash eventually, but won’t ship with it. Motorola’s Xoom, which debuted six weeks ago, also launched without Flash, though a beta release is currently available for Honeycomb in the Android Market.
With the BlackBerry Playbook set to debut on April 19 and a number of offerings to follow, Acer’s preorder ploy is an attempt to push out the Iconia before other tablets hit the market.
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Android chief Rubin's response to Android critics misses the point
Android chief Andy Rubin has finally issued a statement in response to recent reports regarding Android's deteriorating openness. He characterizes the media reports as "misinformation" and says that he is speaking up "in the spirit of transparency" in order to "set the record straight."
In his statement, he defends Google's "anti-fragmentation" strategy and says that the source code will be made available when it's ready. He also dismisses the allegation that Google is tightening its control over the user experience. Unfortunately, his statement sheds no light on the Android roadmap, and he has completely failed to address many of the issues raised by widespread reporting on Google's role in the Android ecosystem. The condescending and evasive statement does little to support his argument.
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Minecraft to exit beta November 11 with $32 million in revenues
The hit PC sandbox game Minecraft is set to shed its beta cocoon on November 11 of this year, creator Markus Persson announced via his blog on Thursday. The full version won't differ very much from the current iteration, Persson says, though the team plans to keep adding features before and after the "beta" label comes off.
Minecraft's development path has not been too rocky, popularity-wise: a back-of-the-envelope calculation from a Reddit question-and-answer session revealed that the game has generated about $32 million in revenue since its release, with copies selling first for $14, and later for $21. Persson notes that the full release date is "really more of a milestone… some kind of goal for us to work towards," and won't mark the release of any particular content.
Persson demonstrated his commitment to the continuous addition of features by announcing that version 1.5 of Minecraft is due out next week, which will add weather to the game, among other things. The release date for the full version of Minecraft, 11/11/11, coincides with several other entertainment releases, including Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
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PSP to get streaming music next week, powered by Qriocity
Starting next week, PSP owners will be able to stream an unlimited amount of music to their handhelds. Sony has announced that the PSP is the latest device to support the recently launched Qriocity cloud-based music service, and users will be able to start streaming music on April 14.
The "Music Unlimited" service comes in two flavors: a basic package for $3.99/month and a premium one for $9.99. Both options let users access the service's library of seven million songs, but those who opt for the higher-price tier will also be able to access additional "premium" music channels, as well as listen to songs on-demand and create custom playlists.
The service already supports a number of Sony products, including the PlayStation 3, Bravia TVs, and online-enabled Blu-Ray players. And Sony says that users can expect a "synchronized music experience" across all platforms. The company also explained that the service will soon be accessible on Android-enabled devices as well, which should make owners of the upcoming Xperia Play happy.
Not everyone will be able to use the service, though, as Qriocity is not currently available worldwide. As of February, users in the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United States, Australia and New Zealand can access the music in the cloud.
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