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Site Posted by Robert K. Foster on Sunday, January 25, 2009
“The Art of Technology: At Ars Technica—the name is Latin-derived for the “art of technology”—we specialize in original news and reviews, analysis of technology trends, and expert advice on topics ranging from the most fundamental aspects of technology to the many ways technology is helping us enjoy our world. We work for the reader who not only needs to keep up on technology, but is passionate about it.“
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Chrome 17 released, will preload autocompleted URLs as you type
Wed, 08 Feb 2012 21:20:31 -0600
Google has just released Chrome version 17, which brings several minor enhancements to the company's web browser— including a new web address preloading feature and improved protection against malicious downloads.
The new Chrome introduces a preemptive rendering" feature that will automatically begin loading and rendering a page in the background while the user is typing the address in the omnibox (the combined address and search text entry field in Chrome's navigation toolbar). The preloading will occur in cases when the top match generated by the omnibox's autocompletion functionality is a site that the user visits frequently.
When the user hits the enter key and confirms the autocompletion result, the prerendered page will display almost instantly. The feature extends Chrome's existing predictive page loading functionality to autocompletion results. Unlike Chrome's instant search capability, however, the autocompletion preloading waits until the user hits the enter key before displaying the rendered page.
Google has also added some new security functionality to Chrome. Every time that the user downloads a file, the browser will compare it against a whiltelist of known-good files and publishers. If the file isn't in the whitelist, its URL will be transmitted to Google's servers, which will perform an automatic analysis and attempt to guess if the file is malicious based on various factors like the trustworthiness of its source. If the file is deemed a potential risk, the user will receive a warning.
Google says that data collected by the browser for the malware detection feature is only used to flag malicious files and isn't used for any other purpose. The company will retain the IP address of the user and other metadata for a period of two weeks, at which point all of the data except the URL of the file will be purged from Google's databases.
Users who are concerned about the privacy implications of this functionality can prevent the browser from relaying this information to Google by disabling the phishing and malware protection features in the browser's preferences. You can refer to the official Chromium blog for additional details about the malware detection feature.
Chrome 17 is available through the browser's automatic updater and can also be downloaded from Google's website. More information about the new release is available in the official Google Chrome blog
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Transactional memory going mainstream with Intel Haswell
Wed, 08 Feb 2012 20:10:00 -0600
Intel has announced that its Haswell architecture, due to ship some time in 2013, will include hardware support for transactional memory.
Transactional memory is a promising technique designed to make the creation of reliable multithreaded programs easier. It does this by using a transactional model wherein complex operations can be performed concurrently, in isolation from each other, with those operations either completing or being undone as if they'd never been started—a model that developers are already familiar with from database programming.
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Game publishers. Huh? Good god, y'all, what are they good for?
Wed, 08 Feb 2012 19:20:00 -0600
If you ask people what a game developer does, most of them would give a simple answer—they make games. But if you ask someone what a game publisher does, most casual observers would have a much harder time giving you an answer. And these days, a lot of people in the game industry might have some questions about that, too.
The DICE Summit on Wednesday hosted an interesting discussion of whether the traditional publisher role—which primarily involves supporting developers and marketing their titles—really has a place in a gaming world that's rapidly discarding old ideas and business models.
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Critics slam SSL authority for minting certificate for impersonating sites
Wed, 08 Feb 2012 18:30:00 -0600
Critics are calling for the ouster of Trustwave as a trusted issuer of secure sockets layer certificates after it admitted minting a credential it knew would be used by a customer to impersonate websites it didn't own.
The so-called subordinate root certificate allowed the customer to issue SSL credentials that Internet Explorer and other major browsers would accept as valid for any server on the Internet. The unnamed buyer of this skeleton key used it to perform what amounted to man-in-the-middle attacks that monitored users of its internal network as they accessed SSL-encrypted websites and services. The data-loss-prevention system used a hardware security module to ensure the private key at the heart of the root certificate wasn't accidentally leaked or retrieved by hackers.
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Ding dong, the white MacBook is dead—for real this time
Wed, 08 Feb 2012 18:20:53 -0600
The white plastic MacBook is officially dead for good after Apple notified resellers that it will no longer be available to educational institutions. The 13" machine was essentially killed off for most of the public last July, but the budget laptop continued to be available to schools for the last six months. Now, however, the machine has officially been EOL'd (End of Lifed), bringing the old iBook legacy to an end once and for all.
As noted by MacRumors, Apple informed resellers of the product EOL on Wednesday, saying they had ended the educational distribution channel for the machine. It's unlikely that Apple has been actively manufacturing white MacBooks up to this point, either—it's not public how long the company did manufacture it (if at all) past last July, but its cancellation this week was likely due to the end of whatever remaining supply was available.
When Apple made the white MacBook unavailable to the public last year, it was on the same day the company introduced its 11" MacBook Air for $999—the same price the as the MacBook. Apple doesn't typically like to sell Macs for much cheaper than that for extended periods of time, so it was only a matter of time before the white MacBook bid the world farewell.
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RIAA still raging against Google, Wikipedia for "misuse of power" in SOPA battle
Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:22:00 -0600
Cary Sherman, CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America, is a sharp guy with degrees from Cornell and Harvard Law. When we've spoken in the past, Sherman has shown a keen grasp of the issues. But as head of a major trade group and lobbying association, Sherman is not above hand-waving demagoguery, a trait on full display in yesterday's strangely angry New York Times op-ed.
In it, Sherman throws down the gauntlet. Not interested in playing the "humble" card, Sherman apparently believes he's going to get better results in his quest to revive something like the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) by resorting to rank insults. He follows the line of attack carved out by MPAA boss Chris Dodd, who last month called the anti-SOPA Internet blackout "an irresponsible response," "an abuse of power," "a dangerous and troubling development," and a "gimmick."
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Russians finally hit Antarctic Lake Vostok after 20-year drilling project
Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:42:00 -0600
After several days of uncertainty, the head of Russia's Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute has confirmed that a drilling project that started over 20 years ago has finally made it through nearly four kilometers of ice to reach Lake Vostok. The lake is similar in size to one of the smaller Great Lakes of North America, but has been buried under an enormous sheet of ice for about 30 million years.
We already know strange things go on in the environments that have been trapped under ice in the Antarctic—witness the blood falls, which spill out of a glacier that has trapped an iron-based ecosystem on the frozen continent. That raises the chance that Lake Vostok harbors microbes that have survived the cold and crushing pressures underneath a different ice sheet. Unfortunately, we won't know until next year, since the team cleared out before retrieving samples from the bottom of their bore hole.
Although some people might fear unleashing 30 million year old bacteria into the modern world, most of the contamination worries went in the opposite direction: this may be a unique and untouched ecosystem, and it would be tragic if the precautions the Russians put in place weren't sufficient to keep surface bacteria from hitching a ride on the drilling equipment. But some are already speculating that we may be able to drop a robotic submersible into the bore hole and explore the lake remotely.
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Microsoft, Google, and Apple talk up "fair and reasonable" patent license fees
Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:13:00 -0600
Microsoft today issued a brief statement promising to make "essential patents" available to competitors at fair and reasonable licensing rates, and promised not to sue companies making products that infringe these patents. The actual patents themselves weren't disclosed, but Microsoft joins both Google and Apple in making recent statements on so-called fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) licensing terms. Such licensing terms designate certain patents as essential to complying with industry standards, making them available for licensing at (supposedly) lower-than-usual rates.
Google, or at least someone close to the company, said earlier this week that it will continue offering Motorola Mobility patents under fair terms after completing its acquisition of the company. (Coincidentally, Microsoft sued Motorola in November 2010 for refusing to offer patent licenses under fair terms.) Apple, meanwhile, went directly to the European standards body behind 3G wireless networking, suggesting that standard licensing rates be set for the patents necessary to build mobile devices. Apple has apparently refused to pay the royalty fees demanded by Motorola and Samsung, saying they are excessive for patents covered by FRAND obligations.
Microsoft's statement today was titled "Microsoft's support for industry standards," and says the following:
- Microsoft will always adhere to the promises it has made to standards organizations to make its standard essential patents available on fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory terms.
- This means that Microsoft will not seek an injunction or exclusion order against any firm on the basis of those essential patents.
- This also means that Microsoft will make those essential patents available for license to other firms without requiring that those firms license their patents back to Microsoft, except for any patents they have that are essential to the same industry standard.
- Microsoft will not transfer those standard essential patents to any other firm unless that firm agrees to adhere to the points outlined above.
Despite many of the big players pledging support for a more standardized licensing process, we imagine there will still be plenty of patents left over for legal battles to continue.
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Paul McCartney concert stream will test the waters on live Apple TV viewership
Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:20:06 -0600
Apple may indeed be using the Apple TV to test the live broadcasting waters, as evidenced by its recent decision to stream former Beatle Paul McCartney's live performance this Thursday. The company "announced" via a banner on iTunes that the stream would take place at 7pm PST on February 9 both on iTunes (for Mac and PC) as well as the Apple TV—the first livestream of its kind for Apple's set-top box.
This isn't the first time Apple has streamed live (usually music-related) content via iTunes, but it will be the highest-profile and the first available to Apple TV users. The company is not charging for the stream—it will be free to help boost the profile of McCartney's recent album release, Kisses on the Bottom—and it will be viewable via the Apple TV's "Internet" menu under "iTunes Live."
The reason this is significant is because of long-standing rumors that Apple is looking for ways to challenge traditional TV delivery methods, like cable and satellite. There has been buzz that Apple might try to launch its own TV subscription service, while others (myself included) believe Apple is more likely to begin allowing third-parties to create "apps" for the Apple TV that will let them stream their own live content with ads. Apple will undoubtedly be watching its viewer numbers during the McCartney concert on Thursday, and if it sees anything encouraging coming from Apple TV viewers, it may be able to use those statistics to woo more content producers to give it a shot as well.
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Patent troll claims ownership of interactive Web—and might win
Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:10:00 -0600
The city of Tyler, Texas, is better known as the nation’s “rose capital” than as a hotspot of the technology industry. It’s a quiet, conservative city of about 100,000, full of wide streets and big trucks.
This week, though, Tyler is the site of a remarkable battle over the history of the World Wide Web—a trial that could affect the future of e-commerce. The federal courthouse downtown is packed to the brim with dozens of lawyers, representing the world’s biggest Internet companies, including Yahoo, Amazon, Google and YouTube.
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Ding dong, the white MacBook is dead—for real this time
Wed, 08 Feb 2012 18:20:53 -0600
The white plastic MacBook is officially dead for good after Apple notified resellers that it will no longer be available to educational institutions. The 13" machine was essentially killed off for most of the public last July, but the budget laptop continued to be available to schools for the last six months. Now, however, the machine has officially been EOL'd (End of Lifed), bringing the old iBook legacy to an end once and for all.
As noted by MacRumors, Apple informed resellers of the product EOL on Wednesday, saying they had ended the educational distribution channel for the machine. It's unlikely that Apple has been actively manufacturing white MacBooks up to this point, either—it's not public how long the company did manufacture it (if at all) past last July, but its cancellation this week was likely due to the end of whatever remaining supply was available.
When Apple made the white MacBook unavailable to the public last year, it was on the same day the company introduced its 11" MacBook Air for $999—the same price the as the MacBook. Apple doesn't typically like to sell Macs for much cheaper than that for extended periods of time, so it was only a matter of time before the white MacBook bid the world farewell.
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Paul McCartney concert stream will test the waters on live Apple TV viewership
Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:20:06 -0600
Apple may indeed be using the Apple TV to test the live broadcasting waters, as evidenced by its recent decision to stream former Beatle Paul McCartney's live performance this Thursday. The company "announced" via a banner on iTunes that the stream would take place at 7pm PST on February 9 both on iTunes (for Mac and PC) as well as the Apple TV—the first livestream of its kind for Apple's set-top box.
This isn't the first time Apple has streamed live (usually music-related) content via iTunes, but it will be the highest-profile and the first available to Apple TV users. The company is not charging for the stream—it will be free to help boost the profile of McCartney's recent album release, Kisses on the Bottom—and it will be viewable via the Apple TV's "Internet" menu under "iTunes Live."
The reason this is significant is because of long-standing rumors that Apple is looking for ways to challenge traditional TV delivery methods, like cable and satellite. There has been buzz that Apple might try to launch its own TV subscription service, while others (myself included) believe Apple is more likely to begin allowing third-parties to create "apps" for the Apple TV that will let them stream their own live content with ads. Apple will undoubtedly be watching its viewer numbers during the McCartney concert on Thursday, and if it sees anything encouraging coming from Apple TV viewers, it may be able to use those statistics to woo more content producers to give it a shot as well.
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Apple hoping to secure standardized royalties for 3G wireless patents
Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:35:00 -0600
Apple is attempting to stop the use of "standards essential" patents on 3G technology as legal bludgeons against smartphone competitors. To make its case, the company has gone directly to the standards body behind 3G wireless networking, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). In a letter to ETSI dated last November (but only recently uncovered by the Wall Street Journal) Apple suggested that patents offered as part of wireless networking standards should be governed by standardized royalty rates and barred from being used as the basis for legal injunctions.
As the war over smartphone supremacy has spilled over into the courtroom, some players—including Samsung and Motorola—have taken to leveraging patents essential to 3G wireless networking standards in lawsuits largely aimed at Apple. Those patents were offered up to the ETSI to help create 3G standards on the condition that they be licensed on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms.
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TuneCore: first iTunes Match royalties are "magic money" out of "thin air"
Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:12:00 -0600
Music distribution service TuneCore has described the royalties from iTunes Match as "magic money that Apple made exist out of thin air for copyright holders," signaling early support of the service from one part of the music industry. TuneCore CEO Jeff Price made the proclamation in a blog post on Tuesday, making the first iTunes Match royalty payments sound like nothing less than a miracle. Without any details on how much individual musicians are taking home, however, it's not clear whether iTunes Match pays better or worse than similar services.
TuneCore is a service used by many independent musicians and artists that allows them to distribute their music on major music stores like iTunes and Amazon. The idea is to use TuneCore's resources—instead of the artist's limited resources—to achieve wider distribution to a major audience, and for what amounts to as a minimal cost to the musician. TuneCore isn't the only service that does this—CD Baby is another popular option—but it remains one of the larger collectives of indie musicians online.
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Etc: Good news 2010 MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and iMac owners: you can now use Lion Internet Recovery thanks to a new EFI Firmware update.
Wed, 08 Feb 2012 09:15:15 -0600
Good news 2010 MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and iMac owners: you can now use Lion Internet Recovery thanks to a new EFI Firmware update.
Read More: MacStories
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Apple trademark may hint at processing improvement for next-gen A6 processor
Tue, 07 Feb 2012 15:25:00 -0600
A recent trademark application from Apple for the term "Macroscalar" may give a clue about upcoming improvements for its next-generation mobile processors. The term refers to technology Apple has been working on as far back as 2004, according to Patently Apple, and appears to refer to code optimization techniques that keep processors filled with instructions to run during otherwise repetitive loops.
Apple applied for the trademark for "Macroscalar" in both the US and Hong Kong last week. The trademark application links the term to use with microprocessors as well as mobile devices and software. It turns out that Apple has at least four patents related to what it calls "macroscalar processor architecture," suggesting the trademark is likely connected to an improved processor for its iOS devices.
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Etc: Buffalo Wild Wings, a favorite locale of Ars staffers, is expanding a trial that lets users order from an iPad. BW3 claims the goal isn't to replace waiters, but to free them up to "interact more" with customers.
Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:52:22 -0600
Buffalo Wild Wings, a favorite locale of Ars staffers, is expanding a trial that lets users order from an iPad. BW3 claims the goal isn't to replace waiters, but to free them up to "interact more" with customers.
Read More: Computerworld
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Etc: Apple has posted a friendly warning to developers to avoid manipulating App Store rankings, either themselves or via third-party services.
Tue, 07 Feb 2012 10:20:56 -0600
Apple has posted a friendly warning to developers to avoid manipulating App Store rankings, either themselves or via third-party services.
Read More: Apple, Ars coverage
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High-res UI elements in OS X 10.7.3 renew buzz about "retina" display MacBooks
Tue, 07 Feb 2012 09:38:00 -0600
There's renewed buzz about support for "retina" displays on Apple's portable Macs thanks to higher-resolution cursor images showing up in Mac OS X 10.7.3. Noticed by a handful of Mac developers, there are new UI images for things like the Safari finger, the Mail gripping hand, and one of the screenshot camera cursors, among (undoubtedly) several others.
It's reasonable to assume that Apple might want to add these new UI elements into the OS for those using higher-resolution external displays. However, as noted by Daring Fireball, those who have Mac minis connected via HDMI to TV sets observed recently that their machines rebooted directly into HiDPI mode after upgrading to 10.7.3 last week without prompting, which could indicate plans to release future MacBooks with HiDPI displays.
Talk of a "retina" display MacBook Pro has been popping up more and more over the last six months or so. We acknowledged in December that we may end up seeing Apple release such a thing in 2012, and a thread in our forums indicates that users believe it will happen eventually—it's just a matter of when. As Chris Foresman wrote recently: "Apple is expected to have similar resolution displays ready for the iPad 3 in early spring, and the same technology would likely be used to make such a high-resolution display suitable for the MacBook Pro." Combined with the expected Ivy Bridge processors from Intel later this year, Apple could take the opportunity to upgrade the Pro line with new processors and higher-resolution displays in one fell swoop.
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Apple rules top three smartphone spots but loses new users to Android
Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:05:00 -0600
Apple continues to hold the title for some of the top-selling smartphone models, with the iPhone 4S being the best selling handset in the US last quarter, according to a new report by market research firm NPD. But while the iPhone has repeatedly made Apple the top smartphone vendor in the US, Android still appears to be attracting more new users.
Apple had three iPhone models available for sale in the fourth quarter of 2011: the just-released iPhone 4S, the iPhone 4, which Apple continues to sell as a lower-cost entry-level model, and the nearly three-year-old iPhone 3GS, which AT&T still offers as essentially a $0 bargain smartphone. Collectively, all iPhones sold accounted for 43 percent of smartphone sales in the US for the quarter.
According to NPD analyst Ross Rubin, Apple sold nearly two iPhone 4S models for every iPhone 4 sold, and five iPhone 4S models for every iPhone 3GS sold. And despite the large disparity in numbers, the iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, and iPhone 3GS ended up being the top three smartphones sold in the US.
But even with the top Android smartphone (Samsung Galaxy SII) being outsold more than five to one in the US, Android handsets in aggregate still accounted for 48 percent of US smartphone sales last quarter, accord to NPD's data. Perhaps more alarming for Apple, users buying their first smartphones chose an Android device 57 percent of the time, and an iOS device just 34 percent of the time.
While Android has been criticized for its platform fragmentation and the complexity it presents to users, the platform's wide carrier support, growing app selection, and variety of models available from several vendors attracts a generally wider audience. Particularly in the US, Rubin noted, Android is the only choice for users who want to take advantage of LTE networks from Verizon and AT&T or Sprint's WiMAX network.
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©2009 Robert K. Foster
Posted on Sun, Jan 25, 2009 at 5:17 PM ( Updated Jan 25, 2009 )
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