Archive for May, 2009

RIAA responds: Nesson more like P.T. Barnum than David

// May 31st, 2009 // No Comments » // Tech News

Last week, we ran an op-ed from Charles Nesson, the Harvard Law professor waging war on the RIAA “Goliath” and its army of lawyers. Here to respond to Nesson’s accusations is Steven Marks, general counsel for the RIAA. To Marks, Nesson is playing the part of a circus ringmaster, not a downtrodden “David.” The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Ars Technica. Yes, we “get it” It is a fascinating and challenging time to work in the music business. The record industry is swept up in a sea of change and we have embraced it. It’s a new day for the business and a new day for fans—25 years ago, it was just radio and records, but today’s music marketplace is dramatically different, with hundreds of different fully licensed digital music services and models. - SiliCon-X

Get Ars in your inbox, and maybe a prize—The Dispatch returns

// May 31st, 2009 // No Comments » // Tech News

Let’s face it, keeping up with the goings on in the tech world is tough work. Ars Technica offers  copious amounts of RSS feeds , a bustling Twitter feed , and, of course, the site itself. One hole in our current news syndication lineup, however, is one of the most ubiquitous and effective transmission mediums the net has to offer: e-mail. When will fill that hole, we won’t send you everything—we’ll just send you the best. Back in when we only had a few years under our collective belts, we tried our hand at sending out a regular newsletter called the “Disp@tch.” Throughout our several evolutions in the ensuing years, the Disp@tch was abandoned but, for a while now, we’ve imagined it rising from the ashes like some glorious Phoenix. We’re finally relaunching the Ars Technica newsletter, and we’ve ditched the late-nineties @-sign (thank goodness). The initial re-incarnation will be a weekly roundup of our best stories, based partly on raw traffic with a little bit of editors’-choice special sauce mixed in. The first newsletter will be beamed down from the Ars Orbiting HQ next week, June 5, 2009, so be sure to sign up now  if you want to ensure you get in on the ground floor. In fact, you can sign up for the weekly dispatch right here! Your email address: * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its User Agreement (Revised May 22, 2009) and Privacy Policy (Revised January 25, 2009). Over the next few weeks and months, we’ll be listening to your feedback about the newsletters and we’d like start mixing in more newsletter-exclusive features like a tip of the week, original newsletter content, and interesting or just funny links from around the web we think you should check out. Get free stuff for signing up And, just as a cherry on top, if you subscribe , you might win something! If you sign up within the next five days (and are over 18 and a resident of the US or Canada—excluding Quebec) you’ll be entered into a random drawing where we’ll give away an iPod Touch 8GB (first prize), and a Nokia N800 from our labs (second prize). See the full set of rules here . If you’ve previously signed up for an Ars account and indicated that you’d like to receive occasional email contact from us, you will already be on this list (we sent an email to everyone a few days ago to let them know what was coming so they could unsubscribe in advance). If you’re unsure whether you opted-in or not, just log into your profile and set the appropriate settings and we’ll update the list before we send it out.

E3 2009 promises to return to form, surprises expected

// May 31st, 2009 // No Comments » // Tech News

While E3 may not officially begin until Tuesday this week, the action has already begun. Trailers of big-name games are being released or leaked, the PSP Go has been a hot topic of conversation, and of course Microsoft will try to begin the whole mess tomorrow with a bang, as the company hosts the show’s first press conference. What do we expect from E3 this year? - SiliCon-X

PSP Go revealed in detail—it’s real

// May 31st, 2009 // No Comments » // Tech News

It didn’t take long before one of the biggest E3 rumors was confirmed. GamingConsoleNetwork  noticed that the PSP Go made an appearance in an early release of the Sony video series Qore. And then it was described in detail. And then shown some more. Soon after that, Eurogamer got ahold of a series of pictures of the hardware, which reveal everything in beautiful detail. The system is real, it is small, and it has no UMD drive.  The video is being pulled from YouTube just as soon as it’s being uploaded, but a quick search or two should turn up a copy of the video if you’d like to see the hardware in action. Here’s what we know about the hardware so far… it seems like the Mole was right about many of the details. - SiliCon-X

Can Web-based plagiarism detection beat a Google search?

// May 31st, 2009 // No Comments » // Tech News

A new plagiarism detection service says that it can help track down copied text on the Internet—but it is any better than a search engine? We put it to the test with some of our own content. Plagium is simple to use: enter text into a box and hit the “track plagiarisms” button. Site operator Septet Systems says that Plagium uses “Septet’s proprietary TX Miner engine, which employs advanced search technology for deep mining of documents on the public World Wide Web or within private repositories,” but the actual search results are generated with the Yahoo Search API. - SiliCon-X

Weird Science discovers that video games can kill

// May 31st, 2009 // No Comments » // Tech News

Video games are harmful to children: But not how you think. The paper’s title suggests it’s bad news, starting with the phrase “Dying to Play Video Games.” But the harm turns out to be pretty indirect, as it comes from carbon monoxide poisoning. It turns out that, during the power outages caused by Hurricane Ike’s landfall in Texas, the use of faulty generators sent about 20 children to the ER. In 75 percent of those cases, it turns out their parents started up the generator in order to allow their kids to play video games so they could while away their time in the dark. This wine tastes of Mount Shasta National Forest: It’s a scene that’s made its way to a number of movies and TV shows I’ve watched: the wine snob carefully sniffs and sips a glass of wine and, after a moment of contemplation, names the region and year of origin of the wine. Well, the snob’s got nothing on a mass spec. Given enough samples to work with, the folks who study wines (oenologists, if you must know) can actually figure out where the barrels it was aged in came from . Or, as the authors put it, “the statistical analysis of a series of barrel-aged wines revealed that 10-year-old wines still express a metabologeographic signature of the forest location where oaks of the barrel in which they were aged have grown.” And, showing that the study of wines is subject to the same sort of buzzwords that afflicts other fields, the authors have tagged their paper “systems oenology” and called their methods an “oenolomic approach.” - SiliCon-X

HTML 5 and Web video: freeing rich media from plugin prison

// May 31st, 2009 // No Comments » // Tech News

The expressive power of the Web is largely made possible by open standards. HTML, the vendor-neutral markup language that serves as the underlying foundation of the open Web, helped to foster the culture of interoperability and inclusiveness that have made the Internet a success. HTML 5, the next iteration of that standard, could bring the same degree of empowerment and interoperability to rich media and other kinds of Web content. Although HTML 5 is still in the draft process and has not yet been ratified by W3C, the nascent standard is gaining significant traction. Browser makers are implementing key features of HTML 5 and bringing robust support for some of its most advanced capabilities to end users. A growing number of prominent companies that deliver content and services on the Web are putting their weight behind HTML 5 and touting it as the way forward for building interactive Web applications and deploying rich media in the browser. - SiliCon-X

Scientologists, WWII Star of David spoof

// May 31st, 2009 // No Comments » // p2p

- | Freedom:- Before you go any further, I’VE BEEN HAD !!! I’m the victim of a spoof article on the genuine news that the Wikipedia has banned Scientology . My only excuse is: just like the corporate movie and music industries, virtually anything, no matter how bizarre, can be potentially attributed to this organisation,  and I believed it, as did the person who told me about it. I’d never heard of Rant & Rave,  from whence the claim originally came and, I blushingly admit I should have seen the light because of the title. But I even said it was appropriately named. What can I say? — except the spoof has at least served a useful purpose: it’s once again drawn attention to the despicable cult of  Scientology and I sincerely hope I haven’t offended  Jewish readers, or anyone else (except Herr Miscavige), with this post. With apologies … Jon Newton ____________________________ Here’s the story »»» Billionaire Scientology leader David Miscavige says he’s “outraged” because the Wikipedia has barred the cult. “Any and all CoS IP addresses are effectively banned on the Wikipedia, which in turn spells the end of the cult’s use of it as a configurable propaganda and indoctrination engine,” said p2pnet yesterday. Now, in the cult’s appropriately named Rant & Rave , Miscavige calls the ban a “despicable hate crime,” and asks »»» What’s next, will Scientologists have to wear yellow, six-pointed stars on our clothing?” During World War II, Hitler forced Jewish men, women and children to wear a  a yellow cloth star bearing the word Jude to brand them in the streets of Europe, and in the Nazi death camps. The ‘church,’ founded by dead Sci-Fi writer L. Ron Hubbard, and on the verge of being outlawed in France , is at one and the same time an international laughing stock built, as it is, around a weird galactic overlord named Xenu , and a terror organisation, holding thousands of people around the world in helpless thrall while it milks them of their sanity and money. It depends on celebrities such as as one of its chief spokesmen, actor Tom Cruise, to scam people into joining, and then manipulates them into paying thousands of dollars to enable them to ascend different levels, with Operating Thetan Level Eight as the Ultimate Reward. According to, Miscavige, everyone who criticises the cult is a crook or, as he puts it in R&R, “We do not find critics of Scientology who do not have criminal backgrounds.” With the “brutal decision” to bar the cult’s IP addresses, the Wikipedia is,” criminally attacking the world’s most ethical people, members of the Scientology religion,” Miscavige raves, adding »»» There is so much nonsense on the internet about Scientology, all of which was written by anti-religion extremists in the employ of the Psychiatric-Pharmaceutical industry. Many are also being paid by certain depraved, degenerate factions within the German government. You can’t believe any of it. If these scumbags had their way, all children would be psych-drugged into oblivion, most eventually becoming high school gunmen; vicious de-programmers would constantly be leaping out from shadowy corners; there would be all-night electroshock parlors on the high street of every village, town and city; and anyone who tried to live an ethical life would quickly receive an icepick lobotomy. This is why it is necessary for Scientologists to try to present a balanced perspective, by showcasing all the good things about the Scientology religion, and removing all the lies. Stay tuned. (Thanks, YKW) - . p2pnet - Wikipedia bans Cult of Scientology, May 30, 2009 Rant & Rave - Scientology CEO Outraged About Wikipedia, May 30, 2009 outlawed in France - Scientology could be shut down in France, May 30, 2009 - - | | rss feed: http://-/p2p.rss | | Mobile - http://-/index-wml.php -? -

Week in Apple: Psystar going bankrupt, iPod knockoffs, and back-to-school

// May 30th, 2009 // No Comments » // Tech News

It’s all but guaranteed that new iPhones are coming soon, given the endless flow of rumors about the device (or devices). That, plus Apple’s newest back-to-school promotion, more lawsuit developments, and Mac clone maker Psystar filing for bankruptcy all rounded out this week’s top Apple news. Knockoff iPod shuffle giveaway ruffles some feathers : One man’s gift is another man’s lawsuit. Some iPod knockoffs given away at the Swiss Economic Forum were not universally enjoyed, and one recipient has even sued the company giving them away. Icons surface for next-gen iPhone in most recent SDK beta : Icons labeled as iPhone2,1 are included in the iPhone OS 3.0 SDK beta 5, and appear to confirm speculation that next-gen iPhone hardware will differ little in appearance from current models. - SiliCon-X

Tech week in review: P2P battles, Android on Ubuntu, and more

// May 30th, 2009 // No Comments » // Tech News

Just as the northern hemisphere is heating up as we move towards the summer solstice, so is the rhetoric between the RIAA and its legal adversaries. Harvard law professor Charles Nesson has gotten involved in another file-sharing lawsuit, and he’s making another demand of the recording industry. Nesson says that the RIAA will need to cough up over $100 million that he believes it has obtained from the 30,000+ lawsuits it’s filed, should the cases he’s currently involved in succeed. The developers over at Canonical have been busy lately. Not only are they working on the Ubuntu Netbook Remix, but they are also building an execution environment for Android applications . Android apps will be able to run on Ubuntu, opening the door for a whole new ecosystem of third-party software to come to the Linux desktop. - SiliCon-X



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