Posts Tagged ‘media/news’

Google book settlement revised, criticized

// November 16th, 2009 // No Comments » // Tech News

Late Friday night, Google filed a revised version of its book settlement with the New York court that is overseeing the case. The new version limits the settlement to works published in a handful of English-speaking countries, and contains significant concessions that appear to be direct responses to some of the criticisms of the deal. Nevertheless, some of its harshest critics have clearly not been placated, as the revised deal has already come under fire due to continuing legal, privacy, and business issues. Perhaps the most significant change made to the deal is the limit to its scope. The EU as a whole (and several of its member countries) objected to several aspects of the settlement, which could have seen Google offer scans of European works that have never been licensed for sale in the US. Google offered to add European publishers and authors to the board that oversaw the handling of book content, but that was apparently not enough to satisfy the European publishing business; as a result, most of the EU has been dropped.

Mac cloner guilty, but "hackintosh" tools will persist

// November 16th, 2009 // No Comments » // Tech News

Apple has won a landmark victory against Mac clone maker Psystar, though it doesn’t spell doom for the rest of the hackintosh industry just yet. US District Judge William Alsup ruled late last Friday that Psystar had violated Apple’s copyrights when distributing Mac OS X with its machines, and that the company was also in violation of the anti-circumvention provisions in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. As a result, Judge Alsup dismissed Psystar’s counterclaims and ruled in favor of Apple, but Apple still has a long road ahead if wants to shut down other hackintoshers. The legal battle between Apple and Psystar  began more than a year ago in July of 2008, several months after Psystar introduced its first bargain-basement Mac clone for $399 that could run Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard). Since then, the legal fight has been a drama-filled soap opera—Psystar’s original countersuit was thrown out completely , followed by a bankruptcy filing that revealed that Psystar owed its law firm more than $88,000. In July of 2009, Psystar changed its mind on the whole bankruptcy angle —which Apple believed was a stall tactic to begin with—and switched to Jammie Thomas lawyer Kiwi Camara.

Laying down tracks on the go with an iPhone and a browser

// November 15th, 2009 // No Comments » // Tech News

Back in the day, the multitrack tool of choice for bedroom Springsteens was an analog four-track recorder from companies like Tascam. But with the advent of cheap laptops and powerful digital tools like ProTools, Logic, and Garageband, even the cheapest guitar slinger moved his workstation to the computer. The new solutions were a huge step forward for home studio enthusiasts, but new digital recording tools are going beyond the computer—into the pocket and onto the Web. The increasing power of smartphones means that musicians can now carry a complete digital scratch pad in their pockets, while moving the recording application to the Web allows simple collaboration with anyone from around the world, lowers the cost of entry, and provides access to a mixing console from any computer on the planet.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii review: impressive, and then some

// November 15th, 2009 // No Comments » // Tech News

New Super Mario Bros. Wii is one of those games that will leave you disappointed after the first level, slightly happy after the first world, and then you’ll be stuck with a huge grin on your face after blasting through the game with three friends. This is a magical game, made even more impressive by how rote it may seem at first. Keep playing, however, and you’ll see just how much this title offers. One of the more impressive feats the game pulls off is offering level design that is perfectly fine to play with a single player, but also benefits from having multiple people on the screen at once. If you’re a loner, this is still some of the best 2D platforming you can find on the market. If you have three friends who you love/hate… be prepared for something altogether different.

Studios launch Epix high-def, on-demand movies site (and we have invites)

// October 29th, 2009 // No Comments » // Tech News

Epix, the new HD television channel and on-demand Internet service, is going live this weekend on its first network: Verizon’s FiOS. If you’re not a subscriber, though, Ars has 200 30-day epixhd.com passes to give away—the perfect way to test the service’s 720p streaming on new films like Cloverfield , I ndiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull , and Iron Man . Epix has an unusual business model. When we first described it , the idea was that Hollywood studios MGM, Paramount, and Lionsgate would join forces and put their not-yet-on-DVD movies onto a new TV channel called Epix. In addition, people who subscribed to both a TV service and an Internet service from a partner (like Verizon) could then access epixhd.com for on-demand 720p streaming to their computers at any time. Epix hoped to set itself apart from the pay-TV pack by convincing operators to roll its offering into their standard channel lineups rather than breaking it out as a separate fee.

Hands-on: Google music streams useful, not revolutionary

// October 29th, 2009 // No Comments » // Tech News

As expected , Google announced Wednesday that it was indeed adding music streams to its search results thanks to a partnership with Lala, iLike, Rhapsody, and imeem. The search giant has struck licensing deals with EMI, Universal, Warner Music, and Sony Music to bring streams of popular music to the search page via the streaming partners, while the likes of iLike and Lala will be bringing their collection of independent artists as well. Now, whenever you search for a musical artist, a song, or even a lyric (thanks to Gracenote), Google will include streams right there in your search results along with links to the other services. We decided to give this new feature a run-through to see just what it could handle, and came away (mostly) liking what we saw.

Ubuntu 9.10 brings web sync, faster bootup, GNOME 2.28

// October 29th, 2009 // No Comments » // Tech News

The Ubuntu Linux distribution has received a major update today. The new version, Ubuntu 9.10, will introduce several significant new features and will deliver the latest version of the GNOME desktop environment and other applications. This is the eleventh release of Ubuntu since the project’s inception five years ago . The distribution has achieved an unprecedented level of popularity in the Linux desktop ecosystem and has attracted a considerable audience. Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, touts the new release as its best yet and says that the latest improvements will take the Ubuntu user experience to the next level.

Med students hoist P2P Jolly Roger to get access to papers

// October 29th, 2009 // No Comments » // Tech News

The ease with which information can be spread through the Internet has exacerbated tensions among those who pay for, conduct, and publish scientific research. Many journals still require subscription or per-article payments for access to the research they publish, which often leaves the public, who funds a significant percentage of the research, on the wrong side of a pay wall. So far, however, there’s been little evidence that the public has been interested enough in research to engage in the sort of widespread file-sharing that plague other content industries. But a new study suggests that may just be because nobody’s looked very carefully. The study, which was spotted by TechDirt , appears in an open-access journal , so anyone can read its entire contents. It describes the sharing of over 5,000 research papers on a site frequented by medical professionals, and the formal community rules that governed the exchange.

Roku sporting new hardware; channel store coming soon

// October 27th, 2009 // No Comments » // Tech News

Roku, makers of the popular Roku Digital Video Player set-top box , announced new hardware options just in time for the holiday shopping season. The new options include a lower priced, SD-only $80 option, while a new higher-end device will sell for $130. The company is also readying its Roku Channel Store, which will bring even more content to a collection that already includes Netflix streaming, Amazon Video on Demand , and MLB.tv. First up is the hardware. For those on a budget, or those that don’t plan on getting an HDTV anytime soon, there is the Roku SD. This box is a simplified version that is only capable of SD resolution, and limits the output to composite video and analog stereo audio. Networking options include Ethernet and 802.11b/g WiFi, and it sells for $20 less than its older cousin at $79.99.

The quest for a truly open smartphone: can it be done?

// October 27th, 2009 // No Comments » // Tech News

The recent release of the Symbian kernel source code under the Eclipse Public License (EPL) has generated some discussion in the open source software community about the challenges of building a truly open smartphone platform. Software freedom advocates are concerned because none of the existing open source mobile platforms with mainstream viability are entirely open. OpenMoko, a company that spun off of FIC in 2007 with the aim of building an open smartphone, was once regarded as a promising contender. The company ran into difficulty, however, and was ultimately forced to halt its phone development efforts and pursue alternate projects. OpenMoko found that the cost of producing 3G smartphones was prohibitively high for independent device makers and it was simply not possible to do without using proprietary firmware.

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