Slashdot Mirror

dusty writes "Remember those green lasers from Star Wars? Turns out that faking green lasers has been easy for years, but making true green laser diodes has been the stuff of science fiction. Until recently, that is. Now researchers from Japan have created the world's first true green laser diode. Until now, only red and blue laser diodes were available, and now with the addition of green, new TVs and projectors that are more efficient can be produced. And if you were wondering how green lasers pointers are already produced, it is a hack that involved doubling the frequency of an infrared laser. The new true green laser diodes have much higher efficiency than the current 6%, leading many to expect big time laser display breakthroughs in the near future. Ars Technica has a well-written article on this breakthrough."

Several readers sent us updates from the Boston courtroom where, mere hours before the start of trial, a federal judge ruled out fair use as a defense. Wired writes that "the outcome is already shaping up to resemble the only other file sharing trial," in which the RIAA got a $1.92M judgement against Jammie Thomas-Rassert. The defendant, Joel Tenenbaum, has already essentially admitted to sharing music files, and the entire defense put together by Harvard Prof. Charles Nesson and his students turned on the question of fair use. The judge wrote that the proposed defense would be "so broad it would swallow the copyright protections that Congress has created." Jury selection is complete and opening arguments will begin tomorrow morning. Here is the Twitter feed organized by Prof. Nesson's law students.

An anonymous reader writes "In a Wired news article, iPhone Forensics expert Jonathan Zdziarski explains how the much-touted hardware encryption of the iPhone 3Gs is but a farce, and demonstrates how both the passcode and backup encryption can be bypassed in about two minutes. Zdziarski also goes on to say that all data on the iPhone — including deleted data — is automatically decrypted by the iPhone when it's copied, allowing hackers and law enforcement agencies alike access the device's raw disk as if no encryption were present. A second demonstration features the recovery of the iPhone's entire disk while the device is still passcode-locked. According to a similar article in Ars Technica, Zdziarski describes the iPhone's hardware encryption by saying it's 'like putting privacy glass on half your shower door.' With the iPhone being sold into 20% of Fortune-100s and into the military, just how worried should we be with such shoddy security?"

An anonymous reader sends in coverage from Ars Technica of Microsoft's capitulation to the EU, after European regulators requested that Redmond bundle multiple browsers on new PCs. "Microsoft has decided that the last thing it needs in this economy is some combination of the following: fines, legal bills, and a delay of Windows 7. It has offered to adopt the European Union's preferred solution for browser competition: a browser selector screen at startup."

Back in February, the US Court of Appeals shot down a California law that banned the sale or rental of violent video games to minors. Shortly thereafter, State Senator Leland Yee petitioned the US Supreme Court to review the case. Now, along with California's Psychiatric and Psychological Associations, Yee has filed an amicus curiae brief with Court that elaborates on the reasoning behind the law. Within the brief (PDF) are some interesting quotes: "Parents can read a book, watch a movie or listen to a CD to discern if it is appropriate for their child. These violent video games, on the other hand, can contain up to 800 hours of footage with the most atrocious content often reserved for the highest levels and can be accessed only by advanced players after hours upon hours of progressive mastery. ... Notably, extended play has been observed to depress activity in the frontal cortex of the brain which controls executive thought and function, produces intentionality and the ability to plan sequences of action, and is the seat of self-reflection, discipline and self-control." The video game industry has filed its own amicus brief to dispute Yee's claims.

An anonymous reader links to Ars Technica's report that (quoting) "Microsoft today announced that Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 have hit the Release to Manufacturing (RTM) milestone. The software giant still has a lot of work to do, but the bigger responsibility now falls to OEMs that must get PCs ready, Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) that are testing their new apps, and Independent Hardware Vendors (IHVs) that are preparing their new hardware. The RTM build is 7600, but it is not the same one that leaked less than two weeks ago (7600.16384). We speculated that Microsoft may end up recompiling build 7600 until it is satisfied, but it only took the company one more shot to get it right: 7600.16385 is the final build number. Microsoft refused to share the full build string, but if you trust leaks from a few days ago, it's '6.1.7600.16385.090713-1255,' which indicates that the final build was compiled over a week ago: July 13, 2009, at 12:45pm. This would be in line with the rumored RTM date but it is also the day Microsoft stated that Windows 7 had not yet hit RTM. Although the final build had been compiled, Microsoft still had to put it through testing before christening it as RTM."

An anonymous reader recommends an Ars Technica account of a breakthrough in efforts toward quantum computing. German scientists have managed to get cesium atoms in a state called a "quantum walk": basically a superposition of all the possible states of a particle. "Quantum walks were first proposed by physicist Richard Feynman and are, in terms of probability, the opposite of a random walk. A random walk might be modeled by a person flipping a coin, and for each flip he steps left for heads and right for tails. In this case, his most probable location is the center, with the probability distribution tapering off in either direction. A quantum walk involves the use of internal states and superpositions, and results in the hypothetical person 'exploring' every possible position simultaneously." In the abstract of the paper from Science (subscription needed for full-text access), the researchers say: "Our system allows the observation of the quantum-to-classical transition and paves the way for applications, such as quantum cellular automata."

The EFF has restated many of their original privacy objections about California's latest revision to the Pay-As-You-Drive auto insurance proposal. Admitting that the amended bill is an improvement, privacy advocates are still uneasy about the surveillance implications of this program. "The proposal centers on a simple idea: infrequent drivers are less of an insurance risk. By pricing policies according to the mileage driven, insurance companies can offer discounts to lower-risk infrequent drivers, and put an appropriate cost penalty on heavy drivers. The state estimates that 30% adoption of PAYD insurance nationwide would reduce miles driven by at least 10% among subscribers, and save 55 million tons of CO2 over the next ten years. The benefits of such a system could be quite dramatic, as California Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner is sure to emphasize. Such insurance plans first became available in 2004, and are now available as a limited option in 30 US states from insurance companies like Progressive and Liberty Mutual."

Meshach writes "An article in Ars Technica claims that 12% of internet users have actually responded to spam messages and tried to buy items. Although I find this hard to believe, it does explain why my spam folder is always full." Also in spam news, wjousts links to a Technology Review article about how spammers get your e-mail address, writing "E-mail addresses in comments posted to a website had a high probability of getting spammed, while of the 70 e-mail addresses submitted during registration at various websites, only 4 got spammed."

suraj.sun sends along an Ars writeup of the lobbying Pandora is doing now that it has secured its future, royalties-wise. Some might think it odd that Pandora is weighing in on the side of the record labels in their fight to get radio stations to pay more for the music they broadcast. "US radio stations don't pay performers and producers for the music they play, but the recording industry hopes to change that with a new performance rights bill in Congress. Webcaster Pandora has jumped into the fray on the side of the artists and labels, asking why radio gets a free ride when Pandora does not. ... With revenues from recorded music sales declining, rights-holders have turned their eyes in recent years to commercial US radio, which currently pays songwriters (but not performers or record labels)... With its own future secure for the next few years, Pandora is now turning its attention to the public performance debate here in the US, saying that the issue is a simple matter of fairness: why should webcasters have to pay more for music than traditional radio does? ... [But] the 'fairness' argument could clearly go either way. Radio might start paying a performance right; on the other hand, perhaps webcasters and satellite radio companies should simply stop paying one, relying on the old argument about promotion."

suraj.sun writes with news that European publishers are also seeking ways to "protect" their content from the big bad intertubes. Their rant, termed the "Hamburg Declaration," asks the government to step in with a legislative fix. "Most of the statements in the relatively short declaration, which will surely take its place among thousands of other European declarations on intellectual property and other matters that have come out over the past few years, hinge on the idea that 'universal access to news' does not equal 'free.' In this respect, the publishers want to maintain the democratic ideal of a 'fourth estate' that provides news to an informed citizenry, while simultaneously restricting access to that news to those who can pay for it directly. What sets this declaration apart from the other Hamburg declarations out there, or from the various Geneva declarations or Berlin declarations, is that this one is intended to give the publishers' favorite solution to the news-stealing problem, the Automated Content Access Protocol, the force of law."

An anonymous reader writes "One Microsoft Way is reporting that Microsoft has significantly incremented the build number of both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2: 'Reports across the Web are pointing to a build 7600 for both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. This is significant because the bump in the build number would suggest that Microsoft has christened this build as the Release to Manufacturing (RTM) build. The RTM is expected to be given out to Microsoft partners sometime later this month and launched on October 22, 2009, the day of General Availability (GA). The build string is "7600.16384.090710-1945," which indicates that it was compiled just a few days ago: July 10, 2009, at 7:45pm. Microsoft only increments the build number when it reaches a significant goal, and the only one left is the RTM milestone. The last builds that were leaking were all 72xx builds, so such a large bump is suspicious but at the same time it is something Microsoft would do to signify that this is the final build.'"

suraj.sun writes with this excerpt from Ars Technica: "The French Senate has once again approved a reworked version of the country's controversial 'three strikes' bill designed to appease the Constitutional Council. Instead of a state-appointed agency cutting off those accused of being repeat offenders, judges will have the final say over punishment. The approval comes exactly one month after the country's Constitutional Council ripped apart the previous version of the Création et Internet law. ... Not content to let the idea die, President Nicolas Sarkozy's administration reworked the law in hopes of making it amenable to the Council — instead of HADOPI deciding on its own to cut off users on the third strike, it will now report offenders to the courts. A judge can then choose to ban the user from the Internet, fine him or her 300,000 (according to the AFP), or hand over a two-year prison sentence."

Ars Technica reports that Microsoft has opened up about "Gazelle," a new browser prototype of theirs that is modeled after the underlying concepts of operating system design. "A research team led by Microsoft's Helen Wang recently published a report about an experimental browser prototype called 'Gazelle' that uses processes to isolate page content elements originating from different domains. It builds on the concept of multiprocess browsing but uses more fine-grained isolation to expand on the security advantages that are already delivered by existing multiprocess browsing models. But is it an operating system, Microsoft Research's analogue to Google's Chrome OS? Not quite."

An anonymous reader writes with news that multi-process browsing will be coming to Firefox. The project is called Electrolysis, and the developers "have already assembled a prototype that renders a page in a separate process from the interface shell in which it is displayed." Mozilla's Benjamin Smedberg says they're currently "[sprinting] as fast as possible to get basic code working, running simple testcase plugins and content tabs in a separate process," after which they'll fix everything that breaks in the process. Further details of their plan are available on the Mozilla wiki, and a summary is up at TechFragments.

AbyssWyrm writes "Yesterday, Pandora founder Tim Westergren announced that the music service was on safe ground once again, but will no longer be free for all users. Instead, it will be really cheap — for those with a free account, there will be a cap of 40 hours per month, and a user may pay a one-time fee of $0.99 to resume unlimited listening to music for a month. According to the blog entry, this will affect the top 10% of listeners. Certainly not a bad deal considering the price, and I suspect that Pandora is one of few free internet resources whose users are loyal enough to pay a small fee to keep it afloat. Pandora's future had been uncertain ever since the royalty rates for internet radio were increased in 2007."

Ars Technica has a great breakdown of the codec debate for the HTML 5 video element. Support for the new video element seems to be split into two main camps, Ogg Theora and H.264, and the inability to find a solution has HTML 5 spec editor Ian Hickson throwing in the towel. "Hickson outlined the positions of each major browser vendor and explained how the present impasse will influence the HTML 5 standard. Apple and Google favor H.264 while Mozilla and Opera favor Ogg Theora. Google intends to ship its browser with support for both codecs, which means that Apple is the only vendor that will not be supporting Ogg. 'After an inordinate amount of discussions, both in public and privately, on the situation regarding codecs for and in HTML5, I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that there is no suitable codec that all vendors are willing to implement and ship,' Hickson wrote. 'I have therefore removed the two subsections in the HTML5 spec in which codecs would have been required, and have instead left the matter undefined.'"

Many outlets are reporting on the recently released results of the various experiments and observations of NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander. Most notable is the discovery of nighttime snowfall on the planet, lending credibility to the idea of a hypothesized active water cycle based on earlier data collection. "The papers rely on evidence from a variety of the instruments on the lander, and the description of the data provides an impressive catalog of the various ways that Phoenix could prod and query the Martian pole. In the months before Martian winter shut the lander down, it managed to dig a dozen trenches, taking soil samples from each. These samples went into wet and dry chemistry labs, had their conductivity tested, and were even examined using an atomic force microscope. Meanwhile, cameras and a LIDAR system (a laser-based range detector) scanned the surroundings. The overall conclusion is that the northern pole has an active water cycle. This had been suggested by a variety of evidence from orbital sensors, as well early images returned from Phoenix. It's also not a huge shock, given the seasonal growth and retreat of the polar ice cap. Still, Phoenix provided some significant details on the cycling of water in the area where it landed."

Ars Technica is reporting that a new kernel patch may provide a workaround to allow use of Microsoft's FAT file system on Linux without paying licensing fees. "Andrew Tridgell, one of the lead developers behind the Samba project, published a patch last week that will alter the behavior of the Linux FAT implementation so that it will not generate both short and long filenames. In situations where the total filename fits within the 11-character limit, the filesystem will generate only a short name. When the filename exceeds that length, it will only generate a long name and will populate the short name value with 11 invalid characters so that it is ignored by the operating system."

An anonymous reader notes a story up at Ars on the FBI's continuing penchant for secrecy. "Clearly, the FBI isn't ready to give up its Bush-era secrecy addition just yet. ...in the case of Doe v. Holder, the FBI is carrying out a secret investigation using secret guidelines on what is and is not constitutional, and as part of that investigation they've compelled the secrecy of a service provider and are using a secret justification to argue that nobody's First Amendment rights are being violated."

bonch writes "A Swedish court has ruled that the judge in the PirateBay trial is unbiased and there will be no retrial. Stockholm District Court defended the judge's membership in copyright organizations as a necessity to 'keep up with developments in the field' and that merely endorsing the idea of copyright law was not grounds for a mistrial. The defendants must now rely on the appeal process, while one defendant has written on his Twitter account that the PirateBay will also be suing Sweden for human rights violations."

BcNexus writes with news from Minnesota that may have significance for cities around the US where municipal networks are either in place or planned: "Here's the latest development in a fight pitting a telecommunication company against government competition. The telco, TDS, took its fight all the way to the Minnesota Supreme Court because it thought the city had no right to serve people's internet, voice and television needs with its own network, but has failed." Also from Minnesota today, BcNexus writes "The State of Minnesota was the first to blink and chose to avoid a court showdown when it dropped its attempt to block online gambling sites."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Well the price went up from $9250 per song file to $80,000 per song file, as the jury awarded the RIAA statutory damages of $1,920,000.00 for infringement of 24 MP3s, in Capitol Records v. Thomas-Rasset. In this trial, although the defendant had an expert witness of her own, she never called him to testify, and her attorneys never challenged the technical evidence offered by the RIAA's MediaSentry and Doug Jacobson. Also, neither the special verdict form nor the jury instructions spelled out what the elements of a 'distribution' are, or what needed to be established by the plaintiffs in order to recover statutory — as opposed to actual — damages. No doubt there will now have to be a third trial, and no doubt the unreasonableness of the verdict will lend support to those arguing that the RIAA's statutory damages theory is unconstitutional." Update: 06/19 01:39 GMT by T : Lots more detail at Ars Technica, too.

xclr8r writes "Eric Massa, a congressman representing a district in western New York, has a bill ready that would start treating Internet providers like a utility and stop the use of caps. Nearby locales have been used as test beds for the new caps, so this may have made the constituents raise the issue with their representative."

eldavojohn writes "The long and torrid trial of Jammie Thomas is in its second stage and in full swing. Yesterday, two major events took place: Thomas gave her surprising testimony and the RIAA was threatened for not disclosing new information to the opposing counsel. Thomas claimed she didn't know what KaZaA was before the trial started. She also admitted that the hard drive handed over to investigators was different than the one that was in her computer during the time of infringement. Her testimony from the first trial was that 'the hard drive replacement had taken place in 2004 and that the drive had not been swapped again since.' This is problematic because the new hard drive had a manufacturing date of 2005. The RIAA had its own troubles, almost losing all evidence from a particular witness when they added an additional log file to evidence without the defense being notified of it. The judge mercifully only removed that new evidence from the trial. It was related to whether or not an external hard drive was ever connected to the computer."

eldavojohn writes "The long and torrid trial of Jammie Thomas is in its second stage and in full swing. Yesterday, two major events took place: Thomas gave her surprising testimony and the RIAA was threatened for not disclosing new information to the opposing counsel. Thomas claimed she didn't know what KaZaA was before the trial started. She also admitted that the hard drive handed over to investigators was different than the one that was in her computer during the time of infringement. Her testimony from the first trial was that 'the hard drive replacement had taken place in 2004 and that the drive had not been swapped again since.' This is problematic because the new hard drive had a manufacturing date of 2005. The RIAA had its own troubles, almost losing all evidence from a particular witness when they added an additional log file to evidence without the defense being notified of it. The judge mercifully only removed that new evidence from the trial. It was related to whether or not an external hard drive was ever connected to the computer."

Death Metal sends in a story about Kyle Brady, a computer science major at San Jose State University, who recently ran into trouble over publishing the source code to his programming assignments after their due dates. One of Brady's professors contacted him and threatened to fail him if he did not take down the code. Brady took the matter to the Computer Science Department Chair, who consulted with others and decided that releasing the code was not an ethical violation. Quoting Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing: "There's a lot of meat on the bones of this story. The most important lesson from it for me is that students want to produce meaningful output from their course-assignments, things that have intrinsic value apart from their usefulness for assessing their progress in the course. Profs — including me, at times — fall into the lazy trap of wanting to assign rotework that can be endlessly recycled as work for new students, a model that fails when the students treat their work as useful in and of itself and therefore worthy of making public for their peers and other interested parties who find them through search results, links, etc. But the convenience of profs must be secondary to the pedagogical value of the university experience — especially now, with universities ratcheting up their tuition fees and trying to justify an education that can put students into debt for the majority of their working lives."

1 a bee writes "Ars Technica is running a story by Matthew Lasar about how Disney's ESPN360.com is charging ISPs for 'bulk' access to their content. According to the article, if you visit ESPN using a 'non-subscribing' ISP, you're greeted with a message explaining why access is restricted for you. This raises a number of issues: '... it's one thing to charge users an access fee, another to charge the ISP, potentially passing the cost on to all the ISPs subscribers whether they're interested in the content or not.' Ironically, the issue came to the fore in a complaint from the American Cable Association (ACA) to the FCC. A quoted ACA press release warns, 'Media giants are in the early stages of becoming Internet gatekeepers by requiring broadband providers to pay for their Web-based content and services and include them as part of basic Internet access for all subscribers. These content providers are also preventing subscribers who are interested in the content from independently accessing it on broadband networks of providers that have refused to pay.' So, is this a real threat to net neutrality (and the end-to-end principle) or just another bad business model that doesn't stand a chance?"

eldavojohn writes "In yet another bid to make your life a little more annoying, our DRM overlords at the AACS Licensing Authority have released a new AACS Adopter Agreement. The riveting, 188-page PDF will inform you that — in the name of Digital Rights Management — there will be new limitations set on devices that decrypt Blu-Ray discs. HDMI already has the awesome encryption of HDCP between the device and the display unit. But Blu-Ray still has the Achilles heel of analog players that allow someone to merely re-encode the analog signal back to an unencrypted digital format. So if you have an analog HDTV, hang on to those analog decoders and hope they never break; by 2013 you won't be able to buy a new one. Ars points out the inherent stupidity in this charade: 'Particularly puzzling is the fact that plugging the so-called "analog hole" won't stop direct digital ripping, enabled by software such as AnyDVD HD. And even the MPAA itself recommends using a camcorder pointed at a TV as a way to make fair use copies, creating another analog hole.' And so the cat and mouse game continues. On that subject, DVD Jon's legit company just brought out a billboard ad for his product doubleTwist next to Apple's San Fransisco store. It reads, 'The Cure for iPhone Envy. Your iTunes library on any device. In seconds.' So while he's busy taunting Apple, I'm certain there are others who might have some free time to look at Blu-Ray and the 'uncrackable' AACS."

jimmi_hendrix was one of several people to note CNET's report that 'Microsoft plans to remove Internet Explorer from the versions of Windows 7 that it ships in Europe, CNET News has learned. Reacting to antitrust concerns expressed by European regulators, Microsoft plans to offer a version in Europe that has the browser removed. Computer makers would then have the option to add the browser back in, ship another browser or ship multiple browsers, according to a confidential memo that was sent to PC makers and seen by CNET News." There's also a report at Ars Technica.

An anonymous reader was one of several to write with this news: "The French 'Conseil Constitutionnel' just ruled that the recently voted 'Hadopi' law, which enforces a 'three strikes and you're out' system, is actually unconstitutional [article in French; here's an English-language article at Ars]. They mainly make two points: 1) They argue that removing Internet access is equivalent to hindering a person's freedom of speech, and as such can only be decided by appointed judges. This removes all punitive power from the administrative body supposed to enforce the three-strikes rule; all it can do now is warn you that 'they're watching you.' 2) When illegal filesharing is detected, users have to prove their innocence. This is obviously contrary to the constitutional principle of presumption of innocence."

whisper_jeff writes "Ars has an excellent write up outlining how Kiwi Camara (Jammie Thomas-Rasset's new lawyer) is following the 'Best Defense is a Good Offense' philosophy and going on the attack against the RIAA. Not content to just defend his client, he is laying siege against the RIAA's entire campaign and beginning the work of dismantling it from the bottom up, starting with the question of whether they actually do own the copyrights that were allegedly infringed. And, if you're thinking this is good for everyone who's been harassed by the RIAA, you'd be right — Camara, along with Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson, plans to file a class-action suit seeking to force the RIAA to return all the (ill-gotten) money they've earned from their litigation campaign." We first discussed the efforts of Nesson and Camara to thwart the RIAA last month.

Two of the less prominent announcements during E3 were that Last.fm would be coming to Xbox Live, and so would the ability to purchase games that were only available through physical media in the past. Microsoft has now elaborated on how those services will work. According to Kotaku, "The [Last.fm] service will be made available later this year, and will be free to all Xbox Live Gold subscribers. Once accessed, the Last.fm section of the 360 dashboard will function in much the same way as the popular internet radio station does on your PC." The Games on Demand service will let people pay the actual cost of the game with a credit card, bypassing the Microsoft Point system if they want to. To start, the service will be focused on making the popular, but older games available, rather than launching new games through it. Licensing for the games will work in much the same as for Arcade games now, so players will be able to re-download deleted games at will.

It looks as though the movie studios are at least trying to learn from past failures and others' success with the upcoming launch of Epix (beta starts today), an HD television channel and accompanying online 720p service. The good part about this service is, if you are lucky enough to have a television provider who decides to become a partner, you wont have to pay extra to get it. The main downside, of course, is if your cable company decides not to plug this service in you will have no way to subscribe. "Like Hulu, the Epix movie service is a joint venture formed by the content owners; in this case, the service is powered by the movie studios Lions Gate, Paramount, and MGM. The Epix TV network will air movies that are in the "pay-TV" window — those weeks before a film appears on DVD in which it is available on pay-per-view or HBO, among others."

Amanda Callahan writes to tell us that Apple's upcoming WWDC could be quite a test for the Cupertino powerhouse. They will most likely be missing Steve Jobs for star-power and have extremely high expectations to meet in order to maintain their edge. Thankfully it looks like Jobs will be rejoining Apple later this month with a good prognosis after facing severe health issues. "The competition is now catching up. Palm, Google, Microsoft, Nokia and Research in Motion, maker of the BlackBerry, are all at varying stages of developing and introducing their own iPhone-like devices and software, along with easily accessible stores for the small programs known as applications, or apps, that run on those devices. In some cases, those companies are releasing a greater variety of phones, on more wireless carriers around the world, than Apple. To maintain its advantage, Apple must preserve the impression that it is far ahead of rivals when it comes to the capabilities and the 'cool' factor of its devices."

Valve's announcement that Left 4 Dead 2 would be released only a year after the first game has generated a great deal of controversy among fans of the game. There are concerns that Left 4 Dead will not get any additional content, the community will be divided, and that the quick development cycle won't do justice to the sequel. Now, Valve devs and execs are going out of their way to address those concerns. Left 4 Dead project lead Chet Faliszek said, "It just became very clear that this was a cohesive, singular statement we wanted to make, not a more slow update thing... too much stuff was tied together with too many other things." Developer Tom Leonard was quick to point out that work wouldn't cease for the first game: "We are doing updates across the summer, adding new matchmaking features, and new features to facilitate user maps after the SDK is out. ... Additionally, those maps can be transported into Left 4 Dead 2." Doug Lombardi said simply, "Trust us a little bit," explaining that Gabe Newell is "always talking about providing entertainment as a service — it's not about making a game any more."

bonch writes "Last.fm and CBS vehemently deny sharing any user data with the RIAA, contrary to previous reports. One anonymous party calls it 'irresponsible journalism,' and Last.fm goes so far as to suggest it is a target of slander. Carla Duckworth of the RIAA confirmed, 'We've made no such request for this information.'"

An anonymous reader writes with a link to Ars Technica's report that "the EU is considering forcing Windows users to choose a browser to download and install before they can first browse the Internet, according to The Wall Street Journal (subscription required). While the latest Windows 7 builds let you uninstall IE8, 'third-party browser makers like Opera, Mozilla and Google are pushing for tough sanctions against Microsoft. The EU would rather have a "ballot screen" for users to choose which browsers to download and install as well as which one to set as default. The bundling requirement might end up becoming a responsibility for manufacturers.'"

jeevesbond writes "The alpha version of Google Chrome is now available for GNU/Linux. Google Chrome developer and former Firefox lead Ben Goodger has some problems with the platform though. His complaints range from the lack of a standardised UI toolkit, inconsistencies across applications, the lack of a unified and comprehensive HIG, to GTK not being a very compelling toolkit. With Adobe getting twitchy about the glibc fork and previously describing the various audio systems as welcome to the jungle, is it time to concentrate on consolidation and standardisation in GNU/Linux in general, and the desktop in particular?"

ausekilis writes "Many outlets are reporting that Time Warner has confirmed plans to spin off AOL. All that's left to deal with are a few financial hurdles, such as buying out Google's 5% stake in AOL. The interesting part of the story is that both AOL's CEO and Time Warner's CEO said effectively the same thing, that AOL will be better off as an independent unit, as opposed to 'a cog in the Time Warner wheel.' Interesting to note that when they originally merged, the idea was for AOL to be a one-stop shop for all your internet goods. Makes you wonder what would have happened if Time Warner had invested in AOL as an exclusive media outlet for movies, TV, music, etc. Perhaps AOL would have regained some speed and become the prominent household name it once was, instead of being that company who sent us all the free coasters."

Hucko writes "Ars Technica has a story about a study by Cambridge law professor Patricia Akester that suggests (declares?) that DRM and its ilk does persuade citizens to infringe copyright and circumvent authors' protections. The name of the study is 'Technological accommodation of conflicts between freedom of expression and DRM: the first empirical assessment.'" The study itself is available for download (PDF); there's also a distillation here.

Death Metal writes "The EU passed the Data Retention Directive years ago, a law that demands ISPs and search engines hold onto data long enough to help the cops (but not long enough to cause privacy problems). But Sweden never passed it into national law, and the European Commission has now sued the country to make sure a bill appears."

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has finally released the final build of Service Pack 2 for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. 'There are a few significant additions that are included in SP2: Windows Search 4.0, Bluetooth 2.1 Feature Pack, the ability to record data on to Blu-Ray media natively in Vista, Windows Connect Now (WCN) is now in the Wi-Fi Configuration, and exFAT file system supports UTC timestamps. The service pack contains about 800 hotfixes.' A list of other notable changes is available on TechNet. SP2 isn't included in Automatic Update yet, but it will be 'during the coming months.'"

An anonymous reader notes Ars Technica's report from the Ubuntu Developer Summit in Barcelona, where Canonical has unveiled a prototype Android execution environment that will allow Android applications to run on Ubuntu and "potentially other conventional Linux distributions." "Android uses the Linux kernel, but it isn't really a Linux platform. It offers its own totally unique environment that is built on Google's custom Java runtime. There is no glide path for porting conventional desktop Linux applications to Android. Similarly, Java applications that are written for Android can't run in regular Java virtual machine implementations or in standard Java ME environments. This makes Android a somewhat insular platform. Canonical is creating a specialized Android execution environment that could make it possible for Android applications to run on Ubuntu desktops in Xorg alongside regular Linux applications. The execution environment would function like a simulator, providing the infrastructure that is needed to make the applications run. Some technical details about the Android execution environment were presented by Canonical developer Michael Casadevall... They successfully compiled it against Ubuntu's libc instead of Android's custom libc and they are running it on a regular Ubuntu kernel."

Spooky McSpookster writes "Microsoft has turned off its Windows Live Messenger service for five countries: Cuba, Syria, Iran, Sudan, and North Korea. Users in these countries trying to log in get the following error: '810003c1: We were unable to sign you in to the .NET Messenger Service.' Why now, since this flies in the face of the Obama administration's softening stance on Cuba? This isn't the first time the US trade embargo has had questionable outcomes. US-based Syrian political activist George Ajjan created a web site promoting democracy in Syria, only to find GoDaddy blocked anyone inside Syria from seeing it. The article argues, 'Messenger is a medium for communication, and the citizens of these countries should not be punished from such a basic tool because the US has problems with their governments' policies.' What does this say for the wisdom of non-US citizens relying on US companies for their business or communication?"

eldavojohn writes "We talked about Charlie Nesson of Harvard Law School before, and it may not have been known to you, but he is backing former student and Jammie Thomas' new lawyer, K.A.D. Camara. Ars is reporting that Nesson is upping the charges against the RIAA. Not only is file-sharing fair use, but the $100,000,000 the RIAA has collected through fear is due back to those wrongly accused. He's also increasing the number of fronts he's fighting. On Camara's website, he indicates that in another case, Brittany English (pro bono), they 'are asking the courts to declare that statutory damages like these — 150,000:1 — are unconstitutional and that the RIAA's campaign to extract settlements from individuals by the threat of such unconstitutional damages is itself unlawful, enjoin the RIAA's unlawful campaign, and order the RIAA to return the $100M+ that it obtained as a result of its unlawful campaign.'"

eldavojohn writes "Yesterday, Moblin, the joint OS project between Novell and Intel, was released as V2.0 Beta for netbooks with the image available for download. We've talked about Moblin before, but Computer World has an article speculating this is Intel's direct affront to Microsoft's Windows 7 by pointing out that Moblin is designed to optimally use Intel's Atom Processor and smaller screens so popular with netbooks. Windows 7's netbook competition doesn't stop there, as GoodOS's gOS3 Gadgets and Canonical's Ubuntu Netbook Remix are being designed to also take advantage of Intel's Atom, especially from a UI perspective. Ars has a look at Moblin's rich new UI as well. Back in April, Intel said it would support Windows 7 on the Atom later this year, and Intel also says Windows 7 is a good choice for Intel's netbooks, so it doesn't look like they're intentionally burning any bridges between them and Redmond."

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft was planning on giving out the Office 2010 Technical Preview to select testers in July on an invite-only basis. Office 2010 will be available in 32-bit and 64-bit versions, and both flavors have been leaked to torrent sites and the like. Multiple screenshots of each application are available. '... some applications have changed a lot more than others. The ribbon seems to be on every application now, which is great for consistency's sake. ... The biggest change, in my opinion, is that the no file/orb menu is no longer a menu. When you click the colored office button, you get a screen that is shown in the second screenshot for each application.'"

eldavojohn writes "Ars has a summary of the curious events surrounding the death of broadband over power lines (BPL). We've discussed BPL's trials and advances here many times. The Federal Communications Commission's go-ahead was halted last year by a federal court, after a suit by the American Radio Relay League over claims of unacceptable radio interference from BPL. The DC Court of Appeals judge noted, 'There is little doubt that the [FCC] deliberately attempted to exclude from the record evidence adverse to its position.' The ARRL's FOIA request to obtain non-redacted documents finally bore fruit under the Obama administrations more open FOIA guidelines. The ARRL's preliminary analysis of the released documents point out a few critical areas where the FCC redacted data that is clearly adverse to the claims of BPL proponents. By rights, this ought to lay BPL to rest once and for all." A story at Broadband Reports notes that BPL is dying on its own, as most of the vendors who had been testing it "have since moved on to promote smart electrical grid functionality."

Braedley writes "When [Ars] last took an in-depth look at USB flash drives in 2005, the landscape was a bit different. A 2GB drive ran nearly $200, and speeds were quite a bit slower then. At the time, we noted that while the then-current crop of drives was pretty fast, they still were not close to saturating the bandwidth of USB2. To top it off, a good drive was still going to set you back $50 or $70--not exactly a cheap proposition. Since our first roundup, this picture has changed considerably, and it leads to a question: has the flash drive become an undifferentiated commodity, just like any other cheap plastic tsotschke that you might find at an office supply store checkout counter?"