Tag: newsletters

Google Books ruled legal in massive win for fair use

Moyan Brenn A long-running copyright lawsuit between the Authors’ Guild and Google over its book-scanning project is over, and Google has won on the grounds that its scanning was “fair use.” In other words, the snippets of books that Google shows for free don’t break copyright, and it doesn’t need the authors’ permission to engage in the scanning and display of short bits of books. On the fair use factor that’s often the most important—whether or not the fair use of a work hurts the market for the original work—US District Judge Denny Chin seemed to find the plaintiffs’ ideas both nonsensical and ignorant of the limits on the Google Books software: Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments        

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Google Books ruled legal in massive win for fair use

Android 4.4 KitKat, thoroughly reviewed

After three Jelly Bean releases in a row, Google has unleashed a major revision to the world’s most widely used operating system. With the  Nexus 5  comes Android 4.4 “KitKat.” KitKat brings a ton of enhancements: support for hidden system and status bars, printer support, and lower memory usage. It also has a number of user-level improvements, including a new dialer, a Google-infused home screen, and a whole pile of UI refinements. The lower memory usage is particularly important because Google hopes this is the feature that will finally kill Gingerbread and other older versions of Android. Ice Cream Sandwich raised the system requirements for Android quite a bit, and to this day you still see lower-end phones shipping with Gingerbread because of the lower barrier to entry. Unfortunately, the only device that currently runs KitKat is the Nexus 5, which has a whopping 2GB of RAM, so there isn’t much memory testing that we can do right now. We’ll have to wait for actual low-memory hardware running KitKat to evaluate any of the low-memory requirement claims. We  can   take a look at just about everything else, though. We believe KitKat is the biggest Android release since Ice Cream Sandwich. Google has touched nearly every part of the OS in some way, so there’s a lot to cover. Read 47 remaining paragraphs | Comments        

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Android 4.4 KitKat, thoroughly reviewed

Meteorite impacts capture time capsules of the ecosystems they destroy

Sites like this can be searched for glass beads that reveal the past. rickmach Meteorite impacts can be very destructive. A meteorite that fell in Mexico around 66 million years ago created a 180 km crater and caused the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs while spewing debris and molten rock into the air. Now, in what is a fascinating tale of serendipity, researchers have found that these events don’t entirely destroy all traces of life at the site of impact. Molten rocks can capture and preserve organic matter as they cool down to form glass beads. When a meteor enters Earth’s atmosphere, the friction causes it to heat up, scorching everything in its path. Most of the time that’s where the story ends, as the meteor burns up in the sky as a “shooting star.” But sometimes it’s big enough to reach all the way to the surface and transfer its remaining energy to the ground. This energy is dissipated as mild earthquakes and sound shockwaves—but mostly as heat. The heat energy can be so great that it melts rocks on the surface and hurls them up in the atmosphere. Anything that comes in contact with this molten rock would presumably get burnt, leaving nothing but rocky material that cools down in the atmosphere, forming glass beads and tektites (gravel-sized natural glass). This is what City University of New York researcher Kieren Howard assumed, but he was able to show that his assumptions were wrong. Read 12 remaining paragraphs | Comments        

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Meteorite impacts capture time capsules of the ecosystems they destroy

How one site beat back botnets, spammers and the “4chan party van”

Aryan Blaauw One Sunday late last month, administrators at Orlando, Florida-based TorGuard were in high spirits. They had just successfully rebuffed the latest in a series of increasingly powerful denial-of-service attacks designed to cripple their virtual private networking service. Despite torrents of junk traffic that reached peaks as high as 15Gbps, the admins had neutralized the offensive by locking down the TorGuard servers and then moving them behind the protective services of anti-DoS service CloudFlare. “This seemed to anger the attackers, however, because on Monday things got a bit more personal,” TorGuard administrator Ben Van Pelt told Ars. “Unable to spam, DDoS, hack, or social engineer us, they employed the tactics of the ‘4chan party van.’ Throughout the day our office received multiple unrequested deliveries from local pizza chains, Chinese food, and one large order of sushi. A handful of local electricians and plumbing services were also disappointed to be turned away. To my knowledge no fake calls have been placed to law enforcement yet, however nothing would surprise me at this point.” The two-month-long campaign of harassment and attacks, which Van Pelt suspects was carried out by a competing virtual private networking service, illustrates the lengths some people will go to goad their online adversaries. His experience provides a vivid account of what it’s like to be on the receiving end of a relentless stream of distributed denial-of-service attacks and ultimately what can be done to mitigate them. Read 14 remaining paragraphs | Comments        

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How one site beat back botnets, spammers and the “4chan party van”

Bigger than Google Fiber: LA plans citywide gigabit for homes and businesses

Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles. Diliff Los Angeles is about to unleash one of the most ambitious city-led broadband projects to date, with the goal of bringing fiber to all of its 3.5 million residents and all businesses. Next month, the city plans to issue an RFP (request for proposals) “that would require fiber to be run to every residence, every business, and every government entity within the city limits of Los Angeles,” Los Angeles Information Technology Agency GM Steve Reneker told Ars today. The City Council this morning unanimously voted to move forward with drafting the RFP and will vote again in a few weeks to determine whether it’s ready for release, he said. LA expects the fiber buildout to cost $3 billion to $5 billion, but the cost would be borne by the vendor. “The city is going into it and writing the agreement, basically saying, ‘we have no additional funding for this effort.’ We’re requiring the vendors that respond to pay for the city resources needed to expedite any permitting and inspection associated with laying their fiber,” Reneker said. “If they’re not willing to do that, our City Council may consider a general fund transfer to reimburse those departments, but we’re going in with the assumption that the vendor is going to absorb those up-front costs to make sure they can do their buildout in a timely fashion.” Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments        

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Bigger than Google Fiber: LA plans citywide gigabit for homes and businesses

Acer CEO resigns on the back of $446 million quarterly loss

Soon-to-not-be CEO J.T. Wang. Acer Acer has issued a statement this morning reporting that Acer CEO J.T. Wang has resigned following news of the company’s significant $446 million loss during the third quarter of 2013. Wang will continue in his role as Acer’s chairman for another seven months, but he will be handing over the CEO reins to Acer President Jim Wong at the start of 2014. Acer’s financial beatdown was announced last Tuesday along with the rest of its Q3 results. It’s the second quarter in a row of losses for the PC OEM; Q2 in August ended with a $11.4 million loss where many analysts had expected at least some profit. According to GigaOm , an additional (Chinese) statement issued by Acer blames “the gross margin impact of gearing up for the Windows 8.1 sell-in and the related management of inventory.” As Microsoft Editor Peter Bright showed yesterday , though, Windows 8.1 hasn’t necessarily exploded out of the gate, and tying significant amounts of money up around the operating system’s launch doesn’t appear to have served Acer very well. Most OEMs see sales dips in Q2 and Q3 before the holiday-saddled Q4 pushes sales back up, but Acer’s numbers paint a particularly dismal picture: the company saw a 35 percent drop in sales from the same quarter last year. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments        

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Acer CEO resigns on the back of $446 million quarterly loss

WaPo to gov’t: Our story on NSA Google spying was true, here’s proof

National Security Agency via Washington Post The Washington Post reported the latest revelations about NSA surveillance last week, writing that the spy agency intercepted data from Google and Yahoo’s private “clouds” by tapping into fiber optic cables overseas. And despite NSA pushback stating otherwise, t he Post  is standing by its story . In light of the data tapping piece, the government’s response took a different tack than what’s been seen over the past several months. It didn’t say the disclosures were damaging to national security or irresponsible; they just flat-out said the stories were wrong. Asked about reports that the NSA “broke into Google and Yahoo databases worldwide,” Gen. Keith Alexander said flatly “that’s never happened.” He continued, “I can tell you factually we do not have access to Google servers, Yahoo servers.” Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments        

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WaPo to gov’t: Our story on NSA Google spying was true, here’s proof

New HIV antibodies show potential

The structure of an antibody latched on to a protein found on the surface of HIV. NIAID/National Institutes of Health The dream of an HIV vaccine has been thwarted again and again because the virus evolves so rapidly that the immune system can’t keep up. But the results from a new trial in monkeys suggest that certain antibodies have a powerful enough therapeutic effect that they may warrant clinical trials. Many researchers had given up on antibodies, which are used by the immune system to identify the signature proteins on the outside of invading cells, targeting them for destruction. The HIV virus changes so rapidly that any antibodies that target the virus only work for a little while—the virus stays one step ahead while the immune system struggles to play catch-up. But researchers discovered antibodies that target the converse part of the virus’s structure—the features that are critical to its function and don’t change much over time. These antibodies were discovered in HIV-infected people whose immune systems seemed to keep most strains of HIV in check. Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments        

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New HIV antibodies show potential

Mysterious Google barge is a massive showroom, “party deck”

Google’s four-story shipping-container product marketing paradise. KPIX5 The mysterious Google barge discovered floating in San Francisco Bay will be used as a party space and showroom just for Google’s Glass and “other gadgets,” according to sources speaking to KPIX5 in San Francisco. The boat will be stationed near Google’s campus in Mountain View, CA and will host “invitation-only clients.” The existence of Google’s watercraft—one on the West Coast and one on the East Coast in Portland, ME—has been a topic of discussion over the past week. The barges are held under an LLC called By And Large, apparently a reference to Pixar’s “ Buy n Large ” of WALL·E, which is itself a reference to the phrase “by and large.” It is not uncommon for high-profile companies like Google to take cover under an LLC to prepare a secret project. Google filed a patent in 2009 for a floating data center, leading outlets like CNET and AllThingsD to believe that the structures might be Google’s first attempt at realizing this idea. The second theory was that the barges were going to be retail presences for Google Glass as the date of the product’s commercial launch nears. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments        

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Mysterious Google barge is a massive showroom, “party deck”

Google officially announces the Nexus 5 and Android 4.4 KitKat

After a million   and one leaks , the Nexus 5 has finally been announced . There’s not too many surprises on the hardware front: the device packs a 4.95-inch 1080p IPS LCD, a 2.26 GHz Snapdragon 800 processor, 2GB of RAM, an 8MP camera, and a 2300 mAh battery. The Nexus 5 is made by LG and internally seems very similar to the G2 (aside from a smaller battery and camera). Most importantly, the Nexus 5 ships with a new version of Android: KitKat, version 4.4. KitKat brings across the board memory improvements, a new full screen mode, smart dialer, and a refreshed home screen experience. Specs at a glance: Nexus 5 Screen 1920×1080 4.95″ (445 ppi) IPS touchscreen OS Android 4.4 “KitKat” CPU 2.3GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 RAM 2GB GPU Adreno 330 Storage 16GB or 32GB Ports Micro USB, headphones Camera 8MP rear camera with OIS, 1.3MP front camera Size 137.84 x 69.17 x 8.59mm Weight 130g Battery 2300 mAh Starting price $350, contract free Other perks wireless charging, NFC The Nexus 5 has the distinction of being the first Nexus device with LTE. Verizon’s CDMA network is out of the question, but it is compatible with AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile LTE bands. Like the Nexus 4, Qi wireless charging is included, but the premium-yet-delicate glass back of the N4 has been swapped out in favor of a plastic backing. The matte back along with the horizontal “NEXUS” lettering make the Nexus 5 look like a mini Nexus 7. The rear camera sensor, while seemingly normally sized, has a  massive outer lens attached to it. Like the G2, the camera is equipped with optical image stabilization, but the G2 didn’t require the huge outer lens the way the Nexus 5 does. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments        

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Google officially announces the Nexus 5 and Android 4.4 KitKat