Cool-O-Rama » ars technica

Lodsys Sues 7 iPhone Devs Over Patent Infringement Claims

Staff — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 01:19:00 +0000

Dachannien writes “Patently-O and Ars Technica report that Lodsys has filed suit [here's the complaint] in the Eastern District of Texas against seven iPhone developers, asserting that the defendants are infringing two patents. Apple had previously indicated their belief that all iPhone developers are protected by a licensing agreement that Apple had made with the patents’ former assignee, Intellectual Ventures. But Lodsys insists that the defendants are nonetheless liable for infringement. Still an open question is whether Apple will go beyond the mailing of strongly worded letters in defending third-party iPhone devs.”

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Lodsys Sues 7 iPhone Devs Over Patent Infringement Claims

Ask Ars: Do solid-state drives cause problems with sleep mode?

Staff — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 00:45:00 +0000

In 1998, Ask Ars was an early feature of the newly launched Ars Technica. Now, as then, it’s all about your questions and our community’s answers. Each week, we’ll dig into our question bag, provide our own take, then tap the wisdom of our readers. To submit your own question, see our helpful tips page.

Q: I’ve heard that solid-state drives have issues with sleep mode and/or hibernate mode, but I have not been able to find any confirmation of this. Do SSDs have issues with sleep and/or hibernate (or hybrid-sleep) mode? If so, what causes it?

There is little official word on the issues that some solid-state drives have had with waking from sleep over the last couple of years, though we were able to confirm that yes, it is a problem for a certain small subset of solid-state drives. Certain manufacturers are working on solutions, and while there are many suggestions floating around on how to make the blue screens stop, no one of them works for every setup.

The problem is that when certain computers with SSDs are put to sleep, they will hang, cause a blue screen of death, or force a restart when woken up again. This has not been a widespread issue, and appears to happen only for a small (though significant) subset of certain brands. Some manufacturers have noted that the sleep problems seem to result from “compatibility” problems rather than the drives themselves, while other brands of drives appear not to have the problem at all.

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Ask Ars: Do solid-state drives cause problems with sleep mode?

Patch For The Witcher 2 Removes DRM Shortly After Release

Staff — Tue, 31 May 2011 14:41:00 +0000

cozzbp writes with this excerpt from Ars Technica:
“A little over a week after its release, The Witcher 2 is getting its first patch, and with it all versions of the game will now be DRM free. ‘Our approach to countering piracy is to incorporate superior value in the legal version,’ explained development director Adam Badowski. ‘This means it has to be superior in every respect: less troublesome to use and install, with full support, and with access to additional content and services. So, we felt keeping the DRM would mainly hurt our legitimate users. This is completely in line with what we said before the release of The Witcher 2. We felt DRM was necessary to prevent the game being pirated and leaked before release.’”

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Patch For The Witcher 2 Removes DRM Shortly After Release

Doctors To Patients: First, Do No Yelp Harm

Staff — Thu, 26 May 2011 00:23:00 +0000

theodp writes “When he walked into the dentist’s office, Ars Technica’s Timothy B. Lee was looking for cleaner teeth, but was shown the door after expressing outrage at being asked to first sign a ‘mutual privacy agreement’ calling for him to transfer ownership of any public commentary he might write in the future about his experience to the good doctor. Lee reports that similar censorious copyright agreements are popping up in doctors’ offices across the country. ‘Doctors and dentists are understandably worried about damage to their reputations from negative reviews,’ writes Lee, but ‘censoring patients is the wrong way for doctors to deal with online criticism.’”

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Doctors To Patients: First, Do No Yelp Harm

Mozilla Rejects WebP Image Format, Google Adds It

Staff — Wed, 25 May 2011 07:31:00 +0000

icebraining writes with a link to Ars Technica’s look at the recent rejection of WebP by Mozilla Developer Joe Drew.”Building mainstream support for a new media format is challenging, especially when the advantages are ambiguous. WebM was attractive to some browser vendors because its royalty-free license arguably solved a real-world problem. According to critics, the advantages of WebP are illusory and don’t offer sufficient advantages over JPEG to justify adoption of the new format. (…) ‘As the WebP image format exists currently, I won’t accept a patch for it. If and when that changes, I’ll happily re-evaluate my decision!’ wrote Mozilla developer Joe Drew in a Bugzilla comment.’” However, as the article explains, Google sees enough value in WebP to add it as a supported image format for Picasa.

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Mozilla Rejects WebP Image Format, Google Adds It

Georgia Tech’s ShaperProbe Detects ISP Traffic Manipulation

Staff — Tue, 24 May 2011 09:40:00 +0000

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Ars Technica: “Two researchers at Georgia Tech can tell you exactly how American ISPs shape Internet traffic, and which ones do so. Bottom line: of the five largest Internet providers in the country, the three cable companies (Comcast, Time Warner, Cox) employ shaping while the telephone companies (AT&T, Verizon) do not — though that fact is less significant for the user experience than it might first sound.”

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Georgia Tech’s ShaperProbe Detects ISP Traffic Manipulation

Setting the record straight on the North Carolina level playing field bill

Staff — Thu, 19 May 2011 21:36:00 +0000

Op-ed. The North Carolina Cable and Telecommunications Association responds to a Free Press “hatchet job” and argues that cities rolling out their own broadband, phone, and cable networks often provide unfair competition to private investors.

North Carolina’s “level playing field” telecommunications bill has been passed by the state legislature and is waiting on the governor’s signature; it will make it more difficult for cities to offer phone, cable, and broadband service. Earlier this week, Free Press wrote an op-ed that opposed the bill; now, the North Carolina Cable and Telecommunications Association fires back at Free Press with a full-throated defense. The opinions expressed here do not necessarily represent those of Ars Technica.

OK. I get it. Business is bad. Broadband is good. Government supplied service in competition with private enterprise is even better! At least that’s the premise of Free Press’s hatchet job on North Carolina’s Level Playing Field / Local Government Competition Bill (“North Carolina’s broadband bill would eliminate level playing field”).

It’s always a shame when the facts get in the way of a good narrative—but here are some facts which you won’t hear from the broadband “advocates.”

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Setting the record straight on the North Carolina level playing field bill

WSJ: data caps keep Netflix from "swamping the network"

Staff — Mon, 16 May 2011 04:30:44 +0000

The Wall Street Journal’s op-ed page this week quoted “the respected geek site Ars Technica” while waxing eloquent about Internet data caps—and, rather surprisingly, they sort of agree with us that full-on metered billing poses problems for innovation But they still like larger data caps.

“Who will start using the next high-bandwidth YouTube or Netflix when doing so results in big fees? If not done right, consumption pricing will cripple innovation,” I wrote in a piece last summer. The Journal‘s “Internet Data Caps Cometh” op-ed quoted this bit of wisdom and agreed that truly metered Internet would be a problem.

“If every user has an eye on a bandwidth meter, Amazon, Google, Netflix, Apple and every other big Web-based company would have to rethink its business model,” wrote Holman Jenkins Jr. this week. “Advertising-based business models would especially be in jeopardy—who would click on a banner ad if it meant paying for the privilege?”

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WSJ: data caps keep Netflix from "swamping the network"

Poll Technica: do you give a $#!@ about bad words on Ars?

Staff — Sat, 14 May 2011 00:03:00 +0000

As the Ars Technica team convenes in Chicago for two days of meetings, we’re running some polls and surveys to learn more about what you readers want from the site.

From time immemorial—actually mid-1998—the front page of Ars Technica has been rated PG. While we don’t really moderate profanity in our forums, we have made a history of editing swear words out of transcripts, quotes, and the like. Originally this was done so as not to trigger overly sensitive corporate filters, and we’ve kept the practice intact ever since.

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Poll Technica: do you give a $#!@ about bad words on Ars?

Poll Technica: tell us what you think about reviews

Staff — Fri, 13 May 2011 02:30:00 +0000

Reviews have been an integral part of Ars Technica from the beginning of the site 1.29 × 10^-1 centuries ago. Getting our hands on new hardware, spending days (or weeks) getting intimate with it, and putting our experiences into words is in our DNA. But times have changed since we were reviewing Compaq PocketPCs and G4 Cubes a decade ago.

The introduction of Android, and more recently, Windows Phone 7 means there’s a steady stream of smartphones entering the market. PCs have become even more of a commodity while the sun has risen and set on the era of the netbook. The tablet space is taking off like a rumor about Steve Jobs’ health and everyone is trying to play catch-up to Apple.

All of these factors are leading us to look long and hard at our reviews, both our methodology and the devices we choose to review. As we discuss this at our staff meeting in Chicago, we’d like some feedback from you. Please take the time to fill out the survey and let us know what you’d like to see from us in terms of reviews. Be honest—the feedback we get from you will shape our future product reviews.

Take the 2011 Ars Technica experience survey!

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Poll Technica: tell us what you think about reviews