Ars Technica

The week in hardware: DX 11, Nehalem, and AMD

jhruska@arstechnica.com (Joel Hruska) — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 20:45:00 GMT

The big news of the week was the AMD spinoff and Intel's reaction to it, but we did see some action in other areas as well. Info on Nehalem, ATI, and ten minute battery recharges inside.

The week in Microsoft: Windows XP, Live Search, Silverlight

emil.protalinski@arstechnica.com (Emil Protalinski) — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 19:30:00 GMT

In this week's top Microsoft news, we cover a Windows XP reprieve, Internet Explorer market share loss, and the upcoming release of Silverlight 2.

The week in science: flexing solar cells, universal lumpiness, and our mysterious sun

jtimmer@arstechnica.com (John Timmer) — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 18:15:00 GMT

Would a lumpy universe rid us of the need for dark energy? Is low efficiency worth it if our solar cells bend without breaking? Answers to these and many other questions appeared in this week's science news.

News week in review: mail goggles, counterfeit military chips, and city-owned fiber

jtimmer@arstechnica.com (John Timmer) — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 17:01:00 GMT

Google wants to save you from the modern equivalent of the drunk dial, while a bank robber goes both high- and low-tech, recruiting a distraction through Craigslist and using an inner tube as a getaway vehicle. All that and more inside.

The week in gaming: a LittleBigPlanet calculator, night vision, and Gears 2

fcaron@arstechnica.com (Frank Caron) — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 15:45:00 GMT

This week in gaming and gadgets brought us a 1,600-piece functional calculator in LittleBigPlanet, the distribution of free night vision goggles, and the death of the used game market at the hands of Gears of War 2.

This week in Apple: New notebooks, new writers, and more Woz

jacqui@arstechnica.com (Jacqui Cheng) — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 14:30:00 GMT

This week's top Apple news revolved, unsurprisingly, around Apple's recently-announced Special Event. Also on top this week were leaked MacBook photos, iPhone security, comments from Woz about the iPod, and a new addition to our team.

The math gap: it's cultural (so stop mocking nerds)

jtimmer@arstechnica.com (John Timmer) — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 18:54:00 GMT

A new study examines individuals capable of exceptional achievements in math and reveals that gender and ethnic differences appear to be largely the result of cultural expectations and practices. In other words, stop making fun of nerds!

Wal-Mart joins MSN and Yahoo, leaves DRM servers online

jacqui@arstechnica.com (Jacqui Cheng) — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 18:05:00 GMT

Wal-Mart is the latest company to change its mind about pulling its DRM key servers offline. After receiving "feedback" from customers who were about to be held hostage by their old music, the company has decided to leave the servers up... for now.

Iowa State to charge students for dorm room land lines

david@arstechnica.com (David Chartier) — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 17:24:56 GMT

Students are increasingly arriving at college with their own cell phones, causing some universities to shift budgets for dorm room land lines to other projects, like wireless Internet.

Think of the children! AA and Delta agree to filter porn

jacqui@arstechnica.com (Jacqui Cheng) — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 16:20:00 GMT

Both American Airlines and Delta announced this week that, contrary to their previous stance on the issue, they plan to start filtering inappropriate websites from being accessed with their in-flight WiFi services.

Quantum encryption and the weakness of European science

laserboy@fusemail.com (Chris Lee) — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:43:00 GMT

Researchers congregated in Vienna this week to see a fantastic demonstration of quantum encryption technology, but the demo also illustrated the advantages and disadvantages of the European scientific funding system.

Holiday wars: Sony counts on games, Microsoft on price

bkuchera@arstechnica.com (Ben Kuchera) — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:01:00 GMT

Sony and Microsoft are both ready to fight for console supremacy this holiday season, but their weapons are very different. We take a look at the gaming giants as they gird up for war.

Seagate spins plans for solid-state drives in 2009

jhruska@arstechnica.com (Joel Hruska) — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 10:12:00 GMT

Seagate will be hopping on the bus with all the other hard drive manufacturers, with SSD enterprise drives coming in 2009. For the moment, that's all the world's largest HDD company is talking about—below the highest end, its a disk-spinning world.

Osama bin Fragged: a review of terrorist propaganda games

fcaron@arstechnica.com (Frank Caron) — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 04:30:00 GMT

You've probably heard about so-called "terrorist propaganda" games, either via the Internet or TV. Well, we at Ars found some and reviewed them (and in the process probably Googled our way onto the NSA's hitlist). Reviews inside, as we continue our two-day look at serious games.

Download services increasingly popular with universities

nate@arstechnica.com (Nate Anderson) — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 02:50:00 GMT

Legal, school-sponsored music and movie services have exploded in popularity over the last few years—well, in popularity with administrators, at least. 15 percent of all US schools and 39 percent of the big ones offer such services. It's not clear that students love them as much as admins do, however.

Yahoo Web Analytics to finally give Google some competition

david@arstechnica.com (David Chartier) — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 01:45:00 GMT

Yahoo quickly turned around the acquisition of a web analytics firm to take on Google with "near real-time" access to raw data. Along with an upcoming developer API and an already established hosting platform, Yahoo has a shot at snagging its fair share of the market—if it acts fast.

Wikipedia adopts Ubuntu for its server infrastructure

segphault@arstechnica.com (Ryan Paul) — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 00:40:00 GMT

The Wikimedia Foundation, the organization behind the hugely successful Wikipedia project, is migrating all of its server infrastructure to the Ubuntu Linux distribution. This move reflects the growing viability of Ubuntu for enterprise-scale server deployments.

Intel to examine AMD split for x86 licensing violations

jhruska@arstechnica.com (Joel Hruska) — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 23:35:00 GMT

Intel has its own set of concerns about AMD's foundry split and plans to investigate the company's agreement. Whether or not AMD is actually in violation of anything (or has any recourse if it is) is, for the moment, unclear.

Parents want to be "cool," are using SMS with their kids

jacqui@arstechnica.com (Jacqui Cheng) — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 22:05:00 GMT

Parents raised on answering machines and voice mail are turning to SMS to get in touch with their kids according to a new report.

NSA eavesdropped on Americans, journalists in Baghdad

jon@arstechnica.com (Jon Stokes) — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 20:10:00 GMT

Two whistleblowers tell ABC that the NSA had them recording the regular conversations of ordinary Americans stationed in the Middle East, conversations that they were ordered to archive despite their apparent lack of a connection to anything terror-related.