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arstechnica.com rss archive / September-17-2007
Social web sites often easy pickings for phishers, malware writers
The latest data on social networking sites shows that their security is improving, but there are still an alarming number of vulnerabilities that have yet to be fixed.Read More...
The Ars back-to-school laptop shootout
With school starting, it's a good time to grab a new laptop. Ars looks at four laptops that are light on the budget while promising to be heavy on the performance.Read More...
Tor node operator after run-in with police: "I can't do this any more"
A German Tor node operator has shut down his server after a confrontation with law enforcement agents that resulted from a bomb threat relayed through his exit node.Read More...
Total HD disc format looks to be a total bust
Warner has decided to indefinitely postpone plans to release hybrid discs that would support both Blu-ray and HD DVD. Read More...
AMD's triple threat: the tri-core Phenom
Rumors that AMD will announce a triple-core, consumer-level CPU have turned out to be true, as the company revealed its plans for the new processor a day ahead of the start of the Intel Developer Forum.Read More...
CRIA about face on iPod levies tied to concerns over legitimizing downloads
CRIA, the Canadian recording association (that represents American, Japanese, German, French, and British labels), doesn't want levies placed on iPods. It's not pro-consumer, though; they're worried that the move would make P2P downloading look legit.Read More...
Yahoo acquires online collaboration suite Zimbra
Yahoo announced this afternoon that the company had acquired online collaboration suite Zimbra in order to expand its presence in universities, businesses, and through ISPs, like Google already does with Google Apps.Read More...
Sprint launches femtocell cellular-to-WiFi service
Sprint is the first major mobile carrier to introduce femtocell service to two cities in the US, Indianapolis and Denver, with a broader commercial deployment planned for 2008. The service will allow customers to make unlimited calls while within range of the access points for a flat fee on top of their regular bills.Read More...
SpiralFrog debuts with free, ad-supported music downloads
Digital music service SpiralFrog has officially launched today, and brags that it has almost a million tracks available for download. What's unique about the service is that it offers legal downloads, but for free. There are, however, a few catches.Read More...
Dutch police shut down DVD piracy plant
A DVD production plant in the Netherlands that had gone bankrupt was put to new use by a group of organized pirates, churning out thousands of illegal copies of movies and music to be sold on the street. Dutch police have shut down the plant, but the IFPI is taking the incident very seriously.Read More...
Google announces the Google Lunar X PRIZE
Google are stumping up $30 million to spur private teams into landing a probe on the moon's surface by 2014.Read More...
Verizon unhappy with 700MHz open access requirements, sues FCC
Verizon wants a federal appeals court to overturn the FCC's open access requirements for next year's 700MHz spectrum auction. Read More...
Nintendo remains dominant in this month's NPD numbers
As the console wars rages on, Nintendo remains on top while Microsoft widens the gap between it and Sony, even selling the most copies of Madden at launch for the first time.Read More...
Court gives Qualcomm reprieve during appeal, will allow 3G phone imports
Imports of new 3G handset models containing Qualcomm chips found to infringe on Broadcom patents can continue for the time being. An appeals court has stayed an ITC ruling blocking their importation.Read More...
Google calls for international privacy standards
Google has called for international privacy standards based on the APEC privacy framework. Although consistent, universal standards would decrease the burden of regulatory compliance; creating global consensus poses a real challenge.Read More...
Prince to "reclaim the Internet" by suing YouTube, eBay, Pirate Bay
Prince has always gone out of his way to fight for control over his music. Now, he's taking on the Internet.Read More...
Company patents playlists, sues everyone
A smattering of tech companies have been sued by Premier International Associates this week for infringing on two of its patents that describe playlist functionalities. Premier wants injunctions against all of the companies, damages, and a trial by jury.Read More...
Quantum computing burns through another two graduate students
The usual suspects are hyping a new development in quantum computing, but unfortunately it isn't the huge step forward that they are presenting.Read More...
Chinese government at the center of five cyber attack claims
A spate of electronic attacks between China and several other nations have some people worrying whether an all-out cyber war is in our future.Read More...
Sprint to pay $30 million in class-action settlement over USF
A US district judge has given Sprint preliminary approval to pay out $30 million in order to settle a class action lawsuit over Universal Service Fee charges. AT&T, on the other hand, is left to continue fighting the suit on its own.Read More...
Extortion or just a "negative option feature"? FTC cracks down on deceptive pop-ups
The FTC has secured a settlement with several companies that used pop-ads to request cold, hard cash... to make the pop-ups go away.Read More...
SCO files for Chapter 11
One month after a judge ruled that it did not, in fact, control the copyrights to Unix, SCO has filed for bankruptcy protection.Read More...
Nokia at work on yet another removable flash memory format
Flash memory manufacturer Nokia is heading a drive to create a new, unified flash memory technology by partnering with a variety of other companies considered leaders in the field.Read More...
OLPC laptop gets minor delay along with price bump
The OLPC Project faces climbing costs and more delays as the project moves closer to release. Despite discouraging setbacks and growing competition, the XO laptop still has a lot of potential.Read More...
UPnP approved as ISO standard
The UPnP communication protocol has received official status as a standard from the JTC 1 board that forms part of the ISO. But will anyone use it?Read More...
Apple's new iPod checksum cracked by GtkPod coders
Apple's attempt to block third-party music management software on new iPods has been thwarted by open-source software developers, and it's not the first time.Read More...
Leaked Media Defender e-mails reveal secret government project
Internal MediaDefender e-mails leaked on BitTorrent reveal that the peer-to-peer poisoning company was providing information to the government as part of a secret project. The e-mails also provide new insight into the company's MiiVi scandal.Read More...
Microsoft sued over WGA spyware allegations in China
After a global Windows Genuine Advantage failure caused by human error, Microsoft now has to face a privacy suit brought against the company in China over alleged WGA behavior. This joins similar suits in the US that have described WGA as "spyware."Read More...
Report: Insiders cause more computer security problems than viruses
A new report finds that, for the first time, virus infections have slipped to the second spot on the list of computer security troublemakers. In first place... a company's own workers.Read More...
EU court comes down hard on Microsoft in antitrust appeal
Microsoft has lost its appeal of the 2004 European antitrust decision against it, and both the European Commission and the Free Software Foundation couldn't be happier.Read More...
Intel picks up gaming physics engine for forthcoming GPU product
Intel is buying Havok, authors of the famous Havok physics engine used in a whole raft of top-shelf games like BioShock, Oblivion, and Half-Life 2. In a nutshell, this purchase is about Larrabee.Read More...
AMD triple-core rumors surface
The Xbox 360's CPU may lose its place as the only mass-market tri-core CPU if a new rumor about AMD's post-Barcelona plans pans out.Read More...
Crunched in the valley: startups show their stuff at TechCrunch40
Ars Technica is on the scene in San Francisco surveying the status of startups at the TechCrunch40 demo conference. Tune in over the next two days to find out if we're in the midst of the next bubble or on the cusp of a technology renaissance.Read More...
Crunched in the valley: startups show their stuff at TechCrunch40
Ars Technica is on the scene in San Francisco surveying the status of startups at the TechCrunch40 demo conference. Tune in over the next two days to find out if we're in the midst of the next bubble, or on the cusp of a technology renaissance.Read More...
The iPod meets the iPhone: a review of the iPod touch
Apple has drastically overhauled the iPod with the release of the iPod touch. Ars goes hands-on with the latest iteration of the world's top-selling digital audio player line to determine if the iPod touch is anything more than an iPhone without the phone.Read More...