Home / arstechnica.com rss archive / September-27-2007


Big brother may be watching you in Chicago
IBM has sold Chicago on a mass surveillance system that will place a set of tireless software eyes behind the city's camera network.Read More...

Chinese MMORPG banning cross-gender roleplayers?
Reports that a Chinese MMORPG has frozen accounts of male users playing female characters have spread across the Internet, but the story may be an elaborate hoax.Read More...

"txtor" tool circumvents basic torrent blockers
Some universities block the downloading of torrent files by not allowing users to access files with the wrong mime-type or file extension. This simple block is easy to get around, and that's exactly what a new site called "txtor" does.Read More...

FCC commissioners: US in dire need of "national broadband strategy"
FCC Commissioners Copps and Adelstein told a Senate panel yesterday that the US desperately needs a national broadband strategy to keep from falling further in international rankings.Read More...

WiMAX backers positioning 802.16e as an alternative to municipal WiFi
At this week's WiMAX World show in Chicago, some of the buzz on the show floor was around municipal WiFi's trouble. WiMAX's backers think that 802.16e (also known as Mobile WiMAX) technology is a better option for wireless connectivity.Read More...

Microsoft Live Search overhauled; quadrupled index size, results revamped
Microsoft says that it believes it can "now compete with Google" after the company completed its most significant update to Live Search since its debut more than 2 and a half years ago. Read More...

Senate ponders Google-DoubleClick deal as report raises antitrust concerns
The Senate begins hearings today on whether Google's proposed merger with DoubleClick should be blocked or restricted, and a new report claims that the merger would raise real antitrust concerns.Read More...

Verizon flip-flops on censoring "unsavory" political group SMS messaging
Verizon Wireless found itself on the receiving end of public outrage after it decided not to allow a pro-choice group to use its mobile network to distribute opt-in SMS news alerts. Amid pressure, Verizon has folded.Read More...

Serious cross-site request forgery vulnerability found in Gmail
A new vulnerability found in Gmail makes it possible for a malicious web site to surreptitiously cause a Gmail user's e-mail to be redirected to another address.Read More...