Ars Technica
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Beatles piracy fixation gets stranger with huge FLAC release
EMI recently scored an epic victory against the US website that tried to sell Beatles tracks online for a quarter, but the whole incident raised a familiar question: why, exactly, isn't The Beatles music legally available online? The answer isn't hard to findas everyone knows, The Beatles' o …
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Weird Science is desperate to shift the blame to somebody... anybody
Blamestorming spreads like the plague: It's a typical experience in a large organization: a project has gone bad, and everybody involved looks to find ways to shift responsibility. But that practice is almost certainly self-defeating, according to a paper entitled, "Blame contagion: The aut …
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Week in gaming: New Super Mario Bros. and DJ Hero death
This week has been filled with games that are worth your time and money. Classically trained gamers will enjoy the newly multiplayer-enhanced New Super Mario Bros. Wii, while Left 4 Dead 2 is a great entry into the co-operative gaming space, and the God of War Collection is a great look back at game …
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Week in tech: good karma for koalas, not so good for pirates
Ubuntu 9.10, codenamed Karmic Koala, was officially released last month. In a comprehensive review, Ars takes you under the surface for an in-depth look at the new features and major architectural changes. The wiki crops up in many companies' internal discussions about process improvements and effi …
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Week in Apple: Developers leaving iPhone, Psystar screwed
What would a week in Apple be if it didn't involve some developer drama, Google, and Psystar? That's all included in this week's top Apple news, as well as a few major software tidbits and rumors about Apple building more first-party iPhone games. Read on: Respected developers begin fleeing from …
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Hacked Darwin kernel available for 10.6.2 on Atom netbooks
First the 10.6.2 update to Snow Leopard wasn't compatible with Intel Atom processors. Then it was. Then it wasn't again when it was finally released to the masses. Fortunately for the netbook-loving Mac OS X fans out there, the OSx86 scene is only too happy to offer a patched version of mach_kernel …
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Week in Microsoft: Windows 7 meets the GPL, MinWin, FUD
Let's look back at the week that was in Microsoft news. Here were the top stories: Inside "MinWin": the Windows 7 kernel slims down: Back in 2003, Microsoft assembled a team of engineers to rethink the lowest levels of Windows, so that the OS could be more easily slimmed down and secured to run in …
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Shocker: Ars, Hollywood agree on need for ACTA openness
MPAA head Dan Glickman sent a letter yesterday to both Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and to US Trade Representative Ron Kirk in which he called for a serious US push to pass the secretive Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. That's certainly expectedACTA contains a host of goodies for Hollywood and t …
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Computerized medicine: good for quality, but not costs
Electronic medical records and the general digitization of medical data and practices are promoted as a way to slow the rapidly inflating costs in the US healthcare system. The push for expanded medical IT has come from the top, with President Obama extolling its virtues and his administration maki …
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Arrests made in massive, $390/hour Video Relay Service scam
Dealing with some technology is challenging enough for the hearing-impaired without scammers taking advantage of federal dollars meant to help them. That's exactly what has happened with the Federal Communications Commission's Video Relay Service (VRS), however, and 26 people were arrested Thursday …
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Microsoft settles with employee accused of stealing docs
The litigation between Ancora Technologies, Miki Mullor, and Microsoft reached a settlement both in respect of the patent infringement claim and Microsoft's claims against Mullor, Ancora's founder and former Microsoft employee. All claims between the three parties have been resolved; they have agree …
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Students get discounts on Exchange-compatible Office for Mac
College isn't cheap these days, even if you're attending public university. In that case, pretty much any discount offered to students is welcome. Microsoft's Mac Business Unit has just announced that it's offering a special discount on the full Office 2008 Business Edition for US college students, …
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FCC outlines seven biggest barriers to broadband adoption
Almost two-thirds of adults have broadband connections at home, but that's a long way from the ultimate goal: universal adoption of high speed Internet throughout the United States. Depending on which study you believe, we're everything from number 11 to 24 in international broadband penetration ran …
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Google Chrome Frame patches Microsoft-reported security bug
This week, Google released an update to Google Chrome Frame. Version 4.0.245.1 is available and all users should be updated automatically, according to Google Chrome Releases. The release fixes issues where the plugin would not follow redirects properly, where network requests would fail randomly, a …
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Microsoft's problematic lack of nightly builds for IE
After Internet Explorer 9 was officially announced this week and a few tidbits on the release were shared by Microsoft, we had the opportunity to talk to Dean Hachamovitch, General Manager for Internet Explorer, to prod him for a little more information. The overriding theme for IE9, he told …
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Chrome OS: Internet failing at PC > PC failing at Internet
MOUNTAIN VIEW Unless you were hiding under a rock for most of the day yesterday, you're aware by now that Google held a press event at which the search giant pulled back the curtain on ChromeOS, the OS that's really a browser (and is based on the browser that's really an OS). The search giant annou …
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Tracking a mass extinction via mastodon poop
The Younger Dryas period was an era of extinctions and ecosystem change that occurred just prior to the end of the last ice age. It's also a hot area of research right now, with some researchers suggesting that a comet or meteor struck the earth over North America, killing off megafauna like mammot …
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Gyromancer: Square-Enix and Popcap's addictive, $15 spawn
When it comes to role-playing games, there isn't a bigger name than Square-Enix. PopCap Games enjoys a similar reputation, albeit in the casual games market. When the company behind the Final Fantasy series and the developer responsible for titles like Peggle and Plants vs. Zombies announced they we …
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After long wait, Camino 2.0 finally hits the streets
Caminothe Gecko-based browser with native Cocoa interface and more seamless Mac OS X integrationhas finally landed an official 2.0 release. The browser uses a much newer version of Mozilla's Gecko rendering engine (the same one used in Firefox) along with updated tabs and improved security features. …
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Microsoft Surface SDK now available to all
At Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference 2009 (PDC09), the Microsoft Surface team announced the broad availability of the Microsoft Surface Software Development Kit (SDK) Workstation Edition. It has actually been available on the Microsoft Download Center (144.2MB) since earlier this month, …
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