Video Software Articles Articles
Premier chat 007: Ars talks with the Entertainment Software Association
Announcing another in our series of subscriber-only features: a live, moderated webchat with Rich Taylor, senior vice president of communications and industry affairs for the Entertainment...
Judge blocks North Carolina attempt to get Amazon sales data
Like many states, North Carolina collects a “use tax” on its residents' out-of-state purchases; it's essentially a sales tax, and is charged at the same rate. As Internet commerce...
New tech may bring near-gigabit speeds to DSL... someday
In the US at least, if you don't already have fiber to your home, it looks like you're very unlikely to get it any time soon, since the telcos are shying away from the cost of installing that...
Despite lack of gaming vision, Jobs angered when Microsoft bought Bungie
Microsoft scored a huge victory when the company bought the then-Mac-centric developer Bungie in 2000 and put it to work creating new games for its upcoming Xbox platform. According to...
Expedia, Travelocity say Google has crossed the "creepy line"
Google's proposed buyout of airline fare search company ITA for $700 million sparked plenty of controversy when it was announced earlier this year, but now opponents of the deal have made their...
Channeling the Piano Man: a preview of the Rock Band 3 keyboard
Rhythm games have been run into the ground, with multiple releases in multiple franchises choking retail shelves with plastic guitars and marked-down prices. Rock Band 3 has a hard road ahead...
More privacy headaches for Facebook: gay users outed to advertisers
Facebook's privacy problems continue this week after researchers discovered that Facebook may inadvertently be outing gay users to its advertisers. Saikat Guha from Microsoft and Bin Cheng and...
The oldest thing we've ever seen
Earlier this year, ArsTechnica celebrated the Hubble Space Telescope's 20thanniversarywith aretrospective of what we considered to be some of its best imagesreturned to date. The last image we...
FaceTime for Mac opens giant Apple ID security hole
FaceTime for Mac wasreleased yesterday with an apparently slack-jawed, if not exactly gaping, security hole. Macworld Germany has noted that once a user has logged into FaceTime for Mac with his...
Wii, DS get new bundles; Wiimote gets built-in Motion Plus
Nintendo needs to get some momentum going in time for the holidays, and what better way to get people talking than new bundles and a new controller? Starting on November 7 you'll be able to pick...
Why Apple saddled the MacBook Air with "gimped" CPUs
At long, long last, the Macbook Air has been updated. But if you were hoping for enough CPU muscle in the new models to keep a bunch of Flash-addled webpages from bringing the entire portable to...
Mathematics of text messaging could help cellcos manage networks
Human communication patterns, particularly in the form of text messages, appear to follow a pattern that's a fusion of two mathematical models. In a paper published in PNAS on Monday,...
Blessed Unity: Ars reviews Ubuntu 10.10
Ubuntu 10.10, codenamed Maverick Meerkat, emerged from its burrow this month with some important changes. The user interface got a lift from some theming improvements and a new default font....
Sony's PlayStation Move Shooting Attachment hits the bulls-eye
In our preview of Time Crisis: Razing Storm , we noted how awkward it was to hold the Move in its standard position while playing a game that acts as if the Move were the barrel of a gun. Sony's...
Japan has national botnet warriors; why don't we?
October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month here in the United States, which is a good thing, because we come down with more PC botnet infections than any other country in the world. Microsoft...
Jammie Thomas' third P2P trial looms; RIAA complains about cost
The recording industry has deep pockets, but even RIAA largesse has its limits. Case in point: the Jammie Thomas-Rasset peer-to-peer trial in Minnesota, the first of the file-sharing cases to...
ACLU: Net neutrality needed to keep ISP "wolves" at bay
Are Internet service providers more like wolves, foxes, bridge owners, or priests with the “sacred role of making available to citizens a forum for speech and self-expression"? According to...
Chrome 7 arrives with bug fixes, better HTML5 support
In keeping with its recently accelerated release schedule, Google has released version 7 of its Chrome Web browser for Mac, Windows and Linux. The latest release of Chrome offers hundreds of bug...
Mac OS X 10.7 Lion: "Mac OS X meets the iPad"
During today's media event, Apple CEO Steve Jobs gave the first sneak peek at the eighth major version of Mac OS X. Codenamed "Lion," Jobs said that the new version will bring new features and...
Hands-on with the new 11.6-inch MacBook Air
We got some hands-on time with the new 13.3" and 11.6" MacBook Airs following Apple's "Back to the Mac" event. Both devices are incredibly thin and light, but the 11.6" version stole the show....