Ars Technica

Patterning next-generation circuitry with ordered polymers

ajsteven130@gmail.com (Adam Stevenson) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 18:30:00 GMT

Scientists from MIT and Hitachi demonstrate methods for controlling self-assembly of block copolymers that may lead to a revolution in nanoscale fabrication techniques

CAPTCHAs work for digitizing old, damaged texts, manuscripts

jtimmer@arstechnica.com (John Timmer) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 18:00:00 GMT

Archivists are trying to digitize many old and distorted texts and frequently are confronted with the failure of software to recognize words. Researchers are now presenting the results of a successful method for identifying these words: turn the scanned text into a CAPTCHA.

Summer Olympics gets mobile video neophytes to tune in

jacqui@arstechnica.com (Jacqui Cheng) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 16:52:00 GMT

Half of the mobile users trying to access NBC's streaming Olympic content are new to the technology, NBC has found, and millions more are watching video on NBC's Olympic website. Considering that NBC was previously scared of offering content online, it looks like the "billion-dollar research lab" is being put to good use.

The "Colbert Bump" is real at least on one side of the aisle

jonathan@arstechnica.com (Jonathan M. Gitlin) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 16:19:00 GMT

Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert often talks about the "Colbert Bump," whereby politicians who appear on his show receive a boost in the polls. Analysis of FEC fundraising records show that there is some truth to this claim, but only on one side of the aisle...

You've got jail! AOL spammer sentenced to seven years

jhruska@arstechnica.com (Joel Hruska) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 15:48:00 GMT

AOL spammer and identity thief Michael Dolan is headed off to jail for the next seven years, to be followed by three years of additional monitoring. Dolan and his codefendants pled guilty to all charges and received the maximum sentence allowed by law.

You want to know why? Pirates give indie game dev an earful

bkuchera@arstechnica.com (Ben Kuchera) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:59:00 GMT

Several days ago, an independent game developer asked pirates a simple question: why? The pirates have responded, and the reasons people pirate games aren't surprising. The challenge is to now react to this information with positive change.

One month later: Google Lively? Not so much

dchartier@arstechnica.com (David Chartier) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:27:00 GMT

Google's Lively is a platform for web-based, 3D chat rooms that can be easily embedded in any site or blog. It launched as a rough prototype, and there doesn't appear to be a lot going on in most of the rooms.

US Air Force puts Cyber Command into hibernate mode

segphault@arstechnica.com (Ryan Paul) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 13:31:00 GMT

The Air Force has suspended its much-hyped Cyber Command program as the top brass evaluate its intended structure and mission.

Hands on: kwiry SMS service lets you send notes to yourself

jacqui@arstechnica.com (Jacqui Cheng) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 10:05:00 GMT

It's not uncommon to find yourself thinking of little tidbits when you're out that you need to look into when you get home, like a book you wanted to check out online. kwiry lets you do that by SMSing your fleeting ideas to a centralized location and keeping a list, and now you can even add things to your Amazon wishlist or Netflix queue automatically.

18-month beatdown: Google search crushing Microsoft, Yahoo

eric@arstechnica.com (Eric Bangeman) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 03:15:00 GMT

Ars looks at the last 18 months of search data and one trend is clear: Google continues its march towards search domination at the expense of Microsoft and Yahoo, despite the best efforts of both competitors.

Court: violating copyleft = copyright infringement

leex1008@umn.edu (Timothy B. Lee) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 02:10:00 GMT

A federal appeals court held Wednesday that copying free software without complying with its license is copyright infringement. The ruling, which will make such licenses much easier to enforce, is a key victory for the free software community.

Judge puts defamation lawsuit against Wikipedia to the sword

jtimmer@arstechnica.com (John Timmer) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 01:00:00 GMT

Once again, the Communications Decency Act has protected an online resource from liability for content its users posted there. This time, it let Wikimedia off the hook for potentially defamatory content.

Intel thrilled with Atom sales in a very tight market

jhruska@arstechnica.com (Joel Hruska) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 23:55:00 GMT

Intel's CFO speaks up claiming that the company is pleased with Atom sales so far this year and confident that the CPU will continue to drive market growth. Longer term, Intel plans to put Atom in device categories that don't even exist yet, but sales have exceeded expectations, even in the netbook market.

Report: spies need to stay on top of neuroscience research

jonathan@arstechnica.com (Jonathan M. Gitlin) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 18:25:00 GMT

The National Research Council is publishing a report, Emerging Cognitive Neuroscience and Related Technologies, on the need for the intelligence community to develop better institutional awareness of neuroscience research as a matter of national security.

Russians may not be responsible for cyberattacks on Georgia

jhruska@arstechnica.com (Joel Hruska) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:29:21 GMT

New evidence suggests that politically active hackers, rather than the Russian government, may be behind attacks on Georgia's web assets. It's not the first time we've heard this sort of story change, but it's of little comfort to anyone relying on Georgia's Internet infrastructure.

Engineering better biofuels through genome research

reenyun@yahoo.com (Yun Xie) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:10:00 GMT

Efficient biofuels production may require more than scaling up the use of organisms we understand. A new paper examines how genomic research can help us optimize biofuels production.

Bohm's bummed: wave theory needs 10,000x light speed to work

laserboy@fusemail.com (Chris Lee) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:00:00 GMT

Spooky action at a distance would need to surf a very fast wave. Researchers show that entanglement is indeed nonlocal and that, if a hidden underlying wave were maintaining entanglement, it would have to travel 10,000 times faster than the speed of light.

No love for L'Oreal: EU courts waffle on eBay counterfeits

jacqui@arstechnica.com (Jacqui Cheng) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:11:00 GMT

A Belgian court dismissed all of cosmetics maker L'Oreal's counterfeiting claims against eBay, saying that the auction giant had no responsibility to monitor everything listed on the site. The decision seems to be inconsistent with other European court rulings of late, though, and L'Oreal plans to appeal.

Storms in the cloud leave users up creek without a paddle

(Peter Bright) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:31:00 GMT

A spate of failures of online services has brought the question of the cloud's reliability into sharp focus. As people depend ever more on cloud services, the problem of what to do when the cloud evaporates is going to need a solution.

Movable Type Pro to meld blogging and social networking

dchartier@arstechnica.com (David Chartier) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:00:00 GMT

New features like content ratings and personal profiles will allow readers to interact in new ways with each other and site publishers. Blogging's about to get more social.