Valve's Gabe Newell shares his thoughts on DRM

March 12, 2010 5:30 PM - by Ben Kuchera | Posted in: Opposable Thumbs

Gabe Newell used his awards speech to speak about his thoughts on the industry... including his thoughts on DRM.

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Surprise: iPhone app use heaviest at night and on weekends

March 12, 2010 3:58 PM - by Chris Foresman | Posted in: Infinite Loop

Third-party app analytics statistics suggest that the majority of iPhones are used for personal, and not business use—at least when it comes to third-party apps.

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Netflix settles privacy lawsuit, ditches $1 million contest

March 12, 2010 3:04 PM - by Jacqui Cheng | Posted in: Law & Disorder

Netflix's next recommendation engine may not come from its community after all. The company has canceled the competition as part of a privacy lawsuit settlement, vowing to find other ways to collaborate with its users.

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New Zealand relies on BGP router protocol to filter the 'Net

New Zealand relies on BGP router protocol to filter the 'Net
March 12, 2010 2:00 PM - by Nate Anderson | Posted in: Law & Disorder

New Zealand's voluntary ISP filtering scheme is up and running on two ISPs. Thanks to Border Gateway Protocol voodoo, some deep packet inspection, and Swedish software, the Kiwis hope to put the kibosh on child sex abuse images online... assuming they use HTTP.

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China and Google playing game of Chicken over censorship

March 12, 2010 12:40 PM - by Jacqui Cheng | Posted in: Law & Disorder

Google may be about to lift the curtain on censored topics in China, but China warns that there will be "consequences" if the company decides to violate Chinese law.

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Science journo quits writing to fight chiropractic libel suit

Science journo quits writing to fight chiropractic libel suit
March 12, 2010 11:23 AM - by John Timmer | Posted in: Nobel Intent

A British science journalist has seen his career put on hold because he had the audacity to suggest some claims made by chiropractors are "bogus," making him the target of a libel suit.

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Bed readers rejoice: iPad gains last-minute rotation lock

March 12, 2010 10:48 AM - by Jacqui Cheng | Posted in: Infinite Loop

It wasn't there in January, but it's sure there now: the iPad seems to have traded its mute switch for a screen rotation lock ahead of its official launch on April 3.

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Firefox 3.6 sees 100M downloads, now pushing notifications

March 12, 2010 10:20 AM - by Ryan Paul | Posted in: Open Ended

Mozilla has started prompting Firefox users to upgrade to version 3.6.

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Five insights into the behaviors of social media users

Five insights into the behaviors of social media users
March 12, 2010 9:42 AM - by Jacqui Cheng | Posted in: The Web

Sometimes it's easy to think we know everything about your everyday Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, or even mobile users. However, we managed to dig up a few tidbits about these people that piqued our interest.

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New WMAP data can't erase "dark flow"

March 12, 2010 9:00 AM - by Matt Ford | Posted in: Nobel Intent

A mysterious dark flow, that may be the result of forces originating outside of our visible universe, hasn't gone away when more data was analyzed.

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Comcast-NBCU merger: how the regulators will decide

Comcast-NBCU merger: how the regulators will decide
March 12, 2010 8:17 AM - by Matthew Lasar | Posted in: Media

Representatives from the Department of Justice and FCC were low-key about what they thought about the proposed Comcast-NBC Universal merger at yesterday's Senate hearing. But they offered a road map of how they're going to evaluate the deal. We've got details.

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Hands on with Bit.Trip Runner: don't watch, listen

March 12, 2010 7:20 AM - by Ben Kuchera | Posted in: Opposable Thumbs

We've played Bit.Trip Runner at GDC, and the game teaches you that listening to the music will get you much farther than watching the graphics. Our thoughts on the latest in the series.

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Beautiful innovation: the first 20 hours of FF XIII

Beautiful innovation: the first 20 hours of <em>FF XIII</em>
March 12, 2010 6:20 AM - by Michael Thompson | Posted in: Opposable Thumbs

Final Fantasy XIII features everything we love about the series: over-the-top art design, a sizable cast of characters, and an epic story. It also delivers a number of new gameplay mechanics that (mostly) work out great.

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Family of four gets their genomes sequenced

Family of four gets their genomes sequenced
March 11, 2010 9:28 PM - by John Timmer | Posted in: Nobel Intent

Researchers have sequenced the genomes of an entire family, in which the two children suffered from recessive genetic disorders. In addition to identifying the genes involved, the work has produced new estimates of sequencing errors, recombination rates, and the frequency of new mutations in the human genome.

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SOCOM 4, played with PlayStation Move: our thoughts

March 11, 2010 8:10 PM - by Ben Kuchera | Posted in: Opposable Thumbs

We play the newest SOCOM release with the PlayStation Move. Our verdict? Finally, a game we can get excited about.

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Or will I go from rags to riches? Hands-on with Mafia 2

Or will I go from rags to riches? Hands-on with <em>Mafia 2</em>
March 11, 2010 7:25 PM - by Alex Petraglia | Posted in: Opposable Thumbs

Mafia 2 invites easy comparisons to Grand Theft Auto, but there's more to the story than that. Ars goes hands on at GDC.

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OpenGL 4 spec arrives with Direct3D 11 feature parity

OpenGL 4 spec arrives with Direct3D 11 feature parity
March 11, 2010 5:38 PM - by Peter Bright | Posted in: Software

The Khronos Group today announced OpenGL 4, the latest version of the open standard graphics API. The main feature? Feature parity with Direct3D 11.

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iPhone still second-place US smartphone while Android grows

March 11, 2010 4:27 PM - by Chris Foresman | Posted in: Infinite Loop

Apple still has the number two smartphone in America while both RIM and Apple hold steady in market share according to comScore. However, Android is growing rapidly.

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Intel's NAS-specific Atom platform hastens PCification

Intel's NAS-specific Atom platform hastens PCification
March 11, 2010 3:38 PM - by Jon Stokes | Posted in: Uptime

Intel has launched a version of Atom specifically for network attached storage (NAS) devices. Here's why a NAS-specific Atom platform is a bigger deal than you may think.

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iPhone OS 4.0 may finally bring multitasking nirvana

March 11, 2010 2:40 PM - by Chris Foresman | Posted in: Infinite Loop

Apple is believed to finally be answering our prayers: we may be able to run more than one app at a time on the iPhone when iPhone OS 4.0 ships this summer.

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Transformers: War for Cybertron shows how it all began

Transformers: War for Cybertron shows how it all began
March 11, 2010 1:38 PM - by Ben Kuchera | Posted in: Opposable Thumbs

Cybertron isn't just the homeworld of the Transformers... it is a Transformer itself. It was the first Transformer. In War for Cybertron you get to explore the Civil War between the Autobots and the Decepticons as they blast their way...

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Canonical's design team responds to theme criticisms

March 11, 2010 12:47 PM - by Ryan Paul | Posted in: Open Ended

Canonical has responded to some of the concerns expressed by users about the window titlebar button placement in Ubuntu's new theme.

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Green Day: Rock Band coming June 8, supports full exports

March 11, 2010 11:57 AM - by Ben Kuchera | Posted in: Opposable Thumbs

We know the release date, price, and details of Green Day: Rock Band. If you're not excited you are alone. You are all by yourself.

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Court nixes individual track downloads of Pink Floyd albums

March 11, 2010 11:10 AM - by Jacqui Cheng | Posted in: Law & Disorder

Pink Floyd's albums were meant to be consumed in album form, not picked apart by track. That's what the British High Court has ruled, anyway, leaving music fans wondering what will happen to Pink Floyd's offerings online.

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Safely whitelist your favorite sites and opt out of tracking (updated rules)

Safely whitelist your favorite sites and opt out of tracking (updated rules)
March 11, 2010 10:28 AM - by Clint Ecker | Posted in: Uptime
feature

If you use an ad blocker like AdBlock Plus, NoScript, or Glimmerblocker and want to let ads from some of your favorite sites through, we've whipped up an in-depth guide, complete with video. But even if you don't, there great info in here.

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