 | :: Ars Technica: The PC Enthusiast's Resource | | | | | | | | | | | Lasers plus a crushing magnetic field may make fusion more efficient | 
Ever since I first heard about the idea, I have loved inertial confinement fusion. The basic concept involves blowing stuff up with lasers to get some energy, then doing it again and again as fast as possible. What more could a 38-going-on-5-year-old want? Well, what I might also want is a fusion reaction that generates more energy than you put in to it.
One thing that lets me down about inertial confinement fusion is that the implosion that gets the fusion reaction going also acts to stop the fusion. One idea for improving the fusion reaction that has been floating around for a while is to use magnetic fields in place of lasers to increase the efficiency of the fusion burn. But until recently, no one could figure out how to make it work properly.
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 | | | | Researchers boost processor performance by getting CPU and GPU to collaborate |  Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a technique to take advantage of the "fused architecture" emerging on multicore CPUs that puts central processing units and graphics processing units on the same chip. The technology, called CPU-assisted general purpose computation on graphics processor units (CPU-assisted GPGPU) uses software compiled to leverage the architecture to allow the CPU and GPU to collaborate on computing tasks, boosting processor performance on average by more than 20 percent in simulations.
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 | | | | The three patents Microsoft is hammering the Nook with—and why they may be invalid |  Microsoft's complaint against Barnes & Noble's Android-based Nook devices has been narrowed down to just three patents, with the US International Trade Commission having to decide whether Nook devices infringe on several patented methods of interacting with and downloading electronic documents. Barnes & Noble is also asking the ITC to declare the patents invalid because they cover obvious and trivial functionality. Microsoft's ITC complaint, which was filed in March 2011 and targets Foxconn and Inventec in addition to Barnes & Noble, cited five patents. One 1994 patent related to "new varieties of child window controls [that] are provided as system resources that application programs may exploit," and a 1997 patent related to how browsers load and display content in portable computers with limited display areas have since been dropped from the case.
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 | | | | You, me, and "science" makes three: the state of online dating |  Online dating has only become more ubiquitous and socially acceptable since the first sites launched in the mid-'90s: in a 2007-2009 study, 22 percent of couples surveyed formed as a result of dating websites, and it's now the second-most common way for people to meet. But a meta-analysis of online dating and psychological studies shows that while some people are successful using those services, the sites themselves oversell their benefit. There are also a number of downsides, from wrong impressions gotten from too much Internet interaction to unnecessary pickiness from an abundance of potential dates to choose from. The front-facing parts of dating websites often namecheck science, math, and other quantitative disciplines when describing their methods, throwing around high percentages of people matched and married, large numbers of dimensions of compatibility, and surprisingly even numbers of male and female users. Based on their iffy science, the services claim their methods are superior to offline dating. Despite the fact that "news agencies frequently parrot these claims uncritically… in awed tones," the meta-analysis says, its investigation suggests that "dating sites have failed to produce compelling evidence" for them.
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 | | | | Apple trademark may hint at processing improvement for next-gen A6 processor |  A recent trademark application from Apple for the term "Macroscalar" may give a clue about upcoming improvements for its next-generation mobile processors. The term refers to technology Apple has been working on as far back as 2004, according to Patently Apple, and appears to refer to code optimization techniques that keep processors filled with instructions to run during otherwise repetitive loops. Apple applied for the trademark for "Macroscalar" in both the US and Hong Kong last week. The trademark application links the term to use with microprocessors as well as mobile devices and software. It turns out that Apple has at least four patents related to what it calls "macroscalar processor architecture," suggesting the trademark is likely connected to an improved processor for its iOS devices.
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 | | | | iOS companion game Infiltrator to offer bonuses in Mass Effect 3 |  Next month's launch of Mass Effect 3 is extending past the usual PS3, Xbox 360 and PC platforms with Mass Effect Infiltrator, an iOS game that will tie in with the console and PC title to provide bonuses and unlock content. A number of reports from an EA promotional event in New York describe Infiltrator as a third-person shooter in which players work to free prisoners from a Cerberus base. Completed rescues in the iOS title will unlock "exclusive weaponry" and increase players' "Galactic Readiness" rating in Mass Effect 3 according to the reports, helping players to unlock the best ending in the main game. Actions in infiltrator will also affect the larger story in Mass Effect 3. This isn't the first time the Mass Effect series has appeared on iOS. 2009's Mass Effect Galaxy was a short, top-down shooter that offered an extremely limited tie-in reward with Mass Effect 2 when the game was completed. EA says Infiltrator will be hitting the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch "soon," presumably ahead of Mass Effect 3's planned March 6 launch. Read the comments on this post 
 | | | | Judge denies record label's request to shutter "used" MP3 store |  
A one-of-a-kind website enabling the online sale of preowned digital-music files got a major legal boost late Monday when a federal judge refused to shutter it at the request of Capitol Records. ReDigi, which opened in October, says it’s a modern-day, used-record store that provides account holders with a platform to buy and sell used MP3s that were purchased lawfully through iTunes. The platform’s technology does not support other digital files such as those purchased from Amazon or ripped from a CD.
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 | | | | Google (finally) brings Chrome to Android |  Google is finally bringing Chrome to the Android platform. A beta release of the increasingly popular Web browser was published this morning in the Android Market and is available to users who are running Android 4. The port includes Chrome's advanced HTML rendering engine and many of the browser's popular features. The Chrome beta is designed to run on both phones and tablets. The tablet version of the user interface is nearly a perfect match of Chrome on the desktop, including the distinctive slanted tab design. The phone version has a more compressed interface, suitable for smaller screens, and includes the standard Chrome features such as the Omnibar and application shortcut pane.
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 | | | | | | | | Minecraft developer makes "serious" offer to fund Psychonauts sequel |  In the annals of video gaming, 2005's mind-bending platformer Psychonauts is right up there with Earthbound and Beyond Good and Evil in the ranks of games that have a devoted cadre of fans eagerly demanding sequels. Now, those Psychonauts fans might have a decent chance of getting their wish, thanks to an odd, indirect Internet back-and-forth involving Psychonauts creator Tim Shafer and Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson.
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 | | | | Genome of extinct human relative placed on Amazon web services |  It has been nearly 200 years since we became aware of the Neanderthals, an extinct form of humans that once shared Europe and Asia with the modern humans. But it has been less than two years since we discovered that the Neanderthals were not the only archaic modern human around at the time. In short order, researchers in Germany produced a draft of the Denisova genome, which showed that the ancestors of some modern human populations had interbred with the Denisovans at some point in the past.
However, the genome sequence that was published in 2010 was only a draft, which is expected to contain errors and areas of very poor coverage. The folks at the Max Planck Institute have continued sequencing away, though, and have greatly expanded their coverage of the Denisova genome; they're apparently preparing a paper to describe the expanded sequence right now. But to keep the research community from waiting for the paper to clear peer review, they've decided to release the sequence, both on the Max Planck website and through Amazon's web services. The release includes both the raw sequence itself, as well as alignments to the human and chimp genomes.
To protect their ability to publish a paper, the Max Planck team is releasing the sequence under a license that prohibits anyone else from doing an analysis of the complete genome. But anyone interested in looking at specific genes is able to do their analysis without waiting. People interested in doing something in between these two extremes are invited to get in touch with Svante Pääbo, who is directing the work, to sort out an agreement.
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 | | | | After seizure, online gamblers try to retrieve $150 million from Full Tilt Poker |  After a key ruling last week, US gamblers hoping to retrieve $150 million stored with online gaming site Full Tilt Poker will have the opportunity to go after the company in court. In April 2011, the US Department of Justice shut down the websites of the three largest online poker companies then operating in the United States. These included Full Tilt Poker, which the Justice Department described as a "global Ponzi scheme" that assured players that their money was safe but that did not actually have enough funds to repay them. It was alleged that Full Tilt Poker credited "approximately $130 million in phantom money to US players' online accounts."
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 | | | | Kingdoms of Amalur: A great action game in an empty, forgettable world |  The ubiquity of the action RPG, as an idea, is a little weird when you think about it. It's hard to think of two more disparate genres to try to combine, and usually the attempt ends up leaning too heavily toward one side of the coin or the other. Action RPGs often feel like roleplaying games that replace turn-based combat with overly simple button mashing, or like action games with some cursory, stat-building “RPG elements” thrown in toward the end of development. Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning manages a surprising trick, then, in creating an action RPG that feels like a full-fledged action game and a full-fledged RPG. Unfortunately, only one of those two component parts manages to stand on its own in a satisfying way.
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 | | | | Pulsed lasers make lightweight glasses out of polymers | 
Microscopically, glasses are solids that look more like liquids—they
lack a regular crystalline structure. The liquid character is no
accident, since a typical glass is made by cooling a fluid rapidly. If done in the right way, this skips the usual crystallization that occurs at the
freezing point of the material, leaving a disordered state. If we want to create a glass with specific properties, we need precise control over the fluid-to-glass
transition, but that has proven very difficult to
achieve in practice.
To this end, Yunlong Guo et al. have developed a way to produce stable
glasses made of polymers. As described in a Nature Materials
paper published February 5, the resulting glasses are extremely
lightweight, have a higher transitional temperature, and maintain their properties up to a higher temperatures than normal glasses. The
researchers made the glasses by deposition rather than cooling, using a
technique known as matrix-assisted pulsed laser evaporation, or
MAPLE. The result is a glass built up of nanoscale globules, a
material with interesting theoretical properties as well as potential
applications.
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 | | | | Motorola Droid 4 to launch on Verizon for $199.99 |  The Motorola Droid 4 will be available on Verizon's network for $199.99 with a two-year contract, Motorola announced in a press release today. The smartphone carries on the keyboard tradition of its predecessor, the Droid 3, but with a much-improved design. The Droid 4 has a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, and a 4-inch qHD display. An 8-megapixel camera that can record 1080p video is on the back of the phone, and an "HD" camera is on the front. The phone has a 1785mAh battery and will launch with Android 2.3 Gingerbread, "to be upgraded to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich," according to Motorola. We handled the phone a bit at CES, and while it's still on the thick and heavy side, the sliding action was smoother and easier than the Droid 3, which had a stiff mechanism. The keyboard keys also had more travel and were easier to press, which should make for a better typing experience. The Droid 4 will be available in stores and online starting February 10. Read the comments on this post 
 | | | | Nikon D800 combines medium format quality, HD filmmaking in one DSLR |  Nikon on Monday announced the D800 digital SLR camera, the newest addition to its professional DSLR line up. Boasting a 36.3 megapixel full-frame CMOS sensor, high ISO shooting capabilities, and a variety of high definition video modes, the D800 leapfrogs well beyond its predecessor, the D700, as well as anything else in the 35mm format, to offer resolution approaching that of $10,000+ medium format cameras. Like the flagship D4 announced in January, the D800 uses a 51-point autofocus system that is sensitive down to -2EV. It also has the new 91,000 pixel 3D color matrix metering and Advanced Scene Recognition System that compares the image in the viewfinder with a database of previously captured images and their exposure settings. The D800 retains the standard DSLR size of the D700, wrapped in magnesium alloy, but its corners and curves have been rounded in line with the design of the D4.
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 | | | | Symantec offered hackers $50k to delete stolen code in alleged "sting" |  Hackers claiming to have the source code for Symantec's PCAnywhere and Norton Antivirus software attempted to extort $50,000 from the company, according to e-mail transcripts posted on February 7. But the point of contact for the hacker group involved in the code exposure claimed in an e-mail conversation with Reuters that they never intended to take money from Symantec, and that the negotiations were a scam in themselves to embarrass the company. And according to the transcript, it was Symantec that set the price of the hackers' destruction of the code, along with a demand that the hackers publish a statement saying that they had lied about obtaining the code.
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 | | | | Feature: Can porn be copyrighted? One file-sharing defendant says no |  The strange case of Hard Drive Productions versus "anyone that the video company's lawyers suspect of illegally downloading its pornographic movies" has taken a new and interesting twist. One of the nearly 1,500 "Does" being sued for allegedly sharing a Hard Drive film online has resorted to what seems, at first glance, like a novel defense. In addition to her insistence that she never actually downloaded "Amateur Allure Jen," Liuxia Wong of Solano County, California argues that copyright law doesn't even apply to smut clips. They are not copyrightable, and therefore no infringement occurred. The matter is quite simple, Wong's petition for declaratory relief explains to the federal court in San Francisco. Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the US Constitution defines the purpose of copyright: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
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 | | | | High-res UI elements in OS X 10.7.3 renew buzz about "retina" display MacBooks |  There's renewed buzz about support for "retina" displays on Apple's portable Macs thanks to higher-resolution cursor images showing up in Mac OS X 10.7.3. Noticed by a handful of Mac developers, there are new UI images for things like the Safari finger, the Mail gripping hand, and one of the screenshot camera cursors, among (undoubtedly) several others. It's reasonable to assume that Apple might want to add these new UI elements into the OS for those using higher-resolution external displays. However, as noted by Daring Fireball, those who have Mac minis connected via HDMI to TV sets observed recently that their machines rebooted directly into HiDPI mode after upgrading to 10.7.3 last week without prompting, which could indicate plans to release future MacBooks with HiDPI displays. Talk of a "retina" display MacBook Pro has been popping up more and more over the last six months or so. We acknowledged in December that we may end up seeing Apple release such a thing in 2012, and a thread in our forums indicates that users believe it will happen eventually—it's just a matter of when. As Chris Foresman wrote recently: "Apple is expected to have similar resolution displays ready for the iPad 3 in early spring, and the same technology would likely be used to make such a high-resolution display suitable for the MacBook Pro." Combined with the expected Ivy Bridge processors from Intel later this year, Apple could take the opportunity to upgrade the Pro line with new processors and higher-resolution displays in one fell swoop. Read the comments on this post 
 | | | | Paramount "humbled" by SOPA protests even as CEO blasts "mob mentality" |  Major Hollywood studios are still reeling from last month's resounding defeat of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act. The latest sign of the studios's changed posture is a letter that Paramount Pictures has sent to a number of professors around the country seeking an opportunity to discuss the challenges of fighting online copyright infringement on campus. "We at Paramount have been humbled by the strong public opposition to the proposed SOPA and PIPA legislation," wrote Paramount's Alfred Perry in a letter dated February 2 and obtained by infojustice.org. "The extent of the negative reaction surprised us." Perry wanted to "exchange ideas about content theft, its challenges, and possible ways to address it. As these last few weeks made painfully clear, we still have much to learn. We would love to come to campus and do exactly that." Perry asked to come to campus and "give a formal presentation followed by an open discussion period." He said he would also be happy to "join for a session of an existing course or seminar." If Paramount wants to learn from and dialogue with its critics, more power to the company and its executives. But that attitude doesn't seem to go all the way to the top of the corporate ladder. Philippe Dauman, CEO of Paramount's parent company Viacom, last week lashed out at the "mob mentality" that killed the Senate's PROTECT IP Act. (We recently covered Dauman's record-breaking $50 million pay raise for 2010.) "It became almost religious dogma that any legislation that might emerge through the process built around the Senate bill would have broken the Internet, created censorship around the world," he said at last week's D:Dive into Media conference. "The fact of the matter is I think the bill that would have emerged would have been very reasonable." Media and technology companies, he said, "should be working together. If you have a legitimate argument with a particular provision, it should be discussed rationally and then you get legislation." Of course, "working together" is relative. Both SOPA and PIPA began life as tough bills catering almost exclusively to major rightsholders, rather than emerging from some kind of stakeholder dialogue. And Dauman's allies in the recording industry have shown little interest in improving the OPEN Act, an alternative to SOPA that gives accused website operators greater due process rights. Last week the Recording Industry Association of America called for the legislation to be scrapped rather than amended. Read the comments on this post 
 | | | | Revenge is ours: extracting energy from a cockroach |  I love science. The joy of discovery in pure research combines with applied science to leave me fantasizing about future technology. Add in the occasional WTF moment and the comedy inherent in poorly prepared presentations, and you have the perfect occupation. Unfortunately, science sometimes attracts people who pull the wings off a cockroach, pin it on its back, and stick electrodes inside it to use it as a mini-electricity generator.
Now, I hate cockroaches as much as anyone, and there is a certain satisfaction in extracting revenge for all those restless nights in rooms that, shall we say, rustled, but... Surely there was a good reason for this?
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