A license to link? Lowe's has one
Feed : Ars Technica
Published on : 2012-02-05 21:00:15
In the course of building a large framed mirror last month—a process which cemented my belief that doing pro-quality wood staining is a black art best left to necromancers—I visited the website for hardware giant Lowe's. While exploring the site, I came across something peculiar: a short Lowe's "customer care" statement on how other website operators can link to Lowe's. I know what you're thinking: “there are instructions for this?” Indeed there are; Lowe's has actually drafted three separate legal agreements to cover the practice. Two cover situations in which the linking site might use Lowe's images and marks, and for which some kind of license deal makes more sense. The third says only, "If you're linking to Lowes.com, but not using our mark(s)/logo(s) on your site, download the Version A link agreement."
Over 3 years later, "deleted" Facebook photos are still online
Feed : Ars Technica
Published on : 2012-02-05 19:00:00
Facebook is still working on deleting photos from its servers in a timely manner nearly three years after Ars first brought attention to the topic. The company admitted on Friday that its older systems for storing uploaded content "did not always delete images from content delivery networks in a reasonable period of time even though they were immediately removed from the site," but said it's currently finishing up a newer system that makes the process much quicker. In the meantime, photos that users thought they "deleted" from the social network months or even years ago remain accessible via direct link.
Microsoft publishes fancy-pants heterogeneous parallel GPGPU C++ AMP specification
Feed : Ars Technica
Published on : 2012-02-05 17:00:30
Microsoft has published the specification for C++ AMP (Accelerated Massive Parallelism), its new system for heterogeneous parallel processing in C++. When Microsoft first announced C++ AMP in June last year, it said that it wanted to make the AMP specification open to all. AMP has been developed by Microsoft with input from AMD and NVIDIA. Microsoft's implementation allows AMP programs to use both the main CPU and Direct3D video cards (via the company's DirectCompute API), though the specification should also permit OpenGL/OpenCL-based implementations.
Weekend Time Waster: Solitaire Blitz brings excitement to lonely card clicking
Feed : Ars Technica
Published on : 2012-02-05 15:00:00
Digital forms of Solitaire have been included with Windows since it reached version 3.0, and they may well represent the most widely played video game series this side of Angry Birds, enjoyed by bored cubicle workers and bored, procrastinating students alike. While most serious gamers probably wouldn't put these games top ten picks of all time, you'd be hard-pressed to find a single PC owner that hasn't put in at least a few hours on a machine that has nothing else available. Plants vs. Zombies and Peggle maker Popcap is targeting this familiar genre with its latest Facebook time-waster, Solitaire Blitz, a supremely addictive and well-crafted offering that adds just the right amount of tension to the zen autonomy of mindlessly clicking cards.
In annual tradition, advertisers cowed by NFL trademark bullying
Feed : Ars Technica
Published on : 2012-02-05 11:00:20
Every year in late January or early February, two teams take to the field to play a football game that's watched by tens of millions of Americans. And every year, businesses launch ad campaigns to sell a variety of products—televisions, pizzas, soda—in conjunction with the game. And the overwhelming majority of these businesses avoid calling it the "Super Bowl." Why? They're afraid of getting sued by the National Football League, which holds the trademark for the term and polices it aggressively. The NFL takes the position that no one is allowed to use the phrase "Super Bowl" in an advertisement without writing the NFL a big check first. Every year, the league sends cease-and-desist letters to businesses that stray too close to the line.
Week in Apple: post-Macworld|iWorld edition
Feed : Ars Technica
Published on : 2012-02-04 16:00:00 
This week, we wrapped up our coverage of the 2012 Macworld|iWorld conference in San Francisco just as Apple issued an update to Final Cut Pro X and gave the AirPort Utility an iOS makeover. Additionally, Tim Cook offered some strong words in response to doubts about Apple's attitude toward worker conditions in China, Neil Young recounted stories about Steve Jobs working towards higher-quality music downloads, and more. Need a recap? You're in the right place. Rethinking iPhone UI and getting things done with Clear to-do app: Realmac is set to launch an iPhone to-do list app in a few weeks that breaks list making and maintaining down to the barest essentials, eschewing some common iPhone UI elements to make the app as simple as humanly possible. LandingZone to ease docking for MacBook Air: A new Cupertino startup is launching a clever, well-designed docking solution for Apple's MacBook Air. The first version is set to begin shipping by March, but a planned Thunderbolt-equipped version is on hold pending licensing approval from Intel.
Week in Gaming: Misleading game trailers, Online Passes and cat MMOs
Feed : Ars Technica
Published on : 2012-02-04 14:00:00 
 Square-Enix This week, an animated trailer for an imaginary Zelda game got us wondering why exactly games often can't live up to the thrilling scenes we're shown in pre-release videos. We also looked at the slow redefinition of what an Online Pass can be used for, examined the legality of blocking used games sales, and spent a massively-multiplayer hour as a cat. Madden NFL and Tecmo Bowl both agree that the Giants are going to win the Super Bowl this weekend. Personally, I'm rooting for stadium collapse.
Week in tech: acting out over ACTA, Firefox 10, and a new KDE tablet
Feed : Ars Technica
Published on : 2012-02-04 12:00:00 
Kindle Fire dwarfs other Android tablets in market share after just three months: After three months, the Kindle Fire has an equal share of the Android tablet market with the Samsung Galaxy Tab, and has already outstripped the Motorola Xoom, Asus Transformer, and Acer Iconia Tab. Firefox 10 arrives with new dev tools and full-screen API: Mozilla has released version 10 of the Firefox Web browser. The update includes improved development tools and a new API for displaying page elements in fullscreen mode.
Week in science, with unusual amounts of insanity
Feed : Ars Technica
Published on : 2012-02-04 10:00:00
It was a crazy week for science. Normally, when we say that, we mean there was a lot of important news going on; this week, some of the actual stories involved a fair degree of nuttiness. These included an overt attempt to inject religion into science classes and a theory that attempts to explain everything without even bothering to deal with most of the fundamental particles identified by physics. Still, there was some good science, including a very selective graphene membrane and some bacteria engineered to turn seaweed into biofuels.
Kelihos botnet remains very much dead after all
Feed : Ars Technica
Published on : 2012-02-03 20:55:39 
A spam botnet brought down four months ago, which was once capable of pumping out almost four billion spam messages a day, remains very much dead, two of the companies behind the takedown said. That determination, announced late Friday by Microsoft and Kaspersky Lab representatives, contradicted published reports, including one from Ars, that claimed the network of infected computers had been resurrected. There's no evidence that control of Kelihos, which also went by the name Hlux, has returned to the control of its creators, the companies said.
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