Ars Technica: The PC enthusiast's resource

Time 2020-11-24 02:03:10

Web Name: Ars Technica: The PC enthusiast's resource

WebSite: http://archive.arstechnica.com

ID:125426

Keywords:

The,Technica,Ars,

Description:

Ars Technica takes Apple's top of the line Dual 2.5GHz Power Mac G5 out for a test drive. More... Posted February 1, 2007 @ 3:19PM, by Eric Bangeman Organizers of the annual Tokyo Game Show have announced the timing for this year's show, which will be expanded from last years three-day run to four days and will begin on September 20. The Tokyo Game Show dates back to 1996 and was a twice-a-year event until 2002. Show organizers have historically allowed the general public to attend part of the show. For this year's show, the last two days will be open to the public. Although the Tokyo Game Show has been a major draw for Japanese developers, it has been overshadowed by the formerly huge E3 show. Last summer, however, the Entertainment Software Association decided that it was time to scale E3 down. The cost of putting on and exhibiting at E3 had spiraled out of control, and though the show was ostensibly open only to journalists and exhibitors, the relatively open registration process made it possible for those outside the press and gaming industry to attend. Nature abhors a vacuum, and with E3 morphing into a smaller, summer show in Santa Monica, there's an opportunity for another gaming convention extravaganza. The CEA, which has plenty of experience with mammoth trade shows, pondered launching an E3 replacement, only to decide against it.With the reorganization of E3 and the masses of people expected to attend the Tokyo Game Show, many observers are asking whether these huge shows outlived their usefulness? An increasing number of developers are turning towards smaller in-house events where they can show their games to bloggers as well as the mainstream gaming press. These events allow the companies to show off their games in an optimal and controlled environment; without the cost of travelling to a tradeshow and buying booth space the bang for the buck is much higher. This is a trend that will probably continue as shows this large make it hard for even the big-name games to make an impression. Thanks to Dave Girard for help with the Japanese translation. Ben Kuchera contributed to this story.[ Discussion | Send to a Friend | PermanentLink] One Zune exec out; J Allard takes over the program Posted February 1, 2007 @ 12:32PM, by Nate Anderson Bryan Lee, the executive in charge of business development for the Zune program, is stepping down from Microsoft to be replaced by J Allard, the bald hipster who received much of the credit for building the Xbox brand. Microsoft insists that Lee (a 43-year old) is "retiring" for personal reasons and absolutely not because of corporate displeasure over the Zune launch.Lee came to Microsoft in 2000 as the Chief Financial Officer for the Home & Entertainment Group. He's at home dealing with business matters he holds a degree in accounting, spent several years working for Arthur Andersen, and negotiated contracts at Sony Pictures Entertainment for 13 years. When he was promoted to corporate vice president at Microsoft, Lee headed many of the negotiations for Zune content, which meant endless hours of discussions with music labels. Good times.Lee was also on the receiving end of Universal's really great idea that it get paid one dollar out of every Zune sale, to make up for the alleged piracy that the device's new users were sure to rush out and engage in. Consumers might have thought that a man who lists his favorite band as the Rolling Stones would have told Universal, "You Can't Always Get What You Want," but it was not to be, and Universal got their money.Lee tried to get the industry to loosen its grip on the music, even telling reporters that he would be organizing a conference early in 2007 to discuss the 3 days/3 plays restriction and other details. Now that he's leaving, the status of this alleged pow-wow is unknown.Microsoft has publicly expressed confidence in the new music player, saying repeatedly that it is on track to sell one million Zunes by July and that it is in the market for the long term. Both of these things may well be true, and the Zune is an attractive player in many ways, but it has significant problems. Not least among them is the almost total worthlessness of the built-in WiFi, making the company's decision to use the tag "Welcome to the Social" unfortunate. Despite the public shows of confidence, Lee's abrupt departure apparently indicates Microsoft's displeasure with the Zune's showing so far.The elevation of Allard, who has a reputation as something of a "golden boy" at Microsoft, certainly sends the signal that Microsoft is serious about building the Zune into a quality brand. Allard and his team did fine work on the 360 and helped make Xbox Live a best-of-breed service. He also helped design the Zune, but Lee handled the business aspects of the player. Allard's new role will expand to include all of those duties. Now that he has total control of the Zune division, can Allard do what he did with the Xbox: make the second generation smaller, sexier, and more useful? And can he get the music industry to see things his way?[ Discussion | Send to a Friend | PermanentLink] Seagate introduces us to DAVE Posted February 1, 2007 @ 12:28PM, by Jacqui Cheng More drive-makers are adding to the selection of mobile content servers to debut in 2007, as Seagate formally announced this week the Digital Audio Video Experience (DAVE). DAVE will be a small, portable hard drive that will use WiFi and Bluetooth to transfer media and other files between devices. Seagate's goal with DAVE will be to allow users to freely access their files at any time from nearly any device. DAVE will come in the form of a slim, Motorola RAZR-sized drive enclosure that appears to be aimed heavily at the mobile phone market. Seagate states that DAVE will be the answer for providing more storage to mobile phones without having to bump the cost or size of handsets themselves, in addition to allowing service providers to increase music and video services without as much concern about available storage space. DAVE will also allow two-way communication from various devices, meaning that users will also be able to navigate the contents of the drive from their cell phones and laptops. Seagate expects DAVE's battery life to be able to handle about 14 days of standby and 10 hours of media streaming performance. Like the Agere BluOnyx media server announced at the end of last year, Seagate is not marketing the device under its own corporate name, but instead allowing other companies to sell the product with their own branding. It will also be an open-source system, allowing third-party developers to write apps to interface with DAVE from various devices. Unlike the BluOnyx, however, the DAVE will have lower storage capacity (10-20GB, compared to BluOnyx's up to 40GB) and will not have any sort of wired USB connection or card reader, possibly limiting its use to newer devices and savvier users who know how to set up WiFi and Bluetooth on their laptops and cell phones. Seagate says that the company hopes the DAVE will turn mobile phones into DVR/MP3 powerhouses, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the drive will enable unauthorized devices to play DRMed files. Agere's BluOnyx will be DRM agnostic, the company told Ars at CES, meaning that it will respect whatever usage rights are associated with a media file, acting merely as a mass-storage device. It's likely that the DAVE will function in the same manner due to the hoops the company would likely have to jump through in order to authorize other devices to play DRMed content. Both the BluOnyx and DAVE are expected to be available in 2007, with the DAVE beating BluOnyx to market in the second quarter of the year. [ Discussion | Send to a Friend | PermanentLink] Flickr's shift to Yahoo ID requirement sparks (virtual) rioting Posted February 1, 2007 @ 12:06PM, by Jon Stokes As we at Ars have learned over the years, every time you alter anything about a site that has a strong community, you take a certain amount of heat from a small but loyal portion of users who don't want to see changes in something they love. So it is with some portions of the Flickr community, which is in an uproar over Flickr's decision to stick to its guns on a long-announced set of changes to the photo-sharing site.Opinions are split on the justification of Flickr users' fury: some think that the outraged users are making a mountain out of a molehill while others can identify with these users' sense that they've been stripped of something valuable to them. I think they're both right, in the sense that when it comes to matters of identity, a "molehill" as small as a login ID (or a head scarf, or a foreskin) can mean everything.A brief history of the Flickr flapAfter Flickr was acquired by Yahoo in early 2005, the company initially stated that users would be able to keep their Flickr e-mail-based login IDs and that the ability to login with a Yahoo ID would simply be added onto the new service. This policy changed later in the year, when Flickr announced that holders of "Old Skool" (their spelling) Flickr accounts would have to acquire a Yahoo ID in order to log in to the site. Screams and strange popping sounds were reported throughout the country, as Flickr users' heads exploded instantly upon hearing news of the forced account migration. The folks at Flickr who settled on the new mandatory Yahoo ID policy have recently justified it by pointing out that 95 percent of the Flickr user base is now signing in with a Yahoo ID. But in spite of the 2005 announcement there is a diehard 5 percent core of Flickr users who apparently aren't interested in signing up with Yahoo. These so-called Old Skool Flickr users value their identity as members of an exclusive club of early adopters, and they're outraged at having the signal marker of this identity a non-Yahoo login ID stripped from them by the company. References to the Borg abound in reference to the forced Yahoo ID assimilation, and many Old Skool users have announced their intention to go elsewhere. There's no place like homeI understand Yahoo's need to further integrate Flickr's legacy users with the rest of the sprawling web company's account infrastructure, and if I were in Flickr's/Yahoo's shoes I'd do the same thing. However, Flickr's administrators, and everyone else in the world of online community-building, would be wise to take a page from the Wizard of Oz's playbook and throw Old Skool users some kind of bone like a medal of courage or a diploma for making the trek with them all the way down the yellow brick road. Those who run online (and offline) communities know that you can't please everybody, and that old-school members are the most demanding and change-resistant. But when it comes to major community status markers you have to bend over backwards to accommodate the members who really value this sort of thing. In Flickr's case, some kind of differentiating marker for legacy members would be nice, like a badge or a title, or some other visible signifier of the major investment that these senior users have made in the community.Seniority perks and visible signifiers of in-group status are "Anthropology 101," and no amount of Web 2.0 pixie dust can change that basic fact of human nature. Community sites that forget this in the midst of changes and genuine improvements do irreparable damage to the very social networks that they're striving to build.[ Discussion | Send to a Friend | PermanentLink] Google earnings: search sizzles, but ads are the steak Posted February 1, 2007 @ 11:40AM, by Eric Bangeman Google continued raking in the money during the final quarter of 2006, reporting income of $1.03 billion, or $3.29 per share. That's nearly triple the search giant's previous year results of $372.2 million ($1.22 per share). The fourth quarter figures trounced analyst expectations of $2.92 per share. The beyond-expectations earnings have become routine for Google, which has beaten the Street's numbers in nine out of ten quarters since its 2004 IPO. Its stock has soared from its IPO level of $85 to today's $490 range. Shares in Google, however, dropped after the earnings were announced as some investors were anticipating even better numbers. To no one's surprise, online ad revenues were the engine powering Google's growth. During its earnings call, Google CFO George Reyes said that AdSense revenues came in at $1.2 billion, noting that Google ad click-throughs had risen 61 percent from the same quarter in 2005 and 22 percent from the third quarter. Schmidt said that the growth was evidence that the company's strategy of displaying fewer ads of higher relevance with each query is paying off. One topic of interest on the conference call was the performance of YouTube. Google CEO Eric Schmidt said that the company wouldn't be breaking out YouTube revenue separately, so the video site's revenues and margins will remain a mystery. Schmidt said that Google's primary focus with YouTube is user adoption and that the unit would continue to be run as a separate business while they experimented with different advertising models. He also reiterated that Google is working on audio and video fingerprinting for the video service to address copyright issues. Google also touched on its plans to expand its advertising reach beyond the Internet into print, radio, and television. In response to a question on television plans, Schmidt said that Google was experimenting with TV advertising and whatever the company ends up doing with be new and different from the way it is currently sold and marketed. The company sees an opportunity with set-top boxes especially those that are IP-addressable to deliver more granular data to advertisers. For all the talk of mobile content, partnerships, business services, and new advertising platforms, it's clear that the search engine and the associated advertising revenues are the fuel stoking Google's fire. The latest round of figures from traffic trackers like ComScore, Hitwise, and Nielsen NetRatings show Google's search share continuing to grow at the expense of its competitors. Hitwise reported that Google had 63.1 percent of all searches for December and January while Nielsen pegged the company at 50.8 percent for December. With that kind of traffic, the company has plenty of room to experiment elsewhere.[ Discussion | Send to a Friend | PermanentLink] Does network neutrality mean an end to BitTorrent throttling? Posted February 1, 2007 @ 10:21AM, by Nate Anderson Now that BitTorrent is all grown up and has been given the keys to its parents' car, ISPs are faced with the difficult decision about how to handle the protocol. Companies from around the world have been throttling the service, which can sometimes eat up three-quarters of a provider's total bandwidth. Throttling could be seen as a legitimate response to this bandwidth crunch if all BitTorrent content were illegal, but of course, it's not. So what's an ISP to do especially if they have agreed to run a neutral network?BitTorrent has always had its legal uses one popular application is distributing Linux ISOs but legal uses of the software have become increasingly common over the last year. BitTorrent (the company) has announced its own plans to go legit, offering DRMed Hollywood movies from major studios. The company has already raised almost $9 million in venture capital and has signed deals with several of the major studios. Its service should launch sometime in February.Or consider Zudeo, the BitTorrent-based service from Azureus, which is trying to do much the same thing, but in high-definition. It is also poised to send massive amounts of traffic through the 'Net, but ISPs won't be able to tell simply by looking at a packet whether it's legitimate or not.The protocol has become popular enough that Opera has built-in support for BitTorrent downloads, and Blizzard's own World of Warcraft update program is built on open-source BitTorrent technology.While this litany of legal services can lead to cries for ISPs to stop shaping BitTorrent traffic, the reality remains that a large percentage of this traffic is still illicit file-swapping. And whether it's legal or not, no ISP is thrilled to have 80 percent of their network capacity given over to serving BitTorrent downloads.What's an ISP to do? That question is made even more difficult for companies that have agreed to abide by network neutrality provisions. So far, the only US company to do so in a binding way has been AT&T, which agreed to provide a neutral network for several years as part of its merger agreement with BellSouth.Such agreements could prevent companies from shaping BitTorrent traffic on their networks, which would be great for World of Warcraft players, Linux users, and fans of Lost, but could have a negative effect on the speeds of those just out to surf the web for business or pleasure.ISPs that have made no such agreements may not need to worry about BitTorrent taking over their networks, but they do need to wrestle with the issue of how to handle it now that so many legal uses of the protocol are available. Do they want to irritate their BitTorrent-using contingent, or let BitTorrent flow unhindered at the risk degrading the experience of those who don't download torrents?[ Discussion | Send to a Friend | PermanentLink] Dell returns as CEO of his namesake company Posted February 1, 2007 @ 10:15AM, by Eric Bangeman Dell has announced that its founder, Michael Dell, will return to the CEO position he vacated in 2004. The move comes after several quarters of declining market share and relatively disappointing earnings. Michael Dell replaces Kevin Rollins, who took over as CEO when the company's founder gave up day-to-day operations to become Chairman. Rollins also resigned his seat on the company's board of directors. Kevin has been a great business partner and friend, Michael Dell said in a statement. He has made significant contributions to our business over the past 10 years. I wish him much success in the future. In addition to announcing the departure of Rollins, the company also said that its fourth quarter earnings would fall below analyst estimates of 32 per share on income of $15.3 billion. Challenging times Under Rollins' leadership, the company began its market share slide, which has resulted in its rival HP opening up a market share lead over the past two quarters. In April 2006, Dell's growth rate fell behind that of the market for the first time. For the last quarter of 2006, Dell's worldwide market share shrunk by 8.7 percent from the previous year, and its 3.5 percent growth paled in comparison to overall market growth of 9.5 percent. Slow growth isn't Dell's only challenge. The company was forced to recall over 4 million notebook batteries due to reports of explosions and fires. Since that time, other laptop makers like Apple, Toshiba, and Hitachi have also been forced to recall the Sony-made batteries. Even though the batteries were manufactured by Sony who is also picking up the tab the image in the minds of many consumers is of exploding Dell laptops rather than exploding Sony batteries. Dell has also been caught up in the string of options backdating scandals in the tech industry. Federal prosecutors are investigating the company's practices, subpoenaing financial records dating back to 2002. Due to the need to restate its earnings, Dell has yet to file earnings statements with the SEC for the second and third quarters. Will having Michael Dell behind the wheel again mean a reversal of fortunes for the PC maker? It's going to be a challenge, to say the least. Although Rollins has been driving the Dellmobile, Michael Dell has been a backseat driver. Last September, Dell told a group of reporters that Kevin and I run the business together. If you want to blame somebody, you can blame me too. Dell's biggest problem is that its competitors have figured out how to effectively compete against it in the low-price, commodity PC market. It also no longer enjoys significant CPU discounts from Intel. At the same time, Dell's efforts to play in the consumer electronics and high-end PC markets have not been as successful as the company had hoped. The number two PC maker is going to need all of its founder's mojo to return to the halcyon days of earlier this decade.[ Discussion | Send to a Friend | PermanentLink] Bandwidth hogs exist, but the light users are key, says report Posted January 31, 2007 @ 5:38PM, by Jacqui Cheng A tiny segment of Internet users generate almost half of all Internet traffic, according to data from Internet traffic management company Ellacoya. In monitoring traffic across different networks, the company analyzed the data of about 2 million Internet users from August to December of 2006 in order to categorize them into five groups: bandwidth hogs, power users, up and comers, middle children, and barely users. As it turns out, bandwidth hogs only make up about 5 percent of the entire Internet-using audience, but generate about 43.5 percent of the total traffic. Conversely, another 40 percent of users the barely users make very light use of the Internet and only generate about 3.8 percent of traffic. The remaining 55 percent of users generate the remaining 50 percent of traffic. What in the world are the bandwidth hogs doing to generate all of that traffic? It appears as if VoIP is significantly more popular among bandwidth hogs than with the light users, with 41.9 percent of the heavy traffic group using some sort of VoIP service by December an increase of 0.4 percent from August. The barely users while not using VoIP as heavily as the hogs picked up on VoIP at a much faster rate between August and December, jumping from 1.0 to 5.5 percent of total users in that period of time. The second lowest group, middle children, had an even faster adoption rate increase, jumping from 4.2 percent of users trying VoIP to 12.3 percent. Ellacoya's Vice President of Marketing and Product Management Fred Sammartino told Ars that he believes that VoIP service usage seems to be growing because of the niche appeal, not necessarily because it's a good service. There appears to be artificial cap at 42 percent with the bandwidth hogs. Something about VoIP is stopping them from breaking through that barrier, and we think that it's the quality of the service, he said. Lots of people are trying VoIP, Sammartino explained, but perhaps not liking it very much because the quality still isn't as good as landlines or even cell service. It's not a technology that's going to cap out at 100 percent in its current state, he told Ars. Another technology that does seem to have the potential to cap very close to 100 percent, however, is online gaming, according to Ellacoya's data. All five bandwidth groups got their game on en masse from August to December, with a surprising 66 percent of light users embracing gaming a staggering adoption rate of 43.7 percent over five months. Bandwidth hogs jumped five percentage points from 90 to 95 percent. We considered gaming to include all kinds of online gaming, such as the use of consoles like the Xbox and PS3, but also includes stuff like Internet backgammon and online gambling. Sammartino told us. When you think of it that way, nearly everyone has played a game online in some capacity, and it's being adopted very quickly by the lower-end users. What can service providers do with this data? Sammartino wants to emphasize that for companies looking to provide a new service, looking at overall traffic numbers is not likely to be the best indicator of what will end up taking off. If you're just going by byte usage, you're going to skew toward power users which is just a tiny percentage of overall users, he said, pointing out that everyone on that chart pays roughly the same amount per month for various Internet services, whether they're a bandwidth hog or a barely user. More important, then, are the adoption rates of various types of users, particularly the average and lower-end ones. Ellacoya's data shows that it only takes about two years for an average user to show the characteristics of a power user in terms of adoption and Internet usage, and service providers should watch those trends as the key to generating more revenue in the future. [ Discussion | Send to a Friend | PermanentLink]Recent Stories In peer review, not all peers are equal Posted January 31, 2007 @ 4:20PM, by John Timmer If peer review forms the foundation of scientific publishing, editors need to find the best reviewers. How easy is that?FullStory Microsoft launches "Origami Experience" Posted January 31, 2007 @ 3:27PM, by Jeremy Reimer Microsoft has released an OS upgrade for Origami devices, also known as Ultra-mobile PCs. We'll take a look at what the new interface might mean for these unusual handhelds.FullStory Florida to scrap touchscreens; convictions in Ohio recount-rigging Posted January 31, 2007 @ 1:18PM, by Jon Stokes Florida will allegedly announce plans to scrap touchscreens. Also, two Cuyahoga County officials are convicted for rigging a recount of the 2004 presidential election.FullStory Kernel developers offer free Linux driver development Posted January 31, 2007 @ 12:49PM, by Ryan Paul The Linux kernel development community plans to provide free driver development services to hardware companies in order to improve the open-source operating system's hardware support.FullStory Company ends hockey-sim development due to piracy Posted January 31, 2007 @ 12:12PM, by Eric Bangeman Sports Interactive announces a halt to further development of its Eastside Hockey Manager due to piracy.FullStory Yahoo to launch individual brand portals Posted January 31, 2007 @ 11:35AM, by Jacqui Cheng Yahoo launched the first of its Brand Universes this week, designed to create communities around various brands and promote user interaction.FullStory Google can't use "Gmail" name in Europe Posted January 31, 2007 @ 11:14AM, by Nate Anderson A German entrepreneur has successfully challenged Google's use of the name "Gmail" for its e-mail service, alleging that it is confusingly similar to his own delivery service. The EU has just agreed.FullStory Son of file-sharing defendant fights back against RIAA Posted January 31, 2007 @ 10:36AM, by Eric Bangeman Robert Santangelo, 16-year-old son of file-sharing defendant Patti Santangelo, is mounting a defense against a similar suit filed against him by the recording industry.FullStory Google planning change in China censorship policy? Posted January 31, 2007 @ 9:46AM, by Nate Anderson When Google's co-founder Sergey Brin told the World Economic Forum last week that Google's decision to censor some Chinese search results was "a net negative," pundits pulled out their tea leaves and started reading. Would Google change its policy?FullStory Major OpenForum upgrade, maintenance tonight (updated) Posted January 30, 2007 @ 4:15PM, by Ken Fisher Tonight at 10PM PT (1AM Wednesday ET), we will be taking the forum offline to perform a series of upgrades and maintenance items.FullStory FTC finally settles with Sony BMG over rootkit Posted January 30, 2007 @ 3:34PM, by Nate Anderson The Federal Trade Commission has announced a settlement with Sony BMG over the company's "rootkit" software, bringing most of Sony BMG's legal troubles to an end. In other news, the Commission fines a porn spammer $465,000.FullStory Red Hat to open RHN Satellite Server Posted January 30, 2007 @ 2:41PM, by Ryan Paul In response to Oracle's recent release of new enterprise Linux management technologies, Red Hat has announced plans to release the source code of the underlying components used to power the Red Hat Network.FullStory Newspaper goes niche to find paying customers Posted January 30, 2007 @ 12:31PM, by Nate Anderson The Sacramento Bee has a new plan to make money: create a narrowly-focused web site about California politics using the paper's resources, then charge lobbyists $500 a year to access it. Is this the future of traditional news?FullStory Sony's earnings hit by battery, gaming woes Posted January 30, 2007 @ 12:27PM, by Eric Bangeman As expected, Sony's earnings fell due to costs associated with the PlayStation 3 and the battery recall. What's ahead for Sony?FullStory [beep]! Personal TV censor seeks to silence naughty words Posted January 30, 2007 @ 11:47AM, by Jacqui Cheng Ever found yourself watching TV with the kids, only to be surprised by some not-so-nice words being uttered by those on the screen? A new patent hopes to remedy that by selectively censoring words based off of the viewer's preferences.FullStory Interest in Wii outpaces 360, PS3 Posted January 30, 2007 @ 11:38AM, by Eric Bangeman A new report looks at which consoles consumers are shopping for. How is demand for the next-generation consoles shaping up?FullStory IBM's 45nm riposte Posted January 30, 2007 @ 10:27AM, by Jon Stokes IBM responds to Intel's 45nm announcement with one of its own. AMD fans, take heart.FullStory eBay bans the auction of in-game items Posted January 30, 2007 @ 10:25AM, by Nate Anderson eBay has started to remove auctions of items from World of Warcraft and other massively multiplayer games, though Second Life content is still allowed.FullStory Buying OEM versions of Windows Vista: the facts Posted January 30, 2007 @ 9:39AM, by Ken Fisher I've received a number of e-mails from readers looking for more information on the black arts of the OEM edition, so here it is: my brief introduction to everything you need to know before going OEM.FullStory Apple pays sites' legal fees in free speech victory Posted January 30, 2007 @ 8:56AM, by Timothy B. Lee Apple has declined to appeal its defeat last year in a lawsuit against the sources of two Mac rumor sites, and has instead complied with the court's order to cover the sites' legal bills.FullStory Microsoft files for patent on "modular operating system" Posted January 29, 2007 @ 3:41PM, by Eric Bangeman A recently published Microsoft patent application demonstrates how important Anytime Upgrade is to the company's future plans.FullStory Online video to be worth $6.3 billion in 2012 Posted January 29, 2007 @ 1:11PM, by Nate Anderson Online video already generates more than half a billion dollars, but one research firm thinks that number could grow by a factor of 10 in only six years.FullStory News Feeds: RSS 2.0 Feed RSS 0.94 Feed

TAGS:The Technica Ars 

<<< Thank you for your visit >>>

Hot Websites