A farmer explains his relationship with his sheepdog, after researchers help unravel the mystery of how the animals do their job.

UPDATE: This story quotes a Netflix filing with the FCC that says, “Globally, Netflix delivers 99 percent of its traffic without payment to the terminating access network." Netflix told Ars after this story was published that the statement to the FCC is incorrect. Netflix has free connections to 99 percent of the ISPs that it sends traffic to, but the few ISPs Netflix does pay—AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and Time Warner Cable—account for more than 1 percent of the company's total traffic. The story has been updated to reflect this.

Netflix hates writing checks to Internet service providers—and luckily enough, it usually doesn't have to.Though the streaming video company has complained bitterly about having to pay Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, and Time Warner Cable for direct connections to their networks, Netflix said this week that worldwide, it delivers traffic to 99 percent of ISPs without money changing hands.

The statement came in a filing with the Federal Communications Commission in which Netflix asks the FCC to block Comcast's proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable. Besides AT&T and Verizon, those are the only ISPs that refused to give Netflix the unpaid connections, known as "settlement-free peering." In the months before Netflix agreed to pay these companies, video was sent over congested links, resulting in poor performance for subscribers.

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Leo Reynolds

Today, there's another signal that the days of "do it on a computer" patents may finally be numbered—at least if a defendant is willing to last through an appeal.

In an opinion (PDF) published this morning, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld a lower court's decision to invalidate two patents, numbered 6,398,646 and 6,656,045, claiming to cover computerized bingo.

Yes, you read that right: bingo.

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Google today released a 64-bit stable version of its Chrome browser for Windows systems. The 64-bit support has been in testing since June, and as of Chrome version 37 it has made it to the mainstream version.

The 64-bit version offers three main advantages and one possible drawback. The browser's advantages are speed, security, and stability. Google claims that certain media and graphics workloads in particular are faster with 64-bit. It offers the example of VP9 video decoding—used for some YouTube high-definition streams—being 15 percent quicker compared to 32-bit.

Security is enhanced both through enabling new protection systems and making existing protection systems stronger. Windows has a built-in security feature called ASLR (address space layout randomization) that makes bug exploits harder to write by randomizing the location of things such as DLLs in memory. The 64-bit applications have much more memory available, thereby creating a much larger haystack in which to hide the needles that exploits look for. Google has its own protection systems that similarly try to separate different kinds of data in memory, and 64-bit likewise gives them more space to play with.

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When I talk to people who don't follow gaming closely about the phenomenon that is Twitch, the response I get is usually along the lines of "Why do people spend so much time watching other people play a game they could just as easily play themselves?"

"Why do so many people watch the NFL when they could just as easily play a game of football in their yard?" I reply.

The analogy isn't perfect—you need good weather, a group of friends, a field, and decent physical fitness to play football, after all—but the basic relationship is the same. Twitch has become a phenomenon because watching the best players in the world is often more entertaining than participating as a relative novice.

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ISIS members and supporters find a new audience for their message by pushing their messages across unrelated hashtags on Twitter.

The militant group ISIS began a new campaign Sunday morning that hijacked popular and innocuous hashtags to spread its threats to execute American journalist Steven Sotloff. Campaigners organized on a forum and began posting to Twitter combining the hashtag #StevensHeadInObamasHand with other trending tags to gain visibility.

The campaign follows the execution of another American journalist, James Foley, which was documented in a video that circulated on social media. Twitter controversially scrubbed the video and screenshots of it from the service for its graphic imagery. ISIS is now threatening Sotloff's life in an effort to get a response from the US government.

One of the hashtags co-opted for the campaign was #AskRicky, which was intended to collect questions for YouTube star Ricky Dillon, reported Vocativ. The campaign's tweets included language like "11th September to happen, Don't come to Iraq unless you want another," "American Air Force kills innocent people in Iraq," and "As you kill us, we are killing you."

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US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta. Kevin / flickr

The Administrative Office of the US Courts (AO) has removed access to nearly a decade's worth of electronic documents from four US appeals courts and one bankruptcy court.

The removal is part of an upgrade to a new computer system for the database known as Public Access to Court Electronic Records, or PACER.

Court dockets and documents at the US Courts of Appeals for the 2nd, 7th, 11th, and Federal Circuits, as well as the Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California, were maintained with "locally developed legacy case management systems," said AO spokesperson Karen Redmond in an e-mailed statement. Those five courts aren't compatible with the new PACER system.

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Maybe two screen sizes aren't enough anymore? Andrew Cunningham

Some rumors spring eternal, and today it's the one about the larger iPad. Sometimes dubbed the "iPad Pro" by Apple rumor sites, Bloomberg claims that a new 12.9-inch iPad could join the current 9.7- and 7.9-inch models at some point early next year.

This rumor has been floating around for a while now, though information has generally been gleaned from disreputable sources like DigiTimes. The most credible report dates back to July of 2013, when the Wall Street Journal reported that Apple was "testing" larger displays for the iPad and the iPhone. We've since seen plenty of proof that at least one larger iPhone is coming, though aside from a rumored split-screen display mode, we don't have much that points to a bigger iPad.

Some of Apple's competitors are already making tablets around 12 inches in size, including Samsung's Galaxy Note Pro and Tab Pro and Microsoft's Surface Pro 3. There's little indication that either is generating much consumer interest, however—Samsung's tablet sales are generally slowing down, and the entire Surface lineup generated $0.41 billion in revenue last quarter, compared to about $5.9 billion for the entire iPad lineup.

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Oh dear god.

Imagine the horrific sight of a giant, skeletal figure dancing in the sky, illuminated by garish laser light. That could soon be part of a child's dream vacation, based on patent applications filed by Disney. “Aerial display system with marionette articulated and supported by airborne devices” is just one of three patent applications filed by Disney Enterprises that look to use drones to add a little something extra to Disney’s theme park experience.

“The system includes a plurality of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and a ground control system… with a different flight plan for each of the UAVs,” reads the filing, published last week by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. “The system further includes a marionette with a body and articulable appendages attached to the body.” The example included with the application: a giant representation of Tim Burton’s Pumpkin King, Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas.

The patent applications were filed under the names of three members of Disney’s “Imagineering” team—Robert Scott Trowbridge, Clifford Wong, and James Alexander Stark. The other applications filed by Disney cover “Aerial Display System with Floating Pixels” (a swarm of UAVs that project two or more light streams each) and “Aerial Display System with Floating Projection screens” (a quartet of drones suspending a mesh screen that can be used as a flying movie screen).

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Reid Beels

CenturyLink has accused Comcast of trying to prevent competition in cities and towns by making it difficult for the company to obtain reasonable franchise agreements from local authorities.

CenturyLink made the claim yesterday in a filing that asks the Federal Communications Commission to block Comcast’s proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable (TWC) or impose conditions that prevent Comcast from using its market power to harm competitors.

Comcast has a different view on the matter, saying that CenturyLink shouldn’t be able to enter Comcast cities unless CenturyLink promises to build out its network to all residents. Without such conditions, poor people might not be offered service, Comcast argues.

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Greetings, Arsians! Our partners at LogicBuy are back with a ton of deal for the week. The top offer is a Dell 21.5" 1080p IPS monitor with an integrated webcam and speakers that are supposedly "optimized for Microsoft Lync." If you're big into Web conferencing, this is your perfect monitor. If not, well, there are more deals to dig through below.

Featured deal
Price Drop on Just-Released Model! Dell UltraSharp UZ2215H 21.5" 1080p Anti-glare IPS Monitor w/ 2MP Webcam, USB 3.0 Hub for $209.99 with free shipping (list price $279.99)

Laptops

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Jacqui Cheng

The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the second-largest school district in the United States, has halted its proposed $1 billion plan to provide iPads for every student.

The abrupt change was announced late Monday evening after the Los Angeles Times reported that there were notable improprieties in the bidding process. This issue came amidst more fundamental questions about the efficacy and usefulness of the plan itself.

As the Times reported:

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Today Google has rolled out an unexpected update to an app that seemed long forgotten. It's the News & Weather application that comes on Android phones running software maintained by Google like Nexus and Google Play Edition devices. The big change with the update is a complete design overhaul that implements Google's Material Design principles. The app previously sported a design that was like a relic from the distant past, with an interface that seemed like a mixture between Android Gingerbread design and some parts of Google's original Holo design from Android Ice Cream Sandwich. There was heavy use of black, with horizontal scrolling sections and gradients throughout.

Old News & Weather on the left, new on the right.

The new design is like a breath of fresh air. I had not even used the old app to change the temperature units from Fahrenheit to Centigrade because the design was so outdated that I looked to other apps to get weather and news information. The weather images had also not been updated to support very high resolution devices in the 400+ ppi range, and looked quite blurry. The new design does away with the black color scheme and features information displayed on white cards with high resolution weather images. The tabs at the top have also been removed, and all weather and news information is displayed in a single vertically scrolling list. Specific news topics can be accessed by the navigation pane that slides in from the left. Information about temperature and precipitation trends can be revealed by tapping the downward arrow on the weather card.

Old News & Weather widgets on the left, new on the right.

The widgets for the app also receive a makeover. The app maintains the options for news + weather, news only, and weather only, with the weather only widget being changed to display the forcast for the coming days rather than just the current weather. The widgets also have a semi-transparent border around them, which may be another element in Google's new design language.

News & Weather 2.0 is out on Google Play now. Like all of Google's updates, it may take some time before your device receives it. 

Microsoft is under investigation by Chinese regulatory authorities amid concerns about how it is distributing its Internet Explorer browser and Windows Media Player app, reports the Wall Street Journal.

This investigation explains in part the surprise visits made to Microsoft's China offices last month.

In a briefing, Zhang Mao, chief of China's State Administration for Industry and Commerce, announced that these products (as well as the sale of Office and Windows) were being examined. "Microsoft is suspected of incomplete disclosure of information related to Windows and Office software, as well as problems in distribution and sales of its media player and browser."

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The Pwn Pro, Pwnie Express' newest network penetration tool, is designed to provide long-term persistent testing of an organization's information security. Sean Gallagher

At Black Hat and Def Con earlier this month, the penetration testing tool makers at Pwnie Express unveiled two new products aimed at extending the company's reach into the world of continuous enterprise security auditing. One, the Pwn Pro, is essentially a souped-up version of Pwnie Express' Pwn Plug line of devices; the other, Pwn Pulse, is a cloud-based software-as-a-service product that provides central control of a fleet of Pwn Pro “sensors.” Combined, the two are a whitehat’s personal NSA—intended to discover potential security problems introduced into enterprise networks before someone with malevolent intent does.

While Ars was given a brief look at the new products in Las Vegas, we’ll be conducting a more intensive, full review of Pwn Pro and Pwn Pulse in the near future. Rest assured that our review will be heavily informed by our experience with the Pwn Plug 2. But despite our somewhat brief experience with the new products, it’s not a stretch to say that they are a significant upgrade to Pwnie’s previous capabilities.

First, some full disclosure: Ars has worked in the past with Pwnie Express Chief Technology Officer Dave Porcello. Specifically, Porcello helped us turn a Pwn Plug R2 into a miniature deep packet inspection machine during our collaboration with NPR. After that experience, we purchased a Pwn Plug R2 of our own to continue to perform vulnerability testing in our own lab. That means we have more than a passing familiarity with the team behind the Pwn products, but it also means we’ve put some mileage on the technology that underlies them as well.

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A coronavirus, thanks to proteins studding its surface, latches on to a cell. NIH

Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) is a viral respiratory illness that is caused by the coronavirus MERS-CoV, and it currently has a 36 percent fatality rate in humans. Research suggests that MERS-CoV most likely originated in bats and was then transmitted to humans.

Bats are hosts to a number of coronaviruses, and other such coronaviruses could also pose a risk to human health if transmitted across species boundaries. To predict the potential of these coronaviruses to infect humans requires an understanding of how they managed to jump species-barriers, adapting to human cells and becoming infectious. In this regard, MERS-CoV could provide valuable information.

Viruses infect cells by binding to their surfaces and inserting their genetic material into them; the genetic material then hijacks the host cell to make new copies of the virus. In the case of MERS-CoV, spiked proteins on the envelope of the virus are necessary for entry into cells. The spiked proteins are thought to bind a human protein called dipeptidyl peptidase 4 (DPP4); bats have their own version called bDPP4. A recent investigation has explored how MERS-CoV and other bat coronaviruses interact with DPP4.

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The Ohio Statehouse in Columbus. Joseph

Science educators have recognized that teaching science as a large compendium of facts, without reference to the scientific process and theories that bind them together, simply leads to uninterested and uninformed students. So it's a bit mind-boggling to discover that an Ohio state legislator is attempting to block educators from teaching anything about the scientific process. And for good measure, the bill's sponsor threw politics and creationism into the mix.

The bill, currently under consideration by the Ohio Assembly, is intended to revoke a previous approval of the Common Core educational standards, which target math and literacy. However, the bill's language also includes sections devoted to science and social studies. And the science one is a real winner:

The standards in science shall be based in core existing disciplines of biology, chemistry, and physics; incorporate grade-level mathematics and be referenced to the mathematics standards; focus on academic and scientific knowledge rather than scientific processes; and prohibit political or religious interpretation of scientific facts in favor of another.

Specifically prohibiting a discussion of the scientific process is a recipe for educational chaos. To begin with, it leaves the knowledge the kids will still receive—the things we have learned through science—completely unmoored from any indication of how that knowledge was generated or whether it's likely to be reliable. The scientific process is also useful in that it can help people understand the world around them and the information they're bombarded with; it can also help people assess the reliability of various sources of information.

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Today Intel announced their XMM6255 modem which is aimed at providing 3G network connectivity to the many future connected devices that will make up the Internet of Things (IoT). At approximately 300mm^2 in size, Intel is claiming that XMM6255 is the world's smallest standalone 3G modem. Their hope is that its small size will allow it to be integrated into small internet connected devices such as wearables, small appliances, and security devices. 

XMM6255 uses Intel's X-GOLD 625 baseband and its SMARTI UE2p transceiver which is the first transceiver that integrates the transmit and receive functionality and the 3G power amplifier on a single die with its own power management. Intel claims this protects the modem from damage caused by excessive heat, voltage spikes, or overcurrent, which makes it a good choice for IoT applications like safety monitors and sensors where a hardware failure could present a safety risk. Integrating the power amplifier and transceiver on a single chip also reduces the bill of materials and power consumption, which allows XMM6255 to be put in low-cost and low-power devices.

XMM6255 typically comes in a dual-band HSPA configuration with 7.2Mbps downstream and 5.76Mbps upstream speeds. Up to quad-band 2G support can be optionally added, but requires an external power amplifier that Intel is billing as low-cost. A-GPS is also supported but is again optional.

XMM6255 represents another move by Intel to becoming a big part of the IoT market. Intel expects that the IoT market will be made up of billions of devices in the coming years, and getting a head start is a good way to make sure that many of them have Intel inside.

Purple Wyrm

As many as 17,000 red-light camera fines are being dismissed in New Jersey because a glitch prevented motorists from being notified of their citations. The infractions in 17 New Jersey towns are being forgiven because American Traffic Solutions, the company handling the fines, did not send out notices to affected motorists within 90 days following the issuance of a citation, the authorities said.

"This wasn't 5 or 10 or even a couple of hundred instances. This total breakdown affected almost 17,000 motorists," Assemblyman Declan O'Scanlon told the Star Ledger. The affected citations were issued May 28 through June 30.

New Jersey's snafu is the latest in a string of debacles associated with the rise of traffic-ticketing machines.

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Free Press

For the past couple of years, Comcast has been trying to convince journalists and the general public that it doesn’t impose any “data caps” on its Internet service.

That’s despite the fact that Comcast in some cities enforces limits on the amount of data customers can use and issues financial penalties for using more than the allotment. Comcast has said this type of billing will probably roll out to its entire national footprint within five years, perhaps alongside a pricier option to buy unlimited data.

“There isn't a cap anymore. We're out of the cap business,” Executive Vice President David Cohen said in May 2012 after dropping a policy that could cut off people's service after they use 250GB in a month. Comcast's then-new approach was touted to "effectively offer unlimited usage of our services because customers will have the ability to buy as much data as they want."

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