Brook Dain

Earlier this year, the San Jose Police Department (SJPD) became one of the first local law enforcement agencies in California—and one of the few in the country—to acquire a drone.

According to new documents acquired and published Tuesday by MuckRock and Vice, the SJPD acquired a Hexacopter called the Century Neo 660 along with a GoPro video camera, live video transmitter, and more. The nearly $7,000 January purchase was funded through a grant from the Bay Area Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI), a regional arm of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The Century Neo 660, and others like it, typically have a flight time of less than 30 minutes depending on motor and battery configuration. However, the drone doesn't appear to be in use for the time being, according to a July 25, 2014 letter from the SJPD to MuckRock, stating “the program relating to drones has not been implemented yet.” San Jose is the third-largest city in the Golden State, and it's the tenth-largest in the United States.

Read 19 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Iowa State

Drugs interact with our brain in profound ways, even when their target is a completely different part of the body. The brain is essential for making sure that placebos work, as well as generating the nocebo effect, where harmful side effects appear in cases where no drug has been taken. It's probably not much of a reach to expect that the brain will also influence how long people think the effects of a drug will last.

The unexpected twist is that researchers have now shown that we think drugs will wear off faster when we're working harder. And, given the chance to self-medicate, we'll keep popping pills as long as things are stressful or difficult.

Researchers at the Baruch College and the London School of Economics were inspired in part by a question someone asked on a medical advice site as to whether the exertion experienced during yoga might reduce the effectiveness of botox injections. The researchers suspected that this sort of reasoning might derive from daily experience—after all, people see that driving faster uses up gas more quickly. So they decided to test the theory.

Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Don Hankins

Last month, a Facebook social experiment from 2012 came to light, drawing equal parts ire and intrigue as users discussed whether the social network site had crossed too many ethical lines. The internal research study concluded that users' emotional states could reflect the content they saw in their news feed, and it confirmed that hypothesis by manually manipulating what appeared in people's feeds—to the tune of hundreds of thousands—to coerce happier or sadder states.

On Monday, dating site OKCupid responded to the Facebook story. "Guess what, everybody: If you use the Internet, you’re the subject of hundreds of experiments at any given time, on every site," site co-founder Christian Rudder wrote before unveiling three so-called experiments that he had recently conducted unbeknownst to the general public.

OKCupid has spent years advertising its expert accumulation and analysis of data, so the mere hint of such experiments sent shivers up my spine, and not just because I'm a tin-foil-wearing paranoia sufferer. I had a stake in this one. I used OKCupid over the years, and I immediately imagined a dating site puppeteer having some sick role in a part of my life.

Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Chinese Cortana in action. Joe Belfiore was in China today to officially unveil the next update to Windows Phone 8.1. While details were leaked in the last few days, Belfiore had a range of new features to discuss. Among them was the virtual personal assistant Cortana—star of the Windows Phone 8.1 ads—that will be available beyond US borders with the update.

The next two countries to get Cortana will be China and the UK. In both cases, Microsoft has customized its virtual personal assistant to be a better fit for the new markets. In the UK, this means she'll speak with an English accent, use British English spellings, and know about things such as the London Stock Exchange and Premier League football.

Her Chinese incarnation, named Xiao Na, includes more customization. Most significantly, she has an alternative appearance for China. We were told by Microsoft that the eyes have a particular importance in China for reflecting emotion and that this motivated the virtual assistant's appearance and features. Xiao Na speaks Mandarin Chinese and can provide certain China-specific pieces of information. For example, her weather reports include air quality information, and she understands the alternative day driving restrictions used when smog is particularly bad.

Read 12 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Scott Beale

Update: Twitter's shares climbed over 30 percent in after-hours trading last night, but Wednesday morning they held that lead, maintaining a steady 20 percent increase at the time of this writing. That puts Twitter's share price at over $46. Although shares of the social media company topped $73 last winter, less-than-impressive revenue sent the company's shares on a tumble through spring.

Original story: Twitter announced the financial results for its second quarter today, showing strong growth in average monthly active users. Although by Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), Twitter posted a loss this quarter, non-GAAP numbers reflected a small profit that beat analyst expectations enough to send Twitter stock rising in after-hours trading.

Revenue for the social media company was up 124 percent year-over-year to $312 million. Twitter lost $145 million according to GAAP numbers, but made a non-GAAP net income of $15 million. (Companies are required to use the stricter GAAP rules when preparing financial statements in order to ensure consistency across an industry.)

Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Netflix has agreed to pay AT&T for a direct connection to the Internet service provider's network, a move that will improve streaming video quality.

The deal is no surprise—it was widely expected after Netflix reached similar agreements with Comcast and Verizon. What is surprising is that AT&T customers might see their Netflix quality problems resolved before Verizon customers.

"We reached an interconnect agreement with AT&T in May and since then have been working together to provision additional interconnect capacity to improve the viewing experience of our mutual subscribers," a Netflix spokesperson told Ars. "We're now beginning to turn up the connections, a process that should be complete in the coming days."

Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Nicholas Eckhart

Just one month after announcing a loss of $98.4 million in a single quarter, RadioShack risks falling apart. Late last year, Ars named it as one of five companies that we’re monitoring under “deathwatch” for 2014.

Bloomberg reported that RadioShack is in desperate need of cash, citing a report issued by Moody’s on Tuesday. The company's stock lost nearly 12 percent as a result of the news.

“Barring an improvement in the top line and margins, we think they will continue to burn cash and their liquidity position will continue to deteriorate,” Mickey Chadha, a Moody’s analyst in New York, said in an interview with the news outlet. In short, time is running out.

Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Hoboken High School students won't be using district-issued laptops anymore. Wally Gobetz

One school district in Hoboken, New Jersey has decided to abandon its one-to-one laptop program for 7th, 8th, and 9th graders. Ultimately, the Hoboken School District decided the scheme was more trouble than it was worth—even when supported by federal grants.

“We had the money to buy them, but maybe not the best implementation,” said Mark Toback, the current superintendent of the Hoboken School District, told The Hechinger Report. “It became unsustainable.”

The district is now going through the process of identifying the remaining laptops and seeking a bid for their destruction. District officials did not immediately respond to an Ars request for comment (Ars has filed a public records request to learn more).

Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

wasim muklashy

Personal Audio LLC is an East Texas shell company that gleaned national attention when it claimed it had the right to demand cash from every podcaster. The company was wielding a patent on "episodic content," which it said included anyone doing a podcast, as well as many types of online video.

Now the company is trying to walk away from its highest-profile lawsuit against comedian Adam Carolla, without getting paid a penny—but Carolla won't let the case drop.

In a statement released today, Personal Audio says that Carolla, who has raised more than $450,000 from fans to fight the case, is wasting their money on an unnecessary lawsuit. The company, which is a "patent troll" with no business other than lawsuits, has said Carolla just doesn't care since his fans are paying his lawyers' bills.

Read 12 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Army General Keith Alexander. DOD/NSA

In an interview Monday with former National Security Agency Director General Keith Alexander, Foreign Policy's Shane Harris learned that Alexander plans to file “at least” nine patent applications—“and possibly more"—pertaining to technology for detecting network intruders.

Alexander left his government post in early 2014 and went on to co-found a private company, IronNet Cybersecurity Inc., with unnamed business partners. Alexander said that these business partners helped him create the “unique” method for detecting hackers that he plans to patent. Of course, Alexander himself had unparalleled access to classified security operations from 2005, when he took charge of the NSA, to 2014, when he retired.

Since starting IronNet, Alexander has been peddling his consulting services to major corporations, especially those in the financial industry, and has quoted fees of up to $1 million per month. That astronomical number drew at least one federal representative to suggest that Alexander might be disclosing or misusing classified information.

Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

MTSOfan

After consulting focus groups of Internet customers, government researchers have come to a conclusion that should surprise no one: people don't want data caps on home Internet service.

But customers are getting caps anyway, even though ISPs admit that congestion isn't a problem. The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) today released preliminary findings of research involving surveys of cellular carriers, home Internet providers, and customers.

The majority of top wireline ISPs are at least experimenting with data caps. But while cellular carriers say they impose usage-based pricing (UBP) to manage congestion on wireless networks, that's not the case with cable, fiber, and DSL. "Some wireless ISPs told us they use UBP to manage congestion," the GAO wrote. On the other hand, "wireline ISPs said that congestion is not currently a problem."

Read 16 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Proof of a new Mac Mini or simple misprint? Apple's not saying. Andrew Cunningham

An interesting development today for people watching for an update to Apple's Mac Mini desktop: Apple's support document for its Boot Camp drivers and software for Windows briefly listed a heretofore unannounced "Mac Mini (Mid 2014)." 9to5Mac first spotted the entry after it was added to the page yesterday, and we were able to grab our own screenshot to confirm before it was removed earlier today. If the entry points to a real system and is not simply mistyped, we could see a new Mac Mini any day between now and the end of August—Apple reserves the "mid" label for systems released in the late spring or in the summer. Macs released in September or later normally get the "late" label instead.

The Mac Mini is the only computer in Apple's lineup, vestigial non-Retina MacBook Pro aside, that hasn't gotten an upgrade to Intel's Haswell CPUs. Any mid-2014 refresh would be a significant upgrade, since new CPUs would give the Mini better CPU and GPU performance and reduced power consumption. Adding a better GPU and a Thunderbolt 2.0 port to the Mini could even make it a capable little 4K workstation, a useful capability given that OS X Yosemite has been "optimized" for high-density displays (Apple's words, backed up by our own observations).

The 10.9.3 update improved OS X's support for 4K displays, but the 15-inch 2013 Retina MacBook Pro and Mac Pro are the only systems that benefit from it as of this writing. So far this year, the only Mac hardware updates have involved minor CPU changes and price cuts. The MacBook Air and iMac lines were both shuffled around earlier this year, and the Retina MacBook Pro lineup just got a minor bump this morning. As we discussed in each of those articles, the lack of next-generation Broadwell CPUs from Intel is probably holding up more significant makeovers for those products, which all transitioned to Haswell last year. We've contacted Apple to see whether the new Mac Mini entry was a misprint, but as of this writing we have received no response. Apple rarely comments on things like this, but we'll update the article if it does. When (and if) Apple releases a new Mac Mini, we'll give it the full review treatment.

Read on Ars Technica | Comments

Angela Merkel is now using a BlackBerry with crypto from Secusmart—acquired today by BlackBerry—so that her good friend can't listen to her phone calls. Lawrence Jackson, White House photographer

BlackBerry executives announced today that the company had entered into an agreement to acquire Secusmart GmbH, a German voice and data encryption firm that specializes in “anti-eavesdropping” services for government agencies, corporate customers, and telecommunications providers. The two companies already collaborated to produce Secusmart-equipped BlackBerry phones for German government agencies and leadership, including Chancellor Angela Merkel—who had previously been the target of NSA eavesdropping.

Secusmart’s technology meets NATO standards for “NATO restricted” communications—the equivalent of sensitive but unclassified communications or “for official use only” classification in the US government and military. The German government, however, has certified the technology for classified communications. The company has used its “Made in Germany” nature to its advantage in recent post-Snowden revelations marketing, proclaiming on its website, “If you’re looking for the right response to recent spying affairs and wire-tapping scandals, you’ve come to the right place.”

The acquisition is part of BlackBerry CEO John Chen’s effort to reposition BlackBerry as a company focused on customers with hardcore security concerns, such as the government, military, and financial services sector companies that remain its most loyal customers. And by acquiring Secusmart, BlackBerry will likely be more able to convince customers that it is taking a course independent from the influences of the US government and NSA, despite the company’s long relationship with both.

Read on Ars Technica | Comments

National Security Agency headquarters. Wikimedia Commons

A prominent senator unveiled legislation Tuesday that would end the National Security Agency's bulk collection of all telephone metadata—a package that still provides the nation's spooks limited access to the data of every phone call made to and from the US. And the probable-cause standard under the Fourth Amendment is not present.

Conceding the realpolitik, civil rights groups and others are backing the proposal from Patrick Leahy, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, even though the NSA may acquire the data absent constitutional protections.

The American Civil Liberties Union supported the legislation—called the USA Freedom Act—while admitting that it's "not perfect." The ACLU said:

Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Andreas Beer

When people talk about reducing their “carbon footprint,” transportation and energy use in the home usually get all the attention. Diet deserves to be a part of that conversation, too, however. The global agricultural system is complex, and not all food choices are created equal in terms of their impact on climate and their use of resources.

Agriculture accounts for roughly 12 percent of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. Population growth obviously increases the demand for agricultural production, but there’s another important trend as well—the rising consumption of meat. People in many developing nations are eating more meat as they gain the means to afford it. This is significant, as meat is a sort of demand multiplier because of the crops needed to feed livestock. A field of corn, for example, may be able to feed x number of people, but it can feed far fewer if it’s used to raise cattle.

The animal part of our diet is a significant portion of the agricultural system. Animal feed requires the output of 40 percent of US cropland—and if you include pastureland for grazing, it accounts for 40 percent of all US land. Feed also uses 27 percent of total irrigation and half of the nitrogen fertilizer used, and it contributes about five percent of total greenhouse gas emissions in the US.

Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

EA

For all the ways that digital distribution has revolutionized how we get games, the actual process of buying those games in the console space has mostly changed very little—it's still a matter of paying up front and downloading a game that you can play "forever." EA announced today that it is throwing that model on its head by offering an "EA Access" subscription to Xbox One owners. The program gives access to some of the publisher's older titles and a discount on future purchases.

For $5 a month, or the much more economical price of $30 a year, EA Access will let subscribers download four titles from what the publisher is calling the "EA Vault": FIFA 14, Madden 25, Peggle 2, and Battlefield 4. Subscribers will also get 10 percent off all digital content from EA, including full game downloads and DLC content like Battlefield 4 Premium and FIFA Ultimate Team (though Titanfall is explicitly excluded in the fine print). EA Access also grants trial access to upcoming games "up to five days before the release date," with progress that will carry over to the full release if and when you purchase it.

It's an interesting bundling move, and it's one that could be a good deal for players that don't already own any of the offered legacy titles. But a lot of the long-term value will depend on the specific implementation going forward. It's currently unclear when EA will add new games to the Vault, for instance, and it seems unlikely that brand new releases will be given away for "free" until they stop generating significant sales to standard purchasers (EA just says that the Vault will see "more titles being added soon").

Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

NSF

Today, the president's Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) released a report that describes the costs that would ensue if the world fails to get its greenhouse gas emissions under control. The report doesn't break new ground, but it neatly summarizes the current state of economic analysis on carbon emissions. The report suggests that allowing the Earth to warm by three degrees Celsius from preindustrial levels (we've already used up one of those three degrees) would entail costs of $190 billion every year, with the price rising steeply thereafter.

But the report also lays out the case that acting sooner rather than waiting makes better economic sense. And it notes that any action at all would function as an insurance policy against some of the more extreme scenarios that haven't been ruled out.

The White House's CEA is meant to be a clearinghouse for national economic data. Various other government agencies prepare reports on things like the GDP and employment rate; the CEA aggregates this data, prepares reports on the general state of the economy, and analyzes the implications for the president's economic policies.

Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Iron Dome

The technology behind Iron Dome, the missile defense system Israel has been using since 2011, was allegedly stolen by Chinese military hackers.

That claim was made by Cyber Engineering Services to Brian Krebs of security news site Krebs On Security, and it identifies Elisra Group, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems as the three defense companies that were compromised during the cyber assault. The perpetrators, Cyber Engineering Services says, are the same ones behind a spate of attacks that have come to light in the past few years, all attributed to Unit 61398, a Shanghai-based arm of the Chinese army. The five Chinese military officers indicted by the US earlier this year for allegedly hacking energy firms in the country also belong to the same unit.

The hacks took place from October 2011, some six months after Iron Dome became operational, and continued up until August 2012. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has said that many hundreds of rockets fired from Gaza, particularly during the current military operation and a series of clashes in 2012, have been scuppered by the system, which is thought to be one of the most effective missile-defense technologies in the world.

Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

This isn't the only way Instagram and sheep are related. Sean Gallagher

Stevie Graham, a London-based developer, recently submitted a bug report to Facebook outlining what he saw as a security vulnerability in Instagram that would allow someone to hijack a user’s session based on data captured over a public Wi-Fi network. When he was told that he wouldn’t get a bug bounty from Facebook, which owns Instagram, he tweeted about it—and set about building a proof-of-concept tool to exploit it. “Denied bug bounty. Next step is to write automated tool enabling mass hijacking of accounts,” he wrote. “Pretty serious vuln, FB. please fix.”

As we reported in our recent coverage of mobile application privacy holes, Instagram uses HTTP for much of its communications, passing the user’s account name and an identifying account number in the clear. And as Graham demonstrated, there are other pieces of data sent between Instagram’s iOS client and the service that are passed in the clear. Even though the user’s credentials are submitted using a secure connection, information passed back by Instagram’s application interface to the phone client provides a cookie that can be used on the same network without reauthentication to connect via the Web to Instagram as that user and gain access to private messages and other data. “Once you have a cookie, any endpoint can be authenticated with the cookie, HTTPS or HTTP,” he wrote. Graham said that he has known about the flaw for years.

Graham posted the following steps to reproduce his findings:

Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Oyvind Solstad

When the US Supreme Court decided the Alice v. CLS Bank case last month, it was a signal that courts should be throwing out a lot more patents for being too abstract to be legally valid. Groups seeking patent reform and tech companies rejoiced, hoping the decision would knock out more of the patents wielded by so-called "patent trolls," whose only business is litigation.

The fallout from this year's biggest patent decision is still taking shape, and it won't be affecting just fly-by-night patents owned by trolls. Defendants in corporate patent battles are hoping to use the Supreme Court decision to their advantage as well. Now, Alice v. CLS has come up in Apple v. Samsung, the highest-profile patent battle in recent years. Just two weeks after the decision came down, Samsung lawyers have filed a brief stating their belief that the Supreme Court ruling knocks out two Apple patents used to score a second $120 million verdict against them earlier this year.

Apple's universal search patent and "swipe-to-unlock" patent are exactly the type of basic ideas, surrounded with "do it on a computer" language, that the US Supreme Court rejected, say Samsung lawyers.

Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments