Motorola

Motorola has announced that it is now officially under control of Lenovo, closing the deal that was announced at the beginning of the year.

Lenovo isn't a well-known brand when it comes to smartphones, but the company is a major player in the laptop market, where it usually ranks #1 or #2 in worldwide sales for any given quarter. Lenovo hopes to combine Motorola's brand with its distribution network and the aggressive pricing that allows it to be number one in the low-margin, highly-competitive laptop business.

Under Google, Motorola has been one of the more exciting OEMs out there. It produced the first round Andorid Wear device, the Moto 360, and great flagships like the Moto X. It made best-in-class low-end phones with the Moto G and Moto E, and now with Google it produced the Nexus 6.

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Retailers say the real culprit in poor cyber-security is those darned uncooperative credit unions. Kenneth Allen

Reeling from the bad press associated with an ongoing parade of data breaches caused by criminal infiltration of their payment systems, representatives of six retail industry associations signed a joint open letter that pushes back against a vocal critic of retailers' cyber-security practices—credit union associations.

In the letter addressed to the presidents of the Credit Union National Association (CUNA) and the National Association of Federal Credit Unions (NAFCU), retail industry representatives accused the associations of spreading “a number of misleading and factually inaccurate points… in the media and before Congress in regards to the cyber security in our country.” The industry group executives insisted that retailers already share the burden of dealing with the cost of lost data—at least to the degree that they are contractually obliged by credit card organizations. But given how much they actually do pay, the retailers may protest too much.

Unsafe at any register

The letter is a direct response to comments made in a letter to House Homeland Security Committee chairman Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) by Carrie Hunt, the NAFCU’s senior vice president of government affairs, posted on October 28. In her letter, Hunt called out the retail industry for not carrying enough of the burden associated with the loss of customers' financial data.

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Somehow, October has already come and gone. Some of you may be wondering what to wear for All Hallows' Eve, or if you need to run out for some last minute treats. But the folks at Xbox are lining up the free games as part of Xbox Live Gold membership. November does not look to be the strongest lineup ever for the program though, with only a single game (again) on the Xbox One, and two Xbox 360 games that date back to several years ago. The Xbox One in particular needs to raise the bar with the program, especially now that the console has been out for a year and the catalog of games is actually OK. But enough complaining for now – let us see the games.

Xbox One Volgarr the Viking

For several months now, there has only been a single game made available at no cost for the Xbox One. Last month, it was Chariot, and the saving grace for that game was that it was brand new to the store, and this month it is the same. Volgarr the Viking is a 2D side scrolling action game, which harkens back to the days of Contra and the like. Crazy Viking Studios developed this game which was originally launched on the PC just over a year ago. The side scroller is unapologetically difficult, and was brought to life with the help of a kickstarter campaign. This is another of the latest round of retro looking games with an 8-bit graphical feel to it, but it does include a soundtrack from Kochun Hu. The PC version scored a 76 Metascore and 7.7 user score on metacritic, and while Xbox pricing has not been announced, the PC version is currently selling for $12.

“Volgarr the Viking, the newest ID@Xbox game, will debut on Xbox One as a free download. For Xbox One gamers, this is a journey back to the days of yore, when times were tougher, and you really only needed a couple buttons to play a game.”

Xbox 360 Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise

On Saturday, November 1st, Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise will be the first Xbox 360 game available for the month. This is the sequel to the original Viva Piñata, from Microsoft Game Studios and Rare. This life simulation game was originally released in September 2008, so it is far from a new title, but it still has some appeal especially to a younger audience. It scored an 82 Metascore and 7.7 user score on metacritic, and normally sells for $14.99.

“Welcome back to Piñata Island where Prof. Pester's latest scheme has lead to disaster. Visit the scorching desert or icy wastes to trap new species. Train them, dress them, then send them to a party! We’ve new Piñatas, new activities, new features and new secrets, so come visit and find out why people never want to leave. There are no refunds for this item. For more information, see www.xbox.com/live/accounts.”

Red Faction: Guerilla

The final Xbox 360 game for the month is Red Faction: Guerilla, which will become available on November 16th. This open world third-person shooter is from developer Volition, Inc, and was originally launched on the Xbox 360 in June 2009. This is the third installment of the Red Faction series, and was released to positive reviews. Red Faction: Guerilla scored a pretty high 85 Metascore and 8.1 User Score on metacritic, and normally sells for $19.99.

“Lured by the rich veins of Martian ore, miner Alec Mason arrives on Mars hungry for a new life. But the promise of a brighter future for Mason quickly fades. The Earth Defense Force, once protectors of Martian colonists, have adopted heavy-handed checkpoints and omnipresent armed patrols. As violence escalates, an underground resistance known as the Red Faction is swiftly gathering strength to combat the EDF. Mason’s quest for a new life has become a battle for survival, and the fate of the planet now rests with him and the Red Faction. There are no refunds for this item. For more information, see”

I can’t say I am particularly thrilled with the November lineup of games. The Xbox One selection is ok as a new release, but we have had a steady stream of indie game titles with GWG on the Xbox One and it is time to see some of the launch titles become available. The Xbox 360 games have historically had the better lineup due to the larger back catalog of games, and that is the case here again, even though they went way back in the catalog. Hopefully December brings a better lineup.

Source: Major Nelson Blog

An illustration showing how Share Play works.

When Sony announced the new "Share Play" feature for PlayStation 4 owners two months ago, it was one of the most unexpected and interesting potential uses for its cloud-based gaming infrastructure that we'd heard of. The promise: a "virtual couch" that lets remote players join your games as if they were sitting right there with you. That means the ability to take part in competitive or cooperative multiplayer, even in games not designed for online play, or just the freedom to "borrow" a friend's system and screen to briefly try out a single-player title.

With the launch of the PS4's firmware version 2.00 this week, the Share Play promise has become a reality for millions of PS4 owners with PlayStation Plus. After tinkering with the new feature for the better part of an afternoon, we found Share Play on the PS4 to be far from unusable, but also far from the seamless experience of actually playing with a friend in the same room.

Setting up a Share Play session is a bit of an onerous process. First, both players have to join a chat party. Then one player has to start the Share Play session though the Party menu. The "guest" then has to connect to that Share Play session. After all that, the host has to virtually "hand a controller" to the guest through another Party screen menu, and the guest has to accept the controller.

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My gamut measurement of the Retina iMac's screen. Unfortunately, the 1931 CIE diagram produced by our measuring software is "non-uniform and obsolete."

I originally wanted to devote at least one story to a qualitative analysis of the Retina iMac’s screen, including a list of physical measurements (gamut, gamma, intensity, and anything else I could measure). However, although I measured like a crazy fiend, my hopes of a constructive analysis were dashed when my expert—Dr. Ray Soneira of DisplayMate—told me that the data gathered was mostly unusable. Primarily, it's due to my choice of instruments. Sadly, our Spyder4 Elite just wasn’t quite up to the task.

"Your Spyder measurements indicate that the Color Gamut is close but not accurate enough for video production. The most likely reason is that the Spyder is inaccurate because Apple most likely did a better job of accurately calibrating the monitor. The 1931 CIE Diagram that you use is highly non-uniform and obsolete," Soneira said.

However, he gamely took a look through the results anyway, and the e-mail conversation turned to resolution. Soneira quickly put forward a handy explanation for why Apple chose the "5K" resolution of 5120×2880 rather than one of the myriad of "standard" 4K resolutions. There are of course a lot of technical reasons to pick 5120×2880—at double the older 27-inch iMac’s resolution of 2560×1440, it makes for precisely four times as many pixels and easy scaling—but Soneira’s explanation was particularly insightful.

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Don McCullough

The French Interior Minister told French public radio (Google Translate) on Thursday that the government has begun an investigation into who has been flying drones above as many as 10 nuclear power plants nationwide this month.

"There's a judicial investigation under way," French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said in an interview on France Info radio. “Measures are being taken to know what these drones are and neutralize them."

Le Monde reported this week that the drones have been variable in size, with some “a few dozen centimeters" in size, while others had a diameter of up to two meters.

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A false-color image of the virus, showing its unusual filamentous appearance. CDC

The outcome of Ebola infections often depends on a patient's access to sophisticated medical care. But there's the possibility that it could be influenced by genetics as well. That suggestion comes from the authors of a new paper that looked at what happens when genetically diverse groups of mice were exposed to the virus. As it turns out, the results ranged from losing a bit of weight to complete mortality.

The work doesn't seem to have been inspired by looking for insight into the progression of hemorrhagic fever in humans. Instead, the researchers involved appear to have been frustrated by the fact that the most convenient research mammal, the mouse, doesn't experience the symptoms typical of Ebola infections in humans: no problems with blood coagulation, no hemorrhages, and no shock. So they decided to see if they could find a mouse strain that did show these symptoms (and would thus enable convenient studies).

To do so, they started with something called the Collaborative Cross collection. Most of the mouse strains used in research have been inbred until all members of the strain are genetically identical. There are, however, differences between strains; C57 mice are genetically distinct from 129 mice. So it's possible to see very different things happen if you do the same experiment in different strains.

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More and more people are becoming familiar with the joys—and frustrations—of online dating. A recent Pew study found that 11 percent of the US public has used online dating services, and a full 38 percent of people who say they are "single and looking" have used such sites.

There's enough money to be made as an Internet matchmaker that it's apparently sparking some companies to push the boundaries of what's legal. Yesterday, the Federal Trade Commission disclosed that it reached a settlement with JDI Dating Ltd., a UK company that runs 18 dating sites that it claims have over 12 million members. The sites include CupidsWand.com, FlirtCrowd.com, and FindMeLove.com. JDI will have to pay $616,165 in redress, and it must stop business practices that were said to violate both the FTC Act and a newer law that regulates recurring billing online.

JDI's dating sites would make fake profiles, which the company called "virtual cupids," and have them send computer-generated messages to new users who had created profiles but hadn't yet paid. On JDI's websites, users received an e-mail notifying them that another user sent them a "wink" within minutes of joining. Then they got additional winks, messages, and photo requests, supposedly from other members in their geographic area.

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Aurich Lawson / Thinkstock

In the fourth day of the Ars UNITE virtual conference, we took a look at how the promise of cheap virtual reality head-mounted displays from Oculus and others are already revolutionizing fields well outside of the gaming industry that gets the most attention. This morning's feature on the topic attracted a number of comments, ranging from skepticism to excitement.

"I remember the last time it was all the rage. E3 1995 IIRC," commenter Feniks noted, echoing others who remember the last time VR was the "next big thing." But our expert live chat panel agreed that things are different this time around. "For starters, the technology is more affordable today than it was back then," Virtually Better Inc.'s Dr. Marat Zanov said. "I think what happened in the 90's wasn't nearly the scale of what we're seeing now. The number of companies, from tiny startups to megacorps, that are investing in the technology at this point is unprecedented," added NASA JPL engineer Jeffrey Norris.

Other commenters said they feel the technology isn't quite there yet, with commenter DisplayNameTaken complaining about feelings of nausea, even on the Oculus DK2 with additional head-tracking hardware. "This is a technology where fine tuning the apps is what's going to sell it at this point because I can see people having a bad experiences and swearing it off for good. The first time, I was in 5 minutes and had to lay down an hour [because] my head was swimming so bad. I really want this to take off."

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Prince Harry meets supporters of the British Legion's London Poppy Day Appeal at Buckingham Palace.

The BBC's Anna Holligan visited a cafe in Amsterdam where people smoke as much marijuana as they like, and the government gets a share of the proceeds.

Inflation—in the cosmic sense, at least—has been in the news lately. Early this year, researchers announced that they found conclusive evidence that our Universe experienced a period of rapid expansion fractions of a second after the Big Bang, an event that left its mark on the present-day Universe. Unfortunately, that result hasn't held up well under more intense scrutiny.

But it's worth understanding what all the fuss is about. Inflation is the only way we have of explaining how the Big Bang could possibly produce the Universe that we find ourselves in today. And the theory has consequences, including the implication that our Universe is not alone; other universes would pop into existence as inflation sped faster than the boundaries of our Universe expanded.

If this sounds like your cup of tea, then you'll have a great opportunity tomorrow afternoon. Alan Guth, the theoretical physicist who was instrumental in developing inflationary theory, is doing a live session in which he'll explain inflation and field questions about it.

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My Day with Canonical

I've been researching OpenStack deployment methods lately and so when I got an email from Canonical inviting me to check out how they deploy OpenStack using their Metal as a Service (MaaS) software on their fantastic Orange Box demo platform I jumped at the opportunity. more>>

Nintendo

Nintendo's latest internal financial report came with a Tuesday presentation from company president Satoru Iwata, who took the opportunity to announce a new type of product being developed by the game maker: a touchless sleep sensor. (Wait, really?)

Though neither a design nor product name was announced, Iwata repeatedly described a forthcoming "Quality of Life Sensor" meant to sit next to a user's bed during sleep. Overnight, the product will visually record "movements of your body, breathing, and heartbeat," then upload resulting data to Nintendo's cloud servers so that a corresponding app can analyze your sleep and offer suggestions for better rest in the future.

"Fatigue and sleep are themes that are rather hard to visualize in more objective ways," Iwata said. "At Nintendo, we believe that if we could visualize them, there would be great potential for many people regardless of age, gender, language, or culture."

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Intel Free Press

The Internal Revenue Service asked a federal appeals court Thursday to reconsider its September ruling that allowed Electronic Arts founder William "Trip" Hawkins to avoid paying $26 million in California and federal taxes.

The IRS said that Hawkins is not qualified to enjoy the tax relief benefits from his 2006 bankruptcy. The taxing agency claims that Hawkins maintained a wealthy lifestyle ahead of his bankruptcy filing instead of satisfying his tax debt. But the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals didn't agree, and a three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based court ruled 2-1.

"A mere showing of spending in excess of income is not sufficient to establish the required intent to evade tax; the government must establish that the debtor took the actions with the specific intent of evading taxes," the court said. "Indeed, if simply living beyond one’s means, or paying bills to other creditors prior to bankruptcy, were sufficient to establish a willful attempt to evade taxes, there would be few personal bankruptcies in which taxes would be dischargeable. Such a rule could create a large ripple effect throughout the bankruptcy system. As to discharge of debts, bankruptcy law must apply equally to the rich and poor alike, fulfilling the Constitution’s requirement that Congress establish 'uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States.'"

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A different RNA-based enzyme, showing how complex even short molecules can be. UCSB

Even the simplest forms of life, like bacteria, have a handedness, one that's built into the chemicals they're composed of. The complex, three-dimensional molecules that are essential to life can have the same exact set of atoms, yet be physically distinct—one the mirror image of the other. Almost all the amino acids that life uses have a single orientation; same with the sugars.

While life is very good at operating with this handedness, called chirality, nature isn't. Most chemical reactions produce a mixture of left and right forms of molecules. This seemingly creates a problem for the origin of life—if both chiral forms were available, how did life pick just one? The problem is even more severe than that. If both forms are present, then the reactions that duplicate DNA and RNA molecules don't work. And without those reactions, life won't work.

Now, researchers have found this doesn't pose much of a barrier at all. Through a little test-tube based evolution, they were able to make an RNA molecule that could copy other RNA molecules with the opposite chirality. In other words, they made a right hand that could only copy the left. But the duplicate, the left-handed form, could then readily copy the right-handed version. And as an added bonus, the new RNA molecule may be one of the most useful copying enzymes yet evolved.

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