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Microsoft hides mystery Firefox extension in toolbar update

by Emil Protalinski | Last updated June 9, 2010 5:15 PM

As part of its regular Patch Tuesday, Microsoft released an update for its various toolbars, and this update came with more than just documented fixes. The update also installs an add-on for Internet Explorer and an extension for Mozilla Firefox, both without the user's permission. As you can see in the Windows Update screenshot above, Microsoft does not indicate that the update will install anything for either browser. It's also not really clear what the installed extension actually does.

To make matters worse, the update was marked "Important" instead of "Optional," which means it was more likely to be installed either automatically (if the user has Automatic Updates on) or manually when the user clicks Install (Important updates are checked by default).

RPG-like Quickhit Football inks deal with NFL

by Andrew Webster | Last updated June 10, 2010 10:36 AM

Since 2005, it's been pretty rough going for football video games that aren't made by EA. Ever since EA inked an exclusive deal with the NFL for its Madden franchise, other football games have come and gone, failing to gain much traction without the NFL license. But just in time for the 2010 season, Quickhit Football, a free-to-play browser-based game, has announced a deal with the NFL that will allow it to utilize what Quickhit founder and CEO Jeffrey Anderson describes as "the single most valuable intellectual property in North America."

Launched in October of last year, Quickhit is a microtransaction and ad-supported game that's more about managing your club than it is about actually playing. You call the plays and improve your team by earning coaching points. Anderson—former CEO of The Lord of the Rings Online developer Turbine Inc.—likens the game to an RPG. "My team is my avatar," he told Ars, explaining that your team's offense essentially plays the role of a sword in a traditional MMORPG, while your defense is your shield. You earn experience and assign skill points to your players. It's a set-up that has worked thus far, garnering Quickhit over one million players in its first few months.

Cablevision won't cripple its network DVR

by Nate Anderson | Last updated May 7, 2010 1:41 PM

Cablevision had to fight all the way to the Supreme Court in order to make its remote storage DVR (RS-DVR) into a reality. Now that it has done so, the company shows little inclination to pacify rightsholders upset about the technology. The ability to fast-forward through commercials will remain a key piece of the service.

RS-DVR technology moves the video recording technology from a box sitting beside your TV into the network. Cablevision runs major servers at its headends which stream their user interface down the cable line and onto people's TV sets. Apart from some lag, the system works like a home DVR—but without the millions of individual boxes, the truck rolls for installation, the service calls when something goes wrong, and the like. For Cablevision, it saves money.

New hard drive write method packs in one terabyte per inch

by Casey Johnston | Last updated May 7, 2010 4:48 PM

Hard disk systems have recently encounted a storage density ceiling. Most methods in use today have a limit of a few hundred gigabytes per square inch thanks to perpendicular recording. To try to keep storage density rising, scientists have looked at technologies from holographic storage to molecular polymers, but few have made it past the demonstration stage. In a paper in Nature Photonics this week, researchers describe a way to combine two hard drive writing methods to store data at densities of up to one terabyte per square inch, and suggest the media could be stable up to ten terabytes per square inch.

Each of the two write methods deals with the issue of writing pieces of data very close together without affecting the bits around it. When bits are tightly packed, an effect called superparamagnetism can kick in, where the tiny amount of heat created by the write head will accidentally flip nearby bits and ruin surrounding data. As researchers attempt to pack data bits tighter into a surface, being able to write to an isolated bit without disturbing surrounding ones has become very challenging.

FCC gives Hollywood control over your home theater

by Matthew Lasar | Last updated May 7, 2010 7:00 PM

After almost two years of deliberation, the Federal Communications Commission has granted Hollywood and cable companies permission to shut down analog streams to HDTV equipped home theaters. The geek term for this is "selectable output control" (SOC)—until now forbidden by the FCC. The Motion Picture Association of America requested a waiver on the SOC ban in May of 2008, arguing that without it, Hollywood studios could not securely offer consumers pre-DVD released movies on television.

"We conclude that the service that MPAA proposes would serve the public interest and that providers of first-run theatrical content are unlikely to offer the service absent the ability to activate SOC," the agency's Order, released on Friday, explains. "While a waiver of the SOC prohibition will prevent consumers who rely on unprotected audiovisual outputs from accessing this service, we are convinced that in the absence of a waiver the service will not be offered at all."

The Peregrine: like The Power Glove for PCs, only useful

by Michael Thompson | Last updated April 29, 2010 7:40 AM

It has been a while since a glove has been used as a video game controller. In fact, the last time I personally used one, I was eight and had convinced my parents to buy me a Nintendo Power Glove. Now, Iron Will Innovations has released The Peregrine, a glove that takes the place of a keyboard for your PC games. We spent some time with one, and can confidently say that it's a cool device that hardcore gamers will love, but we're not entirely convinced it's something you'll need to buy to enjoy games to their fullest.

The glove itself is relatively comfortable, having been constructed from a neoprene-like fabric. There are five contact points per finger, except on the pinky where there are three. In order to activate a contact point, you have to touch them with either the tip or the flat of the thumb, or you can touch a tip to the palm of your hand (though this option makes it impossible to use the contact points on the sides of the fingers).

Linux on the console? Sony sued for removing PS3 support

by Nate Anderson | Last updated April 29, 2010 11:49 AM

Sony Computer Entertainment America has just been hit with a class action lawsuit in California over the company's recent decision to remove PlayStation 3 support for the Linux operating system in a firmware update.

This decision, in the words of the lawsuit, was an "intentional disablement of the valuable functionalities originally advertised as available with the Sony PlayStation 3 video game console. This disablement is not only a breach of the sales contract between Sony and its customers and a breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing, but it is also an unfair and deceptive business practice perpetrated on millions of unsuspecting consumers."

Alan Wake preview: a haunted man in an amazing game

by Ben Kuchera | Last updated April 29, 2010 1:25 PM

Alan Wake has a pretty good life, all things considered. He's a successful author, he has a beautiful wife, and his agent is just waiting for the next book. The problem is that for two years, Wake hasn't been able to write. The words simply aren't coming. So his wife has an idea: take a vacation to the small town of Bright Falls to get away from everything.

Alan Wake, an Xbox 360 exclusive from Remedy Entertainment, has been in production a very long time; usually not the best sign in this business. We have a retail, final copy of the game in our office, and I spent last night delving into the world of a writer whose imagination may be a little more powerful than he realized. We're allowed to talk about the first "episode" of the game, so let's dig into what makes this so impressive.

Ubuntu 10.04 arrives with extended support

by Ryan Paul | Last updated April 29, 2010 12:40 PM

Canonical has announced the official release of Ubuntu 10.04, codenamed Lucid Lynx. After six months of development, the stealthy cat has emerged from the jungle and is ready to leap onto users' desktops. The new version of the popular Linux distribution delivers a visual refresh, updated software, and a number of noteworthy new features.

Ubuntu 10.04 is a long-term support (LTS) release, which means that its users will receive package updates for an extended period of time. Typical Ubuntu versions get 18 months of updates, but LTS releases are supported for three years on desktop computers and five years on servers. Another significant characteristic of LTS releases is that they are built with a stronger emphasis on stability. Instead of loading in a pile of experimental new features, the developers focus on quality control and aim to make the software more reliable. Due to the extended support cycle and higher standard of robustness, LTS releases tend to be more appealing to business users and hardware makers.

HTML5 video in Internet Explorer 9: H.264 and H.264 alone

by Peter Bright | Last updated April 30, 2010 3:10 PM

Microsoft has put its stake in the ground and committed to supporting H.264 in Internet Explorer 9. That the next browser version would support H.264 HTML5 video was no surprise (though the current Platform Preview doesn't include it, it was shown off at MIX10), but this is the first time that Microsoft has provided a rationale for its decision. More significantly, this is the first time the company has confirmed that H.264 will be the only video codec supported.

H.264 certainly has some advantages. It's standardized, resulting in wide support in both software and hardware. This also provies a migration path of sorts from Adobe Flash; the same H.264 video file can be played both in Flash and via the native browser support, which allows site owners to target both HTML5 and Flash users with a single codec. But the biggest advantage cited by Microsoft was intellectual property: the IP behind H.264 can be licensed through a program managed by MPEG LA. Other codecs—the blog post named no names, but Theora is obviously the most widespread alternative for HTML5 video—may have source availability, but they can't offer the same clear IP rights situation.