Month: July 2016

(credit: mightykenny)

Federal investigators have asked a judge in California to force Facebook to open up its financial and business records for 2010—the year that the social networking giant established a subsidiary in Ireland, largely for tax reasons.

According to a Wednesday affidavit by Internal Revenue Service agent Nina Wu Stone, Facebook failed to produce a host of documentation last month that the agency needed to understand the 2010 deal. Facebook’s move across the Atlantic was likely done in order to take advantage of a form of tax trickery known as the "Double Irish," a quirky Irish tax law arrangement that allows organizations to incorporate in Ireland but legally route money through other jurisdictions such as the Netherlands.

Facebook and many other tech firms have recently come under increased scrutiny for using this method to drastically—and legally—reduce tax burdens. The "Double Irish" was phased out in early 2015, but companies already using it have until 2020 to transition to something else.

PORTLAND, Ore.—In the cool, hushed atmosphere of Portland’s Newspace Center for Photography, a Geiger counter clicks steadily as I orient myself to the room. White walls, wood floors, and the faint, clean smell of an elementary school auditorium. I was here to see the "Reactive Matters" exhibit, a small collection of photography by three artists whose works document nuclear energy, nuclear weapons, and the disasters that have peppered our history of experimenting with radioactive material.

Photographing Superfund sites with buried nuclear waste and old reactor locations doesn’t always make for compelling visual media. Instead, these artists used radioactivity itself to build more interesting and abstract art.

Jeremy Bolen

Vieques #3, Archival pigment print made from buried film, window screen, artist’s frame, fragments of buried film. 36 in x 40 in.

3 more images in gallery

Digging deep

Chicago-based artist Jeremy Bolen told Ars over the phone that he became interested in nuclear energy after he visited "Site A" in the Red Gate Woods on the former grounds of the Argonne National Laboratory. (Argonne still exists in Illinois, but the lab was moved in 1947.) Site A became the first nuclear waste dumping ground in the US after scientists built an early nuclear reactor there in 1943.

Back into action. (credit: Oracle PR)

The long silence is apparently over. After an extended quiet period following last October’s Java One conference, Oracle has finally provided a hint about the company’s actual plans for Java EE, the enterprise framework for server-side Java applications. As Ars reported on July 1, development on Java EE projects by Oracle engineers has practically ceased since last fall, as the company pushed development resources to other projects—leaving members of the Java Community Process (JCP) executive committee and Java EE partners in the dark.

In response to Ars’ report, Mike Moeller, spokesperson for Oracle, issued the following statement via e-mail:

Oracle is committed to Java and has a very well defined proposal for the next version of the Java EE specification—Java EE 8—that will support developers are as they seek to build new applications that are designed using micro-services on large-scale distributed computing and container-based environments on the Cloud. Oracle is working closely with key partners in the Java community to finalize the proposal and will share the full details with the broader Java community at JavaOne in September.

When asked if “key partners” meant the JCP, the Java EE Expert Group, or specific industry partners in a parallel effort, an Oracle spokesperson replied that there was no parallel effort. The spokesperson suggested the changes Oracle was proposing would clearly need to be discussed within the Java community—both with the Java EE Expert group as well as more widely within the JCP—and that Oracle looks forward to feedback on the ideas.

(credit: Amazon)

Amazon's annual 24-hours of deals, dubbed Prime Day, is coming soon on July 12 and the company is incentivizing voice-shopping with its virtual assistant Alexa. On Prime Day, those with an Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, or Amazon Tap can use Alexa to shop exclusive deals only available while voice shopping. Customers will also receive $10 off their first purchase of $20 or more when they use Alexa from now through July 12.

On July 12, customers can ask, "Alexa, what are your Prime Day deals?" to get the full list of exclusive savings. Amazon has been tight-lipped about the exact deals of Prime Day so far, but in a press release, the company did detail that some of the exclusive deals will be on smart home products, toys, Amazon devices, and more. For the past few days, Amazon has been releasing new deals every 24 hours leading up to Prime Day; some of today's deals include 35 percent off a Polaroid Cube 1080p action camera and 66 percent off an Anker 20000 mAh PowerCore portable charger.

Amazon has been pushing voice shopping using Alexa for a while now, so it's fitting that the company would hide some deals away to entice Alexa users who may have never shopped using the virtual assistant before. Keep in mind that Amazon's Prime Day deals are only available for Prime members, as are the Alexa-exclusive deals as well. Would-be buyers still have time to sign up for a free trial of Amazon Prime before July 12 to get in on the sale.