Month: June 2016

NEW YORK—Samsung came out with the original Gear Fit activity tracker in 2014, but the company has remained mostly quiet about this device line until now. At an event today, the company announced an upgrade to its fitness tracker offerings with a new model, the Gear Fit 2. It'll cost $179 (the first Gear Fit came out priced at $200).

The new wearable matches the leaks we've witnessed within the past few weeks. While it looks very similar to the original Gear Fit, the Fit 2 is more curved to better hug the wrist. Its 1.5-inch super AMOLED display takes up most of the module that sits on the top of your wrist, and its band is nicely flexible. The curvier design should make the Gear Fit 2 easier to wear since there's much less distinction between the module and the surrounding band.

To upgrade the fitness specs, Samsung added a GPS to the Gear Fit 2. Both the original Gear Fit and this new device have heart rate monitors, but as wrist-bound HRMs become increasingly common, GPS has become more of a differentiator. This feature also tends to increase the size of a device (since it's a separate chip) and usually the price, too. Surprisingly, the Gear Fit 2 has been slimmed down from the original design in spite of the addition. Samsung also emphasized the ability to track a workout using the GPS and share it to Facebook instantly.

(credit: Leonid Mamchenkov)

On Wednesday, the Food and Drug Administration released a draft voluntary guidance for the food industry aimed at phasing out excess salt in processed and commercially prepared food over a span of 10 years. The move, which health experts say could save thousands of lives, has drawn mixed reactions from the food industry.

Leading food companies, such as Mars, Nestlé, PepsiCo, and Unilever, joined the American Heart Association, Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, American Public Health Association, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in support of the FDA’s efforts to reduce sodium intake, while the Grocery Manufacturer’s Association (GMA) and the Salt Institute, a trade association, balked at the new guidance.

The GMA hinted at future squabbles with the FDA over nutrition data. In a statement, the association wrote that it would “look forward to working with the agency to ensure the best and most recent science is taken into account when determining sodium intake levels for optimal health for all Americans.”

Sam Machkovech tests VR sniping game The Nest; video edited by Jennifer Hahn. (video link)

The HTC Vive's "room-scale," out-of-the-chair approach to virtual reality has unlocked some very interesting gun-gaming ideas, and, as a result, most of its current shooters encourage a lot of movement. As such, launch highlights Hover Junkers and Space Pirate Trainer offer significant gameplay benefits for anyone who can duck, dodge, and hop around their play space while faking like a laser cowboy.

Some VR gamers may prefer an experience that splits the difference: a shooting game that employs motion-tracked controllers but doesn't require serious physical effort. Those players will finally get their wish with the impending launch of this month's The Nest, whose early access beta version stakes its entire claim on a single weapon: the sniper rifle.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. (credit: FCC)

Will minority programmers be hurt or helped by a Federal Communications Commission plan to boost competition in the set-top box market?

That's one of the most contentious questions raised since FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler proposed rules that would make TV channels available on more third-party devices and applications. Wheeler's aim is to give consumers more choices beyond the set-top boxes rented from cable providers. But those third-party systems might not display minority content as prominently as traditional cable TV systems, according to cable lobbyists and minority programmers that oppose the plan.

Wheeler contended the opposite in a letter to members of Congress. Cable TV companies are shutting out minority programmers today, but the proposed set-top box rules will make it easier for viewers to find minority programming, Wheeler argues. Wheeler also said he will continue with the rulemaking proceeding despite calls for a delay.

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A growing number of WordPress websites have been infected by attackers exploiting a vulnerability that remains unpatched in a widely used plugin called WP Mobile Detector, security researchers warned.

The attacks have been under way since last Friday and are mainly being used to install porn-related spamming scripts, according to a blog post published Thursday. The underlying vulnerability in WP Mobile Detector came to light on Tuesday, and the plugin has since been removed from the official WordPress plugin directory. As of Wednesday, the plugin reportedly had more than 10,000 active installations, and it appears many remained active at the time this post was being prepared.

The security flaw stems from the plugin's failure to remove malicious input submitted by website visitors. Because the WP Mobile Detector performs no security checks, an attacker can feed malicious PHP code into requests received by websites that use the plugin.

"Gordy" the betta fish survived his care and appears svelte. He's under surveillance cam watch. (credit: YouTube)

A Texas pet-sitting business is seeking up to $1 million in damages from a couple who gave a one-star review on Yelp and criticized the company's treatment of their tiny blue tropical Betta fish "Gordy" while the family was away on vacation. The company, Prestigious Pets of Dallas, claims the review is a breach of a non-disparagement clause and defamation.

Paul Alan Levy, a Public Citizen lawyer who is defending the couple, summarized the company's revised suit (PDF) targeting the couple.

The new lawsuit, however, specifies one statement from the review in particular: that the company’s assigned pet-sitter had potentially caused serious harm to the couple’s fish by putting too much food in a fish-bowl while the couple were away on vacation for a few days. The complaint alleges that a charge of overfeeding a fish is libel per se because it amounts to the criminal offense of animal cruelty under Texas law (if giving too much food to a pet fish were really a crime, I expect there would be thousands of Texas second-graders facing jail time every year!)

Levy's defense, filed Thursday in a local Dallas court, is that the family's review was truthful and protected by the First Amendment.

Former Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, pictured here speaking at a conference in 2006, was one of many former execs to take the stand in Oracle v. Google (credit: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)

Despite a final verdict, the recent Oracle v. Google trial leaves plenty of questions about the future of APIs, fair use, copyright, development, and more. While their views do not necessarily represent those of Ars Technica as a whole, our staffers wanted to take a look at the outcome and potential ramifications from both sides. Below, Peter Bright argues that software is about to suffer. Elsewhere, Joe Mullin says Google's win sends a powerful message against a familiar legal tactic. You can also find guest op-eds from professor Pamela Samuelson (pro-Google) and attorney Annette Hurst (pro-Oracle).

Oracle's long-running lawsuit against Google has raised two contentious questions. The first is whether application programming interfaces (APIs) should be copyrightable at all. The second is whether, if they are copyrightable, repurposing portions of those APIs can be done without a license in the name of "fair use."

In the first trial between the companies, the court ruled that Google had copied portions of Java but that these copied portions were mere APIs; as such, they were not protected by copyright law. An appeals court later reversed this part of the decision, asserting that the "structure, sequence, and organization" of an API was in fact protectable by copyright. The case was then returned to the trial court to ascertain whether the (previously acknowledged) copying of (now copyright-protected) Oracle material was an infringement of copyright.