Withings Body Cardio: Waage soll Auskunft zur Gesundheit des Herzens geben

Die vernetzte Personenwaage Body Cardio von Withings misst nicht nur Gewicht und Körperfett, sondern soll auch Auskunft über die Gesundheit des Herzens und des Gefäßsystems erteilen. (Withings, Technologie)

Die vernetzte Personenwaage Body Cardio von Withings misst nicht nur Gewicht und Körperfett, sondern soll auch Auskunft über die Gesundheit des Herzens und des Gefäßsystems erteilen. (Withings, Technologie)

Report: Nest isn’t for sale

New CEO plans no change in direction, will focus on existing product roadmap.

(credit: Nest)

After what seemed like a big shakeup at Nest, with CEO Tony Fadell leaving the company to take on an "advisory role" at parent company Alphabet, a sale seemed like a possibility for the smart home company. An internal Nest memo obtained by The Verge says that's not the case, though. The new CEO, Marwan Fawaz, has addressed his employees to say that Alphabet won't be selling Nest.

In Fawaz's previous stint at Google, he ran Motorola's "Home" division (it made cable boxes) for a whopping six months before it was sold off to Arris. There's been lots of speculation (including here at Ars) that Fawaz would do the same job at Nest—move in, assess things, and put up a "For Sale" sign.

In the memo, Fawaz says "My only agenda for Nest is to scale and grow with innovative products. Nest is not for sale, and scaling and innovation aren’t mutually exclusive."

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Internet Archive Warns Against ‘Take Down, Stay Down’

The Internet Archive has joined other notable Internet groups in warning against increasingly loud calls for a “take down, stay down” copyright regime.Under the current DMCA laws, it is up to rights-holders to provide URLs to Intern…



The Internet Archive has joined other notable Internet groups in warning against increasingly loud calls for a "take down, stay down" copyright regime.

Under the current DMCA laws, it is up to rights-holders to provide URLs to Internet service provider such as Google for removal. The same piece of content, such as a unique music track, often has multiple URLs, sometimes thousands of them, but under the current approach rights-holders have to submit each URL for service providers to remove.

Under the "take down, stay down", also known as the "notice and staydown" approach, rights-holders only have to identify the unique piece of work (Justin Bieber's 'Love Yourself', for example), and it's up to service providers to search and destroy all URLs, new and old, for the content.

But The Internet Archive, a non-profit group whose aim is to build an "Internet library" to preserve all web pages and online digital media, says this new approach would be a disaster for the Internet in general.

"We were very concerned to hear that the Copyright Office is strongly considering recommending changing the DMCA to mandate a ‘Notice and Staydown’ regime. This is the language that the Copyright Office uses to talk about censoring the web," the Archive writes on their official blog.

The Archive makes several key arguments in its opposition to the new regime, primarily on privacy and the First Amendment grounds, and on technical and legal issues that would make such a regime a nightmare to implement for sites like The Internet Archive.

The Archive says such a regime would mandate Internet sites and ISPs to continually monitor all user activity on the Internet, and take proactive action take down content "without any form of review, potentially violates free speech laws".

On the technical grounds, the Archive argues that technology hasn't advanced to the point where computers can tell the difference between real infringement and fair use.

"So far, no computer algorithm has been developed that can determine whether a particular upload is fair use. Notice and Staydown would force many cases of legitimate fair use off the web," says the Archive.

Take down, stay down would also force websites to make legal judgement on the copyright status of content, but without having the authority or the required information to make a correct judgement at all times.

"They (the websites) don't have all the facts about the works, such as whether they have been licensed. Most platforms are not in a good position to be making legal judgments, and they are motivated to avoid the potential for high statutory damages. All this means that platforms are likely to filter out legitimate uses of content," the Archive warns.

And in addition to all of these problems, websites like The Internet Archive will also have to bear the full cost of implementing such a regime.

"Nonprofits, libraries, and educational institutions who act as internet service providers would be forced to spend a huge amount of their already scarce resources policing copyright," the Archive argues.

Paranoid Android is back with a new Marshmallow-based custom ROM

Paranoid Android is back with a new Marshmallow-based custom ROM

Paranoid Android is a custom version of Android known for building unusual features on top of Google’s mobile operating system. Halo, PIE controls, and Hover, for example, presented new ways to multitask, deal with on-screen navigation buttons, and interact with notifications.

But it’s been a few years since Paranoid Android released a new ROM. Phone maker OnePlus hired some of the project’s lead developers in 2015 to work on the company’s own OxygenOS software.

Continue reading Paranoid Android is back with a new Marshmallow-based custom ROM at Liliputing.

Paranoid Android is back with a new Marshmallow-based custom ROM

Paranoid Android is a custom version of Android known for building unusual features on top of Google’s mobile operating system. Halo, PIE controls, and Hover, for example, presented new ways to multitask, deal with on-screen navigation buttons, and interact with notifications.

But it’s been a few years since Paranoid Android released a new ROM. Phone maker OnePlus hired some of the project’s lead developers in 2015 to work on the company’s own OxygenOS software.

Continue reading Paranoid Android is back with a new Marshmallow-based custom ROM at Liliputing.

Getting bias out of peer review is still a struggle

Prejudice against black people persists, but gender, geographic biases are problems too.

Implicit biases are unconscious attitudes or stereotypes that affect how we perceive others; they sometimes run contrary to our conscious beliefs. Employers and law enforcement officers have faced criticism about implicit bias in the hiring of new employees and arresting of potential criminals. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the organization that publishes Science magazine, recently looked into the role of implicit biases in the scientific review processes.

The issue of implicit bias in the peer review process is significant because a strong publication record is critical to success in most science and engineering fields. Bias in the grant review process may determine which scientists are able to continue working in their field. If some groups of people are less likely to publish and get funding, then the professional sphere of science will remain more homogeneous.

This is problematic because diverse groups tend to be more creative and innovative. If the peer review process is preventing science from becoming as diverse, then innovation is likely being held back as well.

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Apple, Google to offer app developers bigger cut of subscription revenue

Apple and Google both take a 30 percent cut of revenue from apps sold through the App Store and Google Play Store, which means developers only get 70 cents for every $1 purchase. The same goes for in-app subscriptions that use the App Store or Google P…

Apple, Google to offer app developers bigger cut of subscription revenue

Apple and Google both take a 30 percent cut of revenue from apps sold through the App Store and Google Play Store, which means developers only get 70 cents for every $1 purchase. The same goes for in-app subscriptions that use the App Store or Google Play for billing, which means that if you pay $9.99 per month for a subscription service, the app maker only gets to keep about $7 of it.

But soon both Google and Apple will switch from a 70/30 split on subscription revenue to an 85/15 split, according to reports from The Verge and Recode.

Continue reading Apple, Google to offer app developers bigger cut of subscription revenue at Liliputing.

Tech firms want to save the auto industry—and the connected car—from itself

We crash test cars, but we don’t crash test the code they run.

As we've noted before, Ars readers are extremely skeptical about the whole "connected car" thing. That's not because Ars is a technology site for luddites—the sad truth is that the car industry's approach to security lags far behind its desire to expose the inner thoughts of our cars to us via the cloud.

As the tech and auto industries collide, the tech crowd is hoping that its more farsighted approach to ensuring secure hardware and code will start to rub off on its new bedfellow. On Wednesday and Thursday this week, the two have come together in Michigan for TU-Automotive Detroit, a conference that's focusing in part on this very topic. And tech firms—from established players like Symantec to startups like Karamba Security—want to help the automakers find their way.

The glaring lack of connected security for our cars got mainstream attention last year when Fiat Chrysler had to recall 1.4 million vehicles, but despite the FBI's plea to motorists to remain aware of security issues in cars, the driving public doesn't seem too concerned. Earlier this week, research firm Forrester announced that more than one in three Americans wants their next car to have better Internet connectivity. Meanwhile, the hacks keep happening. Nissan's API for its Leaf electric vehicle allowed completely anonymous requests to cars. Mitsubishi might have decided to enable connected car services for its Outlander via the vehicle's Wi-Fi in part to safeguard against attacks in the cloud, but it forgot that Wi-Fi needs some common sense security protections, too.

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Sorry, the Xbox One isn’t going to be a DVR anymore

Microsoft scraps plans to turn console into an over-the-air recorder.

Last August, Microsoft finally confirmed earlier rumors by announcing that the Xbox One would be usable as a digital video recorder sometime in 2016. Now, it seems Microsoft is giving up those plans.

"After careful consideration, we've decided to put development of DVR for over-the-air TV on hold to focus our attention on launching new, higher fan-requested gaming experiences across Xbox One and Windows 10," a Microsoft spokesperson told The Verge in a statement. "We're always listening to fan feedback and we look forward to bringing more requested experiences on Xbox One, Windows 10, and Xbox Live this year."

As originally announced, the feature would have been limited to over-the-air broadcasts received through the system's optional antenna USB dongle, and it wouldn't have worked with cable and/or satellite broadcasts taken through the built-in USB input. Users would have had to store shows on an external USB hard drive rather than the system's internal storage, and they would have been able to stream or download recordings to other mobile devices or Windows PCs.

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Bay Area: Join us TONIGHT, 6/15, to discuss tech solutions to Internet harassment

Ars Live guest Sarah Jeong will discuss the worst parts of the Internet that aren’t spam.

If you're in the Bay Area tonight, June 15, join Ars editors Annalee Newitz and Cyrus Farivar for the filming of our third episode of Ars Technica Live, a monthly interview series with fascinating people who work at the intersection of tech, science, and culture. Our guest tonight at Oakland's legendary Longitude bar is journalist Sarah Jeong, who will discuss online harassment and what technologists can do about it. Doors are at 7pm and the discussion starts at 7:30.

Filmed before a live audience in Oakland tiki bar Longitude (located on 347 14th Street), each episode of Ars Technica Live is a speculative, informal conversation between your fine hosts Annalee Newitz and Cyrus Farivar and an invited guest. The audience—that would be you—is also invited to join the conversation and ask questions. These aren’t soundbyte setups; they are deep cuts from the frontiers of research and creativity.

This month's event is about online harassment, trolling, and cleaning up Internet garbage. Guest Sarah Jeong is a Poynter Fellow in Journalism at Yale and the author of the book The Internet of Garbage. She writes for magazines and newspapers about the overlap between policy, tech, and the law.

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This case lets you run Android on an iPhone (kind of)

This case lets you run Android on an iPhone (kind of)

The software that runs on millions of Android phones is based on code from the Android Open Source Project… and since it’s an open source project, it’s possible for anyone to build and modify the software for their own needs, with or without Google’s help. That’s why Amazon can use a heavily modified version of Android for its Fire tablets and TV boxes, and it’s why you can now (sort of) run Android on an iPhone.

Continue reading This case lets you run Android on an iPhone (kind of) at Liliputing.

This case lets you run Android on an iPhone (kind of)

The software that runs on millions of Android phones is based on code from the Android Open Source Project… and since it’s an open source project, it’s possible for anyone to build and modify the software for their own needs, with or without Google’s help. That’s why Amazon can use a heavily modified version of Android for its Fire tablets and TV boxes, and it’s why you can now (sort of) run Android on an iPhone.

Continue reading This case lets you run Android on an iPhone (kind of) at Liliputing.