Author: Ars Staff

In November 2014, a strange-looking little spider of a spacecraft caught the world's attention. It may have been one of the oddest-looking pioneers of all time, resembling a mini-refrigerator attached to an insect's legs. The spacecraft, christened Philae, electrified both die-hard space fans and casual observers despite its alien appearance. It made the first-ever soft landing on the face of a comet.

Philae actually made soft landings, as it “bounced” twice on the comet's surface after its landing harpoons did not deploy as planned. Eventually it settled down in its final resting spot, a craggy, dark region called Abydos. Here it delivered another surprise when it “reawakened” seven months after a lack of solar power put it into hibernation.

For some, one of the largest surprises was the identity of people who built Philae and the Rosetta orbiter that delivered it to the comet. While those casually in touch with space news focused on the mission's dramatic twists and turns, dedicated space-watchers recognized it as a historic mission for one oft-overlooked group—the European Space Agency (ESA).

Greetings, Arsians! Courtesy of our partners at TechBargains, we have a few more deals to close out 2015. Our highlighted deal is great for anyone who wants to upgrade monitors but has space limitations to adhere to: now you can get a Dell 20-inch 1080p LED monitor with VA panel plus a $50 e-gift card for just $109. The list price for the monitor is $129, and considering small screens like this are hard to come by in full HD, this is a unique find.

Check out the rest of the deals below, including savings on bluetooth headphones, portable hard drives, range extenders, and more.

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Greetings, Arsians! Courtesy of our partners at TechBargains, the Dealmaster is back with a bevy of post-Christmas deals.

The top item today is an APC 1000VA uninterruptible power supply. It retails for $119.99, but for you, it's only $94.99. If the weather outside gets a little too frightful this winter, this thing could save your data in the event of a power outage. We've got the UPS and a bunch more deals below. Hopefully you'll be able to stretch those gift cards a little further this year.

• APC BR1000G Back-UPS Pro 1000VA / 600W 8-Outlet Uninterruptible Power Supply for $94.99 (list price $119.99)
• Dell Optiplex 9020 Micro Intel Core i7-4785t Quad-Core Mini Desktop w/ 128GB SSD & 8GB RAM for $781.21 (use codes 100BIZDEAL and SAVE35%DEC - list price $1,356)
• TurboTax 2015 Deluxe + State + eFile Digital Download Tax Prep Software for $39.99 (list price $59.99)
• 75% off any Amazon Instant Video Rental with Code: MOVIE75OFF (to use, click "MORE PURCHASE OPTIONS" and then "Redeem a gift card or promotion code")
• Philip Wake-Up Light w/ Colored Sunrise Simulation for $114.99 (list price $139.99)
• QNAP 4-Bay TS-451 NAS Storage w/ Intel Celeron 2Ghz Quad-core & 2GB RAM for $459 (2-Bay for $339)
• $100 eBay Gift Card for $95 (list price $100)

Laptops & Tablets

It's the apps. The iPhone and Android conquered the world because of the apps. More specifically, what keeps Android and iOS dominant is the utter lack of those apps on competing platforms. But today, the mobile landscape is significantly different than it was a year or two ago (let alone five). Today, apps aren't really necessary. In fact, it's easy to envision an excellent, software-rich mobile device that uses the Web instead of apps.

There's currently a litany of problems with apps. There is the platform lock-in and the space the apps take up on the device. Updating apps is a pain that users often ignore, leaving broken or vulnerable versions in use long after they've been allegedly patched. Apps are also a lot of work for developers— it's not easy to write native apps to run on both Android and iOS, nevermind considering Windows Phone and BlackBerry.

What's the alternative?Well, perhaps the best answer is to go back to the future and do what we do on desktop computers: use the Web and the Web browser. Updates to HTML apps happen entirely on the server, so users get them immediately. There's no window of vulnerability between the release of a security fix and the user applying the update. So with a capable, HTML-based platform and a well-designed program that makes good use of CSS, one site could support phones, tablets, PCs, and any just about anything else with one site.

The concept of inhuman intelligence goes back to the deep prehistory of mankind. At first the province of gods, demons, and spirits, it transferred seamlessly into the interlinked worlds of magic and technology. Ancient Greek myths had numerous robots, made variously by gods or human inventors, while extant artefacts like the Antikythera calendrical computer show that even in 200 BCE we could build machinery that usefully mimicked human intellectual abilities.

There has been no age or civilisation without a popular concept of artificial intelligence (AI). Ours, however, is the first where the genuine article—machinery that comfortably exceeds our own thinking skills—is not only possible but achievable. It should not be a surprise, then, that our ideas of what that actually means and what will actually happen are hopelessly coloured by cultural assumptions ancient and modern.

We rarely get it right: Kubrick’s 2001 saw HAL 9000 out-thinking highly trained astronauts to murderous effect; Bill Gates’ 2001 gave us Clippy, which was more easily dealt with.

The Linux Mint project recently unveiled Linux Mint 17.3. The latest release from this Ubuntu-based Linux distro just might be the best Linux desktop around.

Linux Mint 17.3 arrived a few days late and had a somewhat bumpy launch thanks to some server hardware issues that temporarily knocked the Linux Mint blog and forums offline. The final version of Linux Mint was out there, but few knew about it until a few weeks later.

This is a big release: Linux Mint 17.3 marks the final release that will be built atop Ubuntu 14.04 and marks the pinnacle of the project's plan to stop chasing every Ubuntu release and focus on perfecting what makes Mint, well, Mint. When Ubuntu puts out its next Long Term Support release in April of 2016, Mint will have to upgrade its base system.

Greetings, Arsians! Courtesy of our partners at TechBargains, we have a number of deals you can still get in time for the Christmas holiday. Some of the best deals include a 64GB Nexus 6P unlocked smartphone for $499 ($50 off of its original price) and a 32GB unlocked Nexus 6 handset for $249 (a whopping $400 off its original price). Both of those phones come with free one-day shipping as well, and you don't have to be an Amazon Prime member to get that perk. Amazon is also providing free one-day shipping on a number of hot items, including headphones, DSLR cameras, bluetooth speakers, fitness trackers, and much more.

Check out the full list of deals you can still get now below!

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Jennifer Thompson and Ronald Cotton have every reason to be enemies.

In 1984, an intruder broke into Thompson’s apartment and raped her. She identified Cotton as the rapist in both a photo array and a live lineup. Although Cotton proclaimed his innocence, he was arrested, tried, and convicted. The prosecution’s case rested mainly on Thompson’s identification, and during the trial she testified that she was “absolutely sure” Cotton was the man who raped her. Cotton was sentenced to life in prison plus 54 years.

But 10-and-a-half years later, things changed drastically. Cotton was exonerated based on DNA evidence that showed that a man named Bobby Poole had raped Jennifer Thompson. In a hearing that occurred after Cotton’s trial, Thompson was shown a picture of Poole. She said “I have never seen him in my life.”

On some galaxies far, far away, it'd be a bad idea for a reputable news outlet to dedicate an entire article to spoiling and excavating the secrets of a four-day-old movie. But not this one. Star Wars: The Force Awakens will likely cross a record-smashing $245 million threshold for opening weekend numbers—meaning, many of you have likely seen the film. (Heck, you might already be quoting it.)

As of today, most of Ars' staff has seen the film in our respective cities, as well—catching up with our very lucky Episode VII critic Tiffany Kelly—and we have lots of thoughts to offer on the other side of the veritable awakening. We're going full spoiler on this one; the first blurb, which you can see below on an average computer monitor, is kinda-sorta spoiler-free, in case you clicked on this like a real masochist, but this page has been organized from "least spoiled" to "most spoiled," so the lower you scroll, the deeper you'll get.

We're not kidding. Lotsa spoilers below. You've been so warned.

Greetings, Arsians! Courtesy of our partners at TechBargains, we have a bunch of new deals to share with you, including a deal on one of the newest smartphones to come out in 2015. Now you can get a Moto X Pure Edition smartphone with 32GB of storage for $349. This unlocked handset is the newest model from Motorola, and it features a 5.7-inch QHD display and a 3000 mAh battery, and it runs Android Lollipop. It's a great deal considering the original price of the phone is $449, and since it's unlocked, you can take it to nearly any cellular provider you wish.

Be sure to check out the big list of other electronics deals we have to offer below as well.

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