Intel's Haswell architecture analyzed: building a new PC and a new Intel When I first started writing about x86 CPUs Intel was on the verge of entering the enterprise space with its processors. At the time, Xeon was a new brand, unproven in the market. But it highlighted a key change in Intel's strategy for dominance: leverage consumer microprocessor sales to help support your fabs while making huge margins on lower volume, enterprise parts. In other words, get your volume from the mainstream but make your money in the enterprise. Intel managed to double dip and make money on both ends, it just made substantially more in servers. AnandTech
The Philippines passes a Cybercrime Prevention Act that makes SOPA look reasonable The dark days of SOPA and PIPA are behind the US, at least temporarily as copyright tycoons reground and restrategize, attempting to come up with measures that don't cause the entire internet to shut down in protest. But one country has already moved ahead with similar legislation. The government of the Philippines has passed the Cybercrime Prevention Act, which on the surface, as usual, sounds perfectly well-intentioned. But when you read the actual contents of what's been deemed "cybercrime," SOPA's proposed censorship sounds downright lax by comparison. Forbes
SSD prices continue tumbling in Q3 For years, PC enthusiasts complained that solid-state drives were too expensive. Call us when prices drop below a dollar per gigabyte, they scoffed. Well, their phones have probably been ringing off the hook lately. SSD prices have plummeted to the point where most mainstream drives fall under the dollar-per-gig threshold. We took our first look at the decline of SSD prices back in June, illustrating the trend with a mountain of data tracing drives all the way back to early 2011. A full quarter has passed since that article, so it's high time for an update. The Tech Report
The economics of video games Inflation can be a headache for any central banker. But it takes a certain type of economist to know what to do when a belligerent spaceship fleet attacks an interstellar trading post, causing mineral prices to surge across the galaxy. Eyjólfur Guðmundsson is just that economist. Working for the Icelandic company CCP Games, he oversees the virtual economy of the massively multiplayer video game Eve Online. Within this world, players build their own spaceships and traverse a galaxy of 7,500 star systems. The Washington Post
"I am calling you from Windows": A tech support scammer dials Ars Technica When the call came yesterday morning, I assumed at first I was being trolled – it was just too perfect to be true. My phone showed only "Private Caller" and, when I answered out of curiosity, I was connected to "John," a young man with a clear Indian accent who said he was calling from "Windows Technical Support." My computer, he told me, had alerted him that it was infested with viruses. He wanted to show me the problem – then charge me to fix it. Ars Technica
The state of the Vita, 2012 Sony won't cut the price of its new handheld in 2012, which many worry could stall its chances of success. With a few big games left in the year and some promising 2013 titles, as well as new indie-friendly programs, can the system pull through? PlayStation Vita is in a precarious position: Part dedicated handheld in direct competition with Nintendo's 3DS, and part mobile device in direct competition with a booming mobile game market, Sony's portable is not only a flexible piece of hardware... Gamasutra
Evasive action: How The Pirate Bay four dodged Swedish justice – for a while On April 17, 2009, the four Swedish men behind file-sharing hub The Pirate Bay (TPB) – Fredrik "tiamo" Neij, Peter "brokep" Sunde, Gottfrid "anakata" Svartholm Warg, and their original financial backer Carl Lundström – were found guilty of aiding copyright infringement. A Swedish trial court ordered them each to serve a year in prison and to pay a collective fine of 30 million Swedish kronor ($4.5 million). They appealed the verdict. In 2010... Ars Technica
The making of: Limbo Artists are often hit by inspiration when they least expect it. Take Swedish writer Astrid Lindgren, who was travelling past a lake on a wintry day in 1972. As a pink light shimmered over the water, she saw something fantastic, "a kind of vision of the dawning light of humanity... I felt something was ignited. 'This may turn into something,' I thought." What it led to was The Brothers Lionheart, her 1973 children's fantasy novel about two brothers who are reunited after their deaths in a faraway land. Edge
Sony is suing Kevin Butler Following a bizarre turn of events and a highly unlikely TV commercial, actor Jerry Lambert - for years the "face" of the PlayStation brand - is being sued, along with Bridgestone, by none other than Sony itself. Despite having made something of a name for himself playing the fictional PlayStation executive Kevin Butler, last month Lambert appeared in an advertisement for Bridgestone tyres playing a competitor's product, the Nintendo Wii. Kotaku
Google puts its virtual brain technology to work This summer Google set a new landmark in the field of artificial intelligence with software that learned how to recognize cats, people, and other things simply by watching YouTube videos (see "Self-Taught Software"). That technology, modeled on how brain cells operate, is now being put to work making Google's products smarter, with speech recognition being the first service to benefit. Technology Review
Cyber gang seeks botmasters to wage massive wave of trojan attacks against U.S. banks In one of the most interesting cases of organized cybercrime this year, a cyber gang has recently communicated its plans to launch a Trojan attack spree on 30 American banks as part of a large-scale orchestrated crimeware campaign. Planned for this fall, the blitzkrieg-like series of Trojan attacks is set to be carried out by approximately 100 botmasters. RSA
Fend off trolls, bots and jerks with 'empathy' test A human rights group is introducing a new take on CAPTCHAs, those little boxes that make you type in a word to prove you are human before you can comment or register for a site. Their version doesn't just present a scrambled word to be deciphered, but instead forces a person to choose the right word to unscramble based on the proper emotional response to a human rights violation. Wired
HP hiring 50+ engineers to work directly on WebOS Last week, HP delivered on a promise that few thought would ever be met; make WebOS fully open source by September 2012. Well, not only did they do it, they are preparing to put a lot of steam behind the project. When a major corporation like HP puts real financial effort behind an open source project of any kind, there is little to complain about. This is no exception. ThePowerBase
What happened to the Facebook killer? It's complicated It's impossible to grasp the consequences or outcomes of new technology, especially when that technology is developed by a twenty-something hacker. That much was already clear in January 2010, when Mark Zuckerberg told TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington that Facebook isn't just a place to connect with your friends. Motherboard
Video: Apple vs. Samsung and the campaign against Google Jurors agreed and hit Samsung with over a billion dollars in damages. Now the question is how will Samsung choose to appeal this decision and more importantly what kind of impact could a verdict like this have on the smartphone and tablet markets? Vimeo