Photography at Padma

Microsoft to let indie developers self-publish on Xbox Live Arcade (Updated)

FURTHER UPDATE: Microsoft's Marc Whitten tells Kotaku that self-published indie games on Xbox One won't be relegated to a separate section, like the Xbox 360's lightly frequented Xbox Live Indie Games clearinghouse. Instead, "my goal is for it to just show up in the marketplace," with different search "pivots" and curated, featured content to aid in discoverability. "But you shouldn't think of it as there's an indie area and a non-indie area."

Fake memory implanted in mice with a beam of light

If you’ve ever been frustrated by erratic memories, spare a thought for the mice involved in a study published in the journal Science. Researchers have been able to consistently create a “false memory,” making a mouse fearful of a place it has no reason to fear. The memory was implanted by shining blue light into the mouse’s brain, which triggered a carefully chosen group of neurons.

73 percent of Ouya owners haven’t paid for a single game

Most of the time, when you launch a new console, you can be confident that almost everyone who purchases the hardware will buy at least one game. Not so with the Ouya, which CEO Julie Uhrmantells The Verge has only seen 27 percent of its user base drop even a single dime on a game. The news comes after many Ouya developers have gone public with disappointing initial sales numbers on the console, ranging from the hundreds to the low thousands.

Google announces Android 4.3, the latest incremental Jelly Bean update

After weeks of leaks, other leaks, and false starts, Google finally unveiled Android 4.3 at this morning's breakfast event with Android and Chrome head Sundar Pichai.

Hey kids! Learn to be “cyber smart” from the NSA’s youth page!

The National Security Agency wants your kids to know that it's cool to be "cyber smart."

As part of the agency's outreach to promote interest in technology and recruit a future generation of computer security experts, the NSA has links on its homepage to two sites targeted at children and adolescents. The "Kids Page," intended for elementary age children, appears to be down at the moment—either that, or the error code reference (Reference #97.887ffea5.1374616699.dc7bfc5) is an encoded message to grade school operatives that it's time to report in.

NSA head admits the agency made “huge set of mistakes” in 2009

On Thursday, at the Aspen Security Forum—a $1,500-per-head conference held this week in the Rocky Mountains—the head of the National Security Agency (NSA) admitted that the spy agency had been overbroad in its acquisition of telephone data.

NSA Director General Keith Alexander told the assembled crowd at the Aspen forum that when President Barack Obama first took office in January 2009, he called out the agency on its blanket data collection practices.

Tech giants named in PRISM want to see an NSA “transparency report”

A high-powered coalition of civil liberties groups and tech titans—including all but one of the companies involved in the National Security Agency’s PRISM program—is demanding greater transparency about covert government surveillance programs, as well as the growing body of secret law that authorizes them. 

Judge rules anti-child-porn statute doesn’t infringe on sexting adults

Today, a Philadelphia-based federal judge issued an order (PDF) rejecting a First Amendment challenge to the constitutionality of a pair of laws that require creators of sexually explicit media to maintain records certifying that those depicted in their works are 18 or older.

Why It Doesn’t Matter If Edward Snowden Is A Hypocrite

Anti-authoritarian data leaker Edward Snowden is officially seeking the warm embrace of Russia, a country known for disappearing journalists and running a propaganda arm in the guise of a public media station. He’s also deliberately withheld the most damning information about how the National Security Agency actually operates. Yet, even if Snowden joined the Russian KGB, his exposé of highly controversial U.S. spying programs would be just as valuable.

WhatsApp, Finally Goes For A Subscription Model on iOS

While messaging has become a veritable war with apps like Line, KakaoTalk, WeChat, Path and Facebook Messenger across Asia and Western markets, there’s been one longstanding app that’s presided over the space with very few apparent changes.

Google in talks to create its own streaming live TV service

Google is reportedly looking to create a streaming TV service, according to the Wall Street Journal. Google has been meeting with media companies to negotiate for TV channels streamed over broadband connections, creating competition for TV programming providers like Comcast or Time Warner.

Court Will Reportedly Declassify Yahoo’s Fight Against PRISM

Yahoo will be allowed to prove that it fought against the National Security Agency’s internet spying program, PRISM. A secret court ruled on Monday that the government should investigate how it can declassify the legal battle,

Gesture In The Picture, As Intel Reportedly Picks Up Omek But PrimeSense Dismisses Apple Acquisition Rumors

Yet more exits for Israeli startups, with the latest two developments a throwback to the hardware and engineering muscle that raised the tech profile of the region in the first place, before theWaze’s of the world got us thinking about Israel as a hotbed of consumer internet companies, as well as an indication that gesture-based controls such as those in Microsoft’s Kinect system are likely going to become even more prevalent. Today, reports leaked out that Intel has acquired Omek Interactive, a company it had already invested in that makes technology for gesture-based interfaces.

The NES turns 30: How it began, worked, and saved an industry

We're right on the cusp of another generation of game consoles, and whether you're an Xbox One fanperson or a PlayStation 4 zealot you probably know what's coming if you've been through a few of these cycles. The systems will launch in time for the holidays, it will have one or two decent launch titles, there will be perhaps a year or two when the new console and the old console coexist on store shelves, and then the "next generation" becomes the current generation—until we do it all again a few years from now.

Volcanic earthquakes produce a “seismic scream” just before eruption

Volcanic activity is intimately associated with seismic activity. You simply can't force molten or semi-molten rock through a mountain without cracking a few faults in the process. If we were ever able to understand how to read the seismic activity correctly, it could provide valuable advanced warning about impending eruptions.

Disgruntled Google users try to live a low-Google lifestyle

Google’s services are undergoing some shape-shifting lately, with new features in places likeHangouts and the Latitude redundancy. Other services, like Reader, are simply disappearing.

Given the breadth and depth of Google's services, many people use at least one of them. But a pair of writers have become uncomfortable with how the company has not only permeated their lives, but how it keeps rearranging itself. Over the last few days, these two have laid out their plans for moving on.

USB 3.0 continues to steal Thunderbolt’s thunder

For Thunderbolt fans hoping that the high-speed interface will catch on, we've got more bad news: an Acer representative talking to CNET has said that the company has no plans to support Thunderbolt in its PCs this year. Acer's Aspire S5 Ultrabook was one of the few Windows laptops to include Thunderbolt support when it was introduced in early 2012.

Ars Technicast, Episode 30: How to ruin a NASA capsule with a sandwich

In this episode of the Ars Technicast we talk about NASA in light of next week’s 44th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. We are excited to welcome special guest Amy Shira Teitel, a journalist who specializes in the history of NASA. According to Teitel, the Apollo 11 trip warped our perception of space travel. The mission set up the expectation that space travel was only limited by our imaginations, but the facts and requirements of actual space travel tell a different story, Teitel says.

Virus removal squad: Ars readers talk security measures

 Let's say you work for a government agency and it becomes apparent that many computers on your network may be infected with some malware. What do you do? Well, if you're the Economic Development Administration, you cut your network off from the rest of the world, hire an outside security contractor, and then physically destroy $170,500 worth of equipment.