Appeals court says Apple is liable for e-book price fixing

The Second Court of Appeals has affirmed (PDF) that Apple is liable for engaging in e-book price fixing, holding up the 2013 judgment of a district court that ruled in favor of the Department of Justice (DoJ) and 33 states.

The DoJ sued Apple as well as publishers Penguin, HarperCollins, Hachette, Simon & Schuster, and Macmillan back in 2012. The publishers agreed to settle for $164 million. Apple fought the charges and lost, and it appealed the decision in February 2014.

When it appealed last year, Apple argued that at the time of its entry into the e-book business, Amazon was its only real competitor, and Amazon was selling e-books for $9.99, which Apple said was well below a competitive range. Instead, Apple said that it worked with publishers to hit a price point that would help Apple be profitable enough to enter the e-book market.

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Report: In test dogfight, F-35 gets waxed by F-16

A test pilot report obtained by defense journalist David Axe of War is Boring detailed the performance of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter in a mock air battle against a two-seat F-16D in January. The F-16D—based on a design developed 40 years ago, and from a production run in the mid-1990s—bested the F-35 in close-range combat maneuvers.

In the report, which Axe had obtained but did not publish in full, the F-35 pilot reported that his aircraft was in a "clean" configuration for the test, carrying nothing under its wings or in its internal weapons bays. The F-16, on the other hand, was flying with under-wing external fuel drop-tanks, which in theory would have put the aircraft at an aerodynamic disadvantage.

Apparently, it didn't. "Even with the limited F-16 target configuration, the F-35A remained at a distinct energy disadvantage for every engagement," the F-35 pilot reported. That means the F-35 constantly found itself flying slower and more sluggishly, unable to effectively maneuver to get the F-16 in its sights.

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Rogue System’s early access alpha puts the “sim” in “space sim”

I’ve spent the past four nights sitting in the darkened cockpit of a fictional but mostly plausible spaceship. For an hour or two at a time, I busily turn knobs, flip switches, and watch gauges. Every once in a great while, I’ll very slowly fly a few hundred meters out from the station where the ship spends most of its time moored, then turn around and very slowly fly back—and then I’ll stop and go back to the switches and gauges.

Welcome to Rogue System. It’s a little different from the kinds of combat-focused space sims we’ve had our hands on lately, like Elite: Dangerous—this is much more a module for the realism-oriented DCS World simulation package, crossed with a bit of Kerbal Space Program just for grits and shins. It’s also not actually much of a game yet—there are six tutorial missions you can "play" through, and you can also kind-of-sort-of fly around in free flight mode (by selecting one of the tutorial missions and turning the "tutorial" part off), but the actual game itself is still in early development.

The semi-official "how to undock your ship in Rogue System" video by Youtuber Deephack.

Well—sort of. Rogue System has actually been busy being born for more than two years, and developer Michael Juliano ran an unsuccessful crowdfunding campaign in 2013 to try to assist in funding development of the game. After that didn’t work out, Juliano put development on hold and returned to his day job; now, after a considerable hiatus, Juliano has brought on publisher Image Space Inc and has released a completely redone version of the game as an early access title.

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Daily builds? Microsoft bangs out two public Windows 10 builds in two days

Daily Windows 10 builds? OK, not really. Or at least not yet. But Microsoft will today be releasing a new Windows 10 Insider Preview build, version 10159, to its fast track testers just a day after releasing build 10158 to the fast track.

Yesterday's build was the first to sport the new Microsoft Edge branding in the browser—prior builds had used the "Project Spartan" codename—along with many bug fixes and other minor improvements. Today's build includes a further 300 fixed bugs, along with another piece of branding: it includes the new default wallpaper, a Windows logo made with lasers.

As we discussed a couple of weeks ago, both yesterday's build and today's build are on the final path toward creating the release-to-manufacturing (RTM) build. While early builds didn't have Windows Activation and preinstalled the Insider Hub for getting news about the previews, the latest builds are set up for the general public. As such, they include the activation system and only preinstall the apps that will ship when Windows 10 goes live.

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AppleCare+ will replace your battery once it drops to 80% of its capacity

The battery in your iPhone or Apple Watch is a precious resource, and it becomes more precious as your devices age and their batteries begin to lose capacity. One solution to this problem is to buy an aftermarket replacement battery, look up an iFixit guide, and crack your phone or tablet open yourself. If you've paid for the AppleCare+ extended warranty program, though, we've got good news.

Apple will now replace any battery covered by AppleCare+ once it drops below 80 percent of its original capacity, as outlined in refreshed AppleCare+ documents spotted by MacRumors late last week and reported on other sites today. Previously, a battery had to drop to 50 percent of its original capacity to be eligible for replacement under AppleCare+, limiting its helpfulness to all but the heaviest users and those with defective batteries.

Note that this change only applies to devices eligible for AppleCare+. The iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, and Apple Watch lines are covered; the standard AppleCare protection program for the Mac will only replace batteries that have proven to be defective.

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Facebook Messenger no longer requires Facebook account in US, Canada

On Tuesday, Facebook changed the login process for its Messenger app, meaning users no longer need to have a Facebook account in order to talk to the service's members. All they need is a phone number—but not a landline one.

Ars confirmed the change by installing and testing the Facebook Messenger app. Now when Android and iOS users load the app without having been logged in, they will see a smaller-text option that reads, "Not on Facebook?" If a user taps that, the app will automatically fill in the device's default number if it's a mobile phone, which can be changed—but whatever number is used, it has to accept SMS, as Facebook confirms your phone number via a text message.

Once that has been done, Messenger asks for a full name—which, again, it will auto-populate based on your mobile device's information, but you can delete and retype that as you see fit. It also asks new users to upload an image, but that's not required. Phone-only Messenger users only have one way to add new contacts: by entering the phone number attached to any FB profiles. Searching by name won't work; you'll have to ask friends for their account phone numbers (or let the app comb your contact list for numbers that match up with Facebook accounts).

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You are free to crowdfund: Kickstarter wins its first patent case

Crowdfunding platform Kickstarter was approached by a competing platform, ArtistShare, in 2011. Just what happened next is disputed. ArtistShare founder Brian Camelio says he wanted to strike a business deal with Kickstarter.

In court papers, Kickstarter said that Camelio had a patent he said Kickstarter was infringing, and Camello intended to sue. Kickstarter took the matter to court first, filing a lawsuit seeking to invalidate the patent. The move left Camelio "stunned and disappointed," he said in a 2011 interview.

This week, Camelio, who founded ArtistShare in 2003, may be even more disappointed. His patent, "Methods and Apparatuses for Financing and Marketing a Creative Work," is no more. It was invalidated in an order (PDF) published yesterday, four years after his dispute with Kickstarter began.

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Secret US court allows resumption of bulk phone metadata spying

A secret US tribunal ruled late Monday that the National Security Agency is free to continue its bulk telephone metadata surveillance program—the same spying that Congress voted to terminate weeks ago.

Congress disavowed the program NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden exposed when passing the USA Freedom Act, which President Barack Obama signed June 2. The act, however, allowed for the program to be extended for six months to allow "for an orderly transition" to a less-invasive telephone metadata spying program.

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Carbon Origins: Space Chase

The founders of Carbon Origins moved to the desert to launch rockets. It was harder than they expected.

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Retrotechtacular: Building Hammond Organ Tones

Here’s a short film made by the Hammond Organ Company with the intent to educate and persuade potential consumers. Right away we are assured that Hammond organs are the cream of the crop for two simple reasons: the tone generator that gives them that unique Hammond sound, and the great care taken at every step of their construction.

Hammond organs have ninety-one individual electromagnetic tone wheel assemblies. Each of these generate a specific frequency based on the waviness of a spinning disk’s edge and the speed at which it is rotated in front of an electromagnet. By using the drawbars to stack up harmonics, an organist can build lush walls of sound.

No cost is spared in Hammond’s tireless pursuit of excellence. All transformers are wound in-house and then sealed in wax to make them impervious to moisture. Each tone wheel is cut to exacting tolerances, cross-checked, and verified by an audio specialist. The assembly and fine tuning of the tone generators is so carefully performed that Hammond alleges they’ll never need tuning again.

This level of attention isn’t limited to the guts of the instrument. No, the cabinetry department is just as meticulous. Only the highest-quality lumber is carefully dried, cut, sanded, and lacquered by hand, then rubbed to a high shine. Before it leaves the shop, every Hammond organ is subject to rigorous inspection and a performance test in a soundproofed room.

Thanks for the tip, [LaLaLamer].

Retrotechtacular is a weekly column featuring hacks, technology, and kitsch from ages of yore. Help keep it fresh by sending in your ideas for future installments.

Filed under: Hackaday Columns, Retrotechtacular

Over the Top: A Brief History of 21st Century BattleMechs

When historians of the future look back on the history of giant mechanized robot warriors, they'll say it all started with BattleBots.

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The post Over the Top: A Brief History of 21st Century BattleMechs appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.

Op-ed: Safari is the new Internet Explorer

Last weekend I attended EdgeConf, a conference populated by many of the leading lights in the Web industry. It featured panel talks and breakout sessions with a focus on technologies that are just now starting to emerge in browsers, so there was a lot of lively discussion around Service Worker, Web Components, Shadow DOM, Web Manifests, and more.

EdgeConf’s hundred-odd attendees were truly the heavy hitters of the Web community. The average Twitter follower count in any given room was probably in the thousands, and all the major browser vendors were represented—Google, Mozilla, Microsoft, Opera. We had lots of fun peppering them with questions about when they might release such-and-such API.

There was one company not in attendance, though, and it served as the proverbial elephant in the room that no one wanted to discuss. I heard it referred to cagily as “a company in California” or “a certain fruit company.” Its glowing logo illuminated nearly every laptop in the room, and yet it seemed like nobody dared speak its name. Of course I’m talking about Apple.

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Google dev apologizes after Photos app tags black people as “gorillas”

Last month, Google rolled out an updated version of its Photos app that had been divorced from Google+ and bolstered with a few slight tweaks—in particular, its ability to automatically tag photos and generate albums based on objects it identifies, including "food" and "landscapes."

And it's only photos I have with her it's doing this with (results truncated b/c personal): http://pic.twitter.com/h7MTXd3wgo

— diri noir avec banan (@jackyalcine) June 29, 2015

Unfortunately, that object database not only included wild animals but also conflated them with humans—specifically, on Monday, when an African-American man looked in his Google Photos collection and discovered an automatically generated album of him and his black female friend labeled "gorillas."

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