Android Wear software review: Smartwatch software that doesn’t suck

Google wearables: take two.

Believe it or not, Google has been a leader in the wearables space for some time with Google Glass. Glass gives users fast access to information and an easy way to see and deal with (certain) incoming notifications, but the form factor is physically and socially awkward. Wear seems like an evolution of the quick information access that Glass pioneered, all in a more comfortable, less invasive device.

I've used quite a few gadgets in my time, and I've never seen anything become as instantly useful as Android Wear has. It's not just me, either. At Google I/O, every attendee got an Android Wear watch, and after a single day, it seemed like everyone's behavior had changed. A notification sound would go off, which would normally send everyone within earshot rummaging through bags and pockets, but by the second day of I/O, we all just learned to check our watches. Strapping on a Wear watch for a few days changes your mobile workflow. It's an extremely useful device that I plan on wearing from now on for the simple reason that it makes me more productive.

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Android Wear hardware review: Sometimes promising, often frustrating

Why wear one smartwatch when there's room for two?

Andrew Cunningham

We've reviewed most of the major entrants into the smartwatch arena at this point—the Galaxy Gear, the Gear 2 and Gear Fit, and the Qualcomm Toq—but aside from demos at shows, I've stayed away from all of them. I've even skipped the Pebble Steel, which is generally well-regarded compared to the rest of that list.

Because, let's face it: it's pretty clear that none of those wearables are destined for large-scale, mass-market success. They're the MP3 players before the iPod. They're the smartphones before the iPhone. They're niche gadgets for early adopters who are intrigued by their dim glimmer of conceptual promise and can ignore or work around their obvious shortcomings.

Android Wear was the first smartwatch operating system that made me really want to try living with one. Yes, it's another take on the phone-notifications-on-your-wrist thing that smartwatches can't seem to move away from, but as we explore in our software review, it's a version of that idea that will actually work with many existing Android phones and apps. The OS is certainly in a better starting position than it was for any of the others listed above.

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Windows 9 rumors: Microsoft backing away from the Metro world

Microsoft will remove the desktop from mobile-oriented versions of Windows 9, codename "Threshold," writes Mary Jo Foley.

The mobile operating system, available for both ARM phones and tablets, and x86 tablets, won't include a desktop environment at all. Laptop and desktop systems will have the desktop, and will default to it. Hybrid systems are described as offering both a Metro-style mode and a regular desktop mode, governed by whether their keyboards are attached or available.

Neowin reports that Microsoft is going a step further, with the live tile-centric Metro mode disabled by default for desktop machines. Metro apps themselves will still be available, launched from a new hybrid Start menu, residing in regular windows.

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Millions of dynamic DNS users suffer after Microsoft seizes No-IP domains

Microsoft

Millions of legitimate servers that rely on dynamic domain name services from No-IP.com suffered outages on Monday after Microsoft seized 22 domain names it said were being abused in malware-related crimes against Windows users.

Microsoft enforced a federal court order making the company the domain IP resolver for the No-IP domains. Microsoft said the objective of the seizure was to identify and reroute traffic associated with two malware families that abused No-IP services. Almost immediately, end-users, some of which were actively involved in Internet security, castigated the move as heavy handed, since there was no evidence No-IP officially sanctioned or actively facilitated the malware campaign, which went by the names Bladabindi (aka NJrat) and Jenxcus (aka NJw0rm).

"By becoming the DNS authority for those free dynamic DNS domains, Microsoft is now effectively in a position of complete control and is now able to dictate their configuration," Claudio Guarnieri, co-founder of Radically Open Security, wrote in an e-mail to Ars Technica. "Microsoft fundamentally swept away No-IP, which has seen parts of its own DNS infrastructure legally taken away."

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Yahoo secures streaming rights to sixth season of Community

In better news, Yahoo's news of streaming the sixth season of Community didn't mention Chevy Chase's name even once.

NBC's decision to cancel its cult-hit comedy series Community a couple of months ago didn't enrage or depress legions of fans, mostly because they assumed the show was far from dead. Unlike the TV landscape of even a few years ago, streaming services—and their rabid competition for unique, quality content—have amped up negotiations for beloved, canceled series (evidenced by Netflix's deal to air new episodes of Arrested Development in 2013).

Since then, platforms like Hulu, Xbox Live, and Amazon have begun jostling for series of their own, but none of them managed to make the phrase "six seasons and a movie" come closer to reality. That honor instead belongs to Yahoo, who signed a deal with Sony Pictures Television on Monday to produce Community's next (and possibly final) 13-episode season. Fans, breathe easy: off-kilter series creator Dan Harmon will serve as its showrunner.

"I look forward to bringing our beloved NBC sitcom to a larger audience by moving it online," Harmon said in a statement (assumedly joking, since over-the-air and cable viewership numbers still soundly beat streaming views on average). "I vow to dominate our new competition. Rest easy, Big Bang Theory. Look out, Bang Bus!"

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Jilted ex-boyfriend avoids jail for Facebook post on woman’s account

An Irish man received a fine for posting a Facebook status update to his former girlfriend's wall under her name. The Central Criminal Court judge found that the status update was a "reprehensible offense" that "damaged  the woman's good name" according to the Irish Times, though the man managed to avoid a criminal charge over the post.

The posting was created in April 2011 from the woman's phone after the man found out through her text messages that she had started a new relationship. The man, who also faced and was acquitted of charges for allegedly raping and imprisoning the same woman, logged in and posted as her stating that she was "a whore" would take "any offers."

The criminal charges over the post meant the man faced up to ten years in prison and a €10,000 fine under the Criminal Damage Act of 1991. As the Times writes, "The judge noted there was no relevant precedence to guide him in sentencing." The Criminal Damage Act specifically covers property, and the counsel for the Director of Public Prosecutions noted that the incident was more like harassment that caused damage to a reputation.

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Facebook’s emotional experiments on users aren’t all bad

A graph of Facebook's findings: an overall more positive news feed results in more positive generated content, and the same for a negative news feed and negative content.

Facebook scared some of its privacy-conscious users over the weekend by revealing that it performed a scientific study on manipulating the emotional content of users' News Feeds. Since the study came to light, the company has been accused of acting unethically—even illegally—by subjecting its users to an experiment without notice or consent. While the implications of the study are a little frightening, Facebook's study might actually have been a responsible thing to do.

The study in question monitored "emotional words" to see how the overall mood of a user's News Feeds affected that user's status updates. It turned out that users who saw fewer positive sentiments in their feeds produced fewer positive status updates, and users who saw fewer negative sentiments in feeds produced fewer negative updates. The effect was small, to the tune of one less positive or negative word generated per 1,000 emotional words in News Feeds, but it did exist.

Facebook's defense of the study hasn't been exactly deft, with its authors saying that the effects of the study have been overstated and that the experiment was short and no one was permanently scarred. A few reporters have claimed that since Facebook appeared to receive federal funding from the James S. McDonnell Foundation and the Army Research Office for the study, it violated ethical laws by conducting experiments on its users without their consent. Facebook has since announced that the study did not receive federal funding, so it wasn't subject to those ethical regulations.

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Backstage at HP, Ars sees how the sausage gets made

Last week, we had an opportunity to attend a media event at Hewlett-Packard's campus in northwest Houston. Formerly the site of Compaq's headquarters, the large campus is made up of more than a dozen buildings connected by enclosed walkways (jokingly referred to as "habitrails") to keep employees from roasting in Houston's swampy summer heat. In its heyday, Compaq used the complex as both its corporate headquarters and its main manufacturing plant; HP has sold off some of the peripheral buildings, but the company still uses the labs and large manufacturing spaces for some of its corporate and enterprise design and engineering work.

We spent the day touring a half-dozen specialized labs, including HP's software testing lab, environmental lab, materials lab, and electromagnetic lab. In these areas, HP engineers were busy torture-testing all manner of different products from HP's corporate lines—mainly PCs, laptops, and tablets. A number of the tests are designed to terminate in the products' failure (and no small number of engineers were understandably gleeful about having jobs that involved destroying things).

Google

An overhead view of most of the HP campus off of State Highway 249 in northeast Houston. The complex of buildings was formerly Compaq's world headquarters. Visible are the "habitrails" that link the buildings together.

62 more images in gallery

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Ouya announces $60/year subscription to unlock its full games library

New Ouya buyers will get some solid value out of a $60 all-you-can-play pass for the Android game console. Old loyalists who already bought the system's few legitimate hits, however, may be left in the cold.

Recent games shows like the Game Developers Conference and E3 have come and gone with little fanfare or hubbub surrounding the Android-powered Ouya console other than small promotional displays and a seemingly stillborn Ouya Everywhere initiative. This week, Ouya has tried yet again to get gamers' attention by way of a crazy, limited-time bargain: the Ouya All-Access Pass.

The pass, which costs $60 and lasts for a full year, is meant to unlock seemingly unlimited access to the Ouya online store's major paid offerings: namely, "one-time purchases under $30 such as full-game unlocks and level-pack add-ons." However, the fine print explains that downloadable content designed to "enhance gameplay" with options such as "extra lives and power-ups" is not included in the All-Access Pass, which may create a blurry line between what content is and isn't included. Ouya's Chess 2, for example, doesn't include a full "unlock" purchase but rather coin packs used to enable online play at a cost per online session.

The promotion comes on the heels of a March change in Ouya policy allowing developers to make paid games that don't include free demo versions or in-app purchases. That shift made particular sense for a wave of serious games coming to Ouya, including That Dragon, Cancer, and Thralled, whose sensitive content might be undermined by "pay more to keep going!" alerts mid-stream.

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