Canonical has announced the availability of the first Ubuntu 10.04 beta release. The new version of Ubuntu, codenamed Lucid Lynx, is scheduled to arrive in April. It will be a long-term support (LTS) release, which means that updates will be available for three years on the desktop and five years on servers. Although the Ubuntu developers have largely focused on boosting stability for this release, they have also added a number of noteworthy new features and applications. One of the most ..

People love easter eggs. There are a number of humorous yet undocumented features hiding beneath the surface of some of the most popular open source software applications. We ran down five of our favorites .For years, we've heard complaints about using the term "piracy" to describe the online copyright infringementbut most have come from Big Content's critics. Some of those concerned about online copyright infringement now realize that they may have created a monster by using the term ..

The iPad launch is drawing near, so it's not surprising that much of our most popular Apple news for the week was about the highly anticipated device. However, we also saw some news about iPhone app use, Kindle software coming to the Mac, and more. iPad mania: hot presales, iBooks info, 3G model semipopular : Here's a round-up of iPad-related details we discovered today, including some good news about iBooks and why the $130 extra for the 3G + WiFi model might be worth it after all. 40% of ..

Let's look back at the week that was in Microsoft news. Here were the top stories: Microsoft shows off Windows Phone 7 Series dev tools at MIX10 : Microsoft's MIX10 Developer Conference kicked off with much ado about Windows Phone 7 Series and Silverlight 4. Ars reports from Las Vegas. Platform Preview gives Web developers first taste of IE9 : Microsoft has released the Windows Internet Explorer Platform Preview for Web developers to start playing around with Internet Explorer 9. Microsoft is ..

What a week! Post-GDC we share our thoughts on the PlayStation Move after playing with a bunch of the games Sony showed the press, we are pleasantly surprised by a top-down Tomb Raider title, and see just how far gaming has come after playing the XBLA release of Perfect Dark. THQ also continues its string of strong titles with Metro 2033 , a game we review on the PC. Let's see what stories people were talking about in our gaming coverage. Read the comments on this post

Apple is alerting developers that they have just over a week to prepare iPad apps and get them submitted for review if they want them to be in the App Store on April 3. Developers must build their apps using beta 5 of the iPhone OS 3.2 SDK and submit them by 5pm PDT on March 27 to get an initial review by Apple, according to an e-mail sent to developers this afternoon. Reviewers will run the apps on iPad hardware and e-mail developers with notes on the "readiness" of the app, and information ..

Rousseau, Hobbes, and Locke all meditated on the development of social contracts that they considered necessary for people to operate in large societies. Game theory gives scientists a chance to test some of these ideas with hard data. By having people play anonymous games with money, researchers found that people from larger societies, ones that are more integrated into the market, are more likely to be fair in anonymous dealings; these same people are more willing to punish others when they ..

As the climate continues to change, some studies suggest that warmer temperatures may help plants bloom earlier and longer. However, that may not be the whole story. An article published in Science details how different plants respond to different indicators of changing seasons, and why that might ultimately shift the balance of some ecosystems. Phenology, the study of how nature responds to cyclical changes, indicates that non-tropical plants need their environment to fulfill three criteria ..

Apple has been very busy on the mobile front, with the iPad launching in two weeks and iPhone OS and hardware upgrades expected this summer. However, Apple hasn't forgotten about its Mac businesssources for AppleInsider report that long overdue updates to Apple's Cinema Display and Mac Pro will be also appear by June . Expected to join the 24" LED Cinema Display that Apple launched in October of 2008 is a 27" LED Cinema display based on the same panel currently used in the 27" iMac . ..

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) isn't just another secret treatyit's a way of life. If ACTA passes in anything like its current form, it will create an entirely new international secretariat to administer and extend the agreement. Knowledge Ecology International got its hands on more of the leaked ACTA text this week , including a chapter on "Institutional Arrangements" that has not leaked before. The chapter makes clear that ACTA will be far more than a standard trade ..

April 10: General Robert E. Lee's last address to Confederate troops, the Titanic's departure from Southampton, England, my friend Jake's birthday, and now, Google's rumored pull-out date in China. The company is preparing to announce its decision as soon as March 22, according to an anonymous source speaking to the China Business News, though it likely won't be the end of the company's operations in the region. The newspaper's source, quoted by Bloomberg , said that Google's Chinese staff will ..

Firefox's flexible XUL framework and sophisticated add-on system offer a rich platform for enhancing browser functionality. Mozilla Labs takes advantage of this capability as it experiments with new concepts for augmenting Web interaction. Some of the latest experiments to emerge from Mozilla Labs aim to make contacts and identity a core part of the browser. Mozilla has announced the availability of an experimental new add-on for Firefox that is designed to import information about the user's ..

Microsoft's development direction of Internet Explorer 9 is unambiguous: implementing HTML5 Web standards is the name of the game, with the intent of letting developers use the "same markup" to work everywhere. As IE General Manager Dean Hachamovitch said at MIX10 this week, "We love HTML5 so much we actually want it to work." Redmond is targeting real-world applications based on real-world data. For example, every single JavaScript and DOM API used by the top 7,000 websites was recorded. IE9 ..

The fourth annual Pwn2Own contest which takes place at the CanSecWest security conference every yearkicks off next week. Like last year , 2010's contest will offer security experts and hackers the chance to "pwn" a number of mobile platforms in addition to various browser/OS combinations. Though no mobile devices were successfully hacked last year, expectations are high that the iPhone will go down in this year's contest. "With all the recent research on mobile phone security ..

It goes without saying that we love Plants vs. Zombies here at Ars Technica, especially the pocket-sized iPhone version of the game that was just released. If you haven't played it, you can download the free demo here and even get 10 percent off if you decide to buy the full game. It's a bizarre, funny, and addictive strategy title with a quirky art style, but the most surprising thing about it is that it was originally supposed to be an entirely different game. What many gamers don't realize ..

It's Friday, and if you're like me there is some question of what game you're going to play over the weekend. Or maybe you're looking forward to playing with your children or spending time with your wife? You should scuttle any plan you have of going outside into the daystar, because we have something very special to give away. You see, Blizzard has invited us to, well, invite a friend to the StarCraft 2 beta. I could slam that code on eBay and make a few hundred dollars, but instead I am ..

Earlier this year, Amazon found itself in a showdown over e-book pricing with publisher Macmillan, which wanted the ability to set pricing for its works. Amazon initially pulled all of Macmillan's titles off its virtual shelves but, a few days later, conceded there was little it could do Macmillan's works went back on sale, and Amazon apparently gave up on trying to force its prices on the company. Despite that rousing lack of success, reports are now indicating that several other ..

Reports have been swirling that Apple plans to ban screen protectors from its brick and mortar retail stores, but for the time being, the items seem to be plentiful throughout many store locations. Several Apple Stores we contacted Thursday afternoon assured Ars that there were currently "plenty" of screen protectors in stock, and did not indicate that this would change anytime soon. (One sales associate went as far as listing off all the variations that were in stock.) None of the outlets ..

Sales of digital downloads have not been enough to make up for the decline of CD sales since its peak in 2000. Universal Music Group plans to soften the fall of CD sales by dropping prices across the board , to a maximum of $10. The company plans to test lower prices beginning next month and continuing throughout 2010. Nearly all of UMG's CDs will priced between $6 and $10. UMG is hoping that increased volume will make up for the price drop, and the company plans to create more higher-priced ..

Court documents in the $1 billion lawsuit between Viacom and YouTube were unsealed today, finally shedding some light on key questions: did Viacom have "smoking gun" evidence that YouTube was deliberately profiting from 62,637 Viacom clips that were watched more than 507 million times on the site? Was Google aware of the copyright infringement problems when it purchased YouTube in 2006? Were YouTube's own founders involved in uploading unauthorized materials? On all three counts, Viacom says ..