Talynebear

(credit: Vieilles Annonces)

On Thursday, Tesla filed a lawsuit against three Michigan officials (PDF)—Secretary of State Ruth Johnson, Attorney General Bill Schuette, and Governor Rick Snyder—on the grounds that the state is violating the electric vehicle company’s right to sell Teslas directly from the manufacturer instead of through a dealer.

Section 445.1574 of Michigan’s code prohibits any auto manufacturer from being able to “Sell any new motor vehicle directly to a retail customer other than through franchised dealers, unless the retail customer is a nonprofit organization or a federal, state, or local government or agency.”

Tesla's complaint claims that this law violates "the Due Process, Equal Protection, and Commerce Clauses of the Constitution as applied to Tesla, by prohibiting Tesla from selling its vehicles directly to consumers and by precluding Tesla from performing service and repairs within the State."

Data cap cash. (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images)

If you were worried that the debate over Internet data caps would get bogged down in technical mumbo-jumbo, fear no more—it's actually much simpler than you think.

Mediacom, a US cable company with a little over 1.1 million Internet subscribers in 22 states, has put the matter to rest by explaining to the Federal Communications Commission that its customers shouldn't get unlimited data because using the Internet is just like eating Oreos.

"You have to pay extra for double-stuffed," Mediacom Senior VP and General Counsel Joseph Young wrote in a filing with the FCC last week.

Update (Sept. 27): As expected, Microsoft has pulled Xbox One support from the emulator discussed below. Those that purchased and downloaded the app before the change can still use it on their systems, but new purchases can only use the app on Windows PC and mobile devices (and Windows Holographic, if they happen to have that).

Despite the change, the written description for the app still claims Xbox One support, leading to anger from some commenters on the Windows Store page. "I'm pissed," writes one commenter going by the handle jackson. "I just hear about this and I go to buy it so I can play some sweet n64 games but now the app doesn't run on Xbox. So either this gets updated, or I WANT A REFUND!"

Original story: In previous generations, if you wanted to emulate one game console on another, you'd generally have to use some sort of jailbreak or hack to install unauthorized homebrew apps on the system. Today, thanks in part to Microsoft's Universal Windows Platform, you can download a Nintendo 64 emulator to your Xbox One directly from Microsoft's official store.

Enlarge / The iPhone 6S and 6S Plus and the sixth-generation iPod Touch were all introduced in Q4. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

A non-practicing entity called MobileMedia Ideas LLC won a patent lawsuit against Apple today, with a Delaware federal jury finding that Apple should pay $3 million (£2.3 million) for infringing MobileMedia's patent RE39,231, which relates to ring-silencing features on mobile phones.

MobileMedia is an unusual example of the kind of pure patent-licensing entity often derided as a "patent troll." It is majority-owned by MPEG-LA, a patent pool that licenses common digital video technologies like H-264, MPEG-2, and MPEG-4. Minority stakes in MobileMedia are owned by Sony and Nokia, which both contributed the patents owned by the company. MobileMedia also has the same CEO as MPEG-LA, Larry Horn.

The report of the verdict comes from legal newswire Law360. The verdict form wasn't immediately available from PACER, the federal courts database.

Enlarge / We hope Blizzard taps Ars' own Aurich Lawson for graphic-design duties on what we assume will be a new logo for the renamed Battle.net. (credit: Aurich Lawson)

If you've touched PC gaming over the last two decades, chances are good that you've logged in to the Battle.net service at least once. Blizzard Entertainment's hugely popular online-gaming network has connected every one of the developer's PC games since 1996, and while the service has expanded and added myriad options over the years, its name has held on—which we at Ars think is awesome, considering "dot net" sounds delightfully dated.

Apparently, 1996 called, and it wants its old-sounding domain name back.

Blizzard used its World of Warcraft blog to announce the name-change news on Wednesday, where an unnamed representative confirmed that the company's online-matchmaking services will soon be dubbed "Blizzard tech." The company didn't offer a firm date for the name change other than indicating that we can expect the change "over the next several months."

Enlarge / Elon Musk prepares to testify at a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Wednesday, March 5, 2014. (credit: Pete Marovich/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Elon Musk will deliver this year’s most anticipated aerospace speech on Tuesday at the International Astronautical Conference in Mexico. The talk, “Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species,” marks a singular moment for the man who has upended the global launch industry during the last five years and will now finally peel away some of the layers of his grand vision to colonize Mars—and possibly other places in the Solar System.

It was mooted in some aerospace circles that Musk might change the focus of his much-advertised speech at the IAC meeting after the loss of a Falcon 9 rocket earlier this month (the second), the cause of which remains unknown to the public. However, its central theme will remain how to address the challenges of creating a self-sustaining colony on Mars. Indeed, SpaceX recently added a livestream of the talk to its site, complete with a photo of Mars. Clearly, Musk and his company are pressing ahead with their Mars ambitions even as the very difficult, real-world work of assessing an Earth-bound rocket failure continues.

After the speech it seems likely that details about Musk’s much-hyped architecture for Mars exploration—the big spacecraft known variously as the Mars Colonial Transporter or Interplanetary Transport System and rocket, the BFR—will capture the most attention. Everyone wants to see these vehicles, which undoubtedly will ooze magnificence. But at Ars we’ll be watching for something much more prosaic, namely, who pays for all this?

Enlarge / A Standard Missile 6 launches to engage an over-the-horizon threat as part of the US Navy’s first live fire demonstration to successfully test the integration of the F-35 with existing Naval Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air (NIFC-CA) architecture on September 12. (credit: US Army)

In a test at the White Sands Missile Range this week, an unmodified US Marine Corps F-35B fighter successfully acted as an airborne spotter for the Navy's Aegis Weapon System, locking onto and passing targeting information for an "over the horizon" threat to a Standard 6 missile. The missile, launched by the USS Desert Ship—a US Navy ground facility at White Sands that emulates an Aegis-equipped cruiser or guided missile destroyer—"successfully detected and engaged the target," according to a statement issued by the Navy's Program Executive Office-Integrated Warfare Systems.

The test showed that all F-35 fighters can connect into the Navy's current version of the Naval Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air (NIFC-CA) network architecture. What that means is that the radar systems aboard the F-35s now making their way out to the Marine Corps and Navy will be able to act as extensions of Navy ships, allowing them to pass targeting data on incoming aircraft, drones, and cruise or ballistic missiles to Ticonderoga-class cruisers and Arleigh Burke class destroyers, who can then in turn push a button and launch an SM6 (also known as the RIM-174 Standard Extended Range Active Missile)—a missile with an effective range of up to 250 nautical miles (460 kilometers, 290 miles)—to take out the threat. Additionally, the same integration could allow the F-35 to target ships and other surface targets for missile strikes from an Aegis ship.

Aegis is the weapon system first deployed in the 1980s aboard the USS Ticonderoga. It is the backbone of the surface Navy's air and missile defense capabilities, originally developed to work with the giant SPY-1 phased-array radar systems deployed aboard the Ticonderoga and its sister ships. But Aegis' software has been gradually extended to take in targeting information from a broad collection of other sources and has even been adapted for ballistic missile defense, including a current land-based Aegis system in Romania and a future "Aegis Ashore" ballistic missile defense site in Poland. Ars will be taking a deeper look at Aegis and ballistic missile defense in an upcoming feature.

(credit: Aurich Lawson / Thinkstock)

The two Republican members of the Federal Communications Commission have refused to give Congress documents needed to complete an investigation into the FCC's net neutrality rulemaking process, according to a lawmaker.

"Your refusal to cooperate with the Committee's request is unacceptable, it obstructs our investigation, and it prevents the Committee from having a complete or accurate understanding of the circumstances surrounding this rulemaking," US Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland) wrote in a letter to FCC Commissioners Ajit Pai and Michael O'Rielly yesterday.

There are "serious questions" about "Pai's efforts to organize opposition to the proposed rule with outside parties," Cummings' office said in a related press release.

(credit: Photo Phiend)

Paul Hansmeier, one of the masterminds behind the "porn trolling" scheme known as Prenda Law, has had his license to practice law suspended indefinitely. He can't ask for his license to be reinstated for at least four years.

Hansmeier and his colleague John Steele acquired copyrights to porn films and then sued thousands of "John Doe" defendants for allegedly illegal downloads of those films. Prenda Law made several million dollars before unraveling under a barrage of judicial sanctions beginning in 2013.

Minnesota's Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility asked for Hansmeier to be disbarred or suspended last year. An order (PDF) published earlier this week shows that Hansmeier has admitted to the charges and agreed to be disciplined by the Minnesota Supreme Court.

Enlarge / Free, unfiltered Web browsing—without a data plan. (credit: Jacob Ajit)

Jacob Ajit, a 17-year-old student at the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax, Virginia, was bored and screwing around with a smartphone that had service and a SIM for T-Mobile's prepaid phone service. He soon discovered it was possible to still gain access to the Internet without paying for an account; all he had to do was route everything through a proxy application running on a server with "/speedtest" in its Web address.

The T-Mobile prepaid SIM makes it possible to pay for new service from the phone itself. This requires the phone to be able to connect to T-Mobile's network to do so, essentially blocking access to the rest of the Internet through a capture portal until the account is activated. But Ajit found that the Speedtest mobile app worked even when the phone's data plan hadn't been activated—likely as a marketing tool to demonstrate the speed of T-Mobile's 4G network.

By capturing some of the data sent to Speedtest when connected to a shared network connection through his Mac (he used mitmproxy to do so), Ajit discovered the graphics used in the Speedtest app to measure download speed were hosted on a number of different sites. The only similarity in them was their Web addresses all included "/speedtest" in the URL. He manually entered the URLs into a browser on the phone and was able to reach them despite the T-Mobile block.

Enlarge / A scene from Digital Homicide's Starship: Nova Strike. (credit: Digital Homicide)

A game developer has been banned from Steam after users claimed that it had attempted to sue 100 users of the platform for $18 million (£13.8 million)—for the crime of leaving bad reviews.

Digital Homicide, which has released dozens of small games mostly available for a couple of quid each, had its titles removed from Valve's popular digital distribution platform on Friday night. Its boss James Romine was granted a subpoena by a court in Arizona apparently allowing him to demand the release of "identification and associated data" of anonymous Steam users.

The lawsuit listed in turn the misdemeanours of dozens of John/Jane Does, which include counts of "harassment," "stalking," and "cyber-bullying."

In a US federal civil rights lawsuit, a Connecticut man has shared footage to bolster his claims that police illegally confronted the pedestrian because he was filming one of them. Authorities seized Michael Picard's camera and his permitted pistol, and the officers involved then accidentally recorded themselves allegedly fabricating charges against the man.

Picard's police encounter began as he was protesting a sobriety checkpoint while lawfully carrying a handgun in a holster. The plaintiff often protests near sobriety checkpoints in the Hartford region and is known by locals and police in the area, according to court documents. "Cops Ahead: Keep Calm and Remain Silent," read the 3-foot-by-2-foot sign Picard held up to motorists ahead of the checkpoint in West Hartford last year.

According to the lawsuit, trooper John Barone walked up to Picard and said "someone called in" a complaint about a man "waving a gun and pointing it at people." It's a claim the lawsuit alleges is fabricated. The lawsuit also states that Barone "swatted" the digital camera out of Picard's hands and onto the ground, at which point the battery dislodged. Barone seized Picard's pistol and "took the handgun permit out of Picard's pants pocket," according to the suit.

Enlarge / Highway viewed from the motor vehicle. (credit: Getty Images | chombosan)

On Monday, the National Highway Transportation Safety Agency published its long-awaited Federal Automated Vehicles Policy. NHTSA is the part of the US government responsible for regulating the vehicles we drive, and it's broadly in favor of self-driving technology given the potential to reduce the death toll on the nation's roads. That toll, by the way, nudged above 35,000 in 2015 (up almost 8 percent on the previous year).

The new document includes both a performance guidance (as opposed to regulation) for automated vehicles as well as a model policy for individual states to follow. As is the case with new federal government policies, the document is open for public comment for the next 60 days.

What does the guidance say?

First at bat is NHTSA's decision to abandon its own scale of autonomous driving levels. Instead, the agency will use the SAE scale; this goes from Level 0 (where a human driver does everything) to level 5 (completely automated). Cars equipped with adaptive cruise control and lane keep assist, traffic jam assist, or Autopilot fall somewhere between SAE's Levels 2 and 3:

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Samsung has unveiled its next generation M.2 PCIe SSDs, the 960 PRO and 960 Evo. Like the 950 Pro, which was released last year, the 960 Pro and 960 Evo are PCIe 3.0 x4 drives that use the latest NVMe protocol for data transfer.

As you'd expect, both are faster: the 960 Pro offers a blistering peak read speed of 3.5GB/s and a peak write speed of 2.1GB/s, while the Evo offers 3.2GB/s and 1.9GB/s respectively. The 950 topped out at a mere 2.5GB/s and 1.5GB/s.

The 960 Pro and the 960 Evo are due for release in October. The Pro starts at $329 for 512GB of storage, rising up to a cool $1,299 for a 2TB version. The Evo is a little lighter on the wallet, starting at $129 for a 250GB version, rising to $479 for a 1TB version. UK pricing is yet to be confirmed, but a 512GB 950 Pro currently retails for around £300.

Enlarge (credit: Pardon Snowden)

Edward Snowden and his allies have formally made the case that he should be pardoned by President Barack Obama. The ACLU, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch launched the PardonSnowden.org website today to press the cause, and Snowden himself spoke to The Guardian in a video interview.

“If not for these disclosures, we would be worse off," said Snowden, speaking to Guardian reporter Ewen MacAskill, one of the journalists with whom he shared secret documents in 2013. "Yes, there are laws on the books that say one thing, but that is perhaps why the pardon power exists. For the things that may seem unlawful in letters on a page but when we look at them morally, when we look at them ethically, when we look at the results, it seems these were necessary things, these were vital things."

Snowden argued that the changes put in place by Congress, US courts, and the president all show that society has benefited from his actions, adding that "there has never been any public evidence that any individual came to harm as a result."

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Yuri_Arcurs)

US Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) yesterday proposed legislation that would allow cities and towns to build their own Internet services even in states that have laws restricting municipal broadband.

Eshoo's Community Broadband Act of 2016 comes a month after the states of North Carolina and Tennessee won a federal appeals court ruling preserving laws preventing municipal broadband providers from expanding outside their territories. The Federal Communications Commission had tried to overturn the laws, which remain in place in about 20 states.

“I’m disappointed that a recent court ruling blocked the FCC’s efforts to allow local communities to decide for themselves how best to ensure that their residents have broadband access,” Eshoo said in an announcement. “Rather than restricting local communities in need of broadband, we should be empowering them to make the decisions they determine are in the best interests of their constituents. Too many Americans still lack access to quality, affordable broadband and community broadband projects are an important way to bring this critical service to more citizens.”