Ars Technica

arstechnica.com — Motorola facilitated the sale of a bunch of refurbished Xoom tablets with former owners' data still on them, the company announced in a press release Friday. The Xooms were part of a deal on flash sale site woot.com last fall, and of the thousands sold, 100 were shipped out to new owners with information the previous owners had left on them, including passwords, account information, photos, and documents.

arstechnica.com — Mozilla is developing a push notification system for the Firefox Web browser. It will allow users to receive notifications from websites without having to keep those sites open in their browser. The system will also be able to relay push notifications to mobile devices.

arstechnica.com — A group of former FDA scientists who spoke out against the agency's allegedly flawed device-approval process are suing the feds for intercepting Gmail and Yahoo Mail messages by installing spy programs on their work computers. Although the computers were owned by the government, the plaintiffs say they were explicitly granted the right to use them for personal purposes.

arstechnica.com — The 2009 flu pandemic, although not especially deadly, revealed just how quickly a new influenza virus could elude surveillance and spread internationally. It also left health experts eying the disease that many fear could cause the next pandemic: H5N1, the avian flu.

arstechnica.com — For the first time, the NFL is providing live streaming video of the Super Bowl, both on Web browsers and through a smartphone application. Now you'll have any number of viewing options and combinations: sit in front of an HDTV with a laptop or tablet to gain DVR controls and extra camera angles not available on the main NBC feed.

arstechnica.com — For nearly a year now, Ars has worked with nature.com to organize a monthly panel discussion called Science Online NYC. We're pleased to announce that, in February, we'll also be working with the American Museum of Natural History to organize a special program entitled "Beyond a Trend: Enhancing Science Communication with Social Media," which will be part of the global Social Media Week.

arstechnica.com — For nearly a year now, Ars has worked with nature.com to organize a monthly panel discussion called Science Online NYC. We're pleased to announce that, in February, we'll also be working with the American Museum of Natural History to organize a special program entitled "Beyond a Trend: Enhancing Science Communication with Social Media," which will be part of the global Social Media Week.

arstechnica.com — Despite advances in many areas, women are still underrepresented in the upper levels of corporations, electoral politics, and some scientific research fields. This lack of parity is all the more striking because, in much of the developed world, women's educational achievements have surpassed those of men.

arstechnica.com — Windows Phone 8 will be based on the same kernel as Windows 8, and will support multicore processors, NFC, and full device encryption according to a leaked video seen by PocketNow. This in turn inspired Paul Thurrott to reveal a little more about the software too.

arstechnica.com — The mobile phone industry continues its march toward smartphone dominance as consumer interest in feature phones wanes, according to market research firm IDC. Record sales of Apple's iPhone in the fourth quarter pushed the company into third place among all mobile phone vendors, up from fifth place last year.

arstechnica.com — One of the worst parts of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) was its ridiculous secrecy, under which it was easy for negotiators and industry reps to see draft text, but impossible for the public to do so except through leaks.

arstechnica.com — There's a reason many of us here at Ars wait a few days (or in some cases, weeks) after an OS update before installing it: reports of problems after upgrading to Mac OS X 10.7.3 have begun multiplying since its release on Wednesday afternoon.

arstechnica.com — Google keeps taking tiny steps toward creating a full-fledged document creation and editing experience to users of computers and mobile devices. Recently, Google unveiled an HTML5-powered app for the Chrome browser that lets you read documents offline-but not edit them.

arstechnica.com — When it comes to information privacy concerns, Facebook already has a bullseye on its back. That won't change now that Facebook is going public in its highly anticipated Initial Public Offering (IPO). But disclosure rules affecting publicly traded companies may force Facebook to reveal privacy-related investigations that it otherwise might have kept secret.

arstechnica.com — Whether it's criminal gangs looking for credit card numbers or anons going after the lulz, security really matters now. Ars is going to stake out the security beat with the help of our new IT Security Editor, Dan Goodin. This is your chance to check out our plans for expanded security coverage—and help steer its direction.

arstechnica.com — According to rocker Neil Young, former Apple CEO Steve Jobs was working on a project to bring higher-quality music to the masses. In an interview during the D: Dive Into Media conference on Tuesday, Young said he was collaborating with Jobs on the project before his death, though not much progress has been made since then.

arstechnica.com — Yesterday, after almost no debate, the Indiana State Senate approved a bill that would allow its schools to teach the origin stories of various religions when a class touches on the origin of life. It now moves on to the state's House, where one of its cosponsors is currently the Speaker of the House.

arstechnica.com — The "iMessage bug" that causes text, video, and picture messages to go to the wrong phone has reportedly hit an Apple Store employee, and allegedly without his knowledge.

arstechnica.com — Facebook is hoping investors will "like" the social network just as much as its users already do. Following a series of rumors that have multiplied in recent weeks, Facebook filed for Initial Public Offering (IPO) on Wednesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission at a value of $5 billion.

arstechnica.com — In October 2010, Microsoft started working toward making the OpenStack open source project compatible with Microsoft's Hyper-V virtualization software. The project now seems to be hitting a snag-much as Microsoft's submission of Hyper-V drivers to the Linux kernel once did-but Microsoft says it is committed to making good on its OpenStack promises just as it did with Hyper-V and Linux.