driving the ultra-mobile enterprise

Ars longa, vita brevis, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile.

—Hippocrates

When Hippocrates said that "life is short, art is long," he did not mean that art outlives the artist. The "father of medicine" instead diagnosed a basic fact of life: true art or skill takes a lifetime of effort to perfect, and the path is fraught with "occasional crises, perilous experiences, and difficult judgments." Technology is the "art" at the forefront of our changing world, and we're here to help it all, even the difficult judgments.

At Ars Technica—the name is Latin-derived for the "art of technology"—we specialize in original news and reviews, analysis of technology trends, and expert advice on topics ranging from the most fundamental aspects of technology to the many ways technology is helping us enjoy our world. We work for the reader who not only needs to keep up on technology, but is passionate about it.

We at Ars take great pride in our unique combination of technical savvy and wide-ranging interest in the human arts and sciences. Our editorial team is at home on Linux, Mac, and Windows; they know both the home and the enterprise; they understand law and politics; and they specialize in bringing readers the right answer, the first time. It's no wonder that Ars has become a "go-to" destination for those who need to sift the wheat from the chaff.

Ars Technica is also unique in a number of ways. We are a proud leader in conversational media, a new and exciting answer to the reader's need and desire for fresh voices, informed reporting, and reader engagement. Ars writers aren't afraid of wit or strongly-held opinions, and readers find both on display throughout our work. But at Ars, "opinion" never devolves into dogma; we strive for measured judgments and carefully relayed contexts. Those who come to Ars looking for computing religion won't find it, and that's why millions of readers trust our take on the day's tech news and look forward to our original reporting.

Then there's our formidable community. While "community" has lately become a Web buzzword, Ars has been building a real online community since its founding over eight years ago. We encourage reader feedback and participation in conversation via discussion on every article, as well as in the renowned Ars OpenForum—one of the Internet's true treasure troves, and one of the largest, documented community databases of tips, technical help, and camaraderie on the planet.

It was once said that sine scientia ars nihil est, that is, "without knowledge, art is nothing." We agree, but there's also a corollary: sine ars, scientia nihil est.

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Back in the early days of the dot-com era, when there were still such things as rockstar game developers, John Romero left ID Sofware and struck out to found his own development house, Ion Storm, on the back of a single dictum: “design is king.” The idea was that an over-emphasis by a developer on the under-the-hood aspects of games could actually detract from the overall user experience, especially in a world where game engines had become commoditized and anyone could license on to create yet another clone of an existing title.

Though Romero ultimately failed in his quest to create a breakthrough (or even an on-time) game, today’s portable makers would do well to adopt his design-centric philosophy, especially in the red-hot netbook space.

A recent study of online opinions about netbooks by market research firm Biz360 showed that netbook buyers who post user reviews are talking about three things: performance, display, and features.

Netbooks right now are based mainly on Intel’s Atom processors, and given that the entire category is a variation on a basic reference design there’s really not much to be done in the performance area (other than add a fast SSD, which can make a huge difference). The Biz360 article does note that users don’t seem to be that impressed with netbook performance across the board, and are bringing to the products expectations formed from using more high-powered portables. This is something that netbook makers should be aware of, since performance still matters to users. Read More »