Google released a Chrome 5 beta build this week that brings a significant boost to the browser's JavaScript performance, improved support for emerging Web standards, and a number of noteworthy enhancements to the browser's cloud synchronization framework. After running the beta for most of the day, I'm convinced that Chrome is reaching a sweet spot of feature richness and leading performance that will make it a real winner.

Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine benefits from a particularly profound advancement in the new beta. A major optimization effort by the V8 team in Denmark has increased the browser's JavaScript performance by roughly 30 percent. When we conducted benchmarks to see how it compares to competing browsers, we discovered that it has taken the lead, edging in slightly ahead of the swift Safari nightly builds. The test was conducted with the SunSpider benchmark suite on a quad-core Mac Pro. The new Chrome 5 beta completed the benchmark in 338.4ms, the Safari nightly completed it in 373.4ms, Opera 10.53 came in third place with 389.6ms, and Firefox crawled in last with 741.8ms.

Google is revamping its search results page in order to offer easier and clearer access to the different kinds of content searches turn up. Don't worry: it looks as if Google will remain clean and easy to navigate, but the tweaks will spruce up the look and feel while helping users find what they're looking for.

Gone are the easy-to-miss links across the top of the page that point you to images, videos, maps, news, and more when you perform a search query. Google has made over those options and stuck them in an eye-pleasing column on the left side. "Over the past three years, we've launched Universal Search, the Search Options panel and Google Squared, and it’s those three technologies that power the left-hand panel," Google wrote in a blog post.

What does this mean, exactly? Universal Search figures out the most relevant "genre" of content that you're looking for and builds the left-hand column based on what might be of most use to you. Obviously the "Everything" tab would show you all search results, but (for example) if you're searching for a band, you might get more media-heavy suggestions in the left column. Thanks to Search Options, you can also rearrange the options displayed to you—helpful if you want to prioritize something like images, or only the newest results.

The column on the left isn't the only change to Google's results page, but it's the most significant. According to Google, the color palette and logo also got some tweaks, but they're nothing significant. "These changes are slight, keeping our page minimalist and whimsical, but make our overall look more modern," wrote the company.

If you haven't seen the updated site just yet, it's because Google is slowly rolling it out to all users across 37 languages. On top of the regular site, Google is also updating its mobile site for the US, so keep checking back if you want to see what the new changes are all about.

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Web applications are susceptible to a wide range of Web app-specific security flaws. Though Web developers are often aware of at least some of the common modes of attack, they are many and varied, and problems such as cross-site scripting continue to cause problems.

To help address this issue, Google has published a new microblogging application, Jarlsberg, that's just chock full of bugs. Along with Jarlsberg comes a series of exercises designed to teach people what the different flaws are, how to find them, and how to fix them. The tutorials use both black-box techniques, where attackers treat the application as a black box with no knowledge of its source or internals, and white-box techniques, where attackers know everything about the system.

The exercises are informative and seem to be put together well. They introduce the different kinds of flaws and show off the range of ways in which each flaw can be exploited. With each flaw there are hints of where to look to figure out each problem, and a description of how to fix the problem. Many of the fixes themselves have additional flaws, which the tutorial also identifies. This reflects the unfortunate situation that many fixes that developers use are incomplete, and can themselves be circumvented.

The Jarlsberg code is offered under a Creative Commons license for use in other training exercises by computer scientists, software engineers, and developers. This kind of training is immensely valuable, even for developers with an understanding of the issues—a lot of Web application attacks are quite nuanced, with each class of attack having multiple vectors. In an ideal world, no one would even publish a Web application without having gone through these exercises—or training like them—first.

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Connecticut and 38 other states have subpoenaed Craigslist over what they consider to be the "Craigslist brothel business." The states are looking for answers as to how much money the online classified site is making from sex ads and what steps it is taking to fight prostitution. The move comes a year after Craigslist agreed to shut down its "erotic services" section and step up restrictions on posting sex-related ads, but that's apparently still not enough for the 39 states.

The latest effort is being led by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who believes that Craigslist has abandoned its continued promises to fight prostitution. "The craigslist brothel business seems booming," Blumenthal said in a statement. "[T]housands of ads that remain on craigslist—skimpily and slickly disguised with code words. We are asking craigslist for specific answers about steps to screen and stop sex-for-money offers—and whether the company is actually profiting from prostitution ads that it promised the states and public that it would try to block. We’re seeking answers, so we can reach legal conclusions. If it is breaking its promises to the public, it may be breaking the law."

The college student accused of hacking into Sarah Palin's e-mail account in 2008 has been found guilty of obstruction of justice and unauthorized access of a computer. The verdict against 22-year-old David Kernell came down late Friday, with sentencing to follow later. 

Kernell made headlines during the 2008 election season by basically being clever. At that time, GOP vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin had been using a Yahoo e-mail account as well as an official government e-mail for her business as Alaska state governor. Kernell was able to use a bit of guesswork to answer her security questions and gain access to the account.

Kernell posted some of the contents online anonymously, though none of it was particularly juicy. The biggest question raised about the whole event was whether it was wise for Palin—or any government official, really—to be using nongovernment (and therefore less secure) e-mail services to conduct business.

Investigators were able to trace his IP back to a Tennessee dorm, eventually resulting in a Grand Jury investigation. A year-and-a-half later, two of the four charges against Kernell resulted in guilty verdicts—according to Reuters, a charge of wire fraud was dropped and the judge declared a mistrial on a charge of identity theft. Still, with one felony and one misdemeanor, Kernell faces up to 20 years in prison.

Palin is pleased with the verdict. "Besides the obvious invasion of privacy and security concerns surrounding this issue, many of us are concerned about the integrity of our country’s political elections," Palin wrote in a post to her Facebook page Friday. "As Watergate taught us, we rightfully reject illegally breaking into candidates’ private communications for political intrigue in an attempt to derail an election."

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Editor's note: When we attempt to inject a little humor into our science content, sometimes it's overlooked. So be forewarned: humorous, not-entirely-serious science coverage ahead:

On Monday, a mass display of indecency by women who were indignant at a comment made by an Iranian cleric rocked the planet with earthquakes. Or did it? The number of earthquakes on Monday, particularly a 6.5-magnitude quake in Taiwan, might suggest that the tarting-up movement had some effect, but the boobquake founder's data breakdown says different. None of the analyses of the event thus far have met the rigorous statistical standards we require here at Ars, so we'll take a look at the shortcomings and draw up some numbers of our own.

A recent spate of earthquakes prompted an Iranian cleric, Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi, to state that "many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes." In response, Jen McCreight of Blag Hag suggested that women should dress their sluttiest on April 26 to test Segidhi's theory, and christened the event "Boobquake." She also promised to run the numbers on earthquakes that day and see how it compared to the world's normal behavior.

The German Supreme Court has ruled in favor of Google Image Search, saying that the service's thumbnails don't infringe on anyone's copyrights. With Germany's highest court on its side, Google is understandably happy about the decision. In addition to the victory in Germany, Google also won a case in the US, with the judge saying that AdWords did not infringe on Rosetta Stone's trademark.

The German case has bounced around the German court system for several years now. According to Google, an artist had uploaded images of her paintings to her website, which was then indexed by Google Image Search. The thumbnails were displayed as part of Google's search results, leading the artist to accuse the company of copyright infringement. A German court finally ruled in October of 2008 that Google's thumbnails did, indeed, infringe on the artist's copyrights.

Facebook's latest privacy policy update has once again gotten the company in hot water, this time with four US senators. Senators Al Franken, Charles Schumer, Michael Bennet, and Mark Begich wrote an open letter to Facebook on Tuesday, urging the company to take "swift and productive steps" to make user information more private and warning that the Federal Trade Commission may get involved if certain concerns aren't addressed soon.

Being questioned is Facebook's decision to categorize a user's hometown, current city, "likes," interests, friends, and other info as "public information." Now, even the most private user cannot have a Facebook account to communicate with friends while also keeping this information hidden from public view, and the senators believe this creates a "potential gold mine of data for unsolicited advertisements."