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Amazon quietly launched an extension to its software download store, adding a range of just over 250 software and game titles for Mac OS X. While Amazon has some major titles that haven't yet made it into the Mac App Store, its service doesn't offer all the same conveniences as Apple's.

Among the 51 games and 201 other software titles available at the time of publication, users can find top titles like Microsoft Office, QuickBooks, Photoshop Elements, Toast, Dragon Age Origins, and The Sims 3, none of which are available via the Mac App Store. In fact, much of the productivity and educational software isn't in the Mac App Store, while a quick look through the games shows many of the top titles, like Call of Duty, Borderlands, and Civilization, are.

The discrepancy is due to Apple's requirements for App Store distribution, which includes adhering to strict standards for API use and code signing. Amazon's downloads store simply requires developers to integrate with Amazon's payment system and generate license keys when titles are downloaded.

The upside to Apple's approach is that all the licensing is handled via the iTunes infrastructure, connected to a user's Apple ID. Purchased apps are automatically downloaded and installed to a user's computer, ready to use. Updates are also handled directly via the Mac App Store. 

Amazon's store, in contrast, simply downloads a standard software installer; it's up to users to install the software and enter license codes. The main benefit to end users is that it uses Amazon's payment system and provides a single source to find and buy the software available instead of searching and using vendors own online purchasing systems. Amazon also stores a copy of any purchases on Amazon Cloud, so you can re-download if needed. Unlike the Mac App Store, however, each software vendor makes its own rules about how many computers on which software can be installed and how many times it can be reinstalled without vendor intervention.

Aside from the operational differences, it's also worth noting that Amazon calls its service "Mac Downloads Store," perhaps to avoid additional conflict with Apple over the term "App Store." Apple is currently suing Amazon for trademark infringement over its Android Appstore. Amazon has argued the term "app store" is too generic, while Apple maintains that it isn't.

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The movie industry has embraced stereoscopic 3D, making it an increasingly common part of the theater experience. As Sony said during its CES press event earlier this year, the next step is to move 3D out of the theater and make it more "personal" for consumers by bringing it to living rooms, camcorders, and personal computing products.

The quest to make 3D ubiquitous took another step forward today. NVIDIA, Mozilla, and Google have teamed up to make stereoscopic 3D videos on YouTube work with computers that have NVIDIA 3D Vision hardware. The feature is supported through a new HTML5-based 3D playback mode that works in Firefox 4.

"Firefox with 3D Vision creates a stunning and smooth 3D video experience using HTML5 video based on open standards," Mozilla products VP Jay Sullivan said in a statement. "3D Vision from NVIDIA is a great example of the rich, innovative experiences that are being built on top of the speed and graphics power that Firefox delivers to the Web."

YouTube has had experimental stereoscopic 3D support since 2009, with support for a number of different output options including side-by-side playback and legacy anaglyph viewing. The arrival this year of consumer-oriented 3D video cameras could significantly increase the amount of 3D video content on the video site.

Using standard-based Web video technologies to support NVIDIA 3D Vision will allow YouTube to make that 3D content accessible to the small but growing audience of users with 3D-enabled computers.

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The journal Science is produced by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, an organization that takes its role in promoting science education and outreach seriously. This year, the organization started a program called SPORE, for Science Prize for Online Resources. These prizes honor online materials that help provide high quality and informative science materials for educators and their students. The journal hosts a page to honor earlier SPORE winners; the ones we've looked at clearly deserve the praise they've received.

This week, the latest SPORE recipient is one I'm actually familiar with: the Periodic Table of Videos, a product of the University of Nottingham's Chemistry Department. The prize announcement provides some details on how the program came about, and how it has maintained its atmosphere of spontaneous fun and wonder even as the chemists tackle elements that they're largely unfamiliar with.

Today, May 25, is Geek Pride Day, so it's only fitting to look back on our pasts and reflect upon the experiences that turned us into the savvy, nerdy people we have become. The staff at Ars, prone to misty-eyed recollection as we are, have collected some anecdotes here about our first close encounters with science, technology, and generally geeky ephemera.

If you're not based in the UK, you may have no idea what a "super-injunction" is. But if you're a Brit, they're apparently an occasional part of daily life—especially as of late. And now, an anonymous Twitter user is being sued for breaking a super-injunction issued by a British judge, but over who or what? Nobody knows for sure, and it's because of the super-injunction.

Talk of social media injunctions in the UK began earlier this month when a British judge attempted to protect the identity of a brain-damaged woman by ordering her name to stay off of Twitter and Facebook. The two sites were actually included in a list of "media" forbidden from publishing the information, according to the order seen by Reuters, despite the fact that both companies are US-based and the content they host is entirely user-generated.

Senator Tom Udall (D-NM) took his allotted five minutes during Thursday's US Senate hearing on mobile privacy to lambaste Apple and Google for not removing DUI checkpoint apps from their respective stores. Udall was one of four US Senators that sent letters to Apple, Google, and RIM in late March of this year asking those companies to remove such apps in the interest of public safety.

Apps such as DUI Dodger, Buzzed, Checkpoint Wingman, and PhantomALERT allow users to receive alerts when DUI checkpoints are noted in their area or locate the checkpoints on a map. Some even suggest alternate routes, according to Udall. An iOS app called Checkpointer advertises on the App Store that it can save you "thousands of dollars by helping you avoid an arrest for a DUI."

While RIM quickly removed such apps at the behest of Udall and his colleagues, Apple and Google are still apparently reviewing the situation. Novelli stated that Apple "abhors drunk driving" and does not want to support it. But, she said, there are differences in opinion on whether advertising where checkpoints are is inherently good or bad.

"Isn't what these apps are doing is encouraging people to break the law?" Udall asked. Udall, along with Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Harry Reid (D-NV), Charles Schumer (D-NY), had called such apps "harmful to public safety."

Novelli said that there are some apps which offer to call a local cab company for the user, for instance, which could be viewed as a net positive. "We are reviewing the situation and determining the best course of action in a thoughtful manner," she said.

Google's Davidson simply noted that apps that merely share information don't violate the Android Marketplace policy "at this time."

Schumer had taken the same tack at last week's location tracking hearing before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law. Apple and Google both said they were "looking into" the matter.

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Watch out, Box.net users—if the RIAA suspects you of mixing in music files with those boring Word and Excel documents that you use for work, you may be in for a legal battle. The RIAA has apparently turned its sights upon the business-oriented file-sharing service after filing a declaration in California federal court this week, as first reported by The Hollywood Reporter, potentially opening the door to more lawsuits involving cloud-based services.

Box.net advertises itself as a secure way for small or medium-sized businesses to share and collaborate on files. Businesses can use it as an alternative to Microsoft's SharePoint and can even hook it up with a Google Apps account for the company. In some ways, it's a lot like Dropbox—and users can use a free Box.net account for personal use if they want—but it's largely geared toward businesses.

Representatives from Facebook, Apple, Google, and the Federal Trade Commission testified on Thursday before the Senate's Consumer Protection, Product Safety and Insurance Subcommittee concerning privacy issues on mobile devices. The hearing follows questioning of both Apple and Google last week before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law concerning recent public revelations relating to location data collection and storage.

Testifying was director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection David Vladeck, Facebook CTO Bret Taylor, Apple VP of worldwide affairs Catherine Novelli, and Google director of public policy Alan Davidson. These four were joined by the executive director of the Association for Competitive Technology Morgan Reed and the COO of Common Sense Media Amy Shenkan. The hearing was convened by Subcommittee Chairmen Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV)  and Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) to understand what role the government could and should play in establishing a legislative standard to protect consumer privacy in an age where mobile devices can collect and transmit massive amounts of personal information.