More than 99 percent of Comcast shareholders today voted in favor of the company's $45.2 billion purchase of Time Warner Cable, Comcast announced.

The merger "is subject to various regulatory approvals and other customary conditions and also requires approval by Time Warner Cable shareholders," who are scheduled to vote tomorrow, Comcast said. If all goes well for Comcast, the merger will close in early 2015.Not many people attended the meeting in Philadelphia. "Five people spoke at a sparsely attended special shareholder meeting at the Kimmel Center on South Broad Street—three against the deal, and two for it," according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.

The real test for Comcast will be getting approval from the government. Consumer advocates have argued that the two largest cable companies in the country should not be allowed to merge, while Comcast points out that it doesn't compete against Time Warner Cable in any city or town.

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Apple

Apple is having another media event on October 16, just under a week after Re/code first predicted the date. The event will be in Apple's small town hall event space at its 1 Infinite Loop campus, implying a much smaller event than the iPhone 6 and Apple Watch event in the Flint Center last month.

If the rumor mill is to be believed, new iPads will be the headlining item for the event, and we'll also supposedly be getting the public release of OS X Yosemite. Both the iPads and Yosemite will reportedly be accompanied by iOS 8.1, the first major update to iOS 8. Other rumors also suggest we'll be seeing new Macs at the event—the most interesting ones suggest a new Retina iMac, but several other computers in Apple's lineup (including the Mac Mini and Mac Pro) are ripe for a refresh.

The event starts at 10am Pacific. We'll be on site to liveblog the proceedings and go hands-on with the new hardware afterward.

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A train derailed in Canada on Tuesday causing some of the hazardous material it was carrying to set on fire

Another day, another online-centric game launching to widespread server issues. This time it's the PlayStation 4's DriveClub, whose servers are apparently causing so many problems for launch day customers that Sony and developer Evolution Studios have indefinitely delayed a planned "PlayStation Plus" edition that would have given limited access to millions more.

"We are seeing a lot of activity and new social behaviors right now, but unfortunately this is pushing the servers to their absolute limits," Evolution Studios Director Paul Rustchynsky wrote in a Facebook post Wednesday morning. "In order to help all DriveClub players who have the game already, we're temporarily holding back the PS Plus Edition and the My DriveClub app to ease the load and traffic to the servers. This should give players a better chance of connecting to the game servers and, once the servers are operating well, we’ll be sure to let you know when the PS Plus Edition and My DriveClub app will be available to download."

While DriveClub does have a limited single-player mode, operating servers are necessary to join clubs with other players and compete in the online challenges and time trials that form the bulk of the game. The PS Plus edition, which was supposed to launch alongside the full game, will give PlayStation Plus subscribers free access to 11 tracks and a limited selection of cars.

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Minneapolis

While the use of renewable energy is booming, the boom started from a very low point. We're only now reaching the stage where renewable power is providing a substantial fraction of the energy used in some developed economies. Pushing things further and faster would require a lot of resources as, per unit of electricity produced, renewable power equipment takes more material than fossil fuel plants. Plus, at least initially, a lot of the manufacturing will be powered by fossil fuel plants.

How does all this balance out? An international team of researchers has looked at the material demands and pollution that would result from a push to get the globe to 40 percent renewables by the middle of the century. The analysis finds that despite the increased materials and energy demands, a push like this would result in a dramatic reduction in pollution. And for the most part, the material demands could be met, with the possible exception of copper.

The work involved what's called a life cycle analysis, which tracks the material and energy demands of items from the production of the raw materials through to obsolescence and recycling. Normally, these studies are done with static assumptions; take the life cycle of copper in 2011, for example, and use that figure for the entire analysis. In this case, however, being able to shift values over the course of the study period was essential. For example, as more renewable energy is produced, the pollution associated with producing new equipment will go down, as less of it will be provided by fossil fuels. Meanwhile, demand for raw materials could shift mining to sources that result in higher environmental damage.

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Apple Pay is one of the biggest features expected to launch with iOS 8.1 later this month. Apple

Last week, numerous publications (including Ars) reported seeing references to iOS 8.1, 8.2, and 8.3 in their site analytics pages. iOS versions 5, 6, and 7 only saw one major point update apiece during their respective lifespans, so evidence of three different updates being tested simultaneously just weeks after the release of iOS 8.0 came as a surprise.

It looks like we'll be seeing the first of those updates sooner rather than later. Today Apple pushed out the second beta build of iOS 8.1 in as many weeks to its registered developers, and the final version of the software is rumored to be released at or near Apple's event later this month.

Obviously such a quick turnaround time will make iOS 8.1 a smaller update than iOS 7.1, which gestated for around six months and fixed a host of problems when finally released. But the update is still rumored to include a handful of significant features—here's a list of the most important additions.

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NVIDIA just launched their new GTX 980M/GTX 970M GPUs, and unfortunately we were unable to get a notebook in time for testing… which just changed a few hours ago. With an MSI GT72 Dominator Pro in hand, we're ready to see just how fast the GTX 980M is when it comes to playing games. Here's a hint: the 1080p display may prove to be the limiting factor in quite a few titles.

Free Press

Wireless carriers like to say that monthly data caps are necessary to prevent heavy users from slowing down less active ones.

After surveying the four biggest carriers this year, the US Government Accountability Office reported that “some wireless ISPs told us they use UBP [usage-based pricing, i.e. data caps] to manage congestion.” Verizon Wireless has insisted to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that data caps are so effective at reducing congestion that they eliminate the need to throttle most customers.

I won't argue that data caps have no positive impact on wireless networks—they can prevent the most egregious overuse of what is a limited resource. But it's a crude tool at best, targeting monthly averages with no regard for whether the network is congested at a particular time or place.

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Kenya's President, Uhuru Kenyatta, has become the first sitting head of state to appear before the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Version:3.12.30 (longterm) Released:2014-10-08 Source:linux-3.12.30.tar.xz PGP Signature:linux-3.12.30.tar.sign Patch:patch-3.12.30.xz (Incremental) ChangeLog:ChangeLog-3.12.30

BBC Click gets rare access to the twin of Nasa's Curiosity Mars rover which is helping scientists solve problems on the Red Planet.

BBC Click gets rare access to the twin of Nasa's Curiosity Mars rover which is helping scientists solve problems on the Red Planet.

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Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta prepares to appear before the International Criminal Court at The Hague.

The BBC speaks to Sunni villagers who fear retribution from Shia militias, who accuse them of supporting Islamic State

At least 12 people are killed in clashes between Kurdish protesters and police in Turkey.

Conal O'Rourke remains frustrated after his year-long battle with Comcast, which allegedly led to his termination. Cyrus Farivar

OAKLAND, CA—Speaking over lunch last Friday, a Northern California man named Conal O'Rourke laid out what admittedly sounds like a crazy story: a year-long billing dispute over his home Comcast service that ultimately resulted in Comcast getting O'Rourke fired from his job at PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC) in nearby San Jose earlier this year.

But O’Rourke arrived to last week’s lunch meeting with Ars with an astonishing amount of documentation: he has pages and pages of Comcast invoices. He has a spreadsheet, photos, notes, business cards, and complaint letters. He and his lawyer, Maureen Pettibone Ryan, happily provided digital copies of these materials to Ars, which we have re-published with his permission here.

As a result of his firing, O’Rourke has hired a local attorney and is now threatening to file a lawsuit against Comcast if the company does not agree to his demands, which include "a full retraction and apology, his re-employment with his former employer, and $100,312.50" by October 14.

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DC Comics

The high-profile "copyright termination" dispute over Superman—arguably the most famous comic character of all time—is finally over. DC Comics defeated the heirs of artist Joe Shuster and writer Jerry Siegel.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court declined (PDF) to hear the petition filed by the heirs' lawyers. That leaves standing a ruling from the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, and the heirs won't be allowed to wrest the copyright away.

The litigants in the case included Shuster's sister, Jean Peavy, as well as Siegel's daughter Laura Siegel Larson. They lost their case in Los Angeles federal court in 2012, and lost again on appeal.

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Protests have been held across Europe over Islamic State's attack on Kobane, Syria, near the border with Turkey.

A radio campaign in Burkina Faso aims to save lives