A lave flow from the Kilauea volcano on Hawaii's Big Island is now drawing close to homes.

Duncan C

Federal authorities have identified and recently searched the home of a suspected “second leaker”—in other words, not Edward Snowden—who has been providing sensitive surveillance-related documents to journalists for months now, according to Yahoo News.

In particular, this second leaker is allegedly the source for documents discussing the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, first published by The Intercept in August 2014. This leaker may have also provided the National Security Agency’s Tailored Access Operations catalog to the German magazine Der Spiegel in December 2013.

Yahoo News, citing anonymous sources, reported that Justice Department officials “may now be more reluctant to bring criminal charges involving unauthorized disclosures to the news media,” a likely reference to the resulting public relations backlash against the prosecutors of WikiLeaks-leaker Chelsea Manning and the ongoing case of investigative New York Times reporter James Risen, who may face jail time for not revealing a source.

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When Disney bought Lucasfilm for over $4 billion nearly two years ago to the day, we lamented the uncertain publishing future of the company's stable of classic LucasArts games. The fear was that these classics would be lost in corporate shuffling indefinitely. Thankfully, digital distribution site GoG isn't letting that happen. This week, GoG published its first games from the Lucasfilm/Disney catalog as DRM-free downloads playable on modern machines.

While the digital distribution site says its partnership with Disney Interactive allows for the release of 20+ classic LucasArts games, today's offerings include the following six titles:

• Star Wars: X-Wing Special Edition - Windows - $9.99 - first downloadable release
• Star Wars: TIE Fighter Special Edition - Windows - $9.99 - first downloadable release
• Sam & Max Hit the Road - Windows, Mac, Linux - $5.99 - first downloadable release
• The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition - Windows - $9.99 (temporary 20 percent off sale price)
• Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis - Windows, Mac, Linux - $5.99
• Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic - Windows - $9.99 (temporary 20 percent off sale price)

More LucasArts games will be "popping up frequently" on GOG.com in the coming months according to the site. A number of LucasArts classics are also available on Steam, if that's more your speed. [Update: Reviews Editor Lee Hutchinson reminds me that even the Windows-only retro games might work on a Mac through a tool like Boxer]

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A mobile phone app that recognises which species of bird is singing is being developed by a researcher at Queen Mary University in London.

Comcast last week applied for a trademark on the phrase "True Gig" to describe extremely fast Internet service.

The trademark application filed with the US Patent and Trademark Office (and reported yesterday by The Donohue Report) says that True Gig describes "Internet service provider services; providing high speed access to the Internet, mobile networks, and other electronic communications networks; wireless broadband communication services; provision of telecommunication access to video and audio content via cable, fiber optics, the Internet, mobile networks, and other electronic communications networks."

Comcast is also using True Gig to describe online video streaming, specifically "provision of non-downloadable films, movies, and television programs via an online video-on-demand service; providing entertainment information via television, cable, telephone, wireless broadband, fiber broadband, and via the Internet."

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Razer has traditionally been a gaming peripheral company, which started with the Boomslang mouse in 1998. Over the years, they have expanded their portfolio to cover more of a gamer’s needs, adding keyboards, keypads, mouse mats, and headphones as well as complete systems. Today, Razer has expanded their product family again with the launch of the Razer Leviathan sound bar.

The Leviathan is able to produce 5.1 virtual surround sound using Dolby Virtual Speakers and accepts Dolby Digital and Pro Logic II multichannel audio. The bar itself contains four tuned drivers, with two 2.5” full range and two 0.74” tweeters, which are powered by a 30 watt RMS amplifier. Frequency response is quoted as 180 Hz to 20 KHz on the sound bar itself. Complementing the bar and filling in the remainder of the audio range is a 5.25” 30 watt RMS subwoofer with a downward firing driver, which has a quoted response of 20 Hz to 180 Hz.

The sound bar supports analog, optical, or Bluetooth inputs, with the Leviathan supporting any Bluetooth 4.0 device streaming over A2DP, and Razer has also made sure to include aptX audio codec support for higher quality A2DP streaming. To make the connection to the sound bar as easy as possible the Leviathan also includes NFC to configure the Bluetooth pairing. The bar also supports several tilt angles (0°, 15°, and 18°) to ensure it works well in a variety of situations.

If the idea of virtual surround sound through the use of a sound bar seems like something you might be interested in, the Razer Leviathan will be available for pre-order on razerzone.com with worldwide availability starting in November. Prices are USA: $199/EUR: €199.

Source: Razer

OPEN SESAME iFixit

There’s new Apple hardware out, and the people at iFixit are once again doing what they do best: disassembling the living crap out of it and posting pictures. This time, they’ve carefully torn down a new Retina iMac into its component pieces, and the images are illuminating.

The Retina iMac’s construction is essentially identical to the previous non-Retina iMac. There are no screws here: the thin aluminum body is glued to the display with a long strip of custom-cut adhesive. Prying that away gives you access to the machine’s internals, but then you’re left with the conundrum of how to get the machine back together when you’re done—the factory adhesive strip isn’t very reusable once it’s been removed.

Once inside, there are plenty of user-replaceable parts—the iMac’s CPU isn’t soldered and can be swapped out if desired, as can the hard disk drive, PCIe SSD, and RAM (the RAM is actually designed to be replaced through a small external port, so you don’t have to tear the computer apart to add more memory). The Radeon R9-class GPU is attached directly to the logic board, so upgrading that after the fact is out of the question.

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Aurich Lawson / Thinkstock

Welcome to Ars UNITE, our week-long virtual conference on the ways that innovation brings unusual pairings together. Today, a look at how everyone involved with the modern cloud is looking to improve its security. Join us this afternoon for a live discussion on the topic with article author Sean Gallagher and his expert guests; your comments and questions are welcome.

When the technology industry embraced “cloud computing” and made it part of our daily lives, we all made a Faustian bargain. They gave us a way to break free from the expense of owning all the hardware, making computing and storage capacity dirt cheap and available on demand. On the other side, we promised not to worry too much about the fine print.

“In the 2000s we had this wild cloud party,” said Peter Eckersley, technology projects director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “That party ended—Edward Snowden crashed that party. And we’ve woken up with a massive privacy and security hangover that companies are now trying to shake.”

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The idea of an external PCI-Express chassis for video cards is practically as old as PCI-Express itself. However over the years the idea has failed to reach the consumer market as a complete product, even with the introduction of standardized external PCIe interfaces such as Thunderbolt. Various prototypes have been shown, but in practice the only way to acquire such a rig has been to build it yourself, combining an ExpressCard slot and its pokey PCIe 2.0 x1 link with an external PCIe chassis.

Thankfully it looks like the PC industry is finally going to turn the corner on the concept thanks to Alienware. Today Alienware is introducing their own PCIe video card chassis, the Alienware Graphics Amplifier.

Alienware’s amplifier is a fairly typical take on the concept – there are only so many ways to build an external PCIe chassis – however Alienware has been able to put together something that is clearly tuned for video cards. The chassis itself houses a PSU and a single x16 PCIe slot for a video card, along with a quartet of USB 3.0 ports for any other I/O needs. Notably, Alienware has designed the amplifier to be able to handle double-wide video cards up to 375W, which is quite a bit more power than professional grade external PCIe chassis, and this means it can conceivably run just about any self-contained video card on the market. That said, like many small form factor computers the amplifier is also clearly designed for video cards with fully exhausting blowers, so it’s going to be best paired with reference model video cards since blowers are nearly non-existent in custom cards these days.

Alienware's Graphics Amplifier Opened (Image Courtesy Gizmodo)

More interesting perhaps is the PCIe interface, which up until now has always been the sticking point in getting a video card chassis to market. The good news is that Alienware has more or less solved the problem, but the bad news is that the interface is a proprietary Alienware/Dell design that is only available on their laptops. Alienware notes that the interface is actually a PCIe + USB interface – apparently carrying USB over from the host rather than using PCIe to power a separate controller – and in the meantime we’re still working to determine just how many PCIe lanes the interface is carrying. Even if it’s not a full 8 lanes (the Haswell U series CPUs don’t support 16 lanes), given the severe bandwidth limitations of ExpressCard and Thunderbolt, even a 4 lane setup would represent a significant improvement in bandwidth. Like Thunderbolt however this interface does appear to use active cabling (it would be very difficult to carry that much bandwidth externally without it), in which case the cable is going to be an expensive part of the entire setup.

On the host side, the amplifier is being launched alongside the Alienware 13, which will be the first of what will presumably be a series of Alienware laptops to support the amplifier’s interface. Rather than hanging off of spare PCIe lanes, we suspect some kind of MUX is in play here, as Alienware has noted that the 13’s internal dGPU (a GeForce 860M) has to be shut off to use the amplifier interface. Most likely Alienware is rerouting the GPU’s lanes to the interface when it’s in use. Activating or deactivating the interface does require a reboot, which although not especially convenient bypasses some very messy issues that could occur when hot-plugging an active GPU, and we suspect would otherwise be a show-stopper.

Alienware's Graphics Amplifier Up Close (Image Courtesy Gizmodo)

Meanwhile it’s interesting to note that in their development process Alienware has been able to solve some of the technical issues around an external video card in the process to better integrate it with the host. The video card in an amplifier can be used to drive both external and internal displays, meaning that it’s possible to use the amplifier to drive the 13’s built-in display and still reap the benefits, even without an external monitor. The overall non-portability of the 7lb+ amplifier and the USB ports strongly drives the amplifier towards being used as a docking station with an external monitor, but if you want to use it to drive the internal display that is going to be a viable option.

Moving on, Alienware is taking a vendor agnostic approach with the amplifier and will be supporting NVIDIA as well as AMD GPUs. There are still some additional technical details we’re chasing down on how this will work with the internal display capabilities, but ultimately it means the amplifier can be used with a wide range of cards from both vendors. That said, since the amplifier is going to be best paired with a blower type video card, NVIDIA’s cards are going to be the more natural fit at this time. Alienware has been showing the amplifier off with the GTX 980, and next to being the most powerful single-GPU video card on the market it also has a reference blower that is an excellent match for the amplifier’s cooling capabilities.

Finally and perhaps most importantly, Alienware has made it clear that the amplifier isn’t a prototype and won’t be vaporware, and that we’re looking at an external video card chassis that is actually going to ship. Alienware will begin taking orders for the amplifier today alongside the Alienware 13 laptop, with the hardware shipping in November. Even the price is decent (especially compared to DIY attempts), with the amplifier set to cost $299. This is on top of the price of the Alienware 13 laptop and the video card to fill the amplifier with, so the total cost of a setup is still going to be significant, but despite being the first shipping consumer solution it’s not priced through the roof.

The BBC's Jiyar Gol has witnessed a massive blast hit the Syrian city of Kobane - despite militants' claims that the battle is "nearly over".

"What's gaming like on the retina iMac, Mother?" "PRODUCING 4K SCREENSHOT TO DEMONSTRATE."

A few weeks ago, Apple updated its iMac desktop line with "Retina" displays—an Apple marketing term used to denote LCDs with a pixel density high enough that individual display elements are invisible to the unaided eye at typical viewing distances. On Apple’s iPhones, the "Retina" moniker means a PPI of at least 300; for MacBook Pro portables, it means about 220. The new iMac’s 27" 5120x2880 LCD panel has a PPI of 218, putting it just below the 15" MacBook Pro’s 220 PPI.

Those numbers translating into a stunning screen is unsurprising, and now that I’ve got one on my desk to play with, I’ll absolutely add my voice to the chorus of other reviewers saying that the new iMac looks amazing. I haven’t yet attached a colorimeter to the display and gone to town—that’s coming in the next few days—but here’s the color space information right out of the box:

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Alienware teased the new, smaller version of their gaming laptop in August. Available today, the Alienware 13 is the 4.5 pound little brother to the Alienware 14, but this gaming laptop has a twist. Alienware is offering an add-on Alienware Graphics Amplifier, which lets you plug a desktop GPU into this portable machine to dramatically increase performance.

Let us take a quick look at the new Alienware 13 though. While not as small as an ultrabook, it is significantly thinner than the 14 inch model, coming in at just under 1 inch thick. This, coupled with the two pounds less weight than the larger model, should make it a lot more portable.

The CPU will be Intel i5 and i7 Haswell U series parts, and the GPU offerings will be up to the NVIDIA GTX 860M. This will power a display, which at the default configuration is a lowly 1366x768 IPS panel, but luckily the display can be upgraded significantly with 1920x1080, and 2560x1440 options, as well as optional touch.

The base $999 model also comes with a 5400 rpm 1 TB hard drive as the base option, however the laptop can be outfitted with SSDs as well. In late 2014, it seems hard to believe that a $999 computer can still come with a slow mechanical hard drive, so hopefully the upgrade to SSD storage does not break the bank.

The star or the show though is the Alienware Graphics Amplifier, which is a first for this segment. Ryan will be covering this in full, but this $300 add-on is certainly a unique offering from Dell. With a dedicated 460 watt power supply just for the GPU, the amplifier should help the Alienware 13 with thermals when gaming on the discrete GPU. However, you can fall back to the GPU built into the laptop when you are on the go. Hopefully this adapter gets added to the entire Dell laptop line.

Unfortunately, details are light on this launch, with Alienware not releasing any press releases at the time of this writing. Check in to www.alienware.com starting today to check out all of the available pricing and options for the Alienware 13.

Sources: Gizmodo Hexus

Jennifer Pak reports from outside the Malaysia court which is hearing opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim's final appeal against his sodomy conviction.

Funding has been confirmed for a £97m supercomputer to improve the Met Office's weather forecasting and climate modelling.

Conservationists are warning that some of Britain's endangered plants are being put under even greater threat, because thieves are stealing them to order.

At its European TechEd conference today, Microsoft announced a range of new and improved features for its Linux-loving Azure cloud platform, Office 365, and management tools.

Chief among these was a set of new Office 365 APIs (and corresponding SDKs for iOS, Android, and Windows) exposing mail, calendars, contacts, and documents to developers.

One early adopter of these new APIs is IFTTT ("if this then that"), a popular service for cobbling together a wide range of online services. With IFTTT, it's easy to set up simple triggered actions, and now with Office 365 support, Office events will be able to trigger these actions. For example, users will be able to send themselves an SMS alert every time they receive an e-mail from a particular person.

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Hong Kong's civil disobedience movement began exactly one month ago.

Turkish Prime Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, has told the BBC's Lyse Doucet that Turkey will continue to help coalition forces if there is a co-ordinated plan for the creation of a ''democratic'' Syria.

A painting sold by Sotheby's in London for £42,000 is at the centre of a legal battle, amid claims it could be the work of Italian baroque master Caravaggio with a much greater value of around £11m.

Mexican authorities searching for 43 students who disappeared after a protest last month are investigating a suspected mass grave.