Ukrainians go to the polls this weekend in a key parliamentary election. The BBC's Steve Rosenberg is reporting from across the country.

A slide that Apple used in its closing statements during the GPNE v. Apple trial. It includes a few of the statements from the many companies trying to rebuff GPNE's attempts to get royalty payments based on old pager patents. Apple

A San Jose jury has handed up a verdict [PDF] finding that Apple does not infringe two patents owned by GPNE Corp., a patent-holding company that has licensed its patents to more than 20 other large companies.

While the jury found that Apple did not infringe a variety of patent claims, it found the two patents at issue, numbered 7,570,954 and 7,792,492, to be valid. The patents describe network communication technology, and they were issued in 2009 and 2010. Both are "continuation" patents, based upon other continuation patents, which stretch back to an original 1994 patent filing.

Essentially, the GPNE claims are from pager-era patents that the company tried to use to extract royalty payments from iPhones and iPads.

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The femur from which the DNA samples originated. Bence Viola, MPI EVA

Svante Pääbo's lab at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany has mastered the process of obtaining DNA from ancient bones. With the techniques in hand, the research group has set about obtaining samples from just about any bones they can find that come from the ancestors and relatives of modern humans. In their latest feat, they've obtained a genome from a human femur found in Siberia that dates from roughly the time of our species' earliest arrival there. The genome indicates that the individual it came from lived at a time where our interbreeding with Neanderthals was relatively recent, and Europeans and Asians hadn't yet split into distinct populations.

The femur comes from near the town of Ust’-Ishim in western Siberia. It eroded out of a riverbank that contains a mixture of bones, some from the time where the sediments were deposited (roughly 30 to 50,000 years ago), and some likely older that had been washed into the sediments from other sites. The femur shows features that are a mixture of those of paleolithic and modern humans and lacks features that are typical of Neanderthal skeletons.

Two separate samples gave identical carbon radioisotope dates; after calibration to the 14C record, this places the bone at 45,000 years old, give or take a thousand years. That's roughly when modern humans first arrived in the region. That also turned out to be consistent with dates estimated by looking at the DNA sequence, which placed it at 49,000 years old (the 95 percent confidence interval was 30 to 65,000 years).

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Brian Kelley

A Pew Research Center survey released Wednesday found that as many as four in 10 adults have been subjected to online harassment and that men and women suffer from different forms of harassment.

"In broad trends, the data show that men are more likely to experience name-calling and embarrassment, while young women are particularly vulnerable to sexual harassment and stalking," the study stated.

Twenty-seven percent of all of those who responded to the survey said they had been called offensive names. As many as 22 percent said someone had tried to "purposefully" embarrass them. Others said they felt threatened, were stalked, or sexually harassed.

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The Logan Square stop on the Chicago Transit Authority blue line. Kumar McMillan

A report from BuzzFeed News Wednesday suggests that the tracking beacons that cropped up in New York phone booths last year have spread to new cities, including Los Angeles and Chicago. The beacons have been sprinkled around transit centers, including Chicago Transit Authority rail stops and LA bus stops.

The beacons, created by Gimbal, connect with devices like smartphones via Bluetooth and can harvest information like the device's Bluetooth address, as well as the date, time, and location of connection. The beacons in New York were installed as a "test" by advertising company Titan 360. Though officials called for their removal over a year ago, they were not taken out of phone booths until earlier this month, after they were used in promotions for the Tribeca Film Festival and shopping app ShopAdvisor.

Marketing company Martin Outdoor Media confirmed the beacons' existence in LA to BuzzFeed News, as did the CTA in Chicago. Martin called the beacons part of a "pilot program" in a press release last week, while the CTA stated its beacons were part of a "two-week test," to be followed up by a bigger test for a longer period with beacons placed and tracked by Titan.

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Yubico

A new security feature for Google’s services will help users better protect their data by requiring that they insert a USB security key to log in to their account.

Announced on Tuesday, the optional Security Key technology requires that a Chrome user take two additional steps to sign in to their Google account: plug a small key into the USB port on their computer and tap a button. The process is a simpler and more secure version of the 2-Step Verification process that Google offers to security-conscious users. With 2-Step Verification, users receive a code from Google on their phone or in e-mail that they must enter into Google’s site to complete the login process.

Users that opt for the Security Key technology will have to purchase a special USB key, which typically costs less than $20.

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Watch the news of an attack on Canada's parliament unfold - in 45 secs.

Expanding coal mining operations along the Queensland coast could threaten Australia's treasured Great Barrier Reef.

Expanding coal mining operations along the Queensland coast could threaten Australia's treasured Great Barrier Reef.

NVIDIA just released their latest driver updates today, bringing us up to version 344.48. These are WHQL certified drivers, and they're also Game Ready for several upcoming titles. NVIDIA specifically calls out Civilization: Beyond Earth (launching tomorrow), Lords of the Fallen (coming October 28), and Elite: Dangerous (a Kickstarter game currently available in Beta form). You can snag the drivers at the usual place, or if you're like most people and are running a desktop GPU on Windows 7/8.1 64-bit, here's the direct link; the drivers are also available for most NVIDIA laptops.

Looking over the complete release notes, the 344.48 drivers also bring DSR (Dynamic Super Resolution) support to Kepler and Fermi GPUs, there are a few tweaks to upcoming games (e.g. Assassin's Creed Unity notes that control panel FXAA is disabled), and SLI profiles have been added for ten new games. There are no specific details on performance improvements with the new drivers, which is insteresting as usually about a month or two after a major GPU launch (i.e. GM204), NVIDIA will further refine their drivers to extract more performance; perhaps we'll see some performance enhancements in the near future for GM204 owners.

AMD officially announced price cuts on their current APU product stack yesterday, which means the cost of a "mainstream" AMD system is now $20-$30 lower than before. Here's the quick rundown of features and pricing for the affected APUs, which include both the new Kaveri APUs as well as previous generation Richland APUs:

AMD APU Pricing, October 2014 Kaveri APUs A-series APU Model CPU/GPU Cores CPU Clock Graphics GPU Clock TDP (cTDP) MSRP (USD) A10-7850K 4CPU + 512GPU 3.7-4.0 R7 720 95 (65/45) $143 A10-7800 4CPU + 512GPU 3.5-3.9 R7 720 65 (45) $133 A10-7700K 4CPU + 384GPU 3.4-3.8 R7 720 95 (65/45) $123 A8-7600 4CPU + 384GPU 3.1-3.8 R7 720 65 (45) $92 A6-7400K 2CPU + 256GPU 3.5-3.9 R5 756 65 (45) $58 Richland/Trinity APUs A10-6800K 4CPU + 384GPU 4.1-4.4 8670D 844 100 $112 A8-6600K 4CPU + 256GPU 3.9-4.2 8570D 844 100 $92 A4-6300 2CPU + 128GPU 3.7-3.9 8370D 760 65 $34 A4-5300 2CPU + 128GPU 3.4-3.7 7480D 723 65 $31 A4-4000 2CPU + 128GPU 3.0-3.2 7480D 720 65 $27

Obviously there are differences between the Kaveri and Richland/Trinity platforms and APUs, so keep in mind that Kaveri requires a socket FM2+ motherboard while Richland/Trinity uses socket FM2 (though there are boards that support both chips). The Kaveri graphics are also GCN based while Richland/Trinity use the older VLIW4 architecture, so you can't simply compare the number of GPU cores and clock speed to determine which is faster. The CPU architectures are also different, Steamroller for Kaveri and Piledriver for Richland. Finally, Kaveri APUs support Configurable TDP (cTDP), which allows you to run the APU at lower power targets while potentially giving up a bit of performance in fully loaded situations.

In terms of performance, the fastest AMD APUs basically match up against the Core i3 Intel parts on the CPU side, while the GPU portion of the APUs tends to be quite a bit faster. You can legitimately run most games at moderate details with the Kaveri R7 options, while in many cases Intel's HD 4600 will need to drop the resolution and/or quality to reach reasonable frame rates. As for Kaveri vs. Richland, the CPUs end up mostly being equal (Kaveri wins some tests and Richland wins others) while the GPU favors Kaveri.

Besides the price drops, AMD is also announcing a gaming bundle through the end of October for their A10 APUs (7850K, 7800, 7700K, 6800K, and 6790K): purchasers of one of those APUs can select one of Murdered: Soul Suspect, Thief, or Sniper Elite 3 using the code that comes inside the box. Alternatively, the code can be used to purchase Corel Aftershot Pro 2 for $5 (instead of the normal $60+).

Finally, AMD notes that the above price changes may take some time to show up at retailers. Checking Amazon and Newegg, it looks like the APUs are still priced a bit higher than the suggested prices in the above table. I've linked the prices, and all of the Kaveri APUs remain $15-$25 than the MSRP. The faster Richland APUs on the other hand are much closer to the above prices, but the budget APUs tend to be closer to $15 above MSRP right now. Most of the prices should sort themselves out in the coming days, but you'll want to shop around. Note that there are other APUs that AMD did not specifically list in the price cuts, so prices may or may not decrease on those parts.

Footage from the Toronto Globe and Mail shows a hail of bullets being fired inside the Canadian parliament building.

Today Google announced a new Gmail related product that has been years in the making. It's called Inbox, and it's a re-imagining of the email inbox to adapt to the changes in how email is used that have occurred over the past few decades. With email becoming more prominent, and increasingly focused on sending media as well as text, there have always been initiatives to better adapt the email inbox to these changes. Last year Google introduced categories to the Gmail inbox which sorts emails into different sections such as Social emails, Promotions, and Updates. Inbox expands upon these concepts to better organize your mail.

Bundles are a new feature within Inbox that expand upon categories by grouping emails into specific groups. For example, all purchase receipts and financial statements are grouped together so they can be easily found and navigated. Inbox can also group emails based on ways you specify.

Highlights is a feature that grabs the relevant information from emails and presents it in an easily readable manner. Google claims Inbox will even add additional information not explicitly stated in emails like package tracking status or flight times.

Reminders allows the user to set reminders from within the app, and Assists are cards that Google will bring up with information that may help a user complete a task they have reminded themselves to do. These can also be snoozed if they come up at an inconvenient time.

Inbox is currently in a closed beta, and Google is already sending out the first round of invitations to users. Users who are invited will be able to invite their friends to join the beta program as well. Users can also email [email protected] to get invites as soon as the next wave becomes available. Google has put together a video explaining the features and benefits of Inbox, which has been embedded below.

On Wednesday, Google revealed "Inbox," a Web- and app-based e-mail platform that strives to integrate your mailbox with your calendar and to-do list.

"Inbox is by the same people who brought you Gmail, but it’s not Gmail: it’s a completely different type of inbox, designed to focus on what really matters," Android SVP Sundar Pichai wrote at Google's official blog.

The Inbox interface screams "Material" redesign, and its sidebar comes with a much wider range of sub-categories, dubbed "bundles," to divide your mail between. There are so many, in fact, that the typical Hangout list in Gmail has been forced to the right side of the Web app. The mobile app—only shown today as an Android option, natch—appears to put a stress around such bundling by default, as opposed to presenting e-mails in a default time orientation.

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Nefarious things happen in the darknet. Flickr user: Martin Gommel

The federal judge overseeing the Silk Road case against Ross Ulbricht has been subject to a death threat, and apparently she had her private information exposed on a "Hidden Wiki" website accessible only via Tor-equipped browsers. The same information is available on the open web through at least one website that pulls information from the Tor network.

"Katherine Bolan Forrest is the judge who is unfairly ruining Ross Ulbricht's life and chance for a fair trial," wrote an editor on the hidden wiki who goes by the moniker ServingJustice. ServingJustice became angry at Forrest after July rulings that favored prosecutors. He wrote:

Can Ulbricht really be accused of running a drug-selling conspiracy when he (ALLEGEDLY) merely ran a website that made the narcotics sales possible? And can he be charged with money laundering when bitcoin doesn’t necessarily meet the requisite definition of money?’ According to Forrest’s latest ruling, yes and yes...

Justice is not being served, Ross Ulbricht is a hard working honest man who is now a fall guy that the US government decided to choose because he had a large amount of bitcoins, a currency they are doing everything in their power to make illegal.

Without further ado, fuck this stupid bitch and I hope some drug cartel that lost a lot of money with the seizure of silk road will murder this lady and her entire family.

He then posted "dox" on Forrest, revealing a Social Security number, date of birth, and a residential addresses he says are associated with Forrest (screenshot below).

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Former NSA chief Keith Alexander. Chairman of the Joint Chief A top National Security Agency official will no longer be moonlighting part-time with a private consulting firm run by former NSA chief Keith Alexander. The end of that arrangement comes days after the NSA said this particular work situation was "under internal review" due to potential conflicts of interest.

The private company at issue— IronNet Cybersecurity—was founded by Alexander, who ran the spy agency from August 2005 until March 2014. IronNet Cybersecurity offers protection services to banks for up to $1 million per month. Patrick Dowd, the NSA's current chief technology officer, had been working with Alexander's private venture for up to 20 hours per week.

Reuters reported Tuesday that the deal was over. "While we understand we did everything right, I think there's still enough issues out there that create problems for Dr. Dowd, for NSA, for my company," Alexander said.

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The Federal Communications Commission today paused the "180-day informal time clock" in its review of the proposed Comcast/Time Warner Cable and AT&T/DirecTV mergers.

The extension comes in response to a request by Dish Network; Comptel; Monumental Sports and Entertainment; RCN; Grande Communications, Inc.; Choice Cable TV of Puerto Rico; and Writers Guild of America, West. These organizations filed their request for an extension after content companies refused to allow access to confidential carriage agreements, despite the FCC issuing a joint protective order requiring limited disclosure. The content companies that objected to providing confidential information included CBS, Scripps, Disney, Time Warner, Twenty First Century Fox, Univision, Viacom, Discovery, and TV One.

Today's FCC order states:

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Please send information about releases of Linux-related products to [email protected] or New Products c/o Linux Journal, PO Box 980985, Houston, TX 77098. Submissions are edited for length and content.

CN.dart.call("xrailTop", {sz:"300x250", kws:[], collapse: true});iOS 5, 6, and 7 got many minor updates throughout their life cycles, but each received only one "major" update in their year or so as Apple's newest mobile operating system. iOS 5.1, 6.1, and 7.1 were all released several months after the initial release, and each update marked the point where the version became "mature."

Apple is mixing things up with iOS 8. Version 8.1 is here just a month after the initial release, and plentiful evidence shows that both versions 8.2 and 8.3 are already in testing at Cupertino. It's a rapid-fire schedule more in line with iOS 4, a release in which bug fixes and new features were introduced at a steady but more gradual clip.

iOS 8.1 shouldn't be compared to iOS 7.1, which gestated for a full six months and was vetted in five separate beta builds. It still introduces quite a few new features, though, and in the spirit of keeping our comprehensive iOS 8 review up to date, we've taken the most important ones for a test drive. This release doesn't fix all of iOS 8's biggest problems, but it's an important first step toward a more stable and more useful OS.

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An elephant calf has been air rescued after he fell down a well in the remote region of Milgis Lugga in Northern Kenya.