The next wave of virtual reality may be largely driven by the gaming industry, but the technology's impact is being explored and felt by many other fields as well. Join us at 1pm Eastern for a discussion of how the cheap availability of quality VR headsets is already changing the worlds of psychology and space exploration.

With us today are:

• Dr. Marat V. Zanov, director of training at Virtually Better Inc., which has used VR in the treatment of phobias and trauma for decades
• Dr. Albert "Skip" Rizzo, USC Institute for Creative Technology, who has been researching therapeutic uses for VR since the early '90s
• Victor Luo and Jeff Norris, engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who are using VR to improve Martian mapping techniques and robotic remote controls

Please join us using the link below and participate by leaving comments and questions for our panelists either before or during the event.

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After a couple of months off due to a very busy fall product season, we’re finally back again with our monthly guide to video cards and video card industry recap. Since our last guide it has been a busy couple of months, so there’s quite a bit to cover.

The big news this fall has of course been the new video card launches from AMD and NVIDIA. While October has been a relatively quiet month, both companies kept September busy by pushing new products out the door and took others off the shelves.

AMD for their part released the first of their GCN 1.2 architecture GPUs: Tonga. Tonga serves as AMD’s replacement for the nearly 3 year old Tahiti GPU, the very first of AMD’s GPUs first launched in 2011. Tonga is an interesting – if still slightly mysterious – GPU, as we suspect we have not seen everything it and GCN 1.2 can offer. From a high level GCN 1.2 is a further refinement on the GCN architecture, bringing with it greatly improved Delta Color Compression for graphics buffers, a faster video decode block (H.264 L5.2 support), and a further optimized geometry frontend that better handles extreme tessellation factors. At the same time we suspect there are some compute/HSA improvements in the design that AMD has not disclosed and are being saved for the rumored Carrizo APU, Kaveri’s successor.

As for AMD’s desktop product stack, Tonga has been used so far in a single product, the Radeon R9 285. Like Tonga to Tahiti, R9 285 is designed to replace the R9 280 and similar second-tier Tahiti designs. Compared to R9 280, R9 285 is an unusual sidegrade that packs the GCN 1.2 features, a narrower 256-bit memory bus, and virtually identical performance to R9 280. Tahiti and R9 280 were in need of an update and R9 285 is a fine replacement, but if it has any weakness it’s that it hasn’t done much to push the overall performance envelope.

Meanwhile not to be left behind, NVIDIA released their own new wave of video cards powered by the Maxwell 2 architecture. The immediate successor to the Maxwell 1 architecture used in the GeForce GTX 750 series, Maxwell 2 brought NVIDIA’s previous power efficiency gains to the high-end with their new GM204 GPU, along with some new architectural features that make Maxwell 2 stand further apart from Maxwell 1. Among these is HDMI 2.0 support, HEVC hardware encoding, NVIDIA’s VXGI voxel rendering technology, and a suite of new graphics features that will be part of the Direct3D 11.3 specification.

GM204 in turn lies at the heart of the GeForce GTX 980 and GTX 970, which had a significant impact on the PC video card market almost overnight. GTX 980 took the top spot as the fastest single-GPU video card, pushing aside AMD’s Radeon R9 290X and even NVIDIA’s own GTX 780 Ti while setting new marks for power efficiency (all the more impressive since this is still TSMC’s 28nm process). Meanwhile the more affordable GTX 970 retained much of GTX 980’s performance at a lower price, which had a significant spoiler effect on the market due to its strong performance – second only to GTX 980 and often tied with R9 290X – coupled with a low $330 price tag.

In fact it’s only now, over a month post-launch that NVIDIA and their partners have finally caught up with demand. For the last month GTX 900 cards have been hard (though not impossible) to come by, reflecting the impact they’ve had on the market. The AMD ecosystem for its part has cut prices in response in order to stay competitive, and while AMD is facing a technological gap they can’t completely close with the R9 290 series, they can still put up a good fight with competitive positioning.

Finally, on a software note, we’re seeing the launch of this fall’s major video games, including games that were designed around the current-generation game consoles. Though the era of AAA action games being cross-platform means that PC video cards don’t always get used to their full potential, the flip side of this is that once there’s a console generation jump, we see a significant increase in the GPU requirements as the PC video card advantage gets reset. Of particular note, games like Shadows of Mordor and Assassin’s Creed: Unity are hitting shelves with high performance requirements and VRAM-hungry assets that can eat into 4GB+ of VRAM, as consoles are now using GPUs and graphical effects in from the same generation as current PC GPUs. For gamers this means upgrades may be in order, something AMD and NVIDIA are itching to provide.

Anyhow, market summaries behind us, let’s look at individual recommendations. As always, we’ve laid out our ideas of price/performance bands and recommendations in our table below, with our full explanations and alternative options to follow. As always, in the case of the sub-$200 market it’s worth pointing out that there’s a video card for roughly every $10, so picking a good video card is as much about budgets as it is finding an especially strong card.

October 2014 GPU Performance Guide Performance Band Price Range Recommendation 1080p (Low) $99-$149 AMD Radeon R7 260X 1080p (Med) $149-$189 AMD Radeon R7 265 1080p (High) $189-$279 AMD Radeon R9 280 1440p (Med) $279-$349 AMD Radeon R9 290 1440p (High) $349 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 1440p (Max) $579+ NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 4K/Multi-Monitor (High) $560+ 2x AMD Radeon R9 290
AMD Radeon R9 295X2
2x NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980

As a general recommendation for gaming, we suggest starting at $99. There are cards below this price, but the amount of performance you have to give up below $99 far outweighs the cost. Even then, performance gains will generally exceed the price increases up to $150 or so.

Meanwhile for gamers looking for high quality 1080p gaming or better, that will start at around $199. Going above that will find cards that are good for 1440p, 4K, and multi-monitor, while going below that will find cards that will require some quality sacrifices to stay at 1080p.

Finally, this guide is by its very nature weighted towards price/performance, based on the passionate feedback we've received from our readers. For these purposes we consider AMD and NVIDIA to be equal from a functionality and compatibility perspective, but it should be said that both parties have been building out their ecosystem in the past year, and this will only continue to grow as the two companies try to differentiate themselves. So if you need or want functionality beyond the core functionality a video card offers, it may be worthwhile to familiarize yourself with the NVIDIA and AMD ecosystems, including Gameworks, Eyefinity, G-Sync, Mantle, GeForce Experience, and more.

Budget (<$100): AMD Radeon R7 260X

Though always a bit of a mess due to the sheer number of cards around the $99 price point, for this month the market for budget cards is going to be pretty cut and dry. At under $100 AMD’s Radeon R9 260X is going to be the fastest option available. Based on a full-fledged version of AMD’s Bonaire GPU, the R7 260X offers a good balance between price and performance, delivering the best performance to be found for this price segment.

Now this still isn’t going to quite hit the overall performance sweet spot we outlined earlier, but for those gamers on a strict budget it will get the job done. For current games it will be able to run most of them at 1080p with medium-to-low settings. For newer cross-platform games however, we expect to see it get forced back to low quality. One piece of advice here is that if you can snag one, a 2GB card is going to have longer legs than a 1GB card. Unfortunately most sub-$100 cards are the 1GB variety, but there is usually a 2GB card or two also available at that price.

Runner Up: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750

Our second runner up here is NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 750. Most GTX 750 cards are over $100, but there is a decent selection at $99, enough to make purchasing one at this price an option. Against the R7 260X it’s still going to be several percent slower, but it has an ace up its sleeve in its sub-75W power consumption, making it more favorable in power or cooling constrained systems.

Mainstream Sweet Spot ($149): AMD Radeon R7 265

At this point in time the $149 price point is in an odd spot due to how this price point is bracketed by cards above and below it. The card you’re most likely to find at this price point is AMD’s Radeon R7 265, the company’s lowest-tier Pitcairn card. Essentially a 7850 with a higher GPU clockspeed and a revised memory bus allowing for higher memory clockspeeds, the R7 265 a capable card for the price.

From a performance standpoint the R7 265 not going to be able to play every game at 1080p at high settings, but it will be fast enough for medium-to-high depending on the game, which will be a couple of notches higher than what the $99 cards can do. Meanwhile the 2GB of VRAM will mean that future games shouldn’t bog down the card quite as badly; higher graphical fidelity games will slow it down like any other card, but there’s enough VRAM to keep up with the demands of higher resolution textures and heavier use of intermediate buffers.

Runner Up: AMD Radeon R9 270 & NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti

While R7 265 is AMD’s official $149 card, the more powerful R9 270 has been flirting with the $149 mark as well. There aren’t really enough cards available at this price to qualify R7 270 as a $149 card, but it can be found at that price by the smart shopper. All things considered the R7 270 is the better card at around 10% faster, and if it can be found at $149 you should take it over an R7 265.

Alternatively, we have NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 750 Ti, a card that offers below the R7 265 but with much lower power consumption. The GTX 750 Ti is a sub-75W card – no external PCIe power connector required – allowing it to work in cases and systems where the near-150W R7 265 cannot, while also offering the improved acoustics that come with lower power consumption. And at around $129 it’s going to be lighter on the wallet than R7 265, but performance standpoint it will trail by about 16%.

1080p Gaming ($189): AMD Radeon R9 280

Once we start approaching $200 we begin reaching some rather powerful cards, and in the process cross a pretty good fight for the $200 spot between AMD and NVIDIA. But at the end of the day AMD has the edge with their Radeon R9 280, the company’s second-tier Tahiti part. Officially this part is in clearance sale mode, but that has been the case for almost 2 months now with the supply still holding strong, so as long as that remains the case this is going to be the strongest card for those looking around the $200 price point.

The R9 280 should breeze through 1080p gaming, and with its 3GB of VRAM it should hold up to newer cross-platform games a bit better than some other cards. This card should even be able to hit 1440p in some scenarios, but I expect the next round of cross-platform games will keep it working hard just to stay at 1080p with high quality settings.

Runner Up: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760

The GeForce GTX 760 falls a bit short of R9 280’s performance, but should R9 280 supplies finally dry up or you’re just looking for a $200 NVIDIA card it’s still a solid choice. As NVIDIA’s second-tier GK104 card it still packs quite a punch.

1440p Power ($279): AMD Radeon R9 290

Past $200, the launch of the GTX 900 series has caused a major disruption of pricing and sweet spots. Between the $189 R9 280 and $279 R9 290 there are some cards such as the R9 285 and GTX 770, but none of them are very interesting nor make all that much sense right now. With the R9 290 at $279, your best bet after the $200 mark is to just keep on going until you reach the first of our high performance cards.

At $300 or less there’s really no choice here. To that end AMD essentially wins by default, but the real winner is gamers who are getting a good card at a great price. Based on the second-tier version of AMD’s flagship Hawaii GPU, the R9 290 packs enough performance to tackle 1440p at medium-to-high settings, and its 4GB of VRAM means that it should have no problem even with demanding cross-platform games. Alternatively, if you want to drive 120Hz without spending a fortune, the R9 290 should get you there.

The Performance Sweet Spot ($349): NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970

Above the R9 290 and the biggest factor in reshaping the performance video card landscape in the last month is the cheaper of NVIDIA’s two GTX 900 series cards, the GeForce GTX 970. The GTX 970 is the reason AMD had to cut prices, and along with its sibling is arguably unmatched from a technological perspective. AMD can offer similar performance, but they can’t match NVIDIA’s power efficiency in this segment of the market. Making it possible to have a high performance card without also having the heat and noise that so often comes with it.

From a performance perspective the GTX 970 is a solid step up from the R9 290, and this is coupled with its very significant power advantage. It should have no trouble handling 1440p games on high settings, and between this level of performance, power consumption, and price it’s undoubtedly the sweet spot card for performance gamers. You can get faster cards, but not at this balance between performance and price.

The only downside here is that pricing is currently not holding to the card’s initial $330 MSRP. It’s not completely clear whether this is due to the previously limited availability, retailer’s taking advantage of demand, or board partners pushing their premium customized cards, but you have to be ready to shell out $350 to get a choice of GTX 970 cards. This does hurt GTX 970’s sweet spot designation a bit, though it’s still the strongest contender.

Runner Up: AMD Radeon R9 290X

As an alternative to the GTX 970 we have AMD’s Radeon R9 290X. At sub-4K resolutions it’s basically tied with the GTX 970 on performance, and consumes quite a bit more power in the process. But if you’re after AMD’s best card or just additional options at this price/performance level, it won’t disappoint.

Taking the Single-GPU Crown ($579): NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980

For the fastest single-GPU card on the market for gamers, NVIDIA’s top tier GM204 part, GeForce GTX 980, stands alone. As is often the case for NVIDIA’s flagship cards, NVIDIA is clearly charging a premium for the card, but in return you get performance a step ahead of any other card on the market. And power consumption is second only to the lower performing GTX 970, making it perhaps the most power efficient card of them all.

Overall GTX 980 should be able to handle 1440p with maximum quality settings, including a good amount of anti-aliasing. It’s not quite up to the task of handling 4K on its own (at least not without a compromise in quality settings), but owners of 120Hz 1440p monitors will find that it has enough power to push past 60fps at 1440p in several games.

4K for Me ($560): 2x AMD Radeon R9 290

If anything, the hardest pick is finding the best choice for a true high performance, high quality 4K gaming setup. No one GPU can deliver this, so instead we’re presented with a number of options for multiple GPUs.

Truth be told there are a couple of different ways to do this. Right now the two best options are both AMD, and this is due to the combination of their XDMA engine and their greater scaling at 4K. In the single-GPU race NVIDIA is untouched, but they’re still facing at challenge at 4K.

The cheapest way to get to 4K is with a pair of AMD’s Radeon R9 290 cards. From a pure performance perspective R9 290 in CF delivers a solid 4K experience; most games scale well over a single card, and there’s enough performance on tap that 4K at high quality settings is a practical option. All told this combination runs for $560, which also happens to be around the price of a 4K TN monitor.

The big drawback with this setup is that all of the good 290 cards are open air coolers, which means they require more space and better chassis cooling. A pair of blowers would be easier to work with here, but that would require moving up to a pair of R9 290Xs, and if we wanted a good blower that would require an even bigger step up to the GTX 980.

Runner Up: AMD Radeon R9 295X2 & 2x GeForce GTX 980

While at $900 it’s quite a bit more than a pair of R9 290Xs, AMD’s dual-GPU R9 295X2 makes for a very tantalizing alternative. AMD’s dual-GPU flagship card offers all of the performance of the 290X in Crossfire with vastly improved acoustics and in a smaller package, which alleviates the drawback of our 4K budget option.

Finally, the GTX 980 in SLI is also going to be a viable alternative here. From a performance perspective it’s going to trade blows with the R9 295X2 much of the time, so it’s still going to offer best-in-class performance regardless. The catch is that at $1160 for the dual card setup it’s some $260 more expensive than the R9 295X2 for what’s only similar performance. But unlike either AMD option, the GTX 980 is available in a high quality blower configuration, allowing a 3rd option between the widely spaced open air cards of R9 290 and the unconventional CLLC of the R9 295X2.

Verizon Wireless has agreed to a $64.2 million settlement in a class action lawsuit that alleged it billed phone customers for calls that were supposed to be free.

The proposed settlement (PDF) was filed last week in US District Court in New Jersey and first reported by Law360.

"The motion asks US District Judge Jose L. Linares to sign off on the agreement, which would include a $36.7 million cash payment from Verizon in addition to $27.5 million in 'calling units' that will be accessible via personal identification number," Law360 wrote. The lawyers who represented consumers will get $19.26 million from the total settlement amount.

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As a rule, you don't spend $2 billion on a company like Oculus without expecting the technology to eventually reach some kind of world-changing scale. In an earnings call earlier this week, though, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said it could take a little bit of time before virtual reality becomes a market force that could represent the kind of "new major computing platform" that only comes around once every ten or 15 years.

"[Oculus] needs to reach a very large scale, 50 million to 100 million units, before it'll really be a very meaningful thing as a computing platform," Zuckerberg said during the call to investors and analysts. "So I do think it's going to take a bunch of years to get there. ... That'll take a few cycles of the device to get there, and that's kind of what I'm talking about. And then when you get to that scale, that's when it starts to be interesting as a business in terms of developing out the ecosystem."

Even with 100,000 development kits already distributed worldwide, Zuckerberg sees the first few consumer iterations of the Rift, expected in the next few years, to merely be the tip of the spear for VR as a platform, so to speak. "So when I'm talking about that as a 10-year thing, it's building the first set of devices and building the audience and the ecosystem around that until it eventually becomes a business."

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The Mexican president has met with the families of 43 students who went missing in September, following clashes with police.

If anyone was still unaware of GamerGate by this point, Stephen Colbert provided a one-night crash course through an editorial segment (below) and an interview with critic Anita Sarkeesian (above).

"You and the other feminazis in the gamer world are coming for our balls, to snip 'em off, put 'em in a little felt purse, and take them away so we have to play your non-violent games, right?"

"Not quite. There is something going on," Sarkeesian replied. "What it is, is women are being harassed, threatened, and terrorized..."

"After you first attacked male gamers for enjoying looking at big breasted women with tiny armor that barely covers their nipples?" Colbert interjected. "What's wrong with that? I'm a man, baby. Newsflash: I like that."

In typical Colbert fashion, the host boiled down a hot media controversy to its core and found spots of seeming lunacy. Sarkeesian retold the story of her lecture at Utah State University being canceled after an anonymous e-mail threatened the biggest school shooting to date. She dismissed the "threat" of women gamers, saying it may be a result of the gaming industry's resistance to becoming more inclusive. Colbert's response to all of that? "Why not just have a separate game? Have separate but equal games?"

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Spoooooooky!

Earlier today, Ars IT editor Sean Gallagher was doing some scary things with wireless when he discovered someone probing for a Wi-Fi network with a name that appeared to be something un-parseable. I theorized that it was actually something in Unicode that Wireshark wasn't parsing properly. "So someone has a Unicode SSID?" Gallagher asked, incredulous.

That's the strangest SSID I've ever seen. Sean Gallagher

I was inspired. I wanted a Unicode SSID—one that could match the season and give my network name a seasonal gothic flare. So I set out to see if I could do it with my own Wi-Fi network. While I was successful, the effect may be lost on Windows users and others on devices that can't handle Unicode characters in their wireless network name. And as Gallagher determined, it doesn't work on all Wi-Fi networking hardware.

OS X ♥ Unicode The tools

Unicode has some fun characters that can be used to generate a spooky SSID, but it can be difficult to type these characters using a traditional keyboard. After some digging around, I found the excellent Unicode Text Converter. This page allows you to enter a simple string and get back a variety of clever representations.

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Indian police are hunting for thieves who tunnelled into a bank and fled with valuables worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Apple CEO Tim Cook speaking during a September 2012 media event. Nathan Mattise / Ars Technica

After years of speculation and debate about the seemingly open secret of Apple CEO Tim Cook's sexuality, Cook himself finally addressed the matter in an editorial in Bloomberg Businessweek Thursday. "I’ve come to realize that my desire for personal privacy has been holding me back from doing something more important. That’s what has led me to today," Cook wrote.

"While I have never denied my sexuality, I haven’t publicly acknowledged it either, until now. So let me be clear: I’m proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me."

Cook has long been a focal point in discussions about powerful gay CEOs. He's also been in the middle of a meta-discussion about titans of industry and their right to privacy versus the powerful position Cook is in as a member of the LGBT community. For a long time, Cook wrote, many Apple colleagues knew he was gay, but he refrained from publicly defining himself as such.

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The newly formed HP Inc took the wraps off a fairly unique PC. The Sprout is a traditional all-in-one computer that has been coupled with a 3D camera system, a 20-point touch mat, and a DLP projector to form a new PC system to “unleash your creativity like never before.” This unique combination allows a person to experience what HP is calling “Blended Reality.” The Sprout is the first product available in HP’s Blended Reality ecosystem, and is also backed up by a new 3D printer from HP Inc.

First off is the all-in-one PC, which features a 23” 1920x1080 display. Behind the screen is the Intel Core i7-4790S CPU, which is a four core, eight thread 65 watt Haswell part, and 8 GB of memory. Graphical duties are handled by the Intel HD 4600 integrated GPU as well as the NVIDIA GeForce GT 745A with 2 GB of DDR3, which is a fairly low end GPU. It almost makes no sense as to why the GPU is even in there, but it is for graphic-intensive tasks like gaming according to HP. It will be better than the integrated GPU but it would be nice to see a more powerful GPU or at least the 745M which has much more memory bandwidth to run games at the native resolution of the panel. Storage for the all-in-one is handled by a 1 TB hybrid drive, which only has 8 GB of flash acceleration. The Sprout features both 1000 Base-T Ethernet and 802.11n 2x2:2 dual band wifi. As just an all-in-one, there would be little to talk about here, but the Sprout is more than that.

HP Blended Reality HP Sprout All-In-One CPU Intel Core i7-4790S (4 core, 8 thread, 3.2 GHz to 4.0 GHz, HD 4600 GPU, 65 W TDP) GPU NVIDIA GeForce GT 745A (GK107 MXM, 384 Stream Processors, 128 bit bus, 2 GB DDR3) RAM 8GB PC3-12800 DDR3-1600 SDRAM memory 2x4GB (expandable to 16GB) Storage 1TB SATA 6G Solid State Hybrid Drive with 8GB SSD cache Display 23" 1920x1080 w/10 point touch Network 10/100/1000 Base-T Network and Integrated Bluetooth® 4.0 and Wireless LAN 802.11a/b/g/n featuring Dual-band (2.4GHz and 5GHz) 2x2 MIMO technology HP Illuminator HP Illuminator, powered by the HP DLP Projector, the HP High-Resolution Camera with up to 14.6 megapixel resolution and the Intel® RealSense™ 3D Camera for instant capture of 2D and 3D objects, along with an LED desk lamp HP Touch Mat 20" diagonal, 20-point touch-enabled touch mat with an ultra-resistant top coating Web Camera HP High Definition 1MP Webcam Stylus Adonit Jot Pro stylus to write and draw. It can be attached magnetically to the upper-right side of the Sprout display. OS Windows 8.1 Sound DTS Sound

The first part of the Sprout which differentiates it from a normal all-in-one is the camera system, which combines a scanner, a depth sensor, and a 14.6 MP camera, and utilizes Intel RealSense 3D Camera technology to allow the Sprout to capture 3D objects and allow the user to manipulate them after the fact. Once scanned, the Sprout can display the object on the computer display, or it can use the built in DLP projector to display the object on the 20” 20-point touch-enabled mat as seen in this video from HP:

Also included is an Adonit Jot Pro stylus, which can be used to write or draw with on the mat. The stylus can be magnetically attached to the side of the Sprout display when not in use.

While not an ultra-powerful PC, you can certainly see some use cases for a device like this. Many creative professionals already use stylus and touch enabled pads, such as the ones from Wacom. The Sprout adds to this with the DLP projector so that you can directly manipulate the items on the pad, rather than use the pad in an abstract way. HP also adds to the experience with custom software to enable this hybrid approach for object manipulation in the digital space. HP is advocating the Sprout Marketplace, which will allow for easier discovery of applications which are optimized for the platform.

HP is committing to the Blended Reality ecosystem, with the Sprout as only the first device in the line. To further flesh out the ecosystem, they are also announcing the HP Multi Jet Fusion 3D printer. They are claiming that the output of the new printer has better overall strength, accuracy, resiliency, and finish than that of other 3D printers in the price range, as well as the HP version being up to ten times faster. As well, the Multi Jet Fusion printer will also allow for full-color 3D print solutions.

Is Blended Reality going to be a new buzz word? It is too early to tell, but certainly this is a fairly unique take on a creative focused personal computer.  The combination of the DLP projector, touch pad, and all-in-one computer may be a compelling integrated solution for some. The Sprout is available for pre-order now starting at $1899, with availability scheduled for November 9th. The new 3D printer is not currently listed and no price was given, other than it would be more affordable that similar devices on the market today.

Source: HP Inc

Stockmonkeys.com

Since 1998, breaking most types of digital locks, often called Digital Rights Management (DRM), is against the law. Even well-lawyered companies that tried to plead fair use, as RealPlayer did in 2008, have been crushed. What chance does a regular Joe have?

But if you have a legal use for copyrighted content, there is an "out." Every three years, the Copyright Office accepts petitions on what activities should get an "exemption" under the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The sixth tri-annual rulemaking is now upon us, and the deadline is this Monday, November 3.

"It's not a heavy lift to file a petition," said Sherwin Siy, VP of legal affairs at Public Knowledge, an advocacy group that's long been active on copyright issues. "Five pages, max, short and sweet."

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It's Halloween week, and the big names in Linux are determined not to disappoint the trick-or-treaters. No less than three mainline distributions have released new versions this week, led by perennially-loved-and-hated crowd favourite Ubuntu. more>>

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 virtual reality excitement is happening beyond the world of gaming. Join us this afternoon for a live discussion on the topic with article author Kyle Orland and his expert guests; your comments and questions are welcome.

When Oculus almost single-handedly revived the idea of virtual reality from its ‘90s vaporware grave, it chose the 2012 Electronic Entertainment Expo as the place to unveil the first public prototype of the Rift headset. The choice of a gaming convention isn’t that surprising, as the game industry has been the quickest and most eager to jump on potential applications for VR. Gaming has already demanded the majority of the attention and investments in the second VR boom that Oculus has unleashed.

But just as the Rift itself is the result of what Oculus calls a “peace dividend from the smartphone wars,” other fields are benefiting from virtual reality’s gaming-driven growth. Creators all over the world are looking beyond entertainment to adapting head-mounted displays for everything from psychotherapy, special-needs education, and space exploration to virtual luxury car test drives, virtual travel, and even VR movies. The well-worn idea of “gaming on the holodeck” may be driving much of the interest in virtual reality, but the technology’s non-gaming applications could be just as exciting in the long term.

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Back towards the start of this year, Lenovo announced that it would be acquiring Motorola Mobility from Google. Motorola Mobility, the phone and gadget arm of Motorola, would be sold to Lenovo for just under $3 billion. Motorola Mobility would come as the latest in a string of acquisitions for Lenovo, who in recent years has picked up IBM’s desktop and x86 server businesses, among other major purchases.

This morning Lenovo sends word that the deal has closed, and the acquisition of Motorola is complete. The final value of the deal has been placed at $2.91 billion, notably just a fraction of the price that Google purchased the complete Motorola for back in 2012.

With the closure of the deal and as part of the announcement, Lenovo has reiterated that they intend to keep the Motorola brand and their Chicago headquarters. The recent launch of the Moto X, Moto 360, and Motorola powered DROID Turbo have kept Motorola in the spotlight, and Lenovo seems eager to continue building off of that.

At the same time however the real challenge has just begun for Lenovo. Motorola Mobility has been a money-losing operation for Google, and while their launches have been high profile they’re still fighting for a spot of stability in a market where it’s Samsung who is the dominant (and most profitable) player. As we noted back when the acquisition was announced, Lenovo has earned a name in being able to turn around low margin device businesses. So if there is any chance of Motorola Mobility being back into the black, Lenovo stands a good chance of finding it.

Synology recently launched the DS415+, their first Intel Rangeley-based NAS. This 4-bay NAS, targeted towards SMBs and SOHOs, finally brings about hardware accelerated encryption capabilities to DSM in the desktop tower form factor. The Rangeley platform also provides a host of other advantages in a storage device. Read on for our review of the DS415+ to identify what Synology's DSM can do in conjunction with one of the latest Atom-based storage platform SoCs from Intel.

Sierra Leone has one of the world's highest infant mortality rates, and the Ebola outbreak is likely to push it even higher.

Molten lava from a volcano erupting on Hawaii's Big Island has been flowing slowly across the island.

South Sudan is desperately in need of mental health facilities to treat people brutalised by decades of conflict.

The BBC's Divya Arya reports from India, where women of 60 and 70 are becoming mothers for the first time.

Hengdian, a small town on the east coast of China, has become the setting for one of the largest outdoor movie studios in the world.