An increasing number of health workers worry that they may face discrimination when they return home.

US President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle welcome some special guests to the White House for a trick-or-treat Halloween celebration.

Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga fighters cross the Turkish border to help defend the Syrian town of Kobane from Islamic State.

Google's applications like Gmail, Camera, and Chrome are likely applications that came on your Android phone when you first purchased it. But unlike iOS where Apple has to ship an entire operating system update to update an application, Google's apps for Android can be updated right from Google Play. Google has been steadily updating their applications to take advantage of their new "Material Design" design principles that were shown off at Google I/O. With Android 5.0 Lollipop on the horizon, Google has to get the remaining applications up to date, and the latest application to recieve the new visual style is Gmail with its major update to version 5.0.

As you can see above, there's a lot of changes that come with the new Material Design interface. The most striking change is the the removal of the grey that was prevalent throughout the application. In the previous version, the color of an email preview changed to grey to indicate that the email had been read, while unread messages remained white. In the new design, the change between bolded or unbolded preview text indicates whether a message has been read. I personally find this to be much more aesthetically pleasing.

The header and status bar are now a nice moderately saturated red color that doesn't feel gaudy but brings more color into the interface. The circular button for composing a new email at the bottom also uses this red color. On the topic of circles, Google has begun to use circular contact photos throughout their applications, although in my case they just display the sender's first initial. If I had put in the effort to assign contact photos the new circles would display them where the squares previously did. 

Google has also redesigned the navigation drawer that houses your different inbox labels, and settings. The grey has been changed to white, and the top displays your cover photo from Google+ which seems to be a message from Google that you're supposed to change it from the default rainbow thing. 

The sliding drawer is a topic of debate right now because many applications implement it incorrectly, including many that are made by Google like the Hangouts application. Google's official guidelines state that the drawer is to slide in overtop of every other part of the interface except for the status bar. The new Gmail application implements this correctly, and I'm hopeful that every other Google application will be updated to adopt the proper design before Android Lollipop ships. It's very difficult to get developers to follow design guidelines when you don't set a good example with your own first party applications, and the navigation drawer in Hangouts has multiple issues with its design when compared to Google's guidelines. 

The last big change in the application is the support for adding email accounts from other providers like Yahoo, iCloud Mail, Outlook, etc. Any email account that supports IMAP/POP or Exchange can be added. This is a great feature as it eliminates the need to have to add every non-Google email account to the standard Email application which isn't given as much attention as Google's own Gmail app.

The BBC's Lucas de Jong found one place in Singapore where interior designer Terry Goh has spent seven years making Hello Kitty the centre of attention.

Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, the Briton who in the 1960s became the first person to sail round the world on his own without stopping, is about to return to ocean racing at the age of 75.

Prosecutors in Contra Costa County, directly across the bay from San Francisco, have filed criminal felony charges against a former California Highway Patrol (CHP) officer, Sean Harrington, who is accused of seizing and distributing racy photos copied from arrestees’ phones.

Harrington's attorney, Michael Rains, told a local NBC affiliate that his client has resigned from the CHP and was sorry for what he has done. Rains, who has a longstanding history of representing Bay Area law enforcement, did not immediately respond to Ars' request for comment.

"This behavior is really not defensible,” Rains told NBC Bay Area. “It is impulsive, immature and inappropriate in every sense of the word.”

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Protesters in Burkina Faso are demanding that President Compaore's replacement Gen Traore step down, reports Laeila Adjovi from Ougadougou.

Debris from SpaceShipTwo in the Mojave desert. ABC News

At a press conference this evening, officials confirmed the destruction of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo and the death of one of its two-person crew. The air-launched spaceplane, intended to one day carry passengers for suborbital "space tourism" flights, left the ground at 9:20am PDT. At approximately 10:10am, SpaceShipTwo separated from its "mothership," WhiteKnightTwo. Approximately two minutes later, controllers noticed an "anomaly," and the flight was terminated as SpaceShipTwo broke apart.

Both of the two crewmembers aboard ejected from the spacecraft; one survived with serious injuries and was transported to a hospital, but the other perished. Although the names of the two crewmembers were not released, the president of the company that built the craft, Scaled Composites' Kevin Mickey, confirmed that both were Scaled Composites employees.

Representatives on hand during the press conference included officials from the Mojave Air and Space Port, Scaled Composites, Virgin Galactic, and local fire and police agencies. The officials delivered prepared statements and fielded a limited number of questions but deferred most substantial information until after the National Transportation Safety Bureau team could arrive. The NTSB is expected to begin its formal investigation at approximately 7:30am  PDT tomorrow morning, November 1.

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Time starts at the left and moves right, obviously. NASA

Time is something we're all very aware of. On my desk, I have no less than four devices that insist on telling me the current time. Despite this exactitude, we have very little idea about what time is and why it has only one direction, and it has turned out to be a remarkably difficult question to answer.

Like all good questions, this one lingers, like the contents in the back of a fridge. It haunts our dreams and desperately awaits someone strong enough to brave the mold and scrape out the pot.

Time and the laws of physics

What is this stuff called time, anyway? No one really knows. It's so embedded in our experience that we can measure its passage more accurately than just about anything else. But compared to spatial dimensions, we know nothing. Take, for example, the expansion of the Universe. This is space—the thing that provides room for us to move—getting larger. Somehow, space is stretching out and becoming bigger. This expansion occurs as a function of time, but... why is time not stretching out as well? Indeed, why is time even separate from space? Why can we turn left or right in space, but not turn "future" or "past" in time? It's simply an enigma.

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An edition of El Pais that pre-dates Google News. lacuadratura

Spain passed a new Intellectual Property Law yesterday, which includes a provision to levy fees on search engines that show snippets of other webpages. It's at least the third instance of a European government seeking to impose a fee on search techniques to support their traditional publishing industry. Such efforts are often labeled a "Google tax."

"We are disappointed with the new law because we believe that services like Google News help publishers bring traffic to their sites," Google told The Hollywood Reporter in a statement.  "As far as the future is concerned, we will continue working with the Spanish publishers to help increase their revenues while we evaluate our options within the framework of the new legislation."

The Spanish law allows for sanctions of up to $758,000 for those who violate the law. The penalty applies to anyone who "links to pirated content," according to THR, and in the Spanish view, that apparently includes Google News snippets.

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A Virginia Circuit Court judge ruled on Thursday that a person does not need to provide a passcode to unlock their phone for the police. The court also ruled that demanding a suspect to provide a fingerprint to unlock a phone would be constitutional.

The ruling calls into question the privacy of some iPhone 5S, 6, and 6 Plus users who have models equipped with TouchID, the fingerprint sensor that allows the user—and ideally only the user—to unlock the phone. It is possible for users to turn TouchID unlocking off and simply use a passcode, and Apple has provided certain extra protections to prevent TouchID privacy issues—requiring the entry of a passcode if the phone hasn't been used in 48 hours, for example. But if a suspect simply uses TouchID to open their phone, police could have a window to take advantage of that when apprehending them.

The case in question this week involved a man named David Baust, who was charged in February with trying to strangle his girlfriend. The Virginian Pilot reports that Baust's phone might contain video of the conflict but that his phone was locked with a passcode. Baust's attorney argued that passcodes are protected by the Fifth Amendment.

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Few things are scarier than 4Chan. But our readers told a few stories that spooked us. Paul van der Werf

Earlier this week, we asked readers to share their most frightening tales of technology terror and support horror. And via both comments and Twitter (using the hashtag #ITTalesofTerror), in poured stories that raised goosebumps from those of us who have worked in IT at one point or another.

After reading through them, we’ve picked out some reader favorites and a few of our own. Some of us at Ars were inspired to recount further tales of horror from our own IT careers—including one of mine that I’ve saved for last; it should cause a shudder of recognition from our more veteran readers and a bit of schadenfreude from those too young to remember five-and-a-quarter-inch floppy disks.

The chamber of horrors Danger: Intel inside. Cohesion

Many readers had short tales of terror about mishaps in the closed spaces where we hide our network infrastructure. Eli Jacobowitz (@creepdr on Twitter) shared a short, shocking scenario by tweet: “Raccoons in the network closet (not kidding).” David Mohundro shared another story of a somewhat more smelly infrastructure invasion that brings new meaning to “data scrubbing”: “I saw our IT guys lugging shop vacs through the lower parking deck one day. There was a sewage backup into the server room.”

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Mac users tired of their neglected four-year-old version of Outlook can heave a sigh of relief this morning, as Microsoft has released a new version of Outlook. Dubbed simply "Outlook for Mac," the upgraded release includes several standout features from the PC version of Outlook that Mac users have been forced to go without—and, unfortunately, it also brings with it a few features that Mac users probably wish would stay on the PC.

It's my inbox! As with many other companies, complaining about T&E and reimbursements is a popular topic at Ars.

There’s a caveat, though: the new version of Outlook for Mac can only be used if you have certain Office 365 subscriptions. This holds with Microsoft’s new policy of "prioritiz[ing] mobile first and cloud first scenarios," and it means that at least for now, users who don’t pay for monthly Office 365 subscriptions and prefer to buy "perpetual" licensed versions (in other words, users who prefer to buy Office the traditional way) will have to wait at least until the first half of 2015 to get their hands on the new version of Outlook. At least for now, it’s subscription-only. More confusing, not all subscriptions are eligible (more on that in a minute). Additionally, MSDN subscribers do not appear to be able to download the application through the MSDN software library (I have an MSDN subscription, and the new Mac Office is definitely not in my download library).

If you are a O365 subscriber and have the right licensing, you should be able to download the new version of Outlook immediately. Probably the most significant feature added in the new version is true push support for receiving Exchange e-mail. Office 2011 users have had to go without the instant e-mail delivery that Windows Office users have always enjoyed. Finally, the updated Outlook lets you receive e-mail immediately rather than making you wait anywhere between ten and sixty seconds for e-mail to show up in your inbox.

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Hidden services running on the Tor network got major support on Friday when Facebook began offering Tor users a way to connect to its services and not run afoul of the social network’s algorithms for detecting fraudulent usage of accounts.

On Friday, the company added a hidden service address with a .onion top-level domain, facebookcorewwwi.onion [updated to fix address], which allows Tor users to protect their data and identity all the way to Facebook’s datacenters. Hidden services accessed through the Tor network allow both the Web user and website to remain anonymous.

“Facebook’s onion address provides a way to access Facebook through Tor without losing the cryptographic protections provided by the Tor cloud,” Alec Muffett, a software engineer with Facebook’s security infrastructure group, said in a blog post. “It provides end-to-end communication, from your browser directly into a Facebook datacenter.”

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If you want to buy a PC with Windows 7 Home Basic, Home Premium, or Ultimate preinstalled, you'd better buy it today. As noted earlier this year, October 31 is Microsoft's cut-off date for OEM preinstalls of the consumer editions of Windows 7.

In truth, most major OEMs had all but ceased selling systems with these operating systems long ago. With Windows 8.1 available to OEMs at no cost in the form of its "with Bing" edition, Windows 7 becomes an expensive option.

Windows 7 Professional is still available as a preinstall for at least another year. There's no end date actually specified yet, but Microsoft says that it will give at least one year of notice before sales cease.

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Yesterday MSI announced their latest notebook addition, the GT80 Titan. I'm a bit unsure what to think of the notebook, but it's obviously unique in that it offers a SteelSeries keyboard with Cherry MX Brown switches. It also has a tweaked keyboard/palm rest area, somewhat reminiscent of the Acer R7 in that the keyboard is at the front…only now you have to throw in shades of Razer's Switchblade touchpad/UI as there's apparently a configurable touchpad/screen on the right of the keyboard.

I get the idea of doing a notebook with a mechanical keyboard, though obviously that will result in a thicker chassis. I'm not so sure about shifting the keyboard forward and turning the 10-key into a touchpad and getting rid of the palm rest. For actual gaming, most users will still use a dedicated mouse, but I for one like having a place to rest my palms when gaming (or just staring at the screen trying to think of what to type next), and with a notebook that will likely be a couple inches thick that's a bit of a problem.

As far as the remaining specifications go, MSI is not officially announcing the supported CPUs or GPUs, and the GT80 Titan isn't actually available for purchase yet. My bet is the GT80 Titan will support at least the GTX 980M, and given it's an 18-inch chassis it could very well include support for SLI 980M. Given the name, it's also possible the GT80 will support desktop components (e.g. GTX Titan GPUs), but that's less likely; a desktop CPU on the other hand is certainly a possibility. Hopefully the screen and other elements can keep pace with the high-end mechanical keyboard. You can follow MSI from the GT80 Titan's page to receive updates if you're interested in hearing more.

Today Samsung announced two new smartphones that fit into their portfolio of mid-range devices. They are the Galaxy A3 and A5. Normally there's not a lot to get excited about when it comes to the launch of mid-range phones, but there's something very unique about these two new phones from Samsung. Samsung has long been criticized for their primarily plastic construction on their phones and tablets. This was improved with the designs of the Galaxy Alpha and the Note 4 which sported a metal band that went around the edges of the device. The Galaxy A3 and A5 take this even further with full metal unibody designs, much like what HTC has been doing for quite some time now. Before getting into the design, I've laid out the specifications that Samsung has revealed in a chart below. Some of their listed specs like the CPU are unfortunately very vague.

  Galaxy A5 Galaxy A3 SoC 1.2GHz Quad Core 1.2GHz Quad Core RAM/NAND 2 GB RAM, 16GB NAND + MicroSDHC 1GB RAM, 16GB NAND + MicroSDHC Display 5.0" HD Super AMOLED 4.5” qHD Super AMOLED Network 2G / 3G / 4G LTE (Category 4) 2G / 3G / 4G LTE (Category 4) Dimensions 139.3 x 69.7 x 6.7mm, 123g 130.1 x 65.5 x 6.9mm, 110.3g Camera 13MP Rear Camera, 5MP Front Camera 8MP Rear Camera, 5MP Front Camera Battery 2300 mAh 1900 mAh OS Android 4.4 KitKat Android 4.4 KitKat Connectivity 802.11a/b/g/n + BT 4.0, USB2.0, GPS/GNSS, NFC 802.11b/g/n/ac + BT 4.0, USB2.0, GPS/GNSS, DLNA, NFC SIM Size NanoSIM NanoSIM

As you can see, there's nothing too extraordinary with regards to the specifications. There's really no concrete way to determine if they use something like a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 part, or one of Samsung's own Exynos SoCs. Samsung has also not specified the exact resolution for the Galaxy A5, but based on its position in their lineup, and their past distinction between HD and Full HD Super AMOLED displays, it would make sense that the Galaxy A5 has a resolution of 1280x720. For connectivity both devices omit 802.11ac support, which is not surprising for devices in this segment of the market. Samsung is advertising their support for Cat4 LTE and Bluetooth 4.0.

The appeal of these phones is the design and materials. Both devices look similar to the Galaxy Alpha, with chamfered edges, flat sides, and a textured bezel surrounding the display. They both come in five colors, Champagne Gold, Light Blue, Pearl White, Midnight Black, Platinum Silver, and Soft Pink. Despite being budget devices, both the Galaxy A3 and A5 sport a metal unibody construction which is a major shift in Samsung's design for smartphones, and a shift that I never expected to see first made in Samsung's mid-range smartphones. It will definitely be interesting to see how this is extended to future flagship smartphones from Samsung.

Samsung hasn't stated the expected price for the Galaxy A3 and A5, and have only stated that it will be coming to select markets including China in November of this year. 

Source: Samsung via Android Police

The arrival of Iraqi Kurd Peshmerga fighters has "generated hope in the Kurdish community" reports Jiyar Gol from the Syria-Turkey border

The Wall Street Journal reports that Andy Rubin, the founder and former head of Android, is leaving Google. The report states that Rubin will be starting "an incubator for hardware startups."

The move shouldn't affect Android. Rubin left the mobile division in March of 2013, handing the reins over to Sundar Pichai. Pichai has turned into Larry Page's right-hand man and now controls just about every Google product.

For the last year and a half, Rubin has been running Google's mysterious robotics division. We've seen the company gobble up several high-profile robotics companies, including Boston Dynamics and SCHAFT, the winner of the DARPA Robotics Challenge. With Rubin out, James Kuffner will take over the division.

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