The UN High Commissioner for Refugees says the international community is not coping with the exponential growth of the number of displaced people.

Host Steven Johnson and his homie Galileo relax in Pisa. Jack Chapman

Welcome to the fuzzy, friendly era of modern mainstream science. Radiolab, Mythbusters, and varied radio and TV shows hosted by Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye have injected humor, bombast, and likeability into the medium’s weirdest stories (not to mention a zillion science-friendly GIFs into an average day of web browsing).

That trend goes some way in explaining the latest co-production from the BBC and PBS, which has decided on a host-first approach for their latest six-part series, How We Got To Now. But with longtime technology and science historian Steven Johnson at the helm, the perspective is a little different—not about otherworldly sights and jaw-dropping discoveries, but about finding the extraordinary in the ordinary.

As a result, the episode titles sound pretty boring, with themes like “cold,” “sound,” and “glass” dominating each hour-long dive into history. But while the series probably won’t make Johnson a Tyson-esque giant of popular science, the stories of How We Got To Now aren’t just a surprising look at how innovations beget innovations. They’re also an infinitely watchable greatest-hits look at Johnson’s impressive tech-history career.

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Drivers in the Nigerian capital of Lagos were asked to refrain from using their car horns for one day.

Government scientists from Wiltshire are calling for micro-biologists to volunteer in the fight against the growing threat of the deadly Ebola virus.

Two parents whose teenager set up a fake Facebook page to ridicule a classmate will face a defamation trial, a Georgia appeals court ruled yesterday. Even though they didn't create the page, the parents could be liable because they allowed it to remain up for more than a year, the court said.

In 2011, Alexandria (Alex) Boston, a middle school student in Cobb County, Georgia, shared a homeroom class with Dustin Athearn and Melissa Snodgrass. Athearn and Snodgrass created a fake Facebook page under Boston's name. They posted pictures of her taken using a "fat face" app and wrote posts that suggested she had racist views and was a lesbian, according to a report published today in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

"Some of these postings were graphically sexual, racist, or otherwise offensive and some falsely stated that Alex was on a medication regimen for mental health disorders and that she took illegal drugs," wrote the three-judge appeals panel in their opinion (PDF).

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Verizon Wireless

Verizon Wireless’s Edge financing program will reportedly start making customers pay off a higher percentage of the cost of a phone before they can upgrade to a new device.

Edge lets customers “upgrade every year, or more often,” its website says. But that’s going to change from a year to 18 months (less if customers pay up early) under new payment plans being unveiled tomorrow, according to reports in Droid Life and FierceWireless.

Droid Life attributed the information to “multiple sources,” while FierceWireless said it confirmed the changes with Verizon. A Verizon spokesperson told Ars that the articles are accurate.

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Even older Nexuses will be getting Android 5.0. Andrew Cunningham

Google's official Android Lollipop announcement this morning originally didn't mention some older Nexus devices—namely, the Nexus 4 and the 2012 Nexus 7. However, Google has confirmed to us that those older devices will indeed be getting Android 5.0, as will the Nexus 5, 2013 Nexus 7, Nexus 10, and the Google Play Edition devices.

Last year when it released KitKat, Google dropped support for the aging Galaxy Nexus phone. Though the official line at the time was that the device was outside its 18-month support window, it was later confirmed that the phone was actually dropped because Texas Instruments had left the SoC market. TI wasn't around to provide newer drivers and support for Google, so the phone was left by the wayside.

We still don't know exactly when older Nexuses will be getting the update; Google has only said it's happening "in the coming weeks." We'll report on Lollipop's performance on older phones and tablets once the update begins rolling out.

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Earlier today, the Texas Department of State Health Services announced that a second healthcare worker had tested positive for Ebola virus infection. The individual had also worked at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital and cared for the first person diagnosed within the US, Thomas Eric Duncan. The fact that two caregivers were infected gives credence to suggestions that the hospital lacked either sufficient procedures to prevent contamination or sufficient training in them.

The newly diagnosed individual began experiencing a fever on Tuesday and was immediately brought to the hospital and placed in isolation. Health officials have already identified people that the infected person has been in contact with and will be monitoring them for the next several weeks. Reuters' report on the news indicates that the individual is a nurse, and it quotes Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings as saying the person lived alone, which should limit additional routes of infection. Dallas authorities are already cleaning areas frequented by the patient.

The first US-based nurse who was infected has since been identified as Nina Pham. She is listed in good condition by the hospital that's caring for her—the same one she worked in.

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Apple's iBooks listing has accidentally revealed information about its new tablets. Apple

Well, there's that much less mystery about Apple's event tomorrow. An iBooks listing for an iPad user guide included some preview of both an "iPad Mini 3" and an "iPad Air 2," and given that the source is Apple itself, it seems safe to assume that these are the tablets Apple will announce.

The main addition revealed by this rare official leak is the presence of a TouchID fingerprint sensor on both models. As expected, neither tablet body appears to have changed much; this is going to be more of an internal refresh than an external one.

A close-up of the screenshot in question. Note the TouchID button. Apple via 9to5Mac

Other rumors indicate that the new iPads could come with 2GB of RAM and a more powerful Apple A8X chip. The tablets will also supposedly come in gold and may have LCD screens that are fused with the front glass to eliminate the air gap that exists in current models. We'll be liveblogging Apple's event tomorrow morning to get all the details.

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The BBC's Alastair Leithead visited the National Biocontainment Training Centre in Galveston, Texas to try on a bio-hazard suit and see just how hard it is to guarantee the safety of Ebola doctors and nurses.

The 2014 Moto G (left) and Moto X (right) will get Android 5.0, along with many other Motorola phones. Andrew Cunningham

Android OEMs are slowly getting better at updates. Not every company is communicative about or prompt with those updates, but our data mostly shows improvement across the board. Some OEMs are actually getting pretty good; HTC has promised updates to Android 5.0 for some flagship phones within 90 days of release. However, the best non-Nexus phones to buy if you want updates are still the Moto phones from Motorola.

Today the company confirmed which of its devices are guaranteed an update to Lollipop. That list includes both the 2013 and 2014 Moto X, the 2013 and 2014 Moto G, the Moto E, and the Droid Ultra, Maxx, and Mini. The company didn't announce specific timing for any of these releases, but the new OS version will probably hit unlocked devices first and then roll out to carrier-specific phones from there.

That the Moto X, G, and E are all getting Lollipop is probably a good sign—the three of them represent the highest and lowest-end processors that are shipping in most Android phones today, and it means that any decent Android phone you buy now should be capable of running Android 5.0 if your OEM chooses to update it. We'll be keeping an eye out for other Lollipop announcements, and we'll revisit some older hardware once the software is released to see how it runs.

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HBO says 2015 will be the year it goes "beyond the Wall." Ars Technica lives on the Internet, so we guess that makes us the Wildlings. Hina Ichigo

HBO CEO Richard Plepler told investors attending a Time Warner meeting today that the company will begin offering an online-only subscription for its content in 2015. Unlike the HBO Go service that the company currently offers, a TV subscription wouldn’t be required to access shows under the new plan.

The statement was first reported by Re/Code, which said that Plepler told the audience that "the company will go 'beyond the wall' and launch a 'stand alone, over the top' version of HBO in the US next year, and would work with 'current partners,' and may work with others as well.”

That's pretty vague, and Plepler wouldn’t offer more detail. But the statement is significant given that the company has flirted with the idea of selling Web-only subscriptions for years but has always stopped short of saying that going Web-only was the plan.

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Google

Google has just announced every major mobile product we were expecting from it this year: the Nexus 6, Nexus 9, and Android 5.0 "Lollipop." There's also something we weren't expecting—an Asus-made set-top-box called the "Nexus Player."

Nexus 6

First up is the Motorola-build Nexus 6. With its latest Nexus phone, Google is tackling phablets. Even for a phablet, though, the Nexus 6 is huge: it has a 5.96-inch, 2560×1440 display (493 PPI). (Compare that to the pocket-busting Note 4, which is "only" 5.7 inches.) The base Nexus 6 has a 2.7GHz Snapdragon 805 quad-core SoC, 32GB or 64GB of internal storage, 13MP and 2MP cameras, and a 3200 mAh battery. The Motorola-built device has a design heavily based on the 2014 Moto X.

The phone can be pre-oredered in "late October" and will be in stores "in November." Unlike previous Nexus phones, Google says the Nexus 6 will be widely available from various retail outlets and carriers, including Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, US Cellular, Best Buy, and the Google Play store.

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Today Google has officially announced the newest devices in the Nexus line, just one day before Apple's October event. Both devices have been rumored for some time now, and this is the first time in a while that we've seen Google introduce a new smartphone and tablet at the same time. The first device in the announcement is the Nexus 6, made by Motorola. The second is the Nexus 9 tablet made by HTC. To give an overview of how both devices look on paper, I've put together their specifications in a chart below.

  Nexus 6 Nexus 9 SoC 2.7GHz Snapdragon 805 (APQ8084) with 4 x Krait 450 + Adreno 420 at 600MHz 2.3GHz 64-bit dual core Tegra K1 Denver SoC RAM/NAND 3GB LPDDR3 + 32/64GB NAND 2GB LPDDR3 + 16/32GB NAND Display 5.96" 2560x1440 AMOLED 8.9" 2048x1536 IPS LCD Network 2G / 3G / 4G LTE WiFi only or 2G / 3G / 4G LTE SKU Dimensions 82.98 x 159.26 x 10.06mm, 184g 153.68 x 228.25 x 7.95mm, 425g WiFi, 436g LTE Camera 13MP Rear Facing with F/2.0 aperture and OIS, 2MP FFC
4K video recording 8MP Rear Facing with F/2.4 aperture, 1.6MP FFC Battery 3220 mAh (12.236 Whr) 6700 mAh (25.46 Whr) OS Android 5.0 Lollipop Android 5.0 Lollipop Connectivity 802.11a/b/g/n/ac + BT 4.1, USB2.0, GPS/GNSS, NFC 802.11a/b/g/n/ac + BT 4.1, USB2.0, GPS/GNSS, NFC SIM Size NanoSIM NanoSIM on LTE SKU

The Nexus 6 features a similar appearance to Motorola's other devices like the Moto X and Moto G. The plastic back is surrounded by a contoured aluminum frame that curves downward at the top where the 3.5mm headphone jack is located. On the back is Google's traditional Nexus logo, accompanied by an indented motorola logo and a centered rear-facing camera. The front is dominated by a large 5.96" display with a pixel density of 493ppi, and stereo speakers on the top and bottom bezels.

In terms of its specifications, the Nexus 6 is competitive with all the current Android flagship devices. It packs Qualcomm's latest silicon, a hefty battery, and a high resolution display. However, those premium specs are accompanied by a premium price of $649 outright which is significantly more than the $349 that the Nexus 5 is priced at. The Nexus 5 has been given a new web page along with the other Nexus devices which suggests it isn't going disappear with the launch of this newer, more expensive smartphone.

The next announcement was the Nexus 9 made by HTC. This is the first tablet from HTC since the days of Android Gingerbread and Honeycomb where HTC announced they were exiting the tablet market. With its soft touch back, the Nexus 9 is similar in its design to the Nexus 5. Unlike the Nexus 5 which was an entirely plastic construction, the sides of the Nexus 9 are made of brushed metal.

The front of the device is similar to the Nexus 7 with its asymmetrical bezels. The shape of the device is a departure from any tablet Google has produced before, with a 2048x1536 4:3 display like Apple's iPad. Both the 8.9" display size and 4:3 aspect ratio make the Nexus 9 a significantly larger device than the Nexus 7.

The SoC is the biggest point of interest with the Nexus 9. It will be the first device to ship with Nvidia's Project Denver architecture. This is a custom 64-bit ARMv8 architecture designed by Nvidia, a significant departure from the standard ARM cores used in previous Tegra chips. We covered the details about Tegra K1 Denver previously and you can read that over to get a more in-depth look at NVIDIA's new chip.

Along with the new device announcements comes the official name for the next version of Android. Android L is now Android 5.0 Lollipop, and it will ship on the new Nexus 6 and Nexus 9. Lollipop comes with Google's new Material Design and Google's new ART runtime, and will be rolling out to existing compatible Nexus and Google Play Edition devices in the coming weeks.

The Nexus 9 will be available for pre-order on October 17th starting at $399 for 16GB, while the Nexus 6 will be available sometime in late October at $649 for 32GB.

The long, painful rollout of patches to a security flaw in the Bourne Again Shell (bash) has left thousands of systems still vulnerable, and malware based on the vulnerability continues to spread, according to a number of security experts. But even for organizations that have already applied the patch for what has been dubbed the “Shellshock” vulnerability, the cleanup may not be over—and it could be long and expensive.

Soon after the Shellshock bug was publicly disclosed and its initial patch was distributed, weaknesses in the patch itself and additional security vulnerabilities were uncovered by developers dealing with the issue. And within a day of the disclosure, attacks exploiting the vulnerability were found in the wild. Some of those attacks are still trying to spread—and in some cases, they’re using Google searches to help them find potential targets. Successful attacks may have made changes to the targeted systems that would not have been corrected by the application of the patch.

The problem with Shellshock is similar to problems that emerged after the Heartbleed bug and numerous other vulnerabilities—while organizations struggle to understand the disclosures, how they affect their systems, and how to successfully implement patches, others—including security researchers—race to build proof-of-concept attacks based on them to demonstrate exactly how dire they are. And those proofs of concept often get picked up by cybercriminals and others with bad intent before organizations can effectively patch them—using them to exploit systems in ways that are much longer-lasting than the vulnerability du jour.

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Lockheed Martin's promo video for its fusion project.

Reuters is reporting that defense contractor Lockheed Martin claims it has made a technological breakthrough that places us on the doorstep of affordable fusion energy. Supposedly, the breakthrough will result in compact fusion reactors before a decade is out.

But the Lockheed Martin press release that coincides with the coverage says little of the sort. There, the company simply states that after initial work in the area, it expects to be able to build a prototype in five years. If everything goes well, the design could "be developed and deployed in as little as ten years." The "if" in the last sentence, however, is a big one.

The hype also seems to have been designed to leverage a technical article in Aviation Week that goes into some of the details about how Lockheed Martin is structuring its design. The general concept is similar to a Tokamak, in that it involves magnetic confinement of a plasma rather than hitting a small target with massive amounts of laser power. But the shape of the container is different and, according to the company's researchers, more efficient. However, the Aviation Week report also notes, "The team acknowledges that the project is in its earliest stages, and many key challenges remain before a viable prototype can be built."

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The City Council in Worcester, MA does not want Comcast coming anywhere near its residents. The cable company is seeking a license transfer from Charter as part of a customer swap that's tied to its purchase of Time Warner Cable, but the council is trying to block it.

"It's a terrible company," City Councilor Gary Rosen said after a vote last night, pointing to Comcast's "deplorable and substandard" customer service in other municipalities. "In my opinion, they should not be welcome in this city. Comcast is a wolf in wolf's clothing; it's that bad. They are awful, no doubt about it. Maybe we can't stop it, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't speak out."

The Telegram & Gazette in Worcester reported today:

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The Galaxy Note 4. Ron Amadeo Specs at a glance: Samsung Galaxy S5 Screen 2560×1440 5.7"(515 ppi) AMOLED OS Android KitKat 4.4.4 with TouchWiz CPU 2.7GHz quad-core Snapdragon 805 RAM 3GB GPU Adreno 420 Storage 32GB plus MicroSD slot Networking 802.11b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.1 Cellular Bands GSM: 850/900/1800/1900MHz
HSDPA: 850/900/1900/2100MHz
LTE: Cat.4 or Cat.6, May differ by country and carrier Ports Micro USB 2.0, headphones Camera 16MP rear camera OIS, 3.7MP front camera, Size 153.5mm x 78.6mm x 8.5mm Weight 176g Battery 3220 mAh Starting price $299 with two-year contract, $849 unlocked Other perks RBG notification LED, IrLED, NFC, S-Pen stylus, removable battery

Coming up with a new smartphone model on a yearly cycle must be tough. You're expected to come to market with something substantial and give existing customers a reason to upgrade within 12 months. Things get especially difficult when companies you rely on, like Qualcomm, don't provide massive component updates in time for your product cycle. That's precisely the predicament Samsung finds itself in with the Note 4, the company's fourth-generation phablet.

"Phablets" used to be pretty much a single device—whatever the newest Note was. But with Apple following Samsung's lead and releasing a big-screened device of its own, phablets are now a fully fledged competitive product category. As Samsung's main differentiator (screen size) evaporated, the company attempted to come up with something new to again separate itself from the pack. During the Note 4 launch event, it also showed off the Note Edge, a phablet with a screen that wrapped around the side of the device. The two-year-old concept wasn't very compelling, and we later heard that the device would just be a "limited concept."

So far in 2014, we've only got the Galaxy Note 4. Samsung may be the originator of the phablet, but with this new model, it isn't doing much to push the product category forward. In fact, Samsung might even agree with that assessment. It's easy to view the Note Edge as the company's admission that it isn't doing enough with the Note 4.

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At this point, the Galaxy Note line needs little introduction. After all, the Galaxy Note is Samsung’s biggest success in mobile. While Apple redefined the smartphone and tablet segment, Samsung defined the phablet segment. Despite widespread skepticism, the original Galaxy Note was a massive success. Combined with the Galaxy S2, 2011 was a watershed year for Samsung as they leapfrogged other Android OEMs. Since then, we’ve seen continuous improvement from year to year with each Galaxy Note. While there were competitors, Samsung managed to hold on to their first-mover advantage for multiple generations. However, with the release of Apple’s iPhone 6 Plus we see one of the first significant threats to Samsung’s dominance of this segment.

This is our review of the Galaxy Note 4.

An American Airlines flight heading from San Francisco to Dallas made an emergency landing after the cabin's wall panels cracked loose.