Month: February 2016

Any excuse to show Ars' Sebastian Anthony in a Vive headset is a good one. (credit: Sebastian Anthony)

When Oculus announced that the first consumer edition of the Rift headset would launch at $599 (rather than the $300 to $350 the dev kits cost), many potential consumers and observers experienced some well-justified sticker shock. So when word leaked yesterday that Valve and HTC's Vive VR headset would launch in April at $799, it was easy to assume that they had just priced themselves out of the market.

But that's probably an overreaction when you consider the potential added value the Vive brings over the Rift. After all, the Vive package comes with two completely trackable handheld controllers as well as the "Lighthouse" laser boxes that help measure the positions of those controllers and the headset itself. It's hard to overstate just how important this kind of built-in hand-tracking is to making a compelling VR experience. Being able to simply reach out and instantly grab something in the virtual world is much more direct and intuitive than fiddling with the kind of controllers that have been designed for 2D monitors.

Oculus hasn't priced out its similar Oculus Touch controllers, which won't launch until the second half of the year, but when you consider that a plain old Xbox One controller routinely retails for $50, it's easy to see the Touch package adding an extra $100 or more to the Rift's price (especially considering that the Touch system requires a second Oculus camera).

Metaphorically speaking, Todd French has been striving to make chicken salad out of, you know, at his Mississippi facilities. (credit: David MacNeal)

STARKVILLE, Mississippi—“By the time it gets here, David, it’s no longer my poop,” says microbiologist Todd French with conviction. “I don’t want you to think there’s solid turds coming in over there. When we get it as sludge, it’s far removed from what it was when it left your body. That’s all bacteria that has grown and fed off this stuff.”

French is trying to reassure me. We’re gazing down into a concrete vat filled with a churning tide of gray and green water at the Ernest E. Jones Wastewater Treatment Plant in Starkville, Mississippi. A gust of wind kicks an odor off the frothy surface; a spittle-sized drop of foam has hit my lip. Students in French’s program must get hepatitis shots and boosters before helping French in his audacious quest to convert sludge like this into biodiesel; I furiously rub my finger over the spot, removing as many dermis layers as possible.

But French tells me he’s ingested “mouthfuls” of the water without ill effects. “You don’t have to worry about getting anything… too much,” he says.

The Georgia State Board of Dentistry revoked the license of Gordon Trent Austin after he pled guilty to six counts of Medicare fraud pursuant to a 2009 indictment. The indictment also said that Austin beat several patients, including children. The assault charges were dropped as part of the plea deal. "When patients moaned, or even cried out, during the procedures, loudly enough to be heard by other patients in the waiting room, Austin would tell the patient to stop making noise and, if the patient failed to obey his command, the claim was that Austin would then strike them with a dental instrument to reinforce the command," Public Citizen attorney Paul Levy said in court papers.

An Atlanta-area television station broadcast a two-part investigation about Austin that same year. The TV investigation was uploaded to YouTube by an anonymous user called "gordonaustinsacoward."

Enlarge / Apple CEO Tim Cook. (credit: Chris Foresman)

Apple CEO Tim Cook has again reiterated the company’s firm commitment to privacy and its resolve to fight a new court order issued last week. If the order stands up to legal challenges, Apple would be forced to create a new customized iOS firmware that would remove the passcode lockout on a seized iPhone as part of the ongoing San Bernardino terrorism investigation.

Early Monday morning, Cook released a letter sent to employees and published a Q&A on the issue.

In the letter, which Apple provided to Ars, the CEO wrote: