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Google has quietly been building up its virtual reality offerings with Cardboard and its Spotlight Stories app for watching 360 video. And now it appears that the company will have a dedicated VR division headed by VP Clay Bavor, who previously worked on Cardboard and headed up the Gmail and Drive apps. What could this mean for Google's immersive media future?

In the short term, not much. The Wall Street Journal reports that Bavor's main task will be to lead a team that's producing a version of Android for VR. Bavor's previous experience is with running apps, and right now Cardboard and Spotlight Stories will probably continue to be the main consumer apps available. Cardboard is currently the VR system Google is best known for, especially since its cheap, DIY hardware provides a nice rejoinder to Oculus' headset, whose price tag took many by surprise last week. That said, Spotlight Stories was a revelation at Google I/O last year, especially because Justin Lin's short film Help—about an alien monster loose in the subway—looked explosively awesome in the app.

What's going to be more interesting is Google's take on augmented reality. Though Glass has become an object lesson in how not to launch products, the idea behind the technology is still promising. We want a virtual overlay on reality, whether as a map guide or game, and so far only Microsoft's HoloLens has come close to delivering on that. But Google is the lead investor in mystery company Magic Leap, which is supposed to give us the ultimate augmented reality experience any year (or decade) now.

When David Bowie became an Internet service provider in 1998, a man named Ron Roy helped him start the business. Now, three days after the legendary musician's death at age 69, we've interviewed Roy about how "BowieNet" came to life and why it was so important to the artist.

"David was tremendously involved from day one," Roy told Ars via e-mail. Roy appeared in some of the first press releases that followed BowieNet's US and UK launches; we tracked him down at his current business, Wines That Rock.

It was a lot easier to become an Internet service provider in 1998 than it is today. Instead of the enormous expense of deploying fiber or cable throughout a city, ISPs could spring to life by selling dial-up connections to anyone with a telephone line. BowieNet's dial-up service sold full access to the Internet for $19.95 a month (or £10.00 in the UK), but it was also a fan club that provided exclusive access to David Bowie content such as live video feeds from his studio. Customers who already had a dial-up Internet provider and didn't want to switch could buy access to BowieNet content separately for $5.95 a month. BowieNet had about 100,000 customers at its peak, Roy said.

Recorded human history has played out within one type of climate—an interglacial period. During the glacial periods of the last million years (commonly referred to as “ice ages”), great ice sheets grew to cover Canada and some points south, as well as Northern Europe and much of Russia.

In the 1970s, we learned there was a consistent 100,000-year heartbeat to this back-and-forth cycle governed by subtle patterns in Earth’s orbit. The thing is, it’s about time for the next heartbeat. We’re at the part of the cycle where the interglacial period should be wrapping up and the slow but inexorable descent into another ice age would begin.

But that hasn’t happened, and it’s not going to any time soon. Our current breakneck emissions of greenhouse gases will see to that. Still, the scientific question is worth asking: what, exactly, does it take to start off an ice age?

A Las Vegas police officer is being indicted on accusations that he roughed up a woman he arrested on suspicion of prostitution and other crimes.

The charges against Richard Scavone—based on footage taken from his body camera—allege (PDF) that the 49-year-old officer grabbed the woman around the neck with his hand and "threw her to the ground" after she was handcuffed. He is also accused of punching the woman in the forehead with an open palm. He "slammed her face onto the hood of his patrol vehicle" by grabbing the unidentified woman's hair on January 6, 2015, according to the indictment. Scavone is accused of obstruction and civil rights violations. The woman suffered bruises and cuts to her face.

The authorities said he lied about the incident in his police report by saying she was combative. The charges say that he "knowingly falsified a document with the intent to impede, obstruct, and influence an investigation." The defendant's attorney, Josh Tomsheck, said the former officer was innocent. His client's first appearance is set for January 20 in a Las Vegas federal courtroom.

A rather effusive Jonathan gets a demo of Hyundai's augmented reality owner's manual. Video shot/edited by Jennifer Hahn. (video link)

LAS VEGAS—Several years ago, Blackberry bought QNX, a company known for its real-time automotive operating systems. The idea was to leverage that for Blackberry's smartphones, but that didn't last since the latest handheld from the company now runs Android. While Blackberry has fallen from prominence in the smartphone market, QNX is still going strong over in the car world. At CES last week, we caught up with the company to see its latest advances firsthand.