Author: Sam Machkovech

Archive.org has gone to great lengths to preserve and host dated software, but up until last week, its vast collection of classic games and MS-DOS executables skewed toward the overly safe side. Sure, you could run the original Oregon Trail—even on your web browser, through a DOSBOX emulator—and burden virtual pioneers with dysentery, but what about acquiring an actual virus?

That changed on Friday with the site's unveiling of the Malware Museum, a website collection of 78 viruses from the MS-DOS era of the late '80s and early '90s, all ready to either launch on a DOSBOX web browser emulator or be downloaded to your hard drive. Before you fret about some kind of crazy dated-virus outbreak, know that Archive.org went to the trouble of "defanging" every virus in its collection.

The "museum" began to take shape when longtime Finnish computer security expert Mikko Hypponen offered his personal collection of roughly 30 viruses, which he'd already disassembled to remove their drive-destructive capabilities, to Archive.org software curator Jason Scott. "He contacted me a week ago, out of the blue, asking if I wanted to do anything with this collection [of viruses]," Scott said in a phone interview with Ars. "I just put them all up and said, 'Yes, I like it, and I already put them all up [on the site]!'"

A bill proposed in the Utah State House of Representatives on Monday would update and amend passages in the state's criminal code regarding "offenses committed by means of electronic or computer functions." However, in attempting to address the issue of "doxing"—meaning, publishing personally identifying information on the Internet as a way to harass or attack someone—the bill's language may consequently target free online speech.

Utah HB 255, titled "Cybercrime Amendments," counts State Representative David E. Lifferth as its lead sponsor, and it includes amendments that would penalize denial-of-service attacks and false emergency reports at specific locations (i.e. swatting). Utah state criminal code already punishes certain kinds of electronic communications "with intent to annoy, alarm, intimidate, offend, abuse, threaten, harass, frighten, or disrupt the electronic communications of another," and HB 255 would append that specific passage to count the act of "distributing personal identifying information" as actionable, should that be done with any of the aforementioned intent.

"This bill as drafted is clearly unconstitutional," Electronic Frontier Foundation Staff Attorney Nate Cardozo said to Ars Technica in a phone interview. "There may be anti-doxing legislation out there which does make sense, but this bill creates a crime if you, with the intent to annoy, publish someone else's name. If I want to say [online], 'Sam is a poo-poo head,' that's a crime under this draft."

The Star Wars universe has inspired all matter of unofficial tribute music, but the series has never come with official albums full of "inspired by" pop music from modern hitmakers. That changed on Monday with the announcement of Star Wars Headspace, a full-length dance album "infused with Star Wars sound clips and effects" launching on "all digital storefronts" on February 19 ahead of a CD release in March.

Chances are good that anybody old enough to have seen the original trilogy in theaters will not recognize a single musical contributor on Headspace, save that of its leading producer Rick Rubin—the man who helmed the Beastie Boys' Licensed To Ill sessions, among many, many other albums. His label American Recordings will release the album; the album's roster is otherwise stacked with a surprisingly hip collection of electronic producers, including Rokysopp, Flying Lotus, and Bonobo.

For the modern-techno uninitiated, this album's contributors tend more toward down-tempo, instrumentally intricate beats as opposed to the predictable climax-and-fall electric-fuzz snoozedom of Skrillex, but it's hard to pin the 15 contributors to a single electronic subgenre. From the sound of the three preview songs that Apple Music posted today, the young batch of contributors may take very different cues from their Star Wars inspirations as well. Flying Lotus' contribution sounds like a DJ Shadow beat with the sole special addition of R2D2 noises scattered all over the place, while Baauer's cut, "Cantina Boys," chops and screws the first film's cantina tunes with a big-beat drum line and liberal use of Darth Vader's breathing.

Did you hear? Virtual reality is legitimate now, because filmmakers have found it.

Forget those childish toys that you call video games, and think beyond those little 360-degree videos captured at concerts. VR is now a place for capital-F Films, complete with New York Times celebrations and dedicated exhibits at Sundance. Recent VR films have some impressive sounding premises, too: immersion in the wilderness alongside bison and cheetahs; trippy, sense-filling music videos; stark, racially charged drives through poor neighborhoods; and much more.

VR filmmakers have taken some pretty diverse approaches, but most of them have one unfortunate thing in common: an overreaction to the form. In their rush to put viewers inside their concepts, these burgeoning creators forgot about the importance of directing and cinematography—a fact that I, a devout believer in VR's future, can no longer stomach.

The battle for the next big thing in virtual reality isn't just raging among headset makers; there's also a battle over the 3D engines that power those experiences. Though most of the leading 3D engine makers offer robust support for burgeoning VR platforms, our anecdotal experience has seen creators leaning heavily toward the Unity engine. In total, 11 out of the 12 demos we tried out at last week's major HTC Vive Pre VR event took that route.

Epic Games, the creators of the popular Unreal Engine, want in on that action. On Wednesday, the company announced an ace up its sleeve: full inside-of-VR support. The feature, which will receive its first public demo during March's Game Developers Conference, will allow any owner of a motion-tracked VR system on a PC (meaning, HTC Vive or Oculus Touch) to warp into their in-development 3D worlds and edit them using nothing more than those systems' handheld controllers.

"As soon as we got our hands on the first Oculus, we were intrigued by the possibilities," Epic Technical Director Mike Fricker said in an interview with Ars. "[Co-founder] Mark Rein came to us in 2013 with the first Oculus DK1 and asked about getting an editor in VR."

As app and game sellers have transitioned into a post-Big Box retailer's world, where download-only shops like the App Store, Steam, PlayStation Network, and Xbox Live reign supreme, they've had to contend with a race to the pricing bottom. The storefronts may be selling billions in software, but while they've made new room for upstart developers, they've also created expectations for flash sales, free-to-play offers, and subscription-fueled game giveaways.

Famed indie game maker Jonathan Blow made a substantial profit by selling his 2008 breakout Braid for $15, but his long-awaited follow-up, The Witness, launched at a much higher price last week: $40. On Tuesday, Blow took to his official blog to announce that a higher price point had done nothing to dampen its launch's sales, confirming over $5 million in first-week revenue.

"This is a good chunk more revenue in one week than Braid made in its entire first year," Blow wrote in the announcement, and he added other sales clarifications, including the fact that high launch sales haven't quite covered the costs of development. (During a Witness launch-day Twitch Q&A, Blow estimated a total development cost of $6 million. "Why isn't this [game] $15?" he told viewers. "This game is giant. It's got tons of stuff in it.")

A Tuesday earnings call from a mall operator included its CEO's analysis on the kinds of brick-and-mortar stores the company expected to see in the marketplace, and it included a staggering guess for one upstart brick-and-mortar retailer: up to 400 Amazon Books locations.

The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the earnings call, during which General Growth Properties, Inc. CEO Sandeep Mathrani made the estimate while fielding a question about his properties' foot traffic in an online-shopping world. Mathrani pointed out high return rates at physical stores for online-ordered products, which he estimated at 38 percent, and that fed into his follow-up estimate: "You go to Amazon opening brick-and-mortar book stores, and their goal is to open, as I understand, 300 to 400 bookstores." (Currently, Amazon only operates a single shop at Seattle's University Village shopping center.)

He added that "the last mile is all important" in terms of engaging with customers, noting that other major online retailers like Bonobos, Birchbox, and Warby Parker have plans for their own brick-and-mortar expansions throughout the United States. "It’s a very interesting evolution, because the cost of the last mile is that important," Mathrani said to investors. "The mall business, if you appreciate that it's more focused on fashion, is very different than a staple business where you’re buying commodity. In the mall business, the impact of eCommerce is a lot less—it’s actually your friend, not your enemy."

Up until last week, the Fine Bros' biggest claim to fame was their YouTube series of videos that revolved around a "reaction" gimmick, in which they filmed children, elderly people, or other groups of people as they happened upon some popular toy, show, or object. That changed on Tuesday when the duo announced plans to expand its empire—which involved the real-life brothers filing a trademark claim on the word "react."

The resulting backlash proved so monstrous that the duo made an official announcement late Monday backing off of every initiative they'd announced on January 26. "We're here to apologize," the Fine Bros wrote, before confirming that they'd rescinded all trademarks and applications pertaining to the word "react."

Additionally, the duo confirmed that it would shutter a new "React World" initiative before it had even taken off. As announced, React World would have allowed other video makers to pay the Fine Bros to license their react videos' "format." The Fine Bros tried comparing what they had to offer to the proliferation of "Got Talent" TV series across the globe, but critics complained about an aggressive takedown wave in the meantime. Several YouTube channels complained that they'd received takedown notices from Fullscreen Inc, a company related to the Fine Bros, over their own original "react" videos.

Three months after she introduced the Internet Swatting Hoax Act in US Congress, Representative Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) found herself at the end of an apparent swatting attempt on Sunday night.

Melrose, Massachusetts police press spokesperson John Guilfoil confirmed to Ars Technica that the department received a phone call from "a computerized voice, not a natural voice" alleging "shots fired" and an "active shooter" at the address of Clark's home. The resulting police report confirmed an incident time of 9:57pm for a "life alert alarm" and "automated call reporting shooter."

This type of police report—using a disguised voice to allege false threats at a residence—is known as "swatting," due to the likelihood that police departments will react by sending SWAT teams to respond to serious-sounding threats. In the case of the Sunday night call, however, Guilfoil confirmed that Melrose police followed "established protocols" to choose a de-escalated response of normal police officers, though the officers in question blocked traffic on both ends of Clark's street with patrol cars. Guilfoil was unable to clarify whether weapons were drawn at the scene, and he did not answer our other questions about the incident, particularly those about the nature of the phone call received, "due to the ongoing nature of the investigation."

Oklahoma's Oral Roberts University opened in 1965 with a fitness course requirement for its newest incoming freshman and transfer students—a rarity among American universities. That requirement became even more unique to the evangelical university in January when the school added a technological requirement to the course: mandatory Fitbit ownership, whose fitness tracking must also be synced to the school's grading system.

The school formally announced the change in early January, and the news became better known around the country late last week as college-minded outlet The College Fix wrote about students' thoughts on the change. An Oral Roberts representative confirmed to Ars that students in the course, known as "Health Fitness I," have a student requirement of 10,000 steps a day, and the app-tracked targets account for 20 percent of a student's grade in the course.

In its formal press release, Oral Roberts University confirms that over 550 Fitbit units have been sold through its on-campus bookstore, and it describes the initiative as "literally transport[ing] digital electrons from student’s wearable band anywhere on campus into the secure Learning Management System."