Virtuoso may not have mass appeal, but it would liven up band class.

Windows watcher Paul Thurrott is reporting that, according to his sources, Microsoft will start talking about a new Windows version, codenamed Threshold, at its BUILD conference in April. Thurrott says that this version will be released, probably with the name Windows 9, a year thereafter.

Details of Threshold are thus far scarce, but a few things are notable. Thurrott says that there won't be an alpha or beta in time for the BUILD conference, and the product won't even begin development until April. Rather, the company will outline its vision and talk about what Threshold will contain.

Microsoft is striving to reach a happy medium between the extreme sharing and openness of the Longhorn project—in which the company talked up a lot of things that were either never delivered at all, or never delivered in the way originally described—and the extreme secrecy of Windows 7 and 8 that was the hallmark of Steven Sinofsky's reign at the company.

As the big dog of desktop publishing in the '80s and '90s, QuarkXPress was synonymous with professional publishing. In fact, it was publishing. But its hurried and steady decline is one of the greatest business failures in modern tech.

Quark's demise is truly the stuff of legend. In fact, the story reads like the fall of any empire: failed battles, growing discontent among the overtaxed masses, hungry and energized foes, hubris, greed, and... uh, CMYK PDFs. What did QuarkXPress do—or fail to do—that saw its complete dominance of desktop publishing wither in less than a decade? In short, it didn’t listen.

The rise

I went to a high school for the arts—yes, it was just like Fame, so stop asking—and only got seriously into computers, Photoshop, and design in the early nineties. Back then, when asked “what program do you learn for jobs in page layout and design," there was only one answer: QuarkXPress. Sure, you might have heard the name Pagemaker by Aldus—later purchased by Adobe—but even with my little awareness of the publishing world outside our school walls, it was obvious that no one used it. When I eventually got summer jobs in DTP service bureaus and magazines, the dominance of QuarkXPress 3 was total. The widely reported statistics were that XPress enjoyed 95 percent dominance of the publishing market at that time. But when I left Vice in ’99, the privately held Quark Inc.’s best days were behind them. That was the year that Adobe’s InDesign 1.0 hit the market.

Turbine's massively multiplayer online game set in the Lord of the Rings universe could continue well into 2017, according to an update from the game's community manager, who says the license for games set in Middle-earth has been extended.

Responding to player concerns in the game's official forums — spurred by an announcement that Turbine would no longer develop certain features or merge servers — community manager Rick Heaton said Turbine still plans to support The Lord of the Rings Online beyond 2014.

"I just wanted to drop in and address the concerns surrounding the license, again," Heaton wrote. "We have said as far back as July of 2013, we plan to support LOTRO for many years to come. I really want to be as clear as possible on this subject to avoid any further confusion or misunderstanding. The license was renewed."

Pressed for more details, Heaton later wrote, "We have an agreement that runs through 2017."

Polygon has reached out to Turbine and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment for additional details on its license for Middle-earth games. Publisher Warner Bros. recently announced a new game set in J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy world, the Monolith-developed Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor.

For years, it's been a controversial side effect of antidepressants: for all the patients helped by the drugs, there was a smaller cohort for whom the beginning of treatment triggers a descent into thoughts of suicide. Actual suicides are rare, but suicidal ideation can emerge in as many as one in twelve patients, most commonly in their first months on the drugs. Doctors can monitor for the side effects, but it's been a persistent danger, even as antidepressant use has skyrocketed.

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A persistent danger, even as antidepressant use has skyrocketed

A new test being developed by Sundance Diagnostics promises a different tactic. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute isolated 79 genetic markers correlated with an increased risk of antidepressant-induced suicidality. Taken together, the latest tests show a 91 percent chance of identifying in advance whether antidepressants will trigger suicidal thoughts in a patient taking SSRI-based antidepressants. If the results hold, such a test would let doctors prescribe the drugs with much less fear of an unknown. "It is very important not to deprive patients of antidepressants because of this side effect," says Andreas Menke, a lead researcher on the study, "but to identify patients at risk and provide these patients at risk with closer monitoring."

"This is something we've been looking for in the field for a long time."

It will take at least another year and a half to conduct the tests necessary for FDA approval, which will test out the markers in a much broader human population over a longer period of time. In the meantime, the lab-developed version may be trickling out to doctors over the next few months. And the test certainly has the potential to find a big market: 11 percent of Americans over the age of twelve takes some form of antidepressant, according to a 2011 study from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but there's still no proven way to predict or guard against suicidal side effects. For the most part, it’s left to patients to self-monitor and self-report. A precautionary test could become standard practice whenever an antidepressant is prescribed. "This is something we've been looking for in the field for a long time," says Sundance's consulting doctor Peter Tolias.

The most convincing result so far

This isn't the first time researchers have found genetic factors for suicidality risk, but a number of factors make it the most convincing result so far. After finding the markers, researchers at Max Planck replicated the results at an independent lab with a separate group of 501 human subjects, giving doctors confidence the results will hold up under wider distribution. The markers are also seen as particularly plausible because many are already associated with neurological effects, making them plausible triggers for an unforeseen neurochemical side effect. The combination was enough to convince Sundance to invest in bringing the test to market.

For researchers, the markers feel like a vindication

More importantly, recent legal battles have cleared the way for such a test. The Planck work is fundamentally a genetic discovery, but a Supreme Court decision in June offered companies like Sundance a clearer path to market. The current law doesn’t allow for the markers themselves to be patented, but the Planck Institute can apply for patents on the process by which the markers are tested, or any synthetic proteins used in the test. They don’t have complete rights to the process — someone else could always reverse-engineer a new test that targets the same markers — but there’s enough of a head start to spur investment.

Still, for doctors who have lobbied for years to establish the suicidality reaction as science, establishing genetic markers feels like a vindication. David Healy, a longtime suicidality researcher who’s consulted with Sundance in the past, says the genetic factor gives an important new edge on the problem. "I think its highly likely there are genes that are risk factors for becoming suicidal on antidepressants," Healy says. "I suspect there will be a number of genes involved in any one person becoming suicidal and the package or genetic markers that works for you might not work for me." Sundance’s 79 markers are just the first batch — but they’re the best we’ve got so far.

Kickboard is changing the way teachers measure their impact in the classroom. We build web-based tools for teachers to track traditional grades as well as daily "micro data points" to highlight anecdotal evidence of student progress. We've been recognized numerous times as leading innovators in education reform (EdWeek, Inc 30 under 30, Business Week) ... but in our opinion, we've only scratched the surface. We want to tell teachers and school leaders across the nation about our products and services so that they can make smarter, real-time decisions about what to reteach, who to reteach, and how student behavior affects academic achievement.

And that's where you come in. We're looking for a talented art director/graphic designer/web developer with experience developing amazing websites, email marketing messages and print collateral that will break through the clutter and bring qualified leads to our sales team. Ideally, you'll start immediately in a part-time capacity, with the opportunity to transition to full-time after successful completion of initial projects.

Requirements:

Extras that will make you stand out:

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Kickboard is based in New Orleans (epicenter of education reform) but you can be based anywhere for this role. Part-time position available immediately.