Tag: over-the-years

11,000-year-old child’s skeleton tells tale of Native American origins

Enlarge / Excavations at the Upward Sun River site. (credit: Ben Potter) Where did Native Americans come from? Over the years, lots of ideas have been considered, but genetic data eventually came down decisively in favor of one of them. Native Americans are most closely related to East Asians and must have come across a land bridge that was present between Siberia and Alaska during the last glacial period. But that big-picture answer has raised all sorts of additional questions about the details. There has been a long-running argument over their mode of travel, which only recently seems to have been decided in favor of boats . There are still arguments over how many waves of migration took place. And a weak genetic affinity for Eurasian populations, strengthened by an ancient Siberian genome , raises questions about how that DNA ended up in Native American genomes. Now, a large team of researchers is saying they have data that clarifies a lot of these questions. It comes in the form of a genome obtained from a child’s skeleton found in Alaska. The skeleton has been dated to 11,500 years ago, and the genome now suggests it represents a member of a now-lost population that occupied the Beringian land bridge at the peak of the last glacial period—and gave rise to Native Americans. Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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11,000-year-old child’s skeleton tells tale of Native American origins

A brief history of Bitcoin hacks and frauds

Enlarge (credit: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images ) There’s a lot of excitement about Bitcoin right now, with the value of the cryptocurrency recently soaring above $11,000—more than 10 times its value at the start of the year. This has caused many people to wonder if they should be getting involved in the Bitcoin craze. But it’s important to keep in mind that participating in the Bitcoin economy comes with big risks. Over the years, the Bitcoin world has been plagued by hacks, scams, and abusive practices. Users who don’t take appropriate precautions can lose everything. Here we present a short history of the Bitcoin world’s most significant scams and hacks. It’s worth noting that all of these attacks were against Bitcoin-related services, not the core Bitcoin software. As far as we know, the Bitcoin network itself is highly secure, though of course that’s little comfort if you entrust your bitcoins to a third party who gets hacked. Read 25 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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A brief history of Bitcoin hacks and frauds

Studio Ghibli reopens for Hayao Miyazaki’s new film

Just a few years ago, Studio Ghibli’s future was in the air after co-founder and legendary animator Hayao Miyazaki (supposedly) retired. The place is about to be jumping again, however, as the studio announced that it has re-opened to start production on a recently-announced new film by the not-so-retired Miyazaki. He was on hand for a small ceremony on July 3rd, where he “brought together his main collaborators already engaged on his new feature film to talk to them about the project, ” the company said in a news release (translated). A re-opening normally wouldn’t be newsworthy, but at one point, it seemed like Studio Ghibli — behind masterpieces like Spirited Away , Princess Mononoke and Howl’s Moving Castle — would not produce any more films. Recently, however, Amazon announced that it would stream Ronja, the Robber’s Daughter , a children’s TV series directed by Miyazaki’s son Goro. Shortly after that came the news that the studio would produce a new film directed by Hayao Miyazaki. Studio Ghibli hasn’t released any details about the film itself, but many fans think it will be an adaptation of Miyazaki’s first CGI short film Boro the Caterpillar . That short was delayed, but producer Toshio Suzuki has said it will likely be released in 2019 ahead of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic games. Miyazaki has threatened retirement before, and when he stepped down in 2013, the company announced it would restructure for the next generation of animators. The films, while beloved by animation aficionados and cineastes, have never made tons of money — Studio Ghibli’s best-grossing film was Spirited Away, which made $275 million back in 2001. Over the years, however, the films have gained a much larger following thanks to streaming and DVD, so the new one will likely be met with unprecedented anticipation. Adding to that, Miyazaki will be 80 when it’s completed, so this could definitely be his last film. Via: Indie Wire Source: Buta Connection (Facebook)

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Studio Ghibli reopens for Hayao Miyazaki’s new film

Ubuntu Linux is available in the Windows Store

Here’s a statement that would have been unimaginable in previous years : Ubuntu has arrived in the Windows Store. As promised back in May , you can now download a flavor of the popular Linux distribution to run inside Windows 10. It won’t compare to a conventional Ubuntu installation, as it’s sandboxed (it has limited interaction with Windows) and is focused on running command line utilities like bash or SSH. However, it also makes running a form of Linux relatively trivial. You don’t have to dual boot, install a virtual machine or otherwise jump through any hoops beyond a download and ticking a checkbox. Microsoft hasn’t said exactly when you can expect to see Fedora and SUSE Linux, the other two distributions coming to the Windows Store. Nonetheless, this is a big milestone that reflects Microsoft’s dramatic shift in attitude over the years. Where it used to be interested in protecting Windows sales at all costs, it’s now much more interested in pushing services . The addition of Linux is a logical extension of that strategy — developers and IT managers might be more likely to use Microsoft cloud offerings if they know that familiar Linux commands are a few clicks away. Via: The Verge Source: Windows Store

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Ubuntu Linux is available in the Windows Store

Cancelled ’90s arcade fighter ‘Primal Rage II’ released online

Forget Tekken 7 , 2017’s hottest new fighting game has just arrived – only it’s 22 years later than originally expected. After being cancelled in 1995, Kotaku reports that Atari’s long-lost Primal Rage II has found its way onto the internet . Downloading an emulator will allow 90’s fighting fans to dive straight into a competent build of the ill-fated beat ’em up. While some menus are still incomplete and it has its fair share of bugs, players will find that the dino-brawling itself works. For the uninitiated, Primal Rage made a name for itself in the ’90s thanks to its cutting-edge stop motion animation. The prehistoric fighter soon found it’s way onto almost every home gaming console available at the time, prompting the announcement of a sequel. Just a year into development, however, Atari’s financial troubles gave them cold feet, causing the company to pull the plug on Primal Rage II. This isn’t the first time a canned gaming project has appeared online . With video games often costing huge amounts of money to produce, it’s no surprise that countless brilliant concepts have fallen by the wayside over the years. Thanks to the ease of communication afforded by the internet, however, not all canceled titles are doomed to the scrapheap of history. Now, let’s see more of that promising looking Star Wars 1313 please, LucasArts. Source: Kotaku

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Cancelled ’90s arcade fighter ‘Primal Rage II’ released online

‘Star Citizen’ switches to Amazon’s game engine

Star Citizen is still far from being ready , but it now has a more solid underpinning. Cloud Imperium has revealed that it has switched both Star Citizen and Squadron 42 from Crytek’s CryEngine to Amazon’s Lumberyard engine as of Star Citizen ‘s just-launched Alpha 2.6 release. It was an “easy and smooth transition” due to Lumberyard’s CryEngine roots, but both secures the “long term future” of the games and promises some distinct advantages. It taps directly into the cloud through Amazon Web Services, for instance, and makes Twitch streaming easy. The studio has already been collaborating with Amazon for “over a year, ” so this isn’t a panicked response to Crytek’s financial woes . The timing is more than a little convenient, mind you. It gives Cloud Imperium more of a safety net if Crytek ever has to stop its own development — it won’t have to switch engines while it’s in panic mode. It’s easy to imagine frustration from backers at the thought that the Amazon switch might delay Star Citizen even longer, but that might be better than risking the entire project. As it stands, Alpha 2.6 is a big step forward: it’s the first release with Star Marine , the game’s first-person shooter component. You now have two competitive multiplayer modes (everyone-for-themselves and a Battlefield -style capture-and-hold mode) for those times when you just want to fight friends instead of exploring the cosmos. Numerous other parts of Star Citizen have received some polish, too, such as first-person animations and third-person cameras. Although this is still no substitute for a finished game, it at least shows that Cloud Imperium is getting a handle on some of the many, many features it has been promising over the years. Via: Polygon Source: Roberts Space Industries (1) , (2)

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‘Star Citizen’ switches to Amazon’s game engine

Tesla and Solar City agree to a $2.6 billion merger

Tesla has confirmed that it will buy SolarCity for $2.6 billion, a deal that unites two Elon Musk firms as one giant green company. The merged business will sell solar panels, Powerwall batteries to store the energy and electric cars that run on it. It’s the “end-to-end clean energy” solution promised by Elon Musk in his ” Master Plan Part Deux ” just two weeks ago. SolarCity also revealed that it will introduce an “integrated solar and storage offering, ” and a solar product “focused on the 5 million new roofs installed each year in the US.” Musk previously said that any merger would not impact Tesla’s plans for the upcoming Model 3 EV and Gigafactory, which just officially opened . While the companies will soon be united, Tesla and SolarCity have worked closely together over the years , and the latter was founded by Musk’s cousins, CEO Lyndon Rive and director Peter Rive. Musk is, of course, the chairman and largest shareholder of both firms. SolarCity is set to release its earnings next week and said that it installed more photovoltaic panels than forecast last quarter (201 megawatts compared to 185 megawatts). However, it added that residential installations were down slightly. The acquisition is not yet final, as it includes a “go-shop” provision that will allow other potential buyers to submit offers for SolarCity until September 14th, 2016. Source: Securities and Exchange Commission , SolarCity

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Tesla and Solar City agree to a $2.6 billion merger