Did you all know yesterday was World Pangolin Day ? Somehow we overlooked it, and we’re kind of ashamed about that. Because look at this thing. It’s an armor-plated mammal, for crying out loud. To make up for the oversight, here’s a video of a pangolin wallowing merrily in a pool of mud. Read more…
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And now, a pangolin cavorting in the mud
In 2011-12, the VFX company Rhythm & Hues created the astounding effects for Ang Lee’s gorgeous movie The Life of Pi . Then they went bankrupt, fired their staff, and went out of business. Two weeks later they won an Oscar. The new documentary Life After Pi shows how this insanity was made possible. Read more…
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Learn how Hollywood screwed over the VFX industry in Life After Pi
Heralded as “the world’s fastest speed skating suit, ” Under Armour’s all-in-one was hoped to give U.S. athletes the edge in Sochi. Now, though, it appears it could in fact be slowing them down . Read more…
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Under Armour’s Suits May Actually Be Slowing U.S. Speedskaters Down
We still know almost nothing about the first live-action Star Wars movie in a decade, but now we may have gotten a glimpse at one of the movie’s big special-effects sequences. A redesigned Lucasfilm website includes a photo of a production meeting, where you can glimpse some concept art. Read more…
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First Concept Art of the Millennium Falcon in Star Wars: Episode VII?
Rambo Tribble writes “The BBC provides some insights into the next generation satellites being built for Google by contractor DigitalGlobe in Colorado. The resolution of these satellites’ cameras is sufficient to resolve objects that are only 25cm wide. Unfortunately, the public will be allowed only half that image quality, the best being reserved for the U.S. military. ‘The light comes in through a barrel structure, pointed at the Earth, and is bounced around by a series of mirrors, before being focused onto a CCD sensor. The big difference – apart from the size – between this and a typical handheld digital camera, is that the spacecraft will not just take snapshots but continuous images along thin strips of land or sea.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Google Earth’s New Satellites
Kaspersky security researchers just revealed their discovery of a cyberespionage threat they say could be the most advanced in the world. Immensely powerful and hard to detect, it’s been active since at least 2007, targeting governments, embassies, and energy companies. And nobody knows where it came from. Read more…
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This Crazy-Advanced Malware Has Been Infecting Governments Since 2007
It only took the theft of 40 million Target customer credit card details to spur Congress into finally joining the rest of the world in abandoning the highly insecure credit cards you’re used to. Starting late next year, every credit card in the United States will adopt a more secure system. Here’s what it is, and how it works. Read more…
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What Are "Smart" Credit Cards, and Why Are They Coming to America?
People who live with pets notice that some animals moult in the spring and fall. Losing feathers or fur is unattractive, but it leads to a beautiful new coat in which to survive the winter or to attract a mate. It turns out humans also moult and grow attractive new coats of hair. Read more…
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Humans go through moult and grow new pelts
goruka writes with news that a new game engine has been made available to Free Software developers under the permissive MIT license “Godot is a fully featured, open source, MIT licensed, game engine. It focuses on having great tools, and a visual oriented workflow that can deploy to PC, Mobile and Web platforms with no hassle. The editor, language and APIs are feature rich, yet simple to learn. Godot was born as an in-house engine, and was used to publish several work-for-hire commercial titles. With more than half a million lines of code, Godot is one of the most complex Open Source game engines at the moment, and one of the largest commitments to open source software in recent years. It allows developers to make games under Linux (and other unix variants), Windows and OSX.” The source is available via Github, and, according to Phoronix, it’s about as featureful as the Unity engine. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Godot Game Engine Released Under MIT License
You might’ve heard about Under Armour’s crazy new zipper that only requires one hand to zip. Though the futuristic magnetic clasp jigsaws nicely with the company’s high-performance standards, the zipper was originally had more humble origins: helping a sick man lead an easier life. Read more…