AYANEO NEXT 2 offers a different take on an AMD Strix Halo handheld gaming PC

AMD’s Strix Halo processors are mobile chips with integrated graphics that offers discrete-class performance. So while AMD has been positioning the processors as solutions for compact AI workstations, it’s unsurprising that a few companies …

AMD’s Strix Halo processors are mobile chips with integrated graphics that offers discrete-class performance. So while AMD has been positioning the processors as solutions for compact AI workstations, it’s unsurprising that a few companies have also tapped Strix Halo chips for handheld gaming PCs. But while AMD’s chips are ostensibly mobile processors that can be […]

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With Skigill, the classic RPG skill tree becomes a crowded battlefield

Vampire Survivors-esque battler sets itself apart with great weapons, unique graphics.

If you’ve played any number of RPGs, you probably know the skill tree as a break from the game’s core action. It’s a place to pause, take a breather, and scroll through a massive visual menu of upgrade options, considering which path of stat and ability tweaks best fits your character and your play style.

With Skigill, indie developer Achromi has taken that break-time menu and transformed it into the playing field for an intriguing Vampire Survivors-style roguelike. And while the Early Access game currently lacks the kind of deep content that will keep players coming back for a long time, it’s still a clever and engaging take on the genre that I haven’t been able to put down for long.

Clear the way, I need +5 armor!

Like Vampire Survivors and its many imitators, Skigill is all about navigating through waves of enemies that converge somewhat mindlessly on your position. The game automatically aims and deploys weapons to carve some safe space through what can be screens full of hazardous enemies, which leave behind coins as they explode in puffs of yellow smoke.

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Ford says “no exact date” to restart F-150 Lightning production

The automaker says it has plenty of electric F-150 pickups in inventory, though.

When Ford electrified its best-selling pickup truck, it pulled out the stops. The F-150 Lightning may look virtually identical to other versions of the pickup, but it’s smoother, faster, and obviously far, far more efficient than the ones that run on gas, diesel, or hybrid power. But the future of the country’s best-selling electric truck may be in doubt.

That’s according to a report in The Wall Street Journal, which claims that Ford’s management is “in active discussions about scrapping” the Lightning. Production had already been suspended a few weeks ago as a result of an aluminum shortage following a destructive fire at a supplier’s factory in New York, which Ford estimates may result in as much as $2 billion of losses to the company.

While Ford told Ars it doesn’t comment on speculation on its future product plans, the automaker said that “F-150 Lightning is the best-selling electric pickup truck in the US—despite new competition from CyberTruck, Chevy, GMC, Hummer and Rivian—and delivered record sales in Q3.”

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10,000 generations of hominins used the same stone tools to weather a changing world

This technological tradition lasted longer than Homo sapiens have even been a species.

At a site in Kenya, archaeologists recently unearthed layer upon layer of stone stools from deposits that span 300,000 years, and include a period of intense environmental upheaval. The oldest tools at the site date back to 2.75 million years ago. According to a recent study, the finds suggest that for hundreds of millennia, ancient hominins relied on the same stone tool technology as an anchor while the world changed around them.

Photo of 3 chunks of stone with flakes chipped off to make sharp edges Oldowan choppers dated to 1.7 million years ago, from Melka Kunture, Ethiopia. Credit: By Didier Descouens - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11291046

“An extraordinary story of cultural continuity”

George Washington University archaeologist David Braun and his colleagues recently unearthed stone tools from a 2.75 million-year-old layer of Kenyan sediment at a site called Nomorotukunan. They’re classic examples of a type of tools archaeologists call Oldowan: the earliest types of sharp-edged stone tools made by hominins. The tools unearthed at Nomorotukunan are some of the oldest Olduwan tools ever found; only three other Oldowan sites in Africa date back any farther than 2.6 million years ago.

These hand-sized chunks of river rock, with flakes chipped off one or two sides to make sharp edges, were cutting-edge technology (not sorry) from 2.9 million years ago until about 1.7 million years ago. In technical terms, that’s what’s called a long flipping time, enough to span several hominin species and more than one genus. The last hominins to use Oldowan tools looked very different, and probably lived and behaved very differently, from the first; over this huge span of time, the stone tool technology itself changed less than the beings using it.

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