Month: July 2016

Acclaimed director James Cameron has waded in to the issue of movie piracy, but says that movie theaters still have a lot of tricks up their sleeves to compete and beat piracy.

Talking to Variety, Cameron and long time collaborator and film producer Gale Anne Hurd discussed issues ranging from VR (not a fan, says Cameron) to Screening Room, the home streaming movie premier service (which Cameron spoke out against), the discussion focused on what movie experiences could be the next big thing. Cameron is especially qualified to speak on this issue, considering his legendary status in guiding cinema to its next logical technological leap (from the use of 3D effects in Terminator 2, to 3D in Avatar).

Cameron laments the fact that the exhibition community isn't always keeping up with the latest screening technologies, even when so much is at stake from competing services such as Screening Room, and of course, piracy.

"So the exhibition community still needs to step up to protect what they have. Now, what they have is still very powerful and it’s a bastion that I don’t think is going to be assailed by all these other platforms any time soon, because the group experience of a movie in passive mode where you can’t pause it and picture-in-picture and text over it and all this other stuff, where it’s just going to flood into your brain, is still going to be sacred, I think, indefinitely. It doesn’t mean there won’t be other alternatives," says Cameron.

These other platforms may include piracy, in which Cameron says the same strategy, to keep ahead of the game, will be key in battling the scourge.

"The biggest hedge against piracy is still the sanctity of the viewing experience in a movie theater — when it comes to movies. With 'The Walking Dead' or something like that, that’s not what you’re selling, but if we’re talking about movies and theatrical exhibition, keeping it great, making it a special experience, is still the biggest hedge against that. Because even if piracy was totally legal and download rates were much faster, you’re still watching it on a small platform, and it’s not that social experience," explained Cameron.

And the net result if theaters don't take up this advice? 

"If we fail at creating a premium immersive experience in the theater, then the Napster-like downloading phenomenon will destroy the industry," warns Cameron.

[via Variety]

The opening screen. It's real. (credit: Hello Games)

Some people cannot wait another minute to play No Man's Sky, the upcoming PS4/PC space-exploration game whose gargantuan, open-ended galaxy contains 18 quintillion planets. (That's 18 followed by 18 zeros.) One lucky man managed to get his hands on a copy on Friday, a week and a half ahead of its official August 9 launch. Whether his brag about paying $1,300 for an advance copy on eBay is true, his stream of the game's opening sequence, which has since been taken offline, is wholly legitimate.

Reddit user "Daymeeuhn" posted videos to DailyMotion on Friday containing the PS4 version's opening sequence and a full 24 minutes of first-planet gameplay. If you're the kind of No Man's Sky enthusiast who wants zero spoilers, you should tune out right now.

Spoilers ahead

"Sean Murray, if you're watching, I'm an asshole, I'm sorry," Daymeeuhn says as he begins his stream of the full, retail game. After a brief star-screensaver visual sequence, overlaid with the No Man's Sky text logo, the player wakes on a planet named "Fljodal Nientv." This isn't the game's "default" planet; instead, every player's game starts on a unique rock in Sky's massive galaxy, and it's highly likely no other player on Earth will ever discover Fljodal Nientv. No opening sequence or explainer plays out, beyond a robotic voice alerting players that they have crash landed.

Enlarge (credit: Apple)

The final version of Swift 3.0 will be released alongside iOS 10 and macOS Sierra in the fall, but the fact that Apple develops Swift out in the open now means that we know more about its progress than we do about Apple's operating systems. Chris Lattner, a senior director of the Developer Tools Department at Apple, today posted a lengthy note to the Swift mailing list that looks back at the development of Swift 3.0 and sets some expectations for Swift 4.0 next year.

The note is worth reading in its entirety for those interested in programming in Swift and in contributing to the language itself—the Swift 3.0 retrospective focuses mostly on the benefits and drawbacks to going open source. Lattner describes the "vibrant community" as "fantastic," though he does note that open-source development "is slower and less predictable than 'closed design.'" Lattner says "the end result is significantly better, and therefore the tradeoff is worth it," even if "it is impossible to make everyone happy." The latter sentiment should ring true to anyone who has ever worked on any open source project.

Apple plans to release two major Swift updates between now and fall of 2017—Swift 3.1 in the spring and Swift 4.0 in the fall, along with whatever other minor bugfix releases are necessary. For Swift 4.0, Apple would like to focus on source and ABI stability first, and move on to other features once work on those two things is complete. After that, Lattner outlines a number of goals that the team would like to accomplish if time permits:

(credit: Kurtis Garbutt)

Facebook has formally informed its investors that it could be on the hook for billions more in back taxes if the Internal Revenue Service’s legal efforts are successful.

This notice comes weeks after federal investigators asked a judge in California to force Facebook to open up its financial and business records for 2010—the year that the social networking giant established a subsidiary in Ireland largely for tax reasons.

Facebook and many other tech firms have recently come under increased scrutiny for using this method to drastically—and legally—reduce tax burdens. The "Double Irish" technique was phased out in early 2015, but companies already using it have until 2020 to transition to something else.

A cave in Iraq where the bones of ancient human farmers were found. Their DNA was sequenced to unlock the mystery of who the earliest farmers were in the region. (credit: FEREIDOUN BIGLARI)

The greatest technological revolution in human history arguably happened about 12,000 years ago, when humans first stopped living as hunter gatherers and became farmers. This so-called Neolithic Revolution transformed human culture, our genomes, and our ecosystems. But the origins of farming have remained a mystery. Was there one eureka moment, when an early Neolithic person realized the seeds they scattered in fall had sprouted into grains two seasons later? Or, more intriguingly, did several groups of people start farming independently?

Two new studies published this month in Science and Nature magazines use DNA analysis of ancient human bones to conclude that farming arose in multiple regions simultaneously. The Science study focused on four farmers who lived between 9,000 and 10,000 years ago in the mountainous Zagros region of Iran. The Nature study analyzed 44 individuals (farmers as well as hunter-gatherers) from Armenia, Turkey, Israel, Jordan, and Iran who lived between 14,000 and 3,500 years ago. By sequencing parts of these ancient people's DNA, researchers could determine their likely ancestry as well as what populations are descended from them today. The researchers conclude that there are at least two groups of ancient humans who discovered farming separately in the Middle East and then exported the Neolithic revolution across large parts of the continent.

The secrets of ancient DNA

Over the past decade, modern DNA sequencing techniques have allowed scientists to recover strands of genetic material from decayed bones that have been infused with microbes over thousands of years. Now, those techniques are widely accessible and highly refined. It starts with how researchers pick their bones. If possible, they'll extract DNA from the petrous bone in the inner ear, a goldmine for genetic material that can yield roughly 100 times more ancient DNA than other parts of the skeleton. Then researchers use a process called in-solution hybridization, which uses special probes made from DNA or RNA that attach to the desired ancient human DNA, fishing it out of a soup of other genetic material from other organisms that accumulated in the decomposing bone. Techniques like these are making it easier than ever for us to sequence ancient DNA and reconstruct the human past.

This PlayStation VR promotional pamphlet page spells out some surprising room-space requirements for the system. (credit: Imgur)

As Sony approaches the October launch of its first major virtual reality product, PlayStation VR, the company has begun to publish more info about its system. On Friday, advertising pamphlets revealed a previously unknown aspect: its space requirements.

The amount of suggested minimum space may surprise some players. The pamphlet image, posted anonymously on Imgur and found by Polygon, suggests that players dedicate 9.8' of depth and 6.2' of width to their PSVR play area. This includes a two-foot dead zone directly in front of a single PlayStation Camera, which must be set up for tracking purposes, and a few more feet back to position a chair so that players can look and wave arms all around their play space.

The pamphlet also makes clear that players cannot play very far from the camera. PSVR requires a specific just-close-enough sweet spot to track the system's headset, Move wands, and DualShock 4 controllers. Ideally, players will place a chair in that PSVR zone, as the pamphlet suggests players "remain seated whenever possible." If a particular game asks players to stand up, that may require a repositioning of the PS Camera to track full body height.