Month: January 2018

Nature

Scientists have unveiled an extraordinary new analysis of thousands of stone tools found at a site called Attirampakkam in India, northwest of Chennai in Tamil Nadu. Thanks to new dating techniques, a team led by archaeologist Shanti Pappu determined that most of the tools are between 385,000 and 172,000 years old. What makes these dates noteworthy is that they upend the idea that tool-making was transformed in India after an influx of modern Homo sapiens came from Africa starting about 130,000 years ago.

According to these findings, hominins in India were making tools that looked an awful lot like what people were making in Africa almost 250,000 years before they encountered modern humans. This is yet another piece of evidence that the "out of Africa" process was a lot messier and more complex than previously thought.

Enlarge / A reconstruction of temperature in North America and Europe since the end of the last Ice Age, shown in thousands of years before 1950. (credit: Marsicek et al/Nature)

Before the Industrial Revolution (roughly), Earth’s climate had actually been trending slightly cooler. The sudden reversal toward comparatively rapid warming gave rise to graphs frequently described as “hockey sticks” for their shape. But that stick only goes back about 2,000 years in climate records based on tree rings. So what happened between the end of the last “Ice Age” around 11,000 years ago and the beginning of the hockey stick?

Ice core records gave us the general idea decades ago—temperatures were relatively stable. But to understand what global temperature was doing more precisely, researchers have to compile lots of individual records from around the world. One such effort, published in 2013, showed the slow cooling trend beginning 5,000 years ago, making a super-long hockey stick following a warm plateau that was also about 5,000 years long.

But in 2014, another study showed that this pattern didn’t quite fit climate model simulations. Instead, the 2014 study showed a very gradual warming of about 0.5 degrees Celsius over the last 11,000 years. But a new study published this week compiled a separate climate record for the Northern Hemisphere—with slightly different results that look more like that model simulation.

Now, an older-than-30 user like "Gemma" here won't have to worry about paying more for "Tinder Plus," at least in California. (credit: NHS/PA Wire)

The online dating service Tinder must change one of its key monetization strategies. A Los Angeles appellate court reversed a lower court's decision on Monday and told Tinder to stop charging older users more money per month for its "Tinder Plus" service.

The proposed class-action lawsuit, filed by Tinder user Allan Candelore in February 2016, alleged that Tinder engaged in illegal age discrimination by charging its 30-and-older users $19.99 per month for Tinder Plus while offering younger users either $9.99 or $14.99 monthly subscription rates for the same services. Tinder Plus includes app perks such as additional "super-likes" which are more likely to attract a dater's response.

In an initial trial, Tinder's defense argued that the pricing was based on market testing that showed a market-driven reason to offer lower prices to "budget constrained" users.

Enlarge / The logo of Fuji Xerox Co., the joint venture between Fujifilm Holdings Corp. and Xerox Corp., is displayed outside the company's headquarters in Tokyo, Japan, on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. (credit: Tomohiro Ohsumi / Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Xerox—the iconic American company that began in Rochester, New York in 1906—has been acquired by Fujifilm for $6.1 billion.

The two companies have existed for over half a century as corporate partners under the Fuji Xerox name. The new company, which will have a combined revenue of $18 billion, will keep the dual moniker as well as its pair of corporate headquarters in both Tokyo and Connecticut.

"The proposed combination has compelling industrial logic and will unlock significant growth and productivity opportunities for the combined company, while delivering substantial value to Xerox shareholders," Jeff Jacobson, chief executive officer of Xerox, said in a statement.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Snap Decision)

Google Fiber is ending its wireless home Internet service in Boston, and existing customers in the city will lose their service sometime in the next several months.

Google Fiber has had its struggles, but the Boston shutoff doesn't necessarily mean that wireless customers in other cities will lose service. The service apparently fared poorly in Boston, but the company says it is still doing better in its other locations.

Google Fiber got into the wireless business in October 2016 when it purchased Webpass, which provides speeds ranging from 100Mbps to 1Gbps and mainly serves multi-unit residential buildings and businesses. Webpass started serving Boston in 2015 before it was bought by Google.

PC Power Speed is a classic example of the kind of program that Microsoft will start removing. The "registry errors" that these programs detect are rarely—if ever—a legitimate problem.

Windows Defender, the anti-malware software that's built in to Windows, is going to start removing utility software that tries to scare users into upgrading, starting in March.

The Windows software ecosystem has a large variety of software of dubious merit that claims to detect and diagnose faults. These programs often offer a free version that purports to find problems and a paid version that can supposedly repair those problems. Frequently, the problems detected by this software are either nonexistent or misleadingly described, spuriously blamed for crashes or poor performance.

Under Microsoft's new policy, any software that the company deems to be coercive will be a candidate for removal. Coercive elements include software that's particularly alarming or exaggerates the risks, software that says the only way to repair the problem is to upgrade, and software that tells users they must act within a limited time. Direct payments will be penalized, but so too will apps that require people to take surveys or sign up for newsletters.