Month: March 2020

Enlarge / "The one football game you must have" is coming back after a long absence.

Take-Two subsidiary 2K announced today it will be returning to "football-themed" video games for the first time in well over a decade, thanks to a "multi-year partnership" with the NFL. The first games in this partnership, expected in 2021, will offer an NFL-licensed alternative to EA's best-selling Madden NFL juggernaut for the first time since 2004.

"Expanding the NFL’s presence in the world of gaming has become a focus for the League as we look to grow the next generation of our fanbase and reviving our partnership with 2K was a natural step in that effort,” Joe Ruggiero, NFL senior VP of consumer products, said in a statement. "2K is a worldwide leader in sports video games, with a proven track record of creating best-in-class and award-winning games, and we look forward to sharing more about the projects we are working on with them in the future."

While any new NFL2K game will be able to use the names, logos, and stadiums of real NFL teams, the licensing deal does not cover virtual versions of the players themselves. Rights to those players would have to be covered by a separate deal with the NFL Players Association union, which was pointedly not mentioned in 2K's announcement. A 2K representative refused to comment on the existence of any NFLPA deal when asked by Polygon.

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty)

More than a decade ago, Google re-implemented the Java programming language as part of its new Android mobile operating system. Oracle, the owner of Java, then sued Google for copyright infringement in 2010. Later this month, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in this epic copyright case that will have huge implications for the entire software industry—and that could cost Google billions of dollars.

Google says it has done nothing wrong. Copyright law specifically excludes "systems" and "methods of operation" from copyright protection. Google argues that the aspects of Java it copied—function names, argument types, and so forth—fit squarely into these exceptions. Google also argues that copyright's fair use doctrine allows for this kind of copying.

The case is being closely watched by the software industry. Companies like Microsoft and IBM have warned that Oracle's stance could create chaos for the industry. They argue that making this kind of copying illegal would not only create legal headaches for a lot of software companies—it would be bad for customers, too.

Enlarge / These positions are commonly seen when Hadza individuals are inactive. (credit: Flickr user Kiwiexplorer)

People have taken various measures to keep from being sedentary, including activity monitors, standing desks, and smartphones and watches that prod us to get out of our chairs. All of that effort is based on a growing body of studies indicating that too much time seated is associated with a variety of health risks. Other work has suggested that it takes very little time out of our seats to ensure better health.

It's a somewhat odd set of findings, given that many other mammals have lifestyles optimized for sloth (including, obviously, the sloth). That has led to the idea that humanity's recent evolutionary history—one in which we spent millions of years as hunter-gatherers—has optimized us for an active lifestyle. The sedentary lifestyle of developed economies isn't bad for us in itself; instead, it simply represents a mismatch to our metabolism.

But is there any evidence that this is the case? A group of researchers have worked with some modern hunter-gatherers and found that the answer is both yes and no. While the hunter-gatherers are even more sedentary than those in an industrialized nation, they tend to spend more of that time squatting and kneeling—activities that involve more muscle activity than sitting in a chair.