Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/258162068?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Friday, October 26, 2012
Halo 4 is the most expensive game that Microsoft has ever produced ...
Developing games ain?t cheap. Grand Theft Auto, Street Fighter, Assassin?s Creed needed enough funds to buy me several island getaways on which I could build a fortress to house my collection of Batman and Iron Man armours with I?m drifting again! You know what else those games have in common? They didn?t cost anywhere near as much to produce as Halo 4 did.
Talking to Polygon, Microsoft Studios head Phil Spencer described Halo as a $3 billion franchise, and as the ?most important entertainment product in the company?. When pressed for how much it cost to create Halo 4, hey big Spencer remained tight-lipped, saying only that ?nothing?s even close.?
To put that into perspective, Halo 3 had a development budget of $60 million, and made over $300 million in first week global sales for Microsoft, back in 2007. If i had to take a stab at the budget for Halo 4 however, I wouldn?t be surprised to hear if around $80 ? $100 million had been spent on creating the game.
Of course, cash doesn?t equal quality, and there are plenty of games out there to prove this, such as The Witcher 2, which managed to deliver blockbuster entertainment for around $10 million.
But either way you slice it, that?s still a whole lot of green. Still, even if you aren?t a fan of Halo or a diehard Playstation fanatic, it?s pretty damn hard to deny that the money was well spent on the visuals for Halo 4. I?m just hoping that a chunk of change made its way into the gameplay as well.
Halo 4 is out on November 6, exclusively for the Ex-Bawks free sixties.
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Zynga's revenue rises, beats Street
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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/zyngas-revenue-rises-beats-street-201559672--finance.html
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Video: Google trekker captures Grand Canyon?s beauty
>>> for dedicates, people have talked about and written about what it is like to see the grand canyon for the first time. but soon, even if you're not actually there, you will get a view of one of america's most magnificent places. ann thompson has more.
>> reporter: it is a story nearly two billion years in the making, the grand canyon , made of sand stone and granite, available only to those willing to hike or ride. until this week's invasion of the seemingly alien tracker. product manager wearing the latest evolution of google's different effort, focused on one of america's most popular tourist spots.
>> this is what we had in mind when we developed the trekker, the weight, the issues, we knew if we could take it to the grand canyon , ultimately we could take it anywhere.
>> reporter: here is how it works, the funny looking metal ball holds a disk that records the pictures and locations. four and a half million people visit grand canyon every year, but not everyone walks the trails. now with this new trekker technology you will be able to make this hike from anywhere. the technology is helping this seattle resident make this trek.
>> another one on the bucket list was the great wall of china and i did that. and i googled all of it. i was there before i got there.
>> reporter: exactly google's goal.
>> by creating this experience a click away, we make it available to a whole category of people.
>> reporter: engineers track this on the phone, but the finished product won't be ready for months, the result of shrinking technology. to today's backpack.
>> we're always looking forward to the next thing, technology gets better, everything gets better.
>> reporter: creating the ability to explore without limits, anne thompson , nbc news, grand canyon , arizona.
Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/49543431/
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The lion hunt
A Masai elder's coming-of-age tale. Sort of.
After two years of invitations, I finally made it to Africa to visit my friend Moses, a Masai elder, at his village in Kenya.
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The Masai have a long history of being great warriors, and that first night while sitting around a fire, Moses offered to tell me about hunting lions. This was an honor, as his people also consider themselves to be great storytellers and do not often share such private tales with visitors.
A Masai boy is expected to hunt a lion with only a shield and spear before he is considered to be a man. While he does not have to kill the lion, he must participate in the hunt. Moses was about 13 when he faced this trial, which is an integral part of his culture.
Moses put on a grave face and began to tell about the lion dance that is performed the night before a hunt and how the warriors jump high into the air while moving in a circle to imitate what they will do in the morning. They begin the hunt by driving the lion into a thicket and surrounding it in a wide circle, then slowly advancing until the lion is so threatened that it attacks a warrior. That warrior then throws himself on the ground, covers up with his shield, and hopes his fellow hunters kill the lion with their spears before it kills him.
Moses stared into the fire a long time before continuing, and I thought perhaps he had awakened a bad memory.
Reaching down, he pulled up his bright red shuka (robe) and showed me a long jagged scar on his calf, saying he'd gotten it on his first lion hunt.
I was shocked. I said, "The lion did that to you?"
He leaned forward as if to impart a great secret and said, "No. I was so scared, I speared myself in the leg, and the lion got away!"
With that he threw his head back, giggling uncontrollably. I had received my introduction to Masai humor.
Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/zHFAmyi6dBo/The-lion-hunt
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Monday, October 15, 2012
Fly genomes show natural selection and return to Africa
Saturday, October 13, 2012
When ancestral humans walked out of Africa tens of thousands of years ago, Drosophila melanogaster fruit flies came along with them. Now the fruit flies, widely used for genetics research, are returning to Africa and establishing new populations alongside flies that never left ? offering new insights into the forces that shape genetic variation.
That's one of the findings from two new papers published this month by researchers at the University of California, Davis, and their colleagues that describe the genomes of almost 200 strains of the tiny flies.
The work reveals strong evidence of pervasive natural selection throughout the D. melanogaster genome, said Charles Langley, professor of genetics in the Department of Evolution and Ecology at UC Davis and an author on both papers. That is in striking contrast with what is known of the human genome, which shows comparatively little evidence of adaptation over the last 100,000 years.
The overall aim of the research is to better understand the forces that shape genetic variation, Langley said. Human geneticists are working to sequence a thousand human genomes to get at the same issue. The knowledge from studying fly genetics has and will help in that effort, he said.
"Most of the theory and statistical methods in human genetics were originally motivated by studies of flies, because they're easier and faster to work with," Langley said. "Model organisms like these play a critical role in developing tools and ideas."
The first paper, published Oct. 1 in the journal Genetics, reports the genomes of 37 strains of Drosophila collected in Raleigh, N.C., and six strains from the sub-Saharan nation of Malawi. The other paper, to be published in Public Library of Science Genetics and currently available online as a preprint, describes the genomes of 139 fly strains covering 22 African and one European population.
Drosophila melanogaster, like humans, originated in Africa, and that's where they show the most genetic diversity ? just as humans do. The flies are thought to have appeared in Europe about 50,000 years ago, along with modern humans. On the way, both humans and flies squeezed through genetic bottlenecks that reduced the diversity in the population. Over generations, different fly strains evolved quite specialized niches ? such as a fondness for colonizing breweries, for example.
But the African fly genomes show that just in the past couple of decades, flies similar to those found in Europe or the U.S. have established populations back in Africa, often in new environments such as urban and industrial developments. For example, where modern breweries and bottled beer have displaced traditional African brewing, "Europeanized" brewery flies have followed.
The spread of those "European" genes is more rapid than if it were occurring by random processes, the researchers write.
"It may be that urbanization and development favor the more 'European' flies," Langley said.
###
University of California - Davis: http://www.ucdavis.edu
Thanks to University of California - Davis for this article.
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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/124447/Fly_genomes_show_natural_selection_and_return_to_Africa
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