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Posts Tagged ‘Evolution’

Weird Science videotapes "explosive" duck erections

Explosive penises and the anatomical prevention of duck rape: You may not have known this (most of the Ars staff didn’t), but most birds copulate without the benefit of a penis. One of the primary exceptions to this are, of all creatures, ducks. As it turns out, male and female ducks have elaborate and rapidly evolving genitalia. There appears to be a behavioral habit driving this evolution: duck rape or, more properly, forced copulation. It seems that males tend to force themselves on females, and females have been evolving convoluted reproductive passages in order to thwart them.

The paper in question here actually capture video of the male erection process, which normally takes place inside the female: “Eversion of the 20 cm muscovy duck penis is explosive, taking an average of 0.36 s, and achieving a maximum velocity of 1.6 m s⁻¹.” But the female reproductive tract contains awkward bends and blind alleys that can apparently stop the process cold, allowing the female a degree of control over the father of her offspring, regardless of how aggressive he may be.

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Feature: From Cinepak to H.265: a brief history of video compression

When we asked our faithful readers what technological advances had made the biggest difference to their lives, Prospero424 stepped up to the plate to deliver a humdinger: video compression.

To Prospero, MPEG-4 part 2 compression was “when the internet truly became a viable A/V platform/medium. This is when storing hours of video that looked good enough to watch and keep became viable to store online locally (i.e. on your hard disks, not on external discs, etc.) on personal computers. No other single aspect of the evolution of entertainment has done more to change how I consume it.”

Let’s rewind the tape a little bit further than that, in order to see the breaking point arrive. Prospero is correct that video compression has indeed revolutionized entertainment over the past decade, but the technology has a longer history than you might think.

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Toshiba announces 64GB NAND packages: Apple winks, gives a nudge

Outside of the occasional leaked roadmap, one of the best ways to predict the future of consumer electronics is by looking at the evolution of the components within. Take this Toshiba NAND package for instance. While the launch of a 64GB embedded NAND flash memory module (the highest capacity in the industry) that combines sixteen 32Gb NAND chips fabricated using 32nm manufacturing processes might sound a bit boring, consider its uses. As you’ll recall from the iPhone 3GS teardown, Apple’s lovely uses either a single 16GB or 32GB Toshiba NAND module depending on the model purchased. The fact that Toshiba is now sampling its new high-capacity chips with mass production set to begin in Q1 2010 hints at what we can expect from the next-gen iPhone rumored to have landed in Foxconn’s lap. That’s enough capacity for 1,070 hours of recorded music (at a 128Kbps bit rate), 8.3 hours of 17Mbps high definition video, and 19.2 hours of 7Mbps standard definition video according to Toshiba’s calculations. The iPod touch, you’ll remember, differs by using a pair of NAND packages for a total of 32GB or 64GB of flash today. Anyone for a 128GB iPod touch? Check the module’s internals after the break — fascinating stuff, really.

Continue reading Toshiba announces 64GB NAND packages: Apple winks, gives a nudge

Toshiba announces 64GB NAND packages: Apple winks, gives a nudge originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Dec 2009 02:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Yes Men punk US Chamber of Commerce on climate change, sued

In late October, a troupe of comedic pranksters called the Yes Men took on the United States Chamber of Commerce over its stance on climate change via a parody that was hard to distinguish from the real deal: a fake press conference, press releases, and a modified version of the Chamber’s own website, hosted at a similar address. The Chamber responded by getting the Yes Men’s ISP to pull the site, which drew the Electronic Frontier Foundation into the fight. Now, it looks like all these parties may be meeting in court, as the Chamber has filed a suit alleging that the parody crossed the line into fraud. We say “may” because the Chamber appears to be having a difficult time serving the pranksters.

The events started in April, when the Chamber triggered a series of events that could easily be considered self-parody. Its leadership filed a petition with the EPA, asking that the evidence for climate change be subjected to public hearings. After that petition was widely ignored, they upped the ante, calling for a modern equivalent of the Scopes Monkey Trial, which questioned the science behind evolution.

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Nokia N900 video shows off 3D gaming, YouTube shenanigans, and more

Not satisfied with a video of the Nokia N900’s browser, an in-depth look at its Maemo 5 operation system, or even a glimpse of it playing the odd SNES game? Then fear not, ’cause the device is on the scene at the now-happening Maemo Summit, and it’s thankfully been caught on video once again for those not lucky enough to be in attendance. Highlights this time around include a look at the device’s 3D gaming capabilities (demoed with a Marble Madness-type game called Bounce Evolution), and a demonstration of the device not only playing YouTube videos in a browser, but within a thumbnail in the Maemo interface — not exactly the most practical thing in the world, but it sure is impressive on a mobile device. Head on past the break to see the whole thing for yourself.

[Thanks, Welly]

Continue reading Nokia N900 video shows off 3D gaming, YouTube shenanigans, and more

Filed under: Cellphones

Nokia N900 video shows off 3D gaming, YouTube shenanigans, and more originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 09 Oct 2009 11:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Five essential things to know about evolution

If scientists had to pick one area of science that’s most frequently misunderstood, evolution would probably win the vote. It’s not simply the sea of misinformation available on the Internet (although that clearly doesn’t help); it also seems that a lot of people who accept the scientific evidence don’t fully appreciate some aspects of evolutionary theory. It’s one thing to remember a few examples of the compelling evidence we have for evolution; it’s another thing entirely to appreciate the features of the process that make it so incredibly powerful but, at the same time, hide many of its actions from our common experience.

So, in a slight change of pace, we’re going to skip focusing on the latest results or a comprehensive review of the evidence (we’ done quite a bit of that in the past), and focus instead on some of the general aspects of the theory, many of which are commonly overlooked. So, without further ado, we present five things you may not know about evolution.

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Latest Google Chrome Beta Is “30 Percent Faster,” Supports HTML5, And Is Prettier Too

Google just released a new beta version of its Chrome browser for Windows PCs. The company claims that it is 30 percent faster than the current stable version of the browser (based on V8 and SunSpider benchmarks).

What may be more significant, though, is that this is the first version of Chrome that adds some support for HTML5, including video-tagging capabilities. The latest Firefox 3.5 beta also adopts HTML5, which allows for all sorts of cool things inside Web video like links and other interactive elements. It lets you treat video more like a Webpage. Along with Google’s acquisition of On2 today for its video codec, it looks like Google is getting behind open video in a big way. (Read this post from last year for more on the evolution of HTML).

The new Google Chrome beta is also prettier. Those themes we’ve been telling you about are now fully incorporated. And the new beta also improves the New Tab and Omnibox features.

When you create a new tab, Chrome shows you thumbnails of the sites you visits the most often (just like in Safari). These act as automatic bookmarks. Now, you can rearrange the thumbnails in any order you like by dragging and dropping them, or you can pin one down so that it doesn’t move even if you don’t visist it as much as other sites.

The Omnibox is Chrome’s all-in-one address and search bar. As you type words in, it gives you drop-down suggestions, which now have icons distinguishing between search results, bookmarks, and Websites.

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