The clay cylinders were found in a tomb containing six skeletons. Glenn Schwartz / Johns Hopkins UniversityA few decades ago, researchers discovered four small clay cylinders marked with strange symbols at an ancient tomb in Syria. Theyve now concluded that those symbols are lettersand they may be the worlds oldest known evidence of alphabetic writing.The tomb is located inTell Umm-el Marra, an ancient city some 35 miles east of Aleppo. Researchers fromJohns Hopkins University and theUniversity of Amsterdam found the marked cylinders in 2004, and Johns Hopkins archaeologistGlenn Schwartz described them in apaper in 2021. But according to Scientific Americans Stephanie Pappas, the research didnt attract widespread attention until this week, when Schwartz presented it at the annual meeting of the American Society of Overseas Research.Before the invention of alphabets, early writing systemslikehieroglyphs and cuneiformused symbols representing objects or phonetic sounds. Eventually,Proto-Sinaitic script, which transformed some hieroglyphs into alphabetic letters, emerged in the Sinai Peninsula around 1900 B.C.E.Scholars have long thought that this was when the alphabet was invented, as Schwartz says in astatement. But our artifacts are older and from a different area on the map, suggesting the alphabet may have an entirely different origin story than we thought.Using radiocarbon dating, the researchers determined that the cylinders were made around 2400 B.C.E., which would make them about 500 years older than other known alphabetic scripts. If the cylinders markings are alphabetic letters, they represent a pivotal shift in humans development of language.As Schwartz tellsMcClatchys Irene Wright, older writing systems could feature thousands of characters or symbols representing full words, syllables or combinations of phonemesthe smallest sound segments that languages have. Alphabetic systems are much simpler: They contain only 20 to 30 characters, since thats the usual maximum number of phonemes a language will use.Alphabets revolutionized writing by making it accessible to people beyond royalty and the socially elite, says Schwartz in the statement. Alphabetic writing changed the way people lived, how they thought, how they communicated. Researchers think the cylinders could have been labels. Glenn Schwartz / Johns Hopkins UniversityThe tomb in Tell Umm-el Marra contained six skeletonslikely members of a wealthy and powerful family. It also held cookware, jewelry, a spearhead and pottery vessels. The clay cylinders were found alongside these artifacts. Each cylinder sports a small hole, which may have been used to attach them to something.Im imagining a string tethering them to another object to act as a label, says Schwartz in the statement. Maybe they detail the contents of a vessel, or maybe where the vessel came from, or who it belonged to.Schwartz tells Scientific American that one of the clay cylinders is marked with the word Silanu, which he thinks may be a name: Perhaps Silanu was the sender or recipient of the grave goods, and the clay cylinder might have been attached to a vessel like a gift tag. But without a way to translate the writing, researchers can only guess.Schwartz says that several prominent scholars have also agreed that the characters are part of an alphabet, according to Newsweeks Aristos Georgiou. However, this conclusion is not universally accepted. Some researchers say theyre still hoping for more evidence that the symbols arent from another kind of old writing system.When you only have a few very short inscriptions, it can be difficult to tell how many signs the system has, as Philippa Steele, a classicist at theUniversity of Cambridge, tells Scientific American. She cant be sure the engravings match Proto-Sinaitic writing rather than just resemble it. I think we have to hope for more finds.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Ancient Civilizations, Ancient Egypt, Archaeology, Artifacts, Cool Finds, History, Language, linguistics , New Research

Welcome to this week's episode of CGaNews, where we bring you the latest and greatest from the world of architectural visualization! Here's what you can expect in this episode:- "Viz Pro of the Week" - Blender or 3DS max: Which is the Best for Archviz in 2025? - Custom HDRI Dome Integration Setup: A Step Beyond V-Rays Native Tools - V-Ray Luminaires: dramatically faster, more accurate rendering of complex light fixtures- NAG ALL V.3.1: A New Update for 3D Library Organization- Chaos Releases Corona 12 Update 1: Enhancements for 3ds Max and Cinema 4D- 2024 Archviz Industry Salary Survey Results- Best of the WeekWatch it here: https://youtu.be/xYNE8I-ZQPMDon't forget to connect with us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and join our growing community on Discord to stay up to date with all things archviz. We can't wait to see you there!LinkedIn: CGArchitectInstagram: @CGArchitectDiscord: Join our communityDont forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more updates!Enjoyed this episode? Make sure to like, subscribe, and share to help us continue bringing you the latest archviz news.#CGarchitect #CGaNews #ArchViz #3DVisualization #Vray7 #CoronaRenderer #NAGAll #Blender #BestOfTheWeek #ArchVizCommunity #ArchitecturalRendering #salarysurvey

Ai2 released Tlu 3, a model that makes fine-tuning open-source LLMs easier and get its performance closer to closed LLMs like GPT-4o.Read More

LLaVA-o1 breaks down the answer into multiple reasoning components and uses inference-time scaling to optimize each stage.Read More

Stalker 2 sells 1m copies in two days | News-in-briefGSC Game World's survival horror launched on November 20, 2024Image credit: GSC Game World News by Sophie McEvoy Staff Writer Published on Nov. 22, 2024 This is a News-in-brief article, our short format linking to an official source for more information. Read more about this story by following the link below:Stalker 2 sells 1m copies in two days

Samsung launches free mobile cloud gaming platform for Galaxy devices23 games available at launch following year-long beta News by James Batchelor Editor-in-chief Published on Nov. 22, 2024 Samsung has launched a free mobile gaming platform across its Galaxy devices in North America.The mobile manufacturer has been trialling the streaming service in a beta since last year using a Game Launcher app, now renamed Samsung Gaming Hub.There will be 23 games available at launch, including free-to-play hits such as Monopoly Go, Candy Crush Saga, Homescapes and Honor of Kings.All games will be freely available, with Samsung's vice president and head of game services Jong Woo telling GamesIndustry.biz: "Unlike other cloud services, there is no content gated behind a paywall and no monthly subscriptions for users to access these games via our cloud streaming tech."Games are accessed via links distributed via Galaxy Store listings, Samsung Gaming Hub, or ads. The Galaxy Store, which comes pre-installed on all Samsung phones and tablets, will serve as the runtime client.Samsung claims that 50% of the players who clicked on a mobile cloud game ad or listing during the beta went on to play the title linked.Woo added that he believes the lack of friction cloud gaming provides, without the need for downloads, will help Samsung "significantly disrupt how game publishers scale their mobile games."The electronics firm has already been venturing into the cloud gaming space via its Smart TVs through a key partnership with Xbox, as well as other services such as Boosteroid.It previously experimented with a games streaming service for PC and select Galaxy hardware called PlayGalaxy Link, but this was shut down before it even launched.

Earlier this week, publishing rights for Shenmue 3 were transferred to Inin Games.Both Inin and Ys Net confirmed the news on November 19, saying this "deepened the relationship" between the two companies. Deep Silver first committed to publishing the crowdfunded action-adventure game in 2017, and it launched two years later on PlayStation 4 and PC.Ys and Inin previously teamed on 2023's Air Twister, and the collaboration marks the "next phase" of Shenmue 3's lifecycle. In the statement, they said the partnership "marks the beginning of a new chapter. Inin will be working closely alongside Ys Net to honor the series' legacy while ensuring its accessibility to even more fans around the world."The original Shenmue games released respectively in 1999 and 2001 for the Sega Dreamcast, and were acclaimed for their soundtracks and the ambition of Sega AM2 and director (and producer and writer) Yu Suzuki. In many ways, they were the blueprint for what Ryu Ga Gatoku would do with its own Like a Dragon (ne Yakuza) series: players get embroiled in the criminal underworld, freely explore recreations of real-world cities from Japan and China, and fight enemies using brawler mechanics.Oh, and minigames. Many minigames.Shenmue 3's long journeyIn 2015, Suzuki formally announced Shenmue 3 was in development, and called on the series' fanbase to put their money toward its development. By the end of its Kickstarter period in September 2018, it made $7.18 million, breaking several records on the website in the process.In 2020, Lars Wingefors, CEO of Deep Silver's parent company Embracer, remarked that Shenmue 3 ultimately did "fine" commercially, but was not expected to be a "mass market game." Both Shenmue 3 and Air Twister are Ys Net's only games. At time of writing, we don't know if this will lead to wholly new Shenmue or a port for current-gen platforms. Shenmue 3 was an Epic Games Store exclusive on PC, and at time of writing, has yet to release on Steam.However, Inin teased more information would be revealed "soon enough. So if you're interested, watch this space!"

Howdy! My name is Connor Roberts, the programmer for Project: Haste, an online first-person arena shooter made in Unity. Today I would like to run you through how I implemented the high-speed movement for our project.Project: Haste is an arena shooter game where players chain together movement techniques to outmaneuver their opponents. Our main goal with this game was to give players ultimate control over their positioning and maneuverability. The movement system is the basis for the game, especially as the game expands from a student project at Vancouver Film School to a Unity Awards 2024 Nominee, and finally into a full-scale live-ops release where this movement will be the bread and butter of the player experience.It starts with the designAs a team, we knew immediately when starting pre-production for Project: Haste that we wanted the basis of our game to be a satisfying movement system. I began prototyping based solely on intuition because I wanted to test movement out before we had a concrete design - this let us understand what we wanted before we sat down at the whiteboard.This ended up being one of our greatest strengths, as I had unknowingly created the foundational system for the game; it was complete with wall-running, slides, double jumps, and a dash.For some time we considered basing the game around grappling hooks or rocket jumping, but came to the conclusion that the dash ability solved those problems for us.I developed this movement to have a lot of tunability so the rest of the team could easily work with it. I also made sure to use scriptable objects and remote config to allow for the teams designers Trex Hossain and Sergio Lisuardi to tune our movement while they ran hundreds of playtests for our movement as the project matured.InspirationProject: Haste had many core inspirations, such as Quake and Titanfall 2, but before we had fully studied these titles or even had the full concept for the game, the movement was largely complete - at least technically.Its hard for me to personally say where I drew inspiration during the early movement prototyping, even to the end of production. Not to say I didnt study similar games, but the movement system became so core to our project that there wasnt much time to study movement in other games.With this in mind, I think it would be a good idea to move on to how the movement actually works, which is made up of our:Custom PhysicsCamera and Screen Space EffectsAnimation FeedbackAs Project: Haste evolved, these layers made our movement go from good to addicting.Custom physicsAt the core of our movement is my disdain for using built-in physics in game engines. I dont know what it is, but Id rather program it all so I can provide maximum tunability for the design team, or just for myself.To make the physics easier on myself, I used a state machine to divide every movement states physics into individual closed systems with input and output parameters. With each closed system created, the state machine allowed for the inputs and outputs of these systems to feed into each other to create a predictable, tuneable, and fluid movement system.For example, our wall run has an input of the players current speed and a gravity input. This speed is simply the value in meters per second, and the gravity is fed in as a tuned gravity specific to wall running. These are then used in conjunction with some collision-vector shenanigans to let you run along curved surfaces in Project: Haste.This then outputs a velocity value to the player, which can later be used as an input for any other movement state.Even though the main movement mechanics are our Wall Run, Slide, and Double Jump, we also had movement mechanics that were hidden from the player such as our slide jumping, our double jumps forward boost, or our mental ability used for affordance at ledges. Each of these had its own closed physics systems which fed together to allow the player to traverse our levels with additive speed.Camera and screen space effectsNow with all of our movement pieces connected together, we needed to make the player feel fast. We used a bunch of tricks here to make the player feel in tune with the movement of the player, such as FOV changes mapped to the change in velocity of the player, dash lines that scale based on player speed, and changing color depending on the current movement ability. We basically wanted to make the game feel satisfying in every movement that you do, really scratching the fast-paced itch all of our brains were craving.In addition to these tricks, we also rotate the camera depending on the players turn speed, which made us feel really in tune with the way we were moving. We also do this with the wall run -and all of our jumps for that matter- to tilt the player away from the surface they are on, which really sold those movement abilities for us and made it feel like you were impacting the surfaces of the game world.Finally, we had some other screen space effects. Project: Haste is very stylized, so we wanted to add some feedback to our movement in a more stylized fashion. I created a halftone shader that we used around our project with various masks to create effects like screen transitions, and we realized we could use custom-designed masks to make different halftone shapes. We ended up using this on the edges of our screen to create feedback directly for wall running, sliding, double jumping, and even when you are using boost pads and jump pads. Matching the colors with the dash lines made everything feel very cohesive and fast.Animation feedbackI cant write this section without mentioning our teams artists Chevi Hernandez and Jose Andres Lopez. Chevi really worked wonders on all of our character animations, along with weapon models and animations done by Jose, which became a key indicator for our players in order to maintain understanding during the high-octane gameplay found while players duke it out in the Haste League.We ultimately had many layers of animation present, including a unique animation for each directional input for each movement ability- this was used to ensure players fully understand their movements as they make them, and gives a point of reference for what a movement action is going to do to your direction in gameplay.Mixing these animations with SFX and music from our composer and SFX designer Declan Johnston means that players have all the tools in their tool belt in order to fully understand what is happening with their own character, as well as their surroundings in a match.Final takeawayId like to highlight how making a game within a short time frame really does take a village. Project: Haste was only in development for four months, which looking back is incredibly short. It is thanks to my amazing team that I am fortunate enough to even be writing about our project, let alone programming away and getting it prepared for a full scale release. I feel truly lucky. Our process was very interesting; by the book in some ways, and very much not for others. The communication and cohesive vision of this team allowed for something pivotal to our gameplay, our movement, to be proved out and iterated on from week one of pre-production, needing few revisions as the game matured. Being the programmer for the team allowed me to focus in and get a mind map of how the game was going to function in its entirety, and that really started with that one clear goal of having precise and responsive fast-paced movement. I have loved watching that mind map transform into a game that I can see with the help of my team, it truly has been the most rewarding experience.The Project: Haste team and myself really hope you have enjoyed reading this! If you would like more information about our upcoming release of Haste or the development of Project: Haste, feel free to contact us at [emailprotected]Or if you are interested in Vancouver Film Schools Game Design program where this all started, click here.

Elon Musk is, in addition to many other things, now the co-lead of the currently nonexistent Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) advisory group. Now, before it even gets rolling, he has begun singling out individual government employees he says are emblematic of the governments bloat and posting about them to his hundreds of millions of followers on X.Earlier this week, as first reported by The Wall Street Journal, the X user datahazard shared a screenshot on X highlighting the role of Ashley Thomas, the Director of Climate Diversification at the US International Development Finance Corporation, saying, I dont think the US Taxpayer should pay for the employment of that role. Musk reposted it, adding the comment so many fake jobs in a post with more than 33 million views. As the WSJ notes, Musks followers have responded in exactly the way youd expect: with a flood of memes and harassment targeting Thomas, whose LinkedIn and Facebook pages are now private. Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, told the WSJ that the posts are aimed at sowing terror and fear at federal employees.RelatedFlooding targets with harassment is a tactic Musk has done in the past, including calling caver Vernon Unsworth a pedo guy, criticizing a former Twitter exec following his offer to buy the company, and suggesting that head of trust and safety Yoel Roth was sympathetic to pedophilia. All, of course, under the guise of free speech.The ensuing harassment, of course, is precisely the point: Musk has systematically turned X into a megaphone for his views and has wielded that megaphone to whatever end he finds funny or useful. Musk and DOGE co-lead Vivek Ramaswamy have promised to do much of their work in public (and sometimes by X poll), too, which means this kind of pointed attention is likely headed toward many other civil servants in the near future.

The Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments on a case involving funding for a major broadband subsidy program, the Universal Service Fund (USF). SCOTUS granted cert in a pair of cases called Federal Communications Commission v. Consumers Research, and Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition v. Consumers Research, which were consolidated for oral arguments. They center around whether Congress inappropriately delegated lawmaking function to the FCC by letting it set contribution rates for telecommunications companies to pay into the nonprofit Universal Service Administration Company, which manages the USF. It also asks whether the FCC delegated too much authority to a private entity by letting USAC manage the subsidy program.The case could deal another blow to the regulators authority, after SCOTUS dismantled the Chevron doctrine earlier this year, which diminishes courts reliance on agency expertise. It could also jeopardize the USF, which helps provide funding for people who are low-income or in rural areas access telecommunications and broadband services, and also helps school get internet access and equipment. The case reaches the Supreme Court after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the funding arrangement around the USF violates the Constitution. The Supreme Court asked the parties to also file briefs about whether the case is moot since the challengers didnt seek preliminary relief before the appeals court.Three industry groups NTCA, Competitive Carriers Association, and USTelecom applauded the courts decision to hear the case, and said the Fifth Circuits ruling in the case defies Supreme Court precedent and other circuit court decisions. The Fifth Circuit decision threatens to undermine universal service programs that, for many decades, have served to promote the availability and affordability of critical communications services for millions of rural and low-income consumers, rural health care facilities, and schools and libraries across the nation, they said in a joint statement.