What’s coming up in the future on ARATNE

Hello world!

Here is an update on what you can expect on this homepage, Youtube, Twitter and Facebook in the future and what I’m working on at the moment.

Since I’m often very busy irl and during periods don’t post so much info here, I’m looking into how I can post short news from the world of archaeology and technology to release new content on a regular basis. When I have more time I will as usual post my own thoughts and ideas with the news as well.

I’m currently working on a Youtube video review of the König tripod, there is still some work to be done but it will launch this weekend! I’ll also try to get some other reviews done with some tech equipment.

I’m also working on doing a storyboard for the real trailer for Archaeology and Tech Network. I have quite some big plans for that trailer so it will take quite a lot of time to get it done probably several months as it seems like now.

In my idea of combining archaeology and technology I have started looking into archaeological software on the Internet to start with. There is quite a lot of dead links and old out-dated programs but there is also some really really good ones but that can be very hard to find. So I’ll have posts and videos about good and bad archaeological software as well.

I’m also still looking for Co.partnes so if you have a blog about archaeology, technology or both or related subjects maybe a company related to the subjects, leave a comment below so we can get in touch and maybe exchange information as well as have co-operation in different ways!

If you have any suggestions on what you would like to see here leave a comment with your feedback!

Don’t forget to check us out on Twitter, Facebook or Youtube!

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4000 year old hair discovered in Greenland! Show relationship between the first Greenlanders and people in Siberia!

Today new exciting evidence about the Saqqaq culture have been revelaed and is the first remains discovered of a human from that culture group. The research professor Bjarne Grønnow at SILA -the Etnographic department at the National museum in Copenhagen have together with a group of scientists discovered a piece of hair 4000 year old.

The hair was found at the settlement at Qeqertasussuk in Greenland and the DNA extracted from hair show some very interesting information and also is an evidence for the theory archaeologists had about the Saqqaq people in Greenland. The theory was that people from Siberia went from Siberia to Greenland about 4000-4500 years ago about 2500 BC. The hair now shows that the Saqqaq and the most related Siberian groups today Chukchi and Koryak splitted at about 5,500 years ago. People came to Greenland and settled in the western part about 4000 years ago.

The owner of the hair was a black-haired, brown-eyed man with the bloodtype A+. Bjarne Grønnow says the most important thing about this new exciting discovery is that the archaeologists now have proof that the first people on Greenland the paleo-eskimoes from what we today call the Saqqaq-culture originated from the eastern part of Siberia. This makes it possible to closer know where the different cultures in Greenland and Siberia was born.

You can read more here from the Nationalmuseum in Copenhagen (it’s in Danish)

and here as well about the DNA-analysis (this is in English)

The drawing is made by Nuka Godfredsen.

He also draws a lot of other motives from Greenland and also is making comic-books to spread the exciting history of Greenland.

You can see his homepage here

I have worked together with SILA in Greenland in 2007. We were a team about 20 people from Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Germany, Greenland and Canada. The project was coordinated by the Nationalmuseums in Copenhagen and Nuuk. We excavated soapstone quarries, a settlement from the Saqqaq culture and did many excursions and discovered and registered very many monuments, buildings, soapstone quarries and more from the Saqqaq culture to modern soapstone quarries where the soapstone was cut with chainsaws. It was very exciting and much new knowledge was revelead. We was in the Nuuk-area. Nuuk is the capital of Greenland. We were at the end of the Nuuk-fjord closest to the inland ice. It was a great experience as well as an adventure, living in a tent for 4 weeks, no hot water, musk ox roaming around, climbing in the mountains and much more. I should probably do more posts about this in the future. If you are interested in Artic/Greenlandic archaeology or just a quite different archaeology let me know, what do you find interesting and what would you like to know more about? Or do you have any stories from your work as an archaeologist that differs from most archaeology…

On Microsoft X10 11th of February, Fable 3 will most likely upset people according to Peter Molyneux!

Microsoft have declared that 2010 will be the most important year for them at least when it comes to Xbox 360. And that’s why they are relaunching their event called X10 this year and have it unusually early already the 11th of February.

Saying 2010 is the most important year is a very bold statement when you think about Microsoft earlier released stuff like completely new dashboard, Facebook, Twitter, Avatar, Zune Marketplace and a lot of other stuff for the Xbox 360. One big thing coming holiday 2010 is the Project Natal a motion sensor device. Seems to work a bit like Wii but you don’t need any controls.

In a recent interview the famous Peter Molyneux discussed Natal with the magazine Gamereactor and he revealed a very bold statement. He said on X10 more information will be shown in the upcoming Fable 3 and that also it will be very upsetting to people and probably piss people of. Earlier Molyneux have made people angry by promising to much about game content especially about Fable 1. But he really have toned down this part so making people angry on Fable 3 will be a very big thing. Peter Molyneux also said during the interview that it was the right thing to do and hopefully people will agree when we get more information.

It can be that Fable 3 will only be Natal support, you can only buy it with the Natal or something else like the game being delayed. But game delays are quite common these days and wouldn’t be a surprise. And I really don’t think Fable 3 will be a Natal-only game since Molyneux also said that the first wave of games to a console or with a new form of controller often isn’t as good as later games. But it is quite likely that it will have some kind of Natal support. But the surprise making people angry I would presume is more in the story or gameplay in some way I would think.

It will be really interesting to follow the X10 so stay tuned for updates!

I still have to finish Fable 2 and at least earlier interviews it have been said that you can use your Fable 2 character in Fable 3. What do you think the big announcement will be?

See the interview here

New MacBook pros soon here?

The site Geekbench posted a few days ago some benchmark results which can be seen here

The test shows that the Macbook Pro is running on Intel Core i7 M 620 at 2, 66 ghz each. The operativ system is Mac OS X 10.6.2 Build 10C3067. The Macbook Pro is called 6.1 at the test which could also point in the direction of new Macbooks could soon be here.

Another evidence that makes it possible is that major resellers around the world is starting to have a constraint on the Macbook Pro. This could because of Apple want to empty the storage around the world and make room for new Macbook Pros.

From the Apple event when they announced the iPad many were disappointed with no release information about Iphone or MacBook Pro but at least the MacBook Pro seem to be maybe not more than a few months away.

So far no new Apple event have been announced to my knowledge but Apple might launch the new MacBook Pros just in Apple Store without an event.

Updates coming tomorrow the 7th of Feb

Hello!

Just wanted to let you know that I will be posting some updates to this blog tomorrow. I’ve been a lot more busy than I expected and got one busy week coming more but I really need to get my blog going.

I’m also working on some more stuff a bit related to a blog as well as other sites but I’ll post about it when it’s ready. Until tomorrow take care and cya soon!

Apple hinting about new products for 2010!

Yesterday Apple’s iPad was released and will launch in the US 59 and 89 days from today. It will probably launch in Europe sometimes during the summer.

Also Apple have released their financial report for fiscal 2010 first quarter ended December 26, 2009. The figures in the report shows that Apple now is amazing $50+ billion dollar company and will probably to threaten the PC market more and more.

But the most exciting thing was something Steve Jobs said who is CEO at Apple: “The new products we are planning to release this year are very strong, starting this week with a major new product that we’re really excited about.”

He was of course talking about the iPad. But also he said new products planning to be released this year are very strong. Could this be a long-awaited update to the Macbook Pro’s? It will probably also be Iphone SDK 4.0 also adapted for the iPAdpeople was expecting this yesterday but hang in there Apple obviously got more stuff up their sleeve.

And they might have even more unknown products coming out 2010 so stay tuned for an exciting Apple year!!

Picture from here

Here are some specs for the new ipad! It was announced by Apples Steve Jobs tonight (Swedish time) and the hype has been quite large.

Height:
9.56 inches (242.8 mm)
Width:
7.47 inches (189.7 mm)
Depth:
0.5 inch (13.4 mm)
Weight:
1.5 pounds (.68 kg) Wi-Fi model;
1.6 pounds (.73 kg) Wi-Fi + 3G model
The display specs are
9.7-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit glossy widescreen Multi-Touch display with IPS technology
1024-by-768-pixel resolution at 132 pixels per inch (ppi)
Fingerprint-resistant oleophobic coating
Support for display of multiple languages and characters simultaneously
The hard drive will be in 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB flash drives.
The processor will be a 1GHz Apple A4 custom-designed, high-performance, low-power system-on-a-chip. This really doesn’t say much. 1 ghzisn’t much but will hopefully work quite well with the apps and games that are coming and I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple later on releases better models as they have done with the iPhone.
The battery life is quite good up to 10 hours being on the web with Wi-Fi, watching video or listening to music. You can charge it via a power adapter or with USB to computer system. The standby time is estimated to a month!
It also got a couple of sensors:
Accelerometer
Ambient light sensor
The input and outputs are
Dock connector
3.5-mm stereo headphone jack
Built-in speakers
Microphone
SIM card tray (which only the Wi-Fi + 3G model has)

The audio it handles is
Frequency response: 20Hz to 20,000Hz
Audio formats supported: AAC (16 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Store), MP3 (16 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 2, 3, and 4), Apple Lossless, AIFF, and WAV
User-configurable maximum volume limit
The TV and Video connectivity is
Supporting 1024 x 768 with Dock Connector to VGA adapter; 576p and 480pwith Apple Composite A/V Cable, 576i and 480i with Apple Composite A/V Cable
H.264 video up to 720p, 30 frames per second, Main Profile level 3.1 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats

E-mail attachments the iPad will support is

Viewable document types: .jpg, .tiff, .gif (images); .doc and .docx (Microsoft Word); .htm and .html (web pages); .key (Keynote); .numbers (Numbers); .pages (Pages); .pdf (Preview and Adobe Acrobat); .ppt and .pptx (Microsoft PowerPoint); .txt (text); .rtf (rich text format); .vcf (contact information); .xls and .xlsx (Microsoft Excel)

Languages it will support in different ways:

Language support for English, French, German, Japanese, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, Russian
Keyboard support for English (US) English (UK), French (France, Canada), German, Japanese (QWERTY), Dutch, Flemish, Spanish, Italian, Simplified Chinese (Handwriting and Pinyin), Russian
Dictionary support for English (US), English (UK), French, French (Canadian), French (Swiss), German, Japanese, Dutch, Flemish, Spanish, Italian, Simplified Chinese (Handwriting, Pinyin), Russian

So alot of countries languages are missing but I wouldn’t be surprised if they at least on App Store release language packs or include more languages in future updates.

If you want the iPad to work with your Mac you need

• ac computer with USB 2.0 port
• Mac OS X v10.5.8 or later
• iTunes 9.0 or later
• iTunes Store account
• Internet access

and if you have a PC you need:

Windows system requirements

• PC with USB 2.0 port
• Windows 7, Windows Vista; Windows XP Home or Professional with Service Pack 3 or later
• iTunes 9.0 or later
• iTunes Store account
• Internet access

As an archaeologist it is quite good to know which temperatures and conditions it can handle. But probably won’t be good having it in your pocket maybe if you got a headquarter in the field there might be some use for it…

Environmental requirements

• Operating temperature: 32° to 95° F (0° to 35° C)
• Nonoperating temperature: -4° to 113° F (-20° to 45° C)
• Relative humidity: 5% to 95% noncondensing
• Maximum operating altitude: 10,000 feet (3000 m)

And according to Apples hard work doing it friendly to the environment it has these features

Arsenic-free display glass
BFR-free
Mercury-free LCD display
PVC-free
Recyclable aluminum and glass enclosure

which is good in my opinion. Greenpeace has also given Apple latest hardware good grades in their tests.

Here some stats about the wifi connections:

Wireless and Cellular

Wi-Fi model

• Wi-Fi (802.11 a/b/g/n)
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR technology

Wi-Fi + 3G model

• UMTS/HSDPA (850, 1900, 2100 MHz)
• GSM/EDGE (850, 900,1800, 1900 MHz)
• Data only²
• Wi-Fi (802.11 a/b/g/n)
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR technology

Location

• Wi-Fi
• Digital compass
• Assisted GPS (Wi-Fi + 3G model)
• Cellular (Wi-Fi + 3G model)

Quite nice with a compass and GPS might come useful for some people.

And if you decide to buy a iPad in the box you get:

iPad
Dock connector to USB cable
10W Power Adapter
Documentation

The OS (operating system) is very similar to the iPhone and iPod touch and seems to work very well and the iPad screen also have recieved good reviews.

The iPad is lacking a camera but I’ll think Apple will implement one in later versions.

There is also some accessories coming as for example the iPad keyboard dock which is a charging device as well as a keyboard for your iPadwhich will I think alot of people will get since always writing on a software keyboard takes some time probably.

There is also a case to store it in, Ipad camera connection camera to let you connect your camera directly to the iPad.

And now to the price

First the Wi-Fi only models: 16 gb for $499, 32gb $599 and the 64 gb for $699.

The models with both Wi-Fi and 3G:

16 gb is $629 32 gb $ and finally the 64 gb model for $ 829.

The Wi-Fi only models will be released in 60 days and the Wi-Fi + 3G in 90 days. I guess that means the USA and maybe Europe as well but I think info will come about when we get closer to the release date.

So what do you think is the iPad for you? Will you got one or not?

Picture and info from http://www.apple.com