Tag: #foot2

5 Foodie Films to Binge on This Weekend

A selection of films which inspire your inner chef

Reading time 5 minutes

Going beyond life-skills, cooking could be perceived as a source of pleasure and well-being. However, it can be complicated to master such a craft. We’ve put together a selection of movies for those who are still Googling how to cook pasta, but are desperate to develop their culinary skills.

1. Julie and Julia: Cooking Happiness by Recipe (2009)
Frame from the film "Julie and Julia: Cooking Happiness by Recipe"
Frame from the film “Julie and Julia: Cooking Happiness by Recipe”

The film revolves around an aspiring writer, Julie Powell, who works as a call center operator, and Julia Child, author of the cult book Mastering the Art of French Cooking. At the same time, the viewer can watch how the career of Mrs. Child herself begins in the 1940s and 1950s. It becomes obvious that the stories of the two women are similar not only in their love of cooking, but also in their attitude to difficulties and even to their own marriage.

2. Spices and Passions (2014)
Frame from the film "Spices and Passions"
Frame from the film “Spices and Passions”

A family of Indian immigrants, who live on wheels, decides to open a small oriental restaurant in the French province. However, the building where the restaurant is planned to be located is directly opposite the Weeping Willow restaurant, a Michelin-starred restaurant that regularly hosts the President of France himself for dinner. A cold but exciting war breaks out between the owners of the two restaurants. For guests, food and, to some extent, even for love.

3. Toast (2010)
Frame from the film "Toast"
Frame from the film “Toast”

A family of Indian immigrants, who live on wheels, decides to open a small oriental restaurant in the French province. However, the building where the restaurant is planned to be located is directly opposite the Weeping Willow restaurant, a Michelin-starred restaurant that regularly hosts the President of France himself for dinner. A cold but exciting war breaks out between the owners of the two restaurants. For guests, food and, to some extent, even for love.

4. Chief Adam Jones (2015)
Frame from the film "Chief Adam Jones"
Frame from the film “Chief Adam Jones”

A few years ago, Adams Jones worked as a chef in a first-rate restaurant in Paris, but drug abuse forced him to resign. Now he works in a small bar in the U.S., where his main duty is to pull oysters out of the sink. Tired of the meaninglessness of life, Adam decides to return to Europe and conquer the culinary world of London. From there he gets his 3 Michelin stars all at once.

5. Chocolat (2000)
Frame from the film "Chocolat"
Frame from the film “Chocolat”

This is an adaptation of the novel by British writer Joanne Haris. A young woman named Vianne Rocher arrives in a provincial French town. The appearance of new people in the city already excites the inhabitants, and when Vianne opens his own chocolate shop, they are completely lost in guessing what kind of strange guest has come to their city. Together with his daughter Anouk, the pastry chef is trying to establish a life in a new place, and at the same time introduce the locals to the exquisite taste of chocolate.

Holes in Invisibility Cloak

How metadata destroys your anonymity

Reading time 7 minutes

The previous article about information security focuses on how to be invisible on the Internet. In addition to the technical instruction, we also told about the errors of the «human factor». However, «torified» traffic, while preventing any IP-address leaks, does not save from other paths to lose data or giving yourself away. About one of the least obvious – read in this article.

Some significant points from the previous article

When a computer connects to Tor, a user’s actions on the Internet are (almost) impersonal. It becomes impossible to track the person’s location, IP-address and other data. However, there are a number of ways to find out where you are and what you are doing: the use of bank cards or phone compromise any information about purchases, movements, calls. Suppose you do not make errors of «human factor» and have successfully installed Whonix according to our instructions. The next step for secure communication or activity on the Internet will be to clean up metadata.

For what reason it is used and why metadata is dangerous

Metadata is an information about a file on your device inside the object itself. To make it easier to understand, let’s take a picture on your phone for an example. The picture has both data (information about where and what color the pixel is) and metadata (it helps to identify a device with which the photo was taken, geolocation at the time of shooting, the size of the image). Metadata improve the quality of information, as it can help to structure the data and set its context. It is used in different areas for analytics, increases the speed of systems and optimizes communication between computer software and files, establishes software licensing restrictions.

Metadata of the author of the article. With its help you can find out the location, model of the phone and even the height above sea level. Site suIP.biz was used to view the metadata.
Metadata of the author of the article. With its help you can find out the location, model of the phone and even the height above sea level. Site suIP.biz was used to view the metadata.

Despite all the advantages, metadata is dangerous when you seek to anonymize your activities. The fact is that they provide much more personal information about the user than the IP-address. For example, you can find out where a person spends most time (home and place of work), geolocation, devices’ operating system, date of video shooting or creation of a text document, authorship. In Digital Security research «II Files’ metadata: Invisible information, revealing your identity», experts note that mail services, even Protonmail, which is considered the most secure, do not delete metadata at all. Messengers erase all metadata from photos, but files (including images sent as files), video and text documents remain intact. Therefore, anonymizing traffic with Tor makes no sense if you do not delete metadata from published or sent materials, as you become easy to track.

Digital Security research found that mail, messengers, sources for photo and video, and cloud storage leave metadata in most uploaded files.
Digital Security research found that mail, messengers, sources for photo and video, and cloud storage leave metadata in most uploaded files.

Security tools

You probably don’t need such a serious anonymization yourself in regular life, so this utility is related to Whonix (Linux’s distributive from the previous part). However, I cannot advise nothing to clean metadata ordinary users too. For laypersons online resources will be suitable, for example, imgonline. But this method has two obvious drawbacks. Firstly, information will be transferred to a specific site, and secondly, the number of file formats which metadata can be deleted is much smaller.

For Linux there is a special software to clean metadata: «MAT – Metadata Anonymisation Toolkit». There are two versions: MAT and MAT2. The last one is more convenient and easier to use. To download the software, you need to enter the command in the Whonix terminal:

$ sudo aptitude install mat2

To view all available commands, type:

$ mat2

Then the list of actions will appear:

Terminal window in Whonix. The screenshot shows all possible operations in MAT2.
Terminal window in Whonix. The screenshot shows all possible operations in MAT2.

To use any command, you must first write the tool name – mat2. The most interesting of the proposed commands is called «–inplace» which removes all metadata. Unfortunately, to address a specific object, you need to specify its directory, so to make this action easier, you should place the files in the system, for example, on the desktop. Write a request in the terminal line:

$ mat2 –inplace /home/user/Desktop/имя файла

We tested the operation of this method by cleaning the metadata from the picture from the gallery, comparing the size of the file before and after: 3.3 MB and 2.3 MB respectively. Almost a third of the information is «data».

Of course, photo does not take up much space on the hard drive, and if you take a larger file, the share of metadata will be insignificant. However, the most popular files distributed by people are images, video, audio and text documents. Together with them, a significant amount of information, however hidden from the average user, but confidential, is transmitted.

Mulan is affected by coronavirus

Disney premiere may be delayed

Reading time 4 minutes

On February 29, the popular American mass culture news aggregator Comic Book reported that Disney did not approve the rental plan for its new “Mulan” movie in China. The picture was supposed to be released in late March, but now it is highly likely that the premiere of the picture in the Middle Kingdom will be postponed indefinitely. The main reason is an outbreak of coronavirus, which still cannot be controlled. The performer of the leading role, Liu Yifei, a native of Wuhan, the city where the epidemic started, spoke about the situation: “People are doing everything right. They cherish themselves and others. It is very scary to see that they have not left the house for weeks. I hope that a miracle will happen and everything will soon be behind.”

Пример диснеевского ремейка - "Король Лев". Слева версия 1994 года, справа - 2019
An example of a Disney remake is The Lion King. 1994 version on the left, 2019 on the right

This situation can bring huge losses to Disney. The corporation has already announced significant financial losses after the temporary closure of two theme parks in Shanghai and Hong Kong – more than $ 150 million per quarter. In addition, the situation with Mulan is special, because the movie was obviously made with the expectation of a great profit from the Chinese audience: the plot is based on the medieval Chinese ballad about the girl Hua Mulan, who went to war with the Huns instead of her father, pretending to be a man. The film is part of a series of numerous “Disney remakes” of popular cartoons from the 80s and 90s with living actors like Beauty and the Beast or Aladdin, or photorealistic animations like The Jungle Book and The Lion King. All previous remakes, despite critical reviews and accusations of secondary nature, repeatedly recouped their production budgets. “Mulan” should not have been an exception, especially given the enormous budget: according to rough estimates, it is about $ 300 million, which makes “Mulan” one of the most expensive movies in history. For comparison, the largest budget ($ 365 million) came from last year’s blockbuster Avengers: Final.

Поцелуй из оригинального мультфильма. Вроде очень милый и не пошлый...
A kiss from the original cartoon. It seems to be very cute and not vulgar …

The creators faced certain problems even until the film transfer. For example, due to the massive military scenes, the picture received an age rating of PG-13 (13+), becoming the first Disney remake with such indicator. PG is considered to be the standard rating for studio films (6+ with parental recommendation). In addition, after the pre-screening, Chinese viewers demanded to cut the scene of the main character’s kiss with Li Shang, a military commander, considering it vulgar and unchaste. As a result, the creators decided to completely remove the character of Li Sang, considering his relationship with Mulan not corresponding to the era of #MeToo. Besides the Chinese criticized the historical inaccuracies of the movie: for example, the Mulan family lives in the adobe house “Tulou”. In reality, they began to be built only a thousand years after the events described in the film.

“Ice 2” has broken

The fees of the new film with Alexander Petrov reached a billion rubles

Reading time 4 minutes

On February 14, Valentine’s Day, “Ice 2” was released in cinemas – a continuation of the melodramatic musical of 2018 with Alexander Petrov, Aglaia Tarasova and Maria Aronova in the lead roles. The film companies “Hydrogen” and Art Pictures Studio, which are part of the National Media Group, were engaged in the creation and promotion of the film. And now we can say that they have done a very high-quality work to promote the picture: after 10 days, it has already submitted a billion rubles to the box office. Thus, “Ice 2” was included in the list of 14 Russian films that achieved such success at the box office. Earlier, more than a billion rubles were collected by the first part of “Ice”, as well as the films “Serf”, “Stalingrad”, “Crew”, “Irony of Fate. Continuation ”,“ Viking”,“ Fir-trees 3 ”,“ Wii 3D ”,“ Attraction ”,“ Last hero ”,“ Policeman from Rublevka. New Year’s lawlessness ”,“ Upward Movement ”and“ T-34 ”. In addition, “Ice 2” set a record for fees on the first day – 193 million rubles, leaving behind the “T-34” with an indicator of 114 million rubles. However, for the first weekend, the military action figure still collected more than the sequel of “Ice”: 713 million rubles against 610 million rubles. The novelty set its first record even before the release in theaters. Preliminary ticket sales amounted to about 72 million rubles. For comparison, with the first part, this indicator amounted to approximately 18 million rubles, and with the “Serf” it increased to only 9 million rubles.

Премьера "Лед 2
Premiere of “Ice 2”

There are several reasons for such success. First of all, the first “Ice”, which collected more than 1.5 billion rubles at the box office, made the continuation only a matter of time. First of all, Alexander Petrov is at the peak of popularity. “T-34”, “Text”, “Attraction”, “Invasion”, “Ice”, “Gogol” and the series “Call DiCaprio!” – this is an incomplete list of hits of the last 3 years, where Petrov has always been in the foreground . It is worth noting the change of director: instead of Oleg Trofim, who shot the first part, the sequel was led by Zhora Kryzhovnikov, the author of such box-office successful films as “Gorky!”, “Gorky! 2 ” and ” The Best Day. ” And it was him who created “Call DiCaprio!”. Simply put, the film looked very stellar by Russian standards. Finally, the producers of the film managed to start the premiere on Valentine’s Day – the best day of the year for melodramas and romantic comedies in movie theaters. In the next 3 weeks, we have holidays dedicated to Defender of the Fatherland Day and International Women’s Day. At this time, more and more people go to cinemas, especially with their family and with loved ones (“Ice 2” age rating is 6+).

Аглая Тарасова и Александр Петров в фильме "Лед 2"
Aglaia Tarasova and Alexander Petrov in the film “Ice 2”

Pixar continues to move onward

The new studio film received the first reviews

Reading time 4 minutes

On February 20, preliminary screenings of the new cartoon of the animated film studio Pixar “Onward” were held. The first reviews of the audience were positive. Most of those who watched agree that the picture has a standard for Pixar beautiful and elaborate animation, a touching story and an excellent soundtrack.

Главные герои "Вперед" (ноги тоже!)
The main characters are “Onward” (legs too!)

According to the annotation, the action of the cartoon will take place in a magical world, from which all magic had disappeared as a result of some terrible event. But fabulous creatures, such as trolls, centaurs or elves, remained and were forced to live an ordinary (human) life. The main characters are two elf brothers, Ian and Barley Lightfoot. They will receive the magic staff that their deceased father bequeathed them. This staff will launch a series of adventures. The brothers will try to get their father back and find out how magic left their world. Interestingly, both brothers were voiced by actors who gained popularity thanks to roles in Marvel studio films – Tom Holland (Spider-Man) and Chris Pratt (Star Lord).

Режиссер Дэн Скэнлон
Diector Dan Scanlon

The film was annotated in 2017 at the annual D23 Expo, which is dedicated to new Disney studio projects. It was immediately announced that the director and screenwriter of the picture would be Dan Scanlon. “Onward” is the second full-length cartoon in his career. Previously, he was also the director and script writer of the prequel to Monsters, Inc., Monsters University, which was released in 2013. Scanlon was also the creator of the 2006 short film, 2Mater and the Ghostlight”. This movie was dedicated to the tow truck Mater, a secondary character in the cartoon Cars of the same year. Following the success of these films, Pixar launched the animated series “Cars Toons: Mater’s Tall Tales2, which ran from 2008 to 2014 on the Disney Channel. Scanlon did not take part in the creation of the series.

Похожи?
Are they similar?

On February 17, the future of the film was in jeopardy: an artist and tattoo artist Danier from San Francisco sued the creators of the cartoon for copyright infringement. According to the plaintiff’s position, Pixar, without her permission, copied Danier’s unique vanicorn design featuring a unicorn. It turned out that in September 2018, Pixar representatives rented the van “as an artwork at a corporate music evening.” But at the presentation of promotional materials for the cartoon in May 2019, Danier saw a van that looked exactly like her. She later contacted “Onward” producer Corey Ray. Ray asked the victim to sign a non-disclosure agreement, but did not pay the compensation. Now the artist demands not only monetary compensation, but also an injunction against distribution of advertising, goods and the film itself. The film company has not yet commented on this situation.

The Irishman is on top

American critics call Scorsese's "Irishman" the best movie of 2019

Reading time 5 minutes

The National Council of Critics of the United States recognized Martin Scorsese’s movie “Irishman” as the best film of 2019. This title is one of the most prestigious one for any Hollywood film. In different years the title was given to the “Silence of the Lambs” (1991), “Schindler’s List” (1993), “Pulp Fiction” (1994) and others. The “Irishman” is the second Scorsese’s work to be awarded with this title. The first one was the 2011 adventure film “The Guardian of Time”. In addition, a screenwriter, Stephen Zellian, also received an award for the best adapted screenplay.

Martin Scorsese is regularly recognized as one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. For example, in 2010, a popular American film and music magazine, Paste conducted a survey that showed that readers rated Scorsese as the best director alive. He was ahead of Quentin Tarantino, Steven Spielberg, David Lynch and many others.

Мартин Скорсезе
Director of the “Irishman” movie Martin Scorsese

“The Irishman” is a crime drama based on the novel “I Heard You Paint Houses” by Charles Brandt. It describes the real story of trade unionist, Frank Sheeran, nicknamed “The Irishman,” associated with the Bufalinos mafia family. The budget of the film was about $ 150 million.

The main roles were played by Robert de Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Harvey Keitel and other famous Hollywood actors. Interestingly, de Niro and Pesci haven’t participated in Scorsese’s works for 24 years. Their last collaboration was the movie “Casino” in 1995. Moreover, after this film, Scorsese stopped shooting criminal dramas, switching to other genres. That is why the “Irishman” is also interesting as a kind of Scorsese’s return to his earlier works.

Джо Пеши (слева) и Роберт де Ниро (справа) в фильме "Казино"
Joe Pesci (left) and Robert de Niro (right) in the movie “Casino”

When creating the film, motion capture technology was used. It transfers the facial expressions and body movements of a real actor to a digitized computer model. This was done in order to show the main characters of the picture at different ages, without using makeup. This technology was popularized in the first half of the 2000s by a director, Peter Jackson, who used motion capture to create images of Gollum in the trilogy Lord of the Rings (2001-2003) and the King Kong movie (2005). The films were commercially successful, welcomed by the critics, and received many awards, in particular, the Oscars for the best visual effects.

Использование motion capture в фильме
Using motion capture in “Irishman”

The film is an exclusive product of Netflix company. It means that it is impossible to watch it in cinemas or on other entertainment streaming platforms. The “Irishman” was first shown on September 27 at the New York Film Festival. On November 1, it went on limited rental at 8 cinemas in New York and Los Angeles. On November 27, the film became available for viewing via Netflix subscription.

Tarantino made a romantic film with a terrible ending

The love story of Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski which turned into a tragedy

Reading time 8 minutes

«Once Upon a Time in Hollywood», a three hours long retro filmed by Quentin Tarantino, was shown at the Cannes Film Festival. The film is based on the real events of 1969. The main roles were performed by Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie played the main character. The film is timed to the 50th anniversary of the death of Hollywood actress Sharon Tate.

Margot Robbie played the main character in the «Once Upon a Time in Hollywood» movie

Sharon Tate was one of the most beautiful Actresses of her generation. She became widely known after her role in the film “Valley of the Dolls” in 1967. At that time, the young actress also married the famous Director Roman Polanski. Hollywood couple attracts attention: she is a young actress with model features, he is a talented, but not the most charming Director.

Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski got married in 1967

During World War II Polanski and his family got into the Krakow Ghetto. Having seen all the horrors of the war, the Director shot his movies in dark colors and the genre of psychological thriller. Sharon is the complete opposite: she was born and raised in the American family of the officer. Since childhood, she participated in various beauty contests and aspired to world fame.

She began her actress career as a model at beauty contests in the US

Polanski and Tate met at a casting for the film «The Fearless Vampire Killers» in 1967. «She made a big impression on me and I called her,» says Polanski about their first meeting. During the filming of the movie, between the Director and the actress broke out romantic feelings. Polanski was patient with Tate, who suffered from her inexperience in the film industry. Once they needed seventy takes for just one scene.

In the «The Fearless Vampire Killers» the Director also acted as the lover of Tate’s character

Sharon Tate broke off her engagement to her longtime lover Jay Sebring because of Polanski. For two years, the Hollywood couple enjoyed the relationship and traveled the world. The Director often took his Muse on business trips and on film shoots. In early 1969, the Polanskis learned about the imminent addition to the family.

Despite the label of the most unusual couple of Hollywood, Tate was happily being married to Polanski

In the summer of 1969 in Europe, Polanski was shooting his new film — «The Day of the Dolphin». Tate was with him, but due to her pregnancy she left for America. When she said goodbye to her husband, Sharon was very much worried, as if she felt that this was their last meeting.The Director embracing his pregnant wife thought that he might not see her again. But quickly pushed away the bad thoughts.

The couple was waiting for their firstborn, who already had a name — Paul Richard

In a country house near Los Angeles, Tate spent the summer days waiting for her husband. On the 8th of August, 1969, the actress spoke with Polanski, who once again postponed his arrival to America. That night, Tate’s sisters were supposed to look after her, but Sharon refused their help. Without knowing it, she saved the lives of her family.

The motives for the murder of Sharon Tate and her friends are still not disclosed

The evening of the same day Tate spent in the company of her friends, when followers of Charles Manson broke into her house. They massacred everyone, including two random witnesses. Sharon was 9 months pregnant and begged to spare her unborn child, but the cultists only tortured her. They wrote «Pig» on the front door in her blood. This crime was recognized as the most brutal in the XX century.

Roman Polanski allowed to take a picture of himself with the inscription, which was left by the killers of his wife

Roman Polanski could not come to his senses for a long time and suspected all of his friends in this murder. Only after the arrest of Charles Manson’s group, the Director calmed down, but could not continue shooting the film «The Day of the Dolphin». He believed that it was because of this project he had to leave his beloved wife. Polanski returned to his work with the film «Macbeth», in which he used a lot of blood and cruelty. When the English film critic Kenneth Turan reproached him for this, he replied: «You were not at my house last summer».

Roman Polanski admitted that he tried to commit suicide several times because of the loss of his pregnant wife

Polanski did not give his permission to Quentin Tarantino to use his story in the film. Because of that, the current wife of the Director criticized Tarantino. He, in turn, addressed the sister of Sharon who approved the project.

Wonders of Modern Photo Editors

Now you can change sex, get a tattoo and turn into an anime in one click

Reading time 7 minutes

Once again Snapchat literally blew up social networks with its new filter, which allows you to «change» sex. The girls looked at themselves as a guy, and the guys looked at themselves as a girl. Some users have even created Tinder pages for their alter ego to prank friends.

Илон Маск в «женской» версии от Snapchat
Elon Musk and his «female» version from Snapchat

It is not the first time when Snapchat developers demonstrate to the public interesting things. Take even insta-stories, the format that has been created by Snapchat team. Also masks and photos in dialogs, which disappear after 24 hours. All of that Instagram borrowed from the creators of Snapchat. Although, in a way it was not invented by them either. Some time ago, Snapchat redeemed the Looksery app, which was developed in Ukraine. The team of the same app actually made most of those «masks».

Today Snapchat really sets the bar, but it is not the only app that allows you to experiment with your appearance. There are plenty of them, and they all perform different functions – from changing the sex and age to transformation into the anime.

Meitu — transformation into the anime

Chinese app Meitu was launched way back in 2008, but it became popular only in January 2017. The mask of this photo editor increases eyes, blushes cheeks and changes facial proportions. That is how you become an anime character. The main advantage is that the app processes images in real time, so you can try on the effects before taking a photo or  a video.

Basic editor filters are free – but there are also special filters that require a paid subscription. For free you can try on Bunny ears and pretend to be sick: a face blushes, cheeks grow and virtual snot starts pouring.

Meitu - приложение для любителей японской культуры
Meitu — the app for fans of Japanese culture

FaceApp — aging, fake smile and sex change

The developers of FaceApp one of the first resorted to the use of neural networks in creating photo editors. The app is widely known for the opportunity to try on a believable smile, change the sex and look at yourself in old age. In 2017, the social network was full of collages of four photos, which appeared even on television.

Today FaceApp yields to new masks from Snapchat. New filters process images in real time and make men look like women, and women look like men way more realistic. However, FaceApp can still surprise those who just discovered it, because it alters the appearance quite plausibly. We must not forget that  the developers of Snapchat obviously got inspired by this app. Because several years ago, the developers of FaceApp introduced such filters as «sex change» and «aging».

FaceApp - нейросеть, от которой стареешь
FaceApp — neural network that makes you grow old

InkHunter — the virtual try-on of tattoos

InkHunter does not change the appearance, this application’s function is practical. It is recommended to use it before going to the tattoo parlor. With InkHunter you can try on a tattoo: the desired image will be applied to the specified area of the skin. In order to do this, you only need to draw a special sign on your hand or foot — three stripes in the form of a smiley. So the neural network recognizes it.

The app uses augmented reality technology, so the quality of the displayed tattoo is not high enough. The «tattoo» cannot be properly scaled, expanded or zoomed in to really see how the image would look on the skin. Probably the fact is that after the success of the app in 2016, it is no longer being developed.

Фото с меткой для приложения и снимки с примерами татуировок (динозаврик настоящий)
Photos with a label for the app and pictures with examples of tattoos (a dinosaur is real)

FaceTune — the simplified version of Photoshop

And finally, the most important hit in the insta-photography industry — FaceTune. It was developed by the Israeli team Lightricks. This platform has replaced Photoshop for many users. In the photo editor, you can do face tuning, whiten teeth or remove bags under the eyes. In addition, it looks quite natural.

Even the free version of FaceTune amazes with its list of features. For instance, you can «narrow» the shape of the face and highlight the cheekbones, or paint it  in any color. The app does not apply filters or «masks», but it provides tools: you need to apply the desired effects with a brush and try not to overdo it.

FaceTune - любимое приложение всех insta-блогеров
FaceTune is the favorite app of all insta bloggers

The app simplified the work on improving the appearance so much that the media started discussions. On the one hand, FaceTune is suitable for those who cannot use Photoshop, on the other — it makes it too easy to hide flaws, which makes natural beauty a rarity.

British scientists shocked!

It turned out that the ancient Celtic warriors fought with willow bark shields

Reading time 4 minutes

In Leicestershire, England, researchers discovered a 2300-year-old shield that was made from tree bark. This fossil is the only specimen of such a shield of the territory of Europe.

The shield dates back to 395–250 BC. Archaeologists say that the discovery drastically changed their ideas about weapons of the Iron Age and caused a heated discussion between experts.

Щит сохранился благодаря оставлению в заболоченной яме
The shield is preserved because it was left in a marshy pit. (Photo: University of Leicester)

“This is certainly an amazing object, one of the most iconic and world-important finds I have seen in all my work,” admitted Julia Farley, curator of British and European Iron Age collections in the British Museum.

In 2015, researchers from the University of Leicester Archaeological Service near the Soar River found a shield. According to Matt Beamish, the chief archaeologist of the study, objects from natural materials of this time are extremely rarely preserved, but the shield has survived in marshy soil. Maybe he was specially placed in a water-filled pit.

Matt Beamish added that shields from the bark of that period had never been found in the northern hemisphere before. It was assumed that the wood material was too flimsy for use in wars. However, the reconstruction of weapons from alder and willow proved that the 3 mm thick shield was light but reliable enough in the battles of that time. According to Beamish, contrary to researchers’ assumptions, such weapons were widespread in that period.

Процесс реконструкции найденного щита из ольхи и ивы
Alder and willow shield reconstruction process (Photo: University of Leicester)

The weapon is made of green bark, which is reinforced from the inside with slats of the same material. The main part is surrounded by a rim of hazel and wicker willow. Matt Beamish noted that “this is a lost technology,” which was not known before. Apparently, this technique was used in many areas for the manufacture of products from the bark.

Supple green tree, giving the shield strength and shape that remotely resembles the figure eight

“It was important,” says Farley. According to her, the Battersea shield had a similar shape. It was extracted from the Thames in the middle of the 19th century and dates from the same period.

Щит Баттерси
Battersea Shield (Photo: British Museum)

Farley argues that the visual world of the Iron Age is lost for us, since from the period 395-250 BC few artifacts left. She added that a new find for her is “a small window into that world.” For Farley, this awareness is “incredible and so exciting.”

The shield was donated to the British Museum. Farley hopes that the shield will be exhibited in the museum next year.

Competitors reconciled on the “cloud”

Sony and Microsoft join forces in cloud gaming

Reading time 4 minutes

Sony and Microsoft have always been fierce rivals in the video game market. In the conversations of gamers you can often hear such a phrase as the “war of consoles”. Each next generation of game consoles has a winner. But recently, companies have begun to cooperate in the field of cloud gaming and artificial intelligence. This news came as a surprise to the whole community.

Kenichiro Yoshida, President and CEO of Sony Corporation (left), along with Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO

The companies intend to jointly develop cloud solutions based on Microsoft Azure and look for possible options for using the database platform for Sony streaming and gaming services as part of the memorandum of understanding signed by the parties. In addition, the parties intend to work together on the development of semiconductors and AI, used to create “smart” photomatix and other products.

Thus, Sony became a Microsoft client, acquiring the power of their Azure cloud system for their gaming services. Most likely, Sony wants to improve the quality of the PlayStation Now, which allows you to run PS4 games through the cloud on other devices.

Despite all the excitement around the launch of PlayStation Now, it’s not so convenient to use

Up to this point, Sony did not show much interest in streaming services – users did not expect such a change of course from the Japanese company. It seems that Sony has pushed the xCloud initiative from Microsoft and the announcement of Google Stadia from Google to the decision to develop cloud gaming. Nevertheless, they decided to turn to Microsoft for help, instead of developing a platform from scratch. Most likely, these actions are connected with the desire of Sony not to lose focus on the development and quality of games. On the contrary, Microsoft in the past few years has focused on creating services and package offers, rather than on building up a library of exclusive games.

It seems that this unexpected agreement, contrary to all contradictions, satisfies the interests of both parties. It is possible that we will soon be able to see more from this collaboration, and how xCloud and Sony services will compete with Stadia from Google.