Features

LÉSIGNY, France — Back in the day, the prospect of a French king speaking English would have been enough to trigger a century-long war.

Not any more, as evidenced by what will be France’s most-expensive TV series ever, “Versailles”, a period mini-series of 10 episodes that will come out at the end of this year.

The makers of the series, about the famous Palace of Versailles outside Paris and King Louis XIV who had it built, have bowed before the inescapable domination of English as the global language of international entertainment.

Thus their French king — one of history’s most iconic monarchs — is British. Indeed, most of the cast is British or Canadian. French performers are relegated to supporting roles or in the background.

The reason for such sacrilege in a country known for jealously protecting its language and culture is simple: France no longer wants to sit on the sidelines of the international resurgence in television.

It has seen the revolution sweeping the small screen, with cinema-grade productions being made by new players including Netflix and Amazon, and it wants to be part of it. And that means adopting English.

It also means spending big. At 27 million euros ($30 million) — around 2.7 million euros per episode, each taking 12 days to film — “Versailles” is the costliest TV production put on in France.

That’s the sort of cash an “American super-production” would throw at the screen, boasts George Blagden, the English actor who incarnates the 28-year-old Louis XIV.

The only other French co-produced series that came close were “Borgia”, a 25-million-euro epic series about a ruthless 15th century pope, and “The Tunnel”, a 19-million-euro French-British contemporary crime drama based on the Danish-Swedish series “The Bridge”.

Gamble on global sales

The producers of “Versailles” — France’s Canal+, Capa Drama and Zodiak Fiction allied with with Canada’s Incendo — are gambling their new series can win the same sort of worldwide business generated by the British-Irish-Canadian TV hit “The Tudors” or the British drama “Downton Abbey”.

Claude Chelli, of Capa Drama, makes no bones about it. He says the decision to film “Versailles” in English was “to ensure the biggest international distribution possible”.

The script itself is also crafted in English by Simon Mirren (former executive producer of the US series “Criminal Minds”) and David Wolstencroft (who created the well-received spy series “Spooks”).

It focuses on the early years of the reign of Louis XIV — the grand and self-proclaimed “Sun King” — when he ordered the vast and vastly expensive Palace of Versailles be built to house his court away from Paris and its intrigues.

Six months of filming wrapped up last week with a torture scene in the underground of a castle watched over by Blagden, 25, who exudes regal airs under a wig of long curls and a vest adorned with braids.

“Even pros from American television would have immediately thought themselves on a film set,” the blue-eyed actor tells AFP afterwards.

The scene, in which the king observes the suffering inflicted on a traitor to the throne, is meant to take place in the bowels of the Louvre in 1667.

Days earlier, all the pomp and elegance of Louis’ court was on display in front of the actual Palace of Versailles in another scene, in which nobles and aristocrats rolled up in fine carriages — all testament to the costume and set design detail that chewed up 12 per cent of the total budget.

Another scene, shot in Versailles’ spectacular Hall of Mirrors, brought together technical mastery and fortuitousness in a way to forever mark the London actor.

“There were only a few minutes of permitted filming left and then suddenly the sun burst out from behind the clouds, the outside pond started shining, the light lit up all the mirrors — and there was me, in the middle of it all, doing my monologue. It was magical,” Blagden recalls.

No ‘ideal’ French actor

One of Canal+’s senior executives, Maxime Saada, said that, despite the decision to make the series in English, there was no predilection to choose a British actor for the lead role.

“We didn’t find an ideal French actor for the role. We weren’t looking for a British actor but rather for a young king — and George is great,” Saada says.

Blagden himself believes he got to wear the crown because he saw himself having a “somewhat gentle” character.

“There’s not an ounce of violence in me,” he says. “I’ve never fought in my life. But to play a character so powerful, a little bit of violence has to come through.”

So he took up daily training in boxing, which injected confidence into his performance.

“You have to be able to see Louis’ character change as he becomes the Sun King,” he says.

The writers of the series confirmed that the king they imagined was “a vulnerable man” so that “what happens in his head” had to be seen by the camera.

As well as starting and parrying plots and intrigues, the young King Louis XIV had to handle a complex relationship with his brother and rival Philippe d’Orleans — played in the series by Welsh actor Alexander Vlahos.

For the writers, the show aims to topple the “giant marble statue” image of the French king known by all and to reveal him as a man.

WASHINGTON — Young adults want news, but few want to read a newspaper. And most stumble onto news while on Facebook or other social networks.

Those are among the findings of a survey released Monday of 18- to 34-year olds by a project of the American Press Institute and The Associated Press-NORC Centre for Public Affairs Research.

Some 85 per cent of “millennials” surveyed said that keeping up with news is important to them and 69 per cent said they get news daily.

The researchers said the study appears to allay concerns that young adults are apathetic about the world around them.

The millennial generation “spends more time on social networks, often on mobile devices. The worry is that millennials’ awareness of the world, as a result, is narrow”, the authors said.

But the findings showed “that this newest generation of American adults is anything but ‘newsless,’ passive or civically uninterested”.

The study found that young adults don’t get news in the same way as their parents and grandparents.

“This generation tends not to consume news in discrete sessions or by going directly to news providers,” the report said.

“Instead, news and information are woven into an often continuous but mindful way that millennials connect to the world generally, which mixes news with social connection, problem solving, social action and entertainment.”

Much of the news young adults get is from social networks such as Facebook, even though they often go to these platforms for other reasons.

Just 39 per cent said they went online to seek out news or information and 60 per cent said they “mostly bump into news” during unrelated online activity, the report said.

Facebook news

As a result, Facebook has become a key source of news for the 18-to-34 generation: some 88 per cent said they get news from the social network regularly.

Some 47 per cent said they got most of their news on national politics and government from Facebook, 62 per cent said the social network was their primary source for news on social issues and 41 per cent for international news.

Facebook was the top source of news for 13 of 24 news topics, the survey found.

The report said these social news consumers are often drawn into topics they might otherwise have ignored because peers are recommending and commenting on them.

Despite the notion that social media creates a polarising “filter bubble”, some 70 per cent of millennials said their social media feeds are comprised of diverse viewpoints — evenly mixed between those who agree and disagree with them.

Who pays?

The survey offers a bleak outlook for traditional media like newspapers hoping to boost paid subscribers.

Just 12 per cent of the respondents said they paid for a print newspaper subscription in the past year, while another 13 per cent said they read a newspaper for which someone else pays. 

Just 7 per cent in the survey said they paid for a digital subscription to a newspaper.

The authors said many of the respondents felt they should not have to pay for news.

“We heard the notion that, because news is important for democracy, people feel they should not have to pay for it,” the study said.

“It should be more of a civic right because it is a civic good.”

The report is based on a survey of 1,046 young adults between January 5 and February 2, with a margin of error estimated at 3.8 percentage points.

WASHINGTON — Facebook on Monday updated its "community standards" guidelines, giving users more clarity on acceptable posts relating to nudity, violence, hate speech and other contentious topics.

The world's biggest social network said it does not allow a presence from groups advocating "terrorist activity, organised criminal activity or promoting hate".

The new guidelines say Facebook will take down "graphic images when they are shared for sadistic pleasure or to celebrate or glorify violence”.

Nudity is also removed in many cases but allowed for images of breastfeeding, art or medical conditions.

"These standards are designed to create an environment where people feel motivated and empowered to treat each other with empathy and respect," said a blog post from Facebook global policy chief Monika Bickert and deputy general counsel Chris Sonderby.

"While our policies and standards themselves are not changing, we have heard from people that it would be helpful to provide more clarity and examples, so we are doing so with today's update."

The new guidelines say Facebook members should use their "authentic name", a move that appears to head off criticism from people who used stage or performance names instead of their legal name.

In October Facebook said it would ease its "real names" policy that prompted drag queen performers to quit the social network and sparked wider protests in the gay community and beyond.

'Risk of physical harm' 

Facebook's new guidelines said it would remove content, disable accounts and work with law enforcement "when we believe that there is a genuine risk of physical harm or direct threats to public safety".

But it also pointed out "that something that may be disagreeable or disturbing to you may not violate our community standards".

The move comes with Facebook and other social media struggling with defining acceptable content and freedom of expression.

"It's a challenge to maintain one set of standards that meets the needs of a diverse global community," the blog post said.

"This is particularly challenging for issues such as hate speech. Hate speech has always been banned on Facebook, and in our new community standards, we explain our efforts to keep our community free from this kind of abusive language."

Facebook said earlier this year it was putting warnings on "graphic content", which would also be banned for users under 18. In 2013, Facebook ended up banning a beheading video after outrage followed a lifting of the ban.

Twitter meanwhile has become the latest online platform to ban "revenge porn", or the posting of sexually explicit images of a person without consent.

Twitter faced threats after blocking accounts linked to supporters of the Daesh, but one study showed at least 46,000 Twitter accounts have been linked to the group.

Facebook at the same time released its report on government requests for user data in the second half of 2014, showing a modest uptick to 35,051 from 34,946 in the prior period.

"There was an increase in data requests from certain governments such as India, and decline in requests from countries such as the United States and Germany," the blog post said.

The amount of content restricted for violating local law increased by 11 per cent 9,707 cases from 8,774.

"We saw a rise in content restriction requests from countries like Turkey and Russia, and declines in places like Pakistan," Facebook said.

JOHANNESBURG — South African doctors announced Friday that they had performed the world’s first successful penis transplant, three months after the ground-breaking operation.

The 21-year-old patient had his penis amputated three years ago after a botched circumcision at a traditional initiation ceremony.

In a nine-hour operation at the Tygerberg Hospital in Cape Town, he received his new penis from a deceased donor, whose family were praised by doctors.

“We’ve proved that it can be done — we can give someone an organ that is just as good as the one that he had,” said Professor Frank Graewe, head of plastic reconstructive surgery at Stellenbosch University.

“It was a privilege to be part of this first successful penis transplant in the world.”

Doctors say the man, whose identity has not been disclosed, has made a full recovery since the operation on December 11 and has regained all urinary and reproductive functions.

“Our goal was that he would be fully functional at two years and we are very surprised by his rapid recovery,” said Professor Andre van der Merwe, head of Stellenbosch’s urology division.

In 2006, a Chinese man had a penis transplant but his doctors removed the organ after two weeks due to “a severe psychological problem of the recipient and his wife”.

Scores of South African teenage boys and young men have their penises amputated each year after botched circumcisions during rite-of-passage ceremonies.

“There is a greater need in South Africa for this type of procedure than elsewhere in the world,” Van der Merwe said in a statement.

African teenagers from some ethnic groups spend about a month in secluded bush or mountain regions as part of their initiation to manhood.

The experience includes circumcision as well as lessons on masculine courage and discipline.

A commission last year found 486 boys had died at the winter initiation schools between 2008 and 2013, with a major cause being complications such as infection after circumcision.

“For a young man of 18 or 19 years, the loss of his penis can be deeply traumatic,” said Van der Merwe.

Van der Merwe described the anonymous donor and his family as “the heroes” of the story.

“They saved the lives of many people because they donated the heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, skin, corneas and then the penis,” he said.

The South African team included three senior doctors, transplant coordinators, anaesthetists, theatre nurses, a psychologist and an ethicist.

Surgeons from Stellenbosch University and Tygerberg Hospital had searched extensively for a suitable donor as part of a pilot study to develop penis transplants in Africa.

Some techniques were developed from the first facial transplant in France in 2005.

They now plan to perform nine more similar operations.

South Africa has long been a pioneer of transplant surgery. 

In 1967, Chris Barnard performed the world’s first heart transplant at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town.

PARIS — Dazed parents wander the aisles of the Disney store in a manic search for the right Elsa dress or Anna doll, the endlessly repeated refrain of “Let It Go” ringing in their ears. Are they ready for another installment of “Frozen fever”? 

“I bloody well hate them all,” says one man, staring at the 60-euro ($70) price tag on a shiny turquoise dress.

He was one of many grimly determined parents making a dash through the Champs Elysees branch of the Disney store in Paris on Friday, looking for more merchandise to sate the bottomless hunger of their charges back home. 

The prospect of a Frozen sequel, officially announced a day earlier by Disney, does not fill them all with instant delight.

“More songs, more marketing? Yes, we’re certainly worried,” said Sylka Pax from Belgium, who has an eight-year-old girl. 

“It drives us a little crazy but it has some advantages,” she added on reflection. 

“We took part in a quiz the other day and I immediately recognised the Frozen song in the music section.”

‘No light at end of tunnel’

The parenting world has yet to recover from the sensory and financial assault launched by Disney in late 2013, when Frozen burst out of nowhere to become the single most important thing in the lives of millions of children.

That has meant several hours of Christmas Day lost to the construction of a Frozen castle — whose broken pieces then become hidden booby traps around the house. 

It has meant many mornings of struggle to convince a daughter she should wear her school uniform rather than an Anna dress. 

And it has meant hearing the song “Let It Go” more times than is medically advisable.

“We’ve got a five-year-old who sings it at the top of her lungs all day — Let it goooooo!” says Disney store shopper Carol Austin-Groome, from Britain.

“And she does not have a good singing voice.”

She is not alone. Even Prime Minister David Cameron admitted last month to having heard the song “more times than I care to remember” thanks to his four-year-daughter Florence who regularly “launches into song” in front of his security detail.

London’s Little Rascals children’s entertainment company says the will to organise Frozen parties has slowly melted away in the past year.

“It’s diminished recently, not really among the kids, but among the parents,” says founder Andrew Bloomer, adding that Frozen parties still account for around a quarter of his business.

He fears for the sanity of some customers if the sequel triggers another wave of “Frozen fever”.

“They saw a light at the end of the tunnel and now it’s gone,” he said. 

A desperate search

In another aisle at the Disney store, Yusuf Sogul is desperately looking for an Elsa doll before he catches his flight back to Istanbul. 

“My daughter is seven years old. She has phoned us twice today and I have many messages on Whatsapp telling me to get it, but they only have the big one — it won’t fit in my luggage,” he says, slightly panicked.

At the London branch of the store, some parents put a more positive spin on the Disney cash-cow, which has become the fifth-highest grossing film of all time.

“It’s the only movie she has watched all the way through,” said Anna, from Gothenburg in Sweden, buying a Frozen bag for her seven-year-old daughter. 

“Normally she has ants in her pants but with Frozen she sits and watches it. So it’s a good thing. And I love the music.”

While some fathers may be dreading the coming ice storm of a Frozen sequel, they also know they will have their revenge when an even more powerful force hits the screens.

“I couldn’t care less,” said London-based father Graeme Harrison. “Because the boys and I have now got Star Wars Episodes XII AND XIII movies to look forward to.”

The latest iteration of what is generally accepted as the first hot hatch when it first arrived in 1976, the Volkswagen Golf GTI is the car that has it all. First featured in these pages just after the global test drive launch event in the south of France in mid-2013, the Golf GTI’s day-to-day versatility and breadth of abilities was highlighted during a recent extended test drive in Dubai.

The sharpest looking GTI since the original, the current model is a complete package that combines often contradictory attributes and is above all an accessible daily drive sports car that is easy to drive, spacious, agile and brisk. 

Classy and crisp

Built on Volkswagen’s highly modular MQB platform, the current Golf GTI incorporates partial aluminium construction and is consequently larger and roomier, yet 42kg lighter, better handling and more efficient than its predecessor.

The best looking GTI since 1976, the current model is a more deliberate yet evolutionary design with crisper and better defined lines and creases that is both sportier and classier than the car it replaced. Lower, longer and wider, the Mk7 Golf GTI has a more rakish and athletic presence, with sharper lines and angles yielding a more urgent and dynamic demeanour with subtle underlying hints of the elegantly simple and angular Giugiaro-designed original.

Tidier and tauter, the contemporary Golf GTI has greater precision and presence, with slim grille, browed headlights, bold VW badge and big lower intake.

 Strikingly handsome in Night Blue — as driven — dark tones also better integrates the black lower intake slats.

More muscular than before, the current GTI features a raised bonnet and better toned flanks. Better harmonising its side skirts and A-pillar base with the waistline, the current GTI also features slimmer, moodier and classier rear lights and dual exhaust tips.

Cool, restrained and chiselled, the GTI’s thin red pinstripe across the grille and headlights pays tribute to the original, while its C-pillar kink creates a sense of forward momentum.

Lively performer

Powered by an advanced version of VW’s turbocharged direct injection 2-litre engine, the current Golf GTI features a new engine head design with integrated turbocharger and a water-cooled exhaust gas loop, which contributes to efficiency and performance. The GTI additionally features improved and variable thermal management, and reduced friction losses, and is Euro 6 efficiency compliant.

More powerful and efficient, the GTI develops 10BHP more, with 217BHP available at an earlier and broader 4,500-6,200rpm range, and is 13 per cent more efficient, returning 6.4l/100km combined fuel consumption in 6-speed dual clutch DSG gearbox guise, as tested. A 51lb/ft torque rise is more significant with 258lb/ft developed throughout a wide 1,500-4,400rpm band.

Quick off the mark with negligible turbo lag, the GTI is responsive, and with a short scramble for traction at full throttle and subtle dump valve rorts at full load redline upshift, blasting onto 100km/h in 6.5 seconds and towards a potential 244km/h top speed.

Smooth and seamless in delivery, the GTI’s charismatic engine is refined when cruising, but is not so insulated as to feel detached, and instead delivers a muffled gruff low-end growl. Muscular and flexible in mid-range, the GTI picks up speed and overtakes with confident ease in town and highway from high gears, while a punchy and eager top-end delivers a brisk turn of speed.

Composed and confident

Driving the front wheels through a 6-speed automated dual clutch gearbox, the GTI swaps cogs with seamless finger-snap succinctness. Default auto mode’s shift points are well judged, and while there is a sport mode to hold gears longer, one, however, found sequential manual mode through the steering-mounted buttons or gear lever to be more engaging for sporty driving.

With snappy gearbox and flexible and punchy gearbox, the GTI pounces fluently from one corner to the next, while an XDS+ torque vectoring system utilises selective braking for greater agility and less under-steer when powering out of corners. Tidy, crisp and eager into corners, the GTI remains flat and composed throughout.

With a bigger footprint, lower height and weight the GTI drives with better high speed and cornering composure, and is faithful through corners, even if one comes back on throttle early.

With well balanced handling and driver engagement, the GTI delivers reassuring grip and confident stability but feels ever lively and willing to weave through snaking switchbacks with pointy and agile manoeuvrability.

Lively but not twitchy, the GTI’s steering is similarly well-judged, with good high-speed directional stability, but is also responsive, direct and eager on-centre or through corners. With quick ratio of just over 2-turns lock-to-lock, the right level of resistance and refined feel and feedback, the GTI’s steering is intuitively natural. 

‘Just right’

A classy and grown-up hot hatch with the right level of comfort, stability, cabin and ride refinement, the GTI is at the same time and fun and engaging B-road blast with old school hot hatch charisma, agility, taut body control, performance and directness to keep one engaged and alert whether snaking through winding lanes, commuting on the highway or driving down to the shops.

A “just right” car on every level, the GTI is a refined yet connected drive that delivers clarity, confidence and practicality. With low bonnet and big glasshouse the GTI provides excellent road visibility to accurately place whether through a sharp corner or tight parking spot.

Classy but not overstated, the GTI has a clean, crisp, robust and upmarket but honest — rather than pretentious — character, design, drivability and cabin, and is as much at home in the corporate car park or back road switchbacks.

Driver-oriented yet practical, the GTI’s cabin provides an ideal and alert driving position, with plenty of room and highy adjustable and supportively comfortable seats, while instrumentation is clear and un-fussed.

Well-presented and finished with quality materials, the GTI’s feels well built, while the gear lever and various buttons are ergonomic and user-friendly. Spacious and practical — especially in 5-door guise as tested — the GTI well accommodates tall and large drivers, even with the optional sunroof.

Accommodating inside, the GTI’s longer wheelbase provides 15mm more rear legroom and good rear access. Luggage space is uniform and flat, and easily accommodated a week’s worth of luggage in its 380-litre boot, which with rear seats down, expands to 1270 litres.

Well equipped with comfort and infotainment features, the GTI features numerous advanced driver assistance and safety systems including progressive steering assist, post-collision braking, driver alert system and Isofix child seat latches as standard.

Optional available are adaptive cruise control, emergency braking, dynamic light assist, lane-keeping assist function, rear side airbags and a Performance package that adds 10HP power, improved brakes and a limited slip differential for improved handling and agility.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Engine: 2-litre, turbocharged transverse 4 cylinders

Bore x stroke: 82.5 x 92.8mm

Valve-train: 16-valve, DOHC, variable timing, direct injection

Gearbox: 6-speed manual, front-wheel drive

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 217 (220) [162] @ 4,500-6,200rpm

Specific power: 109BHP/litre

Power-to-weight: 154.7BHP/ton

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 258 (350) @ 1,500-4,400rpm

Specific torque: 176Nm/litre

Torque-to-weight: 249.6Nm/ton

0-100km/h: 6.5 seconds

Maximum speed: 244km/h

Fuel consumption, combined: 6.4l/100km

CO₂ emissions, combined: 148g/km

Fuel capacity: 50 litres

Length: 4,268mm

Width: 1,799mm

Height: 1,442mm

Wheelbase: 2,631mm

Track, F/R: 1,538/1,517mm

Aerodynamic drag co-efficiency: 0.318

Unladen weight: 1,402kg

Headroom, F/R: 964/967mm (w/sunroof)

Elbow room, F/R: 1,469/1,440mm

Luggage capacity, min/max: 380/1,270 litres

Payload: 543kg

Steering: Variable electric-assisted rack and pinion

Turning circle: 10.9-metres

Brakes, F/R: Ventilated disc/disc

Suspension, F: MacPherson strut/multi-link

Tyres: 225/40R18

SAN FRANCISCO — Get ready to see more red warning signs online as Google adds ammunition to its technological artillery for targeting devious schemes lurking on websites.

The latest weapon is aimed at websites riddled with “unwanted software” — a term that Google uses to describe secretly installed programmes that can change a browser’s settings without a user’s permission. Those revisions can unleash a siege of aggravating ads or redirect a browser’s users to search engines or other sites that they didn’t intend to visit.

Google had already deployed the warning system to alert users of its Chrome browser that they were about to enter a site distributing unwanted software. The Mountain View, California, company just recently began to feed the security information into a broader “safe browsing” application that also works in Apple’s Safari and Mozilla’s Firefox browsers.

All told, the safe browsing application protects about 1.1 billion browser users, according to a Thursday blog post that Google Inc. timed to coincide with the 26th anniversary of the date when Tim Berners-Lee is widely credited for inventing the World Wide Web.

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer doesn’t tap into Google’s free safe browsing application. Instead, Explorer depends on a similar warning system, the SmartScreen Filter.

Google’s alerts about unwanted software build upon the warnings that the safe browsing system has already been delivering for years about sites infected with malware, programmes carrying viruses and other sinister coding, and phishing sites that try to dupe people into sharing passwords or credit card information.

Whenever a potential threat is detected by the safe browsing system, it displays a red warning sign advising a user to stay away. Google also is demoting the nettlesome sites in the rankings of its dominant Internet search engine so people are less likely to come across them in the first place. Google disclosed recently that the safe browsing application has been generating about 5 million warnings a day, a number likely to rise now that unwanted software is now part of the detection system.

As it is, Google says it discovers more than 50,000 malware-infected sites and more than 90,000 phishing sites per month.

The safe browsing application had gotten so effective at flagging malware and phishing that shysters are increasingly creating unwanted software in an attempt to hoodwink people, said Stephan Somogyi, the product manager of safe browsing of Google.

“The folks trying to make a buck off people are having to come up with new stuff and that puts us in a position where we have to innovate to keep pace with these guys,” Somogyi said in an interview. “You are now going to see a crescendo in our enforcement on sites that meet our standard of having unwanted software.”

NEW YORK — A fragment of jawbone found in Ethiopia is the oldest known fossil from an evolutionary tree branch that eventually led to modern humans, scientist reported Wednesday.

The fossil comes from very close to the time that the early human branch split away from more ape-like ancestors best known for the fossil skeleton Lucy. So it gives a rare glimpse of what very early members of our branch looked like.

At about 2.8 million years old, the partial jawbone pushes back the fossil record by at least 400,000 years for the human branch, which scientists call Homo.

It was found two years ago at a site not far from where Lucy was unearthed. Africa is a hotbed for human ancestor fossils, and scientists from Arizona State University have worked for years at the site in northeast Ethiopia, trying to find fossils from the dimly understood period when the Homo genus, or group, arose.

Our species, called Homo sapiens, is the only surviving member of this group.

The jaw fragment, which includes five teeth, was discovered in pieces one morning by Chalachew Seyoum, an Ethiopian graduate student at Arizona State. He said he spotted a tooth poking out of the ground while looking for fossils.

The discovery is described in a paper recently released by the journal Science.

Arizona State’s William Kimbel, an author of the paper, said it’s not clear whether the fossil came from a known early species of Homo or whether it reveals a new one. Field work is continuing to look for more fossils at the site, said another author, Brian Villmoare of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Analysis indicates the jaw fossil came from one of the earliest populations of Homo, and its age helps narrow the range of possibilities for when the first Homo species appeared, Kimbel said. The fossil dates to as little as 200,000 years after the last known fossil from Lucy’s species.

The fossil is from the left lower jaw of an adult. It combines ancestral features, like a primitive chin shape, with some traits found in later Homo fossils, like teeth that are slimmer than the bulbous molars of Lucy’s ilk.

Despite that mix, experts not involved in the paper said the researchers make a convincing case that the fossil belongs in the Homo category.

And they present good evidence that it came from a creature that was either at the origin of Homo or “within shouting distance”, said Bernard Wood of George Washington University.

The find also bolsters the argument that Homo arose from Lucy’s species rather than a related one, said Susan Anton of New York University.

The new paper’s analysis is first-rate, but the fossil could reveal only a limited amount of information about the creature, said Eric Delson of Lehman College in New York.

“There’s no head, there’s no tools, and no limb bones. So we don’t know if it was walking any differently from Australopithecus afarensis,” which was Lucy’s species, he said.

It’s the first time that anything other than isolated teeth have turned up as a possible trace of Homo from before 2.3 million years ago, he said.

“This fills a gap, but it hasn’t yet given us a complete skeleton. It’s not Lucy,” Delson said. “This is always the problem. We always want more.”

Also on Wednesday, another research team reported in a paper released by the journal Nature that the lower part of the face of Homo habilis, the earliest known member of the Homo branch, was surprisingly primitive. That came from reconstruction of a broken jaw that was found 50 years ago.

The finding means the evolutionary step from the Ethiopian jaw to the jaw of Homo habilis is “not so large”, said an author of the Nature study, Fred Spoor of University College London and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

SAN FRANCISCO — Live streaming video from a smartphone may soon be known as “meerkatting” thanks to a new app that allows anyone with an iPhone to become a roving reporter.

The free application called Meerkat has become a virtual overnight sensation since its low-key arrival on Apple’s online App Store late last month, winning over journalists, politicians, self-anointed pundits, social media celebrities and others.

Meerkat integrates with Twitter, allowing users of the messaging platform to launch live video streams with a single touch of an on-screen button.

In the rapid-fire Twitterverse, Meerkat has become a sudden hit with tens of thousands of users trying it.

Meerkat “marries the wide potential of livestreaming with the instant and social strengths of Twitter. Two great tastes that go so well together”, wrote Hawaii-based consultant and blogger Ryan Ozawa.

“Imagine the applications for breaking news. Imagine deploying Meerkat at an event, with broadcasters and viewers easily interacting throughout. I could easily see myself falling head over heels in love with Meerkat.”

The app uses the name and image of a meerkat, which is a long-necked carnivorous relative of the mongoose that lives in the deserts of southern Africa.

Twitter strikes back

The news blog TechCrunch described Meerkat as “the livestreaming app Twitter should have built”.

Twitter appears to have taken notice.

The one-to-many messaging platform announced Friday that it was buying the maker of a rival video streaming app called Periscope, which is in beta testing and has not yet been released to the public.

“Excited to officially welcome @periscopeco to the Twitter team. Can’t wait for everyone to see what they’ve built!” Twitter product vice president, Kevin Weil, tweeted on Friday.

Twitter did not release details about the deal, but media reports said Twitter was paying between $50 million and $100 million for the app, which has so far been available by invitation only.

Additionally, Buzzfeed.com reported Friday that Twitter was cutting Meerkat’s access to some of its features.

It was not immediately clear whether Twitter would maintain Periscope as an independent app or integrate it into the platform. Both companies are based in San Francisco.

“That is a worry for Meerkat,” Danny Sullivan, founder of the blog Search Engine Land, said of Twitter buying Periscope. “If Twitter gets their own live video, they will have a tendency to want to favour that.”

‘Meerkatting’ SXSW

Sullivan “meerkatted” — some are calling it “meercasting” — a stroll around the South By Southwest Festival (SXSW) in Austin, Texas, shortly after arriving there on Friday.

“It is kind of neat to give a taste of South-By to people who have never seen it and want a taste of it,” Sullivan said, referring to the festival by its informal name. “It works surprisingly well; it is very impressive how easy it was to get going with the live stream.”

With Meerkat, a tweet is fired off containing a link that anyone can click to be connected to the stream while it is in progress. Tiny profile icons pop up to show who is tuning in to broadcasts.

“At one point we had 110 people all walking around with me,” Sullivan said.

Videos are available only at Meerkat while they are live, but the app gives users the option of saving what they have recorded on their devices.

On Friday, an array of Meerkat streams flowing from SXSW included casual tours of Google and PayPal lounges along with impromptu interviews there by journalists who have seized on the application as a tool for giving intimate glimpses at news gathering.

The Iowa governor’s office announced on Friday that it will use Meerkat to live-stream press conferences and other events on Twitter.

“By using the Meerkat app, Iowans will be able to join us as we tour communities following natural disasters; as we visit a small business, listen in to our weekly press conferences or even as we hit the trail for our annual 99-county tour,” said Iowa Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds.

SEATTLE — Microsoft is working on an advanced version of its competitor to Apple’s Siri, using research from an artificial intelligence project called “Einstein”.

Microsoft has been running its “personal assistant” Cortana on its Windows phones for a year, and will put the new version on the desktop with the arrival of Windows 10 this autumn. Later, Cortana will be available as a standalone app, usable on phones and tablets powered by Apple Inc.’s iOS and Google Inc.’s Android, people familiar with the project said.

“This kind of technology, which can read and understand e-mail, will play a central role in the next roll out of Cortana, which we are working on now for the fall time frame,” said Eric Horvitz, managing director of Microsoft Research and a part of the Einstein project, in an interview at the company’s Redmond, Washington, headquarters. Horvitz and Microsoft declined comment on any plan to take Cortana beyond Windows.

The plan to put Cortana on machines running software from rivals such as Apple and Google, as well as the Einstein project, have not been reported. Cortana is the name of an artificial intelligence character in the video game series “Halo”.

They represent a new front in CEO Satya Nadella’s battle to sell Microsoft software on any device or platform, rather than trying to force customers to use Windows. Success on rivals’ platforms could create new markets and greater relevance for the company best known for its decades-old operating system.

The concept of “artificial intelligence” is broad, and mobile phones and computers already show dexterity with spoken language and sifting through e-mails for data, for instance.

Still, Microsoft believes its work on speech recognition, search and machine learning will let it transform its digital assistant into the first intelligent “agent” which anticipates users needs. By comparison, Siri is advertised mostly as responding to requests. Google’s mobile app, which doesn’t have a name like Siri or Cortana, already offers some limited predictive information ‘cards’ based on what it thinks the user wants to know.

Microsoft has tried to create digital assistants before, without success. Microsoft Bob, released in 1995, was supposed to make using a computer easy, but ended up being the butt of jokes. The Office Assistant nicknamed ‘Clippy’ suffered a similar fate a few years later.

“We’re defining the competitive landscape... of who can provide the most supportive services that make life easier, keep track of things, that complement human memory in a way that helps us get things done,” said Horvitz.

Outside his door stands “The Assistant”, a monitor showing a woman’s face that can converse with visitors, has access to Horvitz’s calendar and can book meetings.

On his desktop, Horvitz runs “Lifebrowser”, a programme that stores everything from appointments to photos and uses machine learning to identify the important moments. A keyword search for his university professor instantly brings up photos and video from the last time they met.

Cortana could tell a mobile phone user when to leave for the airport, days after it read an e-mail and realised the user was planning a flight. It would automatically check flight status, determine where the phone is located using GPS, and checking traffic conditions.

None of the individual steps are a breakthrough, but creating an artificial intelligence that can stitch together the processes marks a breakthrough in usefulness, Microsoft says.

Rivals are on the same track. Google’s latest mobile app uses the predictive power generated from billions of searches to work out what a user is doing, what they are interested in, and sending relevant information, such as when a favourite sports team is playing next.

Apple is also pushing Siri, which uses Microsoft’s Bing search engine in the background, into new areas with its CarPlay and HomeKit platforms, as well as the recently unveiled Apple Watch.

The key to Cortana’s success will be knowing where a user is, what time it is, and what they are trying to do. Albert Einstein’s work on the relationship between space and time gave rise to Microsoft’s secret project name, said Horvitz.

“Einstein was brilliant about space and time,” he said. “It’s using brilliance about space and time generally in our agents.”