You're tuned in to Tech Beat, and here's what's moving in the world of technology today.
Researchers are pointing to an ancient viral pandemic as a possible key to understanding human cognitive development. The theory goes that a retrovirus that swept through our primate relatives millions of years ago somehow bypassed early humans, and the genetic aftermath of that near-miss may have quietly shaped the architecture of our brains in ways that set us apart.
On the education technology front, IXL Learning has acquired NoRedInk, the writing platform used in roughly nine out of ten school districts across the United States. IXL already owns a broad portfolio of learning tools, and folding in a platform with that kind of classroom penetration gives the company a serious foothold in how American students learn to write at scale.
And in a story that says something interesting about the relationship between hardware makers and their communities, Valve added CD-ROM drive support to the Steam Frame kernel in under ten minutes of engineering time, after a single user posted asking for the ability to watch movies and install old software on the road. One developer saw the post, and the feature was live the next day. Sometimes the distance between a request and a fix is just a matter of someone paying attention.
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