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Submission + - PCGamingWiki looks into Linux gaming with Port Reports (pcgamingwiki.com)

Submitted by AberBeta
AberBeta writes: PCGamingWiki contributor soeb has been looking into the recent larger budget game releases to appear on Linux, including XCOM: Enemy Unknown & Borderlands: The Pre–Sequel produced by Mac porting houses Feral and Aspyr, and finds that while feature parity is high, performance could be a smidge better. However people accept the performance differences, the games are arriving, now the userbase needs to expand to make a virtuous cycle.

Submission + - Detritus from cancer cells may infect healthy cells (nature.com)

Submitted by bmahersciwriter
bmahersciwriter writes: Tiny bubbles of cell membrane — called exosomes — are shed by most cells. Long thought to be mere trash, researchers had recently noticed that they often contain short, regulatory RNA molecules, suggesting that exosomes may be one way that cells communicate with one another. Now, it appears that RNA in the exosomes shed by tumor cells can get into healthy cells and 'transform' them, putting them on the path to becoming cancerous themselves.

Comment Re:I hope that Firefox isn't playing Microsoft's g (Score 2, Insightful) 363

by AberBeta (#33584366) Attached to: Mozilla Unleashes the Kraken

If you hadn't noticed, every synthetic benchmark released from a browser vendor favoured their engine, at time of release. At least Google had balls to call it v8bench.
While I believe all benchmarks (and non-comprehensive ACID tests) to be 3dmark-style pissing contests where they encourage developers to fast-path specific used functions, I have more confidence in Mozilla producing another (Dromaeo also tried to have a more realistic workflow).

Comment Re:Ironkey also supports Linux! (Score 1) 191

by AberBeta (#28683505) Attached to: IronKey Unveils Self-Destructing USB Flash Drive

I got a review piece of hardware from InfoSec and tried it out in Linux.
You can mount it once the key has been set-up, but you can't set it up under Linux with the software provided.
So this key *requires* Windows before it can be used under Linux, which is pretty bloody stupid.

Since I don't have any copies of that software, it pretty much doubles the cost of the drive.
Mozilla

Submission + - Open Letter to Mozilla Regarding Their Use of HTML (osnews.com)

Submitted by AberBeta
AberBeta writes: We're on the verge of a serious evolution on the web. Right now, the common way to include video on the web is by use of Flash, a closed-source technology. The answer to this is the HTML5 video tag, which allows you to embed video into HTML pages without the use of Flash or any other non-HTML technology; combined with open video codecs, this could provide the perfect opportunity to further open up and standardise the web. Sadly, not even Mozilla itself really seems to understand what it is supposed to do with the video tag, and actually advocates the use of JavaScript to implement it. Kroc Camen, OSNews editor, is very involved in making/keeping the web open, and has written an open letter to Mozilla in which he urges them to not use JavaScript for HTML video. Coincidentally, this comes on the first day of the Open Video Conference, an event meant to espouse the virtues of using the video tag, which is hypocritically using Flash to live stream the event on their homepage!
Government

Secret EU Open Source Migration Study Leaked 311

Posted by kdawson from the why-they-stick-with-office dept.
Elektroschock writes "For 4 years MEP Marco Cappato tried to get access to the EU Council's 2005 open source migration study because he is a member of a responsible IT oversight committee in the European Parliament. His repeated requests for access were denied. Now they have finally been answered because the Council's study has escaped into the wild (PDF in French and English). Here is a quick look. It is embarrassing! Gartner, when asked if there were any mature public Linux installations in Europe, claimed that there were none. Michael Silver said, 'I have not spoken to any sizable deployments of Linux on the desktop and only one or two StarOffice deployments.' Gartner spread patent and TCO FUD. Also, the European Patent Office participated in the project, although it is not an EU institution."
Software

Steam Cloud Launches This Week 69

Posted by Soulskill from the names-that-are-puns dept.
Valve announced yesterday that their extension of Steam, called Steam Cloud, will launch later this week with the Left 4 Dead demo. Steam Cloud is "a set of services for Steam that stores application data online and allows user experiences to be consistent from any PC." We discussed an early announcement for it back in May. Valve adds that "Steam Cloud will be available to all publishers and developers using Steam, free of charge, and Valve will add Cloud support to its back catalog of Steam games. Cloud services are compatible with games purchased via Steam, at retail, and other digital outlets."

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