Mozilla borrows from WebKit to build fast new JS engine
Mozilla's high-performance TraceMonkey JavaScript engine, which was first introduced in 2008, has lost a lot of its luster as competing browser vendors have stepped up their game to deliver superior performance. Firefox now lags behind Safari, Chrome, and Opera in common JavaScript benchmarks. In an effort to bring Firefox back to the front of the pack, Mozilla is building a new JavaScript engine called JagerMonkey.
The secret sauce that will drive Mozilla's new JavaScript engine engine into the fast lane is some code borrowed from Apple's WebKit project. Mozilla intends to bring together the powerful optimization techniques of TraceMonkey and the extremely efficient native code generator of Apple's JSCore engine. The mashup will likely deliver a significant boost in Firefox's JavaScript execution speed, making Mozilla's browser a formidable contender in the ongoing JavaScript speed race.
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Engineering a parasite to tell you where it has been
Many of the parasites that plague humans have life cycles that are positively baroque, hopping between species and hiding out in tissues for years before setting off a damaging infection. These habits can make them extremely difficult to study, since it can be hard to tell what tissues and cells the parasites pass through on their way to causing disease. But a clever bit of genetic engineering has now forced one parasite, Toxoplasma gondii, to leave telltale signs of its progress.
The work took advantage of some basic understanding of Toxoplasma biology. Upon infecting a cell and taking up residence, proteins in a specific organelle get exported into its hosts' cells. The researchers took the gene for one of the proteins that is known to be shipped into hosts, toxifilin, fused it to a site-specific DNA recombinase called cre, and injected the fusion gene into Toxoplasma cells. The resulting cells were called secreted Cre, epitope-tagged, presumably so that the authors could use the abbreviation SeCreEt to refer to them.
When a SeCreEt expressing parasite infects a mouse cell, the recombinase will catalyze DNA rearrangements at any sites that match a specific sequence. So, for example, the researchers used a DNA construct that normally expresses a red fluorescent protein, but switches to green following cre-based rearrangement. When mouse cells carrying this construct were infected with SeCreEt parasites, 95 percent of them switched from glowing red to glowing green. Mice that expressed a cre-dependent luciferase gene (the protein that helps fireflies glow) could be infected, and the progress of the infection tracked over the course of a week.
The authors suggest that SeCreEt cells will be useful for eliminating various host genes during infection, so that we can test whether different mouse proteins are essential for Toxoplasma to grow. But the general approach could potentially be used simply to follow the parasite during infection, since it could be used to create a trail of glowing green cells behind it. It might also be possible to engineer systems that don't actually require the parasite to enter cells.
In any case, the CDC calls Toxoplasma "the third leading cause of death attributed to foodborne illness in the United States," so knowing more about it can't be a bad thing.
Nature Methods, 2010. DOI: 10.1038/Nmeth.1438 (About DOIs).
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Mozilla previews new feature to guard against Flash crashes
Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch claims that the company's ubiquitous Flash plug-in doesn't ship with any known crash bugs. One can only assume that he has never used the software. As Adobe representatives exhibit an increasingly dismissive attitude about Flash's technical deficiencies, the browser vendors have stepped up to address the problems and are finding ways to insulate their users from Flash's poor security and lack of stability.
Several mainstream browsers isolate Flash and other plug-ins in separate processes in order to prevent an unstable plug-in from crashing the entire browser. Mozilla is preparing to introduce a similar feature in the next version of Firefox. A developer preview that was recently made available to users offers an early look at the new plugin crash protection.
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Amazon kills affiliate program in Colorado thanks to taxes
Amazon has pulled the plug on its affiliate program in Colorado thanks to a new state regulation on sales tax collection. The company sent a notice to its Colorado-based affiliates Monday morning to let them know about the decision, urging residents who depend on the affiliate program to contact their lawmakers if they want the program back.
Most states only require retailers to collect sales tax if they have a sufficient enough brick-and-mortar presence thanks to a 1992 Supreme Court decision on Quill Corp. v. North Dakota. Despite this, a handful of states have tried to pass laws in recent years (often dubbed the "Amazon Tax") that would force Amazon to start collecting sales tax if their affiliates—that is, those who use Amazon's affiliate links on their own sites or blogs in order to earn a return on referrals—are based in those states.
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Low-metal star suggests Milky Way grew by gobbling dwarfs
An unresolved question in astronomy is how the Milky Way reached its current state. One theory is that the Milky Way grew, at least in part, by cannibalizing smaller dwarf galaxies that happened to get too close. If this was the case, then it would follow that there should be stars in the Milky Way that are similar in chemical makeup to those in the dwarf galaxies that exist throughout our neighborhood of the Universe.
Since it is known that metal-poor stars—stars having up to 100,000 times less metal than our Sun—exist in the Milky Way's halo, similar stars should be found in dwarf galaxies. "The Milky Way seemed to have stars that were much more primitive than any of the stars in any of the dwarf galaxies," says co-author Josh Simon of the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution. "If dwarf galaxies were the original components of the Milky Way, then it's hard to understand why they wouldn't have similar stars."
As described in this week's edition of Nature, researchers from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution have found an extremely metal-poor star in the dwarf galaxy Sculptor. Located 290,000 light-years away, the star, S1020549, has a remarkably similar chemical make-up to the Milky Way's oldest stars. Using spectroscopic measurements of the faint light from S1020549, they observed metal levels about 6000 times lower than that seen in the Sun. The value is also five times lower than the levels seen in a star during any previous survey of dwarf galaxies.
While this is only a single data point, it bolsters the idea that the Milky Way has grown by absorbing old dwarf galaxies. The authors suggest that future optical telescopes that are currently under construction will expand our ability to find these faint stars that will shed further light on the origins of galaxies in general, the Milky Way included.
Nature, 2010. DOI: 10.1038/nature08772 (About DOIs).
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Cisco: Internet to change forever Tuesday (place your bets!)
Cisco today said that after the close of markets on Tuesday, the company will announce a significant news (we're guessing a major acquisition) which will "forever change the Internet and its impact on consumers, businesses and governments." We first learned of the news from MarketWatch.
Cisco has been rumored to be about to purchase almost every interesting company in the technology field over the last decade. The company's closest kept secret has been the degree of real interest it has in EMC. While such an acquisition would be huge in the financial markets, it is unclear why it would forever change the Internet. Also, the rumor mill around that partnership has more or less died.
One may feel tempted to think that Cisco wants to get in the bandwidth game, chasing after Google's recent announcement: a trial of open-access, fiber-to-the-home Internet service at speeds of 1Gbps in select locations. But Cisco claims that they have no interest in being a service provider. David McCulloch, Spokesperson at Cisco, told MarketWatch, "our strategy remains to partner very closely with service providers to enable advanced new telecommunications services versus building out public networks ourselves." We wonder if they protest too much, especially since the company just said it was also bailing on WiMAX. My bet is that it's someone in streaming video, or possibly someone in wireless. A streaming video play would make more sense for a company like Cisco. Either they've built something, or they've bought someone.
I know, I know! They are buying Chatroulette! I kid.
So we invite you, for the honor of having great bragging rights, to lay down your bets on just who is going to get a big check from Cisco tomorrow (or more likely, after the deal clears). Or, if you don't think an acquisition is in the works, what magical announcement might they make?
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US eases restrictions on Web services exports to Iran, Cuba
The US Treasury Department today relaxed export regulations against Iran, Sudan, and Cuba, allowing US companies to provide instant messaging, e-mail, and social networking services to those countries. The goal is to ensure that citizens can "exercise their most basic rights," said Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin.
The new policy provides a general license to tech companies. According to the official rule, they can now export "services incident to the exchange of personal communications over the Internet, such as instant messaging, chat and e-mail, social networking, sharing of photos and movies, Web browsing, and blogging, provided that such services are publicly available at no cost to the user."
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Valve: full "Steam" ahead on Mac OS X with free syncing
Valve has stopped with the teasing and has officially announced that its online gaming service Steam is coming to the Mac. As a bonus, the company also plans to make the Mac a "tier-1" platform, promising simultaneous release of games on Mac OS X, Windows, and Xbox 360.
Valve has developed a Mac-native version of its Source engine, using the cross-platform OpenGL. "We looked at a variety of methods to get our games onto the Mac and in the end decided to go with native versions rather than emulation," John Cook, Director of Steam Development, said in a statement. "The inclusion of WebKit into Steam, and of OpenGL into Source gives us a lot of flexibility in how we move these technologies forward."
Beginning in April, Mac users will be able to access games via Steam, including Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike, Portal, and the Half-Life series. The Mac Steam client is based on the latest version for Windows that is currently in beta, which is where the first hints of Mac OS X compatibility were discovered.
That version includes a new Steam Play API that will allow users to access and play games from either a Windows PC or a Mac. Progress on one platform is automatically updated and synced when using the other, meaning all the fragging you do on your work PC (on your lunch break, of course) will be reflected when you log in from your Mac at home. Playing games on either platform won't cost extra.
The Mac compatibility extends beyond Steam Play, however. All future games, beginning with Portal 2, will be available for the Mac the same day as the Windows version. "We are treating the Mac as a tier-1 platform so all of our future games will release simultaneously on Windows, Mac, and the Xbox 360," Cook said. Players on all platforms will be able to play each other in online multiplayer setups, as well. "We fully support a heterogeneous mix of servers and clients."
These announcements are surely music to Mac gamers' ears. Besides Steam and Valve's own titles, making Source cross-platform also means other developers using Valve's engine can easily create Mac-compatible versions of games without much additional effort.
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reMail iPhone app re-released under Apache 2 license
Two weeks ago, we reported that Internet search giant Google had acquired third-party iPhone mail application reMail. At the time, Google rehired reMail CEO and programmer Gabor Cselle to work as a product manager on the Gmail team. reMail was then pulled from the App Store and Google decided to discontinue the app, only offering support through the end of March. However, Google recently contacted Ars to say that it had decided to make the code available as open source on Google Code under the Apache 2.0 License.
The Apache 2.0 License states that the code is free to use, alter, and redistribute as the user sees fit. Further, users can charge for any aspect of the software they choose, including the application itself or support. That means people can use portions of code to add functionality in their own applications or create totally new ones without having to release them under an open source license. Google usually favors the Apache license over alternatives and uses it for Android.
This may still mean the end of reMail, but it's good news for anyone looking to incorporate more advanced e-mail functionality into their own applications. As Cselle pointed out in his blog post, he has already dealt with many of the obstacles associated with developing an e-mail client, including communication with IMAP and parsing MIME messages. In other words, there's no need to reinvent the wheel if you don't have to.
If you're interested in poking around, the code can be found on Google Code, where there has already been a fair amount of action since the announcement on Friday.
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Europe outsourcing CO2 emissions to developing economies
China is now the largest emitter of CO2 on the planet, as it powers a large industrial base primarily through the use of coal-fired power plants. However, many of those goods are immediately shipped overseas, often to the US and EU, which generate and use power far more efficiently. A new paper, which will be published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science, now takes a look at the impact of outsourcing these carbon emissions by tracking CO2 based on a product's point of use. For some Western European economies, the result is enormous: anywhere from 20 to 50 percent of their emissions come in the form of imported goods.
The calculation was performed by Stanford's Steven Davis and Ken Caldeira, who built a database of national energy production and tracked international trade of both raw materials (including fossil fuels) and finished goods. The most recent year for which all that data was available was 2004, which means the figures don't cover some of the changes that have accompanied the recent economic downturn. The basic calculation involves taking the CO2 emissions for various nations and regions, subtracting those associated with exported goods, and then adding back emissions associated with imports. The result, termed consumption emissions, was then analyzed on a per-capita and per-GDP basis.
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The best electronic key is the one you always have with you
"The best camera is the one you have with you" is an old photography adage, and Apple may be looking to extend that principle to its iPhone. And it's not about the iPhone as a camera, either—if you always have it with you, an iPhone could serve as a remote control device for any number of uses, including as a wireless electronic key.
Using the iPhone as an electronic key is part of a recently published patent application titled "Motion Based Input Selection." It's important to remember that the patent application itself merely describes a unique way of using motion detection to generate an input, such as turning a virtual combination lock-style dial. Still, it's the suggested uses of a unique numerical sequence or other combination of input that is generating excitement.
The Telegraph says that the patent is already being referred to as the "iKey" patent, based on the suggestion that a "device" such as an iPhone could use the motion-based input method to generate a combination which is then "transmitted to an external device to unlock the external device." Such an external device could be anything, including an "electronic lock that may be used to access a door, car, house, or other physical area."
The patent in particular describes methods in which the input could be selecting combinations of numbers, letters, colors, or images, or even a combination. In fact, if the external device is suitably capable, it can send an application the necessary configuration of input needed to unlock it. The possible inputs can also be randomized, and the transmission between the mobile device and the external device could encrypted for greater security.
Since the iPhone is the kind of device you tend to always have with you, it could be a great all-in-one control device. For instance, Apple also recently filed a patent application for using the iPhone as a sort of advanced universal remote—one that can dim the lights, adjust the surround sound, switch the TV to "cinema mode," all in preparation for watching a movie at night. The company already offers an app that can control iTunes or an Apple TV remotely, and other apps exist to control home automation systems or a DSLR tethered to a WiFi-equipped computer. Car security firm Viper also offers an app to lock, unlock, and remotely start a vehicle that has the company's SmartStart electronics installed.
Though many remote applications already exist for the iPhone—including one that locks and unlocks a car—perhaps Apple could leverage the patent's motion sensing to build an app with a consistent interface that is designed to communicate with a wide variety of lock devices, making the iPhone an out-of-the-box electronic key.
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MeeGo code coming in March, will run on Atom boards and N900
In an announcement published last week, Nokia's Valtteri Halla revealed that Intel and Nokia are planning to launch the public MeeGo source code repository by the end of the month.
The MeeGo project began to take shape last month when Intel and Nokia announced plans to merge their respective Linux-based mobile computing platforms into a single open source software project. The unified software platform, which consists of technology from Maemo and Moblin, will be designed for use on a wide range of device form factors and will support both ARM and x86 architectures.
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Ubisoft on DRM snafu: servers attacked, pirates locked out
Those playing Assassin's Creed 2 on the PC got a rude reminder of DRM's pitfalls when the servers that authenticate the game went down. Many complained on the company's official forum, and tempers ran hot. Remember: the game has to be in contact with Ubisoft's servers to work; if the connection is lost, the game shuts down.
Ars Technica contacted Ubisoft to ask about the issue, and we were told that the issue wasn't simply a server malfunction. "This 'failure' was due to a massive DDoS attack on our servers," an Ubisoft spokesperson told Ars. "Our servers didn't go down but 5 percent of the overall people attempting to connect received denial of service errors. This is, of course, unacceptable and our teams are working around the clock to ensure it doesn't happen again."
The issue of pirates playing the game also gets short shrift. "Neither Assassin's Creed II nor Silent Hunter 5 are cracked at the time we speak. As mentioned previously, 'cracked' versions are incomplete... as in missing whole parts of the game and crucial features," the spokesperson continued. That means that with just the data from the disc or your download, you won't be able to play the game. The content requires whatever the Ubisoft servers are giving it.
Ubisoft leaves us all with a reminder that no matter how intrusive or failure-prone it is, DRM isn't going away. "We worry about our customers and apologize to anyone who couldn’t play ACII or SH5 yesterday. All in all, we hope people understand all this is done to preserve the future of PC gaming."
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80% say 'Net access fundamental right, split on regulation
Access to the Internet is a fundamental right to nearly four out of five adults across the globe, and those in South Korea, Mexico, and China seem to have the strongest feelings on the topic. This is according to a report (PDF) by the BBC World Service, which polled 27,973 adults on their feelings about, usage of, and concerns about the Internet. Although users are somewhat divided on whether the Internet should be regulated, they are in agreement on its usefulness for learning and information discovery.
Across all 26 countries, 79 percent of Internet and non-Internet users said that they felt that Internet access should be "the fundamental right of all people." When isolated for people who already use the Internet, that number went up to 87 percent. Almost universally (90 percent), respondents said that the Internet was a good place to learn and almost 80 percent said the Internet brought them greater freedom.
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Anti-data caps rep resigns from Congress today
Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) resigns from Congress this evening at 5pm, which is good news to ISPs that serve more than two million customers apiece.
In the wake of last year's monthly data cap trials by Time Warner Cable, Massa announced publicly that he would introduce a bill that would limit such caps, and he did so in June 2009.
The "Broadband Internet Fairness Act" was simple; it would make it illegal for "major broadband Internet service providers to offer volume usage service plans imposing rates, terms, and conditions that are unjust, unreasonable, or unreasonably discriminatory." ISPs of more than two million subscribers would need to file a "service plan analysis" with the federal government any time they proposed or altered "volume usage service plans." The Federal Trade Commission would then weigh in on these plans, which would need to justify the "economic reasonableness and necessity for imposing such tiers."
The bill has been stuck in committee since then and does not appear to have any traction; Massa's decision to resign from Congress will probably put an end to it.
As for why a freshman Congressman like Massa is resigning at all... it's an odd story. Massa said that it was due to health concerns, but it soon emerged that he was also the subject on an ethics complaint from a male staffer. On his radio show this weekend (Roll Call listened so you don't have to), Massa gave his version of the story, which took place at a holiday party late last year. After dancing with a bridesmaid, Massa returned to a table of his staffers—all apparently single men.
One of them looked at me and as they would do after, I don’t know, 15 gin and tonics, and goodness only knows how many bottles of champagne, a staff member made an intonation to me that maybe I should be chasing after the bridesmaid and his points were clear and his words were far more colorful than that. And I grabbed the staff member sitting next to me and said, 'Well, what I really ought to be doing is fracking you.' And then [I] tousled the guy’s hair and left, went to my room, because I knew the party was getting to a point where it wasn't right for me to be there. Now was that inappropriate of me? Absolutely. Am I guilty? Yes.
Massa now faces a Congressional ethics complaint over the incident, though he says he was unaware of this until after his health issues resurfaced.
The result is that New Yorkers lose a representative willing to say things like this: "Cable providers want to stifle the Internet so they can rake in advertiser dollars by keeping consumers from watching video on the Internet. But so long as Americans can't choose which cable channels they want to pay for, I don't think cable operators should be able to determine consumers' monthly Internet usage. Additionally, charging based on a bandwidth usage is a flawed model when the cost of usage is totally out of line with the price. Consumers are much better served by plans based on the speed of the connection rather than amount of bandwidth used. Competition is crucial to our economy and I refuse to let monopolistic corporations dominate the market and gouge my constituents."
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feature: God of War 3 review: this is the way it ends
Kratos wants to do one thing: kill Zeus. It's the only goal that the "Ghost of Sparta" has in the entirety of God of War 3, and everything from the epic beginning moments to the final credits serves to make that happen. If you haven't played the first two games and you have a PlayStation 3, it's worth your time to pick them up and get up to speed on how our "hero" became what he is today. Also, don't skip on the PSP adventure Chains of Olympus.
You can't respect how something ends before you know how it began.
God of War 3 is the first game in the series built from the ground up for the PlayStation 3, and the team behind the title spared no detail; the game feels like it has been painted on your screen. Even the flashback sequences, using more traditional animation and a hyper-stylized look, add much to the game. It's a clever way of showing what came before without dealing with the graphics of the past.
This is one of the most anticipated titles in the history of the PlayStation 3. We've beaten it, and have had some time to think it over. Does the game live up to the hype?
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Blur's multiplayer beta hints at a spectacular game
Bizarre Creation's Blur is shaping up to be a great arcade-style racing game for the PC, PS3, and 360. The game's multiplayer beta is officially launching today on Xbox Live; we got to spend some time with it this weekend, and it's a ton of fun to play. The beta lets players check out four tracks, four play modes, eight power-ups, and fourteen vehicles.
Getting access to most of this content utilizes a ranking system that will seem familiar to anyone who's played a game with competitive multiplayer play. In order to increase your rank, you have to earn fans. However, since power-ups are picked up on the race track, every one of them is available to players from the beginning. These power-ups are actually a blast to play with, as they help make the gameplay feel unique; there's a lot of strategy involved in determining what kind of power-ups you want to use with specific cars on certain tracks. It's also particularly satisfying to watch a homing missile wreck one of your nearby opponents.
Earning fan points isn't that difficult. You'll snag a boatload when you complete a race, and there are bonuses that can be earned just about any way you can imagine during your time on the track. Drifting, surviving attacks, launching attacks, activating speed boosts, surviving a lap without using a repair boost, and using a repair boost are only a few ways to earn fan bonuses. Thankfully, speedy accumulation of fans means that it only takes about an hour to gain access to the majority of the beta's content.
As you advance through the ranks, new cars, mod types, and game modes are unlocked. Initially, you're stuck in the basic race mode and can only use the beginner car models. That means you're probably going to get pummeled if some higher-level players are in a race against you, since they're likely driving more powerful vehicles. There are also a number of challenges that players can achieve by accomplishing certain tasks like surviving a specific number of attacks or completing a race within a time limit without using any power-ups.
Based on the multiplayer beta, Blur seems like it's going to be a blast. It should be noted that the race tracks feel a little generic, but the gameplay is fun and different enough to make things interesting. Overall, it feels like a cross between Project Gotham Racing mixed with Mario Kart, with just a bit of the Burnout destruction mixed in. If the rest of the game is as fun and fast-paced as the multiplayer is, then Blur can't make it to stores fast enough.
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