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Games

Submission + - Phoronix has confirmation of a GNU/Linux Steam Client (phoronix.com) 1

Submitted by nukem996
nukem996 writes: After initially reporting in 2010 that Valve is work on a native GNU/Linux client one has finally been confirmed! Michael Larabel recently visited Valve's Bellvue, WA based office and has been able to see it himself. Included in the article are screenshots of the client running and speculation of a release!
Games

Submission + - Valve's Steam & Games coming to Linux (phoronix.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Valve's Steam and Source Engine-based games are coming to Linux. Michael from well known site Phoronix.com has been invitied to Valve's office and was able to spend a day with the developers and Gabe Newell himself. He is confirming the rumours about Linux ports from Valve, and has been able to play the games and work the developers himself. Attached in the article are pictures from Valve's offices with games running on Linux.
Education

Submission + - Coding - the new Latin (bbc.co.uk) 3

Submitted by FBeans
FBeans writes: The BBC Reports: "The campaign to boost the teaching of computer skills — particularly coding — in schools is gathering force.

Today the likes of Google, Microsoft and other leading technology names will lend their support to the case made to the government earlier this year in a report called Next Gen. It argued that the UK could be a global hub for the video games and special effects industries — but only if its education system got its act together."

The report says that the 16,500 students studying a computer science degree in 2003 fell to just 10,600 by 2007. "although it's recovered a little to 13,600 last year, that's at a time in major growth in overall applications, so the percentage of students looking to study the subject has fallen from 5% to 3%."

Personally, I don't see how the "Latin" analogy this story uses works. Although the point is clear:

Computer Science is becoming niche and "un-cool" and is not taught well enough in schools. This needs to change and it seems the cogs are starting to turn.
Power

Submission + - Worldwide support for nuclear power drops (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by ProbablyJoe
ProbablyJoe writes: A poll for the BBC shows that worldwide support for nuclear power has dropped significantly in the past 6 years.

However, while support has dropped in most countries, the UK has defied the trend, where 37% of the public support building new reactors. Unsurprisingly, support in Japan has dropped significantly, with only 6% supporting new reactors. The USA remains the country with the highest public opinion of nuclear power, though support has dropped slightly.

Much of the decline in opinion has been attributed to the events in Fukushima earlier in the year, although a recent Slashdot poll indicated that many readers opinions had not been affected by the events, and an even split between those who found the technology more or less safe since the events.

With reports on the long lasting effects in Fukushima still conflicted, is nuclear power still a viable solution to the world's energy problems?

Submission + - Adobe donates Flex SDK to Open Source community (infoq.com)

Submitted by ProbablyJoe
ProbablyJoe writes: InfoQ reports that Adobe is to donate it's web application SDK, Flex, to an "an established open source foundation" — suspected to either be the Open Spoon Foundation (who have been working on an open source fork of Flex), or the more established Apache Foundation

Adobe has stated on it's blog that they consider HTML5 to be a better technology for the future than it's own Flex platform, causing frustration among developers who have used the platform for enterprise applications

Is this a generous contribution to the open source community, or just Adobe offloading another failing technology?
United Kingdom

Submission + - Doctor Who 'to be made into Hollywood feature film (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by FBeans
FBeans writes: The BBC Reports: "Cult BBC TV show Doctor Who is set to be made into a Hollywood movie, a leading director has said."

"David Yates, who directed the last four Harry Potter films, told Variety magazine he is working on developing a feature film with the BBC."

However, "The project is unlikely to reach cinemas for several years and as yet there is no script, cast or production crew in place."

"He said the film would take a fresh approach to the show, which first appeared on TV in 1963."

So it looks as though the infamous Doctor is in for a new regeneration that could see the already large following become worldwide.
Network

Submission + - London trials 4G (guardian.co.uk)

Submitted by FBeans
FBeans writes: From an article at theguardian.co.uk:

"London will begin to switch on 4G high-speed mobile internet with the launch of the first large-scale public trial in Britain."

"Initiated by O2, Britain's second largest operator with 22 million customers, the trial involves more than 25 masts covering 15 square miles in Canary Wharf, Soho, Westminster, South Bank and Kings Cross. It will run for nine months, and the equipment installed will eventually become part of O2's first commercial 4G network."

So the new generation of mobile technology is set to go live near the end of next year.

"The new technology is capable of speeds of up to 150 megabits per second. During the trial, users will be more likely to experience average speeds between 25Mbps and 50Mbps. When 4G is introduced nationally the average speeds are likely to drop to between 10Mbps and 15Mbps. This is faster than 3G, which averages between 1Mbps and 1.5Mbps, and compares well with the average household, fixed line broadband connection, which rose to just under 7Mbps this year."

"Live gaming against other players and video calling without delays will become possible from phones, because the speed at which new information loads onto the screen will be reduced from 1 second to 0.07 seconds."

With the new technology clearing a network bottleneck for phones, tablets and dongles, will we start to really see differneces in Browser, OS and phone performances?
Games

Submission + - COD Fans Answer their Call Of Duty (sky.com)

Submitted by FBeans
FBeans writes: "The launch of the latest "Call of Duty" videogame has broken first day sales records to become the highest grossing entertainment launch in history, the publisher Activision has claimed."

" 'Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3' took over $400m in Britain and America in the first 24 hours of going on sale, shifting over 6.5 millon copies."

Clearly the fans (new and old) of the COD game series are devoted in their war-game selection. With Battlefield 3 released recently, the direct competition between the two games has a clear favorite.

This battle may already be over, but is the war set to continue?

Which do you prefer, is there space for both these games on your shelf?

Comment Re:*Street* view? (Score 1) 4

by l_bratch (#38013542) Attached to: Google Street View Spreads to the Amazon.

The OED says:

a public road in a city, town, or village, typically with houses and buildings on one or both sides

"Typically" might save the day here here, it just depends on what a village is. Then again a lot of existing roads on Street View are just going between cities/towns/villages so perhaps the name was already wrong?

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