The Daily Nerd (February 14th, 2014)

The Daily Nerd (February 14th, 2014) #

Chromium Blog: Compiling in the background for a smoother user experience

Let’s have a look under the hood of V8 to understand how this works. To reduce the overall time spent compiling, V8 defers compilation of JavaScript functions until immediately before they are executed the first time. This compilation phase is fast but doesn’t focus on optimizing the code, just on getting it done quickly. In V8, pieces of code that are executed very often are compiled a second time by a specialized optimizing compiler. This second compilation pass makes use of many advanced optimization techniques, meaning it takes more time than the first pass but delivers much faster code.

Sophisticated Spy Tool ‘The Mask’ Rages Undetected for 7 Years

Researchers have uncovered a sophisticated cyber spying operation that has been alive since at least 2007 and uses techniques and code that surpass any nation-state spyware previously spotted in the wild. The attack, dubbed “The Mask” by the researchers at Kaspersky Lab in Russia who discovered it, targeted government agencies and diplomatic offices and embassies, before it was dismantled last month. It also targeted companies in the oil, gas and energy industries as well as research organizations and activists. Kaspersky uncovered at least 380 victims in more than two dozen countries, with the majority of the targets in Morocco and Brazil.

Wine On Android Is Making Progress, Running Solitaire

Last year was the last time we had a chance to talk about Wine on Android for running Windows programs on Google’s mobile operating system. While it’s not quite mainline yet, Wine on Android has been making much progress and can now run Windows’ Solitaire game on your Android device. Wine leader Alexandre Julliard provided a status update at FOSDEM last weekend for Wine on Google Android. The Wine on Android project is still focused upon supporting Windows binaries on Android for both Intel x86 and ARM devices.