Chagford, Devon, England, 5.47 am

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Valve has announced a number of new tweaks to Steam, which has made the game download service that little bit faster.

In a blog post, Valve explains that it was focusing on making the core of its service ? which is downloads in case you have been living in a non-internet-enabled cave ? speedier and a lot more effective.

Given the millions of people that use Steam, any improvement in its servers would be welcomed, especially if it meant that the whole download process was speeded up.

Streamline? Steamline more like

"The new content system is designed to do two things: deliver better download rates in more places around the world, and also to simply streamline the publishing process on Steam, ultimately making it possible to ship more games than we would have been able to with the old system," said the post.

"Over time, more and more of the content on Steam will be delivered using this new system," Valve explained.

"Soon, Dota 2 will be delivered using it. In the meantime, if you'd like to try out this new content system you can do so right now; if you download a 1280x720 (HD) trailer from the store, it will happen via the new content system."

Valve has also made downloading updates to games easier. Instead of having to download whole files for a game update, it will decipher what is the new part of the file and just update this.

It's the little things...

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by Zoë Pollock Alyssa Rosenberg raves about Steve Coogan's film The Trip: It?s so rare that the relationship between friends is the most important thing in a movie. Friends are usually a facilitator to the traditional end of a comedy,...

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Clinton Watts and Frank Cilluffo debate Gregory Johnsen on whether they do more harm than good: Johnsen argues that AQAP is more emboldened, ?largely as a result of US air strikes between December 2009 and May 2010.? The airstrikes equal...

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Sometimes the job listing that big companies post like Microsoft and others can give hints of what the company is working on. Often they start looking for key employees and engineers for specific functions before a project gets underway. A recent job listing from Microsoft that tipped up over the weekend is looking for an [...]

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It's a treat to get one of Cooler Master's enclosures in for review: they've been at it for a long time, and they have cases that cover virtually every price point on the market. They manufacture my personal favorite Micro-ATX budget enclosure, the Elite 360, an attractive $40 devil that makes for a fantastic budget HTPC case. They're also responsible for the crowd favorite enthusiast juggernaut, the Cosmos. What we have in today isn't the beast the Cosmos is, but it's not the pint size player the Elite 360 is either. From their Storm series of gaming cases we have the Enforcer. At an MSRP of $79 it lands right between our incumbent In-Win BUC and the budget ninja BitFenix Shinobi. Can it beat them both?

Source: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4466/cooler-masters-storm-enforcer-the-notsoquiet-storm

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by Chris Bodenner As keyboarding becomes more prevalent in school curricula and is even replacing cursive writing in some states, researchers say that the exercise of writing by hand is itself crucial for memory and brain development. Danielle Magnuson magnifies...

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If you’re an audiophile, prefer headphones to speakers and gain particular pleasure from visitors complimenting you on your shapely knob, Epiphany Acoustics might have the headphone amp for you. The British-based startup is kicking things off with the walnut-fronted EHP-1, a compact hand-made amp promising minimal noise and distortion along with a distinctive aluminum volume [...]

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by Zoë Pollock Pareene peeks under the sheets of ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council. Or as he calls it, a "sort of a Match.com for state lawmakers and the nation's worst industry lobbies": Here's how the ALEC process works:...

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