This week in Linux news, Linux talent is in high demand, a middle school club is fostering the next generation of IT experts, and more. Here are five must-reads in the world of Linux and open source for this week.
I didn't just buy Google's new Chromebook Pixel. No, I bought the high-end model with the 5th-generation, 2.4GHz Intel Core i7-5500U processor with 16GBs of memory and a 64GB Solid State Drive (SSD) for $1,299. And, I'm not the only one. That top-of-the-line Chromebook Pixel is sold out. Why would I spend this kind of money? Because the Pixel 2015 is worth it.
We have been hearing rumors about affordable Chromebooks powered by Rockchip processors ever since last year, but we are yet to see something palpable in this regard.
Co-founder Solomon Hykes reflects on the startup's roots in Paris, its failed first effort to get containers moving, and how Docker then became a fast-growing data center hit.
Docker turned two years old Wednesday, and what an impact it has had at such a young age.
While this winter brought many exciting milestones for Linux and open-source fans, there's also some milestones/features hoped for this winter that haven't yet come to fruition.
Kodi 14.2 Helix is a stable bug-fix release over the existing Kodi 14 series. The 14.2 version is the second and final planned bug-fix release before Kodi 15. With today's Kodi 14.2 RC there's a handful of bug-fixes.
Insync 1.2 was released today, bringing a new HTML5 UI along with improvements such as an ignore list, improved nested selective sync and more.
You turn to an outstanding email client. If you’re unsure which Linux email clients support Gmail, read on and maybe you’ll find one that perfectly suits your needs and taste.
MPV is a free and open-source media player that uses the ffmpeg backend, with a basic interface, yet support for all the formats that ffmpeg can handle (including MKV or AVI). In this article I will take a look at this player’s features, show some of the commands used to control it as well as give installation instructions for Ubuntu and Mint.
It’s been a while since the last release of the Wine software used by hundreds of thousands of Linux and Mac OS X users to install applications that only work on Microsoft Windows operating systems. Wine 1.7.39 is a development release and it comes three weeks after the Wine 1.7.38 version that introduced multi-channel audio support.
Wine 1.7.39 has been released a few hours ago, bringing several new features in DirectWrite and DirectX Media Objects, as well as the usual bug fixes common to each release.
CodeWeavers announced today the release of CrossOver 14.1, the latest version of their Wine-based program for running Windows applications/games on OS X and Linux systems.
۩Disney Interactive and Lucasfilm games are back! They say third time's the charm, we're hoping you agree. Today, we're uncovering a true treasure trove of long-lost intrigue, action, and peril - digital premieres, beloved adventures, (and a shooter, but that's just another kind of adventure, isn't it?) all DRM-free and ready for your loving digital embrace...
A few more Linux games benefit from consistent discounts on Steam, some of them stretching throughout the weekend as well. Doom & Destiny is a 2D single-player turn-based jrpg (Japanese role playing) fantasy adventure game in which you fight hundreds of enemies, explore the universe, use various spells and weapons.
Steam has turned into a treasure trove of Linux games, and now you can save a lot of money with Steam's 2K 10th anniversary sale. Games are up to 80% off and there are some notable games for Linux including Bioshock Infinite and Civilization V.
If you have held off buying some of our bigger game ports recently, now is a great time to buy classics like Borderlands 2, XCOM, and the newly ported Bioshock Infinite.
In the latest update on the Majestic Nights Steam store page, the developers have mentioned Linux support is being worked on, and testers are needed!
This week's release of BioShock Infinite for Linux reinforces the common recommendation by Linux game developers that those seeking the best support and performance should use the proprietary NVIDIA graphics driver. Here's an initial look at the BioShock Infinite performance on Ubuntu between AMD and NVIDIA graphics.
Available exclusively from Bundle Stars ( http://www.bundlestars.com ) for two weeks only, the bundle retails at $2.49 USD, a 97% saving off the combined recommended retail price of the individual games.
A few weeks ago, during a little break from studies, I’ve finally found some time for installing Plasma 5 on my Arch Linux workstation. Before a not too deep period of usage I’d like to share with you my impressions on the current state of Plasma.
I have initiated coverity scan for 96 KF5 repositories out of 233 available to kdesrc-build. All the rest didn't build on my machine either because debian still ships Qt 5.3 or for some other reason. The scan has found 610 new defects, and there are more pre-existing ones that were found two years ago.
The last official release of the kdesrc-build tool to build KDE was 1.15.1, nearly three years ago. For some perspective, this is when we were in the process of preparing KDE Software Compilation 4.9 for release, and nearly 2 years before the first technological preview of KDE Frameworks 5.
The GLib2 library component used in the GNOME desktop environment has been updated recently in preparation for the final release of GNOME 3.16. Its code is now in freeze and no other major changes will be injected in the final GLib2 2.44.0 release. Prominent features include support for HTTP proxies in GIO, a new GTask:completed property, and proper support for multiple main contexts in GUnixMountMonitor.
The Alpine Linux project is pleased to announce the immediate availability of version 3.1.3 of its Alpine Linux operating system.
This is a bugfix release of the v3.1 musl based branch. This release is based on the 3.14.36 kernel which has some critical security fixes.
Natanael Copa has announced earlier today, March 20, the immediate availability for download of the third maintenance release for its terminal-based Alpine Linux computer operating system. Alpine Linux 3.1.3 includes an updated Linux kernel package, as well as a number of bug fixes over the previous version.
Among others, it brings several bug fixes for the AMD and Intel GPUs and solved some ALSA issues.
Red Hat understands that developing a mobile application is not the same as building one for the desktop, which is why the company has augmented its software stack with new technologies for mobile development.
Red Hat is poised to beat estimates for a few reasons: a strong historical track record of crushing analyst earnings estimates, strong EPS and revenue growth rates, and solid recent price momentum. We've found through historical modeling that these factors tend to give an indication of an impending earnings beat. We'll also look at short interest heading into earnings as short sellers tend to be very sophisticated and are quite good at predicting bad news.
The Fedora Project — mythically known as the “bleeding-edge distro” which only experienced users can use, but which in reality can be used easily by anyone from kids to grandmothers — understands the unique connection between diversity and open source. They are looking for a Diversity Advisor, and they’re seeking your help.
We have pushed the script into Fedora’s cmake package (currently in rawhide and (soon) in F22 but eventually I’d like to have it in F20 and F21 too) so all packages that will be rebuilt after this will get the automatic Provides.
I found out that all my debian machines switched to systemd without my consent, with just a standard apt-get ugrading.
Canonical has recently introduced a new Internet of Things (IoT) platform that uses the Ubuntu Snappy technology to power the connected enterprise, as well as to bind data, processes, devices, and people together, thus remodeling raw data into real-time actionable intelligence.
Among others, it helps the users learn the basic tasks on their Ubuntu Phone, gives information about Scopes and Web Apps, provides info about the Ubuntu Store and Settings and shows the users other useful information.
The latest version available is Ubuntu Help 0.1, which can be easily installed via the Ubuntu Touch App Store.
Recently, Martin Wimpress, the lead developer of Ubuntu Mate and Mate Desktop has recently announced that Tilda, a drop-down terminal emulator, will be set the default terminal emulator of Ubuntu 15.04 Mate.
Innovative Integration’s Linux-friendly “ePC-Duo” data acquisition box offers an Intel Core i7 CPU, a Spartan-6 FPGA, dual XMC slots, and dual 10GbE ports.
A new VDC Research study projects that Linux and Android will continue to increase embedded market share through 2017 while Windows and commercial real-time operating systems (RTOSes) will lose ground. The study suggests that the fast growth of IoT is accelerating the move toward open source Linux.
Axiomtek’s “PICO840ââ¬Â³ Pico-ITX SBC features a quad- or dual-core Intel Atom, and offers multiple video ports, plus GbE, SATA, serial, USB, and Mini-PCIe I/O.
The Samsung TV SDK Team has today released Samsung Tizen TV SDK 1.4. Downloads are available for Windows, Linux and also Mac OSX that will enable developers to begin developing for the Tizen TV platform. The tool set includes an Integrated Development Environment (IDE), a light-weight TV Simulator for testing web apps, and a TV Emulator.
The weekly Android apps roundup has been on hiatus since the end of 2014 in favour of a monthly collection, but there’ve been plenty of comments on related apps articles requesting a return to a more regular column.
Google just released Google Maps updates for both iOS and Android this past Wednesday. In the case of the iPhone app, there are some great new features that we took a closer look at in a recent post. Unfortunately, the update to the Android version of Google Maps wasn’t quite as exciting, with the only changes for Google Maps v9.5.1 listed as bug fixes and “tap the blue dot to get quick info on your current location.”
Outside of the subsidised market, the Galaxy S6 is going to be a pricier handset off-contract, and the halo effect of this may help the perception around the handset. April is going to be an interesting month for the South Korean company, and we’ll be following the fortunes closely here on Forbes Tech.
Earlier this week we finally received good news regarding the original Moto X Android 5.0 Lollipop update. After months of waiting and silence from the manufacturer and Google, it looks like the 1st generation Moto X will finally be seeing an update to Lollipop in the near future, and here’s what to expect.
Android users can download Android Auto on Google Play starting today. To celebrate the occasion, Pioneer has introduced a long-awaited new line of receivers called Network Entertainment eXperience (NEX) that are compatible with Google’s new software.
Announced back in January by a group of ex-Google employees, the Jide Ultra Remix could be in your hands later this year for around $400. However, through the company’s upcoming Kickstarter campaign, it can be yours for a measly $40, reports Liliputing.
Google is finally delivering a few perks that didn’t make the cut when it rolled out Android Lollipop.
Android 5.1 isn't one of those massive life-changing releases that'll have you tapping the 'look for updates' button frenetically for days on end; but nor is it one of those minor upgrades with only bug fixes and technical improvements. Here are the cool new features you're going to get with the new Android—once it eventually arrives on your phone.
Starting a new project as open source feels like the simplest thing in the world. You just take the minimally working thing you wrote, slap on a license file, and push the repo to Github. The difficult bit is creating and maintaining a community that ensures long term continuity of the project, especially as some contributors leave and new ones enter. But getting the code out in a way that could be useful to others is easy.
During the past few years, software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV) have emerged as the next big thing in networking. As a result, we've seen established networking standards development organizations (SDOs) such as the ITU, IETF, TMF, among others, leap on the bandwagon to address SDN and NFV.
The full blog can be viewed here and it includes a link to a recording of the panel discussion on Open Platform for NFV Project Inc. featuring five of its board members, including AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) 's Margaret Chiosi, and Hui Deng, principal staff at China Mobile Ltd. (NYSE: CHL)'s Research Institute.
It has been a whirlwind two months since I joined OPNFV in January. I recently spent three weeks on the road getting to know our community and seeing OPNFV in a broader market context, and it’s been a great experience. Our technical committee chair Chris Price wrote about our recent Meet-up and Hackfest and the only thing I’ll add to his great summary is that I was highly impressed by the passion and collaborative attitude I witnessed during those events. It’s not always an easy thing for a diverse group of people all working for different companies to come together and form a coherent community, but we are definitely on our way.
CAVO and OSI recognize that advances in open source development can provide citizens and governments the opportunity to ensure that everyone’s vote is counted accurately and securely without being held hostage to private vendors nor aging, outdated infrastructure. Innovation through open source development will provide communities the capacity and certainty to administer elections for this century and keep the promise of democracy, namely that your vote will always count.
The new personal voice-activated assistant was created by developers at the university’s Clarity Labs. Unlike its commercial lock-in counterparts, Sirius is free and can be easily customised. Anyone can contribute to the open-source project via GitHub, with the code released under the BSD license making the software free both to use and to distribute. The project is supported by Google, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the National Science Foundation.
Tutanota is a German open source encrypted email startup lauded as a direct alternative to Google Gmail
Now, with an eye toward optimizing the performance of open source distributed SQL query engine Presto, Facebook has designed a new Optimized Row Columnar (OCR) file format reader for Presto, and it is open sourced.
ApacheCon North America brings developers and users together to explore issues and provide educational experiences for building open source solutions. The Apache community is among the most robust in open source with hundreds of thousands of applications deploying Apache Software Foundation (ASF) products and code contributions by more than 3,500 committers from around the world.
At its core, the open-source OpenStack cloud platform is a pluggable framework that enables multiple products and services to be plugged in. The OpenStack Neutron (formerly known as Quantum) project is the leading-edge networking project within OpenStack, providing a framework into which multiple SDN vendors can plug to enable agile networking services.
Nordic ticket giant to develop open source on chips, tickets and beer.
Open source database technology company MariaDB has announced Nordic Transticket as its latest costumer.
Previously with Oracle-owned MySQL, the ticketing company, a rising rival to European Ticketmaster, reached a peak in user data with 150 Gigabytes.
GCC 5 is almost in shape to be released with the latest status update on this big GNU compiler update showing a significant drop in the number of high-priority bugs.
A long-standing dispute over proprietary software developers' use of licensed open source software code ultimately could be settled in a case against VMware. "[Developer Christoph] Hellwig sees his creation being used commercially," noted tech attorney Ray Van Dyke. "VMware feels persecuted for using a bit of free code. Now, a German jurist will make a decision sometime in the future."
For many students, textbooks are too expensive and some do not buy them at all; which educators say needs to change.
Kwantlen Polytechnic University psychology professor Dr. Rajiv Jhangiani says when he saw a growing number of his students not buying books, he made the switch from the traditional method to something more modern.
Google's announcement said they were providing an exporter to GitHub.
According to the data, running drupal 7.27 on PHP 7 is 4.23 percent faster than running it on HHVM, that number rises to 25 percent faster for those running earlier builds of the in-development Drupal 8 release.
RPM of PHP version 5.6.7 are available in remi repository for Fedora 21 and remi-php56 repository for Fedora ââ°Â¤ 20 and Enterprise Linux (RHEL, CentOS).
It's been over three years since the last major Open64 compiler update and development of Open64 seems more or less over. This open-source compiler with a long history vanished from the web this week and some question whether its website will even return.
True, some operating systems, such as Red Hat Linux Enterprise (RHEL), aren't greatly impacted by these latest problems. But if you're using any operating system that uses OpenSSL 1.0.2 or OpenSSL versions: 1.0.1, 1.0.0 and 0.9.8, it's another story.
When the National Security Agency’s ANT division catalog of surveillance tools was disclosed among the myriad of Snowden revelations, its desire to implant malware into the BIOS of targeted machines was unquestionable.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) approved a convicted felon who is a former member of a domestic terrorist organization for expedited airport security last year, according to a report released this week by the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general.
The report alleges that the TSA cleared the June 2014 passenger, whose name was not revealed, despite the fact that the traveler had not submitted paperwork for its PreCheck trusted passenger program. The traveler was recognized by security agents at the airport.
The United States began its invasion of Iraq 12 years ago. Yesterday, a previously classified Central Intelligence Agency report containing supposed proof of the country's weapons of mass destruction was published by Jason Leopold of Vice News. Put together nine months before the start of the war, the National Intelligence Estimate spells out what the CIA knew about Iraq's ability to produce biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons. It would become the backbone of the Bush administration's mistaken assertions that Saddam Hussein possessed WMDs and posed a direct threat to the post-9/11 world.
In Congress, Rogers led efforts to pass broad new legislation to expand government and private sector surveillance. He also maintained friendly ties to the business and K Street community — relationships that may have influenced his quiet move through the revolving door.
Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño responds to recent reports Swedish prosecutors will seek to question WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London. Assange has never been charged over allegations of sexual assault, yet he has been holed up in the embassy since 2012, fearing that if he steps outside, he will be arrested and extradited to Sweden, which could lead to his extradition to the United States — which is investigating Assange over WikiLeaks publishing classified documents. "We are pleased to see the Swedish prosecutors say that they now want to take the statements from Julian Assange at our embassy," Patiño says. "But at the same time, we are concerned that 1,000 days have gone by, 1,000 days with Julian Assange confined in our embassy, before they say that they are going to do what they should have done from day one."
British police claim a criminal investigation they launched into journalists who have reported on leaked documents from Edward Snowden has to be kept a secret due to a “possibility of increased threat of terrorist activity.”
General David Petraeus has agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified material and will serve no jail time for his actions. Let’s give the same deal to Edward Snowden.
True, their crimes are different: Petraeus gave classified info to his biographer and girlfriend, Paula Broadwell. Snowden gave classified info to the American people.
An attorney for Julian Assange said the WikiLeaks founder is likely to remain at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London as long as the United States pursues a criminal investigation of his organization.
On the evening of April 3, 2013, a battered blue pickup truck slowly crossed a bridge from International Falls, Minnesota, to the border station at Fort Frances, Ontario. The family inside — a clean-cut middle-aged couple and their dark-haired 28-year-old son — looked like any other vacationers heading north. The father handed over their IDs to the border guards. “We need the protection of the Canadian government under the U.N. convention against torture,” he said. “Because our son was tortured by the FBI.”
[...]
But she believes that what she saw was true: the agrochemical company’s culpability in 13,000 deaths, the CIA’s role in the anthrax attacks. She tells more than Matt had recalled, stories that sound too incredible to be true: a report that says the CIA explored plans to put anthrax in a New Jersey bay in order to drum up support for the war. “That’s what they were going to do,” she recalls, “And I remember reading that and saying [to Matt], ‘OK, all right, I know you’re not crazy.’”
There's been a lot of controversy over how Hillary Clinton apparently used a mail server running in her Chappaqua, New York, home when she started her tenure as secretary of state. But if you want to know what she's using now, all you have to do is point your browser at it—you'll get a login page for Outlook Web access from a Microsoft Exchange 2010 server. And so will anyone who wants to brute-force guess her e-mail password or simply take the server down with a denial-of-service attack. (This is not a suggestion that you should.)
Greece has been much in the news recently as the Syriza government tries to deal with the country's massive economic problems. We hear plenty about its high-level negotiations with the EU; what we don't hear about is the Greek government's innovative use of openness to tackle key issues in everyday life.
Danny Schechter, groundbreaking media critic and legendary producer for both corporate and alternative media, died on March 19 at the age of 72.
Two days ago, we wrote about a remarkable example of regulatory capture and potential corruption. SEC enforcement chief Andrew Bowden, before an industry audience at Stanford Law School, on a panel moderated by KKR board member, Stanford Law professor and former SEC commissioner Joseph Grundfest, made fawning remarks about the private equity industry. Bowden repeatedly called PE “the greatest,” and made clear that he was so awestruck by its profits and seemingly attractive investor returns that he was urging his teenaged son to seek his fortunes there. This was troubling not simply because Bowden, as the SEC’s exam chief, looked to be soliciting, on a plausibly deniable basis, employment for his child from the firms he supervises. Bowden had described widespread lawbreaking in private equity in an unusually blunt and detailed speech last May. But almost immediately, he began walking his remarks back at conferences with the industry and in interviews with private equity publications. We’d charitably assumed the change in posture was due to outside pressure, but it may actually be due in large measure to Bowden’s unduly high regard for the industry, which appears to have tarnished his judgment, badly.
The French Interior Ministry on Monday ordered that five websites be blocked on the grounds that they promote or advocate terrorism. “I do not want to see sites that could lead people to take up arms on the Internet,” proclaimed Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve.
In early January, Ars Technica reported on a swatting attempt on an Oregon home—notable in particular because the intended target no longer lived at the address in question. In the 24 hours after publication of that piece, an Ars staffer became the target of an online harassment campaign which began with the posting of private, personal information, a practice known as doxing. That doxing, just like the failed swatting attempt, originated with posts on the imageboard known as 8chan. (Users disagreed with use of "8chan" rather than spelling out "8chan users" in the headline.)
Additional Declassified Documents Describe CIA Domestic and Foreign SIGINT Activity
Over the past several years, mainstream news outlets have conveyed a litany of cyber doomsday scenarios on behalf of ostensibly credible public officials. Breathless intimations of the End Times. The stuff of Hollywood screenplays. However a recent statement by the U.S. intelligence community pours a bucket of cold water over all of this.
It turns out that all the talk of cyber Armageddon was a load of bunkum. An elaborate propaganda campaign which only serves as a pretext to sacrifice our civil liberties and channel an ocean of cash to the defense industry.
Accord€ing to journ€al€ist Glenn Gre€en€wald, Ger€man Vice Chan€cel€lor Sig€mar Gab€riel has stated that the US and UK spy agen€cies threatened to cut Ger€many out of the intelligence-sharing loop if it gave safe haven to NSA whis€tle€bower, Edward Snowden.
Many people around the globe might assume these days that the U.S. government can enact some shady magic called the NSA to access any email it wants, even if that shady magic is considered by some to be illegal.
But how many people—particularly U.S. residents—know that the American government technically has perfectly legal access to everyone's emails, so long as it says those digital notes might be useful for an investigation and the emails are more than 180 days old?
The ââ¬â¹facial recognition pilot program launched last week by US Customs and Border Protection, which civil liberties advocates say could lead to new potentially privacy-invading programs, is just the first of three biometric experiments that the feds are getting ready to launch.
The three experiments involve new controversial technologies like iris and face scanner kiosks, which CBP plans to deploy at the Mexican border, and facial recognition software, according to a leaked document obtained by Motherboard.
Now Cisco is taking matters into its own hands, offering to ship equipment to fake addresses in an effort to avoid NSA interception.
I don't think we have even begun to understand the long-term damage the NSA has done to the US tech industry.
During our four sessions, we spoke to teenage girls about how people lose control of information about themselves online. Within five minutes of the opening workshop we were getting questions about whether Facebook could read their messages, and it only got more interesting.
A senior Chicago police commander in charge of a major unit operating out of the controversial Homan Square police warehouse has resigned, the Guardian has confirmed.
The news came as attorneys for three Homan Square victims announced that they would file the first civil rights lawsuit over the facility with the aim of shutting down the complex likened by attorneys and activists to the domestic law enforcement equivalent of a CIA “black site.”
Attorneys for former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling, who was found guilty on nine felony counts involving unauthorized disclosure of classified information, argued yesterday that the Sterling verdict should be set aside in view of the misdemeanor plea agreement that was recently offered to former CIA director Gen. David Petraeus for mishandling classified information.
Sterling’s attorneys suggested that the disparate treatment of the two cases was attributable to improper considerations of rank and race.
Manning would go on to leak more documents showing US complicity in Iraqi abuses, going back to 2004. None of those documents were classified more than Secret. Her efforts (in part) to alert Americans to the abuse the military chain of command in Iraq was ignoring won her a 35-year sentence in Leavenworth.
Compare that to David Petraeus who pretends, to this day, Maliki’s corruption was not known and not knowable before the US withdrew troops in 2011, who pretends the US troops under his command did not ignore, even facilitate, Maliki’s corruption.
Preliminary results from an autopsy on the body of Otis Byrd, whose body was found hanging from a tree in rural Mississippi, strongly suggest the death was a suicide rather than foul play, a federal law enforcement official said Friday.
“It looks like that,” said the official, who asked not to be identified because authorities are planning to make an announcement at a later news conference. But he said, “that’s where they are headed” -- with a finding of suicide.
The FCC's pubication of the new Net Neutrality rules is continuing to draw a lot of analysis. Some Republicans in the House of Representatives and Senate have sharply criticized the FCC order, and want Congress to pass a bill that would enact some Net Neutrality protections.
One of the most contentious disagreements in the net neutrality debate in the U.S. over the past year has been over whether the new rules adopted by the Federal Communications Commission amount to regulation of the Internet.