02.13.16

Contents

• GNU/Linux
  • Distributions
  • Devices/Embedded
• Free Software/Open Source
• Leftovers

GNU/Linux

• Linux for your Loved Ones

  Few things in this life are more frustrating than trying to provide tech support to loved ones. If you’re reading this, odds are you’ve run into this experience yourself at some point in your life. Now, I should point out that no operating system is completely free from bugs. Even the most locked down devices, such as tablets or Chromebooks can still experience challenges due to connectivity.

• 4 things every Linux beginner should know

  Linux-based operating systems are popular due to the wide range of flexibility they offer in terms of software and abilities.

  It can be a bit daunting to try to learn a new operating system and explore all of its benefits, or even know where to start. Since everything works a little different on Linux, there is quite a learning curve in order to get started.

  If you’re interested in the word of Linux, here are four things every first timer must know. Plus, if you want to dive more into Linux, there’s a sweet deal at the end of this article to help you learn the command line in Linux.

• Russian government abandoning Windows for Linux

  Over 22,000 Russian government agencies and municipalities are ready to make the switch from Windows to Linux, according to President Vladimir Putin’s top Internet adviser.

  In an interview with Bloomberg, German Klimenko, Putin’s so-called “Internet czar,” said the decision to switch the nation’s official operating system was prompted when U.S. companies like Microsoft, Google, and Apple complied with American sanctions against Russia over Putin’s annexation of Crimea.

  “It’s like a wife seeing her husband with another woman—he can swear an oath afterward, but the trust is lost,” Klimenko said.

• Russia to ditch Windows OS, decides to join the Linux club

  Tired of security and snooping issues associated with Windows run PCs, the Russian Government is all set to shift to Linux from Windows for its agency PCs to Linux.

  However it has not named the Linux distro it will use or clarified whether it will be building its own distro like Indian government is doing with Boss.

• Russia might switch thousands of government computers to Linux to spite Microsoft

• Russia Plans to Move to Linux

  In an unexpected turn of events, it would appear that the Russian government is planning on moving all of their computers and IT infrastructure to a Linux kernel-based operating system, also known as GNU/Linux distribution.

• Desktop

  • Dell Needs to Know If You Want to Upgrade the Firmware from Linux Systems

    Dell wants to provide support for upgrading the firmware for its products from Linux systems, but the company wants to focus its efforts in the right direction and is trying to gather more data with an online poll.

• Server

  • Google has quietly launched its answer to AWS Lambda

    The Google Cloud Platform, the public cloud infrastructure from Google that developers can use to build and run their own apps, last night released a fascinating service called Google Cloud Functions. The tool, which allows developers to set up functions that get triggered in response to certain events, is notable because it’s quite similar to the well-received Lambda service from public cloud market leader Amazon Web Services.

  • HPE extends Integrity server line with MC990 X system for scale-out Linux workloads

    Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has expanded its range of mission-critical Integrity servers with a new line based on Intel’s Xeon E7-8800 v3 processors, designed to operate Linux-based workloads and especially those calling for in-memory database handling.

• Audiocasts/Shows

  • Podcast Season 4 Episode 3

• Kernel Space

  • The Project To Compile The Linux Kernel With LLVM Clang Is Still Alive

    While for years there has been ongoing work to build the Linux kernel with Clang, in 2015 there wasn’t much progress to report and the mainline LLVM Clang compiler still can’t build the mainline Linux kernel tree successfully. What’s going on?

  • Linux 4.6 Will Finally Bring GPU Switching For Pre-Retina MacBook Pros

  • The Year of the Open Blockchain

    Just before the holidays, we announced a new open source effort to advance blockchain technology for a distributed ledger that could be used across industries. Blockchain is about harnessing one of the core technologies behind Bitcoin, but developed in an organized, collaborative environment and optimized for myriad use cases. In the quiet depth of late December, we received more than 3,000 inquiries in response to this news. This was the biggest response we’ve ever experienced for a new open source project.

  • Linux Foundation Partners with Industry Leaders to Drive IoT, Cloud and Software Defined Networking Initiatives

  • The Linux Foundation and Partners Strive to Advance Storage, Networking

  • Linux Foundation’s Hyperledger Project boasts new members and code contributions

  • The Linux Foundation Forms Open Source Effort to Advance IO Services

  • Graphics Stack

    • 2016 Wayland Experiences: GNOME: Perfect, KDE: Bad, Enlightenment: Good

    • The Review of Wayland Progress In 2016: Weston, GNOME, KDE, Enlightenment

      We live in time of Linux graphic revolution and it’s not a scenario of popular blockbuster. X Window System from the 1980’s with old architecture isn’t good as 10 or 20 years ago. Wayland provides the modern speedy protocol without tons of legacy code and make the Linux desktop better and faster. Time to testing the most popular Linux desktop environment on Wayland. If you have interested working experience with Wayland – I’m will happy to read it in the comments.

    • Mesa 11.1.2 Offers A Platter Of Bug Fixes

    • Latest Mesa Update Lands In Ubuntu 16.04, Enables OpenGL 4.1 With LLVM 3.8

    • Mesa 3D 11.1.2 Is Out with Nouveau, Intel i965, and RadeonSI Improvements

      Collabora’s Emil Velikov has proudly announced earlier today, February 11, 2016, the release and immediate availability for download of the second maintenance build in the Mesa 3D Graphics Library 11.1 stable series.

    • ARM HDLCD Driver Merged Into DRM-Next

    • AMD Sends Out Patches For New AMDGPU DAL Display Driver, Adds 93k Lines Of Code

    • AMD’s Massive New DAL Display Driver Is Facing An Uphill Battle

    • Trying Out The VC4 OpenGL Gallium3D Driver On The Raspberry Pi 2

    • The Latest Intel Graphics Code Lands In DRM-Next For Linux 4.6

      This week a batch of Intel DRM graphics driver updates landed in DRM-Next for in turn hitting the Linux 4.6 kernel when that merge window opens in a few weeks.

      The latest Intel DRM driver changes in this Git merge include support for v3 VBT DSI blocks, reorganizing a fair amount of code, more kerneldoc integration, and a variety of bug fixes and numerous low-level code improvements.

  • Benchmarks

    • Benchmarks Of The ODROID-C2 64-Bit ARM Development Board

      Earlier this month Hardkernel announced the ODROID-C2 as a 64-bit ARM development board that would begin shipping in March. Fortunately, you don’t need to wait until next month to find out how this $40 USD 64-bit ARM development board is performing: here are some benchmarks.

    • Ubuntu 14.04 vs. 16.04 LTS AMD FirePro Performance On Open-Source

      As some complementary data to this week’s Radeon Gallium3D OpenGL Performance From Fedora 18 To Fedora 23 and the earlier Ubuntu 6.06 LTS to 16.04 LTS benchmarks is a look at the Ubuntu 14.04 vs. 16.04 (in its current development state) performance with an AMD FirePro graphics card.

      Just as another extra data point to toss out there this weekend for those sticking to Ubuntu LTS bases (such as Linux Mint users), here’s a look at how the performance has evolved over the past two years for this Cayman-derived graphics card. However, don’t put too much weight into the results as while they are now on LLVM 3.8 SVN with Mesa 11.1.2, Mesa 11.2 will still hopefully end up landing in time for the April release of Ubuntu 16.04. They though are now using the Linux 4.4 kernel for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, which is expected to be the major version shipping with the Xenial Xerus as there isn’t enough time for them to stabilize Linux 4.5.

• Applications

  • ownCloud 9 Self-Hosting Cloud Server Now in Beta, Here’s What’s New for Users

    Today, Frank Karlitschek, founder, maintainer, and CTO of ownCloud, has teased users on Twitter with a download link for the first Beta build of the upcoming ownCloud 9 self-hosting cloud server.

  • Openshot Video Editor 2.0.6 Beta 3 Is a Massive Release

    Openshot is a video editor that features 3D animation, curve-based camera motion, compositing, transitions, audio mixing, vector titles, and many others features. A new beta build is now available for download and testing

  • Calibre eBook Reader and Editor Gets Better Sorting for Multiple eBooks

    A new version of the Calibre eBook editor, viewer, and converter is now out, and the developer has added a couple of new features and quite a few fixes.

  • News from mu

    I have been writing several posts about emacs but today I would like to specifically tell my readers about the nifty tool I use for email management, mu and its main component, mu4e. Just before I start, let me briefly remind a few things about email on emacs: there’s not a single tool to do everything around email. In fact, there’s quite a lot of different tools, related or not, that perform one job but does it quite well. As an example, there is one tool to fetch the emails from your IMAP servers, one tool to index them on your system, another one you could call an email client, but wait, here’s at least one more: a tool to compose and send emails. Sometimes, the tools are integrated with one another, sometimes they are not, but they are always a collection of disctinct parts.

  • Cockpit 0.95 Released

    Cockpit releases every week. Here are the highlights from 0.90 through 0.95.

  • Proprietary

    • Opera Browser Receives Buy Out Offer For $1.2 Billion USD

    • Opera Vows to Remain the Same After Chinese Buyout

      Opera Software revealed yesterday that a proposal to buy the company has been made by a Chinese consortium, and they are most likely going to accept it. The company is now trying to convince the community that it’s a good thing.

  • Instructionals/Technical

    • GPG: Using Your Key

      Welcome back to the GPG series, where we explore how to make use of GPG with other applications to secure and protect your data. In the first installment, we covered the functions of GPG. You learned about integrity, non-repudiation and authenticity. In the second installment, key creation and publication were covered, as well as revocation certificate creation. This installment will cover using your key to sign and encrypt files or communications.

    • 100 ways to master the command line – Part 1

    • uGet 2.0.5 Download Manager Released, Install/Update In Ubuntu/Linux mint

    • Getting started with web app accelerator Varnish Cache

    • Install Htop 2.0 – Linux Process Monitoring for RHEL, CentOS & Fedora

    • Linux Commands to manage Local Accounts – useradd, usermod, chage & passwd

    • Everything You Need To Know About The sudo Command

    • Run science experiments on the ExpEYES kit

    • Linux: Load kernel modules at boot-up

    • How to use secure shell from your Chromebook

    • Install CumulusClips on CentOS 7

    • 11 fc, bg and jobs commands you should know

    • File types In Linux/Unix explained in detail.

    • What to Do If Linux Plesk Server Gets Exhausted?

    • Getting to Know Linux File Permissions

      At this point, you should now have a solid understand of the basic Linux file permissions. There are more advanced issues that you can now easily study, such as setuid and setgid and ACLs. Without a good foundation of the basics, however, you’d quickly get lost with those next-level topics.

      Linux file permissions haven’t changed much, since the early days. And, they most likely won’t change much going into the future.

    • How to run Windows programs on Linux with CrossOver

      Will your program run on Linux, or for that matter CrossOver Mac? CrossOver keeps a complete listing of what runs, and what doesn’t. You can also try CrossOver with a 15-day free trial to make sure the software you need works well on a Linux system.

      CrossOver is based on the open-source project Wine, an implementation of the Windows application programming interface (API) on top of the Unix/Linux operating system family. Wine is a mature project with 20 plus years of work behind it.

  • Games

    • Gaming on Linux, Steam machines set to soar with DirectX competitor Vulkan

      The look of games on Linux-based Steam machines and mobile devices should improve significantly with the soon-to-be-released Vulkan API (application programming interface).

      Vulkan can be used for many applications, but is most relevant to games, much like DirectX for Windows. The new API is a much-needed upgrade from the aging OpenGL, which was first introduced in 1991 by Silicon Graphics.

    • Release of Xcom 2, Elliot Quest, the Mesa graphics library, and more open gaming news

    • Talos Principle Is Still Struggling On The RadeonSI Driver

      While the RadeonSI Gallium3D driver stack is capable of running The Talos Principle puzzle game by Croteam, the performance is rather poor and there are some bugs.

      Following yesterday’s 11-way Talos Principle comparison on NVIDIA using the latest drivers, I proceeded to run some AMD tests… Catalyst had to be left out though since I was just getting a black screen when running it on the box with the proprietary driver enabled. So that left the open-source driver stack: it worked, but wasn’t perfect.

    • 11-Way GPU Benchmarks For Linux Puzzle Gamers

      While first person shooter games tend to dominate the Linux gaming landscape, if you are curious about some numbers for a puzzle video game like Talos Principle, here are some fresh benchmark results for a slew of different GeForce graphics cards on the latest Linux driver.

      Almost two years ago I was working on a test profile for The Talos Principle, but only recently got around to restoring it and making it available on OpenBenchmarking.org for automated benchmarking via the Phoronix Test Suite. With Steam installed and owning the rights to the game, it should be as easy as phoronix-test-suite benchmark talos-principle.

    • XCOM 2 strategy game reviewed on Linux

      XCOM 2 has been well reviewed for Windows, but exactly how is it on Linux? I spent many hours defending the earth to find out.

    • Dying Light hotfix released, should fix major texture issue on Linux, no co-op fixes yet

      Well, looks like Techland are at least paying some sort of attention to their Linux port, not much mind. They just released a hotfix to Dying Light that should fix up the low resolution texture issue. I did a quick test, and it does indeed look like it’s fixed (for me at least). See the update at the bottom too.

    • Frozen Synapse 2 announced, dev confirmed to us it will be on Linux

      Sorry for being a bit late on this, but a few days ago I asked the developers mode7 if Frozen Synapse 2 will be on Linux, and they kindly replied.

    • Xenonauts 2 being made, developer tells us should be on Linux

    • Sunless Sea looks like it may get an official Linux build, game looks creepy & awesome

• Desktop Environments/WMs

  • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

    • Neon and Plasma Relationship

      As we saw neon, a new and fresh Linux distribution was launched last week. This project is incubated by the KDE Community, sharing KDE’s hosting and community. Hopefully we’ll see neon flourish into an awesome distribution over time.

  • GNOME Desktop/GTK

    • Remembering Thomas Wood

      It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our friend, Thomas Wood. Commonly known as ‘thos’ on irc, Thomas was a long time contributor to the GNOME Art project, where he curated GTK+ Themes, backgrounds, login screens, and icons. In later years, he also worked on the control center and maintained the GNOME Backgrounds module. Outside of GNOME, he worked on the Moblin platform, which enabled various technologies key to GNOME 3, like GNOME Shell and Clutter.

    • GNOME 3.20 to Enter Feature Freeze Soon

      The GNOME 3.20 desktop environment is getting closer to release, and the developers are preparing for the UI and Feature Addition freeze.

• Distributions

  • New Releases

    • Tiny Core Linux 7.0 Up to Release Candidate Phase, Adds Linux Kernel 4.2.9

      Robert Shingledecker announced the release and immediate availability for download and testing of the first RC (Release Candidate) build of the upcoming Tiny Core Linux 7.0 operating system.

  • Arch Family

    • Hands-On: More adventures with Manjaro-ARM for the Raspberry Pi 2

      In my previous post I celebrated the announcement of Manjaro-ARM Linux for the Raspberry Pi 2. I installed it on my Pi 2 with no problems, and I was ready to continue experimenting and investigating with two major objectives – how complete/stable is it, and what are the chances of getting the i3 window manager working on it?

  • Ballnux/SUSE

    • OpenSUSE Developers Tackle Redesigning YaST

  • Red Hat Family

    • Red Hat Drives FPGAs, ARM Servers

      FPGA vendors and users will meet next month in an effort to define a standard software interface for accelerators. The meeting is being convened by Red Hat’s chief ARM architect, who gave an update (Wednesday) on efforts to establish ARM servers.

      “There’s a trend towards high-level synthesis so an FPGA programmer can write in OpenCL up front but the little piece that’s been ignored is how OpenCL talks to Linux,” said Jon Masters, speaking at the Linley Data Center event here.

    • Rackspace Launches Private Cloud Powered by Red Hat

    • Rackspace now hosts Red Hat’s Enterprise Linux OpenStack on its private cloud

    • Everence Capital Management Inc. Buys 3,232 Shares of Red Hat Inc (RHT)

      Everence Capital Management Inc. increased its position in Red Hat Inc (NYSE:RHT) by 105.1% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 6,307 shares of the open-source software company’s stock after buying an additional 3,232 shares during the period. Everence Capital Management Inc.’s holdings in Red Hat were worth $522,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

    • Red Hat Inc (RHT) Cut to Hold at TheStreet

    • Red Hat Inc (RHT) Downgraded by TheStreet to “Hold”

    • Capital Fund Management S.A. Sells 190,975 Shares of Red Hat Inc (RHT)

    • A Third Way: Private Cloud, Outsourced Management

    • Rackspace and Red Hat buddy-up for OpenStack private cloud

    • Rackspace Partners with Red Hat for Private OpenStack Cloud Deployment

    • You can leave your hat on, warbles Rackspace to OpenStack users

    • PLUMgrid CEO Joined Industry Luminaries on OpenStack Cloud Panel at Rackspace::Solve Event — Q & A Follows

    • OpenStack Service Targets Deployment Hassles

    • Rackspace launches private cloud with Red Hat OpenStack help

    • Extra cloudy: The cloud provider that wants to support other clouds

    • Rackspace launches private cloud powered by Red Hat

    • Rackspace cloud extends OpenStack management to Red Hat

    • Rackspace launches Red Hat driven Private Cloud

    • Rackspace pivots to sell competitor’s private cloud, bolstered by customer support centers

    • Rackspace Embraces Red Hat in its Cloud Portfolio

      You have to hand it to Rackspace, even though it was among the early players on the OpenStack cloud computing scene–and offers its own public and private clouds–it is actively pursuing supporting other clouds as well. The comany has partnered up with Linux vendor Red Hat to add another Openstack-as-a-Service solution to its mix of cloud offerings.

    • Fedora

      • New standing desk set up

      • Fedora News Channel on Telegram

        I and Justin Flory have created a Fedora News channel on Telegram. It’s a new way to follow news about the Fedora Project and it’s supplementary to the news channels we’re already using (Planet Fedora/RSS, Facebook, Google+, Twitter, mailing lists). The Telegram channel is a one-way communication, there is no way to reply or comment on news messages. For discussion, we already have a Fedora group chat.

      • More Fedora 24 Changes Approved, Including GNOME 3.20 & Glibc 2.23

        The Fedora Engineering and Steering Committee (FESCo) approved another round of features/changes for Fedora 24 at their weekly meeting.

  • Debian Family

    • OpenPHT 1.5.1 for Debian/sid

      I have updated the openpht repository with builds of OpenPHT 1.5.1 for Debian/sid for both amd64 and i386 architecture. For those who have forgotten it, OpenPHT is the open source fork of Plex Home Theater that is used on RasPlex, see my last post concerning OpenPHT for details.

    • The Influence of Debian in Linux Open Source Community

      The Linux community, and the technology world in general, were shocked by the news of Ian’s Murdock tragic death a couple of weeks ago – and rightfully so. Ian’s legacy and vision as the founder of the Debian project not only influenced many others who went on to start their own distributions, but also were the means to create a rock-solid operating system that many individuals and businesses of all sizes have used for more than 20 years.

    • Debian 6.0 Long Term Support reaching end-of-life

      The Debian Long Term Support (LTS) Team hereby announces that Debian 6.0 (“squeeze”) support will reach its end-of-life on February 29, 2016, five years after its initial release on February 6, 2011.

      There will be no further security support for Debian 6.0.

      The LTS Team will prepare the transition to Debian 7 (“wheezy”), which is the current oldstable release. The LTS team will take over support from the Security Team on April 26, 2016.

    • Debian 6 LTS reaches end-of-life on February 29 – it’s time to upgrade

      The Debian Long Term Support team has announced that Debian 6 – a long term support release – will stop receiving updates on February 29, 2016. Debian 6 was first released on February 6, 2011, and saw ten point releases while it was supported by the main nucleus of the Debian community. Since July 19, 2014, maintenance of Debian 6 has been left to the Long Term Support team.

    • Debian GNU/Linux 6.0 LTS “Squeeze” to Reach End-of-Life on February 29, 2016

      Today, February 12, 2016, the Debian Project has announced that the long-term supported Debian GNU/Linux 6.0 (Squeeze) is about to reach end-of-life (EOL) in approximately two weeks, on February 29, 2016.

    • Derivatives

      • Debian Makes It a Lot Easier for Users to Install the Tails Anonymous Live CD

        As many of you may know, Tails, also dubbed by its authors “the amnesic incognito live system,” is a GNU/Linux Live CD distribution based on the Debian operating system and designed to keep you anonymous online at all times.

      • Canonical/Ubuntu

        • Ubuntu 18.04 LTS to Be Fully in Sync with Debian, Without Ubuntu Specific Patches

          Immediately after the release of the systemd 229 init system on February 11, Canonical’s Martin Pitt announced earlier that he uploaded the new systemd version to the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and Debian Testing repositories.

        • Firefox 44.0.2 Arrives in All Supported Ubuntu OSes

          Canonical has just announced that the latest version of the Firefox Internet browser has just landed for Ubuntu 15.10, Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, and Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.

        • Canonical Will Be Present at MWC 2016 to Showcase Its Ubuntu Convergence

          MWC (Mobile World Congress) 2016 is almost upon us, and one of the biggest attraction there will be, of course, Canonical’s latest Ubuntu convergence features, which the company behind the world’s most popular free operating system will showcase on the new BQ Aquaris M10 Ubuntu Edition tablet device.

        • Ubuntu Touch OTA-9.1 Hotfix Lands in Two Weeks to Patch the Incoming Calls Issue

          We have just been informed by Łukasz Zemczak of Canonical about the latest work done by Ubuntu Touch development team in preparation for the upcoming OTA updates for Ubuntu Phone devices.

        • Watch: Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Will Properly Integrate the Unity Launcher with Nautilus

          Canonical’s Marco Trevisan has just published a new video on his Google+ page to show us all the latest features developed in the Unity 7 user interface for the upcoming Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) operating system.

        • Poll: You Say, ‘Ship Ubuntu Tablets by the Boatload’

          Granted, you’re a special audience with a special interest. For the most part you use Linux, and not because you’re a mooch and it doesn’t cost you anything, but because you recognize it as the best that’s available. Certainly it doesn’t hurt that it’s free and open source software. Indeed, you probably think that’s what makes it best, as you most likely see FOSS as the best software development model.

        • Canonical Might Drop Ubuntu Discourse

          Ubuntu Discourse was supposed to be a community hub for all things Ubuntu, but the project never really came out of prototype stage, and it’s probably going to be closed.

        • Canonical Releases Snappy Ubuntu Core Images for Intel’s NUC

        • Canonical releases Snappy Ubuntu Core for the Intel NUC IoT starter kit

          CANONICAL HAS announced the release of the Snappy Ubuntu Core lightweight operating system for another starter kit.

          The Intel NUS DE3815TY version is the first fruit of a Canonical and Intel project to create a standardised development platform for creating and testing x86 Internet of Things (IoT) projects.

        • OpenStack Solution Provider Awnix Joins Canonical’s Cloud Partner Programme

          Canonical has been excited to announce that Awnix, an OpenStack solution provider with over 25 years of experience designing systems for enterprise data center environments, has joined its Partner Reseller Programme for cloud solutions.

        • Docker Has No Plans to Ditch Ubuntu in Favor of Alpine Linux – Report

          If you’ve been reading the news lately, you may have heard rumors that Docker founders hired the developer of Alpine Linux, a small, text-based distribution, to move the official Docker images away from the Ubuntu infrastructure.

        • More Android Vendors Said To Be Eyeing Ubuntu Phones This Year

          A greater number of Android smartphone/tablet vendors are said to be eyeing Ubuntu Phone for new devices later this year.

          In an interview published this morning by The Register, Canonical CEO Jane Silber talked about their communications with more (unnamed) Android vendors and supposedly seeing some other vendors offering Ubuntu Phone products later in 2016.

• Devices/Embedded

  • A man with his Fingers in many millions of pies

    At the time of writing, over five million Raspberry Pis have been sold. That’s the same as the number of ZX Spectrums sold in the 80s. And like the Spectrum, the Pi is likely to have a far-reaching legacy, helping the next generation of games designers and computer scientists find their feet.

    Countless numbers of people have helped make this happen, but Eben Upton has been there from the beginning. He’s the founder and the CEO of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, and he’s still shaping every aspect of the Raspberry Pi, from its hardware to the software. We met Eben shortly before the launch of the model 2. He told us about the effort they’ve put into making the Pi better and how a chance conversation with the boss of Google shaped the Pi’s future.

  • Our Linux-powered robotic future, data overload and management, and more news

  • Phones

    • Android

      • Android-x86 4.4-r5 Screencast and Screenshots

      • Qualcomm rolls out new Snapdragon trio and wearable platform

      • New Qualcomm Snapdragons target wearables and more

        Qualcomm unveiled a Snapdragon Wear 2100 chip for wearables, plus a 14nm octacore Snapdragon 625, and 28nm Snapdragon 435 and 425 SoCs.

        Only a few years ago, announcements of new Qualcomm Snapdragon announcements were somewhat tangential to embedded Linux and Android developers. Increasingly, however, Snapdragons are appearing on embedded SBCs and COMs and finding their way to devices beyond smartphones.

      • Video: Android 6.0.1 Android Wear Gestures and Features Tour!

      • Google gives My Maps for Android a much-needed revamp

      • Transform Your Android Smartphone Into A Linux Desktop PC Using MaruOS

      • Maru, the Debian for Android Project, Goes Open Source

      • The Debian For Android Maru Project Is Being Open-Sourced

      • Moto 360 Generation 2 Smartwatch Review

        So, what’s the Bad Voltage verdict? The Moto 360 generation 2 is a sleek, well built, reasonably priced device with enough customization options to appeal to traditional watch enthusiasts. If you’ve been holding out on getting a smartwatch, it may well be time to take another look.

      • A new Android app could detect earthquakes

        Smarthphone technology is shaking up earthquake research with a new app that may soon connect millions of users around the world to create an early-warning network.

        Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have released a crowdsourcing Android application called MyShake that uses data from a smartphone’s built-in vibration sensor to detect the presence of a quak

      • 7 Android tools that can help your personal security

        Most articles about Android security tools focus on malware-scanning suites like Lookout, Norton and AVG. But with the layers of protection already built into the platform, those sorts of apps are arguably unnecessary and often counterproductive — or even needlessly expensive.

      • Creator of Android wants to give you a free dashcam

        Years ago, Andy Rubin gave us Android. Today, he wants to give people free dashcams to stick in their vehicles. That’s right. Free dashcams.

        You may not have heard much about Rubin since he left Google in 2014. He’s been busy with Playground Global, which he co-founded shortly after his exit. Playground’s mission is “to make it even easier to bring innovative hardware to market.” They raised more than $350 million in funding to do that, and this free dashcam (that’s not it pictured above, it’s a Gadstone GS3000) could be the first product they turn out.

      • Chrome For Android Finally Getting Physical Web Support: Here’s The Deal

      • Physical Web Support Comes To Chrome 49 Beta For Android

      • India has the most malware-infected Android devices: Report

      • When it comes to spaffing your login creds, Android biz apps are the business

      • Microsoft: 74 Device Partners Will Bring Office To Android [Ed: or else Microsoft will sue them using patents.]

      • Microsoft Brings Bloatware to Android, Time Inc. Buys MySpace… [Tech News Digest]

        Microsoft is talking this up as a good thing for you and I, saying the pre-installation of these apps “increase the value of those devices by delivering the rich productivity experiences customers want.” However, we suspect most people will disagree with that assessment, and would prefer instead to choose which apps they install by themselves.

      • Add missing places to your Google Maps Timeline on Android

      • Google Clock v4.3 Update For Android Brings Resizable Widgets And More: What To Expect

      • A simple free Android app that will make your phone much faster

      • Sony Xperia Z5 and Moto G 2014 got Updated to Android 6.0 Marshmallow Update

Free Software/Open Source

• Pinterest open-sources its Teletraan tool for deploying code

  As promised last year when the company introduced it, Pinterest today announced that it has released its Teletraan tool for deploying source code on GitHub under an open source Apache license.

  “Teletraan is designed to do one thing, deploy code,” Pinterest software engineer Baogang Song wrote in a blog post. “Not only does it support critical features such as zero downtime deploy, rollback, staging and continuous deploy, but it also has convenient features, such as displaying commit details, comparing different deploys, notifying deploy state changes through either email or chat room, displaying OpenTSDB metrics and more.”

• Split Emerges in Open Source MANO Efforts

  A broad attempt to create a single open source effort around managing and orchestrating NFV is now bifurcating into two separate groups, based on irreconcilable views of how to best standardize the MANO going forward.

• Events

  • Share your love for free software

    Yes, we love Free Software and this readily means that we love technology, people, social equanimity, and the various meanings one may take on for the word “freedom”. We care about it and we all want to bear witness of the growth and consolidation of new projects, and the progress of elder ones into full-fledged solutions driven by healthy and thriving communities. Free Software communities are inherently diverse and put together people with different motivations, expectations, and interests. Some are there to make friends and advance their technical and social skills, while others want to pursue the dream of an open world or even have Free Software as their daily paid job. In spite of such a diversity, one thing unite all of us in this Free Software odyssey: we love what we do.

  • Encryption: probably better than a box of chocolates

    This is a fun activity, but it can also make a difference. The right to encrypt is endangered around the world, with governments threatening our security and freedom by demanding legal or technological crippling of encryption. Resist with the power of love — encrypt with your valentine, and tell the world!

    And as we’ve discussed at length, free software is necessary for privacy online. Because nonfree software’s code can’t be audited publicly, we can never trust it to be free of back doors inserted by accident or by design. We’re thankful to all the hardworking free software developers who give us a fighting chance at digital privacy. It goes without saying, but we do love FS.

  • Sharing the free software love #ilovefs

    I like to think of every day on Opensource.com as I love Free Software Day, but we couldn’t miss celebrating the official I love Free Software Day 2016, too. Granted, the official day to say “thank you” is on February 14th, so we’re showing our love a little early to make sure you don’t miss it.

  • OpenStack Summit Austin 2016 Presentation Votes (ends Feb. 17th, 2016)

    Open voting is available for all session submissions until Wednesday, Feb 17, 2016 at 11:59PM PST. This is a great way for the community to decide what they want to hear.

    I have submitted a handful of sessions which I hope will be voted for. Below are some short summary’s and links to their voting pages.

• Web Browsers

  • Mozilla

    • Firefox 44.0.2 Arrives for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X

      Mozilla launched a second update for the Firefox 44.0 branch, but this is a smaller release with just a couple of smaller fixes, albeit the security issue is quite important.

    • Mozilla Thunderbird 45.0 to Finally Bring GTK3 Integration for Linux, Sort Of

      Earlier today, Mozilla has come out with the sixth point release of the stable 38.0 branch of its Thunderbird e-mail, news, and chat client, fixing a few minor issues reported by users since the 38.5.x series.

    • Make your own Firefox OS TV

      Mozilla may not be actively developing Firefox OS for smartphones anymore… but the company is still pushing the operating system as an option for smart TVs and Internet-of Things products.

      Don’t want to spend money on a TV that comes with Firefox OS? You can build your own Firefox-based smart TV device… sort of.

    • Mozilla refocuses Firefox OS on connected devices

      One by one, the promising new smartphone operating systems, which hoped to chip away at the Android/iOS duopoly, are admitting defeat and refocusing on the less entrenched world of wearables and the Internet of Things. Mozilla has joined that sad procession, in the wake of Samsung Tizen, webOS and Baidu Cloud OS, and perhaps just ahead of Windows Phone, to judge by that platform’s increasingly tiny showing in Microsoft’s results.

• Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

  • LibreOffice 5.1 Looks Better and Plays Nicer with Other Office Apps

  • LibreOffice 5.1 shows first signs of a new user interface

    The Document Foundation today announced the release of LibreOffice (LO) 5.1. With this release, LO is moving toward a totally reorganized user interface.

    In earlier conversations with LibreOffice developers and The Document Foundation whenever I would ask about modernizing the UI they told me that their first priority was to clean up the code they inherited from OpenOffice. And once the codebase is clean they would start to focus in UI.

    That day has finally come.

• Education

  • Feedback on teaching open source usability

    I was pleased that ten students signed up for the elective. This may seem small, but it is a significant number for a campus of some 1,900 students and a small computer science department. The same number of students also signed up for other electives that semester, including a course on databases. I organized the class similarly to the usability projects I mentor for Outreachy. Over thirteen weeks, students learned about open source software and usability testing. Most weeks included two assignments: summarizing several assigned articles, and exercising their knowledge of that week’s topic. Later in the semester, students moderated two in-person usability tests; the second was their final project.

    At the end of each semester, students responded to a course evaluation, called the Student Rating of Teaching. The evaluation is totally anonymous. I don’t know which students made which comments, or indeed which students chose to respond to the survey.

• Pseudo-/Semi-Open Source (Openwashing)

  • Swift’s Benchmarking Suite is Now Open Source [Ed: to help Apple lock-in]

    Apple has open sourced Swift’s benchmarking suite, a key piece in tracking Swift performance and catching performance regressions when adding new features to the language.

    Swift’s benchmarking suite is a collection of Swift source files that implement test suites and benchmarking helper functions, plus a number of Python scripts that implement a test harness and facilities for metrics comparison.

• Funding

  • Faking Open, Debian Influence, Da Linux

    Matt Asay today said that there is no money in Open Source software because the “open source companies” that get rich don’t do it with Open Source software. The big story today must be the Russian government’s plan to dump Windows for Linux. Debian 6.0 will reach its end-of-life at the end of the month and Tecmint.com recently looked at the influence Debian has had on the Linux community. A new website helps you decide what you can do for Fedora and I Love Free Software day approacheth. New openSUSE Board member Bryan Lunduke sees some problems in KDE Neonland and Swapnil Bhartiya shared his picks for best distros of 2016.

  • Face it: There’s no money in open source [Ed: says Asay from Adobe]

• FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

  • FSF: You did it! The fundraiser was a success — are you ready for what’s next?

    Once again, the free software community helped put the FSF in a strong position to tackle our list of free software initiatives in 2016, by giving $5 or $10,000, becoming a member for the first time, donating a little bit extra this year, and simply helping spread the word. We’ve said it before, but we’ll say it again: we really can’t do this work without your passion and generosity.

  • [denemo] Release 2.0.2 is out now.

• Openness/Sharing

  • Open Access/Content

    • Open-Source Textbooks Gain Support to Improve College Affordability

      Universities and state governments are supporting open-source textbooks as a way to make college more affordable.

      The open textbooks are produced with publicly available material. They are issued to students for free or a small fraction of the hundreds of dollars they typically spend annually on books.

    • OUR VIEW: Making college texts — if not college — affordable

      We’re all familiar with the high cost of a college education: estimated expenses for a year at the University of Connecticut, including on-campus housing, is, according to the school’s website, $25,802. So that’s a little over $100,000 for a four-year education. And that’s only the beginning.

      If a student takes four courses each semester and each requires one or more textbooks, the annual cost for books and supplies could be as much as $1,200, according to the College Board. Of course, if more than one book is required or if the student selects one of the high-cost majors, it could be far more. The standard textbook for Fundamentals of General Chemistry I at the University of Connecticut has a list price of $303.

    • Researcher illegally shares millions of science papers free online to spread knowledge

      A researcher in Russia has made more than 48 million journal articles – almost every single peer-reviewed paper every published – freely available online. And she’s now refusing to shut the site down, despite a court injunction and a lawsuit from Elsevier, one of the world’s biggest publishers.

      For those of you who aren’t already using it, the site in question is Sci-Hub, and it’s sort of like a Pirate Bay of the science world. It was established in 2011 by neuroscientist Alexandra Elbakyan, who was frustrated that she couldn’t afford to access the articles needed for her research, and it’s since gone viral, with hundreds of thousands of papers being downloaded daily. But at the end of last year, the site was ordered to be taken down by a New York district court – a ruling that Elbakyan has decided to fight, triggering a debate over who really owns science.

    • WHO Full Speed On Zika R&D, Two Candidate Vaccines Emerging; Funders, Journals Commit To Sharing Of Data

  • Open Hardware

    • $99 CowTech Ciclop Open Source 3D Scanner Hits Kickstarter (video)

      So if you think CowTech Ciclop 3D scanner is something you could benefit from, visit the Kickstarter website now to make a pledge and help this awesome $99 open soruce 3D scanner become a reality.

    • Faircap Project: Open source 3D printed water filter aims to solve global crisis for just $1

      The Faircap Project is a collaborative, clean water initiative, whose aim is to create an affordable open source 3D printed water filtration device that could provide clean, safe, drinkable water to those in need. The startup has already created a working prototype, but is now calling on engineers, designers, microbiologists, or anyone interested in helping to pitch their own open source ideas and make the Faircap filter as low cost and accessible as possible.

• Standards/Consortia

  • Is the vinyl LP an open music format?

    This is my first article for a new column here on Opensource.com about music from an open point of view. Some things I won’t be doing: I won’t be concentrating solely on music released under an open license. I won’t be writing (much) about making one’s own music. I won’t be writing (much) about music theory or professional matters, or probably really very much of anything of interest to professional musicians.

    I will write about music I encounter that interests me for one reason or another. I’ll tell you about how to enjoy music in an open environment, like on a Linux-based laptop, desktop, or server. I’ll share hardware I’ve purchased or tried out that works well, and some that doesn’t, in an open environment. I promise to write about good places to buy music that are Linux-friendly (that is, those that don’t require installing downloaders that only run on other operating systems). And I will point out some other websites, and occasionally print media, that increases my enjoyment of music.

Leftovers

• Rolf Harris charged with seven counts of indecent assault

  The disgraced entertainer Rolf Harris has been charged in relation to new allegations of indecent assault against seven victims.

  Harris, who is serving five and a half years in prison for a string of sex attacks on girls as young as seven, will be brought before magistrates next month. He is charged with seven further offences of indecent assault against seven young girls and women aged between 12 and 27 between 1971 and 2004.

  The charges come as a result of further information investigated by Operation Yewtree, the Met police inquiry into Jimmy Savile and other high-profile individuals suspected of child sex abuse.

• UK Court Tells Online Mapping Company It’s Not Illegal For Google To Also Offer Online Maps

  It’s still somewhat strange to me to see how badly some companies react to basic competition. Yes, sometimes that means companies lose, but it doesn’t automatically make any and all competition unfair. An online map company, StreetMap.Eu sued Google a few years ago, claiming that Google’s entrance into the online mapping world, and specifically including maps in search results, was unfair competition. However, the UK High Court has now, rightfully, rejected such a claim.

• Science

  • 70 years ago, six Philly women became the world’s first digital computer programmers

    For most of us born with both feet firmly planted in the information age, it’s far too easy to take modern computers and the internet for granted. We’ll complain about the latest comic book movie’s less-than-perfect CGI, sigh loudly if our movie doesn’t load instantly on Netflix, and we can’t even imagine life without smartphones anymore.

  • USDA inspector general to investigate alleged censorship of scientists

    The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s inspector general said Friday that she plans to investigate alleged censorship of agency scientists working on controversial issues.

    USDA Inspector General Phyllis Fong told a U.S. House subcommittee her office will soon open a broad investigation following a “significant volume” of complaints from the department’s scientists.

  • USDA Inspector General may survey agency scientists about censorship

    “In a growing number of cases, USDA managers are interfering, intimidating, harassing, and in some cases punishing civil service scientists for doing work that has inconvenient implications for industry and could have direct policy/regulatory ramifications,” the petition said.

• Health/Nutrition

  • ‘Selling off NHS for profit’: Full list of MPs with links to private healthcare firms

    PM David Cameron and Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, Lib Dems Nick Clegg and Vince Cable are also on the list – here is the full rundown. Is your MP on there?

  • Jeremy Hunt launches urgent inquiry into junior doctors’ morale

    Jeremy Hunt has launched an urgent inquiry into the level of junior doctors’ morale and welfare as large numbers threaten to quit the profession over being forced to accept a new contract.

    The Health Secretary appointed Dame Sue Bailey of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges to lead the review.

    Mr Hunt has been widely criticised by junior doctors, who voted to strike over his new proposed contract by 98 per cent.

  • Petition calling for vote of no confidence in Jeremy Hunt to be considered for debate in Parliament after reaching 100,000 signatures

    A petition calling for a vote of no confidence in Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt will be considered for debate in Parliament after reaching more than 100,000 signatures in less than 24 hours.

    The backlash follows the Health Secretary’s controversial decision to impose the new junior doctor’s contract without further negotiations with the medical profession.

    The petition says: “Mr Hunt recently gave totally inappropriate advice to Google conditions before seeking medical opinion.”

  • E-cigs shut down hundreds of immune system genes—regular cigs don’t

    It’s widely assumed that swapping cigarette puffing for vapor huffing is better for health—after all, electronic cigarettes that heat up and atomize a liquid concoction can skip all the hazards of combustion and smoke. But researchers are still scrambling to understand the health effects of e-cig use (aka vaping) and to track down the variable and undisclosed components of those vaporized mixtures. The most recent data hints at unexpected health effects unique to e-cig use.

    After comparing genetic information swabbed from the noses of smokers, vapers, and non-users of both, researchers found that smoking suppresses the activity of 53 genes involved in the immune system. Vaping also suppressed those 53 immune genes—along with 305 others. The results were presented Friday at the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington.

  • Reporting on Zika When You Have Zika

    There’s a lot we don’t know about the Zika virus, but there’s one thing I’m sure of: I had it last month. I got to Haiti in early January, a few days before the first cases were confirmed in the country’s capital, Port-au-Prince. Two weeks later, my wife started developing symptoms. A blood test confirmed she had the disease. By then, I was experiencing the same symptoms: the low-grade fever, then a mild rash covering my face and chest, pinkish eyes, and when those cleared up, stiff fingers and toes that plumped up like sausages.

    Even before either of us had heard of the virus, we were taking all the precautions. Dengue and the also newly arrived chikungunya virus piggyback on the same Aedes aegypti mosquito; others species carry malaria. Having had dengue years ago, I had no interest in revisiting it or experiencing any of the other offerings. I slathered myself multiple times a day with DEET and wore one of those olive-drab insect-repellent bands. We slept under a Permethrin-treated bed net weighted down on the corners with history books. But Aedes are determined suckers. And once a nonfatal virus starts moving through a population with no immunity to it, especially in a place with little air-conditioning and no organized pest control, it’s all but impossible not to be exposed.

• Security

  • Friday’s security updates

  • Internet Providers to Use Private Routers as Public Hotspots

    The Juniper report highlighted the consumer benefits that the policy offers, such as free or reduced-fee access to the operator’s homespot network.
    At least one in three home routers will be used as public WiFi hotspots by 2017, and the total installed base of such dual-use routers will reach 366 million globally by the end of 2020, according to a report from Juniper Research.

  • Will you be my cryptovalentine?

    Over the last few year Free Software Foundation Europe runs a campaign called “I love Free Software Day”. It’s an opportunity to share your appreciation (or love) with the developers of your favorite Free Software project. So after you are done reading this post, choose your favorite project and send its developer(s) an appreciation email.

    Last year Zak Rogoff , had a great similar idea. On a post he wrote he suggested we use the Valentine’s Day as an opportunity to use Free Software in order to setup secure and private communications with our significant other.

  • Pwn2Own Hacking Contest Returns as Joint HPE-Trend Micro Effort

    Over a half million dollars in prize money is up for grabs as the Zero Day Initiative browser hacking contest continues even as corporate ownership shifts.
    The annual Pwn2Own browser hacking competition that takes place at the CanSecWest conference is one of the premier security events in any given year, as security researchers attempt to demonstrate in real time zero-day exploits against modern Web browsers. This year there was initial concern that the event wouldn’t happen, as the Zero Day Initiative (ZDI), which is the primary sponsor of Pwn2Own, is currently in a state of transition.

  • Kaspersky Researcher Shows How He Hacked His Hospital While Sitting In His Car

    When we visit a hospital, we put our complete trust in our doctor and the medical equipment that he/she uses. With advancement in technology, these equipment have become more complex and interconnected. Sadly, ensuring standard cybersecurity measures is not a top priority of the medical professionals. This fact was recently outlined by a Kaspersky security researcher who hacked a hospital while sitting in his car.

  • Amazon Cloud is Prepared for the Zombie Apocalypse

    There are a number of reasons why an Amazon Web Services (AWS) user might need to violate the acceptable terms of use – including the onset of a zombie apocalypse.

    Amazon updated its terms of service this week alongside its Lumberyard gaming development platform, with a new provision about acceptable use in connection with safety-critical systems.

• Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

  • Sanders Slams Clinton’s Admiration for “Destructive” Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger

    During Thursday’s Democratic debate, Bernie Sanders picked up on a point that Hillary Clinton made during last week’s face-off in New Hampshire about her admiration for former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. “She talked about getting the approval or the support or the mentoring of Henry Kissinger,” Sanders said. “Now, I find it rather amazing, because I happen to believe that Henry Kissinger was one of the most destructive secretaries of state in the modern history of this country. … I am proud to say that Henry Kissinger is not my friend. I will not take advice from Henry Kissinger.” Clinton responded that Sanders has failed to answer questions about whom he would have advise him on foreign policy. Sanders told her, “Well, it ain’t Henry Kissinger. That’s for sure.” We get reaction from economist Jeffrey Sachs, whose recent article is headlined “Hillary is the Candidate of the War Machine,” and from Congressmember Gregory Meeks, Democrat of New York and chair of the Congressional Black Caucus political action committee, which has endorsed Hillary Clinton.

  • Henry Kissinger’s War Crimes Are Central to the Divide Between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders

    The sparring during Thursday’s Democratic presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders over whether Henry Kissinger is an elder statesman or a pariah has laid bare a major foreign policy divide within the Democratic Party.

    Clinton and Sanders stand on opposite sides of that divide. One represents the hawkish Washington foreign policy establishment, which reveres and in some cases actually works for Kissinger. The other represents the marginalized non-interventionists, who can’t possibly forgive someone with the blood of millions of brown people on his hands.

    Kissinger is an amazing and appropriate lens through which to see what’s at stake in the choice between Clinton and Sanders. But that only works, of course, if you understand who Kissinger is — which surely many of today’s voters don’t.

    Some may only dimly recall that Kissinger won a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end the Vietnam War (comedian Tom Lehrer famously said the award made political satire obsolete), and that he played a central role in President Nixon’s opening of relations with China.

  • Lobbyists, Consultants Fret Over Bernie Sanders Victory

    Bernie Sanders won an overwhelming victory in the New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary, capturing nearly every demographic group and 60 percent of the vote. The insurgent democratic socialist from Vermont, however, was not celebrated in some quarters of Washington, D.C., as a number of lobbyists and business political consultants took to Twitter to complain.

    Tony Fratto, the co-founder of Hamilton Place Strategies, a political consulting firm that has previously represented a variety of Wall Street interests including recent work to promote the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement on behalf of large corporations, tweeted in disapproval of Sanders’s rhetoric against the excesses of Wall Street…

• Environment/Energy/Wildlife

  • It turns out this police wildlife officer is really into hunting

    Animal rights groups have called for the immediate dismissal of a police officer charged with investigating illegal fox hunting after it emerged that she quite likes a bit of hunting herself.

    Pc Sharon Roscoe, 46, is both a wildlife officer for Leicestershire Police, which involves looking into allegations of animal trapping, game poaching, and illegal fox hunting among others, and a member of the Duke of Rutland’s Belvoir Hunt in Lincolnshire.

    The Belvoir Hunt was targeted by animal rights groups in December after a video of a dehydrated fox – said to have been held captive for two days in an outbuilding – was released. Now the Hunt Saboteurs Association has launched a petition which calls for the immediate removal of Pc Roscoe, who they say has a conflict of interests.

• Finance

  • Watch Google U.K.’s boss conveniently forget how much he gets paid

    Matt Brittin is the man at the top of Google’s U.K. operation, and he’s either very coy or very forgetful, because he can’t answer the question of how much he gets paid. Brittin was asked during a grilling by the Public Accounts Committee, where he was appearing on behalf of Google U.K. in an ongoing tax row.

    Meg Hillier, head of the committee, led the questioning, asking, “What do you get paid, Mr. Brittin?” She prefaced it by wondering if he really understood the anger over the agreed payment of £130 million ($187 million) in back taxes, which many say is too low. Brittin doesn’t answer, saying that he’ll disclose the figure privately “if it was relevant,” but was shot down by Hillier, who responded, “I’m asking you, so it’s a relevant matter.”

  • Desperately seeking signs of inflation

    Now markets have delivered their verdict on inflation – it’s not picking up any time soon – economic data due next week will show whether price pressures are rising meaningfully or falling back in some of the world’s major economies.

    A global rout in stock markets, currencies, commodities and bond yields has so far defined 2016 as investors have seemingly lost faith in central banks’ abilities to boost inflation, with signs the world economy is stalling.

  • Under-35s in the UK face becoming permanent renters, warns thinktank

    Nine out of 10 Britons on modest incomes under the age of 35 will be frozen out of home ownership within a decade, according to a study from a leading thinktank that lays bare the impact of surging property prices on the young.

  • A TPP protester’s open letter to Steven Joyce

    Dear Steven Joyce. As a speaker at the recent TPPA public rally I’d like to respond to your ‘open letter to TPPA protesters’.

    First, I am not ‘protesting’ – a pejorative term you use to undermine those who disagree with you.

    I am refuting your Government’s policy. Now to the substance.

  • The Trouble With the TPP, Day 28: Privacy Risks From the Source Code Rules

    Yesterday’s Trouble with the TPP post examined some of the uncertainty created by the surprising e-commerce provision that involves restrictions on source code disclosures. KEI notes that governments have not been shy about requiring source code disclosures in other contexts, such as competition worries. Yet this rule will establish new restrictions, creating concerns about the implications in areas such as privacy. For example, security and Internet experts have been sounding the alarm on the risks associated with exploited wifi routers and pointing to source code disclosures as potential solution.

• PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

  • Corrupt journalism doesn’t pay. Nor does abetting it.

    Former Atlantic contributing editor* Marc Ambinder is showing appropriate contrition for having participated in some dubious journalistic practices back in July 2009. As exposed by some Freedom Of Information Act documents secured by J.K. Trotter of Gawker, Ambinder was pursuing a copy of the speech that then- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was to make at the Council on Foreign Relations. So he emailed renowned Clinton advocate and spokesperson Philippe Reines.

  • Hillary at Selma? Not in 2015…

    Oh, wait, she wasn’t there that year. Obama and his family were there. Hell, even George W. Bush and his wife Laura attended. Where was Hillary (and for that matter, Bill) on this very important 50th anniversary?

  • The BBC in the brave new China

    Will it work? According to Shi Lan, the Assistant General manager of SMG Pictures, the Chinese company that imported the Sherlock special, the BBC’s cultural programming is seen by Chinese audiences as “high-class spiritual food”. Shi explains that the BBC was already prestigious among the higher educated population in China due to the reliability of its information, as well as its unmatched documentaries and dramas. Meanwhile, shows like Sherlock have attracted younger audiences. There is particularly high demand for non-commercial, first-class cultural programming in the first-tier Chinese cities, like Beijing and Guangzhou, though the market remains small. Following the success of Sherlock’s ‘The Abominable Bride’, SGM Pictures will co-produce ‘Earth: One Amazing Day’ with BBC Earth Films and BBC World Service, for release in cinemas in 2017.

• Censorship

  • What Facebook’s policy on nudity means in practice

  • French Court Rules Facebook Can Be Sued for Censorship in Nude Painting Case

  • Facebook could be sued for censoring this 19th-century nude painting

  • Facebook loses nudity appeal in French court

  • France says Facebook must face French law in nudity censorship case

    Facebook will have to face a censorship lawsuit over a 19th century oil painting of a woman’s genitalia, a Paris appeals court ruled on Friday.

    The ruling favored a French teacher whose Facebook account was suspended when he posted an image (NSFW) of a famous Gustave Courbet painting called L’Origine du monde. The portrait depicts a woman naked from the waist down at a graphic angle, and it hangs in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.

    The teacher claimed that Facebook censored him, and he is asking for €20,000 (or about $22,500) in damages. Facebook countered that the man’s lawsuit was invalid because Facebook’s Terms of Service stipulate (section 15) that all users must resolve disputes with the social network, “in the US District Court for the Northern District of California or a state court located in San Mateo County.”

  • Wikimedia Takes Down Diary Of Anne Frank, Uses It To Highlight Idiocy Of DMCA Rules, Copyright Terms

    We’ve written a few times about the copyright status of the Diary of Anne Frank lately, mainly because it’s pretty clear that the original work was supposed to enter the public domain in Europe on January 1st of this year, as it was 70 years after Frank’s tragic death. However, the copyright holder, The Anne Frank Fonds organization in Switzerland has been trying to claim that the work is still under copyright, and that Anne’s father, Otto Frank, is a co-author of the work. Either way, the work is not in the public domain in the US, because the US (ridiculously) grants copyrights for an even longer term than Europe.

  • Tel Aviv Museum Director Rejects Accusations of ‘Self-censorship’ Over Nixed Ai Weiwei Exhibit

    Tel Aviv Museum of Art director Suzanne Landau defends her organization’s recent actions, and says she isn’t afraid to resign if the culture minister tells her to censor something.

  • When comedy and censorship collide, who laughs longest?

    The question of when comedy crosses the line will be central to a debate looking at the relationship between jokes and freedom of speech.

    On Sunday 14 February, Say What You Like: Comedy, Politics and Free Speech, organised by Brunel University London’s Centre for Comedy Studies and Magna Carta Institute, will ask a panel made up of comedians and academics to discuss the relationship between comedy and censorship.

  • Italy’s Gesture of ‘Respectful’ Self-Censorship for Iran Ends Up Offending Italians

    As soon as a nuclear agreement was signed in Vienna between Iran and the so-called P5+1 countries putting an end to the trade sanctions against the Islamic Republic, the visits of western industrialists and political representatives looking for contracts began in Tehran.

    Then it was Iranian President Hassan Rouhani‘s turn to visit European countries, accompanied by six ministers and 120 entrepreneurs of various economic sectors. He concluded his first stop-over in Rome, signing contracts for a total value of more than 17 billions euros in a wide range of sectors.

    This official visit in the Italian capital aimed to strengthen the relationship between Italy and Iran after the end of the sanctions. A gesture of “respect” towards Iran, however, seemed to undermine that very relationship, at least in the public’s eyes: Many naked sculptures in the Capitoline Museums were covered up by large white panels so as “to not offend the sensitivity of the Iranian President”, as Italian news website Ansa explained.

  • Kevin Kiley out at 92.3 The Fan: ‘You shouldn’t accept censorship ever’

  • Cleveland Radio Dummy Cries Censorship

  • Cleveland radio host who blasted NFL women resigns over ‘censorship’

  • Cleveland radio host resigns

  • Philadelphia Museum of Art Pushes Back Against Yet More Facebook Censorship

  • Evelyne Axell’s ‘Ice Cream’ picture is ‘too suggestive’ for Facebook

  • Facebook Thought This Image Of A Woman Eating Ice Cream Was So Vulgar, It Deleted It!

  • Facebook doesn’t want you to see this picture

  • Missouri Lawmakers Push To Punish Mizzou Because Students Protested

  • Mo. Lawmaker Limits Univ. Budget Over Campus Protests

  • Missouri professor calls her protest actions embarrassing

  • Student who shot Melissa Click video asks lawmakers to relent on University of Missouri budget

  • Melissa Click breaks silence, apologizes for censorship incident at Univ. of Missouri

  • Professor breaks her silence after notorious censorship video

  • Student Journalist Disputes Claims Made By Melissa Click

  • Lawmakers upset over Melissa Click and protests deny budget boost to University of Missouri

  • Communications Professor Who Tried to Block Journalist During Student Protest Speaks to KMIZ

  • Missouri lawmakers act to block home care worker wage hike

  • Mizzou Professor ‘Embarrassed’ About Actions During Protests

  • Failure to fire teacher could cut state funds to University of Missouri system

  • Mizzou Professor ‘Embarrassed’ by Actions

  • MU Professor Professor Speaks Out About Student Protests

  • Missouri professor says she was not calling for violence during protests

  • MU professor Melissa Click is ‘embarrassed’ by campus protest video

  • Missouri professor who called for ‘muscle’ in video regrets her behavior

  • TheChat: Melissa Click says she was `flustered’

  • Mizzou prof. who called for ‘muscle’ apologizes again

  • Google to scrub web search results more widely to soothe EU

  • Google Search Results In Europe Will Be Filtered Across Domains

  • Google To Remove Right-To-Be-Forgotten Links Worldwide, For Searchers In European Countries

  • Google Updates Right To Be Forgotten To Appease The EU

  • Google Partially Caves To French Demands For More Global Censorship Of ‘Forgotten’ Links

  • How Google’s personalized results could influence your search rankings

  • Google to change its implementation of EU’s ‘right to be forgotten’ ruling

  • Google to extend ‘right to be forgotten’ to all search sites for EU users

  • Google to comply more strictly with EU’s ‘right to be forgotten’ act

  • Google expands ‘right to be forgotten’ to all global search results

  • Google Blocks Right to Be Forgotten Removed Results from All EU Searchers

  • Google filters IPs to comply EU’s Right To Be Forgotten rules globally next week

  • Google Makes a Final Step Towards EU Acceptance

  • Google gives more ground in battle against Europe’s ‘right to be forgotten’

  • Google will remove search results for searches outside European Union starting March

  • Google To Delete Links Under Right To Be Forgotten More Widely

  • Google Extending Scope Of Europeans’ ‘Right To Be Forgotten’ Requests To Censor US Search Results

  • Google to narrowly expand Europeans’ ‘right to be forgotten’

  • In response to EU data concerns, Google to clean search results

  • Google Focuses On IP Address To Censor European Search Results

  • Google Implements Right To Be Forgotton Across EU

  • Google Expands ‘Right To Be Forgotten’ To More Websites

  • Privacy victory, as Google removes ‘right to be forgotten’ content across EU

  • Google finally complies with ‘right to be forgotten’- but on its terms

  • Google expands right to be forgotten across all Its domains

  • Google to extend ‘right to be forgotten’ to all domains

  • Google pacifies Euro privacy advocates with Google.com fudge

  • Two Years Later, Google Fixes Right-To-Be-Forgotten Implementation – Reuters

  • Google to Expand ‘Right to be Forgotten’ Effort to Soothe EU Objectives

  • EU’s “Right to Be Forgotten” Policy Sets Bad Precedent for Free Expression Worldwide

  • Google Expands the Right to be Forgotten to All of Europe

  • Is Europe’s privacy crackdown working?

  • Google expands the ‘right to be forgotten’ in Europe

  • Google Will Eliminate Search Results to Comply with European Law – The Right to Be Forgotten

  • Google Reportedly to Further Enforce EU’s Right to Be Forgotten Mandate

  • Google Right To Be Forgotten Coverage Expands

  • In response to European Union data concerns, Google to clean search results

  • Google.com Extends ‘Right To Be Forgotten’ for Europeans

  • Google To Further Block Some European Search Results

  • Google just made a major expansion to Europe’s ‘right to be forgotten’

  • Google just closed a major loophole in Europe’s ‘right to be forgotten’

  • Google extends ‘right to be forgotten’ to all domains

  • Google Doubles Down on ‘Right to be Forgotten’ Removals

  • Google to Strictly Adhere to EU’s “Right to be Forgotten” Principle

  • Google widens scope of “right to be forgotten” due to pressure from EU privacy laws

  • ‘Right to be forgotten’ extended to all Google domains in EU

  • Google’s Censorship Compromise Panned By Digital Rights Group

  • Google Proceeds To Blocking Search Results In Europe

  • Google Agrees To Censor Search Results More Broadly For Europeans

  • Google To Censor US Search Site For European Users

  • Google to scrub web search results more widely to soothe EU objections

  • Google will make it easier to be ‘forgotten’ online in Europe

  • Google takes wider action on ‘right to be forgotten’

  • Google Will Further Block Some European Search Results

  • Google to extend ‘right to be forgotten’ to all its domains accessed in EU

  • Google is expanding coverage of the ‘right to be forgotten’ ruling

  • Google to hide content across all versions

  • Google extends block on ‘right to be forgotten’ search results

  • Google extends users’ ‘right to be forgotten’ to calm regulators

  • Google will hide content removed using ‘right to be forgotten’ ruling in all versions

  • ‘Right to Be Forgotten’ Expanding to Google.com in EU

  • Google will extend the Right to be Forgotten to Google.com

  • In Europe, Google will now remove ‘right to be forgotten’ search results from all its sites

  • Why is Google scrubbing some of it search results in Europe?

  • Google Finally Expands Europe’s Search Delisting To Google.com Domain

  • Google extends European Right to Be Forgotten link blocks

  • Google ‘Right to Be Forgotten’ to Be Applied More Widely

  • Google Is Taking More Steps to Enforce Europe’s ‘Right To Be Forgotten’

  • Google Bends to European Pressure on Right to be Forgotten Rule

  • Google to expand right-to-be-forgotten search rules in Europe

  • Google to hide content on all versions

  • Google expands right-to-be-forgotten removals under Europe rules

  • Censorship is becoming ‘the new normal’, warns journalist and feminist activist Julie Bindel

    Censorship is quickly becoming “the new normal,” not only on university campuses, but in society as a whole, according to a leading British journalist and feminist activist.

    Voicing her opinions in a short video clip, recorded by The Guardian, Julie Bindel has spoken out after more than half a million people signed a petition last month to ban US presidential hopeful Donald Trump from entering the UK.

    In the video, which has gone viral since its publication on Wednesday, Bindel also makes reference to the “pick-up artist” known as Roosh V – who called for rape to become legalised in certain circumstances – whom protesters have been calling to be banned from Britain after he announced a series of “meet-up” events for his followers across the country.

  • Our Response To Yet Another Bogus Legal Threat From Australia: Go Learn Some Law

    So… you may recall that, back in December, we received and responded to a ridiculous and bogus legal threat sent by one Milorad “Michael” Trkulja from Australia. Mr. Trkulja had sent the almost incomprehensible letter to us and to Google, making a bunch of claims, many of which made absolutely no sense at all. The crux of the issue, however, was that, back in November of 2012, we had an article about a legal victory by Mr. Trkulja against Google. The issue was that when you searched on things like “sydney underworld criminal mafia” in Google’s Image search, sometimes a picture of Trkulja would show up. His argument was that this was Google defaming him, because its algorithms included him in the results of such a search and he was not, in fact, a part of the “underworld criminal mafia.”

• Privacy

  • Administration denies playing ‘shell game’ with spy programs

    The Obama administration on Friday attempted to bat down charges that it is playing a “shell game” with various intelligence powers.

    In the course of a court hearing on a long-running lawsuit over the National Security Agency’s (NSA) collection powers, conservative legal gadfly Larry Klayman accused the government of switching up the legal justifications it uses to gather Americans’ data.

    The NSA “played a shell game,” Klayman said. As soon as scrutiny mounted on one program to collect Americans’ phone records, he alleged, it quickly switched to an alternate surveillance mechanism to stay one step ahead.

  • Government Asks Judge to Toss NSA Surveillance Lawsuits

    Rhetoric heated up Friday in the courtroom of the judge who blocked the government’s bulk collection of cellphone metadata, as the government and a conservative activist argued over what to do with three cases against the agency while waiting on an appeals court ruling.

  • Feds Throw Kitchen Sink at NSA Lawsuits

    Government attorneys moved in for the kill Friday, seeking to end the relative luck of legal activist Larry Klayman in his lawsuits against government surveillance.

    The audience was smaller than at past hearings, perhaps because of the USA Freedom Act-ordered end to automatic bulk collection of domestic call records in November, but Klayman pressed ahead, urging U.S. District Judge Richard Leon to keep the fight alive.

  • Bill Would Ban State Efforts to Weaken Encryption

  • Schneier: terrorists will switch to more secure alternatives to avoid encryption backdoors

  • All the president’s spies: Which candidates back the NSA

    National security, and the role that government surveillance plays in it, has been one of the hot-button issues of this presidential campaign.

    The USA Freedom Act — which was passed last June with overwhelming bipartisan support — may have ended the NSA’s mass collection of American’s phone records, but telecom companies will continue to amass your phone data. The only difference is now the NSA must go to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) court for permission to gain access. (Documents leaked by Edward Snowden show that same secret court gave the NSA permission to indiscriminately collect Americans’ phone records in the first place.)

  • Edward Snowden Inspires NSA-Style Surveillance Video Game

    Whistleblower Edward Snowden has inspired a new video game that aims to expose the “suffocating privacy invasions” carried out by intelligence agencies.

    Need to Know, developed by Australia-based Monomyth Games, requires players to climb the ranks of the Department of Liberty, a government agency based on the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), whose mass surveillance practises Snowden exposed through his 2013 leaks.

  • Marsh names former U.K. intelligence director as cyber risk adviser

  • GCHQ hacking phones and computers is legal, says top UK court

  • Spies win the right to hack smartphones of suspects

  • UK tribunal rules that GCHQ hacking does not violate human rights

  • GCHQ hacking does not breach human rights, security tribunal rules

  • GCHQ did not break the law when it hacked networks, says tribunal

  • Fifth of GCHQ intelligence comes from hacking

  • Tribunal rules computer hacking by GCHQ is not illegal

  • GCHQ ‘equipment interference’ legal under human rights law, Investigatory Powers Tribunal rules

  • GCHQ ‘equipment interference’ legal under human rights law – tribunal

  • Brit spies can legally hack PCs and phones, say Brit spies’ overseers

  • Court rules it is not illegal for GCHQ to hack computers

  • UK’s Draconian GCHQ Given Unimpeachable Powers To Hack, Track And Steal Data From Citizens

  • UK court: GCHQ hacking phones and computers is legal

  • UK Surveillance Oversight Board Says It’s All Cool When GCHQ Hacks Basically Anyone

    This isn’t a huge surprise, but the UK’s Investigatory Powers Tribunal — which is a sort of extremely weak “oversight” board, charged with making sure that the GCHQ isn’t violating the law, but with no real powers over GCHQ and a history of supporting its spying, has now said that the GCHQ’s hacking of computers, networks and phones is perfectly fine.

  • How The Dark Net Is Making Drug Purchases Safer By Eliminating Associated Violence And Improving Quality

    That blinkered attitude ignores the important advantages moving drug sales from the physical world to the digital one brings not just for for users and dealers, but also for society as a whole, which does not have to deal with the social and economic consequences of violence on the streets, or with the long-term damage caused by poor-quality products. Along the way, his remarks inevitably and unhelpfully reinforce the view that the dark net is evil, and thus is something to be destroyed.

  • Should you get rid of your smartphone? [Ed: does not cover privacy aspects.]

    So I think it’s possible to keep using a smartphone, but in a way that doesn’t lend itself to wasting vast amounts of time being constantly distracted by middling notifications, text messages, social media, etc.

• Civil Rights

  • If The CIA Apologizes For Lying About Torture, But Doesn’t Tell Anyone About The Apology, Does It Really Count?

    Remember the Senate Intelligence Committee’s massive CIA torture report, that details how the CIA conducted a vast program of torturing people, which had no actual benefit, and then lied to Congress (repeatedly) about it? The same report that, when the heavily redacted executive summary was released, ex-CIA officials insisted would result in attacks on America that never actually happened?

    This was also the same CIA torture report that the CIA vehemently disagreed with. Even prior to the (again, heavily redacted) executive summary being released, CIA Director John Brennan had responded to the report, insisting that it was full of lies and misleading claims. That initial response, which happened in the summer of 2013 took issue with many of the claims in the report. When the redacted executive summary of the report was finally released, the CIA apparently publicly posted a “correction” about its claims concerning the report, in which it noted that many of the statements the CIA had made in attacking the torture report were actually… not true.

  • ‘Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace’ Turns 20, Opera Fetches $1.2 Billion & More…

    Two important Internet events happened 20 years ago this week and a web browser gets an unexpected — to us — windfall.

  • Court Won’t Let Government Screw Forfeiture Victim Out Of Legal Fees

    The government has made one last attempt to screw over a victim of an IRS bank account seizure. The screwing began in December of 2014, when the IRS — despite stating it would not perform forfeitures if there was no clear evidence of wrongdoing — lifted $107,000 from convenience store owner Lyndon McLellan. This was yet another one of the IRS’s “structuring” cases, predicated solely on the fact that multiple deposits under $10,000 were made. ($10,000 triggers automatic reporting to the federal government.)

    After the IRS announced it would not be pursuing questionable structuring seizures — thanks mainly to several rounds of negative press — it still continued to pursue McLellan’s case, despite IRS Commissioner John Koskinen telling a Congressional subcommittee that this was exactly the sort of case the IRS would no longer be pursuing.

  • Aviva Chomsky on Immigrant Workers & the Newspaper Business

    This week on CounterSpin: US politicians and media talk about immigration all the time, but unless Thomas Friedman meets a chatty cab driver, we don’t very often hear from immigrants themselves—and rarely at any length or with much substance. That’s a problem in its own right, but the invisibility also makes it much easier to demonize immigrants, particularly the undocumented, and to tell stories about the role of immigration in US history that simply aren’t true.

• Internet/Net Neutrality

  • CenturyLink Follows Comcast’s Lead, To Start Charging Broadband Overage Fees

    You can add CenturyLink to the growing number of ISPs charging more money for the same product thanks to limited broadband competition.

  • Congress Passes Permanent Internet Access Tax Ban… But May Enable More e-Commerce Sales Tax

    In 1998, Congress passed the Internet Tax Freedom Act (ITFA), which placed a ban on taxing internet access. The bill was temporary, and every few years had to be extended by Congress to stop attempts to add taxes to the cost of your internet access. For a long time, there’s been a push to make the ITFA permanent, and Congress finally did that yesterday, when the Senate approved such a bill (the House approved its version last summer). As Senator Ron Wyden noted in response to this passing, this inevitably saves the public a lot of money on a vital service. He notes that mobile phone service is taxable, and average consumers pay a 17% tax on such service. The President still needs to sign the bill, but it would be a surprise if he vetoed it.

  • Stop Mega-Cable Merger to Avoid a Second Comcast

    Americans are divided in many ways, but there are some points of convergence—one of which seems to be hatred of the cable company Comcast. Notoriously terrible customer service, a pricing system described as “absurd” and a stranglehold on internet speeds garner the cable behemoth a remarkable amount of dislike and distrust, which played a role in the quashing of its recent effort to merge with perennial runner-up for worst company in America, Time Warner Cable.

• DRM/Restrictions

  • People are deliberately bricking their iPhones by going back in time

    According to a thread on Reddit, any 64-bit iOS devices suffer from a problem that renders them unusable if the time and date settings are set to a specific point.

    Needless to say, though I will anyway, you shouldn’t try this at home, or work, or anywhere else really – unless you fancy a trip to your local Apple Store.

  • Setting the date to 1 January 1970 will brick your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch

    Manually setting the date of your iPhone or iPad to 1 January 1970, or tricking your friends into doing it, will cause it to get permanently stuck while trying to boot back up if it’s switched off.

    The bug within Apple’s date and time settings within iOS causes such an issue that users are reporting that the fail-safe restore techniques using iTunes are not able to repair the problem.

  • A New Advocacy Group Is Lobbying for the Right to Repair Everything

    Last summer, when the Copyright Office asked if anyone wanted to defend the right for video game console jailbreakers to mod or repair their systems, no one had a formal legal argument prepared. A new association representing repairmen and women across all industries was just formed to make sure nothing like that ever happens again.