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Links 26/9/2021: GNU Wget2 2.0.0 and MenuLibre 2.2.3 Released



  • GNU/Linux

    • Desktop/Laptop

      • 8 Reasons Why You Should Use Linux for Programming

        Linux is a platform with a good market reputation. Programmers prefer to use it for multiple reasons. It is easier to set up and run over any system. Moreover, its interface comes up with continuous improvements that make it desirable even for programming assignment help .

        [....]

        No doubt system maintenance is an important thing that requires consideration while setting up and operating the operating system. Linux is simple in maintenance due to its easy to understand interface. The operating system and other software are easier to update. Further, it is a protective system from malware and viruses that helps to arrange data accurately or safely.

        The feature of getting all updates on a regular basis helps a lot in making the system quick over actions. As compared to Linux system maintenance on any other setup is not that easy. Further, it requires third party assistance to update the system and much more. But in the case of Linux it is quick and smart in updating or maintenance without the requirement of any third party system.

    • Kernel Space

      • Google will move to develop innovations for Android in the main Linux kernel

        At the last Linux Plumbers 2021 conference, Google spoke about the success of the initiative to move the Android platform to use a regular Linux kernel instead of using its own version of the kernel, which includes changes specific to the Android platform.

        The most important development change was the decision to move after 2023 to the “Upstream First” model, which implies the development of all new kernel features required in the Android platform directly in the main Linux kernel, and not in its separate branches (functionality will be promoted to the main kernel, and then used in Android, and not vice versa). In 2023 and 2024, it is also planned to transfer to the main core of all additional patches remaining in the Android Common Kernel branch.

        As for the near future, for the Android 12 platform expected in early October, assemblies of the Generic Kernel Image (GKI) kernel will be offered, as close as possible to the usual 5.10 kernel. For these assemblies, a regular release of updates will be provided, which will be placed in the ci.android.com repository. In the GKI kernel, Android-specific additions, as well as hardware-related handlers from OEMs, are moved into separate kernel modules. These modules are not tied to the main kernel version and can be developed separately, which greatly simplifies the maintenance and transfer of devices to new kernel branches.

      • Linux IO_uring Can Now Achieve Up To ~3.8M IOPS Per-Core - Phoronix

        It was just last month when ~3.5M IOPS per-core was impressive with the code for Linux 5.15 to further push Linux's I/O limits. Now for code likely to be included in Linux 5.16 it's currently at 3.8M IOPS with a single tread.

        With this patch series reworking and further optimizing the submission and completion paths, the I/O throughput is upped even more. With block maintainer and IO_uring lead developer Jens Axboe's Intel Optane based rig, he is enjoying around a 3% throughput improvement.

      • Updated AMD P-State Driver Published For Linux - Phoronix

        Earlier this month AMD published their "amd-pstate" Linux driver that leverages ACPI CPPC data to make more informed CPU frequency scaling decisions with an aim to boost the performance-per-Watt for Zen 3 (and eventually Zen 2) processors on Linux. The second spin of that "amd-pstate" Linux kernel driver is now available for testing.

    • Applications

      • MenuLibre 2.2.3 Released

        PrefersNonDefaultGPU was added to the FreeDesktop.org Desktop Entry Specification in version 1.4. It's a hint for the desktop environment to use a non-discrete, more powerful GPU, if it is available. Support for this key was recently added to Xubuntu and elementary, and is making it's way to other desktop environments as well.

        X-GNOME-UsesNotifications is used by GNOME, elementary, and other GTK desktops (possibly others as well) to inform the environment that an app can send notifications. This enables management of those notifications through a single interface. This feature is seen in GNOME and elementary.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • How to analyze Linux system boot time with Systemd - Linux Shout

        Systemd is a system and session manager that is responsible for managing all services running on the system over the entire operating time of the computer, from the start-up process to shutdown. Processes are always started in parallel (as far as possible) in order to keep the boot process as short as possible. But how to know which process took how much time while booting your system, well for that we can use the Systemd as well.

      • How To Install Figma on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS - idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Figma on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, Figma is a popular tool amongst graphic designers and UI, UX designers. It can be used to create wireframes, high-fidelity interface designs, prototyping, etc. One of the most loved features of Figma is its ability to run inside a browser, which makes it platform-independent.

        This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the Figma on Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa). You can follow the same instructions for Ubuntu 18.04, 16.04, and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint.

      • How To Create and Manage Groups in Linux - ByteXD

        A group is a collection of users in Linux that shares some commonalities for the purpose of security, privilege, etc.

        Linux allows its administrators to create different user groups very easily. This is convenient because you can create a user group and manage all of the user’s permissions at once, instead of individually assigning permissions to each user. If you are not familiar with Linux permissions and how to manage them, take a look at this article.

        In this tutorial, we will cover how to create groups in Linux and briefly explain how to manage them.

      • What's the differences between a Docker image vs a container? - Coffee Talk: Java, News, Stories and Opinions

        A container is a collection of one or more processes, organized under a single name and identifying ID that is isolated from the other processes running within a computing environment. That computing environment can be a physical computer or a virtual machine.

        A container image is a template that defines how an image will be realized at runtime.

        While containers started out as a Linux technology, you can create containers within the Windows operating system too.

        The important thing to understand about Docker technology is that it has two main components: the client CLI tool and the container runtime. The CLI tool is used to execute instructions to the Docker runtime at the command line. The job of the Docker runtime is to create containers and run them on the operating system.

      • How To Install Yarn on Debian 11 - idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Yarn on Debian 11. For those of you who didn’t know, Yarn is a package manager for JavaScript that runs on Node.js, allowing developers to manage their application dependencies. It was created to solve a set of problems with npm, such as speeding up the packages installation process by parallelizing operations and reducing errors related to network connectivity.

        This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you through the step-by-step installation of the Yarn on a Debian 11 (Bullseye).

      • How to Install LaTeX Editor TeXstudio 4.0.0 in Ubuntu 20.04 / 21.10 | UbuntuHandbook

        The open-source LaTeX editor TeXstudio 4.0.0 was released! Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu via PPA repository.

        TeXstudio 4.0.0 offers Qt6 support which should improve HiDPI handling. And the official packages for Windows and macOS are now based on Qt6, while Linux build sticks to Qt5.

        The final release is out after 8 alpha, 3 beta and 2 release candidate tests, though it’s announced only with following changes...

      • How to Setup Passwordless SSH Login in Linux with Keys

        Hello Linux geeks, it is always a good practice that Linux systems should be ssh with keys rather than the password. SSH (Secure Shell) keys gives us a secure way to login to Linux and UNIX like servers. When we access Linux systems with SSH keys then it is also known as passwordless ssh authentication.

        In this post, we will learn how to setup passwordless SSH authentication with keys in Linux.

      • How to prevent a Supply Chain Attack in a Linux Environment

        This is a type of cyberattack that seeks to damage an organization by attacking weaker elements in the supply chain. A supply chain attack can happen across any industry.

        Software supply chain attacks occur when attackers insert malicious code in a poorly secured part of the software supply chain. This causes a ripple effect, in which a lot of consumers of the software are impacted by the attack.

      • Setup Load Balancing with HAProxy, Nginx and Keepalived in Linux

        In the conventional method of hosting a server or website, the server is hosted through a single HTTP server. When the clients hit on the server, they are allowed on the server. But, what happens when multiple users, even more; thousands of clients, hit the site at a time for some query? What will happen if the server crashes? How will the single server balance the load? To answer all these questions, we can use the term ‘Load balancing’. If you’re looking for authentic tools for managing traffic of your server, you can definitely setup the HAProxy, Nginx, and Keepalived on Linux for load balancing.

      • This Will Make You a Command-Line Ninja | by Erik van Baaren | Python Land | Sep, 2021 | Medium

        A well-crafted bash command or script can save hours of manual labor. This tutorial will show you exactly how easy it is to become a command-line ninja and automate those tedious tasks. If you need to polish your basics, head over to Shell Commands Every Developer Must Know.

      • What Is the Linux Command Line and How Do You Use It?

        The interface you use to view and interact with an operating system, whether text-based or graphical, is known as a shell. The first shells were text-based. This is because the earliest electronic computers were not household devices. Instead, they were giant mainframes that occupied entire rooms.

        Back then, computing power was pretty low and network connections were slow. You can store very many files, and many users can sign into a system simultaneously over a very slow connection when you’re only working with text.

        In 1969, Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson at Bell Labs developed the Unix operating system, one of the first mainframe operating systems to gain widespread adoption.

        Unix operated on mainframes as a shared system, with people interacting with the computer from individual terminals consisting of only a keyboard and a screen. Users did everything from creating and navigating files to transmitting data by typing commands using a shell, which the mainframe then interpreted.

        If anything went wrong, a system administrator could check via a console, a dedicated text-entry, and display device used for system-related messages such as those concerning the BIOS, bootloader, or kernel. Linux is a Unix-like system that replicates much of the functionalities of Unix, but as free software available to all.

        The Thompson shell (written by Ken Thompson) was the initial shell for Unix, but a replacement came from Stephen Bourne in 1979 known as the Bourne shell. In 1989, Brian Fox create the Bourne Again shell (bash for short) as a free software replacement of the Bourne shell as part of the GNU Project. This is the default shell for most Linux operating systems.

        Thus we have several of the names that are still commonly used for the command line today: command line, shell, terminal, console, and bash.

      • How to Change Login Screen Background in Ubuntu

        This is how you can get rid of those lifeless login screen background in Ubuntu and set a nice picture to welcome you each time you log on.

    • Wine or Emulation

    • Games

      • Derivation: Episode 1 Motion Comic by Itizso on itch.io - David Revoy

        Game developer Itizso on itch.io made a motion comic derivation with the first webcomic episode of Pepper&Carrot. It's an interesting way to give life to this episode.

      • Trouble is brewing over on GOG due to the HITMAN release needing online for some features | GamingOnLinux

        GOG.com, the store that provides itself on offering "DRM FREE" builds of games has recently released Hitman - Game of The Year Edition from IO Interactive and GOG fans are not happy.

        To set the scene a little, this is a single-player stealth game about running around assassinating various targets across a bunch of different missions. It's actually a pretty good game and it has a Linux build available on Steam ported by Feral Interactive, which is not up on GOG.

        Here's the problem: many features in HITMAN require you to have an internet connection. This is different to a game that has online modes which would of course need the internet. This is a game you play by yourself. Story missions and bonus mission can be played offline but you have to be online for most of the progression for item unlocks, new start location unlocks, special contracts, featured contracts, escalation missions and more.

      • Steam Deck: Official Anti-Cheat Support Incoming in 2021

        If you have been following news closely (including with our recent Podcast with James Ramey) it should come as no surprise to see official support for EAC ahead of the Steam Deck launch. As discussed during our interview, this will probably require signed Proton builds in order to have EAC running in the games that require it (one of the requirements of Anti-cheat technology is to have reproducible environments). In practical terms this probably means that custom Proton builds made by third parties (like Proton GE) may not be able to include such support. We will have to see when more details surface.

        [...]

        With these two announcements, it looks like there should be a nice jump in compatibility for anything running under Proton in the very near future (maybe even ahead of the Steam Deck launch). Will that be enough to reach 100% compatibility as announced by Valve? Probably not, but my guess is that the fact that they are shipping a truckload of devkits of the Steam Deck early to developers is going to help for the remaining gaps.

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

        • Turbocharging Kalendar — Kalendar devlog 15

          This week, we have focused on one thing: speed. From UI additions to under-the-hood improvements, Kalendar is now quicker to use and faster to act than ever!

          A lot of this week has been spent profiling Kalendar, finding hotspots, and minimising them. As a result, lots of tweaks now help Kalendar perform better, particularly when using the month and schedule views. By limiting the number of view resets each second, using less resource-intensive components, and eliminating cruft, Kalendar is now significantly faster.

    • Distributions

      • Reviews

        • Pinebook Pro Review: A FOSS Laptop That Doesn't Suck

          Pinebook's Linux-only approach to hardware development makes an attractive proposition for those wanting the all-FOSS experience. But how does its Pinebook Pro laptop stack up against more established opposition, such as the much-loved Chromebook?

    • Devices/Embedded

      • Awesome Raspberry Pi automatic guitar tuner project

        Musicians and Raspberry Pi enthusiasts may be interested in a new project published to the official Raspberry Pi blog this week documenting a new project using the small Raspberry Pi Pico mini PC that can automatically tune your guitar. The Pico powered guitar tuning box has been created by Redditor u/thataintthis otherwise known as Guyrandy Jean-Gilles and makes it easy for you to perfectly tune your guitar. The project is perfect for beginners or those looking for a little help to remove the boredom of tuning your axe before a session.

      • First RISC-V computer chip lands at the European Processor Initiative

        The European Processor Initiative (EPI) has run the successful first test of its RISC-V-based European Processor Accelerator (EPAC), touting it as the initial step towards homegrown supercomputing hardware.

        EPI, launched back in 2018, aims to increase the independence of Europe's supercomputing industry from foreign technology companies. At its heart is the adoption of the free and open-source RISC-V instruction set architecture for the development and production of high-performance chips within Europe's borders.

        The project's latest milestone is the delivery of 143 samples of EPAC chips, accelerators designed for high-performance computing applications and built around the free and open-source RISC-V instruction set architecture. Designed to prove the processor's design, the 22nm test chips – fabbed at GlobalFoundries, the not-terribly-European semiconductor manufacturer spun out of AMD back in 2009 – have passed initial testing, running a bare-metal "hello, world" program as proof of life.

      • FPGA Retrocomputer: Return To Moncky

        This project, called the Moncky project, is a step above the usual 8-bit computer builds as it is actually a 16-bit computer. It is built around an Arty Spartan-7 FPGA dev board running around 20 MHz and has access to 2 x 128 kB dual-port RAM for memory. To access the outside world there is a VGA output, PS/2 capability, SPI, and uses an SD card as a hard drive. This project really shines in the software, though, as the project creator [Kris Demuynck] builds everything from scratch in order to illustrate how everything works for educational purposes, and is currently working on implementing a C compiler to make programming the computer easier.

      • Elderly Remote Keeps Things Simple | Hackaday

        If you are lucky, you’ve never experienced the heartbreak of watching a loved one lose their ability to do simple tasks. However, as hackers, we have the ability to customize solutions to make everyday tasks more accessible. That’s what [omerrv] did by creating a very specific function remote control. The idea is to provide an easy-to-use interface for the most common remote functions.

      • Open Hardware/Modding

        • COVID Green Pass Validator With Raspberry Pi | Hackaday

          It seems like every nation is dealing with the plague a little differently. In June, the EU instated a COVID Green Pass which comes in the form of a paper or digital QR code. It was designed to grease the wheels of travel throughout Europe and allow access to nursing homes. As of early August, the Green Pass is now required of those 12 and older in Italy to gain access to bars and restaurants, museums, theaters, etc. — anywhere people gather in sizeable groups. The Green Pass shows that you’ve either been vaccinated, have had COVID and recovered, or you have tested negative, and there are different half-lives for each condition: nine months for vaccinated, six for recovered, and just forty-eight hours for a negative test.

        • Raspberry Pi smart audio devkit features AISonic IA8201 DSP, microphone array - CNX Software

          Knowles AISonic IA8201 Raspberry Pi development kit is designed to bring voice, audio edge processing, and machine learning (ML) listening capabilities to various systems, and can be used to evaluate the company’s AISonic IA8201 DSP that was introduced about two years ago.

          The kit is comprised of three boards with an adapter board with three buttons connecting to the Raspberry Pi, as well as the AISonic IA8210 DSP board itself connected via a flat cable to a microphone array.

        • Thanks, Sir Clive Sinclair, from Reg readers whose careers you created and lives you shaped

          ...even Linus Torvalds share what the electronics pioneer meant to them

          [...]

          Linus Torvalds was a Sinclair user: Among those influenced by Sir Clive was Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel, who worked on a Sinclair QL before he turned to his most famous work. From 00:30 in the video below, he reminisces about his time using the QL.

        • The Simplest FT8 Transceiver You’ll Ever Build | Hackaday

          Probably the most interesting facets of amateur radio in 2021 lie in the realm of digital modes. Using the limitless possibilities of software defined radios has freed digital radio communication from the limits of what could be done with analogue electronics alone, and as a result this is a rare field in which radio amateurs can still be ahead of the technological curve. On of these newer digital modes is FT8 created by the prolific [Joe Taylor K1JT].

      • Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

    • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

      • Web Browsers

        • Brave reduces the page load performance cost of its adblocker

          An adblocker doesn’t necessarily make your web browser load pages faster. The Brave browser introduced a shiny new and more performant adblocking system in late 2019. However, leftovers from its old system have remained in the browser and have quietly held back its performance potential.

          I could spend time describing the change with numbers (I do at the end), but let’s look at the bigger picture first. The two flame graphs below show a 475 ms window during a page load with the current stable release build of Brave (top), compared to the new and improved nightly releases (bottom). The colored bars indicate work the browser has to complete to finish the page load. Ignore the minutia of the graphs, just look at the big differences.

        • Firefox 92 vs. Chrome 94 Browser Benchmarks On Ubuntu Linux

          Given last week's release of Chrome 94, here are some fresh browser benchmarks looking at Firefox 92 stable against Chrome 94 running on Ubuntu Linux.

          Just as some quick weekend benchmarks and not running any cross-browser Linux benchmarks since earlier this summer, here are some fresh numbers.

          The system this time around is the Intel Core i9 11900K "Rocket Lake" with Radeon VII graphics and using a development snapshot of Ubuntu 21.10 from the default GNOME Shell Wayland session.

      • FSF

        • GNU Projects

          • GNU Coreutils 9.0 Are Here in the Year and a Half After the Previous v8.32

            Core utilities are the basic, fundamental tools of a GNU/Linux system. Coreutils 9.0 brings with it some important improvements.

            [...]

            It’s easy to understand how important they are for each Linux system, giving the following example.

            When Linus Torvalds first wrote and compiled the Linux kernel, he needed a set of very basic system utilities to even begin to perform marginally useful work. The kernel does not provide commands themselves or any type of command shell such as bash. It is useless by itself. So Linus used the freely available GNU Core Utilities and recompiled them for Linux. This gave him a complete operating system that we know today as Linux.

            For those of you who don’t know, previously these utilities were offered as three individual sets of GNU utilities named Fileutils, Shellutils, and Textutils. In September 2002, those three have been combined into a single set of utilities called Coreutils.

            Here you can find the list of commands from the GNU Coreutils 9.0 for Linux/Unix environments.

          • GNU Wget2 2.0.0 released

            Hi,

            we are happy to announce the release 2.0.0 of GNU Wget2.

            Wget2 is the successor of GNU Wget, a file and recursive website downloader.

            Designed and written from scratch it wraps around libwget, that provides the basic functions needed by a web client.

            Wget2 works multi-threaded and uses "modern" features to allow fast operation.

            In many cases Wget2 downloads much faster than Wget due to HTTP2, HTTP compression, parallel connections, use of If-Modified-Since HTTP header and more.

            Wget2 has several new command-line options, see the wiki page for a list and comparison with Wget.

            Wget will be maintained further. The idea is that breaking changes and new functionalities go into Wget2 / libwget.

            Except for WARC and FTP, Wget2 is a drop-in replacement for Wget in most cases. Of course there may be subtle differences, so make sure to test well before replacing Wget by Wget2.

            GNU Wget2 is licensed under GPLv3+. Libwget is licensed under LGPLv3+.

          • GNU Wget2 2.0 Released With HTTP2 & SSL Improvements - Phoronix

            GNU Wget2 2.0 has been released for this successor to GNU Wget. There are many improvements to this GPLv3+ licensed program. Over the original GNU Wget, Wget2 is faster, supports more protocols especially around HTTP/2 and compression, supports multi-threading / parallel connections, and other improvements.

      • Programming/Development

        • QuickLicenseRT Linux 3.0 - Protect and License Desktop Software

          QuickLicenseRT Linux 3.0 implements the QuickLicense 9.1 runtime system to protect and license a Linux desktop applications. Apply licensing to a 32 or 64-bit executable with a few programming commands. Use LinuxWrap to license a compiled executable without programming.

        • Turing Award winner Barbara Liskov on CLU and why programming is still cool ● The Register

          It has been 12 years since Barbara Liskov won a Turing Award for her contributions to practical and theoretical foundations of programming language and system design, and these days the creator of the CLU programming language continues to work on some interesting problems.

          We spoke about innovation, abstraction and encapsulation in the 1970s and today in a recent chat.

          Liskov, now in her 80s, leads the Programming Methodology Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Recently, she has been working on parallel computing and, with a student, developed Byzantine Fault Tolerance* [PDF] in the 1990s, "which turns out to be very significant for the blockchain world," she says.

        • GitLab all set to go public as revenues – and losses – rise

          DevOps darling GitLab has finally filed for an Initial Public Offering (IPO) as revenues continue to grow and losses widen.

          The IPO had been expected in 2020 but the company put things off due to the pandemic until late last week, when the paperwork was filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

          The company, founded in 2014, has remained tight-lipped over the sums involved, although the filed S-1 form recorded that the proposed maximum aggregate offering price is estimated at $100m.

          [...]

          In the IPO document, Gitlabs said it was on course to grow revenues to $233m in its current financial year ending in 2022. This compares to the $152.2m reported in fiscal 2021 and the $81.2m in the year before that.

          However, losses also widened over those years. The net loss in fiscal 2020 was $130.7m – but it was $192.2m in fiscal 2021. Net loss reached $69m for the six months ended 31 July 2021, up from $43.5m for the same time last year.

        • The 10 Core Differences Between C and C++

          C and C++ are two different well-recognized programming languages with the function of assembly language. Though both C and C ++ sound similar with an extra "++" on the latter, their features and usage are distinctive.

          C is a procedural programming language with a static system, whereas C++ is an enhanced version of the C programming language with object-oriented programming support.

    • Standards/Consortia

      • September 30, 2021, is the day the Internet is disabled for millions of smartphones and computers

        Millions of smartphones, game consoles and computers will lose their Internet access by September 30, 2021, as the security certificate on all connected products expires. This applies to all devices marketed and not updated before 2017.

        Smartphones, Computers, Tablets, But game consoles and televisions … the Internet has been everywhere for years. But still, on September 30, 2021, millions of devices may lose connectivity! A giant “blackout” affecting a large number of devices designed before 2017. Why? Because this September 30, 2021, a Certificate Digital security is about to expire, and the lack of an update will prevent another certificate from becoming too widespread to connect to the Internet today, for example watching videos or viewing emails.

  • Leftovers

    • Tech is expensive! Ways you’re wasting money and smart fixes to save [Ed: The premise is wrong, but these suggestions are bad (they trade off/away autonomy)]
    • Integrity/Availability

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • Censorship/Free Speech

      • Texas law banning platforms from social media moderation challenged in lawsuit

        Two IT trade groups on Wednesday challenged the constitutionality of Texas' new social media law, arguing that it compels companies to host speech they disagree with in violation of their First Amendment rights.

        The Texas law, HB 20, was signed by Governor Greg Abbott on September 9, 2021 and takes effect on December 9, 2021. It prohibits large social media platforms from removing content posted by users based on any viewpoint, or the user's location in Texas, unless the content is unlawful.

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • Proposed iPhone protections could put LGBTQ youth at risk – Center for Public Integrity

        Virtual communities have long provided a space for LGBTQ youth to explore their identities, allowing queer children to safely come out of the closet without fear of abuse from unsupportive parents.

        But as technology companies ratchet up surveillance in the name of content moderation, the digital privacy of LGBTQ youth and other vulnerable people may be at risk.

    • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

      • Forget that Loon's balloon burst, we just fired 700TB of laser broadband between two cities, says Alphabet

        Engineers at Alphabet's technology moonshot lab X say they used lasers to beam 700TB of internet traffic between two cities separated by the Congo River.

        The capitals of the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Brazzaville and Kinshasa, respectively, are only 4.8 km (about three miles) apart. The denizens of Kinshasa have to pay five times more than their neighbors in Brazzaville for broadband connectivity, though. That's apparently because the fiber backbone to Kinshasa has to route more than 400 km (250 miles) around the river – no one wanted to put the cable through it.

      • G7 countries outgun UK in worldwide broadband speed test

        Canada (24th), France (19th), Germany (36th), Japan (13th) and the US (14th) all out-performed the UK (43rd), according to the numbers.

        [...]

        Despite the stinging criticism, media watchdog Ofcom has warned people against jumping to conclusions.

        A spokesperson for the UK regulator told us that comparisons like this "should be treated with caution."

        "The speeds people actually get and the speeds people could get are not the same thing. Superfast broadband is available to the vast majority of UK homes, but millions of people are yet to take this up. Many customers might be surprised to learn they can upgrade to faster speeds, for no extra cost,” they said.

        Indeed, when it comes to speed, all the G7 nations are whipped by smaller nations. According to Cable.co.uk, Jersey tops the list with means download speeds of 274.27Mbps, followed by Liechtenstein (211.26Mbps), Iceland (191.83Mbps), Andorra (164.66Mbps) and Gibraltar (151.34Mbps).

    • Monopolies

      • Google ducks questions over reimbursing FCA for scam ads ● The Register

        Google has again refused to say whether it will reimburse Britain's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for all the money it has spent warning consumers about dodgy financial ads carried on the tech giant’s platform.

        The director of Trust and Safety at Google, Amanda Storey, was among a number of tech bigwigs quizzed about economic crime by MPs at the Treasury Select Committee meeting on Wednesday (video link here).

        Speaking yesterday, Storey said: "Scams and fraud are organised crime, much like identity theft or hacking, and we're really working in three main ways to try and tackle that problem. Most recently we launched the Financial Services Certification. So, any advertiser wanting to target a UK user with a financial services ad has to be FCA authorised and has to pass identity checks first before they can run those ads."

      • New Zealand gold kiwifruit “returns” to China: when plant breeders’ rights meet geopolitical realities meet territorial considerations [Ed: Monopolising fruit and plants is a slippery slope, but when the rich write or buy laws, what's going to stop them?]

        In a previous post, this blogger described how a plant variety right for a gold kiwifruit variety in New Zealand had been infringed by a rogue grower. In that decision, the grower was licensed to grow the variety in New Zealand, but it had exported budwood of the gold kiwifruit variety into China and thereby helped to establish substantial orchards there. The judge’s reasoning in the High Court decision was that the act of exporting the material into China had diminished Zespri’s enjoyment of its plant variety right.

        The concept of “diminished enjoyment” of a right was derived from a 2005 decision, Winchester v Cropmark. In that case, the defendant had “arranged” for a barley crop to be grown from unlicensed seed. The defendant then purchased and exported the crop to a brewery in China. The defendant argued that it had not itself sold unlicensed seed and therefore it did not infringe.

        [...]

        A new Plant Variety Rights Bill is due to be passed by 30 December 2021, but is not expected to come into force until mid-2022. That Bill, when it comes into force, will establish UPOV 91 rights, including the right to export material of a protected variety. While that would now make the grower’s exporting of budwood an infringement in New Zealand, it will not solve the problem of the Chinese orchards still producing gold kiwifruit without compensation to the New Zealand plant breeders.

      • Patents

        • Amnio Technology Awarded U.S. Patent for Amniotic Allografts [Ed: No, EPO is not "European Union" so they don't even know what sort of patents they apply for]
        • Amnio Technology Awarded U.S. Patent for Amniotic Allografts

          Amnio Technology, LLC, a global leader in the development and distribution of amniotic tissue allografts, is announcing today that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued a new patent titled, "Enriched Multilayer Amnion Derived Tissue Graft." The new patent strengthens Amnio Technology's intellectual property position by further protecting its advanced allograft manufacturing processes in the United States.

        • [GuestPost] Opinion: Skirting FRAND requirements under the guise of promoting innovation and efficiency (Part I) [Ed: The patent litigation profiteers from WilmerHale aren't journalists and they push a radical agenda here; In #IP Kat's terms, "Opinion" means marketing or lobbying rather than Opinion...]

          In courtrooms across the globe, arguments continue to rage as to the extent of an SEP owner's FRAND undertaking. In exchange for getting their technology incorporated into a standard (meaning that, if essential to the standard, that technology has to be used by users of the standard), SEP owners have to give an undertaking - known as a FRAND undertaking. This undertaking obliges SEP owners to be prepared to licence their patents on Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory (FRAND) terms. Otherwise, unlike normal patents where competitors do not have to use the technology, SEP owners are in a position which could allow them to extract extremely high and possibly anti-competitive royalties from their competitors or stop them from participating in the standard and market completely (which were vices the European Commission wished to be addressed with the ETSI IPR Policy). Thus, the FRAND undertaking is a safeguard that seeks to balance users' interests with SEP owners' interests in protecting their IP. But the courtroom debates in the US, Germany, UK and China have raised numerous unanswered questions about what this means. How wide or narrow is this FRAND undertaking? To whom is the FRAND undertaking owed? What does FRAND even mean? The second question was subject to the CJEU referral in the Nokia v Daimler (see previous posts here), but which has so far remained unanswered in Europe. In the first of a two-parter opinion piece, two US patent and anti-trust litigators in the form of Mark Selwyn, Tim Syrett and Alix Pisani of WilmerHale (who have acted in some of these cases) discuss their view of what is going on and where the answer might, and should lie.

          [...]

          Part 2 will explain how SEP holders’ second argument against licensing component suppliers—that licensing at the end user level is necessary to promote efficiency—also fails to withstand examination. Instead, SEP holders’ true motives are financial gains through royalties that expand beyond their invention (the smallest salable unit)."

        • XORTX Announces Grant of European Patent

          XORTX Therapeutics Inc. ("XORTX" or the “Company”) (CSE: XRX) (OTCQB: XRTXF), a biotechnology company focused on developing therapeutics for the treatment of progressive kidney disease, is pleased to advise that further to its press release of April 6, 2021 that announced the intention of grant, the Company has now received receipt of the patent grant “EPO National Stage of PCT International Application for Compositions and Methods for Treatment and Prevention of Hyperuricemia Related Health Consequences” by the European Patent Office. The patent covers compositions and methods for the prevention and treatment of diabetic nephropathy (DN) using uric acid lowering agent and specifically xanthine oxidase inhibitors. Aberrant purine metabolism and specifically, chronically increased serum uric acid concentrations have been associated with kidney disease progression.

        • Axonics€® Provides Additional Update on Inter Partes Review Proceedings

          -Axonics, Inc. (Nasdaq: AXNX), a global medical technology company that is developing and commercializing novel products for the treatment of bladder and bowel dysfunction, today announced that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued final written decisions on three additional Medtronic patents that Axonics is contesting.

        • IPO Annual Meeting: How counsel transform operations with data
        • IPO Annual Meeting: Counsel dive into anti-anti-suit injunctions [Ed: The patent trolls in the capital of patent trolls, along with notorious boosters of software patents, agreeing with one another on their patent extremism. Patrick Wingrove gives them a platform because the publisher is sponsored by them.]

          Standard essential patent litigation raises some tough jurisdictional challenges for plaintiffs and litigants, a panel told delegates at the IPO Annual Meeting in Austin yesterday, September 21.

          Speakers from InterDigital, Qualcomm, Bardehle Pagenberg, WilmerHale and Shanghai Lung Tin Law Firm said that one of the biggest they faced recently was the threat of anti-anti-suit injunctions (AASIs), and even anti-anti-anti-suit injunctions (AAASIs), in India, China, Germany and the US.

        • Targovax granted European Patent for ONCOS-102 in combination with chemotherapy [Ed: More patents on cancer treatments]

          Targovax ASA (OSE: TRVX), a clinical stage immuno-oncology company developing immune activators to target hard-to-treat solid tumors, today announce that the European Patent Office has granted EU Patent no EP3402889. The patent covers the use of ONCOS-102 in combination with chemotherapy in malignant pleural mesothelioma.

        • Patentee doublethink in regulatory submissions and patent prosecution is inequitable conduct: Belcher v. Hospira (US)

          The US Courts of Appeal of the Federal Circuit (CAFC) found in Belcher Pharmaceuticals v Hospira, Inc that a formulation patent was unenforceable in view of inequitable conduct, in the form of contradictory submissions to the patent office and the regulatory agency (FDA) by the patentee. The case serves to highlight the fine line that innovators sometimes must tread between a) demonstrating the unexpected advantages of drug dose or formulation, and b) convincing regulatory agencies of the obvious safety and efficacy of selected formulation or dose regime for a product, whilst simultaneously avoiding any cognitive dissonance or doublethink.

        • Cosmonautics: The EPO Reports Lift Off In Patent Filings [Ed: The same old propaganda that space travel is only made possible by patents and in the process some reputation laundering for the corrupt EPO]

          Over the past couple of years, news about space has been dominated by the advances in space travel made by private companies. Space-X, Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin, to name a few, have gone from making small steps to taking giant leaps in only a few years.

          In my previous Insight article, I looked at how a ready access to space provides new opportunities for extra-terrestrial research, and discussed some of the IP questions facing these pioneers as space-based-research starts to take off. For the moment, however, the current technological advances and trends in space exploration are already providing a tangible IP metric: patent applications.

          The European Patent Office, in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA) Technology Transfer and Patent Office and the European Space Policy Institute, has recently produced a Patent Insight Report which uses patent filing statistics to analyse the characteristics of innovation in space and, in particular, cosmonautics.

        • Patent Suggests Faraday Future Is About to Enter the Commercial Van Space [Ed: "European patent filing" from "the European Union Intellectual Property Office"? Can the media not tell the difference between EUIPO and EPO (non-EU and not trademarks)?]

          This European patent filing shows a boxy, utilitarian electric commercial delivery van concept.

          Is Faraday Future about to enter the commercial van business? Maybe. A recent patent submitted by the company to the European Union Intellectual Property Office includes illustrations of what appears to be an electric commercial delivery van concept.

        • Innovation and growth report 2020-21 [Ed: British government or UK-IPO deliberately conflating patents (monopolies) with "innovation"; this is how propaganda gets cooked, along with misnomers such as "IP"]

          Innovation is the way we will tackle our biggest challenges now and in the future. It holds the key to achieving carbon net zero, levelling up growth and achieving our ambitions as a global trading nation.

          The UK has an extraordinary heritage of innovation stretching back to the industrial revolution, and an effective intellectual property (IP) regime has been at the heart of its development. We only have to look at the staggeringly rapid development and production of Covid-19 treatments - from laboratory concept to protecting the vulnerable in around 12 months. This is the direct result of an innovative economy that is able to create, invent, finance, organise, administrate and deliver.

        • In re: Juniper Networks [Ed: Abusive Judge Albright, who turned a courtroom into a for-profit corporation by denying the law, is still facilitating parasitic entities for personal gain while the higher courts blast him for it]

          By my count, it’s been over a month and a half since the Federal Circuit issued a decision granting a petition for writ of mandamus arising from the Western District of Texas. (That decision was In re: Hulu on August 2, 2021.) That streak has come to an end, as today the court issued In re: Juniper Networks.

          Like other petitions for a writ of mandamus arising from the Western District of Texas, Juniper Networks, Inc.’s petition concerned the denial of a request for transfer under 28 U.S.C. €§ 1404(a). The case itself involves an assertion of patent infringement by WSOU Investments LLC (referred to as “Brazos”) against Juniper that was filed in the Western District of Texas. Juniper, a Delaware corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California (for those who aren’t familiar with the area, that’s Silicon Valley), moved to transfer to the Northern District of California. Judge Albright denied the motion, reasoning that under the four private interest and four public interest factors governing which district is more convenient, Juniper had not established that the Northern District of California was a clearly more convenient forum for this litigation.

          [...]

          As an ending note, the Federal Circuit also denied a petition for a writ of mandamus arising from the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims in In re: Fermin on the basis that “mandamus relief is not appropriate when a petition fails to seek relief through the normal appeal process.” Here, the petitioner’s prior appeal to the Federal Circuit had been dismissed for lack of subject matter, the petitioner had filed a motion to reconsider at the Veterans’ Court (which the court denied), and had not appealed the Veterans’ Court’s denial of that motion. “Because [the petitioner] here failed to seek review of the Veterans Court’s order by way of a timely filed direct appeal, we must deny his request for this extraordinary relief.” Slip Op. at 2.

        • AIPPI Event Report: Lord Justice Birss looks to the future of civil justice [Ed: Annsley Merelle Ward still amplifier of liars from Bristows (which she came from) and patent maximalists' agenda]

          The AmeriKat was elsewhere in the remote universe, but was lucky to have guest Kat, Anna Duch (Bristows) on hand to report on the event for her and all the other readers who may have missed the session.

        • How to accelerate your patent application at Mexico’s IP office [Ed: Does this look like an article or just marketing? Of course it's just PR spam, but then again this whole network is spam in "news" clothing...]

          Mexico has signed up to a number of international patent agreements and incorporated their provisions into domestic law to ensure that applications are granted without unnecessary delays and costs. Two such regulations are those governing the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) and the Patent Parallel Grant (PPG).

        • The Importance Of Recognising Multiple Priorities In A Single Claim [Ed: This cites the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office, even at the time when it's already deeply compromised]

          Michael has now carried out and reported on a study with his FICPI CET colleague, Harrie Marsman from VO Patents & Trademarks in The Netherlands, to ascertain whether there are other countries that do not fully recognise multiple and partial priorities within a single claim and, if so, whether that can give rise to poisonous priority or poisonous divisionals. The study was prompted by the circumstances leading to the 2016 decision of the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office in case G1/15. Prior to that decision, claims in European patents or patent applications that relied on multiple or partial priorities were vulnerable to anticipation by their European priority applications or by their divisional or parent European applications.

        • Has the Court of Appeal just trapped inventors in 1421?

          Future magic circle trainee Will Holmes considers the ‘historically absurd’ definition of inventor following this week’s DABUS patent ruling

          In 1421, one of the earliest recognisable patents was granted to Filippo Brunelleschi, “a man of most perspicacious intellect, industry and invention” so that he could protect “the fruit of genius and skill”. On Tuesday, however, the UK Court of Appeal ruled that “man” could not be replaced by “machine”.

          The court was considering whether the AI creativity machine DABUS, built by the physicist Dr Stephen Thaler, can be recognised as the inventor of a patent. Thaler believes that DABUS has independently produced novel inventions (the ‘Neural Flame’ and the ‘Fractal Container’) and therefore should be legally recognised as the inventor, whilst he remains the owner of the patent.

          The UK Patents Act 1977 states that an inventor is the “actual deviser of the invention”. Although it appears that DABUS could fit this broad definition, section 13(2) couples the status of ‘inventor’ with ownership. The inventor is the owner of the patent unless it is assigned to another entity. But because DABUS is not a legal person, it cannot own or assign ownership of the patents to anyone. The court’s split decision reaffirmed the IPO and High Court’s previous conclusions: “only persons can be inventors”.

        • European Inventor Award highlights importance of cross-sector technologies [Ed: Sarah Lau of a litigation firm is shilling a PR stunt that corrupt EPO management uses to pass bribes to the media and distract from the crimes]

          Sarah Lau of Kilburn & Strode’s Life Sciences and Chemistry Group looks at the role of interdisciplinary research in some celebrated inventions, and the questions this raises for IP protection.

          Nominations for the European Inventor Award 2022 are open until 1 October 2021. The awards were established in 2006 and are presented annually; after a postponement due to the pandemic in 2020, the 2021 edition took place as a virtual ceremony.

          Winners of the 2022 edition will be announced in mid-2022 and will be selected in five established categories: Industry; Research; Non-EPO countries; SMEs; and Lifetime achievement. There will also be a new category: the Young Inventors prize will be presented to an innovator aged 30 or under to recognise initiatives that use technology to solve a problem within the UN Sustainable Development goals framework. The winner will receive a cash prize. (If you’re interested in nominating an inventor in any of the categories, you can find out how to do so on the European Patent Office’s website.)

        • UK: AI cannot invent a patent [Ed: Poor automated translation]

          In Great Britain, too, an appeals court has now ruled that artificial intelligence cannot be accepted as the inventor of a new patent. This is another setback for the campaign of the US entrepreneur and programmer Stephen Thaler, who is trying in various countries to have a neural network recognized as an inventor. The aim is for an AI to be officially recognized as an inventor. The developers of the AI ​​should only be granted the property rights to the patent claims. So far they have been more unsuccessful than successful, but the fact that the resistance is not quite as unanimous can be seen, for example, from the fact that the most recent decision was only made with two votes to one.

          [...]

          In the now from the Court of Appeal for England and Wales it says passed judgmentthat a patent can only be awarded to one person. Because after a systematic interpretation of the underlying law one can only come to the conclusion that only one person can be an “inventor”. Colin Birss contradicts this, at least in part, in his minority vote. He agrees that a machine is not a “person” in the sense of the relevant law, but according to the law, the space for it in the patent application could simply remain empty, then there would be no inventor. In addition, none of the questions would have arisen if Thaler hadn’t been so “obsessed”, he criticizes.

        • Software Patents

          • Judge Finds AI Co. In Contempt In IP Row, But Won't End Case [Ed: This is a dangerous attack on the First Amendment, threatening a Free software project for speaking about patent trolls going after it]

            A Missouri federal judge on Wednesday rejected a bid by Voice Tech Corp. to enter a default judgment against artificial intelligence company Mycroft AI in a dispute over voice command patents, but did find Mycroft in contempt for reposting online content the court had previously ordered it to remove.

            In a three-page order, U.S. District Judge Roseann A. Ketchmark said Mycroft's conduct didn't rise to the level of contempt to warrant the extreme sanction of ending the case altogether. But she did determine that Mycroft violated an April 2020 order to "assertively take down" portions of a threatening blog post its... Stay ahead of the curve In the legal profession, information is the key to success. You have to know what’s happening with clients, competitors, practice areas, and industries. Law360 provides the intelligence you need to remain an expert and beat the competition.

          • Patenting computer-implemented simulations [Ed: Martin Kohrs at Novagraaf is promoting illegal software patents, citing a decision from crooked panel that's rigged by gangsters who hijacked the EPO; they pay to promote this sham.]

            The decision G1/19 by the Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBA) concerning the patentability of simulations essentially restated that long-established principles should be applied, i.e. those of T 641/00 (COMVIK). According to COMVIK, a claimed feature is only considered to be an inventive step if and to the extent that it contributes to the technical character of the claimed subject matter.

      • Trademarks

        • Impact of brexit on the trademarks applied/registered in the European Union

          This exit as is commonly and popularly referred to as “Brexit” from the EU community has also had important spillover effects and ramifications for IP owners and more so specifically for trademark and design registration holders in the EU community. Under the Withdrawal Agreement between the UK and the EU, Trademark holders in the EU (which erstwhile included UK as well) can apply to register the same right as a stand-alone right in the UK right within nine months after the end of the transition period, this being up to and including 30 September 2021.

          In this write-up, we briefly analyse the important steps that brand owners may need to pro-actively undertake to ensure continued protection of their trademarks in the UK on a stand-alone basis irrespective of their impending trademark applications filed before the EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) of which office the UK was earlier part of. The following table provides the insights regarding the Brexit’s impact on existing trademark applications/registrations in EU from a trademark holder’s perspective...

          [...]

          As regards the status of patents, the European Patent Office (EPO) is not an EU agency and thus the UK leaving the EU would not affect the European patent system. Existing European patents covering the UK also remain unaffected and the protection is granted by the EPO, is valid in the UK even after Brexit.

      • Copyrights

        • AG Hogan advises CJEU to rule that private copying exception also applies in the cloud but that an additional private copying levy might be unavailable [Ed: Maybe stop calling everything "clown"? When you use meaningless terminology you get ludicrous laws. Same for "Hey Hi"...]

          Does the private copying exception and, with it, the fair compensation requirement under Article 5(2)(b) of the InfoSoc Directive apply to reproductions carried out by using cloud-based recording services? If so, can rightholders request the providers of such a service to impose a levy even if their customers (natural persons) have already paid one when purchasing the devices (eg, computers, smartphones, tablets) subsequently used to undertake acts of reproduction covered by that provision?

          These, in essence, are the issues that the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has been called upon to decide in Austro-Mechana, C-433/20, a pending referral from Austria.



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