Josh and Kurt talk about Apple suing NSO using a copyright claim as their vehicle. Copyright is often used as a reason to bring lawsuits, even when it doesn’t always make sense. Copyright has been used by open source to expand rights, and many companies to restrict rights. It’s a very odd law sometimes. At the end of the day it seems the only real path forward for a problem like NSO is up to governments to protect their citizens.
Listener feedback. This is the Git hook example. Save it as **.git /hook/pre-commit** in a valid Git repository, and make it executable with **chmod +x .git /hook/pre- commit**. It gets called any time you tell Git to commit a file, and replaces **foo** with **bar** before committing the file.
Industry-changing open-source project releases, and why the new CentOS Stream 9 might be more noteworthy than you realize.
Last week marked the debut of the highly anticipated Blender 3.0 open-source 3D modeling software. Since then I have been very busy putting Blender 3.0 through its paces with a lot of performance benchmarking across various CPUs and GPUs.
Today's article is focusing on the NVIDIA GPU render performance with Blender 3.0. Unfortunately, the AMD HIP support for Blender on Linux didn't make the v3.0 cut but is being targeted for Blender 3.1 next year. As such on Linux right now with Blender 3.0 the only form of GPU acceleration is using the NVIDIA proprietary driver stack with Blender's CUDA or OptiX back-ends. The OpenCL support was removed as part of the "Cycles X" work and thus for now Linux users will have either just CPU-based rendering or NVIDIA support.
EagleEAGLE is a scriptable electronic design automation (EDA) application with schematic capture, printed circuit board (PCB) layout, auto-router and computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) features.
EAGLE is available for Linux but it’s proprietary software. What are the best free and open source alternatives?
Gaphor is a free and open source modeling application with support for various modeling languages such as UML, SysML, RAAML and C4.
Not aware of the term “modeling language”? Basically, it’s a set of instructions that can be used to create the design and constructions of structures. It could be textual and graphical, both.
The graphical one is easier to look at and figure out how various components of the project are related to each other.
Have you seen a flowchart or sequence diagrams? Those are also a type of graphical modeling in the simplest form.
Autodesk, Inc. is an American multinational software company that makes software products and services for the architecture, engineering, construction, product design, manufacturing, media, education, and entertainment industries. It bills itself as a “… leader in 3D design, engineering and entertainment software”.
The company was founded in 1982 by John Walker, who was a joint developer of the first versions of AutoCAD, the company’s best known software application. Autodesk is listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange, it has over 11,000 employees, and is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area.
While Autodesk develops many high quality applications they are proprietary software. And the vast majority of their products are not available for Linux. This series looks at the best free and open source alternatives.
Blender 3.0 marks the major leap of open-source 3D/2D content creation. This release has numerous changes, ranging from a refreshed user interface to improved rendering options.
This release is sure to excite all 3D artists, regardless of their skill level.
Overall, the release involves many fascinating changes and could be industry-leading in some cases.
If you’ve used Linux for any amount of time, you’ve noticed that one of the most common methods to install third-party applications is via a .Deb package. Often times this is the only way to get this software, as the developers can’t be bothered to go through the process of packaging in the dozens of different formats the Linux platform offers.
Many non-Debian-based Linux distributions have their own ways of getting around this issue. However, out of all Linux distributions, Arch Linux has the most interesting ways of getting a Debian package working. In this article we outline three ways to accomplish this and discuss which one is best.
In this tutorial, we will show you how to install WPS Office on Debian 11. For those of you who didn’t know, WPS Office (formerly known as Kingsoft Office) is an office suite for Windows, Linux, Android, and iOS that includes three components: Writer (like Word), Presentation (like PowerPoint), Spreadsheets (like Excel), and a WPS PDF viewer. The kit is compatible with Microsoft Office formats PPT, PPTX, DOC, DOCX, XLS, and XLSX, and can be read and written. It also has a premium version that adds additional features like cloud backup, encryption, and document collaboration. It has a 10-day trial period if you’re interested in trying the premium features out or you can install WPS Office for free, and use it as is without getting the premium version.
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 WPS Office on a Debian 11 (Bullseye).
In our first article about YARA, we defined what kind of tool it was and in which context it could be used: detecting malware on the network or on endpoints, helping incident response and monitoring, classifying files or even detecting sensitive data leaks. We also showed how to install it. Now it's time to write rules to get the best out of it.
Podman is a free and open-source container platform built to develop, manage and deploy containers and pods on Linux environment. Redhat developed Podman in 2018. It is a containerization engine that works differently than Docker. Podman does not depend on a daemon to work, unlike Docker which uses Docker CLI and Docker daemon. Being dependent on daemon leads to a single point of failure.
Podman is designed according to OCI (Open Container Initiative) standards that allow Podman to interact directly with the kernel, containers and images. It is also more secure than Docker as it does not require root access. Podman can be used as a drop-in replacement for Docker since both are OCI-compliant.
Debezium connectors are easily deployable on Red Hat OpenShift as Kafka Connect custom resources managed by Red Hat AMQ Streams. However, in the past, developers had to create their own images to deploy using those custom resources. The Red Hat Integration 2021.Q4 release provides an easier way to support the process.
This article shows you how to configure the resource to improve your container build process and describes the new features for the Debezium component as part of the latest release.
If you want to switch from Windows to Linux due to personal interest or due to job requirements, then this article will help you get started with the Linux command line. In this article, I have included a list of 15 basic Linux commands that you should know.
I have demonstrated all the examples in this article using Ubuntu 20.04 LTS system, but these commands are available on most other Linux distributions as well.
This post is part of a series called "PACKRAT". If this is the first post you've found, it'd be worth reading the intro post first and then looking over all posts in the series.
In the last post, we left off at being able to send and recieve PACKRAT frames to and from devices. Since we can transport IPv4 packets over the network, let’s go ahead and see if we can read/write Ethernet frames from a Linux network interface, and on the backend, read and write PACKRAT frames over the air. This has the benifit of continuing to allow Linux userspace tools to work (like cURL, as we’ll try!), which means we don’t have to do a lot of work to implement higher level protocols or tactics to get a connection established over the link.
If you are new to MySQL or someone who wishes to quickly and effortlessly install MySQL database, then this article is for you. In this article, we will learn how to setup MySQL with Docker and Docker compose in Linux.
Let’s start by setting up the docker environment to launch the MySQL container.
To remove (or delete) a file in Linux from the command line can be done using the rm command. It allows you to delete more than one files at once.
Also, you can match multiple files using the wildcard (*) and regular expansions and easily delete them as needed.
In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to use the rm command, and a combination of other commands to remove files and directories in Linux.
This simple tutorial shows how to install the latest Tesseract OCR engine in all current Ubuntu releases via PPA.
Tesseract is the most accurate open-source OCR engine that reads a wide variety of image formats and converts them to text in over 40 languages.
Clonezilla is a suite of open-source, disk cloning programs used for bare metal backup and recovery and also used during system deployment. Clonezilla server edition uses multicast technologies to deploy a single image file to a group of computers in a local area network.
In this tutorial guide, we are going to explore how to install and use Clonezilla on Ubuntu 20.04.
There are times when our system is running out of disk space. We can use various commands to find the large files in Linux. We may need to find these files to delete them or even archive them in some scenarios. There will obviously be critical files that we may want to retain. The action we take on these files will depend on the types of files we find.
Just like the largest files, we may also want to find the largest directories. It could be possible that the /tmp directory has gigabytes of temporary files and maybe eating space on the hard drive. Sometimes it is easy to target the directory rather than the individual file.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Skills Workshops offer a way to learn more about Linux without building and maintaining your own lab environment.
Many open source software projects get used in software builds every day, which is critical for almost every organization. Open source software brings many benefits and helps software developers focus on innovation and efficiency rather than reinventing the wheel.
Sometimes, you cannot identify and verify the integrity of the third-party software used by constantly doing verification, which can open the door to supply chain attacks. Hence, the sigstore project was born. The sigstore project aims at securing supply chain technology and eventually the open source software security itself.
I've been putting in a lot of work on DTOS (my custom Xmonad desktop desployment script), and lately I've spent time trying to get consistent theming across various applications. The way I've decided to tackle this problem is to create my own custom Xmonad libs to simplify changing color schemes across several programs.
It's getting cold now and more games are opening up their festive events and Valve is no different. Smissmas 2021 is now officially live in Team Fortress 2.
During the event all players will get a Stuffed Stocking gift, there's 6 new community maps, a Winter 2021 Cosmetic Case, 3 new community-contributed taunts, 27 new community-created Unusual effects and all cosmetic and taunt cases will grant Smissmas 2021 Unusual effects instead of their normal Unusual effects during the event. On top of that there's usual festive sale in the Mann Co. Store. It's not just the new community maps to play through though, you also get a playlist with maps from previous events too.
Legend of Keepers: Feed the Troll is the first expansion to the clever mix of dungeon keeping and turn-based auto-battling that somewhat resembles the Boss Monster card game.
First though, a big free upgrade is out now for everyone bringing with it 11 new monsters, 2 new traps and 3 new artefacts as well as a new mission for each master.
Released originally in 1996, Heroes of Might and Magic II is a game that's beloved by many and the fheroes2 project continues to mature with version 0.9.10 out now.
As part of this release, they now have a wiki page to explain the enhancements to this game engine reimplementation compared to the original. You will also find the game includes a minimum 4 languages that can be chosen including: English, French, German and Polish. These languages will appear even for a demo version of the game but their team still needs time to polish the characters for each language and soon it'll update all of them. For the next release the much requested Russian translation will also be added.
Swedish duo Sysiac Games and Tomorrow Corporation have released The Captain, a quirky comedy sci-fi point and click adventure with pixel-art visuals and it's a lot of fun. Note: personal purchase.
At the beginning of a war, you end up getting lost in a distant part of space, far from home in a transport accident and now it's up to you to find the only thing that can help stop the destruction of Earth's Sun. It's a race across the galaxy but since you're a scientist and a member of Spacefleet, you of course need to deal with anything else that appears along the way. Distress calls, hostile ships and it's filled with some pretty funny moments.
It's not all fun and games though, there's the urgency to the situation always present and since it's a point and click adventure, there's a few minor puzzles to solve too. You also have plenty of decisions to make as you go through it, resulting in a few different ways to progress through it.
Need more games and you're on a budget? Want to help charity and get some games at the same time? The World Land Trust Bundle on itch.io looks great.
With thousands of unique creatures, plenty of dungeons to explore and roguelike mechanics, Siralim Ultimate definitely looks like a game you can spend a lot of time with and enjoy. A game that the developer says is a bit like "Pokemon meets Diablo, or more accurately, Dragon Warrior Monsters meets Path of Exile".
It might not be on par with more modern-looking games, with it low-resolution pixel-art but don't let that put you off. There's a ridiculous amount of depth to this one that roguelike fans will no doubt love if they give it a go.
City of Gold brings some pretty big changes and feature additions to Stoneshard, the challenging turn-based RPG set in an open world.
Some of the smaller things that came with this update include: a new special beginner quest, new enemies, new Steam Achievements, new throwables, reworked dungeon progression and plenty of tweaks to various parts of the game.
Krita is best known as a digital painting application, but in my experience, it's kind of a digital imaging powerhouse. Recently, a fork of GIMP called GLIMPSE had to pause its development, and because I like alternatives, it occurred to me that Krita could be a reasonable photo editor for at least some use cases. It isn't easy to measure the suitability of an application for a group of tasks because different people require or prefer different things. What's very common and indispensable to one person is an edge case for someone else. However, photo editing applications are broadly known for a primarily universal set of functions, so I decided to look at those likely to be in a top 5 must-have list and test Krita against each on
Gedit is the default text editor for the GNOME desktop environment. It is a popular option and an effective text editor that offers all the essentials with a simple user interface.
But, with GNOME evolving, there is a new text editor that hasn’t yet replaced gedit. And, looking at its next release, it might just be ready to replace gedit in the upcoming GNOME 42 release with a bunch of improvements.
Christian Hergert shares more details about it in his blog post and on Twitter.
For years I've heard people new to Linux talk about how they would like a user friendly, application-focused firewall solution. Linux distributions typically focus on blocking traffic based on network ports and hostnames. The few solutions which have focused on process filtering tend to be either harder to set up or less friendly to use. OpenSnitch is one of the first tools I have encountered which provides both the rules and real-time monitoring that Windows tools (such as Zone Alarm) provide. The fact that OpenSnitch manages to be friendly, pretty easy to navigate, and flexible in how we manage both rules and new connections is fantastic. I'm really happy with how this tool work and how easy it is to set up.
What I particularly like about OpenSnitch is that it is not just useful for making new rules, the way traffic is sorted and cataloged in the various tabs is great. Even if you are not interested in locking down your network, I think it is well worth installing OpenSnitch to find out what processes are talking over your network and who they are talking with. For example, while I was running Linux Mint, some programs sent out signals to Canonical servers which appears to be used for connectivity checks and/or getting a count of how many users are on-line. You might be interested in seeing how many programs are phoning home or pinging remote servers in an effort to count users or check for news updates.
CutefishOS is a relatively new Linux distribution that comes bundled with its own desktop environment (i.e., CutefishDE).
It is not yet a stable release, but in its beta phase.
However, with its latest beta release (v0.6), it seems to be shaping up as a promising alternative to the available Linux distributions focusing on simplicity and beauty.
Today, the PC/OpenSystems LLC FOSS development team has released Freespire 8.0, an update which delivers much needed system enhancements and security fixes. Once again we have let users decide; they have spoken, and we have included all the most requested Google services; Calendar, Docs, and Gmail. For more traditional use cases, Freespire core has not changed at all : it’s still a full featured desktop OS, with all of the applications and resources of the Ubuntu repositories available as always. To repeat : Freespire does not incorporate any proprietary media codecs; aside from the use of Google Chrome there are no other vendor-specific software applications pre-installed at all.
Freespire 8.0 features a new stable kernel which fixes bugs / broadens hardware support. Google Chrome version 96 includes security patches and other general browser improvements. We have upgraded Xfce 4.16, X11, Samba and other system fundamentals including non-UEFI and secure boot systems..
If you prefer your Linux to be of the Arch-type, but don’t want to go through the challenges inherent in installing the full-blown Arch Linux, you have options. One such option is EndeavorOS. Endeavor OS calls itself “terminal-centric.” That doesn’t mean you’ll be spending all of your time within the terminal. In fact, I’d say that Endeavor OS labeling itself as such is a bit misleading. I’ve worked with the OS and found it quite easy to use.
But what does the new version have to offer? First and foremost, it ships with kernel 5.15, which is bleeding edge. One very important feature found in this kernel is the newly written NTFS3 driver, which vastly improves how Linux can interact with NTFS file systems.
This may not be true for all distributions, but LTS (Long Term Service) focused ones like Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and Debian Reliable are unquestionably more stable than Windows 10. They are less likely to crash due to a stray software or app and are more efficient in utilizing memory and CPU resources.
The Linux security architecture is more robust than the Windows security architecture. Linux is credited with inventing the DAC (Discretionary Access Controls). Their directory permissions system is simpler and easier to use than the permissions system used by Windows NT. The Linux built-in firewall component (iptables) is likewise quite simple and efficient, and it can be operated via the command line. The multi-user feature of Ubuntu is also much better in Ubuntu than Windows as there are strict policies maintained in Linux to ensure complete privacy and security to the users.
Nexcom’s Linux-friendly “NISE 53” embedded PC runs on Intel’s Elkhart Lake with up to 16GB DDR4, optional eMMC, 3x HDMI, 3x GbE, 4x USB, 2x COM, 2x M.2, and mini-PCIe.
Nexcom has upgraded its Apollo Lake based NISE 52 design with a much faster Intel Elkhart Lake processor and twice the maximum RAM at 16GB. The NISE 53 system provides an extra expansion slot (now driven by PCIe Gen3), and an option for up to 32GB eMMC. The USB count has dropped from 8x to 4x, and dual serial ports have replaced the DB44 combo port.
One of the most useful features of the Universal Serial Bus is its hot-plugging capability. You simply plug in your device, use it, and unplug it when you’re done. But what if you’ve got a huge number of USB devices? You might not want to use all of them all of the time, but repeatedly unplugging and re-plugging them is inconvenient and wears out the connectors. [Matt G] fixed this problem by building the RUNBOX: a USB hub that can be controlled through a touchscreen.
[...]
Although we’ve seen switchable USB hubs before, they usually require you to either press a manual switch or run dedicated software on your PC. We’ve also seen other sleek builds combining a Raspberry Pi with a USB hub.
In the past few years, with the launch of RISC-V, and IBM’s OpenPOWER initiative (backed up with hardware releases such as Talos) there has been lots of talk about open hardware projects, and vendors talking about how anyone can go and make a RISC-V or OpenPOWER CPU. While there is a modicum of truth to the assertion that an upstart company could start fabricating their own RISC-V or OpenPOWER CPUs tomorrow, the reality is a lot more complex, and it basically comes down to patents.
[...]
Ultimately, we come to the unavoidable topic, patents. Both RISC-V and OpenPOWER are described as patent-free, or patent-unencumbered, but what does that actually mean? In both cases, it means that the ISA itself is unencumbered by patents… in the case of RISC-V, the ISA itself is patent-free, and in the case of OpenPOWER, there is a very liberal patent licensing pool.
But therein lies the rub: in both cases, the patent situation only covers the ISA itself. Implementation details and vendor extensions are not covered by the promises made by both communities. In other words, SiFive and IBM still have entire portfolios they can assert against any competitor in their space. RISC-V, as noted before, does not have a multilateral patent pool, and these microarchitectural patents are not covered by the OpenPOWER patent pool, as that covers the POWER ISA only.
This means that anybody competing with SiFive or IBM respectively, would have to be a patent licensee, if they are planning to produce chips which compete with SiFive or IBM, and these licensing costs are ultimately passed through to the companies licensing the SoC cores.
There are steps which both communities could take to improve the patent problems: for example, RISC-V could establish a patent pool, and require ecosystem participants to cross-license their patents through it, and IBM could widen the scope of the OpenPOWER patent pool to cover more than the POWER ISA itself. These steps would significantly improve the current situation, enabling truly free (as in freedom) silicon to be fabricated, through a combination of a RISC-V or OpenPOWER core and a set of supporting cores from OpenCores.
Rajeev Chandrasekhar, minister of state for electronics and information technology & skill development and entrepreneurship, did reveal that some progress towards India's pursuit of its own microprocessors has also progressed. India currently developers two modestly-specced RISC-V CPUs – named Shakti and Vega – and hopes they will one day meet the nation's needs and be used around the world. With the Shakti E-Class built on a 180nm process and running at between 75Mhz and 100MHz, India is not yet a threat to incumbent market leaders. Chandrasekhar announced that a national competition to improve local CPU tech has been narrowed to ten finalists.
What is old is new again: linking open source Unix-alikes, native cluster OSes for massively parallel computers, and 1980s platform rivalries. You get all this in a somewhat dusty project hoping to "breathe new life" into Helios, a manycore OS from the '90s.
Parallel computing is back in fashion. Just last week, The Reg covered an inexpensive Arm cluster in a box; and support in the next Linux kernel for 24-core Atom chips and 64-core ARM ones.
Back in the 1980s, Intel couldn't build you a box with that many cores – but a small British outfit called Inmos could. While a remote descendant of Inmos provides one of the processors in relatively recent Amiga hardware, there's a much older connection.
Firefox 95 is here as the last release of the web browser in 2021, coming seven weeks after Firefox 94. It’s not a big update, but it brings a few cool changes to make your web browsing experience more enjoyable and secure.
This release further improves the Picture-in-Picture (PiP) feature with a new right-click context menu option called “Move Picture-in-Picture Toggle to Left/Right Side,” which lets you move the Picture-in-Picture toggle button to either the left or right side of a video. Check it out in action below!
In Firefox 95, we’re shipping a novel sandboxing technology called RLBox — developed in collaboration with researchers at the University of California San Diego and the University of Texas — that makes it easy and efficient to isolate subcomponents to make the browser more secure. This technology opens up new opportunities beyond what’s been possible with traditional process-based sandboxing, and we look forward to expanding its usage and (hopefully) seeing it adopted in other browsers and software projects.
Mozilla Firefox 95.0 is now available for download ahead of its official release tomorrow. Making this new version interesting is the RLBox integration.
Across all platforms the Mozilla Firefox 95.0 web browser is now using RLBox to protect against security vulnerabilities within third-party libraries.
The latest stable release of this flagship FOSS browser comes with a couple of interesting feature tweaks, improved online security, and lower CPU usage too.
We’ll start with the most obvious change: the picture-in-picture button can be moved to the opposite side of embeds. Oh, I know: groundbreaking, right? Not exactly; while this isn’t the most consequential change in the history of the browser it is sure to be appreciated by those who make heavy use of this (handy) feature.
Released a month earlier than expected, LibreOffice 7.2.4 is now available for download along with LibreOffice 7.1.8, an unplanned release in the LibreOffice 7.1 series of the popular, free and open-source office suite, which reached end of life on November 30th, 2021.
Both releases include a fix for a buffer heap overflow vulnerability, namely CVE-2021-43527, which is a remote code execution flaw discovered in the way Mozilla’s NSS (Network Security Services) component verifies certificates.
The Document Foundation announces LibreOffice 7.2.4 Community and LibreOffice 7.1.8 Community to provide a key security fix. Releases are immediately available from https://www.libreoffice.org/download/, and all LibreOffice users are recommended to update their installation. Both new version include the fixed NSS 3.73.0 cryptographic library, to solve CVE-2021-43527 (the nss secfix is the only change compared to the previous version).
Libre Office is one of the most popular Microsoft Office alternatives out there. And you know what the best thing about it is? It’s completely free to download and use.
We tested and used Libre Office on our Chromebook, and for the most part, the experience was pretty smooth and seamless. The app uses the same file extensions as its Microsoft Office sibling.
So opening saved Microsoft Office files with Libre Office should be as easy as drinking a glass of water.
That being said, many of you may be wondering how to install Libre Office on a Chromebook. Do not worry; the process is pretty simple; let us take a look.
We are looking for a working student to support our work to empower people to control technology. The person will work 10-15 hours per week and will maintain and improve the FSFE's websites. Applicants have to be enrolled in a German university and can work remotely.
The German state of Schleswig-Holstein plans to start using Linux and LibreOffice to replace Microsoft Windows and its Office suite in their administration and schools to migrate public organizations to open-source solutions.
The Document Foundation, the non-profit entity behind LibreOffice, on Nov. 18 announced the news in its blog. The software swap out is part of that government’s plan to reduce its dependence on proprietary software.
The end game is to eventually stop using proprietary products altogether. By the end of 2026, the plan will replace Microsoft Office with LibreOffice on all 25,000 computers used by government workers and teachers. Schleswig-Holstein officials will replace the Windows operating system with GNU/Linux.
JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) is a data format commonly used to exchange data between the client and server end of a web application. JSON is arguably the most widely used data exchange format on the web. With the growing number of web developers, there is a growth in the number of people looking to understand this format and be able to work efficiently with JSON data. This article is targeted at those individuals to explain the basics of JSON in a simple way.
Asynchronous execution code is opposite to synchronous in which your code does not have to wait for a statement to finish executing but can continue executing in parallel. Asynchronous execution is achieved with the help of AJAX.
In this post, we will discuss what AJAX is, the stepwise working of AJAX, and walk through an example to better understand the implementation of AJAX.
WordPress is one of the best content management systems available right now. To have wider accessibility to functions in your WordPress site, you need to install WordPress plugins. These plugins are small pieces of softwares that you can upload or install on your WordPress website to add some new features.
Currently, there are more than 50,000 plugins in the WordPress directory that you can install directly from your WordPress site dashboard. It’s really confusing for beginners to choose the right plugins for their website.
AARCH64 has a lot of general purpose registers.
The Unix philosophy famously holds that you should write software that “does one thing, and does it well”.
If you want to start reading from the beginning. Check out the first article in this series
Continuing from our last post, I talked about how ANSI Game Engine is a colourful telnet server. We left off with needing to fork the engines telnet server.
Vivaldi web browser, best know for its deep customization capabilities, released a new major update – Vivaldi 5.0. Here’s what’s new.
Vivaldi is a fast web browser that certainly pays attention to its users needs, privacy, and web experience. It has been planned and developed by a former Opera developer, adding many particularly good options.
Vivaldi 5.0 is a major update and carries a couple of key feature updates and a lot of bug fixes and changes. So let’s take a look at what’s new.
My primary browser is Firefox, on desktop and mobile, and it will always be. I dread the eventuality of Firefox disappearing. That will be the death knoll of the Internet as we know it. So listen carefully, you tech nerds.
Many people have been complaining about difficulty of changing the default browser in Windows 11, but it seems that Microsoft is finally taking note.
Security updates have been issued by Arch Linux (isync, lib32-nss, nss, opera, and vivaldi), Debian (gerbv and xen), Fedora (autotrace, chafa, converseen, digikam, dmtx-utils, dvdauthor, eom, kxstitch, libsndfile, nss, pfstools, php-pecl-imagick, psiconv, q, R-magick, rss-glx, rubygem-rmagick, seamonkey, skopeo, synfig, synfigstudio, vdr-scraper2vdr, vdr-skinelchihd, vdr-skinnopacity, vdr-tvguide, vim, vips, and WindowMaker), Mageia (golang, kernel, kernel-linus, mariadb, and vim), openSUSE (aaa_base, python-Pygments, singularity, and tor), Red Hat (nss), Slackware (mozilla), SUSE (aaa_base, kernel, openssh, php74, and xen), and Ubuntu (libmodbus, lrzip, samba, and uriparser).
Investigators with the York Regional Police Auto/Cargo Theft Unit are advising residents they have identified a new method being used by thieves to track and steal high-end vehicles across York Region.
Since September 2021, officers have investigated five incidents where suspects have placed small tracking devices on high-end vehicles so they can later locate and steal them. Brand name ‘air tags’ are placed in out-of-sight areas of the target vehicles when they are parked in public places like malls or parking lots. Thieves then track the targeted vehicles to the victim’s residence, where they are stolen from the driveway.
Thieves typically use tools like screwdrivers to enter the vehicles through the driver or passenger door, while ensuring not to set off alarms. Once inside, an electronic device, typically used by mechanics to reprogram the factory setting, is connected to the onboard diagnostics port below the dashboard and programs the vehicle to accept a key the thieves have brought with them. Once the new key is programmed, the vehicle will start and the thieves drive it away.
The trackers have anti-stalking measures, but those don't seem to be an issue for thieves
Within BusyBox you can find a full-fledged shell, a DHCP client/server, and small utilities such as cp, ls, grep, and others. You’re also likely to find many OT and IoT devices running BusyBox, including popular programmable logic controllers (PLCs), human-machine interfaces (HMIs), and remote terminal units (RTUs)—many of which now run on Linux.
Apple warned two Ugandan journalists and an opposition figure last week that their iPhones may have been hacked by a state-sponsored surveillance entity, the targeted people said on Saturday, and at least one attack appeared to have employed spyware from an Israeli company blacklisted by the United States.
The latest revelations add Uganda to the list of countries where journalists, human rights activists and lawyers have been targeted using the sophisticated Israeli-made spyware, known as Pegasus.
The disclosure of the Apple warning notices to the three Ugandans came one day after reports that American diplomats in the East African nation also had their iPhones hacked with Pegasus.
Those diplomats were the first American government officials known to have been targeted by the Pegasus tool, which is designed to sneak into a user’s phone and give the invader access to its contents without being detected. Apple has said iPhones equipped with its latest software are not at risk.
Google recently de-indexed from its search results two important pieces of investigative journalism published by Uruguayan online news portal Sudestada. The removal was the result of two different requests, and was based on alleged violations of US copyright legislation (DCMA) and European data protection norms (GDPR).
Latin American groups, including IFEX-ALC, are concerned. According to them, the complaints, presented by anonymous third parties, are an attempt to hide information of significant public interest about the participation of Uruguayan law firms in corruption cases.
The organizations also called attention to faulty procedural safeguards. According to them, Google’s notifications do not provide a sufficient description of the grounds for considering the content illegal. Additionally, avenues for appeal were inadequate and/or abusive, since content moderation rules force the journalist and the outlet to accept that any judicial remedy should take place in a jurisdiction outside of Uruguay.
The imposition of US and EU legislation to users based outside these jurisdictions is also problematic, impacting their right to complain and defend themselves.
In January 2020, the court had directed the administration of the Union Territory to publish all such directives.
n November 16, Apple filed with the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit a motion to stay the Epic Games v. Apple injunction, whih came down in September based on a finding of a violation of California Unfair Competition Law (UCL). Epic had ten days to respond, plus one extra day because the deadline would otherwise have been on Thanksgiving Day.
I continue to believe that the Ninth Circuit is more likely than not to grant Apple's motion. While I don't agree with all of Apple's arguments, and don't disagree with all of Epic's either, there simply are overwhelming reasons to order a stay. It's the most logical and reasonable thing to do. Should the appeals court deny Apple's motion, Apple asks for an additional administrative stay (30 more days) so it can seek Supreme Court review.
After Epic's opposition brief, which I'm sharing below, I have nothing to add, nor do I see a need to modify any of my positions, or to adjust any of my predictions. I do, however, wish to note that Epic's opposition brief simply assumes that Apple would have to continue to allow commission-free purchases being made outside of an iOS app, even though the purchased digital goods or content would be consumed in an iOS app (which is also called "cross-wallet" or "cross-purchase"). That is simply not the case. While the court took note of Apple's current policy, there is absolutely nothing stopping Apple from making adjustments in that regard, should Apple indeed have to comply with the injunction. As an app developer, that's not the way I'd like it to be, but as a commentator I strive to provide correct analysis.
It has become popular to include references to “non-severable improvements” in research contracts. Typically, the contract will state who owns any IP generated under the agreement. But the parties want different ownership rules to apply if the new IP is a “non-severable improvement” to a party’s pre-existing, or “background” IP.
A few months ago, Gucci was found selling a peculiar outfit named “organic linen kaftan”. Following this incident, news of Zara selling lungi as ‘check mini skirt’ a few years ago had resurfaced on social media. This isn’t the first time Gucci and other fashion houses have been involved in such an act, but an interesting question remains: what are the available legal remedies and attached limitations?
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The Indian subcontinent gave birth to the popular traditional attire – the Kurta. The dress is commonly worn in countries such as Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Sri Lanka along with India. Considered a part of ethnic wear, Kurtas have different varieties depending on their design and fabric. No community or individual per se have any protection over the kurta. However, certain types of embroidered kurtas, such as Kasuti kurta from Karnataka (India) and Chikankari kurta from Lucknow, are GI protected due to the embroidery. But even here, it’s only the embroidery which is protected and not the silhouette of the Kurta per se.
The Kaftan, on the other hand, was initially worn as a robe or a tunic and can be traced back to Morocco in the 16th century, although the Kaftan has been worn across the Middle East and Persia long before this time. To the western world, Kaftan-like dresses were introduced by designers such as Paul Poiret and Mario Fortuny in the early 20th century. In the 1950s/1960s, this style was adapted by French couturiers such as Christian Dior and Balenciaga and appeared in the world of high fashion. By 1966, Vogue had described the kaftan as an essential garment for every member of the jet-set crowd. From the mid-1970s, the kaftan shifted from the runway to being associated with resort wear. Tom Ford also reanimated and shortened it to a micro-mini length for the Gucci Spring 1996.
Today, the Coalition for Competitive Digital Markets (https://competitivedigitalmarkets.eu/), a group of more than 50 technology companies from 16 different European countries, sent an open letter to members of the European Parliament to raise awareness about interoperability and to impose stricter rules on big companies – the so-called ‘big tech’ companies – that act as gatekeepers and prevent transparency and openness in digital markets.
Lululemon has responded to Peloton’s declaratory judgment action with a counter suit, arguing that the New York-based exercise bike-maker is on the hook for design patent and trade dress infringement in connection with its sale of “copycat” athleticwear on the heels of pulling the plug on the parties’ 5-year-long co-branding partnership. According to the complaint that it filed in a California federal court on Monday, Lululemon claims that “unlike innovators such as [itself],” when Peloton opted to launch its own collection of apparel, it “did not spend the time, effort, and expense to create an original product line, [and] instead, Peloton imitated several of lululemon’s innovative designs and sold knock-offs of lululemon’s products, claiming them as its own.”
In the newly-filed complaint, much of which mirrors the cease-and-desist letter than it sent to Peloton on November 11, Lululemon alleges that Peloton’s Strappy Bra, Cadent Laser Dot Legging, Cadent Laser Dot Bra, High Neck Bra, and Cadent Peak Bra collectively infringe six different Lululemon design patents. Beyond that, Lululemon claims that Peloton’s One Lux legging is “another imitation of a lululemon product, as it copies the trade dress of lululemon’s Align part, which is one of [its] all-time best-selling products.”
Austria plays an above-average active and innovative role in the international 3D printing industry despite its comparatively small size. This development was already reflected in the European Patent Office report between 2014 and 2017, where Austria recorded worldwide the highest rate of increase in patent applications in additive manufacturing. Similarly, the latest Wohlers Report 2021 illustrated thatAustrian additive manufacturing industry has the most AM manufacturers per inhabitant worldwide, even ahead of the USA, Germany, and China.
It is well to recall that the battle over inventorship and thus ownership of CRISPR technology is not limited to the parties in the various interferences surrounding the Doudna and Zhang patents and applications (see "CRISPR Battle Joined Again" and "The CRISPR Chronicles: Enter Toolgen"), as well as remembering that the technology continues to be developed and those developments are or will also be subject to patent protection. Another party already identified in the space is The Rockefeller University, and on Thursday its scientists prevailed in an interference proceeding before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board captioned SNIPR Technologies Ltd. v. The Rockefeller University (naming Luciano Marraffini as one of this party's inventors).
In the Declaration of Interference No. 106,123, SNIPR was designated as the Junior Party and all claims of all five of its patents were involved (10,463,049; 10,506,812; 10,524,477; 10,561,148; and 10,582,712). Senior Party The Rockefeller University had all claims of its pending U.S. Application No. 15/159,929 designated as corresponding to the Count.
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Third, the Board posed the rhetorical question of what is the remedy for patent applicants like Rockefeller here if it were to adopt (or Congress intended, which the Board's opinion suggests they do not think it does) SNIPR's position that interferences were precluded to involve patents such as theirs against applications like Rockefeller's that do satisfy Section 3(n)(2)? This question is posed in the context of the plain language of the statute maintaining interferences for patents such as Rockefeller's that satisfy Section 3(n)(2) AIA. In other words, would Congress have enacted a nullity for such patents or applications under circumstances as here where the interfering subject matter is disclosed and claimed in a patent or application that does not satisfy Section 3(n)(2)? "Congress could have ended all interferences at the implementation of the AIA," according to the Board, and under those circumstances "different parties may both be issued claims for the same patentable invention even when one party has an effective filing date before 16 March 2013" (an unlikely scenario in view of the consistent interpretation of the statute that the phrase "a patent" in the statute indicates a single inventive entity), but that is not the law Congress enacted in the Board's view. The point as the Board interpreted Congressional intent was that "Congress did not expressly qualify its choice to continue interferences as being only when both parties' claims have an effective filing date before 16 March 2013." And the Board further did not give credit to SNIPR's suggestion that priority to Rockefeller's claims could be established in "a different proceeding," any detailed of which SNIPR left unspecified in its brief.
The issue beomes a choice, according to the Board, of whether SNIPR is correct that "Congress's express choice to subject a subset of applications and patents to the previous interference provisions reinforces Congress's intent to exclude applications and patents outside that subset, like SNIPR's, from interference proceedings" or whether the Board's view that "the decision to continue interferences, in section 3(n)(2), indicates that Congress contemplated interferences between pre-AIA and post-AIA applications and patents," it being self-evident which view the Board would consider most consistent with Congressional intent.
The first online seminar, entitled "UPC Crash Course," will be held on December 6, 2021 at 12:00 pm (EST). C. Thomas Becher, Morten Garberg, and Niels Hölder will discuss the Unitary Patent and the Unified Patent Court, including status, timing, provisional application, unitary protection, unified enforcement, costs and savings, opting out, what do to by when, and best practice.
On September 30th, 2021, the Danish High Court (Eastern Division) rendered its decision in a long running patent infringement case. One important element of the case was the question of acquiescence, in particular, whether the patent pro-prietor is required to act on a possible patent infringement (and commence legal proceedings) when opposition proceedings are pending.
Both the Danish Administration of Justice Act (article 345) and the Danish Pa-tent Act (article 53a) specify that the court may suspend a case, if there are other ongoing cases (such as opposition proceedings), which may impact the outcome of the case. The Danish courts have interpreted the provisions such that Danish (main) patent infringements action, as a general rule, will be suspended if oppo-sition proceedings are pending. Thus, a patent proprietor is not able to enforce a patent by way of main proceedings in Danish courts as long as opposition pro-ceedings are pending.
In this particular case before the Danish High Court, the patent proprietor, San-genic, a company that manufactures diaper pails with fitting diaper cassettes, was granted a European patent, which was published in Denmark in January 2009, which then became the primary point of contention in the dispute between the parties. The defendant (alleged patent infringer), Lamico, filed an opposition against the patent on the grounds of lack of novelty and inventive step. Lengthy proceedings followed first at the EPO Opposition Division and later at the Board of Appeal. The final decision in the opposition was rendered in December 2018, where the patent was upheld.
We are pleased to bring you a guest post from Payal Saraogi, on a recent decision of the Delhi High Court on Google’s use of trademarks as advertisement keywords. Payal graduated from the School of Law, Christ University in 2020, and currently practices as a disputes lawyer. She advises/represents clients on issues related or unrelated to those discussed in the post.
A TTAB judge once told me that you can predict the outcome of a Section 2(d) case 95% of the time by just looking at the goods/services and the marks. I kid you not! Let's see how you do with the three cases summarized below. Answer(s) in the first comment.
The metaverse is appearing more frequently in companies’ branding efforts, with companies like Nike launching an experience of its own within the Roblox metaverse, Balenciaga offering up products to wear in the Fortnite metaverse, and Tokens.com’s Metaverse Group subsidiary paid $2.4 million – in crypto – in what is being called one of “the largest ever land acquisitions in the metaverse.” But what does the emergence of the metaverse and the increase in virtual reality platforms mean for trademark owners? The metaverse is a virtual reality construct where there is an overlap between reality and the online 3D virtual environment. The metaverse is accessed through computers, smart devices and AR/VR technologies. Currently, Meta Platforms Inc. (formerly Facebook Inc.) is pushing the construct with plans to develop metaverse experiences, services and hardware so the ordinary person can enter the metaverse to work, shop, socialize, play games – the extent and application is somewhat limitless.
The Board affirmed a Section 2(a) refusal to register the proposed mark NATO for "Canopies comprised primarily of tensile fabric membranes; canopies of textile or synthetic materials; Tents; Tents made of textile materials; canvas canopies,” finding that the mark falsely suggests a connection with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization ("NATO"). Because "military personnel are housed in tents, and third-party specialty retailers advertising the goods for sale tout the quality of these products used by NATO forces," the Board concluded that the applicant’s tents "are the type of items consumers would associate with the military," and thus with the Treaty Organization. In re International Watchman, Inc., Serial No. 87302907 (November 30, 2021) [precedential] (Opinion by Judge Angela Lykos)
In a non-precedential ruling, the CAFC reversed the Board's decision [here] denying cancellation of registrations for the mark MONEY MART in standard character form for loan financing, check cashing services, not including pawn shop services, and for the mark in design form (below) for pawn shop and pawn brokerage services, concluding that the Board had erred in denying petitioner's claim of priority. The Board had found that Respondent Dollar Financial had priority because of earlier use of the MONEY MART mark for "loan financing services," which encompass pawn shop services. Wrong, said the court. Brittex Financial, Inc. v. Dollar Financial Group, Inc. Appeals Nos. 2021-1370 and 2021-1449 (Fed. Cir. November 23, 2021) [not precedential].
Courts at both UK and EU level are increasingly focusing on the concept of “bad faith” and, perhaps as a result, objections of bad faith are arising more frequently in practice. A finding of bad faith may result in the rejection or cancellation of the trade mark.
In a trade mark dispute on likelihood of confusion, the CFI clarified the case law on the level of attention, especially for the fields of advertising and educational offers – and of finance. The case concerned the EU trade marks CFA: earlier word mark and figurative mark against later figurative mark.
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In August 2016, the intervener, CFA Institute (USA), filed an opposition against this trade mark application. It relied on its own earlier EU trade marks, the word mark CFA and the figurative mark CFA, which both claim protection for, inter alia, “organising, conducting and providing courses, workshops, seminars and conferences in the field of financial analysis and distribution and preparation of course materials in connection therewith”.
The opposition was initially rejected, but then at the subsequent instance before the Board of Appeal it was partially upheld. Ultimately, it was found that there was at least a slight similarity and that there was a likelihood of confusion for similar and identical goods or services of the marks in dispute. According to the Board of Appeal, these were “advertising; business management; business administration” in class 35 and “education; training” in class 41, similar to the services covered by the earlier marks “association” in class 42, and “education; training”, identical to the services covered by the earlier marks “education; training” in class 41.
CFA Institute brought an action against this decision before the European Court (CFI). It put forward two pleas in law and the first already included several aspects in the assessment of which the Board of Appeal had erred: Definition of the relevant public and its level of attention, comparison of the conflicting signs, assessment of the highly distinctive character of the earlier marks in Germany and overall assessment of the likelihood of confusion. This is an infringement of (i) Article 8(1)(b) of Regulation No 207/2009.
The Israeli Supreme Court has recently remanded to the District Court for further review a claim for a declaratory order filed by ScentWish Ltd. against Chanel S.A. ScentWish is an Israeli company which repacks regular sized parallel imports of well-known perfumes (including Chanel’s perfumes) into 8ml packages and markets them under the names of the original perfumes and their manufacturers at a discounted price. Importantly, ScentWish’s packages included a disclaimer whereby: “ScentWish merely repackages original perfumes. ScentWish is not related to the manufacturer of this perfume in any way” (free translation from the Hebrew; “the Disclaimer“).
The claim – for a declaratory order of non-infringement – was filed by ScentWish following receipt of a C&D letter from Chanel, the world renewed luxury goods’ manufacturer and the owner of the well-known trademark “CHANEL” and additional well-known trademarks for CHANEL’s perfumes (such as “No. 5” and “COCO MADEMOISELLE”) .
I am delighted to have this opportunity to share an aspect of my ongoing Leverhulme-funded research which reappraises the role of the criminal law in the history of intellectual property. One strand of this research is the protection of trade marks in the nineteenth century through the Merchandise Marks Acts 1862 and 1887. The Merchandise Marks Act 1862 (later replaced by the 1887 Act) was the first statute regulating trade marks generally (as opposed to specific trades) and was a criminal law measure that introduced statutory offences relating to forgery of a trade mark, amongst other things. My latest paper stems from my involvement in the Brand Biographies Seminar (convened by Jose Bellido and Alain Pottage in February 2020). It looks at criminalisation and trade marks through the lens of the branding history of a nineteenth century fashion business: the Jaeger clothing company (that many will also have heard of today). The research began with a file that I found at The National Archives in London, which gave the details of the criminal prosecution of the Jaeger company in 1897 under the Merchandise Marks Act 1887, brought by the Board of Trade, a UK Government department. The content of the file was intriguing. Most nineteenth century trade mark prosecutions involve a trade mark owner taking action for the unauthorised use of a trade mark by a third party. By contrast, in the Jaeger case, the trade mark owner was ‘in the dock’ for its own branding practices and was being prosecuted by an organ of the State.
This is not the first time the UKIPO has engaged with a public call for views on the topic of AI and IP. In a 2020 consultation, the government sought to broadly understand the implications of AI for IP. That call concerned patents, copyright and related rights, designs, trade marks and trade secrets. It received 92 responses from a wide range of stakeholders –attorneys, trade bodies, industry associations, tech sectors, creative industries and other sectors. This was followed by a National AI strategy in September 2021, with which the UK sought to send a message to the world that its end goal is to become “a global AI superpower”.
IP plays a fundamental role in this. The UK recognises that in order to guarantee that IP incentivises innovation, the government should focus on its domestic IP law and enhance the UK’s AI competitive edge through a potential legislative reform. Against this background, with this new public consultation the UKIPO is now looking for more concrete answers on three specific topics which could potentially lead to a Parliament intervention in the field of IP and AI.
The Kluwer Copyright Blog published a compilation of analyses regarding the transposition of article 17 of the DSM Directive from Germany, Hungary, Italy and Sweden, as well as their respective issues, as presented as a part of a webinar organized by reCreating Europe project team.
The United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) launched a public consultation on artificial intelligence (AI) and intellectual property on 29 October 2021 to assess whether the current IP regime strikes the appropriate balance to encourage the development of AI and its use across the UK economy. Further analysis on the topics of authorship of computer-generated works, text and data mining exception, and inventorship in case of inventions created by AIs was published on the Kluwer Copyright Blog.
Following the implementation of Article 5 CDSMD via a government decree in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 (see here, here and here), the preparations for the implementation of the rest of the CDSMD continued throughout 2020. The first (full) draft bill was published on 7 May 2020, and a public consultation took place between May and June 2020. The Hungarian Ministry of Justice and the Hungarian Intellectual Property Office, based on more than 100 responses, published an amended draft bill at the end of July 2020. This version was offered for a targeted (semi-public) consultation in August 2020. Taking into consideration the recommendations at this stage, a third version was submitted for a final semi-public consultation in February 2021. The bill was finally submitted to the Hungarian Parliament on 31 March 2021. The Parliament passed the bill with 136 yeas, 29 nays, and 1 abstain on 28 April 2021. Act XXXVII of 2021 was published on 6 May 2021 and entered into force on 1 June 2021. (The Act is available in the Hungarian language here.)
The Act introduced Articles 57/A to 57/H to the Copyright Act (Act LXXVI of 1999). These rules represent an almost verbatim implementation of Article 17. These Articles include the new authorisation or liability regime for online content-sharing service providers (OCSSPs); introduce safeguards in line with Article 17(7) and (9); and exclude the general monitoring obligation of OCSSPs.
The Hungarian legislation has finally decided to introduce parody, caricature and pastiche exceptions in their fullest scope. Hence, these exceptions not only apply in line with Article 17(7) CDSMD, but also to all offline and any other (non-CDSMD-relevant) online uses in line with the InfoSoc Directive. Quotation, criticism and review were not mentioned in the new Articles of the Hungarian Copyright Act. There was no need to do so. These exceptions have already been generally applicable in the online environment (including the use of content via platforms). Similarly, since hosting platforms have already been subject to detailed rules under the E-commerce Act regarding notice-and-take-down and complaint-and-redress mechanisms, as well as the prohibition of general monitoring obligations, OCSSPs will not necessarily need to amend their procedural settings to comply with the new regime.
It is well known that self-driving vehicles are a positive development. I, for one, living in the US and thus having no access to decent public transport, must use my private car for many short trips (though I have chosen to live within walking distance of work to limit them as much as possible). Self-driving cars will reportedly save 350,000 lives per year, though some recent research has cast some doubt on the magnitude of the improvement. Thinking of distracted, angry, drunk and other bad human drivers, it is not hard to believe that autonomous vehicles can do better.
Self-driving vehicles have been the subject of deeper legal and moral inquiries because they provide evidence (a) that AI machines can make autonomous decisions; and (b) that those decisions have what one can call at the very least moral or ethical overtones. Going back to the well-known runaway trolley problem used in ethics classes, think of an AI-driven car facing brake failure (there is no reason I can think of why brakes on a self-driving car would magically be infallible). Then the AI “driver” must decide where to go. Imagine that it must “decide” whether to prioritize the life of the passenger(s) or various groups of pedestrians (imagine that they vary by age, gender etc.).
With reference to self-driving vehicles, Professor Daniel Gervais discussed his views concerning copyright protection for the output of AI machines on Kluwer Copyright Blog.
