01.21.14
Posted in GNU/Linux at 7:24 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Is the freedom to kill and maim really a legitimate “freedom”?
Summary: Notes of concern about the extensive use of GNU/Linux and Free software by those who are oppressing society
AN interesting discussion emerged in this post about Linux in rifles [1,2]. It led back to the role of Linux in CIA-run drone assassinations, which the UK plays a role in (and covers up [3,4]). This is a huge ethical/moral problem. A lot of innocent people are murdered by governments and nobody is being held accountable. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism paints a deceiving picture because “civilian” means “not adult male”, it doesn’t mean anything else. Every adult male killed is being labeled “militant”, so no wonder the numbers look like [5,6,7]. Drones, as a professor of political science has just put it [8], are inaccurately portrayed in the media as “against terrorists” when in fact “it’s difficult to evaluate the claim. One of the biggest problems about drone strikes is that we don’t have good information about who is killed.”
To quote the author of the article: “In the aftermath of a drone strike, normally the press or the U.S. military would report on the outcome.” They also block out competing reporters, jail some of them (there is a famous case in Yemen), and they are knowingly blasting rescuers (double- or -triple strikes, targeting the very same point with moderate intervals). This whole mentality of merciless assassination goes quite a few decades back. In Latin America [9], Mexico [10], and Canada [11] US drones or assassinations are being routinely used for political purposes. There are many examples (past and present) to be given, but these are just very recent ones. Op-Eds on this subject continue to be published [12,13] and imperialism as a whole is criticised [14,15,16] in light of what happened in the middle east. It’s not an American thing, as the UK is also involved (to a lesser degree Australia).
As a British resident who views the country rapidly descending to China-style censorship, attacks on the free press [1, 2, 3] and even assassination of citizens (with coverup to follow) I am deeply concerned. What’s most upsetting is that GNU/Linux is being used for much of it. Red Hat now has the NSA, which selects people to assassinate, as a major client (see latest comment), proving perhaps that a world dominated by GNU/Linux is not necessarily ethical and just. We need to look beyond brands if we pursue morality and we may need to adapt licences of Free software to make it harder for brutes in uniform (or medals-decorated costumes) to effectively spy, maim, kill, censor, and generally oppress in the name of “security”. █
Related/contextual items from the news:
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It seems that the United States military is investing in some next-gen firearms, which feature an internal computer, sensors that gauge environmental factors to help soldiers aim, and more, according to tech startup, Tracking Point.
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The US military is investing in an advanced firearm that comes equipped with an internal computer system as well as sensors that gauge environmental factors to help a soldier aim, according to a technology startup known as Tracking Point.
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Noor Khan: ‘I used to think that Britain stood for justice, but now it seems as though the Government has put itself above the law’
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An unprecedented attempt to discover if UK officials are complicit in CIA drone strikes in Pakistan has been stopped by the Court of Appeal.
The court ruled that a case being brought by a Pakistani whose father was killed in a CIA drone strike on March 17 2011, could not go ahead as it could require an English court to pass judgements on the United States.
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The professor of political science will talk about the use of drones for targeted killing in a public talk Wednesday on the Beloit College campus.
“The U.S. argues that drone strikes are the most effective counter-terrorism tool that we have,” she said. “I’ll be looking at the different pieces of that argument and evaluating them.”
Dougherty teaches courses in international politics, including Middle Eastern politics, human rights and U.S. foreign policy.
“The most important claim about drones is that they kill terrorists and minimize civilian casualties,” Dougherty said. “But it’s difficult to evaluate the claim. One of the biggest problems about drone strikes is that we don’t have good information about who is killed.”
In the aftermath of a drone strike, normally the press or the U.S. military would report on the outcome.
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Otis G. Pike, a longtime congressman from New York who spearheaded an inquiry in the 1970s into accusations that the intelligence establishment had abused its power, died on Monday in Vero Beach, Fla. He was 92.
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Civilians trapped in US-backed drug war cross-fire
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An unmanned drone is used to patrol the U.S.-Canadian border.
[...]
Changes in the nature of warfare profoundly shape both the manner in which the state is organized and the law itself. An obvious example of this is how the adoption of gunpowder warfare and the emergence of small standing armies helped to produce the absolute monarchies of the 16th and 17th centuries. In turn, the levee en masse — the mass mobilization of conscripts — by Napoleon’s revolutionary armies helped spell the beginning of the end for those monarchies. The need to raise and maintain ever-larger armies also required the creation of the apparatus of the modern state such as a census, universal taxation and basic education.
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America lives in a “disconnect” world being unaware of the surrounding real world.
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When war broke out in August 1914, crowds in Trafalgar Square cheered. In Germany, even the liberal novelist Thomas Mann exulted, “War! We felt a cleansing, a liberation.” The “world of peace” had bored him.
His words show how far we have come since. Most recent commentaries about 1914 emphasise current risks of war. Yet today’s overriding reality is peace — more widespread internationally and domestically than probably ever before. Armed conflict and violent crime are declining, as the Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker describes in his seminal The Better Angels of Our Nature. What if trends are towards even more peace?
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. Armies will increasingly commit violence in secret, using drones or camera-free interrogation chambers. No US government will again allow a televised war like Vietnam.
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In 2006, three years into the bloody War on Iraq, 63% of Americans aged 18-24 couldn’t find the “target-rich” nation on a map.
To be fair, only half could find New York State on a map, so it is unsurprising that, in spite of its then-dominance of the news cycle, they couldn’t locate the principal fixation of American foreign policy on a map that still brims with U.S. military bases and deployments.
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Posted in Action at 6:11 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: New links about privacy violations and legal/Constitutional violations
New Leaks
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According to newly-declassified court orders from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), the National Security Agency (NSA) was (and may still be) tipping off the FBI at least two to three times per day going back at least to 2006.
Hours after President Barack Obama finished his speech last Friday on proposed intelligence and surveillance reforms, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) declassified a number of documents from the nation’s most secretive court.
Speech/PR
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I doubt whether many people had high expectations of President Obama’s “big” speech last week about NSA spying. After all not only has he showed few signs of being willing to admit the value of Snowden’s revelations, he has, in general, been an immense disappointment to many who had placed such great hopes in his election. But at least this time he did not disappoint us, because what he announced was as disappointing as everyone expected.
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Remember, Obama is the chief executive of a super secretive surveillance state whose overarching purpose is to remain in power by any means available. As such, he and his surveillance state cohorts have far more in common with King George and the British government of his day than with the American colonists who worked hard to foment a rebellion and overthrow a despotic regime.
Indeed, Obama and his speechwriters would do well to brush up on their history. In doing so, they will find that the Sons of Liberty, the “small, secret surveillance committee” they conveniently liken to the NSA, was in fact an underground, revolutionary movement that fought the established government of its day, whose members were considered agitators, traitors and terrorists not unlike Edward Snowden.
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Germany
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Germany and the US appear to be edging closer to political confrontation. The Federal Prosecutor says there is sufficient evidence to open a politically explosive investigation into NSA spying on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s mobile phone.
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Human Rights Watch
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The United States is setting a dangerous example for the world with its sweeping surveillance programmes, giving governments an excuse for mass censorship of online communications, Human Rights Watch said in its annual report Tuesday.
Microsoft-Funded But ‘NSA-free’
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The one-day TrustyCon, to be held on 27 February at the AMC Metreon Theatre in San Francisco, has drawn Mikko Hypponen as its keynote, giving “The talk I was going to give at RSA”. So far, the only other confirmed speakers are ISEC Partners’ Alex Stamos; Marcia Hofmann (EFA) and Christopher Soghoian (American Civil Liberties Union) who dropped out of the RSA Conference; Google’s Chris Palmer; and Black Hat’s Jeff Moss.
Ed: Microsoft-funded means not NSA-free. Microsoft receives a lot of money from the NSA.
UK
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Cryptoparties provide a great way for anyone to learn how to install and use encryption technology and other tips to keep you anonymous online. Tech facilitators will be there to help you with encryption of email, live chat and how to browse the web without being tracked. All are welcome to come learn and share skills in a fun environment.
Vietnam
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The Electronic Frontier Foundation has published details of an attempted malware attack on two of its employees by a group of hackers associated with the Vietnamese government. The hacker group, known as Sinh Tử Lệnh, has targeted Vietnamese dissidents and bloggers in the past; it now appears that the campaign has been extended to attacks on US activists and journalists who publish information seen as critical of the Vietnamese government.
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Facebook
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When it comes to privacy, what Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says — and doesn’t say — is surprising.
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Companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon are collecting enormous amounts of information all day, every day. They use powerful supercomputers to analyze this data. Many people use this to better market products to consumers, for instance.
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Posted in GNU/Linux at 5:41 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Newly-released distributions demonstrated visually
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Posted in FSF at 5:28 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: GNU, FSF, and Free software news from the past month or so
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Richard Stallman today met Mr Rahul Gandhi, Vice President of the Indian National Congress and shared his views on digital surveillance system, unique identification project, free software in education and governance in a meeting that went on for one hour. Mr Joseph Mathew, Secretary of SPACE also participated in the meeting. Mr Gandhi showed keen interest in Stallman’s views on various issues relating to information technology.
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To commemorate the occasion of GNU completing 30 years and SPACE 10 years, the free software community in Thiruvananthapuram is also organising an exhibition on free software and free knowledge on Education Freedom Day, which falls on January 18 at the Museum. The exhibition will focus on free software and free hardware for education and privacy protection. Various free software projects like Fedora, WoMoz, and HackerSpace will be part of the exhibition.
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GnuCash is more than a simple checkbook register, although it can be used for that purpose. Its real power is in the features supporting small business use and managing multiple accounts. Its basic features are intuitive, but if you don’t have a bookkeeping background, be prepared to spend some time with the user guide in order to fully appreciate its advanced capabilities.
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But the researchers, including Adi Shamir, a co-inventor of the widely-used RSA encryption algorithm, have shown how within one hour it was possible to extract a 4096-bit RSA private key used to decrypt email from a laptop running the OpenPGP-based mail encryption tool, GNU Privacy Guard.
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After earlier this month delivering LLVM Clang 3.3/3.4 benchmarks for the new compiler infrastructure out of Apple, today are results that directly compare the new LLVM Clang 3.4 performance against the stable GCC 4.8.2 compiler and GCC 4.9.0 development compiler under various C/C++ benchmarks.
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An Intel engineer has published a patch-set providing a new GCC compiler architecture target for Intel’s upcoming Broadwell CPUs.
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Novena Project aims to create an entirely open source laptop, from the iron down to the bits, and a prototype already exists
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The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today awarded Respects Your Freedom (RYF) certification to Gluglug X60 laptops. The RYF certification mark means that the product meets the FSF’s standards in regard to users’ freedom, control over the product, and privacy. This is the first laptop to receive RYF certification from the FSF.
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FOSS is the last place to suspect “back doors” or traps.
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Computer scientists have devised an attack that reliably extracts secret cryptographic keys by capturing the high-pitched sounds coming from a computer while it displays an encrypted message.
The technique, outlined in a research paper published Wednesday, has already been shown to successfully recover a 4096-bit RSA key used to decrypt e-mails by GNU Privacy Guard, a popular open source implementation of the OpenPGP standard. Publication of the new attack was coordinated with the release of a GnuPG update rated as “important” that contains countermeasures for preventing the attack. But the scientists warned that a variety of other applications are also susceptible to the same acoustic cryptanalysis attack. In many cases, the sound leaking the keys can be captured by a standard smartphone positioned close to a targeted computer as it decrypts an e-mail known to the attackers.
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The Free Software Foundation today has come out for “the first time we’ve ever been able to encourage people to buy and use a laptop as-is.” The Free Software Foundation now backs one laptop model as respecting the customer’s freedoms, but are the hardware specs any good?
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GNU Binutils was updated this morning and some of the major changes for these binary tools updates include supporting several new processors.
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To read more about all of these and see the honorable mentions not listed here, make sure to head back to the full hive five feature.
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Posted in BSD at 5:19 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: News about the world of BSD, led by a generous donation to OpenBSD and a major new release of FreeBSD
OpenBSD
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OpenBSD is important because it’s widely used in firewalls, other edge servers, email, DNS and intrusion detection servers for its security. It’s also included in a number of popular third-party packages that include SQL Lite, BIND, Sendmail and the Lynx web browser. ®
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OpenBSD supports a wide range of hardware architectures, and for practical and logistical reasons there are few places in the world that have them all in one place except OpenBSD headquarters, see eg this picture, which shows a subset of the machines involved in building OpenBSD releases.
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PC-BSD
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PC-BSD 10.0 RC3 for this week pulls in the latest upstream FreeBSD 10 changes. As noted in their weekly digest is also improved detection of AMD Hybrid Graphics systems. With the FreeBSD/PC-BSD open-source graphics drivers being ported from the Linux kernel, their hybrid (dual) GPU graphics support isn’t any better than Linux, and these improvements is just better detection if trying to load the X Server off the first GPU fails. Improved NVIDIA Hybrid/Optimus support for PC-BSD/FreeBSD support still needs to be investigated.
FreeBSD
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FreeBSD 10.0 uses Clang as the default compiler in place of GCC, TRIM support is available for SSDs with ZFS as are other ZFS file-system improvements, AMD Radeon KMS driver support, and a wide-range of packages have been updated. I have already written at length about the best FreeBSD 10 features and other interesting features so check out the dozens of FreeBSD 10.0 articles on Phoronix for more information.
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The problem has been corrected within FreeBSD HEAD, which is aligned for FreeBSD 11-CURRENT. The problem was fixed by writing a new VT console driver (the “Newcons” project). However, this won’t benefit users of FreeBSD 10.0 and can only hope that it will be back-ported to a FreeBSD 10.x point release rather than waiting some years for FreeBSD 11.0.
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The third and final FreeBSD 10.0 release candidate is out ahead of the hopeful general availability in early January.
FreeBSD 10.0 didn’t make it out this year as was originally planned with the first target release date being months ago. Fortunately, the release is progress with a day-after-Christmas update.
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Advancing prudently but quietly within the Debian camp is the Debian GNU/kFreeBSD operating system that pairs Debian’s GNU user-land with the FreeBSD kernel. For Debian 8.0 “Jessie” there are continued improvements on this spin that does away with the Linux kernel. Debian GNU/kFreeBSD Jessie/Sid currently defaults to the FreeBSD 9.2.0 kernel, but a FreeBSD 10.0 development kernel has already landed in Debian and is the focus of today’s benchmarks.
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Latest version of the OS brings in Clang/LLVM, Hyper-V support, ARM additions, and compatibility with the Raspberry Pi
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What makes this monster server (code-named MEGACORE) interesting isn’t its scale (it’s a fairly common server we build) but rather its purpose. It was recently built by iXsystems for the FreeBSD Foundation, and will be used to test and push FreeBSD to its limits. The FreeBSD Foundation plans on making it available to FreeBSD’s developers and committers for the purposes of addressing SMP, memory, and general performance scalability. It will be the most powerful machine in the Project’s possession to date.
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Support for secure boot will be available in the FreeBSD 10.1 release which is due to be made later this year, according to Marshall Kirk McKusick, a senior developer of the operating system.
McKusick told iTWire that work on FreeBSD’s boot process had been making steady progress. “Implementing UEFI booting is the first step, and last year the (FreeBSD) Foundation sponsored (developer) Benno Rice with a small project to implement a working prototype,” he said.
UEFI would be a bad idea for FreeBSD if FreeBSD wants to dodge back doors because of BIOS/EFI-level exploits.
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Posted in GNU/Linux at 5:06 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Devices/appliances and embedded systems running Linux, as demonstrated by recent examples
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Janam has added Yocto Linux support to its XG100 and XG105 barcode scanners, which offer Honeywell Adaptus and Motorola SE865 imagers, respectively.
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The big news this week was Google’s planned acquisition of Nest Labs, but as Jim Zemlin, Rudi Streif and Eric Brown all wrote on Linux.com, the Nest thermostat and smoke alarm are a few among many Linux-based home automation products in the spotlight heading into 2014.
“It’s about a lot more than your coffee maker or your Android-based toothbrush. I’m finding more companies talking about how to use open source software as a defacto standard for integrating your home, office, car and more in ways we can’t even image yet,” Zemlin writes. “Linux and open source are primed to be the foundation for this future.”
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Sure it’s not made of metal, nor did it convince Google to give its creators billions of dollars, but dammit if this isn’t a cool hack. The folks at Spark.io, creators of the Spark Core, a unique Wi-Fi development board that allows you to add Wi-Fi controls to Arduino projects, have used their tech to create a Nest-alike with some of the same features as Tony Fadell’s popular wall wart.
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Farther below, we look at five more new Linux-based products that similarly start at a few hundred dollars: the Ivee Sleek, Ninja Blocks, BlackSumac’s Piper, Belkin’s WeMo, and WigWag. Like Nest, all of these systems let you remotely interact with a main controller device over web-based cloud platforms via Android and iOS apps to control a variety of household devices.
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So far I have looked at the Raspberry Pi NOOBS Linux distributions: Raspbian, Arch and Pidora; the XBMC focused Raspbmc and OpenELEC; and the non-Linux RISC OS. Then in the most recent post I discussed the Pi Camera and USB WiFi adapters. Speaking of the camera, there was a very interesting new post on the Raspberry Pi web site about a python interface and a web page for accessing the Pi camera.
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Since the Pi is a basically a mini-computer, I decided to take it for a spin and see what I could throw at it, and I have been pleasantly surprised. In fact, it’s been so successful that I’ve decided to try setting it up as a mini server with various services. In doing so, I’ve come up with a list of advantages that I feel are very compelling.
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In this interview with Lauren on The Dave and Gunnar Show, it comes as no suprise that Dave is thrilled that his daughter is interested in computer science and open hardware. You’ll hear how proud Gunnar is too as he leads the interview, asking them both what kinds of things she’s working on now (like her school’s all-girl robotics team, The Fighting Unicorns!) and about her presentations on Gluster and on Scratch for Raspberry Pi at the Akron Linux Users Group (LUG).
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By 2017, about 90 per cent of Indian IT organisations will have open source software (OSS) embedded in their mission critical platforms.
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Mentor Graphics has said it is possible to add user interfaces or HMIs, similar to those seen in consumer electronics devices to in-vehicle dashboards.
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Mentor Graphics released a GENIVI 5.0 version of its Linux-based Automotive Technology Platform IVI stack that supports Sourcery Analyzer profiling.
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Suitable Technologies is accepting 1,000 pre-orders at $995 for Beam+, a smaller, less costly, consumer model of its Linux-powered “Beam” mobile telepresence robot.
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Posted in GNU/Linux at 5:00 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Various Linux-powered operating systems for mobile devices are transforming the market
Jolla
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Jolla began its retail journey in its home country Finland and a month later began selling across Europe. Initial sales data from Finnish carrier DNA, which is the only one to offer the Jolla smartphone at this point, shows that the phone is doing quite well. So much so that it managed to overtake the iPhone 5c and iPhone 5s on its network.
Blackphone
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Geeksphone and Silent Circle announced an Android-derived, ultra-secure “Blackphone,” and images of Geeksphone’s Intel-based “Revolution” phone broke cover.
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“I think that the Blackphone could be a useful tool for some people, but it is by no means a magic bullet,” said Google+ blogger Brett Legree. “Information security begins — and ends — with people and the processes they use.” People “‘in the know’ could use Android phones with custom firmware and selected applications … in concert with robust processes to keep their sensitive data protected.”
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Geeksphone has announced a handset prioritising privacy and security, but is it NSA proof?
Tizen
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Chinese phone maker ZTE is preparing to show off a smartphone running the Tizen operating system at Mobile World Congress in late February. It’s not clear if that means ZTE will definitely launch a Tizen phone this year, but the company’s clearly at least looking into the possibility.
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Will 2014 be the year when scrappy new challengers take on the might of Android and iOS? Never say never, but the challenge won’t come from Tizen nor Ubuntu Touch.
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NTT DoCoMo says it has scratched plans for a March launch of Samsung’s first Tizen smartphone, and the Japanese carrier offered no revised timetable.
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The open-source Tizen mobile OS has suffered another setback, with Japanese mobile giant NTT DoCoMo announcing that it has put off plans to launch a smartphone powered by the system this year.
The carrier had earlier said that it would launch a Tizen device in March. But according to a report in the Wall Street Journal on Friday, a DoCoMo spokesman has said that it has shelved those plans for now.
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Sorry Samsung, you’re stuck with Android for a little bit longer. Plans for the first Tizen phone have been cancelled as a phone network in Japan admits there’s no room for another player alongside Android and the iPhone.
COS
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The government-backed Chinese Academy of Sciences, in conjunction with Shanghai Liantong Network Communications Technology, are developing their own secure OS to rival Android, Windows and Ubuntu.
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The Chinese have launched their own mobile operating system to compete with Android and iOS, according to the Register.
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The OS clearly mimics the Linux-based Google Android operating system, which is extremely popular on smartphones and tablets.
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COS is based on Linux and serves as an operating platform for PCs, smartphones, tablets, and set-top boxes as well as supports HTML5 applications. However, due to “safety concerns”, COS is not an open source system, revealed a 21cbh.com report.
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x86 Collapse
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Intel plans to trim more than 5,000 jobs from its workforce this year in an effort to boost its earnings amid waning demand for its personal computer chips.
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Posted in GNU/Linux, Kernel at 4:50 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Linux 3.13 released, Linux 3.14 planned, maintenance releases, and graphics news
Linux Kernel 3.13
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Today, January 19, Linus Torvalds has proudly announced the immediate availability for download of the highly anticipated Linux kernel 3.13, which brings major improvements, numerous new and updated drivers, as well as a dozen of new features.
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This release includes nftables, the successor of iptables, a revamp of the block layer designed for high-performance SSDs, a power capping framework to cap power consumption in Intel RAPL devices, improved squashfs performance, AMD Radeon power management enabled by default and automatic Radeon GPU switching, improved NUMA performance, improved performance with hugepage workloads, TCP Fast Open enabled by default, support for NFC payments, support for the High-availability Seamless Redundancy protocol, new drivers and many other small improvements.
Linux Kernel 3.14
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The first 3.14 pull request worth pointing out on Phoronix are the scheduler changes sent in by Ingo Molnar. The most notable change with this pull is the initial implementation of SCHED_DEADLINE. SCHED_DEADLINE is a new CPU scheduler for the Linux kernel that’s been in development for several years and has undergone numerous revisions. SCHED_DEADLINE implements the Earliest Deadline First (EDF) scheduling algorithm.
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The Intel MID (Mobile Internet Device) platform updates for the Linux 3.14 kernel include supporting Merrifield and Clovertrail platforms. Clovertrail has been around for a while but Merrifield is Intel’s new smart-phone architecture focused on Android. Merrifield has a 22nm Atom SoC and it’s expected to start appearing this quarter.
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Daniel Vetter of Intel’s Open-Source Technology Center blogged on Wednesday about the major changes queued up for the Linux 3.14 kernel as it concerns their DRM kernel graphics driver. The main changes for Intel DRM in Linux 3.14 include runtime D3 support, wwatermark computation / frame-buffer compression fixes, a rewrite of the low-level backlight code, work on full PPGTT support, Bay Trail Atom improvements, and a kernel option to disable legacy fbdev support.
Old Linux Kernels
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Greg Kroah-Hartman has announced a few hours ago, January 15, that the eight maintenance release of the stable Linux kernel 3.12 is now available for download.
More Kernel
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To complement the many Intel vs. AMD CPU/APU Linux benchmarks published earlier this week as part of our AMD A10-7850K “Kaveri” APU coverage, here’s some results mostly examining the performance-per-Watt and overall system power consumption of the many different Intel and AMD processors running Ubuntu Linux.
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Kernfs is the sysfs logic that in turn can be taken advantage of by other subsystems in need of a virtual file-system with handling for device connect/disconnect, dynamic creation, and other attributes.
Graphics Stack
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We’re getting close to the 1.4.0 release date – well, actually that was supposed to be Jan 16, but we ended up slipping a week to get a more solid first beta (1.3.92) out. We tagged that Jan 10 and here’s 1.3.93, aka second beta or release candidate:
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2013 has been a dramatic and controversial year for graphics in Linux, yet actual changes to the overall graphics stack have so far been more incremental than revolutionary. But with us closing in on several Linux distributions’ Long-Term Support releases this is to be expected, as stability weighs stronger than novelty among consumers of these products. This next summer may be a safer window for distros to undertake major transitions; we should expect to see major graphics system transitions in desktop distros at that point. The landing of XWayland support in the X server can be seen as an early indicator of a Wayland desktop future, since it’s a crucial prerequisite.
Intel
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Some open-source Intel Linux developers have been busy this weekend to ensure the Broadwell open-source driver enablement work will be ready for when the hardware ships in a few months time so it won’t be like the poor open-source Kaveri driver.
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AMD
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The Linux 3.13 kernel that will be released in the very near future is very worth the upgrade if you are a RadeonSI user — in particular, the Radeon HD 7000 series GPUs and newer on the Gallium3D Linux graphics driver — but other open-source graphics driver users as well may also see nice improvements in the new kernel release. Here’s some benchmarks showing off the gains found with the Linux 3.13 kernel for Radeon HD and R9 graphics cards.
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The latest benchmarks of the AMD A10-7850K APU to share on Phoronix and to complement yesterday’s Windows vs. Linux OpenGL comparison are benchmarks of the APU’s Radeon R7 Graphics compared to numerous AMD Radeon and NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards.
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While the RadeonSI Gallium3D driver continues making much headway as the modern open-source AMD Gallium3D Linux graphics driver along with the GLAMOR library it depends upon for 2D acceleration, the 2D performance of the Linux desktop is still quite poor compared to the proprietary Catalyst driver.
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