• Distributions
• Devices/Embedded

China and Linux: A Lesson in Industry Transformation

Organizations around the globe are increasingly developing new applications for big data, mobile and cloud, not to mention the increasing creation and use of social tools, within major markets like banking, communications, retail, transportation and finance. These new applications are also fundamental to operating in a connected world where sensors, data centers, smartphones and even cars are now all connected in a large ecosystem.

Is The Canadian Government Rolling Out GNU/Linux Clients?

The sudden increase by 2%, ~480K users, can only be a whole province’s schools or the Government of Canada. Nothing else is large enough for the sudden change. Even Dell could not do that pushing GNU/Linux at the retail level. The Government of Canada has been considering use of GNU/Linux for more than a decade but certainly not globally. They even considered dual-booting rather than one OS or the other per user. In 2011, Transport Canada documented how severely they were locked in to that other OS. There’s no way they suddenly switched. Recently the government rewarded a teacher who developed a GNU/Linux laboratory. They may have read about GNU/Linux and studied it but they don’t seem to have any motivation to switch despite having an estimate of break-even of 18months for migration.

Reality Check: 5 Linux Features You Want in Your Company

One of my favorite things to do when I am teaching is explaining the whole Linux thing to my undergrad students. It takes a while to understand that no, their instructor isn’t crazy (about this), there really is a free operating system out there that’s pretty much running the Internet, supercomputers, and the DVR back in their dorm room.

Desktop

• Ubuntu vs. Windows 8: Which Is Better Overall?

  Thanks in part to mixed reactions to Windows 8, a growing number of disenfranchised Windows users are giving Ubuntu a second look. In this article, I’ll be offering my own comparison between Ubuntu and Windows, explaining where each has its strengths and which OS offers something better overall.

• Putting Technology into the Hands of Tomorrow

Kernel Space

• The Windows Kernel’s Achilles’ Heel

  “Compared to the Linux kernel, the kernel of that other OS is as inspiring as wet noodles,” blogger Robert Pogson said. “No one can trust it to work for them. After decades of BSODs, vulnerabilities by the score and sluggish behavior on fast hardware, many suspect that there is evil in the black hole.”

• Stable kernels 3.9.3, 3.4.46, and 3.0.79

  Greg Kroah-Hartman has announced the release of the 3.9.3, 3.4.46, and 3.0.79 stable kernels. As always, they contain important fixes throughout the tree, so users should upgrade.

• Graphics Stack

  • Using Six Monitors With AMD’s Open-Source Linux Driver

    Linux graphics drivers have come a long way in recent years for both the open and closed-source solutions from AMD, NVIDIA, and Intel. In this Sunday article, a Phoronix reader has shared his experiences in going from failing to setup two monitors under Linux just a few years ago with NVIDIA to now successfully driving six monitors on a single system using the AMD Linux driver.

  • Freedreno Gallium3D Now Banging The Adreno A3XX

    One month after Rob Clark began developing his Freedreno Gallium3D stack for Qualcomm’s Adreno A3xx hardware, he’s beginning to achieve visual success. While the code hasn’t yet been merged into mainline Mesa, on an A320 as found on the Google Nexus 4 he has es2gears (the OpenGL ES version of glxgears) successfully running on this open-source code.

Applications

• Explore the Night Sky with Stellarium

  A visit to a planetarium might be fascinating, but doesn’t occur very often. The Stellarium software, however, provides a really interesting and convenient alternative. Moreover, Stellarium helps in observing the actual night sky. Because the software presents the sky photorealistically, nothing stands in the way of making it available in a classroom or during a lecture. And, because Stellarium is available in the repositories for all the major distributions, installation is at the click of a button.

• QEMU 1.5 Supports VGA Passthrough, Better USB 3.0

  Just three months after the exciting QEMU 1.4 release, QEMU 1.5 is now available with many exciting and new features for those using this open-source software in a virtualized world. There’s the VFIO VGA pass-through support, USB 3.0 improvements, and much more.

• Instructionals/Technical

  • Comprehending Lists and Tuples

  • How To Uninstall Windows Or Linux After Dual-Booting

  • 
    How to use the “tee” command

  • Maintain A Local Repo

    NextStep4it has a nice little tutorial on setting up a local CentOS yum mirror using reposync. Maintaining a local mirror has several benefits, and is a recommended practice for maintaining even modest number of servers. Pointing all your updates at a local mirror speeds up patching, reduces bandwidth consumption, and standardizes patch sets across periods of time.

• Games

  • 24 Peachy Free Linux Games (Part 2 of 4)

    Linux has an ever-expanding library of thousands of free games, many of which are released under an open source license. A good selection of these titles are entertaining, highly addictive, offer captivating gameplay, and are most importantly, great fun to play. Identifying entertaining and challenging games is something that we have a passion for.

  • Reptile Games’ electro beat-’em-up Megabyte Punch coming to Linux

  • 24 Peachy Free Linux Games (Part 2 of 4)

    Linux has an ever-expanding library of thousands of free games, many of which are released under an open source license. A good selection of these titles are entertaining, highly addictive, offer captivating gameplay, and are most importantly, great fun to play. Identifying entertaining and challenging games is something that we have a passion for.

Desktop Environments/WMs

• K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

  • personal experience and opinion – kmail2 still not suitable for on-the-road use

  • Simon Gets a New Homepage

    These days, it’s rather hard to point someone interested in Simon to a website as most of the information is strewn across different sites of the KDE infrastructure. Especially for people outside of KDE, it’s very hard to find e.g. the forum or the bug tracker.

Distributions

• Antergos Linux 2013.05.12 review

  Antergos Linux is a desktop distribution based on Arch Linux. The distribution started under the Cinnarch moniker with the objective of providing a Cinnamon-only desktop distribution using the same rolling release development model as its parent distribution.

  It got its new name after the developers came to the conclusion that it was going to be extremely difficult to reconcile the Cinnamon and Arch Linux development models, opting instead to use GNOME 3 as the default desktop environment and provide support for other desktop environments.

• Best Linux Distro For a New User?

  There’s still a perception that Linux is difficult to use and is only for Geeks. This seems rather silly, since most casual users, the folks who use their computers only for surfing, email and word processing, would have little to no learning curve at all using many Linux distros these days. In fact, even with some of the more “advanced” distros, your grandma wouldn’t have any trouble sitting right down and doing whatever it is she does when she’s on the computer.

• Hybryde Fusion: A very unique Linux distribution

  Hybryde Fusion is a new desktop distribution based on Ubuntu Desktop. Unlike most other Ubuntu-based distributions, it brings a few interesting features to the table.

  Hybryde Fusion 13.04 is the distribution’s first release and the developer, Larrieu Olivier, is based in France. I’m still playing with a test installation, so this is not a review, but a presentation of a bunch of screen shots just to show what this distribution has to offer.

• Happy Anniversary, LinuxMigrante!

  Although Megatotoro migrated to Linux a bit later than I did, he took his migration seriously and learned a lot of Linux tricks before I did, all thanks to Mepis, Pardus, and AntiX, his distros of choice.

• New Releases

  • [wifislax] Modúlos específicos para la versión 4.4

• PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family

  • Before Mageia 3: Mageia 2 in Perspective Redux

    The early articles of this site revolved around the late and somewhat lamented Mandriva, which faced troubles as a Linux distribution, product, and company. Although Distrowatch lists Mageia within its top 10 of most clicked distributions, Mageia receives the same coverage in the media as long running PCLinuxOS and Sabayon. In fact, popular frugal Linux distribution Puppy Linux is mentioned more in articles and forums than Mageia.

    Why run Mageia 2 when the developers will be releasing Mageia 3 ( an RC is already out) soon? Well, to see if an updated previous release is a stable one – typically a good sign that a distribution has matured and the next release deserves a go. The positive reception for openSUSE 12.3, for example, was already foreshadowed by the excellent openSUSE 12.2 (which I’m still running to this day).

  • Mageia 3 Released, Still Using Legacy GRUB

    At long last the third major version of Mageia, the popular community fork of Mandriva Linux, is now available. There’s a lot of new stuff to Mageia 3 like a new version of RPM and updated systemd, but the distribution is still not shipping GRUB2 by default.

  • Mageia 3: Here’s what I gained and what I lost

    Mageia 3 was released today and I downloaded the Live DVD version to replace my Mageia 2 Desktop install without further consideration. Normally, I test the betas and the RC of a distro carefully in a virtual machine. This time, sadly, I had no time to do that.

  • Linux Top 3: Mageia 3, Linux Mint 15 and New Linux Kernels for All

  • Mageia 3 arrives “all grown up” after two months’ delay

    Almost two months later than initially expected, the Mageia developers have released the third major version of their Linux distribution. Mageia was originally forked from Mandriva over two and a half years ago and is now “all grown up and ready to go dancing,” according to its developers. Mageia 3 updates the distribution’s kernel, systemd startup tools, the six available desktop environments and a large number of included applications. The release is dedicated to long-time Mandriva contributor and Intel employee Eugeni Dodonov who died last year in a road accident.

  • Mageia 3 is out!

• Red Hat Family

  • Red Hat Downgraded by BMO Capital Markets to Market Perform (RHT)

  • BMO Capital Markets Downgrades Red Hat to Market Perform Following Linux Foundation User Event

    In a report published Monday, BMO Capital Markets analyst Karl Keirstead downgraded the rating on Red Hat (NYSE: RHT) from Outperform to Market Perform, but reiterated the $54.00 price target.

• Debian Family

  • Derivatives

    • Canonical/Ubuntu

      • Chromium May Become Default Ubuntu Browser in Version 13.10

        Ever since 2005, Ubuntu has delivered Mozilla’s Firefox browser as its default browser, which has made millions of Ubuntu users loyal users of Firefox. But Firefox is hardly the only browser choice that Ubuntu users have. If you’ve tried Chromium–the open source core of Google’s Chrome browser–you already know that it’s fast, clean and very stable. That has now produced a lively discussion going on online about whether Ubuntu 13.10, due later this year, should ship with Chromium as the default browser.

      • Laptop Week Review: The Dell XPS 13 Developers Edition With Ubuntu

        Dude, you got a Linux-powered Dell! In all the years I’ve reviewed laptops I’ve never been as pleasantly surprised by an Ultrabook as I was with the Dell XPS 13 Developers Edition. This ultrathin, ultralight SSD laptop originally came in Windows flavor but, much to my surprise, I far prefer the Ubuntu edition of this device. It is solidly built, acceptably priced given the solid state drive, and surprisingly powerful.

      • What to Expect from Unity in Ubuntu 13.10

      • The Cost Of Ubuntu Disk Encryption

        It’s been a while since last running any Ubuntu Linux disk encryption benchmarks, but thanks to recent encryption improvements within the upstream Linux ecosystem, it’s time to deliver some new Linux disk encryption benchmarks. In this article are results comparing Ubuntu 13.04 without any form of disk encryption to using the home directory encryption feature (eCryptfs-based) and full-disk encryption (using LUKS with an encrypted LVM).

Devices/Embedded

• $99 HDMI stick turns displays into virtual desktops

  Devon IT unveiled an HDMI stick that can turn any HDMI-compatible monitor or display into an interactive virtual desktop. “Ceptor” is somewhat larger than a typical USB memory stick, runs Devon IT’s Linux-based ZeTOS “zero client” operating system on a 1GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 SOC (system-on-chip), and sells for $99.

• Arduino Yun weds Arduino, WiFi and linux at Maker Faire 2013

• Phones

  • Jolla prices first Sailfish OS smartphone at €399 for a 2013 launch

    Jolla has just unveiled its first smartphone, which will go on sale this year for €399 (roughly $510). Running the company’s MeeGo-derived Sailfish OS, it features a 4.5-inch display, a dual-core processor, an 8-megapixel camera, LTE (in selected markets), removable back covers, 16GB of onboard storage, and a microSD slot. According to Jolla, the handset will be “compliant” with Android apps, although it’s not sure how many apps will be supported, nor is it clear where users will download the apps from.

  • Jolla Launch

  • Ballnux

    • See the Samsung Galaxy S4 Active for the first time

    • Samsung Galaxy Grand Quattro Launched in India

      Following the success of Galaxy Grand, Samsung launched the Galaxy Grand Quattro in India today. Priced competitively at Rs.17,290, the grand Quattro targets the lower mid range segment.

      The Galaxy Grand Quattro features a 4.7 inch at 480×800 resolution. The Dual-SIM phone is powered by 1.2GHz quad core Cortex A5 processor, Adreno 203 GPU, 1GB RAM and is running Android Jelly Bean 4.1.2. It comes with a 5 megapixel shooter and 0.3 megapixel from facing camera. The internal memory is limited to 8GB, but has an expandable memory up to 32GB.

    • Samsung Calls Out Developers with $800,000 Galaxy S4 App Challenge

      If you’ve been following recent market share numbers for smartphones and mobile operating systems, then you know that Samsung has achieved a dominant position with its Android phones, and especially the Galaxy line of phones. Now, Samsung has launched its “Samsung Smart App Challenge 2013,” inviting developers who work with the company’s peer-to-peer software to develop competitive apps for the S4 phone. The contest includes $800,000 in prize money.

    • Did Samsung confirm a new Galaxy device: the Galaxy S4 Mega?

  • Android

    • Google Glass will be a big deal, so deal with it

      Perhaps no group has earned a borderline obscene pejorative as quickly as the wearers of Google Glass. I mean, the product, not due for release until early next year, is seen in the wild today only on the few thousand who are its early testers. And yet we already

      have the term “glasshole.” Google Glass has also been banned ahead of its release. This all seems to stem from the belief, voiced by writers such as Jason Perlow, that Google Glass is evil, since “it’s a ‘stealth’ recording device.”

    • Intel’s Android mobile chipset play embraces ARM

      Intel has released a new set of development tools for the Android Jelly Bean mobile device operating system called Beacon Mountain.

      Beacon Mountain version 0.5 is only compatible with Android 4.2 Jelly Bean

    • Dell Project Ophelia USB Android stick to ship in July, priced at $100

      We know that “wherefore art thou?” was about Romeo, but if your question was for (Dell’s) Ophelia, then it’s likely more “when art thou.” The answer? July. The Android pendrive / USB computer we saw back at CES may be one of many, but distinctive thanks to its mainstream PC-maker origins. We’re still lacking a lot of the specifics, other than that there’s WiFi, Bluetooth, Wyse PocketCloud integration, plus, of course, HDMI and Android 4.something.

    • Dell Project Ophelia Android USB set to launch in July

      Dell’s latest move to insinuate itself into the Android market, Project Ophelia, will be hitting our shelves soon.

    • Intel releases ‘Beacon Mountain’ Android-on-Atom dev tool

      Indroid Inside Intel has released “Beacon Mountain” a development environment for Android apps on both its own Atom silicon and ARM chippery.

      Beacon Mountain emerged over the weekend, promising “productivity-oriented design, coding, and debugging tools for apps targeting … smartphones and tablets.”

    • Google H840 media player hits the FCC: Next Nexus Q?

      Last year Google introduced a media player called the Nexus Q which was designed to let you stream content from your phone or tablet (and from the internet) to your TV. It didn’t last long.

    • Verizon’s “XFON” Likely the XT1060, Also Runs a Snapdragon S4 Dual-core MSM8960

• Sub-notebooks/Tablets

  • Ubuntu Linux Tablets From ZaReason, System76?

    Will Ubuntu PC makers ZaReason and System76 introduce Linux tablets? Here are clues about the future of ZaTab and System76′s own Ubuntu tablet ambitions.

Twitter uses open source to automate security

Twitter is increasingly using open source automation tools to ensure security processes are taken care of in all the code it produces.

“Automation is where we see application security teams going in future,” Alex Smolen, Twitter product security team software engineer, told the Security Development Conference 2013 in San Francisco.

Has Open Source’s time come?

In 1991, a Finnish university student posted a project on an internet discussion board that would change the world. Linus Torvalds had put up the first version of Linux, a computer operating system that within thirty-five years, millions of volunteer programmers around the world would have developed to a point where versions of Linux power 75% of mobile phones sold around the world in the first quarter of 2013 and the majority of websites on the internet, including the one you’re reading this article on right now.

RTKLIB Open Source GNSS Precise Positioning Software Supports NV08C Receiver

Don’t sell free software cheap

How can I get paid for free software development? That’s a question many developers ask. And it’s a good question, because software development is expensive, no matter what the license is. Money is one way to pay for this, but fortunately there are many other ways to get paid for free software. The one thing you should never do, though, is to sell free software cheap.

Google’s chat client drops Jabber compatibility

Google is currently deploying an update for its Talk chat client that will replace it with the new Hangouts app. Introduced last week at the I/O developer conference in San Francisco, the Hangouts application is designed to put an end to having three simultaneously available real-time Google communication services – Talk, Google+ Messenger and the original Google+ Hangouts – and is available for Android, iOS, Windows, and as a Chrome extension.

“Mobile-first” Bootstrap 3 is almost ready

Mobile use cases are the major focus for the next version of the open source web frontend framework Bootstrap. Under the heading of “Bootstrap 3 will be mobile-first”, the developers have merged the responsive CSS templates into the core bootstrap.css file, dropping support for Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 3.6 in the process. The changes are aimed at making site designs implemented in Bootstrap adaptable to mobile resolutions by default, without the user having to explicitly enable additional functionality. Bootstrap, which originated at Twitter, has become popular with many developers and is used by hundreds of sites.

Web Browsers

• Mozilla

  • Ubuntu 13.10 may ditch Firefox for Chromium

    For years, Ubuntu and Firefox have strolled the open source countryside hand-in-hand. That could change with the release of Ubuntu 13.10, however, as Canonical is thinking about dumping Firefox for Chromium.

    It’s hard to believe that Firefox’s run as the default browser on Ubuntu could be coming to an end. In 2005, it was Firefox 1.0.2 that shipped with Hoary Hedgehog. Eight years later, you’ll find Firefox 20 in Ubuntu 13.04. When 13.10 arrives in the second half of this year, you may have to install the package manually from the Ubuntu Software Center if you want to keep surfing with the ‘fox.

CMS

• Using Salt Stack and Vagrant for Drupal Development

BSD

• Announcing NetBSD 6.1

• NetBSD 6.1 and 6.0.2 released

  The NetBSD Foundation has announced the first feature update of NetBSD 6 in the form of NetBSD 6.1. The changes in 6.1 include fixes in the kernel for processes with attributes. Networking gets fixes for “atomic fragments” in IPv6, fixes for locking issues in the ipf packet filter, many changes to the npf packet filter library and a correction to the VirtIO NIC driver which had been crashing recent QEMU versions. Filesystem changes include various fixes and working big-endian support for smbfs and an ability to mount ext2fs and msdosfs in 32-bit compat mode.

Project Releases

• Handbrake turns 0.9.9

  The developers of HandBrake, the popular open source video transcoder, have announced the release of version 0.9.9 of the popular video conversion application. Another two beta releases of HandBrake, one which previews the transcoder working with Intel’s Quick Sync Video SDK and another which uses OpenCL to accelerate cropping and scaling and decoding on windows, were also released.

• Handbrake 0.9.9 Supports OpenCL Offloading

  Just three months after the exciting QEMU 1.4 release, QEMU 1.5 is now available with many exciting and new features for those using this open-source software in a virtualized world. There’s the VFIO VGA pass-through support, USB 3.0 improvements, and much more.

• m23 rock 13.1 is ready!

Public Services/Government

• ‘Portugal’s municipalities increasingly use open source for geoinformation’

  A rising number of municipalities in Portugal are turning to open source software solutions for their Geo Information Systems, says Pedro Venâncio, a GIS engineer working for the municipality of Pinhel. “When it comes to GIS, in our municipality we only use open source”, he says

Openness/Sharing

• HetNet News: Range networks integrates its open-source equipment; new Firetide CEO

  Range Networks, which makes open-source cellular systems, announced that its equipment now integrates with operators’ SS7-MAP core networks and supports 4G. The company, which targets rural and developing markets and private industrial networks with low-cost network equipment, has been collaborating with SS7Ware and said that its One Core Network now supports 2G, 3G and 4G network nodes to be run off of the same core network. Previously, the company’s equipment was limited to 2G, 2.5G, and 3G GSM systems.

Programming

• Perl 5.18 goes stable

  The latest release of Perl, Perl 5.18, is now available as a stable release. Among the many changes that have taken place over the twelve months of development and 400,000 changed lines of code, is a major overhaul of how hashing is implemented.

  The new hash implementation uses a random seed which will vary the return values from keys(), values() and each() each time a program is run; this change makes Perl’s hashes more robust and exposes hash-order dependency bugs. This improvement in security is accompanied by a fix for code injection through translations (CVE-2012-6329) and stopping Perl calling memset with a negative value (CVE-2012-5195), a problem which could become a heap overrun.

Environment/Energy/Wildlife

• 20 children among 91 dead in Moore, Oklahoma tornado

  Twenty children were among at least 91 people killed when a powerful tornado swept through an Oklahoma City suburb, tearing down blocks of homes and two schools, local officials said.

  The state medical examiner’s office released the latest death toll but the number was climbing rapidly, as emergency crews combed through smashed homes and the collapsed remains of an elementary school in Moore, Oklahoma.

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

• Bum Rap: The U.S. Role in Guatemalan Genocide

• PBS Killed Wisconsin Uprising Documentary “Citizen Koch” To Appease Koch Brothers

  “Citizen Koch,” a documentary about money in politics focused on the Wisconsin uprising, was shunned by PBS for fear of offending billionaire industrialist David Koch, who has given $23 million to public television, according to Jane Mayer of the New Yorker. The dispute highlights the increasing role of private money in “public” television and raises even further concerns about the Kochs potentially purchasing eight major daily newspapers.

Censorship

• How the Great Firewall of China is Blocking Tor

Civil Rights

• Weev in solitary confinement for remotely tweeting from prison

  Weev, whose real name is Andrew Auernheimer, was taken to court and subsequently landed in jail following his infamous and controversial AT&T hack. He’s in prison for 41 months, but even holed up behind bars Weev is causing trouble of the non-violent kind. The Daily Dot reports that Weev is believed to be locked up in solitary confinement following an unsanctioned tweet that shouldn’t have been published in the first place.

  Auernheimer’s lawyer Tor Ekeland says the tweeting from his client’s @rabite handle is the cause of the sudden isolation – Auernheimer is even unable to speak with his lawyer. While Auernheimer isn’t allowed access to the Internet directly, there’s something called the Trust Fund Limited Computer System (TRULINCS), a system where inmates can send email messages to approved contacts. Basically, he would use this system to send messages to a secure contact who would then tweet for him – think of it like surrogate tweeting.

  What looked like his own tweets were actually messages Auernheimer was sending to an approved content to tweet for him … at least that’s what is being assumed. With the help of a friend or friends, Auernheimer has been able to tweet relatively frequently. You can see his stream embedded below.

• Distributions
• Devices/Embedded

Audiocasts/Shows

• LB – Episode 79 – Great Googly Moogly

Kernel Space

• Logitech Adds ‘Linux Compatible’ Option to Product Site; Sign of Good Things to Come?

  As rich as the Linux OS is, one of its sticking-points is that a lot of companies don’t properly support their products for it. Your Logitech mouse might work just fine under the OS, of course, but it wouldn’t be the company to thank; rather, the support comes from the efforts of developers who share the same passion for the OS as you do. My ASUS Xonar audio card works brilliantly under Linux, but ASUS had nothing to do with it.

Applications

• Instructionals/Technical

  • Unix/Linux File Recognition. Did You Know?

  • Bash Functions for more a powerful Alias

  • Flareget a great download manager for Linux

  • Get Better Linux Desktop Performance And More With pf-kernel

  • How to Uninstall Windows or Linux After Dual-Booting

Distributions

• New Releases

  • GNU dbm – News: Version 1.10.90

    Version 1.10.90 (alpha) of GDBM is available for download at ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/gdbm/gdbm-1.10.90.tar.gz

  • May 2013 GNU Toolchain Update

    Strangely it has been a rather quiet month as far as new developments in the GNU toolchain goes.

• PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family

  • Mageia 3 Released with Steamy Goodness

    he third official release of, the popular Mandriva fork, Mageia is now available. After months of delays and a mountain of challenges, Patricia Fraser said, “We still can’t believe how much fun it is to make Mageia together, and we’ve been doing it for two and a half years.”

    Like every new release, Mageia 3 comes chocked full ‘o upgrades. Some of these include Linux 3.8.13, Xorg X Server 1.13.4, GCC 4.7.2, KDE 4.10.2, GNOME 3.6, LibreOffice 4.0.2, GIMP 2.8.2, and Firefox 17.05. But a few new surprises await as well.

• Debian Family

  • Review of Debian GNU/Linux 7.0

    Debian GNU/Linux is one of the oldest surviving Linux distributions and will be celebrating its 20th anniversary later this year. The venerable project is home to hundreds of volunteers who maintain over 35,000 software packages. Debian has expanded over the years and currently supports nine hardware architectures, displaying an unusual level of flexibility for a Linux distribution. Debian isn’t just a long lived Linux distro, the project also maintains ports which allow developers and users to experiment with running GNU software on top of alternative kernels, including Hurd and the FreeBSD kernel. This amazing diversity, along with Debian’s reputation for stability, has caused many developers to base their own projects on Debian.

    Dozens of the world’s most popular and widely used open-source projects (including Ubuntu, Linux Mint and KNOPPIX) can trace their ancestry back to Debian. Apart from being one of the largest existing open-source projects Debian is also a social experiment. The project is run as a democracy, a rarity in the open-source world, where developers vote on important changes and are guided by a constitution. For the reasons given above, more so than the anticipated features, the release of a new version of Debian sends ripples through the open-source community. Debian may be a famously conservative project, but everything its developers do affect large portions of the open-source population. I was quite eager to see what Debian 7.0, code name Wheezy, would offer.

  • How to transform a Debian based system to a Debian Edu installation

    Debian Edu / Skolelinux is an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools. It contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to pupils in the primary schools. It provide both the central server, network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of educational software. The project was founded almost 12 years ago, 2001-07-02. If you want to support the project, which is in need for cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity, please donate some money.

  • Derivatives

    • Canonical/Ubuntu

      • Development plans for Ubuntu 13.10

        Among the topics discussed by the developers at Ubuntu Developer Summit 13.05 were the planned new features for Ubuntu 13.10. The next version of the distribution, code-named “Saucy Salamander”, could include early versions of Ubuntu’s Mir display server and have the Qt-based Unity Next desktop environment for testing. However, the default configuration will continue to include the graphics stack of Ubuntu 12.10 with X11, Compiz and Unity 7. By 2014, Canonical plans to unify the code base for Ubuntu’s smartphone, tablet and PC desktops, based on Mir and Unity Next.

      • Ubuntu Touch: the (natural) next step in personal computing?

        I don’t think many people have realised that we are on the verge of a technological revolution. The computing world is changing, and this is the first time GNU/Linux is catching the revolution as it begins. Computers are getting smaller and smaller, while phones are getting bigger and bigger. Everybody can see that they about to converge — but in what form? Well, the answer is: GNU/Linux — before anybody else. The ingredients? A great GNU/Linux distribution, a leader with the right vision, and a few very bold, ground-breaking choices. Mix it well: the result is Ubuntu Touch. Let me go through these ingredients.

      • Flavours and Variants

        • Linux Mint 15 “Olivia” gets release candidate

          The Linux Mint developers have announced a release candidate for the upcoming version of their distribution, Linux Mint 15. The release, which is code-named “Olivia”, is being built on Ubuntu 13.04 and is billed by Linux Mint founder Clement Lefebvre as “the most ambitious release since the start of the project.”

Devices/Embedded

• OpenPandora review, part two

  Welcome, Willkommen, Bienvenue! To the second article in my Pandora series. As you recall, several weeks back, I received a test unit from Michael Mrozek, of the world’s smallest, most-powerful gaming micro-computer. In the first installment, we talked most about initial impressions, the look & feel, specifications, and a brief taste of the variety of its capabilities, technologies and interfaces.

  Now, we will dig deeper. In this article, I will focus on firmware refresh of the test unit, trying to bring the system to a newer edition, as well as dabble in the ins and outs of the Xfce desktop environment. I will leave the gaming-oriented MiniMenu and the Android mod for the third and last part in this would-be trilogy. Follow me.

• Arduino launches Yún for WiFi connectivity under Linux

  THE SINGLE BOARD MICROCONTROLLER Arduino has been revamped to offer WiFi connectivity under Linux, in order to make connecting to complex web services much easier directly from the device.

  Named the Arduino Yún, which apparently is Chinese for “cloud”, the microcontroller claims to be the first of a family of WiFi products combined with a customised version of the Linux operating system (OS) distribution OpenWRT called Linino.

  Designed in collaboration with chip firm Dog Hunter, Linino provides signed packages to ensure the authenticity of the software installed on the device and, according to Arduino, Linino is the most used Linux distribution for embedded devices.

• Phones

  • Jolla announces first Sailfish-based smartphone

    Finnish startup Jolla has announced its first smartphone, which shows off its Sailfish OS on a 4.5-inch screen.

  • Jolla announces its first Salifish OS smartphone

  • Here Comes Jolla, Yet Another Deviant Linux Smartphone

  • Sailfish OS phone “Jolla” debuts, available for preorders

  • Ballnux

    • Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 review – A surprise

      Holy shit! What you, Dedoimedo, you sellout, you hypocrite! Wait, calm down. All is well. There’s a reason why I decided to buy a tablet. One, I can afford it. Two, I really wanted to see what makes the retards get so excited. Three, I had an actual business need for this, but more about that later. Anyhow, this is my very first experience with a tablet. Honestly. I’ve never used one before. So it should be definitely most interesting. I’ve dabbled in Android a bit now and then, and overall, I was not really impressed. The x86 version for netbooks was ok but not magnificent, however, on the other hand, my smartphone experience was, overall, quite frustrating.

      Let’s how a pretentious old git like me managed to cope with this new modern technology. Better yet, why a pretentious old git like me would ever want to buy a device that is operated by touch only. Finally, this is a proper, thorough review of the Samsung tablet, probably of a higher quality, relevance and greater depth than anything else out there, because after all, it’s Dedoimedo writing this stellar review. Avanti.

• Sub-notebooks/Tablets

  • Sony Xperia Tablet Z Joins Android Open Source Project (Video)

    Sony recently added their flagship Android smartphone, the Sony Xperia Z to the Android Open Source Project, and the latest device to be added to ASOP is the Sony Xperia Tablet Z.

Why We Need Open Source: Three Cautionary Tales

Open Enterprise mostly writes about “obvious” applications of open source – situations where money can be saved, or control regained, by shifting from proprietary to open code. That battle is more or less won: free software is widely recognised as inherently superior in practically all situations, as its rapid uptake across many markets demonstrates. But there are also some circumstances where it may not be so obvious that open source is the solution, because it’s not always clear what the problem is.

For example, in the field of economics, there is a well-known paper by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff entitled, “Growth in a Time of Debt.” The main result is that “median growth rates for countries with public debt over 90 percent of GDP are roughly one percent lower than otherwise; average (mean) growth rates are several percent lower.” Needless to say, this has been seized upon and widely cited by those in favour of austerity.

Open source browser based code editors

The humble browser. Its main purpose, for many years, was to serve up simple HTML documents and provide information on just about any subject you could think of. In the last decade, with broadband taking over from dial-up, and net connections getting ever quicker, websites have increasingly provided applications usually restricted to the desktop.

CMS

• Open Source WordPress Grows on Yahoo Tumblr Buyout

  The big news in the tech world that emerged over the weekend is that Yahoo is set to repeat its decade old mistake and acquire Tumblr (Geocities redux) for $1 Billion.

  I’m not a fan of Tumblr, but I am a fan of freedom and WordPress, both of which are apparently now ‘winning’ as a side effect of this deal. While it’s still unclear precisely how Yahoo’s ownership may/may not affect Tumblr, users are already voting with their blogs.

Public Services/Government

• Five Star Movement urges Italian city of Bari to move to open source

  The administration of the Italian city of Bari must increase its use of free and open source software solutions, say local representatives of the Five Star Movement. Switching to open source will be part of the movement’s election programme for the municipal elections in 2014.

Openness/Sharing

• Open Hardware

  • An Interview With Dr. Joshua Pearce Of Printers For Peace

    Joshua Pearce, PhD, is a researcher at Michigan Tech who rearches open source and low-impact solutions to engineering problems. He is also the founder of the Printers For Peace contest, an effort to bring together clever 3D-printed ideas that have loftier aims. You can win one of two 3D printers if you submit a winning project.

Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

• Drones: Which Countries Have Them For Surveillance And Military Operations?

• Outgoing envoy Sherry Rehman urges US to end drones in Pak

  Pakistan’s outgoing ambassador to the US, Sherry Rehman, has asked Washington to end drone strikes

• Pakistan’s Nawaz Sharif is right to oppose Obama’s drones

  A recent survey suggests that 75% of Pakistanis dislike the USA and it’s mainly because of drones

• Olson seeks unanimity on terror, drones

• Timothy Spangler: Drones cast shadow over Pakistan elections

  Voting figures to have impact on U.S. policy in the region.

• CIA chief John Brennan makes surprise Israel visit for Syria talks

  The CIA chief has made an unexpected visit to Israel to meet senior political and military figures to discuss the deteriorating security situation in neighbouring Syria.

  John Brennan, who took up his post two months ago, met the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, defence minister, Moshe Ya’alon, military chief of staff, Benny Gantz, and Mossad chief, Tamir Pardo, according to reports in Israel media.

• Chief of Moscow CIA base named

  RUSSIA has named the alleged CIA station chief in Moscow, following its decision to expel a US diplomat accused of trying to recruit a Russian intelligence officer as a spy.

• CIA head John Brennan makes unannounced Israel visit

  CIA director John Brennan made an unannounced visit to Israel to discuss the situation in Syria.

  Brennan and Israel’s defense minister, Moshe Yaalon, in their meeting Friday reportedly compared intelligence assessments on Syria and its two-year civil war. They also talked about Israel’s intent to continue striking shipments of advanced weapons destined for Hezbollah from Iran via Syria.

• Two men accused of spying for CIA and Mossad hung in Iran

  Kurosh Ahmadi was hanged for providing information about Iran to CIA officers, Fars said.

• Paul Kagame: I asked America to kill Congo rebel leader with drone

  Rwanda’s president, Paul Kagame, has rejected accusations from Washington that he was supporting a rebel leader and accused war criminal in the Democratic Republic of the Congo by challenging a senior US official to send a drone to kill the wanted man.

  In an interview with the Observer Magazine, Kagame said that on a visit to Washington in March he came under pressure from the US assistant secretary of state for Africa, Johnnie Carson, to arrest Bosco Ntaganda, leader of the M23 rebels, who was wanted by the international criminal court (ICC). The US administration was increasing pressure on Kagame following a UN report claiming to have uncovered evidence showing that the Rwandan military provided weapons and other support to Ntaganda, whose forces briefly seized control of the region’s main city, Goma.

• Drone strikes kill suspected Al-Qaida militants in Yemen

  An apparent US drone attack has killed four suspected Al-Qaida militants in southern Yemen and destroyed an explosives-packed truck, tribal sources said on Saturday.

  They occurred on Friday night in Al-Mahfad region in Abyan province, the sources said.

  The truck was carrying grenades and explosive belts, and the attack destroyed the weapons and killed the vehicle’s four occupants, “members of Al-Qaida,” one of the sources said.

• US drones kill 4 ‘militants’ in first strike in Yemen in a month

• Former US drone pilot quits, regretting bombing innocents, including children

  A former US assassination drone pilot says he quit the force after feeling “numb” about seeing a child and other civilians blown away in his remote bombing of targets in Afghanistan and realizing he has unconsciously developed a desire to kill.

• Obama to address Guantánamo and drones in major defence speech

  President to push legal case for targeted drone strikes and outline position on Guantánamo detention camp, reports say

• Obama to address drones, Gitmo in defense policy speech

• Obama to reveal counterterrorism strategy, plans for drones and Guantanamo Bay on Thursday

  President Barack Obama will discuss his counterterrorism strategy Thursday, revealing to the American public his plans for unmanned drones and Guantanamo Bay, the White House said Sunday.

  During his speech at the National Defense University in Washington, the president will discuss “our broad counter-terrorism policy, including our military, diplomatic, intelligence and legal efforts,” a White House official told AFP.

• US robots, Israeli drones to help make 2014 World Cup in Brazil ‘one of safest sporting events ever’

• France in talks with U.S., Israel to buy drones – minister

  France is in talks with the United States and Israel to buy intelligence-gathering drones to build up a modern fleet, Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Sunday.

  France’s existing hardware is outdated and its military intervention in Mali this year has exposed its shortage of surveillance drones suitable for modern warfare. The United States provided French commanders with intelligence from its drones based in Niger

• France to buy drones for Mali – report

• Australia to stock up on US drones

• Israel is world’s largest exporter of drones, study finds

  Over the last eight years Israel has exported $4.6 billion worth of unmanned aerial vehicles, according to a study by the business consulting firm Frost & Sullivan.

• France Seeks to Buy Drones from Israel

• JI chief asks Nawaz to stop drones

  JAMAAT-e-Islami Ameer Syed Munawar Hasan has asked Mian Nawaz Sharif to have courage on the basis of his public mandate and adopt a bold stance in accordance with the nation’s aspirations.

  He said that Washington’s statement to continue drone attacks was a challenge to the newly elected rulers.

• Queen’s Foundation protest against military drones

  More than 30 students and staff from a ministerial training college have protested outside a factory which makes engines for unmanned flying bombs. The group from The Queen’s Foundation gathered at the Shenstone UAV Engine Factory on Friday 10th May to warn the military that the use of their drones to terrify and kill people in Pakistan is creating a surge in support for the Taliban.

• The Killer Robot War Is Coming

  Drones are everywhere. They are blasting suspected al-Qaida militants in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. They are menacing China. They are being shot down in Israel. They are hovering outside of homes in America and spying on their residents. And they are forcing us to rethink some basic legal principles—for good reason, because drones are making the old ones obsolete.

Cablegate

• Julian Assange reveals GCHQ messages discussing Swedish extradition

  WikiLeaks founder uses subject access request to access British agency chatter, which allegedly calls extradition ‘a fit-up’

• Assange seizes on internal GCHQ correspondence describing his extradition as a ‘fit up’

  WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has revealed internal correspondence from the government’s eavesdropping agency, GCHQ, which included speculation that a Swedish arrest warrant issued after rape allegations first surfaced was a stitch-up.

• Assange warns US communications dominance threatens Latin America’s sovereignty

  WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has poignantly stated that the very sovereignty of Latin American and Caribbean nations has been compromised by a reliance on US-based telecommunications.

• Julian Assange vigil costs taxpayers £4million

  The cost of policing the Ecuadorean embassy in Knightsbridge while the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange takes refuge inside has now risen to £3.3million, Scotland Yard has disclosed.

• British police fears Assange might sneak out one day

  He is hiding from the British authorities who want to extradite him to Sweden where he is wanted for questioning over sexual assault allegations. A policeman on duty outside the embassy said in a joke he was worried Assange would sneak out of the embassy in ostrich suit one day.

• Julian Assange: “We thank the Icelandic people”

  Milestone Supreme Court Decision for WikiLeaks Case in Iceland — Today’s [April 24th] decision marked the most important victory to date against the unlawful and arbitrary economic blockade erected by US companies against WikiLeaks.

• WikiLeaks keeps on publishing despite Julian Assange arrest

• Wikileaks founder Julian Assange reveals government eavesdropping messages that allegedly speculate he’s being framed

  Authorities at GCHQ, the government eavesdropping agency, are facing embarrassing revelations about internal correspondence in which Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is discussed, apparently including speculation that he is being framed by Swedish authorities seeking his extradition on rape allegations.

  The records were revealed by Assange himself in a Sunday night interview with Spanish television programme Salvados in which he explained that an official request for information gave him access to instant messages that remained unclassified by GCHQ.

• Why the SEP does not endorse the WikiLeaks Party

  WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange has launched a new party ahead of the federal election in Australia on September 14. From the Ecuadorian embassy in London—where he remains under siege by the British authorities, who are denying his democratic right to accept political asylum in the South American state—Assange is heading a slate of Senate candidates for Victoria, New South Wales, and Western Australia.

• WikiLeaks: USA lobbied to get loan terms changed for Union carbide

  WikiLeaks reveal that Union carbide wanted US to persuade GOI for Cooley Loan funds. “BV Salenius, Managing Director of Union Carbide (India) Limited, has called requesting 10 or 15 minutes with Kenneth Rush. He wants to ask him to persuade the Government of India (meaning Finance Minister Chavan) to permit American concerens to borrow Cooley Loan Funds. Salenius has a ferteliser plant in mind. As you are aware, the Government of India has generally not approved new Cooley Loans over the past year and a half. Cooley Loan Financing is much more attractive to Union carbide that that from the Indian banks. They are nationalised and can require their loans to be turned into equity.”

• WikiLeaks: Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s fear over CIA’s activities in India

• WikiLeaks Wouldn’t Be Protected By Charles Schumer’s Press Shield Bill

  After the media caught wind that the Department of Justice had covertly gathered over two months’ worth of emails and phone records from the Associated Press, President Obama issued an apology to the irate reporters in the form of the Free Flow of Information Act.

• WikiLeaks: US wanted to see minutes of meeting on disqualification of BELL choppers, Pranab agreed

• Economic Blockade and WikiLeaks

  Julian Assange had been using that term for a time, but economic censorship is as close to the mark as any. If you want to shut someone up, deprive them of funding, cut off the supply, hope they go quietly into the night, hopefully without breaking too many things on the way. The whistleblowing conduit has, since its document releasing bonanzas of 2010, been blockaded. Opponents of WikiLeaks have been attempting to blackball not merely the outfit but its operations in every conceivable way.

• Iceland, Wikileaks and The Pirate Bay

  Tiny Iceland has a history of facing down larger adversaries (in 1976 it ‘won’ the Cod Wars against the UK; in 2011 it sent US agents packing for not obeying protocol). But now it will face renewed scrutiny from two of the world’s most powerful agencies: the FBI and the Rightsholders.

Finance

• Bitcoin developer chats about regulation, open source, and the elusive Satoshi Nakamoto

  With Bitcoin all the rage and startups popping up left and right, it’s hard to know who’s an expert in the virtual currency and who just has an opinion. Most people would put Jeff Garzik in the former camp.

• The world is rich – the rich are the problem

  There’s no shortage of food, no shortage of wealth to solve social crises. The problem is a system that enriches a few and starves the many. We hear day in day out about the massive poverty and hunger that exists in the world. NGO’s and various non-profits have been around for decades appealing for assistance in feeding the world’s poor. Some experts think it is simply an overpopulation problem and it is the poor that are to blame; if only they’d have fewer children, they advise. It is not too many people that are the problem. It is not the lack of medical knowledge or technical expertise that leads to staggering infant and adult death rates in some parts of the world. It is the lack of social infrastructure and the political will needed to provide it.

• TV presenters, bankers and government advisers among 1,000 Britons linked to tax havens

  - Broadcaster and former footballer John Fashanu on list

  - Trade adviser Alpesh Patel also named on leaked database

  - It also includes Goldman Sachs and Coutts, The Queen’s bank

  - Data has been leaked in tranches by a whistleblower since 2009

  - HMRC keen to clamp down on wealth sheltered in tax havens

• The IRS Scandal: It’s Not a Bug, It’s a Feature

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

• Dissent or Terror: New Report Details How Counter Terrorism Apparatus Was Used to Monitor Occupy Movement Nationwide

  DBA Press and the Center for Media and Democracy today released the results of a year-long investigation: “Dissent or Terror: How the Nation’s Counter Terrorism Apparatus, In Partnership With Corporate America, Turned on Occupy Wall Street.”

  The report, a distillation of thousands of pages of records obtained from counter terrorism/law enforcement agencies, details how state/regional “fusion center” personnel monitored the Occupy Wall Street movement over the course of 2011 and 2012. Personnel engaged in this activity at fusion centers include employees of municipal, county and federal counter terrorism/homeland security entities. Such entities include local police departments, the FBI and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (including U.S. DHS components such as the Transportation Security Administration).

• Dissent or Terror: How Arizona’s Counter Terrorism Apparatus, in Partnership with Corporate Interests, Turned on Occupy Phoenix

  Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, a nationwide “counter terrorism” apparatus emerged. Components of this apparatus include the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (U.S. DHS), the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), ODNI’s “National Counterterrorism Center” (NCTC), and state/regional “fusion centers.”

  “Fusion centers,” by and large, are staffed with personnel working in “counter terrorism”/ “homeland security” units of municipal, county, state, tribal and federal law enforcement/”public safety”/”counter terrorism” agencies. To a large degree, the “counter terrorism” operations of municipal, county, state and tribal agencies engaged in “fusion centers” are financed through a number of U.S. DHS grant programs.

Privacy

• Lawmakers eye regulating domestic surveillance drones

  Amid growing concern over the use of drones by police and government officials for surveillance, a bipartisan group of lawmakers is pushing to limit the use of unmanned surveillance “eyes in the sky” aircraft.

• Council debates banning drones from Evanston’s skies

• Weaponized Drones used for Law Enforcement across America: How Your Town Can Stop Drones

  When Charlottesville passed a resolution against drones in February of this year, I heard from people all over the country again. Since that time, to my knowledge, one little town in Minnesota called St. Bonifacius has passed something, while dozens and dozens have tried and failed. The problem seems to be that drones can have good uses as well as bad. Of course, that’s grounds for halting the lawless and reckless spread of drones until we can figure out any ways in which their good use can be compatible with our Constitutional rights. But that would make too much sense. When there’s money to be made, technology to be played with, and terrorists to destroy our freedoms if we don’t hurry up and destroy them first, the American way is full steam ahead. But I actually think I might have at least a partial answer this time.

  [...]

  …drones armed with rubber bullets and tear gas.

Intellectual Monopolies

• The Goodman Affair: Monsanto Targets the Heart of Science

  Richard Smith, former editor of the British Medical Journal, has jested that instead of scientific peer review, its rival The Lancet had a system of throwing a pile of papers down the stairs and publishing those that reached the bottom. On another occasion, Smith was challenged to publish an issue of the BMJ exclusively comprising papers that had failed peer review and see if anybody noticed. He replied, “How do you know I haven’t already done it?”

• Distributions
• Devices/Embedded

Google Glass Runs Linux: Glasses Hacked On Stage To Support Ubuntu; Find Out How To Install It [PHOTOS]

Google shows developers how to hack Glass and run Ubuntu

Google has shown attendees of its Google I/O event how one can go about running another operating system – namely Ubuntu – on their Google Glass. According to Engadget, the company showcased the process during a session named “Voiding your Warranty”.

Desktop

• City of Munich – IT Capital of Germany

  Did Munich’s migration to GNU/Linux stimulate local IT businesses or did local businesses empower Munich to migrate?

• Linux World Embraces Google Chromebooks

  The latest incarnation of the Linux Kernel was released this week, and for the first time, it includes code for running Linux on Google Chromebooks. Chromebooks come loaded with Chrome OS — a web-happy, Linux-based operating system designed by Google — but the new kernel code will make it easier to run other versions of the popular open source operating system on these machines.

Audiocasts/Shows

• The Linux Link Tech Show Episode 505

Kernel Space

• Logitech Begins Supporting Linux Users

  While Linux game developers and publishers have grown more interested in the Linux market-share over the past year following Valve’s major Linux play, one of the sectors that is still lagging behind is gaming hardware and peripherals. Fortunately, Logitech is finally beginning to show their Linux cards.

• Linux’s “Ondemand” Governor Is No Longer Fit

  By default the Linux kernel uses the “ondemand” CPU frequency governor for achieving maximum clock frequency when system load is high and a lower clock frequency when the system is idle. However, it turns out that for at least modern Intel CPUs, this is likely no longer the case. This default kernel choice may lead to poor battery life and performance for modern Linux systems.

• Lots Of Crypto Optimizations For Linux 3.10 Kernel

• XFS In Linux 3.10 To Put On Extra Protection

  The XFS file-system with the forthcoming Linux 3.10 kernel will have an experimental feature for CRC protection of meta-data.

• Audio Drivers Updated For The Linux 3.10 Kernel

• Intel Commits More Mesa Performance Optimizations

  Just days after landing some OpenGL performance tweaks, Intel’s Eric Anholt has committed some more performance optimizations for the Intel i965 Mesa driver.

• CONFIG_NO_HZ_FULL Pulled Into Linux 3.10 Kernel

  Covered earlier today on Phoronix was the full request for providing full dynticks support for Linux, a.k.a. “CONFIG_NO_HZ_FULL” as the kernel configuration operation is known. As covered earlier, the experimental kernel option benefits workloads where there is just one task running (rather than dynamic ticks when no CPU task is active) and can benefit in the number of timer interrupts generated. For end-users this can benefit real-time latency, HPC computing, and even desktop/mobile workloads.

• Overclockix Is Still Around For Linux Stress-Testing

  Overclockix, a Linux distribution with a long and bumpy history, has seen a new release. Overclockix .017 is now available as a Debian/Knoppix-based platform for hardware tweaking, stress-testing / burn-in software, and network security.

• F2FS File-System Gets Major Changes In Linux 3.10

  F2FS, the promising “Flash Friendly” file-system developed at Samsung and has shown promising performance results on various flash devices, has seen more improvements with the Linux 3.10 kernel.

• Fedora and Ubuntu Kernel Config Comparison

  Every once in a while, I crawl out from under the rock that is bugzilla and I try and look around at what others are doing in the distro kernel space. Today I was curious how Fedora and Ubuntu compare in how they configure the kernel. I’ve long thought that for all the focus the kernel gets, it should be the most boring package in an entire distro. It should work, work well, and that is about it. It isn’t there to differentiate your distro. It’s there to let your distro run. So, will my personal belief stand up, or would I find something in the configs that proves one “distro” is better than another? Let’s dive in.

• Btrfs In Linux 3.10 Gets Skinny Extents, Quota Rebuilds

  The Btrfs file-system pull request by Chris Mason has been submitted for inclusion into the Linux 3.10 kernel.

  The two main features introduced to the Btrfs file-system in Linux 3.10 is skinny extends and support for rebuilding of quota indexes.

• Linux 3.10: Improved eCryptfs AES-NI Performance

  The eCryptfs pull for the Linux 3.10 kernel has been merged. What’s noticeable about this feature pull is the improved encryption performance for modern AMD/Intel CPUs supporting AES-NI.

  Tyler Hicks wrote with the code, “Improve performance when AES-NI (and most likely other crypto accelerators) is available by moving to the ablkcipher crypto API. The improvement is more apparent on faster storage devices. There’s no noticeable change when hardware crypto is not available.”

• Intel Releases Linux Thermal Daemon

• Graphics Stack

  • Modern Intel Gallium3D Driver Still Being Toyed With

    While it’s not the default Linux graphics driver for Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge hardware, the “ilo” independently-developed Gallium3D driver for modern Intel graphics hardware continues to be developed.

    Since last December there’s been a Sandy/Ivy Bridge Gallium3D driver developed by Chia-I Wu. The work mostly comes as an experiment or toy, but last month it was merged to mainline Mesa.

  • Radeon Gallium3D Gets Important Cayman Fixes

  • AMD Radeon R600 GPU LLVM 3.3 Back-End Testing

    One of the exciting features of LLVM 3.3 that is due out next month is the final integration of the AMD R600 GPU LLVM back-end. This LLVM back-end is needed for supporting Gallium3D OpenCL on AMD Radeon graphics hardware, “RadeonSI” HD 7000/8000 series support, and can optionally be used as the Radeon Gallium3D driver’s shader compiler. In this article are some benchmarks of the AMD R600 GPU LLVM back-end from LLVM 3.3-rc1 when using several different AMD Radeon HD graphics cards and seeing how the LLVM compiler back-end affects the OpenGL graphics performance.

  • VA-API Gets New H.264/MPEG-2 Encoding API Support

    NVIDIA’s proprietary driver and the open-source Gallium3D Linux graphics drivers — namely now the open-source Radeon UVD support — are using VDPAU as their accelerated video playback API. Meanwhile, Intel still continues to invest heavily in VA-API as their preferred video acceleration API for Linux. An exciting set of 42 patches to improve VA-API was published on Monday.

  • Sub-Surfaces Support Merged Into Wayland

    Support for sub-surfaces has been merged into mainline Wayland after the protocol work and other changes for this exciting new feature has been in development for several months. Sub-surfaces by itself isn’t too exciting to end-users but will benefit application developers in enhancing the Wayland-powered Linux desktop.

  • NVIDIA Releases 310.51 Driver To Kill Off The Series

    NVIDIA has announced the release of their 310.51 “certified” proprietary graphics driver for Linux, Solaris, and BSD operating systems.

  • DRM Graphics Driver Comes For Dove/Cubox

    The SolidRun CuBox is advertised as the “world’s smallest desktop computer” with a size of just two-inches cubed (5cm). The CuBox is powered by an ARM PJ4 800MHz SoC and now it has available an open-source DRM Linux graphics driver.

  • Mesa 9.1.2 Fixes A Handful Of Graphics Driver Bugs

    Ian Romanick of Intel’s Open-Source Technology Center has announced the immediate release of Mesa 9.1.2 for open-source graphics drivers.

  • AMD R600 Gallium3D Optimizing Back-End Merged

    Vadim Girlin’s shader-optimizing back-end for the AMD R600 Gallium3D driver has been merged into mainline Mesa.

  • Unigine Adds In Support For Oculus Rift & WebGL

    Unigine Corp has made another round of noteworthy updates to their visually amazing cross-platform game and simulation engine.

    The main items to point out with the latest Unigine Engine revision is there’s now support for Occulus Rift. Occulus Rift is the promising low-cost virtual reality head-mounted display that was born as a Kickstarter project. Unigine is making the Occulus Rift VR HMD support available through an “AppOculus” engine plug-in and they’ll soon release new versions of Heaven and Valley that offer this feature.

  • GLSL 1.30 Support For AMD RadeonSI Driver With LLVM

    Michel Dänzer of AMD has provided a set of patches that should provide for the necessary patterns and intrinsics for AMD to round out GLSL 1.30 support within their RadeonSI open-source Gallium3D driver for Radeon HD 7000/8000 series graphics cards.

  • Previewing The Radeon Gallium3D Shader Optimizations

    With the AMD R600 Gallium3D shader optimizing back-end having been merged last week, new benchmarks were carried out at Phoronix to see the impact of the experimental shader optimizations on multiple AMD Radeon HD graphics cards.

  • Intel Releases OpenCL SDK XE 2013 For Linux

    Intel released yesterday the Intel SDK for OpenCL Applications XE 2013. This is an OpenCL SDK for Linux that supports OpenCL 1.2 and all of the latest and greatest Intel hardware.

    Intel’s already been shipping their OpenCL SDK for Linux in years prior, albeit sadly it’s closed-source and only runs on the CPU. This OpenCL XE 2013 for Linux continues to only work on the CPU side and doesn’t support GPU integration for Ivy Bridge and Haswell processors. (On Windows, however, there is the OpenCL GPU support.) With OpenCL SDK XE 2013, there’s new features and improvements.

  • Pixman 0.30 Release Has Major Back-End Work

    A major release of the Pixman rendering library happened on Wednesday. Pixman 0.30 now has some major back-end improvements and other changes to better the pixel manipulation software.

  • Color Management Code Merged Into Wayland/Weston

    The Wayland color management work done by Richard Hughes and talked about for the past month has finally landed in mainline Weston. The code allows for ICC color profiles to be specified within the Weston configuration file or a CMS implementation to be loaded from a pluggable module.

• i915.ko authors, by the numbers

  total lines counted: 67417 (compare with git ls-files — ./drivers/gpu/drm/i915/ | xargs wc -l)
  [('Jesse Barnes', 16255),
  ('Chris Wilson', 13174),
  ('Daniel Vetter', 11066),
  ('Eugeni Dodonov', 3636),
  ('Paulo Zanoni', 3434),
  ('Ben Widawsky', 2935),
  ('Eric Anholt', 2176),
  ('Keith Packard', 1773),
  ('Zhenyu Wang', 1703),
  ('Ville Syrjälä', 1130)]

• Open-Source AMD Driver Gets “Hainan” GPU Support

  The open-source AMD Linux graphics driver now boasts support for AMD’s next-generation “Hainan” GPU products, a.k.a. the Radeon HD 8800 series.

  AMD Hainan is rumored to be the performance GPUs making up the Radeon HD 8800 series with the HD 8850 “Hainan Pro” and HD 8870 “Hainan XT” products initially.

• Benchmarks

  • Benchmarking The Intel P-State, CPUfreq Changes

    On Friday there was the controversial news about the Linux “ondemand” cpufreq governor no longer being fit for best performance and power-savings on modern processors. Fortunately, for better handling the CPU frequency stage changes on modern Intel CPUs, Intel recently introduced the new P-State kernel driver.

    With this news, plus word that changing the cpufreq governor can really boost the Mesa performance, many Phoronix readers were excited with 3+ pages of comments.

  • Linux 3.10 Kernel Benchmarks On A Core i7 Laptop

    As our latest coverage of the Linux 3.10 kernel comes new comparison benchmarks of the latest development kernel compared to its predecessor from an Intel Core i7 laptop sporting NVIDIA graphics.

  • Btrfs vs. EXT4 vs. XFS vs. F2FS On Linux 3.10

    Building upon our F2FS file-system benchmarks from earlier in this week is a large comparison of four of the leading Linux file-systems at the moment: Btrfs, EXT4, XFS, and F2FS. With the four Linux kernel file-systems, each was benchmarked on the Linux 3.8, 3.9, and 3.10-rc1 kernels. The results from this large file-system comparison when backed by a solid-state drive are now published on Phoronix.

  • Linux 3.10 Kernel Benchmarks For Intel Ivy Bridge

    Earlier this month I delivered Radeon DRM driver benchmarks and Nouveau DRM driver benchmarks from the in-development Linux 3.10 kernel. Being published this Friday evening are now Intel Ivy Bridge graphics benchmarks from the Linux 3.10 kernel compared to the earlier releases going back to Linux 3.5.

  • F2FS File-System Shows Regressions On Linux 3.10

    With the merge window on the feature-rich Linux 3.10 kernel having been closed, the usual roundabout of Phoronix benchmarking of the Linux kernel has commenced. In our initial testing of the F2FS file-system on Linux 3.10, however, yields negative performance changes.

    The first F2FS benchmarks showed much hope for the Samsung-developed “Flash Friendly File-System” when compared to EXT4, Btrfs, and other competitors. It’s worked very well for not only SSDs but also SDHC storage, USB flash drives, and against the cruddy Microsoft exFAT Linux support.

  • Early Radeon OpenGL Benchmarks From Linux 3.10

    While the first release candidate of the Linux 3.10 kernel isn’t even out yet, there’s already been the DRM graphics pull, as a result here’s some early open-source Radeon Linux graphics benchmarks.

    Going up this afternoon are just some quick and dirty benchmarks of the Linux 3.10 kernel Git code as of this morning compared to the Linux 3.9 mainline vanilla kernel release. The test cards were the AMD Radeon HD 5830 and HD 6570 discrete products. When the Linux 3.10 kernel is mature and ready for release, more extensive Linux GPU benchmarking will commence. Today’s article is just to whet the appetite for those Linux enthusiasts curious about the open-source Radeon driver performance.

  • Greater Radeon Gallium3D Shader Optimization Tests

    After delivering preview benchmarks of the AMD Radeon Gallium3D driver’s new shader optimization benchmark, Vadim Girlin, the back-end’s author, has shared some complementary Linux OpenGL benchmark results.

  • The First Nouveau Benchmarks On Linux 3.10

    Similar to yesterday’s early Radeon DRM benchmarks from Linux 3.10, here’s some initial OpenGL performance results for NVIDIA GeForce hardware when using the Nouveau DRM that’s updated in the Linux 3.10 kernel.

  • A New Set Of OpenGL Benchmarks Come To OpenBenchmarking

    FurMark, TessMark, and other advanced OpenGL 2.1/3.2/4.0 benchmarks are now available via the Phoronix Test Suite and OpenBenchmarking.org.

    In cooperation with Jerome of Geeks3D.com, the GPUTest cross-platform benchmark/tech-demo is now available via our open-source benchmarking software. GPUTest is designed as a GPU stress test that is supported on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X operating systems.

  • Gallium3D Continues Improving OpenGL For Older Radeon GPUs

    Curious to see how the performance of the open-source ATI/AMD Linux graphics driver is evolving for aging hardware, a new round of OpenGL benchmarks were carried out on the once-popular ATI Radeon HD 4870 “RV770″ graphics card. The performance was compared between the Mesa 7.11, 8.0, 9.0, 9.1, and 9.2-devel Git releases from an Ubuntu Linux system to see how the performance has changed for this driver in the past two years.

Applications

• Colord 1.0 Released To Manage Open-Source Colors

  Colord 1.0.0 has been released as the system service/daemon that makes it easy and straight forward for managing/installing/creating color profiles for managing colors on Linux input and output devices.

• The State Of PackageKit, AppStream, & Listaller

  Matthias Klumpp has written about the current state of PackageKit, AppStream, and Listaller for cross-Linux distribution package management and installation.

• Proprietary

  • Adobe Open-Sources CFF Rasterizer For FreeType

    Adobe has open-sourced their advanced CFF rasterizer for the FreeType project. This Adobe contribution, along with the support of Google, will improve FreeType font rendering on Linux and other platforms.

• Instructionals/Technical

  • Using Solr With TYPO3 On Debian Squeeze

  • Linux: Dell Laptop Fan Control And Get CPU Temperature

  • Securing SSH On Ubuntu Precise With WiKID Two-Factor Authentication

  • How Four Open Source Usage Models Impact Compliance

  • Switching From Windows to Nix or a Newbie to Linux – 20 Useful Commands for Linux Newbies

  • How to Install Cinnamon 1.8 on ubuntu 13.04

  • Introducing: The Cheapskate’s Corner

  • Can’t update Iceweasel from Experimental on Jessie

  • A solution to the Great Hassle of passwords

  • Using the new PackageLoader feature when creating unit tests for DBD-PostgreSQL

• Wine or Emulation

  • Announcing CrossOver 12.2.0

• Games

  • Turbulenz Game Engine Open-Sourced

    Turbulenz is an HTML5-based game engine, but while it’s web-based, it’s quite impressive. The HTML5 game engine supports 2D and 3D content via WebGL and JavaScript. Thanks to the web nature, it’s multi-platform friendly across WebGL-supported browsers. Turbulenz can even handle Quake 4 assets.

  • Epic Citadel Demo Brought To HTML5 Browsers

    Earlier this year Epic Games brought Unreal Engine 3 to web browsers in the form of WebGL and HTML5. Epic has now released a new technology demo for HTML5 web-browsers in the form of Citadel.

  • Unvanquished Alpha 15 Brings Engine, Renderer Updates

    The 15th monthly alpha release of the open-source Unvanquished first person shooter has brought with it a modest assortment of updates.

  • Humble Bundle Launches Double Fine Bundle

    The Humble Double Fine Bundle consists of Costume Quest, Psychonauts, and Stacking. If paying more than the floating average (currently $8.23), Brutal Legend is also included. If paying $35 or more, the Broken Age Kickstarter game is also included while $70 or more will also include a t-shirt.

  • es_core: an experimental framework for low latency, high fps multiplayer games.

    The current state of competitive, skilled FPS games is a topic that comes up often in discussions among my game industry friends, with players and with anyone involved with eSports.

    There is lament that no FPS title has been able to grow a big enough audience and pull enough weight around to be represented on the major circuits like MLG or ESL recently. There are a lot of ins and outs to that discussion, but one aspect that is of particular interest to me is the projects that are at various stages of development, trying to crack that nut and make it big for an eSport FPS title again.

    I need to mention a few of those to ground the discussion a bit. QuakeLive is the old guard, it’s still around and kicking, surprisingly resilient etc. Then there are newer, more active titles, like CS:GO and Shootmania. Further down on the horizon there’s rumored projects like James Harding’s Reborn.

  • Can gaming be the turning point for Linux on the desktop?

    Dear old Linux, what are we to do with you? Developed for just over two decades and it’s still barely made a mark on the consumer consciousness.

    There was a vague peak during the netbook fad – as it enabled companies to eliminate the extra cost of a Windows installation – but that quickly faltered after people started taking them back because Microsoft Office wouldn’t run on them. Have people never heard of Open Office?

Desktop Environments/WMs

• 10 amazing Linux desktop environments you’ve probably never seen

• Are Compositing Window Managers Lightweight?

  With the recent talk about developing a lightweight KDE desktop, the KWin maintainer, Martin Gräßlin, is talking out to try to clarify whether the compositing window manager is lightweight.

• K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

  • Features Being Developed For KDE 4.11 Desktop

    With one week to go until the soft feature freeze for KDE 4.11, there’s a better idea for the features that are likely to come to the next major release of the KDE Plasma desktop.

  • KDE’s Krita Ported To OpenGL 3.1, OpenGL ES 2.0

    KDE’s Krita painting application back in the day was one of the first to support an OpenGL-accelerated canvas. After their GL support fell behind, it’s now been brought up to speed by porting their graphics rendering code-paths to supporting an OpenGL 3.1 Core Profile and OpenGL ES 2.0.

  • The water we swim in

    Healthy relationships. I’ve been thinking about them not in my personal life, but in terms of teams in free software. When I first began contributing, it was within a team creating an application (Amarok), so rather small. Then I became active in Ubuntu-Women, which is larger, but still not huge. Then Kubuntu, then the larger Ubuntu community, and now KDE, which is truly enormous.

• GNOME Desktop/GTK

  • Starting Development Of GNOME Shell, Mutter 3.10

    With the first GNOME 3.10 development release due this week, the first GNOME 3.10 development snapshots (v3.9.1) of the GNOME Shell desktop and Mutter compositing window manager were checked in.

    GNOME 3.10 is tentatively set to be released on 25 September while this is the first development release due this week (GNOME 3.9.1). With just a little more than one month since the GNOME 3.8.0 release, there isn’t too much to look at for the 3.9.1 packages.

Distributions

• JULinuXP and JULinOX OS ETPE 2013

  First of all JULinuXP boots in about 20 seconds, uses less than 512 MB of RAM, and most importantly it protects your privacy from Google, Yahoo, and Bing, along with anyone else. Of course if you use Facebook and other such sites, that’s your problem, but at least your browser isn’t sending them any info either, and if there is any info, it’s deleted before or after you close your browser. Also each browser forces HTTPS, and uses DuckDuckGO’s search engine. Firefox still has Google search if you type something in the main address bar, but Firefox also has more security to remove stuff when you get done browsing.

• New Releases

  • OpenELEC Stable – Xtreamer x86_64 Version:3.0.3

  • Alpine 2.6.0 released

    Since v2.6, among the various bugfixes, several packages have been upgraded:

    - Kernel upgraded to 3.9.2 with grsecurity patch
    - ruby 2.0
    - php 5.4
    - kamailio-4.0
    - qemu-1.4
    - squid-3.3

  • Slackel Live 3.1 openbox

  • Hybryde 13.04

  • All grown up and ready to go dancing: Mageia 3′s out!

    We still can’t believe how much fun it is to make Mageia together, and we’ve been doing it for two and a half years.

• Gentoo Family

  • Sabayon 13.04 Readies Systemd, UEFI, TMPFS

    Sabayon Linux, the popular Gentoo-derived Linux distribution, is ending out April by releasing Sabayon 13.04.

• Red Hat Family

  • Red Hat CEO Whitehurst on innovation, OpenStack, Hadoop

    Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst argued that enterprise software vendors are at an inflection point where they’ll adapt or falter, noted OpenStack is keeper but needs enterprise support and Hadoop has become a strong open source project that’s becoming commercially fragmented.

  • Linux, Standards and the Enterprise: Why Red Hat Enterprise Linux Remains the Best Choice

    The free clones of Red Hat Enterprise Linux I mentioned earlier are not permitted to name their source, referring merely to “the upstream provider,” but pretty much everyone in the Linux community knows precisely what they mean. They represent a real advantage to Red Hat (the distribution if not the business) in that they allow businesses to try before they buy. They provide the opportunity to run a test bed or non-critical system at reduced cost. The clones also allow non-profits and cash strapped small businesses to forgo commercial support, at least for a time, and still use software that is entirely compatible with the leading enterprise Linux distribution. As organizations grow and their needs change converting a server or workstation running a clone to a genuine, supported Red Hat system is a simple process.

  • Fedora

    • Korora 18 Supports Experimental Steam Client

      Korora, the Fedora-based Linux distribution that focuses on desktop friendliness through a number of modifications and extra packages, has released their Fedora 18 incarnation.

    • Open-Source Radeon UVD Video Support On Fedora

      Are you itching to try out open-source AMD Radeon “UVD” video acceleration support over VDPAU on Fedora Linux?

    • fedoraproject.org Account System (FAS) security issue.

      A bug has been discovered in the Fedora Account system that could have exposed some sensitive information to logged in users.

    • DNF Still Advancing As Experimental Yum For Fedora

      DNF is the experimental fork of the Yum package manager that premiered in Fedora 18. While much hasn’t been heard of this experimental Yum replacement since its debut, work on it has still been progressing and is turning out to be in great shape, is slowly approaching feature-parity with Yum, and is faster.

      DNF hasn’t come to mind since last writing about it in 2012, but development has progressed and on Fedora 18/19 it still can be tested in parallel to Yum. Re-sparking interest in DNF is a new blog post on the Fedora-Next blog about DNF.

• Debian Family

  • Current and upcoming toolchain changes for jessie

    Up to today jessie did see updates for the kernel headers, eglibc, and
    GCC.

  • Debian 8.0 “Jessie” Enters Development Sights

  • Finally! Lightworks Runs On Debian GNU/Linux

    Lightworks, newly released to the public as a beta for GNU/Linux depended heavily on the latest packages in Ubuntu GNU/Linux and needed a lot of fiddling to install on Debian GNU/Linux. Recently new libraries were added to Debian Sid (experimental) that makes it possible:

  • Derivatives

    • Tails 0.18 is out

    • Canonical/Ubuntu

      • Canonical Drives Open Source Innovation with Mir for Ubuntu Linux

        If Canonical succeeds in making Ubuntu Linux widespread on phones and tablets, it will revolutionize the role of open source software in mobile computing. But in a sense, the company has already achieved some remarkably revolutionary feats with Mir, the display server it started developing several months ago. This may sound like something only geeks can appreciate, but it could actually become a huge deal across the channel.

      • Liven Up Your Ubuntu Desktop With ZonColor Themes

      • Dogfood Update

      • Dogfooding the Ubuntu Phone: My (Early) Experience

        As many of you will know, our goal is to get the Ubuntu phone in a state where it can be used on a daily basis for testing, and importantly, finding bugs, UI issues, and other details that help us to refine the overall Ubuntu Touch experience. Progress is on-track for the end of May.

      • ARM Support Will Change A Lot With Linux 3.10

        In addition to improved 64-bit ARM support with the Linux 3.10 kernel, ARM architecture support in general will improve a lot with this in-development kernel release.

        As Olof Johansson explains in his pull request series, “we have a relatively large merge window in front of us for arm-soc.” Due to the large size, the ARM Linux pull request for the Linux 3.10 kernel was split into three patches. The highlights of the ARM Linux changes include:

      • Mir & Unity8 UI weekly May 10, 2013

      • Canonical Shows Mir, Unity-Next Running On MacBook Pro

        A video has been posted to show off Unity-Next (Unity 8.x) running atop the Mir Display Server in its early development form atop an Apple Retina MacBook Pro with Intel HD graphics.

      • Ubuntu SDK Beta Planned For July With New Widgets

        A beta release of the Ubuntu SDK is currently slated for availability in July. Other plans for the Ubuntu SDK were also expressed today during this week’s virtual Ubuntu Developer Summit.

      • Flavours and Variants

        • Linux Mint 15 brings prettier desktop, new software and driver managers

          One of the best Linux desktops gets better.

        • Lilbits (5-17-2013): Linux Mint 15, Ubuntu on Glass, end of the Kindle Keyboard?

          While Linux Mint supports a range of desktop environments, the default user interface also looks a lot more like the classic Windows desktop than Ubuntu’s Unity, which makes Mint a good choice for someone looking for their first Linux distro.

        • Emmabuntus review – very disappointing

          2 weeks ago, I got an email from the team of Emmabuntus asking for a review for their distro. I agreed that I will check it soon but I had been very busy then. So today I decided to give Emmabuntus a try.

        • Elementary OS Luna Beta 2 Released

        • Linux Mint 15 “Olivia” Approaches With New Tools

        • Ubuntu 13.04 vs Kubuntu 13.04 vs Xubuntu 13.04 vs Lubuntu 13.04 vs Ubuntu 13.04 GNOME: A brief comparison

          Every Linux novice goes through this phase – confusion to decide which Ubuntu to install when now you’ve got so many versions of Ubuntu coming out of the stable. The aim of this article is to facilitate taking decision by briefing about what distro has to offer and a comparison of their performance.

Devices/Embedded

• Why I love Raspberry Pi

  I’ve always admired the concept, execution and possibilities of Raspberry Pi, the British designed and built world-conquering credit card-sized ARM GNU/Linux computer. But despite following the Raspberry Foundation’s every move closely, and frequently promising that I’d buy myself a Pi soon, for some reason I never did.

• Watch and record live TV on your Raspberry Pi

• Phones

  • China market: Several smartphone components in short supply

    A shortage in the supply of some key components, including high-end camera modules, touchscreen panels and multi-chip package (MCP) memory chips, is worsening in the smartphone industry supply chain in China, according to industry sources.

  • Qt5 Port For Tizen Is Underway

    There’s active work underway for bringing the Qt 5.x tool-kit to the Tizen Linux platform.

    A Phoronix reader, Jaroslaw Staniek, wrote in this morning to share the news about the community-driven Qt 5 port for Tizen. The goal of this work is to bring the Qt 5 frame-work to Tizen, allow Qt Creator to be used for Tizen application development, and use the default Tizen’s look and feel based on Qt Quick 2 for application development.

  • Smartphones outpace feature phones for first time ever

    In the first quarter of 2013, smartphones accounted for more than half of phone makers’ shipments worldwide. Samsung remained the top dog, but LG, Huawei, and ZTE all saw big gains.

  • Ballnux

    • Samsung: Galaxy S4 sales to hit 10 million next week

      Samsung’s Galaxy S4 is on pace to easily surpass its predecessor’s sales record, Samsung Electronics co-CEO Shin Jong-kyun said Thursday in an interview.

    • Samsung to reportedly take on BlackBerry with new enterprise platform

  • Android

    • Android is just the beginning: How Bluetooth is preparing for the internet of things

      Last night at Google I/O, Bluetooth scored a major victory for connected consumers when Google said it would support the Bluetooth Smart Ready platform natively in Android. This was functionality that iOS devices already have, and it should mean that Android users will get more functional apps to go with their Bluetooth-enabled devices.

    • The Place of FLOSS in End-User Computing

    • Google I/O: Unifyied Ecosystem Across All Google Platforms

      We were eagerly waiting for hardware updates from Google I/O 2013, but this year’s I/O conference was strictly focused on development tools and Google Services. Chrome merging with Android was key point at the keynote speech.

    • Google I/O : Official Social Media App Announcements For Google Glass

      Google Glass is getting lot of attention at this year’s Google I/O. There are already few official third-party apps support for glass, especially from social media houses.

      Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, CNN, Elle and Evernote have promised to support Google glass by announcing their official Google glass apps or “glasswares”. In fact facebook has already released the app and is available for Glass Users. Other Google glass apps are still in development.

    • Android-on-Intel accelerates as Clover Trail+ devices debut

      Lenovo’s Android-based K900, the first phone to use Intel’s dual-core 2GHz “Clover Trail+” Atom Z2580 system-on-chip, began shipping in China, and ZTE announced a Z2580-based, 4.5-inch “Grand X2 In” aimed at Europe. Yet, Atom-based Android phones won’t truly shine until Intel’s “Merrifield” SOC arrives in early 2014 using Intel’s 28nm, Tri-Gate “Silvermont” architecture.

    • Sony Xperia UL pictures and specs leaked: 5-inch display and Snapdragon 600 CPU

      Back in March we reported that Sony was looking to add to their Xperia line, and today we have confirmation on one of the devices.

    • NVIDIA Shield pre-orders are now live

      So excited about selling the NVIDIA Shield are retailers that they have begun offering pre-orders early. Effective immediately, you can place an order for the gaming console/controller/Android device through places like Newegg, GameStop, and NVIDIA.

    • I/O 2013: Google Glass designers predict possibilities for wearable tech market

      There approximately 6,000 attendees at this year’s developer conference, and you can’t walk a few steps without bumping into someone sporting the Android-powered specs.

    • How Google updated Android without releasing version 4.3

      Google covered a lot of ground in its three-and-a-half-hour opening keynote at Google I/O yesterday, but one thing it didn’t announce was the oft-rumored next version of Android. However, persistent rumors insist that the elusive Android 4.3 is still coming next month—if that’s true, why not announce it at I/O in front of all of your most enthusiastic developers?

    • Sony Posts Android Open Source Project Code For The Xperia Tablet Z To GitHub

      There’s a lot to like about Sony’s latest generation of Android devices. One od the things that most people don’t like is the custom interface that Sony puts on pretty much everything. If you want to do away with it and get some sweet, clean Android Open Source Project code running on your shiny new Xperia Tablet Z, Sony is happy to oblige. They’ve posted an AOSP 4.2 build for the Tablet Z to GitHub, following their surprisingly open approach to other devices, most recently the Xperia Z flagship.

    • Those $200 notebooks Intel is promising will probably run Android

      Recently Intel CEO Paul Otellini said he sees a future where you can buy an ultrathin notebook featuring an Intel Atom Bay Trail processor for as little as $200. Now CNET has a few more details about Intel’s vision for the future of cheap notebooks, and that vision includes Google Android.

• Sub-notebooks/Tablets

  • New tablet boots Ubuntu Linux, Android, and Windows 8

  • Python S3 is a new tablet that can’t decide: boots Ubuntu, Android and Windows 8

    Ubuntu tablets may not be particularly new, but thanks to its liberal build, things can get a bit more interesting when another OS is added to the mix. Ekoore’s Python S3 tablet goes a little further, nestling Ubuntu,

  • Google Glass Rooted at I/O 2013, Ubuntu Installed

  • Sony brings Android Open Source Project to Xperia Tablet Z (video)

    Sony gifted its flagship Xperia Z smartphone with an Android Open Source Project (AOSP) build just last month, and now the stock operating system has made its way to the device’s tablet counterpart, too. AOSP is now available for the Xperia Tablet Z — it’ll live on GitHub, along with instructions and other resources. Community Manager Marcus Hansson dropped by YouTube to demo AOSP.

  • OLPC OS 13.1.0 Supports The XO-4 Touch Laptop

    A new version of the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) operating system has been released. The Fedora-based Linux distribution now supports the forthcoming OLPC XO-4 Touch laptop.

  • Android Tablets Edge Out iPad: IDC

    Android tablet vendors shipped an aggregate 27.8 million devices, giving Android 56.5% of the tablet market in terms of the operating system. Those same vendors shipped only 8 million tablets in the year-ago period. Android saw 247.5% growth year-over-year.

7 open source projects to cut your teeth on (and the ones to avoid)

The reasons for contributing to open source projects are as diverse as the projects themselves: To garner new skills, add experience, network with peers, or just for fun. Choosing a project that best suits your needs, and one that is friendly to newcomers, however, can be a daunting task. We polled well-known open source contributors for their recommendations, and the best way to start. They also offer advice on which projects to avoid. Here’s what they said:

5 Reasons Infotainment is the First Target for Open Source Software in Cars

The In-Vehicle-Infotainment (IVI) System is the most complex electronic system in the car. It collects data from all of the car’s sensors and integrates functions as diverse as navigation, climate control, media playback, cellphone connectivity and more.

Yet automakers have focused on IVI as their first target for open source software collaboration. Both the Automotive Grade Linux working group and GENIVI alliance are pioneering collaborative efforts to develop a Linux-based open source platform for IVI software development.

Cool tool: One click installation of open source apps

Downloading open source applications can sometimes be a pain in the neck. There can be multiple drivers, a variety of related components and a handful of little status bars that move from left to right at varying rates of speed.

ComodIT wants to change that. The company, which specializes in automating infrastructure resources, has a new tool called the Direct Installer, which promises one-click installations.

Enterprise Networking Week in Review: VXLAN, SDN, and Open Source

This week on Enterprise Networking Planet, the dust settled from last week’s coverage of Interop, allowing us to look forward to networking’s future.

As always, our Sean Michael Kerner provided plenty of insider guidance. This week, he brought us two exclusive video interviews. Lew Tucker, Cisco’s Cloud CTO, talked about OpenStack, VLAN, and the Internet of Things, and Dan Pitt, executive director of the Open Networking Foundation, dismissed criticisms of OpenFlow and discussed OpenDaylight.

Speaking of the future, Cisco, Aruba, and Brocade all had earnings calls this week, and Sean covered those, too. Cisco reported good news, particularly in data center, 10 GbE, and SDN adoption. Aruba expressed optimism about its recent acquisition of Meridian Apps, which will enable indoor GPS and other application and location awareness capabilities over WiFi. Brocade, meanwhile, plans to focus on future growth, particularly in the on-demand data center space.

Jedi Academy Thrives As Open-Source Software

It was one month ago that Activison and Raven Software open-sourced two of their games. While Star Wars Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy are old titles, they are now thriving as open-source software.

Adobe Open-Sources CFF Rasterizer For FreeType

Adobe has open-sourced their advanced CFF rasterizer for the FreeType project. This Adobe contribution, along with the support of Google, will improve FreeType font rendering on Linux and other platforms.

Web Browsers

• Chrome

  • Ubuntu 13.10 Likely Switching To Chromium Browser

  • Ubuntu To Look At Replacing Firefox With Chromium

  • Google’s Native Code browser tech goes cross-platform

    At its annual I/O conference in San Francisco this week, Google unveiled a new version of its Native Client technology that allows developers to deploy binary code for web applications in an architecture-independent way.

    With the original version of Native Client (NaCl), developers could write modules in C or C++ and compile them into binary packages to be executed inside the browser at near-native speed. The initial release only supported 32-bit and 64-bit Intel x86 architectures, but Google added support for ARM in January.

• Mozilla

  • Firefox 22 Beta Enables WebRTC Support

    The big feature being flipped on for the Firefox 22 Beta is full WebRTC support. WebRTC is the Web Real-Time Communication API drafted by the W3C and Google for handling browser-based VoIP, video chat, file-sharing, and other services native to the browser. There was already some WebRTC support in Firefox while now the support is fully-on.

  • Mozilla Needs More Time Before Blocking Third-Party Cookies By Default

    After much public discussion of the issue, Mozilla has decided to postpone blocking of third-party cookies by default in the next version of Firefox. As noted in this post, the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) had raised a major stink over the issue, citing “the impact the ban would have on small Internet publishers, which depend on such cookie technology to sell advertising to niche audience segments.” According to Mozilla’s Brendan Eich, though, Mozilla just needs more time to implement the technology.

  • Firefox 22 beta delivers WebRTC and more

    Where the most recent Firefox release was somewhat light on features, the next release, Firefox 22, which has just gone into beta, will be offering some more substantial enhancement. Foremost of those is full WebRTC support, which will allow web developers to integrate real-time audio and video connections between browsers with all the required components – DataChannels, PeerConnection and GetUserMedia – included. WebRTC can be orchestrated with JavaScript-based applications and can potentially be used for anything from simple user-to-user chatting with video calls and file sharing to interactive multiplayer games on the web. The WebRTC features are now enabled by default.

  • Firefox beta gets WebRTC on by default, OdinMonkey JavaScript optimizations, Web Notifications API, and more

  • Firefox OS developer phones sold out

    Spanish manufacturer/seller Geeksphone already has run out of the two Firefox OS phones that went on sale for developers today.

  • Mozilla: Look ma, no plug-in for video, apps

    The makers of Firefox team up with the 3D graphics gurus at OTOY to show off a new codec that can run high-end video and desktop apps in the browser.

  • The Man Who Turned Off Cookies In Firefox Doesn’t Care If It Hurts Advertisers

    Jonathan Mayer is the man who turned off third-party cookies in upcoming versions of Firefox. (Cookies are the little bits of code that web sites drop onto your browser as you surf so that advertisers can target you with ads.)

    Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/jonathan-mayer-and-cookies-in-firefox-2013-5#ixzz2TgszO23H

  • Phones for Apps for Firefox OS

SaaS/Big Data

• Open Source Zend Framework 2.2 Brings PHP to OpenStack Cloud

  Over the years, Zend Framework has grown and this week, Zend Framework 2.2 is being officially released. This latest Zend Framework has lots of goodness in it, but for me one thing stands out – OpenStack support.

• OpenNebula 4.0 Improves The Open-Source Cloud

  OpenNebula 4.0 “Eagle” has been released as the latest major release of this popular, open-source cloud computing system.

  The OpenNebula 4.0 release offers up various new Virtual Machine features, scheduler improvements, a re-designed administration interface, and worthwhile enhancements to many of its other subsystems.

Databases

• phpMyAdmin 4.0 Release Kills Off The Tables

  phpMyAdmin, the popular browser-based software for MySQL database administration, has hit a significant milestone with the release of phpMyAdmin 4.0.0.

• PostgreSQL 9.3 Beta 1 Released

  The first beta release of PostgreSQL 9.3, the latest version of the world’s best open source database, is now available. This beta contains previews of all of the features which will be available in version 9.3, and is ready for testing by the worldwide PostgreSQL community. Please download, test, and report what you find.

• Ubuntu Looks Towards MySQL Alternatives

  Discussed today during another session of this week’s virtual Ubuntu Developer Summit was what to do about MySQL. With Oracle MySQL, there’s growing frustration with the database software by the Linux and open-source communities over Oracle’s lack of disclosure with security bugs/fixes, non-public bug information, lack of much “outside code” from other parties going into MySQL, and various other complaints.

• Migrate from MySQL to MariaDB in FreeBSD

  The usage of MySQL for development is free. As you are not giving away that product (MySQL), no GPL restrictions apply. If you want to distribute MySQL in some form, the licenses apply. See: MySQL commercial license

  MariaDB is a community-developed fork of the MySQL relational database management system, the impetus being the community maintenance of its free status under the GNU GPL. As a fork of a leading open source software system, it is notable for being led by its original developers and triggered by concerns over direction by an acquiring commercial company Oracle. Contributors are required to share their copyright with Monty Program AB.

CMS

• Essential WordPress Security Plugins

  A few weeks ago I told you about some security precautions to take when using the open source web platform WordPress to protect your site against brute force attacks. However, those precautions are just the beginning. A website administrator has to be forever vigilant to keep the bad guys away.

Funding

• LFCS: The value of FOSS fiscal sponsorship

  As open source becomes more popular and mature, questions of formalizing the governance and corporate structures of projects are becoming of increasing importance, as can been seen by the rising visibility of various FOSS foundations. At the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit in San Francisco, Tony Sebro shared his insights about the value that fiscal sponsors bring as umbrella organizations for FOSS projects. Sebro is the General Counsel of Software Freedom Conservancy, which is the home of about 30 free and open source projects, including Samba, Git, and BusyBox.

BSD

• OpenBSD 5.3 Improves Hardware Support

  One day after releasing the feature-rich DragonFlyBSD 3.4, the OpenBSD camp has announced the latest major release of their BSD operating system.

• 18 May 2013 – NetBSD 6.1 Released

• FreeBSD Still Working On Next-Gen Package Manager

  The FreeBSD camp continues to develop pkgng, a next-generation binary package manager for the operating system.

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

• GNU Hackers Meeting 2013 in Paris, France

  Thanks to a kind offer from Sylvestre Ledru (http://sylvestre.ledru.info/) we have a venue for this year’s GNU Hackers Meeting: we will be at IRILL (http://www.irill.org) in Paris, France, for the second time after the very successful 2011 edition. Since I live near Paris and I also happen to work at IRILL once or twice a week I’ve decided to do something to help organize the event, along with Sylvestre and Dodji Seketeli (http://dodji.seketeli.com/) who graciously volunteered as well.

• GCC 4.9 Diagnostics Will Begin Playing With Colors

  While GCC 4.8 was released less than two months ago and GCC 4.9 isn’t likely to surface until 2014, there’s already a new feature to the next major update of the GNU Compiler Collection. GCC 4.9 introduces support for colored outputs in debugging.

  With LLVM/Clang offering a great diagnostics experience, GCC developers have been challenged to improve the diagnostics and debugging abilities within their open-source compiler. Introduced with GCC 4.8 were improved diagnostics thanks to the Clang competition and it looks like GCC 4.9 will continue trying to enhance the support for the long-standing Free Software Foundation compiler.

• Options to Control Diagnostic Messages Formatting

Project Releases

• [systemd-devel] [ANNOUNCE] systemd 203

• LLVM/Clang 3.3 Branched With Many New Features

• GCC 4.8.1 Compiler Due To Be Out Next Week

  The first point release to the GCC 4.8 compiler was made available in release candidate form on Friday, ahead of the official release that’s expected next week.

Openness/Sharing

• Open Access/Content

  • Aaron Swartz prosecutors will unseal evidence, but won’t name names

    The federal judge who would have overseen the trial of Aaron Swartz on computer hacking charges has ordered the prosecution to reveal much of the evidence it had against him. However, the government and MIT will be allowed to keep most of the relevant names redacted.

    Swartz killed himself in January, not long before he was scheduled to defend himself in a trial that could have resulted in several years of prison time. Swartz famously used MIT’s computer network to download millions of academic papers published in the JSTOR archive, and prosecutors said those actions violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA).

  • Redacted Emails Ordered Released in Aaron Swartz Case

• Open Hardware

  • Wikiweapons and Printing 3D Guns. It’s Just a Stalking Horse for What’s to Come

    When I wrote an article for FSM a few years ago about 3D printing it was a big topic in the open-source community but it had not yet gone fully mainstream. If there was one thing guaranteed to make 3D printing explode onto the mainstream news media it was an item about someone “printing” a gun. That got your attention, didn’t it? Mine too. It’s controversial of course but it might just be the beginning of a rerun of the Napster/Piratebay episodes in the 21st century – with the inevitable debate between patent-free, non-hierarchical open-source models and patent-encumbered proprietary software and hardware. Napster was a ripple. 3D printing will be a tsunami.

  • Now You Can Buy 3D Printers From Staples

    The office supply chain announced Friday that it is now selling 3D printers through its website and will start selling 3D printers in select stores by the end of next month. Staples is touting itself as the first “major U.S. retailer” to sell the product.

Programming

• Developer releases template code to allow almost anyone to create a Google Glass app

• Go 1.1 is released

• Zend Framework 2.2.0 Stable Released

• SystemZ / S390x Support Added To Clang Compiler

  LLVM’s Clang C/C++ compiler is now supported on IBM’s SystemZ mainframe computers.

  With a Clang commit made today by Ulrich Weigand, SystemZ is back to being supported by Clang. The commit adds all the platform-specific bits for enabling SystemZ / S390x support.

• Intel Is Nearing OpenMP Support In LLVM/Clang

• Dagger: Decompiling Software Through LLVM

  Dagger is a decompilation framework written around LLVM that supports decompiling software back into LLVM IR.

• Sambamba: Another Way To Automatically Parallelize Code

  Sambamba is an interesting research project out of academia that’s yet another attempt at coming up with a better means of automatically parallelizing code. The Sambamba project describes itself as “A Runtime System for Online Adaptive Parallelization.”

• PyPy 2.0 – Einstein Sandwich

  We’re pleased to announce PyPy 2.0. This is a stable release that brings a swath of bugfixes, small performance improvements and compatibility fixes. PyPy 2.0 is a big step for us and we hope in the future we’ll be able to provide stable releases more often.

• JADE: An LLVM-Based Video Decoder For MPEG RVC

  LLVM continues to show its adaptability with the innovative compiler infrastructure now being used by JADE, the Just-In-Time Adaptive Decoder Engine. JADE is an LLVM-powered generic video decoder.

• Scratch 2.0 Released – Use It In A Browser

  The Scratch Team at MIT Media Lab has released Scratch 2.0, a revamped version of the well known graphical, block-structured, programming language for kids and the good news is that it is even easier to get started.

  It is three years since Mitch Resnik and Paula Aguilera posted a video to You Tube outlining plans for Scratch 2.0 that included being able to create and remix projects within the web browser work collaboratively on projects and connect to social media.

eHealth week – digital innovation isn’t just for the young!

This week in Dublin it has been eHealth week. A chance to look at all the great things digital technology can do for health and care – especially as the average European gets older.

How humble USB turned engineer into tech ‘rock star’

With computer technology advancing at an ever bewildering pace, it’s comforting to know that one little feature remains steadfastly future-proof and, more importantly, foolproof.

The USB (Universal Serial Bus) is as relevant today as it was when the 12 millimeter by 4.5 millimeter ports and cables first started appearing back in the late 1990s, providing users with a discreet and straightforward way of transferring data between a range of digital devices.

Justice O’Connor Regrets

Stevens: Rationale for Bush v. Gore was “unacceptable”

O’Connor questions court’s decision to take Bush v. Gore

In interview at Tribune, retired justice also calls for merit selection of judges

Alito and Roberts are the most pro-businesses justices since 1946, study finds

Not every decision by the Roberts court has favored businesses. But the U.S. Supreme Court is more pro-business in its rulings than any other since 1946, according to a new study. And two of its justices are also the most pro-business among 36 who served on the court since World War II.

Feds Realize That Exploiting A Bug In Casino Video Poker Software Is Not Hacking And Not A CFAA Violation

For years, we’ve talked about how casinos were able to get away with not paying people who won jackpots from electronic gambling machines, by claiming that their wins were really because of software glitches. That always seemed like a highly questionable practice, but even more questionable was filing criminal charges against winners who won because of those glitches. We talked about one such case back in 2007, and then another one in early 2011. That 2011 case involved two guys, John Kane and Andre Nestor, who had figured out a bug in some video poker software from International Game Technology, a gaming giant.

Science

• Monsanto, Dow Chemical Crops Face Further Delays on Environmental Studies

  The U.S. Department of Agriculture will conduct environmental assessments of new corn, soybean and cotton seeds genetically engineered to withstand herbicides, further delaying the possible launch of products from Monsanto Co. (MON) and Dow Chemical Co. (DOW).

• Bill Nye Boo’d In Texas For Saying The Moon Reflects The Sun

  Bill Nye, the harmless children’s edu-tainer known as “The Science Guy,” managed to offend a select group of adults in Waco, Texas at a presentation, when he suggested that the moon does not emit light, but instead reflects the light of the sun.

  As even most elementary-school graduates know, the moon reflects the light of the sun but produces no light of its own.

  But don’t tell that to the good people of Waco, who were “visibly angered by what some perceived as irreverence,” according to the Waco Tribune.

• Obama pedals bike at 3rd White House science fair

  It was an offer President Barack Obama couldn’t refuse.

  “You’re welcome to try this out if you like,” the Oakland Park, Fla., high school student said.

  With that, a president who often laments a lifestyle that denies him the pleasure of driving eagerly hopped on the blue-and-silver bicycle in his dark blue suit and pedaled away, never mind that the machinery didn’t take him anywhere.

• Western leaders study ‘gamechanging’ report on global drugs trade

  Review by Organisation of American States on illicit drugs ‘could mark beginning of the end’ of prohibition

• Samsung claims 5G mobile data transmission breakthrough

  Samsung says it has developed the world’s first “adaptive array transceiver” technology, an innovation that allows part of the super-high-frequency Ka band of the radio spectrum – at 28GHz – to be used for cellular data transmission.

  The firm indicates its equipment, which features 64 antenna elements, overcomes a problem involved with using this frequency, which can cause the signal to weaken in rainy conditions.

  “Samsung’s recent success in developing the adaptive array transceiver technology has brought us one step closer to the commercialisation of 5G mobile communications in the millimetre-wave bands,” said Chang-Yeong Kim. head of the firm’s Digital Media & Communication Centre in Seoul.

• Samsung to rollout commercial 5G by 2020

  Samsung Electronics has developed a technology aimed at allowing data transmission up to several hundred times faster than the current 4G networks, paving the way for introducing high-speed 5G wireless data connections to users by 2020.

  The company’s new adaptive array transceiver technology, claimed to be first-of-its-kind in the world, operates in the millimeter-wave Ka bands for cellular communications.

Security

• AP Twitter account hacked, makes false claim of explosions at White House (update)

• As cyberthreats mount, hacker’s conviction underscores criticism of government overreach

  The target of the raid was neither terrorist nor bank robber. He was a 24-year-old computer hacker suspected of handing off stolen e-mail addresses to the media.

  [...]

  The hacker, Andrew Auernheimer, was convicted and sentenced last month to more than three years in prison for obtaining about 120,000 e-mail addresses of iPad users from AT&T’s Web site — including New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (I), Hollywood executive Harvey Weinstein and other prominent figures — and giving them to the Web site Gawker. At the time it happened three years ago, the data breach jolted federal officials because it affected one of the nation’s most prominent companies and triggered fears about the security of increasingly popular mobile devices.

• Facebook puts account security in the hands of your friends

  The next time you’re locked of your Facebook account, one of your besties can loan you the key.

• Mac malware signed with Apple ID infects activist’s laptop

  Backdoor took screenshots, sent them to attackers.

• Court Conviction Confirms Everything I Ever Thought About LULZSEC

  Hacktivism HURTS THE CAUSES IT PROPOSES TO HELP.

Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

• Military spending and the EU crisis

  High levels of military spending played a key role in the unfolding economic crisis in Europe and continues to undermine efforts to resolve it.

• US vows to continue its foreign ‘war on terror’ bid for at least 10-20 years

  A top US military official has emphasized that the American so-called “war on terror” on Muslim world will continue for ‘at least 10 to 20 years.’

• Obama War Powers Under 2001 Law ‘Astoundingly Disturbing,’ Senators Say

  The war authorization that Congress passed after 9/11 will be needed for at least 10 to 20 more years, and can be used to put the United States military on the ground anywhere, from Syria to the Congo to Boston, military officials argued Thursday.

• Hofstra student killed by police during break-in

  In this photo copied from the 2010 Sleepy Hollow High School yearbook, high school student Andrea Rubello is shown. Police said Rubello, a junior at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., was shot and killed Friday, May 17, 2013, during a break-in near the college campus.

• Judge tosses out manslaughter charges against NYPD officer who killed teen

  A judge has dismissed manslaughter charges against a New York City police officer who shot dead an unarmed teenage boy in his bathroom.

  Bronx supreme court justice Steven L Barrett said the Bronx district attorney’s office failed to properly instruct members of a grand jury in considering allegations against officer Richard Haste for his role in the death in 2012 of 18-year-old Ramarley Graham.

• China Spends $125 Billion Per Year On Riot Gear And ‘Stability Maintenance’

  Mannequins in riot gear, armoured cars and drones line a police equipment and “anti-terrorism technology” trade fair in Beijing as vendors seek to profit from China’s huge internal security budget.

  The country is estimated to have more than 180,000 protests each year and the ruling Communist Party spends vast sums on ensuring order — more even than on its military, the largest in the world.

Cablegate

• Obama Worse Than Nixon? Pentagon Papers Attorney Decries AP Phone Probe, Julian Assange Persecution

  The Justice Department’s disclosure that it had secretly subpoenaed phone records from the Associated Press has prompted a wave of comparisons between President Obama and Richard Nixon. Four decades ago, the Nixon administration attempted to block The New York Times from publishing a secret history of the Vietnam War leaked to the newspaper by whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg.

• Globaleaks 0.2 Alpha

  Globaleaks is an open source project aimed at creating a worldwide, anonymous, censorship-resistant, distributed whistle-blowing platform. It enables organizations interested in running whistle-blowing initiatives to setup their own safe zone, where whistle-blowers and recipients can exchange data.

Environment/Energy/Wildlife

• Plaintiffs’ Lawyers Jump Ship in Pollution Fight Against Chevron

  Faced with an enormous 2011 oil-pollution verdict in Ecuador, Chevron (CVX) turned the tables on its main legal foe, launching a fierce counter-attack against the lead plaintiffs’ lawyer in federal court in New York. That onslaught raised serious questions about the tactics that activist attorney, Steven Donziger, an American, employed to win the $19 billion judgment in Ecuador.

  Now it has cost Donziger some of his most important lawyer-allies in the U.S., who have quit the fight, saying they lack the resources and will to battle Chevron.

  ‘[...]

  Keker lashed out at Chevron and its law firm, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher: “Through scorched-earth litigation, executed by its army of hundreds of lawyers, Chevron is using its limitless resources to crush” Donziger “and win this case through might rather than merit.” Keker also condemned Kaplan. “Encouraged by this court’s implacable hostility to Donziger, Chevron will file any motion, however meritless, in the hope that this court will use it to hurt Donziger.”

Finance

• NFL Player Instagrams Himself Peeing on IRS Building

  Tax-season gripes regarding the Internal Revenue Service are about as American as baseball and apple pie. But we bet you’ve never expressed your frustration quite like NFL player Evan Mathis did on Wednesday.

• Where will we be without the bankers?

  We need banks that serve the economy – not the bankers.

• Yahoo board OKs $1.1B purchase of Tumblr: report

• Apple Said to Be Subject of Senate Offshore Tax Hearing

  Apple Inc. (AAPL) will be the subject of a May 21 Senate hearing on U.S. companies’ offshore tax practices, said two people familiar with the inquiry.

  Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook will testify at the hearing of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, one of the people said.

• Goldman Sachs Wins Even When Muzzled by the Feds

  Almost three years ago, when Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) paid $550 million to settle fraud accusations by the Securities and Exchange Commission, one of the claims was that Goldman misled the bond-insurer ACA Financial Guaranty Corp. in a horribly complex deal named Abacus.

  Goldman settled without admitting to the accusations. The terms also prohibited Goldman from denying the SEC’s allegations in its public statements. Then, this week, a funny thing happened. A New York state appeals court, in a 3-2 ruling, dismissed ACA’s lawsuit against Goldman. ACA said Goldman misled it. The court said the insurer’s claims didn’t hold up.

• Walmart destroys the cultural heritage of Mexico

  As an archaeologist, I welcome the news that “[t]rade unions in Canada, the United States and Mexico are preparing protests and legal action against the Mexican subsidiary of Walmart” . That $24 million in bribes was allegedly paid by Walmart representatives to built the store at Teotihuacán is sad, but, in hindsight, makes a lot of sense. It takes a lot of gall to wilfully risk a country’s most beloved heritage site and, as it seems, it takes a lot of money too. However, I am sure Walmart felt it was worth it: if only a fraction of the 2.5 million annual visitors to Teotihuacán walk through Walmart’s doors, they would have easily recouped their ‘investment’.

• “The Other IRS Scandal”: David Cay Johnston on Dark Money Political Groups Seeking Tax Exemption

• Fincen’s New Regulations Are Choking Bitcoin Entrepreneurs

  More than a decade ago, regulators nearly suffocated PayPal. Now it looks like they’re trying to squelch another disruptive, innovative payments system.

• Who’s Getting Rich off the Prison-Industrial Complex?

  You likely already know how overcrowded and abusive the US prison system is, and you probably are also aware that the US has more people in prison than even China or Russia. In this age of privatization, of course, it’s also not surprising that many of the detention centers are not actually operated by the government, but by for-profit companies. So clearly, some people are making lots and lots of money off the booming business of keeping human beings in cages.

  But who are these people?

  Using NASDAQ data, I looked through the long list of investors in Corrections Corporation of America and GEO Group, the two biggest corporations that operate detention centers in the US, to find out who was cashing in the most on prisons. When we say “prison-industrial complex,” this is who we’re talking about.

• Trade Talks? Only Business Insiders Invited

  As the future of the proposed Canada-European Union Trade Agreement becomes increasingly uncertain — the EU has been unwilling to compromise on the remaining contentious issues leaving the Canadian government with a deal that offers limited benefits and significant costs — the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) is likely to emerge as the government’s new top trade priority.

• Accidentally Released – and Incredibly Embarrassing – Documents Show How Goldman et al Engaged in ‘Naked Short Selling’

  It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes God smiles on us. Last week, he smiled on investigative reporters everywhere, when the lawyers for Goldman, Sachs slipped on one whopper of a legal banana peel, inadvertently delivering some of the bank’s darker secrets into the hands of the public.

  The lawyers for Goldman and Bank of America/Merrill Lynch have been involved in a legal battle for some time – primarily with the retail giant Overstock.com, but also with Rolling Stone, the Economist, Bloomberg, and the New York Times. The banks have been fighting us to keep sealed certain documents that surfaced in the discovery process of an ultimately unsuccessful lawsuit filed by Overstock against the banks.

  Last week, in response to an Overstock.com motion to unseal certain documents, the banks’ lawyers, apparently accidentally, filed an unredacted version of Overstock’s motion as an exhibit in their declaration of opposition to that motion. In doing so, they inadvertently entered into the public record a sort of greatest-hits selection of the very material they’ve been fighting for years to keep sealed.

• The Question that Launched the IRS Scandal: Planted?

  It struck me as odd that IRS official Lois Lerner would suddenly offer a mea culpa ex nihilo — on the sensitive subject of the agency’s targeting of political enemies — off the cuff while she was speaking at a tax conference organized by the American Bar Association. When she was asked about that during a telephone call on Friday, she said only that she was asked a question and answered it.

• Homeland Security seizes funds at main Bitcoin exchange

  The U.S. government has reportedly shut down a prime source of liquidity for Bitcoin by seizing an account connecting a Japanese currency exchange, Mt. Gox, and payment services provider Dwolla.

• Austerity Is Dead; Stop Pushing It, Drop the Chained CPI and Increase Social Security

  Deficit projections have already by $200 billion for this year alone, so why do Republicans keep lunging for ever-more radical spending cuts like they were corn dogs at a barbecue? That’s more in deficit reduction than President Obama’s proposed cut to Social Security would “save” in ten. So why hasn’t he withdrawn the proposal?

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

• Is There Really a ‘Scandal Trifecta’?

  The White House is evidently in a tough spot thanks to what’s being called a “scandal trifecta”: Benghazi, the Justice Department seizing AP phone records, and the IRS targeting Tea Party groups. Much of the Beltway press corps–which has pushed the Benghazi story for months–is seeing the Obama presidency in a state of near free-fall.

• Conservative Koch Brothers Turning Focus to Newspapers

  Three years ago, Charles and David Koch, the billionaire industrialists and supporters of libertarian causes, held a seminar of like-minded, wealthy political donors at the St. Regis Resort in Aspen, Colo. They laid out a three-pronged, 10-year strategy to shift the country toward a smaller government with less regulation and taxes.

• The Remarkable Decline in the Wall Street Journal’s Long-Form Journalism

  I do not have any particular expertise in the inner workings of the Wall Street Journal newsroom, but this chart speaks for itself. It shows the number of stories the Journal published that were over 2,500 words from 2002 to 2011. Dean Starkman of Columbia Journalism Review created the chart and referenced it again today. (He used to work at the publication.)

• The bizarre campaign against Apple’s Tim Cook

  Targeted criticism of Cook first scored a hit last November, when Dan Lyons wrote the scathing article “What’s it like to work for Tim Cook?” based on on comments by a man who’d never actually worked for Cook.

• AP memo on Boston coverage: ‘We made mistakes because we didn’t follow our own very good guidelines’

  “There was much great work from AP staffers [reporting from Boston] and we celebrate that,” Associated Press executive editor Kathleen Carroll writes in a memo. “But we had some missteps, too. And that’s what we want to talk about here today.”

• Two tech executives quit Mark Zuckerberg’s Fwd.us political group

  Two prominent Silicon Valley entrepreneurs have quit Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg’s political advocacy group Fwd.us after protests from environmentalists and liberal groups, a person familiar with the situation said late Friday.

Censorship

• Government accused of sneaking in web filter

  The federal government has been accused of sneaking mandatory web filtering through the back door after one of its agencies inadvertently blocked 1200 websites using a little-known law.

  Read more: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/technology/technology-news/government-accused-of-sneaking-in-web-filter-20130517-2jq3p.html#ixzz2TjUYLpZ8

• Floyd Abrams & the First Amendment: The Risks of Liberty

  “Our approach under the First Amendment has wisely, I think, generally been to risk suffering the harm that speech may do in order to avoid the greater harm that suppression of speech has often caused.” That line is vintage Floyd Abrams. So, too, is the following one: “The oldest reality about the First Amendment is this: Hardly anyone really believes that we should protect the speech of those with whom we differ.” In other words, protecting free speech can be risky and can mean protecting the expression of those who offend us.

• Tor and the Censorship Arms Race: Lessons Learned

  On July 24th 2013 Roger Dingledine and Jacob Appelbaum will give a talk about Tor and Internet Censorship. The talk will be at the Garching campus of the TUM (U-Bahn stop: U6 Garching Forschungszentrum), in the FMI (Informatics/Mathematics) building, in room HS1 (the big lecture hall) starting at 18:00. Admission is of course free.

• The Dark Side of the Digital Revolution

  How do you explain to people that they are a YouTube sensation, when they have never heard of YouTube or the Internet? That’s a question we faced during our January visit to North Korea, when we attempted to engage with the Pyongyang traffic police. You may have seen videos on the Web of the capital city’s “traffic cops,” whose ballerina-like street rituals, featured in government propaganda videos, have made them famous online. The men and women themselves, however—like most North Koreans—have never seen a Web page, used a desktop computer, or held a tablet or smartphone.

• Censors increasingly take aim at Google content

  Google on Thursday released data showing that requests by governments to censor the Internet giant’s content have hit new heights, with Brazil and the United States leading the way.

  Google received 2,285 government requests to remove content from it properties, including YouTube and search pages, in the second half of last year as compared to 1,811 requests in the first six months, according to its latest Transparency Report.

  The requests related to 24,179 pieces of content, up from 18,070 items, the California-based Internet giant said.

• US officials to Delhi court: Can’t summon Facebook, Google

  India had asked the US to help in serving papers to the executives of 11 Internet companies who are accused of hosting content designed to fuel communal hatred.

• Bus Company Threatens Redditor With Lawsuit, Meets Ken White, Runs Away

  Another day, another case of a business attempting to stifle online criticism via threat of lawsuit, amirite? We’ve seen it again and again. Companies ignorant of the terrifying Streisand Effect go after critics and, normally, the only warm and fuzzy feeling we can take away from it is knowing that these abusers are more hated as a result of their threats than they were before. But not today, friends. Today’s story ends hilariously well.

  [...]

  So, we’re dealing with a company that enjoys suing its own customers after slapping their wallets around with insane fines that seem designed less to encourage good behavior than to simply extract more money out of people. Well, if Suburban Express is happy to sue its own customers, you can guess just how aggressive they like to behave with the internet upon which some of these customers express their displeasure. Unfortunately, when that displeasure is aimed at one of the company’s drivers who told an exchange student, “If you don’t understand English, you don’t belong at the University of Illinois or any ‘American’ University,” then you’re going to raise the ire of roughly everyone. It was a witness to that event, Jeremy Leval, who took to Facebook to describe the incident.

• Trade Sanctions Cited in Hundreds of Syrian Domain Seizures

  In apparent observation of international trade sanctions against Syria, a U.S. firm that ranks as the world’s fourth-largest domain name registrar has seized hundreds of domains belonging to various Syrian entities, including a prominent Syrian hacker group and sites associated with the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

• Germany asked to intervene with Dotcom

  Kim Dotcom’s lawyers intend to ask the German government to intervene with the United States and try to block his extradition on criminal copyright charges, German news agency DPA has reported.

  London-based Canadian human rights lawyer Robert Amsterdam, who co-wrote a “white paper” released last week criticising the case against Dotcom’s MegaUpload business, told the DPA that Germany had not done enough to assist Dotcom.

  He said he would ask the German government to intervene on the grounds that Dotcom’s human rights had been violated by the US.

  “We can take this to the office of the Chancellor, which we will, as well as to the German Foreign Ministry, to raise the issue with Washington,” he told the DPA.

Privacy

• Leak Investigations Are an Assault on the Press, and on Democracy, Too

  This was supposed to be the administration of unprecedented transparency. President Obama promised that when he took office, and the White House’s Web site says so on this very day.

• In AP surveillance case, the real scandal is what’s legal

• White House pushing new federal shield law

  In damage control mode after revelations that the Department of Justice seized records from Associated Press reporters, the White House is pushing a federal media shield law that died in the Senate four years ago.

• Hear Ye, Future Deep Throats: This Is How to Leak to the Press

  We now live in a world where public servants informing the public about government behavior or wrongdoing must practice the tradecraft of drug dealers and spies. Otherwise, these informants could get caught in the web of administrations that view George Orwell’s 1984 as an operations manual.

  With the recent revelation that the Department of Justice under the Obama administration secretly obtained phone records for Associated Press journalists — and previous subpoenas by the Bush administration targeting the Washington Post and New York Times — it is clear that whether Democrat or Republican, we now live in a surveillance dystopia beyond Orwell’s Big Brother vision. Even privately collected data isn’t immune, and some highly sensitive data is particularly vulnerable thanks to the Third Party Doctrine.

• Media organizations call on Justice Department to mitigate damage from broad subpoena of journalists’ phone records

  The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and major news organizations are calling on the U.S. Justice Department to return secretly subpoenaed phone records of more than 100 Associated Press journalists, to explain how such an egregious overreach could happen and outline what will be done to mitigate the damage.

• Obama Administration Secretly Obtains Phone Records of AP Journalists

• Do-Not-Track Talks Could Be Running Off the Rails

• What If We Thought More Often About Being Tracked Online? Man Stalks Himself To Find Out

  It’s no secret that data mining is big business–but what if Internet users could monetize their personal data on their own? New York University grad student Federico Zannier raised the question by unleashing an arsenal of digital espionage tools on his own computer: a Chrome extension that documents every web address visited; software that records GPS location; and a custom application that takes a screenshot, a webcam photo, and records the mouse position every time a new tab opens.

• Taking the privacy message to MEPs

  This week ORG supporter Ryan Jendoubi visited MEPs in Brussels to ask them to support stronger privacy rights – as part of our ongoing Naked Citizens campaign. In this post he talks about why he was there and how the message was received.

• U.S. gives big, secret push to Internet surveillance

  Justice Department agreed to issue “2511 letters” immunizing AT&T and other companies participating in a cybersecurity program from criminal prosecution under the Wiretap Act, according to new documents obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

• Shady Companies With Ties to Israel Wiretap the U.S. for the NSA

  Army General Keith Alexander, the director of the NSA, is having a busy year — hopping around the country, cutting ribbons at secret bases and bringing to life the agency’s greatly expanded eavesdropping network.

  In January he dedicated the new $358 million CAPT Joseph J. Rochefort Building at NSA Hawaii, and in March he unveiled the 604,000-square-foot John Whitelaw Building at NSA Georgia.

• Head of the NSA Warns of ‘Disruptive & Destructive’ Cyber Attacks – ISO 27014 Can Help

• DISA/NSA move to address insider threats to enterprise networks

• US under constant threat of cyber attack: NSA boss

• India´s ´Big Brother´: The Central Monitoring System (CMS)

  Starting from this month, all telecommunications and Internet communications in India will be analysed by the government and its agencies. What does that mean? It means that everything we say or text over the phone, write, post or browse over the Internet will be centrally monitored by Indian authorities. This totalitarian type of surveillance will be incorporated in none other than the Central Monitoring System (CMS).

• Law Requiring Warrants for E-Mail Wins Senate Committee Approval

  A Senate committee today backed sweeping privacy protections requiring the government, for the first time, to get a probable-cause warrant to obtain e-mail and other content stored in the cloud.

• On Expectation of Privacy

  Privacy in pubic is now being destroyed to the point to include any activity you conduct over the Internet, whether it’s been technically designed to be private or not. The IRS has recently come under fire for spying on Americans’ email under the guise that using email surrenders one’s expectation of privacy. Anyone who understands how email works knows that its design intent, when working properly, keeps email private: it partitions off one’s email from any other users on the network, and on the server. It’s inherently private, unless of course a hacker breaks into the system and steals your privacy. Simply because email exists in a public environment doesn’t invalidate one’s expectation of privacy. Consider a single-room bathroom inside a public department store or restaurant. It is surrounded by the public, however our law still protects the inside of those four walls as a private place. Just because a criminal could potentially kick in the door and snap a photo of you on the toilet doesn’t
  suddenly remove your right to privacy inside this room, yet the same argument is being made against electronic mail and other forms of otherwise private communication.

• Judge Holds Himself in Contempt for Cellphone Violation

  The judge said he had recently switched from the Blackberry model he has had for years to a Windows phone with a touchscreen, and believes the phone wasn’t locked when he came to the bench with the phone in his shirt pocket. Worse, this particular phone apparently comes with voice activation, which was news to the judge. He said something to trigger it, and the phone spoke up.

• Apple, AT&T and Verizon receive lowest marks in EFF privacy report

  Apple has submitted plans to open a new retail store on Union Square, replacing its nine-year-old store at Stockton and Ellis streets a few blocks away.

  Supervisor David Chiu said he hoped the new silver box-shaped computer store and customer service center would “turbo-charge” the Union Square area, which has long been home to many of the city’s high-end retailers.

• Apple’s Customer Data-Privacy Rules Struck Down by German Court

• German Court Says Apple’s Privacy Policy Conflicts with National Data Protection Law

• EFF Gives Twitter High Marks for Protecting Users’ Data

  How safe are your favorite websites? The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) evaluated 18 major Internet companies for privacy and transparency, and Twitter and West Coast ISP Sonic.net came out on top.

• For Their Eyes Only: The Commercialization of Digital Spying

  The report features new findings, as well as consolidating a year of our research on the commercial market for offensive computer network intrusion capabilities developed by Western companies.

• This EULA Will Make You Rethink Every App and Online Service You Use

  Similarly, without an open, unified network, the whole notion of business online would have been entirely feudal from the start. Instead, it only took a feudal turn around the turn of the century. These days, instead of websites on the open internet, people are more likely to create apps in proprietary stores or profiles on proprietary social media sites.

• Do You Want the Government Buying Your Data From Corporations?

  Our government collects a lot of information about us. Tax records, legal records, license records, records of government services received– it’s all in databases that are increasingly linked and correlated. Still, there’s a lot of personal information the government can’t collect. Either they’re prohibited by law from asking without probable cause and a judicial order, or they simply have no cost-effective way to collect it. But the government has figured out how to get around the laws, and collect personal data that has been historically denied to them: ask corporate America for it.

• Apple deluged by police demands to decrypt iPhones

  ATF says no law enforcement agency could unlock a defendant’s iPhone, but Apple can “bypass the security software” if it chooses. Apple has created a police waiting list because of high demand.

• FBI Seeks Real-Time Facebook, Google Wiretaps

  Should Facebook, Google and similar sites be forced to adapt their infrastructure so that the FBI and other law enforcement agencies can easily tap suspects’ communications in real time?

Civil Rights

• Student Defaulters – to be arrested on sight at all borders

  With National declaring that student defaulters who have not paid for their education are to be arrested on sight at our borders, I thought it my civic duty to assist Police and Border Guards to share a Wanted poster with readers.

• Student loan defaulters to face border arrest

• From Hooligan: How I Got Kicked Out of the Supreme Court

  In March 1995, I visited the sacred burial ground of Americans’ rights and liberties – the Supreme Court.

• You’re to Blame for Factory Deaths. Well, You and Walmart

  The New Yorker’s James Surowiecki (5/20/13) has figured out who’s to blame for unsafe working conditions for garment workers: people who wear clothing.

• The major sea change in media discussions of Obama and civil liberties

  Due to the controversies over the IRS and (especially) the DOJ’s attack on AP’s news gathering process, media outlets have suddenly decided that President Obama has a very poor record on civil liberties, transparency, press freedoms, and a whole variety of other issues on which he based his first campaign.

• Marco Rubio Pushes For “Enhanced REAL ID” For ALL US Citizens—If They Want A Job!

• New Federal Regulations Give Pentagon Sweeping Domestic Police Power

  The militarization of local and state law enforcement didn’t make its debut in the Watertown lockdown, however. For decades, police have received millions in grants from the federal government. Cash-strapped police departments and sheriffs’ offices have traded local control for new technology and martial materiel.

  The blurring of the lines between armed forces and police forces has accelerated quickly, resulting in a situation where “it would be difficult to discern fully outfitted police SWAT teams and the military.”

• Worse Than The AP Phone Scandal

  Before Attorney General Eric Holder oversaw a Justice Department that secretly seized AP journalists’ phone records, he was guilty of something even worse, and closely related to the AP scandal. He argued a little-known case before the Supreme Court called Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, which found that speech (and other forms of nonviolent advocacy) could be construed as material support for terrorist organizations. The case involved a U.S.-based non-profit organization, the Humanitarian Law Project, which, according to its website, is “dedicated to protecting human rights and promoting the peaceful resolution of conflict by using established international human rights laws and humanitarian law.” It also enjoys a consultive status at the UN; so, in other words, hardly a radical organization.

• Letter: Stand together to preserve freedoms

  I wrote a letter for the newspaper in March (“NDAA is a wake-up call to America,” March 13); this is a follow-up. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2012 was passed into law and signed by (President) Obama on Dec. 31, 2012. As I told you this Act sounds good, but in reality abolishes the Bill of Rights. I also stated that the entire United States has been redefined as a “battlefield” wherein the military, the FBI or any other law enforcement under Obama’s thumb can arrest any U.S. citizen without cause. This is possible by using the familiar little “catch-all” word that has been used (and abused) since Sept. 11. The word is terrorism. The laws written in post-9/11 have made it possible to effectively destroy anybody the government doesn’t like or agree with. The government is able to shut down anything and anybody just be using the T-word even if it doesn’t apply at all.

• Dutch police may get right to hack in cyber crime fight

  The Dutch government has announced plans to give police far greater powers to fight cybercrime.

  Under a new bill, investigators would be able to hack into computers, install spyware, read emails and destroy files.

• FBI Documents Suggest Feds Read Emails Without a Warrant

  New documents from the FBI and U.S. Attorneys’ offices paint a troubling picture of the government’s email surveillance practices. Not only does the FBI claim it can read emails and other electronic communications without a warrant—even after a federal appeals court ruled that doing so violates the Fourth Amendment—but the documents strongly suggest that different U.S. Attorneys’ offices around the country are applying conflicting standards to access communications content (you can see the documents here).

• Biometric Database of All Adult Americans Hidden in Immigration Reform

  The immigration reform measure the Senate began debating yesterday would create a national biometric database of virtually every adult in the U.S., in what privacy groups fear could be the first step to a ubiquitous national identification system.

  Buried in the more than 800 pages of the bipartisan legislation (.pdf) is language mandating the creation of the innocuously-named “photo tool,” a massive federal database administered by the Department of Homeland Security and containing names, ages, Social Security numbers and photographs of everyone in the country with a driver’s license or other state-issued photo ID.

DRM

• Working Group Decision to publish Encrypted Media Extensions specification as a First Public Working Draft (FPWD)

  If anyone strongly disagrees with the content of the decision and would like to raise a Formal Objection[5], they may do so at this time. Formal Objections are reviewed by the Director in consultation with the Team. Ordinarily, Formal Objections are only reviewed as part of a transition request[6].

• DRM Moves Ahead With HTML5 Specification

• In court filing, Justice Dept. accuses Apple of e-book price fixing

  The Justice Department accused Apple executives, including its late chief executive Steve Jobs, of leading a conspiracy that raised e-book prices in an attempt to hurt Amazon and other competitors, according to documents filed in federal court Tuesday.

Intellectual Monopolies

• Lives versus Profits

  More broadly, there is increasing recognition that the patent system, as currently designed, not only imposes untold social costs, but also fails to maximize innovation – as Myriad’s gene patents demonstrate.

Breast cancer gene data beneficial, controversial

Angelina Jolie, breast cancer and the gene-patenting question

EU Targets Seeds and Gardeners; Critics Lash Out

As part of the seemingly never-ending drive to expand and centralize its own coercive power, the controversial European Union in Brussels is now targeting seeds and gardeners with a proposed new “law” aimed at regulating all “plant reproductive material” within the bloc. Despite strong backing by mega-corporations and genetic-engineering giants, however, the proposal has sparked a furious grassroots outcry around the world that transcends traditional political divides.

Critics are calling on the emerging EU super state to kill the scheme immediately. Over 200,000 people have already signed a petition against the plan. Another 35,000 signed a petition refusing to accept the scheme, and thousands more signed a separate statement vowing non-compliance. The growing coalition fighting back against the program brings together unlikely allies, too: environmentalists, leftists concerned about corporate power over government, libertarians, farmers, conservatives, liberals, gardeners, small-scale seed producers, advocates for national sovereignty, and more.

Jack Ohman: The four new bases of DNA

How Big Agribusiness Is Heading Off The Threat From Seed Generics — And Failing To Keep The Patent Bargain

Recently we wrote about how pharmaceutical companies use “evergreening” to extend their control over drugs as the patents expire. But this is also an issue for the world of agribusiness: a number of key patents, particularly for traits of genetically-engineered (GE) organisms, will be entering the public domain soon, and leading companies like Bayer, BASF, Dow, DuPont, Monsanto and Syngenta are naturally coming up with their own “evergreening” methods.

Supreme Court Seems Skeptical As Myriad Claims Gene Patents Should Exist, Because It Put A Lot Of Work Into Finding Them

As many people know, on Monday, the Supreme Court finally heard the Myriad Genetics case, to look at whether or not genes are patentable subject matter. For the past few decades, the USPTO has generally argued that you can patent genes, which just seems crazy to most folks who point out that it’s nuts to patent something that exists in your body. Supporters argue that they’re trying to patent the process of isolating the gene, but that’s just semantics. As you may recall, the appeals court, CAFC, had decided that genes are patentable because they’re separate from your DNA. After that, the Supreme Court disallowed patents on medical diagnostics, and asked CAFC to reconsider the Myriad case with that as a guide. In response, CAFC stuck by its guns, insisting that genes are patentable.

Don’t Let Patents Kill 3D Printing

One of the reasons why 3D printing is suddenly on the cusp of going mainstream is the expiration of some key patents that have held the technology back for decades. And yet, of course, with any area of the market that is getting hot, there is suddenly a rush to get more patents. In fact, we’ve already seen a few patent fights begin concerning the new generation of 3D printing companies. Recently, the EFF has decided to try to try to put a stop to a series of patent applications that, if granted, would have the potential to again hold back the 3D printing market even further.

Sussex academy pays £100,000 to use ‘patented’ US school curriculum

Aurora Academies Trust is challenged over use of patented ‘Paragon curriculum’ that has been criticised by Ofsted

India patents 1,300 yoga moves

India has made available a list of 1,300 newly registered yoga poses, compiled to prevent the ancient moves from being exploited by patent pirates, the Times of India said.

Hindu gurus and some 200 scientists compiled the list from 16 ancient texts to prevent yoga teachers in the United States and Europe from patenting established poses as their own.

Trademarks

• Hackathon Trademarked in Germany? Now What? ~pj

  I am sure you saw that somebody in Germany, a company called nachtausgabe.de, has sneaked through a trademarking of the word HACKATHON in Germany. There was no opposition, because nobody knew about it. We know now, however, so what can anyone do about it? It turns out, plenty.

  It’s a word that OpenBSD and Sun each came up with independently at the same time back in the ’90s, for heavens sake, and it surely can’t belong to any one company now that it’s in the dictionary and everyone has freely used it for years now.

  Anyway, as soon as I read about it, I wrote to the German equivalent of the USPTO, DPMA, the German Patent and Trademark Office, and I’ve learned some things that can still be done. I’ll share them with you, so the community knows how to go forward if it proves necessary.

• Apple wins trademark case over ‘iBooks’

  A small New York publisher that uses the label “ibooks” has struck out in its lawsuit against Apple, after a New York court on Wednesday held that the publisher’s mark was not distinct and that consumers would not confuse the two companies’ products.

Copyrights

• Dotcom granted leave for Crown appeal

  Kim Dotcom has been granted leave to appeal his case against the Crown in the Supreme Court.

  The MegaUpload mogul’s legal team applied in March to be heard in the country’s highest court after a decision about disclosure made in the Court of Appeal went against him.

  Dotcom’s lawyers want to be able to view the documents that make up the basis of the US Government’s case against him.

• Judge Denies Copyright Class Action Against YouTube

• European Parliament to Vote Green Light to Next ACTA?

  On 22 May, the European Parliament will vote in plenary on a resolution on the proposed EU-US trade agreement, the “Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Agreement” (TAFTA), also know as “Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership” (TTIP). After the ACTA, SOPA and PIPA battles, once again the entertainment industry will try to use a trade agreement as an opportunity to impose online repression. With Wednesday’s vote, Members of the European Parliament may be about to vote in favor of the same kind of repressive copyright enforcement provisions that they rejected in ACTA a few months ago.

• BitTorrent Accounts for 35% of All Upload Traffic, VPNs are Booming

  New data published by the Canadian broadband management company Sandvine reveals that BitTorrent can be credited for one third of all North American upload traffic during peak hours. BitTorrent usage also remains strong in Europe, Latin America and Asia Pacific. The report further confirms that SSL traffic has more than doubled in a year, partly due to an increase in VPN use.

• Viacom Loses Again–Viacom v. YouTube

  How many things have to go wrong for Viacom before it wakes up and smells the hummus? It’s now lost twice in the district court, it’s created a bunch of precedent unfavorable to its interests, it’s proven that even it can’t figure out which clips it authorized to post on YouTube and which it didn’t, it gave up complaining about YouTube’s behavior after 2008 (making the case entirely backward-looking), it got caught repeatedly astroturfing, and in general it’s looked like a massive jackass. Perhaps its next appeal will finally kill this case as it deserves, though that will single-handedly cause a new downturn in the legal industry as hundreds of lawyers look to find new sugar daddy clients.

• Hollywood Docket: Alicia Keys Settles Lawsuit Over ‘Girl on Fire’

  In his lawsuit, Schuman alleged that Keys’ “Girl on Fire” used copyrighted material from his composition. The complaint filed in California federal court didn’t spell out with great detail what was precisely objectionable, but in “Girl on Fire,” the singer appeared to quote the intonation of the prior hit in singing the words “lonely girl.” Compare the two songs (here and here).

  The complaint was filed late last year, and the litigation didn’t get very far for a judge to rule any which way.

• Forget online drives, sync directly with BitTorrent Sync

  If you do not trust online storage drives for file syncing across your devices or are frustrated with storage limits, there is another player in town. BitTorrent has released a new alpha version of its Sync software, which supports syncing folders across the Internet without going through an intermediary like Dropbox, Cloud Drive, or iCloud.

• Chairman Goodlatte Announces Comprehensive Review of Copyright Law

  Technology continues to rapidly advance. Contrast how American citizens kept up with the latest news in Boston last week to when Paul Revere rode nearby to warn the local communities of the British advance in 1775. Our Founding Fathers could never have imagined a day in which citizens would be able to immediately access the knowledge and news of the world on their smartphones as they walk down the street.

• Second Circuit Victory for Richard Prince and Appropriation Art

  Today the Second Circuit Court of Appeals issued a long-awaited decision in favor of fair use in Cariou v. Prince. Reversing the district court’s finding of infringement, the Court held that Richard Prince’s use of Patrick Cariou’s photographs in 25 of his 30 Canal Series paintings was a fair use. The decision affirms an important tradition in modern art that relies on the appropriation of existing images to create highly expressive works with new meaning.

• Authors, composers want 3.4% of every Belgian’s Internet bill

  Content owners in nearly every country have tried various strategies to get compensation for losses due to piracy. But copyright owners in Belgium have a bold new tactic: go after Internet service providers in court, demanding 3.4 percent of the fees their customers pay for Internet service.

• Pirate Site Blocking Legislation Approved By Norwegian Parliament

  Norway has moved an important – some say unstoppable – step towards legislative change that will enable the aggressive tackling of online copyright infringement. Proposed amendments to the Copyright Act, which will make it easier for rightsholders to monitor file-sharers and have sites such as The Pirate Bay blocked at the ISP level, received broad support in parliament this week and look almost certain to be passed into law.

• Prenda hammered: Judge sends porn-trolling lawyers to criminal investigators

  US District Judge Otis Wright has no love for the lawyers who set up the copyright-trolling operation that came to be known as Prenda Law. But Wright at least acknowledges their smarts in his long-awaited order, released today. Wright’s order is a scathing 11 page document, suggesting Prenda masterminds John Steele and Paul Hansmeier should be handed over for criminal investigation. In the first page, though, the judge expresses near admiration for the sheer dark intelligence of their scheme—it’s so complete, so mathematical in its perfection.

• Why weren’t the Prenda porn trolls stopped years ago?

  Two years ago, in March 2011, I first saw Prenda Law’s John Steele in person—and he was getting bawled out by a federal judge in downtown Chicago.

  Impeccably dressed, Steele walked into Judge Milton Shadur’s wood-paneled courtroom to defend his approach to porn copyright trolling, then in one of its earlier iterations. Steele was representing CP Productions, the unfortunately named Arizona porn producer behind a film (well, a “film”) called Cowgirl Creampie. Steele found a long list of IP addresses sharing Cowgirl Creampie using the BitTorrent protocol, so he went to court. He sought subpoena power in order to turn that list of IP addresses into real names. Steele got it, partly by assuring the judge that the case was related to the state of Illinois.

• http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/05/look-you-may-hate-me-90-minutes-with-john-steele-prenda-porn-troll/

  After years of fine-tuning a business model built around copyright lawsuits over pornographic movies, prolific anti-piracy lawyer John Steele is now on the receiving end of a devastating sanctions order by a federal judge in Los Angeles, who has recommended a criminal investigation of Steele and his colleagues. For “copyright trolling” critics ranging from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) to anonymous anti-troll blogs, this week’s order has been sweet vindication—and it elevated the Prenda Law situation to the attention of the national press. But all Steele sees is injustice.

• Orphan Works – the new law in the UK

  My social media feeds have been full links to alarmist stories about a recent change to UK copyright law that allows for the licensing of orphan works. Photographers have been particularly concerned after one site (which I won’t dignify with a link) used the headline “ALL your pics belong to everyone now”. So much alarm has been created that the UK’s intellectual property office felt moved to publish a PDF debunking some of the myths that have arisen. I was waiting until the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 was published on the government’s legislation website before making my own comment.

• “Fair use” takes center stage at Google Books appeal

  Google and the Authors Guild resumed an eight-year battle on Tuesday morning before the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals, where judges pressed both sides to provide a straight-up answer as to whether Google’s decision to scan millions of books amounted to “fair use” under copyright law.

• Google Framed As Book Stealer Bent On Data Domination In New Documentary

  “Google And The World Brain” is a new documentary about Google’s plan to scan all of the world’s books, which triggered an ongoing lawsuit being heard today. The hair-raising film sees Google import millions of copyrighted works, get sued, lose, but almost get a literature monopoly in the process. It’s scary, informative, and worth watching if you recognize its biased portrayal of Google as evil.

  The film is getting wider release as Google continues to fight the Author’s Guild in court today. The organization is demanding $3 billion in damages from Google for scanning and reproducing copyrighted books. Google is asking the court to prevent the group from filing a class-action suit.

• Book Review — William Patry, How to Fix Copyright

  I review William Patry’s book How to Fix Copyright. The book is noteworthy for its ambitious yet measured effort to diagnose where copyright law has gone astray in recent years. It is less successful with respect to proposing possible changes to the law. Most interesting are parallels between How to Fix Copyright and an earlier comprehensive look at copyright law in the digital era: Paul Goldstein’s Copyright’s Highway: From Gutenberg to the Celestial Jukebox. William Patry and Paul Goldstein each have a lot of faith in the power of consumer choice in the cultural marketplace. That faith leads the two authors to very different views of copyright law.

• 9th Circuit: No Relief for Copyright Troll Righthaven

  The Ninth Circuit appeals court today turned down copyright troll Righthaven’s last ditch effort to salvage its failed business model, upholding the federal district court’s decision to dismiss its bogus copyright case on the grounds that it never actually held the copyrights it was suing under.

  In one of the two cases decided together, EFF represents Tad DiBiase, a criminal justice blogger who provides resources for difficult-to-prosecute “no body” murder cases. Righthaven sued DiBiase in 2010 based on a news article that DiBiase posted to his blog. Instead of paying them off, DiBiase fought back with the help of EFF and its co-counsel at Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich and Rosati, and helped drive Righthaven out of business.

• Copyright Trolls Threaten to Call Neighbors of Accused Porn Pirates

  It is no secret that copyright trolls tend to use rather threatening language as they try to convince defendants to pay settlement fees, but the recent actions of the Prenda law reincarnation “Anti-Piracy Law Group” have reached a new low. In a letter sent to people accused of pirating pornographic material, the lawyers threaten to inform neighbors about the illegal conduct, and inspect defendants’ work computers.

• Apple Inc. (AAPL) Could Be Subject To ‘Culture Tax’ In France

  Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s iPhone and iPad could be taxed in the near future in France. Pierre Lescure, former chief executive officer for Canal Plus, was asked by the French government to come up with a new way to fund cultural projects in the country. The economic downturn has caused a lack of funds for the country’s cultural programs. Lescure suggested that since consumers spend more money on popular electronic devices than content, they should charge a one percent sales tax on all internet-compatible devices.

• The Copyright Pentalogy: Technological Neutrality

  Last month, the University of Ottawa Press published The Copyright Pentalogy: How the Supreme Court of Canada Shook the Foundations of Canadian Copyright Law, an effort by many of Canada’s leading copyright scholars to begin the process of examining the long-term implications of the copyright pentalogy. As I’ve noted in previous posts, the book is available for purchase and is also available as a free download under a Creative Commons licence. The book can be downloaded in its entirety or each of the 14 chapters can be downloaded individually.

• We Beat Them to Lima: Opening a New Front Against Secret IP Treaties

  I’m Danny O’Brien, EFF’s new International Director. Five years ago, I worked on the EFF team that identified the threat of ACTA, a secret global intellectual property treaty we discovered was being used to smuggle Internet control provisions into the laws of over thirty countries. Together with an amazing worldwide coalition of activists from Europe to South Korea, we beat back that threat.

• Distributions
• Devices/Embedded

Linux Is Everywhere – 12 Awesome Devices Powered By Linux

Besides well known devices like Google’s Android, Amazon’s Kindle etc, Linux is powering some of the most amazing devices around the globe and in the sky.

Google Demos Linux Running on Hacked Glass

Although Google is offering a limited set of developer tools for Glass — and more are on the way — the company doesn’t want to stop hackers from tinkering even further.

Google Glass rooted and hacked to run Ubuntu live at Google I/O

Google Glass Hacked To Run Ubuntu At Google I/O

New tablet boots Ubuntu Linux, Android, and Windows

We’ve seen several Linux tablets emerge over the past year or so, but examples with triple-boot capabilities are much less common.

Ekoore tablet can be used to run Android, Windows and Linux

This tablet boots Android, Windows 8 and Ubuntu

Server

• IBM collaborates with Red Hat and Suse to port Linux applications to Power architecture

  LONG TIME LINUX SUPPORTER IBM has opened an office in Beijing that will help developers port Linux applications to its Power architecture.

  IBM has been pushing its Power architecture for over 20 years, with its RISC chips intended for use in mission critical systems. Now the firm is working with Red Hat and Suse to help Linux developers port applications to the Power architecture by opening an office in Beijing.

• Scale Computing Scales Up With Linux KVM Servers

  Scale Computing is scaling up its server business with a new HC3x server.

Audiocasts/Shows

• Podcast Season 5 Episode 8

  In this episode: There’s a critical vulnerability in the kernel. But relax, it’s been fixed. The International Space Station is switching from Windows to Debian. But not Debian 7, which has just been released. The beginner’s programming environment, Scratch 2.0, is out and the Raspberry Pi gets a super-light camera module. As always, hear our discoveries, our reports on the challenge and your own opinions in the Open Ballot.

Kernel Space

• The Iron Penguin, Part 2

  Linus, has dived in to save the day. Where did the robot come from? What is it’s purpose? Can the Iron Penguin stand against it?

  Find out next time. Same penguin-time, same penguin-channel.

Applications

• ncp: Possibly the easiest yet

• 4 Open Source Alternatives To Adobe Photoshop

  Adobe Photoshop is not just a requirement for web designers, but it is a growing need of professional photographers as well. Not everyone who wants to use the Adobe photoshop can use it and the reason for it is not the lack of skills, as we all know there are plenty of tutorials available for almost every functionality of this image editing tool. The reason why so many people cannot use Adobe Photoshop or the reason why so many people are looking for open source alternatives to it is its price. The current version, which is the Adobe Photoshop CS6, costs $628.88 on Amazon.com. Now considering its price as high as it is, it is almost impossible for many people to afford it, which is why we have compiled the best 4 open source alternatives to Photoshop, so you can fulfill your photoshop needs without having to spend a fortune over it.

• Useful Apps to Aid Parental Control in Linux

  So, you have a machine running Linux which is also used by kids. We all know how the Web may be dangerous, especially for youngest of Internet fans. But do you know how to shield your Linux system and control what your kids do online?

• Proprietary

  • SerNet builds complete Samba 4 packages

    Since the first free software implementation of the Active Directory Domain Controller (AD-DC) in Samba 4 became available, the large variety of potential scenarios for updating Samba 3 has made it difficult for Linux distributors to add the full set of features to their installation packages. Usually, they will choose one part or the other – the Samba 4 source code includes two daemons: samba for operating an AD-DC, and the Samba-3-compatible smbd for file server or domain member operation. However, the distribution packages usually only include one daemon.

• Instructionals/Technical

  • Shell Script To Find Directories Which Consume Highest Space

  • The Beginner’s Guide to Inkscape

  • Can’t update Iceweasel from Experimental on Wheezy

  • Migrate from MySQL to MariaDB in FreeBSD

  • Short Tip: egrep – using grep with more than one expression

  • Add Alacarte Menu Editor to Fedora 18 Xfce

  • How to Change the Attributes of a File in Linux using chattr Command

  • Using Solr With TYPO3 On Debian Squeeze

• Games

  • More games will be heading our way!

    So as usual behind the scenes I have been doing digging contacting various developers to find out if they have Linux versions planned and here are a few that got back to me! Games including Edge of Space, Battlepaths and more, all of these are currently on Desura.

  • Valve Is Telling Linux Steam Users to Play More Left 4 Dead 2

    The Left 4 Dead 2 Beta for Linux has been released for a few days now, but it seems that players are not swarming it, as expected.

  • Akaneiro: Demon Hunters is now in Open Beta for Linux!

    Akaneiro: Demon Hunters the ARPG that draws from Little Red Riding Hood is now in Open Beta for Linux! Sadly it’s not going very smoothly and I am not impressed so far.

Desktop Environments/WMs

• K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

  • The apps of KDE 4.10 Part V: Kopete

    What does KDE offer for instant communication with your co-workers and friends? Kopete steps up to be your all-in-one IM solution.

  • Porting Krita to OpenGL 3.1/ES2.0

  • Amarok 2.7.1 Released!

    Hi there, while we’ve been working very hard on the next Amarok feature release, the 2.8, we also haven’t forgot the majority of our users using the stable versions.

  • Calligra 2.6.3 Released

    The Calligra team has released version 2.6.3, another bugfix release of the Calligra Suite, and Calligra Active. This release contains a number of important bug fixes to 2.6.2 and we recommend everybody to update.

  • Return of the bird, Colibri 0.3.0

  • digiKam Software Collection 3.2.0 is out..

    digiKam team is proud to announce the 3.2.0 release of digiKam Software Collection. This version include a new album interface display mode named list-view. Icon view can be switched to a flat item list, where items can be sorted by properties columns as in a simple file manager. Columns can be customized to show file, image, metadata, or digiKam properties.

  • Qt 5.1 enters beta

    The Qt developers at Digia are moving at a pace – just over a month after releasing the Qt 5.1 alpha, they have announced the first beta of Qt 5.1. Mostly, the beta continues to deliver the features of the alpha – Qt Quick Controls, Qt Quick Layouts, a serial port module for hardware and virtual serial posts, an updated Qt Creator, support for static Qt builds, and official support for the Qt sensors module. The Android (Qt Quick 1 and 2) and iOS (Qt Quick 1 only) support has been refined in the beta release, though it is still at the level of a technology preview.

  • KWin running in Weston

    This week I decided to do some research for the Wayland porting of the KDE Plasma workspaces. One of the features we will need in future is a Wayland session compositor which runs nested on a Wayland system compositor. Of course one could think of setups without a system compositor, but overall I think that a nested compositor simplifies the setup and allows to have all the low level technologies in one place without duplication in all the various compositors. +1 for working together.

• GNOME Desktop/GTK

  • GNOME 3.8.2 Is the Last Release in This Branch, Download Now

    GNOME 3.8.2 has been officially launched and it features a lot of fixes, documentation and translation updates, not to mention a sleuth of new features.

Distributions

• Screenshots

  • Antergos 2013.05.12 Screenshots

• Red Hat Family

  • eCube Systems Announces NXTera 6.3 Distributed Middleware Support for Linux Redhat Enterprise 6

    New Version of NXTera 6.3 makes it possible for legacy Entera applications to run on Linux Redhat Enterprise 6 with support for SOA integrated JAVA, C, C#, FORTRAN, and COBOL applications.

• Debian Family

  • Derivatives

    • Canonical/Ubuntu

      • Ubuntu Still Figuring Out How To Handle Hybrid Graphics

        While NVIDIA Optimus and other multi-GPU/hybrid laptop graphics systems have been available for years, in the Linux world support for these capabilities is still in the early stages.

      • Unity 7, Compiz To Be Polished For Ubuntu 13.10

        As mentioned already this morning, the plan with Ubuntu 13.10 is to have an experimental Unity 8 desktop powered by Mir for those wishing to toy around with Canonical’s next-generation work. The default, however, will be Unity 7 in an X.Org environment. Even so, the Unity 7 desktop along with the Compiz window manager will receive some refinements for the next Ubuntu release.

        Discussed just now during the virtual Ubuntu Developer Summit were bug-fixes and enhancements for the desktop Unity version in Ubuntu 13.10. Unity 7 improvements being planned for the October release include presenting new Unity indicators, more Unity scopes, the in-dash payments method, and selected design bugs will be addressed.

      • Asus 1015E 10 inch notebook with Ubuntu coming soon for around $215

      • Ubuntu Linux Community: Canonical to Close ‘Brainstorm’ Web Portal?

        A few days ago, Canonical reiterated its commitment to restoring the Ubuntu “community” Web portal to front-and-center of official Ubuntu websites. At almost the same moment, news hit that the Ubuntu Technical Board has decided to discontinue the Ubuntu Brainstorm site, another part of ubuntu.com that has served in the past as a vector between developers and community members. Bad timing or cognitive dissonance? Here’s a look at the details.

      • Flavours and Variants

        • Linux Mint 15 Most Ambitious Release Ever

          Clement Lefebvre, Mint founder and lead, recently announced the public release of Linux Mint 15 Release Candidate. Mint 15 brings lots of fixes, two new tools, and several new features. In fact, Clem said, “Linux Mint 15 is the most ambitious release since the start of the project.”

        • Linux Mint 15 “Olivia” gets release candidate

          The Linux Mint developers have announced a release candidate for the upcoming version of their distribution, Linux Mint 15. The release, which is code-named “Olivia”, is being built on Ubuntu 13.04 and is billed by Linux Mint founder Clement Lefebvre as “the most ambitious release since the start of the project.”

        • Tea and cookies for your new team members

          What does every development team want? New contributors!

Devices/Embedded

• Hackable SODIMM-style ARM9 COM has onboard display

  Crystalfontz America has announced availability of an SODIMM-style COM (computer-on-module) with an optional onboard 128 x 32-pixel OLED display. The tiny CFA10036x module is built around Freescale’s 454MHz ARM9-based i.MX28x SOC (system-on-chip), includes 128MB or 256MB of RAM, and houses its open-source embedded Linux OS in a microSD slot.

• Phones

  • Android

    • Android Studio opens its doors

      Few of the announcements at Google’s I/O conference have involved open source software, but one announcement did: Android Studio, a new IDE environment for Android application development. Although Android Studio is only an early preview at the moment, Google is looking at it to eventually become the default development environment for Android applications, replacing the current solution of the Eclipse IDE and ADT Plugin.

    • Why There Was No New Hardware At Google I/O

      The challenge with a conference like Google I/O, where the announcements arrive one after another, is to see both forest and trees. Analysis of individual announcements – such as Google’s new Pandora/Rdio/Spotify competitor All Access, or the granular pricing for its compute infrastructure – is relatively straightforward. What’s more important, however, is perceiving the larger pattern.

    • Google says it has 900 million Android activations

      The company also launches new APIs to improve Android apps

    • Making Linux and Android Get Along (It’s Not as Hard as It Sounds)

    • Sonic the Hedgehog Arrives on Android & iOS!

    • White Nexus 4 and Android 4.3 coming June 10th

      Rumors suggested that a white Nexus 4 might appear at Google IO, and they were right. We obtained the elusive white Nexus 4 and we can confirm it’s a carbon copy of the previous Nexus 4, just with a different color casing. That might not be the most exciting news, but we also learned the white Nexus 4 would hit the Google Play store on June 10th and it would be accompanied with Android 4.3.

    • Archos intros 3G-ready 80 Xenon tablet

      Archos has announced its latest Android tablet, the 80 Xenon, will be available in June with a $199 price tag. The 8-inch tablet is 3G-ready (SIM unlocked HSPA), runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, and features the gull Google Play Store experience.

• Sub-notebooks/Tablets

  • XO Tablet Supposedly Becomes Available on June 1

    Three weeks ago I mentioned that OLPC Association has been remarkably quiet about the Android-based Walmart XO Tablet which it had introduced at CES 2013 in early January. Since then things have progressed a little bit with the Web site receiving a bit of a facelift.

Events

• Open Cloud Take Two: The CloudStack Collaboration Conference 2013

  The last year has been a whirlwind of activity for Apache CloudStack. Citrix proposed CloudStack for the Apache Incubator in April of 2012, and just over a year later we’re gearing up for a second collaboration conference – this time in Santa Clara, CA, from June 23-25.

Web Browsers

• Opera quietly settles lawsuit

• Opera and ex-employee settle £2.2m lawsuit

  NORWEGIAN SOFTWARE COMPANY Opera has settled the £2.2m lawsuit against ex-employee Trond Werner Hansen.

• Chrome

  • Google Touts Big Share for Chrome, and New Voice Search Plans

    At this week’s Google I/O conference, Sundar Pichai, senior vice president of Chrome, announced that Chrome has reached the milestone of 750 million monthly users. This number is being misinterpreted by some to mean that 750 million people are using the Chrome browser on desktop computers.

• Mozilla

  • Mozilla postpones default blocking of third-party cookies in Firefox

    Mozilla has postponed blocking third-party cookies by default in the Beta version of Firefox 22, “to collect and analyze data on the effect of blocking some third-party cookies.”

    The nonprofit organization is, however, not softening its stand on protecting privacy and putting users first, Brendan Eich, Mozilla’s CTO and senior vice president of engineering, wrote in a blog post Thursday.

  • Ubuntu 13.10 may ditch Firefox for Chromium

    For years, Ubuntu and Firefox have strolled the open source countryside hand-in-hand. That could change with the release of Ubuntu 13.10, however, as Canonical is thinking about dumping Firefox for Chromium.

  • Ubuntu 13.10 may ditch Firefox for Chromium

    For years, Ubuntu and Firefox have strolled the open source countryside hand-in-hand. That could change with the release of Ubuntu 13.10, however, as Canonical is thinking about dumping Firefox for Chromium.

  • Mozilla Plans to Renumbers Open Source Firefox Security Updates

    Ok, I know… the ‘E’ in Firefox ESR does not stand for ‘Enterprise’, but it should. The ESR – Extended Support Release is an effort to help organizations stay with a secure version of Firefox for longer period of times than the current fast track six-week release cycle of Firefox.

    I rely on Firefox ESR and I recommend it to lots of people because it’s a much safer version of Firefox to use with custom apps that sometimes – break – with the fast release cycle of Firefox.

    The most recent Firefox mainline release is version 21, while the current Firefox ESR is 17. The next Firefox ESR is currently schedule to coincide with the Firefox 24 mainline release.

Business

• Colosa Announces ProcessMaker 2.5 Open Source BPM Software

  Back in April, during SugarCRM’s annual SugarCon Conference, the company announced it would integrate ProcessMaker into it’s suite of cloud-based services, allowing seamless use of business process management tools directly from the Salesforce interface. About the same time the company also announced the new SugarCRM mobile application powered by HTML5 and offering a fast, easy way to access SugarCRM’s powerful features on mobile devices.

• Open Source Workflow Platform ProcessMaker Unveils New Features

• VIDEO: ONF Chief on the Future of OpenFlow SDN

  The OpenFlow protocol stands at the center of the Software Defined Networking (SDN) revolution, and at the center of OpenFlow stands the Open Networking Foundation (ONF). As the revolution progresses, however, vendors are attempting to look beyond OpenFlow. Where does that leave the ONF?

• Semi-Open Source

  • Talend 5.3 focused on Hadoop usability

    Talend’s data integration platform is being aimed at solving the complexity issues that surround deployment of Apache-Hadoop-based solutions. The developers have been focusing on creating Apache Pig developer tools and creating code in Pig Latin, which is said to remove the need to learn about MapReduce, the fundamental architectural element behind Hadoop. Users work with Talend’s Big Data graphical tools and that generates Pig Latin code which is then run on the Hadoop cluster; to optimise its running, a graphical mapper can be used to rework the data flow and mapping within the cluster.

Funding

• BonitaSoft Raises $13M Series C For Its Open Source Business Process Management Solution

• Vanedge Provides $3M Series A Funding to OpenGeo

  Canadian venture capital firm Vanedge Capital has made a US$3 million Series A investment in OpenGeo Inc., a New York-based provider of commercial open source geospatial software. At the same time, the company spun out from its incubator

• OpenGeo Completes $3 Million Series A Financing and Launches as Independent Open Source Software Company

  The OpenGeo Suite is widely used for managing and sharing spatial data. OpenGeo has led the industry shift toward flexible, interoperable geospatial software infrastructures and will use this Series A funding to further enhance its industry-leading product and training offerings and reach a broader array of customers.

Project Releases

• FreeIPMI 1.2.7 Released

Public Services/Government

• Fraunhofer FOKUS institute releases Fuzzino fuzzing library

  Researchers from FOKUS (Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems) in Germany have released the Fuzzino data fuzzing library as open source software. The library allows existing test tools to be prepared for fuzzing and aims to make the development of new fuzzing tools unnecessary. Fuzzing is the process of testing a system for hidden weaknesses by presenting the system with random and sometimes erroneous input data.

Openness/Sharing

• Open Data

  • A directory for open data projects

    Open (government) data as it is understood nowadays can still be considered a new concept. It started to gain traction worldwide since the Obama memo in early 2009 and the launch of data.gov a few months later. Following successful leading examples of the US and UK governments we have seen open data flourishing all over the world over the last three years. About three hundred open data catalogues have been identified so far.

  • Location, location, location

    The rapid rise in the number of mobile devices has led to a concomitant rise in the amount of location data available. Proprietary services are emerging to take advantage of that data, but open source has a strong foothold in the form of OpenStreetMap.

Programming

• Google previews PHP on App Engine

  PHP is the latest addition to the range of languages supported on Google’s App Engine. The PaaS (Platform as a Service) already supports Python, Java and Go and, like the languages before it, PHP is being introduced first as a limited preview experimental feature.

Standards/Consortia

• Google pushing for quick adoption of their new open source VP9 video codec

  VP9 is an open source and royalty free video compression technology under active development by Google with which they hope to replace the popular H.264 standard. The development of VP9 begain in late 2011 with two goals in mind, to provide a 50% reduced bit rate compared to the older VP8 codec while maintaining the video quality, and also optimizing it to the point that it becomes superior to the latest High Efficiency Video Coding (H.264) standard as well. We have to keep in mind that H.264 is pretty old now and the same standard is getting an update to H.265 which as much as doubles the data compression rate compared to the older H.264 standard.

• Google’s open video proposal closes door on software freedom

  Google/MPEG-LA deal showed promise, but Google’s requirement for user licenses may bring a backlash

Health/Nutrition

• Organic Farmers on Alert Following Monsanto Ruling

  Farmers “concerned” for ruling’s implication on upcoming suits against the biotech giant

Security

• RIPE: Attacks on domain name systems are on the increase

  30 million open resolvers in the domain name system and a 200 per cent increase in the number of attacks in 2012 – these alarming figures were discussed by administrators at the 66th meeting of the RIPE IP address registry in Dublin this week. A panel discussion revolved around how to motivate the black sheep to implement long overdue security measures before large-scale attacks call the regulators to action.

Environment/Energy/Wildlife

• Stephen Harper’s administration has increased spend from $9m to $16.5m in the last year

  Canadian government doubles advertising spend on tar sands

• Scientists Agree (Again): Climate Change Is Happening

  Public opinion on the topic of climate change is notoriously fickle, changing — quite literally sometimes — with the weather. The latest bit of evidence on this: Yale’s April 2013 climate change survey, which found, among other things, that Americans’ conviction that global warming is happening had dropped by seven points, to 63 percent, over the preceding six months. The decline, the authors surmised, was most likely due to “the cold winter of 2012-13 and an unusually cold March just before the survey was conducted.”

Censorship

• Forcing domain names off the Internet does not help

  Around May Day, we received advance notice that the Swedish Prosecution Authority had filed a petition with the Stockholm District Court requesting the seizure of two domain names, thepiratebay.se and piratebay.se. Now, this comes as no surprise and our General Counsel, Elisabeth, has already blogged about this.

• Prosecutor Hints That Root Domain Registry Is Criminally Liable For Copyright Monopoly Infringements On The Pirate Bay

  Prosecutors in Sweden have sued the root domain registry of .SE domains to kill the domain name of The Pirate Bay. The root registry fights back heavily. This case is important to watch, as it can have thoroughly chilling results for the Internet’s domain name system if criminal secondary liability is established at the DNS level.

• Pirate Bay Domain Registrar Assists Copyright Infringement, Prosecutor Claims

Privacy

• Consumers not interested in privacy? Think again

• Shakespeare: on the mark for open data, misses on privacy and transparency

  The independent review on public data prepared by Stephan Shakespeare, chair of the Data Strategy Board, has just been published. Much of what Shakespeare recommends is very good stuff, and includes things that ORG has been proposing for some time. But we have some disagreements, particularly on the analyses and proposals around privacy.

Civil Rights

• America’s greatest threat: Unsafe work conditions

  If I told you that government officials possessed ironclad proof that an imminent threat to this nation had the capacity to create a 9/11′s worth of injuries and deaths every year at an annual economic cost of a quarter trillion dollars, ask yourself: Would you say we should do something about it?

• We made it! – Global Breakthrough as Retail Brands sign up to Bangladesh Factory Safety Deal

  Geneva 16 May 2013 – The world’s leading retail labels commit to the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh before the midnight deadline. The Accord now covers more than 1000 Bangladeshi garment factories. Implementation starts now!

• CCC calls for action after another deadly collapse

  Clean Clothes Campaign is calling for immediate action from all international brands following today’s collapse of the Wing Star Shoes factory in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The collapse of the ceiling cost the lives of at least two people, and injured seven. The workers were stitching sneakers for sportsbrand Asics when the ceiling caved in on top of them.

• Lead the World on Internet Rights, Web Inventor urges Brazil

  Sir Tim Berners-Lee, founder of the World Wide Web Foundation, addressed a press conference on 16 May 2013 at the WWW Conference in Rio de Janeiro. Berners-Lee used his address to state his support for the Marco Civil da Internet, (Marco Civil) a landmark draft Bill in Brazil that many have called ‘a Constitution for the Internet’.

• Tipping law enforcement to possible terrorist activity is purpose of 13-county program

  Sheriffs in 13 Northeast Florida counties announced an online system Thursday for residents to report suspicious activity they think may be terrorism-related.

DRM

• One Step Closer to the Open eBook Tipping Point: O’Reilly Joins the EPUB 3.0 Ecosystem

  Anyone who reads eBooks is aware that a number of content vendors are using proprietary platforms in an effort to lock you into their content libraries: most obviously, Amazon, with its Kindle line, Barnes & Noble with its Nook devices, and Apple with its iPads and iPhones. But there are many non-content vendors that would love to sell you an eReader as well, such as Kobo, and Pocketbook, not to mention the smartphone vendors that would be happy to have you use their devices as eReaders, too.

Intellectual Monopolies

• Copyrights

  • IsoHunt Will Take DMCA Safe Harbor Fight to the Supreme Court

    In March, the Ninth Circuit declared that Canada-based BitTorrent search engine isoHunt is not entitled to protection under the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA due to its conduct many years ago. IsoHunt filed a petition for a rehearing before a jury, but yesterday a Ninth Circuit panel unanimously rejected it. Isohunt lawyer Ira Rothken informs TorrentFreak that the right to a jury trial is protected by the constitution and isoHunt is now in the process of requesting a Supreme Court review.

  • Why are Facebook, IBM, Microsoft and Oracle Backing the Fight *Against* the Blind?

    One of the more disgraceful examples of the inherent selfishness of the copyright world is that it has consistently blocked a global treaty that would make it easier for the blind and visually impaired to read books in formats like Braille. The thinking seems to be that it’s more important to preserve copyright “inviolate” than to alleviate the suffering of hundreds of millions of people around the world.

    You can read the disgusting details of how publishers have fought against the “proposed international instrument on limitations and exceptions for persons with print disabilities” for *30* years in an column I wrote back in 2011.

• Distributions
• Devices/Embedded

Measuring Linux By the VAR Metric

I don’t think the unnamed and unknown blogger who writes under the banner of The VAR Guy would argue with me if I were to say that over at his site it’s all about the money. That’s not a bad thing. The value added resellers, the VARs who are his readers, would expect nothing else.

These are guys and gals to whom hardware and software are all part of the same packet. This is the crowd who couldn’t care less about the usability of, say GNOME, for the average home user and who might even be tempted to look for loopholes in the GPL, because it would be easier to make money with free software if it wasn’t free. In other words, these are folks who’ve traditionally mainly stood firmly in the proprietary camp, where the rules for resellers have been more clearly defined. These are the dudes and dudettes who make RMS very wary whenever he sees them coming our way.

Linux vs Windows 2013: An Objective Comparison

Desktop

• Malaysia adopts Google Apps, Chromebooks for education

  Malaysia has adopted Google Apps and Chromebooks as part of the country’s plans to integrate Web usage in a bid to reform its education system.

  According to a blog post by the search giant on Wednesday, Malaysia adopted Google Apps for 10 million of its students, teachers and parents. In addition, primary and secondary schools will receive Chromebooks.

Server

• IBM Brings Power Linux Servers to China

  IBM is serious about expanding the footprint of the Linux operating system running on Power servers.

• Intel Hybrid Cloud Server: Dead or Alive?

  Rumors are swirling that Intel Hybrid Cloud (a small business server that has cloud and managed services capabilities) has been discontinued. If true, this is the latest setback for resellers that are seeking on-premises alternatives to Windows Small Business Server (SBS), which Microsoft killed in 2012. Still, there are cloud-based alternatives — including Microsoft’s increasingly popular Office 365.

• Google and NASA collaborate on AI research with new quantum supercomputer

  Google and NASA have teamed up to launch a new laboratory focused on advancing machine learning. The Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab — hosted at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California — will contain a quantum supercomputer that will be used by researchers from the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) and all over the world to pioneer breakthroughs in artificial intelligence.

Kernel Space

• Exploit for local Linux kernel bug in circulation – Update

  Back in April, the Linux kernel developers fixed an incorrectly declared pointer in the Linux kernel. However, it appears that they overlooked the potential security implications of such a bug – particularly the fact that it is possible to gain access to almost any memory area using a suitable event_id. The developers only got into gear and declared the bug as an official security hole (CVE-2013-2094) after an exploit was released that proves that normal, logged-in users can gain root access this way.

• Critical Linux vulnerability imperils users, even after “silent” fix

• Local root vulnerability in the kernel

• Linux x32 Is Made Easier With Ubuntu 13.04

  While there isn’t yet a release yet of Ubuntu in the Linux x32 ABI flavor, some packages now found in Ubuntu 13.04 make it easier to setup this binary interface that brings some 64-bit advantages to the 32-bit world.

• The Good & Bad Of Btrfs In A Production World

  A web hosting company has publicly shared their thoughts on the Btrfs file-system for Linux. While often discussed as the next-generation Linux file-system, Btrfs isn’t fully baked for use in a production world quite yet.

• The btrfs backup experiment

  Today we’re talking about our experience with btrfs, the next-gen Linux filesystem. btrfs has been maturing rapidly over the last few years and offers many compelling features for modern systems, so we’ve been putting it through its paces on some of our backup servers.

• More Linux Utilities Come For USB Logitech Devices

  It’s been a while since last reporting any improved to Logitech device support on Linux or any other USB gaming mice/keyboards for Linux. However, a Phoronix reader has written in with some news.

• The Staging Pull Goes In For The Linux 3.10 Kernel

  Greg Kroah-Hartman submitted his feature pull requests on Monday morning for the USB, staging, driver core, and TTY/serial areas of the Linux 3.10 kernel that’s just entered development following yesterday’s Linux 3.9 kernel release.

• Port of KVM to arm64

• Linux: The Gold Standard of Code

  “Is Linux code the ‘benchmark of quality’? Well, it is very good, no doubt about that,” said Google+ blogger Brett Legree. “The main take-away point from the study should be that open source software, including Linux, is on par with proprietary software from a quality perspective. So, Linux code could be considered a benchmark of quality — it is as good as anything else out there.”

• On the Job with a Linux Foundation Systems Administrator

  If you’ve ever dreamed of working directly with Linux creator Linus Torvalds, Greg Kroah-Hartman, Ted T’so or any of the other Linux luminaries, you could work your way up through the ranks of kernel developers submitting patches and fixing bugs. Or you could work as a systems administrator on The Linux Foundation’s IT team, managing the servers that they use every day to build the largest collaborative software development project in the world.

• Graphics Stack

  • Intel Sandy/Ivy Bridge Gallium3D Driver Merged

    The modern Gallium3D graphics driver for supporting Intel Sandy Bridge “Gen6″ and Ivy Bridge “Gen7″ graphics has been merged into mainline Mesa!

  • Nouveau In Linux 3.10 Kernel Isn’t Too Exciting

  • Intel Linux Driver Gets Support For New Haswell IDs

• Benchmarks

  • GCC vs. LLVM/Clang On AMD’s FX-8350 Vishera

  • 15-Way Open vs. Closed Source NVIDIA/AMD Linux GPU Comparison

    Combining the work of the recent Nouveau vs. NVIDIA Linux testing and Radeon Gallium3D vs. AMD Catalyst testing articles, here is a 15-way comparison of both the open-source and closed-source AMD and NVIDIA Linux graphics drivers when testing a mixture of NVIDIA GeForce and AMD Radeon graphics cards on Ubuntu Linux 13.04.

  • Gallium3D LLVMpipe Compared To Nine Graphics Cards

    Yesterday after publishing the 15-way open-source vs. closed-source NVIDIA/AMD Linux graphics comparison there were some requests by Phoronix readers to also show how the LLVMpipe software rasterizer performance is in reference. For this article to end out the month are the OpenGL performance results from nine lower-end AMD Radeon and NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards running with their respective Mesa/Gallium3D drivers compared to the LLVMpipe software driver in two configurations.

Applications

• Free DJ Software `Mixxx` Sees New Release

  After more than a year of work, Mixxx 1.11.0 has been released recently, featuring a new beat detector, colored 3-band waveforms and many other new features as well as various bug fixes and performance improvements.

• Best Linux Tools for Enterprise Developers and Systems Administrators

• Proprietary

  • Goodbye, Lotus 1-2-3

    IBM is shutting the doors on Lotus 1-2-3, the software program that made the IBM PC and Microsoft household names.

• Instructionals/Technical

  • Short Tip: egrep – using grep with more than one expression

  • Configuring Gmail as a Sendmail email relay

  • Introduction to the Linux Command Line

  • Overriding the default SELinux policies

  • Using OpenDKIM to Sign Postfix Mails on Debian

  • Connect your android galaxy tablet to ubuntu via usb

  • Configuring Gmail as a Sendmail email relay

  • How to Run Fedora Linux on the MacBook Air Without Touching the SSD

  • Debian GNU/Linux 7.0 Code Name “Wheezy” Server Installation Guide

• Wine or Emulation

  • Wine 1.5.29 Brings Better JavaScript Performance

• Games

  • Humble Double Fine Bundle Mega-Review

    With only six days left to claim your copies, we go hands-on with every game to help you decide…

  • Anomaly 2 Released

  • X3: Albion Prelude Released For Linux Gamers

    One month after the release of X3: Terran Conflict for Linux, Egosoft has now released X3: Albion Prelude.

    Albion Prelude is the latest title in Egosoft’s X3 series. X3: Albion Prelude was originally released for Windows back in 2011 and has now been released for Linux with the whole Steam Linux gaming rush and having their own Linux talent in-house.

  • Life of Pixel dedicated to the brilliance of classic gaming machines

    It differs to the usual platform game by including game types from lots of different machines (and more to come too!) and emulates their graphical style so, it makes this actually quite an interesting one!

Desktop Environments/WMs

• OpenMW 0.23 Brings NPC Movement AI, Item Repairing

  OpenMW, the open-source engine re-implementation of Elderscrolls III: Morrowind, has a new version out. OpenMW 0.23 features the initial implementation of NPC movement AI, item repairing, enchanting, levelled items, texture animation, basic particles, and a lot more. This release comes just ahead of Morrowind’s eleventh birthday.

• K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

  • KDE 4.11 Beginning to Take Shape

    It’s been just a week since KDE 4.10.3 was announced, but 4.11 is already reaching its first milestone freeze. TSDgeos reminded developers today that the 4.11 Soft Feature Freeze happens in just one more week. What does that mean for users?

  • KDE Commit-Digest for 5th May 2013

  • KDevelop 4.5 IDE Offers More Integrated Unit Testing

    KDevelop, the integrated development environment for KDE that’s designed for C++ support and other programming languages, experienced a major release. Several new features are presented by KDevelop 4.5.

  • rekonq 2.3.0

• GNOME Desktop/GTK

  • Cut Yourself a Tasty Slice of Gnome-Pie App Launcher

    Its interface design is the reason for its playful name, but Gnome-Pie won’t run you in circles when it comes to launching applications and getting into menus. It’s easy to set up your “pies” on the desktop so that you’ll have no problem finding your desired menu item for launch. Those weary of text-based app launchers will find Gnome-Pie to be a very productive alternative.

  • The Last GNOME 3.8 Point Release Has Been Made

    GNOME 3.8.2 was released this morning and it serves as the last bug-fix release in the GNOME 3.8 series. All work now is being focused on GNOME 3.10.

Distributions

• New Releases

  • GNU Automake 1.13.2 released

• Screenshots

  • Linux Screenshot Beauty Contest from DarkDuck (Part 3)

    I hope you have enjoyed the first and the second parts of the Linux Screenshot Beauty Contest.

• Gentoo Family

  • Sabayon 13.04 KDE review: One of the most elegant distros in the Linux world

    Let me begin this way, I am a great admirer of Sabayon for quite sometime. This Italian distro is based on Gentoo Linux and provides an enviable ensemble of pre-installed applications which just works out of the box. Those who are scared of Gentoo, Sabayon can be a good starting point. Apart from being based on one of the most popular Linux operating systems, one of the greatest USPs of Sabayon is it’s aesthetics. It comes with a very professional dark blue theme with application interfaces tweaked to match it. I haven’t seen many Linux distros doing it, to be honest.

• Arch Family

  • Arch-based Manjaro Linux touts user-friendliness

    For those of you always looking for — or at least willing to try — the newest Linux distribution on the scene, a pretty fresh candidate is Manjaro Linux, which recently announced some updates that should be appealing to users who aren’t necessarily command-line junkies.

    Manjaro is based on Arch, rather than Ubuntu or Debian, which is a version of Linux known for being lightweight, fast, and minimalist in its approach. Arch has been aimed primarily at more intermediate and advanced Linux users in the past, but the Manjaro team has placed an emphasis on the user-friendly aspect of this distro.

• Red Hat Family

  • Red Hat expanding in M’sia and Asean (update)

    Open source software solutions provider Red Hat Inc is strenghtening its presence in Asean region, especially Malaysia, through partnerships.

    Its general manager for Asean Damien Wong said Red Hat would invest in partner-specific marketing, sales and technical support to promote sustainability of the channel partner ecosytem.

  • Red Hat Expands Technical Account Management Services to Offer SAP® Solution-centric Support

  • Fedora

    • EasyUbuntu Equivalent For Fedora Linux: EasyLife

      As you may know, Ubuntu has the EasyUbuntu app that helps the Ubuntu beginners install additional drivers, with a nice graphical user interface.

    • The Fedora Project ARMs up

      The Fedora Project, an open source collaboration project supported by Red Hat and the developer community, rolled out their first Fedora-powered high-density ARM-based datacenter servers this week in a migration that was the first time they were able to use standard tools, such as Kickstart and PXE on ARM-based datacenter hardware.

• Debian Family

  • Review: CrunchBang (“#!”) Linux 11 “Waldorf”

    This is the last week of classes for me. I have turned in all my assignments and a handful of days until finals, so I can take today and tomorrow to write a couple of reviews at my leisure. The first will be #!.

    #! should be familiar to many readers here. It is a lightweight Debian-based distribution that uses Openbox. While it is not technically a rolling-release distribution because it is pinned to the stable release, there were tons of preview releases for this version. Now that Debian 7 “Wheezy” is finally stable, so is #! 11 “Waldorf”. Since version 10 “Statler”, the Xfce edition has been dropped, so #! is back to using Openbox exclusively.

  • Derivatives

    • Canonical/Ubuntu

      • Canonical to maintain Linux 3.8 until August 2014

        The Ubuntu kernel developers plan to provide security fixes and minor improvements for version 3.8 of the Linux kernel until August 2014; version 3.8 was released in February. The announcement by Canonical employee Kamal Mostafa came just days after Greg Kroah-Hartman had discontinued the maintenance of Linux 3.8; Kroah-Hartman oversees the maintenance of the stable and long-term kernels and is currently maintaining stable kernel version 3.9 and long-term kernel versions 3.0 and 3.4.

      • On Brainstorm

        Recently the Technical Board made a decision to sunset Brainstorm, the site we have been using for some time to capture a list of what folks would like to see fixed and improved in Ubuntu. Although the site has been in operation for quite some time, it had fallen into something of a state of disrepair. Not only was it looking rather decrepit and old, but the ideas highlighted there were not curated and rendered into the Ubuntu development process. Some time ago the Technical Board took a work item to try to solve this problem by regularly curating the most popular items in brainstorm with a commentary around technical feasibility, but the members of the TB unfortunately didn’t have time to fulfill this. As such, brainstorm turned into a big list of random ideas, ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous, and largely ignored by the Ubuntu development process.

      • Getting the Ubuntu Advocacy Kit to 1.0

        A while back I started a project called the Ubuntu Advocacy Kit. The goal is simple: create a single downloadable kit that provides all the information and materials you need to go out and help advocate Ubuntu and our flavors to others. The project lives here on Launchpad and is available in this daily PPA. If you want to see the kit in action just run:

      • The Problem of Sunsetting Ubuntu Brainstorm

        Yesterday, it has been suggested to sunset Ubuntu brainstorm. While the arguments on the surface make a lot of sense, a bigger problem seem to be not as much in the focus of the discussion as it maybe should be.

      • Ubuntu One Detailed Guide for 13.04

      • Ubuntu Website and the Community Link

        There has been much teeth gnashing about the removal of the ‘Community’ link from the top of the ubuntu.com site. As a member of the Ubuntu Community Council I have tried to gather my thoughts before blogging about this. Recently, I read an article that got me rather upset.

      • Mir Display Server Gets A Demo Shell, New Demos

        Canonical’s Mir Display Server now has a simple demo shell as well as a multi-window compositing demo.

        In continuing to monitor the public Bazaar development repository for Mir, there isn’t too much to report on this week. The only highlights were:

      • Unity 8, Mir To Be Experimental Choice In Ubuntu 13.10

        For those Linux enthusiasts wishing to toy with the Mir Display Server and Canonical’s next-generation Unity 8 interface, they will be made optionally available for desktop users with the Ubuntu 13.10 release due out in October.

        The default desktop will be Unity 7 and it will be powered by an X.Org Server when running Ubuntu 13.10. However, the Qt5-based Unity 8 in conjunction with Mir will be readily packaged and available for those wishing to give it a go. Meanwhile, for the Ubuntu 13.10 state of the phone/tablet version, that is expected to be Mir-powered in time.

      • Flavours and Variants

        • 8 Reasons Why Ubuntu Users Should Try Out Linux Mint

          Ubuntu is moving in all directions lately. They are making sure that they find themselves on tablets, smartphones, and even on televisions. With the high amount of efforts being put in to make Ubuntu the best product in the FOSS community, there have been some polarizing decisions that have managed to alienate a few longtime Ubuntu users. Ever since the decision to switch to Unity was taken, there have been many Linux users who don’t find Ubuntu as user-friendly as they used to back then. There have been forum wars, IRC battles, and a bunch of irksome blog posts about usability–or lack thereof– of Ubuntu. However, as time progressed, Ubuntu has matured quite a lot and has managed to regain its top spot as one of the most user-friendly distributions in the FOSS world.

        • Kubuntu, KDE Has Little Hope For Ubuntu’s Mir

          Martin Gräßlin, the maintainer of KDE’s KWin window manager, has been vocal against Canonical’s Mir Display Server from the beginning. He’s now written another blog post on the matter in which he makes it rather clear there is little hope of seeing KDE running on the Ubuntu Wayland-competitor.

        • Linux Mint 15 “Olivia” RC released!

          Linux Mint 15 is the most ambitious release since the start of the project. MATE 1.6 is greatly improved and Cinnamon 1.8 offers a ton of new features, including a screensaver and a unified control center. The login screen can now be themed in HTML5 and two new tools, “Software Sources” and “Driver Manager”, make their first appearance in Linux Mint.

Devices/Embedded

• Raspberry Pi camera module now available

  In development since late last year, the Raspberry Pi camera module is finally available. The module can be purchased from RS Components or Element 14 and is based on an Omnivision 5647 5MPixel sensor which is configured to give a still picture resolution of 2592×1944 or deliver video with 1080p resolution at 30fps. It manages this in a 20x25x10mm package which connects to the Pi over a flat ribbon cable.

• Phones

  • Ballnux

    • Samsung Galaxy S4 Running Nexus Android Jelly Bean

      We heard rumours that Samsung had plans to launch Galaxy S4 running stock Android, and it’s true! Google has just unveiled the Samsung flagship phone, Galaxy S4 powered by pure vanilla Android Jelly Bean 4.2.2.

  • Android

    • Quad-core Android phone keeps cool with water pipe

      NEC has announced an Android smartphone that uses a water-cooling system to keep its quad-core 1.7GHz Snapdragon S4 Pro system-on-chip (SOC) from overheating. The NEC Medias X 06E integrates a liquid cooling pipe near the SOC to cool off the 4.7-inch phone, which is being marketed at Japanese women.

    • New IntelliJ-based Android Studio IDE now available

      At Google I/O today, Google released an early access preview version of an Android integrated development environment (IDE) based on IntelliJ IDEA. To its IntelliJ foundation, Android Studio adds an enhanced drag-and-drop GUI layout editor, Gradle-based build system, Lint tools, Android-focused wizards, and the ability to preview how apps look on different screen sizes.

    • 25 Android Entertainment Apps to Fill Your Downtime

    • Android Studio: New Android Development Environment From Google

    • Android 4.3 pops up ahead of Google I/O

      A leak tips off security enhancements in the Android update expected to be unveiled at Google I/O.

• Sub-notebooks/Tablets

  • ASUS should license Ubuntu for Android for its Padfone

    At the moment, Canonical doesn’t allow users to download Ubuntu for Android (or perhaps it’s still not ready for prime time), and the company is rather looking for OEMs to license the software. I believe that the “perfect vendor” to take advantage of this software is ASUS, which should offer it pre-installed on its Padfone series. This way Padfone users would get an added benefit when they dock their smartphone to the tablet shell, with the ability to use real desktop apps.

  • HP Slatebook x2 : Android Powered Notebook Convertible

    HP has finally entered the Android hybrid market with HP SlateBook X2, the first Tegra 4 powered android convertible. The 10 inch tablet connects to the keyboard directly with a dock connector and also has a touch pad for mouse operations. The screen is a bright 1920 X 1200 full HD IPS display keeping things on screen very crisp and clear.

  • SlateBook x2: Tegra 4-powered Android hybrid

  • HP goes Android with x2 hybrid

Open-source community deploys ARM microserver cluster

Calxeda, maker of ARM server-on-chip (SoC) cards, announced that the Fedora Project, an open-source development community sponsored by Red Hat, has deployed servers with its EnergyCore SoCs inside. The cluster consists of Viridis mircoservers made by a UK company called Boston.

Migasfree developer journeys from graduation to open source career

When I first started to learn how to code and program, as a student and during the pre-internet era, it was common practice to share your source code as you were creating it. My classmates and I assumed that was the best way for us to learn—from each other.

Almost everyone shared, except for a few. I never fully understood why they didn’t, because they would learn from others but not share thier creations afterwards. As I got older and moved into the business world of making money, I began to understand as I was faced with the obscure system of intellectual rights, patents, trademarks, and copyright (and copyleft). Of course, I often think that without these obstacles, technology could go much further and become more ethically correct. But, it seems that the focus on “information is power” is still more important. Luckily, I found out that my feelings towards this are not so weird and actually are shared by many.

Events

• Gluster Workshop at LinuxCon Japan 2013

  Heading to LinuxCon Japan 2013? If you’ll be attending the conference or will be in Tokyo on May 31st, we’d like to welcome you at the Gluster Community Workshop.

Web Browsers

• Chrome vs. Firefox

  For a few years now, the great debate between Chrome and Firefox has raged on. Which browser is faster? Which is easier to install? In this article, I’ll tackle each of these subjects, in addition to providing some personal insights on each of these topics.

• Midori browser should now work on Wayland

• SlateKit Shell: A New Qt5/QML Web-Browser

  SlateKit Shell is a new QML-based web-browser sporting a “sliding drawer” user-interface. The WebKit-powered browser is written entirely in QML and JavaScript.

• Mozilla

  • We should keep Firefox as default browser in Ubuntu

    Why fix something if it’s not broken? If others prefer Chromium well then “sudo apt-get install chromium-browser” and I guess that’s just my two-cents on the topic.

  • Firefox 21 Arrives, Featuring Health Reports, More Social Features

    Version 21 of Mozilla’s Firefox browser is out for Windows, the Mac, Linux and Android. You can download the standard browser here, and get Firefox for Android here. If you’re already a Firefox user, you should be automatically upgraded. There are quite a few enhancements in this version, including additional Do Not Track features, a Health report, social APIs and choices on the desktop and open source fonts for the Android version.

SaaS/Big Data

• Your Cloud Provider Is Toast. Now What?

Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

• JavaTP
  Attackers Target Older Java Bugs

  It’s no secret that Java has moved to the top of the target list for many attackers. It has all the ingredients they love: ubiquity, cross-platform support and, best of all, lots of vulnerabilities. Malware targeting Java flaws has become a major problem, and new statistics show that this epidemic is following much the same pattern as malware exploiting Microsoft vulnerabilities has for years.

• A more colorful LibreOffice unveiled

• 50 million Apache OpenOffice downloads in a year

  Just a few days after the one year anniversary of the release of the first version of OpenOffice from the Apache Foundation (Apache OpenOffice 3.4) on 8 May 2012, the project can now boast 50 million downloads of the open source office suite. More than 80% of these downloads have come from Windows users, with the rest of the downloads spread between Mac OS X and Linux. Over time, the percentage of Windows users has slightly increased at the expense of Mac OS X, with Linux usage hovering steady under 5%.

Business

• Open source code and business models: More than just a license

  As an organization or even individual there always seem to be questions when considering whether or not to make your project or code snippet open source. Many times, it starts with trying to figure out which license to use. But there are many other things to consider. We derived a list for you the next time you ask yourself: Should I open source my code?

Project Releases

• GDB 7.6 Supports AArch64 Linux, New Features

  Version 7.6 of GDB, the GNU Debugger, has been released and with it comes support for new debugging targets and a whole lot more.

• OpenWrt 12.09 Brings Wireless Improvements

  The popular Linux distribution for routers and other wireless/network devices, OpenWrt, has been christened by a new version. OpenWrt 12.09 “Attitude Adjustment” brings with it many new features.

Public Services/Government

• Open Source Software Helped Obama Win the 2012 Election Campaign

  If you were to list all the reasons why Obama beat Romney in the 2012 presidential race, chances are DevOps, the cloud, and open-source software (OSS) wouldn’t be on your list. They should be. As Harper Reed, the CTO of Obama for America explained in his recent Palmetto Open Source Conference (POSSCON) speech, all these technologies played a major role in the campaign. Or, as the New York Times explained after the election: “Technology doesn’t win political campaigns, but it certainly is a weapon — a force multiplier, in military terms.”

• Croatia’s President praises creative spirit of open source community

  President of Croatia Ivo Josipović appreciates the creative and innovative spirit of the open source community. “What you are doing is something good, creative and innovative”, he was quoted as saying, while opening the Croatian Linux Users’ Convention 2013 in the country’s capital Zagreb yesterday. “Most importantly, open source brings helps to strengthen democracy.”

Openness/Sharing

• Open Hardware

  • Mobile robot app competition offers $25,000 prize

    Kuka announced a 20,000 Euro Kuka Innovation in Mobile Manipulation Award for innovative mobile manipulation applications using its Kuka YouBot service robot. The open source Kuka YouBot is equipped with omnidirectional wheels and one or two 5-DOF manipulator arms, and runs Ubuntu Linux and ROS (Robot Operating System) on an Intel Atom-based Mini-ITX board.

  • Blender dives into 3D printing industry

    Blender 2.67 was released last week with a 3D printing toolbox. LGW spoke to Dolf Veenvliet, Bart Veldhuizen (Shapeways, Blendernation), and Rich Borrett (Ponoko) about the new tools and the future of 3D printing.

Programming

• Point 13.04 Screenshots

Health/Nutrition

• How Private Consultancy Firms have brought the NHS to its knees.

  The NHS has spent billions of pounds on management consultants in recent years. It was profit-making private management consultancy firms (who shall remain nameless) that explored and reported on ways in which the NHS would make efficiency savings. The £20 billion pounds of ‘savings’ that were identified were built around the concept of what became known as QUIPP “Quality, Innovation, Productivity and Prevention”.

  Central to the theories around QUIPP was the idea that much more of our patients should and indeed would be treated in the home. It was argued that the successful triaging of patients would relieve much of the pressure on our NHS. The logic on the face of it appeared reasonably sound. Many patients who arrive at A&E could indeed be treated elsewhere. If a way could be successfully found to divert patients to the most suitable care setting then it was argued that savings could be made in reducing A&E admissions, and that some wards could close as a result.

• Is Monsanto’s New Genetically Engineered Soy a Health Food?

  To eat these two types of fats in the right ratio, we can either eat more omega-3s or eat fewer omega-6s. Companies like DSM and Monsanto want us to do the former — so we buy their high omega-3 products (and pay top dollar for them, too!). But scientists recommend going by the other route, reducing our omega-6 consumption. One healthy way to do this is by using monounsaturated fats, like those found in olive oil.

  Author Susan Allport, who wrote The Queen of Fats: Why Omega-3s Were Removed From the Western Diet and What We Can Do To Replace Them, agrees. “The best way to up the omega-3s in one’s tissues is simply to reduce one’s intake of omega-6s,” she says. “Monsanto will try to persuade us that we can get around this elephant in the room (the large amount of omega-6s in the food supply) with their new soybean but it certainly won’t be any more effective than the advice to eat more fish has been.”

  However, Monsanto does not want us to stop eating unhealthy levels of omega-6s, because their patented genes are in most of the soybeans grown in the U.S. And soybean oil is our number one source of omega-6s. (Soybean oil is often sold labeled simply as “vegetable oil.”)

  So instead of cutting into their sales by switching to a healthier fat, they’d prefer to keep making you unhealthy with soybean oil. But they are willing to offer you this “band aid” fix of a high omega-3 soybean that they anticipate will be grown on less than five percent of the nation’s soybean acres. Oh, and you’ll probably have to pay extra to get it, too.

Security

• Rygel 0.18.2 Fixes Numerous Bugs

  The developers behind the Rygel home media solution (UPnP AV MediaServer) for the GNOME desktop environment, announced the immediate availability for download of the second stable release for the 0.18.x branch.

  Rygel 0.18.2 is the second and last maintenance release for Rygel 0.18 and it incorporates numerous fixes, all in order to make Rygel a more stable and reliable release.

Finance

• Ambiguity in Tax Rules and Disintegration of Election Law May Have Led to IRS Tea Party Mess

  The controversy surrounding the IRS singling-out Tea Party-inspired groups seeking tax exempt status — while inexcusable — might be attributable, in part, to the agency’s failure to create clearer rules for political activity in the post-Citizens United electoral landscape, and it being inappropriately tasked with enforcing campaign finance law, tax law experts say.

  After the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United opened the door for corporations — both for-profit and non-profit — to spend on elections, 501(c)(4) “social welfare” nonprofits became the vehicle of choice for wealthy donors seeking to keep their political spending secret.

• New App Lets You Boycott Koch Brothers, Monsanto And More By Scanning Your Shopping Cart

• Goldman ordered to pay investor $2.5 mln by arbitrators

  Goldman Sachs & Co must pay more than $2.5 million to an investor who alleged the firm recommended an unsuitable investment in a private equity fund, a securities arbitration panel has ruled.

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

• The Problem With Journalism? Scott Pelley Blames the Internet

  When big-time reporters decide to try their hands at media criticism, the results are usually disappointing–but they can also be quite revealing.

  So when a video of CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley started to making the rounds, the headlines associated with it piqued my interest. Over at the Weekly Standard, it was “CBS Anchor: ‘We Are Getting Big Stories Wrong, Over and Over Again.’”

• Matthews: Obama Needs to Break a Union Like Reagan

  Praise for a conservative president’s breaking the air traffic controllers’ union–that’s what you hear on the liberal cable channel. (The video is below.)

Censorship

• The Supreme Court Is an Ass

  From Free Press’s helpful explainer of the AP phone records scandal…

Privacy

• Strongbox: Aaron Swartz’s last gift to internet privacy

  Tragically, Aaron Swartz, hounded by an apparently over-zealous prosecutor, committed suicide in early 2013. His just-unveiled major open-source privacy project, DeadDrop, lives on in a citizen and press protection program, The New Yorker’s Strongbox.

  [...]

  The Strongbox servers themselves are under the physical control of The New Yorker and Condé Nast in a physically and logically segregated area at a secure datacenter, but they otherwise have no elements in common with Condé Nast, The New Yorker’s publisher. As Amy Davidson, a New Yorker senior editor wrote, “Over the years, it has also become easier to trace [email] senders, even when they don’t want to be found. Strongbox addresses that. As it’s set up, even we won’t be able to figure out where files sent to us come from. If anyone asks us, we won’t be able to tell them.”

  Aaron would have been proud.

• New Yorker unveils open source whistleblower system designed by activist Aaron Schwartz

• The New Yorker’s Strongbox Anonymity Application Has Some Notable Roots

Civil Rights

• On Paid Sick Days, Will Gov. Rick Scott Side With Moms or Mickey Mouse?

  Florida Governor Rick Scott is under pressure from Florida moms to veto a bill that would deliver a “kill-shot” to local efforts to guarantee paid sick days for workers. The legislation, which can be traced back the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), is backed by major corporate players with questionable labor records, including Disney.

  In April, the Florida legislature passed a corporate-backed bill to preempt local paid sick day laws, largely in response to a small-d democratic effort in Orange County to have residents vote on the issue. More than 50,000 Orange County voters signed petitions to place a paid sick day measure on the ballot, which would be effectively blocked if Governor Scott signs the law.

• Syria crisis: number of refugees tops 1.5 million, says UN

  The scale and speed of the exodus of those fleeing the violence in Syria has been underlined by UN figures showing that the number of refugees has topped 1.5 million, just 10 weeks after the millionth refugee fled to safety.

• Israel to approve four unauthorised West Bank settler outposts

  Legalisation, which comes amid rise in attacks on Palestinians and their property, could frustrate US peace efforts

• Grief, Grind, and Glory of Work

  Last month the world heard the tragic news that more than a thousand people working at a clothing factory in Bangladesh, were killed when the factory they were working in collapsed.

Intellectual Monopolies

• GMO Labeling Passes Vermont House as Activists Prepare to March Against Monsanto

  In an advance that makes history, Vermont’s House of Representatives passed a bill on May 10 requiring foods containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) to be labeled. This is the furthest any such legislation has made it through the legislative process in the United States.

  Vermont’s legislative session was due to end already, but negotiations over a tax bill have kept lawmakers in the capitol this week. With the Senate’s attention focused fiscally rather than on food, however, H.112 to label GMOs will have to wait to be taken up by the Senate in January 2014.

• Trademarks

  • Open source hardware trademark application rejected

    On April 19th the United States Patent and Trademark Office finally rejected an application for the trademark open source hardware. The grounds for the rejection were that the term was “merely descriptive.”

• Distributions
• Devices/Embedded

IBM to push Linux apps on Power iron in China, then elsewhere

IBM is opening a Power Systems Linux Center in Beijing, China, in the hopes of getting more local ISVs interested in its Power Systems iron and luring them away from x86-based systems. With the Power Systems business taking it on the chin in IBM’s first quarter – revenues fell 32 per cent compared to a year ago – you can bet that Big Blue is trying to light a fire under its Linux-on-Power efforts.

IBM Focuses on Linux in China, Partnered with Red Hat and SUSE

In Beijing this week, IBM has announced that it is further extending its reach into China with the opening of its first Linux innovation center for Power Systems there. The center will initially be focused on Power Systems clients and business partners, and will be located inside IBM’s China Systems Center. According to the company, the new center “will make it simpler for software developers to build and deploy new applications for big data, cloud, mobile and social business computing on open technology building blocks using Linux and the latest IBM POWER 7+ processor technology.”

Linux Top 3: Google Chooses Debian, Ubuntu Installer and GNOME’s Bugzilla

Munich’s Score Is 93%

Audiocasts/Shows

• Linux Outlaws 310 – Glusterfuck

Kernel Space

• New Linux Foundation Members Help Advance Enterprise Linux

• Why Use Xen?

• Tux3 File-System Claims To Be Faster Than Tmpfs

  The experimental Tux3 file-system has already made claims of being faster than EXT4. The latest claims out of the open-source file-system is that it’s faster than Tmpfs, which is quite a feat given its very thin layer between VFS and SWAP.

  Daniel Phillips of the Tux3 file-system wrote on the Linux kernel mailing list this evening, “When something sounds to good to be true, it usually is. But not always. Today Hirofumi posted some nigh on unbelievable dbench results that show Tux3 beating tmpfs. To put this in perspective, we normally regard tmpfs as unbeatable because it is just a thin shim between the standard VFS mechanisms that every filesystem must use, and the swap device. Our usual definition of successful optimization is that we end up somewhere between Ext4 and Tmpfs, or in other words, faster than Ext4. This time we got an excellent surprise.”

• Linux 3.10 – The biggest Linux RC 1 Ever?

• VA-API Updated, Now Works With GStreamer 1.0

  The GStreamer VA-API plug-ins have been updated with support for the GStreamer 1.0.x API.

• Graphics Stack

  • AMD Radeon R600 GPU LLVM 3.3 Back-End Testing

    One of the exciting features of LLVM 3.3 that is due out next month is the final integration of the AMD R600 GPU LLVM back-end. This LLVM back-end is needed for supporting Gallium3D OpenCL on AMD Radeon graphics hardware, “RadeonSI” HD 7000/8000 series support, and can optionally be used as the Radeon Gallium3D driver’s shader compiler. In this article are some benchmarks of the AMD R600 GPU LLVM back-end from LLVM 3.3-rc1 when using several different AMD Radeon HD graphics cards and seeing how the LLVM compiler back-end affects the OpenGL graphics performance.

  • The Focus Of Wayland’s Weston Compositor

    Kristian Høgsberg has clarified the scope and goals of Weston, Wayland’s reference compositor. Now that Weston has become somewhat of its own desktop environment, Kristian has clarified its intentions to benefit future patches.

  • Intel’s Valley View Should Be In Shape For Linux 3.11

    While the merge window on the Linux 3.10 kernel is not even open yet let alone the Linux 3.9 kernel, Intel and mobile enthusiasts already have a reason to look forward to the Linux 3.11 kernel.

    It looks like the Linux 3.11 kernel — which is still several months away — will have support about finished up from the kernel-side for Valley View, the very attractive “Ivy Bridge” class graphics integrated into a low-power Intel Atom SoC. It’s also known as Bay Trail.

  • A Very Early Gallium3D TGSI Back-End For LLVM

  • Radeon Driver Gets Golden Registers In Linux 3.10

    A second Linux 3.10 Radeon DRM driver pull request was submitted by AMD’s Alex Deucher. The pull request sent to Red Hat’s David Airlie for the DRM sub-system mentions the “golden registers” addition as being the highlight of this batch of new open-source AMD Linux graphics code.

  • Gears On Gallium Still Grinding The Latest Mesa

    The latest release of Gears On Gallium happened earlier this week (2013.04.22) and is based upon openSUSE 12.3. This new release ships all of the latest Linux graphics code as of this week — including Mesa 9.2 Git, Linux 3.9-rc6, libdrm 2.4.44, X.Org Server 1.14.1, xf86-video-ati 7.99.99, xf86-video-intel 2.99.99, xf86-video-nouveau 1.0.99, and LLVM 3.3 SVN.

  • First X.Org Server 1.15 Snapshot Released

    Keith Packard has announced the release of xorg-server 1.14.99.1, the first X.Org Server 1.15 development snapshot ahead of the official release in the second half of 2013.

  • Plasma Worskpaces 2 On Wayland, A Converged Shell

    The future of the KDE desktop was planned earlier this month at a developer event held at the SUSE headquarters.

    Already we wrote about the results of KDE, Unity, GNOME, and Razor-Qt developers meeting up at SUSE’s Nürnberg offices. There were also clear statements about KDE support for Wayland. Now over on the KDE web-site is a nice summary of their Plasma planning.

  • AMD Releases Catalyst 13.4 For Linux

• Benchmarks

  • Intel i915 Gallium3D Performance Examined

  • Arch-Based Manjaro Linux Runs Against Ubuntu 13.04

    A larger comparison is in the works to pit Manjaro against Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE, and other popular Linux distributions. However, for the increasing curiosity about Manjaro, here’s the benchmarks that are complete at the moment: Manjaro 0.8.5 vs. Ubuntu 13.04.

  • ZFS vs. EXT4 On Linux Multi-Disk RAID Benchmarks

    When dealing with multi-disk configurations and RAID, the ZFS file-system on Linux can begin to outperform EXT4 at least in some configurations.

    Earlier this month I delivered some EXT4 vs. ZFS file-system benchmarks using the new ZFS On Linux release that is a native Linux kernel module implementing the Sun/Oracle file-system. Testing was done from a single disk configuration due to the available hardware within our labs and among Phoronix readers single disk configurations being most common.

Applications

• Simple Image Reducer – Pretty slick, Pretty easy, Pretty light & Pretty nice.

  Simple Image Reducer may be a somewhat unknown tool, of course I say that about every piece of software I just recently discovered. As if I know about every piece of software out there, go figure. In a relatively short time this excellent low resource tool to reduce and rotate images, has become a favorite go to application.

• GParted 0.16 Now Handles F2FS File-System

  Developers behind the GParted utility, the popular open-source program for managing Linux file-system partitions, released version 0.16.

• Instructionals/Technical

  • Linux commands: Newusers adds new users … fast and furious!

  • How to Install Minecraft on Raspberry Pi

  • A Bash script to force Image Magick to use zero-indexing when it converts GIF to JPG

  • How to navigate in Vim

  • Ubuntu 13.04 “Raring Ringtail” Server Installation Guide

  • New to the commandline? Don’t lose heart

  • Top 10 Computer Tricks Every Geek Should Know

  • Get Weather Or System Info On Your Desktop With These 2 Conky Configurations

  • aspell: A spellchecker at the console

  • Fixing high CPU usage in Linux Mint 13 on ThinkPad X200s

  • Linux commands: Newusers adds new users … fast and furious!

  • How to Install Ubuntu on a Chromebook Pixel

  • How to install skype on debian wheezy with x86-64 / amd64 machine

  • How to install Linux on a vintage 68K Mac

  • CBT Nuggets Releases BackTrack and Kali Linux Training

    Introducing a new training series from CBT Nuggets, “BackTrack and Kali Linux.”

    In this 40-video series, trainer Keith Barker covers the best tools for penetration testing, information gathering and vulnerability assessment. Barker explains how to use these free Linux distributions to identify weaknesses in order to strengthen network security.

• Games

  • Brütal Legend Is Exciting To Linux Gamers

    With today’s debut of the Humble Double Fine Bundle, Linux gamers seem particularly excited by the debut of the Brütal Legend game for the penguin platform.

    Brütal Legend is a title developed by Double Fine and released for Windows in February, after the action-adventure real-time strategy game premiered for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in late 2009. The game was favorably reviewed and now with Linux gamers having a native client, it seems particularly exciting, and is another title now available on Steam for Linux.

  • Hairy Tales has been released for Linux

  • New Steam Linux Client Beta Released

Desktop Environments/WMs

• K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

  • Qt 5.1 Beta 1 Released With Many Platform Features

    The first beta release of the Qt 5.1 tool-kit is now available. As the first major update to the Qt5 platform, this release comes with plenty of new features for developers and end-users.

  • presses ahead with DRM interface

  • Krita Lime PPA: always fresh versions for Ubuntu users!

  • Skrooge 1.7.1 released

    The Skrooge team is pleased to announce the release 1.7.1 of its popular personal finances management application.

  • Dolphin bugs fixed in April 2013

  • News in kdepim 4.11: Header theme (1/3)

• GNOME Desktop/GTK

  • MATE 1.6.1 Adds Support for More Applets

    The development team behind MATE, a fork of the GNOME 2 desktop environment, released a few minutes ago, May 13, the first maintenance version of the stable MATE 1.6 desktop environment.

  • GNOME Control Center 3.8.2 Released with Minor Improvements

    GNOME Control Center, GNOME’s main interface for configuration of various aspects of your desktop, is now at version 3.8.2.

  • Numerous Improvements Heading Into GTK+ 3.10

    At a recent GTK+ “hackfest” in Cambridge, some features heading into the GTK+ 3.10 tool-kit were worked on by a handful of GNOME developers.

    Happening the past few days in Cambridge, Massachusetts was a GTK+ hackfest where a variety of improvements were tackled. Among the work is GTK+ 3.10 making the file chooser side-bar be a public widget (to already be used by Nautilus), proper composite containers support, baseline alignment work, and new widgets.

Distributions

• Cinnarch Linux Reborn as Antergos

  I like Arch and I like Cinnamon, so for me Cinnarch Linux was an obvious fit. Except for the fact that apparently Cinnamon doesn’t work so well with Arch.

• So Long, Cinnamon: Cinnarch Linux is reborn as Antergos

  Regular PCWorld readers may recall Cinnarch, a Linux distribution I covered last fall that combined Arch Linux with the relatively new and alternative Cinnamon desktop environment.

• Antergos Erases Cinnarch with Inaugural Release

• Zorin OS 6.3 Core is released

  The Zorin OS Team are pleased to announce the release of Zorin OS 6.3 Core, our operating system designed for Windows users. Zorin OS 6.3 builds on top of our popular previous release of Zorin OS 6.2 with newly updated software and a newer kernel out of the box. As Zorin OS 6.3 is based on Ubuntu 12.04 it is an LTS (Long Term Support) release, provided with software updates until April 2017.

• Screenshots

  • Manjaro: A Convenient Way To Play With Arch Linux

    After carrying out the easy Manjaro Linux installation and upgrading the system using Arch’s pacman, it was off to the races. While our ARM Linux benchmarks and 64-bit Arch Linux benchmark comparison in the past have revealed little performance advantage to Arch over other tier-one Linux distributions — contrary to popular belief that Arch and Gentoo are magically much faster on the very latest hardware — benchmarks of Manjaro 0.8.5 compared to other Linux distributions is being carried out right now. Stay tuned to the results on Phoronix in the coming days.

• Red Hat Family

  • Fedora

    • Fedora 18 Can we ever be totally free

    • Rawhide week of fun, 2013-05-14

• Debian Family

  • Debian 7.0 Wheezy: New Features You Need to Know About

    Debian was an early pioneering Linux distribution, and has been a pillar of the community for nearly two decades. Today, it is well-known for its comprehensive repositories of software, its careful approach to updates, its smooth package installation and upgrade process, and its commitment to software freedom. It is particularly popular as a base for customization, with notable derivatives including Ubuntu and Linux Mint.

  • Second alpha release of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy

    The Debian Edu / Skolelinux project is making great progress and made its second Wheezy based release today. This is the release announcement:

  • Derivatives

    • Canonical/Ubuntu

      • Ubuntu and the Missing Community Link

        Sometimes, the symbolism of an act becomes more important than its actual consequences.

        A case in point is the repositioning of the link to the community page on the Ubuntu home page, which has reopened the divide between Canonical, Ubuntu’s commercial face, and parts of the Ubuntu community. Not only has that divide reappeared, but a possible error in tactics may have cost the community sympathy that is needed for reform.

        At first, the change sounds unbelievably minor to have provoked the response it has. It is, after all, no more than a cosmetic change. Specifically, it is about the removal of the link to the Community page from the main menu on the Ubuntu home page and its repositioning in a sub-footer. The change leaves the main menu focused on product lines.

      • Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue 316

        Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter. This is issue #316 for the week 6 – 13 May, 2013, and the full version is available here.

      • Ubuntu Set To Terminate Its Brainstorm Project

        Ubuntu Brainstorm served as a way for the Ubuntu community to nominate new ideas for the Linux operating system, comment on these ideas, and vote on the ideas should you find them interesting and worthwhile. However, now it looks like Ubuntu Brainstorm is going to be eliminated.

      • Important desktop and end-user topics this week at UDS

      • X.Org, Mir Plans Are Made Up For Ubuntu 13.10

        There’s a virtual Ubuntu Developer Summit taking place this week to begin drafting plans for Ubuntu 13.10. This morning the initial road-map for the X.Org / Mesa graphics and display stack were discussed for the next Ubuntu Linux release.

        Ubuntu 13.10 on the desktop will still be shipping an X.Org Server in configurations where Canonical’s own Mir Display Server isn’t primed. With Ubuntu 13.10 they will likely be shipping X.Org Server 1.14 or version X.Org Server 1.15 if the video driver ABI doesn’t break. While Canonical has talked about their next-generation Unity 8 interface, this apparently will be Mir-only. Those running a pure X.Org Server will be limited to the Unity 7.x world.

      • Video Demo of Unity 8 on Mir

        Recently the Mir and Unity Next teams got Unity 8 up and running on Mir. Now, this work is still very early in development and neither Mir nor Unity Next are finished yet, but I reached out to Michael Zanetti, who is on the team, and asked him to put together a short video demo to show the progress of this work. This demo shows the phone/tablet part of the Unity 8 codebase; the final desktop version will come later.

      • Unity 8 Running on Mir on a Galaxy Nexus

      • Ubuntu Linux Community: Canonical Vows to Maintain Focus

        As Canonical works to “converge” Ubuntu, the massively popular open-source Linux operating system, across smarphones, tablets, PCs and cloud servers, it is also working to integrate the various parts of the Ubuntu Web ecosystem. So reports Canonical employee Alejandra Obregon in a recent update on the past, preset and future of Ubuntu.com and the role of the Ubuntu community within Canonical’s Web presence.

      • Canonical plans dogfood-capable phones by the end of May

        Canonical plans dogfood-capable phones by the end of May
        Canonical’s Vice President of Ubuntu, Rick Spencer, has set out a plan to make the Ubuntu phone images dog food – dogfooding is where a company’s employees use its own product for their day-to-day work and comes from the phrase “Eating your own dog food”. In his blog post, Spencer outlines the things that the images must be capable of before this plan can be put into action, namely make and receive phone calls and send and receive SMS messages, browse the web on 3G data and Wi-Fi and switch between either data mode, have the display dim when the phone is talked on, and be able to import contacts and then add or edit them. Spencer also says that when the phone is updated it should retain its user data, even if being flashed from the command line of a desktop system. All this work should be done, Spencer says, by the end of May.

      • Developer-user relationships

        Today when going through the list of Google+ communities I saw a message in a Linux G+ community that links to a blog post in Sprial Linear that talks about GNOME developers ignoring user requests. This is heartbreaking.

        The incident commenced when a user Eduard Valiauka reported this bug in GNOME’s bugzilla. A feature in GNOME 3.6′s GNOME Terminal (background configuration tab in Profile Preferences) is missing in GNOME 3.8. He described the problem with some detail and asked the GNOME Terminal developers to add back the feature in later GNOME releases.

      • Ubuntu 13.04-Based Touch Images Now Available

        Canonical has released new “Raring-based” Ubuntu Touch images for the Google Nexus 4, Nexus 7, Nexus 10, and Galaxy Nexus devices.

      • Ubuntu 13.10 Is Codenamed “Saucy Salamander”

        Canonical will be sticking to a six-month release cycle for now with Ubuntu Linux and now that Ubuntu 13.04, the “Raring Ringtail”, has been released it’s time for 13.10. Mark Shuttleworth revealed this morning the Ubuntu 13.10 codename.

      • Ubuntu’s single platform SDK to be ship shape by October

        Canonical reveals more details of its roadmap for its Ubuntu SDK, which will allow developers to use the same code base to create apps for Ubuntu running on phones, tablets and desktops.

      • Ekoore Python S3 convertible tablet triple-boots Windows 8, Android, Ubuntu

        Can’t decide if you want a tablet or a notebook? No problem. There are plenty of hybrids that you can use either way.

      • Ekoore Python S3 Hybrid Tablet Boots Android, Windows 8 And Linux

Devices/Embedded

• TI DLP chipset targets 3D imaging devices, runs Linux

  Texas Instruments (TI) announced an evaluation kit for its next-generation digital-light-processing (DLP) chipset, offering much higher resolution and brightness than its predecessor. The DLP LightCrafter 4500 is aimed at 3D imaging applications such as machine vision, quality control, dental and retinal scanning, spectrometers, augmented reality devices, and 3D printers.

• Raspberry Pi gets photo and video capabilities with £20 camera module

  A tiny camera capable of taking five-megapixel photos and recording HD video has been launched for the Raspberry Pi.

• Nvidia Shield game console runs Android on Tegra 4

  Nvidia announced a new name and pricing for its quad-core Android game console, as well as the unique ability to play “Steam” games wirelessly streamed from a suitably-equipped Windows PC. The $349 “Nvidia Shield,” available for pre-ordering on May 20 and expected to ship in June, features a 1.9GHz Tegra 4 SOC with 2GB of RAM, 16GB of flash storage, gaming controls, and a 5-inch, 1280 x 720px retinal IPS display.

• Raspberry Pi Camera on sale now

• 11 Arduino Projects That Require Major Hacking Skills—or a Bit of Insanity

  Raspberry Pi has received the lion’s share of attention devoted to cheap, single-board computers in the past year. But long before the Pi was a gleam in its creators’ eyes, there was the Arduino.

• Ouya game device gets the teardown treatment

  The open-source game console, which rocked Kickstarter last year, earns a high repairability score from iFixit of 9 out of 10.

• Raspberry Pi in Easy Steps

• Security appliance taps 12-core QorIQ PowerPC SOC

  Nexcom announced a network security appliance with Unified Threat Management (UTM) services based on Freescale’s new 12-core, 1.8GHz QorIQ T4240 system-on-chip (SOC). The NSA 5640 is equipped with up to 6GB of DDR3 RAM, 2GB NAND flash, mini-PCI Express expansion, eight gigabit Ethernet ports, optional 4-port 10GbE connectivity, and PowerPC Linux support.

• Phones

  • Ballnux

    • Android notebooks from Samsung to launch in 3-4 months as Google preps Apple TV competitor and smart watch?

      KGI Securities analyst Mingchi Kuo, who has been known to have accurate information regarding Apple product launches in the past, is out today with a new note that includes some surprisingly specific specs for upcoming products from Google. One of the products Kuo expects to see at Google I/O later this month is a new Nexus 7, but the note also included info on what he thinks Google has in store for the months after the event, including: an Android powered notebook, a new TV product, and even a Google smart watch.

    • Samsung Galaxy S4 Google Edition set to be announced at Google I/O

      At the Google I/O event, Samsung is set to make a pretty big announcement. A new version of their latest flagship phone, the Galaxy S4, will be announced – the Google version. Now, this doesn’t mean that Google will do that manufacturing, or any major overhaul like that. What it means is that Samsung understands that some people, while they may love the device, aren’t so big on the software (mainly TouchWiz). In response, we’ll e seeing a pure AOSP version of the Galaxy S4 being prepped to launch.

  • Android

    • Galaxy Note 3 Exynos 5 Octa-Core May Need Linux Kernel Update

      Samsung’s Exynos 5 eight-core processor may not actually function as an eight-core, but as a quad-core instead, according to an Android kernel developer. The eight-core processor, featured in select Samsung Galaxy S4 device is also expected to be featured in the Samsung Galaxy Note 3.

    • ‘Project’ no more: NVIDIA Shield preorders start May 20 for $349, ships in June

      NVIDIA promises to change mobile gaming with the Shield — a handheld console that’s pure Android and pure fun

    • White Google Nexus 4 caught on video

      Look what showed up at a conference in Dubai, the white Google Nexus 4 in all its glory. We’ve taken a video of it and made it available for your lusting. The device was a demo unit at the Qualcomm booth at The Mobile Show so don’t expect retail availability anytime soon – that is unless Google announces something else tomorrow at the Google I/O event. Back to the white Nexus 4, the device looks great on the back and may actually give the black Nexus 4 a run for its money. However the front is still black and takes the charm away from the device. The internals were pretty much the same and the device was running an older version of Android – 4.2 to be precise.

    • A sneak peek at Epson’s next-generation Moverio wearable Android glasses

    • Android tops Q1 2013 ‘smart mobile device’ shipments

      First-quarter 2013 shipments of “smart mobile devices,” including notebooks, tablets, and smartphones, swelled by 37.4 percent year-on-year to 308.7 million units, reports mobile market analyst Canalys. From the operating system perspective, Android grabbed a healthy majority of units shipped, at 59.5 percent.

    • Android Chief Discusses Open Source and Emerging Tech Markets

    • Native Android apps now possible with AIDE 2.0

      With software like AIDE, an Android IDE that runs on the Android platform, it is possible to develop for the mobile platform on the move, and with version 2.0 of AIDE that can now include writing C/C++ or using the IDE’s new design interface. The new version’s professional edition also features improved integration with the Git distributed version control system. AIDE runs on Android phones and tablets and offers traditional IDE features such as automatic code completion, error highlighting, refactoring and code navigation.

    • Android accounts for 74 percent of smartphones sold in Q1; Samsung reigns

    • Android gaming on a x86-powered PC with iConsole.tv

      The new computer should outmuscle Android consoles using mobile chips, and may be able to run the Linux version of Steambox.

    • Hands-on with the iConsole.tv, an Android-powered game system with the heart of a desktop PC

      Pry open any Android-powered game console on the market today, and you’ll likely find a mobile processor — an ARM-based chip originally designed for tablets, smartphones and maybe the odd specialty device. It seems to make sense — after all, isn’t Android a mobile OS? Christopher Price, CEO of Mobile Media Ventures, doesn’t seem to think so. “Android is the future of personal computing,” Price told Engadget. “Even on the desktop.” According to Price, developers just haven’t had a chance to play with a truly powerful Android gaming machine. So, naturally, he’s building one.

    • Android: Arcane Legends – World of Warcraft for Android?

      When talking about a multi-player on-line RPG, it’s hard not to draw comparison to World of Warcraft. WoW, the game and social experience is very much a benchmark for any other title of the same genre. WoW does have its critics and those that can be heard most loudly are those who write for the large mainstream outlets. There’s nothing better than a story about addiction and social exclusion in respect of a computer game. So Android has it’s own WoW? Will you be addicted? Will you give up your “real world” friends in order to play this game? Read on!

    • Blackberry Messenger (BBM) to run on Android

      Reports emanating from BlackBerry’s annual developer conference confirm that the firm is planning to offer the Blackberry Messenger (BBM) service on other platforms.

    • Android 4.3 confirmed by Google developer website

    • HP announces Android SlateBook x2 just in time for next school year

Google to use open-source sensors to monitor I/O conference

Google is distributing hundreds of environmental sensors across the Moscone Centre in San Francisco to monitor everything from footsteps to air quality.

Startup CloudFounders builds open storage for VMs

Belgium-based newcomer CloudFounders is jumping on the software-defined storage bandwagon with an open storage platform that supports OpenStack, VMware and Amazon S3.

BonitaSoft Wins SIIA Software CODiE Award for Best Open Source Innovation

Supercomputers prefer open-source storage

Supercomputers are where the latest and greatest in information technology gets to shine. It is often where the bleeding-edge in engineering gets applied to solving and answering some of humanity’s biggest problems and questions: from origins of the universe to climage change and genetics.

At the time of its launch, a supercomputer is typically built of the best processor and server technology available then. When designing such a cluster of thousands of computing monsters strung together, engineering an adequate storage system is a big challenge.

Sauce Labs’ Jason Huggins: App Testing Is for the (Angry) Birds

“I wanted a tool that I could give to all of my developers and not have to worry about license fees. Open source means that I can very quickly and easily get it to all of my developers,” said Jason Huggins, cofounder and CTO of Sauce Labs. “It reduces the friction of getting contributions for people. If it is free to download and is free to use, that means you can skip the part where you talk to the sales guys.”

JQooBe platform helps communities manage communication

JQooBe is a platform that allows users to create simple blogs, websites, and advanced applications within a community. It is developed in PHP, Ajax, and MySQL.

Open source flight, from the Drone Lab to Twitter: Q&A with Dave Lester

I recently had the chance to catch up with Dave Lester, a soon-to-be graduate of UC Berkeley’s School of Information and a web developer who has been involved in a number of open source initiatives. Dave has been working on bringing technology together with the humanities and education through an un-conference he co-founded, and in his former role as assistant director of the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities. We talked about his drone hacking project, the importance of code integration, and his upcoming foray into open source at Twitter in an email interview.

XBMC used for in hotel system

Cool tool: One click installation of open source apps

Events

• Join Us For the KVM End User Technical Summit at the New York Stock Exchange

Web Browsers

• Mozilla

  • Mozilla releases Firefox 21 for PC, Mac, Linux and Android

  • Is Mozilla Firefox 21 A ‘Healthy’ Browser?

    Mozilla is out with the Firefox 21 open source browser release today, fixing at least 8 security vulnerabilities, three of which are rated as being critical. The new release also provides new features that – depending on your viewpoint – could either improve or reduce user privacy.

    One of the new features in Firefox 21 is the Health Report. Mozilla first began talking about the health report in September of 2012 as a non-invasive reporting mechanism. The report is intended to deliver information to users about the ‘health’ of the browser and its components. The report also shares that data with Mozilla.

  • Firefox 21 arrives with social providers Cliqz, Mixi, MSN Now, open source fonts and HTML5 tweaks for Android

    Mozilla on Tuesday officially launched Firefox 21 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Improvements include the addition of multiple social providers on the desktop as well as open source fonts on Android.

  • Firefox Gets a Health Report, New ‘Do Not Track’ Options, and More

    The lastest version of Firefox, Firefox 21, is available for download now. What will you find in this new release? A few major new features, including three “Do Not Track” options, a tune-up tool called Firefox Health Report, and performance-boosting startup suggestions.

  • Firefox 21: Mozilla Releases Browser Updates For Mac, Windows, Linux, Android

    Mozilla Firefox may not be the most popular web browser in the world — that achievement now belongs to Google Chrome — but fans of the free, open-source web browser are as excited about the browser as ever. Firefox 20, which was released in April 2013, was a huge step forward for the browser, introducing download messenger and per-window private browsing to the iconic web browser. Now, with the release of Firefox 21, the web brower comes packed with even more excellent features.

  • Stay Social with Firefox

    Social sites are a key part of online life and with Firefox we want to make it easier to use the Web the way you want. Mozilla developed the Social API to enable social providers to integrate directly into Firefox to make your browsing experience more social, customizable and personal. The Social API makes it easy for your favorite social providers to add a sidebar with your content to Firefox or notification buttons directly on the Firefox toolbar.

  • Feature light Firefox 21 lands

    Mozilla has begun shipping out Firefox 21, the latest rapid release of the organisation’s flagship web browser. Headlining the release notes is the expanded Social API support. The Social API launched last year with Facebook support allowing the company to create a more integrated sidebar for its services. Now, this is joined by support for Cliqz, Japanese social network Mixi and msnNOW.

    There are, though, a few features in this release that will raise issues around ongoing privacy debates. A new interface to Do Not Track (DNT) allows users to now set the DNT flag to “please track” when accessing web sites alongside the previous options of not setting the flag at all or setting it to say “do not track”. The default remains to say nothing about the users preferences.

  • Personalization with Respect

    Mozilla’s mission compels us to provide people with an Internet experience that puts them in control of their online lives and that treats them with respect. Respecting someone includes respecting their privacy. We aspire to a “no surprises” principle: the idea that when information is gathered about a person, it is done with their knowledge and is used in ways that benefit that person. People should be made aware of how information is collected and used. Each individual should also be able to decide whether the exchange of personal data for the services received in return feels fair. This can be challenging to achieve, especially when balanced against convenience and ease of use: people expect a fast, streamlined user experience without excessive prompts and confusing choices. But we are always striving toward this ideal.

SaaS/Big Data

• Q&A: ownCloud Provides Secure File Sharing for the Enterprise

  File storage and sharing using consumer-oriented cloud services can be a security problem for companies that want to avoid sensitive data leaks. ownCloud aims to solve the issue by offering commercial cloud services installed within a company’s own datacenter. Their open source software is built on Linux and most often deployed on Linux by enterprise customers, said Markus Rex, CTO of ownCloud, via email.

• Cisco Cloud CTO Updates OpenStack Progress [VIDEO]

  Where do open source cloud, SDN, and the Internet of Things intersect?

• OpenNebula 4.0 debuts new admin interface

  The OpenNebula project has announced the release of the latest major version of its open source cloud computing framework. OpenNebula 4.0, code-named “Eagle” after the M16 star cluster, introduces a redesigned Sunstone administration interface, a number of new virtual machine features, and improvements to several of the core components of the platform. The OpenNebula toolkit is used by, among others, the European Space Agency, Fermilab, CERN, and China Mobile and provides IaaS management capabilities for virtual infrastructure in data centres.

Databases

• The H Half Hour: 10Gen CTO Eliot Horowitz

  MongoDB is one of the most visible NoSQL databases out there and 10Gen’s CTO is apparently one of the most hands-on coding CTOs out there. So when he was in London recently, The H just had to have a chat with Eliot Horowitz about his technical philosophy of what MongoDB is, where its going and how being an active developer informs his decision-making process:

• PostgreSQL 9.3 begins beta cycle

  PostgreSQL 9.3 has begun its testing cycle with the release of its first beta. The new version brings writing support for foreign tables, including those on other PostgreSQL servers, updatable views and the ability to declare a materialised view, new JSON construction and extraction functions, indexed regular-expression-based searches, and new resilience features. Together, the changes place PostgreSQL in the position of being able to be the backbone of many enterprises’ data storage and integration systems.

Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

• FOSS Force Poll: We Don’t Trust Oracle Or Java

  Back in March and April, when the Java browser plugin was getting hammered with security holes that were being exploited in the wild, we conducted a couple of unscientific polls here on FOSS Force to determine how our visitors were handling this security crisis.

  To call the problems that Java was experiencing at the time a “crisis” is not an exaggeration. If you’ll remember, the situation was considered so serious that here in the U.S., the Department of Homeland Security was urging everyone to disable the Java plugin.

• Java Release Numbering Gets Re-Numbered

• Toward a more colorful LibreOffice

• Potential new OpenOffice logos shortlisted

  As the development of Apache OpenOffice 4.0 progresses, the Apache OpenOffice project is looking for a new logo to visually represent the project and now – after 40 logo submissions and over five thousand entries in a community survey – the shortlist is available. A report on the survey shows that responses came from around the world.

CMS

• Crafter Open Source CMS Goes Solo

  New standalone organization created to support the open source Crafter content management system.

• Drupal Is a Framework: Why Everyone Needs to Understand This

  Everyone planning and building Web solutions with Drupal benefits from understanding what a “hook” is—and why Drupal is not a CMS.

  One of the greatest challenges that Drupal adopters face, whether they are new site owners or beginning developers, is figuring out what is easy and what is hard to do with Drupal. As a developer, solution architect, technical strategist and even as the friend who knows stuff about Web sites, 60% of my discussions revolve around three questions: how long will it take, how much will it cost, and can my site do [insert cool new thing]?

Education

• Stanford and edX unite to build stronger open education platform

  The open education landscape is set to grow a little more as Stanford University announces plans to team up with edX to build an online learning platform that universities and developers around the world can access for free.

  edX, a not-for-profit online education project founded in 2012 by MIT and Harvard University, develops online learning courses for students. The project encourages collaboration between teachers, students, and faculty to fit the needs of individual institutions.

Funding

• OpenGeo Completes $3 Million Series A Financing and Launches as Independent Open Source Company

  OpenGeo, the creators of the OpenGeo Suite, the world’s leading open source geospatial software platform, announced a $3 million Series A investment from Vanedge Capital of Vancouver, British Columbia. Simultaneous with the funding event, the company has spun out from its incubator parent, OpenPlans, and is boosting OpenGeo’s product and customer-support initiatives.

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

• GNU Hurd/ news/ 2012-q3-q4

  In November 2012, we finished the libthreads (cthreads) to libpthread (POSIX Threads) conversion. Converting the Hurd libraries to the pthread interfaces allows linking them together with other libraries that use this standard threading interface themselves. This project once was begun by Vicente Hernando Ara, and later continued by Barry deFreese, Thomas DiModica, Thomas Schwinge, Samuel Thibault, Pino Toscano, and now brought to completion by Richard Braun, who could not be scared by having to resolve the last remaining tricky issues before the transition could be completed.

• Guile 100 #7: Animated GIFs

  Challenge #7 in the Guile 100 Programs Project is to write a function that creates an animated GIF from a datacube of 8-bit color indices and a 256 color palette. It is the third challenge in this month’s theme, which is “Web 1.0 — Web 1990s style”.

Project Releases

• Moodle 2.5 is now released!

• Video.js goes Apache with version 4.0

  The Video.js open source JavaScript library designed for working with web video has been updated to version 4.0 and, in the process, has changed its licence from LGPLv3 to Apache 2.0. The major update is the first since Brightcove, the video platform company, acquired Zencoder, where Video.js was developed as a side project. Video.js is designed to make it simple to embed video, whether the browser is modern and supports HTML5 or legacy and relies on Flash. Creator Steve Heffernan says that he was tasked by Brightcove to work full time on the project and that the Brightcove video team have become contributors too. That focus has paid off in version 4.0 of Video.js with improved performance, new skin designs, responsive layout, accessibility and retina display support among the new features.

• SpringSource fires up the asynchronous Reactor framework

• NGINX 1.4 Supports SPDY, Gunzip Filter

Public Services/Government

• Power, Responsibility, and Open Source Software

  I recently spoke to Dr SPT Krishnan, Chairman, Infocomm Technologies Advisory Panel, Singapore Red Cross Society. He and his team were responsible for Donorweb, a web platform for “disseminating critical information on blood requirements and reaching prospective blood donors during normal and emergency time periods.”

Licensing

• Open Source vs. Proprietary License: What You Need to Know About Software Licenses

  When it comes to using, developing and promoting software online, the numerous licenses that accompany them can be confusing for even the most adept computer user. Open source and proprietary license often go at each other head-to-head, with one promoting an accepted method of licensing whereas the latter leaves more room for interpretation. But can they work well together or are open source and proprietary license destined to drive developers and users even further apart?

Openness/Sharing

• Open Data

  • Open Data, Creative Destruction and Money

    Nearly three years ago, I wrote an article exploring why at that time there were no billion-dollar companies (since then, Red Hat has finally broken through this barrier). Here’s the key point:

    open source solutions save money for customers by doing away with the fat margins for existing computer companies – and thus shrink the overall market. Opponents of open source like to paint this as “value destruction” that takes money “out of the economy” – as if free software went around burning down offices and warehouses.

  • DIY cartography: Hands on with MapBox’s new open-source ‘iD’ editor in OpenStreetMap

    Maps are nothing new; humans have been recording the layout of the world around them for close to 8,000 years. What started out as cave paintings developed into hand-drawn maps on parchment, which eventually turned into machine-printed atlases, and, most recently, into GPS guidance. While mapmaking has been primarily the job of cartography experts and companies like Rand McNally and Garmin, technology has allowed for an awesome shift, giving the power to document one’s surroundings back to the people.

  • Default to open data: an Executive Order

    Last week, The White House published an Executive Order by which the default method for government data collection and dissemination must now be open and machine readable.

Programming

• Open Source Is Old School, Says The GitHub Generation

• LLVM’s Clang Compiler Is Now C++11 Feature Complete

• LLVM/Clang 3.3 Performing Against GCC For Old Intel CPU

• FLANG: Proposing An LLVM Fortran Compiler

• Linux 3.9 Kernel Delayed By One Week; 3.8-rc8 Released

  While it looked like the Linux 3.9 kernel would be released this weekend, a 3.9-rc8 release was warranted and is out this Sunday evening.

  Linus Torvalds explained that he was hoping to release Linux 3.9 final this weekend, but there ended up being a surplus of issues that led him to tagging another kernel release candidate. In the end, Torvalds decided, “another week won’t hurt.”

• LLVM/Clang Already Working On C++1y/C++14

  Phoronix was first to report on Friday that LLVM’s Clang compiler is now C++11 feature complete. The LLVM developers have today confirmed this information and talked about future C++ support too.

• Terra and Lua offer new high performance computing strategy

  Zach DeVito and a team at Stanford and Purdue University have published details of Terra, a new approach to generating code for high performance computing. Using Lua as a linguistic host for a new low-level language, the team have come up with a system which allows a developer to write high-level code in Lua and high-performance code in Terra, iterating code from high-level experimentation to high-performance optimised code over time. This is, though, just one of the use cases for Terra and Lua.

• LLVM 3.3 Release Candidate 1 Now Available

  Following yesterday’s branching of LLVM and the related components from trunk, LLVM 3.3 Release Candidate 1 is now available for those interested in testing the Apple-sponsored compiler.

• PyPy 2.0 alpha on ARM includes Pi support

  The developers of the JIT-compiling Python interpreter PyPy have released an alpha version of PyPy 2.0 for ARM processors. Part of the work was sponsored by the Raspberry Pi Foundation, so it’s not surprising to find the Raspberry Pi mini-computer listed as one of the supported platforms.

• Python 3.4 to get enums

  The planned feature list for Python 3.4 is starting to become more defined. One of the important additions that the developers have decided on is the inclusion of an enumeration type in the standard library in the next version of the language. Enumeration types, which are also known as enums, are data types that define each possible value as symbolic constants.

• Go 1.1 brings better performance and a race detector

  Google has released version 1.1 of the Go programming language, the first major revision of the language and its tools since it was introduced in 2012. Since then, there has been a lot of interest in the language as it offers a rich alternative to C and C++ as a basis for system and application development in modern highly connected environments. While much of the work in the update has focussed on improving performance, new features include a race detector for finding memory synchronisation problems and new functionality in the standard library of the language.

• Dart now compiling in-browser with Dart based Dart compiler

  The Google Dart developers are reviving the language’s try.dartlang.org site with a major upgrade of the site’s capabilities. Previously, the site would compile Dart into JavaScript by sending it to a server, but now, after having compiled the Dart2js compiler to JavaScript, it can run in the user’s browser. Dart was introduced in 2011 as a more structured form of JavaScript to replace the language in the browser. Dart can be run in two ways, either compiled to JavaScript or run in its virtual machine and, by exploiting the former, it has made it possible to work on or offline with the Dart2js compiler.

Scientific Articles Accepted (Personal Checks, Too)

This Is What Happens When Publishers Invest In Long Stories

The Downside Of Long Quality Articles

Unix Architecture Showing it’s Age

Security

• Name.com domain registrar hacked

  US domain registrar and web hosting service Name.com has fallen victim to a hacker attack. In a recent email, the company informed its customers of an incident that potentially enabled unknown attackers to gain access to “email addresses, encrypted passwords and encrypted credit card details”. The registrar says that the private crypto keys that are required to decrypt the stolen credit card details are stored on a separate system that wasn’t compromised.

• CSRF hole in OpenVPN Access Server

Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

• Bursting Benghazi’s Bubble–Only to Boost Bush

  But one of Cohen’s Post colleagues doesn’t think it’s a scandal either–just like Bush’s Iraq lies weren’t much of a scandal either.

  Come again?

• Russian agent claims Ryan Fogle is not the first CIA agent caught this year

  The spy in the blond wig, Ryan Fogle, was not the first CIA agent to be caught by Russian security services this year, according to an interview with an anonymous Russian agent aired on state television.

• US ‘spy’ Ryan Fogle expelled after CIA refused to stop recruiting, say Russians

  Federal Security Service says US embassy official was expelled because CIA persisted in trying to recruit Russians for espionage

• 
  ‘CIA Spy’ Row: Russia Summons US Ambassador

• Ryan Fogle: Russia to expel diplomat arrested trying to recruit for CIA

• Russia to expel ‘CIA agent’ in spy recruitment scandal

  Russia says it will expel a US diplomat briefly detained in Moscow for allegedly trying to recruit a Russian intelligence officer as a spy.

• Russia Quizzes US Ambassador over ‘CIA Wig Spy’ in Cold War Row

  The Russian foreign ministry said Fogle has been labelled as persona non grata and is to be expelled from the country. Officially an US embassy employee, Fogle is protected by diplomatic immunity.

  [...]

  The Russian foreign ministry said Fogle has been labelled as persona non grata and is to be expelled from the country. Officially an US embassy employee,

• Russia to expel ‘CIA agent’ arrested in $1m spy sting

  THE US and Russia were locked in a Cold War-style spy scandal last night after an alleged CIA agent was seized and accused of offering millions to recruit a intelligence figure in Moscow.

• CIA ups stake in database-as-a-service firm

  The CIA has maintained its influence over Cloudant by upping its investment in the database-as-a-service firm.

  The $12m funding round sees Cloudant’s existing investors In-Q-Tel*, Avalon Ventures, and Samsung Venture Investment Corporation up their shares in the company, and new investors Fidelity Investments, Rackspace Hosting, and Toba Capital have piled in as well, the company announced on Tuesday.

• The CIA is Shaping the #Torture Debate

  Remember the Academy Award-winning film Zero Dark Thirty? Well, last week news broke that the CIA edited the film’s script to make sure that it didn’t portray the “enhanced interrogation” program in a way that would make the agency look bad.

• Targeted Killing: CIA’s fleet of 80+ UAVs unlikely to be transferred to military

  The Obama administration has floated the idea of putting the CIA’s controversial targeted killing operations under the control of the uniformed armed services. But sources familiar with the still-classified program, which uses unmanned aircraft to kill suspected terrorists in Pakistan and Yemen, say the shift would be difficult to implement and would make little difference.

• CIA’s role in the Benghazi mess

  And, despite its assertion that it warned the administration about the threat to Benghazi, it failed there, too, in not vetting properly the local militia and leaving what was essentially a CIA facility insufficiently protected.

• CIA Warned of ‘Jihadist’ Threat to Cairo Embassy

• Miller: Intel leak in AP probe “embarrassing, bad” for CIA

  Attorney General Eric Holder strongly defended the Justice Department’s seizure of two-months-worth of Associated Press phone records on Tuesday, saying the leak of secret information to the AP created a national security threat.

  The Justice Department obtained the phone records of the AP — from April and May in 2012 — in an effort to determine who leaked confidential information regarding a Saudi double agent who had infiltrated al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

• Email: Even The CIA Uses It. Time To Get Serious About Its Legal Protections

  Allegedly the U.S. diplomat told his would-be recruit to set up a Google Gmail account to respond if he wanted to pursue such a relationship.

• Boston Academic Taking CIA to Court Over “Paltry” Information Releases

  Prof. George Katsiaficas of Wentworth Institute of Technology, Boston has launched a federal lawsuit against the Central Intelligence Agency over documents he seeks relating to the assassination of a former Korean premier.

  [...]

  His FOIA requests have also been expanded to include the Defense Intelligence Agency, because he says, “it’s possible the DIA will release documents that the CIA doesn’t have, or doesn’t want to release.”

  Berman confirmed that the next step on his behalf is to serve the CIA and the Government before an appearance at the US District Court in Massachusetts will be scheduled.

• Secrecy, Drones, Prisons and Kill Lists

  On Monday, the Associated Press revealed that the Department of Justice used subpoenas to obtain phone records of its editors and reporters from April and May 2012. The records were obtained due to the investigation and supposed leak to the AP last year that the CIA had ”thwarted an ambitious plot by al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen to destroy a U.S.-bound airliner using a bomb with a sophisticated new design around the one-year anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden.”

Cablegate

• Protect your sources: Australia’s WikiLeaks Party calls for journalism shield law

  Julian Assange’s newly formed Australian WikiLeaks Party (WLP) announced that if elected, it will immediately introduce a national shield law to protect a reporter’s right not to reveal a source, as current state-based shield laws are “inadequate.”

• Polls positive for WikiLeaks, as party registers

  A national poll conducted by UMR Research found 26 per cent of voters said they were likely to vote for Mr Assange and his political party.

• UK expenses on Ecuadorian embassy surveillance ‘utterly absurd’ – Assange

  By spending $4.5 million on ensuring a whistleblower does not escape from an embassy, Britain has overstepped the bounds of common sense, according to Julian Assange, who does not believe the 2015 UK election will bring any change to his fate.

• The New Yorker takes a page from WikiLeaks

• New Yorker Launches ‘Strongbox’ for Anonymous Transmission of Files

• New Yorker launches new leak submission system, written by Aaron Swartz

• New cables ‘expose’ US govt lobbies worldwide for Monsanto, other GMO corps

• WikiLeaks reveals Labor backing for US wars, Iraq lies

Environment/Energy/Wildlife

• Zuckerberg Gets an Earful After Promoting Keystone XL

  Mark Zuckerberg’s complaint box is filling up.

Finance

• Goldman Sachs Investors Should Oppose Pay Plan, Glass Lewis Says

  Goldman Sachs has been “deficient” in linking compensation to company performance, Glass Lewis said yesterday in a report, which also opposed the re-election of compensation committee Chairman James A. Johnson. ISS said in a May 8 report that shareholders should vote for Johnson at the New York-based bank’s May 23 annual meeting.

  [...]

  Goldman Sachs doesn’t have specific measures to help set annual pay for top executives, Glass Lewis said in the report, which gave the firm a “D” grade in linking pay to performance. ISS said the increase in executive pay for 2012 reflected stronger company performance.

• Former USAir General Counsel Speaks Out

  It’s not every day that a former corporate lawyer comes out in favor of stronger regulation of big business.

  And it’s not every day the former general counsel of a major American corporation comes out and urges the federal government to force major corporate wrongdoers to admit to their wrongdoing.

• Economist: Deficits nothing but a politically useful hammer to beat up Obama

  University of Massachusetts economist Richard Wolff on Tuesday explained that obsession over the federal deficit was based in politics, not economics.

  Wolff said on the David Pakman Show that the government could not improve a struggling economy by cutting its spending. As the single biggest consumer, the government only reduced demand for goods and services by cutting spending, leading to greater unemployment.

• Ghost in the Machine: Pete Peterson Haunts College Campuses

  No one in the room appeared to catch the fact that they all were participating in an elaborate public relations ruse, set up by well-known Wisconsin spinmeister (Graul) whose claim to fame is a racist attack ad on a sitting judge, and orchestrated by a Wall Street billionaire whose name was never mentioned in the two-hour “teach-in.”

• Everything is Rigged, Continued: European Commission Raids Oil Companies in Price-Fixing Probe

  We’re going to get into this more at a later date, but there was some interesting late-breaking news yesterday.

  According to numerous reports, the European Commission regulators yesterday raided the offices of oil companies in London, the Netherlands and Norway as part of an investigation into possible price-rigging in the oil markets. The targeted companies include BP, Shell and the Norweigan company Statoil.

• US Government Begins BitCoin Crackdown

  As we first noted here (regulation) and here (supervision), the US government has been gradually encroaching on the independence and freedom of the virtual currency. This week, as The Washington Post reports, the government escalated. The feds took action against Mt. Gox, the world’s leading Bitcoin exchange. Many people use Dwolla, a PayPal-like payment network, to send dollars to their Mt. Gox accounts. They then use those dollars to buy Bitcoins. On Tuesday, Dwolla announced that it had frozen Mt. Gox’s account at the request of federal investigators.

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

• Dead Journalists and the Newseum Scandal

  On May 10, the Huffington Post’s Michael Calderone reported that the museum was being criticized by “conservative outlets and a pro-Israel think tank” over the inclusion in its Journalists Memorial of two reporters from Al-Aqsa TV, which is run by Hamas.

Censorship

• Republican Governor Deals Blow to “Constitutionally Suspect” Tennessee “Ag Gag” Bill

  Republican Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam has vetoed a controversial “ag gag” bill that would hamstring citizen investigations documenting patterns of abuse of animals and regulatory violations. These investigations have led in the past to regulatory action and demanded industry changes.

  As the reason for his decision, Governor Haslam cited the legal opinion of Tennessee Attorney General Bob Cooper, who last week called the bill’s provisions “constitutionally suspect” with regard to the First Amendment. (The First Amendment Center concurs and says that ag-gag bills “harm free speech.”)

• Flies, Maggots, Rats, and Lots of Poop: What Big Ag Doesn’t Want You To See

  What’s it like inside a factory farm? If the livestock and meat industries have their way, what little view we have inside the walls of these animal-reviewing facilities may soon be obscured. For the second year in a row, the industry is backing bills in various statehouses that would criminalize undercover investigations of livestock farms. The Humane Society of the US, one of the animal-welfare groups most adept at conducting such hidden-camera operations, counts active “ag gag” bills in no fewer than nine states. Many of them are based on a model conjured by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a corporate-funded group that generates industry-friendly legislation language for state legislatures, Associated Press reports.

• National assembly approves controversial information bill

  An earlier version was already adopted at the end of 2011 but, in response to demands for changes from the opposition, the National Council of Provinces (the South African parliament’s upper house) made a number of minor amendments. These concessions still fall far short of what is needed.

• Chinese internet: ‘a new censorship campaign has commenced’

  These words are the reflection of my true feelings. Not long ago, scholar Zhang Xuezhong, Xiao Xuehui, Song Shinan and lawyer Si Weijiang all saw their Weibo accounts deleted. They each had large numbers of followers, who spread their words to an even wider audience. But all of a sudden their names have disappeared. Nobody knows why, or who ordered it, but we all know that a new round of a censorship campaign has commenced. As in 1957, 1966 and 1989, Chinese intellectuals are feeling more or less the same fear as one does before an approaching mountain storm: the scariest thing of all is not being silenced or being sent to prison; it is the sense of powerlessness and uncertainty about what comes next. There is no procedure, no standard, and not a single explanation. It’s as if you are walking into a minefield blindfolded. Not knowing where the mines are buried, you don’t know when you will be blasted to pieces.

• Critic Of Chinese Censorship Censored: Microblog With 1.1 Million Followers Deleted

  The Global Voices story quoted above goes on to describe the ways in which some of those 1.1 million followers have reacted, and how many feel that Sina Weibo is diminished by Murong’s absence. It also points out that all of his posts have been preserved and are available — but on the other side of the Great Firewall of China (GFW). Although only those with the requisite technical know-how to tunnel under the GFW using VPNs will be able to access the now-deleted messages, that doesn’t mean the Chinese authorities have really won here. After all, using censorship to silence a critic of censorship means that his 1.1 million (ex-)followers now have definitive proof of what he was warning them about.

Privacy

• Naked Citizens: Protect your Privacy!

  Imagine you opened your door tomorrow morning and found hundreds of naked people there waiting for you. Now what if they all started telling you what they thought about something you’d assumed not many people cared about. Naked people…talking about data protection? It’s safe to say it’d get your attention.

• Here’s a Good Reason to Encrypt Your Data

  There’s many reasons to password-protect — or encrypt — one’s digital data. Foremost among them is to protect it during a security breach.

• AP news agency spied on by US government

  News agency Associated Press (AP) has accused the US government of secretly and illegally obtaining phone records for 20 of the news agency’s phone lines. The agency has revealedPDF that its General Counsel Laura Malone was informed of the action by a letter from the US Department of Justice (DoJ). The data related to calls made over a two-month period in 2012 from AP phone lines in New York, Washington and Hartford, Connecticut and in the House of Representatives. The letter from the DoJ failed to provide a reason for its spying activities.

• The Law Behind the A.P. Phone-Record Scandal

• Gov’t obtains wide AP phone records in probe

• The New Yorker Launches Strongbox, an Open-Source Anonymous Tip Tool Built by Aaron Swartz

  Technology gives journalists unprecedented power to track down information. And technology gives lots of other people the ability to follow journalists’ footprints. Just ask the Associated Press.

  Now the New Yorker magazine says it can help journalists, and their sources, cover their tracks. It is rolling out an electronic tip box it says will give leakers and tipsters the ability to cloak their identity when they reach out to the magazine.

• New York terror suspect case could challenge NSA spying

  Feds refuse to confirm whether they cracked bomb plot with warrantless eavesdropping

• How a tiny Canadian company won security contracts with covert 3-letter agencies like the NSA, CIA, and FBI

  How does a small Canadian company get a contract to provide security software for top U.S. covert agencies like the NSA, CIA, and FBI?

  Actually, it’s not that difficult, according to mobile security company Fixmo’s CEO, Rick Segal.

  “Despite the Bush years of let’s go play in another war, there’s a very tight, close alliance between Canada and the USA,” Segal says.

• NSA Breaks Ground on Massive Computing Center

Civil Rights

• Indian law enforcement unaccountable in journalist attacks

  Anyone who has been to India or is familiar with the country knows how chaotic it can be: from the congestion on the streets of Delhi to the messy way in which democracy functions. And for journalists, covering the chaos of India can be risky business. This week alone, Indian law enforcement officials assaulted two journalists covering demonstrations in different corners of the country.

• Cornel West: ‘They say I’m un-American’

  The American academic and firebrand campaigner talks about Britain’s deep trouble, fighting white supremacy and where Obama is going wrong

• Heritage Immigration Scandal Proof That…Both Sides Do It?

  You may heard that the conservative Heritage Foundation released a dubious study about the effects of an immigration reform. The report alleged a cost of $6.3 trillion, and was quickly challenged and debunked by critics on the right and the left.

• Disappointing Unsealing Decision in Aaron Swartz Case

  The public lost another battle in the U.S. v. Aaron Swartz case, this one over transparency. On May 13, 2013, the U.S. District Court judge handling the prosecution sided with the government, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and JSTOR and refused to make public any information in the case that any of these three entities wished to keep under seal. The ruling effectively grants the Department of Justice, MIT and JSTOR a veto over what the public gets to know about the investigation.

• Strongbox and Aaron Swartz

  Aaron Swartz was not yet a legend when, almost two years ago, I asked him to build an open-source, anonymous inbox. His achievements were real and varied, but the events that would come to define him to the public were still in his future: his federal criminal indictment; his leadership organizing against the censorious Stop Online Piracy Act; his suicide in a Brooklyn apartment. I knew him as a programmer and an activist, a member of a fairly small tribe with the skills to turn ideas into code—another word for action—and the sensibility to understand instantly what I was looking for: a slightly safer way for journalists and their anonymous sources to communicate.

• The Tough Life of a Dissident

  Ray’s excellent point is that we need more whistleblowers not less, so I should accentuate the positive and talk of how great I feel, how I can sleep at night, how I am recognized all round the world, etc. – all of which is true.

• Russian MP wants Nazi sympathizers to face criminal charges

  A senior United Russia official has demanded debate be resumed in the Duma over introducing criminal prosecution for the rehabilitation of Nazism. The move comes after Russian opposition activist statements during Victory day celebrations.

  Sergey Zheleznyak, deputy-speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament, has declared he was insulted by some of the online statements made by members of the opposition movement on May 9, the day Russia marks victory over Nazi Germany.

Intellectual Monopolies

• US supreme court rules for Monsanto in Indiana farmer’s GM seeds case

  The US supreme court came down solidly on the side of the agricultural giant Monsanto on Monday, ruling unanimously that an Indiana farmer could not use patented genetically modified soybeans to create new seeds without paying the company.

• Copyrights

  • Canadian Anti-Piracy Outfit Pirates Photos for its Website

    Canadian anti-piracy company Canipre has been teaming up with film studios to hunt down and sue alleged BitTorrent pirates. They want to change people’s attitudes toward piracy and make a few bucks in the process. However, it appears that the attitude change should start closer to home, as their own website blatantly uses photos that have been ripped-off from independent photographers.

• Distributions
• Devices/Embedded

NASA migrates ISS laptops from Windows to Linux

Debian Linux now Google Compute Engine’s default OS

Want to run Linux on the Google Computer Engine cloud? Starting immediately, Debian Linux is Google’s Linux of choice.

Linux-based Robonaut 2 preps for active ISS duty

NASA’s Linux-based “Robonaut 2″ is undergoing extensive testing on the International Space Station (ISS), and will soon be put to work. The humanoid Robonaut 2 will soon receive a major upgrade that will provide legs and an expanded battery pack, enabling it to perform more duties, including space walks.

Open source cellular targets rural comms

Start-up RangeNetworks is hoping that the combination of low cost and transparent software will allow it to break into the notoriously locked-down cellular network market.

Microsoft is lagging Linux

Microsoft’s kernel is falling behind Linux because of a cultural problem at the Volehill of Redmond, claims one of its developers.

The anonymous Microsoft developer who contributes to the Windows NT kernel wrote a response acknowledging the problem and explaining its cause.

Could Chrome OS Thrive in Public Kiosks and in Cars?

Could Google’s Chrome OS arrive on platforms that have hardly been discussed for it yet? According to rumblings from Google and some media reports, the answer is yes. Of course, there has been a lot of talk about possible mergers between Chrome OS and Android, and talk of Chrome OS tablets. But there are some facts about the guts of Chrome OS that could make it ideal for other applications.

A shot in the arm for enterprise Linux

This year’s 2013 Enterprise End User Report show the world’s largest enterprises are increasing their investments in Linux for the third consecutive year and management’s perception remains increasingly positive.

According to a press statement from the Linux Foundation, “These advancements are resulting in more companies wanting to contribute to the advancement of Linux and understand how to benefit from collaborative development.”

Open Ballot: The final frontier

With this, it seems, Linux has conquered the final frontier, but that doesn’t mean world domination is complete. So, our question is this: Where would you like to see Linux adopted next?

Desktop

• Samsung ARM Chromebook Review

  The Samsung ARM Chromebook is one of a few ARM devices that I prepare Bodhi Linux images for. As such I’ve owned the hardware for almost six months now and during this time I’ve used it a fair amount. The goal of this post is to provide a comprehensive review of the product to see if it is something that could be useful to you.

Server

• IBM Taps China’s Engineers to Develop Linux Business Software

  International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) opened a center today for computing systems in Beijing to help customers and outside software engineers develop business applications for the open-source Linux operating system.

• Rackspace: Can it compete with Amazon Web Services?

  Rackspace’s first quarter growth wasn’t up to expectations. The company could be facing an AWS squeeze with enterprises and developers.

Kernel Space

• Torvalds unveils first Linux 3.10 release candidate

  Linus Torvalds released RC1 of the new kernel on the eve of Mother’s Day, together with some advice on how to treat Mum/Mom right on the occasion.

  “So this is the biggest -rc1 in the last several years (perhaps ever) at least as far as counting commits go,” Torvalds wrote in the release announcement. “Which was unexpected, because while linux-next was fairly big, it wasn’t exceptionally so.”

• Linux Kernel 3.8 Reaches End of Life (EOL)

  Along with Linux kernel 3.9.2, 3.0.78 LTS and 3.4.45 LTS comes the thirteenth and last maintenance release of Linux kernel 3.8, as announced by Greg Kroah-Hartman on May 11, 2013.

• 30 Linux Kernel Developer Workspaces in 30 Weeks: Greg Kroah-Hartman

  Welcome to 30 Linux Kernel Developer Workspaces in 30 Weeks! This is the first in a 30-week series that takes a new approach to the original series, 30 Linux Kernel Developers in 30 Weeks. This time we take a look inside developers’ workspaces to learn even more about what makes them tick and how to collaborate with some of the top talent in all of software. Each week will share a picture and/or a video of the workspaces that Linux kernel developers use to advance the greatest shared technology resource in history.

• The Iron Penguin, Part 1

• Linux 3.10 Kernel Integrates BCache HDD/SSD Caching

  After being in development for more than one year, BCache was finally merged on Wednesday into the mainline Linux kernel code-base. BCache serves as an SSD caching framework for Linux by offering write-through and write-back caching through a newly-exposed block device.

Applications

• AMSynth: A More Sophisticated DSSI Plugin

  A couple posts ago, I cooed with joy over discovering Seq24. And last post, I pointed out SFXR (now in twilight development status) for producing simple low-fi sound effects. Now here is an app which is pretty capable at most of what SFXR does, and works as a Seq24 plugin as well.

• An Indicator for Cryptkeeper

  I’ve been very busy with life and work in general and I haven’t blogged for a few months now. I finally get the chance to talk about something I worked on in my spare time.

• Instructionals/Technical

  • Setting up a serial console | HowtoForge – Linux Howtos and Tutorials

  • How to install classic gnome desktop in ubuntu 13.04 (Raring Ringtail)

  • How to install Pepper Flash for Chromium Web browser on Ubuntu GNU/Linux

  • Linux / UNIX Clustering (High Availability) Tutorials

  • Linux Command Line Alternatives – Leave The Mouse To Rest!

  • Add disclaimer to outgoing messages in Postfix and Sendmail

  • Tool to write teach plasma the metadata of an wallpaper

  • The Perfect Server – Debian Wheezy (Apache2, BIND, Dovecot, ISPConfig 3)

  • How To Configure Apache To Use Radius For WiKID Two-Factor Authentication On Ubuntu

  • Home, My Backup Data Center

    New Linux users often ask me “what is the best way to learn about Linux?” My advice always comes down to this: install and use Linux (any distribution will do but something stable works better), and play around with it. Inevitably, you will break something, and then instead of re-installing, force yourself to fix what you broke. That’s my advice, because I’ve personally learned more about Linux by fixing my own problems than just about any other way. After years of doing this, you start to build confidence in your Linux troubleshooting skills, so that no matter what problem comes your way, you figure if you work at it long enough, you can solve it.

• Games

  • Ray’s the Dead a new zombie game heading to Linux!

    A story driven, action-stealth-puzzler where you create and control your own zombie army! I fell in love when the developers emailed it in. Linux and Mac releases from day 1 will be a stretch goal, so I dug to find out why!

  • Hairy Tales has been released for Linux

    A couple of months ago we talked about the possibility of a Linux version of Hairy Tales. What yesterday was pure speculation, today it has become a reality! Hairy Tales is now available for Linux at Desura, although currently only as a standalone download.

Desktop Environments/WMs

• K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

  • Notes from Breakout sessions at Mataro Sessions II

  • Mataro Sessions II: the breakouts

  • Upcoming Krita 2.7: Updated Drag & Drop and Clipboard functionality

  • Calligra 2.7 Beta Released

    The Calligra team is proud and pleased to announce the beta release of version 2.7 of the Calligra Suite. This means that the calligra/2.7 branch has been created and from now on Calligra 2.7 will only see bugfixes but no new features. The final release of 2.7 is planned in approximately a month from now..

  • Krita 2.8 (prealpha): New “pseudo-infinite” canvas feature

    Does this sound familiar to you? Does going to the canvas resize dialog break your workflow? Don’t be frustrated anymore! Now you can just scroll down, click and… Presto! Add those happy feet to your drawing!

  • Nepomuk WebMiner 0.6

    A few month have past, this my last WebMiner update. In the meantime I finished my Master Thesis, moved to a new location and started my new job. Perfect time to release a new version with the changes I have made since.

Distributions

• ROSA Desktop Fresh LXDE alpha preview

  ROSA Desktop Fresh LXDE is the end-user edition of ROSA Desktop that uses the Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment. This is not the same as the LXDE edition which was released in June 2012. That one is the enterprise edition, which ships with Debian-style stable Linux kernel and software, and uses the Marathon code name. (See ROSA 2012 LXDE review

• New Releases

  • MEPIS 12 Beta

    A new test release of MEPIS 12, version 11.9.86, is available for testing. It may take up to 24 hours for the ISOs to appear at the mirrors.

  • Antergos 2013.05.12 – We’re back

    After a month since our last release under the name “Cinnarch”, we’re glad to announce the new name of our project and our first release being out of beta. We’re stable enough to make this step.

  • Manjaro 0.8.5.2 Community Releases unleashed (KDE, Cinnamon, Mate)

    We are happy to announce three new Manjaro Community Editions featuring Mate 1.6, Cinnamon 1.7, Gnome 3.8 and KDE 4.10.2. “Community Editions” of Manjaro Linux are released as bonus flavours in addition to those officially supported and maintained by the Manjaro Team, provided that the time and resources necessary are available to do so.

  • OS4 Enterprise 4.1 Released

    Today we are pleased to announce the release of OS4 Enterprise 4.1. With this release we bring many advancements to the worlds premier enterprise Linux platform. We learned a lot from our release of Enterprise 4.0 and this release is based on customer feedback. Starting with the user interface. Many of our Enterprise customers coming from Red Hat and Oracle Linux wanted a consistent user interface that they had become accustomed to with Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Oracle Enterprise Linux and we believe we have achieved that and with some of the flare that OS4 is famous for. They also wanted features on par with what they were accustomed to on their platforms and what we came up with was perhaps the most feature rich enterprise Linux product on the market today.

  • Open source NAC PacketFence 4.0 released

    PacketFence is a fully supported, trusted, free and open source NAC solution.

• Arch Family

  • Cinnarch successor Antergos arrives

    In just a month since the last release of Cinnarch, during which the developers decided to drop Cinnamon for GNOME, they have produced a new release that brings a distribution that is more desktop agnostic than ever before. Cinnarch development was halted after the developers were finding it harder to synchronise the Cinnamon development with the rolling nature of Arch Linux.

• Red Hat Family

  • Ceph improves Red Hat support in new release

    The third stable release of the Ceph distributed storage platform, named the “Cuttlefish” edition, has enhanced Red Hat support and improvements to make it easier to deploy. Ceph, which is developed by Inktank, offers a distributed system that can be presented to users as an object storage system, a block storage system, or as a POSIX compatible filesystem. Ceph 0.61 now has RHEL 6.0 tested packages for Red Hat Enterprise Linux available from the Ceph site and in the EPEL (Extra Packages For Enterprise Linux) repository; the company says it is discussing with Red Hat the possibility of including Ceph in a future RHEL.

• Debian Family

  • A little look at Debian 7.0

    Having a virtual machine with Debian 6 on there, I was interested to hear that Debian 7.0 is out. In another VM, I decided to give it a go. Installing it on there using the Net Install CD image took a little while but proved fairly standard with my choice of the GUI-based option. GNOME was the desktop environment with which I went and all started up without any real fuss after the installation was complete; it even disconnnected the CD image from the VM before rebooting, a common failing in many Linux operating installations that lands into the installation cycle again unless you kill the virtual machine.

  • Debian, the Linux distribution of choice for LEGO designers?

  • Upcoming Features of Debian 8.0

    Now that Debian 7 “Wheezy” has been officially released and it’s ready to be installed on your Linux-powered computers, the developers can concentrate their full resources on the next major release, Debian 8.

  • A proposal for an always-releasable Debian

  • Derivatives

    • SimplyMEPIS 12 Reaches Beta Quality

      Warren Woodford announced this past weekend that development on SimplyMEPIS 12 has reached Beta quality and thus he has released a test image. This release brings some newer elements, but the announcement tells of the kibosh on two of them. With little else to go on, it was time for a boot.

      The graphics of SimplyMEPIS 12 haven’t changed since the alpha released last Fall. Some software version numbers have jumped, but some haven’t. The Beta features Linux 3.8.2, Xorg X Server 1.12.4, GCC 4.7.2, and KDE 4.8.4. GRUB 2 is default, but UEFI and GPT drive support have been “deferred.” Woodford said of that, “Unfortunately each hardware vendor is implementing the “standard” differently.” The MEPIS tools look pretty much unchanged as well.

    • Canonical/Ubuntu

      • Ubuntu Strikes Out on Its Own Again

        “I don’t know what’s wrong with Canonical,” said blogger Robert Pogson. “They seem not to understand that GNU/Linux is a cooperative product of the world, and wasting resources to do things differently when existing software is working well is poisoning the well. FLOSS is the right way to do IT, whether as a developer, a distributor, OEM, retailer or user.”

      • Ubuntu SDK apps to get own package format

        Canonical’s Foundations Team are creating a new application packaging system to sit alongside the existing “apt and dpkg” system that Ubuntu currently uses. The plan was disclosed by Colin Watson, technical lead of the Foundations Team which is responsible for the core of the Ubuntu system, in a mailing list post.

      • Ubuntu Developer Summit: This Week!

        Just a quick note to remind everyone that our next Ubuntu Developer Summit is taking place this week on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and is open and available to everyone to participate. This is the event where we get together to discuss, debate, and plan the next three months of work.

      • On Simplicity

      • Possible Changes In Ubunu 13.10 Saucy Salamander [UDS]

        Ubuntu Developer Summit is a meeting where software developers gather to discuss the next Ubuntu version changes and features.

        The Ubuntu Developer Summit (uds-1305) will start tomorrow, will last for 3 days and some major possible changes will be discussed, like “click packages”, Chromium replacing Firefox as the default web browser, Unity 8 with Mir being available for testing on the desktop and more.

      • Ubuntu – A Replacement for Chrome OS

        n the broadest sense Chrome OS is a consumer of Google Services. But it is not alone in this role. This topic has been broadly discussed in the context of Google services for Apple’s iOS and others. I am thinking of Google Maps and Google Now.

      • Ubuntu.com update

        I’d like to give an update on upcoming plans for Ubuntu.com and to respond to recent concerns about the positioning of the community within the website.

      • Ubuntu to stop Brainstorm

        The Ubuntu Technical Board has decided, at its most recent meeting, to finally abandon the Ubuntu Brainstorm ideas site. The site was created in 2008 to bring together the community and developers on a collaborative crowd-sourced platform where problems could be posed, ideas for solving the problems offered and users could vote on preferred solutions. If solutions were popular they could find themselves implemented by Canonical or Ubuntu teams.

      • Flavours and Variants

        • Mir in Kubuntu

          As you might have seen in Jonathan’s blog post we discussed Mir in Kubuntu at the “Mataro Sessions II”. It’s a topic I would have preferred to not have to discuss at all. But the dynamics in the free software world force us to discuss it and obviously our downstream needs to know why we as an upstream do not consider Mir adoption as a valid option.

        • Ubuntu 11.10, 10.04 Desktop and 8.04 Server reach end of life

Devices/Embedded

• Cheap gigapixel rig made possible by Raspberry Pi, Lego, and open source

• Intel’s Silvermont SoC Goes for the Mobile Gold, but ARMv8 Awaits

  With its new Silvermont architecture, it looks like Intel has finally leaped forward in mobile. But whether it can ward off ARM’S upcoming 64-bit ARMv8 processors is another story.

• Phones

  • New Open Source Phones: Nearly Upon Us

    In a 2010 post here on OStatic, I asked this question: “Is It Too Late for an Open Source Challenge to Android?” Now, of course, we know that there are several open source smartphone strategies in the works that will be coming to fruition this year. Mozilla is moving ever closer to delivering its first phones based on the Firefox OS platform, and urging developers to build apps. Meanwhile, Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth maintains that Ubuntu phones will ship in the coming months, and early reviews of the Ubuntu Touch operating system are already arriving.

  • Ballnux

    • Leaked benchmarks for the Galaxy Tab 3 8.0 released

      It looks like all the rumors are coming together, as benchmarks have been released for an upcoming 8-inch Samsung tablet thanks to the Dutch website TechTastic. Sources at the site say they have discovered the 8-inch tablet in the GLBenchmark database, carrying model number SM-T311 (which we presume is the Galaxy Tab 3 8.0.)

    • Enigmatic LG device spied in wild again

  • Android

    • 5 Linux Projects to Watch on Kickstarter

      Spend five minutes browsing the tech press and there’s a very good chance you’ll come upon Kickstarter. Gone are the days when products had to be at least on the verge of release for them to get publicity; today, anyone with a cool idea can post it on Kickstarter—or one of its many clones–spread the word, and start raking in the cash they need to make it happen.

    • CyanogenMod 10.1 “quickly approaching” with release candidate

      The CyanogenMod developers have published a blog post, indicating that the release of a final version of the Android 4.2 (“Jelly Bean”) based CyanogenMod 10.1.0 is “quickly approaching the point where a ‘final’ build is due.” For this reason, the developers have now released the first release candidate for the upcoming version of their Android-based, community-developed firmware for smartphones and tablets. The team is still in the process of building images for individual devices, but once that process is finished, 40 different devices should be supported.

    • Android tops Q1 2013 ‘smart mobile device’ shipments

      First-quarter 2013 shipments of “smart mobile devices,” including notebooks, tablets, and smartphones, swelled by 37.4 percent year-on-year to 308.7 million units, reports mobile market analyst Canalys. From the operating system perspective, Android grabbed a healthy majority of units shipped, at 59.5 percent.

    • Canalys: Android powers 59 percent of smartphones, tablets and laptops

    • Facebook’s iPhone Culture Builds An Overzealous Home On Android

      Facebook didn’t realize just how important widgets, docks, and app folders were to Android users, and that leaving them out of Home was a huge mistake. That’s because some of the Facebookers who built and tested Home normally carry iPhones, I’ve confirmed. Lack of “droidfooding” has left Facebook scrambling to add these features, whose absence have led Home to just 1 million downloads since launching a month ago.

    • Google Preps Update to Android Gaming: ‘Google Play Games’

      If you’re a Google Gamer – as in, Android gamer – then there’s a bit of good news in store for you. A new leak in advance of next week’s big Google I/O conference has revealed a host of gaming-friendly features set to arrive to the Android platform in the form of a new “Google Play Games” service.

    • Nearly 75% Of All Smartphones Sold In Q1 Were Android, With Samsung At 30%; Mobile Sales Overall Nearly Flat: Gartner

    • Amazon launches Android app store in China

      Reuters reports news this week of Amazon.com launching an Android application store in China offering “paid” and free applications.

      With this move Amazon effectively beats Google (whose store only offers free open source apps) in terms of the amount of digital content it offers to what is indisputably the world’s largest mobile phone market.

    • Sony Xperia A hits the FCC with 5-inch screen and removable battery

    • ASUS ‘We Transform’ Computex teaser leaves us waiting for more teaser videos

      Just like last year, ASUS is filling time before the Computex trade show by posting teaser trailers. Sporting a “We Transform” tag, its first one for 2013 features the spun metal casings, touchscreen laptops, convertibles, tablets and phones we’ve become accustomed to from the company. So what’s next?

    • New project ‘Earl’ promises a rugged Android tablet with solar charging, e-ink

    • Sony Xperia Honami Concept

      Few days ago we heard the rumor about a upcoming Sony flagship device which is known as “Xperia Honami”. There was another rumored model “Xperia Togari” a 6.4″ phablet to come out in the 2nd half of 2013. Sony also introduced a new Series of product lineup named “One Sony” where people can get the best out of Sony’s latest technologies in a single product. The Xperia Honami is expected to follow up the One Sony line.

    • Refreshed Nexus 7 details emerge ahead of Google I/O

    • Android now powers almost 60% of mobile devices – about 3 times the amount of iOS devices

    • Motorola XT1058 ‘XFON’ swings through FCC

    • Sony announces new Xperia ZR, a smaller waterproof cousin of the Xperia Z

    • No Home for Facebook at AT&T: HTC First to be discontinued

      The HTC First, or “Facebook phone” as many prefer to call it, is officially a flop. It certainly wasn’t a good sign when AT&T dropped the price of HTC’s First to $0.99 just one month after its debut, and now BGR has confirmed that HTC and Facebook’s little experiment is nearing its end. BGR has learned from a trusted source that sales of the HTC First have been shockingly bad. So bad, in fact, that AT&T has already decided to discontinue the phone.

    • Archos intros ChefPad, kitchen-based Android tablet

    • New Android Boss Finally Reveals Plans for World’s Most Popular Mobile OS

      WIRED: The Android handover from Andy Rubin to you seemed sudden and mysterious to us on the outside. Was it long in the works?

      PICHAI: I got to know only towards the end of the process of Andy deciding to step back. It played out in a rapid time fashion over the couple weeks prior to the actual announcement. I am passionate about computing and so to me, it was very exciting to be in a position where I could make an impact on that scale.

    • Ouya delays retail launch until June 25th to ensure it can meet demand

    • Ouya Android-based Game Console On Track for June Delivery

    Ouya has revealed it will delay the retail launch of its Android-based gaming console by three weeks until June 25th. In an interview with Ouya CEO Julie Uhrman, Polygon reports that the self-imposed delay is to ensure that the company has enough units to “satisfy all the early orders,” and to make sure there’s enough stock ahead of its public launch. According to Joystiq, Ouya has also listened to early feedback on its controller design, expanding the button holes to ensure that they no longer stick — something we noted in our review of the console.

The International Space Station Goes Linux and RunRev goes open source

Is Open Always Better?

As supporters of open source software, our knee-jerk reaction to the question of if open development always results in better quality code is often an unqualified, “yes, of course!”. However, it may do the community good to take an objective look at the state of some of our projects, and how it reflects on the open source movement as a whole. It has been my experience that sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes, proprietary software is fantastic, and it would do us all a bit of good to ask why.

Open-source RF boards available from Richardson RFPD

The open-source RF design initiative, dubbed Myriad, has the support of US-based distributor Richardson RFPD.

Richardson RFPD will begin stocking and selling the Myriad-RF-1 board to customers around the world via its website immediately.

Open source Java projects: Akka

The actor model is a message-passing paradigm that resolves some of the major challenges of writing concurrent, scalable code for today’s distributed systems. In this installment of Open source Java projects, Steven Haines introduces Akka, a JVM-based toolkit and runtime that implements the actor model. Get started with a simple program that demonstrates how an Akka message passing system is wired together, then build a more complex program that uses concurrent processes to compute prime numbers.

Events

• Upcoming Conferences Bode Well for Open Source Fans

  Details are emerging for some of the most important technology conferences of the next several months, which promise to feature lots of compelling speakers and content for open source fans. The Google I/O conference begins this week in Northern California, and is likely to bring with it lots of news related to Android and Google’s phone and tablet strategies. Meanwhile, The Linux Foundation has announced the keynote speakers for LinuxCon and CloudOpen North America, taking place September 16-18, 2013 at the Hyatt New Orleans in New Orleans, La.

• Gabe Newell and Eben Upton to keynote LinuxCon

  Valve Software boss Gabe Newell and Raspberry Pi Foundation founder Eben Upton have been announced as keynote speakers for the Linux Foundation’s LinuxCon and Cloud Open North America conferences. The two events will take place in New Orleans, Louisiana from 16 to 18 September. Newell and Upton will be joining Jonathan Bryce of the OpenStack Foundation, HP Labs Director Martin Fink, and representatives from Intel and Wired Magazine on stage as keynote speakers. The popular Linux Kernel Panel, which features leading kernel developers and maintainers discussing the future of the open source operating system, will also be back.

Web Browsers

• Chrome

  • Packaged Apps for Chrome Browser Point to Google’s Long-Term App Strategy

    While it hasn’t generated a whole lot of buzz yet, Google has begun to take the wraps off of a strategy that will allow users of the Chrome browser to easily find and run “packaged apps” just like sophisticated web apps that users of Chrome OS are used to running. In an announcement on the Chromium Blog, Google officials unveiled a developer preview of Chrome packaged apps and the Chrome App Launcher. Chrome packaged apps are now available in the Chrome Web Store for anyone on Chrome’s developer channel on Windows or Chrome OS.

  • Google Delivers Tools for Integrating Chrome with iOS Apps

• Mozilla

  • Fourth cycle approaches for Mozilla’s WebFWD open accelerator

    Mozilla’s WebFWD programme is seeking applications for its fourth cycle of classes which are designed to teach new innovators to build healthy businesses by embracing the best of open source and startup principles. By getting entrepreneurs to create businesses what make the Web better and more open, Mozilla hopes to ensure that future businesses on the internet are more effective in enabling an open web.

  • Mozilla Can’t Seem to Keep its Firefox OS Strategy Straight

    As I noted yesterday, Mozilla CEO Gary Kovacs (who will be leaving his CEO post this year) made very clear in comments at the All Things D: Dive Into Mobile conference that Mozilla has very ambitious plans for its new Firefox OS mobile operating system. Specifically, he sees it as an innovation-centric platform. As quoted by ABC News, Kovacs said, “We haven’t done a great job [on mobile browsing]. I’m expecting someone will do an Apple on the whole browsing experience.”

  • Australis launches in Firefox UX versions

    The Firefox Australis theme that is going to be released later this year if things go as planned seems to split the community. Some users are looking forward to a modernized theme while others fear that it will change the browser that they are using in away that it is not as customizable and usable anymore.

  • Mozilla’s Firefox OS will also appear on high-end phones

    The upcoming Firefox OS will appear on higher-end smartphones, and not just entry-level handsets, with Sony expected to release a premium device running the operating system, a Mozilla executive said.

    “Sony is known for quality and user experience. So they are targeting for very very high (end). We are in joint discussions on the kind of device and what’s the product,” said Li Gong, Mozilla’s senior vice president for mobile devices.

  • You should remove everything after the ? when you share a link

SaaS/Big Data

• How Open Source Python Drives the OpenStack Cloud [VIDEO]

  There are a lot of different programming languages in use today. When it comes to the cloud, thanks in part to the strong position of OpenStack, the open source Python language has emerged as being one of the most important. OpenStack is written in Python and is in used by many leading IT vendors including IBM, HP, Dell and Cisco.

• The role of open source in cloud infrastructure

  Today, open source cloud platforms are winning the IaaS battle, open source storage and file systems are expanding their footprint, and open source databases are replacing closed source rivals. Marten Mickos, CEO, Eucalyptus Systems explains why nearly everything is being snatched by open source software

• OpenNebula Releases First Open Source Enterprise Cloud Manager

• OpenNebula 4.0 Released – The Finest Open-source Enterprise Cloud Manager!

  The fourth generation of OpenNebula is the result of seven years of continuous innovation in close collaboration with its users

  The OpenNebula Project is proud to announce the fourth major release of its widely deployed OpenNebula cloud management platform, a fully open-source enterprise-grade solution to build and manage virtualized data centers and enterprise clouds. OpenNebula 4.0 (codename Eagle) brings valuable contributions from many of its thousands of users that include leading research and supercomputing centers like FermiLab, NASA, ESA and SARA; and industry leaders like Blackberry, China Mobile, Dell, Cisco, Akamai and Telefonica O2.

Databases

Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

• LibreOffice 4.0.3 packages ready for download (and a rant)

• LibreOffice 4.0.3 now Gatekeeper compliant

  The Document Foundation has announced the release of LibreOffice 4.0.3, the third maintenance release of the current 4.0 series. The new version brings a number of bug fixes to the open source office suite and the binaries for Mac OS X are now signed by the Foundation and will pass the operating system’s Gatekeeper security system without user intervention.

Business

• Finland: The Commercial Use Of Open Source Software

  Many, if not most businesses use open source software tools and products every day. Some of these tools and products are constructed by their own IT developers while others are purchased from third parties, including a wide range of professionals who construct and sell software after having incorporated open source software. Most of today’s IT professionals are aware of the fact that the use of open source software requires compliance with specific open source license terms, but new challenges have emerged as a result of the development of new versions of the General Public Licenses (GPL) and the combination of GPLs.

• LucidWorks pulls in $10M to turn open source data into ‘business gold’

  ‘Big data’ startup LucidWorks has raised $10 million to help enterprise companies “turn multistructured data into business gold.”

• Semi-Open Source

  • ViPR is “Open, but Not Open Source.” EMC Lays Out Monetization + Migration Strategy #emcworld

  • Open Source is the New Multi-Vendor, Says Jeremy Burton of EMC

  • Asterisk Open Source Developers Can Now Create Custom Apps for Digium IP Phones

  • Asterisk Open Source Developers Can Now Create Custom Apps for Digium IP Phones

Funding

• Former Activision Execs Interested in the Delta Six: An Open Source Gaming Gun On Kickstarter

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

• Study: open source remixing seems to lead to less original work

  What is it that means one open source project takes off, while another doesn’t? There are a lot of ways to analyse this question depending on the example at hand, but a more general study of the “remixability” of online content has found a surprising correlation — there’s a trade-off between originality and the chance it will inspire new versions.

  Researchers Benjamin Mako Hill from MIT and Andrés Monroy-Hernández from the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University wanted to look at a particular dilemma — despite “proponents of remix culture often speaking of remixing in terms of rich ecosystems where creative works are novel and highly generative”, actual examples of it happening “can be difficult to find”, Monroy-Hernández writes on Hill’s blog.

Project Releases

• Graph processing platform Apache Giraph reaches 1.0

  Used by Facebook and Yahoo, the Apache Giraph project for distributed graph processing has released version 1.0. This is the first new version since the project left incubation and became a top-level project in May 2012, though for some reason it has yet to make it to the Apache index of top level projects.

• Blender 2.67 renders cartoons

• OpenStreetMap launches new map editor

  The OpenStreetMap (OSM) project has announced that it will make its new map editor, which it had originally unveiled in February, available to all its contributors today. Development on the new iD editor was partly funded by a grant from the Knight Foundation and unlike the software it replaces, the new editor does not require Flash to run. The tool is written completely in HTML5 and uses the D3 visualisation library.

Public Services/Government

• NSA Asks Open Source Developers to Help Protect Agency Cloud; Keith Alexander Comments

  The National Security Agency has started developing a cloud computing platform intended to help secure the government’s network infrastructure, FedScoop reported Friday.

  David Stegon writes NSA has reached out to the country’s open source community by allowing developers to collaborate in shoring up the cloud infrastructure’s code for the cloud infrastructure.

• State offers online open source data trove (O’Malley style)

  The Maryland state government quietly announced its brand-new online open source data trove last Wednesday.

• Default to open data: an Executive Order

• US president issues open data order

  US president Barack Obama is aiming to breathe new life into US information portal data.gov. Over the last two years, the portal appears to have faltered somewhat. Under an executive order issued by the White House on Thursday, data in new government and public sector IT systems will have to be stored in “open and machine readable” formats. The requirements also apply to data processing facilities which undergo modernisation or renovation, which will also be required to make information available via the US government’s open data portal.

Openness/Sharing

• 
  JQooBe platform helps communities manage communication

• Online house designs could slash costs

  International communal house-building network WikiHouse has come to Christchurch, and could be the solution for homeowners in need of an idea or wanting to kickstart their rebuild themselves.

• Open Worm Wants You to Help Build an Electronic Model of a Living Creature

• Comelec to open source code for review today

  The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has finally agreed to open today the source code of the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines, which it will use for the May 13 elections, for review by political parties and other groups.

• Gittip takes ‘open source’ to new levels, finds limits

  Pittsburgh-based entrepreneur Chad Whitacre is approaching his online cash gift-giving startup with an earnest interpretation of being transparent.

• Open Source Advocate Invited to SEC Credit Ratings Roundtable

  Next Tuesday’s Securities and Exchange Commission Credit Ratings Roundtable will include open source ratings advocate, Marc Joffe. A former Senior Director at Moody’s Analytics, Joffe has been using open source technologies to evaluate sovereign and municipal bond issuers since last year. Recently, Joffe’s group, Public Sector Credit Solutions, developed a credit scoring model for California cities at the request of a unit of the State Treasurer’s Office.

• Range Networks Introduces First U.S. Open-Source Cellular Platform

  Range Networks is releasing a standards-based hardware-software cell network that is open source from end to end using equipment and software made in the United States.

• Open source flight, from the Drone Lab to Twitter: Q&A with Dave Lester

• Open Source Model Assigns Credit Scores to 260 California Cities

  A municipal credit research group has published credit scores for 260 California cities calculated with an open source credit model. The group, Public Sector Credit Solutions (PSCS), developed the model with a grant from the California Debt and Investment Advisory Commission (CDIAC) – a unit of the State Treasurer’s Office (STO). The PSCS research, which has recently been submitted for peer review, does not represent the opinion of CDIAC or STO, nor do the credit scores reflect the views of CDIAC, STO or any other public agency.

• Open Access/Content

  • Open-source books gain traction among University of Maryland professors

  • Open-source textbooks: Is free the future?

  • Aaron Swartz Documents To Be Released After Judge’s Order

  • MIT Can Delete Names on Swartz Suicide Case, Court Rules

    Facing a possible sentence of 30 years if convicted, the 26-year-old hanged himself in his Brooklyn apartment last year. His family blamed the university and U.S. prosecutors for his death and sought to have the documents released without omissions.

  • Aaron Swartz’s Father Calls for U.S. Legal Reforms Ahead of MIT Report

    …law has been twisted by U.S. prosecutors to bully and intimidate security researchers, journalists, and activists…

• Open Hardware

  • Willow Garage Spinoff Is Showing Off Some Very Cool Robots

    Over the past several years, some of the more interesting work in the field of robotics has been driven by open source efforts, and the California-based Willow Garage made some of the biggest contributions of all. It produced a widely used robotics operating system and was the impetus for the formation of the Open Source Robotics Foundation (OSRF).

  • AMD’s open-source servers hit the market

    Server vendors have started shipping servers designed by the chipmaker AMD based on open-source specifications of the Open Compute Project, an open-source hardware-design community Facebook launched about two years ago.

Programming

• Your next language

  One of the commonly asked questions I hear is “I want to get into programming, which language should I learn?” It’s closely followed by “I write in X but I want to do something else… what language should I be looking at?” There used to be some nicely canned answers to these questions over which the merits and demerits could be discussed over coffee or beer but the culture and practice of open source has changed that. Now, I can only give one answer… “all of them”.

• Python-accelerating PyPy 2.0 for x86 released

  The developers of PyPy, an alternative Python 2.x implementation with a just-in-time compiler that’s “almost a drop-in replacement for CPython 2.7″, have announced the release of PyPy 2.0. According to the developers’ benchmarking site PyPy 2.0 is around 5.71 times faster than CPython 2.7.3.

• Why IBM Now Views LLVM As Being Critical Software

  It wasn’t until the middle of 2012 that IBM viewed LLVM as being “critical” to support but since then they have decided to fully support LLVM across all IBM server platforms. Last week in Paris at the European LLVM Meeting, one of their developers talked about the tipping point in supporting LLVM on IBM hardware and their current development status.

• PyPy 2.0 alpha for ARM

Standards/Consortia

• Google almost completes open-source VP9 codec standard

  Google has said this week that it is finishing defining the open-source VP9 video codec standard, with a final date of June 17th.

[Dvorak's tongue in cheek article] Dear Microsoft: Windows 8 Is Great

Your idea that all interfaces should be simple, to-the-point, and touchable is the way to go. To heck with convention! We are all sick of the desktop and the whole idea of a desktop. It’s not a desktop anyway—it’s a screen and there are better things to put on it than folders and icons. These are dumb and they assume we all work in offices. Or worse, it assumes we work at all.

Just look at the old-fashioned interface. Those faux shadows and cutesy icons symbolize what exactly? This is not the interface for today’s modern user. We need representation. Something that reflects the “now.” A symbol of the public—today’s public. Like some bland, square, one-dimensional tiles. Dumbed-down to an extreme. Dopey even. Tiles say it all. And you can poke at them and move them around.

Microsoft, you nailed it!

Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

• Demanding CIA Accountability for Drone Strikes

• Pakistan’s likely PM says CIA drone strikes test sovereignty

  The Pakistani politician poised to become the country’s next prime minister said Monday that Islamabad has “good relations” with the United States, but called the CIA’s drone campaign in the country’s tribal region a challenge to national sovereignty.

  Nawaz Sharif spoke to reporters from his family’s estate outside the eastern city of Lahore on Monday, two days after his Pakistan Muslim League-N party won a resounding victory in national elections.

• US drone strikes: ‘deadly and dirty’ warns new book

  On the agenda were “kill lists” — names of individuals whose perceived threat to America’s security made them targets for assassination by unmanned drone attacks in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia.

  The kill lists, scrutinised personally by Obama at the weekly meetings, were soon expanded to become what US journalist Jeremy Scahill, author of Dirty Wars, calls a form of “pre-crime” justice where individuals are considered fair game if they met certain life patterns of suspected terrorists.

• Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control by Medea Benjamin – review

  Throughout history, some forms of war and weaponry have been viewed with greater horror than others. Even ancient civilisations tried to codify the rules of war – jus in bello. Homer’s Greeks disapproved of archery; real men fought hand-to-hand, not at a distance. Shakespeare’s Henry V roared with anger when, at Agincourt, the French cavalry killed his camp followers. At the beginning of the last century, dum-dum bullets, a British invention, were outlawed following an appeal by Germany. Revulsion against the widespread use of gas in the first world war led in the 1920s to an international convention prohibiting the use of chemical and biological weapons – not that the ban stopped the British using chemicals in Iraq, or the Italians in Ethiopia in the 1930s. A landmine convention was agreed in 1997, though not signed by the US, China or Russia. Today, China, India, and perhaps surprisingly North Korea are among nuclear‑armed states that have pledged no first use, though Nato, Israel and the US have not.

• Bringing drones out of the shadows

  Even ex-Obama administration officials are expressing qualms about targeted killings.

• Will Pakistan finally stand up against illegal US drone attacks?

  The Peshawar high court has delivered a damning verdict on the strikes. Pakistan must now move towards protecting the security of its citizens

• Israel grounds fleet of drones after crash

  Palestinians say Israel uses drones to fire missiles, but Israel has never offered a confirmation.

• Drones come home to roost as Pakistan’s new government flies high

  The strikes, Khan told the Star’s Michelle Shephard, are only “creating anti-Americanism. It is helping the militants to recruit people. Collateral damage means anyone losing a family (member) goes and joins the militants.”

• CIA agent intercepted in Moscow – reports

  An alleged CIA agent has been briefly detained in Moscow for allegedly trying to recruit a Russian intelligence officer, Russian media report.

• Russia: ‘Undercover CIA Agent’ Detained

• Russia ‘detains CIA agent’

• Bungles: CIA messes

  The CIA secretly smuggled millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars in suitcases, backpacks and plastic shopping bags to the office of Afghan President Hamid Karzai over more than a decade, The New York Times revealed. Karzai confirmed the report.

• How Can We Understand Benghazi Without Probing the CIA’s Role?

  After catching up on coverage of the Benghazi attack over the weekend, there’s something that has me very confused: why are so many journalists ignoring the fact that the Americans there were mostly CIA? Here’s how The New York Times began a Benghazi story published online Sunday: “A House committee chairman vowed Sunday to seek additional testimony on the Obama administration’s handling of last year’s deadly attack on the American diplomatic post in Libya.”

• Pakistani court rules CIA drone strikes are illegal

  In the first major Pakistani court ruling on the legality of the CIA’s drone campaign in the country, a Peshawar High Court judge said this morning that strikes are ‘criminal offences’. Chief Justice Dost Muhammad Khan ordered Pakistan’s government to ‘use force if need be’ to end drone attacks in the country’s tribal regions.

• SCHRAM: CIA didn’t get much for big sacks of cash

  America’s long-running courtship of Afghanistan’s mercurial Hamid Karzai got even wackier last week.

  Now, things that used to be top secret — like CIA bags of cash delivered to a government famously rife with corruption — have been featured on screens everywhere. And Washington policy is looking like a comic parody of the way the world really works.

  Scene One: Afghanistan’s president convenes a Saturday news conference and publicly confirms the CIA’s longtime practice of bringing him bags of money. It had been a top secret until The New York Times disclosed it April 28. Karzai explains how and why he has been spending the CIA’s millions, which is as he sees fit, accountable to no one.

Cablegate

• Bitcoins, Wikileaks, 3D printers, PGP and the gov’s battle against information

  The U.S. government has a hard enough time parrying foreign threats like terrorist groups and hostile nations but it’s the unfettered distribution of information in the form of software that could pose the greatest threat of all.

• WikiLeaks: Indira Government charged two American under Official Secret Act

  WikiLeaks reveal that Indira Gandhi Government had charged two Americans under Official Secret Act. The cable says: ” Two Americans await trial in India on charges of spying and are expected to go on trial here within two months in the first case in India of Westerners. Anthony Fletcher and Richard Harcos were arrested on April 26, 1973 in Calcutta. they have been charged under the Indian Official Secret Act.” The cable also reveals that on February 19, the Home Ministry in New Delhi had issued official sanction permitting the Government of West Bengal to try Anthony Fletcher and Richard Harcos under the Official Secret Act. The trial which will be held in Calcutta has not been scheduled. The West Bengal Government has set another hearing in the case for February 27. At a preliminary hearing in Calcutta on February 13, the possibility of bail was discussed, and the decision on bail may be issued on February 27. I have instructed the Consul General in Calcutta to keep you and the Deraprtment of State informed on the progress of this case. I assume your Office will inform Mrs. Fletcher of the forgoing and I am writing separately to her in response to her letter to me of February 12.”

• WikiLeaks Sees Credit Card Donations Return After Court Ruling

  Anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks can again accept credit card donations today after Valitor hf, the Icelandic partner of MasterCard Inc. (MA) and Visa Europe Ltd., began processing payments after losing a court case.

  Valitor was ordered by Iceland’s Supreme Court on April 24 to begin processing WikiLeaks payments within 15 days or face daily fines amounting to 800,000 kronur ($6,800), according to the ruling. The company was sued by WikiLeaks’s payment services provider, Reykjavik, Iceland-based DataCell, which has also lodged complaints against Visa and MasterCard with the European Commission.

Finance

• Obama, Cameron Promote Trade Deal Granting Corporations Political Power

  President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday pledged to pursue a broad trade agreement between the U.S. and European Union, amid growing domestic unrest with the Obama administration’s plans to include new political powers for corporations in the deal.

  Negotiations have not formally begun, but a series of meetings between U.S. and EU officials have established some ground rules and the preliminary scope of the talks. Since tariffs are already low or nonexistent, the agreement will focus on regulatory issues. That emphasis has concerned food safety advocates, environmental activists and public health experts, who fear a deal may roll back important standards.

• Nohmul Pyramid Bulldozed In Belize For Rocks

  A construction company has essentially destroyed one of Belize’s largest Mayan pyramids with backhoes and bulldozers to extract crushed rock for a road-building project, authorities announced on Monday.

  [...]

  “It’s a feeling of incredible disbelief because of the ignorance and the insensitivity … they were using this for road fill,” Awe said. “It’s like being punched in the stomach, it’s just so horrendous.”

• ‘WikiLeaks of financial data’ prompts worldwide hunt for tax evaders

  A cache of data amounting to a whopping 400 gigabytes of information leaked by bank insiders has triggered an offshore tax evasion investigation across the United States, the UK and Australia.

Privacy

• NSA releases guide for internet users

  The National Security Agency ( NSA) has released a guide to ‘help you understand how to use the internet more efficiently’.

  The guide to ‘Internet Research’ is a ‘how-to’ book for its agents looking to get the most out of Google, Yahoo and other web search tools.

• Interesting job moves: From NSA’s ‘tailored access’ office to PACOM intel

  In this case, I don’t know Rear Adm. Metts, but I sure found the move of this information warfare specialist interesting. Maybe the U.S. government is going to respond more actively to the stream of Chinese intrusions into American government and business computers:

• NSA Internet Spying Guide Made Public

  The document, however, was labeled as “unclassified” (but for official use only), so the really juicy secrets and Internet tricks are probably still filed away. There’s also a stamp on the guide that says the opinions in the guide “do not represent the official opinion of [the] NSA.”

• HOWTO search the Web like the NSA

• The NSA’s Weird Internal Guide To Finding Information On The Internet

• The Secret NSA Search Tips That Will Make You a Spy

Intellectual Monopolies

• Copyrights

  • Copyright in France: Wishful Thinking and Real Dangers

    Pierre Lescure has handed in his report [fr] on culture at the digital era to French President François Hollande1. La Quadrature du Net denounces a flawed political process revealing the harmful influence of industrial groups at all levels of policy-making. How will the French government react to Lescure’s proposal to expand the scope of competence of the audiovisual media regulator (CSA) to the Internet? Will it to pursue former President Sarkozy’s anti-sharing policies and even supplement them with new ACTA-like measures encouraging online intermediaries to become private copyright police?

• Distributions
• Devices/Embedded

Why Is The International Space Station Switching From Windows To GNU/Linux?

International Space Station Goes Open Source, Dumps Windows XP for Debian

Keith Chuvala of United Space Alliance, a contractor who handles much of the ISS operations, decided enough is enough after a 2008 security breach; he’s switching the “dozens of laptops” aboard the ISS to Debian 6, a Linux operating system.

Boot up: Google’s card nixed, Samsung’s ITV exclusive, space station Linux and more

ISS using Linux for key functions, humanoid space robot

International Space Station making laptop migration from Windows XP to Debian 6

The International Space Station has decided to switch dozens of laptops running Windows XP over to Debian. What Linux fans have been saying for years—that Linux delivers greater stability and reliability for public and private computing environments—resonated with Keith Chuvala, the United Space Alliance contractor manager involved in the switch. The change at the International Space Station is all about the replacement of dozens of laptops with XP being switched over to Debian 6. Chuvala said, “We needed an operating system that was stable and reliable – one that would give us in-house control. So if we needed to patch, adjust or adapt, we could.”

International Space Station to use Linux on more laptops

Weekend news roundup: 3D gun designs, space station picks Linux over Windows XP

Space Burn! International Space Station Kicks Windows Into Black Hole For Linux

Ever had a virus infect your Windows computer? If you thought that headache and irritation over your home computer was bad, imagine how the astronauts on the International Space Station felt when a Russian cosmonaut brought in an infected laptop in 2008. The computer carried the W32.Gammima.AG worm, an insidious piece of malware that spread like wildfire to the other laptops on board the ISS.

Penguins in spa-a-a-ce! ISS dumps Windows for Linux on laptops

International Space Station incorporating more Linux computers [Updated]

Acer and Windows 8 may be all over the upcoming Star Trek Into Darkness movie, but Linux is actually the go-to platform on the International Space Station these days.

Linux To Become Exclusive OS Of The International Space Station

Laptop computers essential to the day-to-day operations of the International Space Station (ISS) crew will be switching operating systems from Windows XP to Linux, according to published reports.

Anonymous MSFT developer admits Linux is faster than Windows

This shouldn’t come as any great surprise, but Linux is faster than Windows, and at least one anonymous Microsoft developer is willing to admit it and explain why that’s the case.

History of Linux: Time For Open Source Documentary

How did Linux originate, where is it presently and in which directions is it headed for the future? These are the big questions that a longtime Linux user and developer named Brian Thomason seeks to answer in a documentary film, if he can secure enough funding through a crowdsourcing campaign on Kickstarter. Here’s hoping he succeeds.

“I Contribute to the Windows Kernel. We Are Slower Than Other Operating Systems. Here Is Why.”

I was explaining on Hacker News why Windows fell behind Linux in terms of operating system kernel performance and innovation. And out of nowhere an anonymous Microsoft developer who contributes to the Windows NT kernel wrote a fantastic and honest response acknowledging this problem and explaining its cause. His post has been deleted! Why the censorship? I am reposting it here. This is too insightful to be lost.

Desktop

• When The Sun Shines…..

  129 families like Misha Washington are scheduled for Reglue visits this year. I’ve gotten a slow start to 2013 but our goal is to provide 150 Linux-powered computers to these families. As long as I keep feeling as good as I do, I am looking forward to the challenge.

• HP May Recommend That Other OS, but…

  I guess they noticed the slowdown in sales of PCs with a more limited choice. This is HP’s first notebook to be shipped with Ubuntu GNU/Linux. This is part of Canonical’s plan to take over the world.

Kernel Space

• The 3.10 Merge Window Closes

  Linus Torvalds made a Mother’s Day gift to the world in the form of the 3.10-rc1 kernel prepatch. With this release, the merge window for the 3.10 development cycle has closed, so we know which features to expect this time around.

• Feature set of Linux 3.10 defined

  Version 3.10 of the Linux kernel will include the bcache block layer cache that allows SSD cards to be used for caching significantly slower but higher capacity hard disks. Developed by a Google employee and used at Google, bcache is the second such feature to be integrated into the Linux kernel; the first one was dm-cache, which the Linux kernel has offered since version 3.9 was released two weeks ago.

• Linux 3-10-rc1

• Download Linux Kernel 3.10 Release Candidate 1

• Linux Kernel 3.9 – The Kernel Column with Jon Masters

  Linus Torvalds has announced the first several 3.9 kernel release candidates, following the closing of the 3.9 ‘merge window’ (period of time during which disruptive changes to the kernel and new features are merged). Merge windows are typically up to two weeks in duration (and seldom longer), though Linus has gone to great pains over the past few years to push developers not to post patches for inclusion at the very end of the window. Features merged into the kernel should instead have received heavy testing in the linux-next kernel and elsewhere, be largely complete, and posted for inclusion as early as possible during the two-week window of frantic development for a given release cycle. This is the theory, at any rate.

Applications

• Instructionals/Technical

  • How to install Steam client in Ubuntu 13.04 – Tutorial

  • kenny: Create Application Launcher Scripts in Ubuntu

  • Mount Android 4.0 with gvfs on Ubuntu

  • How to Format a USB in Ubuntu 11.10

  • Visualize log files using gltail on CentOS RHEL Fedora Debian Ubuntu

  • Unix tip: Using Bash’s regular expressions

  • Using NX to Run GUI Applications From a Linux Server

  • Generating Secure Passwords for your Linux Server

  • Change your Grub options with Grub Customizer

  • When was that? Examining syslog timestamps

  • Using Autokey Scripts to Automate Your Linux Desktop

  • Monitoring Users Activity Using psacct or acct Tools in Linux

  • Run Your Own Social Network Using elgg on RHEL / CentOS and Scientific Linux

  • The Perfect Server – Debian Wheezy (nginx, BIND, Dovecot, ISPConfig 3)

  • Emulate a Bluetooth keyboard with the Raspberry Pi

• Wine or Emulation

• Games

  • 
    Half-Life 2 is now playable on Linux and gets official Oculus Rift support

  • Steam on Linux: everything you need to know

    The lack of quality mass-appeal games on Linux is the critics’ favourite excuse for dismissing Linux as a serious desktop operating system. We are glad to report that developments in the last few months will rob the peanut gallery of this reason for looking past Linux.

  • Half Life 2 Now Available For Linux

  • Half-Life 2 Games Released For Linux On Steam

    In Valve’s continued Linux conquest, their latest titles they have ported natively to the penguin platform is Half-Life 2 and many of the add-ons.

  • Left 4 Dead 2 and Half Life 2 hit Linux.

  • Gaming with Linux: Growing the game and app market

    Linux is becoming more user friendly and mainstream with every passing year and with the passing of the Beta test for Steam you will have noticed a marked increase of games on offer. Many users are wondering if they still need to rely on Windows to use their PC as a gaming platform or if they can switch to Linux and give Microsoft the boot. This switch does depend somewhat on PC hardware, but generally Linux has proved itself to be a robust and reliable gaming platform that has been growing quietly for several years.

  • 24 Peachy Free Linux Games (Part 1 of 4)

    Linux has finally come of age and is now a legitimate gaming platform. The release of quality commercial titles such as Left 4 Dead 2, Portal, and Day of Defeat bring real credibility to Linux as a first-class gaming platform. The bid to lure gamers away from Microsoft’s platform has also been strengthened, in part, due to the official launch of Steam for the Linux operating system back on February 14. The fact that the Steam entertainment platform is available for Linux is testament to the demand for open systems from gamers and game developers. At the time of writing, the Steam Store lists 113 Linux gaming titles, with all but two requiring payment to download. A small selection compared with Windows, but still there are are some truly fantastic Linux games to purchase on Steam. Prices are quite reasonable, with the majority of the Linux games on Steam costing under 10 pounds.

  • Zigfrak a shoot and loot space RPG!

    When the Xenoid threat was discovered, human society was thrust into an era of martial law. Security became top priority, at the cost of individual liberty.

    In the face of this growing oppression, many left their homeworlds in search of freedom. The Freerunners fled, to explore and settle the new frontier planets.

  • RIOT – A riot simulator game coming soon to Linux!

    As the economical crisis advances, the discontent of an entire population cannot help but outburst in Riots, where the sounds of many voices get heard at once. The Director Leonard Menchiari has been experiencing this form of protest in person, and the game “Riot” was born as a way to express it and to tell the stories of these fights. What is that triggers such a strife? What does a cop feel during the conflict? In “Riot”, the player will experience both sides of a fight in which there is no such thing as “victory” or “defeat”.

Desktop Environments/WMs

• K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

  • KDE Manifesto: On The Doorstep

    We’re really on the doorstep, this document is more or less our late constitution, it’s up to the community to choose the path from here. We’re really on the doorstep, this document is more or less our late constitution, it’s up to the community to choose the path from here.

• GNOME Desktop/GTK

  • To Gnome or not Gnome

Distributions

• First impressions of Calculate Linux 13.4

• New Releases

  • GNU Guix 0.2 released

    The second alpha release of GNU Guix is available. It comes with a number of new features, notably…

  • Release 1.0.2 out now

  • Finnix 108 Distro Fixes CD Tray Ejection Bug

    Finnix, a self-contained, bootable Linux CD distribution (“LiveCD”) for system administrators, based on Debian, is now at version 108.

  • Clonezilla 2.1.2-2

  • PacketFence v4.0 Released

  • GParted 0.16.1-2

  • Zentyal 3.1

  • Tiny Core 4.7.7

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  • SystemRescueCd 3.6.0

• Gentoo Family

  • Top 5 Benefits of Using Gentoo

• Red Hat Family

  • Red Hat Takes Over #155 Spot From Stanley Black & Decker

    In a study of analyst recommendations at the major brokerages, for the underlying components of the S&P 500, Red Hat Inc (NYSE: RHT) has taken over the #155 spot from Stanley Black & Decker, Inc. (NYSE: SWK), according to ETF Channel.

• Debian Family

  • Google’s Cloud Drops Custom Linux For Debian

    Google has been using its own custom version of Linux, Google Compute Engine Linux, as it loads its customers’ applications into its infrastructure as a service. It announced Thursday that it’s dropping that approach in favor of using the Debian Linux distribution.

    Debian Linux is the output of the Debian open source code project. All Linuxes use a kernel produced by the Linux kernel development process, led by Linus Torvalds. But Linux distributors surround the kernel with features that may match other Linux distributions or may differentiate that particular distribution. For example, Ubuntu was an early cloud supporter when it included Eucalyptus modules; then it switched to OpenStack as its primary cloud offering.

  • New Ubuntu for Phones Will Be Usable at the End of May

  • Ubuntu 13.04: What’s New In Raring Ringtail? [Linux]

    On April 25th, the newest version of one of the most popular Linux distributions was released — Ubuntu 13.04, codenamed “Raring Ringtail”. Every new release of Ubuntu warrants the question of what’s new and whether people should try it out or upgrade from an older release.

  • Canonical Promotes Ceph Big Data Storage System…For Red Hat?

    Here’s an interesting bit of under-the-radar news from the channel: Canonical, on its official blog, is promoting the latest release of the Ceph distributed storage system, titled Cuttlefish. Why is that noteworthy? Because the post doesn’t mention Canonical’s Linux distribution (Ubuntu) at all, and instead focuses in large part on what Ceph is doing for Red Hat. Is Ceph that important to the open-source and Big Data ecosystems that it can bring competitors so selflessly together like this?

  • A proposal for an always-releasable Debian

  • Protect Yourself Online With Tor, TAILS, and Debian

    ur privacy and rights to our own data mean nothing on the Internet as businesses and governments freely capture, mine, and sell as much personal information on Web users as they can possibly grab. There is no oversight or accountability, and we have little say. Sure, there are always people who shrug and say “I have nothing to hide and I don’t care.” Fine for them, but not fine for Web users who do care about this. I daresay they would care if the consequences were as immediate as multitudes of strangers entering their homes and snooping into all of their stuff, but it’s abstract and the consequences are not as obvious as physical trespass.

  • Debian GNU/Linux Now Celebrated

    I recommend Debian Wheezy to anyone. I have been using it for a couple of years before release. In the last year it has become very solid with very few bugs affecting operations on several computers. For greater assurance during installation, you can use the unofficial multi-arch cd-image with firmware blobs for some drivers.

  • Dovecot fails during Wheezy upgrade

    A stable release from the Debian GNU/Linux project is normally just that – rock-solid stable.

    There may be a few minor issues here and there, but my experience, in nearly 13 years of use of the i386 port, seven years of use of the amd64 port and about four years of use of the mips port, has been very good, with just one breakage, of the package CUPS, on my workstation.

  • Debian “Squeeze” Users Take Heed

    Thanks to my friend Charles C. for this timely warning. Now that Debian 7 “Wheezy” is the official “stable” release, users of Debian 6 “Squeeze” may mangle their systems if they attempt to use the package manager to install software.

    The reason for this is that the package manager maintains a list of “sources” — places where it will look for software packages — and your list of sources might specify using the “stable” distribution rather than a specific distribution. That list is located in the file /etc/apt/sources.list; here, for example, is the first source in my file:

  • Time to Bite the Bullet

  • Debian Project News – May 13th, 2013

  • Derivatives

    • Canonical/Ubuntu

      • Ubuntu’s Mir Moves Ahead With Unity 8 Interface

        Canonical’s Kevin Gunn has issued a status update on new achievements for the Mir Display Server as well as for the next-generation “Unity 8″ user-interface.

      • Ubuntu 13.04: What’s New In Raring Ringtail? [Linux]

        On April 25th, the newest version of one of the most popular Linux distributions was released — Ubuntu 13.04, codenamed “Raring Ringtail”. Every new release of Ubuntu warrants the question of what’s new and whether people should try it out or upgrade from an older release.

        Unlike previous releases of Ubuntu, 13.04 doesn’t bring extraordinary new visual features which may make some people even more skeptical about this release than others. So what exactly is new, and should you really upgrade?

      • Ubuntu Touch team hopes to have mostly-working smartphones by end of May

        Canonical has been offering pre-release builds of Ubuntu Touch for smartphones and tablets for a few months. But these early builds are pretty rough around the edges. Not only are there very few third party apps that can run on Ubuntu Touch at the moment, but the software isn’t really stable enough to run on a smartphone you plan to use every day as… well, a smartphone.

      • Ubuntu Touch stable builds coming by the end of May

        Ubuntu Touch on Android has been a slow but steady mystery. Canonical currently offers plenty of pre-release beta or even alpha builds of their software for Android devices like the Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 7, and others. However, today Canonical’s own Rick Spencer promises to have stable “daily-driver” builds of Ubuntu Touch for smartphones by the end of the month.

      • Ubuntu Touch will be stable by the end of May

      • An almost fully functional Ubuntu Touch build may be ready by the end of May

      • Ubuntu-powered smartphone due out late May

        With Mozilla preparing to build Firefox OS smartphones with its partners, another company that started making waves with desktop machines is also venturing into the mobile world.

      • Exploring Ubuntu Touch, the other Linux OS for your phone

        The chances are good that if you’re buying a smartphone or tablet in 2013, you’re buying something with iOS or Android on it. The two operating systems loom so large over their competitors that even the entrenched, deep-pocketed Microsoft has had trouble making headway into this market with its Windows Phone, Windows 8, and Windows RT systems.

      • Mir & Unity8 UI weekly May 10, 2013

      • Flavours and Variants

        • How Mighty Mint became one of the most popular Linux distros

          What makes Linux Mint so awesome? That, in itself, is quite a question. After all, why do we use Linux? It’s one of those questions that can only be answered from the point of view of an individual’s personal approach to their experiences with the operating system itself.

          For many, Linux Mint is the last bastion of non-commercialised Linux; an environment whereby they can still enjoy the pleasures of the desktop, without having to follow the trend of living in a tabletised world.

        • What’s new in Xubuntu 13.04

          Last year I’ve bought a new desktop computer and on this one I’ve moved from Ubuntu to Mint as “Home distribution”, but I still have as backup PC an old laptop with Ubuntu, and some days ago I’ve updated it from Xubuntu 12.10 to 13.04, these are my observations about this new release of Ubuntu.

        • Home » blogs » Scott Dowdle’s blog

          Distrowatch had a blurb today about how Canonical has publicly stated that they are in the process of creating a new, more portable packaging format for per-user installable apps.

Devices/Embedded

• Tiny module snaps quad-core Qualcomm into devices

  Inforce Computing has spun a Qseven computer-on-module (COM) featuring Qualcomm’s quad-core, 1.7GHz Snapdragon S4 Pro APQ8064 system-on-chip (SOC). The $199 Linux- and Android-ready IFC6400 COM comes with 2GB RAM, 8GB flash, GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, and a MIPI-CSI camera input, and is available with an optional Mini-ITX baseboard.

• Phones

  • Ballnux

    • Pictures of Samsung Galaxy S4 mini leak

      With the Samsung Galaxy S4 mini now expected to be introduced at the end of this month, some new pictures of the byte-sized version of Samsung’s flagship Android phone have leaked. The latest speculation is that the mini will be announced alongside the rugged Samsung Galaxy S4 Active, and the camera-centric Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom.

  • Android

    • Rumoured Motorola XFON at FCC

      Rumours about the mysterious Motorola XFON has been doing rounds since a long time, but now evidences of its existence is showing up. The documents at FCC website show a new Motorola Device which has similarities in design with the previous leaked images of the XFON.

    • Sony waives off $99 PlayStation Mobile license fee

      his is not only limited to the Android PlayStation brand but also PS Vita. We hope that this deal is successful and Sony decides to permanently waive the license fee.

    • Sony Xperia ZR With Underwater Photography

      Sony launched a smaller sibling to its Xperia Z family today, the Xperia ZR. The 4.55 inch phone packs similar specs to the flagship Xperia Z and even has waterproof capabilities. In fact the Xperia ZR has better IP rating of IP58 compared to Xperia Z’s IP55 making it ideal for underwater HD video recording.

    • White Nexus 4 Sighted Before Google I/O 13

      There’s a ray of hope for people who think that Nexus 4 lacks colour options and just plain black isn’t your thing. A white Nexus 4 has been spotted in Philippines. The owner s Google+ user Ervin Sue who claims to have got it from “a local buy and sell site”.

    • What Are The Major Changes That Android Made To The Linux Kernel?

      The interesting thing about Android’s design is how little we modified the kernel. Most embedded systems on which I have worked have made drastic changes to the kernel, only to leave user-space alone — for example, a heavily-modified “realtime” kernel but X11 for a GUI.

    • Android is crushing Apple and Microsoft in the mobile device market

      In five and a half years, Android has come from nowhere to crush Apple and Microsoft in the mobile device market. How long until PC OEMs decide to take a gamble on the winning mobile OS and load Android onto PCs?

    • Smart mobile device shipments exceed 300 million in Q1 2013

      Android powers 59% of smart phones, tablets and notebooks

    • Ouya Android game console gets VC-funded, torn down

    • Notion Ink Adam 2 Revealed: Meager Specs And One Interesting Quirk

      Unveiled in December of 2010, Notion Ink’s original Adam was intended to be an innovative, disruptive Android tablet that could compete with the iPad. Its primary selling point – besides a relatively high-end (at the time) dual-core Tegra 250 processor and 1GB of RAM – was a UI overlay known as Eden, which promised to make underlying the Android 2.2 more tablet-friendly. Launched to much fanfare in January 2011, the Adam never quite caught on the way Notion Ink had hoped; shipping delays, software issues, and poor build quality led the company to sell fewer units than anticipated. Two years and several versions of Android later, Notion Ink’s ready to give it another go with the Adam 2.

OSI Board Meeting Report

The new OSI Board met in Washington DC last week. We held an effective face-to-face meeting where we discussed the progress of our plans to transform OSI into a member-based organisation. We held officer elections, once again electing Martin Michlmayr as Secretary, filling the vacancy for CFO left by Alolita Sharma by electing Karl Fogel and replacing him as Assistant Treasurer by electing Mike Milinkovich. I was re-elected as President and thank the Board for that vote of confidence in this time of change.

A Disturbance In The FLOSS In Canada, May 2013

What do I make of this? For such large swings it can only mean some large organization was tweaking their operating systems. It looks to me that a bunch of GNU/Linux and “8″ systems were acquired and some “7″ systems were retired or replaced with XP… The bottom line is that in one month that other OS lost a couple of percents and GNU/Linux doubled to ~2.8%.

Scratching an Itch

Motivation and Reward

A few months ago, the GNU project had to withdraw its article on motivation and monetary reward, because its author did not allow them to spread it anymore. So I recreated the core of its message – with references to solid research.

SDN: Cash Contest Promotes Open-Source High-Speed Networking

What happens when next-generation networking, cash prizes and the open-source ethos converge? Answer: The Innovative Application Awards program, which is now accepting proposals from developers seeking to build open-source software that takes advantage of OpenFlow and Software Defined Networking (SDN) features. And there’s big cash behind this endeavor to encourage investment in big-bandwidth networks, with winning proposals receiving up to $10,000 in funding.

Events

• Impressions from the Open Source Business Conference 2013

  At the Open Source Business Conference 2013, conversations on innovation, disruption, and open source leadership dominated the sessions. The conference chair, Matt Assay, crafted a program where each presentation and conversation reinforced how traditional business strategies are being disrupted by new market dynamics. The dynamics are shifting power away from closed, proprietary corporate leadership towards open collaboration and user-led innovation. The shift is disrupting traditional business strategies, IT operation practices, and market dominance.

Web Browsers

• Mozilla

  • Personalization with Respect

    Mozilla’s mission compels us to provide people with an Internet experience that puts them in control of their online lives and that treats them with respect. Respecting someone includes respecting their privacy. We aspire to a “no surprises” principle: the idea that when information is gathered about a person, it is done with their knowledge and is used in ways that benefit that person. People should be made aware of how information is collected and used. Each individual should also be able to decide whether the exchange of personal data for the services received in return feels fair. This can be challenging to achieve, especially when balanced against convenience and ease of use: people expect a fast, streamlined user experience without excessive prompts and confusing choices. But we are always striving toward this ideal.

  • Firefox 21.0: Find out what is new

    Mozilla will release Firefox 21.0 on May 14, 2013 and shortly thereafter update the Beta, Aurora and Nightly channels of the browser to Firefox 22.0, 23.0 and 24.0 respectively.

    The updates will be transferred to Mozilla’s ftp server first before they will be announced on the official website. If you have configured automatic updates, you should not have to worry about that though as your browser will get updated automatically when you start it after the update becomes available.

Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

• The Power of Brand and the Power of Product, Part 1

  “Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful” said G. E.P. Box of Box-Jenkins fame. Today we’re going to look at a model of market share, and I hope it is a useful model. One nice property of it is that it is very easy to estimate the parameters of this model. A single survey question will do.

• Results of Apache OpenOffice 4.0 Logo Survey

  A quick update on our recent logo survey for Apache OpenOffice 4.0. We called on community members to submit proposals for a new project logo. The response was huge. We received over 40 logo proposals. To narrow down the choices we sought out feedback from users. We created a survey asking users to rate each logo on a 5-point scale, from Strongly Dislike to Strongly Like, as well as give an optional comment on each logo. The survey ran for one week and 5028 responses were received. Full details of the results can be found in the Apache OpenOffice Logo Survey Report. In this blog post we want to highlight some of the highest scoring logos, recognize the designers, and talk about next steps.

• Apache OpenOffice: Help pick a new logo

  The release of Apache OpenOffice 4 will not happen tomorrow, but it is getting close. How close? Well, let’s just say it will happen soon. In months time, not weeks.

  To usher in what will be a milestone release for the Free Software Office suite, The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) wanted a new logo to replace the old OpenOffice logo, and requested design submissions from the community. There were 40 entries.

Openness/Sharing

• Open Data

  • Open data: Meaningful, visual information

    One of the keys to a successful open data portal is to make it useful for the end user. Citizens and developers should be able to understand data sets without needing a PhD. I’ve been following the progress of Raleigh, North Carolina’s open data initiative, which launched a beta of their data.raleighnc.gov portal in March 2013.

Backlash begins against Adobe’s subscription-only plan

Time to Abolish the BBC

I increasingly find myself advocating political opinions I would have found anathema five years ago. I am forced to the opinion that now it is time to abolish the licence fee and end all public funding to the BBC. We should not be blinded by nostalgia; the BBC has no claim to impartiality or “public service ethic.” Nor, for the most part, to quality. Talent shows, reality TV and endless cooking and property auction programmes are not something everybody should be obliged to pay for, on penalty of not owning a television.

What if people told European history like they told Native American history?

Why do you include those “pre-contact” European things? Because they explain the motivations and reasons for what Europeans did. But people largely imagine North America as this timeless place and don’t recognize that pre-contact American history had just as much of an affect on post-contact history because it provides explanations of the motivations and reasonings behind indigenous peoples’ actions.

Security

• Google to make 2-step verification mandatory, phones to replace passwords

  The rise of mobile devices and persistent connectivity, as well as apps and cloud services, has put us all at potential risk when it comes to online security. Simply put, it’s no longer as basic as using strong passwords and strong encryption on websites and services. According to a recent effort by Google in making its systems more secure, the company is looking into implementing smartphone tagging, life-long tokens, and requiring two-step verification on its services.

Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

• FBI surrounds house of Saudi student following sightings of him with pressure cooker pot, only to find he was cooking rice

  Student living in US questioned him about pressure cooker suspected to be bomb

  Used to make traditional Saudi dish and taken the pressure cooker to other Saudi friend near his house

  FBI vigilant after Boston Bombers used pressure cooker to make explosive

Cablegate

• Iceland Supreme Court upholds Wikileaks win, orders Visa to process donations or face fines again

  Last July, an Iceland court ordered Valitor — formerly Visa Iceland — to reinstate donations to WikiLeaks’ payment processor DataCell or face a 800,000 ISK (about $6,830) per day. Today, the Supreme Court of Iceland has upheld that decision, and that fine, following Valitor’s appeal.

Environment/Energy/Wildlife

• Plantwatch: Under attack – the wild British daffodil

  Spring went off with a bang in last weekend’s sunshine as blossom, flowers and new leaves burst out, although everything was about a month behind normal. But now even bluebells began to open this week over much of southern England, spurred on by the warm weather.

Finance

• Wall Street is back

  American investment banks dominate global finance once more. That’s not necessarily good for America

• Ahead of I/O, Google Wallet Drops Plans to Introduce a Physical Card

  Google will update its Wallet product at its I/O developer conference next week, but will not include the physical credit card that the company had considered launching at the event, according to sources.

• 27% of Spaniards are out of work. Yet in one town everyone has a job

  As Spanish unemployment reaches another record high, the residents of rural Marinaleda could be forgiven for feeling a little smug.

  In the small village in deepest Andalusia, the joblessness remains firmly – and almost certainly uniquely within Spain – at zero. With one set of traffic lights, two bars (one jammed with football paraphernalia for the First Division side Seville) and one central avenue lined with of low terraced houses, Marinaleda looks like many villages in western Andalusia.

  But huge wall murals depicting the destruction of tanks and weaponry, the binning of Nazi symbols, and a column of workers marching through the fields, are far from the usual graffiti found in such places. Nor do many villages name their sports hall after Che Guevara, or have oversized placards of doves of peace dotted on streets named after left-wing heroes such as Salvador Allende and Pablo Neruda.

• Ex-Senator Gregg Said to be Top Candidate to Lead Bank Lobby

  Former Senator Judd Gregg is a leading candidate to run Wall Street’s biggest lobbying group, according to people briefed on the discussions.

  Gregg, 66, a New Hampshire Republican who retired from the Senate last year, is being considered for the post as president and chief executive officer of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, said four people who spoke on condition of anonymity because the matter isn’t public.

  [...]

  Gregg has served as an adviser to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. since retiring from the Senate after serving since January 1993.

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

• Billionaires Un-Friending Zuckerberg’s Political Group FWD.us

• Ghost in the Machine: Pete Peterson Haunts College Campuses

  An odd couple made an appearance on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus recently: Tea Party Senator Ron Johnson and Madison’s progressive Congressman Mark Pocan. The two were invited to participate in a conversation about the national debt hosted by a local student organization and a bevy of national groups, including the Comeback America Initiative, the Concord Coalition, the Can Kicks Back, and the Campaign to Fix the Debt. On the agenda: debt, deficits, and the economy.

Censorship

• Margaret Atwood on the ‘muzzling’ of Federal scientists.

  Margaret Atwood participated in the “Get up! Stand up!” event last weekend in Toronto. It was presented by CBC Books and Random House and the host was our own, Carol Off.

Privacy

• EE selling your data to pollsters and police

  The Sunday Times has published an explosive piece about an exclusive deal for the sale of customer data between mobile operator Everything Everywhere and polling organisation Ipsos Mori, who in turn have tried to sell the data to the Met Police.

• EE and sale of user data: does Anonymisation work?

  This afternoon, EE called ORG to ask us about our blog. They did not question the article, but confirmed that it is their belief that IPSOS MORI employees misrepresented what the data they are offering can do.

Civil Rights

• Justice Department Complies With FOIA By Releasing Completely Redacted Document

  Yes, the Department of Justice complied with the letter of the law and responded to a Freedom of Information Act request from the ACLU seeking insight into the Obama Administration’s policy on intercepting text messages from cell phones.

• The Hoopla around Boston makes us forget the possible End of the Species

  The imperial system lives by searching for scapegoats (previously, there were the communists, then the subversives, and now the terrorists, the immigrants… who will be next?) on whom the desire for collective vengeance falls. That way, the system divests itself of guilt or error. But, above all, it does everything possible so that this lethal threat to the human species is not acknowledged, and transformed into a dangerous collective consciousness.

• America Keeps Honoring One of Its Worst Mass Murderers: Henry Kissinger

  Henry Kissinger’s quote recently released by Wikileaks,” the illegal we do immediately; the unconstitutional takes a little longer”, likely brought a smile to his legions of elite media, government, corporate and high society admirers. Oh that Henry! That rapier wit! That trademark insouciance! That naughtiness! It is unlikely, however, that the descendants of his more than 6 million victims in Indochina, and Americans of conscience appalled by his murder of non-Americans, will share in the amusement. For his illegal and unconstitutional actions had real-world consequences: the ruined lives of millions of Indochinese innocents in a new form of secret, automated, amoral U.S. Executive warfare which haunts the world until today.

DRM

• W3C presses ahead with DRM interface in HTML5

  W3C logo On Friday, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) published the first public draft of Encrypted Media Extensions (EME). EME enables content providers to integrate digital rights management (DRM) interfaces into HTML5-based media players. Encrypted Media Extensions is being developed jointly by Google, Microsoft and online streaming-service Netflix. No actual encryption algorithm is part of the draft; that element is designed to be contained in a CDM (Content Decryption Module) that works with EME to decode the content. CDMs may be plugins or built into browsers.