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07.16.13

Links 16/7/2013: Linux 3.11 Name, Another NSA Scandal

Posted in News Roundup at 12:08 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • The future of Linux: Evolving everywhere

    Cemented as a cornerstone of IT, the open source OS presses on in the face of challenges to its ethos and technical prowess

  • Linux-powered pen that won’t let you make errors

    WASHINGTON: German inventors have developed a new pen that gently vibrates every time it senses a spelling mistake or sloppy handwriting.

    Lernstift is a regular pen with real ink but inside it, is a special motion sensor and a small battery-powered Linux computer with a Wi-Fi chip.

  • Linux Powered Pen That Never Let You Make Mistakes

    Lernstift is a regular pen with real ink, but inside it is a special motion sensor and a small battery-powered Linux computer with a Wi-Fi chip.

  • Why Linux is the powerhouse for big data

    This is a contributed posting for the Computer Weekly Open Source Insider blog by Peter Linnell, Linux Engineer at SUSE.

    As the hype and competition for big data analysis continues to grow, today’s data scientist has a vast array of tools and technologies at their disposal.

  • Desktop

    • Google Chromebooks: A Bright Spot in the Lackluster Portable PC Market

      So far this year, market research news has been beyond dreary for PCs and PC equipment makers. But, as sales of PCs slip, sales of new-generation devices, including tablets, are on the rise. And, among PC alternatives, it turns out that Chromebooks running Google’s Chrome OS platform, are bucking the downward trend.

  • Kernel Space

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

    • The state of FOSS Desktop Environments and Window Managers. Pt 3

      In part 1, I had a look at the GTK based options out there, In part 2, the Qt based Desktop Environments.

      I do have an addition for the Qt environments, even though I haven’t had a look yet, it is certainly intriguing. The team behind LXDE is currently in development of a Qt version of their Environment. I haven’t seen anything other than some screen shots, but it may be worth looking at, it is currently in a “Beta” state, and likely not ready for everyday use, but it’s something to keep an eye on.

    • 2013 Akademy Award for Timothée Giet!

      Timothée Giet has received the 2013 Jury’s Akademy Award for “Shaping the future and community of Krita”. The other Akademy award recipients were Eike Hein for Best Application with Konversatiion, Vishesh Handa for Nepomuk and Kenny Duffus for all his work on Akademy.

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

      • KDE Manifesto: There and Back Again

        In the previous posts of this series, we looked at the history of our community and the reasons which pushed us toward answering “What is a KDE Project?”. We also discussed which process we followed which ultimately gave birth to more than a definition in the form of the KDE Manifesto.

      • Akademy 2013 Day Two
      • Akademy 2013 Is Underway In Bilbao Spain

        On the eve of the event inauguration, KDE e.V Annual General Meeting was held followed by a party at Hika Ateno in Caco Viejo which gave the attendees opportunity to meet fellow contributors face to face who they know since a long time only through IRC or email.

      • Spooning, not forking

        While other Free software projects drift apart, splitting up in multiple forks that stop talking to each other, differentiate based on the wrong reasons, what we see here during Akademy is projects growing closer to each other. This is a good development, so let’s look at it a bit more detailed.

      • Akademy 2013 Is Underway In Bilbao Spain

        On the eve of the event inauguration, KDE e.V Annual General Meeting was held followed by a party at Hika Ateno in Caco Viejo which gave the attendees opportunity to meet fellow contributors face to face who they know since a long time only through IRC or email.

      • String concatenation in Qt5/KF5
      • ownNews Small Update

        Last time i showed off the ownCloud-News client i’d written for Blackberry 10 using QML/cascades. After i did that, the API for the news client changed in the development version, meaning that if I released it, it wouldnt work once people upgrade to the latest version.

      • GSoC: Week 5
      • Akademy 2013 Day 2 in Photos
      • Generosity, Family

        After trying to connect to Mohammed Nafees, our GCi student winner from India, I finally was able to talk with him this afternoon. I was asking about his experience with KDE, and if he had gotten the help and support he needed. The enthusiasm of his reply was a bit surprising. He said he had chosen KDE because it is more than a community. When he couldn’t think of the word he wanted to use to finish his sentence, I said that to me, KDE is family. He said, “YES! KDE is family.”

    • GNOME Desktop/GTK

      • What’s up with the scrollbar?

        First, it was Ubuntu which innovated in the scrollbars creating a nice overlay, but making them unusable for those like me using a track pointer or a mouse without wheel.

        Now, with GTK-3.0, the scrollbars have also changed their default behavior and when clicking above or below, the scrollbar moves immediately to that position.

      • Install GNOME Shell Themes in less than 2″ -Live Demo

        For whoever doesn’t know it yet, this is a service that let you installing GNOME Themes (GTK, Shell, Icons, Cursors, Fonts, Wallpapers?) directly from your web-browser with a single click, similar to extensions.gnome.org page.

        I wasn’t going to post on this and I uploaded it just to test it ourselves. But I did because this thing is surprising fast and it is worth to see it! First time I tried it my self (in a production server) few minutes ago, and it takes less than 2sec [1] to install a Theme!

      • 3 New features for Nautilus 3.10 that promise a better File Manager!

        A File Manager is just a File Manager and nothing more. File Manager duties and responsibilities are well defined and almost unchanged (with the exception of Online Storage) through the last 30 years. Therefore when you are trying a File Manager, you don’t really examine what it does, but how good does it.

      • Clutter 1.15.2 Improves the Wayland Backend

        The Clutter 1.15.2 development release is now available for download and testing, as announced by the GNOME developers on July 10, 2013.

      • Wayland 1.2, the xserver alternative, out now

        Wayland 1.2 adds a stable server API among other major and minor updates, and is still poising itself as the successor to the xserver.

  • Distributions

    • SuperX 2.0 Darwin review – Enterprise not

      SuperX is a Linux-based distribution that does not like to advertise its Linux roots. Hence, the official website, which only speaks about the ultimate computer operating system and superior alternative solutions. Moreover, it boasts an enterprise like approach, with heavy emphasis on support. Somewhat slightly intrigued, and bolstered by a warm recommendation by a friend, I gave it a chance.

    • New Releases

      • Maintenance Release: PCLinuxOS-MATE 2013.0715

        PCLinuxOS Mate ISO updates are now available in both 32 and 64bit flavors. These ISOs are small enough to fit on a standard 700 mb CD or a small usb key.

      • Manjaro 0.8.7 XFCE 2nd Preview

        I’m happy to announce our 2nd preview build of Manjaro 0.8.7 which we will release in late July. This first build is fully installable and stable. You will find only a minimalistic XFCE 4.10 Desktop on it. One of the biggest changes you might see is the use of Whisker Menu which replaces the standard XFCE menu.

    • Screenshots

    • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family

      • PCLOS Releases Trio of Maintenance Updates

        The PCLinuxOS project earlier released maintenance updates for several of their popular varieties of Linux operating systems. Version 2013.07 of MATE, LXDE, and KDE MiniMe editions commonly feature Linux 3.4.52, Xorg 1.10.4, and GCC 4.7.2. Maintenance releases fix minor and security bugs while providing for new installs, but loyal users are encouraged to update through the update manager.

    • Arch Family

      • archbang

        i pulled the slow magnetic hdd running gentoo from my thinkpad r61i; swapped it with a 2009-era 32GB ssd running archbang, a variant of arch linux.

        it’s been several years since i last tried arch, and i wanted a desktop environment installed & preconfigured. archbang offers a minimal openbox desktop with a few basic programs: web browser, terminal, text editor, file manager, etc.

    • Red Hat Family

      • Red Hat Inc : Cigna Named 2013 Red Hat Innovator of the Year

        Conn. & RALEIGH, N.C.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Cigna(NYSE: CI), a global health service company that offers health, life, accident, dental, and disability insurance, and related health services, and Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT), the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that Cigna has been named the 2013 Red Hat Innovator of the Year. Cigna was recognized during a ceremony at Red Hat Summit for its innovative use of Red Hat technologies to revitalize the company’s IT infrastructure and solidify the company’s position as a leader in the health care industry. Cigna also won an Innovation Award in the “Outstanding Open Source Architecture” category.

      • Red Hat’s Cloud Strategy Centers on Bundled Products and Top-Notch Support

        Last week, Red Hat, unveiled the costs for its bundle of products and services aimed at giving it a strong foothold in the cloud computing market. The bundle includes Red Hat Cloud Infrastructure and Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform, which combine the Red Hat Enterprise Linux OS (RHEL) and the KVM hypervisor plus Red Hat’s own distribution of OpenStack. If you look closely at the pricing, it’s clear that Red Hat wants to attract users of its existing Linux platform and support services to its cloud platform and associated support. Now, there are questions arising about the strategy.

      • Fedora

        • Review of Fedora 19 “KDE” edition

          The latest offering from the Fedora Project, Fedora 19, was released on July 2nd. The new version carried the code name “Schrödinger’s Cat” which seems appropriate. Fedora, being a cutting-edge distribution, is an unpredictable beast and one never knows, prior to installing it, if the release is going to bring joy or heartache. Looking through the release notes for Fedora 19 I got the impression this version was to be a fairly small evolution from Fedora 18, which was released earlier this year. The release notes highlight such desktop features as the inclusion of GNOME 3.8, KDE 4.10, LibreOffice 4.0 and packages for the MATE and Cinnamon desktop environments. Less obvious changes include improved boot times and enhancements to the systemd init software. The release notes also mention that users who run logical volume management (LVM) file systems will be able to take advantage of file system snapshots. These snapshots will be taken by the yum software manager during updates to allow administrators the ability to rollback to previous package versions. We’re also told yum now has delta-update capability built in directly and enabled by default. This means the package manager only downloads changes to software packages rather than downloading the entire package again.

        • Installing Fedora 19

          For the release of Fedora 18 the installation tool was completely overhauled, which also resulted in a different layout to the former Anaconda installer. As with every subsequent release more bugs are squashed it may eventually mature, in the meantime unintuitive and inconsistent layout prevails, coupled with the odd crash. Here I walk you through the installation of Fedora 19 from Live image. You may also want to look at the official installation guide but it’s missing the section on encrypting drives.

    • Debian Family

      • Derivatives

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Verizon now supports Ubuntu Phone
          • Verizon To Join The Ubuntu Phone Fray As Member of Canonical CAG
          • Meet Utilite, a $99 quad-core ARM-based PC running Ubuntu

            That box you see above? It’s a quad-core ARM-based PC running Ubuntu called Utilite. The desktop system, made by Compulab, will be available next month starting at $99. While there are plenty of Android dongles built on ARM SoCs out there, few (if any) can truly offer a PC-like experience. The company — best known for its Trim Slice, Fit-PC and MintBox products — wants to change this.

          • Utilite touts $99 ARM-powered Linux PC
          • This ARM-Based Ubuntu Box Only Costs $100

            Forget your Raspberry Pi and all of those Android dongles: this quad-core, ARM-based box claims to offer up a PC-like experience for just $100.

          • Tiny mini-PC runs Linux and Android on i.MX6 SoC

            CompuLab announced a tiny mini-PC based on a 1.2GHz, single-, dual-, or quad-core Freescale i.MX6 system-on-chip. Supported with Ubuntu and Android, the 5.3 x 3.9 x 0.8-inch Utilite offers up to 4GB RAM and up to a 512GB internal SSD, as well as dual gigabit Ethernet ports, dual serial ports, five USB 2.0 ports, and dual-head HDMI and DVD-D, all starting at $99.

          • Utilite ARM-based Linux computer coming in August for $99 and up

            The base model will feature a Freescale i.M6 single-core processor, but dual and quad-core versions will also be available. The system will also support up to 4GB of RAM, up to 512GB of built-in storage thanks to an mSATA solid state drive slot, and up to 128GB of removable storage via the SDXC card slot.

          • Utilite mini-PC crosses ARM with Linux and/or Android

            In the Utilite mini-PC, if you’re all about working with open-source software, small form factor, and more ports than you know what to do with, the team at Compulab may have created just the monster you’re looking for. This week the creators of the Utilite have announced not only that the machine itself exists, but that they’ll be selling it in different configurations starting at under $100 USD. The smallest of these works with a Freescale i.M6 single-core processor and will be aiming to be just about as basic as possible.

          • How XMir and Mir fit together

            Mir is Canonical’s new display server. It fulfils a broadly similar role to Wayland and Android’s Surfaceflinger, in that it takes final responsibility for getting pixels onto the screen. XMir is an X server that runs on top of Mir. It permits applications that know how to speak the X protocol but don’t know how to speak to Mir (ie, approximately all of them at present) to run in a Mir-based environment.

            For Ubuntu 13.10, Canonical are proposing to use Mir by default. This doesn’t mean that most applications will be using Mir, though – instead, the default session will run XMir as a full-screen client and a normal X environment will be run on that. This lets Canonical deploy Mir without forcing anyone to update their applications, allowing them to take a gradual approach. By 14.10, Canonical expect the default Unity session to be a Mir client rather than an X client. In theory it will then be possible to run an Ubuntu system without any X applications at all, leaving XMir to do nothing other than run legacy applications.

          • Ubuntu vs. Debian

            Long before Ubuntu ever existed, Debian was a major player in the Linux space. To put a finer point on that statement, Debian is a distribution of Linux that has made countless other distributions, from Knoppix to Simply Mepis, a reality. This is similar to how Ubuntu relates to Linux Mint by providing Mint a base from which to develop.

          • Canonical Continues Working On XMir Performance

            Canonical’s Christopher Halse Rogers wrote a blog post over the weekend to try to clear up the XMir performance situation and say that Canonical engineers are working on improving the performance, as users begin to discover there’s a performance hit in using XMir.

          • Burning Circle Episode 122
          • Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue 325
          • 5 pillars of Ubuntu Touch success
          • Burning Circle Episode 121

            Download here (MP3) (ogg) (FLAC) (Speex), or subscribe to the podcast (MP3) to have episodes delivered to your media player. We suggest subscribing by way of a service like gpodder.net.

          • Has Ubuntu lost it?

            Some say Canonical has lost its way. Are they right?

          • The Ubuntu PC Case Mod Pt.6 The mac mini

            Since the last update my 550 paracord (both orange and purple) and vinyl wrap has been put to use, mostly on the mac mini, i still have plenty of both left though. Unfortunately, i broke my psu after i got the +4 pin done so sleeving will have to wait until i’m less poor. As a result, i made some other stuff with the paracord.

          • Ubuntu $99 Linux Box Revealed by Compulab

            This box packs quite a punch, and is ready to plug-and-play. Starting at $99, the computer connects through WiFi or Bluetooth, HDMI, USB, microUSB, microSD, ethernet, and DVI-D ports. The customer will be able to configure from single to quad-core processing, and the price will vary respectively. The box measures a little over 5 x 4in, and is just under 1in tall. It uses very little power, and is becoming very attractive to prospective users, both of Linux and those new to the OS. The box supports Android use as well as Linux for users who are more comfortable in that environment.

          • Flavours and Variants

            • Linux Mint 15 “Olivia” XFCE Review: Mint does it again, another exceptional XFCE release!

              If I think of any distro which just works without any issue month after month, year after year, it is got to be Linux Mint. I am using Linux Mint 13 XFCE (with LTS support) on my netbook and it’s been a trouble free 1.5 years – with absolutely no issue. Everything just working as it should work and I keep it on most of days at night to download Linux distros or movies – no heating problem till date. Linux Mint 13 XFCE was and still is so amazingly efficient!

            • Linux Mint 15 XFCE Desktop Edition Step by Step Installation Guide

              Linux Mint 15 Codename ‘Olivia’ Xfce Edition is released with the exciting features stated below. Xfce is a lightweight desktop environment aiming to be fast instead of low system resources. In this edition, Xfce 4.10 desktop, all the improvement with latest packages are included. In this post we’ll see step by step installation and Update of packages post installation.

            • Linux Mint 15 Xfce released

              As I’ve said that many times before, Linux is all about choice: first, and most obviously, choice in operating systems for your computer. If you don’t like the desktop or user interface of Windows 8 (I personally don’t know even one sane person that does), or if you just don’t like paying Microsoft over and over and over again, Linux gives you another choice. But even within the Linux world, choice is an important advantage — choice of distributions, and within many distributions, choice of desktops.

            • Linux Mint 15 Xfce edition released with Whisker Menu

              The Linux Mint team has released the Xfce edition of Linux Mint 15, code-named “Olivia”. The release includes the Whisker Menu as a replacement for Xfce’s native application launcher. Whisker is inspired by KDE’s Kickoff menu, but also takes design cues from the Mint menu application included in the Cinnamon edition of the distribution.

  • Devices/Embedded

    • Meet Utilite, new Raspberry Pi rival
    • Raspberry Pi: the Perfect Home Server

      Ever since the announcement of the Raspberry Pi, sites all across the Internet have offered lots of interesting and challenging uses for this exciting device. Although all of those ideas are great, the most obvious and perhaps least glamorous use for the Raspberry Pi (RPi) is creating your perfect home server.

    • Signage player packs SSD and wireless, takes the heat

      Blue Chip Technology announced a Ubuntu-ready “digital signage player” based on a 1GHz AMD G-Series processor with AMD Radeon HD graphics. The Vario-A2 is packaged in a polished stainless steel enclosure, runs from 0 to 40° C, accommodates internal SATA HDDs and SSDs, and has a mini-PCI Express card socket for functions such as WiFi, Bluetooth, ZigBee, GPS, and 2G/3G modems.

    • Phones

      • Tizen Rising: Can a $4M App Challenge Do the Trick?

        Is a bunch of cash to spur app development all that’s needed to propel Tizen to success with its fledgling Linux-based mobile operating system? “I’ve always wanted to be excited for Tizen, but it’s never really given me enough to be excited about,” offered blogger Mike Stone. “I’ve never seen anything where I just had to stop and say, ‘Now that is cool.’”

      • Ballnux

        • Rumoured HTC One Max Targets Samsung Galaxy Note 3

          Samsung’s Galaxy Note family has been one of the most successful tablet devices in the market as a result they’ve had to face competition from notable companies such as LG and Sony. Now a new competitor is rumored to appear which as the title gives away is the HTC One Max. According to Mobile Geeks reports, it’s a 6 inch device expected to have a 2.3GHz quad core snapdragon 800 chip, along with 2GB of RAM and up to 64GB of storage powered by a 3200mAh battery.

        • Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini Available For Rs.27,990 In India

      • Android

        • One Million User Requests Needed To Get Tinder On To Android

          Tinder has been the hot new social dating service on the iOS since its release in October last year. They claim to have generated 75 million matches and 50 engagements over the period of time. Despite all those statistics, we haven’t seen the application on the most popular platform of the mobile OS market yet. But that isn’t to say they aren’t working on it, they actually have it ready but they want to make sure that at-least one million people explicitly request for the application to be available. That is quite entertaining for the developers maybe considering they haven’t yet monetized the app.

        • Rumour: Sony Working On ‘Honami Mini’ Smartphone

          Following Samsung and HTC, Sony is set to make a smaller version of its flagship Smartphone available to the customers. Even before any confirmation about existence of ‘Honami’ flagship device from Sony, we already have rumours around a ‘mini’ version of the device coming in.

        • Rumour: Sony Working On ‘Honami Mini’ Smartphone

          It’s not raining, but pouring, rumours around Moto X phone just don’t want to take a break. If you believe that Google is spending $500 million on marketing, you should wonder if they really need it with all the hype it has already created. Yesterday we saw the allege Moto X phone in Eric Schmidt’s hand, and now we have a hands on video of the device in use.

        • 5 best Android alarm clocks
        • NVIDIA Tegra 3 open source code gets early 3D support

          It’s a given that NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 can handle 3D — unless you’ve been crafting a fully open source project around the chip, at which point you’ve been stuck in a flat world. Fresh contributions from Avionic Design’s Thierry Reding have brought that extra dimension back, albeit in limited form. His early patches for the Linux kernel enable support for 3D when using the Tegra Direct Rendering Manager driver. There’s also a matching Gallium3D driver for us regular users, although it’s still young: it can run reference 3D code as of a recent check, but can’t produce visible imagery. While it may take some months before everything falls into place, the officially-backed work should make the (slightly aging) chip that much more useful beyond the realms of Android and Windows RT.

Free Software/Open Source

  • Choices of Open Source Video Converter Software Made Available on SoftwareReviewBoffin.Com Today
  • Boffin Releases Its List of 2013 Recommended Open Source Software for Password Recovery
  • Elon Musk to release open source Hyperloop plans in August

    Elon Musk has been dropping hints about a revolutionary form of transport called Hyperloop for over a year, and on Monday he said that the full details will be released on August 12, and that the system’s key technologies will be open sourced.

  • Open source highlights: Best of June 2013

    It’s time to take a look back at June and see how open source is changing the world. We’ll take a look at what articles where hot, a few that you may have missed, and what the chatter was all about last month.

  • Projects of the Week, July 15, 2013
  • The 100 Percent Open-Source Data Center

    A decade ago, as CTO of a large service provider, I was lucky to be able to drive an open-source everywhere strategy. In addition to the ubiquitous LAMP stack, we managed to use open-source software in almost every part of the business, not just in the data center but also in departments like accounts and HR. However, there were two holdouts against the power of open source: storage and networking.

  • The State Of Various Experimental Open-Source Projects

    Quite often on Phoronix we cover various experimental open-source projects that catch our interest as they’re interesting from a technical perspective, but often these projects don’t end up stabilizing due to limited manpower or prove to be too technically ambitious. Here’s a look at some of the less heard of open-source projects that have previously been covered on Phoronix to look at where they are today.

  • 4 Free Software alternatives to Matlab

    For those involved in data analysis, numerical computation and taks of that nature, Matlab is an industry standard software to use, though it is not necessarily the best available. The problem is that (Matlab) is commercial and can be expensive.

    Recently I took a class on Machine Learning and was surprised to find that the professor was not going to use Matlab, but a Free Software alternative called GNU Octave, which was good news because it meant not having to spend money on a proprietary software.

  • pump.io: the decentralized social network that’s really fun

    For more than a decade, Evan Prodromou has worked to build open source tools that help people share things online. In 2003, he co-founded Wikitravel, a website that lets world travelers collaborate on the ultimate travel guide. Then, in 2008, Prodromou launched StatusNet, a decentralized, federated networking tool whose public face, identi.ca, became the microblogging service of choice for many free software advocates and open enthusiasts.

  • Annual OSS World Challenge gets start in Korea

    In 2007, the Korean government first held the OSS World Challenge in an effort to promote open source software and bring awareness to developers within the country.

  • Taxman adopts open source to jump-start SBR

    The Tax Office has moved to encourage more big business to adopt a government-devised scheme to automate lodgement of financial reports, by replacing a proprietary interface with its systems with open-source software.

  • Events

  • SaaS/Big Data

    • Cloud MBaaS and open source MBaaS: What’s the difference?
    • ownCloud CEO Plots an Open Source Path Forward [VIDEO]

      Building a storage startup is no easy task — just ask Markus Rex, the co-founder and CEO of ownCloud.

      OwnCloud Inc got its start in December of 2011 as a commercial enterprise. The promise of the commercial enterprise is to build out the enterprise supported version of the open source ownCloud storage system. Today, ownCloud officially released its Enterprise Edition 5.0 release, providing enhanced file sync and share capabilities. Among the improved features is better Active Directory (AD) integration as well as native AES encryption for data at rest.

    • Big data and Hospital OS improve Thai diet

      Tracing the career path of Dr. Kongkiat Kespechara is like reading a treasure map: there are twists and turns and surprises all along the way, but promises an unfolding bounty at the end. Here are some of his current activities: Dr. Kespechara is a still-practicing MD, a software entrepreneur, an open source pioneer, a force in economic development, a big data processor, a nutritionist, an agriculturist and a retailer. Let me explain.

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

  • Licensing

    • GitHub finally takes open source licenses seriously

      Last November, I wrote about the huge contradiction embodied in GitHub. Though the site is self-described as the “world’s largest open source community,” a significant number of GitHub projects come with no rights whatsoever for you to use their code in an open source project. That’s because so many don’t include an OSI-approved open source license.

  • Openness/Sharing

    • Elon Musk to publish ‘Hyperloop’ design without patents, under open source license

      Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX and chairman of SolarCity, has been teasing us for a while what he calls the ‘Hyperloop’, a “fifth mode of transportation” that would provide a very high-speed, high-efficiency, and safe alternative to boats, planes, automobiles and trains.

    • Koneki Open-Source Development Tools Simplify M2M Development

      Machine-to-machine (M2M) communications is one of the most exciting and fastest-growing technology areas today, with a projected 50 billion connected devices deployed by 2020.1 And yet M2M technology is still not evolving as quickly as it could because too many basic development functions remain closed and proprietary.

  • Programming

    • One month left for the EclipseCon Europe 2013 call for papers

      Eclipse users and developers have just under a month left to submit a talk proposal to the organisers of EclipseCon Europe 2013. The organisers from the Eclipse Foundation are looking for proposals for 35 minute talks and three hour tutorials that cover one of a number of subjects, including Eclipse itself, OSGi, Java and web technologies. Additional themes of this year’s conference are machine to machine (M2M) embedded systems and using Eclipse to build industry-specific applications in areas such as banking, aerospace automotive. In the latter area, the EclipseCon team is looking for speakers who can present case studies involving the use of Eclipse software.

Leftovers

  • Remembering Evi Nemeth: The woman that saved “sudo”

    Technology website The Register called it. With the search called off, we must presume that Evi Nemeth is no longer with us. Their obit, “Godmother of Unix admins Evi Nemeth presumed lost at sea”, gives an excellent overview of her life and influence.

  • Health/Nutrition

  • Security

    • Maintenance of Apache web server 2.0 discontinued

      With the recent release of Apache web server version 2.0.65, the Apache project has discontinued the maintenance of the 2.0 version branch. The developers have urged users to migrate to current version series 2.2 or 2.4 editions as soon as possible; version 2.4 was released in February 2012.

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • Book by former CIA analyst sheds light on Cuba, Kennedy, Oswald

      Lee Harvey Oswald had closer ties to Cuba’s intelligence agency in the months before his fatal shooting of John F. Kennedy than previously known, according to a new book by a former CIA analyst.

    • CIA Veteran Ray McGovern on Ed Snowden, NSA and Lying Spying Liars

      So– the NSA engaged in an act of war using cyber attack on IRan. That suggests that the NSA, without congressional oversight, since the NSA people lie to congress, can start a war without congressional authorization. And then, on top of that, you’ve suggested that Obama may claim that HE didn’t know.

    • CBS Gives Iran Nuclear Fearmongering a Voice
    • iEHR would get a shorter leash, under House NDAA amendment

      An amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2014 (H.R. 1960), which passed June 14, would impose reporting requirements on the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments’ integrated electronic health record project, as well as stand up an advisory panel to provide additional oversight.

    • Guest column: Progress on the Manhattan Project National Historical Park Act

      There has been significant movement in both the House and Senate on the pending legislation to create a national historical park for the Manhattan Project at Oak Ridge as well as Los Alamos, N.M., and Hanford, Wash.

    • Protesters descend on Capitol to march against ‘amnesty,’ for American jobs

    • In times of economic uncertainty and mounting national security issues, it is critical that each branch of government is allowed to play its constitutional role. We must protect the uniquely American system of checks and balances set forth by our forefathers, which helps prevent abuse or overreach of power. Stepping outside of the roles intended and defined only leads to unfortunate, harmful decisions that affect the entire country.

    • U.S. drone, Pakistan air force strikes kill 19 militants

      At least 19 suspected militants, including two foreigners, were killed in Pakistan’s lawless tribal region overnight in a Pakistani military operation and a separate U.S. drone strike, security officials said on Sunday.

    • U.S. drones, Pakistan military kill 19

      At least 19 suspected militants, including two foreigners, were killed in Pakistan’s lawless tribal region overnight in a Pakistani military operation and a separate U.S. drone strike, security officials said on Sunday.

    • U.S. Drone Strike in Pakistan Kills at Least 16

      At least 16 people were killed and five others wounded when an American drone strike hit a suspected Haqqani militant compound in a remote tribal region of northwestern Pakistan late Tuesday, according to Pakistani government and intelligence officials.

    • Drone strikes kill 2 in Pakistan

      Two missiles were fired as the suspected militants rode a motorbike in the village of Mosaki, the sources said.

    • Drone, air force raids kill 9 rebels

      US President Barack Obama has promised to scale them back, resorting to them only when a threat was “continuing and imminent”.

    • Obama’s secret kill list – the disposition matrix

      When Bilal Berjawi spoke to his wife for the last time, he had no way of being certain that he was about to die. But he should have had his suspicions.

    • Drone strikes ineffective and only serve to help anti-Americanism

      On June 8, a US drone attack in North Wazirstan killed seven people. It was the first drone attack since Nawaz Sharif took office as Pakistan’s prime minister for the third time. He condemned the attack as a violation of the country’s sovereignty.

      Drones, or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), are being used by the US to kill people seen as militants by the US media and government. As well as Pakistan, drones are also being used in Yemen and Syria to kill people. However, the resentment against drone strikes is present all around the world, including the US itself.

    • The drone call!

      The report by the Abbottabad Commission about the raid on Osama bin Laden’s house, leaked at Al-Jazeera News website was the new media play-card. Much is being said and written about it. The report quotes General (retd) Ahmad Shuja Pasha, who headed Pakistan’s premier Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency at the time of bin Laden’s killing in 2011, telling investigators that drone strikes had their uses. Though there were no written agreements, there was a political understanding, between America and Pakistan, it said.
      Richard Holbrooke, the American diplomat and US envoy to the Pakistan and Afghanistan region, coined the term, “AfPak,” understanding that the theatre of war extended to both ends of the Durand Line. He understood that it was the eastern side, which served as the backyard for militants’ sanctuaries. Geography played a huge part in this arrangement. Battle fought by the US and its allies was focused on taking over the heartlands of Taliban in Afghanistan. The provinces in southeast of Afghanistan are unsuitable for guerrilla warfare, mostly comprising of plains. Adjoining the Hindu Kush with passes to Pakistan’s tribal belt offered the perfect sanctuary to retreat and regroup. A strategy was developed to destroy the supply lines of the militants and then wipe out their sanctuaries through drone strikes in the tribal areas. Unfortunately, the drones killed more civilians than it killed militants.

    • Focus:The Immorality of Drone Strikes (4-4)

      In stark contrast to traditional means of fighting wars, drones are both inexpensive and safe for the military to operate, even on a large scale. The risk of friendly casualties alienating domestic support for the war is almost nil, and the relative unobtrusiveness (at home) of operating these aircraft means that the military can fight wars in multiple countries with the public barely noticing the impact. After all, by the traditional standard of what one would define as a “war,” the United States is indeed at war in Yemen, Somalia and parts of Pakistan; yet few Americans recognize it as being the case and, indeed, neither officially does the United States. That violence can be carried out on such a massive scale with so little scrutiny is one of the most important aspects of the drone war and perhaps its most insidious. In the past governments have often found their ability to wage wars abroad constrained by the citizenry who have borne the brunt of the social pressures these wars inevitably create. As such, the prospect of perpetual war fought on an expanding scale would have been impossible until very recently. Casualties would occur, enormous sums of money would be spent, and upon reaching a breaking point in stress the people would come out into the streets to demand an end to such policies.

    • Gunmen kill two anti-polio workers in northwestern Pakistan

      At least two health workers have been killed and several others injured after an attack by heavily-armed gunmen against anti-polio workers in the troubled northwestern Pakistan.

    • Why drone strikes are real enemy in ‘war on terror’

      Obama’s drone calculus ignores the CIA’s warning about the continuing “possibilities of blowback.” Officials in Washington ignore the high-cost ways in which the U.S. “war on terror” and the use of tactics such as drone strikes fuel the fires of home-grown radicalization in Western societies. This is a rising phenomenon that has not been seriously debated, despite a string of high-profile attacks. While trials have yet to take place, the Woolwich attack in London and the Boston Marathon bombings are suspected to be the latest cases in point.

    • 2 militants killed in US drone strike in Pak Waziristan tribal area
    • Pakistani Government Condemns US Drone Attack in North Waziristan

      On Monday, Pakistani Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying, “These unilateral strikes are a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” adding that “such strikes also set dangerous precedents in inter-state relations. Pakistan has repeatedly emphasized the importance of bringing an immediate end to drone strikes,” press tv reported.

  • Finance

  • Privacy

  • Civil Rights

    • In ‘Chilling’ Ruling, Chevron Granted Access to Activists’ Private Internet Data

      “Sweeping” subpoena violates rights of those who spoke out against oil giant’s devastating actions in Ecuador

    • Time to Repeal ALEC/NRA Stand Your Ground Laws

      The acquittal of George Zimmerman for killing unarmed high-schooler Trayvon Martin serves as a reminder of the continuing inequities in America’s criminal justice system — and might be the impetus to repeal a law like “Stand Your Ground,” which was adopted by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and subsequently spread across the country. Stand Your Ground was part of the jury instructions in Zimmerman’s criminal trial, and it could again come into play if Trayvon’s family brings a civil suit.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

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