• Devices/Embedded

Mobile Linux Gets Support From Chip Vendors

The development of Linux on mobile devices may be poised to get a boost thanks to the formation of a new industry group called Linaro, backed by a consortium of chip vendors including ARM, Freescale, Texas Instruments, Samsung and ST-Ericsson.

The goal of Linaro is to enable development of Linux on embedded System-on-Chips (SoC) including ARM-based processors. The effort will also leverage engineering help and resources from Ubuntu Linux vendor Canonical.

TUL shows off DIY AIO PC at Pre-Computex event

Powered by AMD and Ubuntu

The road forward for systemd

So it is not clear that any distribution will make the jump to systemd. But, then, even the above is a fair amount of attention for a project which has been public for less than one month. This program has reopened the discussion on how our systems should initialize themselves, and things may go on from there: there is talk of using systemd to take over the tasks of processes like cron and gnome-session. Regardless of who ends up running systemd, the ideas it expresses are likely to influence development for some time.

TurnKey Linux launches private beta of TurnKey Hub, a new simplified cloud deployment service

Desktop

• When Google Stopped Doing Windows

• Eclipse: Developers growing more fond of desktop Linux

  Developers in the Eclipse open source community are becoming more inclined to use Linux as their primary desktop operating system, according to a report released Monday by the Eclipse Foundation that gauges sentiments on software development issues.

Applications

• 6 of the Best Free Linux Application Launchers

  Application launchers play an integral part in making the Linux desktop a more productive environment to work and play. They represent small utilities which offers the desktop user a convenient access point for application software and can make a real boost to users’ efficiency.

  An application launcher helps to reduce start up times for applications by indexing shortcuts in the menu. Furthermore, this type of software allows users to search for documents and other files quicker by indexing different file formats. This makes them useful for launching almost anything on a computer including multimedia files, games, and the internet. Application launchers often support plug-ins, adding to their versatility.

• Instructionals

  • Set a Rotating Picture of the Earth as Your Ubuntu Wallpaper

    We’ve already shown you how to keep your desktop interesting by setting a video as your wallpaper and how to download and rotate fresh photos. This week, weblog Simple Help shows us how to rotate a photo of the Earth from space.

  • Making Movies with Free Software

    Sometimes life is very circular. Once upon a time, I was a film major. Then I was an astronomer, then I was unemployed for quite awhile, during which time I discovered free software, and as a result of my various rantings about it, I started writing for Free Software Magazine. Now it seems that I’ve become a film-maker again. I’m working on not one, but two animated science-fiction films using free software tools, intended for a free-licensed release on the internet under new distribution models. And, being a writer, I’m going to write about it. I think it will be both entertaining and useful.

  • Network Design for a Small Business

  • 10 Git Tips and Tricks for Beginners

  • Install Stunning New Amarok 2.3.1 “The Bell” in Ubuntu Lucid, Karmic

  • Translate OIDs for Nagios

• Games

  • Megadrive emulators in Ubuntu 10.04

    Here I tested 4 Linux MegaDrive emulators: dgen, gens, xe and rgen. Four classic MegaDrive games were used with each, including Sonic 3, Road Rash 3, Streets of Rage 2 and Zero Wing.

GNOME Desktop

• Nautilus Elementary Just Won’t Stop Improving, New Updates Include Customizable Toolbar And More!

  In our previous post we had a detailed discussion on what is nautilus elementary and how to install nautlius elementary in ubuntu using PPA. That was just a week ago. And already a number of important updates! Nautilus elementary is really going places. Let’s see what are the changes with nautilus elementary now.

Red Hat Family

• Risk Report: Five years of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4

Canonical/Ubuntu

• Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat Won’t Run On Processors Below i686

  If you’re planning on using Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat on a computer with a processor older than i686, well… you can’t.

• Ubuntu to decommission SPARC port, IA64 port in jeopardy

• Canonical Rolling Out Ubuntu Advantage for Enterprise Linux OS

  Ubuntu Advantage customers will also receive the assurance of indemnification from Canonical protecting them against any potential legal issues. The legal indemnification is the same that Canonical had previously been making available to its paying support customers. Rival Linux distributions Red Hat and Novell also both provide their enterprise customers with legal indemnifications.

• Flavours and Variants

  • Peppermint Team – Q&A with OpenBytes

    Peppermint, like many distro’s do need your help and support, whether its reporting bugs, telling people about your good experiences with the distro, making a donation or visiting the Peppermint store….it all helps to support and enables the development of excellent projects like this.

  • Linux Mint 9 review

    Mint 9, aka Isadora, is the latest update to the desktop-focused, Linux distribution based on Ubuntu (10.04). It is one of the more exciting desktop distributions, with a nice selection of custom-developed graphical management utilities.

  • Vinux – A talking linux distro for blind and visually impaired users

    Vinux is a remastered version of the popular Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx distribution optimised for the needs of blind and partially sighted users.. It provides three screen readers, two full-screen magnifiers, global font-size and colour changing facilities, and out-of-the-box support for USB Braille displays. The Vinux live CD boots into the Orca screen reader which makes it easy to navigate the graphical GNOME desktop using keybindings. For those who prefer to work in a simple text-based console there is the Speakup

  • [Reviews]: Qimo 2.0 Review Great Linux Distribution For Kids

    Overall it’s a really good distribution for kids, it’s a really good choice to install it on your machine for your kid.

Devices/Embedded

• Phones

  • Mobile OS guide

    Android, Symbian, Bada, WebOS. The list goes on. The list of smartphone operating systems is growing by the day. Many are open source, a good number are proprietary and some are barely out of beta.

  • Android

    • NPR to open source its Android app

      National Public Radio (NPR), a non-profit membership organisation, has announced that it plans to open source its NPR Android application. Created in 1970, NPR is a privately and publicly funded US media organisation that produces and distributes news, talk and entertainment programming. The NPR app for Android devices was created by Google developer Michael Frederick in his spare time. With the application, users can read, listen or create playlists of NPR stories, share them with friends and live stream audio from hundreds of NPR radio stations.

• Sub-notebooks/Tablets

  • Six Different Linux Distributions, one HP 2133 Mini-Note Netbook

    My HP 2133 Mini-Note with WSVGA (1024×600) display has been out on loan for several months. It came back a week or so ago, and as it had missed the latest wave of Linux distribution updates, I decided to reload it from scratch. It originally came with SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 (SLED 10), and NO WINDOWS (Hooray!). I had preserved SLED 10 in a small partition “just in case”, but it is now so old that it would not be of any use whatever may happen, so I wiped it as well, and started from a completely clean disk.

  • 2 screen Linux tablet/e-reader to replace textbooks

    This is the prototype of the Kno a Linux based dual screen textbook replacement shown by californian startup Kakai at at the 8th Annual Conference of D: All Things Digital, otherwise known as D8

AfricanFOSS foundation looking to boost ranks

Looking for a job and a way to promote free and open source software? The Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa (FOSSFA) is looking to hire a project manager.

Rockbox 3.6 released

On behalf of the Rockbox developers, I’m very pleased to announce that Rockbox 3.6 has just been released!

Malta: Open source preferred

The Government of Malta has issued a new directivePDF instructing all of its agencies to give preference to the use of open source software (OSS) throughout government. According to the directive, Malta will adopt free software using the definition set by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and it says that, “Where it is not possible to make use of OSS in the implementation of solutions, appropriate evidence shall be made available.”

Qi Hardware Launches Open-Source Computer

It’s difficult to envision a computer that’s completely open-source—and I mean completely, right down to the software on its drives, the drivers for its components, and the circuit boards for its construction. However, Linux News has gotten its hands on one such device, Qi Hardware’s “Ben NanoNote,” and it’s one of the few massive hardware projects in existence that runs on completely copyleft hardware.

9th Circuit Affirms Rejection of Data Breach Claims Against Gap — Ruiz v. Gap

In a decision that does not bode well for plaintiffs bringing privacy-based claims against Facebook in California, the Ninth Circuit recently affirmed the trial court’s rejection of data breach claims against Gap.

Security/Aggression

• Terrorists figure out how to get America to attack itself: leave harmless, “suspicious” bags around

  According to the FBI, terrorists have noticed that Americans will go crazy and attack themselves (shutting down public spaces and transit, evacuating busy areas, subjecting innocents to search, detention and questioning) if you leave a “suspicious” bag in a public place. This is thanks to programs like New York City’s “See Something, Say Something,” which generates thousands of calls about “suspicious activity” every year, not one of which has ever led to an actual terrorism arrest. Of course, leaving bags of water or socks is an errand that’s a lot less risky than planting bombs.

• New terrorist tactic: Suspicious bags?

  You’ve probably heard the slogan “See Something, Say Something.” Now it appears potential terrorists hope that you do, just to see the response.

• In defence of photography (and common sense)

• CCTV to catch irresponsible dog owners?

  BARMOUTH Town Council want to use the town’s CCTV camera system to spy on dog owners who don’t clean up after their pets.

  The town council is seeking legal advice on whether the town’s CCTV system could be used to catch dog owners who fail to clear up after their pets.

• Big business ‘spying’ on the internet complainers using specialist software

• RCN launches legal action against safeguarding scheme

  The Royal College of Nursing is launching a judicial review of a vetting scheme it fears will breach nurses’ human rights and have “catastrophic” consequences for their careers, Nursing Times can reveal.

Censorship/Privacy/Civil Rights

• Sender Who E-Mailed Links to Blog Post Open to Defamation Claim, Federal Court Rules

  A federal bankruptcy court ruled that sending an e-mail message with a hyperlink to a defamatory blog post can be considered a publication for the purposes of a libel claim.

  While the case before the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas revolved around William Perry’s bankruptcy proceedings, the court relied on Texas law to determine that e-mail messages Perry sent linking to websites that made false and defamatory statements about Sugar Land, Texas, mayor David Wallace met the “actual malice” standard a public official needs to bring a defamation claim, according to the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press.

Intellectual Monopolies

• Bulgarian organizers take Chessbase to court

  The Bulgarian organizers of the Anand-Topalov World Championship match take Chessbase to court for “violating copyright rules”. Chessbase transmitted the moves of the match live on their Playchess server, against the will of the Bulgarians.

• Copyrights

  • RIAA asks court to close down LimeWire

    The music industry has asked a federal court in New York to order a shutdown of the LimeWire service, according to documents obtained by CNET.

  • Pubs can start claiming PPL refunds

    Licensees can now start claiming for refunds from music royalties collection firm, Phonographic Performance Ltd (PPL), to get a share of £20m owed to pubs, hotels and restaurants, following a legal battle.

  • Defining Success: Were The RIAA’s Lawsuits A Success Or Not?

    The fact that lots of people paid up to settle extortion-like fees didn’t stop people from using file sharing networks to access unauthorized materials. It didn’t get more people to buy. It didn’t help the bottom line. It hasn’t helped the record labels sell more product. It certainly hasn’t helped the big labels stay in business. Hell, it hasn’t even helped the RIAA. Towards the end of the legal campaign, the RIAA ended up having massive layoffs of its own staff. And, let’s not even get into discussing what the average music fan thinks of the RIAA and the big labels these days…

• Distributions
• Devices/Embedded

Developer Survey Reveals Greater Linux Development

The Eclipse Foundation has released its 2010 Eclipse Community Survey results, which reveal an interesting snapshot of one slice of the development community.

Taking the results at face value, the likely respondent from the 1696 total is a male programmer who works for a high-tech company with fewer than 100 employees. Oh, and their favorite IDE is some flavor of Eclipse.

[...]

And, the second half of the news will surely be that this increase comes at the cost of Windows development, which has seen a steady decrease in platform participation: in 2007, 73.8 percent preferred Windows; in 2009, it was 64.3 percent; and this year just 58.3 percent listed Windows as their favorite operating system.

Evolution of Linux computing and its implications

Today Linux is acknowledged to be the ideal operating system amongst programmers and application intense users. This is not to say that UNIX solutions have developed problems, but simply that Linux continues to be increasingly capable of doing the task that has typically been expected of Unix, and in many instances does so more effectively and efficiently.

Sensationalism Isn’t Helping Linux

No matter the intent, sensationalist articles are not overall helpful or realistic when it comes to advancing Linux. The only thing that will continue to help move Linux forward is action on the behalf of the community that supports it. This includes developing the software to make it better than the competition and providing marketing support, which can include written articles. Those articles need to be informative, however, and better educate users on what Linux is all about. We need to be smart about this though, since there is a difference between the audience on CNET and LinuxInsider — know to which audience you are writing. Why continue to preach to the choir about how Linux is ready to dominate when we can go help it achieve the goals we write about so often?

MeeGo, Android, ChromeOS – Signs of Linux REALLY Going Mainstream Finally?

Ever since I have started learning and using Linux, this is something I always thought “was happening” and never knew when it will “really happen”. And the thing is called mass Linux adoption. Why is it necessary? How is the likes of Android, MeeGo and Chrome OS is going to change the world as we know it forever? Let’s explore.

Linux crash on a Plane!

In the end, we can only hope that of the several networks likely running on a modern passenger jet, that true air-gapping is taking place and these systems are in no way connected to critical on-board networks. Time will tell if this is indeed the case. In the meantime, keep an eye out for those Linux boxes crashing on planes!

Can’t Buy Love

Look what freely giving worthwhile stuff to people gets you:

* FedoraProject.org up 18% and in the top 1000 sites in some parts of the world.
* Debian GNU/Linux is in the top 3000 over much of Europe.
* Ubuntu.com in the top 400 over much of the world

Those organizations give stuff away for free sincerely and without trying to manipulate anyone. There are hundreds of GNU/Linux distros and most are thriving, taking a serious and increasing share of the desktop OS market.

Desktop

• ES: Zaragoza’s move to complete open source desktop going to plan

  The move by the city of Zaragoza to an open source desktop is making good progress. All of the city’s civil servants now use open source tools including Thunderbird, VLC, Firefox and OpenOffice. And this year some seven hundred of the city’s 2800 desktop PCs will have seen their proprietary operating system replaced by the Linux open source alternative.

• Comparative Test Problems – Hardware, Windows7 and Linux

  You knew I was gonna go there huh. If you want a printer, 3g and OS combo that works – go with Samsung, new Huawei Modem, and Ubuntu. I would recommend this to anyone who needs a reliable combination for the small office but needs Internet on the go as well.

• The Perfect Desktop Articles

  The first problem I had with the article was just seeing it’s link on Lxer. People are still recommending and using 32-bit software. These people needed to be locked up for mental illness. Well at least they SAY it’s Gnome, instead of calling it the default desktop. They ruin it however by making users install mono applications like F-Spot, and a weird assortment of proprietary applications which HAVE NO PLACE in Fedora.

Audiocasts

• Episode 142: Waterfront

  In the begin I talk a bit about difficulties in the forum and my thoughts about flattr.
  The TOC

  03:25 Subscribe to the RSS feed
  04:35 flattr
  06:30 An image from the Europahafen
  08:15 Goal: Enhance the contrast between old and new
  08:25 Rotation correction
  10:15 Saving as XCF
  10:45 Cropping
  11:25 Fixing the aspect ratio
  13:15 Duplicating the layer before tweaking the colours
  14:05 Adjusting the curve to get more contrast
  15:35 Desaturationg parts of the image with a layer in saturation mode
  20:00 Adding sepia colour
  22:20 Colour layer mode

Google

• Chrome and Rust: Pros and Cons of Google’s Browser

  Should you be using one of the official Google packages, you might want to read the end-user’s license agreement. The agreement reads as though generic, and may not be the final license. Still, you may want to know that, like the license that openSUSE used on its betas until a few releases ago, it is non-free. When you download an official package, the license assumes that you have implicitly agreed not to copy or distribute it.

Ballnux

• Hacking for Freedom

  These are first hours of hackweek. A lot of people in Novell and in the community are starting to work on different projects. What can I give for free software in this week? Sure, my favorite project is NetworkManagement.

Kernel Space

• ZFS for the Linux kernel

  Developers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have cooperated with Oracle to port large parts of Solaris’ ZFS file system to the Linux kernel. Their aim is to make the distributed Lustre file system available under Linux with ZFS.

  [...]

  Native ZFS for Linux can be compiled with kernel versions up to 2.6.32; among the tested platforms are the 2.6.32 kernel in Fedora 12 and in the beta version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, as well as the 2.6.18 kernel in RHEL 5. The build requires the Solaris Porting Layer and a 64-bit Linux system.

• X Server 1.9 Window Closing After RandR 1.4 Pull

  There’s good news for the Ubuntu camp and others releasing in the September-October time-frame: development work on X.Org Server 1.9 is still going as planned for an August release and its merge window is about to be closed. In the past it’s been tough for the X.Org project to release server updates in a timely manner that’s on schedule, but continuing from their X.Org Server 1.8 success, 1.9 is shaping up nicely too.

Applications

• Top 10 Avant Window Navigator Themes ” AWN “

  My favorite Dock Avant Window Navigator, one of the best Docks available so far, it’s fully customizable with themes, extra plugins, extra applets, also working on many window managers, and many distributions such as Ubuntu , Gentoo, Fedora, …

• LiVES mixes realtime video performance and non-linear editing in one professional quality application.

  LiVES (LiVES is a Video Editing System) is a free software video editing program and VJ tool, released under the GNU General Public License version 3 or later. There are binary versions available for most popular Linux distributions (including Ubuntu, Gentoo, Debian, Fedora Core, Suse, Slackware, Arch Linux and Mandriva). There are also ports for BSD, and it will run under Mac OS X/Darwin, Solaris and IRIX.

• Vivia is a video editing program for Linux that offers very user-friendly editing of DV video material.

  Vivia is Free Software with a GPL license.

  Try your hand at film making with this video editing software.

  Vivia allows you to edit videos, cut out important sequences, add effects etc. Vivia can handle both AVI and DV files and has a recovery function that restores you files should the tool crash.

• DeaDBeeF – Ultimate Music Player For GNU/Linux

• Proprietary

  • A Comparative Performance Analysis of Longene VS Wine

• Instructionals

  • Old Blue Eyes

  • How To Get The Most Out Of Ubuntu Netbook Edition [Optimization Tips]

  • [SOLVED] Media Playing issues in Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat

  • Fixing Logitech (pwc) webcam hang in Linux Mint 9 / Ubuntu 10.04

  • How to disable command-not-found in Ubuntu

  • Bash Shell Expansion Tutorial: 6 Examples of Expanding Expressions within Braces

  • How to Record internet radio using VLC

  • Adding directories to your PATH

  • How do you split a large file in Linux?

  • Five tips for helping your users switch to Linux

  • Adding clip art to the OpenOffice gallery

  • How to select an image that you put in the background of an OpenOffice Writer document

  • Uploading files with Curl

  • How To Launch Nautilus, Programs in openSUSE (Gnome) as Root

  • CountBeats—BPM Finder

  • Sharing a Keyboard and Mouse Between Systems with Synergy

• Games

  • Top Linux games your money can buy

    Who said Linux games have to cost nothing? Well, quite a few people, actually. But just as you pay, or at least, are expected to pay for Windows games, there’s no reason why you should not do the same thing in Linux. Creating high-quality games takes lots of work and effort. While many of us believe programmers are photosynthetic and live on PC screen emissions, the truth is they also need to earn money and provide for their families. If a game bears a price tag, then it’s no reason to skip it, just because your operating system is free.

Desktop Environments

• K Desktop Environment (KDE SC)

  • Fluffy – How pink can we get?

    No great design comes without careful planning. Especially the “Plasma-Ponyhof-Shell” caused us some headaches and we had long discussions about the “Movable Tree Plasma Applet” that has yet to grow up.

  • An appeal to upstream KDE developers

• GNOME Desktop

  • Eight Ways GNOME Could be Improved

    In this piece, I want to show you that the GNOME desktop has a number of issues that need attention as well. I’ll outline eight areas in GNOME that need to be improved for a better user experience.

Distributions

• The Leading Enterprise Linux Vendors

  Enterprise Linux Vendors

  · Red Hat
  · Canonical Ltd.
  · Novell / SuSE
  · Other Major Players And Contributors
  · Debian
  · IBM
  · Oracle

• Canonical/Ubuntu

  • Canonical rejigs Ubuntu support services

    Canonical, the commercial presence behind the Ubuntu Linux distribution for servers and desktops, is in business to make money as well as to put out the best free operating system it can.

  • Well that’s a nice volume slider (minor post alert)

    You’re likely all aware that Ubuntu 10.10 is getting a funky feature-packed new sound applet for Maverick. That shindig promises to be crazy awesome and a great usability improvement. Until that pops up do allow me to bask in the sweet glow of simple progression because sometimes, as you may be aware, very minor changes make me giddy.

  • Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue 196

    Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 196 for the week of May 30th – June 5th, 2010. In this issue we cover Maverick Alpha 1 released, Kubuntu: Maverick Alpha 1 Released, Postponing Ubuntu User Days, Call for Testing: Hardy Firefox Users (or willing to install Hardy in a VM), Request For Help Preparing ClassBot For Translations, Operation Cleansweep Launched!, Linaro: Accelerating Linux on ARM, Ubuntu Stats, LoCo Teams Best Practices and Guidelines, Help translating the LoCo Teams Best Practices and Guidelines, The LoCo Directory wants to speak your language, Ubuntu Development Team Meetings Minutes, Launchpad News, NGO Team during Maverick, Free culture projects need a ubiquitous funding system, Hacking on grub2, Severed Fifth II, Project Maintainers Required, In The Press, In The Blogosphere, Towards Linaro 10.11, Ubuntu Systems Management update, SouthEast Linux Fest Announces Full Speaker List, VMware User Conference – Phoenix, TurnKey Hub: a new simplified cloud deployment service, Featured Podcasts, Monthly Team Reports: May 2010, Upcoming Meetings and Events, Updates and Security, and much much more!

  • Ubuntu: when Linux ideology meets business

    Profiting from Linux doesn’t involve an obvious winning formula. There are as many different business models as there are distributions, and you seldom find much overlap between those that are working.

  • Lucid Productive Wallpaper

Devices/Embedded

• 4Home and Marvell Introduce Jointly-Developed Plug Computer for Energy Management

Trust: the catalyst of the open source way

Collaboration works better when you trust the people with whom you are collaborating. Transparency is more believable when you trust those who are opening up to you. And it is much easier for the best ideas to win when there is a base level of trust in the community that everyone is competent and has the best interests of the project at heart.

The Epic War of Browsers

Since Symantec released its report in 2005, Microsoft lobbyists have quoted the old document to make people believe that Internet Explorer is the safest browser today. Their idea is to tell users that Mozilla Firefox might make one’s computer vulnerable to attacks.

Symantec, the company that flags Norton Antivirus, stated back then that there were 25 vulnerabilities in Firefox while Internet Explorer had only 13. This is the part that supporters of IE love to repeat. The part that they don’t want us to consider is this:

1. The Mozilla Foundation started in 2003, so Firefox was a fairly young browser back then. Yet, its problems were solved in a period of THREE DAYS. Some of the noted problems of IE are still there today.

2. From the 25 problems in Firefox, only 8 were considered as real threats by Symantec …the SAME NUMBER OF PROBLEMS THAT WERE FOUND IN INTERNET EXPLORER. This means that the young Mozilla product and Microsoft’s 10-year-old browser WERE TIED REGARDING PERFORMANCE.

3. According to Secunia (a Danish company that checks the security of software products), up to 2010, IE keeps a total of 19 vulnerabilities that have not been fixed, while Firefox has only 3.

BSDMag: Jun 6 BSD Firewalls [PDF]

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

• Geek Of The Week: Richard Stallman

  He is largely responsible for the popularity of the Linux operating system (including Linux-based derivatives like Android), and the open source community. If it wasn’t for him, you’d probably be paying for every piece of software you use on a daily basis.

• GNU/Linux: The Name Game

  I want to make things easier for them to understand, not more difficult. I feel that I am not doing anything wrong; when I choose to call Microsoft Windows Vista “Vista” I am not doing a disservice to Microsoft. Nor do I do a disservice to Canonical by calling Ubuntu “Ubuntu.” A great many people and groups have to come together to make any particular operating system, particularly community-created ones, and credit for success should go to each and every one of them.

• So, what exactly is a Freedom Outlaw?

  A Freedom Outlaw is (loosely) somebody who cares so much about freedom that he or she will go after it regardless of any laws or regulations blocking the way. Will go after it personally. Not petition for it. Not write letters for it. Not vote for it. But GO for it.

Open Data

• Letter to Government departments on opening up data

Germany’s Artificial Cornea Ready To Restore Sight To Thousands

An expansive EU project to produce an artificial cornea has found success thanks to the work of Joachim Storsberg of the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research IAP in Germany. Storsberg helped develop a new version of an opthalmological polymer which the eye will bond to and still allow to function properly. The new polymer could help restore sight to thousands waiting for corneal transplants around the world. The artificial cornea has passed clinical trials and is ready to see expanded use in patients this year. Very soon those with corneal blindness may find a ready cure in the form of the new implant.

Security/Aggression

• Restraining order on CyberSpy lifted

  The Federal Trade Commission has come to an agreement with Florida-based CyberSpy Software that allows it to resume sales of its Remote Spy commercial spyware application. According to the U.S. District Court settlement, the company must not provide users with the means to disguise the software as an innocent file or email attachment. Users must also be advised that doing so may violate US state or federal law. Additionally, all recorded information sent over the internet must be encrypted and older legacy versions of the software must be removed from computers on which it was previously installed.

• Cyberwar is fiction

  I’m reading various articles about the Russia’s proposal, with support from the UN, for a “cyberwarfare arms limitation treaty”. What astounds me is that nobody seems to realize that “cyberwarfare” is a fictional story, and that “arms” in cyberspace don’t exist.

• Botnets Using Ubiquity as Security

  As major botnet operators have moved from top-down C&C infrastructures, like those employed throughout the 1990s and most of the last decade, to more flexible peer-to-peer designs, they also have found it much easier to keep their networks up and running once they’re discovered. When an attacker at just one, or at most, two, C&C servers doling out commands to compromised machines, evading detection and keeping the command server online were vitally important.

Finance

• Goldman Bashing Is The New Chinese Black

  Did anybody tell these people how many “losing” trading days Goldman had in the latest quarter/year? Joking aside, we do find it somewhat ironic that the company which brought capitalism (or at least the Goldman-centric version thereof) to China is now being openly attacked for being “too successful.” It really is time for Buffett to MBO the squid and get the public company farce over with (that means only another $30 in GS downside before the Oracle announces his true intentions). We are sure that Goldman can pull enough strings where even as Buffett’s last hypocritical hurrah, it will still have full discount window access, even as a fully private hedge fund. Because the last thing Goldman needs is to be the primary scapegoat of a better way of life gone horribly wrong for 1.3 billion angry Chinese. On the other hand, look for the American Idol empire to promptly move to Beijing with Goldman’s blessings and venture funding – when all else fails, prime time distraction with moronic entertainment for an increasingly lazy middle class always seems to get the job done.

• Goldman Sachs Must Defend Its Gains in China

  Always eager to jump at anything suggesting foreign conspiracy, the Chinese press leapt at accusations of fraud made against Goldman Sachs by the American regulatory authorities.

• Goldman Sachs Reputation Destruction Tour

  The brutal combination of inept management, poor legal advice, and horrific decision making is combining is uniquely ugly ways to further damage their reputation — as if that were possible. Hard as that is to imagine, their PR — recently ranked as “For Shit” — is now heading south from there.

• Goldman Sachs subpoenaed for failing to cooperate with finance probe

  A high profile panel investigating the causes of the financial crisis announced Monday it had subpoenaed Goldman Sachs for failing to cooperate with the probe.

  “The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission has issued a subpoena to Goldman Sachs & Co. for failing to comply with a request for documents and interviews in a timely manner,” the body said in a statement.

  It is the latest controversy for the New York-based bank, which is facing civil and potentially criminal charges for misleading investors.

• 15 attorneys leave LeClairRyan to form new firm

  Fifteen attorneys have left Richmond-based LeClairRyan to form Murphy & McGonigle, a firm specializing in advising financial services clients during lawsuits, government investigations and enforcement actions.

• The Regulation Crisis

• Countrywide Settles Fee Complaint

  Countrywide Home Loans and its mortgage servicing unit, which are now part of Bank of America, agreed on Monday to pay $108 million to settle federal charges that the company overcharged customers who were struggling to hang onto their homes.

• The Greek Debt Crisis

  When the CCS derivative instrument maturity came, we saw back in 2009 that Greeks Deficit suddenly climbed to 12% of GDP which is 4 times over the limit. With the credit crunch, borrowing more to finance government spending became a problem. This resulted on the news of its potential default of certain loans.

• European Stocks Follow Asian Markets’ Decline

  Stocks fell across Asia on Monday and the euro hit fresh multiyear lows against the dollar and yen, after disappointing U.S. jobs data and amid renewed fears that the European government debt crisis could spread to other vulnerable economies.

• Hungary Is Playing Political Games on Debt

  Its budget deficit is about one-half that of Greece. It does not use the euro and so could, if pressed, lift exports by devaluing its own currency, the forint. And it is in the middle of an economic overhaul program with the International Monetary Fund and can call upon an additional $2 billion if needed.

• Debtors’ Prism: Who Has Europe’s Loans?

  IT’S a $2.6 trillion mystery.

  That’s the amount that foreign banks and other financial companies have lent to public and private institutions in Greece, Spain and Portugal, three countries so mired in economic troubles that analysts and investors assume that a significant portion of that mountain of debt may never be repaid.

• Anatomy Of A Bubble

• Richard Fisher, Senior Fed Official: White House Is Dead Wrong

  Richard Fisher, president of the Dallas Fed, has long been a proponent of serious financial sector reform. As a former commercial banker, he sees quite clearly that the legislation now headed into “reconciliation” between House and Senate versions amounts to very little. He also knows that pounding away repeatedly on this theme is the best way to influence his colleagues within the Fed and across the policy community more broadly.

• This Flight to Safety Wasn’t Supposed to Happen

• How to manage student loan debt

  In 2008, about two-thirds of students graduating from four-year colleges and universities had student loan debt averaging $23,200, according to data analyzed by the Project on Student Debt, an initiative of the nonprofit Institute for College Access & Success.

• Overcoming the Debt Trap

  But there is another part of their story that contains some truth. The government is borrowing large amounts of money right now to sustain demand in the wake of the collapse of private sector spending following the deflation of the housing bubble. If the deficit continues on the projected path, the country will substantially increase its debt burden over the course of the decade.

• Pols turn on labor unions

  Spurred by state budget crunches and an angry public mood, Republican and some Democratic leaders are focusing with increasing intensity on public workers and the unions that represent them, casting them as overpaid obstacles to good government and demanding cuts in their often-generous benefits.

• Bank Reform Bait and Switch

  When the Senate bank reform legislation passed in May, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) said it sent the message to Wall Street that they can “no longer can you recklessly gamble away other people’s money.” The bill told Main Street, “you no longer have to fear that your savings, your retirement or your home are at the mercy of greedy gamblers in big banks. And it says to them: never again will you be asked to bail out those big banks when they lose their risky bets,” according to Reid.

• Senate Financial Reform Bill DOESN’T End Too Big To Fail, Major Credit Rating Agency Says

• Reining in Speculation on Oil and Food Prices through the Financial Reform Bill

• New bonds to help cash-strapped states also benefiting Wall Street

  New federally subsidized bonds that have proven wildly popular in helping cash-strapped state and local governments fund roads, schools and other construction projects also offer a windfall to a less obvious beneficiary: Wall Street banks.

• The Contractual Structure of Private Equity

• Long-Term Unemployed Now 46 Percent Of Unemployed, Highest Percentage On Record

  The proportion of people jobless for six months or more has accelerated in the past year and now makes up 46 percent of the unemployed. That’s the highest percentage on records dating to 1948. By late summer or early fall, they are expected to make up half of all jobless Americans.

• Banks Say No. Too Bad Taxpayers Can’t.

  FROM the earliest days of the credit crisis, the nation’s big financial institutions have been less than forthcoming about ballooning loan losses buried inside their books. To some degree this is understandable: denial is a powerful thing, after all, and writing off troubled loans during a period of severe stress is, for bankers, the equivalent of getting a root canal.

• Distressed Sales: Sacramento as an Example, May 2010

  The Sacramento Association of REALTORS® is breaking out monthly resales by equity sales (conventional resales), and distressed sales (Short sales and REO sales), and I’m following this series as an example to see mix changes in a distressed area.

• THE INFLUENCE GAME: Dueling over debit card fees

  Swipe your debit card at the supermarket and you’ve placed yourself at the heart of a contentious congressional debate.

  On one side are banks like JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America and credit card networks like Visa and MasterCard. On the other are retailers, including giants like Wal-Mart and Target.

Censorship/Privacy/Civil Rights

• University Networks Block Student Project

  An anonymous reader writes “A computer science student at University College London put together FitFinder as a bit of a joke — it’s been described as a cross between Twitter and personal ads, and it rapidly became very popular. The university took exception to this and started by blocking the site from being accessed on campus. Not content with this, a few weeks later it fined the student £300 and had him take the site down completely. Currently, the site is still offline, although there is a petition with several thousand signatures requesting its return. In the meantime, a site called PhitFinder has appeared, claiming to have no link to the original.”

• Porn sites suddenly available in China

  Some websites, including ones with pornography, that were previously blocked by China’s Internet censors were accessible inside the country Friday, though reasons for the change were unclear.

• U.S. Intelligence Analyst Arrested in Wikileaks Video Probe

  Federal officials have arrested an Army intelligence analyst who boasted of giving classified U.S. combat video and hundreds of thousands of classified State Department records to whistleblower site Wikileaks, Wired.com has learned.

  SPC Bradley Manning, 22, of Potomac, Maryland, was stationed at Forward Operating Base Hammer, 40 miles east of Baghdad, where he was arrested nearly two weeks ago by the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division. A family member says he’s being held in custody in Kuwait, and has not been formally charged.

• Turkey bans use of Google, services

  Turkey has imposed an indefinite ban on Internet search engine Google and many of its services citing “legal” reasons.

  In an official statement, Turkey’s Telecommunications Presidency said it has banned access to many of Google IP addresses without assigning clear reasons. The statement did not confirm if the ban is temporary or permanent.

Digital Economy Bill

• Paedo-Fear Pushes The Surveillance Agenda

  For instance, only a huge effort from concerned people prevented Europe from adopting software patents under the pressure of lobbying from big self-interested software companies. And only continued vigilance will prevent those big companies from wearing down resistance.

  In the UK a big campaign against the excessive measures of the Digital Economy Act has had some effect in tempering the eventual implementation as prpoposed by Ofcom, but it didn’t kill it, because in the end most elected representatives simply don’t get it, and let it pass in the rush before the end of the parliamentary session.