TechRepublic notes the news "comes on the heels of a number of new Linux desktop support news. This year we've seen the rise of Purism, Tuxedo Computers, Pine64, Juno Computers, Vikings, Dell's continued support with the XPS Dev edition laptop and the Precision line, and now Lenovo."
They also argue for continued support for the smaller vendors of Linux hardware. "Companies like System76 are a big reason why desktop Linux continued climbing up that steep mountain called 'Acceptance.'" But their article concludes that "No matter which path you take, you now (as a Linux user) have more options."
Most computer users are familiar with macOS and Windows 10, both of which have certification standards. But, despite it being widely used, not everyone is familiar with Linux or Linux certification. Linux may not be something most of use at home but it is heavily relied upon by businesses, institutions, and government. As a matter of fact, much of the internet is being controlled through Linux servers.
So Linux certification is important for those whose job is to work and maintain the systems that are running this open-source OS. Lenovo has announced that Linux certification is now on its ThinkPad and ThinkStation offerings.
Kubernetes celebrates its sixth birthday on June 7: One of the fastest-growing open source projects ever, it’s driving significant change in enterprise IT, helping developers manage containers at scale. Moreover, it helps them develop applications faster and manage resources in automated ways. That’s important not only in DevOps and agile environments, but also in any enterprise IT environment pushing for faster software development and more experimentation. And any CIO or IT leader will tell you, the CEO’s biggest wish right now is faster response to customer needs and outside changes - most recently, a global pandemic.
How much Kubernetes growth are we talking about? According to the CNCF Cloud Native Survey for 2019, 78 percent of respondents were using Kubernetes in production, up from 58 percent the previous year.
  Greg Kroah-Hartman, a lead Linux Kernel developer and maintainer, has officially extended end-of-life (EOL) support for the LTS (Long-term Support) Linux kernel 4.19 and 5.4 from two to six years.
He recently made changes to the official Linux Kernel long-term release page and increased the projected EOL by four years. This means Linux kernel 4.19 will now get backporting bugs and important security fixes until December 2024 and kernel 5.4 until Dec 2025.
Linux 5.8 has merged all of the PCI/PCIe subsystem updates and there are a number of notable changes.
PCI highlights for Linux 5.8 include:
- As previously reported, the possibility of "significant" power savings for systems with PCI Express to PCI or PCI-X bridges. Previously Active State Power Management (ASPM) wasn't being enabled for such bridges for unknown reasons. But in enabling it can yield big power advantages for server platforms and more having the PCIe to PCI/PCI-X bridges.
The SMB3/CIFS updates for the Linux 5.8 kernel from the Samba camp can offer better performance.
After Linux 5.7 brought support for setting up a swap file over a network with SMB3, the Linux 5.8 SMB3 changes are interesting for performance reasons.
Steve French noted in the SMB3 pull request the change summary as , "Includes big performance improvement for large i/o when using multichannel, also includes DFS fixes."
  The professional free graphic design software Inkscape released version 1.0 few moments ago for all computer operating systems. Now Ubuntu users ask how to install it on Ubuntu and also on other GNU/Linux distros. Fortunately, we have a standard way to install it, and alternatively you can choose other method as you wish including portable and the 32-bit architecture versions. For all users in general I recommend more to try the AppImage version as it is the easiest one. Enjoy!
Oracle Virtualbox 6.1.10 was released as the fifth maintenance release for the 6.1 series.
Virtualbox 6.1.10 features Kernel 5.7 support on Linux host and guest.
Wine Staging 5.10 is out today as the latest version of this experimental blend of Wine that is re-based off yesterday's Wine 5.10 codebase.
Wine Staging 5.10 isn't the most exciting release in recent times but there are two new patches added:
- RtlQueryRegistryValuesEx has been implemented in addressing a one year old bug report for some WDM kernel drivers needing this function. This patch is useful for the Denuvo anti-cheat software for games as well as the WibuKey digital content protection software.
LunarG has released an updated version of their Vulkan SDK with version 1.2.141 out and it includes some new toys to help developers support Vulkan in their games and apps. This SDK should give developers almost everything they need to get started in the Vulkan API development environment.
With 1.2.141 it includes the new GFXReconstruct tool, which aims to improve upon their earlier vktrace. GFXReconstruct enables developers to capture and replay Vulkan API calls and they're also using the new tool to explore other potential performance and feature enhancements, such as compression for capture files (currently available) and support for multi-threaded replay (to be added in the future).
LunarG in cooperation with The Khronos Group has released Vulkan SDK 1.2.141.
Vulkan SDK 1.2.141 adds support for a number of newer Vulkan extensions introduced in recent versions of the specification as well as better validation coverage and bug fixes.
After a public testing period of only a few days, Valve has already pushed out Steam Play Proton 5.0-8 pulling in plenty of upgrades and fixes for the compatibility layer.
The first Release Candidate was put out on June 3 and after what seems like only a few tweaks, like removing the wine-mono upgrade that caused issues, it should now be available to everyone. You should see an update to Proton 5.0 in your Steam client.
Following the recent release candidate, the Valve and CodeWeavers developers have officially promoted this latest Wine-based downstream for empowering Steam Play to their latest stable release.
In time for the weekend gamers there is Proton 5.0-8 to offer the best experience to date for running Windows games on Linux either standalone or most commonly via Steam Play.
Game store itch.io has setup a big mixed bundle of all sorts to support 'Racial Justice and Equality' and there's a lot of interesting stuff in it.
This might be the biggest bundle ever, with over 700 items included and a minimum donation amount of only $5. It's a ridiculously good deal and for a charitable cause, with all proceeds being split 50/50 between NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and Community Bail Fund.
It's the weekend and hopefully some of you will find the time to relax and play some games. There's been a lot of new releases lately too!
For me, I'm a little torn.
It’s early in the Plasma 5.20 development cycle and some very nice new features landed this week! Various KDE apps–in particular Okular and Konsole–also got new features. It’s a feature-palooza!
Yes, yes, I know what some of you are thinking: “Why are you writing new features while there’s still so much buggy stuff?” In this case, one of the answers is that new features can often solve bugs. For example the Okular work you’ll read about below resulted in a dozen bug reports getting closed! Sometimes you really can have your cake and eat it, too.
It's another busy week in the KDE land from their Wayland session finally supporting middle-click paste to Konsole now able to display image thumbnail previews when hovering over filenames with this KDE terminal emulator.
Some of the KDE accomplishments for this past week, as outlined by KDE developer Nate Graham, include:
- KDE's Konsole terminal emulator can now show thumbnail previews for image files when you hover your cursor over filenames, such as in the output of ls and other commands.
I have submitted two talks proposals to Akademy. Earlier Albert called for more proposals, so let me repeat his reminder: send your talks proposals early to reduce panic in the programme committee. Anyone can join! And all things KDE and Qt related are good, as well as interesting stuff on the edge of the KDE community.
[...]
So be part, and send in your tale of KDE community activity.
This week, I started working on the Rocs graph layout capabilities. The Fruchtermani-Reingold [1] algorithm seems to be the most common option for drawing graphs automatically when no extra information about the graph is known. In fact, the Boost library implementation of this algorithm is currently being used by Rocs. However, the Fruchtermani-Reingold algorithm has some parameters that can change its results deeply. In order to better understand the algorithm and how different parameterizations lead to different results, I wrote my own C++ implementation directly in the Rocs’ libgraphtheory. This allowed me to generate debug information during the execution of the algorithm.
Unfortunately, tuning the parameters directly into the implementation is time consuming. Automatic parameter tuning solutions can not be applied in a trivial way, because the quality of the result obtained for a given parameterization is quite subjective. Therefore, I decided to make my manual tuning and evaluation process more efficient by creating a user interface that will allow me to choose parameter values and apply the algorithm to the current graph. Because I am new to Qt and the way to do this is to implement a Rocs’ plugin, it is not done yet. Creating such interface was already in my plans, but I expected to do it later.
Alpine Linux has announced the release of major version 3.12.0, which is the first of the “3.12” stable series. Alpine is a Linux distribution that focuses on security, and it’s designed for routers, firewalls, VPNs, VoIP boxes, and servers. Moreover, it is particularly lightweight, small in size (130 Mb), simple to use, independent, and non-commercial. All in all, Alpine is a security-oriented OS designed for power users who want to use a solid basis upon which to build a robust system for whatever purpose they may have.
The 3.12.0 release brings support for “mips64” (big-endian), and also the D programming language (Dlang). D is used in projects like Facebook, eBay, and Netflix, and generally, it is deployed in virtual machines, OS kernels, GPU programming, machine learning, web development, numerical analysis, and more. As for the big-endian architecture, this is the system of storing the most-significant byte of a word of digital data at the lower memory address of the storage location.
  Highlights of the IPFire 2.25 Core Update 145 release introduces new metrics for the OpenVPN server to collect metrics about connected clients, such as how long the client was connected and when.
Another new feature introduced in this latest release of the IPFire Linux firewall distro is the Netatalk package, a free and open-source software that provides file-sharing services for Apple devices.
IPFire will also now log NAT connections in the filter chain and launch the random number generator earlier in the boot process to be able to see Linux kernel’s pseudo-random number generator as soon as possible.
The code that Linux is built on is open-source software. That means anyone can read or modify the code. While that may sound like a privacy nightmare, it is actually the opposite. Independent programmers from all over the world work on Linux code. That makes it almost impossible for a bad actor to add malicious code to Linux without someone seeing it.
Contrast this to proprietary operating systems like Windows or macOS. The proprietary source code is controlled by the company and hidden from outsiders. If you use a proprietary operating system, you have to trust the company. Will they ensure that no malicious code gets added by outsiders? Will they add malicious code themselves?
Windows 10, for example, has code in it that records all sorts of information about how you use your computer. Microsoft inserted this code intentionally to gather this information for their own use. In the Linux world, a small army of programmers guards the source code against this kind of behavior.
Want to experience Arch Linux without the hassle of the complicated installation and set up? Here are a few user-friendly Arch-based Linux distributions.
Some Fedora spins have already made use of swap on zRAM for serving as a compressed RAM drive while with Fedora Workstation 33 they are looking to make use of zRAM by default.
ZRAM has been used for a while by other Linux distributions and the likes of Chrome OS and Android even for more efficient swap usage. One could argue it's long overdue but for Fedora Workstation 33 they are looking at automatically providing a swap-on-zram setup out-of-the-box.
Devuan Developers are delighted to announce the release of Devuan Beowulf 3.0.0 as the project's new stable release. This is the result of many months of painstaking work by the Team and detailed testing by the wider Devuan community.
The June snapshot of Sparky 2020.06 of the (semi-)rolling line is out. It is based on the Debian testing “Bullseye”.
Changes: ● system upgrade from Debian testing repos as of June 5, 2020 ● Linux kernel 5.6.14 (5.7.0 in Sparky unstable repos) ● Firefox 77.0 ● Thunderbird 68.8.1 ● LibreOffice 6.4.4.2 ● debi-tool’ replaced by ‘gdebi’ ● added ‘spterm’ (Sparky Terminal) to be used by Sparky tools ● Otter Browser replaced by Epiphany Browser (MinimalGUI) ● added RadioStation – a fork of RadioTray-Lite (and Radiotray) ● added Openbox Noir to the desktop list to be installed as a choice (via MinimalGUI & MinimalCLI and APTus too) ● added disk autopartitioning, encrypting and lvm support to the Advanced Installer DEV (still experimental) ● Calamares updated up to 3.2.24; changed password strength to a minimum number of digits as possible in Calamares, as requested a few times by our users (can be used used 1 digit, but I recommend to use strong password); thanks to lami07 ● added lxappearance to MinimalGUI iso (Openbox)
For distributions like Debian which have large archives of files that are compressed once and transferred a lot the “zstd --ultra -22” compression might be useful with multi-threaded compression. But given that Debian already has xz in use it might not be worth changing until faster CPUs with lots of cores become more commonly available. One could argue that for Debian it doesn’t make sense to change from xz as hard drives seem to be getting larger capacity (and also smaller physical size) faster than the Debian archive is growing. One possible reason for adopting zstd in a distribution like Debian is that there are more tuning options for things like memory use. It would be possible to have packages for an architecture like ARM that tends to have less RAM compressed in a way that decreases memory use on decompression.
For general compression such as compressing log files and making backups it seems that zstd is the clear winner. Even bzip2 is far too slow and in my tests zstd clearly beats gzip for every combination of compression and time taken. There may be some corner cases where gzip can compete on compression time due to CPU features, optimisation for CPUs, etc but I expect that in almost all cases zstd will win for compression size and time. As an aside I once noticed the 32bit of gzip compressing faster than the 64bit version on an Opteron system, the 32bit version had assembly optimisation and the 64bit version didn’t at that time.
This month I accepted 211 packages and rejected only 9. The overall number of packages that got accepted was 228.
Linux Mint is one of the popular Linux operating systems. It is based on Ubuntu and Debian. Linux Mint 20, which is based on Ubuntu 20.04, is going to be released in June 2020. Meanwhile, Linux Mint has decided to drop support for Ubuntu’s Snap.
Linux Mint 20, like previous Mint releases, will not ship with any snaps or snapd installed. In Linux Mint 20, APT will forbid snapd from getting installed.
  Linux Mint 20 “Ulyana” Release Date: Features & How To Download
Though we don’t know when Linux Mint 20 “Ulyana” will be released as Linux Mint tends to release when they are ready to go.
Linux Mint 20 will be available in 3 editions (Cinnamon, MATE, and Xfce) but only in 64-bit. It will be based on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and use a Linux 5.4 kernel.
This article brings Focal users easy and secure apps for their computers especially for accessing the internet and storing passwords (and a tool for Android phones). They enable you security and help you live easier with both devices especially if you are a newcomer. They are Tor Browser to protect surfing anonymity regardless country you live in, Dnscrypt to encrypt your internet access, Enigmail to encrypt your emails so only true recipients can read, KeePassXC to store your account credentials so you will not forget any, GSconnect to pair your laptop and phone, and F-Droid on Android. And, you do not need antivirus on Ubuntu. Together they empower Ubuntu users with security. You will see here short instructions to install and use them and several advice you can practice easily.
I'm happy with my little experiment, even if it serves no higher purpose. Now, on my M10 tablet, I won't repeat the exercise. It's a fairly capable device, and there, Android 6 does a pretty good job - a marked improvement over Android 5 that was on Aquaris E4.5. Indeed, Android has significantly improved over time. But on the phone, OTA-12 works quite well, and offers a fast if limited experience. But for novelty sake, I'm going to take this as far as it goes, either the UBports project or the lifespan of the device.
The community-supported continuation of the Ubuntu Phone effort - UBports Ubuntu Touch - is a commendable project. Given its resources, it manages to deliver a fairly robust and fun product, with OTA-12 as its latest incarnation. Solid, usable - to an extent, but also secure, updated and with solid privacy. If you need a basic smartphone, this is a solution that offers a reasonable compromise. I've never really expected to be using Ubuntu Touch again, but now I'm glad I did this, if only to see how far one's passion can stretch. But on a serious, emotionless note, really, if you don't need much, if you're not hooked into social media, and if your hardware supports the OTA-12 image, you might want to give this a try. If anything, it's more mature than it ever was, and in the privacy-focused world, it makes perfect sense.
It turned out that the “brain” of Falcon 9 is running Linux. More precisely, a certain stripped-down version of Linux is used. As for the hardware, everything relies on three regular x86-compatible dual-core processors. The flight software is written in C / C ++ and runs separately on each processor.
A system of three identical and independent processors is needed to ensure safety and fault tolerance. The system constantly compares the calculation results on each CPU with each other, and if there are any differences, the result is discarded, and the process starts again. If all is well, each CPU separately sends a command to PowerPC microcontrollers, which also compare the received commands.
The first machine to kick off the craze was the Asus EEE PC 701, inspired by the One Laptop Per Child project. Packing a 700Mhz Celeron processor, a small 7ââ¬Â³ LCD screen, and a 4 GB SSD, it was available with Linux or Windows XP installed from the factory. With this model, Asus seemed to find a market that Toshiba never quite hit with their Libretto machines a decade earlier. The advent of the wireless network and an ever-more exciting Internet suddenly made a tiny, toteable laptop attractive, whereas previously it would have just been a painful machine to do work on. The name “netbook” was no accident, highlighting the popular use case — a lightweight, portable machine that’s perfect for web browsing and casual tasks.
But the netbook was more than the sum of its parts. Battery life was in excess of 3 hours, and the CPU was a full-fat x86 processor. This wasn’t a machine that required users to run special cut-down software or compromise on usage. Anything you could run on an average, low-spec PC, you could run on this, too. USB and VGA out were available, along with WiFi, so presentations were easy and getting files on and off was a cinch. It bears remembering, too, that back in the Windows XP days, it was easy to share files across a network without clicking through 7 different permissions tabs and typing in your password 19 times.
Efinix has announced three RISC-V Software-defined SoC’s based on Charles Papon’s VexRiscv core and optimized for the company’s Trion T8 to T120 FPGA’s.
VexRiscv is a 32-bit RISC-V CPU using RISCV32I ISA with M and C extensions, has five pipeline stages (fetch, decode, execute, memory, and writeback), and a configurable feature set. Each SoC includes a RISC-V core, memory, as well as various I/O and interfaces.
  Each year, the team at Tidelift asks developers to update us on how they are managing their use of open source dependencies for application development. In June 2019, almost 400 professional software developers responded to our survey with input on "how they use open source software today, what holds them back, and what tools and strategies would help them use it even more effectively."
As we roll out the 2020 survey, we'd like to share some of the fascinating things we learned in 2019's survey results. Where are things going well? And where are they not going so well? Here are three examples.
You can take the 2020 survey right now, and then continue on to some of the most interesting 2019 findings.
The COVID-19 pandemic disturbed the work of event organizers everywhere. To slow the spread of this highly contagious virus, conferences that tend to host thousands in person faced a choice: Move entirely online, or cancel altogether. Many open source event organizers chose the latter, but not all of them.
Open Source 101 was due to be held in Austin, TX, on April 14. Instead, it hosted 1,000 attendees virtually. Later this month, the Linux Foundation will host the annual North American contingent of its Open Source Summit online. And rather than hosting DrupalCon around the world as planned, the Drupal Association will host DrupalCon Global online from July 14 - 17.
[...]
On a personal note, I've shared before how I started contributing to open source after attending a huge conference where I met several community leaders. By meeting and making connections face to face, I got plugged in much faster than if I had stumbled onto GitHub and searched through random projects. I fully support public health efforts to keep people safe, and haven't found virtual events to be a strong substitute for the informal conversations in the "hallway track."
Over the past week, I’ve been thinking a lot about George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery. I have been thinking about white supremacy, the injustice that Black women and men are standing up against across the world, and all the injustices I can’t know, and don’t see.
The WordPress mission is to democratize publishing, and to me, that has always meant more than the freedom to express yourself. Democratizing publishing means giving voices to the voiceless and amplifying those speaking out against injustice. It means learning things that we otherwise wouldn’t. To me, it means that every voice has the ability to be heard, regardless of race, wealth, power, and opportunity. WordPress is a portal to commerce; it is a canvas for identity, and a catalyst for change.
[...]
If you would like to learn more about how to make a difference in your own community, here are a few resources I’ve gathered from WordPressers just like you.
As a member of the Norwegian Unix User Group, I have the pleasure of receiving the USENIX magazine ;login: several times a year. I rarely have time to read all the articles, but try to at least skim through them all as there is a lot of nice knowledge passed on there. I even carry the latest issue with me most of the time to try to get through all the articles when I have a few spare minutes.
The other day I came across a nice article titled "The Secure Socket API: TLS as an Operating System Service" with a marvellous idea I hope can make it all the way into the POSIX standard. The idea is as simple as it is powerful. By introducing a new socket() option IPPROTO_TLS to use TLS, and a system wide service to handle setting up TLS connections, one both make it trivial to add TLS support to any program currently using the POSIX socket API, and gain system wide control over certificates, TLS versions and encryption systems used.
Recently I have been working to clean up the configuration file syntax and parsing in rpminspect. Several months back there were suggestions on fedora-devel to improve things with the configuration files. The ideas were good improvements, so I added them to my to do list and am now at a point where I can work on making those changes.
Google has released Android Studio 4.0, a massive update to its IDE for mobile app development, with features like an upgraded Layout Inspector, and the brand new Build Analyzer and motion editor.
Android Studio is based on JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA, a popular Java IDE, and version 4.0 uses IDEA 2019.3.3, according to the release notes, which came out in February 2020. The Android Studio incarnation is a little behind IDEA, for which version 2020 is out.
Do you write tests for your code? You probably should. And most of the time, pytest is the industry standard these days. But pytest can be much more than what you get from just installing it as a tool.
There are many amazing plugins that improve pytest in many aspects. That's why I invited Brian Okken to the show to tell us about his favorites. Listen in and your Python testing will be faster, stronger, and more beautiful!
I am an Architect & Developer & I love to code!
Lived & worked in many countries I have seen systems evolved from traditional client server to today's modern Cloud based Apps.
Now a days I code in Python/Django, Vue.js to develop Web, Android and iOS apps
Looking at the science versus the hype, I’ve been predicting for at least a couple of months now that hydroxychloroquine, a drug commonly used to treat malaria that also has immunomodulatory properties that make it useful for treating autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, will probably turn out to be ineffective against COVID-19, all the hype notwithstanding. I’ve often pointed out that the prior probability of hydroxychloroquine being effective based on what we’ve known is quite low given that its antiviral activity in cell culture has never successfully translated to antiviral activity in humans and that the claims for “miracle cures” of COVID-19 victims such as Rio Giardinieri, Jim Santilli, and Karen Whitsett, due to the drug just don’t stand up to scrutiny. In any case, my position has always been that the hype over hydroxychloroquine far outweighs any promise that it might have and that its effectiveness is likely to be very low or zero (more likely zero). Nonetheless, a “brave maverick” French scientist named Didier Raoult, grifting doctors (including Dr. Mehmet Oz), and Donald Trump with his sycophants, toadies, and lackeys have hyped the drug relentlessly and, as observational study after observational study has been published failing to find even a hint of a signal of benefit, also attacking the studies.
Several authors of a large study that raised safety concerns about malaria drugs for coronavirus patients have retracted the report, saying independent reviewers were not able to verify information that’s been widely questioned by other scientists.
Thursday’s retraction in the journal Lancet involved a May 22 report on hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, drugs long used for preventing or treating malaria but whose safety and effectiveness for COVID-19 are unknown.
The last couple of months leading up to a Quest serology test that yielded “positive” antibodies for COVID-19 have been a roller coaster ride. Take a seat in the car behind me, strap yourself in, and let me recount a story that Agatha Christie might have written.
"It appears they want to ensure that people who protest are susceptible to the same deadly pandemic that they have failed miserably at stopping."
"The situation couldn't be worse," said one Brazilian public health expert. "It just couldn't."
Justine Lugo arrives at East Side Glatt, a kosher grocery in the Lower East Side, every day at noon on a mission: to feed the hungry.
While we have amazing open source alternatives to Microsoft Office, it’s always good to have more options supported for Linux.
For that very same reason, the latest release of SoftMaker – Office 2021 grabbed my attention.
SoftMaker Office suite is a collection of TextMaker (word), PlanMaker (spreadsheets), and Presentation program.
It is a cross-platform solution which is available for Linux, Windows, and macOS.
A group of [attackers] executed a successful attack this week on shipbuilder Fincantieri SpA’s Norwegian unit, an Italy-based representative for the company said, confirming local reports.
Servers at the Norwegian unit, Vard Group AS, were infected with a ransomware, and the company “took in place all the actions needed to solve the issue,” the spokesman said. He said none of Fincantieri’s servers were involved in the attack.
A sophisticated strain of ransomware called Tycoon has been selectively targeting education and software companies since December 2019, according to a joint report released this week by BlackBerry and KPMG's UK Cyber Response Services.
A couple of weeks ago, a post on this blog explained how the OpenSAFELY project allowed trusted analysts to run large-scale computation across live pseudonymized patient records inside the data centre of the electronic health records software company. At a time when the world is grappling with the coronavirus pandemic, that’s a hugely important task, but it might seem rather specialized. It’s not, for reasons that go back to a Privacy News Online post from last year. The latter was mainly about the difficulty of respecting privacy using Google’s business model, which is based on gathering detailed personal information about its users. However, it also mentioned some important work Google is conducting on “federated learning“. This enables developers to train machine learning models across many devices without centralized data collection, ensuring that only the user has a copy of their data, and avoiding privacy issues. This is clearly quite similar to what OpenSAFELY does, and Google has now extended its work to produce what it calls “federated analytics“:
Private Internet Access beta users are now able to access Next Generation VPN servers on the PIA network using out beta desktop clients and mobile apps. To do so, make sure that you’re on the latest beta version and navigate to the Help section in Settings. There, you’ll be able to switch between the “Current” and “Next Generation” network options. Once you select “Next Generation” your VPN server list will automatically depopulate the current VPN server list and repopulate with only Next Gen servers.
Chief Executive Officer Eric Yuan said Tuesday that Zoom wouldn’t offer the strongest level of encryption to free users so the company could aid the FBI and local police. What he meant “is when there are situations where law enforcement is looking into unfortunate situations such as potentially child abuse that we do comply with subpoenas and we do want to support those types of investigations,” Steckelberg said Friday in a Bloomberg Television interview.
Facebook says it will no longer recommend boogaloo pages and groups to users and is demoting them in search results, Facebook tells The Verge. The change was made on June 2nd. On May 1st, Facebook updated its Violence and Incitement policy to ban boogaloo and similar terms when used with images or statements depicting armed violence.
The specific terms Facebook is acting against on its namesake platform and Instagram unit are evolving, the company said. To evade scrutiny, some Boogaloo groups have switched to terms such as “Big Igloo” or “Big Luau” while maintaining the same discussions about weaponry, future wars and conspiracy theories.
But the website has come under fire for hosting forums that promote racist content. The company has banned groups like r/blackpeoplehate and alt-right r/MillionDollarExtreme. It has also "quarantined" a pro-Trump forum, r/TheDonald, ensuring that its content does not appear in website searches or recommendations.
Earlier this week, several popular Reddit forums switched their access rights to private, or banned new posts entirely, to protest against the company's hate speech policies. Ex-chief executive Ellen K Pao also lambasted her former employer in a tweet, saying: "You don't get to say [Black Lives Matter] when reddit nurtures and monetizes white supremacy and hate all day long."
Zuckerberg said in a memo to employees that he also put on his personal page that he’s “committed to making sure we … fight for voter engagement and racial justice” and said the company would undertake “concrete steps” to adjust its policies.
The Facebook chief said he would review policies allowing discussion and threats of state use of force in instances of “excessive use of police or state force [and] when a country has ongoing civil unrest or violent conflicts.”
The company will review policies on posts that promote or threaten state use of force or voter suppression techniques, and will also look into options for flagging or labeling posts that are a violation but shouldn’t necessarily be removed entirely, the CEO wrote on Facebook.
The data ranged from contact information to details of gender, race and work, and physical and mental health conditions, according to a copy of the contract struck in March and published on Friday by politics website OpenDemocracy and law firm Foxglove. It also included details of political and religious affiliation and past criminal offenses.
Data captures our behavior as we go about our daily life, - the things we buy, the web sites we access, the people we interact with, the locations our cell phones leave behind as we move around the world. What if all these data belong to the individuals whose behavior it captures, not to the organizations that collect it? What measures do we now need to re-balance the vast amounts of data and economic power held by a small number of actors?
Bob Marley, Rest in Power, reduced to lyric, words of consequence and self determination that have accompanied our collective journey since it began. At times, its vanguard has been the spoken word. At others, the pen; and, yes, more often than not, the rock, the mask, the gun has led the way. There is no singular correct or acceptable megaphone of resistance for those historically who have said enough. Defiance is dictated not by the aim of those who struggle but by the reach and tactic of those they fight. At times, sweet words and chant have triumphed while at others, tears and smoke and blood.€ But, rest assured, power concedes nothing without struggle. It never did and it never will.
"The police could beat up€ de Blasio and he would say it didn't happen."
The mass resignations were in support of two ERT colleagues suspended from the police force without pay, sources told the local TV station WIVB. The viral video showed the officers shoving a 75-year-old local peace activist to the ground.
The video, captured by local NPR affiliate WBFO, has been viewed more than 69 million times. The man was later identified by People United for Sustainable Housing Buffalo as Martin Gugino.
When Russian-speaking troops showed up in Ukraine six years ago, they were dubbed "little green men": armed forces whose green fatigues bore neither insignia nor identification.
A similar genre of unidentified, armed personnel clad in insignia-free uniforms has appeared policing street protests in Washington, D.C., in recent days, and Democratic lawmakers are demanding answers about just who these anonymous enforcers are.
The unusually public cyberskirmish between the Middle East’s arch-adversaries brings a shadow war fought largely in secret into a new, more open phase. Just as unusually, both parties focused on critical civilian targets but caused relatively low damage. A closer look at this new type of Israeli-Iranian exchange suggests that cyberwarfare is maturing into a new phase, where new rules of engagement and deterrence are in the process of being established.
Twitter and Facebook busted some of the instigators behind the unsubstantiated social media chatter. Twitter determined Monday that a tweet promising antifa would “move into residential areas” and “white” neighborhoods was sent by the white supremacy group Identity Evropa. The tweet was shared hundreds of times and cited in online news articles before Twitter removed it Monday, a company spokesperson said.
Yet the tweet continued to circulate Tuesday on Facebook and Instagram.
I’m not so naïve as to think that cop shows are in any danger of disappearing, even in light of current events. They are too ingrained into the current profit machine in Hollywood. Eliminating NBC's popular first responder trifecta of "Chicago" series, also produced by Wolf, would wipe out a whole night of its schedule."NCIS," "FBI" and "Blue Bloods" are CBS's highest-rated dramas. Cancel Amazon's "Bosch" and lose one of the streamer's biggest draws. Clearly, however damaging these series are, their popularity remains, so far, intact.
But we shouldn’t act as if they’re harmless entertainment, or “just TV.” If TV didn’t have the power to influence and change the minds of viewers, there would be no point in selling commercials that fund your favorite shows.
What follows are some strategies for removing facial features from your photos. Of course, you can open up your images on a desktop or laptop using Photoshop or Preview to blur or scrub, but we’re going to assume you aren’t carrying around a laptop with you. So with mobile in mind, you still have some solid options.
NBC News first reported on the recent surge of antifa-related misinformation, some of which was promoted by white nationalist groups posing as antifa accounts. But even after the rumors were debunked, they continue to spread on Facebook, often inspiring real-life confrontations and instances of violence.
On the heels of a pandemic that is hitting communities of color the hardest, and while protests for racial justice following the murder of George Floyd rock the nation and world, it is vital for meaningful climate dialogues to continue.
A huge swathe of Arctic Russia is changing rapidly as oil leaks, the climate warms and Siberia dries out.
The May jobs numbers were considerably better than most analysts had expected with the economy reportedly adding 2,509,000 jobs, while the unemployment rate fell by 1.4 percentage points to 13.3 percent. This improved labor market picture should not have been surprising since many businesses across the country had reopened by the survey week in mid-April. The high number of unemployment insurance claims, continuing through May, likely gave a wrong picture, as delays in processing caused claims to appear much later than they had been filed.
The public deserves answers about the UK’s new opposition leader and his relationship with the British national security establishment, including the MI5 and the Times newspaper, his former role in the Julian Assange case and his membership in the intelligence-linked Trilateral Commission.
HBO’s After Truth: Disinformation and the Cost of Fake News benefits from strong storytelling but falls short of addressing the central problems associated with fake news. Director Andrew Rossi’s journey through the politicized world of fake news provides an illuminating and engaging introduction to the topic. The film effectively utilizes intimate storytelling about specific fake news producers and victims, most notably those involved in the Pizzagate shooting, to engender viewers’ consideration of real-world impacts of fake news. Pizzagate refers to the 2016 shooting of the Comet Ping Pong Pizza restaurant in Washington D.C. The shooter, relying on internet fake news, came to believe that a child abuse ring run by the Democratic Party was located in the dining establishment. The documentary follows the restaurant employees and patrons as they grapple with the horror unleashed by the shooting.
When President Trump signaled Monday that he was prepared to send military forces to US cities in order to end unrest that has swelled since the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd—and then had his attorney general order federal police to remove peaceful protesters from a park adjacent to the White House—Representative John Yarmouth warned, “The President just declared war on millions of Americans and the 1st Amendment. He is the greatest threat to the American way of life in our history.”
The American Civil Liberties Union and Black Lives Matter announced Thursday they are suing President Trump and Attorney General William Barr for authorizing an “unprovoked and frankly criminal attack” on protesters at Lafayette Park in Washington, D.C., where the National Guard and officers dressed in riot gear fired tear gas, rubber bullets and flashbangs to disperse peaceful protesters on Monday so Trump could have a photo op with a Bible in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church. We look at the increasing militarization of the police with Stuart Schrader, author of “Badges Without Borders: How Global Counterinsurgency Transformed American Policing.”
As the nationwide uprising in defense of Black lives continues, demonstrators are recording videos of police brutality on the streets. We speak with Chris Frierson, an African American documentary filmmaker and cameraman who was filming a Black Lives Matter protest on Saturday in Brooklyn, New York, when police moved in on demonstrators. As Frierson filmed, police pepper-sprayed him directly in the face. Chris kept on filming as he struggled to the sidewalk crying in agony from the pain. Within seconds, someone took his arm and guided him to volunteer medics who came to his aid. We air his footage and speak about the incident.
I owe an apology to all those who are kind enough to subscribe to my blog. I was determined that I would not let my impending trial affect my output, but have been unable to see that through. It is partly because preparation does take up much more time than I had imagined. But it is mostly because I find it hard to put my mind to anything else and really concentrate.
This week on CounterSpin: Police attacks on journalists covering historic, nationwide anti-police brutality protests are shocking and appalling. Will they lead reporters to back off, covering racial injustice from a safe distance? Or will they encourage them to work more deeply and consistently to amplify precisely those voices that the “forces of order,” as CNN called them, so vehemently want to silence? A lot depends on which course they take, both for racial justice and for journalism. We talk with Alicia Bell, organizing manager with the group Free Press.
Under FBI orders, Facebook and Google removed American Herald Tribune, an alternative site that publishes US and European writers critical of US foreign policy. The bureau’s justification for the removal was dubious, and it sets a troubling precedent for other critical outlets.
Here's an interesting tidbit: the latest move by Twitter to deal with a tweet related to President Trump is that it pulled down a Trump campaign video that was presented as a "tribute" to George Floyd, the Minneapolis man murdered by police last week, and whose senseless death has brought so many thousands to the streets across the US. The video remains on YouTube for the moment. It includes a lot of still photos and a few short video clips. It appears that the copyright holder on one (or perhaps more) of those images and clips likely didn't like it to be included for use by a President for a propaganda video they disagreed with, and filed the DMCA claim.
The proceedings against Mr Pavlou have been characterised in media reports as an effort to silence a high-profile critic of the Communist Party of China in order to safeguard the university’s relationship with the country.
Fees from Chinese students accounted for some 20 per cent of UQ’s revenue in 2018 and that figure is likely to have risen since. In 2019, the number of fee-paying international students at UQ rose by about 2,000. They constituted 38 per cent of the student body, up from 25 per cent in 2014. Last year their contribution to institutional revenue rose from 28 per cent to 32 per cent.
The university says this dependence has been foisted on it by government policy. “The Australian government is substantially reducing university revenues for teaching and non-medical research at a faster rate than alternative domestic sources of funding can be developed, thereby increasing reliance on international funding,” its annual report says.
Perceptions that the university was pursuing Mr Pavlou over his activism have also been fanned by the secrecy of the proceedings, the university’s engagement of two top law firms and the fact that a two-year suspension – extremely severe for disciplinary cases not involving serious academic misconduct or criminal behaviour – would make him ineligible to sit on the senate for the remainder of his term.
The Moscow City Court has reduced the sentence handed down to jailed journalist and municipal deputy Ilya Azar to 10 days administrative arrest.
June 6 marks two years since Nouf Abdulaziz was imprisoned for reporting on women's rights — an arrest that press freedom advocates say is indicative of how the Saudi government treats the press.
Abdulaziz, a blogger and columnist who contributed to newspapers including Al-Sharq, is one of at least four female journalists jailed in 2018 over their reporting and advocating for increased freedoms for women and constitutional reform in Saudi Arabia, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
She is currently on trial for "communicating with foreign entities; recruiting state employees to gather confidential information; providing financial support to hostile entities abroad."
The statement explained: "Though we understand the Op-Ed desk's responsibility to publish a diverse array of opinions, we find the publication of this essay to be an irresponsible choice. Its lack of context, inadequate vetting by editorial management, spread of misinformation, and the timing of its call to arms gravely undermine the work we do every day. This rhetoric could inspire further use of force at protests — protests many of us and our colleagues are covering in person."
On Thursday evening, the Times capitulated — up to a point. Eileen Murphy, a Times spokeswoman, said in a statement that "a rushed editorial process led to the publication of an Op-Ed that did not meet our standards." The statement said the Times would expand its fact-checking operation and publish fewer pieces.
Right now, Amazon has a prominent banner on its homepage that reads: “Black lives matter: Amazon stands in solidarity with the Black community.” The company has also tweeted about its “solidarity with the Black community” in “the fight against systemic racism and injustice.”
As law enforcement officers across the country continue to brutalize peaceful demonstrators in the nationwide protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis last week, support for defunding the police is rising as Americans become increasingly fed up with the institution’s racism and violence.
As protests against racist police violence rock the country, fascism ascends in the Trump White House and the COVID-19 pandemic persists, this country is at a pivotal moment. I spoke about this flash point in history with Noam Chomsky, known as the father of modern linguistics, who is one of the world’s most prominent public intellectuals and the author of over 100 books, including Hegemony or Survival, Failed States, Optimism Over Despair, Hopes and Prospects, Masters of Mankind and Who Rules the World?
The zone of incomprehension was about a foot wide. That was the distance separating a boisterous but peaceful crowd of several hundred protesters and a silent line of several dozen uniformed Airborne Rangers in downtown Washington DC on Wednesday night. A young black woman in long braids patrolled the zone with a bullhorn, alternately telling the protesters to stand back and addressing the soldiers herself. “We are trying to humanize you,” she said. “You can humanize us.”
Every 10 years, the U.S. government undertakes the largest peace-time mobilization effort to count the nation: the U.S. census. Census data is used in a variety of ways. It determines everything from how many congressional representatives communities have, the apportioning of federal funds for community needs, the enforcement of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the health of the U.S. economy.
Donald Trump has been at war for the past three and a half years as president of the United States. But he is waging his war against U.S. institutions and norms.€ He began his verbal assaults on American governance€ in his inauguration speech (“American Carnage”) in January 2017, and ever since he has assaulted the Department of Justice and the justice system itself; the intelligence community; the departments and agencies of government that deal with science and reason; and the international world order that Democratic and Republican administrations have supported since the Second World War.
The George Floyd protests have swept the country in a spontaneous explosion of rage. Their scope and intensity have equaled the 1992 Los Angeles uprising, which inspired nationwide actions.
I’m guessing that “Jakarta Is Coming” or “Plan Jakarta” won’t elicit immediate recognition from most of you and until very recently that was also true for me. But before defining it, here’s a bit of necessary background:
n the book of Jeremiah, the Hebrew prophet shares instructions from God about entering a place of worship.
We’re facing a state of emergency. Not only has the death toll of the COVID-19 pandemic risen above 105,000 in the United States alone, but it seems to be disproportionately lethal for Black Americans. While COVID-19 is still a growing pandemic, it’s unmasking itself as a racial injustice as well.
A new poll demonstrates that a majority of Americans view the killing of George Floyd last week as indicative of systemic racism in policing toward Black Americans.
Since becoming Donald Trump’s attorney general, Bill Barr has given several speeches to police organizations. This is not unusual for someone in his position, but Barr’s comments have often been controversial. Last December he made the outrageous comment that “communities” have to “start showing more than they do the respect and support that law enforcement deserves and if communities don’t give that respect, they might find themselves without the protection they need.” It was bad enough that it hit the evening news:
As people have gathered across the country to oppose police violence, including the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, they have targeted statues, monuments, and buildings commemorating white supremacy. In Philadelphia, protestors defaced a statue of Frank Rizzo, the city’s segregationist mayor and police commissioner. In Birmingham, they toppled a likeness of Confederate veteran and Alabama banker Charles Linn and set fire to another of slaveowning president Thomas Jefferson.
In this time of coronavirus and social unrest, you'd think the government -- at all levels -- would engage in a little more care not to make either problem worse. Of course they haven't. Cops are arresting journalists and tear-gassing peaceful protesters as the President himself calls for domestic military action targeting US citizens. Dystopian fiction writers have been put on notice: the usual shit just isn't going to sell anymore. The ideas you thought wouldn't sustain suspension of disbelief are swiftly becoming reality.
In an effort to help protect protesters from Covid-19 and prevent the spread of the virus, an advocacy organization sent thousands of cloth masks that read “Defund Police” and “Stop Killing Black People” to major cities across the U.S. as demonstrations over the killing of George Floyd continue to grow nationwide.
The George Floyd video destroyed me. I couldn’t even finish it. The long, slow extinction of his life. The face of Officer Derek Chauvin showing utter indifference to Floyd’s condition, hands in pockets as he murdered him, as if this were a casual killing. It brought back images of lynchings attended as sport. It triggered the hell out of me.
"Absolutely horrific."
Two police officers in Buffalo, New York, who shoved a 75-year-old man to the ground during a demonstration in response to the killing of George Floyd have been suspended following the release of video of the attack, which has been viewed tens of millions of times on social media.
In Minneapolis, members of George Floyd’s family, loved ones and supporters gathered for a tribute to his life. During the memorial service, people stood in silence for eight minutes and 46 seconds — the amount of time police officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on Floyd’s neck as he pleaded for his life. We hear the voices of Floyd’s brother Philonise and Reverend Al Sharpton, who urged those gathered “to stand up in George’s name and say, 'Get your knee off our necks!'”
On Thursday, disturbing new details were revealed in the case of Ahmaud Arbery, the 25-year-old Black man who was chased, ambushed and shot dead by a group of white men in Georgia in what many have called a modern-day lynching. In a nearly seven-hour hearing, a state judge concluded all three men — Travis McMichael, Gregory McMichael and William “Roddie” Bryan — would stand trial for Arbery’s murder, after special agent Richard Dial of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation testified Travis McMichael said “f—ing n—” after shooting and killing Arbery. We speak with professor Carol Anderson, author of “White Rage,” about Arbery’s slaying, the nationwide protests, anti-lynching legislation being debated in the Senate and the upcoming election.
Unlike some on the left, I never feared that Trump would be the American Mussolini. As a self-absorbed reality-show star with minimal understanding of how government works, Trump lacks sufficient organizational ability. Nor does he have the work habits you need to run an authoritarian government. My fear, going back to Trump’s candidacy in 2016, was that he would be the Yankee Gabriele D’Annunzio, a prefiguration of things to come, an inchoate and incoherent forerunner of the true American Duce who would one day destroy the republic.
In the midst of a historic, nationwide uprising following the police lynching of George Floyd, and after a weekend of outsize police aggression against protests across the country, the NYPD suddenly found itself on its knees. On Sunday, Deputy Inspector Vincent Tavalaro and several other officers were pictured taking a knee with protesters in Queens. Elected officials across the city and state followed suit with streams of public statements and social media salvos condemning the brutality.
A young Aboriginal man at the centre of a youth detention scandal in the Northern Territory, in which he was gassed and tortured by guards, has had a major court victory overturned on appeal. Hannah Marshall from Marque Lawyers explains.
"The First Amendment right to protest is under attack, and we will not let this go unanswered."
Where to Start from?
+ Trump the Brigand ranting about “law & order” in the Rose Garden, as tear gas deployed against nonviolent protesters swirls across the capital of a country that is mourning 105,000 dead and yet is still locking up kids in cages, pretty much capsulizes where the Republic stands at this fraught moment.
The Moscow Prosecutor’s Office has launched an investigation into compliance with labor laws following mass complaints from couriers working for the Russian online food-delivery platform “Delivery Club” (part of the Mail.Ru Group). The company’s workers are complaining about deteriorating working conditions, as well as facing an increasing number of monetary penalties. Meanwhile, Delivery Club claims that the situation has been resolved.
Republicans want to help businesses kill workers. They want to force employees to return to Covid-19 hotspots, like slaughterhouses, by depriving them of unemployment checks if they don’t clock in. In addition, Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell wants to give these businesses and others, like nursing homes, legal immunity for deliberately exposing workers to a deadly plague. On May 26, he announced such legislation. Make no mistake: McConnell’s liability protection is a license to kill. He’s gone from being the gravedigger of democracy to just being a gravedigger.
Everyone in the United States — citizen or resident — has a constitutional right to record police who are performing their public duties. The police don’t have the right to stop you as long as you’re not disrupting their business, and they aren’t allowed to confiscate your phone or camera just because you were recording them. This is the consistent opinion of federal courts and the Supreme Court, which affirmed in 2014 (in a 9-0 decision) that cops need a warrant if they want to seize and search your cellphone.
Of course, the nationwide protests are about the police ignoring civil rights. Indeed, the videos we’ve seen in the past week show widespread police lawlessness, with officers arbitrarily violating the rights of peaceful demonstrators in lawful assemblies. So there’s no guarantee that the police will respect your right to record. This canyon — between the law as it is written and the law as it is realized — is one of the reasons Americans are protesting in all 50 states.
If you are worried about retaliation for posting your video, ask a friend who can do it safely, or contact a journalist who may be able to distribute it while protecting your identity.
Additionally, take precautions: [...]
US billionaires have become $565 billion richer since March 18, according to a report published Thursday by the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive think tank.
Total wealth for billionaires now stands at $3.5 trillion, up 19% from the low point near the beginning of the pandemic, the report said. Amazon (AMZN) boss Jeff Bezos alone is worth $36.2 billion more than he was on March 18.
But while those officers have the power to immediately respond and arrest their attackers, protesters who have filmed their violent encounters with police are learning that holding officers accountable when they cross the line is a far different story. City leaders defended officers in Philadelphia who unloaded tear gas on protesters who were pinned up against a highway embankment. There's been no punishment for the New York Police Department officers who rammed their SUV into a crowd of protesters, the officer who tore the mask off a protester to pepper spray him, or another officer who shoved a female protester to the ground. The result, according to protesters and city leaders, is a troubling moment where police officers are acting with impunity on the streets of America.
“I think what happens is that police departments are quick to use these weapons because they feel like they’re safe,” Castner said. “But they’re not safe, and officers need to practice more restraint.”
Rubber bullets launch at velocities similar to live ammunition, but their design causes a rapid slowdown during flight. Still, they can slam into targets with as much force as a baseball traveling at 90mph, and as they are less accurate than conventional rounds, rubber bullets pose enormous risks to innocent bystanders. The knock-on effects of unrest can increase the odds of death since fears of arrest or retaliation may prompt victims to delay seeking medical treatment, experts say.
“I’ve never seen a case where the use of rubber bullets de-escalated a conflict or made for a safer environment,” said Dr. Rohini Haar, a medical expert and senior advisor to the group Physicians for Human Rights who co-authored a report about less-lethal munitions in 2018. “In most cases, it actually escalates violence.”
The Asheville Police Department's aggressive dismantling of a volunteer medical station 15 minutes after curfew has set off calls for accountability across the city and beyond.
Video by the Citizen Times of the Tuesday incident shows Asheville police officers in riot gear and holding shields, forming a protective circle around officers stomping and stabbing water bottles. Other officers destroyed medical supplies such as bandages and saline solution.
For some, officers' actions are emblematic of the very brutality protesters were railing against during protests of George Floyd's death at the hands of police.
"It seems that [people] are moving away from the tradition, but it has not entirely been given up," she added.
None of this quells disorder. Everything, from the militaristic posture to the attacks themselves, does more to inflame and agitate protesters than it does to calm the situation and bring order to the streets. In effect, rioting police have done as much to stoke unrest and destabilize the situation as those responsible for damaged buildings and burning cars. But where rioting protesters can be held to account for destruction and violence, rioting police have the imprimatur of the state.
What we’ve seen from rioting police, in other words, is an assertion of power and impunity. In the face of mass anger over police brutality, they’ve effectively said So what? In the face of demands for change and reform — in short, in the face of accountability to the public they’re supposed to serve — they’ve bucked their more conciliatory colleagues with a firm No. In which case, if we want to understand the behavior of the past two weeks, we can’t just treat it as an explosion of wanton violence, we have to treat it as an attack on civil society and democratic accountability, one rooted in a dispute over who has the right to hold the police to account.
EUIPO’s Management Board and Budget Committee are composed of representatives of the Member States of the EU, the European Commission and the European Parliament, with the Benelux Office of Intellectual Property (BOIP), the European Patent Office (EPO), the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO), the Community Plant Variety Office (CPVO), and user associations acting as observers during the non-confidential parts of the meetings.
During the two-day meeting period, Management Board members agreed to propose to the Council a list of candidates for the post of President of the Boards of Appeal of the Office. The Management Board also decided to extend the term of office of three members of the Boards of Appeal.
In order to significantly improve the chances of obtaining a positive written opinion in the international phase, the European Patent Office (EPO), as an International Searching Authority, implemented the PCT Direct service in 2014. This service, which was implemented with the aim of improving the efficiency and quality of the procedure before the EPO, allows applicants to file informal observations on the objections raised in the written opinion on the earlier application whose priority is claimed.
The Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (SPTO), as an International Searching Authority, applies Chapter 21 of the PCT International Search and Preliminary Examination Guidelines, which, although not binding, are designed to assist International Searching Authorities and International Preliminary Examining Authorities (ISA/IPEA) during the practice of such procedures, establishing a minimum set of criteria that each administration should use as a model for establishing its own quality management mechanism, in order, inter alia, to establish procedures for the timely issuance of high quality search and review reports.
As a result of the above, the SPTO has approved the Service Charter 2018-2021 on the activities of the SPTO as an ISA/IPEA and the inclusion of these services in the ISO 9001/2015 certification as well as the creation of the PCT Direct Service, by means of the present resolution, in order to deepen the quality of the services provided by the SPTO as an ISA/IPEA, going beyond the parameters imposed in Chapter 21.
Seed makers including Corteva are glad to have legal certainty after the Pepper ruling, but Bayer says it stems R&D and others have wider complaints
At issue is a patent application filed by BASF Plant Sciences GmbH (BASF) entitled “Process for the production of polyunsaturated fatty acids in transgenic organisms”, which relates to genes from a species of unicellular algae that code for enzymes which can be employed for the recombinant production of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) in plants. Specifically, the invention relates to a pathway for the synthesis of long-chain PUFAs, that involves a sequence of enzymatic reactions to convert shorter-chain PUFAs into commercially desirable long-chain PUFAs. The claims relate to isolating the genes for those enzymes in a species of unicellular algae, Ostreococcus lucimarinus, and introducing those genes into suitable oil-producing crops. Performing the invention enables the production of the valuable fatty acids in transgenic commercial crops.
CSIRO opposed BASF’s accepted application, and during the opposition proceedings BASF applied to amend its patent and introduce new dependent claims. The Australian Patent Office initially refused the proposed amendments on the basis that, as a result of the proposed amendments, the specification would not comply with the requirements of s 40(3). However, a second set of proposed amendments was submitted, which a Delegate of the Commissioner of Patents subsequently allowed. CSIRO then lodged an appeal to the Federal Court against that decision under s 104(7) of the Patents Act 1990.
Bound2B B.V., the creator and owner of several resealable beverage can patents and technologies, today announced that it has filed legal proceedings against Xolution GmbH ("Xolution"), Weider Germany GmbH ("Weider") and Ardagh Metal Beverage Trading Germany GmbH, a company of the Ardagh Group ("Ardagh"), formerly known as Ball Trading Germany GmbH. The patent infringement case relates to the unauthorized use of Bound2B's European Patent, EP 1 708 930 B2 ("EP' 930"), in Germany. The complaint was filed before the District Court of Düsseldorf, the most frequently used court in relation to European patent litigation.
Counsel from the aerospace, automotive and other industries explain the impact of the pandemic on their IP budgets and portfolio management
European Qualifying Examination (EQE) is normally held once a year with the attendance of nearly three thousand candidates from various member states of the European Patent Organization.
Upon the announcements of the EPO dated 1 March and 4 March 2020 regarding the adopted precautionary measures against Covid-19, the candidates have received a notification from the EPO on 05.03.2020 about the cancellation of the EQE. Accordingly, it has been reported that the examination scheduled for 16-19 March 2020 was canceled; that the Board was assessing the feasibility of organizing the examination at a later stage during the current year and that the decision of the assessment would be shared with the students as soon as possible.
As it is known, EPO conducts the examination with a very high number of participants and supervisors in different cities of Europe such as Berne, Helsinki, Madrid, Munich, Paris, Rome, Stockholm, Taastrup, The Hague and Walsall. EPO is thought to have to make this decision as the increase in Covid-19 cases in these cities and other countries of the world will create a significant health risk in the test centers where there will be hundreds of people.
In a notice from the EPO dated 1 May 2020 concerning the disruptions due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the EPO confirms that all EPO time limits expiring on or after 15 March 2020 are extended until 2 June 2020 (previously until 4 May 2020). As regards time limits expiring before 15 March 2020, the EPO has facilitated the use of legal remedies for users located in areas directly affected by disruptions due to the COVID-19 outbreak. The extensions and remedies apply to parties and representatives in proceedings under the EPC and the PCT. If the disruption continues after 2 June 2020, the EPO may publish another notice informing users about further extensions and remedies in respect of time limits.
The extension of time limits also applies to periods for paying fees, including renewal fees.
The EPO also decided to postpone all oral proceedings in opposition proceedings scheduled until 2 June 2020 (previously until 30 April 2020) until further notice unless they have already been confirmed to take place by means of videoconferencing. Without prejudice to the evolving situation....
Annovis Bio Inc. (NYSE American: ANVS), a clinical-stage drug platform company addressing Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease (PD) and other neurodegenerative diseases, today announced the European Patent Office (EPO) granted the Company’s patent for a method of treating Alzheimer’s disease in humans by administering its lead compound, ANVS401.
Unlike trade secrets, obtaining a patent involves a formal application and review process (referred to as “patent prosecution”) prior to being granted a patent. In the United States, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) receives, examines, typically rejects and eventually allows a patent application before issuing an enforceable patent. Patents are only enforceable in the jurisdiction in which they are granted, so obtaining protection in other countries requires filing corresponding patent applications in those jurisdictions. Few applicants seek truly global coverage, instead targeting economically significant jurisdictions.
Prosecution of patent applications for inventions involving mechanical or electrical components typically focuses on defining the novelty of the invention over prior art (preexisting technology) in the field. For software-related inventions, however, patent prosecution will often include further consideration of subject matter eligibility. In the U.S., the subject matter eligibility hurdle for software inventions has been a particular concern since the 2014 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Alice v. CLS Bank. Subject matter eligibility analysis at the USPTO typically focuses on whether the invention is directed to an “abstract idea,” while the European Patent Office (EPO) focuses on identifying a “further technical effect” beyond the software per se. Unlike some other areas of AI and software innovation, robotics inventions typically include readily identifiable aspects supporting patent eligibility. In fact, the 2014 Interim Patent Guidance on Patent Subject Matter Eligibility published by the USPTO shortly after the Alice decision gave an example of “a robotic arm assembly” with a control system as being appropriate for a streamlined analysis of patent eligibility. In most cases, software inventions relating to robotics can clear the patent eligibility hurdle by reciting controlling an action in the physical world.
[...]
As artificial intelligence (AI) systems become more and more sophisticated, questions have recently arisen as to whether it is possible for an AI system to be an inventor. Whether or not AI systems are capable of inventing in a philosophical sense, in the patent world the answer to that question seems to be “no” – at least at this point.
According to a recent petition decision from the USPTO, under current U.S. law only “natural persons” may be named as an inventor in a patent application. In the case upon which the petition decision was based, Dr. Stephen Thaler applied for a patent on an invention of “Devices and Methods for Attracting Enhanced Attention” allegedly invented by his AI system “DABUS” (Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience). Although Thaler invented DABUS, he did not invent the specific invention claimed in the current patent application.
The Enlarged Board of Appeal has recently handed down its highly anticipated decision regarding the patentability of plants and plant varieties, in which the product is exclusively obtained by an essentially biological process (plant breeding).
The Board held that plants and animals that are the result of traditional breeding or any other essentially biological process are NOT patentable.
[...].
After much controversy, and conceding to great pressure, the EU in 2017, set out a new Biopatent Directive to explicitly rule out the patenting of matter produced by an essentially biological process. The EPO reacted through the implementation of Rule 28(2), which states that European patents shall not be granted in respect of plants or animals exclusively obtained by means of an essentially biological process.
In yet another twist, in late 2018, a Technical Board of Appeal declared the EPO’s practice under Rule 28(2), invalid for plant and animal patents. It was found to have no impact in the 2015 decision in “Broccoli I” and “Tomato I”, as the guidelines had not yet been applied.
Separately, the Trump campaign on Thursday deleted a YouTube video featuring the two NASA astronauts who piloted last week’s SpaceX test flight, evidently because it violated the space agency’s advertising rules. The “Make Space Great Again” video showed the astronauts’ families, drawing a complaint from retired astronaut Karen Nyberg (wife of Doug Hurley, one of the SpaceX mission members) who said she and her son were pictured “in political propaganda without my knowledge or consent.” The Trump 2020 ad also prompted a Change.org petition denouncing the exploitation of the spaceflight for “political showmanship.”
A Twitter spokesperson told The Hill they received a complaint from a copyright owner of at least one of the images in the video, although it’s unclear which one. Harvard University's Lumen Database, a third-party research group Twitter uses to study cease and desist letters, reviewed the complaint and found it to be valid under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
The DMCA is one of the few sections of the law that social media platforms can be held liable for if they do not remove infringing content. The U.S. Copyright Office has said in a report that it recommends a policy for social media platforms that “provides for the termination in appropriate circumstances of subscribers and account holders of the service provider’s system or network who are repeat infringers.”
Our community continually challenges us to be more critical of the social, political, legal, and economic systems in which we work. At last year’s CC Global Summit, open community members Adele Vrana and Siko Bouterse encouraged us to ask, “Whose Knowledge?” This simple yet important question challenged us to face the persistent injustices and inequalities that have infected the internet since its creation, leading to some voices being raised and others being silenced. Of course, this digital world is a reflection—and sometimes a magnification—of our physical world, and the issues and barriers people regularly encounter online often mirror their realities offline.€
Of all the mediums where intellectual property makes the least amount of sense, actual food and drink must certainly be among the most absurd. Not the trade dress of food packaging, mind you. I'm talking about the actual food and drink products themselves, be they craft beer or a plate of food. And, yet, you see this sort of thing crop up from time to time. A pizzeria somehow thinks it can trademark the taste of its pizza. Or, more apropos for today's post, a German court that says taking pictures of plated food could violate the copyright of the chef.
