Desktop/Laptop

• Linux As An Alternative To Windows & MacOS

  I downloaded Mandrake Linux and installed it onto my computer and tried it. It had a familiar-looking desktop, not exactly like windows but not too alien from it either. It contained some useful software including a web browser, email program, office suite, etc, and I loved trying something truly different. The problem I found though, it was too difficult to download new programs and to customise the user experience.

  It had a command-line interface meaning you needed to type computer code to download programs or change the system to your liking. Although it looked familiar, to use it on a day-to-day basis, a certain amount of coding knowledge was required. I wanted to use my computer to be productive rather than learning to code to use it. Although this experiment was enjoyable, at this stage Linux just wasn’t for me.

Audiocasts/Shows

• This Week in Linux 146: Linux on M1 Mac, Google vs Oracle, PipeWire, Bottom Panel for GNOME Shell – TuxDigital

  On this episode of This Week in Linux, we’ve got an update for Linux support on Apple’s M1 Mac hardware. KDE Announces a new patch-set for Qt 5. IBM Announced COBOL Compiler For Linux. Then later in the show we’re bringing back everyone’s favorite Legal News segment with Google v. Oracle reaching U.S. Supreme Court. We’ve also got new releases to talk about such as PipeWire 0.3.25 and JingOS v0.8 plus GNOME Designers are exploring the possibility of having a bottom panel. Then we’ll round out the show with some Humble Bundles about programming in Python. All that and much more on Your Weekly Source for Linux GNews!

• MineTest: I Am A Dwarf And I’m Digging A Hole

  People have been asking me to play MineTest for ages so I thought I should finally get around to it, if you’ve never heard of it MineTest is an open source Minecraft clone that surprisingly has a lot of community support

Kernel Space

• Official Support For Linux On M1 Macs Could Be Coming Soon

  There has been work to try and bring Linux onto the M1 Macs, and it seems that the developers are confident that they could have something stable enough this June. This is according to a report from Phoronix in which they claim that the Linux 5.13 cycle could be when support for Apple Silicon could be introduced.

  However, it should be noted that it won’t necessarily provide the full Linux experience just yet. The initial port could see things like UART, interrupts, SMP, DeviceTree, and so on, so this port is more like a working proof of concept that an M1 compatible Linux is a possibility. If you plan to use Linux often, then maybe it might not be a good idea to rely on this port just yet.

  This development comes on the heels of an announcement earlier this year where Corellium was successful at porting Ubuntu onto M1 Macs, although it wasn’t necessarily the “core Linux kernel”.

• You might be able to run Linux natively on Apple M1 Macs as early as June

  The new hardware from Apple runs on the ARM processor architecture and as a result, requires extra work to bring the same feature support as an Intel or AMD processor.

• EXT4 With Linux 5.13 Looks Like It Will Support Casefolding With Encryption Enabled – Phoronix

  While EXT4 supports both case-folding for optional case insensitive filenames and does support file-system encryption, at the moment those features are mutually exclusive. But it looks like the upcoming Linux 5.13 kernel will allow casefolding and encryption to be active at the same time.

  Queued this week into the EXT4 file-system’s “dev” tree was ext4: handle casefolding with encryption.

• SiFive FU740 PCIe Support Queued Ahead Of Linux 5.13 – Phoronix

  Arguably the most interesting RISC-V board announced to date is SiFive’s HiFive Unmatched with the FU740 RISC-V SoC that features four U74-MC cores and one S7 embedded core. The HiFive Unmatched also has 16GB of RAM, USB 3.2 Gen 1, one PCI Express x16 slot (operating at x8 speeds), an NVMe slot, and Gigabit Ethernet. The upstream kernel support for the HiFive Unmatched and the FU740 SoC continues.

  With the Linux 5.12 cycle there was the start of mainlining SiFive FU740 SoC support and that work is continuing for the upcoming Linux 5.13 cycle.

Applications

• GnuPG 2.3.0 Is Released With New Default Public Key Algorithms, A New Key Daemon And More

  GnuPG is the de-facto standard for encrypted e-mail, and to some degree encrypted instant messages, within the free software world. Most FOSS e-mail software has built-in support or plugins for it. It is also used to sign software releases, ISO images for GNU/Linux distributions and a whole lot more. Nobody outside the FOSS community uses it or cares about it, which is a bit sad.

  GnuPG 2.3.0 has quite a few improvements over previous versions. It now comes with a still experimental key database daemon that uses a SQLite database to store the keys. It can be enabled by adding use-keyboxd to $HOME/.gnupg/gpg.conf. There is a new separate configuration file for it called $HOME/.gnupg/gpgsm.conf. This daemon makes key look-ups much faster.

  There’s also a new tpm2d daemon for physically binding keys to a machine. You can read more about it in a blog post on gnupg.org titled Using a TPM with GnuPG 2.3. Most newer laptops in the upper price range come with a TPM module. Desktop computers tend to come with a empty motherboard header where one can be installed, so this is mostly useful if you have a fairly new high-end laptop or you are willing to buy a TPM module.

  New GnuPG keys are now, by default, created with the ed25519/cv25519 public key algorithms. Similarly, AES is now the new last resort cipher preference instead of 3DES.

• Matrix: a decentralized open-source messaging platform for the future

  When you are looking at a secure and private instant messaging solution, there are certain issues that are important to consider which is metadata; metadata can be inferred just by knowing details like whose your contact, frequency, and length of the message; some platform collects contact info and phone numbers, email address, etc. In the general collection of identity information is a problem. In addition, the centralization problem which comes from creating and collecting contact lists and phone numbers; this is one of the worst things that you can do for privacy.

  In this article, we will discuss an instant messaging platform called Matrix. This platform is good for privacy, not just message encryption. Matrix does not take any personal information from the user. We will focus on it because it is open-source and has end-to-end encryption for groups and two-party conversations.

Instructionals/Technical

• How to Install TeamSpeak Client on Ubuntu 20.04 Linux – Linux Shout

  TeamSpeak is a free voice conferencing software available to install on Linux, Windows, macOS, FreeBSD, and Android. It is the pioneer in its areas of other platforms such as Discord. TeamSpeak allows free of cost access to around 1000 public TeamSpeak servers or even your own private one. In parallel to online games, you can use the current TeamSpeak to communicate with friends via speech and text.

• How To Install Robo 3T on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS – idroot

  In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Robo 3T on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, Robo3T formerly known as RobMongo is one of the best GUI tools for managing and querying MongoDB database. It provides GUI tools for managing & querying the MongoDB database. It embeds the actual mongo shell that allows for CLI as well as GUI access to the database.

  This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you through the step-by-step installation of Robo 3T RobMongo on an Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa) server. You can follow the same instructions for Ubuntu 18.04, 16.04, and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint.

• How to Install Java on Ubuntu Step by Step Guide for Beginners

  Some programs/tools/utility on Ubuntu required java/JVM, without java these programs are not working. Are you facing the same problem? Don’t worry!

  Today I am going to cover in this article how to install Java on Ubuntu. This article will cover the complete tutorial step by step.

  You can get java on Ubuntu via three packages JRE, OpenJDK and Oracle JDK.

  Java and Java’s Virtual Machine (JVM) are widely used and required to run much software.

• “apt-get command not found” error in Ubuntu by Easy Way

  apt-get command is used to manage package in Ubuntu and other Debian based distribution. You can install, remove software in Ubuntu, You can update upgrade ubuntu and other operating systems with help of this command.

  If you want to install new software on the Linux operating system by apt-get command but you get the error “apt-get command not found“. This is really the biggest problem for the new user. Neither you can install new packages nor you can update and upgrade ubuntu.

  apt-get is not working, how will you install a new package? If the problem only of installing new packages then it can be solved. You can use dpkg command to install deb files in ubuntu and derivatives.

• How to upgrade Linux Mint 19.3 (Tricia) to Mint 20.1 (Ulyssa) – Linux Shout

  Are you planning to upgrade your existing Linux Mint 19.3 (Tricia) PC or Laptop to Linux Mint 20.1 Ulyssa, then following the simple steps given in the tutorial…

  Linux Mint is one of the popular distros among users who want a Windows-like operating system but with the benefits of Linux and a user-friendly interface. As Mint is an Ubuntu derivative, thus not only we have the access to a large number of packages to install but also stability.

  The process of upgrading Mint is very easy, we can use GUI or command to do that. However, in this article, we will show you how to upgrade from Tricia (19.3) to Ulyssa (20.1) using CLI, thus first you have to make sure that your existing Mint 19.3 is on 64-bit because 20.1 doesn’t support 32-bit.

• How to Install Node js in Ubuntu Step by Step Explanation for Beginners

  Node.js is an open source cross-platform JavaScript run-time environment that allows server-side execution of JavaScript code.

  In simple words you can run JavaScript code on your machine (server) as a standalone application, and access form any web browser.

  When you create a server side application you need Node.js, it is also help to create front-end and full-stack. npm (Node Package Manager) is a package manager for the JavaScript programming language, and default package manager for Node.js.

  This tutorial will cover step by step methods “how to install node js in ubuntu 19.04″.

  in case you need the latest Node.js and npm versions. If you are using Node.js for development purposes then your best option is to install Node.js using the NVM script.
  Although this tutorial is written for Ubuntu the same instructions apply for any Ubuntu-based distribution, including Kubuntu, Linux Mint and Elementary OS.

• How to play Geometry Dash on Linux

  Geometry Dash is a music platformer game developed by Robert Topala. The game is available to play on iOS, Android, as well as Microsoft Windows via Steam. In the game, players control a character’s movement and navigate through a series of music-based levels while avoiding obstacles and hazards.

• How To Set Up a Firewall with UFW in Ubuntu \ Debian

  The Linux kernel includes the Netfilter subsystem, which is used to manipulate or decide the fate of network traffic headed into or through your server. All modern Linux firewall solutions use this system for packet filtering.

  [...]

  The default behavior of the UFW Firewall is to block all incoming and forwarding traffic and allow all outbound traffic. This means that anyone trying to access your server will not be able to connect unless you specifically open the port. Applications and services running on your server will be able to access the outside world.

• A Ceph war story

  It all started with the big bang! We nearly lost 33 of 36 disks on a Proxmox/Ceph Cluster; this is the story of how we recovered them.

  At the end of 2020, we eventually had a long outstanding maintenance window for taking care of system upgrades at a customer. During this maintenance window, which involved reboots of server systems, the involved Ceph cluster unexpectedly went into a critical state. What was planned to be a few hours of checklist work in the early evening turned out to be an emergency case; let’s call it a nightmare (not only because it included a big part of the night). Since we have learned a few things from our post mortem and RCA, it’s worth sharing those with others. But first things first, let’s step back and clarify what we had to deal with.

• [Old] Create animated GIFs from MP4 with FFmpeg

  Animated GIFs are after all these years still pretty popular. FFmpeg is a good FLOSS tool to create these animated GIFs. FFmpeg is available for Windows, Linux and OSX. A word of warning FFmpeg is a command line tool that’s very versatile but it’s not for everybody. In fact suppose this post is more for users that like to tinker a lot with their animated GIFs. Below I will explain not only how to create a animated GIF from an mpeg4 movie but I also provide instructions to improve the quality.

  The basic command to create an animated GIF from a mpeg4 is:

  ffmpeg -i input.mp4 output.gif

• [Old] How to make GIFs with FFMPEG

  In that light, I wrote this post to share and explain some of its functionality, especially as it relates to GIF transcoding. To follow along you’ll need FFmpeg installed. The easiest way to do that is to go here and find a static build for whatever platform you’re working on.

• How To Install 7Zip on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

  In this tutorial, we will show you how to install 7Zip on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, The 7Zip is open-source software available to compress and decompress files and folders into various formats. A 7Zip archive file usually ends in .7z extension.

  This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you through the step-by-step installation of the 7-Zip File Archiver on Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa). You can follow the same instructions for Ubuntu 18.04, 16.04, and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint.

• Getting Started With System Logging in Linux

  System logs in Linux provide you with great insight into core activities on your PC or server infrastructure. They’re critical for keeping your system stable and secure. System logs also provide you with an opportunity to audit various activities that have taken place in the past.

  This guide introduces you to the logging system in Linux. All the major activities carried out by core system applications and services are recorded in the form of logs and at the heart of all this is a system known as Syslog.

• How to edit config files on Ubuntu | FOSS Linux

  The information needed to monitor the execution of a program is stored in configuration files. To maintain an Ubuntu server or desktop or any other Linux system, Linux users, especially Linux administrators, must edit configuration files.

  In fact, every Linux administrator must manually edit a configuration file at some stage. You can’t resist diving deep into the heart of one or more configuration files while setting up a web server, configuring a service to link to a database, modifying a bash script, or troubleshooting a network connection. Manually editing configuration files might seem like a nightmare to some people.

  Wading through what seems to be endless lines of choices and feedback can lead to a rapid loss of hair and sanity.

  Of course, this isn’t the case. Most Linux administrators, in reality, relish a good debugging or configuration challenge. It’s a lot of fun to sift through the details of how a server or piece of software works. This method, however, does not have to be a waste of time and resources. In reality, you have resources at your disposal that make editing config files a lot easier.

• How to make a bootable Windows USB drive on Linux using Woeusb-ng?

  As a Linux user, you may need to make a bootable Windows USB drive for testing and education purposes or even to install it alongside your favourite distro. Whatever your reasons, you will be able to create a Microsoft OS bootable flash drive after reading this humble post. So power on your system and plug in your USB flash drive as you are only a few lines away from acquire this skill.

• How To Install Emacs Editor on CentOS 8 – idroot

  In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Emacs Editor on CentOS 8. For those of you who didn’t know, Emacs is a very useful plus feature-rich text editor that may be used across multiple various platforms. Because of its considerable support for writing code within different languages, it is favored by most programmers. If you’re thinking about switching to Emacs on your Linux, or you’ve just switched to it, you will find that Emacs is not that hard to use.

  This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you through the step-by-step installation of the Emacs Editor on a CentOS 8.

• Self host your web meetings with Jitsi and Raspberry PI – peppe8o

  Even if already used with smartphones, video meetings overwhelmingly raised with Covid pandemic. Between solutions discovered in this context, a great open source and web application to host your video meetings, Jitsi, can run on Raspberry PI

• Shell Script – Remove Double Quote (“”) from a String – TecAdmin

  This tutorial will help you to remove start and ending double quote from string in shell script. Where the string is stored in a variable.

  [...]

  The result will be printed on the terminal. You can also save the result to variable and or redirect output to a file.

  The below commands will help you to remove double quote and store output to the same or different variable.

• GNU Linux Debian 10 – dead boot partition stuck at grub prompt

Games

• OpenTTD Went to Steam to Solve a Hard Problem – Boiling Steam

  OpenTTD, the free and open-source software recreation of Transport Tycoon Deluxe, has been a popular game for a long time, but recently something unusual happened. The team behind the project decided to release the game on Steam (still free as always) and this has changed everything. Let me explain why this matters.

  If you have ever played OpenTTD on Linux, let me venture that you have probably relied on your distro’s package manager to keep your game up-to-date. In theory, this is the BEST way to keep your packages up to date. Rely on maintainers. In practice however, it’s far from being something you can rely on, beyond security updates. Debian stable tends to have really old packages, sometimes years behind their latest versions. So on Debian stable you end up with OpenTTD 1.08 as the most recent version. That’s what shipped in April 2018. Just about 3 years old.

• Portal Stories: Mel gets Vulkan support on Linux in a new Beta | GamingOnLinux

  Portal Stories: Mel, an extremely popular and highly rated mod for Portal 2 just had a new Beta pushed out which adds in Vulkan support for Linux. Much like the update for Portal 2 that recently added Vulkan support, it’s using a special native build of DXVK, the Vulkan-based translation layer for Direct3D 9/10/11.

  Compared with the Portal 2 update, in some of my own testing today it seems that Portal Stories: Mel seems to benefit from the Vulkan upgrade quite a bit more in some places. At times giving a full 100FPS increase! So for those on weaker cards, this will probably be an ideal upgrade. Another game to test with Vulkan is always great too.

Distributions

• antiX

  • Firefox update

    Firefox 87.0 available

  • mtPaint upgrade

    mtPaint has been upgraded to latest git version (3.50-9)

  • antiX-17 kernel updates

    There have been various security patches applied upstream so users are strongly advised to update to the latest kernels via Package Installer, synaptic or cli-aptiX. Available for 64 and 32 bit.

    5.10.27
    4.19.184
    4.9.264
    4.4.264

• BSD

  • The state of toolchains in NetBSD

    While FreeBSD and OpenBSD both switched to using LLVM/Clang as their base system compiler, NetBSD picked a different path and remained with GCC and binutils regardless of the license change to GPLv3. However, it doesn’t mean that the NetBSD project endorses this license, and the NetBSD Foundation’s has issued a statement about its position on the subject.

    Realistically, NetBSD is more or less tied to GCC, as it supports more architectures than the other BSDs, some of which will likely never be supported in LLVM.

    As of NetBSD 9.1, the latest released version, all supported platforms have recent versions of GCC (7.5.0) and binutils (2.31.1) in the base system. Newer (and older!) versions of GCC can be installed via Pkgsrc, and the following packages are available, going all the way back to GCC 3.3.6: [...]

  • Review: OpenBSD 6.8 on 8th Gen Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 13.3″

    10 days ago, I bought this X1 Carbon. I immediately installed OpenBSD on it. It took me a few days to settle in and make myself at home, but here are my impressions.

    This was the smoothest experience I’ve had getting OpenBSD set up the way I like it. The Toshiba NB305 in 2011 was a close second, but the Acer I used between these two laptops required a lot more tweaking of both hardware and kernel to get it to feel like home.

• Arch Family

  • Reactions to Arch Linux’s New Guided Installer

    Tech Radar writes that previously Arch Linux had “a rather convoluted installation process, which has given rise to a stream of Arch-based distros that are easier to install,” adding that the new installer “was reportedly promoted as an official installation mechanism back in January, and was actively worked upon leading to its inclusion in the installation medium.”

  • Latest Arch Linux ISO Release Comes with the ArchInstall CLI Guided Installer

    Arch Linux 2021.04.01 is now available for download as the most up-to-date installation medium of this independently developed, flexible, lightweight, and rolling-release GNU/Linux distribution.

    While last month’s ISO release was the first to be powered by the latest and greatest Linux 5.11 kernel, Arch Linux’s ISO release for April 2021 includes the archinstall guided installer developed by Anton Hvornum.

• Debian Family

  • Charles Plessy: Debian Bullseye: more open

    Debian Bullseye will provide the command /usr/bin/open for your greatest comfort at the command line. On a system with a graphical desktop environment, the command should have a similar result as when opening a document from a mouse-and-click file browser.

Devices/Embedded

• Open Hardware/Modding

  • Crowbits Master Kit Tutorial – Part 2: ESP32 intrusion scanner and visual programming – CNX Software – Embedded Systems News

    I started Crowbits Master Kit review last month by checking out the content, user manual, and some of the possible projects for the ESP32 educational kit including a 2G phone and a portable game console.

    For the second part of the review, I’ll go through one of the lessons in detail, namely the intrusion scanner to show the whole process and how well (or not) it works.

    Let’s go to Lesson 5 directly, although I’d recommend going through the first lessons that provide details about the hardware and visual programming basics using Letscode program, which is basically a custom version of Scratch for Crowbits

  • RP2040-PICO-PC small computer made with the Raspberry Pi RP2040-PICO module first prototypes are ready

    It’s small base board for RP2040-PICO the $4 module with the Cortex-M0+ processor made by Raspberry Pi foundation.

    We were ready with the prototype for a long time but the RP2040-PICO modules were tricky to source

  • ESP32-C6 WiFI 6 and Bluetooth 5 LE RISC-V SoC for IoT devices coming soon – CNX Software – Embedded Systems News

    Espressif Systems introduced their first RISC-V wireless SoC last year with ESP32-C3 single-core 32-bit RISC-V SoC offering both 2.4GHz WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 5.0 LE connectivity, and while the company sent some engineering samples of ESP32-C3 boards months ago, general availability of ESP32-C3-DevKitM-1 and modules is expected shortly.

    But the company did not stop here, and just announced their second RISC-V processor with ESP32-C6 single-core 32-bit RISC-V microcontroller clocked at up to 160 MHz with both 2.4 GHz WiFi 6 (802.11ax) and Bluetooth 5 LE connectivity.

• Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

  • Google app shutdown – Popular Android download gets Play Store axe | Express.co.uk

  • Google Android team embraces Rust for Android OS development – ARN

  • LG rolls out the Android 11 update for Velvet 5G UW users | HT Tech

  • Asus is updating the ZenFone 7 and 7 Pro to Android 11 around the world

  • [Opinion] Why OnePlus 9 Pro probably isn’t the best Android in the U.S.

  • 10 new Android games from the last week: The best, worst, and everything in between (4/5/21 – 4/11/21)

  • How many years of Android updates should be good enough?

  • Joker malware infects over 500,000 Huawei Android devices

  • Flashback: LG’s best phones before and after the switch to Android – GSMArena.com news

  • PUBG Mobile 1.4 beta update (global version): APK download link for worldwide Android users

  • How to play GTA 5 on Android smartphones using Xbox Game Pass

  • The OnePlus 9 Pro made me fall in love with Android again — here’s why | Tom’s Guide

  • Stable ColorOS 11 update goes live for OPPO Reno 2 Z and OPPO A91

  • Verizon’s LG Velvet 5G UW is receiving Android 11 update – GSMArena.com news

  • Nokia 4.2 receives Android 11 firmware update – Gizchina.com

  • India- ASUS ZenFone 7 and 7 Pro receive Android 11 update
    | MENAFN.COM

  • LG promises three years of Android updates after exit from smartphone market | IT PRO

  • How to control your Android Smart TVs using mobile | Gadgets Now

  • The 5 Best Music Visualizers for Android

  • Best New Android Games This Week: Battery Boy, Game of Thrones: The Board Game, Heroic Expedition, and More – Droid Gamers

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

• Going Against Google Analytics With Plausible’s Co-Founder [Interview]

  Plausible is a privacy-friendly alternative to Google Analytics. It also aims to be a simple and lightweight analytics solution.

  Above all, it is a completely open-source project that also gives you the ability to self-host.

  Right after an interview with Lutris creator, I reached to out to Marko Saric, who happens to be a Co-Founder of the project to provide some insights on his vision for this project and the future of Plausible.

• Why Crate.io has returned to its pure open source roots

  The headline benefits of open source are widely known and well-articulated. Open source technologies provide enterprise-level scalability, performance, security, and reliability. Trust is there, and it’s deserved. But what’s less celebrated, other than by die-hard open source adherents, are the inner workings of the everyday community contributions building those macro benefits at the atomic level. For those offering open source technologies, it is the community’s constant user-driven testing and hardening that forges those technologies into robust and proven solutions. Those contributions don’t show up on the balance sheet, but they can be absolutely formative to an enterprise’s health and success.

  In 2013, I co-founded Crate.io with open source ideals and my belief in the power of the community. As a startup intent on bringing the simplicity and strength of open source to the realm of advanced SQL databases that could handle the growing volume of Internet of Things (IoT) and Industrial IoT data, we rooted our CrateDB database in 100% open source component technologies. And we were sure to play our role as active contributors to those technologies and nurtured our own community of CrateDB developers.

• Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

  • Dependencies for LibreOffice compiled in OE

    In the current release of EasyOS, LibreOffice (LO) was compiled in a running EasyOS, not in OE. During the build, LO automatically downloads any extra source packages that it needs, that are not available in the system.

    What I have done is compile many of those dependencies in OE, so they will be available as shared libraries for LO to link against, but other applications will also be able to use them.

    For example, LO uses ‘libcdr’, a CorelDraw import filter. By having this as a shared system library, Inkscape can optionally link against it, and also have CorelDraw import capability. Hmmm, does anyone still use CorelDraw?

• FSF

  • In Support of Richard Stallman: Normalizing Truth, Reason, Dialogue

    False accusations were made against Richard Stallman in September 2019. Although others pointed out the mistakes, the stage had been set for a cascade of defamatory reactions that followed and spread like wildfire. This was fueled by misquotes and distortion of events in mainstream headlines, blogs, and social media, leading ultimately to Stallman’s resignation from his positions at MIT and the FSF.

    [...]

    Some published accurate articles, objectively and meticulously showcasing the facts. Many others wrote short comments in blogs and news websites pointing out the errors that were being swiftly propagated by copy paste “authors.” Still others sent letters of concern to the FSF.

    A petition[1] was launched to condemn bad press and demand apologies to Stallman from journalists who knowingly or incompetently spread false information. It was to no avail. Journalists never corrected their erroneous headlines, let alone apologize. The petition is now stale (and it requires JavaScript.) Better to sign the letter of support.

    We have become sadly familiar with the terms “misinformation and disinformation” and the need to critically examine the agendas and mindsets motivating these campaigns as well as check the facts behind their assertions. To our collective social woe, disinformation succeeds because so many people care deeply about injustice but do not take the time to study the facts before passing along or acting on disinformation.

• Programming/Development

  • Jussi Pakkanen: Converting a project to Meson: the olc Pixel Game Engine

    Meson’s development has always been fairly practical focusing on solving real world problems people have. One simple way of doing that is taking existing projects, converting their build systems to Meson and seeing how long it takes, what pain points there are and whether there are missing features. Let’s look at one such conversion.

    We’ll use the One Lone Coder Pixel Game Engine. It is a simple but fairly well featured game engine that is especially suitable for beginners. It also has very informative YouTube channel teaching people how to write their own computer games. The engine is implemented as a single C++ header and the idea is that you can just copy it in your own project, #include it and start coding your game.

  • Python

    • Create a Hello World App Using Flask Framework

      This article will cover a guide on writing a simple hello world application using Python based “Flask” framework. Flask can be used to create minimal, extensible and advanced web applications using a set of libraries included in its module. All code samples in this tutorial are tested on Ubuntu 20.10 having Python version 3.8.6 and Flask version 1.1.2.

To Julia de Burgos

Already people murmur I’m your enemy since they say that in verse I give the world to me.

They lie, Julia de Burgos. They lie, Julia de Burgos. The one rising in my verses isn’t your voice: it is my voice since you are costumes and I, the essence; and the deepest abyss spreads between us.

Vishal Gupta: Sikkim 101 for Backpackers

Host to Kanchenjunga, the world’s third-highest mountain peak and the endangered Red Panda, Sikkim is a state in northeastern India. Nestled between Nepal, Tibet (China), Bhutan and West Bengal (India), the state offers a smorgasbord of cultures and cuisines. That said, it’s hardly surprising that the old spice route meanders through western Sikkim, connecting Lhasa with the ports of Bengal. Although the latter could also be attributed to cardamom (kali elaichi), a perennial herb native to Sikkim, which the state is the second-largest producer of, globally. Lastly, having been to and lived in India, all my life, I can confidently say Sikkim is one of the cleanest & safest regions in India, making it ideal for first-time backpackers.

Integrity/Availability

• Proprietary

  • Security

    • Privacy/Surveillance

      • Customs and Border Protection Plans Vast Expansion of Tech-Based Surveillance

        The United States government plans to expand a program for monitoring the Mexico border through cutting edge artificial intelligence technology.

      • Facebook spent $23 million for CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s security in 2020

        A new filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission shows that Facebook spent more than $23 million last year on security for CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook’s annual reviews of company security “identified specific threats to Mr. Zuckerberg,” according to a proxy statement filed Friday.

      • Leaked phone number of Mark Zuckerberg reveals he is on Signal

      • 5 of the Best Alternatives to WhatsApp that Actually Respect Your Privacy [Ed: Some of the items in this list are dubious]

        When social media giant Facebook purchased everyone’s favorite mobile messenger WhatsApp, users were promised their data would be private and that they wouldn’t be subject to the shady things that Mark Zuckerberg and crew are known for. As time has gone on, more and more privacy has been taken away from Whatsapp users in the name of “analytical data.”

        Gone are the days when you could trust this app to be totally private and not expect to get data mined for valuable information – information that could easily be sold to advertisers. Here we show you the best alternatives to WhatsApp that actually respect your privacy.

Defence/Aggression

• Opinion | Hunting in Yemen

  “It’s not normal for people to live like this,” says Iman Saleh, now on her thirteenth day of a hunger strike demanding an end to war in Yemen.

  Since March 29 th, in Washington, D.C., Iman Saleh, age 26, has been on a hunger strike to demand an end to the war in Yemen. She is joined by five others from her group, The Yemeni Liberation Movement. The hunger strikers point out that enforcement of the Saudi Coalition-led blockade relies substantially on U.S. weaponry. 

• Opinion | Yemen Is a Public Health Catastrophe

  The country’s civilians have been the unwilling participants in a proxy war that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and has left the public health system in shambles.

  The war in Yemen—the Arab world’s poorest country—has reached new heights of sickness and death by the spreading of the coronavirus pandemic in a vulnerable and fragile population. The death toll from the coronavirus pandemic could be greater than the combined toll of war, disease and hunger over the last five years, according to Lise Grande, the U.N.’s head of humanitarian operations in Yemen.

• Opinion | Why Biden Must Reverse Trump Policy on Landmines Now

  We must renounce these indiscriminate weapons that will continue to kill decades after they were placed.

• ‘Subclinical Psychopathy And The Cops’: A Quick But Alarming Way Into George Floyd Murder Trial

  If you’re trying to follow the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd – the 2020 killing that re-invigorated the #BlackLivesMatter movement and sparked worldwide protests against police violence – there’s unfortunately not a lot of interest in Australian media.

• Torture Australian-Style: A New Secret Country

  It turns out it’s surprisingly easy to tolerate the torture of your citizens if you’re a country with a long record of it. Dr Lissa Johnson weighs in on the Australian Government’s silence on Julian Assange.

• Convicted ISIS supporter tells Chicago judge he’s ‘just a normal guy’

  As ABC7′s I-Team first reported five years ago, both men had a jihadist scheme to attack Great Lakes Naval Base, the Navy’s sole basic training facility. They also expressed an interest in throwing people off the roof of the (former) Sears Tower skyscraper in Chicago. The violent scenarios were not serious threats, according to Schimenti’s attorney on Friday but were merely stated for “shock value.”

• Rejecting Biden’s $715 Billion Proposal, Jayapal Says Congress Must Slash the ‘Bloated Pentagon Budget’

  “Don’t increase defense spending. Cut it,” said the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

  Joining fellow progressive lawmakers in rejecting President Joe Biden’s request for a $715 billion Pentagon budget, Rep. Pramila Jayapal on Saturday argued that Congress must slash military spending and “invest that money into our communities” as coronavirus infections rise across the U.S. and mass layoffs continue.

• Opinion | Western Media Incite Anti-Asian Racism When They Join in Cold War Against China

  Western news outlets have deceptively omitted the centrality of media-promoted Sinophobia to this latest spike in hate crimes toward anyone perceived to be Chinese.

  Over the past few weeks, the subject of anti-Asian racism has received an unusual degree of Western media attention, ever since a video showing the January 28 killing of Vicha Ratanapakdee, an 84-year-old Thai immigrant in San Francisco, was widely shared on social media. Coverage intensified when gunman Robert Aaron Long targeted three Asian-owned spas on March 6, killing six Asian women among eight victims in Atlanta, Georgia. Local and national media centered the gunman’s professed motive of a “sex addiction” and police statements disputing whether the crime was racially motivated, even though gendered racism is still a factor when racist incidents don’t meet the narrow and arbitrary requirements of what constitutes a hate crime ( FAIR.org, 3/26/21).

Environment

• Israel’s Environment Minister: Massive Oil Spill Was ‘Environmental Terrorism’ by Ship Sailing From Iran

  A massive oil spill off Israel’s coast last month that severely polluted its beaches was “environmental terrorism” committed by a Libyan ship sailing from Iran, Israel’s environment minister said Wednesday.

  Israeli public broadcaster Kan reported that Minister Gila Gamliel said that the ship was called the Emerald and had left Iran with its transponder off, and only turned it back on when it reached the Syrian coast.

• Wildlife/Nature

  • Wolves Remain at Risk as Hunters and Their State-Level Allies Call the Shots

    In case you missed it, in February, hunters killed more than 200 wolves in Wisconsin in three days. When the smoke cleared, at least 20 percent of the state’s wolves were dead.

Finance

• Opinion | Stock Buybacks Stand in the Way of Biden’s Infrastructure Plan

  Hedge fund managers are pushing American firms to play Wall Street games instead of investing in technologies of the future. China doesn’t have that problem.

  President Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure and climate proposal has a lot of people excited, and no wonder. Americans are sick of being stuck with frazzled electric grids, foul drinking water, falling bridges, far too many left out of prosperity, and feeling that the country’s global status is suffering.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

• Corporations Criticize Georgia’s Racist Voting Bill After Giving Big to GOP

  Corporate America is clashing with GOP leaders over Georgia Republicans’ bill to overhaul voting laws, representing another break between the two forces that have long been closely aligned.

• Republicans Ready Battle for State-Level Court Takeovers in Texas

  After a slate of 19 Black women swept judicial elections in Houston in 2018, some Republicans called for a constitutional amendment to end judicial elections. That effort has failed so far, but a new bill in the Texas legislature could slash the number of appellate courts, which include more Democrats now than they have in decades. The state’s 14 appellate courts have jurisdiction — sometimes overlapping — in civil and criminal cases appealed from trial courts.

• As Amazon Election Spotlights Rigged System, Senate Dems Urged to Nuke Filibuster and Pass PRO Act

  “In most states, it is easier to buy an AR-15 than it is to join a union.”

  Amazon’s victory over an against-the-odds unionization effort at its warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama is intensifying pressure on Senate Democrats to swiftly eliminate the 60-vote legislative filibuster and pass the PRO Act, a proposed revamp of employer-friendly U.S. labor law that would ban many of the tactics the tech behemoth used to crush the organizing drive.

Misinformation/Disinformation

• 4 Wikipedia Editing Scandals That Slipped Under Readers’ Radars

  Wikipedia is an invaluable resource for cheating at bar trivia, winning an argument with your dad about what year Bruce Willis’ R&B album came out, and reading a list of erotic video games at three in the morning after starting on the Battle of Lepanto five hours ago. But it’s not without its controversies, such as …

Freedom of Information/Freedom of the Press

• [Old] Copenhagen attack cartoonist Lars Vilks wins award

  A Swedish cartoonist who depicted the Prophet Muhammad as a dog has made his first public appearance since attending a debate that was targeted in a gun attack in Copenhagen last month.

  Lars Vilks received a prize for courage from a free press group, at a heavily secured event in the Danish parliament.

• Giorgos Karaivaz: Veteran crime journalist shot dead in Greece

  Media freedom organisations said it must be established whether Karaivaz was killed for his work, which covered organised crime and corruption.

• Julian Assange’s second anniversary in Belmarsh this Sunday 11 April 2021 – Read the latest case update by Stella Moris

  Protests and solidarity actions are planned around the world to raise awareness. Reporters Without Borders ( @rsf_inter on Twitter) has changed its banner into a Free Assange message for the anniversary. When I tell Julian about these actions it lifts his spirits.

Civil Rights/Policing

• As Activists’ Hunger Strike Reaches Day 13, Calls Mount for Biden to End US Complicity in Starvation of Yemen

  “My pain cannot amount to that of Yemenis under siege,” said one hunger striker. “I am starving, but I am not being starved. I am suffering, but I can choose to end that suffering.”

  A hunger strike launched by Detroit-based anti-war activists in protest of the Saudi-led blockade of Yemen entered its 13th day on Saturday as calls grow for President Joe Biden to end all U.S. support for the kingdom’s deadly restrictions, which are preventing food, medicine, fuel, and other aid from reaching starving Yemenis.

• “We Are Not Here or Funded to ‘Promote the Best Interest’ of the Children,” Wrote the Head of a Program for Brain-Damaged Infants

  Over two decades, Choi “Julie” Nguyen bounced from one low-paying job to the next: dishwasher, custodian, manicurist. As a single mom raising two daughters and a profoundly disabled son, Nguyen could never hold a job for long.

  Inevitably, the nurses Nguyen relied on to care for her son, Justin, would arrive late or not at all. Who would suction his mechanical airway, fill his feeding tube or turn him in bed to prevent pressure sores? Who was going to sleep on the couch at the hospital when Justin had surgery or fought life-threatening infections?

• The Race To The Bottom In Our Return to the Moonlight State

  It’s 2021 and Australia is again reflecting on monstrous abuses by men in power. For some of us, it brings back memories of villains past. And it makes us wonder when it’s going to change. Mike Dowson thinks it won’t. Not finally. Not until we tackle the whole rotten post-colonial system in which it thrives.

• New Zealand Law Granting Paid Leave for Miscarriage Sparks Organizing in US

  When New Zealand’s Parliament extended three days of paid leave to workers and their partners following a miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy or stillbirth, as well as to those whose plans to welcome a child through adoption or surrogacy become derailed, it cast a spotlight on how countries throughout the world treat the aftermath of pregnancy loss.

• In Wake of Amazon Union Vote, Progressives Urge Action on Filibuster and PRO Act

  Amazon’s victory over an against-the-odds unionization effort at its warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama is intensifying pressure on Senate Democrats to swiftly eliminate the 60-vote legislative filibuster and pass the PRO Act, a proposed revamp of employer-friendly U.S. labor law that would ban many of the tactics the tech behemoth used to crush the organizing drive.

• Opinion | The Message From the Amazon Union Defeat in Alabama Is Clear: Keep Organizing

  The union’s loss in Bessemer shows the urgent need for both labor law reform and organizing at a mass scale.

• The woman who took on Google and won

  The Alphabet Workers Union was set up in January 2021 for Google workers. It is not recognised by the National Labor Relations Board, an independent government agency, and is sometimes referred to as a “minority union”. The vast majority of Google workers aren’t members, but Shannon was and the union took up her case.

  In February, they filed two cases on her behalf under unfair labour practice laws. One that she had been suspended illegally – for talking about supporting a union. The other that her managers had asked her, illegally, not to discuss her wages.

  [...]

  Well it didn’t admit any wrongdoing as part of the settlement, and didn’t admit to being a “joint employer” of contract staff. The BBC put Shannon’s story to Google but it said it had nothing further to add. Adecco has not responded to a BBC request for comment.

• [Old] “Fair” Doesn’t Mean “Equal”

  In all of these discussions, we quickly came to a common point: to be effective, you’d need to tailor the feedback, both content and form, to the particular needs of the person hearing it. If someone struggles with insecurity, I might choose to soften the tone and emphasizing available support. If they tend to process feedback out loud and want to talk things through, I might make it more of a conversation than a direct message. If they need time to process, I might send the feedback over chat or email and then set aside time for any follow-ups at our next one-on-one. What I wouldn’t do: use the same script for everyone.

  This brings me back to one of the earliest lessons I learned in my management career. It’s a realization that’s embarrassingly obvious in hindsight: treating people fairly doesn’t mean treating everyone the same.

• Lawsuits seek to stop mining, construction on sacred sites

  Two disputes over sites that are sacred to Native Americans are on the docket at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. A group of Apache tribal members and their allies are fighting to stop the construction of a copper mine on a place in Arizona where Indigenous people have worshiped for centuries.

• Mine Will Destroy Apache Sacred Site, Court Declines to Intervene

  Last week, a federal judge in Arizona denied to the Native American advocacy organization Apache Stronghold a preliminary injunction that would have blocked a land swap opening the way to the creation of one of the largest copper mines in the U.S. and indeed in the world. The mine, a $ 61-billion project, will employ 1,500 people.

  The problem, U.S. District Judge Steven Logan was told, is that the project implies the destruction of Oak Flat, called by the Apache Chi’chil Bildagoteel, and regarded by them as a sacred place of their religion. As such, they claim, it cannot be destroyed both for reasons of religious freedom and because of a treaty signed in 1852 between the Apache tribes and the U.S. government.

  The Apaches explained that Oak Flat is a natural “portal to the Creator God” in their religion, and its destruction will have devastating religious and cultural consequences.

• [Old] Native Activists File Suit After Trump Officials Hand Sacred Land to Foreign Mining Firm

  According to Archeologist John R. Welch, there is indeed no evidence that the United States ever took legal possession of the territory of Oak Flat. In his lengthy 2017 analysis of the treaty, Welch thoroughly examines the only treaty executed between the Apache Indians and concludes that he found “no evidence, in the proceedings of the Indian Claims Commission or elsewhere, of any change or diminishment in the Apaches’ reserved treaty rights to the Western Apaches’ Treaty Territory.” Welch further states unequivocally that “Oak Flat is Apache land, as it has been for centuries and is not owned by the United States of America or any other entity or person.”

• Cops Caught on Video Holding a Black Army Lieutenant at Gunpoint, Then Pepper-Spraying Him

  By the end of the incident, the cops would threaten Nazario, pepper-spray him in the face, and knee-strike him in the legs, according to body camera footage, Nazario’s cellphone video, and legal filings. Later, when Nazario was in tears and on the ground of a gas station parking lot as officers put him in handcuffs, he repeated, “This is fucked up, this is fucked up.”

  The officers allegedly told Nazario if he were to complain, they’d charge him with crimes like obstruction, eluding, and assault on a law enforcement officer—potentially destroying his military career.

Monopolies

• Epic antitrust case versus Apple in Australia gets three-month stay

  An Australian judge has ruled that Epic’s lawsuit against Apple in Australia will be temporarily suspended as the two sides prepare for a trial in the US, Gizmodo Australia reported. Apple had asked for a permanent stay of the case in Australia, arguing that the US and Australia cases were very similar, and that the matter should be settled in the original jurisdiction of the United States.

  The two companies are fighting over Epic’s battle royale game Fortnite, and the fees Apple charges. In August, Epic set up its own in-game payments system, effectively circumventing Apple’s App Store payments and avoiding the 30 percent surcharge Apple collects on App Store purchases. Apple then removed Fortnite from its iOS App Store for violating its rules. Epic fired back with an antitrust lawsuit seeking to establish Apple’s App Store as a monopoly and tried to rally Fortnite fans with a protest video mocking Apple’s iconic “1984” ad.

• Patents

  • Anixa Biosciences Announces Issuance and Publication of European Patent for Ovarian Cancer Vaccine Technology [Ed: EPO giving patent monopolies on cancer]

    “The ovarian cancer vaccine targets a protein (the Extracellular Domain of the Anti-Mullerian Hormone Receptor 2, AMHR2-ED) that is expressed only in the ovaries and only in pre-menopausal women. After menopause, the target protein disappears and is only seen again when ovarian cancer cells arise. Our vaccine targets the AMHR2-ED and trains the immune system to destroy these cancer cells as they arise,” said Dr. Vincent Tuohy of the Department of Inflammation and Immunity at Cleveland Clinic’s Lerner Research Institute. “We are looking forward to our continued alliance with Anixa Biosciences to further develop this technology.”

  • PMI sees BAT e-cig patents invalidated at English High Court

    The UK high court has revoked two British American Tobacco (BAT) e-cigarette patents for obviousness, concluding they lack an “inventive step” over an existing Philip Morris International (PMI) patent.

    Justice Richard Meade ruled on March 9 that the BAT patents were invalid, therefore dismissing BAT’s claim that PMI had infringed the two ‘heat-not-burn’ patents with its IQOS product line.

    The two BAT patents are UK 3,398,460,B1 and UK 3,491,944,B1. The ‘460 patent relates to an “aerosol-generating device with housing and a cigarette”, whereas the ‘944 patent refers to a cigarette “for use with” an aerosol-generating device.

  • FCBA Remote Program on Appellate Perspectives [Ed: FCBA is a misnomer [1, 2] that borrows its name from something it is not]

    The Federal Circuit Bar Association (FCBA) will be offering a remote program entitled “Appellate Perspectives” on April 15, 2021 from 1:00 to 2:00 pm (ET). Nicholas Groombridge of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP will moderate a panel consisting of Hon. Timothy Dyk, Circuit Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit; Hon. Kathleen O’Malley, Circuit Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit; Hon. Jimmie Reyna, Circuit Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit; Hon. Klaus Bacher, Presiding Judge, 10th Civil Senate, Bundesgerichtshof (Germon Federal Court of Justice, FCJ); and Hon. Peter Meier-Beck, Presiding Judge, Antitrust Senate, Bundesgerichtshof (Germon Federal Court of Justice, FCJ).

  • Webinar on Patenting Antibodies at the EPO [Ed: J A Kemp keeps pushing patents on life in Europe, benefiting from corrupt EPO management that never met a patent application it did not like]

    J A Kemp will be offering a webinar entitled “Patenting Antibody Pharmaceuticals at the EPO” on April 15, 2021 from 2:30 to 3:30 pm BST (British Summer Time). Vicki Allen and Andrew Bentham of J A Kemp will explore the basic principles of patenting of antibodies, and highlight recent trends in examination and strategies for drafting new cases and for addressing objections to existing applications.

  • GBT – 3D Chip and Memory Patent Enters the Regional Phase in Europe

    GBT Technologies Inc. (OTC PINK: GTCH) (“GBT” or the “Company”), is pleased to report a continuation to its prior release – www.otcmarkets.com/stock/GTCH/news/story?e&id=1829166 that the above-mentioned PCT application has entered the regional phase in Europe on March 16, 2021. The application has been allocated the number 19862631.9 and designates all EPC states (as of the PCT filing date).

    The Company filed its application on or around October 9, 2019. It is expected that the European Patent Office will shortly issue a communication under Rule 161 EPC. This will invite GBT to file a response to the WO (ISA)/IPRP as well as the opportunity to reduce the claims to avoid fees at that stage.

  • Software Patents

    • Patentability Of General AI: Is China Moving Away From Europe and Toward The United States? – Lexology [Ed: "Technically-applied AI inventions are generally patentable in Europe, China, and the U.S." according to this, but that's just a way of saying they grant bogus patents on software using buzzwords and hype as justification]

      Patenting an artificial intelligence (AI) invention can be a challenge that depends greatly on jurisdiction and the category of AI to which the invention belongs. Important jurisdictions for patent protection include Europe and China, and, of course, the United States. There are two important categories of AI pertinent to patentability that are termed herein as “technically-applied AI” and “generally-applicable AI”.

      Technically-applied AI involves applying AI to other technology areas. AI inventions in this category include, for example, autonomous vehicles and robots, facial recognition, and AI-controlled medical devices. Technically-applied AI inventions are generally patentable in Europe, China, and the U.S.

      Generally-applicable AI includes AI innovations that may be applied to any technology area. Obvious inclusions in this category are improvements to fundamental AI and machine learning algorithms, such as algorithms for neural networks and random forests. Patenting inventions directed only to these fundamental algorithms may be possible in the U.S. and also, shortly, in China, but is impossible in Europe except in rare circumstances. In fact, pundits most often cite improvements to such fundamental algorithms as the example of generally-applicable AI that is virtually unpatentable in Europe.

    • IPO Webinar on Protecting Medical Device Software [Ed: Same old trick for amassing bogus patents on software is to misportray these as “devices” and “medical”]

      The Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO) will offer a one-hour webinar entitled “Protecting Software Related to a Medical Device: A Case Law Review & Strategy” on April 14, 2021 from 2:00 pm to 3:00 pm (ET). Christopher George of Hanley, Flight & Zimmerman, LLC; John Kind of Fenwick & West LLP; Jonathan Kwok of Hewlett Packard Enterprise; Ishir Mehta of Cantor Colburn LLP; and Ryan Phelan of Marshall, Gerstein & Borun LLP will review recent case law relating to software-related medical patents and provide strategy tips for preparing and prosecuting patent applications involving such technologies.

• Trademarks

  • Chinese court rules against trade mark squatter

    n 18 March 2021, the Minhang District (Shanghai) Court published on its website a judgment, rendered on 25 September 2020, which could become a precedent in the fight against trade mark squatting. Zhigang ZHU of the MARQUES China Team reports.

    This case concerned a form of trade mark squatting that targets the owner of a reputable trade mark. The squatter files large numbers of identical or similar marks, preferably in classes of goods or services where the targeted trade mark is not registered.

    This kind of behaviour forces the victim to file numerous oppositions or invalidation actions and therefore incur significant costs.

  • Phonetic similarity, even to a high degree, is not enough to cause confusion, the General Court says

    In the assessment of the similarity of signs, visual, phonetic and conceptual similarity are evaluated and it is not necessary that similarity exist in all three aspects, one can suffice. Nonetheless, in the global assessment of likelihood of confusion, visual, phonetic and conceptual similarity do not actually carry the same weight, and often the balancing of these factors brings results which may be found surprising.

    Case in point is the recent decision T‑117/20, of 10 February 2021, where the General Court (GC) held that despite a high aural similarity among two signs, conceptual and visual differences might neutralize this and preclude confusion. Some aspects of this case are worth further reflection.

    [...]

    Now it is interesting to note that, when the GC holds that “the earlier figurative marks are clearly associated with the concept of a black feline” at § 63, this finding is “clearly” predicated upon the visual evaluation, because at least in two EU languages, namely Finnish and Hungarian, PANTHER is, respectively PANTTERI. and PARDUC. Therefore, at least from a phonetical point of view, a good argument can be made that at least on Finnish and Hungarian consumers, the “clear and specific meaning” of PANTHER would be lost and thus the high aural similarity should be considered as carrying enough weight, if coupled with the identity of the goods and in light of the “interdependence principle”, to prevail over the visual differences.

    Finally, and not to poke (too much) at the somewhat inconsistent application of the GC’s own principles, we cannot but notice that in a quite recent case (here commented “Should different meanings outweigh the similarities of non-distinctive elements?”), the GC had not given much relevance to the conceptual differences, finding confusion based on the visual and aural similarity of the (descriptive components of the) marks in conjunction with the identity between the goods. Judge Bridlegoose, were those …. the little small dice or the large great ones?

• Copyrights

  • Is Site-Blocking Reducing Piracy or Helping to Disperse it Elsewhere?

    A report from anti-piracy group Rights Alliance reveals that the volume of Danish visits to pirate sites remained steady in 2020 but the overall number of users of illegal services dropped by almost 18%. Rights Alliance attributes the decrease to several initiatives including site-blocking, but also a tendency for users to consume pirated content on legal platforms such as YouTube and Facebook.

  • Nigerian ‘Scam Artist’ Used Apple, Amazon and Tidal to Cash in on Pirated Music

    An aspiring Nigerian musician named Wisekid copied an album from one of Africa’s biggest artists Wizkid, reportedly passing it off as his own. By uploading the ‘pirated’ album to music services such as Apple Music, Amazon and Tidal, the scammer appears to have earned substantial revenue.

  • Around the IP Blogs

    Interest in eSports has accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic. With the rise of eSports, we also see new creative tools, and platforms for sharing them. Yet surprisingly, and despite being fundamentally underlain with a copyrighted work, relatively little research has been undertaken into the copyright context of eSports. Kluwer Copyright Blog explores copyright subsistence in eSports from a UK perspective

  • ‘All he has done is to play the game’: eSports players and copyright

    Interest in eSports (‘electronic sports’ or competitive video gaming) has accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic. With many traditional face-to-face sports suspended, eSports have become an attractive viable competitor for self-isolating new and existing fans alike. With no geographic discrimination, an all-digital medium and even ‘anyone allowed to play’ tournament models, eSports is now a nascent industry of considerable commercial value.

    With the rise of eSports, we also see new creative tools, and platforms for sharing them. Yet surprisingly, and despite being fundamentally underlain with a copyrighted work (a video game), relatively little research has been undertaken into the copyright context of eSports. In an attempt to remedy this, my latest article in JIPLP explores copyright subsistence in eSports from a UK perspective.

  • UK Court of Appeal will not depart from EU on Communication to the Public: TuneIn Radio

    As previously reported by the IPKat here in 2019 the High Court of England and Wales weighed in on communication to the public, in what the court called ‘a test case’ about infringement of copyright in sound recordings accessed via an online platform that connects users to radio stations around the world.

    Facts & first instance

    The claimants – Warner Music and Sony Music – own or hold the exclusive licences to copyright in sound recordings of music, together accounting for more than half the market for digital sales of recorded music in the UK and about 43% globally.

    The defendant – TuneIn – is a US technology company, that operates an online platform which enables their 75 million monthly active users to access over 100,000 radio stations around the world. TuneIn Radio is available via a website and app, its free for registered and unregistered users, and includes a paid for advert-free version (TuneIn Radio Pro). TuneIn has partnership deals that mean it is pre-installed on a number of devices such as Bose, Sonos and Sony PlayStation [yes, Sony] as well as connected TV and connected cars.

    [...]

    TuneIn contended that this reasoning confused the communication to the public right with the reproduction right. LJ Arnold agreed. The starting point is the stream simulcast or webcast by the foreign station. The act of communication is the provision by the Pro app of the link to that stream. That involves precisely the same technical means as the original communication. It makes no difference if the Pro app has the record function enabled. First, this cannot depend on whether the user activates the record function or not. Secondly, the mere potential for the user to record the stream does not affect the provision of the stream in any way. The communication remains the link to the stream.

    The Claimants contended that, even if there was no new technical means, there was a new public because the rightsholders would not have taken into account the possibility of users recording their repertoire. This argument was not accepted by the Court, as the presence or absence of the record function in the Pro app makes no difference to the public which was taken into account by the rights holders when they authorised the original communication by the category 1 stations: it remains the public in the UK. It is true that the rightholders did not grant a licence which extended to reproduction of sound recordings by users, but the consequence of this is that users who made recordings within the Claimants’ repertoire infringed the Claimants’ rights unless those users could rely upon a relevant exception or limitation.