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● 10.28.15

● Links 28/10/2015: Xiaomi’s GNU/Linux Laptops and OpenStack’s Massive Expansion

Posted in News Roundup at 5:15 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

=> ↺ Iconic Linux debate sparks an open source career

• In 1997 I left Tandem (Compaq) and found an ISP. Two years later, I was heading the IT department of Univates, a university center in the South of Brasil. There we developed several free software systems, such as SAGU (an academic ERP) and GNUteca (a library loan and administrative system). In 2003, I helped found Solis, the first free software co-op in the world. I told the Solis story in Linux Journal in 2004, and the co-op is still very active and has generated several spin-offs.

=> ↺ Mycroft AI Already Working on Linux Desktops, Integration Has Started

• The Mycroft developers have been working to adapt the speech recognition system for the Linux desktop, and they have already taken the first steps.

Desktop

=> ↺ Confirmed: Two Xiaomi Linux Laptops All Set For Mass Production In 2016

• According to a press release by Inventec, it is currently collaborating with Xiaomi to produce two laptops, which would be introduced under the Xiaomi brand. The laptops are reportedly scheduled for an early 2016 release.

=> ↺ Xiaomi preps Linux laptops for the post Christmas sales rush

• Pumped up by a (claimed) $1bn in profit in 2015, Chinese phone-maker Xiaomi will start selling Linux laptops early next year, according to a report.

• DigiTimes suggests that two models will be built by contract manufacturers, Inventec and Compal, and feature 12.5 inch and 13.3 inch displays.

• According to the trade paper, Xiaomi has been tapping up Lenovo executives “aggressively” to manage the new laptop venture.

=> ↺ Old iMac Ubuntu Studio Installation

• I definitely think you’re on the right path for getting more life out of the old Mac. I recently did some testing with a 2010 Macbook Pro (6,2 version) and Ubuntu MATE. It’s more involved than simply installing Linux onto a PC, but it’s totally possible. Unlike Macbook Pro laptops however, the process should be a bit easier with the iMac.

Server

=> ↺ Poof! You’re also a Linux administrator. Now what?

• Running Linux in the enterprise often meant little more than an experiment that was sequestered in a lab environment, far away from the production side. But this former interloper is now inching across networks, as it has matured and has become more accepted due to its prominence in established cloud platforms and emerging container technologies. Even Microsoft has dropped its campaign against the open source operating system and has gone so far as to develop its own version of Linux to run part of the Azure cloud platform.

=> ↺ HP Creates Open Source Network Operating System

• The digital nature of our world has created a need for more adaptable network operating systems (NOS’s). Networks handle large amounts of data every day, which has created a need for on-demand scalability. As such, HP has teamed up with a variety of supporters, including Arista, Broadcom and Intel, to address this problem and create OpenSwitch, an open source NOS. With OpenSwitch, developers can now collaborate, test new theories and innovate to develop higher-quality networks for organizations. Furthermore, these networks can be customized to accommodate specific business needs.

=> ↺ A day in the life of a cloud architect

• OpenStack can be an enigma. We have open source purists who profess by the virtues of OpenStack, even as a multitude of enterprise aficionados wonder if OpenStack is right for them. Fortunately we have cloud practice leader Vijay Chebolu and cloud architect Vinny Valdez to cut the clutter. In their roles at Red Hat Cloud Innovation Practice, Vijay and Vinny deliver Open Stack solutions to customers.

Kernel Space

=> ↺ Linux Kernel 4.1.12 LTS Now Available for Download, Has a Little Bit of Everything

• After announcing the release and immediate availability for download of Linux kernel 4.2.5, Greg Kroah-Hartman informed Linux users about the debut of the twelfth maintenance version of Linux kernel 4.1 LTS.

=> ↺ Linux Kernel 3.14.56 LTS Updates the Nouveau and Radeon Graphics Drivers

• After the announcements of the Linux kernel 4.2.5 and Linux kernel 4.1.12 LTS updates, renowned kernel maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman published details about the immediate availability for download of Linux kernel 3.14.56 LTS.

=> ↺ Looking Forward To The Linux 4.4 Merge Window Next Week

• If all goes well, Linux 4.3 will be released this weekend followed by the opening of the merge window for Linux 4.4.

Graphics Stack

=> ↺ A Fix For AMD Catalyst On Ubuntu 15.10 Is Coming

• While Ubuntu 15.10 launched last week, the AMD Catalyst driver hasn’t been working but that’s in the process of changing.

• While there’s been patches for letting AMD Catalyst work on Ubuntu up through the Linux 4.2 kernel, the binary driver has ended up failing to work on Ubuntu’s 4.2 kernel as found in Ubuntu 15.10. So even right now with a sudo apt-get install fglrx on Ubuntu 15.10, the driver will not work.

=> ↺ VA-API HEVC Decode Support Added To Gallium3D

=> ↺ Intel Is Already Publishing Open-Source “Kabylake” Graphics Driver Patches

• Kabylake (or Kaby Lake) is the interim successor to Skylake. While Skylake was initially planned to be succeeded by Cannonlake, a few months back is when Intel confirmed that Kabylake will come in between and that Cannonlake isn’t coming until H2’2017. Kabylake is expected in 2016 as an update over Skylake with improved performance, native USB 3.1 and HDCP 2.2, and graphics performance improvements.

=> ↺ ARB_copy_image Support Lands For AMD RadeonSI

• Marek Olšák has landed support for OpenGL 4.3′s ARB_copy_image extension, which is used by several modern Steam Linux games.

• The Intel Mesa driver had already supported this extension while now RadeonSI is the first Gallium3D driver to do so. BioShock Infinite is one of the games making use of ARB_copy_image support on Linux.

=> ↺ xf86-video-geode: Last call, dernier sévice

=> ↺ AMD Reportedly Planning Big Driver Update For November

Applications

=> ↺ GParted 0.24.0 Partition Editor Software Arrives with Support for ZFS Filesystems

• Curtis Gedak has had the great pleasure of announcing the release and immediate availability for download of the GParted 0.24.0 open-source partition editor software for GNU/Linux operating systems.

=> ↺ gImageReader 3.1.2 Brings Fixes And Updates

• gImageReader is an open source tool for OCR (optical character recognition) scanning, available on both Linux and Windows, enabling the users to scan JPEG, PNG, TIFF, GIFF or PDF files or files directly imported from the scanner, and recognize the characters.

Proprietary

=> ↺ Opera 33 Released With New Features for Windows, OS X, and Linux

• Opera Software has launched Opera 33 for desktops with new features and bug fixes. Alongside the update, the company has brought its recently unveiled new product logo to the browser interface as well. It is available for Windows, OS X, and Linux.

=> ↺ Veeam Announces Backup for Linux

=> ↺ Veeam releases free back up tool for enterprise Linux servers

=> ↺ Veeam cleans up dirty backup worries on Linux

=> ↺ Veeam announces Backup for Linux

• Veeam Software yesterday Introduced Veeam Backup for Linux, at VeeamON 2015, in Las Vegas.

• The free standalone agent delivers backup and recovery for Linux servers running in the public cloud, as well as physical Linux servers running on-premises.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ How to install a Ubuntu 15.10 (Wily Werewolf) Minimal Server

=> ↺ Tracking hamster activity with a Raspberry Pi

=> ↺ How To Install Odoo In CentOS 7

=> ↺ Setup Apache Virtual Hosts On Ubuntu 15.10

=> ↺ Force all network traffic through OpenVPN using iptables

=> ↺ Building Docker Images With Anaconda

=> ↺ Bypass OpenVPN for a specific Unix user

=> ↺ Libreboot on an x60, Part II: the Installation

=> ↺ systemd unit file basics

=> ↺ PSA: Breaking webrtc-audio-processing API

=> ↺ [SOLVED] Adobe Bracket Is Not Installing In Ubuntu 15.10 Due To Missing Dependency “libgcrypt11″

=> ↺ Hands-On: Adding UEFI boot to Tanglu Linux 4.0 Alpha

• When I saw that Tanglu had announced an Alpha release of their next version (4.0 Dasyatis kuhlii) I decided to take a look at it, specifically to see how they are doing with UEFI firmware support. They have been struggling with UEFI until now, with preliminary support showing up in one of the previous releases, but never working quite right and then disappearing again.

Games

=> ↺ Batman: Arkham Knight Delayed For Linux Until Next Spring

• While Batman: Arkham Knight was promoted as coming to SteamOS, Linux, and Mac in “Fall 2015″, it turns out that this game won’t be out in time for the Steam Machines. Batman: Arkham Knight has been delayed.

• Feral Interactive announced today that Batman: Arkham Knight will be available now for Mac, Linux, and SteamOS in “Spring 2016″ rather than this year.

=> ↺ The Alien Isolation Linux Testing That Isn’t Happening

• While I was looking forward to yesterday’s Alien: Isolation for Linux release, that has all changed now. Besides the game failing with open-source drivers, not all functionality from the Windows game is there in the Linux build.

=> ↺ What Alien Isolation Looks Like On The Open-Source AMD Linux Driver

• To the excitement of many Linux gamers, Feral Interactive announced today the release of Alien: Isolation. However, for now you’re best off using the NVIDIA proprietary driver followed by AMD Catalyst while the open-source drivers aren’t yet ready.

• Feral recommends the proprietary NVIDIA driver as best for supporting this popular strategy game first released for Windows in 2014. While AMD Catalyst isn’t officially supported right now, Phoronix readers have reported that the game does work… However, like many Linux games currently, the performance is slow. A Phoronix reader for instance reported a Radeon R9 390 with Catalyst 15.9 (the latest) yielding, “all video settings at max: usually 20 or 30 FPS, 15 FPS in complex scenes, all cutscenes at 60 FPS, loading screens at 1-2 FPS.”

=> ↺ Insurgency FPS Now Officially Available On Linux

• I’m a bit behind due to all the fun tonight, but Insurgency is now fully available on Linux with a big update. It’s also available dirt cheap in the latest Humble Bundle offering.

=> ↺ NVIDIA Benchmarks Of NWI’s Insurgency FPS Game On Linux

• With yesterday’s Insurgency first-person-shooter game update, SteamOS and Linux are now officially supported after it became available in beta earlier this month. Insurgency is an interesting FPS powered by Valve’s Source Engine. Here are some benchmarks of this game under Linux.

• The benchmarks are only for some NVIDIA GPUs this time around since while AMD Catalyst should run fine for this game considering it’s using the Source Engine, the Catalyst driver is having issues. The game runs fine with the NVIDIA proprietary driver but on this Ubuntu 15.10 system when launching the game with Catalyst 15.9, the screen appears only briefly before returning to the desktop while the Insurgency game process remains alive. Due to that issue blocking the benchmarks from happening, it was just a NVIDIA comparison today.

=> ↺ Solved: The Case of the Missing SteamOS Icons

• Over the last week, many Linux users on Steam were left in a state of confusion when noticing that some Linux games have had their SteamOS icon removed. For those unaware, the SteamOS icon certifies that a title is playable on Linux, including SteamOS, and soon, on Steam Machines.

=> ↺ Alien: Isolation – The Collection Arrives on Linux and Mac OS X

• Alien: Isolation – The Collection has been released by Sega and Feral Interactive for the Linux and Mac OS X platforms after a short delay.

=> ↺ Alien: Isolation – The Collection Creeps on to PC, Mac, Linux, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One Today

• SEGA and Creative Assembly have today launched Alien: Isolation – The Collection for Steam (PC/Mac/Linux), PlayStation 4, and Xbox One as a digital download. The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One version of ‘ The Collection’ will be $39.99 at launch, with Steam users able to take advantage of a 50% discount of the $59.99 price in an exclusive 24 hour launch day promotion. Additionally, the cost of the digital version of Alien: Isolation on all consoles (PS4, PS3, Xbox One, Xbox 360) will be reduced to $29.99, beginning today.

=> ↺ The Lead Designer of ‘Alien: Isolation’ Reinvents His Other Favourite Monsters

=> ↺ Return To Sevastopol With Alien: Isolation – The Collection

=> ↺ Alien: Isolation – The Collection Available Today

=> ↺ Alien: Isolation gets a Game of the Year edition, but it’s named correctly

Desktop Environments/WMs

=> ↺ Cinnamon 2.8 Gets Its First Point Release, Several Bugs Were Fixed

• We reported a few days ago on the Cinnamon 2.8 desktop environment and the massive amount of features it includes, but it looks like the first point release is already available for download.

=> ↺ The Beauty of the i3 Tiling Window Manager

• If you don’t have much need for a full desktop environment, i3 is a great option. And the beauty of Linux is that if I do need something more robust, desktop-wise, Unity is just a login session a way. But aside from going into it for screenshots and for some odd trackpad configurations I couldn’t figure out in i3 (I’ve since discovered the joy of gsynaptics, which works just fine from i3), it’s really been a pleasure to use.

GNOME Desktop/GTK

=> ↺ GNOME’s GUADEC 2016 Conference Will Take Place in Karlsruhe, Germany

• Now that the GNOME 3.18 is out the door and many GNU/Linux users are enjoying its cool new technologies, the GNOME Project begins work on the next major release of the acclaimed desktop environment, GNOME 3.20.

Distributions

=> ↺ Chakra GNU/Linux to Use KDE Plasma 5 as Default Desktop Environment

• Neofytos Kolokotronis was more than happy to announce that his Arch Linux-based Chakra GNU/Linux distribution will finally make the switch from the old-school KDE4 desktop environment to KDE Plasma 5.

Reviews

=> ↺ Xfce Smooth: the smooth variations

• Xfce Smooth is an interesting distribution. It shows you what you can do yourself using the [very] good distribution as a start and playing with themes, icon sets and fonts. You can change your system’s look very much to your own taste.

• The question is still whether you need to download a distribution that someone has already created for you, or start it yourself from scratch. The benefit of using of Xfce Smooth in this case is that it already has a lot of icon sets, fonts, themes to choose from. You do not need to search, download and install them. Just start playing with your selection!

• In terms of performance, I had almost no issues with Xfce Smooth at all. It felt very snappy, fast, responsive and… really smooth! The only small issue was with the Keyring password request that appeared several times.

• Would I use this distribution myself? Probably not. I am not a fancier of different fonts, icon and mouse pointer styles to play with them. I would rather stick to something more classic.

=> ↺ First Look at Ubuntu Gnome 15.10

• Okay, so that wasn’t the final note. While I doubt any of my three readers work for major laptop vendors, I really want to see a push for physical kill switches on things like the camera and the microphone, such as on the Librem 15. I considered getting one of those but they are a little sketchy on what “PureOS” actually is, and so I’ll wait to see what others think of it first.

=> ↺ Linux cousins Part 2: Reviewing ReactOS, the Open Source version of Windows

• ReactOS is built with the primary purpose of providing full binary compatibility with applications (and device drivers) written for Windows Server 2003. That means you can literally take a piece of software built for Windows and run it on ReactOS, without too much trouble

New Releases

=> ↺ Black Lab NEXT 2015.10 RC4 Released

• Today we are releasing RC4. Release Candidate 4 is a major bug and application fix that plagued users of the RC2 and RC3 series. With that we also have some changes that came along and landed in RC4. Some visual changes and some application changes.

=> ↺ IPFire 2.17 – Core Update 94 released

• This is the official release announcement for IPFire 2.17 – Core Update 94 which is a release with smaller security fixes and a maintenance release in general.

=> ↺ IPFire 2.17 Open-Source Firewall Gets Internal Mail Agent

• Michael Tremer, one of the developers for the ipfire.org team, has just announced that IPFire 2.17 Core 94, a new build of the popular Linux-based firewall distribution, is now available for download.

Screenshots/Screencasts

=> ↺ Ubuntu 15.10 Screencast and Screenshots

PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandriva Family

=> ↺ OpenMandriva Forums

• I also gave the OpenMandriva Games page a try and found the proposal interesting despite that the games there are not the ones I play. I guess it would be great to be able to play Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation again, but Steam is doing a wonderful job to satisfy my occasional gaming needs.

Ballnux/SUSE

=> ↺ SUSE: Rolling Awesome of the Day

• If you’re a Tumbleweed and KDE aficionado, this is a good day. You’ll see some major updates:

• Plasma 5.4.2 Frameworks 5.15 Applications 15.08.2 Qt 5.5.1

• Now, yes, that’s all minor versions but stability is a big deal!

=> ↺ OpenSUSE Tumbleweed Lands Many KDE-Related Updates

• The rolling-release openSUSE Tumblewed distribution has landed a number of significant KDE package updates.

Red Hat Family

=> ↺ Red Hat opens up Ceph storage to other cloud leaders

• Red Hat’s Ceph is a popular software-defined object and file cloud storage stack. While the code is open source, Red Hat has directed the project’s strategic direction. Until now. At the Toyko OpenStack Summit, Red Hat announced Ceph’s overall direction will be put into the hands of the newly formed Ceph Advisory Board.

=> ↺ Red Hat CIO: Business advice on IT value

• To be truly successful as an IT organization, you must bring new ideas to drive revenue or reduce cost for the business as a whole. If you don’t, they’ll do it without you where there is a critical need and they have a budget. Then, you’ll end up with a non-integrated set of solutions and potentially security exposures.

=> ↺ Darcy on the future of storage

• We’ve been at this dance before with Linux. People have been asking if Red Hat was going to be like Microsoft, and I told everyone: nope. We’re transfering the wealth that the proprietary lock-in vendors were collecting back to the users. That was the whole idea. In the process, we’re collecting less – a more reasonable amount, necessary to put stuff together and make it run. Therefore, we’re not going to be as wealthy off users’ backs. But the society as a whole benefits.

=> ↺ Analysts Anticipate Red Hat to Announce $0.31 Earnings Per Share (NYSE:RHT)

• Wall Street brokerages predict that Red Hat (NYSE:RHT) will report earnings per share (EPS) of $0.31 for the current fiscal quarter, according to Zacks. Nine analysts have provided estimates for Red Hat’s earnings, with the lowest EPS estimate coming in at $0.30 and the highest estimate coming in at $0.32. Red Hat reported earnings per share of $0.30 during the same quarter last year, which indicates a positive year over year growth rate of 3.3%. The business is expected to issue its next earnings results on Thursday, December 17th.

=> ↺ Red Hat Incorporated (NYSE:RHT) rated: Will Analysts Continue to rate Red Hat Incorporated a 1.59 on ratings scale?

• The overall rating for the company is 1.59. The rating is an average of the various different ratings given by analysts and brokers to Red Hat Incorporated, and then averaged into one rating by a team of analysts at Zacks in Chicago, Illinois.

=> ↺ Short Interest Update on Red Hat, Inc.

=> ↺ Lenovo and Red Hat Expand Trusted Portfolio of Cloud Offerings

• Lenovo on October 27 announced an extended strategic collaboration with Red Hat to deliver powerful IT infrastructure, automation and management capabilities including Red Hat Enterprise Linux Openstack Platform and CloudForms.

=> ↺ Citrix collaborates with Red Hat

=> ↺ College partners with Dell and Red Hat — embraces open source and Linux solutions

• While not all open source solutions are better than the closed source alternatives, opting for the former for underlying infrastructure is generally a good idea. This will provide a business with flexibility and stability while sometimes saving money too.

• A Singapore school, the Yale-NUS College, had some needs revolving around the cloud, so it wisely chose two open source friendly companies to help — Dell and Red Hat. The OpenStack cloud solution, a product that was co-created by the two aforementioned companies, has been a huge success for the college.

Fedora

=> ↺ Fedora summer 2016 internships.

• There are three USA internship positions open at Red Hat on the Fedora Engineering team. These internships are all available this coming summer (2016).

=> ↺ Is that the right mailing list? Is that the right audience?

• All too often, I see people opting to go for the least-public list when opening discussions. Part of this, I think, is just human laziness. You get into a routine, and stick with it. This is doubly hard to overcome when an initiative starts “behind the firewall” and then moves into the public.

Debian Family

Derivatives

Canonical/Ubuntu

=> ↺ 7 things to do after installing Ubuntu

• The Ubuntu project recently announced the release of Ubuntu 15.10 (Wily Werewolf) and its official flavors such as Kubuntu, Ubuntu Mate, etc. Different ‘Ubuntus’ come with different desktop environments that have different sets of applications pre-packaged. But there are certain things that any Ubuntu user should do to get most out of the distro, regardless of the flavor. Here are a few of things I recommend you do after installing Ubuntu… any Ubuntu, for that matter.

=> ↺ Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) Daily Builds Now Available for Download

• With Ubuntu 15.10 (Wily Werewolf) out the door, the Ubuntu developers are not wasting any time, and they’ve already started to work on the upcoming Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus).

=> ↺ Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) Will Be Released on April 21, 2016

=> ↺ Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) to Be Powered Soon by Linux Kernel 4.3 RC7

• The development of Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) has started, and we even know the launch date for it. We can now begin to track the Linux kernels that will be implemented in the daily builds.

=> ↺ Ubuntu Touch to Get the Major OTA-8 Update in Two Weeks, Feature Freeze in Effect

• Ubuntu developers have been busy with the next OTA update that is planned for Ubuntu Touch, and it looks like they are now clearing the way for the next release. A feature freeze is now in effect for the new OTA update.

=> ↺ Ubuntu in talks to make handsets in India

• The government’s open source policy has given a tremendous push to Microsoft Windows alternatives. Canonical, maker of popular Linux-based operating system Ubuntu, has been piggybacking on this opportunity to penetrate into the government and education sector in the country.

• Ubuntu is now eyeing the mobile and Internet of Things markets in India as its next growth driver. The company recently launched its two smartphones in India through Snapdeal. The two handsets, which are available globally, are manufactured by Spanish manufacturer Aquaris. However, Ubuntu is in talks with local handset makers for possible ‘Make in India’ deal.

=> ↺ Canonical Announces OpenStack Cloud App Store for Ubuntu Linux

• Canonical is launching yet another app store for Ubuntu Linux. Unlike its great, late desktop-oriented predecessor, however, this one is focused on the OpenStack cloud, with apps delivered via Juju.

• Ubuntu founder and former CEO Mark Shuttleworth announced the new app store at the OpenStack Summit this week in Tokyo. The platform will provide a way for people running Ubuntu-based OpenStack clouds to install cloud applications via Juju and Horizon, the web-based management interface for OpenStack.

Flavours and Variants

=> ↺ New Opera, Chakra Plasma 5, Riddell Responds

• A new Opera Web browser has landed for Linux users bring new features and improved multimedia support. Jonathan Riddell posted a short response to Ubuntu’s statement on the community councils and a couple of reviews deserve mentioning. For Chakra users, a switch to Plasma 5 was announced.

=> ↺ Kubuntu’s founder resigns, accuses Canonical of defrauding donors and violating copyright

• Jonathan Riddell—who founded Kubuntu a decade ago—has stepped down as release manager and will be headed upstream to KDE. This comes after a lengthy period of spats between Riddell and the Ubuntu Community Council. On Reddit, Riddell punctuated his resignation by once again accusing Canonical—the company behind Ubuntu—of defrauding donors and violating copyrights.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ RaspEX Linux Distro Brings Ubuntu 15.10 (Wily Werewolf) to Raspberry Pi 2

• We’ve been informed earlier today, October 28, by Arne Exton that there’s a new version of his RaspEX GNU/Linux distribution, updated to the recently released Ubuntu 15.10 (Wily Werewolf) operating system.

Phones

Tizen

=> ↺ Samsung Tizen TV 2.0 SDK has been Released and Available to Download

• Today, Samsung Tizen TV SDK 2.0 has been released and is immediately available to download. By using the SDK, developers get the tools they need to begin developing Tizen TV apps. The tool set includes an Integrated Development Environment (IDE), a light-weight TV Simulator for testing web apps, and a TV Emulator.

=> ↺ Samsung launches Linux phone Z3 in India

• Samsung the leading Android player has launched yet another Linux powered smartphone, Samsung Z3, in India. The phone is powered by Tizen, a Linux-based operating system being developed by Samsung and partners under the umbrella of the Linux Foundation.

=> ↺ Tizen Development Workshop Running on 31 October , 2015 – Kochi, India

• Hey Devs, Do you want to learn about the Tizen Operating System? Yes, that is good as there is a Tizen development workshop that is will be held in Kochi, India on Saturday 31 October 2015. The event will be from 10am – 3pm at MP Hall Thapasya, Infopark, Kochi.

Android

=> ↺ I’ve made the iPhone 6s into my dream Android phone

• Even though I’m now using an iPhone 6s as my primary smartphone, I’m still a huge fan of Google’s mobile app ecosystem. In fact, while I like the overall user experience of the iPhone better than any Android phone I’ve used so far, I still think Android is a great mobile OS that has a lot to recommend. Thankfully, switching over to iOS hasn’t meant giving up the best parts of Android since most of the best Google mobile apps are also available on Apple’s smartphone as well.

=> ↺ Google Keep for Android now lets you draw on photos

=> ↺ BetterBatteryStats v2.1 Comes With Android Marshmallow Support And Various Other Tweaks

=> ↺ Iranian hackers show interest in Android spying tools

=> ↺ Emojis Update: Android Users Get Middle Finger Emoji Head Up As Unicode 8.0 Arrives Soon; Upon Release, iOS Will Have Unicode 9.0 Already

=> ↺ Google Lets Developers Try Its Brillo OS Via Early Access Program

=> ↺ MIPS CPU Architecture Fully Supported by Google’s New Brillo OS for the IoT

=> ↺ Imagination’s Upcoming ‘Creator Ci40′ Dev Board Adds Support For OpenWRT, Google’s Brillo

=> ↺ Imagination cuddles Brillo, Debian and OpenWrt for thing-devs

=> ↺ This new maker board will operate on Google and Linux software

=> ↺ Intel, MIPS modules to support Google’s Brillo OS at launch

=> ↺ Google starts early access program to let developers try its Brillo OS for connected devices

=> ↺ Imagination’s new Ci40 Creator IoT board will run Brillo from Google

=> ↺ Android-based “Brillo” IoT OS arrives with hacker SBC support

• Google launched developer access to its lightweight, Android based “Brillo” OS for IoT, which initially supports a trio of ARM, Intel, and MIPS hacker SBCs.

• Google today launched a Brillo developer portal where code, development tools, and documentation for the Android-based Brillo embedded OS for Internet of Things devices can obtained. For now, gaining access to the portal’s goodies requires completing a short registration form and waiting for an email invitation.

=> ↺ 2015, The Year Of Android/Linux In Asia

• We’ve known for several years that Android/Linux smartphones were very popular in Asia. One could choose any of the last few years to declare its year, but 2015 is special.

=> ↺ HTC One A9 review: the Android iPhone

• At its promotional price of $399 In the United States, the HTC One A9 is an easy phone to recommend. Its refined aluminum design is much more lovable than Google’s plastic Nexus 5X, and the simple pleasure of using a phone is important when you’re considering a thing you’ll be spending most of your waking time with. But when the price jumps to $499 in a week’s time — as well as for all other regions across the world — the One A9’s value diminishes greatly. It then matches straight up against Google’s Nexus 6P, the best Android smartphone to date. The winner of that contest is always going to be Google’s handset, which also comes with the long-term assurance of receiving updates faster and for a longer time than any other device.

=> ↺ Best Android Flagships In 2016: Samsung Galaxy S7, LG G5, Xiaomi Mi 5 And More

• We definitely saw a lot of powerful new smartphones from Android OEMs in 2015, but that doesn’t mean Samsung, LG, Xiaomi and other makers are not upping their game for 2016.

• With this year’s most awaited flagships already unveiled, companies are turning their attention to their next-generation phones for the coming year. And for those of you who are willing to wait out another few months before shelling out your hard-earned money for a new smartphone, these new devices rumored to be in the works might just be worth the wait.

=> ↺ Google steps up in the war against Android bloatware

• This is a very important step forward in preventing OEMs and carriers from adding bloatware to devices, which is a practice that needs to be curtailed completely. No, this doesn’t empower the user to remove bloatware, but it does give them control over whether those pesky apps can do anything of significance. So if you “accidentally” run one of those apps, they won’t get a chance to dive into and mine your data.

=> ↺ Why I dumped my iPhone 6 and went Android

• After using an iPhone 6 Plus for six months, I’ve spent the past six months with Android devices. I expected it to be a learning experience. I didn’t expect to find an Android device that is so much better than the iPhone for my needs that I can’t imagine going back.

=> ↺ Replace Your Laptop with an Android Tablet

• Your sleek little Android tablet is easy to carry, so why not make it your travel computer?

• I love my Thinkpad, but my go-anywhere travel companion is an Android tablet. I could spend a giant pile of money on something sleek and lightweight like a MacBook Air, Dell XPS 13, or Lenovo’s X1 Carbon, which includes a proper trackpoint. These have screen sizes from 11″ to 14″, good battery life, and enough memory and CPU to do real work.

=> ↺ Samsung Wants to Replace Your TV With This Gigantic New Android Tablet

• While many consider the tablet to be an extension of the smartphone or a computer that’s more portable than a laptop, Samsung believes it can also replace your television. The company’s newest device, the Galaxy View, promises to do just that.

Free Software/Open Source

=> ↺ Karma: How Open Source changed my life.

• Needles to say that the interface was as ugly as sin, slower than molasses, and as bugged as an old mattress… but it worked, and moreover, it was free. I immediately released the code on Github, and posted a link with a brief introduction on XDA.

• I had no idea that those tiny steps would turn my life around, in just a few years.

• The project literally exploded, the next day my inbox was clogged with replies to my XDA thread. People asking for more information, wanting to know how to compile the code, but most of all, people comparing it with that other app, the semi-free thing that had “ruined” my idea.

• I started working on it like a dog. During the day, I kept up with my job as a PHP programmer for a company in Rome, at night and during my summer break, I wrote miles of code, considered new concepts, new functions, things those “other people” hadn’t even thought of.

=> ↺ Open source would not have prevented VW problems

• The recent VW emissions scandal has led many to suggest that such software should be open source to prevent car makers getting away with this sort of thing.

• The argument is that if the code was public, then anyone would see that VW had tinkered with it to foil emissions testing.

=> ↺ Serving the Underserved with Open Source Mobile Infrastructure

• It’s an immensely exciting time for mobile communications as open source 2G technology matures and starts to make inroads, while multiple 4G implementations are under active development. This is perhaps one of the few areas in tech that has thus far not enjoyed the many and substantial benefits that open source brings. But, all that is set to change.

• Adoption of open source mobile technology will likely continue in lower income and remote areas, where proprietary solutions are simply not economically viable. This is vitally important as a large section of the global population remains without access to mobile communications.

=> ↺ Tor: a landmark for hidden services

• The Tor Project’s .onion (hidden services) addresses have been formally approved as a Special Use Domain Name by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), a body that sets standards for the Internet.

=> ↺ Open Source and Its Lost Ideals

• Mention the year of the Linux desktop, and you are guaranteed to get a laugh. The six words have become a catchphrase, with the implication that it will never happen. But, even more importantly, the laughter indicates a change in attitude.

• Where once Linux advocates were out to change the world, for many today, using free software has become no more than a convenience, or at most a matter of identity. Around the turn of the millennium, a book called Revolution OS or a monthly publication subtitled “the magazine of the revolution” sounded perfectly reasonable, yet few today would ever talk about Linux and revolution in the same sentence without being ironic. What was once revolutionary has settled down to being a minority choice, with very few being concerned about the situation.

=> ↺ Pivotal’s Greenplum data warehouse software is now open source

• Pivotal today released its Greenplum data warehouse software under an Apache 2 open-source license. The source code is available now on GitHub.

• “The Greenplum Database (GPDB) is an advanced, fully featured, open source data warehouse. It provides powerful and rapid analytics on petabyte scale data volumes,” Pivotal writes in the description of the Greenplum software on GitHub. “Uniquely geared toward big data analytics, Greenplum Database is powered by the world’s most advanced cost-based query optimizer delivering high analytical query performance on large data volumes.”

=> ↺ Open Sourced Greenplum Data Warehouse Now on GitHub

• Pivotal Software Inc. followed through on its February promise to open source core components of its Big Data platform, placing the Greenplum data warehouse software on GitHub with an Apache 2 license.

SaaS/Big Data

=> ↺ IBM builds Apache Spark into core analytics engine

=> ↺ IBM Makes Apache Spark Pivot

=> ↺ IBM launches Apache Spark cloud service

=> ↺ IBM is speeding up SPSS with Apache Spark

=> ↺ IBM stamps its pedal to the metal: Spark flies onto Big Blue’s Bluemix

=> ↺ Spark sits at the heart of IBM’s reinvention

=> ↺ IBM stirs Spark-as-a-service into IBM Bluemix

=> ↺ IBM Builds ApacheSpark into its Core Analytics and Commerce Software

=> ↺ IBM Adds Spark to Bluemix Platform

=> ↺ IBM upgrades & enhances software with Apache Spark

=> ↺ IBM Cloud Opens To Apache Spark

=> ↺ Open source and business processes key to big data analytics future

• Wael Elrifai, EMEA director of enterprise solutions at Pentaho, said in an interview with V3 ahead of the V3 Big Data Summit that the evolution of software tools used for data analytics will have open source frameworks and code at their core.

• The reason for this is down to the speed at which data analytics are evolving, which makes it difficult for companies working on their own tools, based on siloed technology, to provide cutting-edge software.

• “In terms of evolution the tools are moving fast and the changing landscape makes it difficult for different tools to keep up, which is actually where it becomes very important to have this open source ecosystem not just for underlying Hadoop infrastructure but for the data integration infrastructure,” he said.

• Elrifai explained that creating tools that use open source frameworks allows companies to tap into a vast global community of coders and developers adding functionality and capabilities to the base frameworks.

=> ↺ OpenStack vs Amazon: Where’s the Money?

• At the OpenStack Summit here, Jonathan Bryce, executive director of the OpenStack Foundation, delivered the opening keynote address detailing the successes of the past six months. While OpenStack is growing, in the media and analyst question and answer session that followed the keynote, the question was asked how OpenStack compares against Amazon.

=> ↺ OpenStack gathers momentum in Asia

=> ↺ OpenStack tool helps new users find relevant cloud projects

=> ↺ OpenStack Foundation Announces Certification Program For Cloud Admins

=> ↺ OpenStack Foundation Launches Open Source Cloud Certification Program

=> ↺ OpenStack Announces Certification Program for Cloud-Based Software Developers

=> ↺ OpenStack Unveils Project Navigator, Cloud Admin Certification

=> ↺ OpenStack Seeks To Reduce Complexity Within, Announces Certification For Admins And Project Navigator

=> ↺ OpenStack’s New Certification Program Helps IT Resumes Shine

=> ↺ OpenStack Foundation Launches Certification Program for Cloud Admins

=> ↺ OpenStack claims Project Navigator will lead adopters through development hell

=> ↺ OpenStack® Board Approves inwinSTACK as Gold Member of the Foundation

=> ↺ Solinea Builds on Support of Certified OpenStack Administrator Program With Training for Cloud Professionals

=> ↺ OpenStack Foundation Launches Professional Certification Program For OpenStack Cloud Administrators

=> ↺ OpenStack Foundation aims to train OpenStack admins

=> ↺ OpenStack Foundation looks to plug skills gap with Certified Administrator qualification

=> ↺ Is OpenStack ready for mass adoption?

=> ↺ OpenStack Foundation gives cloud administrators professional certification program

=> ↺ With support from Google, OpenStack continues to evolve

=> ↺ 6 Things You Need To Know About HP’s Helion OpenStack 2.0 Release

=> ↺ HP Helion OpenStack 2.0 Delivers a Production Ready, Enterprise Grade Cloud Platform

=> ↺ HP Helion OpenStack 2.0 Delivers a Production Ready, Enterprise Grade Cloud Platform

=> ↺ HP Launches Version 2.0 Of Its Helion OpenStack Platform

=> ↺ HP Helion OpenStack 2.0 Announced in Tokyo

=> ↺ HP Upgrades Helion OpenStack for Enterprises

=> ↺ Huawei Continues to Participate in OpenStack Development, Building an Open Ecosystem

=> ↺ Huawei Continues to Participate in OpenStack Development, Building an Open Ecosystem

=> ↺ Rackspace serves up free Carina Docker-based container-as-a-service beta on OpenStack

• Until its probable general availability next year, the beta version of the Carina container service unveiled today by Rackspace will be free.

• It offers developers, data scientists, and operators what the web-hosting firm says is a quick way to create and deploy a cluster for containerised apps.

• Demonstrated at this week’s OpenStack Summit conference in Tokyo, Carina is designed to widen the use of container clusters, employing the native Docker API and tooling, such as Swarm for orchestration, to move applications between dev, test, and production environments.

Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

=> ↺ LibreOffice 5.1 in final development stage

• LibreOffice 5.1 has officially entered the final stage of development with the release of the Alpha version, which is available to technology enthusiasts and community members for the 1st Bug Hunting Session organized from Friday, October 30, to Sunday, November 1.

=> ↺ LibreOffice 5.1 Moves Along For Planned February Release

• LibreOffice 5.1 entered its final development stage now following the release of the 5.1 Alpha.

• LibreOffice 5.1 is working on many new features and is planned for release in early February.

IBM

=> ↺ Spark: Enterprise ready by 2016, open source central

=> ↺ IBM’s data integration and governance boss on the future of analytics

=> ↺ IBM Insight 2015 analysis: Machine learning, open source and analytics

=> ↺ The impact of technological disruption on humanity

=> ↺ Watson’s secret weapons

=> ↺ Analysts debate IBM’s open-source strategies

Business

Semi-Open Source//Openwashing

=> ↺ Strong Momentum for Blackboard Open Source Solutions

=> ↺ background/history

• Blackboard today announced that during 2015 more than 110 new customers have chosen one of its Moodle-based solutions to deliver a superior learning experience for their learners. Active in the open source industry since 2012, Blackboard’s open source solutions, which include Moodlerooms, NetSpot, Remote-Learner UK and Nivel Siete, support more than four million users and over 1400 schools, government organizations, and private businesses worldwide.

=> ↺ Netflix (NFLX) Offers Update to Open Source Program

• When we started our Netflix Open Source (aka NetflixOSS) Program several years ago, we didn’t know how it would turn out. We did not know whether our OSS contributions would be used, improved, or ignored; whether we’d have a community of companies and developers sending us feedback; and whether middle-tier vendors would integrate our solutions into theirs. The reasons for starting the OSS Programs were shared previously here.

=> ↺ Open source biometric system takes big leap forward thanks to help from Redgate

=> ↺ Redgate Software working on code for open source fingerprint system

=> ↺ UK software firm lends coding hands to biometrics startup

=> ↺ Open source biometric system takes big leap forward thanks to help from major software company

=> ↺ BitGo Launches Open Source Software to Ease Burden of Key Storage and Recovery

• BitGo®, the leading digital asset security platform, is excited to launch the first-of-its-kind automated, open source Key Recovery Service (KRS) software for provisioning cold backup keys. BitGo’s new KRS offering is part of their relentless commitment to providing the most secure digital asset vault in the world while also ensuring wallet users maintain control of their digital assets.

BSD

=> ↺ Deweloperzy OpenBSD: Antoine Jacoutot

• I always loved „playing” with different operating systems so it was just a matter of time that I run into OpenBSD…

• I first came to it because of its security reputation. „Security” is a very challenging aspect of modern IT and I was glad to find an operating system that made it its priority. I trust these guys much more than I trust myself in that regard 😉

• What made me stick though was totally different. I really fell in love with the system design and simplicity. There’s a huge effort to provide applications that just work out-of-the-box (as much as possible), bundling safe and sane defaults without the need to fiddle with dozains of knobs. Everything is made to be idiot-proof and simple. Just have a look at the recent work with the auto-installer/upgrader. It’s so simple that it’s just beautiful.

=> ↺ PC-BSD’s Lumina Desktop 0.8.7 Out Now with New Desktop Item Interaction System

• The developers of the PC-BSD operating system have had the great pleasure of announcing the release of the Lumina Desktop 0.8.7 desktop environment.

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

=> ↺ GNU ease.js 0.2.7 released [stable]

• This is a minor release introducing additional features for classes and traits.

• This release succeeds v0.2.6, which was released 14 August, 2015. There are no backwards-incompatible changes; support continues for ECMAScript 3+.

=> ↺ Infinity updates

• In case you hadn’t noticed, I8C 0.0.1 was released last week. As well as the note compiler, this package contains I8X, an interpreter for unit testing compiled notes.

• In case you had noticed and you’ve been working with it, please note there’s some compatibility-breaking source language and note format changes in the pipeline.

Public Services/Government

=> ↺ Lock-in To Be Locked Out In Portugal

• That’s refreshing. It also puts GNU/Linux on the inside track because almost everything that runs on GNU/Linux will be able to follow such open standards. With That Other OS, one would always have doubts. I like IT you can count on to work for you and not against you.

=> ↺ UK To Adopt Open Source Office “GovOffice” Based On LibreOffice

• We’ve been listening news of adopting Open-source by several countries, organisations and companies. This time it’s UK. The UK Government announced the deal with an open source company Collabora Office provides LibreOffice based Office suit “GovOffice”.

Openness/Sharing

=> ↺ Nonscandinavia: an open-source, image collection for the rest of the world

Leftovers

=> ↺ France and Germany to promote eInvoicing

• France and Germany are to encourage companies to use eInvoicing an the two countries will continue to work together on the development of common technical standards to facilitate this, according to a joint statement made at the “Accelerate the digital transformation of our economies” conference in Paris on 27 October.

Health/Nutrition

=> ↺ Cutting Sugar Improves Children’s Health in Just 10 Days

• Obese children who cut back on their sugar intake see improvements in their blood pressure, cholesterol readings and other markers of health after just 10 days, a rigorous new study found.

• The new research may help shed light on a question scientists have long debated: Is sugar itself harming health, or is the weight gain that comes from consuming sugary drinks and foods mainly what contributes to illness over the long term?

=> ↺ Will Everyone Please Eat Gluten? Please? Because You Are Literally Killing Me, Kind Of

• A new study by the NPD group shows that 29% of Americans are now trying to cut gluten out of their diets, most of them just cause. Every time another person makes this foolish decision, my life gets harder.

=> ↺ Buckraking on the Food Beat: When Is It a Conflict of Interest?

• In an age of shrinking newspaper budgets, it’s common for editors to rely on freelance writers–and for freelancers to add to their incomes with side projects. But is it a conflict of interest for a columnist who covers food and agriculture to take money from agrichemical industry interest groups?

Security

=> ↺ Mac OS X applications are leading the PC vulnerability war

• GENTLEMEN ADJUST YOUR PC threat league tables. Apple has usurped Oracle as the top blight, according to security firm Secunia.

• The picture is bleak across the board, and the firm found that a huge whack of PCs are are running old, beleaguered, unpatched and end-of-life versions of software. This presents a problem to the user and computers in general.

=> ↺ U.S. military cyber security fails to make the grade

• The United States Department of Defense is still issuing SHA-1 signed certificates for use by military agencies, despite this practice being banned by NIST for security reasons nearly two years ago. These certificates are used to protect sensitive communication across the public internet, keeping the transmitted information secret from eavesdroppers and impersonators. The security level provided by these DoD certificates is now below the standard Google considers acceptable for consumer use on the web.

• The Missile Defense Agency, the eventual successor to the “Star Wars” programme, uses one of these SHA-1 certificates on a Juniper Networks remote access device. The SHA-1 certificate was issued by the Department of Defense in February 2015, long after NIST declared this practice to be unacceptable.

Transparency Reporting

=> ↺ MEP: Transparency negotiations on trade agreements must be a priority

• Member of the European Parliament Marietje Schaake (ALDE/D66) wants furthering transparency around trade negotiations to be a priority for the EU. Today the European Parliament voted in favour of a proposal by Schaake to make more money available to make information about EU trade policy more accessible and to bring it to the attention of people, the proposal would cover 300,000 euros. Schaake: “I am glad that the Parliament has supported this initiative, even if it concerns a relatively small amount of money. It is clear that people increasingly want more explanation about EU trade policy, in the first place in the context of negotiations with the United States, but also more broadly. I want to make sure that the Commission does not only put texts online, which is already being done, but also actively engages with citizens and stakeholders, for example by organising meetings and information sharing events, European member states and the Trade ministers must play a much larger role here, too.”

Environment/Energy/Wildlife

=> ↺ Climate Activists Want A Public Editor For Murdoch-Owned National Geographic

• Climate activists are calling on National Geographic to hire a public editor to keep tabs on its editorial approach following the magazine’s purchase by a division of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation. Murdoch has repeatedly made scientifically inaccurate comments about climate change, and recently lamented “alarmist nonsense” on the issue.

• The National Geographic Society and 21st Century Fox announced last month an expansion of their current partnership to include National Geographic’s cable channels, its flagship magazine, and other digital and social media.

• As National Geographic explained, “Under the $725-million deal, Fox, which currently holds a majority stake in National Geographic’s cable channels, will own 73 percent of the new media company, called National Geographic Partners. The National Geographic Society will own 27 percent.”

• “We will now have the scale and reach to fulfill our mission long into the future,” National Geographic Society CEO Gary E. Knell said at the time. “The Society’s work will be the engine that feeds our content creation efforts, enabling us to share that work with even larger audiences and achieve more impact. It’s a virtuous cycle.”

Finance

=> ↺ Update: $70k Salaries Didn’t “Backfire”; Gravity Payments’ Profits Have Doubled

• In April, Dan Price, CEO of the credit card payment processor Gravity Payments, announced that he will eventually raise minimum pay for all employees to at least $70,000 a year.

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

=> ↺ The Fake News Food Chain

• It’s a problem when presidential candidates from a major political party are getting their information about the world from a news outlet that evidently can’t tell the difference between a sub-Onion hoax site and actual news. It’s an even bigger problem when those candidates bring those bogus claims onto supposedly reputable network TV—and the real journalists aren’t able to recognize that the politicians they’re interviewing are parroting garbage factoids from Fox‘s land of make-believe.

Censorship

=> ↺ ‘America First Not Israel’: Detroit billboard urges US to restrict influence of Jewish Lobby

• However, not everyone is happy about the appearance of the billboard. The Anti-Defamation League’s Heidi Budaj understood that the advertisement was trying to “drive a wedge between the American people and the State of Israel,” a fact she was less than pleased about.

Privacy

=> ↺ Apple unlock: Judge compares request to execution order

=> ↺ Tech Companies and Civil Liberties Groups Force Obama To Weigh In On Encryption Debate

• President Obama will now be forced to publicly describe the extent of his commitment to protecting strong encryption, after nearly 50 major technology companies, human rights groups, and civil liberties collectives—including Twitter, the ACLU, and Reddit — succeeded in getting over 100,000 signatures on a White House petition on Tuesday.

• The government’s “We the People” platform, created in 2011, was designed as “a clear and easy way for the American people to petition their government.” Once a petition gains 100,000 signatures, it is guaranteed a response.

• The savecrypto.org petition demands that Obama “publicly affirm your support for strong encryption” and “reject any law, policy, or mandate that would undermine our security.”

=> ↺ CISA data-sharing bill passes Senate with no privacy protections

• CISA, the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (S. 754), will allow private companies to share cyber-threat data with the federal government, including personal user data, in an effort to prevent cyberattacks, such as those on the scale of Target, Home Depot, and Sony. Companies that share data with federal agencies, including the National Security Agency (NSA), will be given legal and liability protections from lawsuits relating to data sharing.

=> ↺ Senate passes controversial cybersecurity bill Cisa 74 to 21

• The US Senate overwhelmingly passed a controversial cybersecurity bill critics say will allow the government to collect sensitive personal data unchecked, over the objections of civil liberties groups and many of the biggest names in the tech sector.

• The vote on Tuesday was 74 to 21 in support of the legislation. Democratic presidential contender Bernie Sanders voted against the bill. None of the Republican presidential candidates (except Lindsey Graham, who voted in favor) were present to cast a vote, including Rand Paul, who has made privacy from surveillance a major plank of his campaign platform.

• Ahead of the vote a group of university professors specializing in tech law, many from the Princeton Center for Information Technology Policy, sent an open letter to the Senate, urging them not to pass the bill. The bill, they wrote, would fatally undermine the Freedom of Information Act (Foia).

=> ↺ Senate Passes CISA, The Surveillance Bill Masquerading As A Cybersecurity Bill; Here’s Who Sold Out Your Privacy

• After rejecting all the good privacy amendments to CISA, the Senate has now officially passed the legislation by a 74 to 21 vote. About the only “good” news is that the vote is lower than the 83 Senators who voted for cloture on it last week. Either way, the Senate basically just passed a bill that will almost certainly be used mainly for warrantless domestic surveillance, rather than any actual cybersecurity concern.

=> ↺ Will New Cybersecurity Bill Lock Down Security or Invade Our Privacy?

• The problem, of course, is that with immunity protection, companies may feel no qualms about revealing far more personal information about customers and partners than they ever did before. Immunity has powerful consequences.

=> ↺ EFF Disappointed as CISA Passes Senate

• CISA passed the Senate today in a 74-21 vote. The bill is fundamentally flawed due to its broad immunity clauses, vague definitions, and aggressive spying authorities. The bill now moves to a conference committee despite its inability to address problems that caused recent highly publicized computer data breaches, like unencrypted files, poor computer architecture, un-updated servers, and employees (or contractors) clicking malware links.

• The conference committee between the House of Representatives and the Senate will determine the bill’s final language. But no amount of changes in conference could fix the fact that CISA doesn’t address the real cybersecurity problems that caused computer data breaches like Target and the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

=> ↺ Oracle now keeps all EU data within EU borders to avoid Safe Harbour problems

• Oracle has revealed that it is now keeping all data regarding EU citizens within the European Union. This allows it to comply in a straightforward way with the ruling from the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) that is likely to result in EU-US data transfers made using the Safe Harbour framework being deemed illegal.

• According to The Irish Times, Thomas Kurian, president of product development at Oracle, said at Oracle’s annual OpenWorld conference in San Francisco: “All of our data centres in Europe have European operators. They have local production and, within the same European legislative region, disaster recovery. No data is sent across the geographical boundaries to any other legislative boundary.” As a result, Kurian added: “we are very comfortable with where we are with our cloud offerings and the new regulatory framework around data governance.”

=> ↺ Call 911 If You See This Huge-Ass Blimp on the Loose Today

• Here’s a metaphor: a remote-controlled, tremendously expensive, basically useless JLENS aerial surveillance blimp has detached from its tether at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. If you see it, call the authorities. Do NOT try to get it down yourself.

=> ↺ Open Source Center (OSC) Becomes Open Source Enterprise (OSE)

• The DNI Open Source Center has been redesignated the Open Source Enterprise and incorporated in CIA’s new Directorate of Digital Innovation.

• The Open Source Center, established in 2005, was tasked to collect and analyze open source information of intelligence value across all media – – print, broadcast and online. The OSC was the successor to the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), which gathered and translated world news coverage and other open source information for half a century.

=> ↺ The IRS Has Stingrays … But We Knew Stingrays Have Been Used to Chase Tax Fraud

• Indeed, much of what we know about Stingrays comes from Rigmaiden’s years-long effort to demand details of how they used the Stingray to find him, and since he got released for time served, he has continued his efforts to uncover how they’ve been used.

• What’s interesting about the Guardian report, then, is that the IRS itself owned a Stingray, which they were updating in 2009 and 2012, even as the government was being exposed for improperly using Stingrays without a warrant to prosecute tax fraud. Reports on Rigmaiden had suggested an FBI Stingray was used to catch him — and that may well be the case — but we now learn that they owned one before 2009 (so early enough to capture him with, presumably).

• In Rigmaiden’s case, IRS was clearly partnering with FBI, so could have (and may have) used their Stingray. That would seem to be the case for all proper uses of the technology. So, among all the other things we should demand on Stingray use, one of them should be to limit their use to the FBI, which will increase the likelihood they’ll get properly noticed in any prosecution.

=> ↺ IRS possessed Stingray cellphone surveillance gear, documents reveal

• The Internal Revenue Service is the latest in a growing list of US federal agencies known to have possessed the sophisticated cellphone dragnet equipment known as Stingray, according to documents obtained by the Guardian.

• Invoices obtained following a request under the Freedom of Information Act show purchases made in 2009 and 2012 by the federal tax agency with Harris Corporation, one of a number of companies that manufacture the devices. Privacy advocates said the revelation “shows the wide proliferation of this very invasive surveillance technology”.

=> ↺ Surveillance law: France carefully listening to the world! (at last…)

• French Senate has approved last night the bill on international surveillance (fr), legalising mass surveillance beyond French borders, incidentally affecting numerous French people. La Quadrature Du Net salutes French consistency in terms of serious violations of Human Rights.

Civil Rights

=> ↺ Obama Finds Unlikely Policy Allies At Police Gathering

• In highly anticipated remarks Tuesday, President Barack Obama took his push for gun control and criminal justice overhauls to a room full of the country’s top police brass — who enthusiastically backed his calls for comprehensive background checks, assault weapons bans, and reductions in the incarceration rate.

=> ↺ Senior Defense Dept. officials decry Guantánamo judge’s female guard ban

• Secretary of Defense Ash Carter and Gen. Joseph Dunford Jr., chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, criticized the ban in response to a question from New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing in Washington, D.C. Ayotte and two other GOP senators visited the prison Friday, and said they met with female guards upset by the restriction.

=> ↺ Is investor-state dispute settlement legal? A plea for EU judges to check

• Last month, the European Commission proposed reforms to the controversial investor-state dispute mechanism (ISDS), part of the EU-US trade deal known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). ISDS mechanisms, including the Commission’s ‘reformed’ ISDS proposal, let foreign investors sue the EU and Member State governments. These cases take place in front of specialised courts only open to foreign investors, where claims for compensation can run to billions of euros.

• ISDS has important implications for the daily lives of people in the EU. ISDS, for example, can be used by foreign investors to challenge the revocation of a fracking permit following protests and new environmental studies. This is a disconcerting development, especially because a US trade agreement containing ISDS would expose Europe to law suits from the country that uses ISDS the most.

=> ↺ Fox’s Mark Fuhrman Defends The Actions Of School Officer Who Dragged And Threw A Student Across The Floor

=> ↺ Defense lawyer to Guantánamo judge: Secret program may be depriving 9/11 defendant of sleep

• An attorney for the accused 9/11 plotter who has complained about strange overnight noises and vibrations in his prison cell for years told a military judge Sunday that the problem was back, and that it may be caused by a covert Pentagon program disclosed to the court just last week.

=> ↺ The Most Controversial Hacking Cases of the Past Decade

• The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the law that’s been at the heart of almost every controversial hacking case of the past decade, is in the news again this month.

• Prosecutors recently used the law to convict journalist Matthew Keys on felony hacking charges, drawing rounds of condemnation on the web. Edward Snowden, for one, derided the harsh penalty Keys now faces—a maximum possible sentence of 25 years.

• But charging Keys with felonies for his role in a crime that critics say should have been considered a misdemeanor—the minor defacement of a Los Angeles Times article—is not an anomaly for the feds. It’s just one among a growing list of contentious cases that critics say illustrate how prosecutors have been overstepping in their use of the CFAA.

=> ↺ Race and Discipline in Spotlight After South Carolina Officer Drags Student

• Videos of a white sheriff’s deputy throwing a black high school girl to the floor of a classroom thrust this community into an unsettling national discussion Tuesday about whether black students are disproportionately punished.

=> ↺ Obama Calls for Less Prison in Overhauling Sentencing Laws

• President Obama made his case on Tuesday for an overhaul of the nation’s sentencing laws, telling a gathering of top law enforcement officials here that putting large numbers of nonviolent drug offenders in prison was neither fair nor an effective way of combating crime.

Internet/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ This is what the E.U. thinks is ‘net neutrality’

• Europe has a very different idea from the U.S. as to what constitutes “net neutrality.”

=> ↺ EU net neutrality laws fatally undermined by loopholes, critics say

• New rules requiring internet traffic to be treated equally are voted through by MEPs but amendments aimed at closing a series of exemptions are defeated

=> ↺ EU Adopts ‘Net Neutrality’ Rules, Keeps Loopholes Open

• With support of a majority the rules were passed, as expected. This means that the new rules will become law, replacing existing network neutrality laws in member states of the EU.

=> ↺ Europe has approved ‘net neutrality,’ but not the kind advocates wanted

• The European Parliament has voted to approve new rules for Internet providers in major legislation that is nevertheless being slammed by net neutrality advocates who say the regulation is filled with loopholes.

=> ↺ Europe Tries to Save Net Neutrality, Is Killing It Instead

• Net neutrality is when different types of internet traffic cannot be valued over one another. So, an ISP might want to charge people more for playing multiplayer video games online, or perhaps streaming high quality video content. In essence, in a world without net neutrality, ISPs would get to decide what sort of content wins and loses. But when it is in place, all traffic is on an equal playing field.

=> ↺ Cloud traffic to surge courtesy of IoT, says Cisco

• Global cloud traffic is expected to hit 8.6 zettabytes by the end of 2019, up from 2.1 ZB in 2014; data created by the Internet of things will hit 507.5 ZB by 2019; and public cloud workloads will grow at a 44 percent compound annual growth rate, according to Cisco’s Cloud Index.

DRM

=> ↺ US government says it’s now okay to jailbreak your tablet and smart TV

• The US Library of Congress today issued a set of exemptions to an infamous provision in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), establishing a victory for consumers who like to tinker with devices without running afoul of copyright law. The exemptions were far-reaching, extending from movie and television files used in an educational context for criticism to installing third-party software — in other words jailbreaking — tablets and smart TVs.They will however only last for three years.

=> ↺ Free At Last: New DMCA Rules Might Make the Web a Better Place

• Another positive from the change is that smartphone users will be able to jailbreak their phone and finally enjoy running operating systems and applications from any source, not just those approved by the manufacturer.

=> ↺ Victory for Users: Librarian of Congress Renews and Expands Protections for Fair Uses

• The new rules for exemptions to copyright’s DRM-circumvention laws were issued today, and the Librarian of Congress has granted much of what EFF asked for over the course of months of extensive briefs and hearings. The exemptions we requested—ripping DVDs and Blurays for making fair use remixes and analysis; preserving video games and running multiplayer servers after publishers have abandoned them; jailbreaking cell phones, tablets, and other portable computing devices to run third party software; and security research and modification and repairs on cars—have each been accepted, subject to some important caveats.

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