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● 07.28.17

● Links 28/7/2017: Suricata 4.0, QML vs. HTML5, LibreOffice 5.4

Posted in News Roundup at 5:21 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

Desktop

=> ↺ Top Alternative Linux Distributions To Windows XP

• ​This is why today I am going to mention the top Linux distro that will surely help you to switch easily from XP to Linux. The list is made keeping in mind lightweight, updated and easiness to use just like XP. So without wasting time, let us start.

• Here is an old article by us when we looked around for best windows replacement distro.

=> ↺ My $169 development Chromebook

• For example, Trusted Platform Module (TPM) hardware chips are built into every Chromebook and deeply incorporated into the OS.

Server

=> ↺ Future Proof Your SysAdmin Career: An Introduction to Essential Skills

• As the technology industry evolves, today’s system administrators need command of an ever-expanding array of technical skills. However, many experts agree that skills like effective communication and collaboration are just as important. With that in mind, in this series we are highlighting essential skills for sysadmins to stay competitive in the job market. Over the next several weeks, we will delve into important technical requirements as well as non-technical skills that hiring managers see as crucial.

=> ↺ Ops: It’s everyone’s job now

• Today is Sysadmin Appreciation Day. Turn to your nearest and dearest systems administrator and be sure to thank them for the work they do.

=> ↺ [Older] The Biggest Shift in Supercomputing Since GPU Acceleration

• For years, the pace of change in large-scale supercomputing neatly tracked with the curve of Moore’s Law. As that swell flattens, and as the competitive pressure ticks up to build productive exascale supercomputers in the next few years, HPC has been scrambling to find the silver bullet architecture to reach sustained exascale performance. And as it turns out, there isn’t one.

• But there is something else—something few saw coming three years ago, has less to do with hardware than it does a shift in how we approach massive-scale simulations, and is happening so fast that too-far-ahead-of-time procurements are going to be less useful than expected for some high value applications in weather, drug discovery, and elsewhere.

=> ↺ Why Kubernetes, OpenStack and OPNFV are a match made in heaven

• Chris Price, open source strategist for SDN, cloud and NFV at Ericsson, says there’s plenty of love in the air between Kubernetes, OpenStack and OPNFV.

• “Kubernetes provides us with a very simple way of very quickly onboarding workloads and that’s something that we want in the network, that’s something we want in our platform,” Price said, speaking about what he called “a match made in heaven” between Kubernetes, OpenStack and NFV at the recent OPNFV Summit.

• Price believes the Euphrates release is the right time to integrate more tightly with Kubernetes and OpenStack, finding ways of making the capabilities from each available to the NFV environment and community.

Kernel Space

Graphics Stack

=> ↺ Initial Batch Of AMDGPU Changes Submitted For Linux 4.14

• Alex Deucher of AMD has sent in the first pull request of Radeon/AMDGPU DRM changes to be queued in DRM-Next for eventually reaching the Linux 4.14 kernel in September.

=> ↺ AMDGPU-PRO 17.30 Linux Driver Now Available For Download

=> ↺ ARB_transform_feedback_overflow_query Patches For RadeonSI

Benchmarks

=> ↺ Linux vs. BSD CPU Scaling Up To 20 Threads On The Core i9 7900X

• With Intel’s recently-launched Core i9 7900X I have carried out some interesting BSD vs. Linux benchmarks when testing out various distributions and comparing each of them at 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 20 threads on this $999+ USD processor.

=> ↺ AMD Ryzen 3 Rolls Out, Linux Benchmarks Coming

Applications

=> ↺ mtPaint – A Lightweight Paint Software for Digital Photos

• mtPaint is an open source paint application for both Linux and Windows developed for the purpose of creating and manipulating pixel images.

• It was developed from scratch by Mark Tyler and maintained by Dmitry Groshev. If you hadn’t heard about it prior to reading this article it is probably because before its latest update in June 2016, its last update was in 2011!

• Update frequency not withstanding, mtPaint has a focus on being memory friendly and its latest update came with a handful of both new and improved features.

=> ↺ Suricata 4.0 released!

• We are thrilled to announce Suricata 4.0. This is a major new release, improving detection capabilities, adding new output options and more protocols.

=> ↺ Suricata 4.0 released

=> ↺ Gabedit: the Portal to Chemistry

• Many chemistry software applications are available for doing scientific work on Linux. I’ve covered several here in previous issues of the magazine, and of them have their own peculiar specialties—areas where one may work better than another. So, depending on what your research entails, you may need to use multiple software packages to handle all of the work. This is where Gabedit will step in to help you out.

Proprietary

=> ↺ An Interview With Vivaldi Browser’s CEO Jon S. von Tetzchner

• Almost all of have used Opera web browser. The Opera web browser used to be popular specially on mobile platforms. It’s still not given up and recently released some features in the latest release. But today in this article, we’re going to talk to the former CEO and present co-founder of Vivaldi web browser, Jon S. von Tetzchner, a browser that is for power users. Let’s ask him why he left Opera and why he started Vivaldi.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ [Older] Create your own Linux Radio Station

=> ↺ 9 Methods To Check If Your Linux System Is 32-bit or 64-bit

=> ↺ Use open source Vagrant to deploy containers and VMs

=> ↺ Easily Update Ubuntu and Debian Systems with uCareSystem

=> ↺ Using Prototypes to Explore Project Ideas, Part 1

=> ↺ How To Find And Delete Files That Contains A Specific Text In Their Names In Linux

=> ↺ Setting up a MariaDB Server with SELinux on RHEL 7

=> ↺ How To Find All Installed Fonts From Commandline In Linux

=> ↺ Keep Your /home Safe With Cron Backups

=> ↺ How to Disable the Touchpad When a Mouse Is Connected in Linux GNOME Shell

=> ↺ Email2git: Matching Linux Code with its Mailing List Discussions

=> ↺ How To Search The Arch Wiki Website Right From Terminal

Games

=> ↺ Drive a customizable steambuggy in ‘Pressure Overdrive’, now on Linux

• Pressure Overdrive [Official Site, Steam] is an interesting mash-up between driving and shooting with your customizable steambuggy. The developer sent over a key, so I’ve given it a play and it’s really quite fun.

=> ↺ Unravel the mystery of your mother’s disappearance in ‘Gray Skies, Dark Waters’ on Linux

• You are Lina, a young girl who’s family was torn apart by your mother’s disappearance and it’s time to finally find out what happened.

=> ↺ The Sid Meier’s Civilization VI ‘Summer 2017 Update’ and Nubia content are out, Linux support ‘soon’

• Sid Meier’s Civilization VI [Steam] has been updated again with the ‘Summer 2017 Update’, as usual the Linux (and Mac) versions are a little behind. The official release notes simply say we will get it soon.

=> ↺ ‘0 A.D.’ Alpha 22 Released, Here’s How to Install it on Ubuntu

• A new alpha release of historic real-time strategy game 0 A.D. is available to download. The ancient warfare game has been in continual development since 2002, but only became an open-source project in 2009. Following its shift to an open-source development model the team behind the game began to make alpha versions available for download.

=> ↺ Open source RTS ’0 A.D.’ Alpha 22 Venustas has been released, it’s huge

=> ↺ Here’s the latest on what’s going on with the Linux port of EVERSPACE

• EVERSPACE [Steam] is still coming to Linux, but sadly it’s taking a lot longer than anyone had hoped. They’ve been working through the issues and have given an update.

=> ↺ Godot, the open source game engine has released the first 3.0 Alpha

=> ↺ Factorio 0.15 is out with Uranium & Nuclear power and plenty more

=> ↺ So, I played… Pyre

• Pyre is the third game from Supergiant Games, the developers that previously released Bastion and Transistor, both games that were well-received and I personally would rate them as some of the best games I’ve played. Let’s see how Pyre compares, shall we?

=> ↺ Cloudbase Prime, the quirky FPS has now officially launched and it’s utterly brilliant

=> ↺ Black Ice, the Cyberpunk first-person shooter has a major update, making the game feel more alive

=> ↺ Streets of Rogue major update released, you can now make your own character

Desktop Environments/WMs

=> ↺ Sway 0.14 Supports KDE Server Decorations Protocol, Mouse Button Bindings

• Sway 0.14 is now available as the latest release of this i3-compatible Wayland compositor that’s quite popular among Linux enthusiasts who are fans of the i3 tiling window manager.

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ QML vs. HTML5

• Mobile devices have set the standard in terms of responsiveness and user-friendliness for HMIs across industries. Manufacturers of cars, medical equipment, industrial automation systems and consumer electronics now want to replicate this great user experience for their embedded devices. To find out which technology strategy we should select we set up a test where one of our developers was allocated 160 hours to create a demo application of an embedded system using Qt & QML and same number of hours to create the very equivalent application using HTML5.

=> ↺ Qt QML Is Better Than HTML5 For User Interfaces?

• Get the popcorn ready as this should be an interesting discussion item: is using Qt QML better than HTML5 when designing user-interfaces?

• Engineering firm Sequality believes Qt QML is better than HTML5 when designing user-interfaces for embedded devices and have published some of their findings in a post entitled Qt vs. HTML5.

• Right now they are referring to Qt being better than HTML5 for embedded/mobile, but if this is from the same trashed PR messages from a few days ago representing this independent firm, they seem to have their sights wider than that in the long run.

=> ↺ Kalendar – A Minimal Calendar App for Efficient Time Management

• Kalendar is a cross-platform Gregorian calendar application with a focus on simplicity, ease of use, and KDE desktop. It is written in C++ and has its GUI built with the Qt5 library.

• The project was started from scratch by echo-devim who after being inspired by gnome-calendar, aims to keep the app simple in order to avoid “annoying dependencies (so you can easily install it everywhere)”.

• It features a simple UI geared towards intuitive event management and TODOs. You can add events by clicking once on a date and right-clicking to delete.

GNOME Desktop/GTK

=> ↺ GNOME’s Disks Utility Is Getting Large File Support, Resize and Repair Functions

• GNOME’s Disks utility (gnome-disk-utility) is getting a lot of attention from its maintainers during the development cycle of the GNOME 3.26 desktop environment, and it now looks like there will be new disk resize and repair functions, too.

=> ↺ Nautilus Not Adding Tags, Might Add File Favoriting Instead

• Tags are a super handy way to organize, sort and find files without needing to worry about where you actually put ’em. So, naturally, I was super excited when GNOME developer Alexandru Pandelea began to share word of work he’d done to bring native file tags to Nautilus.

=> ↺ After 12 Years, GNOME’s Evince Document Viewer Supports Adobe Illustrator Files

• GNOME developer Bastien Nocera reports today on some the improvements coming to the Evince document viewer app as part of the upcoming GNOME 3.26 desktop environment.

• The biggest change that’ll be implemented in Evince 3.26 is the use of the libarchive library for decompressing various archive types, including the CBZ, CB7, and CBT formats that are usually used for comic books, and it also supports RAR files through the use of the unarr command-line utility.

=> ↺ GNOME Calendar is now capable of creating/editing recurring events

• I’m glad to announce that GNOME Calendar now supports creation of recurring events. Now you can easily create recurring events with the help of the modified edit-dialog.

=> ↺ Enhancing photos with GNOME Photos

• Photos can do more than edit. It also integrates with GNOME Online Accounts, and can be set up to share photos to various online photo services. Photos also lets you organize your photos into albums. It even detects screenshots and automatically sorts them into a Screenshots album for you!

=> ↺ Libratbag-Powered Piper Is Looking Good For Configuring Gaming Mice On Linux

• It’s not quite ready for primetime yet by Linux gamers, but Piper as the GTK-powered user-interface for controlling gaming mice on Linux is getting into shape.

• Piper is the GTK interface for configuring mice on Linux via libratbag/ratbagd, the library offering a generic way to access various mice features and abstract away hardware/kernel differences.

Distributions

Reviews

=> ↺ SparkyLinux 5: Great All-Purpose Distro for Confident Linux Users

• Other factors make using SparkyLinux 5 a smart decision. One is its use of a rolling release schedule that pushes the latest packages and edition upgrades as they are ready, without requiring a complete reinstallation.

• Starting out, I referred to SparkyLinux as one of the best full-service Linux distros available. Of course, that is a subjective evaluation, but having installed and tested the latest editions of countless Linux distros on a weekly basis for years, I’ve developed a sixth sense for what makes a great choice and what does not.

• SparkyLinux 5 is one of those great choices. Check it out.

OpenSUSE/SUSE

=> ↺ openSUSE 42.3 Released, Here’s What’s New

• After 8 months of continues development. The openSUSE team has just announced openSUSE 42.3. Which is considered to be the latest release of the stable openSUSE branch (called Leap).

=> ↺ openSUSE Leap 42.3 Linux-based operating system is here — download it now

• Variety is both a gift and curse for Linux on the desktop. On the one hand, it is nice that there are so many operating systems based on the kernel from which to choose. On the other, it can sometimes feel like the community is very fragmented. Not only is there tribalism between users of distributions, but desktop environments too. For instance, there is Ubuntu vs. Fedora and KDE vs. GNOME — much like Coke vs. Pepsi and Chevy vs. Ford. This is just human nature, I suppose.

Red Hat Family

Finance

=> ↺ Closing Above PSAR Are Shares of Red Hat Inc (RHT)

=> ↺ Hudson Valley Investment Advisors Inc. ADV Cuts Stake in Red Hat, Inc. (RHT)

=> ↺ Hillview Capital Advisors, LLC Buys Red Hat Inc, Vanguard Total Stock Market, Sells Apple Inc, Ares Capital Corp

=> ↺ LS Investment Advisors LLC Has $590,000 Stake in Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE:RHT)

=> ↺ Is Momentum Building For Red Hat Inc (RHT)?

=> ↺ Red Hat Inc Using Put Spreads to Outperform the Stock

=> ↺ Parametrica Management Ltd Acquires Shares of 4,033 Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE:RHT)

=> ↺ Digging Up the Facts on Red Hat, Inc. (RHT)

Fedora

=> ↺ Fedora Classroom Sessions are here!

• The Fedora Join SIG is proud to announce Classroom sessions. The Fedora Classroom is a project to teach interested users how to better use, understand and manage their Fedora system, and to show how the community works. The idea is to reach interested people and, if they desire, bring them closer to the Fedora community.

• Almost all classes will be held on IRC in the #fedora-classroom channel on Freenode (irc.freenode.net). If you’re not familiar with IRC, check out the Beginner’s guide to IRC. Also we’ll use BlueJeans, a video conferencing platform that works from browsers, mobile devices and a desktop application. If you have trouble connecting to Blue Jeans, please refer to the support page.

=> ↺ Fedora Media Writer – A Necessary Tool for the Fedora User

• Suppose that you have decided that you want to give the new Fedora release a try. You download the ISO and then you have to pick a method of putting that ISO on a thumb drive.

• You could choose to use the dd command or you could pick from a series of applications. However, with Fedora, you have only one option: Fedora Media Writer.

Debian Family

Derivatives

Canonical/Ubuntu

=> ↺ Ubuntu 17.10 (Artful Aardvark) Alpha 2 Hits the Streets for Opt-In Flavors

• Canonical is still working hard on the next major release of the Ubuntu Linux operating system, Ubuntu 17.10 (Artful Aardvark), and they’ve just released today the second and last Alpha development snapshot for this cycle.

=> ↺ Ubuntu Flavors Roll Out Their Artful 17.10 Alpha 2 Releases

• The second alpha release of the “Artful Aardvark” 17.10 is now available for Lubuntu, Kubuntu, Ubuntu MATE, Ubuntu Budgie, and Ubuntu Kylin.

• With Lubuntu 17.10 Alpha 2 also comes Lubuntu-Next, which is their experimental spin featuring Ubuntu atop the LXQt desktop environment rather than the GTK-based LXDE. LXQt is powered by Qt5 and remains under development.

=> ↺ Ubuntu 17.10 Soon Switching Over To GCC 7

• Ubuntu will begin their transition from GCC 6 to GCC 7 in early August.

• Matthias Klose is again organizing the compiler change-over in Ubuntu. The default changing of Ubuntu’s compiler from GCC 6 to GCC 7.1 is expected to happen the first week of August.

=> ↺ Canonical Looking for user input on software selection for Ubuntu

• Canonical’s Ubuntu Linux distribution is one of the, if not THE, most popular distributions of any GNU/Linux systems available; and now the company is looking for input from the masses on what software should be included in Ubuntu 18.04.

• The next long-term support release of the popular GNU/Linux operating system from Canonical is scheduled for April 2018, and will feature a number of changes; most notable is the switch from the Unity desktop environment and the return to GNOME.

Flavours and Variants

=> ↺ Kubuntu Artful Aardvark (17.10) Alpha 2

• Artful Aardvark (17.10) Alpha 2 images are now available for testing.

• The Kubuntu team will be releasing 17.10 in October.

• This is the first spin in preparation for the Alpha 2 pre-release. Kubuntu Alpha pre-releases are NOT recommended for:

• Regular users who are not aware of pre-release issues Anyone who needs a stable system Anyone uncomfortable running a possibly frequently broken system Anyone in a production environment with data or workflows that need to be reliable

=> ↺ Lubuntu Artful Aardvark Alpha 2 has been released!

=> ↺ Why Ubuntu MATE 17.10 Could Be Your New Favorite Linux Distro?

• In late June, the first Alpha release of Ubuntu 17.10 was pushed by the participating flavors, i.e., Lubuntu, Kubuntu, and Ubuntu Kylin. For Ubuntu 17.10 Alpha 2 has been released and more flavors have participated in this release, including Ubuntu MATE, Ubuntu Budgie. You can find all the download links towards the end of this article.

=> ↺ Ubuntu MATE 17.10 Alpha 2 Released, Includes HUD, Global Menu

• Ubuntu MATE 17.10 Alpha 2 is now available to download and if you’re a big fan of the Unity desktop you’re going to love what’s on offer. The screenshot above shows some of the major improvements Ubuntu MATE 17.10 has made to its ‘Unity’ style layout (called ‘Mutiny’, and accessible through the MATE Tweaks app).

=> ↺ Ubuntu Budgie 17.10 Alpha 2 Released, This is What’s New

• Ubuntu Budgie 17.10 Alpha 2 is available to download right now. This is the first testing snapshot of what will become the next stable Ubuntu Budgie release. Naturally, for an Ubuntu flavor build around the Budgie desktop, you won’t be shocked to hear that the latest stable release of Budgie is included, specifically v10.3.2.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ 10 Linux or Android Based Smart Eyewear Devices

• Recently, Google umbrella firm Alphabet announced a new enterprise version of the Google Glass smart eyeglasses. Over the past two years, Glass Enterprise Edition (Glass EE) has been tested at more than 50 companies including Boeing, DHL, GE, and Volkswagen, and is now more widely available via a corporate partner program.

=> ↺ I made my own wearable computer with a Raspberry Pi, and it was almost too easy

• Ever since I read about the crazy wearable pioneers back in the ‘90s and early 2000s, I’ve wanted a wearable computer of my own. I had two major requirements, however: it had to be a computer, and I had to be able to wear it.

• Smartphones, for the most part, have supplanted most people’s interest in or need for a wearable computer. They’re great, I highly endorse smartphones. But you can’t really “wear” them in any functional way.

=> ↺ FreeRTOS-based remote I/O module offers isolated interfaces

• Artila’s “RIO-2014PG” remote I/O module runs FreeRTOS on an Atmel SAM4E16E, and offers isolated Fast Ethernet, RS485, and analog and digital I/O.

• Artila Electronics, which is known primarily for its embedded Linux industrial computers such as the Matrix-700 and Matrix-710 IoT gateway, has more recently been getting into embedded gear that runs the open source FreeRTOS. The new RIO-2014PG uses the same 120MHz, 32-bit Cortex-M4 SAM4E16E MCU as last year’s RIO-2015PG.

=> ↺ Mentor supports Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC Platform with updated embedded platform release

Tizen

=> ↺ Telegram for Tizen (Unofficial) updated to version 0.1.1, number of Important bug-fixes

=> ↺ All Tizen Mobiles receive Tizen Store and Theme Store updates to version 1.7.3 / 1.7.4

Android

=> ↺ LG disappointed by sales of flagship smartphone

=> ↺ HTC 10 and HTC One A9 Android 7.0 Nougat Kernel Source Code Released

=> ↺ Inside the ongoing fight to stamp out govt-grade Android spyware

=> ↺ Huawei CEO drops first hints on Mate 10

=> ↺ Samsung Galaxy S8 Active specs revealed in leaked photos

=> ↺ Tech: Google blocks Android spyware

=> ↺ How I use Android: Google Photos manager Indy Khare

=> ↺ These Are the 5 Best Android Phones You Can Buy Right Now (July 2017)

=> ↺ iPhone vs. Android: 12 points of difference

=> ↺ How a Bug in an Obscure Chip Exposed a Billion Smartphones to Hackers

=> ↺ The ‘Cloak & Dagger’ Attack That Bedeviled Android For Months

Free Software/Open Source

=> ↺ Four Open Source Data Projects To Watch Now

• While open source isn’t the sole source of creativity and progress in big data, it’s a major driver in the space. Market-shaking tech like Kafka, Spark, Hadoop, and MongoDB all began as obscure open source projects backed by enthusiasic developers. Which open source project will be the next breakout star?

• Many open soruce projects are organized under the Apache Software Foundation, but not all. Here are four recently founded upstream big data projects – two hosted by the ASF and two that aren’t — that could find their way into your quiver of big data analytics tools.

=> ↺ The 4 Quadrants of Open Source Entrepreneurship

• Some time ago, I noticed something missing in our discussions about open source software development. A few somethings, in fact. Nobody was talking about product management as it pertains to open source development. Admittedly, this was spurred by a question from a product management team member who was confronted for the first time by the reality of working with an engineering team that runs an open source project. Her question was simply, “So… what should we be doing?” Her question was born of a fear that product management had no role in this new regime and thus rendered her unnecessary. I had to think for a moment because I, experienced open source project hand that I was, wasn’t quite sure. For quite some time, my standard response had been for product management and other “corporate types” to stay the hell away from my open source project. But that didn’t feel right. In fact, it felt darn right anachronistic and counterproductive.

=> ↺ Aiming to Be a Zero: The Ultimate Open Source Philosophy

• Guy Martin, Director of the Open@ADSK initiative at Autodesk, had two dreams growing up — to be either an astronaut or a firefighter. Martin has realized his second dream through his work as a volunteer firefighter with Cal Fire, but his love for space is what led to “Aiming to Be an Open Source Zero,” the talk he will be delivering at Open Source Summit NA.

=> ↺ Why you need more than just open-source

• In 2016, the Open Source Drives Digital Innovation study commissioned by Red-Hat and conducted by analyst house Forrester revealed that 52% of CIOs and senior IT decision makers in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region are already tapping open source software in areas such as cloud, mobility, big data and DevOps.

• More IT decision-makers are turning to open source to drive better efficiency and digital innovation, as its flexibility enables organisations to build new customer experiences, services and products more quickly.

• As more enterprises tap open source there are some misconceptions about what open-source means. Open source technology allows for incredible collaboration between people, communities and projects. Yet many inadvertently associate the words “free” and “easy” with open source which is not always true. Open source makes tech easily accessible and collaborative, which drives incredibly fast innovation. But open source is much more than easily accessible tech. Enterprise needs must be considered and that is why the business of open source tech is about more than just accessibility.

=> ↺ 5 open source alternatives to Trello

• I have to admit, I’ve fallen in love with Trello as a productivity tool. If you like keeping lists as a way to organize your work, it’s a very good tool. For me, it serves two primary purposes: keeping a GTD framework, and managing certain projects with a kanban-like schedule.

• But Trello is a closed source SaaS product, and I wanted to know whether I could find an open source alternative to meet my needs. As much as I love Trello, it lacks a few features that I’d really like to have in a list/task manager, and I wanted to explore my other options.

=> ↺ How startup Kite tried to ruin two open source communities

• Even though it can be hard to make money with open source, there are some strategies that should be off-limits. Take Kite, for example, which has reportedly infiltrated two open source projects to use them to push ads and promote spyware. In the open source edition of How to Win Friends and Influence People, Kite’s actions would write the chapter on failure.

Events

=> ↺ SeaGL’s Call for Presentations open through August 6th

=> ↺ ODPi Webinar on Taking Apache Hadoop Enterprise-Wide: Your Questions Answered

=> ↺ DEF CON 25 presentation slides

Web Browsers

Mozilla

=> ↺ How Could You Use a Speech Interface?

• Last month in San Francisco, my colleagues at Mozilla took to the streets to collect samples of spoken English from passers-by. It was the kickoff of our Common Voice Project, an effort to build an open database of audio files that developers can use to train new speech-to-text (STT) applications.

• What’s the big deal about speech recognition?

• Speech is fast becoming a preferred way to interact with personal electronics like phones, computers, tablets and televisions. Anyone who’s ever had to type in a movie title using their TV’s remote control can attest to the convenience of a speech interface. According to one study, it’s three times faster to talk to your phone or computer than to type a search query into a screen interface.

• Plus, the number of speech-enabled devices is increasing daily, as Google Home, Amazon Echo and Apple HomePod gain traction in the market. Speech is also finding its way into multi-modal interfaces, in-car assistants, smart watches, lightbulbs, bicycles and thermostats. So speech interfaces are handy — and fast becoming ubiquitous.

Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

=> ↺ LibreOffice 5.4 Released With New Standard Color Palette, Improved File Handling

• The official update to LibreOffice 5.4 is now available following a slight delay.

• This cross-platform open-source office suite features a new standard color palette, improved file format compatibility, importing PDFs now yield much better quality, support for OpenPGP key signing of documents on Linux, better performance of LibreOffice Online, and many other improvements.

=> ↺ LibreOffice 5.4 Office Suite Debuts with New Features for Writer, Calc & Impress

• The Document Foundation today announced the release and immediate availability of the LibreOffice 5.4 office suite, the last to be released for the LibreOffice 5 series.

• Supported until June 11, 2018, with no less than six incremental updates, the LibreOffice 5.4 office suite is here to add an extra layer of improvements to the Writer, Calc, and Impress components. It also introduces a great number of incremental improvements to the Microsoft Office file compatibility and focuses on file simplicity, which is a very important concept for LibreOffice.

=> ↺ LibreOffice 5.4 Released with ‘Significant New Features’

• LibreOffice 5.4 serves as the final major release in the LibreOffice 5.x series (meaning LibreOffice 6.x will be next). The update is said to add “significant new features in every module” and (as always) improved Microsoft Office file compatibility.

=> ↺ LibreOffice 5.4 released with new features for Writer, Calc and Impress

• The Document Foundation announces LibreOffice 5.4, the last major release of the LibreOffice 5.x family, immediately available for Windows, macOS and Linux, and for the cloud. LibreOffice 5.4 adds significant new features in every module, including the usual large number of incremental improvements to Microsoft Office file compatibility.

CMS

=> ↺ X2CRM Releases Enterprise Open-Source CRM Version 6.9

Healthcare

=> ↺ Manage Type 1 Diabetes With Lifesaving Open Source Software

• A Type 1 diabetes patient took it upon herself to push diabetes technologies forward. She built a pancreatic system to monitor her diabetes, but more impressively, she gave it away for free.

Pseudo-Open Source (Openwashing)

=> ↺ Petition asks Adobe to open source Flash

=> ↺ Developers Petition Adobe to Open Source Flash

=> ↺ Developer creates petition to open source Flash specification

=> ↺ Instead of killing Flash, we should save it for posterity

=> ↺ Flash… Nu-uh! Tech folk champing at the bit to switch off life support

• When Adobe this week announced its intention to kill Flash by 2020, a cheer went up among techies everywhere – not least of which were the browser-makers, who seemed pleased to hasten its death on the web.

=> ↺ New Express Gateway Open Source Initiative Simplifies APIs

=> ↺ Tricentis Acquires Flood IO, Scaling Open Source On-Demand Load Testing for DevOps

=> ↺ Snowballs In Hell? Microsoft Pledges Support For Open Source And Linux Joining Cloud Native Computing Foundation

=> ↺ Docker LinuxKit Brings Linux Containers to Windows Server

=> ↺ Microsoft dives deeper into open source with launch of Azure Container Instances

=> ↺ GigaSpaces Plans Spinoff of Cloudify Division to Focus on Enterprise Hybrid Cloud Management and Network Orchestration

=> ↺ Hortonworks’ Shaun Bierweiler: Open-Source Tech Key to Big Data Mgmt

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

=> ↺ GNU Binutils 2.29 Released

• Binutils 2.29 is now available as well as a Binutils 2.28.1 point release.

• Binutils 2.29 brings a lot for MIPS and SPARC users. MIPS improvements for Binutils 2.29 include support for microMIPS eXtended Physical Addressing (PXA), microMIPS Release 5 ISA for assembly/disassembly, support for the Imagination interAptiv MR2 CPU, and support for the MIPS16e2 ASE assembly/disassembly.

Licensing/Legal

=> ↺ Public Domain Is Not Open Source

• Open Source and Public Domain are frequently confused. Here’s why it’s a mistake to treat the two terms as synonyms.

• Plenty of people assume that public domain software must be open source. While it may be free software within your specific context, it is incorrect to treat public domain software as open source or indeed as globally free software. That’s not a legal opinion (I’m not a lawyer so only entitled to layman’s opinions) but rather an observation that an open source user or developer cannot safely include public domain source code in a project.

=> ↺ 5 Reasons Facebook’s React License Was A Mistake

• In July 2017, the Apache Software Foundation effectively banned the license combination Facebook has been applying to all the projects it has been releasing as open source. They are using the 3-clause BSD license (BSD-3), a widely-used OSI-approved non-reciprocal license, combined with a broad, non-reciprocal patent grant but with equally broad termination rules to frustrate aggressors.

• The combination represents a new open source license, which I’ve termed the “Facebook BSD Plus Patent License” (FB+PL), and to my eyes it bears the hallmarks of an attempt to be compatible with both the GPL v2 and the Apache License v2 at the same time, in circumvention of the alleged imcompatibility of those licenses.

Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

=> ↺ How an open source board game is saving the planet

• Learning is supposed to be fun, and incorporating games into education is a great way for teachers to help kids have fun while they’re learning. There are many free online games that are appropriate for the classroom and there are also board games, including Save the Planet, a board game that teaches kids concrete solutions to environmental problems.

• Save the Planet is a free, DIY, cooperative board game that is openly licensed to encourage community contributions. In the game, players win by working together to clean up virtual pollution, while in real life they learn ways to save the planet. A recent study on distributed manufacturing of toys showed this game costs less than US$ 3 to make—70-90% less than a store-bought board game.

=> ↺ John Dylan’s Open Source Music Volume 2

• Dylan’s ‘Open Source Music Volume 2’ for ‘If I Want You To’ includes no fewer than 22 b-sides capturing some highly emotional and expressionist recordings made after John left his family and high school as a teenager. John commented that ‘I felt very isolated and angry and was wringing a lot of feeling out of myself during the creation of these recordings.’

Open Access/Content

=> ↺ CREATe Summer Summit 2017: Open Science, Open Culture & the Global South (and everything between)

• This was just one of various new web tools showcased last week, all of which work to further increase openness and indeed are generally available (at least as Creative Commons). There was the Copyright Evidence Wiki, a database for empirical copyright research; Online Media Behavioural Analytics (OMeBA) survey data; and – my personal favourite, and well worth a look – the digitisation of Edwin Morgan’s scrapbooks.

Programming/Development

=> ↺ JavaScript explodes on the server side with the growth of Node.js

• Not so long ago, the idea that JavaScript could become an important server-side language would’ve sounded downright silly. Thanks to Node.js, JavaScript has become a vital language not just for web development, but for Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) such as Cloud Foundry. In fact, according to the Stack Overflow 2017 Developer Survey of 64,000 programmers, Node.js is the most popular of all developer frameworks.

• According to Mark Hinkle, executive director of the Node.js Foundation, a branch of The Linux Foundation, “With more than 8 million Node.js instances online, three in four users are planning to increase their use of Node.js in the next 12 months.”

• [...]

• Node.js, for those who don’t know it, is a JavaScript runtime built on Chrome’s V8 JavaScript engine. It uses an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model to be both lightweight and efficient for server side applications. Npm, its package ecosystem, is one of the largest open-source libraries collections in the world.

=> ↺ How is coinduction the dual of induction?

• Earlier today, I demonstrated how to work with coinduction in the theorem provers Isabelle, Coq and Agda, with a very simple example. This reminded me of a discussion I had in Karlsruhe with my then colleague Denis Lohner: If coinduction is the dual of induction, why do the induction principles look so different? I like what we observed there, so I’d like to share this.

• The following is mostly based on my naive understanding of coinduction based on what I observe in the implementation in Isabelle. I am sure that a different, more categorial presentation of datatypes (as initial resp. terminal objects in some category of algebras) makes the duality more obvious, but that does not necessarily help the working Isabelle user who wants to make sense of coninduction.

=> ↺ Metaphors We Compute By

• Programmers must be able to tell a story with their code, explaining how they solved a particular problem. Like writers, programmers must know their metaphors. Many metaphors will be able to explain a concept, but you must have enough skill to choose the right one that’s able to convey your ideas to future programmers who will read the code.

• Thus, you cannot use every metaphor you know. You must master the art of metaphor selection, of meaning amplification. You must know when to add and when to subtract. You will learn to revise and rewrite code as a writer does. Once there’s nothing else to add or remove, you have finished your work. The problem you started with is now the solution. Is that the meaning you intended to convey in the first place?

=> ↺ ActiveRuby polishes up gems, precompiled jewels sparkle

=> ↺ ActiveState Releases Beta Commercial Distribution for Ruby, Bridging Gap Between ‘Innovation Market’ and Established Enterprises

Leftovers

=> ↺ Polish public sector information rules ‘too complex’

• Poland should relax its rules on the reuse of public sector information, recommends the ePaństwo Foundation, a Polish NGO advocating open government. “Provisions that lack clear justification are hindering the reuse of government data”, the NGO concludes in its report on the transposing of European legislation on reuse of public sector information (the PSI Directive), published in early July.

=> ↺ Austria plans digital leaders training programme

• The government of Austria is considering a training programme to increase the digital skills of public sector leaders. The ‘Digital Leaders’ training should let the public sector embrace new forms of cooperation and other innovations, and help it face labour market challenges, said Muna Duzdar, the country’s State Secretary for Digitalisation at a press conference on 4 July.

Science

=> ↺ Gramophone audio from photograph, revisited

• [...] a childhood toy robot of mine. I’ve taken a look at his peculiar sound mechanism a few times before (#1, #2), in an attempt to recover the analog audio signal using only a digital camera. Results were noisy at best. The blog posts resurfaced in a recent IRC discussion which inspired me to try my luck with a slightly improved method.

=> ↺ Ancient DNA counters biblical account of the mysterious Canaanites

• When the pharaohs ruled Egypt and the ancient Greeks built their first cities, a mysterious people called the Canaanites dominated the Near East. Around 4000 years ago, they built cities across the Levant, which includes present-day Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, and part of Syria. Yet the Canaanites left no surviving written records, leaving researchers to piece together their history from secondhand sources.

=> ↺ Our Minds Have Been Hijacked by Our Phones. Tristan Harris Wants to Rescue Them

• It started with 60 Minutes and its piece reviewing the ways the tech industry uses design techniques to keep people hooked to the screen for as long and as frequently as possible. Not because they’re evil but because of this arms race for attention.

=> ↺ A brief history of quantum alternatives

• In 1915, Albert Einstein, with a little help from his friends, developed a theory of gravity that overturned what we’d thought were the very foundations of physical reality. The idea that the space that we inhabit was not perfectly described by Euclidean geometry had been inconceivable—so much so that the philosopher Immanuel Kant, a radical thinker in so many ways, proclaimed that it was not possible for any theory of physics to dispense with it.A brief history of quantum alternatives

Health/Nutrition

=> ↺ Report From WHO Fair Pricing Meeting Shows Balanced Discussion

• A wide range of governments and stakeholders attended a closed meeting in the Netherlands in May to address the ongoing problem of pricing medicines to pay for research and the resulting lack of affordability of those medicines. The report from the World Health Organization-led meeting shows a range of points were made by participants and signals a move to change the global policy.

=> ↺ Jimmy Carter Calls for Single Payer

=> ↺ Doctors warn Government plans for ‘brutal’ NHS cuts will cause ‘uproar’

• The British Medical Association (BMA) says health service leaders have refused to publish details of the proposals that could extend waiting times, reduce access to services, cut down on prescriptions and treatments, and even merge or close hospitals and facilities.

Security

=> ↺ Security updates for Thursday

=> ↺ Security updates for Friday

=> ↺ Due To A GCC Bug, RDRAND Usage Wasn’t As Random As Expected

=> ↺ Feds say they caught a key figure in the massive Mt. Gox Bitcoin hack

• On Wednesday morning we reported on the arrest of a Russian man suspected of running a $4 billion dollar money laundering scheme. Later in the day, US officials released the indictment against the suspect, Alexander Vinnik.

=> ↺ Bad Taste Attack Brings Windows Malware to Linux (Theoretically)

• This Linux-Windows integration makes it tempting to use tools like Wine (which, for the record, was created long before Microsoft became so Linux-friendly) to integrate Windows programs seamlessly into Linux-based systems as a convenience for the user.

• This integration comes at a cost. Merging Windows and Linux environments creates new potential attack vectors and security complications, as the Bad Taste vulnerability shows.

=> ↺ 3 Linux & macOS Hacking Tools Developed By CIA Exposed: Achilles, Aeris, SeaPea

=> ↺ WikiLeaks reveals CIA’s Imperial hacking project targeting Mac and Linux

=> ↺ WikiLeaks new dump Imperial exposes 3 CIA hacking tools targeting Macs and Linux

• WikiLeaks has published three new alleged CIA hacking tools as part of its new Vault 7 dump. The alleged CIA project dubbed “Imperial” includes three hacking tools named Achilles, Aeris and SeaPea that target Mac and Linux operating systems (OS). While Achilles and SeaPea target Mac OS, Aeris targets Linux.

=> ↺ Wikileaks dump reveals CIA hacking tools targeting macOS and Linux systems

=> ↺ CIA hacking tools for Mac OS and Linux exposed by WikiLeaks

=> ↺ Wikileaks Posts CIA’s Imperial Hacking Tools Targeting OS X And Linux

=> ↺ WikiLeaks posts three more exploits, supposedly from the CIA, targeting Mac OS and Linux

=> ↺ Vault 7: OS X, Linux tools detailed in latest document dump

• The documents, released overnight, come from the CIA’s Imperial project and comprise three tools.

• Achilles gives an attacker the means to trojan an OS X disk image with one or more executables that can be triggered to launch once. It dates back to 2011.

• Also detailed was an OS X rootkit known as SeaPea that runs on OS X 10.6 and 10.7 and hides files, directories, socket connections and processes.

=> ↺ Red Hat investigating report CIA hacking tool targets its software

• The top software product from Raleigh-based Red Hat is the target of a hacking tool developed by the CIA, according to documents published by WikiLeaks.

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux is one of the world’s most popular software platforms used by global financial firms, and services related to RHEL is among Red Hat’s most profitable revenue streams. Red Hat is the world’s best-known developer of Open Source Linux software.

• “Red Hat is aware of the information around the Aeris tool, which was part of the document dump recently published by Wikileaks, and we are investigating the reports,” a spokesperson for Red Hat told WRAL TechWire.

=> ↺ Building IPv6 Firewalls: IPv6 Security Myths

• Attacks on our networks come from all manner of sources: social engineering, carelessness, spam, phishing, operating system vulnerabilities, application vulnerabilities, ad networks, tracking and data collection, snooping by service providers… going all tunnel vision on an innocent networking protocol misses almost everything.

=> ↺ Creators Of SambaCry Linux Malware Also Have A Windows Backdoor Program

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ The College Course Where the Military Assigns the Homework

=> ↺ Philippine police ‘dumping bodies’ of drug war victims

• Local fishermen tell Al Jazeera they have been hired by authorities to dispose of bodies as ‘trash’ in the Manila Bay.

Finance

=> ↺ Twitter’s user growth disappoints despite Trump tweets

• Despite its appeal among celebrities and public figures, Twitter has struggled to sustain its closely watched user growth even as it invests in features and live content to help draw viewers and boost user engagement.

=> ↺ Twitter revenue drops further as user growth stalls

=> ↺ Twitter’s stock plunges as user growth stalls

• That’s not going to happen, and investors are cluing in. Twitter had 328 million average monthly active users, or MAU, in the three months ending in June, which is unchanged from the previous quarter. The company’s shares were down more than 10 percent this morning on the news.

=> ↺ Wells Fargo also defrauded 800,000 car loan customers and stole 25,000 cars

• Wells Fargo didn’t just steal millions from its customers with crooked overdraft fees, didn’t just create 2,000,000 fraudulent accounts and threaten to blackball employees who tried to stop the frauds; didn’t just defraud broke mortgage borrowers by the bushel-load — they also defrauded 800,000 customers with car loans, forcing 274,000 of them into deliquency and “wrongfully repossessing” (that is, stealing) 25,000 of their cars.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ [Old] Trump’s Russian Laundromat

• It’s entirely possible that Trump was never more than a convenient patsy for Russian oligarchs and mobsters, with his casinos and condos providing easy pass-throughs for their illicit riches.

=> ↺ Stefan Löfven just announced a major reshuffle of the Swedish government – here’s all you need to know

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ Exaggerated Claims And Out Of Context Tweets Used By Political Hopeful To Slap Restraining Order On Critic

• We’ve written plenty of times about the chilling effects of abusing the legal system to silence critics. Most commonly, we highlight bogus defamation cases — as that seems to be the favored choice of those trying to shut someone up. Sometimes we’ve talked about abusing copyright law to silence people as well. But there are other mechanisms to use, and today we’ll be highlighting a local political fight in California that resulted in someone getting a “temporary restraining order” on a critic which was clearly little more than an attempt to silence that critic from calling attention to factual information in the past.

=> ↺ Defend the freedom to lampoon MPs

• Political thoughtpolice pose a far bigger threat than Twitter ‘trolls’.

=> ↺ Dawkins: cheered for hating Christianity, banned for hating Islam

• Sure, Dawkins’s arguments can be blunt and dogmatic. But it’s hard to see why criticising extreme religious practices, or expressing dislike for a particular religion, should be deemed so harmful. There’s also a glaring double standard here. Dawkins is just as scathing about Christianity, and about all faiths, as he is about Islam. And yet it is only his criticism of Islam that has got him in trouble.

=> ↺ Iranian Officials Trade Barbs In Dispute Over Internet Censorship

• Iranian officials have traded barbs in a public dispute over the hugely popular messaging app Telegram.

• Hard-line conservatives have long pushed for more restrictions on the Telegram app, which, according to its CEO Pavel Durov, has 40 million active users among Iran’s 80-million population. The government of President Hassan Rohani, a relative moderate who has promised Iranians less censorship, appears to be resisting the pressure.

=> ↺ Fake news, criticism and censorship

• Speaking at the third Russia-China media forum in Moscow recently, Sputnik and RT’s Editor in Chief proposed that Russian and Chinese media should work together to tackle “fake news”. She did not go further into detail on how that should be done. But as an example she deployed a reoccurring disinformation theme – that of the White Helmets allegedly manipulating and staging situations in Syria.

=> ↺ Cut! Regulators at odds with censors

• The “excessive” censorship of TV programs in the past couple of years and disharmony between the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI) and the Film Censorship Board (LSF) is in the spotlight. The Jakarta Post’s Corry Elyda examines how the discord continues at a time when the quality of TV programs remains at rock bottom.

=> ↺ In China, bloggers taunting the censorship through the applications

• China, in the face of a censorship always more invasive, the bloggers concerned about their outspokenness sought refuge on the e-mail application:: they can autopublier and expect to win thousands of euros, thanks to tips from readers.

• This is the case of Qiao Mu, an ex-professor and high official of the prestigious University of foreign languages of Beijing. Forbidden to teach since 2014 due to his articles, he now publishes on this e-mail software for smartphone.

=> ↺ Dozens of Venezuelan Journalists Flee Censorship and Violence to Report in Miami

• Alejandro Marcano stared into the camera and read the day’s news to millions of Venezuelan viewers on Globovisión’s 24-hour network. Suddenly, the studio’s windows erupted in a rain of glass. Gunshots ricocheted through the room. A militant colectivo that supported the government circled the lot and threw tear gas into the building. Marcano realized he had two choices: sprint through the gunshots or die of asphyxiation.

=> ↺ Explicit material: students want warning put on books

=> ↺ Burkina Faso festivals: the freedom to create without censorship

=> ↺ Remembering Liu Xiaobo

=> ↺ Capitol Hill panel probes campus censorship, free speech

=> ↺ GOP Rep. on Campus Free Speech: Students and Faculty Are ‘Forced Into Self-Censorship’

=> ↺ Ben Shapiro, Adam Carolla slam campus safe-space culture in congressional hearing

=> ↺ DPP accused of Facebook censorship

• The National Policy Foundation, a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) think tank, yesterday said that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government might have clamped down on dissidents by allegedly suspending Facebook users who posted comments deemed harmful to the pan-green political camp.

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ Released Documents Show More Section 702 Violations By The NSA

• Always lawful and subject to strict oversight. Those are the NSA’s defenses any time someone leaks something about its surveillance programs or obtains documents indicating abuse of snooping powers. It gets a little old when it’s document after document showing the astonishing breadth of the NSA’s surveillance programs or the continual abuse and misuse of these powers.

• The Hill has dug through some recently-released documents and memos from the NSA which show long-term abuse of surveillance programs. The NSA recently ditched part of its Section 702 collection because it just couldn’t stop hoovering up Americans’ communications. This was “incidental,” according to the NSA, and supposedly impossible to stop. But the incidents detailed in these documents suggest a lot of over-collection happened because no one noticed and, if anyone did, no one cared.

=> ↺ Declassified Files Show FBI and NSA Routinely Broke Privacy Rules Under Obama

• The National Security Agency and FBI violated various civil liberty protections under President Barack Obama’s administration, improperly searching and disseminating raw intelligence on citizens and failing to promptly delete unauthorized intercepts, according to newly declassified memos uncovered by the American Civil Liberties Union.

• The documents cover compliance with privacy rules between 2009 and 2016. Released under a Freedom of Information Act request from the ACLU, they offer extensive detail on the two spying agencies’ apparent inability to obey their own rules. In all, the memos outline over 90 incidents in which the FBI and NSA violated restrictions on data collection, with many episodes involving multiple people and multiple violations over extended periods of time.

=> ↺ Google has stopped pre-empting your search results

• The feature introduced in 2010 which offered you results as you type has been discontinued effective immediately.

=> ↺ Accused NSA leaker’s supporters call on feds to drop charges against her

• Reality Winner’s supporters said they delivered petitions with more than 16,000 signatures to the U.S. Justice Department’s headquarters in Washington Thursday, asking the agency to drop its charges against the accused National Security Agency leaker.

• Among those delivering the petitions on “Whistleblower Appreciation Day” were representatives from several groups, including CodePink, Defending Rights & Dissent, RootsAction.org, Whistleblower and Source Protection Program and Stand with Reality, a nonprofit campaign that is supporting Winner’s case through advocacy and fundraising.

• “We should not be charging whistleblowers acting in the public interest, disclosing information responsibly to journalists, as if they were traitors to our country. Anyone who cares about a free press should be concerned about her case,” Rainey Reitman, co-founder of Stand with Reality, said in a prepared statement.

=> ↺ Senate bill would stop police from obtaining emails and location data without a warrant

• The Electronic Communications Privacy Modernization Act, introduced by Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), would update the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act by requiring police to obtain a warrant for remotely stored emails that are more than 180 days old, which law enforcement can currently obtain through a lower legal standard.

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ Feds Crack Trump Protesters’ Phones to Charge Them With Felony Rioting

• Prosecutors have indicted over 200 people on felony riot charges for protests in Washington, D.C. on January 20 that broke windows and damaged vehicles. Some defendants face up to 75 years in prison, despite little evidence against them. But a new court filing reveals that investigators have been able to crack into at least eight defendants’ locked cell phones.

=> ↺ TSA To Require Separate Scanning Of Electronics ‘Bigger Than Cellphone’

• Because that’s exactly the sort of thing we don’t need: more TSA personnel/policies stating that bigger is more dangerous. We already have the problem with laptops because the TSA’s math says potential threat level is directly proportionate to screen size.

• [...]

• Haha… oh my god, she’s serious.

• God bless the TSA, where enhanced screening is something to be inflicted on travelers, but never job applicants.

• The TSA notes this change “may” cause delays during screening, which can be read as “will,” especially as everyone gets the hang of the latest thing the TSA’s doing (including the TSA). More items will be headed to checked bags, which works out for airlines. And more people will be piled up at security checkpoints, which works out well for terrorists.

=> ↺ San Francisco DA: Anti-theft law results in huge drop in stolen phones

• San Francisco’s district attorney says that a California state law mandating “theft-deterring technological solutions” for smartphones has resulted in a precipitous drop in such robberies.

• Those measures primarily include a remote kill switch after a phone has been stolen that would allow a phone to be disabled, withstanding even a hard reset,

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ Information, Access, And Development: Setting A Course For The Sustainable Development Goals

• IFLA’s Development and Access to Information (DA2I) report 2017, produced in partnership with the Technology and Social Change Group at the University of Washington, underlines that access to information is as important as ever today for development. But just as important is the question of whether this is meaningful – simply having the possibility to connect to the Internet is not enough.

=> ↺ The Worst Internet In America

• FiveThirtyEight analyzed every county’s broadband usage using data from researchers at the University of Iowa and Arizona State University and found that Saguache was at the bottom. Only 5.6 percent of adults were estimated to have broadband.

=> ↺ Can Facebook Connect the Next Billion?

• Our key findings:

• [...]

• Free Basics violates net neutrality principles: Free Basics does not allow users to browse the open Internet. It offers access to a small set of services and prioritizes the Facebook app by actively urging users to sign-up for and log into the service. Free Basics also divides third-party services into two tiers, giving greater visibility to one set of information over another.

=> ↺ Free Basics in Real Life : Six case studies on Facebook’s internet “On Ramp” initiative from Africa, Asia and Latin America

• We are skeptical of Facebook’s contention that this technology is truly serving as an “on ramp” to using the global internet, i.e. convincing people to purchase a data plan. There is not sufficient evidence to suggest that first – time users will be motivated to make this transition. And ample evidence suggests that most users of this technology had in fact used the internet many times before they had Free Basics. They were motivated to use the tool not as an intermediary ste p towards full internet access, but rather as a way to supplement their mobile data allowances while limiting spending.

• With this in mind, we wonder what kinds of ideas first – time users will have about the internet, if Free Basics is how they become acquainted with the internet. How will people understand what lies beyond the confines of Free Basics? How will this formative experience affect their behavior if or when they do begin using the global internet?

Intellectual Monopolies

Copyrights

=> ↺ Sci-Hub’s cache of pirated papers is so big, subscription journals are doomed, data analyst suggests

• Given that Sci-Hub has access to almost every paper a scientist would ever want to read, and can quickly obtain requested papers it doesn’t have, could the website truly topple traditional publishing? In a chat with ScienceInsider, Himmelstein concludes that the results of his study could mark “the beginning of the end” for paywalled research. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

=> ↺ Sci-Hub provides access to nearly all scholarly literature

• Finally, we estimate that over a six-month period in 2015–2016, Sci-Hub provided access for 99.3% of valid incoming requests. Hence, the scope of this resource suggests the subscription publishing model is becoming unsustainable. For the first time, the overwhelming majority of scholarly literature is available gratis to anyone with an Internet connection.

=> ↺ Police Confirm ‘Extra’ Illegal Spying on Kim Dotcom

• New Zealand Police have confirmed that Kim Dotcom was unlawfully surveilled for two months longer than previously admitted. The revelation is an embarrassment for local law enforcement and increases pressure on those responsible. Dotcom, meanwhile, is smelling blood: “What’s next? What are the consequences?” he says.

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