The Opensource.com Weekly Top 5. The best and brightest burning star articles from this week: January 26 - 30.

Microsoft reportedly is investing in Cyanogen Inc., creator of Android-based Cyanogen OS, and whose CEO recently criticized Google’s “tyranny” over Android.

Hello, open gaming fans! In this week's edition, we take a look at HabitRPG to gamify your to-do list, new support for OUYA, new Linux games, and more!

Discover the best robotics kits around for both Raspberry Pi and Arduino

Amazon’s Kindle Voyage ereader has been out for a while now, and my initial reaction to it was not positive. Frankly, I thought it looked hideous with the new PagePress lines and dots on each side of the bezel. It also seemed too expensive for what it had to offer compared to earlier Kindles. But I could not have been more wrong about the Kindle Voyage and I’ll tell you why in this post.

Today's IT students are big supporters of open source, says IT professor.

Linux is now also a gaming platform, so naturally, people will want to record their gaming sessions. This is not easily done on Linux, but there are some ways to do it. SimpleScreenRecorder is probably the best of them, but the competition is getting fierce.

Tuxera released Tuxera Flash File System for Linux and Android, which is optimized to run on flash storages such as eMMC and SD. Modern mobile apps, “which download and write data around the clock,” can be punishing on flash storage, says Tuxera Inc. When you combine always-on operation with simultaneous access by multiple apps, flash […]

Inkscape just released version 0.91 of their Open Source vector graphics editor, and the new package will soon be available in the stable repositories for Fedora 21. Inkscape 0.91 is […]

Papyros is a new Linux distribution in the making that will use the Material Design style from Google. There is nothing to test so far, but the progress made by the developers is impressive and it's very likely that this will become one of the most interesting distros available.

I'm speaking on a frequent (and increasing) basis with customers about the opportunities and risks that they need to prepare for as they continue to support new business models related to mobility, cloud and the Internet of Things (IoT).

Microsoft will invest in alternative Android firmware startup Cyanogen, a report claims. Citing anonymous sources, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that Microsoft is slated to become a minority investor in an approximately $70m funding round that will see Cyanogen valued "in the high hundreds of millions."

The man behind the Opera browser has created a new one, he says, because power users are poorly served. The new Vivaldi browser launched today in a "Technical Preview" form, with customisation and speed taking it in a different direction to the mainstream, where minimalism rules the day.

Lots of development activity for big Linux community distribution releases

Networking is an important part of any modern datacenter. As open source continues to grow in virtualization solutions, virtualized networking is an important part of the picture. MidoNet, an open source network virtualization platform for Infrastructure-as-a-serivice (IaaS) clouds like OpenStack cloud software, is gaining traction as a way to implement networking solutions.

I'm joining DigitalOcean as a developer evangelist, where I'll work closely with the PHP community to help create amazing things! I'm really excited about this, especially because I never thought I would have such an amazing opportunity.

When you are considering building a cloud, there are many important decisions to make. Among the top decisions you'll want to make is how to implement your storage. One open source project which many have turned to as a solution to some of their storage needs is Ceph.

In this week's edition of our open source news roundup, we take a look at new leadership at Docker, Microsoft acquires Revolution Analytics, the Ghost security hole, and more!

With a 16-core coprocessor based on Epiphany architecture, is Parallella the single-board computer that developers have been waiting for?

This week, we look at AWS's trillion dollar ambitions, what Tesla opening their patent cache can teach the cloud industry and what Box's IPO surge means to the cloud.

Weather Company CIO Bryson Koehler says it's time for CIOs to have an "uncomfortable" conversation about open source software.

In today's open source roundup: Google may be preparing to release Drive for Linux. Plus: Q*bert rebooted for Android, and will Blizzard finally support Linux users?

Ubuntu cloud users see OpenStack rising, Docker getting more talk than traction, and companies moving to the hybrid cloud.

Surf the Internet securely with your very own portable WiFi VPN/TOR router. You can configure a Raspberry Pi with Linux and some extra software to connect to a VPN server of your choice. The VPN connection encrypts your internet traffic so that hackers and spies can't figure out what web sites you are visiting, and the web sites you are visiting can't tell which computer you are surfing from.

Having a slow Debian mirror can be frustrating and thus it is always best to choose closest mirror to your geographical location as possible. Even your best guess may not always bring good results. Fortunately netselect-apt command line tool is here to help you find the fastest mirror available.

While some in the security community are chasing GHOSTs this week, there is another update that needs attention. The widely deployed Apache HTTP Server (httpd) is being updated to version 2.4.12 fixing at least four publicly identified CVEs.

The slow adoption and lack of productivity associated with Hadoop and other big data technologies likely stems from poor planning and lack of big data training and expertise, among other factors.

Open Source Careers A collection of articles about jobs and careers in open source. I have been working in the computer business for over 40 years, but the best years have been the last 17 or so working with Linux and open source software. I got into the computer business unintentionally and kind of sideways, but that is a whole other story. I'll tell you about how I got into open source and Linux semi-intentionally and also kind of sideways. read more

Bill Gates is much more involved in philanthropy than Microsoft these days and he's done some great work regarding the eradications of certain diseases and to improve the quality of life in a number of third world countries. He's also inadvertently promoted Ubuntu, which is a Linux system.

The top open-source office suite offers a new, improved version with better Microsoft Office file format compatibility.