EFF is evaluating the feasibility of offering a prize for the first usable, secure, and private end-to-end encrypted communication tool. We believe a prize based on objective usability metrics (such as the percentage of users who were able to install and start using the tool within a few minutes, and the percentage who survived simulated impersonation or man-in-the-middle attacks) might be an effective way to determine which project or projects are best delivering communication security to vulnerable user communities; to promote and energize those tools; and to encourage interaction between developers, interaction designers and academics interested in this space.

I had a chance to catch up with David A. Wheeler, a long-time leader in advising and working with the US government on issues related to open source software. As early as the late 1990s, David was demonstrating why open source software was integral to the US goverment IT architecture, and his personal webpage is a frequently cited source on open standards, open source software, and computer security. In this interview, we explore the current state of use of open source software by the US government, the challenges of the Federal acquisition system, and what he's excited about as he looks ahead for open source and government.

Team Tiny Core is pleased to announce the release of Tiny Core Linux 5.3: Changelog: BusyBox - updated nosuid to 1.22.1, added ntpd, corrected dc failure, modified wget timeout to 10s; tce-load - don't show an error when extension contains multiple modules; tc-config - change owner /tmp/tce/optional to support tftplist; tce-load - use sudo when unmounting meta-extensions; added full path to sudo commands; tc-config - introduce ntpserver boot option; switch getTime.sh to ntpd; replace aliases with functions in useBusyBox.

Canonical pushed out Ubuntu 14.04 last week. This release is the first Ubuntu Long Term Support release in two years and will be supported for the next five years.

It feels like, for Canonical at least, this Long Term Support release couldn't have come at a worse time. The company is caught in a transitional phase as it moves from a desktop operating system to a platform that spans devices.

Audacious is an advanced, feature-complete music player for GNOME using GTK 3 that bundles many features, a clean interface, support for real-time audio effects, visualization, equalizer, lyrics and other plugins, themes (including Winamp Classic style with installable skins), powerful configuration options and multiple playlists organized in tabs.

The Linux Foundation has announced the keynote schedule for the LinuxCon and CloudOpen North America event in August, which will highlight open source's role in virtualization, MOOCs, 3D printing and more.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler confirmed today that proposed rules to replace the net neutrality regulations struck down by a court decision are on track for an FCC vote on May 15.

Wheeler didn't detail exactly what those rules would be, but The Wall Street Journal says it has a source who knows. "The Federal Communications Commission plans to propose new open Internet rules on Thursday that would allow content companies to pay Internet service providers for special access to consumers, according to a person familiar with the proposal," the Journal reported.

Tubecore’s “Duo” wireless media-streaming speaker embeds a Raspberry Pi or Udoo SBC, and features Bluetooth and WiFi, plus a 48v Class A analog-tube preamp. At $649, discounted to $479 in the current pre-order phase, the Duo costs more than typical $50 to $200 wireless speakers. However, it’s also a full media player that can stream […]

IBM today formally announced its Power8 silicon and server lineup in a bid to help improve Big Blue's hardware fortunes. A key part of the Power8 launch is a renewed focus on Linux for data center workloads.

Today the Black Lab Linux team is pleased to announce the release of its Enterprise edition 5.0.1 to current and prospective customers. With this release we have fixed a myriad of problems experienced with release 4.2.5. The fastest growing alternative to Red Hat Enterprise Linux has just gotten better.

In a post on his personal blog Mark Shuttleworth expressed his willing to do something unified and upright, something about which we can be universally proud in the next Ubuntu release, but he also gave us a hint about the codename which 14.10 will have: Utopic Unicorn.

SolidRun revealed a Raspberry Pi-like “HummingBoard” boardset for its Linux-ready CuBox mini-PCs, based on a Freescale i.MX6 SoC located on a tiny COM. SolidRun created the community-backed “HummingBoard” to serve as a modular motherboard for use in its Linux- and Android-ready CuBox mini-PCs, including the recent CuBox-i models. Like the recently announced, Allwinner A20-based Banana […]

InfoWorld thinks it's a bad idea to replace Windows XP with Linux. They're wrong, of course, and I'll tell you why in this column.

Puppy Arcade 11 uses the power of Puppy Linux and fuses it with every games console emulator imaginable. The ROM Loader is a great tool for loading games into each emulator but there are a few rough edges.

The new rules, according to the people briefed on them, will allow a company like Comcast or Verizon to negotiate separately with each content company – like Netflix, Amazon, Disney or Google – and charge different companies different amounts for priority service.

When it comes to software, the best way to learn something new, or even just figure out if it's the right tool for you, is to dig your hands in, get dirty, and try it out. For the OpenStack universe, this is where TryStack comes in.

Testing Ubuntu for phones is now even simpler with an application that is capable of installing the new operating system from Canonical without having to delete Android. Getting a dual boot system in place will perhaps turn the attention of even more users towards the new open source platform for mobiles and tablets.

Greenie 14.04 was quietly released. Greenie Linux is a Slovak desktop distribution based on Ubuntu and optimised for users in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Created as an operating system for every-day use, Greenie Linux combines a set of applications for home use, out-of-the-box functionality and Ubuntu repositories. The goal of this distribution is to create a user-friendly desktop system and a useful live CD.

This tutorial describes how to install Google Chrome web browser in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS trusty tahr. this tutorial also work on ubuntu flavor (Edubuntu, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu Gnome, Ubuntu Kylin, Ubuntu Studio, Xubuntu) and Ubuntu derivatives ( Linux Mint, elementay OS, Zorin OS, etc).

Google's Project Tango is a platform for Android phones and tablets designed to track the full 3-dimensional motion of the device as you hold it, while simultaneously creating a map of the environment around it. The devices track themselves with an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) and collect 3D points with a built-in depth-sensing camera. Project Tango is progressing at a fast pace thanks to many open source tools that facilitate the use of the 3D data.  Only 200 of these devices have been made available to early testers and developers, and we had the luck of getting two of them at Kitware.

The distribution uses a custom desktop environment called Deepin Desktop Environment and it’s getting a face lift for Linux Deepin 2014, which will be the next stable edition.

Starsector previously known as Spacefarer is a game I have been following since early 2011 and I am glad to say it's still being fully worked on. Starsector is an open-world single-player space-combat, roleplaying, exploration and economic game.

This phone was launched today with CyanogenMod pre-installed, unlocked bootloader, and you won't void your warranty if you access root. Check out the impressive hardware specs... 2.5GHz quad-core, 3GB memory and a 13 Mpixel compound-lens camera.

Every generation since the beginning of human existence has passed its value system, principles, methodologies, and skillsets on to the next generation. This passing on of information within cultures has been followed by the development of a systematic approach to learning techniques. Formal structures were created throughout the world to learn and apply these skillsets.

I use two different GUI text editors. Mousepad does my basic editing jobs in a single window, while Gedit gives me tabbed windows, syntax highlighting and (with the Draw Spaces plug-in) a toggle-able view of whitespace and tabs.

Unfortunately, both Mousepad and Gedit struggle with big text files, say 10 mb and up. In contrast, finding strings on the command line with grep is zippety-quick, even for huge text files. String replacement with sed is also pretty fast. I recently wrote a simple shell script for finding-and-replacing in some very large text files I was editing.

CherryTree is a powerful notes-taking application written in Python and GTK, which organizes your notes into so-called nodes and has rich-text markup formatting options, support for tables and images and many other features.

The “BB.Suit,” a wearable wireless router garment prototype created by Dutch design house By Borre, runs OpenWRT Linux on a TP-Link router board. Last month at South-by-Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas, Dutch fashion designer Borre Akkersdijk unveiled his wearable computer called the BB.Suit. While most wearables are eye- or wrist-wear, the BB.Suit is an actual […]

The case was just weeks away from a jury trial, but US District Judge Anthony Trenga didn't let it get that far. In an opinion published Wednesday, Trenga found that IV's patents were simply abstract ideas: "nothing more than the mere manipulation or reorganization of data," he wrote. "At most, the patents describe a more efficient system or method for performing tasks than could be done without a computer, i.e. monitoring expenditures according to preset limits (the '137 Patent) or determining what would appeal to a particular user from a particular website (the '382 Patent.)"

Expunging the Heartbleed bug from vulnerable computers and gadgets is likely to take months, according to a leading vuln research firm. The cautionary assessment by Secunia comes as more and more products are judged to be vulnerable to the infamous OpenSSL security flaw.

Some cloud storage providers who hope to be on the leading edge of cloud security adopt a "zero-knowledge" policy in which says it is impossible for customer data to be snooped on. But a recent study by computer scientists at Johns Hopkins University is questioning just how secure those zero knowledge tactics are.