News briefs for July 8, 2019.

Kernel 5.2 has been released. Linus Torvalds writes, "...there really doesn't seem to be any reason for another rc, since it's been very quiet. Yes, I had a few pull requests since rc7, but they were all small, and I had many more that are for the upcoming merge window. Part of it may be due to the July 4th week, of course, but whatever - I'll take the quiet week as a good sign."

Tutanota has just launched a fully encrypted free calendar. Matthias Pfau, co-founder and developer of Tutanota, says this of the new calendar: "With our encryption expertise, we have not only made sure that all data people enter is encrypted, we are also encrypting the notifications for upcoming events. In contrast to other calendar services (e.g. Google), we do not know when, where, and with whom people have an appointment. Basically, we as the provider remain completely blind to people's daily habits." See the Tutanota Blog for more information.

The Internet Services Provides' Association (ISPA) UK has announced this year's nominations for Internet Hero and Villain. In the running for ISPA Internet Hero are Sir Tim Berners-Lee; Andrew Ferguson OBE, Editor Thinkbroadband; and Oscar Tapp-Scotting and Paul Blaker, Global Internet Governance Team, DCMS. Nominated for villain are Mozilla; Article 13 Copyright Directive; and Donald Trump. The winners will be chosen by the ISPA Council and announced on July 11, 2019. See ispa.org for the reasons behind the nominations.

Elon Musk says Tesla will "most likely" start providing a free self-driving chip upgrade to those with older Teslas later this year. The Verge reports that "The new FSD chip is the first to have been designed in-house. Tesla says it offers 21 times the performance of the Nvidia chips it replaces—a claim Nvidia disputes. The new chip has been shipping in Model S, X, and 3 cars since before its announcement, but soon it will be offered as a free upgrade to half a million Tesla owners." In addition, The Verge article notes that Musk claims the new chip "has enough power to eventually allow for fully self-driving cars, if and when the software catches up."

System76's Thelio desktop now available with third generation AMD Ryzen processors. According to BetaNews, "The base model, which is priced at $999, still comes with a 2nd gen Ryzen 5 2400G (quad-core). This is still a very capable chip, but not the latest and greatest. For only about $200 more, however, you can opt for a super-new 3rd gen Ryzen 5 3600X (hexa-core). For even more money, you can also choose a Ryzen 7 3800X (octa-core) or the insanely powerful 12-core Ryzen 9 3900X. That 3900X is notable for rivaling Intel's much pricier Core i9 chips." Go here to design and buy your own.