Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

Google is turning on data encryption by default in the next version of Android, a step that mirrors broad moves in the technology industry to ensure better data security. Android has been capable of encryption for more than three years, with the keys stored on the device, according to a Google spokesman. That means Google or another service provider wouldn't be able to provide access to the encrypted data. Law enforcement would have to approach the device's user. Android L, which is still in a developer preview mode, is due for release before the end of the year.

ODG’s “R-7 Glasses” eyewear features augmented reality features based on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 805 SoC and Android-based Vuforia SDK for Digital Eyewear. Osterhout Design Group (ODG), which calls itself a developer of “emerging and disruptive electro-optics and sensor-based technologies,” announced the R-7 Glasses eyewear computer in conjunction with Qualcomm’s announcement of the Vuforia SDK for Digital Eyewear (VOD), which was used to design it. Qualcomm’s VOD, part of its larger Vuforia Mobile Vision Platform, is an Android-based augmented and virtual reality system for Google Glasses type gear that will be released in a limited beta later this year (see farther below).

This is the second part in a series of three articles surveying automation projects within OpenStack, explaining what they do, how they do it, and where they stand in development readiness and field usage. Previously, in part one, I covered cloud deployment tools that enable you to install/update OpenStack cloud on bare metal. Next week, in the final article, I will cover automating "day 2 management"—tools to keep the cloud and workloads up and running.

Maker Party is Mozilla’s annual campaign to teach the culture, mechanics and citizenship of the Web through community-run events around the world. This week we celebrated the record-breaking 2,513 events in 86 countries that made up Maker Party 2014.

Via debuted a rugged fanless low-power Android mini-PC based on Via’s dual-core Cortex-A9 Elite E1000 SoC, and offering mini-PCIe, mSATA, HDMI, and GbE I/O. Via designed the “Artigo A900? mini-PC for use in Android-based interactive kiosks, home automation devices, signage, and other HMI solutions. The 125 x 125 x 30mm mini-PC can be configured to “blend locally-captured real-time video streams with cloud-delivered content to create visually-compelling interactive displays for retail, banking, museums, and other environments,” says Via Technologies. The device can integrate peripherals including sensors, cameras, ticket printers, and barcode and fingerprint scanners, adds the company.

Tiling window managers have always interested me, but spending a lot of time tinkering with config files or learning how to wrangle them? Not so much. What I really want is a dead simple way to organize my windows and still use a friendly desktop. And I found it, finally: the gTile extension for GNOME.

Request a roll from the tweet-powered dice machine, made from the unlikely mix of Ruby, Python and Pi with an antique game. I worked on it myself. I got a little help on the website from some others at Intridea, but we’ve been working as a company just exploring various interfaces and social machines – Internet of Things, things like that. So it’s kind of how this idea came about. We have a few projects that we’re working on at the moment that are in a similar vein but this is the first one we’ve published. So I came across this little dice roller and I thought ‘Hey, this would make a perfect internet- controlled device’. And it would be a fun project, using something old and retro.

If you're like me (and you're a Linux Journal reader, so you may actually be like me), you probably rotate through your cell phones and/or tablets every couple years. These little devices are so convenient and have been consistently dropping in price, while their power continues to go up, so you may have a few older devices sitting in a drawer.

In light of recent events it might be worth for fans of Minecraft to try out Minetest or it’s fork Voxelands. Both are open source, infinite voxel sandbox games that are currently available for Fedora. Minetest is currently being developed on and is fairly simplistic without adding mods, it does have the main game mechanics of gathering resources, crafting and building structures. There are a range of Mods available to add functionality as well as texture packs to customise your experience. Minetest is available now in Fedora from the Software application, or using the command line yum install minetest.

For most students and teachers, our lives revolve around tests. For students, the tests determine whether they’re a success or a failure. The same is increasingly true of teachers. Take my career as an example.

It appears we have a new price/performance standout in the open source single board computer game. Longmont, Colorado based LinkSprite Technologies, which hosts the open source project for Allwinner-based pcDuino SBCs, has just announced a $39 board with a set of features that would typically go for about $60. The pcDuino3Nano offers the same dual-core, 1GHz Cortex-A7 system-on-chip and all the other features of the $77 pcDuino3 SBC except for the LVDS interface, I2S stereo digital audio output, and built-in WiFi. It also adds a second USB 2.0 host port, and upgrades the LAN interface from 10/100 to 10/100/1000 Ethernet.

If you read Opensource.com’s recent series of articles by young professionals about their exposure to the open source way, you’ll have noticed a common thread: open source is an essential part of IT education. But not enough schools are incorporating open source into their curricula.

From Trolltech to Nokia and Nokia to Digia, the programming language Qt has had a challenging corporate life even though it retained fans among developers. Now, the language's next phase of life has begun in earnest, spun out of Digia into a separate subsidiary tasked with bringing the commercial and open source Qts back into alignment.

Online learning is becoming more prevalent, which means educators need easy to use tools for creating online learning materials. There are several closed source, commercial programs available (e.g., Adobe's Captivate), but these programs are expensive (even at academic discount prices) and are sometimes too complex for educators who just want to quickly and easily create a learning object. An excellent, easy to use, open source alternative is Xerte, a learning object creation tool developed by the University of Nottingham.

Secure OpenVPN with two-factor authentication from WiKID. In a previous tutorial, we showed how to configure PAM-RADIUS to support two-factor authentication. Now, and in future tutorials, we will add remote access services to this server that will also use WiKID for two-factor authentication. In this tutorial, we will demonstrate how to leverage that setup to add two-factor authentication through radius to OpenVPN on Centos 7.

I am a visual learner. When I try to teach something, I naturally like to use visual examples. That usually involves me working for hours to create flowcharts in Google Docs using the drawing program. Yes, it works, but it's a very cumbersome way to create a flowchart. Thankfully, I recently discovered Lucidchart.

There is a long list of sites powered by Open edX, a platform hoping to be powerful and extensible enough that education experts can use it not only to run courses, but to try out new ideas for how to educate online. See the full list on GitHub. In this interview, I spoke with Ned Batchelder of Open edX about his team (photo below, Ned is in blue) who he says are working to make the platform "the best place to experiment with new ideas, and then share those ideas with other educators who can build on them and make their own improvements." Let's see how they're looking to reach that goal today.

I am very proud to belong to a generation of professionals who has seen the emergence of free and open software and the revolution it is today.

Data.gov has taken open source to heart. Beyond just providing open data and open source code, the entire process involves open civic engagement. All team ideas, public interactions, and new ideas (from any interaction) are cross-posted and entered in Github. These are tracked openly and completed to milestones for full transparency. We also recently redesigned the website at Data.gov through usability testing and open engagement on Github. read more

LXer Feature: 14-Sept-2014

The big story this past week had to do with Net Neutrality. Google once in partnership with Verizon and essentially against it have now changed their minds and Larry Cafiero told us why many sites participated in a "Internet Slowdown" in protest to the coming throttles to our access speed to it on Wednesday. Carla Schroder shows us how to build a Linux Server and 30 Things To Do After Installing Ubuntu. Enjoy!