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Watching gibbons play is like nothing else on earth: they show astounding flexibility, speed, and grace as they swing, run, and jump. These long-armed primates are found in forested areas of Southeast Asia and move by swinging and leaping from tree to tree. Their sense of fun is almost tangible in the air around them. Although lofty, these attributes are what the Gibbon project, an education management system, aspires to bring to schools and colleges.

I use 16 special characters fairly regularly. They sit on a launchable 'palette' on my desktop. I select a character, then paste the character with a middle-click into wherever it's needed: text editor, word processor, email, webpage form etc. I built the palette using dzen2, a desktop notification utility written by Robert Manea and available in repositories.

Just a month ago, our geek wish of getting a 3D printer was granted: a Makerbot Replicator 2X arrived at our office. Since then we've been busy learning by trial and error about the possibilities and limitations of 3D printing. You can read my review of the Printrbot Simple Kit. So far, in short, I can describe 3D printing as: Building an object, by depositing layers, and creating every layer by drawing it with melted plastic. The key to understanding 3D printing, and thus learning how to do it better, is to think about the objects as a stack of layers. Then, consider how the layers will look like as they are being stacked.

The latest version is Anaconda 1.9. It comes with more than 125 Python packages used in data analytics, including NumPy, SciPy, Pandas, PyTables, h5py, Matplotlib and IPython.

Steam is continuing its raft of updates, after adding in a recently updated section they have now added user a controlled tagging system.

Last week on Phoronix I shared my initial impressions of the Intel "Bay Trail" NUC Kit when running Ubuntu Linux. I've been impressed by the size, features, and price of this barebones Intel system sporting a low-power SoC with built-in HD Graphics capabilities that work well under Linux. Here's some early CPU benchmarks for those trying to gauge the Intel Celeron N2820 performance under Ubuntu.

Red Hat and Hortonworks on Monday announced a strategic alliance to integrate their product lines, as well as undertake joint go-to-market initiatives and offer collaborative customer support. By tightly integrating the enterprise Apache Hadoop platform with open hybrid cloud technologies, they aim to enable data-driven applications that help enterprises more quickly draw value from Big Data.

The first pre-release of Enlightenment E19 is now available for early adopters on this next major release that has been dubbed "MYSTERY RELEASE 2K14!" by its developers...

Valve has opened up their Steamworks virtual reality (VR) API and posted the code to GitHub...

The developer of The Swapper already confirmed some time ago that a Linux version would be done, looks like it is now getting really, really close!

Today, Red Hat and Hortonworks announced a deep partnership between both companies offering a platform for modern enterprises. Their joint solution offers a platform to help organizations take advantage of big data and open source cloud technologies.

The Radeon R600 Gallium3D driver has picked up support for another OpenGL extension that's mandated by the OpenGL 4.1 specification.

In a move that will please developers Valve has opened up the source code to their VR API so anyone can now dive in.

Valve is providing Debian and Ubuntu developers with keys for their entire past and future library of games, and it seems that some people have tried to take advantage of this and get some Steam keys for themselves.

The Genode Operating System Framework has been one of the more interesting and successful open-source OS research projects of recent times. Genode OS is becoming increasingly usable to enthusiasts and is also proving to be an interesting environment for developers. A lot of headway was made for Genode OS in 2013, but there's already a list of TODO items for the community-based operating system in 2014.

According to the results of our FOSS Force Desktop Poll, our readers prefer KDE over any other desktop environment by a wide margin. In fact, all other desktops were practically left at the gate.

LG is launching a new line of “all-in-one” digital signage systems that run the Linux-based WebOS, including new HTML middleware for app development. A month after unveiling its first WebOS-based device at CES, the LG Smart TV, the Korean consumer electronics giant has nudged the old Palm- and HP-owned mobile Linux operating system into digital […]

Mozilla will begin pushing sponsored ads/sites into the directory tiles when entering the new tabs page where traditionally it has showed the most frequently visited sites...

It’s my first class of the semester at New York University. I’m discussing the evils of plagiarism and falsifying sources with 11 graduate journalism students when, without warning, my computer freezes. I fruitlessly tap on the keyboard as my laptop takes on a life of its own and reboots. Seconds later the screen flashes a message. To receive the four-digit code I need to unlock it I’ll have to dial a number with a 312 area code. Then my iPhone, set on vibrate and sitting idly on the table, beeps madly.

I’m being hacked — and only have myself to blame.

It's a few months old, but still pertinent. -ed.

Today in Open Source: Android's openness may cause problems for Google. Plus: Make Linux look like Windows 8, and the beards of Linux users.