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Assuming that the current situation continues, the future of innovation on the Linux desktop does not look promising. By their nature, the traditional desktops constrict the amount of innovation they are likely to provide. By contrast, the experimental desktops share design assumptions that inhibit their abilities to innovate in ways that benefit users. Neither alternative is desirable.

Yesterday, we got a rare look at how information on your public social media profiles—including Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn—is being harvested and resold by large consumer data companies.

The latest generation of svelte Ultrabooks paints a potent picture of performance and portability. Although Windows users have a wide assortment from which to choose, Linux enthusiasts have largely been left out of the party. There aren't many options for Linux users who want an Ultrabook that comes preloaded with their favorite distro. But the recently-introduced ZaReason UltraLap 430 aims to change that, pairing penguin power with the popular Ultrabook form factor.

Pfizer's legal monopoly on one of its top-selling drugs just got shredded in Canada. The Canadian Supreme Court has ruled 7-0 the company should have its patent taken away because the drug company attempted to "game" the system, grabbing a patent without disclosing what their invention really was.

Pfizer was able to acquire its Canadian patent without naming the compound required to make Viagra, namely, sildenafil citrate. The Canadian patent system, like all patent systems, is a kind of bargain between patentees, who are given a limited monopoly on a particular product or process, and the public, which is supposed to benefit from the disclosure of a new invention, the justices noted in their opinion.

Another day, another Nexus phone to add to Google's list of stock handsets not tainted by gratuitous add-ons, carrier bloatware, and OEM skins. For diehard Android users, a Nexus phone is usually the way to go when picking a handset: Nexus-branded devices are the first to get updated with every new version of Android, at least until the hardware inside the device becomes obsolete. The Nexus 4, though, is a special case. It has a near-twin in the non-Nexus LG Optimus G. This brother-from-another-mother was released not too long ago and boasts the same innards as the Nexus 4 as well as most of the same functionality. For power-hungry Android users, choosing between the two is a question of whether they should adopt the Nexus 4 for its Googlefication or stick with its counterpart for LG's value-added features.

It likely won’t be as sleek or fast as a Nexus 7 or Nexus 10, but a new tablet running both Android and Linux is in the works for open source enthusiasts and lovers of low-budget devices.

PengPod tablets, made by a company called Peacock Imports, will dual-boot Android 4.0 and a version of Linux with the KDE Plasma Active interface for touch screens. But in order to reserve a tablet for yourself, you’ll have to contribute to the company’s crowdfunding project on Indiegogo and hope enough money is raised to begin production.

Manjaro Linux 0.8.2 has been released. The culmination of substantial refinements and exciting new developments, Manjaro 0.8.2 is the most polished, feature-rich and accessible release yet. Just a few of the new features provided includes support for Steam gaming, automatic desktop notifications for new system updates, and -- developed exclusively for Manjaro -- a user-friendly graphical interface to easily manage and maintain the system.

The wise folk over at Tripwire have put up the binaries for Killing Floor and Red Orchestra on Steam so you can now play them if you own them and aren't in the BETA for Steam.

A new way to teach, learn and get credentials for digital skills Today at the Mozilla Festival in London, we’re extremely proud to announce the launch of new Mozilla Webmaker badges. Webmaker badges are an exciting new way to teach, … Continue reading

The Ubuntu Google Play Lens is an Unity Lens that allows all Android users to easily search Google Play software straight from the Unity Dash.

Kristian Høgsberg has now branched the Wayland and Weston code-bases for the 1.0 series...

Did you know you can make Google Translate talk? Preview Unicode characters on the command line? Generate entropy with the ls command? Use md5sum hashes to find duplicate files, regardless of their names? Test speakers? Fix roaming wifi? If you didn't before, you will after you read this article.

From the 'Open Source Goodness' files:

I remember well when I wrote about Firefox 1.0, which was officially released on November 9th, 2004. It was a very different time - and it was 8 years ago.

Well, as of right now more than 60,000 people have signed up to test out the beta. Not all of them have been accepted yet, but in true Linux fashion some of the ones who haven't been accepted have figured out how to get in anyway (which may or may not violate Valve's terms of service).

Tony Atkinson’s technical expertise runs deep as a Linux systems administrator for a telecommunications company in Essex, England. He works with the Asterisk PBX (private branch exchange) and communications server and Nagios notification system, writing and maintaining bespoke PHP and shell scripts to control and coordinate phone and SMS services and other general operations in the U.K., U.S.A. and Australia.

Ext4 (the fourth extended file system) has been the gold standard for the Linux kernel ever since it was declared "stable" in October 2008. It was the direct descendant of ext3 (released November 2001) which introduced journaling to the previously unjournaled ext2 file system that has been with us since 1993. Ever since its release into the wild, ext4 has proven to be fast and reliable. I've installed it onto more computers than I can count, and never had any reason to complain about it...until recently. But a serious bug has crept into the ext4 stable release, causing data corruption on some computers running Linux kernels 3.4, 3.5, and 3.6.

Over the past year I have looked at two distributions (Liberté and LPS) which have a strong focus on security. Staying secure and anonymous on-line is a popular topic these days as many people are concerned about freedom of speech and monitored communications. Many of us are concerned about our privacy and, with that in mind, I would like to introduce our readers to a Linux distribution called Tails.

This is a nagios plugin to check an OCSP server. It does so by having a PEM encoded certificate in the code, and the PEM encoded certificate of the issuer. This is sent to the OCSP server and the response is then parsed to give the correct nagios result. It is targeted at administrators who have their own OCSP and need to know when it is not working. The certificate is in the code because this saves going to a website and getting the certificate, the issuers certificate and then sending that to the OCSP server. It also can be used for certificates which are not public.

In the week ending 10 November - AMD laid off Linux developers, Linus Torvalds talked about kernel development, Android turned 5 and an E17 alpha arrived. Also, detecting CSRF vulnerabilities and DIY biology

The UN's Internet Governance Forum had a gathering to discuss rethinking copyright, in which WIPO made the case that it should lead "multi-stakeholder" discussions on how to reform copyright. WIPO, of course, has a history of having a rather one-sided view of copyright and who the "stakeholders" are.