12.18.17 Posted in,, at 3:04 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz The, which birthed software patents, no longer wants them Summary: As 2017 nears its end (less than two weeks left), a look back reveals a terrible year for proponents of software patents and a milestone for opponents of software patents HE latest battle is won, but not yet the war. Following Alice the rejects many software patents and CAFC, the highest court below the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS), is no longer interested in software patents.

It rejects these virtually all the time. Lawyers are still shaken by this de facto end/ban of software patents (in the US at least) because it harms their income. They only care about their cash register. 6 days ago a leading publication of patent lawyers as follows: I’m gonna weasel out and say they’re both good points. Some software patent owners do continue to press claims that might arguably have been eligible five or 10 years ago, but clearly are not any more. As of August, the Federal Circuit had summarily affirmed more than 50 ineligibility opinions, according to research by Boston University’s Paul Gugliuzza and Stanford’s Mark Lemley.

Does anyone know the best price for the iLO4 advanced/essentials license: http://www.amazon.com/New-iLO-Adv-1-Svr-incl-1yr/dp/B005JON748/ref=wl_it_dp_v_nS. Judge Corcoran Turns to His Government for Help and EPO ‘House Ban’ is Finally Lifted. Posted in Europe, Patents at 4:16 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz.

By the time those cases reached appeal (and probably far sooner), those patent owners were forging ahead with slim to no chance. On the other hand, U.S. District Judge Gregory Sleet of Delaware socked Inventor Holdings with fees for all of the litigation dating back to when the Supreme Court decided Alice v. CLS Bank in 2014.

To affirm, the Federal Circuit indulged a fictional world where the law of patent eligibility became crystal clear the day Alice was decided, at least for patent claims involving “implementations of economic arrangements using generic technology,” such as the Inventor Holdings patent. Alice v CLS Bank was one among several relatively recent (in SCOTUS terms) decisions in which SCOTUS overturned a CAFC decision. Where CAFC had promoted/emboldened patent maximalists the Justices at SCOTUS put an end to that.

Faruki Ireland Cox Rhinehart & Dusing PLL Impression v Lexmark a few days ago. It’s one among the very latest SCOTUS decisions to overturn CAFC decisions. SCOTUS is pretty clear about patents; these monopolies have gone way too far in terms of scope, venue-shifting and so on.

Justices at SCOTUS recognise this. They are gradually putting an end to that. So what has the patent microcosm got left to do?

Usually finding loopholes. They try to patent software in spite of the restrictions.

Here’s a that says: “Securing intellectual property (IP) can be a major hurdle for startups at the best of times. But software – and in particular AI — brings its own unique challenges.” “AI” is just another buzzword and law firms try to exploit it to patent software even though software patents are pretty much banned (not officially). How about blockchain patents? We wrote quite a lot about these earlier this year and it seems pretty clear that it’s a bubble. Well, here’s a new press release that shows the ongoing gold rush [, ]. Never mind if such patents are most likely void.

Maybe these sneak past examiners. Maybe past PTAB, too. Maybe district courts.

But CAFC is not likely to tolerate these anymore. The times are changing.

Tough time for patent maximalists, no doubt See in Amgen v Sandoz (CAFC) some days ago: The Federal Circuit has ruled that Sandoz did not forfeit its preemption defence and the BPCIA preempts state law remedies in its biosimilars dispute with Amgen. The decision makes clear that brand biologic companies have no remedies available against a biosimilar applicant who is refusing to engage in the patent dance Here’s another weighing in: On remand, the Supreme Court directed the Federal Circuit to determine whether the failure to provide the information and data [under § 262(l)(2)(A)] is a violation of California law of unfair competition and conversion. In its decision here, the Federal Circuit holds that the BPCIA preempts any state laws that would create liability for failure to comply with the requirement for providing information and data. This isn’t about § 101, but it’s still interesting as it shows a change in views. CAFC is no longer what it used to be.

Not even close Rader is out and the tune has changed. Alice at SCOTUS (the software patents eliminator) causes trouble not only for classic patent trolls but for a variety of entities which exist solely for litigation purposes. Even Kluwer Patent Blog, which typically focuses on Europe,: Affirming the district court’s decision, the Federal Circuit agreed with the district court’s reasoning that, once the Supreme Court issued its decision in Alice Corp. CLS Bank International in June 2014.

2347 (2014), the patent infringement claims were objectively without merit and should have been voluntarily withdrawn. This is the effect of Alice. The patent microcosm tries to ‘scandalise’ Alice, but it was a rational and long-overdue decision. The CCIA’s Josh Landau,, tackled the use of the term “Alice Storm” — a term which is being spread by proponents of software patent (who still try to ‘scandalise’ SCOTUS). Landau said this: You might be familiar with Bob Sachs’ term “Alice Storm.” Sachs and his co-authors over at Bilski Blog argue that “Alice Corp.

CLS Bank has had a dramatic impact on the allowability of computer implemented inventions.” I disagree, and some newly released data from the Patent Office seems to back me up. Alice has had a limited impact overall, and much of that impact is centered on patent applications that were drafted before Alice (and her Federal Circuit children, like DDR Holdings and McRO) was decided. For the “Alice Storm”, you don’t even need an umbrella. And on it goes Alice was a case of justice, not politics. It was not a “storm” but a ruling at the highest level.

Don’t let the patent extremists distract from that CAFC was also mentioned in relation to Arendi and § 103 a few days ago. IP Watch that “[s]ince the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued its opinion in Arendi S.A.R.L. Last August,[1] many patent commentators have asserted that the decision marked a significant change in the analysis of obviousness under 35 U.S.C. § 103, especially as a weakening of single-reference obviousness grounds. Notwithstanding this decision, petitioners and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board have continued to rely on single-reference obviousness to assert and find that claims are obvious.” Well, the the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), which, has become an Alice-enforcing mechanism and more generally a SCOTUS-enforcing mechanism.

SCOTUS will likely cement PTAB’s role in the new year. That’s the consensus even among PTAB foes. And speaking of PTAB foes, the most anti-PTAB site, Watchtroll, has just this, who is speaking to the choir (comments are pro-software patents). “Software Patent Eligibility at the Federal Circuit 2017″ is his headline and it’s a long list of software patents rejections, including for example RecogniCorp, LLC v Nintendo Co. Quinn fails to reveal his bias; he starts by whining about SCOTUS and only then lists the cases: The judicial exception at play when computer implemented inventions are claimed is the abstract idea exception.

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has never defined the phrase abstract idea, and neither has the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Similarly, there is no definition for significantly more. Therefore, in practice, deciding whether a claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea and/or adds significantly more than the abstract idea has proved to be rather subjective. Notwithstanding, the United States Patent and Trademark Office has created a Quick Reference Guide based on current case law. [.] [On RecogniCorp, LLC v Nintendo Co.:] The patent in question, U.S. 8,005,303, sought to encode images in a way that required less memory and bandwidth. There’s no conclusion in this article, maybe as the conclusion would have to be that software patents are very dead at CAFC and Watchtroll does not wish to spell it out.

RecogniCorp, LLC v Nintendo Co. (Supreme Court) was also. There are no patents on algorithms anymore, so no ‘joy’ for RecogniCorp. That’s just the new reality.

Whether patent extremists accept it or not should not matter; they’re not, after all, arbiters of law. Posted in,, at 1:40 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz Parasitic firms find it harder to troll Summary: The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), which continues to invalidate software patents by the thousands, comes under attack from the expected sites, namely those that are fronting for patent trolls and parasites HE appeal board/judges at the are very popular.

Everyone loves them. Except parasites with low-quality patents.

The High Tech Investors Alliance, a pro-PTAB group which was created,. Here is what the media said some days ago: The High Tech Investors Alliance has responded to contentions that recent legislation and US Supreme Court decisions, including the Alice Corp v CLS Bank case, have weakened the US patent system.

In an open letter, the association, whose members include Adobe, Amazon, Google and Intel, said that the facts “tell a completely different story”. “Innovation has thrived—indeed exploded—as measured by ever significant metric. Research and development spending, venture capital investment, startup activity, and patent applications each have increased dramatically, while the US GDP has grown by a healthy 9 percent to the highest level in history,” it explained. As usual, it’s worth checking the response from the patent extremists. Have they got any valid arguments against PTAB? IAM continues with its anti-PTAB rhetorics, also in India, typically by speaking to maximalists.

Here is about India’s Intellectual Property Appellate Board: In the meantime, the upshot for rights holders is that a key part of the patent system simply does not work. Essenese Obhan of Obhan & Associates calls the situation “disastrous” for patent owners, explaining: “All appeals from controller orders remain pending, as a result of which patent owners whose patents were wrongly refused by the patent office are stuck while their patent term slowly expires”. While clients can approach the court on a writ regarding opposition and revocation cases, doing so adds to their cost burden. As a reminder, IAM keeps lobbying India for software patents. We covered examples earlier this year, for example in: • • • • • • • Over at Managing IP, another site of patent maximalists, Fitzpatrick with a so-called ‘study’ (likely biased because of the firm behind it). To quote: For the first time, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board has upheld the majority of claims in IPR proceedings for four consecutive quarters, a Fitzpatrick 2016 study reveals They are trying to promote the illusion that PTAB is getting weaker, probably in an effort to attract more business. Patently-O, another site of patent maximalists, a few days ago: “Post-AIA patent applications are now trickling up to the PTAB in ex parte appeals from examiner rejections.

In the recent decision Ex Parte Kirk, APPEAL 2017-003486, (Patent Tr. 26, 2017), the Board affirmed an examiner’s obviousness rejection based upon the combination of a 102(a)(1) reference (an application published prior to Kirk’s effective filing date) and a 102(a)(2) reference (an application published subsequent to Kirk´s effective filing date, but filed prior to that date). In the appeal, the Board did not expressly consider the propriety of applying 102(a)(2) references to the obviousness analysis. See also, Ex Parte Linkedin Corp., APPEAL 2017-005043 (Patent Tr. 25, 2017).” PTAB is certainly working as hard as ever and is doing the right thing. It also eliminates many software patents.

To quote the latest examples, courtesy of the pro-software patents Patent Buddy: • PTAB Affirms Examiner’s Rejection under 101 in another patent directed to Tracking Technology: [] • PTAB Affirms Examiner’s Rejection of Correlation Software Patent Application under 101/Alice: [] • PTAB Affirms Examiner’s Rejection of Peer-to-Peer Claims in an Apple Patent Application under 101/Alice: [] The next post, which is about Alice, will show that software patents are weaker than ever. They’re basically being revoked even if they were granted before Alice. Thanks to PTAB for the most part. Posted in, at 12:41 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz Summary: Examples from the media where popular myths have been promoted over the past few days, taking advantage of passivity and silence among those who actually create and invent HE POPULAR media does not always inform readers/watchers.

There’s agenda to pass along and it dominates broadcast/papers. As we have been saying for years, it’s rare to see actual technologists writing about patents; instead, it’s typically law firms that do so. Some days ago we saw this press release [, ] about new videos. To quote the opening paragraph: Prof. John Rizvi, Esq, renowned AV-rated and one of the first board certified patent lawyers in the United States, and creator of the inventor platform, The Patent Professor®, has released a groundbreaking educational animation video library designed to simplify arcane and complex aspects of patent law for entrepreneurs seeking to accelerate and win patent approval with the United States Patent Office (USPTO) for their ideas. So what we have here is once again patent lawyers. They try to get the message across.

Over at Watchtroll, Shai Jalfin and it was about cross-licensing — a practice by which 2 or more very large companies cooperate to exclude smaller rivals, in essence bringing together patent portfolios to erect a bigger fence and ensure no litigation among them. Jalfin himself admits that “the duopoly profit attained by cross-licensing can be greater than the profit from a monopoly scenario.” So yes, it’s about exclusion and domination.

To quote: According to a study conducted by the Boston University School of Law, in 2011 patent litigation by so-called patent trolls cost US software and hardware companies a staggering $29 billion. Although that staggering figure has been discredited, few seriously doubt the reality that patent enforcement through litigation campaigns create risk for technology users and imposes a financial burden on industry. Even more modest assessments suggest a figure that is still over $7 billion. One of the most common motivations, therefore, for cross-licensing agreements is to avoid spending valuable resources on suing and counter-suing for alleged patent infringement.

Cross-licensing allows companies to reach an out-of-court settlement in which they barter their respective IP value and rights. The infringer/competitor now becomes an ally.

But cross-licensing is not just a barter to fend off intellectual property lawyers or reduce licensing fees – it can and should be the basis of forward-looking alliances that encourage knowledge flow and spur post-licensing innovations. Studies have shown that the duopoly profit attained by cross-licensing can be greater than the profit from a monopoly scenario. “A patent gives a right of ownership on the invention,” said another from the patent microcosm, but a patent is a monopoly,. The blog post is titled “All you need to know about patents and how to protect your idea,” but it’s full of misconceptions too. From the introduction: A patent gives a right of ownership on the invention.

As an inventor, a patent gives you the exclusive right to control uses of your invention. You can either stop others from making, using or selling your invention without your permission, or you can choose to commercialise your right by letting them use your invention for a fee. We saw some other examples in recent days, including and from IEEE, which merely helps the large monopolies with patent glorification such as this. To quote: Two household names—Amazon and eBay—are new additions to this year’s Patent Power Scorecards. It’s not that they hadn’t had valuable patent portfolios previously, but they had been omitted because their primary industry was retailing, which fell outside the tech-sector scope of the scorecards. However, as Amazon has branched out into Web services, its patent portfolio has become increasingly dominated by patents related to technologies such as networking infrastructure, Web transactions, and server hardware. The same is true for eBay, making both companies a natural fit for the Communication/Internet Services scorecard.

Indeed, Amazon enters the scorecard straight into first place, knocking Google off the top spot. This makes Amazon the first company ever to rank ahead of Google in the Communication/Internet Services scorecard. IEEE ( Spectrum in this case) has long been problematic when it comes to patents.

We wrote a great deal about that. It also promoted software patents. The lack of objective coverage regarding patents (not attempting to sell services etc.) is a serious problem as it serves to reinforce profound misunderstandings. Contents • • • • • • Desktop • If you want to buy a new laptop, no doubt you should consider the Centurion line. It will be a good choice for you, Linux aficionado.

As well as for your Windows-addicted husband/wife/employees. The Centurion Nano is certainly not a “gamer” laptop. However, besides that particular use case, and for an interesting price, you will get a very competent computer, 100% compatible with Linux and usable for a broad range of tasks.

• I have seen it many times. “Linux is a cancer”. “Open sauce”. I even remember the teacher who did not bring a laptop for her presentation and, when I offered her my Linux netbook, she rejected it as if I had presented her something illegal.

She tried to use an old Windows computer instead but, when the computer failed, she ended up displaying her presentation with my Linux netbook. Clearly, this teacher’s position was not based on ignorance or lack of expertise because she knew Linux existed and all she had to do was to display slides. Her refusal was due to indoctrination: she had learned that Linux and non-Microsoft office suites had to be rejected.

• Kernel Space • In his linux.conf.au 2017 talk [YouTube] on the eBPF in-kernel virtual machine, Brendan Gregg proclaimed that “super powers have finally come to Linux”. Getting eBPF to that point has been a long road of evolution and design. While eBPF was originally used for network packet filtering, it turns out that running user-space code inside a sanity-checking virtual machine is a powerful tool for kernel developers and production engineers.

Over time, new eBPF users have appeared to take advantage of its performance and convenience. This article explains how eBPF evolved how it works, and how it is used in the kernel. • The kernel’s module mechanism allows the building of a kernel with a wide range of hardware and software support without requiring that all of that code actually be loaded into any given running system. The availability of all of those modules in a typical distributor kernel means that a lot of features are available — but also, potentially, a lot of exploitable bugs. There have been numerous cases where the kernel’s automatic module loader has been used to bring buggy code into a running system.

An attempt to reduce the kernel’s exposure to buggy modules shows how difficult some kinds of hardening work can be. • Linux containers are something of an amorphous beast, at least with respect to the kernel. There are lots of facilities that the kernel provides (namespaces, control groups, seccomp, and so on) that can be composed by user-space tools into containers of various shapes and colors; the kernel is blissfully unaware of how user space views that composition. But there is interest in having the kernel be more aware of containers and for it to be able to distinguish what user space considers to be a single container. One particular use case for the kernel managing container identifiers is the audit subsystem, which needs unforgeable IDs for containers that can be associated with audit trails. Back in early October, Richard Guy Briggs posted the second version of his RFC for kernel container IDs that can be used by the audit subsystem.

The first version was posted in mid-September, but is not the only proposal out there. David Howells proposed turning containers into full-fledged kernel objects back in May, but seemingly ran aground on objections that the proposal “muddies the waters and makes things more brittle”, in the words of namespaces maintainer Eric W. • Graphics Stack • Unity is one of the big public users of the open-source Crunch DXT texture compression library. While it’s no longer maintained by Rich Geldreich / Binomial, Unity has continued advancing this open-source code to further improve the compression ratio and speed.

For months Unity has been talking about their promising findings with Crunch. But this is the project that Rich Geldreich, the former Valve developer, previously expressed regret having open-sourced all of it. While he is on to working on better and more advanced technologies at his Binomial startup, Unity is working to squeeze more out of this open-source library. • Under X, application redraws are tricky to do without tearing because content can be updated at any chosen time with no clear feedback as to when the compositor will read it.

EFL uses some clever tricks to this end (check out the state of the art X redraw timing for yourself), but it’s difficult to get right in all cases. For a lot of people this just works, or they’re not sensitive to the issue when it doesn’t. • Samsung’s Open-Source Group has been working on making their Wayland support in the Enlightenment Foundation Libraries (EFL) even better.

The latest Wayland work on the Enlightenment/EFL front has been improving the application redraw process. The EFL toolkit with the upcoming v1.21 release will now be hooking into Wayland’s frame callbacks to better dealing with drawing, only drawing when necessary, and doing so without the possibility of tearing. • If you are thinking of gifting yourself (or someone else) a FreeSync-compatible monitor this holiday season, here’s a look at how the AMD FreeSync support is working right now, the driver bits you need to be aware of, and how it’s all playing out for those wanting to use this tear-free capability for Linux gaming. • Benchmarks • With Amazon AWS this week having released Amazon Linux 2 LTS I was excited to put this updated cloud-focused operating system through some performance tests to see how it stacks up with the more well known Linux distributions. • Applications • Privacy awareness has been thankfully growing steadily across the web, and a number of programs have arisen as a result; Signal, is one such program. I won’t name drop, but enough major players in the world of privacy advocacy have given their seal of approval for Signal, and so I knew I had to check it out for myself.

• By now you have probably heard of Bitcoin or the Blockchain. The price of Bitcoin has skyrocketed several times in the past months, and the trend continues almost daily.

The demand for Bitcoin seems to grow astronomically by the minute. Accompanying the demand for the digital currency is the demand for software to manage the currency: Bitcoin clients. A quick search of “Bitcoin client” on Google Play or the App Store will yield quite a number of results. There are many Bitcoin clients that support Linux, but only 5 interesting ones are mentioned here, in no particular order. • Instructionals/Technical • • • • • So back in September I was talking about building a IoT Radio, and after that I switched to talking about tracking aircraft via software-defined radio. Perhaps time for a followup. • • • • • • Wine or Emulation • The highly anticipated Wine 3.0 release of the open-source and cross-platform compatibility layer for running Windows apps and games on Linux and UNIX-like systems is almost here.

A second Release Candidate (RC) has just been released, coming just one week after the first Release Candidate, and it brings a bunch of bug fixes and some new features like support for the Armel hardware architecture. A total of 17 regressions were addressed in Wine 3.0 RC2, improving support for various Windows games and applications. • Games • Bud Spencer & Terence Hill: Slaps and Beans [Steam] is now in Early Access after a successful Kickstarter campaign in which the developers gained over $200k. • Desktop Environments/WMs • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt • Here comes the last KStars release for 2017! KStars v2.8.9 is available now for Windows, MacOS, and Linux. Robert Lancaster worked on improving PHD2 support with Ekos.

This includes retrieving the guide star image, drift errors and RMS values, among other minor improvements and refactoring of the Ekos PHD2 codebase to support future extensions. • • GNOME Desktop/GTK • GNOME 3.27.3, the third development snapshot in the 3.28 development cycle, is now available.

A few more modules have been ported to meson, and lots of development is happening across all modules. To point out a few highlights, dconf-editor is seeing significant work, and evolution has had many bug fixes. • Matthias Clasen of Red Hat announced the release of GNOME 3.27.3 this weekend. GNOME 3.27.3 is the latest in a string of development releases leading up to the stable GNOME 3.28 debut in March. • GNOME leader Matthias Clasen announced a few moments ago the availability of the third development snapshot towards the GNOME 3.28 desktop environment for GNU/Linux distributions. The development cycle of the upcoming GNOME 3.28 desktop environment continues today with the GNOME 3.27.3 milestone, which ports more components to the Meson build system and adds various improvements to various apps and tools, including the Evolution email and calendar client, NetworkManager network connection manager, and dconf-editor.

• Finally, this is the boring part. Benjamin and I reworked code that’s internal to gnome-bluetooth, as used in the Settings panel as well as the Shell, to make it use modern facilities like GDBusObjectManager. The overall effect of this is, less code, less brittle and more reactive when Bluetooth adapters come and go, such as when using airplane mode.

• Today I released librsvg 2.40.20. This will be the last release in the 2.40.x series, which is deprecated effectively immediately. People and distros are strongly encouraged to switch to librsvg 2.41.x as soon as possible. This is the version that is implemented in a mixture of C and Rust. It is 100% API and ABI compatible with 2.40.x, so it is a drop-in replacement for it. If you or your distro can compile Firefox 57, you can probably build librsvg-2.41.x without problems.

• GNOME developer Beniamino Galvani announced the availability of the first point release of the NetworkManager 1.10 open-source network connection manager software. NetworkManager is the most popular network connection manager tool these days, coming pre-installed with numerous GNU/Linux distributions. The latest stable release, NetworkManager 1.10.2, is here about five weeks after the launch of NetworkManager 1.10.0 to add a handful of new features and improvements. • Ever since Steve Jobs died it has become quite clear in my opinion that the emphasis on the traditional desktop is fading from Apple.

The pace of hardware refreshes seems to be slowing and MacOS X seems to be going more and more stale. Some pundits have already started pointing this out and I predict that in 2018 Apple will be no longer consider the cool kid on the block for people looking for laptops, especially among the tech savvy crowd. Hopefully a good opportunity for Linux on the desktop to assert itself more. • Christian Schaller who has long been involved in GNOME/Fedora development while serving as a senior software engineering manager at Red Hat and formerly with Collabora has some bold predictions about 2018 for open-source software. • • Reviews • LXLE is a lightweight Linux distribution mainly focused on older systems. John takes it for a test drive and shares his experience in this LXLE review. • New Releases • The NuTyX team is please to annonce the 9.93 release of NuTyX.

NuTyX 9.92 comes with kernel LTS 4.14.6, glibc 2.26, gcc 7.2.0, binutils 2.29.1, python 3.6.0, xorg-server 1.19.5, qt 5.10.0, KDE plasma 5.11.3, KDE Framework 5.41.0, KDE Applications 17.12.0, mate 1.18.2, xfce4 4.12.4, firefox 57.0.2 Quantum, etc • Red Hat Family • Red Hat Inc.’s (RHT) stock has been red hot this year, and with good reason. For many years, Red Hat’s cloud infrastructure offering had positioned it as a single product company, as it became the go-to provider for systems based around open source software like Linux. It’s now pouncing on many of this year’s biggest technology trends, including the Internet of Things and hybrid cloud computing. Most of all, as more and more industries are disrupted from the likes of Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN), Red Hat is stepping in to help companies adjust and scale their IT systems to meet consumers’ rapidly changing needs. • Finance • • • • • Fedora • Fedora Classroom sessions continue next week with a session on Fedora QA. The general schedule for sessions appears on the wiki.

You can also find resources and recordings from previous sessions there. Here are details about this week’s session on Wednesday, December 22 at 16:00 UTC. That link allows you to convert the time to your timezone.

• Debian Family • After several months of working and waiting, I am happy to report that the nice and user friendly 3D printer slicer software Cura just entered Debian Unstable. It consist of five packages, cura, cura-engine, libarcus, fdm-materials, libsavitar and uranium. The last two, uranium and cura, entered Unstable yesterday. This should make it easier for Debian users to print on at least the Ultimaker class of 3D printers. My nearest 3D printer is an Ultimaker 2+, so it will make life easier for at least me. • Derivatives • Slax 9.3.0 beta is now ready for public testing with persistent support when using Slax from a USB flash drive, allowing you to preserve settings and downloaded files or packages across reboots. It also improves booting from EXT4 and NTFS filesystems.

Moreover, the default file manager, PCManFM, has been updated to display external drives in the left sidebar, newly installed applications are now automatically added to the xLunch screen, and Wicd is now the default network manager. • Powered by Linux kernel 4.13 and using Xfce 4.12.3 as default desktop environment, antiX MX-17 comes six months after the antiX MX-16 release and promises to bring all the latest security patches and software update from the software repositories of the recently released Debian GNU/Linux 9.3 “Stretch” operating system. The MX variant ships with all the antiX live features, including persistence up to 20GB, and automatic selection of appropriate drivers for most Broadcom wireless chipsets with minimal user intervention. Being targeted at low-end computers, antiX MX-17 offers a 32-bit PAE kernel for machines with less than 4GB RAM. • ParrotSec devs released today a new stable version of their Debian-based Parrot Security OS ethical hacking and penetration testing GNU/Linux distribution.

Install Kaspersky Security Center Slave Server more. There are many enhancements implemented in the Parrot Security OS 3.10 release, but the biggest new feature is the introduction of a full Firejail and AppArmor sandboxing system that should proactively protect the operating system from attacks by isolating its components with the combination of various security techniques. “The first experiments were already introduced in Parrot 3.9 with the inclusion of Firejail, but we took almost a month of hard work to make it even better with the improvement of many profiles, the introduction of the AppArmor support and enough time to make all the tests,” reads today’s announcement. • • Canonical/Ubuntu • Last week, Canonical released a kernel update for the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) operating system patching a total of four security issues, including a use-after-free vulnerability in the Netlink subsystem (XFRM), an out-of-bounds read in the GTCO digitizer USB driver, a bug in the associative array implementation, and improper copy-on-write (COW) handling of transparent huge pages.

However, it would appear that the respective kernel update also introduced a regression, which apparently prevented the use of the Ceph network file system on machines that upgraded to the new kernel versions. Canonical patched the issue and released a new Linux kernel update that addresses the problem on all Ubuntu 16.04 LTS systems, as well as Ubuntu 14.04.5 LTS machines. • Flavours and Variants • Linux Mint is killing the KDE version of its operaring system — a move some people applaud. That’s what makes the new 18.3 version — named “Sylvia” — so frustrating. It’s bizarre to release a new version of an operating system that essentially has no future.

But oh well, here we are. After a short beta period, the KDE distro is now available for download — if you still care.

I recommend that KDE loyalists just switch to Kubuntu or Netrunner, but I digress. Despite being the final version of Linux Mint KDE, it is still a great alternative to the consistently disappointing Windows 10. After all, it has been discovered that Microsoft is bundling a bug-ridden password-manager with its operating system without user consent! How can you trust such an OS?! • The Linux Mint team released the final Linux Mint 18.3 “Sylvia” Xfce and Linux Mint 18.3 “Sylvia” KDE editions to download, as well as an upgrade for existing Linux Mint 18.2 “Sonya” users. Previously in beta, the Linux Mint 18.3 “Sylvia” KDE and Xfce editions are now officially released and ready for production use. Just like the Cinnamon and MATE flavors, they are based on Canonical’s long-term supported Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) operating system and use the Linux 4.10 kernel by default for new installations.

• • Technologic’s TS-7553-V2 SBC runs Linux on an i.MX6UL and offers Ethernet, USB, GPIO, and serial I/O, plus WiFi/BT, XBee, cellular, and many other options. Technologic’s new “TS-7553-V2” single-board computer is a gen-2 re-spin of its 250MHz Cavium ARM9 SoC-based TS-7553 SBC.

The new board upgrades the processor to the 698MHz-clocked NXP i.MX6UL, and then for good measure increases RAM to 256MB (up from 64MB) and flash storage to as much as 64GB (up from 256MB), while expanding the board’s fanless operating temperature range to -40 to 85°C (from 0 to 70°C). It also adds several built-in interfaces, such as for connection of text LCDs and matrix keyboards, and supports more modular expansion options than its predecessor. • More than a year ago, I wrote about a Raspberry Pi-powered phone called PiPhone, and the readers loved it. Just recently, I came across another similar project on Kickstarter and decided to share it on Fossbytes. Named PiTalk, the project calls itself the “first ever DIY modular smartphone.” Powered by Python, PiTalk modular smartphone is compatible with Raspberry Pi Zero, Pi 2, and Pi 3.

For voice and data communication, it has a 3G module. The basic features performed by PiTalk are: • Tizen • • • Android • With the ever shining genre of First Person Shooters making it Huge in the PC market, game studios have brought the best of FPS action to people’s mobile devices. Here I present to you my best picks for the Free first person shooter games online for Android. • Magna Research (part of IPG Media) has released their latest count of this year’s ad spend. They have been reporting ‘digital’ spend for many years and finally now, 2017 becomes the first year when TV is dethroned as the largest ad spending platform. Yes this is the year when ‘digital’ passes TV in global ad spend. In fact, earth-shattering news considering how much TV has been the gorilla in advertising industry for half a century.

Digital now rules. • • Have you ever arrived at a party, looked around, and realized you’re totally underdressed? It’s a panic-inducing moment. This nightmare scenario happened to OnePlus earlier this year. Its OnePlus 5 had the brains to match any competing Android device, but next to phones like the Galaxy S8, LG G6, iPhone X, it looked, well, dowdy. With thick, squared off bezels and an eyesore of a home button, it was so last season. For four years, OnePlus has pinned its entire identity to the idea that it sells the phone with the highest specs at the lowest price.

Instead of paying $850+ for a fancy phone from the likes of Google or Samsung, you can buy a nearly identical, slightly off-brand OnePlus for $500 or less. It was the phone those in the know would recommend to save a few hundred bucks and still have a brag-worthy device. But you couldn’t brag about the OnePlus 5, especially after some bugs plagued the device. • • • • • • • • • • Events • Today we have celebrated another session for the #PeruRumboGSoC2018 program at CCPP UNI. It was one of the longest sessions we have experienced.

• Web Browsers • Mozilla • Voice computing has long been a staple of science fiction, but it has only relatively recently made its way into fairly common mainstream use. Gadgets like mobile phones and “smart” home assistant devices (e.g. Amazon Echo, Google Home) have brought voice-based user interfaces to the masses. The voice processing for those gadgets relies on various proprietary services “in the cloud”, which generally leaves the free-software world out in the cold.

There have been FOSS speech-recognition efforts over the years, but Mozilla’s recent announcement of the release of its voice-recognition code and voice data set should help further the goal of FOSS voice interfaces. There are two parts to the release, DeepSpeech, which is a speech-to-text (STT) engine and model, and Common Voice, which is a set of voice data that can be used to train voice-recognition systems. While DeepSpeech is available for those who simply want to do some kind of STT task, Common Voice is meant for those who want to create their own voice-recognition system—potentially one that does even better (or better for certain types of applications) than DeepSpeech. • BSD • Coming six months after the release of the FreeNAS 11 stable series, the FreeNAS 11.1 update is based on FreeBSD 11.1 and introduces cloud integration, support for AMD Ryzen and Intel Xeon Scalable family of processors, OpenZFS performance improvements, as well as preliminary support for Docker application container engine through a virtual machine built from RancherOS. “FreeNAS 11.1 adds a cloud sync (data import/export to the cloud) feature,” reads the announcement. “This new feature lets you sync (similar to backup), move (erase from source), or copy (only changed data) data to and from public cloud providers that include Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Services), Backblaze B2 Cloud, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure.” • en Moore, the creator of the FreeBSD-based TrueOS computer operating system and Lumina desktop environment, released the TrueOS 17.12 update, which introduces multiple enhancements. Synced with the FreeBSD 12.0-CURRENT and FreeBSD ports tree software repositories as of December 4 and November 30, 2017, respectively, TrueOS 17.12 is an incremental update to the operating system adding improvements to the OpenRC-based boot process, removable-device management, LibreSSL and SysAdm API integrations, as well as Bhyve support for TrueOS Server Install.

“We have also been working quite a bit on the server offering of TrueOS, and are pleased to provide new text-based server images with support for Virtualization systems such as bhyve,” said Ken Moore in the release announcement. “This allows for simple server deployments which also take advantage of the TrueOS improvements to FreeBSD.” • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC • Earlier this month I wrote how Intel engineers have been busy with continuing to tune glibc’s performance with FMA and AVX optimizations. That work has continued but also other architectures continue tuning their GNU C Library performance ahead of the expected v2.27 update.

There has been a ton of optimization work this cycle, particularly on the Intel/x86_64 front. For those with newer Intel 64-bit processors, this next glibc release is shaping up to be a speedy update. • Hot off the release of the new GIMP 2.9.8 and ahead of the expected GIMP 2.10 release candidates that are expected to begin, a new addition to GIMP is a plug-in supporting the new FreeDesktop.org/Flatpak screenshot API.

The org.freedesktop.portal.Screenshot specification aims to be a screenshot API that will work not only cross-desktop (e.g. KDE, GNOME, etc) but also work for sandboxed applications (i.e.

Flatpak) and also work regardless of whether you are using Wayland or X11. • The Fortran committee decided last month to rename the upcoming Fortran 2015 programming language update to Fortran 2018. GCC support is being prepped. With this updated programming language technical specification not expected to be published until mid-2018, the committee behind this long-standing programming language decided to rename Fortran 2015 to Fortran 2018. Fortran 2018 should further improve interoperability with C code, improve its parallel programming capabilities, support hexadecimal inputs/outputs, and other improvements over Fortran 2008. • Public Services/Government • Tax-Calculator, an open-source tax-modeling program. • Programming/Development • The quest to find a free-software replacement for the QuickBooks accounting tool continues. Mass Effect 1 Save Editor Скачать.

In this episode, your editor does his best to put Tryton through its paces. Running Tryton proved to be a trying experience, though; this would not appear to be the accounting tool we are searching for. Tryton is a Python 3 application distributed under the GPLv3 license. Its home page mentions that it is based on PostgreSQL, but there is support for MySQL and SQLite as well.

Tryton, it is said, is “a three-tier high-level general purpose application platform” that is “the core base of a complete business solution providing modularity, scalability and security”. The “core base” part of that claim is relevant: Tryton may well be a solid base for the creation of a small-business accounting system, but it is not, out of the box, such a system itself.

• As all Python developers discover sooner or later, Python is a rapidly evolving language whose community occasionally makes changes that can break existing programs. The switch to Python 3 is the most prominent example, but minor releases can include significant changes as well. The CPython interpreter can emit warnings for upcoming incompatible changes, giving developers time to prepare their code, but those warnings are suppressed and invisible by default. Work is afoot to make them visible, but doing so is not as straightforward as it might seem. In early November, one sub-thread of a big discussion on preparing for the Python 3.7 release focused on the await and async identifiers. They will become keywords in 3.7, meaning that any code using those names for any other purpose will break. Nick Coghlan observed that Python 3.6 does not warn about the use of those names, calling it “a fairly major oversight/bug”.

In truth, though, Python 3.6 does emit warnings in that case — but users rarely see them. • Originally, prosecutors say, the defendants hadn’t intended to bring down the internet—they had been trying to gain an advantage in the computer game Minecraft. • Analytics firm Net Applications revised its methodology to cull bots from its browser share numbers and found that as much as half of the traffic to Edge on Windows 10 was artificially inflated. • Science • • Donald Trump’s administration has reportedly banned the Center for Disease Control from using seven words and phrases, including “science-based” and “transgender,” in documents it is working on for next year’s budget.

• The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) today condemned an effort by officials of the Trump administration to ban the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from using seven words in its budget communications: vulnerable, entitlement, diversity, transgender, fetus, evidence-based and science-based. “We are deeply concerned about this ham-handed effort to censor the language of our government’s top scientists,” NCAC Executive Director Christopher Finan said. “It moves the Trump administration a step closer to Orwellian ‘newspeak’.” The Washington Post reported on Friday that Alison Kelly, a senior official in the CDC’s Office of Financial Services, revealed the existence of a list of forbidden words during a meeting with staff members responsible for preparing the CDC budget and related material. A participant in the meeting told the Post that Kelly said the words could not be used in documents that are sent to Congress and CDC partners. • Do you want your medical treatment to be based on science? The Trump administration doesn’t.

• Written by Uma Sudhir Monday November 20, 2017 Access to education is still a luxury for young girls in Telangana's Warangal district who are dropping out of school to work on farms. When the debt-ridden farmer can't afford to pay to farm labour, the girl child is the first casualty. • Press Turst of India Thursday November 16, 2017 Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi on Wednesday underlined the government's committment to eliminate child labour at the plenary session of a global conference at Buenos Aires, Argentina.

• Thomson Reuters Foundation Tuesday September 12, 2017 Kanyakumari: Thousands of people gathered in Tamil Nadu on Monday to kick off what is expected to be the world’s largest march against the trafficking and sexual abuse of children as reports of such crimes continue to rise in the country. Organised by Nobel Laureate and child rights activist Kailash Satyarthi, over 10 million people from across. • Written by Sneha Mary Koshi Tuesday September 12, 2017 Survivors of abuse and bonded labour victims, besides other volunteers came together for the flag off of Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi's 'Bharat Yatra' against child abuse on Monday. • Written by Harsha Kumari Singh Saturday July 29, 2017 A woman delivered a baby right outside a government-run multi-specialty hospital in Jaipur on Friday night. Ashoka Bai, who works as a construction labour, alleges she had to deliver on the road as the doctors failed to attend to her on time.

• Press Trust Of India Tuesday June 20, 2017 New Delhi: Starting August 1, government will launch an IT platform called Pencil to monitor implementation of National Child Labour Project. The idea is to observe whether the amended child labour prohibition law which has rehabilitation of child labourers is being effectively implemented. The funds for the project are provided by the Centre and t. • Indo-Asian News Service Monday June 19, 2017 New Delhi: India has ratified the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) two conventions on child labour reaffirming its commitment for a child labour free India, Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya said on Saturday. The conventions were on the minimum age for employment and worst forms of child labour and were ratified during the International. • Press Trust Of India Monday June 19, 2017 Washington: The US should take the leadership in elimination of child labour globally, Noble laureate Kailash Satyarthi appealed to American lawmakers and activists, asserting the world cannot be made safe and secure until security and education are provided to each child.

“A lot of work has been done (in elimination of child labour) by the ILO a. • Press Trust Of India Tuesday June 13, 2017 United Nations: India is set to ratify two key global conventions on combating child labour which a top UN official described as a “great step forward” in bringing all the world’s children under the ambit of the legislations. International Labour Organisation (ILO) Director-General Guy Ryder, in his statement for World Day Against Child Labou. • NDTV News Desk Monday May 22, 2017 • Thomson Reuters Foundation Wednesday May 3, 2017 Chennai: Brands sourcing garments, shoes, leather and natural stones from India must help create and sustain child labour-free zones by mapping their supply chains and working with communities to boost school enrolment, activists said on Tuesday. The Stop Child Labour Coalition of charities recently launched a campaign with guidelines for compani. • Monday May 1, 2017 Hyderabad: A 13-year-old girl, confined as a domestic worker at an ex-government official’s home, was rescued from Hyderabad on Monday.

While the Telangana Labour Department officials were reportedly busy with May Day celebrations, the local police, child rights activists and Childline staff came together to free the girl from a retired governmen. • Edited By Bhanu Priya Vyas Monday April 10, 2017 The passengers of Turkish Airlines flight welcomed an unexpected little passenger when a baby girl was born mid-air on Sunday. The flight's crew helped in the delivery of the new-born. Some passengers in the airlines also helped the crew bring the child to life.

Nafi Diaby, 28 weeks pregnant, went into labour on the flight soon after it took-off fr. • NDTV News Desk Friday March 10, 2017 New Delhi: The Lok Sabha on Thursday passed the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Bill, 2016, increasing the maternity leave to 26 weeks from present 12 weeks.

As per the bill, a woman who adopts a child below the age of three months will also be granted a leave for 12 weeks. The Bill, after President Pranab Mukherjee’s assent, will become a law. • Press Trust of India Wednesday February 8, 2017 The prime reason for child labour is poverty and illiteracy and government has made stringent laws and rules to ensure that the country is freed from the scourge, Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya said today.

• Written by Uma Sudhir Monday November 20, 2017 Access to education is still a luxury for young girls in Telangana's Warangal district who are dropping out of school to work on farms. When the debt-ridden farmer can't afford to pay to farm labour, the girl child is the first casualty. • Press Turst of India Thursday November 16, 2017 Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi on Wednesday underlined the government's committment to eliminate child labour at the plenary session of a global conference at Buenos Aires, Argentina. • Thomson Reuters Foundation Tuesday September 12, 2017 Kanyakumari: Thousands of people gathered in Tamil Nadu on Monday to kick off what is expected to be the world’s largest march against the trafficking and sexual abuse of children as reports of such crimes continue to rise in the country. Organised by Nobel Laureate and child rights activist Kailash Satyarthi, over 10 million people from across. • Written by Sneha Mary Koshi Tuesday September 12, 2017 Survivors of abuse and bonded labour victims, besides other volunteers came together for the flag off of Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi's 'Bharat Yatra' against child abuse on Monday.

• Written by Harsha Kumari Singh Saturday July 29, 2017 A woman delivered a baby right outside a government-run multi-specialty hospital in Jaipur on Friday night. Ashoka Bai, who works as a construction labour, alleges she had to deliver on the road as the doctors failed to attend to her on time. • Press Trust Of India Tuesday June 20, 2017 New Delhi: Starting August 1, government will launch an IT platform called Pencil to monitor implementation of National Child Labour Project. The idea is to observe whether the amended child labour prohibition law which has rehabilitation of child labourers is being effectively implemented. The funds for the project are provided by the Centre and t.

• Indo-Asian News Service Monday June 19, 2017 New Delhi: India has ratified the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) two conventions on child labour reaffirming its commitment for a child labour free India, Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya said on Saturday. The conventions were on the minimum age for employment and worst forms of child labour and were ratified during the International. • Press Trust Of India Monday June 19, 2017 Washington: The US should take the leadership in elimination of child labour globally, Noble laureate Kailash Satyarthi appealed to American lawmakers and activists, asserting the world cannot be made safe and secure until security and education are provided to each child.

“A lot of work has been done (in elimination of child labour) by the ILO a. • Press Trust Of India Tuesday June 13, 2017 United Nations: India is set to ratify two key global conventions on combating child labour which a top UN official described as a “great step forward” in bringing all the world’s children under the ambit of the legislations.

International Labour Organisation (ILO) Director-General Guy Ryder, in his statement for World Day Against Child Labou. • NDTV News Desk Monday May 22, 2017 • Thomson Reuters Foundation Wednesday May 3, 2017 Chennai: Brands sourcing garments, shoes, leather and natural stones from India must help create and sustain child labour-free zones by mapping their supply chains and working with communities to boost school enrolment, activists said on Tuesday.

The Stop Child Labour Coalition of charities recently launched a campaign with guidelines for compani. • Monday May 1, 2017 Hyderabad: A 13-year-old girl, confined as a domestic worker at an ex-government official’s home, was rescued from Hyderabad on Monday. While the Telangana Labour Department officials were reportedly busy with May Day celebrations, the local police, child rights activists and Childline staff came together to free the girl from a retired governmen. • Edited By Bhanu Priya Vyas Monday April 10, 2017 The passengers of Turkish Airlines flight welcomed an unexpected little passenger when a baby girl was born mid-air on Sunday. The flight's crew helped in the delivery of the new-born. Some passengers in the airlines also helped the crew bring the child to life. Nafi Diaby, 28 weeks pregnant, went into labour on the flight soon after it took-off fr.

• NDTV News Desk Friday March 10, 2017 New Delhi: The Lok Sabha on Thursday passed the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Bill, 2016, increasing the maternity leave to 26 weeks from present 12 weeks. As per the bill, a woman who adopts a child below the age of three months will also be granted a leave for 12 weeks. The Bill, after President Pranab Mukherjee’s assent, will become a law.

• Press Trust of India Wednesday February 8, 2017 The prime reason for child labour is poverty and illiteracy and government has made stringent laws and rules to ensure that the country is freed from the scourge, Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya said today. • Thomson Reuters Foundation Friday December 23, 2016 By Anuradha Nagaraj Chennai: Various forms of slavery, including child labour, are present in more than 90 per cent of south India’s spinning mills which produce yarn for Western brands, researchers said, calling for mapping of supply chains and tougher audits. The India Committee of the Netherlands (ICN), a human rights organisation, spoke to. • Peter Whoriskey, Todd C.

Frankel, The Washington Post Wednesday December 21, 2016 Apple, HP, Samsung SDI, and Sony have joined an effort, known as the Responsible Cobalt Initiative. • Thomson Reuters Foundation Monday December 19, 2016 By Roli Srivastava and Nita Bhalla Mumbai/New Delhi: Business has been slow at the Thakkar Bappa Colony shoe manufacturing hub in eastern Mumbai since the government withdrew high-value bank notes last month in an attempt to curb tax evasion and counterfeit currency. Orders to the numerous shoemakers lining the slum’s narrow streets have almost d. • Thomson Reuters Foundation Monday December 12, 2016 By Nita Bhalla New Delhi: Seven-year-old Siyam stands speechless when asked what he would like to do when he grows up.

He stares blankly as if being asked the most ridiculous of questions. The boy, dressed in a faded red t-shirt with a picture of a superhero and tattered blue shorts, has never been to school and cannot see a world beyond the narro. • Press Trust of India Sunday December 11, 2016 President Pranab Mukherjee today marked his 81st birthday at the Rashtrapati Bhavan by launching a campaign to end child labour, child slavery and violence against children.