The
AP
reports that Google tracks your location history, even if you turn
"Location History"
off. On both Android devices and iPhones, Google stores "your location data
even if you've used a privacy setting that says it will prevent Google
from doing so.
Computer-science researchers at Princeton confirmed these findings at the
AP's request."
This
Wired post describes how you actually can disable
location tracking.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and The Linux Foundation
launched the Academy Software Foundation.
The ASF's mission is to "increase the quality and
quantity of contributions to the content creation industry's open source
software base; to provide a neutral forum to coordinate cross-project
efforts; to provide a common build and test infrastructure; and to provide
individuals and organizations a clear path to participation in advancing our
open source ecosystem". Interested developers can sign up to join the mailing
list here.
Ring-KDE
3.0.0, a GNU Ring.cx client, has been released. GNU Ring is a secure,
distributed communication platform based on open industry-standard
technologies for audio calls,
video conferences, chat, screen-sharing and peer-to-peer file transfer. This
new version of Ring-KDE is a full rewrite of the app "to use more modern
technologies such as touch support, QtQuick2 and KDE Kirigami adaptive widget
framework". When you join GNU Ring, "no servers or centralized
accounts are needed. Besides an optional blockchain-based way to reserve your
username against takeover, nothing leaves your device", and Ring-KDE
"provides
a simple wizard to help you create credentials or import your personal
information from other devices." For more info, also visit here.
Intel
debuts a totally silent ruler-shaped solid state drive, the Intel SSD DC
P4500. This SSD can store 32
terabytes—"equivalent to triple the entire printed collection of
the U.S. Library of Congress". In addition, "the no-moving-parts ruler-shaped
SSDs can be lined up 32 side-by-side, to hold up to a petabyte in a single
server slot. Compared with a traditional SSD, the 'ruler' requires
half the airflow to keep cool. And compared with hard disk storage, the new
3D NAND SSD sips one-tenth the power and requires just one-twentieth the
space."
The Mozilla IoT team announced the 0.5 release of
the Things Gateway recently, which is "packed full of new features
including
customisable devices, a more powerful rules engine, an interactive floorplan
and an experimental smart assistant you can talk to". If you want to try out
this new version of the gateway, you can download it from here and use it on your Raspberry
Pi. According to the press release, "A powerful new 'capabilities'
system means that devices are no longer restricted to a predefined set of Web
Thing Types, but can be assembled from an extensible schema-based system of
'capabilities'
through our new schema
repository.
This means that developers have much more flexibility to create weird and
wacky devices, and users have more control over how the device is used."
Docker is moving to a new release and support cycle for its Community Edition
(CE) releases, ServerWatch
reports. New Docker CE versions will come out every
six months, and each new CE release will be supported for seven months. The
next CE Stable release is due out in September. Docker CE Edge releases will
move to a faster cycle—from monthly to nightly builds.
The city of Rome is switching to
open-source LibreOffice. The city installed
LibreOffice alongside the proprietary alternative on all of its 14,000 PC
workstations in April and is gradually making the change. There are 112 staff
members called "innovation champions", who are in favour of free and open
source, and who are helping with the switch by explaining the reasons for
changing to open source and training co-workers (source: Open Source
Observatory).
No Starch Press recently released The Rust Programming Language, the
"undisputed go-to book on Rust",
authored by two members of the Rust core team—Steve Klabnik
and Carol Nichols—and featuring contributions from 42 community
members.
No Starch comments that "this huge undertaking is sure to make some waves and
help build the Rust
community". The book is published under an open license and is available for
free via the Rust site or
for purchase from No Starch in either in
print or
ebook format.
A new version of KStars—the
free, open-source,
cross-platform astronomy software—has been released. Version 2.9.7
includes new features, such as improvements to the polar alignment assistant
and support for Ekos Live, as well as stability fixes. See the release
notes for all the changes.
Red Hat's Road to A.I. film has been chosen as an entry in the
19th Annual Real to Reel International Film Festival. According to the Red
Hat blog post, this "documentary film looks at the current state of the
emerging autonomous vehicle industry, how it is shaping the future of
public transportation, why it is a best use case for advancing artificial
intelligence and how open source can fill the gap between the present and
the future of autonomy." The Road to A.I. is the fourth in Red
Hat's Open Source Stories
series, and you can view it here.
Vivaldi Technologies has added a new privacy-focused search engine called
Qwant to its Vivaldi web browser.
Qwant doesn't store cookies or search history. Softpedia
News quotes CEO and co-founder of Vivaldi Jon von
Tetzchner: "We believe
that the Internet can do better. We do not believe in tracking our users or
in data
profiling." You need version 1.15 of Vivaldi in order to
enable Qwant.
System76 has moved into its new manufacturing facility in Denver,
Colorado. The
company will begin making computers in the US, rather than just
assembling
them. See the System76
blog post for photos of the new digs.
