- How Google’s Defragging Android (Ars Technica) — Android’s becoming a pudgy microkernel for the Google Play Services layer that’s in userland, closed source, and a way to bypass carriers’ lag for upgrades.
- Booting a Self-Signed Linux Kernel (Greg Kroah-Hartman) — procedures for how to boot a self-signed Linux kernel on a platform so that you do not have to rely on any external signing authority.
- Paperscape — A map of scientific papers from the arXiv.
- Trinket — Adafruit’s latest microcontroller board. Small but perfectly formed.
"Linux" entries
Four short links: 9 September 2013
Google Play Services, Self-Signed Kernels, Visualising Scientific Papers, and New Microcontroller
Will Developers Move to Sputnik?
The past, present, and future of Dell's project
Barton George (@barton808) is the Director of Development Programs at Dell, and the lead on Project Sputnik—Dell’s Ubuntu-based developer laptop (and its accompanying software). He sat down with me at OSCON to talk about what’s happened in the past year since OSCON 2012, and why he thinks Sputnik has a real chance at attracting developers.
Key highlights include:
- The developers that make up Sputnik’s ideal audience [Discussed at 1:00]
- The top three reasons you should try Sputnik [Discussed at 2:46]
- What Barton hopes to be talking about in 2014 [Discussed at 4:36]
- The key to building a community is documentation [Discussed at 5:20]
You can view the full interview here:
Four short links: 17 July 2013
Augmented Reality Books, Open Source Success Patterns, Kernel Kourtesy, and Speculative Fiction
- Hideout — augmented reality books. (via Hacker News)
- Patterns and Practices for Open Source Software Success (Stephen Walli) — Successful FOSS projects grow their communities outward to drive contribution to the core project. To build that community, a project needs to develop three onramps for software users, developers, and contributors, and ultimately commercial contributors.
- How to Act on LKML — Linus’s tantrums are called out by one of the kernel developers in a clear and positive way.
- Beyond the Coming Age of Networked Matter (BoingBoing) — Bruce Sterling’s speculative short story, written for the Institute For The Future. “Stephen Wolfram was right about everything. Wolfram is the greatest physicist since Isaac Newton. Since Plato, even. Our meager, blind physics is just a subset of Wolfram’s new-kind-of- science metaphysics. He deserves fifty Nobels.” “How many people have read that Wolfram book?” I asked him. “I hear that his book is, like, huge, cranky, occult, and it drives readers mad.” “I read the forbidden book,” said Crawferd.
Hadoop Training, OpenStreetMap Sprint, MakersFactory Kids’ Programming Camp, and More
Tech events you don't want to miss
Each Monday, we round up upcoming event highlights from the programming and technology spaces. Have an event to share? Send us a note.
Twisted Python: the engine of your Internet webcast: Jessica McKellar presents an architectural overview of the Python networking library, Twisted, and instructs on how to build robust clients and servers for popular and custom network protocols. Register for this free webcast.
Date: 10 a.m. PT, June 6 Location: Online webcast
2 Day Hadoop Training June 2013: This course offers a fast-paced technical overview of the Hadoop landscape, targeted toward both technical and non-technical people who want to understand the emerging world of big data. For more information and to register, visit the event page.
Date: June 8–9 Location: Sunnyvale, CA
Four short links: 28 September 2012
Mobile Content, Google Math, Mobile Linux, and Mozilla's Strategy
- Mobile Content Strategy — Mobile is a catalyst that can help you make your content tighter without loss of clarity or information. If you make your content work well on mobile, it will work everywhere. Excellent presentation, one I want to thump on every decision-maker’s desk and say “THIS!”.
- Math at Google (PDF) — presentation showing the different types of math used to build Google. Good as overview, and as way to motivate highschool and college kids to do their math homework. “See, it really is useful! Really!” (via Ben Lorica)
- Tizen 2.0 Alpha Released — Tizen is the Linux Foundation’s mobile Linux kernel, device drivers, middleware subsystems, and Web APIs. (via The Linux Foundation)
- Explaining WebMaker Crisply (Mark Surman) — if you’ve wondered wtf Mozilla is up to, this is excellent. Mozilla has big priorities right now: the web on the desktop; the web on mobile; and web literacy.
Seeking prior art where it most often is found in software
Open Invention Network plans to mine open source projects for patent busters
Patent ambushes are on the rise again, and cases such as Apple/Samsung shows that prior art really has to swing the decision–obviousness or novelty is not a strong enough defense. Obviousness and novelty are subjective decisions made by a patent examiner, judge, or jury.
In this context, a recent conversation I had with Keith Bergelt, Chief Executive Officer of the Open Invention Network takes on significance. OIN was formed many years ago to protect the vendors, developers, and users of Linux and related open source software against patent infringement. They do this the way companies prepare a defense: accumulating a portfolio of patents of their own.
Developer Week in Review: When giant corporations collide
Oracle and Google head to trial, Microsoft and Linux are BFFs, and the dirty secrets of game cheats.
If Microsoft and Linux can kiss and make up, why is Oracle having such a hard time getting along with Google? Elsewhere, a look inside elaborate game cheats.
Four short links: 3 April 2012
CS for Kids, Pwn in a Box, Mobile Companions, and 8-bit Linux
- Why Our Kids Should Be Taught To Code (Guardian) — if we don’t act now we will be short-changing our children. […] their world will be also shaped and configured by networked computing and if they don’t have a deeper understanding of this stuff then they will effectively be intellectually crippled. They will grow up as passive consumers of closed devices and services, leading lives that are increasingly circumscribed by technologies created by elites working for huge corporations such as Google, Facebook and the like. We will, in effect, be breeding generations of hamsters for the glittering wheels of cages built by Mark Zuckerberg and his kind. (via Karl von Randow)
- The Pwn Plug — $770 gets you a wall-wart full of network attack tools and wifi for remote access. Plug and Pwn. (via Ars Technica)
- Mobile Phone as Companion Species (Matt Jones) — They see the world differently to us, picking up on things we miss. They adapt to us, our routines. They look to us for attention, guidance and sustenance. We imagine what they are thinking, and vice-versa.
- 8-Bit Linux — Ubuntu 9 ported to an 6.5KHz 8-bit CPU (running a 32-bit emulator because Linux itself requires at least a 32-bit system). Takes 2 hours to boot up the kernel, four more to get to a login prompt. Moore’s Law for the win: I’ve seen more than 1000x improvement in speed from my first computer (1MHz C64) to current (1.7GHz i5). (via Slashdot)
O'Reilly Radar Show 3/12/12: Best data interviews from Strata California 2012
Doug Cutting on Hadoop, Max Gadney on video data graphics, Jeremy Howard on big data and analytics.
Hadoop creator Doug Cutting discussing the similarities between Linux and the big data world, Max Gadney from After the Flood explains the benefits of video data graphics, Kaggle's Jeremy Howard looks at the difference between big data and analytics.
Developer Week in Review: Flash marginalization continues
Flash ditches Linux, a developer faces death, and we get a peek inside Foxconn.
If you use Linux, either start using Chrome as your browser or get ready to give up Flash. A developer faces execution in Iran because of how someone used software he wrote, and the world gets to see what it's like to build iPads and iPhones.