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Submission + - EU parliament says Prism part of US econ/polit espionage and not anti-terrorism (cio.co.uk)

Submitted by Qedward
Qedward writes: EU politicians said that they doubt data collection by the US National Security Agency has been purely for the fight against terrorism.

In a draft report from the European Parliament's civil liberties committee, published yesterday, members of the European Parliament (MEPs) say that it is "very doubtful that data collection of such magnitude is only guided by the fight against terrorism," and that there may be other motives such as political and economic espionage.

The document urges EU countries to take legal action against the breach of their sovereignty perpetrated through such mass surveillance programmes.

Submission + - Mozilla Partners With Panasonic To Bring Firefox OS To The TV

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: At CES 2014 in Las Vegas today, Mozilla announced its plans for Firefox OS this year. Having launched Firefox OS for smartphones in 2013, the company has now partnered with Panasonic to bring its operating system to TVs, and also detailed the progress that has been made around the tablet and desktop versions.

Submission + - EU Copyright Reform: Your input is needed! (copywrongs.eu)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The European Commission has finally (as of last month) opened its public consultation on copyright reform. This is the first time the general public can influence EU copyright policy since fifteen years back, and it is likely at least as much time will pass until next time. In order to help you fill out the (enlish-only, legalese-heavy) questionnaire, some friendly hackers spent some time during the 30c3 to put together a site to help you. Anyone, EU citizen or not, organisation or company, is invited to respond (deadline fifth of February). Pirate MEP Amelia Andersdotter has a more in-depth look at the consultation.

Submission + - Google Launches Android Automotive Consortium (linuxgizmos.com)

Submitted by __aajbyc7391
__aajbyc7391 writes: Google announced an initiative with Audi, GM, Honda, Hyundai, and Nvidia aimed at fostering and standardizing Android in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) systems. The Open Automotive Alliance (OAA) is dedicated to a common platform that will drive innovation, and make technology in the car safer and more intuitive for everyone, says the group. The OAA is further committed to bringing the Android platform to cars starting in 2014. In its FAQ, the OAA suggests that this is not a full-blown Android in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) system, but rather a standardized integration stack between automotive systems and mobile Android devices. However, the OAA FAQ also discloses broader ambitions for 2015 and beyond: 'We're also developing new Android platform features that will enable the car itself to become a connected Android device.'

Submission + - Google creates Open Automobile Alliance to put Linux (Android) in cars (muktware.com)

Submitted by sfcrazy
sfcrazy writes: Google is doing it again. There was a huge market back then enable electronics companies to enter the smartphone market dominated by Apple. Google entered with an open approach and ‘owned’ the market. Today Android is a dominant player in the mobile space. Now Google is aiming at automobile industry, which needs to bring really smart capabilities to the cars. Why do you have to turn on your Android phone to listen to music, take a call or navigate or to turn the lights off if you forgot to. Why is your car out of this? Should not the car be part of this ecosystem?
Google has teamed up with automotive and technology leaders Audi, GM, Honda, Hyundai and Nvidia to form the Open Automotive Alliance (OAA), a global alliance aimed at accelerating auto innovation with an approach that offers openness, customization and scale.

Submission + - Linksys Resurrects WRT54G in a New Router

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: A year after purchasing the Linksys home networking division from Cisco, Belkin today brought back the design of what it called 'the best-selling router of all time' but with the latest wireless technology. We are talking about the classic WRT54G, the router in blue/black livery, first released in December 2002. Back in July 2003, a Slashdot post noted that Linksys had 'caved to community pressure' after speculation that it was violating the GPL free software license, and it released open source code for the WRT54G. The router received a cult following and today the model number of the refreshed model will be WRT1900AC. The radio is updated to support 802.11ac (with four antennas), the CPU is a more powerful 1.2GHz dual core, and there are ports for eSATA and USB mass storage devices. Linksys is also providing early hardware along with SDKs and APIs to the developers of OpenWRT, with plans to have support available when the router becomes commercially available. The WRT1900AC is also the first Linksys router to include a Network Map feature designed to provide a simpler way of managing settings of each device connected to the network. Announced at Consumer Electronics Show, the device is planned to be available this spring for an MSRP of $299.99.

Submission + - The Debian Admin Handbook updated for Debian 7 "Wheezy" (debian-handbook.info)

Submitted by Raphaël Hertzog
Raphaël Hertzog writes: The first edition of the book came out as a translation of our French book. During the associated crowdfunding campaign, we said clearly that we wanted to continue updating the book even after its release under free licenses.

That's what we did, thanks to the many people who contributed to its continued maintenance, either with a donation or by buying a paperback copy.

The book has thus been entirely updated for Debian 7 “Wheezy”. Granted, we're a bit late given that the release is out since May 2013. We'll try to bo better for Jessie. :-) In the mean time, please enjoy the book :

Submission + - Animated Infographic about Lessig's New Hampshire Rebellion & Corruption (youtube.com)

Submitted by Funksaw
Funksaw writes: Lawrence Lessig, former EFF board member, chair of the Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University, founder of the Center for Internet and Society, founding board member of Creative Commons, and former board member of the Free Software Foundation is taking on a new project — walking across New Hampshire.

The idea is to raise awareness of the massive amount of political corruption in the American democratic system, and make it the #1 issue in New Hampshire in time for the 2016 Presidential Primaries. This three-minute video (from the guy who did the Windows 8 and Data Caps animations) explains the project, called the New Hampshire Rebellion, in cartoon form.

Submission + - TPP trade deal threatens New Zealand software patent ban (zdnet.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Trade ministers from Pacific nations are pushing to finalize the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement next month, but New Zealand has something on the negotiating table others do not: a brand new law banning software patents.

The US is taking a hard line on intellectual property issues,demanding not just patent protection for software but even for "mathematical methods". That could set the New Zealand negotiators on a collision course with their US counterparts.

So will New Zealand hang tough or fold?

Submission + - Chromebooks' Success in 2013 is a Gut Punch to Microsoft 3

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: Gregg Keizer reports at Computerworld that Chromebooks accounted for 21% of all US commercial notebook sales in 2013 through November, and 10% of all computers and tablets. Both shares were up massively from 2012 when Chromebooks accounted for an almost-invisible two-tenths of one percent of all computer and tablet sales. That’s really rough news news for Microsoft, which is the principal loser of market share against the Chromebooks. Part of the attraction of Chromebooks is their low prices: The systems forgo high-resolution displays, rely on inexpensive graphics chipsets, include paltry amounts of RAM — often just 2GB — and get by with little local storage. And their operating system, Chrome OS, doesn't cost computer makers a dime. "A few years ago, Chromebooks were a bit of a laughing stock. They were underperforming single-purpose laptops that weren’t even good at the only thing they could do that is, surf the web," says Frederic Lardinois. "Over the last year, ChromeOS also went from a one-trick pony to something that’s more like a “real” operating system." Today’s Chromebooks are nothing like the old Cr-48 prototype Google once sent out to bloggers in late 2010. The fact that Microsoft has now started making fun of them just shows that it’s concerned about losing market share in the business world. "Google is doing with its Chrome OS for PCs what it did with Android for smartphones," says Matt Marshall. "No wonder Google is starting to eating Microsoft’s lunch."

Submission + - GNU Octave Gets a GUI (phoronix.com) 1

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: GNU Octave — the open source numerical computation suite compatible with MATLAB — is doing very well. The new 3.8 release is a big change, as it brings a graphical user interface, a feature which has long been requested by users. It is peppered with OpenGL acceleration and uses the super fast FLTK toolkit for widgets. The CLI interface still remains available and GNUplot is used as a fallback in cases where OpenGL or FLTK support is not available. Other changes to Octave 3.8 are support for nested functions with scoping rules, limited support for named exceptions, new regular expressions, a TeX parser for the FLTK toolkit, overhauls to many of the m-files, function rewrites, and numerous other changes and bug fixes.

Submission + - X.Org Server 1.15 Brings DRI3, Lacks XWayland Support (phoronix.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A belated holiday gift for Linux users is the X.Org Server 1.15 "Egg Nog" release. X.Org Server 1.15 presents new features including DRI3 — a big update to their rendering model — a rewrite of the GLX windowing system code, support for Mesa Mega Drivers, and many bug fixes plus polishing. The release goes without though any mainline support for XWayland to ease the adoption of the Wayland Display Server while maintaining legacy X11 application support.

Submission + - Developing games on and for Linux/SteamOS (anki3d.org) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: With the release of SteamOS developing video game engines for Linux is a subject with increasing interest. Developing games on and for Linux/SteamOS is a lightweight reading and an initiation guide on the tools, pros and cons of Linux as a platform for developing game engines. This article evolves around OpenGL and drivers, CPU and GPU profiling, compilers, build systems, IDEs, debuggers, platform abstraction layers and other.

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