• How to magnify images on your Android phone

• Google’s CEO thinks Android users know how much their phones are tracking them

• Samsung Ponders Another Android Phone With Infinity-U Display

• 9to5Toys Lunch Break: Samsung SmartThings Hub $60, Android Smartphones from $179, mophie Qi Charge Pad $20, more

• Nokia 8 gets Android Pie beta release

• Android Open Source Project now includes the Fuchsia SDK and a Fuchsia ‘device’

• Android Police's 2018 Smartphone of the Year is the OnePlus 6T

Hardkernel recently sent over the ODROUD-XU4 for benchmarking. This ARM SBC that just measures in at about 82 x 58 x 22 mm offers much better performance than many of the sub-$100 ARM SBCs while also featuring dual USB 3.0 ports, Gigabit Ethernet, eMMC storage, and is software compatible with the older XU3 ARM SBCs. Here's a look at the performance of the ODROID-XU4 compared to a variety of other single board computers.

This ~$60+ ARM single board computer is built around a Samsung Exynos5422 SoC that features four Cortex-A15 cores at 2.0GHz and four Cortex-A7 cores at 1.3GHz while the graphics are provided by a Mali-T628.

Acrosser’s compact “AND-DNV3N2” networking appliance runs Linux on a quad-core, 2.2GHz Atom C3558 and offers a SATA-III bay, 2x mini-PCIe and USB 3.0 ports, and 6x GbE ports, two of which can be outfitted as fiber SFP ports.

Acrosser, which says it is now an Intel IoT Solutions Alliance partner, announced a desktop network appliance available with 6x copper Gigabit Ethernet ports or 4x GbE and 2x fiber-optic SFP ports. Like Advantech’s 6x port FWA-1012VC appliance, the AND-DNV3N2 Micro Box Networking Appliance runs on a quad-core, 2.2GHz Atom C3558 “Denverton” server SoC. (The Advantech model also sells an 8-port variant with an octa-core C3758.)

• Director v1.6.0 is available

  Icinga Director v1.6.0 has been released with Multi-Instance Support, Configuration Baskets and improved Health Checks. We’re excited to announce new features that will help you to work more efficiently.

• Fedora Looks To Build Firefox With Clang For Better Performance & Compilation Speed

  Following the move by upstream Mozilla in switching their Linux builds of Firefox from being compiled by GCC to LLVM Clang, Fedora is planning the same transition of compilers in the name of compilation speed and resulting performance.

  FESCo Ticket 2020 laid out the case, "Mozilla upstream switches from gcc to clang and we're going to follow upstream here due to clang performance, maintenance costs and compilation speed. Tom Stellard (clang maintainer) has asked me to file this ticket to comply with Fedora processes."

• Work in progress: PHP stack for EL-8

• Sandwich-style SBC offers four 10GbE SFP+ ports

  SolidRun’s “ClearFog CX 8K” SBC is built around a “CEx7 A8040” COM Express Type 7 module that runs Linux on a quad -A72 Armada A8040. Features include 4x 10GbE SFP+ ports and mini-PCIe, M.2, and SATA expansion.

  In August, SolidRun updated its ClearFog line of Linux-driven router boards with a high-end ClearFog GT 8K SBC with the same 2GHz, quad-core, Cortex-A72 Marvell Armada A8040 SoC found on its MacchiatoBIN Double Shot Mini-ITX board. Now, the company has returned to the headless (no graphics) Armada A8040 with the ClearFog CX 8K.

  [..]

  It’s rare to see an Arm-based Type 7 module.

• Watch Out: Clicking “Check for Updates” Still Installs Unstable Updates on Windows 10

  Microsoft hasn’t learned its lesson. If you click the “Check for Updates” button in the Settings app, Microsoft still considers you a “seeker” and will give you “preview” updates that haven’t gone through the normal testing process.

  This problem came to everyone’s attention with the release of the October 2018 Update. It was pulled for deleting people’s files, but anyone who clicked “Check for Updates” in the first few days effectively signed up as a tester and got the buggy update. The “Check for Updates” button apparently means “Please install potentially updates that haven’t gone through a normal testing process.”

• DAV1D v0.1 AV1 Video Decoder Released

  Out today is DAV1D as the first official (v0.1) release of this leading open-source AV1 video decoder.

  This release was decided since its quality is good enough for use, covers all AV1 specs and features, and is quite fast on desktop class hardware and improving for mobile SoCs.

• PikcioChain plans for open-source MainNet in roadmap update

  France-based PikcioChain, a platform designed to handle and monetize personal data, has announced changes to its development roadmap as it looks towards the launch of its standalone MainNet and block explorer in the first quarter of 2019.

• New Blockstream Bitcoin Block Explorer Announces The Release Of Its Open Source Code Esplora

  Blockstream has just announced a release of Esplora, its open source software. This is the software that keeps the website and network running. This new release follows on the heels of its block explorer that was released in November to the public.

  The company released the block explorer, and after making sure it was successful, released the code behind that block explorer. This way, developers can easily create their block explorers, build add-ons and extensions as well as contribute to Blockstream.info.

• Will Concerns Break Open Source Containers?

  Open source containers, which isolate applications from the host system, appear to be gaining traction with IT professionals in the U.S. defense community. But for all their benefits, security remains a notable Achilles’ heel for a couple of reasons.
  First, containers are still fairly nascent, and many administrators are not yet completely familiar with their capabilities. It’s difficult to secure something you don’t completely understand. Second, containers are designed in a way that hampers visibility. This lack of visibility can make securing containers extremely taxing.

• Huawei, RoboSense join group pushing open-source autonomous driving technology

  Telecommunications equipment giant Huawei Technologies, its semiconductor subsidiary HiSilicon and RoboSense, a maker of lidar sensors used in driverless cars, have become the first Chinese companies to help establish an international non-profit group that supports open-source autonomous driving projects.

  The three firms are among the more than 20 founding members of the Autoware Foundation, which aims to promote collaboration between corporate and academic research efforts in autonomous driving technology, according to a statement from the group on Monday.

  The foundation is an outgrowth of Autoware.AI, an open-source autonomous driving platform that was started by Nagoya University associate professor Shinpei Kato in 2015.

• 40 top Linux and open source conferences in 2019

  Every year Opensource.com editors, writers, and readers attend open source-related conference and events hosted around the world. As we started planning our 2019 schedules, we rounded up a few top picks for the year.

  Which conferences do you plan to attend in 2019? If you don't see your conference on this list, be sure to tell us about it in the comments and add it to our community conference calendar. (And for more events to attend, check out The Enterprisers Project list of business leadership conferences worth exploring in 2019.)

• Adding graphics to the Windows System for Linux [Ed: CBS is still employing loads of Microsoft boosters like Simon Bisson, to whom "Linux" is just something for Microsoft to swallow]/

• Kong launches its fully managed API platform [Ed: Typical openwashing of APIs, even using the term "open source" where it clearly does not belong]g

• How Shared, Open Data Can Help Us Better Overcome Disasters

  WHEN A MASSIVE earthquake and tsunami hit the eastern coast of Japan on March 11, 2011, the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant failed, leaking radioactive material into the atmosphere and water. People around the country as well as others with family and friends in Japan were, understandably, concerned about radiation levels—but there was no easy way for them to get that information. I was part of a small group of volunteers who came together to start a nonprofit organization, Safecast, to design, build, and deploy Geiger counters and a website that would eventually make more than 100 million measurements of radiation levels available to the public.

  We started in Japan, of course, but eventually people around the world joined the movement, creating an open global data set. The key to success was the mobile, easy to operate, high-quality but lower-cost kit that the Safecast team developed, which people could buy and build to collect data that they might then share on the Safecast website.

• Security updates for Tuesday

• Ransomware still dominates the global threat landscape

   

  Ransomware attacks continues as the main world’s main security threat and the most profitable form of malware, but a new global report indicates that despite “copious” numbers of infections daily there’s emerging signs the threat is no longer growing.  

• Someone messed with Linux.org's DNS to deface the website's homepage [Ed: That's not "deface"' but more like redirect and it's not the site's DNS system but something upstream, another company that's at fault]

  SO IMAGINE YOU REALLY LOVE OPEN SOURCE; you've poured yourself a glass of claret from a wine box and have settled into a night of perusing Linux.org. You feel a tingle of excitement as you type in the URL - you're old skool - but that sours to despair as you see a defaced website greet your eyes.

  Yep, it looks like someone managed to get into the Linux.org website's domain name service (DNS) settings and point the domain to another server that served up a defaced webpage, which depending on when you may have accessed it, greeted visitors with racial slurs, an obscene picture and a protest against the revised Linux kernel developer code of conduct.

• Tails 3.11 is out

• [Tor] Transparency, Openness, and Our 2016 and 2017 Financials

  After completing a standard audit for 2016, our 2016 federal tax filings and audit, along with our 2017 federal tax filings, are available. We publish all of our related tax documents because we believe in transparency.

• The Year 2018 in Open Hardware

  2018 saw several open hardware projects reach fruition. Where the open hardware movement goes from here, remains to be seen.

  2018 was not “The Year of Open Hardware,” any more than it was the fabled “Year of the Linux Desktop.” All the same, 2018 was a year in which open hardware projects started to move from fundraising and project development to product releases. Many of these open products were traditional hardware, but 2018 also saw the release of innovative tech in the form of new and useful gadgets.

  In the background, open hardware hangs on to traditional niches. These niches occur at the intersection of altruism, hobbyists, academia, and the market, to say nothing of crowdfunding and the relative affordability of 3D printing. A prime example of this intersection is the development of prosthetics. Much of the modern work in open hardware began almost a decade ago with the Yale OpenHand project. At the same time, sites like Hackaday.io offer kits and specifications for hobbyists, while the e-NABLE site has become a place for exchanging ideas for everyone from tinkerers to working professionals in the field. As a result, open hardware technology in the field of prosthetics has grown to rival traditional manufacturers in a handful of years.

  This niche is a natural one for open hardware not only because of the freely available resources, but for simple economics. Traditionally manufactured prosthetic hands begin at about $30,000, far beyond the budgets of many potential customers. By contrast, an open hardware-based company like the UK based Open Bionics can design a cosmetically-pleasing hand for $200, which is still a large sum in impoverished areas, but far more obtainable. A non-profit called Social Hardware estimates that a need for prosthetic hands in India alone numbers 26,000 and hopes to help meet the demand by offering a development kit on which enthusiasts can learn and later donate their results to those who need them.

• This MIT Developed 3D Printer Is 10 Times Faster Than Modern 3D Printers

  3D printers have become more and more useful in the mass production of complex products that are cheaper and stronger. However, the only issue with 3D printing is its slow speed. These desktop 3D printers can print only one product at a time and only one thin layer at a making.

• Accelerating 3-D printing

  Imagine a world in which objects could be fabricated in minutes and customized to the task at hand. An inventor with an idea for a new product could develop a prototype for testing while on a coffee break. A company could mass-produce parts and products, even complex ones, without being tied down to part-specific tooling and machines that can’t be moved. A surgeon could get a bespoke replacement knee for a patient without leaving the operating theater. And a repair person could identify a faulty part and fabricate a new one on site — no need to go to a warehouse to get something out of inventory.

• FreeBSD 12.0-RELEASE Announcement

  The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team is pleased to announce the availability of FreeBSD 12.0-RELEASE. This is the first release of the stable/12 branch.

• FreeNAS® 11.2 Release Brings New Web Interface, Virtualization, and Security Features To The World’s Number One Software-Defined Storage

• DNSSEC enabled in default unbound(8) configuration

• The Linux Direct Rendering Manger Subsystem Poised To Have A Second Maintainer

  For hopefully helping out with code reviews and getting code staged in a timely manner before being upstreamed to the mainline Linux kernel, Daniel Vetter of the Intel Open-Source Technology Center is set to become a co-maintainer. 

  Daniel Vetter who has been with Intel OTC for a number of years working on their Linux graphics driver has proposed becoming a DRM co-maintainer, "MAINTAINERS: Daniel for drm co-maintainer...lkml and Linus gained a CoC, and it's serious this time. Which means my [number one] reason for declining to officially step up as drm maintainer is gone, and I didn't find any new good excuse."

• Discovering the pathlib module

  The Python Standard Library is like a gold mine, and the pathlib module is really a gem.

• QtCreator CMake for Android plugin

  It’s about QtCreator CMake for Android! I know it’s a strange coincidence between this article and The Qt Company’s decision to ditch QBS and use CMake for Qt 6, but I swear I started to work on this project *before* they announced it ! This plugin enables painless experience when you want to create Android apps using Qt, CMake and QtCreator. It’s almost as easy as Android Qmake QtCreator plugin! The user will build, run & debug Qt on Android Apps as easy as it does with Qmake.

• Testing Your Code with Python's pytest, Part II

• Top Tips For Aspiring Web Developers

  As we’re a portal geared towards open-source development, we’re naturally going to bang the drum about the benefits of getting involved in open-source projects. There are so many fantastic open-source projects that are still going strong today – WordPress, Android and even Ubuntu/Linux to name but a few. Open source projects will give you direct hands-on experience, allowing you to build your own portfolio of work and network with other like-minded developers too.

• Announcing Rust 1.31 and Rust 2018

  The Rust team is happy to announce a new version of Rust, 1.31.0, and "Rust 2018" as well. Rust is a programming language that empowers everyone to build reliable and efficient software.

• A call for Rust 2019 Roadmap blog posts

  It's almost 2019! As such, the Rust team needs to create a roadmap for Rust's development next year.

• Processing CloudEvents with Eclipse Vert.x

  Our connected world is full of events that are triggered or received by different software services. One of the big issues is that event publishers tend to describe events differently and in ways that are mostly incompatible with each other.

  To address this, the Serverless Working Group from the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) recently announced version 0.2 of the CloudEvents specification. The specification aims to describe event data in a common, standardized way. To some degree, a CloudEvent is an abstract envelope with some specified attributes that describe a concrete event and its data.

• HTC Exodus: Open Source Brave to be Blockchain phone’s default web browser

  HTC’s latest release HTC Exodus 1 is set to introduce the free and open source blockchain-backed Brave as its default browser.

  In a tweet, the CEO & Co-Founder of Brave and Basic Attention Token (BAT) Brendan Eich, shared the development. Brendan said, “We are very happy to have @Brave as default browser & to be working with HTC on their Exodus phone”.

• Mozilla Firefox 64 Now Available for Download on Windows, Linux, and macOS

  Mozilla has just released Firefox 64 stable for users on Windows, Linux, and macOS, with the Android version likely to be updated in the coming hours.
  While checking for updates using the built-in update engine may not offer you Firefox version 64, you can download the browser using the links below, as Mozilla has just updated its servers with the new builds.

  Firefox 64 introduces a series of changes that were previously tested as part of the beta versions, including recommended extensions. This feature is supposed to help improve the experience with the browser by providing suggestions on services that are relevant to your activity.

• Microsoft vs the web

  I have been saying for a few years now that Chrome is the new IE, and the Google is the new Microsoft (Microsoft being the new IBM). This statement have been somewhat tongue in cheek, but I have always been serious about it not being a joke: history is repeating. I could got at length on all the reasons why I believe this to be true, but I’ll just talk about one new development.

  Last week, Microsoft announced that they had decided to abandon EdgeHTML, their web browser engine, and move to be using Google’s Chromium as the heart of the web browser offering, Edge. [1] Whether it will be just Blink and V8 (Web rendering and JS engine respectively) or also parts of Chromium is something unclear.

• What is Chromium and why is Microsoft using it for Edge?

  Chromium is very similar. You can install a standalone application for Windows, macOS and any flavor of Linux named Chromium that's a complete web browser complete with synchronization through Google's could services. But Chromium is also the name of the open-source code project used to make Chromium, as well as the Chrome web browser, Chrome OS, Amazon Silk, and the Android Chrome web-view component companies like Twitter can use to build a browser into an application.

• How Microsoft Is About to Make Google Chrome Even Better

• Red Hat sets date for stockholders to vote on IBM merger

  Open source solutions provider Red Hat has set a special meeting on 16 January for stockholders to consider and vote on IBM's proposed acquisition of the company.

  On 28 October, IBM and Red hat announced an agreement and plan of merger which would see IBM acquire Red Hat for $190.00 per share in an all-cash transaction.

  "The board of directors of Red Hat recommends that stockholders vote in favour of the merger with IBM," the company said in a statement on 11 December.

• IBM exec: Why buying Red Hat is better than partnership

• Linux Foundation's ONAP 'Casablanca' Enables 5G Management

  Today’s topics include the Linux Foundation adding new features to ONAP Casablanca for 5G enablement, and Censys raising seed money to expand internet scanning for threat hunting.

  The Linux Foundation's LF Networking project group last week took the next step in delivering an open-source platform to enable telecom providers to deploy next-generation network services.

• The Joint Development Foundation Joins the Linux Foundation Family to Drive Adoption of Open Source and Standards

  The Linux Foundation and the Joint Development Foundation today announced an agreement to bring the Joint Development Foundation into the Linux Foundation family to make it easier to collaborate through both open source and standards development. The Joint Development Foundation is a nonprofit that provides a “standards organization in a box” to enable groups to quickly establish projects. With today’s news, the Linux Foundation and the Joint Development Foundation plan to provide greater capabilities for communities to engage in open source and standards development to speed industry adoption.

  “Linux Foundation communities have been engaged in developing open standards and specifications around Linux since day one and more recently with newer efforts such as OpenChain and the Open Container Initiative to collectively solve technical challenges,” said Jim Zemlin, Executive Director of the Linux Foundation. “Leveraging the capabilities of the Joint Development Foundation will enable us to provide open source projects with another path to standardization, driving greater industry adoption of standards and specifications to speed adoption.”

• How CNCF Is Growing the Cloud Landscape at KubeCon

  Thousands of developers, vendors and end users alike are descending on Seattle from Dec. 11-13 for the KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America event. They are all here to learn and talk about the growing cloud native landscape, anchored by the Kubernetes container orchestration system.

  Among those at KubeCon is Chris Aniszczyk, Chief Operating Officer of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF). In a video interview with eWEEK, Aniszczyk provides insight into the KubeCon event as well as highlighting the current and future direction of the CNCF, which now hosts 31 different open-source efforts.

  [...]

  Aniszczyk is also particularly enthusiastic about the Envoy project, which was created by ride-sharing company Lyft and officially joined the CNCF in September 2017. Envoy is a service mesh reverse proxy technology that is used to help scale micro-services data traffic. Among the organizations that are now using Envoy are Square, Stripe, Amazon and Google.

• Connecting To A Proxy Server - Part 2

• How To Benchmark Linux Commands And Programs From Commandline

• How to Add the TrashCan to Ubuntu Activities Panel/Dock

• How to Install PageKit CMS on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

• How to install Nvidia driver on CentOS 7 Linux

• How to Learn Kubernetes with Minikube

  Containers have become the way everyone deploys applications. And Kubernetes has become the favorite container orchestration tool.

  As such, it behooves anyone working with containers or the cloud—which is pretty much everyone in enterprise IT—to improve their Kubernetes skills. That’s both to benefit your company and your own career prospects.

  Unfortunately, setting up Kubernetes on a cloud is difficult. You can spend more time getting it to work than learning how to use it.

• Linux type Command Tutorial for Beginners (with Examples)

• Adobe Customer Care: There Hasn't Been Enough Demand For Linux

  Besides the lack of games, one of the other pressing reasons why some desktop/workstation users haven't migrated full-time to Linux has been over the lack of Adobe's Creative Suite working natively on Linux (and the Wine-based options often only working well for dated versions of Adobe's software). But if you hope to see Adobe Linux software, their customer care recommends you vote.

• Vote for Linux Support on Adobe, Nextcloud 15 Now Available, LF Deep Learning Foundation Introduces Interactive Deep Learning Landscape, Canonical Announces Full Enterprise Support for Kubernetes 1.13 on Ubuntu and Icinga Director 1.6 Released

  Adobe customer care says there hasn't been enough demand for Linux, Phoronix reports. But, if you're interested in Linux support on Adobe Premiere CC, you can "upvote that feature request" via the Adobe User Survey

• Want Adobe's Premiere Pro Ported To Linux? Here's What To Do

  Now, my informal poll isn't anything resembling definitive proof that there's pent-up demand for Premiere (and likely the entire Creative Cloud suite) on Linux. But it's a common refrain, and has been for years. In my daily conversations with people across social media, I repeatedly hear it's the one thing preventing them from ditching Windows 10 and making the jump.

  Fortunately, you now have a chance to raise your collective voice and give Adobe some direct feedback.

  Here's the link to a User Survey on Adobe's feedback forum where you can cast your vote in support of a native Linux version of Premiere Pro. You can also add a comment if desired.

• Lenovo Z5s Teased to Sport Qualcomm Snapdragon 678 SoC, Run Android Pie

• Huawei Nova 3 Receiving EMUI 9.0 Android Pie, Few Other Nova Series Phones in Line

• Xiaomi begins rolling out Android 9 Pie stable to the Mi A1, more or less

• Second Samsung Galaxy Note 9 Android Pie beta update rolling out

• Nokia 8 gets Android Pie beta, complete with the new gesture navigation

• OnePlus 6T vs. OnePlus 6T McLaren Edition: Which should you buy?

• These 22 Android apps are secret battery life killers and should be avoided

• Android Trojan steals money from PayPal accounts even with 2FA on

One of the most exciting developments in the open-source Intel driver space this year was the Iris Gallium3D driver taking shape as what's destined to eventually succeed their "classic" i965 Mesa driver. With Iris Gallium3D maturing, here's a look at how the performance currently stacks up to their mature OpenGL driver.

The Intel Iris Gallium3D driver is designed for Skylake (potentially Broadwell too) support and newer generations while being a forward-looking driver and utilizes their mature NIR compiler support. Iris holds much more performance potential than their classic Mesa driver albeit the developers haven't really taken to performance optimizations yet but rather getting the driver up and running, eliminating test suite failures, and getting to the point of feature parity with the i965 driver.

• Epic Store influences developers to pull Steam releases

  Some game developers are pulling their upcoming releases from the Steam page entirely, or choosing to make their titles a timed exclusive with the Epic Games Store.

• DiRT 4 Coming to macOS and Linux in 2019

  Feral Interactive today announced that DiRT 4, the acclaimed off-road and rally racing game, will be released on macOS and Linux in 2019. Originally developed and published by Codemasters for PC and consoles, DiRT 4 is the latest of the studio's world-renowned racing games to be brought to macOS and Linux by Feral, following the success of DiRT Rally, GRID Autosport, and F1 2017.

• Doom’s next expansion pack, made by John Romero, will be free—or cost up to $166

  John Romero—co-creator of the classic and influential 1990s first-person shooter Doom—has announced that he will release 18 new levels for the game for its 25th anniversary next year.

• HEARTBEAT, a monster-filled RPG looks really sweet and it's getting a Linux version

  While it may not arrive for Linux at release, the developer of the sweet looking RPG HEARTBEAT has confirmed their intention to do a Linux build.

  Speaking on both itch.io and Steam, they seem rather positive about putting out a Linux version of their rather interesting adventure.

• Jon Shafer's At the Gates to finally released next month, with Linux support

  After nearly seven years of development, the strategy game Jon Shafer's At the Gates is going to release next month with Linux support. For those who don't recognise the name, Shafer is the designer behind Civilization V.

  A game I completely lost track of, after previously highlighting it back in 2013. The developer announced on Twitter today, that the release is finally happening on January 23rd, 2019. After sending a quick message, the developer confirmed to us Linux will see support at release.

• Rocket League updated with progression tweaks and a second Rocket Pass

  Rocket League, the insanely addictive rocket-powered sports game from Psyonix, Inc. has a few important tweaks released along with the second Rocket Pass.

  Firstly, let's quickly go over the progression changes. They're not overly dramatic, but there's some nice differences. From now, every time you touch the ball you will get two points (limited to one per second), the win bonus was doubled from 50 to 100, the Weekly Win Bonus was expanded from two to three games along with a max per week going up from 14 to 21 wins. On top of that, placement matches now count towards your Bronze Season Reward Level which is a nice tweak.

  Additionally, they've finally added some leaderboards for the new Ranked modes and there's also plenty of bug fixes that have come in this month.

• The Odd Realm to enter Early Access on Steam with Linux support in January

  The Odd Realm, the simulation game where you will lead a group of settlers to a new home is coming to Steam next month. Get your calendar out, mark down January 11th, 2019 for when it will be up and ready for purchase on Steam.

  We recently highlighted this one, so it might sound familiar. However, we didn't know when it would be coming to Steam.

• The developer of the retro FPS 'DUSK' has confirmed a Linux build is on the way

  While we knew DUSK would be getting a Linux version, it's always good to see confirmation that's up to date and positive.

  When asked this month on Steam, if it was coming to Linux the developer said "Yep! Linux / Mac builds are on the way! STAY TUNED" which is a rather clear-cut reply about it.

• Battle Royale Tycoon has you designing and building arenas to watch the AI fight

  Now available with Linux support in Early Access, Battle Royale Tycoon flips the hype train upside down and has you building the arena rather than fighting in it.

  I must admit, I'm surprised. I was genuinely expecting this to see a wave of negative reviews. So far though, it seems players actually like it. I'm happy to see that, because it's actually quite an interesting idea for a building/tycoon style game. It's styled more like a theme park building game, with you setting up various battle arenas.

• Latest Firefox Release Available Today

  It’s the season for spending time with family and friends over a nice meal and exchanging gifts. Whether it’s a monogrammed bag or a nicely curated 2019 calendar of family photos, it’s the practical gifts that get the most use.

• Version 64.0, first offered to Release channel users on December 11, 2018

• Latest Firefox Release Available Today

  It’s the season for spending time with family and friends over a nice meal and exchanging gifts. Whether it’s a monogrammed bag or a nicely curated 2019 calendar of family photos, it’s the practical gifts that get the most use.

  For Firefox, we’re always looking for ways to simplify and personalize your online experience. For today’s version of Firefox for desktop, we have a couple new features that do just that.

• Firefox 64.0 Released with Enhanced Tab Management

  Mozilla Firefox announced new stable 64.0 release a few hours ago with new features and performance improvements.

• 5 things you won't learn from The Open Organization Leaders Manual

  Today the open organization community—a global group of writers, consultants, theorists, managers, and other organizational leaders dedicated to helping others understand how open principles can transform organizational culture and design—unveiled the second edition of The Open Organization Leaders Manual. Billed as "a handbook for building innovative and engaged teams," the book is available now as a Creative Commons-licensed eBook and a paperback.

• Companies behind on digital transformation get ahead with open leaders

  One source of that disruption is digitization. Digitization is reshaping the way we lead, manage, and work. Even in the scope of the last decade, we've seen rapid adjustments to how we live, connect, and receive services. While we've been discussing ad nauseum how (or whether) we should be redefining organizational cultures and business models, the clock has been ticking, and the pace of digitization has not been slowing. In his book The Digital Matrix: New Rules for Business Transformation Through Technology, author Venkat Venkatraman argues that, by 2025, differences between digital and non-digital functions, processes, and business models will no longer exist.

• VirtIO-FS: A Proposed Better Approach For Sharing Folders/Files With Guest VMs

  Red Hat developers have proposed a new VirtIO-FS component to provide better support for shared folders/files between the host and guest virtual machines. 

  VirtIO-FS was developed out of the need to share folders/files with guest VMs in a fast, consistent, and secure manner. They designed VirtIO-FS for Kata containers but coud be used with other VMs too. The closest existing project to fulfilling their needs was Virtio-9p, but there were performance issues and other factors leading them to designing this new solution.

• Peter Hutterer: Understanding HID report descriptors

  This time we're digging into HID - Human Interface Devices and more specifically the protocol your mouse, touchpad, joystick, keyboard, etc. use to talk to your computer.

  Remember the good old days where you had to install a custom driver for every input device? Remember when PS/2 (the protocol) had to be extended to accommodate for mouse wheels, and then again for five button mice. And you had to select the right protocol to make it work. Yeah, me neither, I tend to suppress those memories because the world is awful enough as it is.

  As users we generally like devices to work out of the box. Hardware manufacturers generally like to add bits and bobs because otherwise who would buy that new device when last year's device looks identical. This difference in needs can only be solved by one superhero: Committee-man, with the superpower to survive endless meetings and get RFCs approved.

  Many many moons ago, when USB itself was in its infancy, Committee man and his sidekick Caffeine boy got the USB consortium agree on a standard for input devices that is so self-descriptive that operating systems (Win95!) can write one driver that can handle this year's device, and next year's, and so on. No need to install extra drivers, your device will just work out of the box. And so HID was born. This may only an approximate summary of history.

  Originally HID was designed to work over USB. But just like Shrek the technology world is obsessed with layers so these days HID works over different transport layers. HID over USB is what your mouse uses, HID over i2c may be what your touchpad uses. HID works over Bluetooth and it's celebrity-diet version BLE. Somewhere, someone out there is very slowly moving a mouse pointer by sending HID over carrier pigeons just to prove a point. Because there's always that one guy.

  HID is incredibly simple in that the static description of the device can just be bytes burnt into the ROM like the Australian sun into unprepared English backpackers. And the event frames are often an identical series of bytes where every bit is filled in by the firmware according to the axis/buttons/etc.