• Whiskey Lake shows up on a Linux-friendly industrial mini-PC

  ASRock has unveiled a fanless, Linux-ready “iBox-8265U” mini-PC with Intel’s latest Whiskey Lake CPUs, up to 32GB DDR4, a SATA bay, 2x GbE, 4x USB, triple displays, and extended temp support.

  ASRock Industrial Computer’s 171.8 x 150 x 71.5mm iBox-8265U is the first 8th Gen Whiskey Lake U-series based mini-PC we’ve seen. Several Whiskey Lake based SBCs have broken cover, however, including Aaeon’s UP Xtreme. The FanlessTech story that alerted us to the product calls it a barebone mini-PC, suggesting that the OS is optional. The product page says it supports Linux 4.6 and Windows 10.

• Intel Core based thin Mini-ITX supports extended temperatures

  Avalue’s Linux-friendly “EMX-KBLU2P” is a thin Mini-ITX board with 6th or 7th Gen Core CPUs, triple displays, 2x GbE, 2x SATA, 2x M.2, 4x USB 3.0, serial and GPIO interfaces, and -20 to 70°C support.

  Avalue announced a thin Mini-ITX board for signage, PoS, kiosk, AiO PCs, and industrial applications. Like the company’s EMX-SKLUP thin Mini-ITX board, the new EMX-KBLU2P supports Intel’s 6th Gen Skylake Core and Celeron processors, and it can also load 7th Gen Kaby Lake models. Windows 10 and Linux are on tap — the Kaby Lake configurations require higher than Linux kernel 4.7.

• Open-source and modular WiFi phone is hacker-friendly

  Now running on Kickstarter is a campaign to commercialize a minimalist open-source and hacker-friendly Voice-over-IP phone, which owners could use as a versatile and well-packaged multi-tool for their projects.
  While today's smartphones have evolved into powerful computers, they are often too complex and tightly integrated to be opened-up by the majority of hackers. By design, they also tend to leak private data to third parties (through built-in apps, OS, and network operation). Ben Wilson, the electronic engineer behind California-based HackEDA which officially runs the WiPhone Kickstarter campaign, wants to help users regain control over their phone, a device they can easily take apart or incorporate into different projects, while controlling where the data goes.
  “It's sort of like the phone James Bond would carry if he was also a programmer” explains Wilson, noting that the firmware is open and the hardware is expandable so one could add a LoRA radio, a mega battery back, or cover the back of it with an LED array. While the WiPhone is more intended to be an Arduino-compatible hacking tool than a phone, it is self-contained and also works well as a backup phone to make free VoIP calls over any WiFi connection.

• Industrial 3D printing goes skateboarding

  Plastic pulled from the waste stream can find new use with the Gigabot X, an open source industrial 3D printer. A team shows how three Gigabot-printed sporting goods -- skateboard decks, kayak paddles and snowshoes -- can help burgeoning makerspaces and fab labs economically sustain their 3D printing centers.

• RepRap Recyclebot Turns Plastic into 3D Filament for $700

• Open Source Furniture: Download, Print And Build Online

• Furniture can Now Be Downloaded and Printed, Thanks to Opendesk

  It seems like anything can be done online nowadays, including getting your furniture! Now, this is not your typical online electronic catalog where you click on your choice of item and somebody comes over to deliver. No. This is something more innovative than that.

• Maryland students stand to revolutionize Alzheimer's diagnostics: BTN LiveBIG

  Conversely, Synapto uses an open source, 3D-printed portable electroencephalogram (EEG) headset and proprietary mathematical biomarker analyses to comb through a patient’s brainwaves. Their hope is that this will lead to quicker and cheaper diagnosing that can be done in a physician’s office.

The hardware in question was a PCE-174 luxmeter, which came with an uncooperative Windows application as standard. This simply wouldn’t do, so [ThePhil] set about developing a Linux version in Python. This was achieved through the aid of documentation, not of the PCE-174, but its sibling from another corporation – the Extech HD450. The two meters were similar enough that the Extech’s better documentation was able to fill in the gaps of [ThePhil]’s understanding.

More Linux on devices:

• Toughened up in-vehicle PC offers triple mini-PCIe slots

  DFI’s rugged “VC230-BT” in-vehicle computer is equipped with an Intel Bay Trail SoC with 2x GbE, 5x USB, and 3x serial ports plus 3x mini-PCIe slots for storage and wireless add-ons. DFI has launched a rugged embedded computer for in-vehicle and fleet management applications

• ZigBee hub builds on Raspberry Pi

  Dresden-Elektronik has launched two ZigBee home automation gateways: an RPi-based “Phoscon Gateway” and a “ConBee II” USB stick. The gateways run the company’s deCONZ Zigbee Gateway software paired with a new mobile app.

  Dresden-Elektronik announced the release of a ZigBee-enabled home automation hub based on a Raspberry Pi 3 SBC, as well as a second-gen USB dongle for enabling laptops and other Linux and Windows computers with a ZigBee gateway. The 151.22-Euro ($170) Phoscon Gateway and 33.57-Euro ($38) ConBee II USB dongle are compatible with “almost all known manufacturers of commercial and DIY Zigbee devices, such as Philips Hue, IKEA Tradfri, OSRAM Lightify, Xiaomi Aqara, Innr, XBee Series 2, Trust Zigbee, and Dresden Elektronik’s own FLS ballasts,” says the Dresden, Germany based company.

When I started my Slimbook & Kubuntu journey, I didn't know where it would end. And I still don't. But half a dozen reports later, I am much more confident into what kind of experience awaits me day in, day out. What I really value in software are two main qualities: stability and predictability, the kind of stuff one must have for their production setup. So far, this laptop and its blob of code are delivering nicely, reliably.

Another facet of this journey is its randomness. I typically have a very strict routine when it comes to distro reviews, but here, I'm letting the challenges surprise me. I am using the system, and if and when a use case occurs, I handle it. For better or worse. Well, you can definitely read all about that in the previous articles. Now, let's see what happened over the last handful of moonrises.