• Android Q: Cheat sheet

• [India as well] Redmi Note 5 (Pro) Android Pie 9.0 stable update rolling out in China

• Realme 2 Pro Android Pie update rolling out with Chroma Boost and HAL3 support

• Google Pixel 4 Leaked Photo Shows All-New Android Phone Design

• Plex on Android now boasts new UI w/ picture-in-picture support

• Top 11 E-Commerce Android Mobile Apps

• Best Android Games — Dog — May 2019

• Three ways to backup Android game data to a PC without root

• 5G is key! Analysts predict big boost to Android and iPhone sales

• This fast wireless charger works with any iPhone or Android, and it’s only $7.95

• Samsung Galaxy Buds Review: Versatile Truly Wireless In-Ears For Android

DragonFlyBSD lead developer Matthew Dillon has been working on a big VM rework in the name of performance and other kernel improvements recently. Here is a look at how those DragonFlyBSD 5.5-DEVELOPMENT improvements are paying off compared to DragonFlyBSD 5.4 as well as FreeBSD 12 and five Linux distribution releases. With Dillon using an AMD Ryzen Threadripper system, we used that too for this round of BSD vs. Linux performance benchmarks.

The work by Dillon on the VM overhaul and other changes (including more HAMMER2 file-system work) will ultimately culminate with the DragonFlyBSD 5.6 release (well, unless he opts for DragonFlyBSD 6.0 or so). These are benchmarks of the latest DragonFlyBSD 5.5-DEVELOPMENT daily ISO as of this week benchmarked across DragonFlyBSD 5.4.3 stable, FreeBSD 12.0, Ubuntu 19.04, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.0, Debian 9.9, Debian Buster, and CentOS 7 1810 as a wide variety of reference points both from newer and older Linux distributions. (As for no Clear Linux reference point for a speedy reference point, it currently has a regression with AMD + Samsung NVMe SSD support on some hardware, including this box, prohibiting the drive from coming up due to a presumed power management issue that is still being resolved.)

MX Linux 18.3 is now available and ships with Linux kernel 4.19.37-2 and it's fully synced with the software repositories of the latest Debian GNU/Linux 9.9 "Stretch" operating system release, which means that it is fully patched against the recently disclosed Intel MDS (Microarchitectural Data Sampling) security vulnerabilities found in Intel microprocessors.

This release also includes an updated installer (mx-installer) that now lets users input system configuration selections during installation while the installer copies the system files to speed up the installation process. The UEFI boot installation was improved as well in MX Linux 18.3, which should now be compatible with more UEFI systems.

• Foliate is an Epic eBook Reader App for Linux Desktops

  Foliate is a new ebook reader app for Linux desktops whose streamlined, stylish GUI recently caught my eye.

  While I, personally, still find it easier to read ebooks on a dedicated e-reader device with an e-ink screen (like an Amazon Kindle) I do appreciate that there are features desktop ebook reader apps can offer that a dedicated e-reading device can not.

  Many of which you’ll find on offer in the ‘pages’ of Foliate, which pitches itself as a “simple and modern ebook viewer” for Linux desktops.

  Keen to learn more?

  Let’s dive in.

• LibreOffice monthly recap: May 2019

  We started with a new Month of LibreOffice. These are twice-yearly campaigns where we encourage people to join our community and help to improve the software. Everyone who contributes can claim a cool sticker pack at the end – and this year, we have some exclusive glass mugs for a randomly selected bunch of winners too!

• Lack of leadership in open source results in source-available licenses

  Don’t get me wrong — there will still be open source, lots and lots of it. But authors of open-source infrastructure software will put their interesting features in their “enterprise” versions if we as an industry cannot solve the Amazon problem.

  Unfortunately, the dark cloud on the horizon I wrote about back in November has drifted closer. Amazon has exhibited three particularly offensive and aggressive behaviors toward open source: [...]

• Tantek Çelik: The @W3C Needs You: Please Vote For Change In The @W3CAB Election

  Please Vote in the 2019 W3C Advisory Board Election (W3C Member-only link, only Advisory Committee members can vote).

  My fellow Advisory Board (AB) candidates and additional members of the W3C Community have shared their thoughts on the AB election, some on their blogs, and some on W3C Member only list(s).

  It is very important that you explicitly rank candidates according to what is most important to you due to the way the current W3C STV mechanism is interpreted and implemented by the W3C Team. Past STV elections have shown that a Ranked 1 vote is crucial to candidates, Ranked 2 may have some impact, and the likelihood of effect drops off precipitously from there (though you should still rank at least a few more, ideally all candidates, just in case).

• Huawei can now add the IEEE to the growing list of companies banning it

  "IEEE complies with US government regulations which restrict the ability of the listed Huawei companies and their employees to participate in certain activities that are not generally open to the public. This includes certain aspects of the publication peer review and editorial process," the organisation said.

• Guest Post: Export Restrictions, Membership Organizations and Huawei

  New U.S. sanctions against Huawei in the escalating U.S. – China trade war have thrown another wrench into the gears of global commerce. But how do these sanctions affect standards organizations and open source development? The high level answer is that the impact will be significant for most standards organizations, and negligible for most open source projects. The major differentiator will be the degree of transparency of the organization in question.

  The details, and the answer for any given organization, however are much more complicated, and the political landscape remains dynamic and subject to change.

• Microsoft’s Universal Windows Platform app dream is dead and buried

  Microsoft had a dream with Windows 8 that involved universal Windows apps that would span across phones, tablets, PCs, and even Xbox consoles. The plan was that app developers could write a single app for all of these devices, and it would magically span across them all. This dream really started to fall apart after Windows Phone failed, but it’s well and truly over now.

  Microsoft has spent years pushing developers to create special apps for the company’s Universal Windows Platform (UWP), and today, it’s putting the final nail in the UWP coffin. Microsoft is finally allowing game developers to bring full native Win32 games to the Microsoft Store, meaning the many games that developers publish on popular stores like Steam don’t have to be rebuilt for UWP.

  “We recognize that Win32 is the app format that game developers love to use and gamers love to play, so we are excited to share that we will be enabling full support for native Win32 games to the Microsoft Store on Windows,” explains Microsoft’s gaming chief Phil Spencer. “This will unlock more options for developers and gamers alike, allowing for the customization and control they’ve come to expect from the open Windows gaming ecosystem.”

• Microsoft Wanted To Create History With UWP; Now It’s Turning Back

• Cepsa Powers New Digital Customer Experiences with Red Hat-based Container Platform

• Alibaba Cloud Launches 10+ New Products And Features @ APAC Summit

  Alibaba Cloud, the data intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group, is focused on providing the Asia Pacific region with a cloud service to drive a highly integrated technology ecosystem. In line with its goal, Alibaba Cloud today launched more than 10 new products and features at the Alibaba Cloud APAC Summit. The company also announced a new accelerator program connecting technology partners with the Alibaba ecosystem.

• Contributing to Open Source with Docker, Inc

  The rumors have finally been confirmed. Docker, Inc. is opening their new R&D center in Sofia. At an event last night, they stated their intentions to do a fair amount of product development in Sofia as well as contribute to the local society/community too (if I got this correctly). This is very good news for the local eco-system so congrats for that from my side!

  This blog post outlines my impressions from the event and a few related more general thoughts.