Android Leftovers

• The Best Android Apps & Games of 2019

• 5 Essential Apps to Stay Safe on Android - Phandroid

• 10 Android highlights from 2019

• Here are 6 new things your next Android phone could do

• Google Stadia review: This could be big (Update: Three weeks later)

• Talk Android's Holiday Gift Guide (2019)

• Are cheap Android phones worth it?

• Sharpin is a DIY bartop pinball cabinet that runs on Android and won't break the bank

• Sony Xperia 1 Android 10 update may have improved the fingerprint scanner

• How to clear your Google search history on your Android phone or tablet

• DEAL ALERT: You Can Get Xiaomi Mi Box S Android TV Streaming Player For Just $29.99 (Normally $50), Plus $10 in VUDU Credit

• Black Desert Mobile Launches On Android, Servers Live In 2 Days

• If Android battery life improves in 2020, we can thank iPhone 11

• Carrier Services update brings RCS messaging to more Android phones

LTE-ready Linux dev board powered by i.MX8M Mini module

MYIR’s industrial-temp “MYC-C8MMX” module runs Linux on an up to 1.8GHz i.MX8M Mini Quad. It’s available as part of a “MYD-C8MMX” board that provides GbE, WiFi/BT, MIPI DSI/CSI, LVDS, M.2, and mini-PCIe with SIM slot. Like the MYC-JX8MX COM and MYD-JX8MX dev board announced in June, MYIR’s $79 and up MYC-C8MMX module and $169 and up MYD-C8MMX board expand upon an NXP i.MX8 SoC. This time, MYIR has tapped the i.MX8M Mini rather than the slower, but 4K-ready i.MX8M. Other similar, COM-and-carrier implementations of the Mini include Boardcon’s SOM-IMX8M-MINI with EM-IMX8M-MINI.

SATA HATs support up to four drives on Raspberry Pi 4 or Rock Pi 4

Radxa’s Dual ($25) and Quad ($35) SATA HATs work on the Raspberry Pi 4 or Rock Pi 4 at up to 400 MB/s via USB 3.0. There’s also a faster, 800 MB/s $49 “Penta SATA HAT” for the Rock Pi 4 that uses PCIe to support 5x drives. You can find a few SATA HATs for the Raspberry Pi 4 that support single SATA or mSATA connections, such as Geekworm’s $26 X825 or Renkforce’s $19 SATA Extension Board, but Radxa’s new line of SATA HATs for network attached storage (NAS) applications appear to be the first to support multiple SATA connections. Such a feat is possible on some other hacker boards such as FriendlyElec’s $25, quad-SATA 4X SATA HAT for the NanoPi M4, which like the Rock Pi 4 and similar, DP-enabled Rock Pi 4B, runs Linux on a PCIe-enabled Rockchip RK3399.

today's leftovers

• SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 Service Pack 5 is Generally Available

  As you know, SUSE Linux Enterprise service packs are released on a yearly cadence. Service Pack 5 is the next service pack since the release of Service Pack 4 in Dec 2018. In addition, Service Pack 5 is also the last service pack for SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 release. With the release of SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 Service Pack 5 on December 9th, general support for SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 Service Pack 4 will end on June 30th, 2020. Customers wishing to maintain support of their SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 Service Pack 4 installations after June 30, 2020 can continue support through the purchase of Long Term Service Pack Support. [...] If you are currently running SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 SP4, you can migrate to Service Pack 5 as part of your active subscription until June 30, 2020.

• Developing Leaderboard for GNOME Hackers

  After completing my Google Summer of Code assignment, I had an idea in my mind for a project where the hard-working people on GNOME, known as GNOME Hackers, could be appreciated based on the amount of work they do for the FLOSS community. In the quest for the same, I wrote a leaderboard web app, GNOME Hackers. It was an awesome experience and I utilized my weekends very well by learning many new things. I will give a brief of them below.

• Counting down the days using bash

  Need to know how many days there are before some important event? Let Linux bash and the date command help with that!

• How to Boost Your Programming Skills

  Anyone with an old computer that they don't use anymore should install Ubuntu on it in order to improve their programming skills. It's a free Linux-based operating system that can run on a wide range of hardware. Successfully using Ubuntu will require you to learn more about Python, which is considered one of the most simplified and beginner-friendly programming languages in use today. - Bryce Welker, The Big 4 Accounting Firms

• Canonical sponsors WSLConf at Microsoft HQ [Ed: Mark Shuttleworth donates money to Microsoft's attacks on GNU/Linux]

  Canonical is announcing today it will be a featured sponsor of WSLConf, the first conference dedicated to the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) platform. WSLConf is scheduled for March 10th-11th, 2020 and is being held on the campus of Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington. The conference brings together developers, start-up founders, academics, enterprise, community members, and teams from Microsoft and Canonical around Windows Subsystem for Linux. The conference will include two densely-packed days of presentations and workshops on the latest developments on the rapidly evolving platform.

• Mozilla Addons Blog: Secure your addons.mozilla.org account with two-factor authentication

  Accounts on addons.mozilla.org (AMO) are integrated with Firefox Accounts, which lets you manage multiple Mozilla services from one login. To prevent unauthorized people from accessing your account, even if they obtain your password, we strongly recommend that you enable two-factor authentication (2FA). 2FA adds an extra layer of security to your account by adding an additional step to the login process to prove you are who you say you are. When logging in with 2FA enabled, you will be asked to provide a verification code from an authentication application, in addition to your user name and password. This article on support.mozilla.org includes a list of supported authenticator applications. Starting in early 2020, extension developers will be required to have 2FA enabled on AMO. This is intended to help prevent malicious actors from taking control of legitimate add-ons and their users. 2FA will not be required for submissions that use AMO’s upload API. Before this requirement goes into effect, we’ll be working closely with the Firefox Accounts team to make sure the 2FA setup and login experience on AMO is as smooth as possible. Once this requirement goes into effect, developers will be prompted to enable 2FA when making changes to their add-ons.

• Embracing digital transformation with containerisation and Kubernetes

  While digital transformation is creating new business opportunities, it is also bringing a host of challenges and technological barriers with its wave of progress. With changes ongoing and always around the corner, organisations are having to re-evaluate how they can modernise their often-out-dated digital infrastructure in order to keep up. Is there any way to make the transition simpler? Enter Kubernetes. The word is taken from ancient Greek, where it translates as ‘helmsman’ or ‘pilot’. So, it makes sense that your IT business strategy can be guided, not through the Aegean, but through the waters of digital transformation towards stability and efficiency. What began life as Google’s original open source container-orchestration system, has now paved the way for a reliable precedent to automating, controlling and extending modern IT applications.

• Datacenters Are Hungry For Servers Again

  Server consumption is a pretty good proxy for how enterprises of all shapes and sizes feel about their particular business. And judging by the number of machines and the aggregate revenue they drove in the third quarter – despite all of the uncertainty in the world – they must be feeling pretty good.