Michael Mozrek gave a presentation recently about his work as the project lead on the DragonBox Pyra, the slated replacement to the Open Pandora handheld Linux game system.

The history of Linux in gaming is quite poor, but this year so many changes happened in this area that we might be able to review top commercial video games very soon. By commercial I mean those created by most significant gaming companies like Ubisoft or Bethesda, and not indie video games. Even though real gaming in Linux based operating systems got a boost this year, emulators were everywhere to be found, for most known video game consoles.

From time to time there is the discussion of which workflow is better to develop with git, etc.

I'm not going to try to convince anyone on which workflow to use, i'm just going to explain what i do and explain why i think it's useful (and even more in the multi-developer KDE environment).

When I'm enjoying the sun/wind/rain on the balcony, I tend to use my XO-1.75 for duties where most people would use a tablet. Reading/writing emails, browsing the internet, bug triaging or writing small fixes, release notes and all can be done fine on a small screen. My preference goes definitely towards physical keyboards, and less to their onscreen variants. Even when the keyboard is small, I like the typing on it much more than using a touchscreen for it. Of course, the space saving of not needing to display a keyboard helps too. But well, that aside..

A new beta update to Duke Nukem 3D: Megaton Edition is now out.

The Duke Nukem 3D: Megaton Edition game is a modest feature and graphics re-make of the Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition, Duke It Out In D.C., Duke Caribbean: Life's a Beach, and Duke: Nuclear Winter titles. The Windows version has been out for a while on Steam while the Linux version is still evolving.

Being done as part of a Google Summer of Code project this year is porting KDE's Plasma Active to their newer technology stack.

Plasma Active is the user interface targeting all types of devices from tablets to smart TVs and in-vehicle infotainment systems. Antonis Tsiapaliokas, a student developer and open-source/KDE fan, has been working on porting as much of Plasma Active as he can over the summer to using the newest stack: the Qt5 tool-kit with KDE Frameworks 5.

This tenth point update is actually a very important one because it’s the last one in the life of this branch of the Debian distribution, which was released back in February 2011. The developers have announced that no more major updates will be made for Debian 6.x “Squeeze, but there are also some good news.

Only a month ago, the Debian devs also said that Debian will actually become an LTS release (long term support) and that the operating system will continue to receive security updates (different from the one released today) until February 2016. This would effectively mean that Debian 6.x will feature six years of support and that is more that even more that Canonical provides for Ubuntu.

All primary and secondary public schools in the Swiss Canton of Geneva are switching to using Ubuntu GNU/Linux for the PCs used by teachers and students. The switch has been completed by all of the 170 primary public schools, and the migration of the canton's 20 secondary schools is planned for the next school year. Ubuntu GNU/Linux offers powerful services to the teachers, is easier to maintain, faster, safer and more stable than the decade-old proprietary operating system it is replacing, the canton's school IT department concludes, based on several four-year long pilots.

The official description of BitKey says that it is a “self-contained read-only CD/USB stick with everything you need to perform highly secure air-gapped Bitcoin transactions.”

It is a side project of the developers of TurnKey Linux, a Debian-based distribution that provides a set of ready-to-use server virtual appliances.

“This is the FINAL reminder to make sure you have retrieved all your data from Ubuntu One filesync, as we will be deleting all the content permanently on 31st July 2014. After that date, we will no longer be able to retrieve any of your files.”

Geary, a lightweight email program designed around conversations and built for the GNOME desktop by the Yorba software group, is now at version 0.7.0.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has announced the release of the alpha version of an Open Wireless Router firmware. It was officially announced at the HOPE X (Hackers on Planet Earth) conference in New York City.

Local smartphone makers Micromax, Karbonn, Lava and Intex have eaten into market shares of multinationals Nokia and BlackBerry, though South Korea’s Samsung still leads the market. Now the four are eyeing Russia.

Mobile operating systems are kind of like comic book heros or horror movie villains -- just when you think they're gone for good, they come back with a new bag of tricks. Thus is the case of Sailfish OS, a challenger that's on the verge of launching a high volume product to the burgeoning Indian market.

• Longtime Mono Booster Joins Microsoft-linked Xamarin
• Linux Foundation Welcomes Patent Aggressor Red Bend Software
• Matt Levy From Patent Progress (and CCIA) Does Not Really Want Patent Progress
• Attacking FOSS by Ignoring/Overlooking Issues With Proprietary Software
• Links 19/7/2014: CRUX 3.1 is Out, CyanogenMod Competes With Google Now

Ironically, in the world of mobile, there’s more than just one One. HTC, for one, has several Ones, and not forgetting the OnePlus One. One? One.

Room for One more? How about Android One? Launched at this year's Google I/O, it’s aimed squarely at emerging markets, and we’re hearing that the first handset might land as early as October.

While Android Silver will see Google working closely with its best mates at the high end of the spectrum, the aim of Android One is to make a decent phone that’s truly affordable for every Tom, Dick, Harry, Sanjay, Raj and Mukul across the world.

Tor is an anonymizing network that’s designed to protect you by “bouncing your communications around a distributed network of relays run by volunteers all around the world: it prevents somebody watching your Internet connection from learning what sites you visit, and it prevents the sites you visit from learning your physical location.”

That’s cool, but does Tor really guarantee you what you think or assume it does? I can’t say for sure, but when facing a state-sponsored entity with time and resources on its side, you cannot be too careful. At least if pays to know what other people think about Tor, especially when what they have to say runs counter to what you know, or what you think you know.