Gadgets
BrickPi Bookreader 2 interview
Submitted by Rianne Schestowitz on Wednesday 2nd of July 2014 08:20:13 PM Filed under


A robotic, mechanical reader of printed books that melds together the Raspberry Pi and Lego Mindstorms.
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Android Wear review: the everything inbox
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Monday 30th of June 2014 09:56:05 PM Filed under

It's not just email either, though it tends to take the brunt of everybody's anger. There are dozens of apps sending us hundreds of notifications; managing all that incoming information is a genuine hassle. Looking at the notification center on our phones, it's hard not to imagine some harried, 1930s office worker. His tie is loosened, sleeves rolled up, sweat beading on his forehead underneath a green visor as he looks at the metal tray marked "INBOX" on his desk. It's piled high with a stack of paper, sent to him from people he doesn't know and doesn't love.
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The Samsung Galaxy Z: Tizen OS a big Risk? Specifications and Comparison
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Sunday 29th of June 2014 03:18:45 PM Filed under

The Samsung Galaxy Z is the wave of the future. It’s Tizen OS is cutting edge and will be the standard for smartphones in the future. It is a quality phone that is worth every penny.
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Smartwatch Battle: Pebble Steel vs. Galaxy Gear 2
Submitted by Rianne Schestowitz on Friday 27th of June 2014 09:10:56 AM Filed under

Before Google comes in with its own smartwatches, consumers have two mainstream devices to choose from. On one hand, there is the Galaxy Gear 2, coming from a reputed brand like Samsung and there's Pebble Steel by Pebble Technology Corporation that gained popularity after a successful Kickstarter funding campaign for their first watch.
When we consider the turf of wearable devices, there's nothing much to boast of, except, of course, Google Glass. Apart from Pebble and Gear, the tech industry is impatiently waiting for the Motorola smartwatch, which will be made in collaboration with Google. The wait, however, doesn't have to be this hard. If you are someone who wants to get their hands on a smartwatch right now, both the Pebble and the Gear 2 are excellent choices. Both have their own merits, and also their own demerits. But then, which to choose between the two? Well, that's why we are here. In this article, we'll be doing a quick comparison between the Pebble Steel smartwatch and the Galaxy Gear 2. Let's see who wins.
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Rugged, shape-shifting handheld runs Android
Submitted by Rianne Schestowitz on Thursday 26th of June 2014 10:21:01 PM Filed under

Motorola Solutions unveiled a rugged, enterprise handheld that runs Android 4.1, 1D or 2D scanning, and offers a choice of brick, gun, or turret styles.
When Motorola split into Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions back in 2011, Motorola Mobility was supposed to be the Android company and Motorola Solutions the Windows company. Yet, the latter, which produces a range of enterprise solutions including 4G wireless equipment, has done quite well with its Android-ready enterprise handhelds.
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This is the Gear Live, Samsung's $199 Android Wear Smartwatch
Submitted by Rianne Schestowitz on Wednesday 25th of June 2014 09:41:49 PM Filed under

Wearables were everywhere today at Google I/O, but there was only one truly new product announced: the Galaxy Live, Samsung's Android Wear-running smartwatch. And we've had a chance to spend a few minutes playing with a demo unit — it's only able to do a few things right now, but we have our best sense yet of what Android Wear hardware and software will look like. This is one of the key devices for Android Wear, one of the watches being given to all attendees of the conference, and at first glance it's quite nice.
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Nest Labs buys Dropcam, gains Linux-based cams
Submitted by Rianne Schestowitz on Tuesday 24th of June 2014 08:09:09 AM Filed under

Nest Labs is buying Dropcam for $555 million, and will integrate Dropcam’s Linux-based surveillance cameras into its own Linux-based home automation system.
Nest’s deal to acquire Dropcam for $555 million was revealed by Recode and confirmed in a Nest blog post by co-founder Matt Rogers. The acquisition follows Nest’s own acquisition by Google for $3.2 billion, announced back in January.
The home surveillance company’s Linux-based cameras will be integrated within Nest’s own Linux-based product line, including a smart thermostat and smoke detector (see farther below). The Dropcam team will move from San Francisco to Nest’s offices in Palo Alto.
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Samsung to unveil its Android Wear Smart watch at Google I/O next week
Submitted by Rianne Schestowitz on Monday 23rd of June 2014 04:44:35 PM Filed under


Samsung has released a Tizen smart watch in the form of the Samsung Gear 2, but now, according to sources in CNET, the korean hardware manufacturer is due to launch their own Android wear offering next week at Google’s developer conference, Google I/O.
So why release Tizen and Android? Being a Tizen site we would prefer dearest Samsung to only release Tizen from now till the end of time, but the fact is that Android and Android ware is an immediate revenue stream that Samsung does not want to miss out on.
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Stroke and gestures now on Raspberry Pi touch screen
Submitted by Rianne Schestowitz on Monday 23rd of June 2014 11:53:54 AM Filed under


The PiTFT is one of our favourite little things for the Raspberry Pi, making it much more portable than it naturally is and opening it up to many more cool projects than you could do before. The one thing it did lack was proper, modern touch screen controls such as swiping and gesture but this has now been added thanks to Xstroke.
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Wireless personal drone detector runs Linux
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Saturday 21st of June 2014 07:27:11 AM Filed under

APlus Mobile is seeking Kickstarter funding for a Linux-based “Personal Drone Detection System” that detects nearby drones using mesh grid triangulation.
It sounds at first like an April Fool’s joke delayed in development, but it appears to be legit: APlus Mobile and its R&D spinoff Domestic Drone Countermeasures (DDC) have launched a Kickstarter project for a device that will detect when a drone aircraft approaches within 50 feet. The Personal Drone Detection System is available in $499 (alpha testing) and $699 (beta testing) funding packages, shipping in November 2014 and April 2015, respectively.
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VPN Providers with Custom Clients for Linux
Virtual Private Networking providers and company are more than you can shake a stick at these days. While there's always installable client software for Windows, Android and usually MacOS and whatever the mobile version is called not all are offering desktop clients for Linux distributions. Even if they do it's usually non-GUI, you know, with the excuse that Linux nerds love and want the power of the command line, with stripped-down functionality, or even a browser extension only which might work on a Chromebook but not on any other OS if you actually want to channel your entire traffic. And no, a proxy is not a replacement for a proper VPN.
Another constraint is the various packaging formats Linux and GNU/Linux distributions are using. Most providers only offer packages for Debian and Ubuntu-like distributions. RPMs are typically Fedora and/or CentOS but do not work on SUSE. On other distributions like Slackware and Arch you're basically on your own. You can hope that someone has provided a build on sbopkg for Slackware or in the AUR for the Arch base or that it can be transformed with the alien packaging tool but these are not official packages.
Then we have the issue of different init systems in use all over the Linux install base. When exploring Artix Linux I discovered that custom desktop client software is written to work with distributions that are using systemd to handle services and networking. Wanting to use them with OpenRC or Runit presents a bit of a challenge. It can be done but you got to know your init system's run levels or ask a distro developer to package it for you. Thankfully I since discovered that the software of at least two companies I'm perusing supports SysVinit. Their packages worked flawlessly on Devuan 3.0 so all is not lost if you're not running systemd but still want to use your providers client instead of the Networkmanager OpenVPN plugin. Even more so since NM does not seem to work without systemd, haha. They also play nicely with Wicd, no conflicts there. They're not integrated but they don't integrate with NM either.
| After Parler, Google Targets Blockchain-based ‘Free Speech’ Social Network Minds
Google Play Store sent a "24 hour warning" to Minds and they removed major functionality from the app. Minds is also working on a contingency plan to avoid meeting the same fate as Parler.
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today's leftovers
| Software: DUF, Systemd Applet, and PDF
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