All the News that Matters

• Red Hat: 2014:0415-01: libyaml: Important Advisory
  LinuxSecurity.com: Updated libyaml packages that fix two security issues are now available for Red Hat Common for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6. The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having [More...]

• Red Hat: 2014:0413-02: java-1.7.0-oracle: Critical Advisory
  LinuxSecurity.com: Updated java-1.7.0-oracle packages that fix several security issues are now available for Oracle Java for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and 6. The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having Critical [More...]

• Red Hat: 2014:0414-01: java-1.6.0-sun: Important Advisory
  LinuxSecurity.com: Updated java-1.6.0-sun packages that fix several security issues are now available for Oracle Java for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and 6. The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having [More...]

• Red Hat: 2014:0412-01: java-1.7.0-oracle: Critical Advisory
  LinuxSecurity.com: Updated java-1.7.0-oracle packages that fix several security issues are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and 6 Supplementary. The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having Critical [More...]

• Mandriva: 2014:079: json-c
  LinuxSecurity.com: Updated json-c packages fix security vulnerabilities:Florian Weimer reported that the printbuf APIs used in the json-clibrary used ints for counting buffer lengths, which is inappropriatefor 32bit architectures. These functions need to be changed to using[More...]

• Debian: 2907-1: Security Summary: Summary
  LinuxSecurity.com: Security Report Summary

• Mandriva: 2014:078: asterisk
  LinuxSecurity.com: Multiple vulnerabilities has been discovered and corrected in asterisk:Sending a HTTP request that is handled by Asterisk with a large numberof Cookie headers could overflow the stack. You could even exhaustmemory if you sent an unlimited number of headers in the request[More...]

• Red Hat: 2014:0408-01: java-1.6.0-openjdk: Important Advisory
  LinuxSecurity.com: Updated java-1.6.0-openjdk packages that fix various security issues and one bug are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and 6. The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having [More...]

• Red Hat: 2014:0406-01: java-1.7.0-openjdk: Critical Advisory
  LinuxSecurity.com: Updated java-1.7.0-openjdk packages that fix various security issues are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6. The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having Critical [More...]

• Red Hat: 2014:0407-01: java-1.7.0-openjdk: Important Advisory
  LinuxSecurity.com: Updated java-1.7.0-openjdk packages that fix various security issues are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. The Red Hat Security Response Team has rated this update as having [More...]

• Debian: 2905-1: chromium-browser: Summary
  LinuxSecurity.com: Security Report Summary

• Debian: 2904-1: virtualbox: Summary
  LinuxSecurity.com: Security Report Summary

• Install tweak tools in Ubuntu 14.04
  Add GNOME Tweak Tool and Unity Tweak Tool to your Ubuntu 14.04 system.

• More on Google’s Search Algorithm (does it favor Google+?)
  Can search results this high really have another explanation?

• Hands on with Ubuntu 14.04: The best Ubuntu desktop ever
  I still find Ubuntu with Unity the best desktop of all for users who don't know computers and just want something easy to use.

• OpenSSL and Linux: A Tale of Two Open-Source Projects
  The Heartbleed bug has cast a bright and not entirely flattering light on the open-source movement’s incentive model. When a crucial and ubiquitous piece of security code like OpenSSL — left vulnerable for two years by the Heartbleed flaw — can be accessed by all the world’s programming muscle, but only has one full-time developer and generates less than $2,000 in donations a year, clearly something is amiss. But then there’s Linux.

• Add applications to panel, desktops or favorites in Linux Mint 16 Cinnamon
  How to add programs to the panel, desktop or favorites in Linux Mint 16 Cinnamon.

• Heartbleed: Security experts reality-check the 3 most hysterical fears
  Heartbleed has dominated tech headlines for a week now. News outlets, citizen bloggers, and even late-night TV hosts have jumped on the story, each amping up the alarm a little more than the last one. But while it's true Heartbleed is a critical flaw with widespread implications, several security experts we've spoken with believe the sky-is-falling tone of the reporting is a bit melodramatic.

• Kubuntu 14.04 Screenshot Tour
  Welcome to Kubuntu 14.04 LTS, a brand new long-term supported version with the latest KDE software to enjoy. Long-term support means that bug fixes and security updates will be added for the next 5 years, so you can be safe to use it until 2019. New releases of important KDE software will also be available from the Kubuntu Updates and Kubuntu Backports PPAs.

• Microsoft Abandons Windows 8.1: Take Immediate Action Or Be Cut Off Like Windows XP
  Microsoft MSFT -0.97% has been on a roll lately. Office for iOS (and soon Android), free Windows licenses for small devices, universal Windows and Windows Phone apps, Siri rival Cortana, even a promise to eventually return the start menu before Windows 9. But when it comes to Windows 8, it seems the company has a permanently loaded pistol aimed squarely at its feet.So it fits that just one week on from the launch of ‘Windows 8.1 Update 1’ (the smart upgrade mouse and keyboard users have long awaited) stupidity would strike once again.

• Ubuntu 14.04 ships with tablet support and improved touch
  Canonical released Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, with five-year support, enhanced touchscreen support, and the first stable build of Ubuntu for Tablets. Back in November 2011 when Canonical CEO Mark Shuttleworth announced Ubuntu would support apps that ran on smartphones and tablets, as well as desktop PCs, Ubuntu 14.04 was heralded as the “convergence” release that would […]

• Open source trounces proprietary software for code defects, Coverity analysis finds
  Forget bad headlines generated by the Heartbleed flaw, when it comes to code defects open source is still well ahead of proprietary software, generating fewer coding defects for every size of project, according to a new analysis by scanning service Coverity.

• Disable online searches from Ubuntu 14.04 Dash
  Here's how you can use a script to disable online searches in the Ubuntu 14.04 Dash.

• Heartbleed: Security experts reality-check the 3 most hysterical fears
  Everything's been hacked! Change all your passwords but not yet! Security experts cut through the Heartbleed hype. But while it's true Heartbleed is a critical flaw with widespread implications, several security experts we've spoken with believe the sky-is-falling tone of the reporting is a bit melodramatic.

• Valve Has Turned On The Greenlight For 34 More Linux Games This April
  That's right folks Valve are bringing the easter cheer lighting the way for another 34 Linux games to come out on Steam!

• Ubuntu 14.04: Smoother than earlier versions (Gallery)
  It's smooth, pretty, and, in short, it's the nicest Ubuntu Linux desktop that's ever been.

• Ubuntu GNOME 14.04 Screenshot Tour
  The Ubuntu GNOME team is proud and happy to announce the release of Ubuntu GNOME 14.04 LTS. Ubuntu GNOME is an official flavour of Ubuntu, featuring the GNOME desktop environment. Ubuntu GNOME is a mostly pure GNOME desktop experience built from the Ubuntu repositories. This is our very first long-term support (LTS) version. Features: Most of GNOME 3.10 is now included, the few missing bits of 3.10 are available in PPA.

• Linode Enters High-Performance Cloud Hosting Market with SSD, RAM Updates
  Cloud hosting provider Linode has relaunched its services with a $45M investment in SSD storage, more memory, better CPUs and other high-performance upgrades for its cloud infrastructure.

• OpenStack Icehouse brings new features for the enterprise
  Deploying an open source enterprise cloud just got a little bit easier yesterday with the release of the newest version of the OpenStack platform: Icehouse. To quote an email from OpenStack release manager Thierry Carrez announcing the release, "During this cycle we added a[he]nbsp[/he]new integrated component (Trove), completed more than 350 feature[he]nbsp[/he]blueprints, and fixed almost 3000 reported bugs in integrated projects[he]nbsp[/he]alone!"

• Xubuntu 14.04 Screenshot Tour
  The Xubuntu team is pleased to announce the immediate release of Xubuntu 14.04. Xubuntu 14.04 is an LTS (Long-Term Support) release and will be supported for 3 years.

• Ubuntu Linux Has What It Takes to Challenge Windows on the Desktop
  Canonical is no stranger to trying to attract Windows users to the Ubuntu Linux platform. Back in 2008 with the Ubuntu 8.04 "Hardy Herron" LTS, Canonical introduced a technology called "Wubi," which is a Windows-based installer for Ubuntu.

• IPSEC/L2TP VPN on Ubuntu 14.04 with OpenSwan, xl2tpd and ppp
  This is a guide on setting up an IPSEC/L2TP vpn server with Ubuntu 14.04 using Openswan as the IPsec server, xl2tpd as the l2tp provider and ppp or local users / PAM for authentication. It has a detailed explanation with every step. We choose the IPSEC/L2TP protocol stack because of recent vulnerabilities found in pptpd VPNs and because it is supported on all major operating systems by default. More than ever, your freedom and privacy when online is under threat. Governments and ISPs want to control what you can and can't see while keeping a record of everything you do, and even the shady-looking guy lurking around your coffee shop or the airport gate can grab your bank details easier than you may think. A self hosted VPN lets you surf the web the way it was intended: anonymously and without oversight.

• Preventative Treatment For Heartbleed On Healthcare.gov
  As the San Francisco Chronicle reports, "People who have accounts on the enrollment website for President Barack Obama's signature health care law are being told to change their passwords following an administration-wide review of the government's vulnerability to the confounding Heartbleed Internet security flaw." Take note, though; the article goes on to immediately point out this does not mean that the HealthCare.gov site has been compromised: "Senior administration officials said there is no indication that the HealthCare.gov site has been compromised and the action is being taken out of an abundance of caution. The government's Heartbleed review is ongoing, the officials said, and users of other websites may also be told to change their passwords in the coming days, including those with accounts on the popular WhiteHouse.gov petitions page." Also at The Verge
  
  
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• New 'Google' For the Dark Web Makes Buying Dope and Guns Easy
  First time accepted submitter turkeydance (1266624) writes "The dark web just got a little less dark with the launch of a new search engine that lets you easily find illicit drugs and other contraband online. Grams, which launched last week and is patterned after Google, is accessible only through the Tor anonymizing browser (the address for Grams is: grams7enufi7jmdl.onion) but fills a niche for anyone seeking quick access to sites selling drugs, guns, stolen credit card numbers, counterfeit cash and fake IDs — sites that previously only could be found by users who knew the exact URL for the site."
  
  
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• 3 Former Astronauts: Earth-Asteroid Collisions Are a Real But Preventable Danger
  Three former astronauts — Ed Lu, Tom Jones, and Bill Anders — say that reassuring figures about the rarity of asteroid collisions with Earth are perhaps too reassuring. The B612 Foundation, of which Lu is a director, has been established to draw public awareness to the risks of a large asteroid hitting a population center -- which these three men say is a far more serious public danger than has been acknowledged by NASA and other agencies. And beyond awareness, the Foundation's immediate goal is to raise money to " design and build an asteroid-finding space telescope and launch it by 2017," and then, Armageddon-style, to follow that up with technology to divert any asteroids whose path would threaten earth.
  
  
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• Ask Slashdot: Hungry Students, How Common?
  Gud (78635) points to this story in the Washington Post about students having trouble with paying for both food and school. "I recall a number of these experiences from my time as grad student. I remember choosing between eating, living in bad neighborhoods, putting gas in the car, etc. Me and my fellow students still refer to ourselves as the 'starving grad students.' Today we laugh about these experiences because we all got good jobs that lifted us out of poverty, but not everyone is that fortunate. I wonder how many students are having hard time concentrating on their studies due to worrying where the next meal comes from. In the article I found the attitude of collage admins to the idea of meal plan point sharing, telling as how little they care about anything else but soak students & parents for fees and pester them later on with requests for donations. Last year I did the college tour for my first child, after reading the article, some of the comments I heard on that tour started making more sense. Like 'During exams you go to the dining hall in the morning, eat and study all day for one swipe' or 'One student is doing study on what happens when you live only on Ramen noodles!' How common is 'food insecurity in college or high school'? What tricks can you share with current students?"
  
  
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• Google's New Camera App Simulates Shallow Depth of Field
  New submitter katiewilliam (3621675) writes with a story at Hardware Zone about a new feature that Google's working on for Android phones' built-in cameras: the illusion of shallow depth of field in phone snapshots, which typically err on the side of too much in focus, rather than too little. Excerpting: "The Google Research Blog [note: here's a direct link] revealed that there's quite a fair bit of algorithms running to achieve this effect; to put it in a nutshell, computer vision algorithms create a 3D model of the world based on the shots you have taken, and estimate the depth to every point in the scene."
  
  
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• Beer Price Crisis On the Horizon
  Rambo Tribble (1273454) writes "The aficionados of beer and distilled spirits could be in for a major price-shock, if proposals by the Food and Drug Administration come to pass. Currently, breweries are allowed to sell unprocessed brewing by-products to feed farm animals. Farmers prize the nutritious, low-cost feed. But, new rules proposed by the FDA could force brewers to implement costly processing facilities or dump the by-products as waste. As one brewer put it, "Beer prices would go up for everybody to cover the cost of the equipment and installation.""
  
  
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• Heartbleed Used To Bypass 2-Factor Authentication, Hijack User Sessions
  wiredmikey (1824622) writes "Security nightmares sparked by the Heartbleed OpenSSL vulnerability continue. According to Mandiant, now a unit of FireEye, an attacker was able to leverage the Heartbleed vulnerability against the VPN appliance of a customer and hijack multiple active user sessions. The attack bypassed both the organization's multifactor authentication and the VPN client software used to validate that systems connecting to the VPN were owned by the organization and running specific security software. "Specifically, the attacker repeatedly sent malformed heartbeat requests to the HTTPS web server running on the VPN device, which was compiled with a vulnerable version of OpenSSL, to obtain active session tokens for currently authenticated users," Mandiant's Christopher Glyer explained. "With an active session token, the attacker successfully hijacked multiple active user sessions and convinced the VPN concentrator that he/she was legitimately authenticated." After connecting to the VPN, the attacker attempted to move laterally and escalate his/her privileges within the victim organization, Mandiant said."
  
  
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• Russia Writes Off 90 Percent of North Korea Debt
  jones_supa (887896) writes "In Russia, the State Duma (lower house) on Friday ratified a 2012 agreement to write off the bulk of North Korea's debt. It said the total debt stood at $10.96 billion as of Sept. 17, 2012. Russia sees this lucrative in advancing the plans to build a gas pipe and railroad through North to South Korea. The rest of the debt, $1.09 billion, would be redeemed during the next 20 years, to be paid in equal installments every six months. The outstanding debt owed by North Korea will be managed by Russia's state development bank, Vnesheconombank. Moscow has been trying to diversify its energy sales to Asia away from Europe, which, in its turn, wants to cut its dependence on oil and gas from the erstwhile Cold War foe. Russia's state-owned top natural producer Gazprom is dreaming shipping 10 billion cubic meters of gas annually through the Koreas. Russia has written off debts to a number of impoverished Soviet-era allies, including Cuba. North Korea's struggling communist economy is just 2 percent of the size of neighboring South's."
  
  
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• The Design Flaw That Almost Wiped Out an NYC Skyscraper
  Hugh Pickens DOT Com (2995471) writes "Joel Werner writes in Slate that when Citicorp Center was built in 1977 it was, at 59 stories, the seventh-tallest building in the world but no one figured out until after it was built that although the chief structural engineer, William LeMessurier, had properly accounted for perpendicular winds, the building was particularly vulnerable to quartering winds — in part due to cost-saving changes made to the original plan by the contractor. "According to LeMessurier, in 1978 an undergraduate architecture student contacted him with a bold claim about LeMessurier's building: that Citicorp Center could blow over in the wind," writes Werner. "LeMessurier realized that a major storm could cause a blackout and render the tuned mass damper inoperable. Without the tuned mass damper, LeMessurier calculated that a storm powerful enough to take out the building hit New York every 16 years." In other words, for every year Citicorp Center was standing, there was about a 1-in-16 chance that it would collapse." (Read on for more.)
  
  
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• Declassified Papers Hint US Uranium May Have Ended Up In Israeli Arms
  Lasrick (2629253) writes "Victor Gilinsky and Roger J. Mattson update their story on the NUMEC affair to take into account the recent release of hundreds of classified documents that shed additional light on the story. In the 1960s, the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) was found to be missing about a 100 pounds of bomb-grade uranium. Based on available evidence, Gilinsky and Mattson are convinced that the material ended up in Israel nuclear bombs. The newly release documents add more to the story, and Gilinsky and Mattson are calling on President Obama to declassify the remainder of the file."
  
  
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• For $20, Build a VR Headset For Your Smartphone
  An anonymous reader writes "Not everyone can drop a few hundred dollars on a VR headset, but that doesn't mean they can't experience VR! For those with the time and a bit of handiwork skill, this DIY guide from guest writer Ohaple will show you how to make a smartphone-based VR headset for as little as $20. Along the way, you'll learn the hardware and software basics of a VR headset." This project screams for a ready-made commercial version; does anyone know of existing purpose-built headgear? As one of the comments on the linked tutorial says, Poppy seems close, but lacks an LED for tracking.
  
  
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• Microsoft Plans $1 Billion Server Farm In Iowa
  1sockchuck (826398) writes "Microsoft will invest $1.1 billion to build a massive new server farm in Iowa, not far from an existing data center in West Des Moines. The 1.2 million square foot campus will be one of the biggest in the history of the data center industry. It further enhances Iowa's status as the data center capital of the Midwest, with Google and Facebook also operating huge server farms in the state."
  
  
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• DARPA Developing the Ultimate Auto-Pilot Software
  coondoggie (973519) writes "Call it the ultimate auto-pilot — an automated system that can help take care of all phases of aircraft flight-even perhaps helping pilots overcome system failures in-flight. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will in May detail a new program called Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System (ALIAS) that would build upon what the agency called the considerable advances that have been made in aircraft automation systems over the past 50 years, as well as the advances made in remotely piloted aircraft automation, to help reduce pilot workload, augment mission performance and improve aircraft safety."
  
  
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• SpaceX Launches Load to ISS, Successfully Tests Falcon 9 Over Water
  mosb1000 (710161) writes "SpaceX is reporting that they've successfully landed the first stage of their CRS3 Falcon 9 rocket over the Atlantic Ocean today. This is potentially a huge milestone for low-cost space flight." In another win for the company, as the L.A. Times reports, SpaceX also has launched a re-supply mission to the ISS.
  
  
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• SpaceX Lands Launches Load to ISS, Successfully Tests Falcon 9 Over Water
  mosb1000 (710161) writes "SpaceX is reporting that they've successfully landed the first stage of their CRS3 Falcon 9 rocket over the Atlantic Ocean today. This is potentially a huge milestone for low-cost space flight." In another win for the company, as the L.A. Times reports, SpaceX also has launched a re-supply mission to the ISS.
  
  
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• Bookies Predict the Future of Tech
  First time accepted submitter machineghost (622031) writes "It's one thing to make predictions about the future of tech; that happens all the time on Slashdot. But it's quite a different thing to put money on the line to back up those predictions, which is exactly what this British bookie has done. Think you know whether Google Glass will beat the iPhone, or whether we'll be ready to go to Mars and back by 2020? Now's your chance to capitalize on those predictions!" Or you could, y'know, invest money in at least some of them, and thereby increase their chances of succeeding.
  
  
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• Minerva CEO Details His High-Tech Plan To Disrupt Universities
  waderoush (1271548) writes "In April 2012, former Snapfish CEO Ben Nelson provoked both praise and skepticism by announcing that he'd raised $25 million from venture firm Benchmark to start the Minerva Project, a new kind of university where students will live together but all class seminars will take place over a Google Hangouts-style video conferencing system. Two years later, there are answers – or the beginnings of answers – to many of the questions observers have raised about the project, on everything from the way the seminars will be organized to how much tuition the San Francisco-based university will charge and how it's gaining accreditation. And in an interview published today, Nelson share more details about how Minerva plans to use technology to improve teaching quality. 'If a student wants football and Greek life and not doing any work for class, they have every single Ivy League university to choose from,' Nelson says. 'That is not what we provide. Similarly, there are faculty who want to do research and get in front of a lecture hall and regurgitate the same lecture they've been giving for 20 years. We have a different model,' based on extensive faculty review of video recordings of the seminars, to make sure students are picking up key concepts. Last month Minerva admitted 45 students to its founding class, and in September it expects to welcome 19 of them to its Nob Hill residence hall."
  
  
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• Peoria Mayor Sends Police To Track Down Twitter Parodist
  New submitter rotorbudd (1242864) writes with an article at Reason about Jim Ardis, mayor of Peoria, Illinois, who ordered police to track down whoever was responsible for a parody Twitter account mocking him."Guess the good Mayor has never heard of the Streisand Effect. 'The original Twitter account had a total of 50 followers. The new account has over 200.'"
  
  
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• California Utility May Replace IT Workers with H-1B Workers
  dcblogs writes: "Southern California Edison is preparing to offshore IT jobs, the second major U.S. utility in the last year to do so. It will be cutting its staff, but it hasn't said by how much. The utility is using at least two offshore outsourcing firms, according to government records. SCE's management culture may be particularly primed for firing its IT workers. Following a workplace shooting in SCE's IT offices in 2011, the utility conducted an independent audit of its organizational and management culture. One observation in this report, which was completed a year later, was that 'employees perceive managers to be more concerned about how they 'look' from above, and less concerned about how they are viewed by their subordinates. This fosters an unhealthy culture and climate by sending a message to employees that it is more important to focus on how things look from the top than how they actually are down below.'"
  
  
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• How Nest and FitBit Might Spy On You For Cash
  Nerval's Lobster writes: "Forbes offers up a comforting little story about how Nest and FitBit are planning on turning user data in a multi-billion-dollar business. 'Smart-thermostat maker Nest Labs (which is being acquired by Google for $3.2 billion) has quietly built a side business managing the energy consumption of a slice of its customers on behalf of electric companies,' reads the article. 'In wearables, health tracker Fitbit is selling companies the tracking bracelets and analytics services to better manage their health care budgets, and its rival Jawbone may be preparing to do the same.' As many a wit has said over the years: If you're not paying, you're the product. But if Forbes is right, wearable-electronics companies may have discovered a sweeter deal: paying customers on one side, and companies paying for those customers' data on the other. Will most consumers actually care, though?"
  
  
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• Americans Uncomfortable With Possibility of Ubiquitous Drones, Designer Babies
  alphadogg writes: "Americans are optimistic about scientific inventions on the horizon, though are cautious about future uses of DNA, robots, drones and always-on implants, according to the latest Pew Research Center survey on future technology (PDF). Asked about the likelihood of certain advances 50 years from now, survey respondents were most sure that lab-grown custom organs for transplant will happen (81%). Only 19% expect humans will be able to control the weather by then. When asked how they felt about possible near-term advances, 65% thought robot caregivers for the elderly is a bad idea, 63% didn't want to see personal drones in U.S. airspace, and 66% thought parents altering the DNA of prospective children was a bad idea."
  
  
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• MediaGoblin and FSF Successfully Raise Funds For Federation, Privacy Features
  paroneayea writes: "GNU MediaGoblin and the Free Software Foundation have jointly run a campaign for privacy and federation on the web. The campaign is in its last day but has already passed the first two funding milestones, and is hoping to raise more with the possibility of bringing in multiple dedicated resources to the project. The project has also released a full financial transparency report so donors can know how they can expect their money to be used!"
  
  
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• VA Supreme Court: Michael Mann Needn't Turn Over All His Email
  RoccamOccam sends news that the Virginia Supreme Court has ruled that Michael Mann, a climate scientist notable for his work on the "hockey stick" graph, does not have to turn over the entirety of his papers and emails under Freedom of Information laws. Roughly 1,000 documents were turned over in response to the request, but another 12,000 remain, which lawyers for the University of Virginia say are "of a proprietary nature," and thus entitled to an exemption. The VA Supreme Court ruled (PDF), "the higher education research exemption's desired effect is to avoid competitive harm not limited to financial matters," and said the application of "proprietary" was correct in this case. Mann said he hopes the ruling "can serve as a precedent in other states confronting this same assault on public universities and their faculty."
  
  
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• Ask Slashdot: What Tech Products Were Built To Last?
  itwbennett writes: "When you think about tech products these days, you probably think 'refresh cycle' more than 'built to last.' But there are plenty of tech products that put up with hard, daily use year after year. Here's a few to get you started: Logitech MX510 mouse, Brother black & white laser printer, Casio G-Shock watch, Alvin Draf-Tec Retrac mechanical pencil, Sony Dream Machine alarm clock. What's your longest-lasting, hardest-working device?"
  
  
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• Samsung's Position On Tizen May Hurt Developer Recruitment
  CowboyRobot sends in an article about how Samsung's constantly shifting plans for its smartwatches are making it hard for developers to commit to building apps. Quoting: "Samsung's first smartwatch, released in October last year, ran a modified version of Google's Android platform. The device had access to about 80 apps at launch, all of which were managed by a central smartphone app. Samsung offered developers an SDK for the Galaxy Gear so they could create more apps. Developers obliged. Then Samsung changed direction. Samsung announced a new series of smartwatches in February: the Gear 2, Gear 2 Neo, and Gear Fit. Unlike the first device, these three run Samsung’s Tizen platform. ... This week, Samsung made things even more interesting. Speaking to Reuters, Yoon Han-kil, senior vice president of Samsung’s product strategy team, said the company is working on a watch that will use Google’s Android Wear platform. In other words, Samsung will bring three different watches to market with three different operating systems in under a year."
  
  
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Linux.com offline for now

Engadget

• Weekends with Engadget: Windows Phone 8.1 and Gear 2 reviews, the anonymous internet and more!
  
  
  Welcome to Weekends with Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines from the past seven days -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. For even more action, subscribe to our Flipboard magazine!
  
  Windows Phone 8.1 review: Microsoft's mobile OS finally feels whole
  Microsoft's mobile OS just got a whole lot better. Complete with keyboard swipe gestures, a notification center and Cortana, the virtual assistant, version 8.1 brings Windows Phone into adulthood.
  
  My connected home turned me into a spy and an addict
  Ten years ago, adjusting the temperature of your home from a smartphone might have seemed like something from a science fiction movie. But in this age of hyper-connectivity, it's easier to get wrapped up in the quantifiable aspects of life than you might think. Just ask our own Joseph Volpe.
  
  Sony Xperia Z2 review: a big, powerful slab of a phone
  The Xperia Z2 is just as waterproof as the original Z1 and it packs a slightly larger display and better battery life -- not to mention it's several grams lighter. But at 5.2-inches, Sony's curveless flagship might be too big for its your britches.
  
  Shh, it's a Secret: The allure of the anonymous internet
  You can say almost anything you want on the internet, often without consequence. But are there advantages to being truly anonymous? Our own Nicole Lee spent some time with an app called Secret to find out.
  
  Samsung Gear 2 review: much improved, but that doesn't mean you should buy it
  Samsung's next gen smartwatch, the Gear 2, is indeed an improvement over its predecessor. It sports a slimmer design and a much longer battery life, though it's $50 more than the original. Add in a skimpy app selection, and it still might not be worth investing in Samsung's wrist-worn platform.
  
  Here's Amazon's phone: six cameras and a 4.7-inch screen
  We've all heard the rumors, but BGR claims it's gotten hold of Amazon's first phone -- and it has six cameras. The 4.7-inch handset (shown above) might not appear very sleek or attractive. But don't worry, that's just an enclosure.
  
  Apple CarPlay coming to Pioneer's in-dash systems this summer
  Pioneer's NEX line of five in-dash entertainment systems will get Apple's CarPlay support through a firmware update set to arrive this summer. Owners with an iPhone 5, 5c or 5s will be able to take advantage of Apple Maps, Siri and more!
  
  Google beats Facebook to acquisition of drone maker
  Earlier this week, Google agreed to buy Titan Aerospace, a solar-powered drone manufacturer that had previously been in talks with Facebook. According to the Wall Street Journal, the company plans to use the high-flying aircraft in collaboration with its Project Loon.
  
  MSI GS60 Ghost review: a gaming rig in Ultrabook's clothing
  Thin, light and simple: MSI's latest gaming laptop is all of those things and more. Dubbed the GS60 Ghost, this slim aluminum machine has a bright 15.3-inch display and ultrabook-esque buttonless trackpad. All in all, the Ghost is a great choice for serious gamers, provided they can endure its less-than-average battery life.
  
  Sony pumps up its PS4 update with game pre-loading and SHAREfactory video editor
  In a recent blog post, Sony announced it's preparing a 1.70 firmware update for the PS4 that will include a brand new video editor (called SHAREfactory) and pre-game loading functionality. Exactly when it will be released, however, is still to be known.
  
  Filed under: Misc, Internet
  
  Comments
  

• Feedback Loop: E3 expectations, first MP3 player and password managers!
  Welcome to Feedback Loop, a weekly roundup of the most interesting discussions happening within the Engadget community. There's so much technology to talk about and so little time to enjoy it, but you have a lot of great ideas and opinions that need to be shared! Join us every Saturday as we highlight some of the most interesting discussions that happened during the past week.
  
  
  
  This week, we speculate on what we want to see from E3, share our fond memories of our first MP3 players and talk about strategies for securing our passwords. Head past the break to join the conversation!
  What do you want to see at E3?
  E3 is right around the corner and what you want to see from Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony? Given all the new hardware is out in the wild, the focus this year is likely going to be on games, games, games, games and possibly a bit of VR. So, what is on your gaming wish list?
  What was your first MP3 player?
  Do you remember CD's and cassette tapes? I shudder at the thought of that old fashioned technology. Thankfully, digital media players were invented and our mobile music habits have been changed ever since! Peterburk wants to know if you remember the time when you were able to free yourself from the shackles of physical media once and for all? Head over to the forums and tell us about your first MP3 player.
  Do you use a password manager?
  It seems like there's a new security breach at a different website every day. Besides being a huge inconvenience, all these leaked passwords floating around have given hackers better strategies for cracking our most precious passwords. Do you use a password manager to protect yourself?
  
  That's all this week! Do you want to talk about your favorite gadget or have a burning question about technology? Register for an Engadget account today, visit the Engadget forums and start a new discussion!
  
  Comments
  

• Rufus Cuff wants to dominate the wearable market and your forearm
  
  
  We told you to put on your disappointment pants for the Galaxy Gear 2, but for the Rufus Cuff we suggest rolling up your absurdity sleeves. Seriously, given its three-inch screen you might just have to. This wearable boasts a built-in mic, a camera, a speaker, web browser, voice control, GPS and full access to the Google Play store -- if the Cuff sounds like a smartphone that straps to your wrist, well, that's basically what it is. It connects to your Android or iPhone via Bluetooth for mobile data, making calls and sending texts, but it's running a full version of Google's mobile OS and can hook on to WiFi if you're in a cellular dead-zone or if your phone's battery runs out.
  
  While the gizmo doesn't exactly look practical (we're pretty sure that it won't play nice with the cuffs of a slim-cut oxford), as of this writing it's has raised over $150,000 of its $200,000 IndieGoGo goal, with a handful of days to go. If you dig the idea of strapping one of these monstrosities on your wrist, all it takes is a $249 pledge.
  
  
  
  Filed under: Wearables, Mobile
  
  Comments
  
  Source: IndieGoGo
  

• Google Trends email alerts will guarantee you never miss another cat meme
  
  You can always swing by Google Trends if you want to gauge the popularity of a given search, but visiting that website every time can be a hassle. Thankfully, there's now an easier way: Google has added a subscription option that sends email notifications when there are changes in the interest levels for most searches, including hot searches, specific topics and the top US charts. If you want to see how long an internet meme survives or find out when your favorite team is creating a lot of buzz, you just have to visit Trends' subscription area to get started.
  
  Filed under: Internet, Google
  
  Comments
  
  Source: Inside Search, Google Trends
  

• Play: The frantic, fun and infuriating Trials Fusion
  
  Some games are so challenging, frustrating and physically draining that your controller could easily explode against the nearest wall at any second. the next few months, but that doesn't excuse its absence at launch. Until that arrives, though, you'll have to rely on the level creator and community-generated tracks to hold your attention outside of the main game.
  Anyway, enough from us. It's halfway through the bank holiday already, and you won't make any impact on the leaderboards enjoying the sun with family and friends. Clock's ticking...
  Trials Fusion is out now for PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One and Windows PCs.
  
  Filed under: Gaming
  
  Comments
  

• OnePlus One phone and its swappable covers leak out in new pictures
  
  
  Former Oppo exec Pete Lau announced his plans to make "the perfect smartphone" a few months ago, and now the OnePlus One is almost here. Its launch is scheduled for April 23rd, but the CyanogenMod software it will run, and we know how much it costs, but official word on everything else will have to wait until Wednesday.
  
  
  Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile
  
  Comments
  
  Via: Engadget Chinese
  
  Source: Android Authority, OnePlus BBS
  

• AllCast's screen-mirroring magic arrives on Amazon's Fire TV App Store
  
  
  Been putting off sideloading AllCast's SDK to your brand new Amazon Fire TV? Well, friend, your procrastination has paid off. Now, all you have to do to install the casting and screen-mirroring app is download it straight from the Amazon App Store. So long as you also have AllCast installed on an Android device, you can beam photos, videos and music from your phone or tablet to Amazon's set-top box. Plus, you can use the app to view images and videos saved on Google+ and Dropbox. If you don't plan to pick up a Fire TV (waiting for the second one, eh?), you can still use AllCast with a number of other devices, including Chromecast, Xbox One, Roku, Apple TV and a smattering of smart TVs.
  
  Filed under: Household, HD, Amazon
  
  Comments
  
  Source: Koushik Dutta (Google+), Amazon
  

• EFF and Sunlight Foundation come together to build Contact-Congress
  
  
  If you've never contacted your congress person then you might not realize how difficult our politicians have made it to get a hold of them. There are 535 members of the House and Senate all whom have some arcane contact form on their websites that obscure their direct email address. It's inconvenient for a single person to write a letter to all their elected representatives. But for organizations looking drive letter writing campaigns it's a nightmare. Individuals wont want to visit three separate sites as part of a push to pass or block a piece of legislation. And while there are services out there that can automate part of the work by routing messages to the right email addresses, they charge thousands of dollars a year for access to their tools and databases.
  
  The Electronic Frontier Foundation and The Sunlight Foundation saw the need for a better solution and asked the open source community for help. After just a couple of days of marathon coding, the advocacy groups had their answer: Contact-Congress. The idea is to allow easy mass messaging of members of congress through a simple form. The core of the system is a database of email addresses and contact forms that have been hacked together from the various sites for elected officials. And that database is open to be used in other ways, beyond simply sending out form letters from an angry electorate.
  
  But, Contact-Congress isn't really the end game. In fact, it's not even the final product -- it's merely the open-source backbone of what will eventually be numerous projects. The Sunlight Foundation will be folding parts of this new project into OpenCongress, it's public website loaded with information about members of the House and Senate. Voters will be able to visit the site, see their congressman's voting record and from the same page send them an email telling them why they think it was the wrong decision.
  
  The EFF will offer two tools: Action Center, their own messaging service that will be built around its pet projects, and Congress-Forms, a sort of middleman for those that want access to the Contact-Congress database without having to do too much tinkering in the source code. There may even be an API in the near future that developers could easily tap into from their existing apps. Though, if you really do want to poke around at its insides, you can download the open source software from Github right now.
  
  Filed under: Misc, Internet
  
  Comments
  
  Source: Motherboard, VentureBeat
  

• Irish school children are building worlds for the Oculus Rift
  
  If games, wildlife documentaries and virtual strolls in the park aren't enough to validate virtual reality for you, try this one: educational motivation. School children in Ireland have been using a open source version of Second Life to learn coding, 3D modeling and to create virtual spaces of recent field trips. Their most recent project: recreating the monastery of Clonmacnoise and exploring it with an Oculus Rift. Technically the Rift isn't part of the classroom's normal operations -- the founder of the MissionV virtual reality platform the school is visiting brought it with him on a recent visit -- but it did give the students a new perspective on the world they had built. "Whoa," one student exclaimed, looking at the classroom's recreation of Clonmacnoise's McCarthy Tower. "That is humongous."
  
  "The children spent two weeks building the model and were intimately familiar with the layout of the site and buildings as the appeared on the PC monitor," MissionV founder and CEO James Corbett explained. "But the full realization of the scale and perspective of what they built only dawned on them when they were immersed in this reality." Having a virtual presence in the model actually changed how the children learned about it -- and the promise of being able to play in the world they built was bound to be a heck of a motivator, too. It's still too early to say if VR will become a common tool in education, but it's still a blast to watch these kids romp around in a world of their own making. Check it out in the video below.
  
  Filed under: Gaming
  
  Comments
  
  Source: MissionV, Technology.ie
  

• Beats Music update lets you subscribe from inside the iOS app
  
  Odds are that you weren't riveted by Beats Music when it first arrived, but the streaming service has just delivered a pair of big updates that may give you a good excuse to tune in. For the iOS app, the biggest improvement is visible when you're signing up -- you can now subscribe from within the software rather than heading to the web. The move makes it that much easier to keep the music flowing after your trial is over, and may just help Beats grow its fledgling customer base.
  Not that Beats is neglecting its Android app by any means; you get a "brand spanking new widget" for your home screen if you're running Google's mobile platform. Both the Android and iOS releases also share some common improvements, including the ability to find Facebook friends who use Beats, better social network linking and thousands of new tracks in the Sentence playlist generator. There's no guarantee that either refresh will have you rethinking that Rdio or Spotify subscription, but it's hard to knock upgrades that make it easy to start listening.
  Filed under: Cellphones, Internet, Software, Mobile
  
  Comments
  
  Via: Recode, Droid-Life
  
  Source: App Store, Google Play
  

• Daily Roundup: Xperia Z2 review, Oculus VR lets a terminal patient travel and more!
  
  
  You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
  
  Sony Xperia Z2 review: a big, powerful slab of a phone
  The Xperia Z2 is just as waterproof as the original Z1 and it packs a slightly larger display and better battery life -- not to mention it's several grams lighter. But at 5.2-inches, Sony's curveless flagship might be too big for its your britches.
  
  Oculus Rift helps terminally ill woman take one last stroll in the sun
  Sure, exploring the world of Minecraft with an Occulus Rift is fun, but pure entertainment isn't the VR headset's only use. Roberta Firstenberg may be a home-bound terminally ill cancer patient, but Oculus let her take a virtual trip to Tuscany before she passed.
  
  Wu-Tang fans hope to liberate 'Shaolin' for $5 million but have a ways to go
  Yes, the Wu-Tang Clan is selling the only copy of its upcoming album, Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, for $5 million. Don't have that kind of cash? Not to worry, a group of fans put together a Kickstarter in hopes of putting its latest jams in the hands of ordinary people.
  
  NASA just crashed a satellite into the moon on purpose
  Remember NASA's LADEE satellite? Well, it's no more. According to the agency, the vehicle didn't have enough power to maintain orbit... so they gave it a proper galactic burial and slammed it into the lunar surface.
  You also might like: Orange is the New Black trailer promises a 'next level crazy' season two The Open Source Initiative hopes public awareness is Heartbleed's 'silver lining' Elite soldiers will soon ride into battle on stealthy hybrid motorcycles
  Filed under: Misc
  
  Comments
  

• Nike reportedly killing the Fuelband to focus on fitness software
  
  
  Just days after Nike announced the launch of its Fuel Lab location in San Francisco to enhance partnerships with other digital services for athletes, there's a report that it's fired much of the team behind its FuelBand wristwear. CNET reports that, according to a person familiar with the matter, as many as 55 people from its 70-member hardware team are being laid off, and plans for another version of the FuelBand to follow the SE have been shelved. All of this comes just as the wearables market is heating up, with products already arriving from Samsung, LG, Motorola, Pebble and more, while activity tracking integrated with phones is also becoming more popular. At the same time, not all of Nike's tech initiatives have worked out, and Nike+ has largely disappeared from its shoes in the last year.
  
  A Nike spokesman confirmed to CNET a "small number of layoffs" as its "Digital Sports priorities evolve." (Update: In a statement, Nike says it "will continue to improve the Nike+ FuelBand App, launch new METALUXE colors, and we will sell and support the Nike+ FuelBand SE for the foreseeable future.")Given Nike's close relationship with Apple (Tim Cook is a member of Nike's board), one could wonder if the prospect of an upcoming wearable from Cupertino had a hand in swinging the apparel company's focus towards "simpler data-powered experiences" -- or they just spent all the money on tonight's sweet 3D projector intro to the Jordan Brand High School All-Star Game.
  
  
  
  Wearables
  
  Comments
  
  Source: CNET
  

• Hide your stash, heat-seeking drones are helping thugs hijack UK weed crops
  Comments
  
  Via: Gizmodo
  
  Source: Halesowen News
  

• Labels claim Pandora owes money for streaming old songs, probably won't get it
  
  Pandora can't catch a break, it seems. Just weeks after the streaming radio service escaped paying higher royalties to songwriters, record companies and musicians have sued it in a New York court for allegedly violating state copyright laws by refusing to pay for older song recordings. The labels argue that Pandora is subject to state rules on compensation whenever it streams tunes recorded before February 15th, 1972, when federal law took over; right now, it's only paying for those newer works. The suing parties claim that Pandora is both depriving artists of income and wielding an "unfair advantage" over on-demand competitors like Rdio and Spotify, which have no choice but to negotiate royalties for classic tracks.
  
  Pandora says it's looking at the claims, and it hasn't provided a formal response so far. However, you shouldn't assume that it will fight the lawsuit tooth and nail -- the legal action may not do as much damage as you'd think.
  
  As Santa Clara University law professor Tyler Ochoa tells us, the labels are likely suing in New York because it's one of the few states with existing case law that addresses royalty issues like this. While some other states have their own relevant copyright rules, the music companies wouldn't have a good precedent to work with in these territories. They would be "starting from scratch" and face a greater chance of losing, Ochoa says. As such, you shouldn't count on seeing a state-by-state litigation campaign. Even a New York victory isn't guaranteed, since the local law doesn't offer perfect clarity on how to handle radio-like internet services.
  
  The record companies may also collect relatively little cash if they do win. As this isn't a federal suit, Pandora might only have to shell out for songs that New York-based customers play. Any retroactive payments would be limited to the past three years, and there would be questions as to why the music outlets didn't push for compensation much sooner. Pandora could theoretically avoid any new royalties by blocking New York customers from streaming pre-1972 songs, although it may not want to risk a backlash from angry listeners.
  
  To Ochoa, these factors make it "pretty likely" that the lawsuit will end in a settlement. There's enough uncertainty that neither side would get much value from duking it out in the courtroom. The odds are that Pandora won't take a serious blow, and that the labels will only have limited success in getting money for their golden oldies.
  
  [Image credit: Dustin Gaffke, Flickr]
  
  Filed under: Internet
  
  Comments
  
  Via: New York Times
  
  Source: RIAA
  

• DARPA envisions a smarter, safer autopilot
  
  Autonomous aircraft serve their purpose, but there's no question that pilotless passenger flights are a long way off, if they ever become a reality. Still, there's obviously room for improvement when it comes to on-board systems that assist pilots in their duties. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is in the process of creating an advanced autopilot system called ALIAS (yes, another acronym). The Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System (there you go) would control military aircraft in all stages of flight, from takeoff to landing -- even during a system failure. Pilots would interact with the system using a touchscreen and voice control, supervising a flight instead of commanding it. Of course, we'll see this technology make its way to military planes long before it's adopted by airlines, but ALIAS could play a key role in keeping us all safe at 30,000 feet.
  
  Filed under: Transportation, Software
  
  Comments
  
  Source: DARPA
  

• Tubecore wants you to hack and mod its beautiful, modular speaker
  
  Let's be honest: Wireless speakers are a dime a dozen. The options are seemingly endless, and new ones arrive on an almost daily basis. Companies have begun to push the boundaries of design as of late, making options that are an aesthetic step above the larger outfits. Tubecore's Duo certainly does that, but it's also so much more.
  
  It may be easy to gloss over the Duo spec sheet and skip right over to the Moto X-esque customization page, however it's there that the real standout features lie. What's immediately clear from the first glance is the vacuum tube-driven preamp. It's a 48v Class A unit that relies on that pair of tubes to deliver "vintage studio hi-fi." The folks at Tubecore say that this allows you to beam audio from any source and get a taste of analog high-fidelity listening. A 24-bit DAC (Digital to Analog Converter) lends a hand there with the help of the standard-issue Raspberry Pi, and the signal is filtered six times to remove any excess noise that might be picked up by the system's components.
  
  All of that leads to uncompressed audio from all input sources in a package that's built to be hacked, moded and upgraded based on the needs and preferences of the user. "Because Duo is high-powered, it's definitely more expensive to manufacture, but the quality is uncompromising," says Tubecore President Jason Perkail.
  
  
  But the thing looks great, and its industrial design is more than skin deep. Perkail told me that the Duo's cabinet was designed in a fashion similar to an electric guitar, with a heavy dose of inspiration from the analog API Legacy 4x4 console in Ben Folds' Studio A. In fact, it's built in a similar fashion to a six-string and this construction is what gives the speaker a full 10Hz-20kHz range.
  "Because DUO is high-powered it's definitely more expensive to manufacture, but the quality is uncompromising."
  What's more, the controls are simple. There's a single 4-inch aluminum dial that mimics classic hi-fi knobs up top to wrangle volume, inputs and system preferences powered by an embedded Arduino MC. In terms of connectivity, there's Bluetooth for wireless streaming with WiFi, line-in, RIAA-equalized phono in and the onboard computer's USB ports. This will allow you to connect nearly everything to the speaker from a TV to mobile devices and computers -- easily fitting in as part of a home entertainment system. As you might expect, Android and iOS apps will accompany the Duo and will work alongside Estimote Beacons to track users as they move around the house, blanketing the same experience in configurable zones throughout.
  
  If the aforementioned customization is what you're after, that's certainly a hook here too. There are 10 standard grill covers and 27 custom grill covers (for an additional $19) -- all of which are magnetic -- for adding a splash of color to the wooden speaker. For those looking to dig deeper with the modular add-ons, three tube upgrades range from $25 to $75, and the option to swap out that Raspberry Pi for a UDOO Quad tacks on $110. All of those bits are tacked on to the $649 base price, which is currently discounted for those willing to opt in early to an attractive $479 pre-order rate.
  
  Filed under: Home Entertainment, Portable Audio/Video
  
  Comments
  
  Source: Tubecore
  

• AT&T adds more data and a hotspot option to prepaid GoPhone plans
  
  
  AT&T is adding more data to its GoPhone prepaid smartphone plans without raising monthly fees in the process. If you're currently paying $60 a month for 2GB, your allotment will jump to 2.5 gigs, while those on the $40, 250MB plan will now get 500MB per month. More data is only part of the value proposition for GoPhone customers, though; the new 2.5GB plan will now offer the ability to use your phone as a WiFi hotspot.
  Additionally, the carrier is adding a new $45 plan that includes 1GB of data and unlimited talk -- but note that this is only available at Walmart. While these updates are good news for current GoPhone subscribers, they're not quite as competitive as T-Mobile's pay-in-advance plans, which start at $30 a month with unlimited (read: 5GB) data and 100 minutes of talk. That said, $60 a month for 2.5GB and hotspot functionality is a nice step up on AT&T's part.
  Filed under: Cellphones, Networking, Mobile
  
  Comments
  
  Source: AT&T
  

• This enormous gas tank is now a wondrous, isolating work of art (video)
  
  Once it stored enormous quantities of blast furnace and coal gas, but these days the Gasometer Oberhausen is a 385 foot tall cylindrical art gallery. Since the early 90s, the gargantuan storage tank has been host to more than a dozen art exhibitions, and its latest display puts its own absurd size front and center. 320° Licht plays on the gallery's tar-black walls, projecting optical illusions that make the surface appear to warp and bend. "This experience is based on the vastness of the Gasometer," explains project sound designer Jonas Wiese. "We tried to work with that expression to make the space bigger and smaller, to deform it and change its surface over and over while not exaggerating and overwriting the original effect of the room." According to the installation's creators, that effect is dwarfing. Viewers are left feeling small, even lost.
  
  The emotionally taxing light show is powered by 21 Epson projectors, which collectively paint the tank's interior to a captivating, animated display. The display is part of The Appearance of Beauty exhibition in Oberhausen Germany, which runs until late December. Can't afford to fly out to Deutschland? No worries, the gallery has created a preview video - check it out below.
  
  Filed under: Misc
  
  Comments
  
  Source: Gasometer Oberhausen, VICE
  

• Engadget Podcast 393 - 4.18.14
  
  
  We have less libations, but more tech-related news than last week's peaty podcast and that's just fine for your sleep-deprived hosts. First up is some informed speculation on Amazon's new smartphone, based on a few inconclusive photos that recently surfaced. Another work in progress is Google's Project Ara, a modular concept that looks to make swappable smartphone parts a reality. The one thing that's all too real and in your face, however, is the recent Heartbleed exploit, which has had widespread impact across the web. While you're racing to update all those passwords -- yes, it's OK to do thatnow -- it couldn't hurt to get a refresher on exactly what happened and which sites were affected. So head on down to the streaming links and get your brain fix with this week's episode of the Engadget Podcast.
  
  Hosts: Terrence O'Brien, Ben Gilbert
  
  Producer: Jon Turi
  
  Hear the podcast:
  
  
  01:56 - Testing Reebok's Checklight head impact monitor with a human punching bag
  02:26 - Engadget Podcast 392: The whiskey 'sode
  02:55 - Here's Amazon's phone: six cameras and a 4.7-inch screen
  15:25 - What is Heartbleed, anyway?
  16:40 - Google has patched most of its major services from the 'Heartbleed' security bug
  24:02 - Crooks use Heartbleed exploit to steal 900 Canadian tax IDs
  25:52 - Tor's anonymity network may have to shrink to fight the Heartbleed bug
  27:19 - Bloomberg: NSA used Heartbleed exploit for 'years' without alerting affected websites, the public
  35:30 - Google's Project Ara wants to revolutionize the smartphone industry within a year
  
  Subscribe to the podcast:
  
  [iTunes] Subscribe to the Podcast directly in iTunes (enhanced AAC).
  [RSS MP3] Add the Engadget Podcast feed (in MP3) to your RSS aggregator and have the show delivered automatically.
  [RSS AAC] Add the Engadget Podcast feed (in enhanced AAC) to your RSS aggregator.
  
  Download the podcast:
  
  LISTEN (MP3)
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  Contact the podcast:
  
  Connect with the hosts on Twitter: @terrenceobrien, @realbengilbert
  Email us: podcast [at] engadget [dot] com
  
  Filed under: Podcasts
  
  Comments
  

• HTC hires marketing exec who led Samsung to smartphone dominance
  
  
  It's no secret, HTC has an image problem. Despite consistently creating some of our favorite phones, it's failed to reach the heights of popularity of manufacturers like Samsung. That could soon change. In what is almost certainly not a coincidence, HTC has hired Samsung's former Chief Marketing Officer, Paul Golden. The Verge confirmed the rumor, first picked up by Bloomberg, earlier this afternoon. Golden, who "created and launched the highly successful Galaxy brand for Samsung," according to his LinkedIn profile, was reportedly hired on as a consultant to Chairwoman Cher Wang.
  
  
  Among other achievements, Golden attributes his work on the Galaxy brand with "a 4X increase in market share (from 4.5% to 21.0%) in the strategically critical smartphone segment." HTC has repeatedly pointed back to marketing as one of its weakest points. In 2013, CEO Peter Chou pointed to weak marketing as the reason for poor financial performance, and, as Bloomberg point out, Wang reiterated that issue on April 8th, saying, "We just have to communicate well with our customers. I believe if we can communicate better, we will do better."
  
  With Robert Downey Jr. holding down the cats and Golden's ability to bolster the next big thing, perhaps it's finally HTC's time to shine.
  
  Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Samsung, HTC
  
  Comments
  
  Via: Slashgear, Engadget Spanish
  
  Source: Bloomberg,
  

• Watch SpaceX's second attempt at launching a reusable rocket (update: launched!)
  
  
  After many "Grasshopper" tests, SpaceX's first real try at launching a reusable rocket will attempt flight again in just a few minutes -- watch the live stream here or embedded after the break. Scrubbed due to a helium leak a couple of days ago, the Falcon 9 rocket is once again facing gloomy skies, but according to launch control, everything is a go. Weather permitting, the launch is scheduled for 3:25PM ET. The Falcon 9-reusable rockets have already undergone their own testing, and you can see the latest video after the break.. Also important is what's onboard the Dragon cargo ship this rocket is launching. Headed to the ISS, it's bringing new supplies and a pair of extra-large, bendable legs for our friend Robonaut 2.
  
  Update: We have liftoff. Now that the rocket is aloft, while the capsule will head to the ISS, its first stage will attempt to reenter the atmosphere, and position itself for landing somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, before falling over into the water. This is still just a test run, but it will help scientists sort out any issues before they attempt a reentry and landing on... land in the future. The live video stream is ending, and it sounds like we'll have to monitor the @SpaceX Twitter account for updates on the landing attempt. There is a NASA post-launch press conference going on with Elon Musk participating by phone, check it out live here.
  
  
  
  F9 & Dragon vertical on the pad for today's launch to the ISS. Weather still a concern--liftoff targeting 3:25pm ET pic.twitter.com/4wRhrtjlbN
  - SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 18, 2014
  Liftoff!!!`
  - SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 18, 2014
  
  
  Filed under: Transportation
  
  Comments
  
  Source: SpaceX
  

• Camera deals of the week: 4.18.14
  
  Snatching up a new camera can be a considerable investment, especially if you're after a unit that combines stellar images with a host of features. Fret not friends: We're here to help. Just beyond the break, you'll find a handful of photo gadgets that are all available at attractive discounts for the time being.
  
  If there are other cameras, lenses and the like you have your eye on that we haven't included here -- join us and add them to your "Want" list. Every time there's a price cut in the future, you'll get an email alert!
  Canon EOS 7D (body-only)
  
  Price: $879
  Regular Price: $1,500
  Engadget Global Score: 86
  Buy: http://gdgt.api.pgpartner.com/rd.php?pg=~~10&r=991&m=739295014&mt=3~6~1712.95~879.00~1331.65[[Profiles/gdgt_deals_on_engadget~y~~~~~&q=n&rdgt=1397841099&dl=1&source=xmlapi&request_id=d08f4e29a9f738cfb62d68f4f801ab86&ret=1397841099&k=eb049a68af68800d712638c43ae34980|42nd Street Photo]]
  
  If you're after a mid-range DSLR for that photo hobby, Canon's EOS 7D is available at a handsome discount right now. Sure, you'll have to shell out some extra cash for a lens, but you'll likely want to nab up a couple of those anyway. The current price tag is the lowest we've seen in the last three months, according to our price history tool.
  Nikon D600 (body-only)
  
  Price: $1,429
  Regular Price: $1,899
  Engadget Global Score: 86
  Buy: http://gdgt.api.pgpartner.com/rd.php?pg=~~10&r=991&z=28201&m=1054342345&mt=1~2~2099.99~1429.00~1764.49[[Profiles/gdgt_deals_on_engadget~y~~~~~&q=n&rdgt=1397841673&dl=1&source=xmlapi&request_id=dce12f6f10c18ff9dfb315a6adb7bd2e&ret=1397841673&k=6a20e0985e75ee4f8710d4d5da2bfc4e|42nd Street Photo]]
  
  For those looking to invest a bit more in their snapshooting exploits, the full-frame Nikon D600 also has received a significant price drop. While it does require a bigger investment, the pro-grade features of this camera are going at a rate on par with the 90-day low.
  Fuji X-Pro1 (body-only)
  
  Price: $799
  Regular Price: $1,300
  Engadget Score: 82
  Buy: http://gdgt.api.pgpartner.com/rd.php?pg=~~10&r=991&m=959486610&mt=3~4~1699.00~799.00~1224.00[[Profiles/gdgt_deals_on_engadget~y~~~~~&q=n&rdgt=1397842429&dl=1&source=xmlapi&request_id=f4cb3b71fb977375af0ef674618c32d2&ret=1397842429&k=dac4ac6b4c0740755198e3b8c06b39c3|42nd Street Photo]]
  
  It's no secret that Fuji's dapper retro stylings have caught our eye a time or two. And now, you can get in on the classic designs with the X-Pro1. This all-black model's current discount brings the price down to the lowest our price history tool has seen over the past three months.
  Samsung NX300
  
  Price: $576
  Regular Price: $800
  Engadget Score: 89
  Buy: Amazon
  
  There's a hint of classic styling to Samsung's NX300, too -- for those looking to make a more modest investment, and it's one that includes some requisite glass (an 18-55mm lens, to be exact). The black version of the WiFi-equipped mirrorless offering is seeing the best rate, so you'll have to pay extra if you'd prefer either the brown or white options.
  
  Filed under: Cameras
  
  Comments
  

• Facebook Paper got its first big update today, but is anyone using it?
  
  Here's a shocker: Facebook's first major update to Paper, its socially augmented news-reading app, makes it more social. Specifically, the app's 1.1 update now allows users to comment on posts using photos, as well as added birthday and event notifications and tacked on an unread-message counter to help users keep track of Group activity. Facebook hasn't fiddled with the user interface much, but content from Bloomberg, Mashable, Popular Science and six other news sources has been gussied up with new, custom article covers. Oh, and the company says it's made the app run a little faster, too. It's not a game-changing update, but anything's better than forgetting your spouse's birthday -- assuming Facebook's main app didn't already remind you. Has Paper found its way to your home screen? We're running a quick poll: Skip past the break to drop in a vote or leave us a note.
  Internet
  
  Comments
  
  Source: Paper, iTunes
  

• The Open Source Initiative hopes public awareness is Heartbleed's 'silver lining'
  
  
  ​Looking for a positive take to cut though all the negative press that Heartbleed has been getting? Then the Open Source Initiative (OSI) has one. The news has been full of stories about the exploit in OpenSSL (itself, an open-source project) that has caused a wave of panic around the internet. With much of the public not understanding what open-source is (it's complex, but mostly involves freedom to redistribute, and access to the code it's built on), and the fact that all this can be caused by a few lines of edited text, the integrity of open-source software has understandably come under scrutiny. We spoke with a representative from the OSI, and they gave us the positive spin we'd all been looking for.
  
  "It's actually incredibly beneficial to the community that this has been raised as such an important issue. A lot of folk rely upon open-source software to get through their daily business lives, but they may not be aware that they are relying upon it," Leslie Hawthorn, a member of the OSI board, told us in an interview.
  Hearbleed's made a large number of people aware of what open-source is for the first time.
  Hearbleed's made a large number of people aware of what open-source is for the first time. The OSI hopes that this awareness will help users realize they can contribute by filing bug reports, ultimately leading to safer software. That will certainly help, but with the Heartbleed vulnerability having gone unnoticed for over two years, would it not have been subject to more than enough eyes to catch it sooner? The OSI concedes that this is more specific to the OpenSSL project itself. "It's been widely reported that the OpenSSL folks didn't have the same kinds of financial or human resource contributions that many open-source projects do," Hawthorn said.
  
  
  This is perhaps compounded by a general public relations issue between the devoted volunteers behind such projects, and the public that uses them. If you go to the OpenSSL project's webpage, for example, you won't see any big banners, blog posts about what to do or links to resources that the public can use to understand Heartbleed. Instead, there's just one discreet "newsflash" link pointing to a jargon-laden plain text file. Hawthorn admits that this is a typical "engineering" response. Essentially, it says: Here's what's wrong; go update your systems. Of course, for the vast majority of bugs, this likely works; after all, when was the last time you headed over to OpenSSL.org to check what's new? And this brings us back to the question of open versus closed (paid for) software.
  "It's been widely reported that the OpenSSL folks didn't have the same kinds of financial or human resource contributions that many open-source projects do," Leslie Hawthorn says.
  Hawthorn tells us the OSI thinks that there's a balance between the two models, but ultimately (as you'd expect) still sings the virtues of open source's "many eyes, [potentially] fewer resources" setup. Lars Eilebrecht -- co-founder and member of the Apache Software Foundation that powers a great many of the internet's web servers -- is more reserved about the situation. "Making something open source doesn't automatically make it more secure, but it provides the basis for better security. In addition, open-source projects typically have a very good turnaround time for critical security fixes, e.g., hours vs. days or weeks [for close-source projects]." Eilebrecht points to a recent case where Akamai (which sells a service that uses a custom version of OpenSSL) claimed it patched its software up to be secure.
  
  Usually, this is something paying customers just have to trust. In the wake of Heartbleed, however, a researcher investigated Akamai's product after the update, and found it was actually still vulnerable. This kind of scrutiny is routine for both camps, but usually involving more eyes in the world of open-source software, its proponents argue. Eilebrecht sums the complex situation up neatly when he says, "Unfortunately, the OpenSSL bug has shown that a security bug can hide in plain sight for a very long time despite all the peer reviews of the OpenSSL code." He reminds us, "At the end, what matters is the number of qualified people peer-reviewing a piece of code to increase the confidence and trust that there are no security vulnerabilities."
  
  Filed under: Internet
  
  Comments
  

• FCC sets up the 'incentive auction' that will lead to better wireless internet for everyone
  
  
  Last week at the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) show, FCC head Tom Wheeler pushed broadcasters to loosen their grip on spectrum that the agency plans to auction off to give wireless internet room to grow. Now, he's laid out a draft of the rules for the auction before it takes place next year. The upcoming incentive auction will be a three stage process that, once completed, should open up more wireless spectrum for high-speed services like WiFi. WiFi operates on "unlicensed spectrum" that's open for anyone to use, and similar networks or devices could take advantage of any new frequencies the FCC opens up, while reducing interference with existing networks. That's good and bad however, since they'd fill the space in between networks, it could be harder to build up something like WiFi.
  
  
  So far not everyone has been happy with the possible rules for this redistribution. That includes the broadcasters themselves, whose participation will have to happen voluntarily, and the companies expected to bid for access, namely AT&T who has warned that it might skip the process based on the FCC's restrictions on how much spectrum it can buy. Wheeler's guidelines haven't mentioned those limits, so it will be interesting to see how that develops. According to his blog post, extending the amount of spectrum is key for offering wireless broadband service in both rural areas and urban areas where building penetration is a problem. Now that the rules are here, everyone from your local TV broadcaster to wireless carriers to cash heavy dreamers like Google and Dish Network can look them over and voice their opinions before the commission votes on them May 15th.
  
  "Getting the Incentive Auction right will revolutionalize how spectrum is allocated". More fr Chairman @TomWheelerFCC http://t.co/uYUEdC8kfI
  - The FCC (@FCC) April 18, 2014Image Credit (top): Shutterstock / nito
  Filed under: Home Entertainment, Wireless, HD, Mobile, Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile
  
  Comments
  
  Source: Tom Wheeler
  

• Image Manipulation with ImageMagick
      
  I've spent a lot of time in my column talking about text processing and analysis, with the basic assumption that if you're using the command line, you're focused on text.
     

• Non-Linux FOSS: Angry IP
      
  The de facto standard for port scanning always has been the venerable Nmap program. The command-line tool is indeed very powerful, but I've only ever seen it work with Linux, and every time I use it, I need to read the man page to figure out the command flags. 
     

• Encrypting Your Cat Photos
      
  The truth is, I really don't have anything on my hard drive that I would be upset over someone seeing. I have some cat photos. I have a few text files with ideas for future books and/or short stories, and a couple half-written starts to NaNoWriMo novels. It would be easy to say that there's no point encrypting my hard drive, because I have nothing to hide.
     

• Numerical Python
      
  For the past few months, I've been covering different software packages for scientific computations. For my next several articles, I'm going to be focusing on using Python to come up with your own algorithms for your scientific problems.
     

• Speed Test for Nerds
      
  Most people with Internet access in their houses have visited a speed-test Web site to make sure they're getting somewhere close to the speed they're overpaying for. I'm paying more than $100 a month for my business-class connection from Charter, so on a regular basis, I make sure I'm getting the advertised speed.
     

• DNSSEC Part II: the Implementation
      
  This article is the second in a series on DNSSEC. In the first one, I gave a general overview of DNSSEC concepts to lay the foundation for this article, which discusses how to enable DNSSEC for a zone using BIND.
     

• Pro Video Editing with Pitivi
      
  Several decent video editors are available on the Linux platform. Kdenlive, OpenShot, Cinelerra and Pitivi are those that come to mind as "big players" in an admittedly small market. I've used them all through the years, with varying levels of success.
     

• Android Candy: Control-Z for Your Phone!
      
  I never have a Twitter app crash in the middle of a Tweet. That wouldn't be too terrible to deal with. No, for me, it seems my e-mail application decides to crash after I've spent 20 minutes thumbing out a reply while sitting in a crowded airport. If you've ever lost a love letter, term paper, shopping list or world-class Facebook post, Type Machine is the perfect app for you. 
     

• Opening Minds to the Spheres Among Us
      
  
     

• April 2014 Issue of Linux Journal: High Performance Computing
       Big Block Linux with a Four-Barrel Hemi 
  We often brag about how few resources Linux needs to operate: a Raspberry Pi or Beagle Board, in a Web browser (   

• More Secure SSH Connections
      
  If you need remote access to a machine, you'll probably use SSH, and for a good reason. The secure shell protocol uses modern cryptography methods to provide privacy and confidentiality, even over an unsecured, unsafe network, such as the Internet.
     

• Split Testing
      
  It's nice to have many people visit your Web site. It's even better when people don't just come to your site, but also enjoy your content. But, best of all is when visitors to your site do what you would like them to do—sign up for your newsletter, register for your SaaS application or buy one of your products. 
     

• LVM, Demystified
      
  I've been a sysadmin for a long time, and part of being a sysadmin is doing more than is humanly possible. Sometimes that means writing wicked cool scripts, sometimes it means working late, and sometimes it means learning to say no. Unfortunately, it also sometimes means cutting corners. I confess, I've been "that guy" more than once. A good example is SELinux.
     

• Encrypted Backup Solution "Home Paranoia Edition"
      
  How to safeguard your personal data with TrueCrypt and SpiderOak.
     

• A Shining Ruby in Production Environments
      
  Even the most beautiful Rails application can lose its elegance if not deployed correctly. Like other Ruby frameworks or languages, such as Sinatra, Rails is based on the Rack interface. This article  provides a basic introduction to Rack hosting and Rack-based application deployments.