open source

The Raspberry Pi opened up a whole new world of DIY projects but it has ironically been more difficult to actually produce a "normal" RPi-powered computer that doesn't look like a Frankensteined contraption. There are, of course, some kits that let you easily assemble a Raspberry Pi desktop, laptop, or even tablet, but those look more like things you'd rather leave at home than be caught dead using it outside. It's for that exact use case that CutiePi was born and now the ready-to-use RPi Tablet has launched on Kickstarter to bring all that to everyone willing to take the risk.

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The fuss over Linux phones seems to have died down a bit, perhaps due to the coronavirus pandemic making it harder to manufacture and ship these devices. For companies and developers pushing these open source and privacy-focused ecosystems forward, the show must go on. After a brief period of relative (but not total) silence, PINE64, makers of the PinePhone Linux phone, has opened pre-orders for its Linux tablet that's coming with a slight twist.

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The Android tablet market is a huge wasted opportunity. The Apple iPad Pro now has the lion's share of the mobile tablet market (as opposed to Tablet PCs) but many of its celebrated features have long been available on Android tablets before they practically went extinct.

Part of the reason for the less than enthusiastic adoption of Android tablets is the chicken and egg problem of apps, especially when it comes to content creation and creativity. At long last, Android has gotten what may be considered a "pro-level" painting app but does it have what it takes to revive what some consider an already dead device category? We take a quick dip into Krita's first Beta for Android to find out.

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One of the biggest hallmarks of PC gaming and something that consoles still have difficulty allowing is modding. Sometimes, modders have to bend over backward to apply some custom changes to a game, often coming at odds with the game's developers or publishers, but there are many games that support modding right of the bat. EA Games, however, is going above and beyond what most major publishers do and will even release the open source code for Command & Conquer Tiberian Sun and Red Alert when their remastered versions launch next month.

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Microsoft announced a supercomputer developed for OpenAI this week with power that ranks in the top 5 supercomputers on earth. That's counting the world's publicly disclosed supercomputers, mind you - there may be more powerful computers operating in secret - but this is about computing for the public good. The creation and operation of this new supercomputer was done as part of Microsoft's AI at Scale initiative.

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This is definitely not your grandfather's Microsoft. Not too long ago, then-CEO Steve Ballmer called Linux a cancer. Today, Microsoft proclaims it loves Linux and open source, two things the company set out to destroy using whatever means necessary (and some argue it's still doing behind the scenes). From the acquisition of GitHub to its Windows Subsystem for Linux, Microsoft has been increasing its efforts to woo Linux and open source developers and it has just made one of its biggest and most important announcements on that matter.

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Linux phones like the PINE64 PinePhone and Purism Librem 5 may be the hot topic in the free and open source community but they are hardly the first to take a stab at that dream. Just a few years back, Canonical, makes of the popular Ubuntu Linux distribution, decided to take a whack at creating a mobile Linux platform, Ubuntu Touch. It failed but the open source community took over the helm, paving the way for a new partnership that has now resulted in the PinePhone UBports Community Edition.

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Who loves public domain access to tons of historically significant and utterly beautiful contend... now in 3D? With the internationally recognized Creative Commons Zero (CCO) license in effect, The Smithsonian launched their Open Access initiative this week to the public for the first time. This system's launch included approximately 2.8 million 2D images and 3D models, rolling the lot directly into the public domain for all to enjoy - and use!

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The dream of a truly free as in speech, open source smartphone running Linux has never truly died. It just took on various forms and suffered numerous setbacks along the way. Last year, however, it seemed that the dream is finally close to becoming reality, with both the Purism Librem 5 and the PINE64 PinePhone declaring shipping dates. The Librem 5 had a rocky head start and now it's the PinePhone BraveHeart edition's turn to try convincing the world that a Linux phone for consumers is not such a bad idea after all.

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Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced a team of "up to 5" people would develop an "open and decentralized standard for social media." The "ultimate goal" for this system would be for Twitter to be "a client of this standard." Dorsey suggested that though Twitter started as a relatively open system for social networking, they became centralized, but "a lot's changed over the years..."

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Android and iOS may be the mobile platforms today but there have always been attempts to push other horses into the race. Most of them used the Linux kernel just like Android but a few were more direct efforts to bring some of the Linux desktop stack to mobile in one form or another. Thanks to changes in the industry, particularly in electronic components and production, there has been a steady rise of such attempts to create true Linux and truly open source phones, with Purism's Librem 5 and PINE64's PinePhone leading the way. These are primarily targeted at a small hobbyist market and at users that value privacy and security above all else. But while those are valid and desirable goals, it's actually important that these Linux phones become more mainstream in order to cultivate a healthier and better mobile market in general.

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When smartphones first arrived, it was perhaps not that strange that the devices ran programs that were vastly different from the ones our computers. The portable bricks were different enough to bypass our expectations of computers and we were perfectly fine with having disconnected experiences between the two. These days, however, both devices and users have changed and some do want to have the exact same apps on both their smartphones as well as computers. Neither Android nor iOS have been able to fully accomplish that but one still experimental phone is close to making that geek dream come true.

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