The Insider News

Ars Technica[^]:

Ten months ago, the chipmaker Adapteva unveiled a bold quest—to create a Raspberry Pi-sized computer that can perform the same types of tasks typically reserved for supercomputers. And... they wanted to sell it for only $99. A successful Kickstarter project raised nearly $900,000 for the so-called "Parallella," and the company got to work with a goal of shipping the first devices by February 2013 and the rest by May 2013. As so often happens, the deadlines slipped, but Adapteva has done what it set out to do.

Ariya Hidayat[^]:

Attending technical events, from the local after-hours meetups to the high-caliber and well-known conferences, becomes the usual part of a developer’s life. Generally, those events are packed with 45-minute talks, often also to the full one hour. I argue that there are more benefits of limiting such tech talks to a shorter duration, say 20 minutes (or even 18 minutes, in the style of TED talks). The most important is that it will lead to a more thoughtful, lean, and balanced content.

AnandTech[^]:

The Nexus Q was killed off before other services could be added, but at a high level the Q’s functionality as a playback device rather than streaming endpoint carried onto its successor, the Chromecast. The Chromecast is obviously everything the Q should’ve been. It’s a simple, small, $35 HDMI dongle, powered by USB, that’s designed to discreetly plug into the back of a TV.... The hardware is what it needs to be – small, simple, and conducive to the low price point.

opensource.com[^]:

The GPLv2 continues to be the most widely used FOSS license, but has been rarely interpreted by courts. Most of these decisions have come from Germany as a result of the enforcement actions of Harold Welte. The recent Fantec decision in Germany is the latest such decision and provides guidance on the requirements for companies to manage their use of FOSS and the lack of ability to rely on statements from their suppliers.

OpenSignal[^]:

Fragmentation is both a strength and weakness of the Android ecosystem. When comparisons are made between Android and iOS the issue of different API levels, and the vastly different devices running them, is often emphasised. In this report we examine the extent of Android fragmentation and analyse its impact on both users and developers.

IEEE - The Institute[^]:

We take for granted how computers in the workplace are all connected together. Sharing files with coworkers, sending documents to a network printer, and accessing data from a networked server are all routine procedures thanks to the invention of Ethernet technology. On Ethernet’s 40th anniversary, the IEEE History Center shares excerpts from the oral history interview it conducted with Ethernet’s co-inventor Robert Metcalfe in February 2004.

Dream.In.Code[^]:

I recently found myself explaining to different pods of folks how to add 'scripting' to their games. The consistent response was confusion and bemoaning the difficulty of the task. Certainly there is some work to be done (if you want to add Lua, Javascript, Perl, Python etc) to your engine but it doesn't need to go _that_ far. With planned access points and a 'ninja' method to process what was entered you can have functional scripting with little hassle.

jack.minardi.org[^]:

I was having fun casting shadows with my laser pointer the other day. I began to wonder about the 3D information that was embedded in the 2D shadow. Given enough shadows of an object, could you recreate it? What information is lost, what is preserved?

Stephanie Rieger[^]:

Having spent some time with Firefox OS last week, I thought I would share some thoughts on the platform, and a few key aspects of the user experience.... I do have reservations regarding the occasionally overtly prescriptive definitions of a “mobile web app” (i.e. single page, JavaScript heavy, transition and gesture enabled), but am also interested in seeing how things play out. If FFOS does well, it may prove the first large scale investigation of just where the app/site threshold lies from a purely user-facing perspective.

Hack a Day[^]:

This little device is about the size of a webcam, and it perches on top of your computer monitor in much the same way. It’s Disney’s solution to haptic feedback for gestural input. That is to say, wave your hands in the air to control a computer, and this will give you some sense of actually touching the virtual objects.

DaveConroy.com[^]:

There are plenty of resources online about tethering the iPhone 5 with the graphical interface, but I wanted to be able ‘hotswap’ my Raspberry Pi’s Internet connection without command line, and without the graphical interface. Plug and play, essentially. I was able to get this working last night using Raspian (a free operating system based on Debian optimized for the Raspberry Pi hardware) and a few scripts.

Truncated CoDr's Blog[^]:

How do we get more “Diversity” (Women) in Technology? This question was beat to death at Codemash this year. TO DEATH.... But here’s the thing: the people asking these questions are the people making our community so great... the people passionate enough about technology to facilitate a way to share knowledge. They’re the people who are able to make a difference, and from what I’ve seen, they’re really trying. Those asking these questions aren’t asking to make us feel different. They’re asking because they are truly looking for an answer; an answer to a really hard question. What Can We Do? I have no idea what “we” can do, but I can tell you what I’m trying to do.

Polygon[^]:

Video game developers will be able to self-publish their Xbox Live Arcade titles on Xbox 360 without the need to go through a third-party publisher starting later this summer, according to an update from The Pinball Arcade developer FarSight Studios.

TechHive[^]:

Sony and Panasonic have announced their plans to create super powerful optical discs that will be able to store 300 GB of information! Can you hear the minds from 2003 being completely blown...? So, why an emphasis on optical discs now? The investment in optical storage may appear to be a somewhat odd choice in that we’ve already seen 1 terabyte flash drives—not to mention near limitless cloud-based storage options.

True Ventures[^]:

Almost exactly six years ago, Apple launched the first iPhone. It was a small device that many dismissed as a toy. In reality Steve put a supercomputer in our pocket — we just didn’t know it. And like super computers before, it came with immense capabilities and brought about an opportunity to rethink, reimagine and reinvent how we live, work, create and consume.... Cheap processors, cheaper memory, and even cheaper sensors means it’s a great time for people who like to tinker with hardware to tinker.

Ars Technica[^]:

Tampering with a car’s brakes and speed by hacking its computers: A new how-to
Among the attacks: suddenly engaging the brakes of the Prius, yanking its steering wheel, or causing it to accelerate. On the Escape, they can disable the brakes when the SUV is driving slowly. With an $80,000 grant from the DARPA Cyber Fast Track program, they have documented the cars' inner workings and included all the code needed to make the attacks work in the hopes of coming up with new ways to make vehicles that are more resistant to hacking.