Red Hat Introduces Free RHEL for Open-Source Organizations

ZDNet brings an update about the future of Red Hat Enterprise Linux: When Red Hat, CentOS’s Linux parent company, announced it was “shifting focus from CentOS Linux, the rebuild of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), to CentOS Stream,” CentOS users were not happy. Now, in an effort to mollify them and to keep its promise to open-source organizations, Red Hat is…

Google Sponsors 2 Full-Time Devs To Improve Linux Security

Worried about the security of Linux and open-source code, Google is sponsoring a pair of full-time developers to work on the kernel’s security. From a report: The internet giant builds code from its own repositories rather than downloading outside binaries, though given the pace at which code is being added to Linux, this task is non-trivial. Google’s open-source security team lead…

Quantum shuttle to quantum processor made in Germany launched

The quantum computer race is in full swing. Germany has long been one of the world leaders in basic research. An alliance between Forschungszentrum Jülich and the semiconductor manufacturer Infinion, together with institutes of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft (IAF, IPMS) as well as the Leibniz Association (IHP, IKZ), the universities of Regensburg and Konstanz and the quantum start-up HQS, now aims to apply…

Are Texas Blackouts a Warning About the Follow-on Effects of Climate Change?

This week in America, “continent-spanning winter storms triggered blackouts in Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi and several other states,” reports the New York Times. But that was just the beginning… One-third of oil production in the nation was halted. Drinking-water systems in Ohio were knocked offline. Road networks nationwide were paralyzed and vaccination efforts in 20 states were disrupted. The crisis carries a…

The Open-Source Magma Project Will Become 5G’s Linux

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: Magma was developed by Facebook to help telecom operators deploy mobile networks quickly and easily. The project, which Facebook open-sourced in 2019, does this by providing a software-centric distributed mobile packet core and tools for automating network management. This containerized network function integrates with the existing back end of a mobile network and…

Where Tech Workers Are Moving

There’s a narrative that the tech industry’s future lies in Texas and Florida. That tech workers and executives — sick of California’s oppressive policies and sky-high real estate costs — are moving en masse to Miami and Austin this year. That these cities are building dominant talent foundations that will persist for years due to the pandemic. That narrative is wrong….

Q3 2020 Coursera for Business Quarterly Product Release

By Shwetabh Mittal, Senior Director, Product Management The great lockdown caused by COVID-19 has accelerated the need for digital skills. Companies are reallocating their digital talent to stay competitive and dedicating more time and resources to helping their employees learn about digital technologies. The pandemic has had an even bigger impact on higher education: around 1.6 […]
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What Happens When Researchers Give Thousands of Dollars to Homeless People?

CNN reports on “The New Leaf Project,” an initiative in which the University of British Columbia partnered with a Vancouver-based charity called Foundations for Social Change: Researchers gave 50 recently homeless people a lump sum of 7,500 Canadian dollars (nearly $5,700). They followed the cash recipients’ life over 12-18 months and compared their outcomes to that of a control group who…

Police Charity Bought An iPhone Hacking Tool and Gave It To Cops

The San Diego Police Foundation, an organization that receives donations from corporations, purchased iPhone unlocking technology for the city’s police department, according to emails obtained by Motherboard. From the report: The finding comes as activist groups place renewed focus on police foundations, which are privately run charities that raise funds from Wall Street banks and other companies, purchase items, and then…

China Blocks Wikimedia Foundation’s Accreditation To World Intellectual Property Organization

China this week blocked the Wikimedia Foundation’s application for observer status at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the United Nations (UN) organization that develops international treaties on copyright, IP, trademarks, patents and related issues. As a result of the block, the Foundation’s application for observer status has been suspended and will be reconsidered at a future WIPO meeting in 2021….