Google is rolling out Chrome version 79 today, and it includes a number of password protection improvements. The biggest addition is that Chrome will now warn you when your password has been stolen as part of a data breach. Google has been warning about reused passwords in a separate browser extension or in its password checkup tool, but the company is now baking this directly into Chrome to provide warnings as you log in to sites on the web.
[Source: The Verge]
At the core of every flagship Android phone, underneath the layers of brand-specific and device-specific extras, lies the same open-source foundation of Android, the Android Open Source Project. To help us all better understand that foundation, Google has made it possible to browse and search through Android Open Source Project code in a way that makes sense.
Google breaks down complex projects like Android and Chromium into smaller individual Git repositories, with Android having over 1500 different open source repositories. To help make the code more accessible to those outside of Google, the company offers things like Chromium Code Search. As the name suggests, the tool gives you the option to search as well as browse through the Chromium code as though it were one large repository.
[Source: 9to5Google]
Open source is a great source of free tools for developers, but as these projects proliferate, and some gain in popularity, the creators sometimes look for ways to monetize successful ones. The problem is that it’s hard to run a subscription-based, dual-license approach, and most developers don’t even know where to start. Enter Israeli startup xs:code, which has created a platform to help developers solve this problem.
The platform is available for the first time starting today in beta. You can sign up for free. Xs:code has raised $500,000 in pre-seed money to date.
[Source: TechCrunch]
Tern is a VMware-originated open source tool that inspects container images to find individual software packages and their metadata installed in the image.
Due to changes in the command line options, Tern version 1.0.0 is the first non-backwards compatible release. If you have been using previous versions of Tern, we recommend that you upgrade to the latest release. You can run Tern by installing it from PyPI or you can clone the project from GitHub and install the project after cloning it.
[Source: Blog post by VMware Open Source Engineer Rose Judge at linuxfoundation.org]
Keith White, one of Microsoft’s top cloud executives, will now be leading HPE’s GreenLake business. As general manager and senior vice president, White will be responsible for leading the go-to-market, field sales, strategy and ecosystem development efforts for Greenlake.
A Microsoft veteran for more than 20 years, White most recently served as vice president of the intelligent cloud, worldwide commercial business at Microsoft.
[Source: TFiR]
“Brexit”, the popular term coined to represent Britain’s exit from membership of the European Union, has caused political and social turmoil in the UK for the past three years. And while the exit date may have shifted three times and prompted two general elections, clarity around whether the UK’s population and economy will be open or closed to the EU, after 46 years of membership, has yet to be realised. It is a situation which has left many people and businesses in the UK exhausted and uncertain of their future.
Perhaps those handling the Brexit crisis could benefit from taking a closer look at the open source community, whose philosophy is based on working collaboratively toward common goals with the accent on quality and transparency. With this approach in mind, could Brexit present an opportunity, whatever the outcome of the UK’s voting practices?
[Source: Information Age]
Take a look at some of the most prominent venture capital and merger and acquisition news items from the past month. Google acquired CloudSimple, a startup that makes it easier for customers to move VMware workloads from their on-premises data centers into public clouds. The acquisition gives Google an edge as it competes against Amazon Web Services (AWS) and that public cloud provider’s hybrid cloud service with VMware called VMware Cloud on AWS.
Also, former Contrail Systems CEO Ankur Singla’s new startup Volterra officially launched with more than $50 million in funding and more than 30 customers using its distributed cloud platform.
[Source: SDxCentral]
Take a look at your Google Chrome. Go on, I’ll wait for you. So, how many tabs do you have open? If you’re like me, I’ll bet it’s a lot, but fear now! Help is at hand. Here’s how you can take back control and make your browser a happier, more productive place to work.
Don’t use tabs as bookmarks: Use bookmarks as bookmarks. Leaving tabs open because you want to go back to that page or remember where you saw something is the biggest cause of tab overload.
[Source: ZDNet]
Canonical released today updated Ubuntu images for all supported Raspberry Pi single board computers with out-of-the-box USB ports functionality and various bug fixes. Last month, Canonical pledged to fully support its popular Ubuntu Linux operating system on all Raspberry Pi boards, including Raspberry Pi 2, Raspberry Pi 3, and the latest Raspberry Pi 4 model. Ubuntu 19.10 shipped with a Linux kernel bug blocking the use of USB ports out of the box in the official arm64 image on the Raspberry Pi 4 SBC with 4GB RAM.
[Source: Softpedia]
If Google’s Pixel 4 is your daily driver, good news: It’s now able to screen robocalls — and more. Google announced this morning an update to the Pixel 4’s Call Screen feature in the U.S. that automatically declines calls from unknown parties and filters out suspected robocallers, alongside an improved video calling experience on Duo, the rollout of the new Google Assistant to more users, and a zippier software experience made possible by memory usage optimizations.
On the subject of Duo, Google’s cross-platform video chat app, it auto-frames faces to keep them centered during conversations even as subjects move around. Plus, playback of calls is smoother than before thanks to an AI model that predicts the likely next sound and helps to keep the conversation going with minimum disruptions.
[Source: VentureBeat]
