Microsoft Will Open-Source AI Development Platform Based on Minecraft

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March 14, 2016

Microsoft has decided to open-source a platform used by its researchers to test artificial-intelligence projects. AIX uses the Minecraft gaming platform for testing new research.

The AIX platform, which is already being used by Microsoft Research and is available under a private beta to select academic researchers, allows researchers to use the unstructured play in the Minecraft game as a testing ground for their AI research.

AIX will also be made available this summer under an open-source license.

These Are the Best System Rescue Tools After a Malware Attack

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Softpedia

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March 14, 2016

Researchers analyze five AV-made system repair tools. System rescue tools provided by antivirus makers are often used to clean infected systems after the main antivirus software detects infections.

Most antivirus makers bundle this functionality in their main products, but a few offer more specialized tools that also repair damaged files, attempting to restore the system to its earlier working point as much as possible.

Only five of such tools are currently available on the market as free tools. They are AVG Rescue CD, Avira EU-Clean, Bitdefender Rescue CD, ESET SysRescue, and Kaspersky Virus Removal Tool.

Dell’s Skylake XPS 13, Precision Workstations Now Come with Ubuntu Preinstalled

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ArsTechnica

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March 14, 2016

dino copy We really liked the updated Skylake-powered Dell XPS 13, and its bigger brother, the XPS 15, was also pretty great.

But if you’re looking at those machines and thinking, “Well, the hardware is nice; I just wish they came with Linux,” Dell has some good news. The company’s “Developer Edition” program has just been updated to include the newest Skylake systems.

The Developer Edition XPS 13s are slightly different from the Windows versions, as they use Intel Wi-Fi adaptors (instead of Dell-branded parts). Otherwise, little has changed save for them coming with Ubuntu 14.04 LTS instead of Windows 10.

Git 2.7.3 Out Now, Remains the Most Popular Source Code Management System

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Softpedia

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March 14, 2016

The third maintenance release of the stable 2.7 series of the Git open-source distributed revision control system has been announced for all supported platforms. In 2016, Git remains the most popular source code management system, used by over 12 million people on the well-known GitHub web-based Git repository hosting service, where developers from all over the world can find more than 31 million projects, to which they can contribute or even fork into new projects.

According to the latest release notes, Git 2.7.3 is a major release, and it adds multiple improvements and fixes since version 2.7.2, which was announced only two weeks ago.

KDE Frameworks 5.20.0 Released with Numerous Plasma Framework Improvements

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Softpedia

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March 14, 2016

The KDE developers have announced this past weekend the major KDE Frameworks 5.20.0 release, which now includes a total of 70 add-on libraries to the Qt technology.

KDE Frameworks 5.20.0 is part of a series of planned monthly releases of the technology that lets KDE developers port their KDE4 applications to the Qt 5 and KF5 technologies, bringing improvements and bugfixes, as well as to add various new features. New KDE Frameworks 5 maintenance releases happen on the second Saturday or Sunday of every month, and KDE Frameworks 5.20.0 was seeded to the official channels on March 13, 2016, for the latest KDE Plasma 5.5.5 desktop environment and KDE Applications 15.12.2 software suite.

TP-Link Blocks Open Source Router Firmware to Comply with New FCC Rule

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ArsTechnica

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March 14, 2016

tp-link-router Networking hardware vendor TP-Link says it will prevent the loading of open source firmware on routers it sells in the United States in order to comply with new Federal Communications Commission requirements.

The FCC wants to limit interference with other devices by preventing user modifications that cause radios to operate outside their licensed RF (radio frequency) parameters. The FCC says it doesn’t intend to ban the use of third-party firmware such as DD-WRT and OpenWRT; in theory, router makers can still allow loading of open source firmware as long as they also deploy controls that prevent devices from operating outside their allowed frequencies, types of modulation, power levels, and so on

Linux 4.5 Kernel Officially Released

By

Phoronix

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March 14, 2016

Linus Torvalds went ahead and released Linux 4.5 over the night.

He announced, “So this is later on a Sunday than my usual schedule, because I just couldn’t make up my mind whether I should do another rc8 or not, and kept just waffling about it. In the end, I obviously decided not to, but it could have gone either way. …”

Rackspace Puts the Pedal to the Metal for OpenStack

By

eWeek

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March 14, 2016

Rackspace’s expanded OnMetal bare-metal server service for OpenStack cloud debuts.

Rackspace is expanding its OnMetal bare-metal service for OpenStack, providing users with more powerful options to deploy applications in the cloud.Typically with a cloud deployment, server assets are virtual and customers don’t get to choose the physical underlying hardware, the actual bare-metal that an application will run on. The Rackspace OnMetal service first launched in June 2014, enabling users to directly deploy an OpenStack cloud onto physical hardware.

Next generation OnMetal Cloud Servers are faster, higher capacity and more reliable than the first generation and are built on second generation Open Compute servers, featuring the latest Intel Xeon E5-2600 v3 processors.

How To: Install/Upgrade to Linux Kernel 4.4.5 in Ubuntu/Linux Mint Systems

By

YourOwnLinux

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March 13, 2016

The Linux Kernel 4.4.5 is now available for the users, announced Linus Torvalds. This Linux Kernel version comes with plenty of fixes and improvements. This article will guide you to install or upgrade to Linux Kernel 4.4.5 in your Ubuntu or Linux Mint system.

Installation

For 32-Bit Systems

Download the .deb packages.

$ wget kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.4.5-wily/linux-headers-4.4.5-040405_4.4.5-040405.201603091931_all.deb
$ wget kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.4.5-wily/linux-headers-4.4.5-040405-generic_4.4.5-040405.201603091931_i386.deb
$ wget kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.4.5-wily/linux-image-4.4.5-040405-generic_4.4.5-040405.201603091931_i386.deb

Install them.

$ sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-4.4.5*.deb linux-image-4.4.5*.deb

Reboot the system.

sudo reboot

Full article here

Gneural Network: GNU Gets Into Programmable Neural Networks

By

Phoronix

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March 13, 2016

The inaugural release of Gneural Network is now available, a new GNU Project to implement programmable neural networks.

Gneural Network 0.0.1 is the inaugural release available this weekend. From the release announcement, “In the current version, it is a very simple feedforward network which can learn very simple tasks such as curve fitting, but we plan to deliver more advanced features very soon….”