The most obvious way to tell if Elden Ring is a Souls game isn’t its satisfyingly difficult gameplay loop or incomprehensible lore. No, the true test of Elden Ring’s inherent Souls-ness lies with the messaging system, in which players can leave behind asynchronous notes to give their fellow Tarnished tips about…
Source: Kotaku – Elden Ring’s Dirty Messages Are My Favorite, Because I’m 12
Enlarge / The new Gmail design. You can see a chat popup in the bottom left. (credit: Ron Amadeo)
Gmail’s latest redesign seems to have finally started hitting a wide number of accounts over the weekend. The new desktop site changes up the 2018 design by turning the top and side portions of the web app gray, turning the red highlight to blue, and rounding over some of the corners. Oh yeah—it also adds a big, second sidebar to the left side of the screen. The normal Gmail sidebar showing all your mail sections is still there, but now there’s a whole additional sidebar that is basically an app switcher for other Google apps. It’s weird.
The new colors are fine, but Gmail is theme-able anyway, so the new default design doesn’t really matter much. But the new “integrated view” and sidebar will probably cause controversy. You’re on Gmail.com to check your email, and now on the side of the screen, there are four new buttons. There’s “Mail,” which is just Gmail. Then “Chat” and “Spaces,” which are both for Google’s latest messaging service, Google Chat. Then there’s a button for Google Meet, Google’s Zoom competitor.
That’s pretty much it. A top-to-bottom vertical bar to display four measly buttons (five if you count the returning hamburger button) and then a desolate Siberian wilderness of whitespace. Oh, if you happen to get an incoming Google Chat, you’ll see a profile picture pop-up in the abyss that is the bottom of the new sidebar. This is a huge waste of space for buttons that are irrelevant if you visit Gmail to—you know—use Gmail.
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Source: Ars Technica – Hands-on: Gmail’s new sidebar feels like a big banner ad for Google Chat
There are plenty of Linux phones to choose from out there. All kinds of options with different specs from different companies. Each Linux phone with its own unique set of features. In this article, we will guide you through buying the best Linux phone.
The post Best Linux Phones appeared first on Linux Today.
Source: Linux Today – Best Linux Phones
Linux kernel boss Linus Torvalds is “starting to be a bit worried” by lack of progress on version 5.17 of the project. In his weekly state of the kernel post, he opened with an observation that “whatever crazy things are going on in the world (and I personally had ‘Zombie apocalypse’ on my bingo card, not ‘Putin has a mental breakdown’), it doesn’t seem to have affected the kernel much.”
Source: LXer – Linus Torvalds ‘starting to get worried’ as Linux kernel 5.17 rc6 lands
Dav1d as the leading CPU-based, open-source AV1 video decoder developed by the VideoLAN project is nearing its v1.0 release…
Source: Phoronix – dav1d 1.0 AV1 Video Decoder Nears Release With AVX-512 Acceleration
The ExoMars rover, previously expected to hurtle toward Mars later this year, really can’t seem to catch a break. After facing multiple delays caused by testing issues and the pandemic, the mission faces yet another setback: war.
Source: Gizmodo – ExoMars Rover 2022 Launch Now ‘Very Unlikely’ Due to Russian Invasion, ESA Says
Security researchers with U.S. cybersecurity firm Symantec said they have discovered a “highly sophisticated” Chinese hacking tool that has been able to escape public attention for more than a decade. Reuters reports: The discovery was shared with the U.S. government in recent months, who have shared the information with foreign partners, said a U.S. official. Symantec, a division of chipmaker Broadcom, published its research about the tool, which it calls Daxin, on Monday. “It’s something we haven’t seen before,” said Clayton Romans, associate director with the U.S. Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). “This is the exact type of information we’re hoping to receive.”
CISA highlighted Symantec’s membership in a joint public-private cybersecurity information sharing partnership, known as the JCDC, alongside the new research paper. The JCDC, or Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative, is a collective of government defense agencies, including the FBI and National Security Agency, and 22 U.S. technology companies that share intelligence about active cyberattacks with one another. Symantec’s attribution to China is based on instances where components of Daxin were combined with other known, Chinese-linked computer hacker infrastructure or cyberattacks, said Vikram Thakur, a technical director with Symantec. […] “Daxin can be controlled from anywhere in the world once a computer is actually infected,” said Thakur. “That’s what raises the bar from malware that we see coming out of groups operating from China.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – New Chinese Hacking Tool Found, Spurring US Warning To Allies
Welcome back to io9’s monthly Nerd’s Watch, where we pare down the enormous lists of new films and television shows arriving on all your favorite streaming services into the sci-fi, fantasy, and horror titles we think you’ll like most.
Source: Gizmodo – The Best Horror, Sci-Fi, and Fantasy Streaming in March 2022
Humans have lived aboard the International Space Station for more than two decades. (credit: NASA)
NASA’s senior official for human spaceflight operations said Monday that the US space agency continues to operate the International Space Station as usual with its partners, including Russia.
“Our operations are nominal,” said Associate Administrator for Space Operations Kathy Lueders. She acknowledged that NASA continues to monitor the situation in Ukraine and work with the US State Department. “We’ve operated in these kind of situations before, and both sides always operated very professionally and understand at our level the importance of this fantastic mission.”
NASA flight controllers and other officials continue to work in Moscow, she said, and US and Russian managers have good communication. At the “working level,” at least, there are no signs of trouble. “We, as a team, are operating just like we were operating three weeks ago,” she said.
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Source: Ars Technica – NASA wants to maintain Russia partnership but is studying “operational flexibilities”
The California State Bar is investigating a potential data breach after finding that a public website published confidential information related to approximately 260,000 attorney discipline cases. Over the weekend, the bar said it learned of the exposure after finding the files on a website that aggregates public case records. According to the organization, the website displayed information related to case numbers, file dates, case status as well as respondent and complaining witness names. As of Saturday evening, the bar said all the leaked information had been removed from the website.
State Bar officials don’t know if someone obtained the information by hacking. The organization has tasked the provider of its Odyssey case management system to investigate the incident. It has also notified law enforcement and hired a team of forensic experts to aid with the investigation. “The State Bar deeply apologizes to anyone impacted by this breach,” the organization said. “We are doing everything in our power to get to the bottom of it and prevent any future harms.”
Source: Engadget – California State Bar investigates data exposure involving 260,000 confidential case records
SSH is one of the main key services in Linux/Unix-based systems. Learn how to use SSH to connect to a remote server in Linux here.
The post How to Use SSH to Connect to a Remote Server in Linux appeared first on Linux Today.
Source: Linux Today – How to Use SSH to Connect to a Remote Server in Linux
Enlarge / A metal ladle is used to serve takeout Chinese food from a plastic container, Lafayette, California, December 25, 2021. (credit: Getty | Gado)
Medical experts are calling out a rotten batch of news articles that wrongly claimed spoiled leftover Chinese food caused a teen to develop a life-threatening infection within hours, which led to the amputation of both his legs below the knees and parts of all 10 of his fingers.
In reality, the 19-year-old male suffered a rare and extremely severe complication from a blood infection with a bacterium that causes meningococcal disease. The bacterium—known as Neisseria meningitidis—is not foodborne, and its incubation period is longer than just a few hours.
N. meningitidis harmlessly colonize the noses and throats of about 10 percent of people. It spreads through very close contact and directly swapping saliva, such as through coughing, kissing, and living in close quarters, like dormitories. Given the risk in group settings, many colleges and universities require students to get meningococcal vaccines before attending. Still, there has never been a documented case of N. meningitidis spreading via food.
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Source: Ars Technica – No, bad leftovers didn’t cause teen’s life-threatening infection, amputations
It’s a race to the door for oil and gas companies with operations in Russia. Over the past 24 hours, three major international oil companies—BP, Equinor, and Shell—have publicly announced they will get out of the Russian oil business in response to Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Source: Gizmodo – Oil and Gas Majors Race Out of Russia
A shipment of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet dishes arrived in Ukraine on Monday, less than 48 hours after CEO Elon Musk announced the company would send support, according to a top official in the nation’s government. CNBC reports: Ukraine digital minister Mykhailo Fedorov, who tagged Musk in a request on Twitter on Saturday, posted that Starlink was “here” in Ukraine — with a photo showing more than dozen boxes of the company’s user kits in the back of a truck. How many kits SpaceX is sending to support Ukraine is unknown. Each Starlink kit includes a user terminal to connect to the satellites, a mounting tripod and a Wi-Fi router.
Musk responded to Fedorov, said: “you are most welcome.” Ukraine-based Oleg Kutkov tweeted a screenshot of an internet speed test, saying “Starlink is working in Kyiv” and thanked SpaceX for the company’s support. Musk emphasized on Saturday that Starlink was already “active in Ukraine.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – SpaceX’s Starlink Internet Dishes Arrive In Ukraine
Enlarge / A low-temperature isomerization unit at the Novokuibyshevsk Refinery, a subsidiary of Rosneft Oil Company, in the Russian city of Novokuibyshevsk. (credit: Yegor Aleyev / TASS)
Shell announced today that it would be pulling out of the stalled Nord Stream 2 pipeline and looking to sell its stakes in various oil and gas projects in Russia as President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukrainian grinds on.
The decision to exit the Nord Stream 2 investment comes days after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz effectively killed the project by suspending its certification. The Dutch company split about half the cost of the pipeline with four other European energy companies. Gazprom, the gas company controlled by the Russian government, covered the other half. Shell also owns significant stakes in two other oil and gas projects in Russia.
Together, the moves could cost Gazprom billions of dollars if the company can’t find buyers or has to take a significant write-down. Given international sentiment at the moment, the latter seems more likely. Altogether, the oil and gas projects represent about 5 percent of the company’s annual production, according to the Financial Times.
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Source: Ars Technica – BP abandons Russian oil company stake, Shell pulls out of Nord Stream 2
The Armbian project, which is a Debian-based distribution for Arm-based single-board computers (SBCs) and development boards, has a lengthy release announcement for Armbian 22.02. Beyond lots of updates and bug fixes (of course), Armbian has added support for Debian unstable (“sid”), Raspberry Pi images, a new Extensions build framework,
build automation (continuous integration and continuous deployment) improvements, and more. There is also upcoming support for Ubuntu 22.04 images.
Historically, in many cases board manufacturers have been ‘maintaining’ (in parallel) some heavily patched Linux kernel which have diverged so far from mainline as to be considered an entirely different operating system. That mess, is what some refer to as a Board Support Package (BSP), ‘legacy’ kernel, or ‘vendor’ bootloader.
Those sources get ‘thrown over the wall’ upon release, very often never to be touched again. They are full of proprietary code (binary blobs), dirty hacks, ancient kernels, and all manner of other garbage that will never see the light of day in mainline Linux. All of which is very similar to the situation on Android, if you know anything about that.
In fact, if not for projects like Armbian, our SBCs would likewise become throwaway devices, too — just like your Android — in pretty short order. That is, if you ever even got them to work in the first place.
Source: LWN.net – Armbian 22.02 has been released
If you’re working as a Linux/Unix system administrator, you know that you must have useful monitoring tools to monitor your system performance. As monitoring tools are very important in the job of a system administrator or a server webmaster, it’s the best way to keep an eye on what’s going on inside your system. Let’s take a look at some of your top options.
The post [𝗨𝗽𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱] 13 Useful Performance and Network Monitoring Tools for Linux appeared first on Linux Today.
Source: Linux Today – [𝗨𝗽𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱] 13 Useful Performance and Network Monitoring Tools for Linux
Netflix isn’t bowing to Russian pressure to carry state-owned TV channels. The streaming service confirmed to Variety that it wouldn’t carry the 20 free state channels required under a Russian law, including Channel One, NTV and Spa. The company has “no plans” to offer the programming in light of the “current situation,” a spokesperson said — that is, it’s not about to support Russian state media while the country invades Ukraine.
The law, known in the country as the Vitrina TV law, requires audiovisual services with more than 100,000 subscribers to carry the channels. National regulator Roskomnadzor labeled Netflix as one of those services in December. The measure has yet to be enforced, but there have been concerns Netflix would soon have to comply.
We’ve asked Netflix what it might do if the law takes effect. It might not be afraid to withdraw from Russia, however. Netflix only localized its service roughly a year ago, and it doesn’t have employees in the country. It only started work on its first Russian original (an adaptation of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina) in May 2021, and a source for The Wall Street Journalclaims Netflix has fewer than 1 million Russian subscribers. This may be more of a symbolic move than a major sacrifice.
Nonetheless, it adds to a growing technology industry backlash to Russian state media. Companies like Meta, Microsoft and Google have heavily restricted Russian outlets like RT and Sputnik due to a European Union ban and general policies against disinformation. Western tech firms aren’t willing to spread Russia’s official message after the invasion of Ukraine, and they’re increasingly unafraid of retaliation from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s administration.
Source: Engadget – Netflix refuses to carry Russian state TV channels
Cyberspace is feeling the strain of Russia’s deadly invasion of Ukraine: multiple sites tied to the Kremlin and its allies in Belarus have been unavailable to all or at least major parts of the Internet in recent days.
The outages began last week with the defacement of Russian websites and picked up steam over the weekend, following a call from Ukraine’s vice prime minister for the formation of an “IT Army” to target Russian interests.
“There will be tasks for everyone,” Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov wrote. “We continue to fight on the cyber front. The first task is on the channel for cyber specialists.”
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Source: Ars Technica – After Ukraine recruits an “IT Army,” dozens of Russian sites go dark
One bright spot that saw exceptionally online people through a rather grim weekend was the reveal of the newest video game installments for the Pokémon franchise. An announcement for Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet with an accompanying trailer revealed some of the newest inspirations, Arceus-inspired open-world…
Source: Gizmodo – Why Have Starter Pokémon Gotten Cuter?
