Apple Silicon Macs have gotten mostly glowing reviews on Ars and elsewhere for their speed, power efficiency, and the technical achievement they represent—the chips are scaled-up phone processors that can perform as well as or better than comparable Intel chips while using less power.

But the move away from x86 hardware has also made the Mac a bit less useful for those who want to run multiple operating systems on their Macs. While you can run ARM versions of Linux and (with caveats and without official support) Windows within virtual machines on Apple Silicon Macs, running alternate operating systems directly on top of the hardware isn't something Apple supports. Apple doesn't distribute drivers for other operating systems, and moving away from x86 CPUs and widely supported Intel and AMD GPUs makes it harder for other developers to step in and provide those drivers.

That's where the Asahi Linux project comes in. For months, a small group of volunteers has worked to get this Arch Linux-based distribution up and running on Apple Silicon Macs, adapting existing drivers and (in the case of the GPU) painstakingly writing their own. And that work is paying off—last week, the team released its first alpha installer to the general public, and as of yesterday, the software supports the new M1 Ultra in the Mac Studio.

Asahi's developers don't think the software will be "done," with all basic M1-series hardware and functionality supported and working out of the box, "for another year, maybe two".

See https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/03/asahi-linux-is-already-running-on-the-mac-studios-new-m1-ultra-chip/

#technology #opensource #linux #apple #asahilinux

What primarily drew me to Vivaldi browser initially was that it was one of the very few Chromium based browsers with a good implementation of tabs in the side panel instead of using valuable vertical real estate on wide monitors. That was of course before I discovered that all those good parts of Vivaldi were closed source, and I stopped using it as they were not sharing their improvements after building on top of the free open source they received in the first place.

Be that as it may, the point is that with 1920 x 1080 screens there is often a lot of wasted space on the sides, so it just makes sense to be able to have your tabs on the side. Although Firefox does not do this by default, at least various extensions can do this quite well (unlike on Chromium based browsers where the extensions are not very stable).

See https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/23/22993010/google-chrome-side-panel-reading-list-bookmarks

#technology #chrome #sidepanel

No Face, No Name, No Number, No SIM card, No Internet! Berty is a messenger that doesn’t require any of your personal data or network connection (using Bluetooth Low Energy BLE). All conversations are encrypted with end-to-end encryption, in a fully distributed network.

It is a peer-to-peer messenger with no servers, no cloud - your data is only stored on the device where Berty is installed and used. No one would be able to access the data or shut the app down, not even the developers.

Being P2P, it means the IP address needs to be available to route messaging, but their site explains a bit about how they've tried to mask this. Whilst Briar is an excellent alternative, it is still Android only. The closest alternative is maybe Jami, but it lacks a non-Internet Bluetooth alternative if I recall correctly. Interestingly, Berty also can use Airdrop (iOS to iOS) and Android's Nearby as alternative protocols.

You can share your details and add contacts via a QR code, public key, or an invite link. It is currently available on both iOS and Android, with desktop clients to follow.

See https://berty.tech/

#technology #messenger #berty #P2P #IPFS #privacy

It's a great idea as WhatsApp, iMessage, and others are creating more and more fragmentation and walled gardens for users who have to install 10+ apps to message their friends elsewhere. But this why open (not insecure) interoperable standards exist in the first place.

Rather than letting each provider now go create their own API, this is the opportunity to ensure open standards exist for each technology so that everyone can reach others. If RCS is to be the open standard for messaging, then let iMessage and WhatsApp adopt that. That way a message from one app can reach users on iMessage, WhatsApp, Telegram and more. Each app will still have its own UI and own bells and whistles that differentiate it from the others. As users, it will mean we are no longer locked into an app that prevents us from leaving.

Such data interchange standards do already exist such as XMPP, XML, RCS, and others. XMPP for example can enable encryption between the end-points so that need not be the issue here. Maybe this will also force the bigger players to help improve these interoperability standards.

It is quite clear that Apple, Facebook, and other big players had no intention of opening up interoperability with their competitors, and we can see already how this harmed consumers on both sides. It is therefore only likely that some legislation will achieve what BigTech has failed to do on their own. Clearly the few consumers that exercised their freedoms to leave platforms, had no real effect on the those running the platforms, so market forces were also not achieving any beneficial change for users (the lock-in effect for mainstream users was just too strong).

See https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/24/22995431/european-union-digital-markets-act-imessage-whatsapp-interoperable

#technology #BigTech #interoperability #messaging #EU

Telegram has several key features that make it an appealing option for communications relating to the war.

It facilitates public and private groups of up to 200 000 users (where individuals can send messages and interact), and channels (which allow one-way broadcasting to channel subscribers). Through these groups and channels, organisations can reach hundreds of thousands of people with messages and audio/video live-streaming – all of which is encrypted and stored on the Telegram “cloud”.

However, while both public and private communications on Telegram are encrypted, the default encryption setting is not end-to-end encryption, and instead happens on a client/server basis.

The data is stored (albeit in an encrypted form) in the cloud and distributed across multiple data centres throughout the world. These data centres are controlled by legal entities in various jurisdictions, and subject to the laws of those jurisdictions. This data could be decrypted, although doing so would be difficult.

One feature that differentiates it from WhatsApp is anonymous forwarding. And there are actually more reasons that also differentiate it from WhatsApp and Signal, which make it more ideally suited for situations such as this. Interestingly, there has also been a 48% increase in the number of Russian subscribers on Telegram since 24 February, when Russia’s invasion began.

See https://techcentral.co.za/why-telegram-became-the-go-to-app-for-ukrainians/209231/

#technology #censorship #ukraine #telegram #messenger

Steve Wozniak is officially done with Facebook.

On a March episode of the "Steve-O's Wild Ride!" podcast, hosted by entertainer Steve-O, Wozniak said that he and his wife both recently deactivated their Facebook accounts over data privacy concerns. When he "likes" a friend's post, the interaction isn't about connecting with someone he knows, the Apple co-founder said – it's about revealing his interests to advertisers.

That's enough to keep him off the platform for the foreseeable future, he said, noting that he's "scared a bit" about the amount of access Facebook had to his life: "Of all Big Tech, Facebook is probably No. 1 that I don't like."

Wozniak seems to have been aware of Facebook's privacy standards for some time, but the tipping point that led him to deactivate his account wasn't sparked by personalized ads on his feed. Instead, it came from months of habitual, mindless scrolling on social media.

Yes, I was also officially done with Facebook products at beginning 2020 when the straw broke the camel's back. So there went my FB, Instagram and WhatsApp accounts, as well as my planned purchase of an Oculus Rift headset. For me, it was the metadata being extracted from WhatsApp actually, as I had already deleted my FB account before that.

See https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/23/why-apple-co-founder-steve-wozniak-deactivated-his-facebook-account.html

#technology #deletefacebook #stevewozniak #privacy #socialmedia

Facebook, which turned 18 last month, has developed something of a reputation for being the social network for older Americans. That reputation is not unearned—according to a Pew Research Center survey, nearly 72 million Americans over the age of 50 use Facebook. And while the platform still has more users under the age of 50 than over, Facebook remains many older Americans’ sole social network.

That’s something the AARP is looking to change, though. The non-profit funded the creation of Senior Planet Community, a social media network that encourages users to join pre-existing groups around shared interests, including gardening, travel, fitness, food, and technology. In that way, it feels more like a pared-down version of Reddit or a small collection of forums. Besides its focus on the 50-plus set, Senior Planet Community stands apart from Facebook in that it’s not commercial. The site has no advertising or membership fees.

Looking at the site registration, it appears to be generic requirements and no specific AARP membership required to join. It is probably these types of support networks that will lure users who are stuck on Facebook, away to something else. The only issue could be if younger family are excluded. But that said, the AARP themselves stand against age discrimination.

See https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/03/aarp-backed-social-network-looks-to-lure-older-users-from-facebook/

#technology #socialnetwork #seniors #seniorplanetcommunity #aarp

After releasing LineageOS 18.1 based on Android 11 for the Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite, Moto G100, and Galaxy Tab S6 Lite (LTE) late last month, the LineageOS team has added three more devices to the LineageOS 18.1 build roster. Official builds of LinageOS 18.1 based on Android 11 are now available for the original Google Pixel, Pixel XL, and the Redmi Note 8/Redmi Note 8T.

I also see on the site that the newer Pixel 2 and upwards phones, are also supported (which no longer get updates from Google). Just note this is a custom ROM, which should just work fine, but the initial installation requires some extra steps, and you lose your existing data. If the Pixel was an iPhone, it would still be getting updates...

See https://www.xda-developers.com/lineageos-18-1-google-pixel-pixel-xl/

#technology #android #lineageos #googlepixel

Yep it's not cheap at all, but colour does fill a useful niche for magazines, textbooks and comics. This is Onyx's third commercial colour eInk device, and this is important as newer iterations are going to keep showing improvements of the screen, especially for contrast and clarity.

In fact, Onyx claims the screen on the new Nova Air C has 30% better contrast and 15% more colour saturation compared to the screen on the previous generation Nova3 Colour (but they also note the contrast difference with the front lights off is only 6%).

The device runs Onyx’s customized software that’s based on Android 11, and like other Boox products it’s open to install Android apps. It also comes with a stylus pen for taking notes and writing on the screen.

See https://blog.the-ebook-reader.com/2022/03/23/new-onyx-nova-air-c-released-with-color-e-ink-screen/

#technology #ereader #eink #onyx #reading