Linux Foundation develops EdgeX Foundry to standardise IoT

The Linux Foundation, along with 50 other companies, is all set to standardise the Internet of Things (IoT) with its EdgeX Foundry.

The new project unifies the marketplace around a new common open framework and builds an ecosystem of companies with interoperable plug-and-play components.

Security has been a major issue with all IoT projects. The Linux Foundation-backed EdgeX Foundry aims to secure the experience by standardising the IoT edge computing model. The new move also eases the growing concern across industry that IoT has been fragmented and suffers from slower growth due to the lack of a common framework.

“EdgeX Foundry is aligning market leaders around a common framework, which will drive IoT adoption and enable businesses to focus on developing innovative use cases that impact the bottom line,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director, The Linux Foundation.

The EdgeX development is expected to solve the complexity caused by IoT’s wide components range by simplifying the creation of IoT edge solutions. Using interoperable plug-and-play components, the framework will ease IoT product or solution creation for developers. The built-in components can run on any hardware or operating system.

The interoperability between connected devices, services and applications will simplify the creation of IoT projects. Moreover, the open source will give a dynamic nature to the projects, letting end customers adapt to changing business needs.

Dell is helping EdgeX Foundry with early stage FUSE source code under Apache 2.0. The FUSE project is a layer builder between messaging protocols used by sensor networks and cloud server layers.

Organisations like Advance Micro Devices, Bayshore Networks, Linaro, Dell, Canonical, VMware and NetFoundry are the founding members of the EdgeX Foundry.

OpenSUSE Tumbleweed users receive snapshot updates

OpenSUSE has received the latest set of updates and fixes. OpenSUSE Tumbleweed users stand to gain with this move because of the use of advanced technologies like KDE Plasma 5.9.5 and the GNOME 3.24.1 environment.

Douglas DeMaio from the OpenSUSE project announced the new updates. He highlighted the presence of the Thunderbird 52.1.0 email client, the KDE frameworks 5.33.0, the Vim 8.0.566 editor, the Mesa 17.0.4 3D graphics library and the Zypper 1.13.24 package manager, in addition to the fresh environments. These latest updates also include important security fixes for numerous packages in Tumbleweed.

Additionally, the open source community has received the OpenSUSE Leap 42.3 Build 0184 release

that includes all the changes implemented in the new snapshots.

Tumbleweed users have received more than seven snapshot updates recently. The project has received the latest versions of many widely-used applications.

Wipro joins block chain-centric Ethereum Alliance

Wipro has joined the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) as a founding member. The EEA has been founded to promote, develop and implement enterprise grade Ethereum-based block chain applications.

Bengaluru-headquartered Wipro has been actively contributing to Ethereum.

The open source platform features block chain-based computing with smart contract functionality. “We are excited to be a part of the founding team of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance and contribute towards key aspects such as security, privacy and scalability as these will be the key determinants in accelerating block chain adoption within enterprises,” said Krishnakumar N. Menon, vice president of service transformation, Wipro Limited, in a joint statement.

Wipro’s research and development on Ethereum will enable the development of block chain-based industry solutions such as Delivery versus Payments (DvP) settlement for securities and capital markets, skip-trace consortia for banking, peerto-peer (P2P) insurance for the sharing economy, and anti-counterfeit solutions for supply chain traceability.

“It is great to have Wipro as a founding member of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance,” said Marley Gray, principal block chain architect, Microsoft. In addition to the in-house developments, Ethereum is being used by Wipro client companies. The Indian IT giant has also established the Blockchain Innovation Lab as part of its Blockchain COE (Centre of Excellence) to support the advanced developments. The lab has been founded to build use-case specific block chain solutions.

Facebook’s Oculus to plan its future around open source

Facebook-owned Oculus is set to shut down its virtual reality (VR) division, Oculus Story Studio. The new move is aimed to support developments around immersive experiences using the open source model.

Oculus’ VP of content, Jason Rubin, has announced that the shutdown of its Story Studio is part of the shift that will result in the company offering support for external production. “After careful consideration, we have decided to shift our focus away from internal content creation to support more external production,” Rubin writes in a blog post, adding, “As part of that shift, we will be winding down Story Studio.”

Founded in 2014, Oculus Story Studio was designed to produce original cinematic content for the company. Initially, it brought out some VR shorts to persuade traditional filmmakers to enter the new world of entertainment. However, Oculus’ team is now apparently seeking to build its future around open source.

Oculus will provide resources and programmes to help creators and thirdparty developers begin with their VR solutions. At the Oculus Connect developer conference in October, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg highlighted the investment

of more than US$ 250 million for building original VR content. Oculus has now set aside US$ 50 million from the proposed funding amount to invest exclusively on non-gaming, experimental VR content. “This money will go directly to artists to help jumpstart the most innovative and groundbreaking VR ideas,” Rubin stated.

This is not the first time that VR is exploring open source options. Platforms like StreamVR and Google’s Daydream VR have also opted for community moves to gain in the market. Last month, Facebook even launched its JavaScript framework, React VR, to boost the progress around simulation and immersive experiences.

Cinnamon 3.4 debuts with notable changes

After much anticipation, Cinnamon 3.4 has finally been released. The latest desktop environment includes changes that will be included by default within the Linux Mint 18.2.

Cinnamon 3.4 comes with over 160 new changes. You can expect a few more bug fixes and patches before the desktop environment arrives in the stable channels of various Linux distros.

The latest version offers a cinnamon-stap-monitor utility and better panel intellihide. A noteworthy addition is the ability to manage the systemd services in the distro. Another notable tweak is a ‘Run now’ button that appears while you select a row in Cinnamon’s Settings module. It eases the management of startup applications.

Besides, the desktop environment will no longer display the applets that do not offer vertical panels. You can also easily configure the LightDM login manager using lightdm-settings in the Cinnamon Settings module.

The new Cinnamon release displays critical notifications in full-screen mode. The team has also fixed the panel launcher animation, and users can control the acceleration and sensitivity of the mouse pointer.

GNU Compiler Collection gets anniversary update

GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) has received an update to 7.1.0. The new version marks the 30th anniversary of GCC.

The GCC 7.1.0 update is a major release for the open source community as it comes with several new functionalities. “This year, we celebrated the 30th anniversary of the first GCC beta release, and this month we will celebrate 30 years since the GCC 1.0 release,” GCC developer Jakub Jelinek wrote in an official announcement.

The latest version brings experimental support for the C++17 draft library in the C++ frontend. There are also a few additions in the libstdc++ library. The GCC team has included the std=gnu++1z and -std=c++1z options as well.

Further, GCC 7.1 gets support for Address Sanitizer to report the use of variables. There are also improved versions of the optimisers to add new functionality in the link time optimisations.

Alongside the major tweaks and changes, the GCC update has the ability to configure OpenMP 4.5 offloading for Nvidia PTX GPUs. Tools like stink wrapping, code hosting and loop splitting have also been enhanced in the new version.

You can download the official source tarball of GCC 7.1.0 and compile the

version for your Linux distro. The stable repository for the respective distros will be available soon.

India IT infrastructure spending to reach US$ 2.2 billion in 2017: Gartner

The expenditure on IT infrastructure in India is expected to reach US$ 2.2 billion in 2017, according to research firm Gartner. Segments like enterprise networking and storage are expected to register growth while the spending on server equipment is expected to decline.

Gartner predicts that the overall IT infrastructure spending in the country will increase by 1.5 per cent over 2016. The prime factor behind the growth is touted to be the digital transformation that was kickstarted right from the government level — with the launch of public initiatives like ‘Digital India’ and ‘Make in India’. “Digital transformation is bringing in new sets of challenges and opportunities for Indian infrastructure leaders,” said Naveen Mishra, research director at Gartner, in a statement. “They have the unique opportunity of being at the helm of this shift within their organisation, provided they align with the imperatives of the digital world,” he added.

Swift increase in the demand for cloud computing has made enterprise networking the ‘biggest segment’ within the entire Indian IT infrastructure market. The firm predicts that revenue from the enterprise networking segment will reach US$ 1.1 billion in 2017.

After enterprise networking comes the storage segment that is expected to reach US$ 352 million. Gartner believes that the small increase in revenue from US$

346 million in 2016 will be primarily driven by technology alternatives such as software-defined storage (SDS) and Flash-based storage.

In the entire Indian IT infrastructure market, server spending is predicted to fall. Gartner expects that the spending on server equipment will decline from US$ 765 million in 2016 to US$ 727 million in 2017.

Despite the decline in 2017, server spending is likely to receive a marginal boost in 2018 and reach US$ 768 million. New developments like the advanced Linux distributions are expected to play a vital role over time.

Google develops a DIY kit to make Raspberry Pi smarter

Raspberry Pi Foundation has partnered with Google to launch a special DIY kit that comes bundled with the MagPi 57 magazine, and is designed to enable Raspberry Pi to build solutions around Amazon Echo and Google Home.

Called the ‘Artificial Intelligent Yourself’ (AIY), the kit comes with a Google Voice Hardware Attached on Top (HAT) accessory board and includes components such as a stereo microphone, large arcade button and a selection of wires. Google has also provided its iconic cardboard case that houses the entire kit in a neat and clean form — similar to Google Cardboard.

“The folks at Google, along with us at the MagPi, are really excited to see what projects you can create (or enhance) with this kit -- whether you are creating a voice-controlled robot or a voice interface that answers all your questions,” said Rob Zwetsloot, features editor for the MagPi magazine.

You need to use your Raspberry Pi 3 to begin the action with the AIY kit. Also, Google has provided access to the recently developed Google Assistant SDK and Google Cloud Speech API to let you easily build the next Amazon Echo or Google Home.

Microsoft’s Imagine Cup (2017) India round winners declared

Microsoft recently announced the India winners of its Imagine Cup 2017 at a conference in New Delhi. The winners will represent the country at the worldwide finals in July at Seattle to compete against global talent for a prize worth US$ 100,000.

The team, Content Holmes from BITS Pilani has emerged as the winning team among the 27 finalists from the Indian region. It developed a one-click artificial intelligence (AI) based online parenting solution to help parents keep children secure from cyber bullying.

Started back in 2003, the 15th edition of Imagine Cup attracted participation from more than 1,600 colleges across the country. “We had got entries from 500600 institutes last year, but over 1,600 colleges have participated this time,” said Narendra Bhandari, general manager of the developer experience and evangelism, Microsoft India.

Bhandari, who leads the growth of developer engagements by Microsoft in the country, told Open Source For You that of the 27 participating teams, 11 were led by women. “This is definitely heartening, if not surprising,” he said.

Microsoft had four judging panels to pick the winners. Each of the panels comprised different jury members, including engineers, venture capitalists/ accelerators, startup founders and academicians. And there was only one Microsoft employee in the panels.

“We have expanded the juries. They bring a different perspective when judging the ideas, and each of the widened jury panels is giving participants’ feedback to improve,” said Bhandari.

The aim of the Imagine Cup is not just to create startups but also to encourage thinking skills. Instead of focusing primarily on a proprietary solution, Microsoft is open to considering developments irrespective of the platform. “The message we give to people through the Imagine Cup is—any developer, any app and any platform,” Bhandari stated.

When asked about what message developers need to receive from a programme like Imagine Cup, Bhandari told Open Source For You that this is the best time to innovate. “You have all kinds of mentorship available,” he added.

Apart from Content Holmes, Mi-amigos of Chameli Group of Institutes, PocketConfident AI of IIT, Hyderabad, and White Cane of IIT, Kharagpur have emerged as the three runner-ups. Three of the four outstanding projects are based on AI technologies.