WhatsApp has announced it is retiring its Electron-based desktop app, forcing users to switch to the native app for their OS to continue using WhatsApp. Android Police reports: Back when WhatsApp was in the early stages of development, the developers created an app for desktop, based on the Electron JavaScript framework. This allowed them to share a code base between WhatsApp Web and the new, platform-agnostic desktop app that worked on both Windows and macOS. Around four weeks ago, a countdown timer showed up on the main screen of this desktop app, announcing its shutdown.

Doomsday is now here and WABetaInfo reports anyone visiting the Electron-based app just sees a screen saying "App expired." The deprecated app helpfully links to the native WhatsApp Desktop app available on the Microsoft Store or the Mac App Store. The new native app has been stable for around a year now, but is still relatively new. Some users may lament the transition period was too short, or the native app still doesn't have all the functionality for business users, like catalog management and quick replies, and they would be right.

This week the Linux Foundation shared an update on the Zephyr Project, a small real-time operating system for connected, resource-constrained and embedded devices: The project recently achieved several milestones including surpassing 80,000 commits since it was released in open source in 2015. This is an average of almost 2 commits per hour, which was made recently by 490 individuals, including 166 first-timers, who contributed to the 3.4 release. Zephyr RTOS supports over 450 boards running embedded microcontrollers from Arm and RISC-V to Tensilica, NIOS, ARC and x86 as single and multicore systems...

Zephyr RTOS has a growing set of software libraries that can be used across various applications and industry sectors such as Industrial IoT, wearables, machine learning and more. It is built with an emphasis on broad chipset support, security, dependability, long-term support releases and a growing open source ecosystem...

The Zephyr community will be at the Zephyr Developer Summit, which takes place on June 27-30 in Prague, Czech Republic, and virtually as part of the first-ever Embedded Open Source Summit. [Register here for virtual attendance.]
Arduino will be joining Zephyr's Technical Steering Committee, along with Technology Innovation Institute and the American multinational semiconductor company Analog Devices (or ADI, who will also be joining its governing board). Arduino's CEO said "We believe that Zephyr OS is a truly special project that will play a significant role in the Arduino ecosystem and will be a big priority for us."

As a "Platinum"-level sponsor, ADI joins Antmicro, Baumer, Google, Intel, Meta, Nordic Semiconductor, NXP, Oticon, Qualcomm Innovation Center and T-Mobile.

Long-time Slashdot reader internet-redstar writes: In little longer than 1 year, RHEL7 and CentOS 7 will go EOL. Large enterprises with thousands of these servers are struggling to meet that deadline. Now they also have the option to use Project78 from Linux Belgium which offers a Cloud and OnPrem version to aid in the transition to RHEL 8 or Rocky Linux 8. It promises a 100% success rate for in-place OS upgrading and a 95% success rate for application migrations in a Upgrade-as-a-Service package.
In April Red Hat's senior technical marketing manager shared their thoughts about next year's end of life for CentOS Linux and the End-of-Maintenance for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (along with some tips): The good news is that these events won't require a complete infrastructure overhaul. Tools are available to move from your current configuration to a place where you'll have years of support. While June of '24 may sound a ways off, do not delay. It will be here faster than you think. Start planning now. Start moving soon. Give yourself plenty of runway, and don't forget that we aren't just your software vendor at Red Hat. We are your partners and are here to help you with these transitions.
UPDATE (7/3): Thursday Red Hat announced an add-on option for four more years of "extended support" for RHEL 7: As we near the end of the standard 10-year life cycle of RHEL 7, some IT organizations are finding that they cannot complete their planned migrations before June 30, 2024. To support IT teams while they catch up on their migration schedules, Red Hat is announcing a one-time, 4 year ELS maintenance period for RHEL 7 ELS. While Red Hat is providing more time, we strongly recommend customers migrate to a newer version of RHEL to take advantage of new features and enhancements...

For organizations that need to remain on a major release beyond the standard life cycle, we offer the Extended Life Cycle Support (ELS) Add-On. This add-on currently extends support of major releases for up to 2 years after the end of the standard release life cycle. As an optional, add-on subscription, ELS gives you access to troubleshooting for the last minor release, selected urgent priority bug fixes and certain Red Hat-defined security fixes...

ELS for RHEL 7 is now available for 4 years, starting on July 1, 2024. Organizations must be on RHEL 7.9 to take advantage of this. Compared to previous major releases, ELS for RHEL 7 (RHEL 7.9) expands the scope of security fixes by including updates that address Important CVEs. It also includes maintenance for Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP Solutions and Red Hat Enterprise Linux High Availability and Resilient Storage add-ons. And to help you create your long-term IT infrastructure strategy, Red Hat plans to offer ELS for 3 years for both RHEL 8 and 9.

When you're ready to upgrade from RHEL 7 — or any other version — Red Hat is here to help. We offer in-place upgrade tools and detailed guidance to streamline upgrades and application migrations. You can also engage Red Hat Consulting to plan and execute your upgrade projects.

"CentOS Stream will now be the sole repository for public RHEL-related source code releases..." Red Hat posted this week on its blog, arguing that "The engagement around CentOS Stream, the engineering levels of investment, and the new priorities we're addressing for customers and partners now make maintaining separate, redundant, repositories inefficient."

Long-time Slashdot reader slack_justyb notes this means patches and changes will now hit CentOS Stream before actually hitting RHEL, which "will make it difficult for other distributions such as Alma Linux, Rocky Linux, and Oracle Linux to provide assured binary compatibility as their only source now will be ahead of what RHEL is actually using."

"Some commentators are pointing out that it's possible to sign up for a free Red Hat Developer account, and obtain the source code legitimately that way," writes the Register. "This is perfectly true, but the problem is that the license agreement that you have to sign to get that account prevents you from redistributing the software." Hackaday notes that beyond the the GPL v2 license on the kernel, Red Hat also has "an additional user agreement that terminates access to updates if the code is re-published."

Rocky Linux officially "remains confident in its ability to continue as a bug-for-bug compatible and freely available alternative to Red Hat Enterprise Linux, despite changes in accessibility." While this decision does change the automation we use for building Rocky Linux, we have already created a short term mitigation and are developing the longer term strategy. There will be no disruption or change for any Rocky Linux users, collaborators, or partners... The project pledges to keep its promise to maintain the full life-span of support for Rocky 8 and 9, and to continue to produce future RHEL-compatible versions as long as the option remains, allowing organizations to maintain the flexibility, control, and freedom they rely upon for their critical infrastructure. This is the open source way.
Gregory Kurtzer, founder of the Rocky Linux project, calls Red Hat's move "a minor inconvenience for the Rocky Linux team," but with "no disruption to Rocky Linux users. Moving forward we are becoming even more stable, supported, and secure."

AlmaLinux also weighs in: Can you just use CentOS Stream sources?
No, we are committed to remaining a downstream RHEL clone, and using CentOS Stream sources would make us upstream of RHEL. CentOS Stream sources, while being upstream of RHEL, do not always include all patches and updates that are included in RHEL packages.

Is Red Hat trying to kill downstream clones?
We cannot speak to Red Hat's intentions, and can only point to the things they have said publicly. We have had an incredible working relationship with Red Hat through the life of AlmaLinux OS and we hope to see that continue.

A government panel in Japan drew up a set of regulations aimed at opening up the smartphone app stores of U.S. technology giants Apple and Google to competition. From a report: The two companies dominating the smartphone operating system market will be obliged to allow their users to download apps by using services other than their own app stores. The government hopes that the move will spur competition and lead to app price drops. The smartphone OS market is occupied almost entirely by Apple's iOS and Google's Android. The companies control how apps are installed and paid for on their iPhones and Android devices.

The government will create a list of what OS providers must not do in order to stop them favoring their own services and payment platforms. The regulations were drawn up at the government's headquarters for digital market competition, headed by Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno. The government aims to submit relevant legislation to the next year's ordinary session of parliament. Apple makes it impossible for iPhone users to download apps without using its App Store. Of Android users, 97% download apps through the Google Play store, although Google does not require them to do so.

Apple has made the Apple Developer Program available for anyone with an Apple ID. Previously, the company limited developer betas to developers who have a paid account that costs $99 per year. MacRumors reports: "OS beta releases" is now listed as an available resource even for those who are not members of the Apple Developer Program. This change means that anyone with an Apple ID can download and install the iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and macOS Sonoma betas without waiting for the public betas to launch.

Of course, it is not a good idea to install these betas on a main device as there can be notable bugs and issues with early software. More information can be found on Apple's membership page.

At WWDC today, Apple debuted iOS 17. "Highlights include new safety features, a built-in journaling app, a new nightstand mode, redesigned contact cards, better auto-correct and voice transcription, and live voicemail," reports The Verge. "And you'll be able to drop the 'hey' from 'Hey Siri.'" From the report: Your contact book is getting an update with a new feature called posters, which turns contact cards into flashy marquee-like images that show up full-screen on your recipient's iPhone when you call them. They use a similar design language as the redesigned lock screens, with bold typography options and the ability to add Memoji, and will work with third-party VoIP apps. There's also a new live transcription feature for voicemail that lets you view a transcript of the message a caller is leaving in real time. You can choose to ride it out or pick up the call, and it's all handled on-device. You'll also be able to leave a message on FaceTime, too.

Some updates to messages include the ability to filter searches with additional terms, a feature that jumps to the most recent message so you can catch up more easily, transcriptions of voice messages -- similar to what the Pixel 7 series introduced -- and a series of new features called Check In that shares your live location and status with someone else. It can automatically send a message to a friend when you've arrived home, and it can share your phone's battery and cell service status to help avoid confusion if you're in a dead zone. Stickers are getting an overhaul, too, with the ability to add any emoji or photo cutout as a "sticker" positioned on iMessages or anywhere within the system. Live photos can be turned into animated stickers, too, and you can now add effects to stickers.

AirDrop gets an update to send contact information -- cleverly called NameDrop -- which will send your selected email addresses and phone numbers (and your poster) just by bringing two iPhones near each other. It also works between an iPhone and an Apple Watch. Photos can be shared the same way, and if the file is a big one, it's now possible to move out of range while continuing the download. iOS 17 also includes keyboard updates, including enhancements to autocorrect. It now relies on a new language model for better accuracy, plus an easier shortcut to revert to the original word you wrote if necessary. There's now in-line predictive typing and sentence-level autocorrections to correct more grammatical mistakes. It'll finally learn your favorite cuss words, too; Apple's Craig Federighi even made a "ducking" joke onstage. Dictation uses a new AI model, too, that's more accurate.

A new app called Journal automatically suggests moments that you might want to commemorate in a journal entry. Your entries can include photos, music, and activities, and you can schedule reminders for yourself to start writing. It's end-to-end encrypted, too, to keep things private. StandBy is a new mode for charging that turns the screen into a status display with the date and time. It can show information from Live Activities, widgets, and smart stacks and automatically turns on when your phone is in landscape mode while charging. You can swipe to the right to see some of your highlighted photos, and it comes with customizable clockfaces. Siri will surface visual results in StandBy, and the display shifts to a red tone at night to avoid disrupting sleep. Last but not least, Siri gets a boost, too, and finally lets you drop the "hey" from "Hey Siri." It will also recognize back-to-back commands. iOS 17 is available to developers today, with a public beta released next month.

At WWDC today, Apple announced macOS Sonoma, the latest version of its Mac operating system that includes new features like desktop widgets, aerial screensavers, a new Game mode, and enhancements to apps like Messages and Safari. MacRumors reports: The first feature that Apple detailed was new interactive widgets, which can now be placed right on your desktop. Widgets blend into your desktop wallpaper to not be obtrusive when you're working, and with Continuity you can use the same widgets from your iPhone on your Mac. macOS Sonoma also introduces enhanced video conferencing features, including Presenter Overlay to allow a user to display themselves in front of the content they are sharing. Reactions let users share how they feel within a video session, and Screen Sharing has been improved with a simplified process.

As is usual with macOS updates, Safari is getting numerous new features within Sonoma. There's an update to Private Browsing that provides greater protection from trackers and from people who might have access to the user's device. Profiles within Safari offer a way to separate browsing between topics, like having one for work and one for personal browsing. There's also a new way to create web apps that work like normal apps and let you get to your favorite website faster.

When you're not actively using macOS Sonoma, the new screen savers feature slow-motion videos of various locations worldwide. They shuffle between landscape, Earth, underwater, or cityscape themes, similar to what you'll see on tvOS. For gamers, there's a new Game Mode in macOS Sonoma that delivers an optimized gaming experience with smoother and more consistent frame rates. It dramatically lowers audio latency with AirPods and reduces input latency with game controllers, and it works with any game on Mac. A beta version of macOS Sonoma is now available via the Apple Developer Program, with a public beta launching next month.

As Ars Technica notes, the macOS Sonoma update will only run on a couple generations of Intel Macs. "[I]f you're using anything made before 2018 or anything without an Apple T2 chip in it, you won't be able to run the new OS."

Apple has announced a new operating system for its Vision Pro headset. Called visionOS, the operating system has been designed from the ground up for spatial computing and will have its own App Store where people can download Vision Pro apps and compatible iPhone and iPad apps. The Verge reports: The operating system is focused on displaying digital elements on top of the real world. Apple's video showed new things like icons and windows floating over real-world spaces. The primary ways to use the headset are with your eyes, hands, and your voice. The company described how you can look at a search field and just start talking to input text, for example. Or you can pinch your fingers to select something or flick them up to scroll through a window. The Vision Pro can also display your eyes on the outside of the headset -- a feature Apple calls "EyeSight."

It seems Apple envisions this in part as a productivity device; in one demo, it showed a person looking at things like a Safari window, Messages, and Apple Music window all hovering over a table in the real world. Apple also showed a keyboard hovering in midair, too. And the Vision Pro can also connect to your Mac so you can blow up your Mac's screen within your headset. It will also be a powerful entertainment device, apparently. You can make the screen really big by pinching a corner of a window (Apple demoed this with a clip of Foundation). You can display the screen on other backgrounds, including a cinema-like space or in front of Mt. Hood (Apple's suggestion!), thanks to a feature Apple calls Environments. You'll also be able to watch 3D movies on the device. And Disney is working on content for the headset, which could be a major way for people to get on board with actually using it to watch shows and movies -- Disney Plus will be available on day one, Disney CEO Bob Iger said during the show.

Apple Vision Pro will play games, too, and support game controllers; Apple showed somebody using the device with a PS5 DualSense headset. Over 100 Apple Arcade titles will be available to play on "day one," Apple said during its keynote. The Vision Pro also has a 3D camera, so you can capture "spatial" photos and video and look at those in the headset. And panorama photos can stretch around your vision while you're wearing the device. FaceTime is getting some "spatial" improvements, too; as described in Apple's press release, "Users wearing Vision Pro during a FaceTime call are reflected as a Persona -- a digital representation of themselves created using Apple's most advanced machine learning techniques -- which reflects face and hand movements in real time." You can learn more about Apple's first spatial computer here. A dedicated page for the Vision Pro headset is also now available on Apple.com.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Apple has made a tiny bit of progress in the last year when it comes to getting games running on Macs -- titles like Resident Evil Village and a recent No Man's Sky port don't exactly make the Mac a gaming destination, but they're bigger releases than Mac users are normally accustomed to. For getting the vast majority of PC gaming titles running, though, the most promising solution would be a Steam Deck-esque software layer that translates Microsoft's DirectX 12 API into something compatible with Apple's proprietary Metal API. Preliminary support for that kind of translation will be coming to CodeWeavers' CrossOver software this summer, the company announced in a blog post late last week.

CrossOver is a software package that promises to run Windows apps and games under macOS and Linux without requiring a full virtualized (or emulated) Windows installation. Its developers announced that they were working on DirectX 12 support in late 2021, and now they have a sample screenshot of Diablo II Resurrected running on an Apple M2 chip. This early DirectX12 support will ship with CrossOver version 23 "later this summer." The announcement is simultaneously promising and caveat-filled; getting this single game running required fixing multiple game-specific bugs in upstream software projects. Support will need to be added on a game-by-game basis, at least at first.

"Our team's investigations concluded that there was no single magic key that unlocked DirectX 12 support on macOS," CodeWeavers project manager Meredith Johnson wrote in the blog post. "To get just Diablo II Resurrected running, we had to fix a multitude of bugs involving MoltenVK and SPIRV-Cross. We anticipate that this will be the case for other DirectX 12 games: we will need to add support on a per-title basis, and each game will likely involve multiple bugs." In other words, don't expect Steam Deck-esque levels of compatibility with Windows games just yet. There are also still gameplay bugs even in Diablo II Resurrected, though "the fact that it's running at all is a huge win."

Linux computer vendor System76 shared some news in a recent blog post. "We prefer to disable the Intel Management Engine wherever possible to reduce the amount of closed firmware running on System76 hardware. We've resolved a coreboot bug that allows the Intel ME (Management Engine) to once again be disabled."

Phoronix reports that the move will "benefit their latest Intel Core 13th Gen 'Raptor Lake' wares as well as prior generation devices." Intel ME is disabled for their latest Raptor lake laptops and most older platforms with some exceptions like where having a silicon issue with Tiger Lake. System76 has also added a new firmware setup menu option for enabling/disabling UEFI Secure Boot. The motivation here with making it easier to toggle Secure Boot is for allowing Windows 11 support with SB active while running System76 Open Firmware.

motang writes: Canonical, the sponsor of widely popular Ubuntu Linux, plans on shipping the next LTS in two versions. In addition to the traditional version, there will be one immutable desktop OS flavor. From Canonical blog: The technology behind snaps extends beyond the distribution of desktop applications however. With Ubuntu Core this philosophy of security and stability applies equally to the components that make up the entire Ubuntu operating system. Rather than treating the OS as a single immutable 'blob,' Ubuntu Core breaks it up into discrete components. The base of Ubuntu Core, for example, is built on four primary snaps:

Gadget: Defines the system's bootloader, partition layout and default configurations for snaps.
Kernel: Containing the Linux kernel and hardware drivers.
Base: A minimal Ubuntu OS image containing only the necessary services and utilities to support the applications running on top.
Snapd: Manages the lifecycle of all snaps in an Ubuntu Core system.
Additional OS snaps can then be layered onto this image to enable other elements of the operating system such as a desktop environment.

Microsoft's annual developer event Build 2023 unveiled ChatGPT's integration into Bing and an AI 'personal assistant' for Windows 11.

But Windows Central also notes two more big (non-AI) announcements: Windows 11 is getting cloud-powered OS backup and restore Smartphone owners have long enjoyed a similar functionality, where you could buy a new device and upon the first start, simply log in to your platform account and select "Restore my apps" from the cloud backup. And now Windows will be able to do the same. ["If the user chooses yes, Windows will automatically apply the old wallpaper and settings and even begin preloading apps you had installed on your old PC. Once the user hits the desktop, they'll see all their previously pinned apps already in the Taskbar, and clicking on them will initiate an automatic download from the Microsoft Store."]

Windows 11 on ARM devices gets a big boost [B]ecause Microsoft has no intention of dropping x86 support, they have been slow in adopting ARM architecture to make it a viable alternative for Windows users. With Build 2023, this is moving ahead...
Elsewhere Windows Central argues that "should result in a better experience on devices like the Surface Pro 9 (ARM), Surface Pro X, and the new Dell Inspiron 14 with a Snapdragon 8cx 2 processor.

On the gaming side of things, Unity with native Windows on ARM support will become available in early June. Once launched, the tool will let developers target Windows on ARM devices for current and future games, resulting in better performance. Unity is a very popular development platform for games, and native support for Windows on ARM is a welcome addition...

Visual Studio having Multi-platform App UI (MAUI) support for Arm will give developers another way to target Windows on ARM PCs.
Even Node.js v20.0.0 now officially supports ARM64 Windows, "allowing for native execution on the platform. The MSI, zip/7z packages, and executable are available from the Node.js download site along with all other platforms."

And in addition, Visual Studio 17.71 Preview 1 now ships with support for Linux development with C++.

Slashdot reader Zapotek brings an update from the Ecsypno skunkworks, where they've been busy with R&D for distributed computing systems: Armed with Cuboid, Qmap was built, which tackled the handling of nmap in a distributed environment, with great results. Afterwards, an iterative clean-up process led to a template of sorts, for scheduling most applications in such environments.

With that, Peplum was born, which allows for OS applications, Ruby code and C/C++/Rust code (via Ruby extensions) to be distributed across machines and tackle the processing of neatly grouped objects.

In essence, Peplum:

- Is a distributed computing solution backed by Cuboid.
- Its basic function is to distribute workloads and deliver payloads across multiple machines and thus parallelize otherwise time consuming tasks.
- Allows you to combine several machines and built a cluster/supercomputer of sorts with great ease.

After that was dealt with, it was time to port Qmap over to Peplum for easier long-term maintenance, thus renamed Peplum::Nmap.

We have high hopes for Peplum as it basically means easy, simple and joyful cloud/clustering/super-computing at home, on-premise, anywhere really. Along with the capability to turn a lot of security oriented apps into super versions of themselves, it is quite the infrastructure.
Yes, this means there's a new solution if you're using multiple machines for "running simulations, to network mapping/security scans, to password cracking/recovery or just encoding your collection of music and video" -- or anything else: Peplum is a F/OSS (MIT licensed) project aimed at making clustering/super-computing affordable and accessible, by making it simple to setup a distributed parallel computing environment for abstract applications... TLDR: You no longer have to only imagine a Beowulf cluster of those, you can now easily build one yourself with Peplum.
Some technical specs: It is written in the Ruby programming language, thus coming with an entire ecosystem of libraries and the capability to run abstract Ruby code, execute external utilities, run OS commands, call C/C++/Rust routines and more...

Peplum is powered by Cuboid, a F/OSS (MIT licensed) abstract framework for distributed computing — both of them are funded by Ecsypno Single Member P.C., a new R&D and Consulting company.

At Google I/O on Wednesday, VP of Engineering at Android David Burke new customization features coming to Android 14 later this year. Engadget reports: The tools build on the Material You design system Google introduced in 2021 by allowing users to create a custom wallpaper by picking a few of their favorite emojis. One of the new tools allows you to add up to 14 emojis to a single wallpaper. You can then pick a pattern and a color to bring everything together. Once the wallpaper is on your home screen, the characters will react when you tap on them. If you want something more sentimental, there's a separate option to create "Cinematic" wallpapers. The feature uses on-device neural networks to animate your favorite photos. Once the photo is on your home screen, tilting your device will cause it to move, giving the image more depth and life than it would have had you not used the new feature. Burke said both cinematic and emoji wallpapers would arrive on Pixel devices next month.

Come the fall, Google will also introduce a built-in AI image generator within Android's customization menu. You can use the tool to create wallpapers you can't find online. It comes with pre-populated prompts you can tweak to make the process of guiding the AI easier. Once you add an AI wallpaper to your home screen, Android's Material You system will automatically color-match all the user interface elements, including any app icons, so they don't clash with one another. Android 14 will further augment those tools with the addition of new clocks and shortcuts you can add to your lock screen. And if colors aren't your thing, Google also plans to add a new monochromatic theme for those who prefer a more understated look. At I/O, Burke also previewed Magic Compose, a Messages feature that will use Google's generative AI technology to write texts for you. The tool comes with multiple style settings you can use to give your messages a different flair. Google plans to beta test Magic Compose this summer. Separately, Google said after the keynote that Android 14 will add support for Ultra HDR, allowing for photos that feature more vivid colors and detailed shadows.

Windows 11's Settings panel has been seen with a number of adverts in test builds of the OS, in what's becoming a sadly familiar theme for preview builds of late. From a report: As spotted by German tech site Deskmodder, this was flagged up by a respected source for Microsoft leaks, Albacore, on Twitter. Albacore shared some screenshots of the new home page for the Settings app, as uncovered by digging into a Windows 11 preview from the Canary channel (the earliest test builds). The first screen grab (on the left in the above tweet) shows an ad for Microsoft 365 at the top of the panel, telling users what they get with the service and that they can try it for free (for a trial period). Under that, there's a prompt to 'finish setting up your account,' which refers to completing the setup of your Microsoft Account. The other screenshots also have prompts relating to the Microsoft Account, this time urging users to sign into the account, one of which is shown on the Settings home page and another in the Accounts section. In the latter, users are told to 'Sign in to get the most out of Windows.'

Zac Bowden, reporting for WindowsCentral: Microsoft's dual-screen foldable smartphone has seemingly been abandoned. At least, that's how it looks on the outside. The last major software update the Surface Duo received was in October 2022, when the company delivered Android 12L. Since then, movement on new features and bug fixes has pretty much ground to a halt. A major OS update often comes with a couple of months of bug fixing afterward to iron out any new issues that may have popped up with all the new changes that a major OS release brings. That's not the case with Android 12L on the Surface Duo. Microsoft pushed out this update and has fixed just one bug since. Android 12L for Surface Duo was not a perfect release, and it did introduce new issues users assumed would be fixed in due course, but that hasn't happened.

The company has continued to release Android security updates, but the changelogs for these monthly updates make no mention of general OS fixes or improvements, which implies Microsoft is doing the bare minimum for these releases. Even then, the bare minimum clearly wasn't enough in April, as the Surface Duo failed to receive the April 2023 security update, marking the first time since the device launched that Microsoft has failed to issue an up-to-date security patch for the device. And it's not just the OS that's being neglected, Microsoft's own Android app teams seem to have abandoned the Surface Duo too. SwiftKey just recently got updated with Bing AI capabilities, which is awesome and it works across a wide range of Android smartphones, including the latest Samsung devices. But the feature is not available on Surface Duo.

According to Windows Latest, Microsoft is working on new ARM chips to compete against Apple Silicon. "I have also spotted some job listings that suggest the company is building its own Silicon-based ARM chips for client devices" writes Mayank Parmar. "Additionally, I understand that Microsoft is optimizing Windows 12 for Silicon-ARM architecture." From the report: These developments coincide with the upcoming launch of Windows 12, which has a special version optimized for silicon and designed to leverage AI capabilities. The job listings (most of them have now been taken down) describe positions related to custom silicon accelerators, System on Chips (SoCs), and high-performance, high-bandwidth designs. This suggests that Microsoft is building its own ARM-based chips, aiming to compete with Apple's M chips lineup in terms of performance and efficiency.

This month the Linux Foundation announced version 3.0 of DentOS, an open source network operating system using the Linux kernel, Switchdev, and other Linux-based projects for a standardized network operating system "without abstractions or overhead," according to the project's web page. "All underlying infrastructure — including ASIC and Silicon for networking and datapath — is treated equally; while existing abstractions, APIs, drivers, low-level overhead, and other open software are simplified. DENT unites silicon vendors, ODMs, SIs, OEMs, and end users across all verticals to enable the transition to disaggregated networks."

Or, as the Linux Foundation, the operating system provides "a flexible and customizable platform for network administrators to manage their networks." DENT provides access to open source-based switches at a lower cost and with more flexibility compared to proprietary switches with locked ecosystems. Network wiring closets in many facilities--including retail stores, warehousing, remote locations, enterprises, and small and mid-sized businesses--are often small, requiring a compact solution for network management. Additionally, staff expertise may be limited, and branch-office switches from leading suppliers can require costly contracts. DENT can be easily deployed on white-box hardware in small spaces, providing an efficient and cost-effective solution for network management. As a result, DENT deployment can significantly enhance network management in a wide range of environments, providing greater efficiency, reliability, and scalability...

DentOS enables Amazon's Just Walk Out Technology to connect and manage thousands of devices like cameras, sensors, entry and exit gates, and access points on the network edge.

For Red Hat's 30th anniversary, North Carolina's News & Observer newspaper ran a special four-part series of articles.

In the first article Red Hat co-founder Bob Young remembers Red Hat's first big breakthrough: winning InfoWorld's "OS of the Year" award in 1998 — at a time when Microsoft's Windows controlled 85% of the market. "How is that possible," Young said, "that one of the world's biggest technology companies, on this strategically critical product, loses the product of the year to a company with 50 employees in the tobacco fields of North Carolina?" The answer, he would tell the many reporters who suddenly wanted to learn about his upstart company, strikes at "the beauty" of open-source software.

"Our engineering team is an order of magnitude bigger than Microsoft's engineering team on Windows, and I don't really care how many people they have," Young would say. "Like they may have thousands of the smartest operating system engineers that they could scour the planet for, and we had 10,000 engineers by comparison...."

Young was a 40-year-old Canadian computer equipment salesperson with a software catalog when he noticed what Marc Ewing was doing. [Ewing was a recent college graduate bored with his two-month job at IBM, selling customized Linux as a side hustle.] It's pretty primitive, but it's going in the right direction, Young thought. He began reselling Ewing's Red Hat product. Eventually, he called Ewing, and the two met at a tech conference in New York City. "I needed a product, and Marc needed some marketing help," said Young, who was living in Connecticut at the time. "So we put our two little businesses together."

Red Hat incorporated in March 1993, with the earliest employees operating the nascent business out of Ewing's Durham apartment. Eventually, the landlord discovered what they were doing and kicked them out.
The four articles capture the highlights. ("A visual effects group used its Linux 4.1 to design parts of the 1997 film Titanic.") And it doesn't leave out Red Hat's skirmishes with Microsoft. ("Microsoft was owned by the richest person in the world. Red Hat engineers were still linking servers together with extension cords. ") "We were changing the industry and a lot of companies were mad at us," says Michael Ferris, Red Hat's VP of corporate development/strategy. Soon there were corporate partnerships with Netscape, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Compaq, Dell, and IBM — and when Red Hat finally goes public in 1999, its stock sees the eighth-largest first-day gain in Wall Street history, rising in value in days to over $7 billion and "making overnight millionaires of its earliest employees."

But there's also inspiring details like the quote painted on the wall of Red Hat's headquarters in Durham: "Every revolution was first a thought in one man's mind; and when the same thought occurs to another man, it is the key to that era..." It's fun to see the story told by a local newspaper, with subheadings like "It started with a student from Finland" and "Red Hat takes on the Microsoft Goliath."

Something I'd never thought of. 2001's 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center "destroyed the principal data centers of many Wall Street investment banks, which were housed in the twin towers. With their computers wiped out, financial institutions had to choose whether to rebuild with standard proprietary software or the emergent open source. Many picked the latter." And by the mid-2000s, "Red Hat was the world's largest provider of Linux...' according to part two of the series. "Soon, Red Hat was servicing more than 90% of Fortune 500 companies." By then, even the most vehement former critics were amenable to Red Hat's kind of software. Microsoft had begun to integrate open source into its core operations. "Microsoft was on the wrong side of history when open source exploded at the beginning of the century, and I can say that about me personally," Microsoft President Brad Smith later said.

In the 2010s, "open source has won" became a popular tagline among programmers. After years of fighting for legitimacy, former Red Hat executives said victory felt good. "There was never gloating," Tiemann said.

"But there was always pride."
In 2017 Red Hat's CEO answered questions from Slashdot's readers.