AmiMoJo quotes SlashGear: Remember the Pebble smartwatch? Despite being officially discontinued and several years old at this point, there are still some diehard fans out there keeping the hardware alive, and a team called Rebble Alliance plays an important part in this.

Whereas the web services for Pebble watches used to come from Pebble Technology Corp., they now come (unofficially) from Rebble, which has announced a new initiative called Rebble Grants... Rebble Alliance is, as explained by iFixit in an editorial last year, a group of former Pebble employees like Katharine Berry, as well as enthusiasts who are working hard to keep the defunct hardware operational. Key to this is the Rebble web services, which includes a replacement cloud infrastructure that was coded by Berry over the course of a couple of weeks...

The team says they've been saving some of the funds received from running the Rebble web services and that they plan to invest $25,000 into a variety of Pebble-centric projects.

Today, Mozilla launched the updated Firefox Android app with a version that many thought was a beta because it was full of bugs and UI issues. According to The Register, this was a deliberate software release and is the new version of Firefox for Android, which is set to hit the UK today, August 25, and the U.S. on the 27th. From the report: A Reg reader yesterday alerted us to an August 20 version bump that was causing so many problems, our tipster thought it was a beta that had gone seriously awry. "To sum it up, on 20th of August, Firefox 79 was unexpectedly forced on a large batch of Firefox 68 Android users without any warning, way to opt out or roll back," our reader reported. "A lot got broken in the process: the user interface, tabs, navigation, add-ons." Meanwhile, the Google Play store page for the completely free and open-source Firefox has a rash of one-star reviews echoing similar complaints: after the upgrade, little seemed to work as expected. "This is the worst 'upgrade' I've ever experienced," said netizen Martin Lindenmayer. "My main gripe is that there is no back button (to return to your previous page) anymore."

What's happened is this: the last stable version of Firefox for Android was version 68, released in 2019. For over a year, Mozilla has been working on an overhaul of its browser in a project code-named Fenix. Moz has slowly rolled out the result of its work to netizens in preview and beta form -- and since the end of July, as a proper release: version 79. This new stable version is what appeared on people's devices. As well as changes to the user interface and many new features that have thrown some users, it is also missing support for all extensions. In fact, by last count, only nine add-ons are supported so far, though this is expected to increase over time. The browser has also adopted Mozilla's GeckoView engine. If you accidentally updated the app and would like to roll back the update, you won't be able to. "[O]nce you've upgraded to the new browser, you won't be able to return to the old browser," says Mozilla.

For more information about the upgrade process, you can check out the browser's FAQ page.

At Build 2020 today, Microsoft gave developers a slew of new tools to coax them into using Windows over macOS or Linux. From a report: Windows Terminal is now out of preview for enterprises, and Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) 2 is getting support for GPUs, Linux GUI apps, and a simplified install experience. Microsoft even released a Windows Package Manager in preview. Windows 10 runs on 1 billion monthly active devices (PCs, Xbox One consoles, and HoloLens devices), making it a massive platform for developers to target. [...] Microsoft today released Windows Terminal 1.0, which means it is stable for enterprise use. The open source application features multiple tabs, panes, tear-away windows, shortcuts, Unicode and UTF-8 character support, emojis, ligatures, extensions, GPU-accelerated text rendering engine, and custom themes, styles, and configurations. Windows Terminal is for users of PowerShell, Cmd, WSL, and other command-line tools. Microsoft also unveiled WSL improvements today, including support for GPUs, Linux GUI apps, and a simplified install experience. WSL is a compatibility layer for running Linux binary executables natively on Windows. Microsoft first shared it was working on WSL 2 a year ago at Build 2019. WSL 2 is slated to arrive in the next major Windows 10 update coming later this month (brilliantly called the Windows 10 May 2020 Update), but it won't have these new features. In the second half of the year, WSL 2 will get support for GPU compute workflows.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Wall Street Journal: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), the world's largest contract manufacturer of silicon chips, is set to announce plans to build an advanced chip factory in Arizona (Warning: source paywalled; alternative source) as U.S. concerns grow about dependence on Asia for the critical technology. The plans come as the Trump administration has sought to jump-start development of new chip factories in the U.S. due to rising fears about the U.S.'s heavy reliance on Taiwan, China and South Korea to produce microelectronics and other key technologies.

TSMC is expected to announce the plans as soon as Friday after making the decision at a board meeting on Tuesday in Taiwan, according to people familiar with the matter. The factory could be producing chips by the end of 2023 at the earliest, they said, adding that both the State and Commerce Departments are involved in the plans. TSMC's new plant would make chips branded as having 5-nanometer transistors, the tiniest, fastest and most power-efficient ones manufactured today, according to a person familiar with the plans. TSMC just started rolling out 5-nanometer chips for customers to test at a factory in Taiwan in recent months. It is unclear how much TSMC has budgeted or if it would get financial incentives from the U.S. to build. A factory capable of making the most advanced chips would almost certainly cost more than $10 billion, according to industry executives.

Microsoft is planning to fully integrate Linux file access into the built-in File Explorer. The Verge reports: A new Linux icon will be available in the left-hand navigation pane in File Explorer, providing access to the root file system for any distros that are installed in Windows 10. The icon that will appear in File Explorer is the famous Tux, the penguin mascot for the Linux kernel. Microsoft is testing the Linux File Explorer integration in a new build of Windows 10 that's available for testers today. Previously, Windows 10 users would have to manually navigate to a UNC path to get access to Linux files from the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). If you have WSL enabled, then the Tux will appear in File Explorer, and Microsoft is now seeking feedback on the integration before it's finalized as part of a future Windows 10 update. The software maker will ship this update to all Windows 10 users later this year.

schwit1 quotes CNN's report on a software engineer who really loves Star Wars costumes:
"I kind of incorporated all of the things that I've learned in 3-D printing and DIY into this project," said Nils Rasmusson. Over the course of nine months, he printed the suit and put it together. "I had to figure out — how do you put all of these pieces together? There's no tutorial or instructions on this," he said.

The helmet alone is made up of 19 different pieces fabricated on the printer. Rasmusson said he used five printers, humming for about 400 to 600 hours, to fabricate the suit out of plastic filament.

It's even bulletproof. His friend works for a company that bulletproofs cars...

Electronic component distributor Digi-Key will be producing a small manufacturing run of the "open hardware" ereader from the Open Book Project, reports Gizmodo: The raw hardware isn't as sleek or pretty as devices like the Kindle, but at the same time there's a certain appeal to the exposed circuit board which features brief descriptions of various components, ports, and connections etched right onto the board itself for those looking to tinker or upgrade the hardware. Users are encouraged to design their own enclosures for the Open Book if they prefer, either through 3D-printed cases made of plastic, or rustic wooden enclosures created using laser cutting machines. With a resolution of just 400x300 pixels on its monochromatic E Ink display, text on the Open Book won't look as pretty as it does on the Amazon Kindle Oasis which boasts a resolution of 1,680x1,264 pixels, but it should barely sip power from its built-in lithium-polymer rechargeable battery -- a key benefit of using electronic paper.

The open source ereader -- powered by an ARM Cortex M4 processor -- will also include a headphone jack for listening to audio books, a dedicated flash chip for storing language files with specific character sets, and even a microphone that leverages a TensorFlow-trained AI model to intelligently process voice commands so you can quietly mutter "next!" to turn the page instead of reaching for one of the ereader's physical buttons like a neanderthal. It can also be upgraded with additional functionality such as Bluetooth or wifi using Adafruit Feather expansion boards, but the most important feature is simply a microSD card slot allowing users to load whatever electronic text and ebook files they want. They won't have to be limited by what a giant corporation approves for its online book store, or be subject to price-fixing schemes which, for some reason, have still resulted in electronic files costing more than printed books.

McGruber writes: In a reply to a Twitter post, Raspberry Pi Foundation's CEO Eben Upton announced that they have sold their thirty-millionth Raspberry Pi.
"We don't get sales returns from our licensees until month end," Upton acknowledged in a later tweet, but "at the end of November, we were at 29.8Mu, with a monthly run rate of 500-600ku..."

PC Magazine's "tech nerd" Whitson Gordon writes that "Once you start using a smart speaker to set reminders, play the news, or turn the lights on, it's hard to go back."

But if you want the convenience of voice control without the data-collecting tech giant behind the scenes, an open-source project called Mycroft is a great alternative. And you can run it right on a Raspberry Pi.

Mycroft is a free, open-source voice assistant designed to run on Linux-based devices... Mycroft has been around for quite a few years, but it's recently gained a bit more notoriety thanks to privacy concerns surrounding data collection at Amazon and Google. Unlike those assistants, Mycroft only collects data if you opt in during setup. And for the users who do opt in, Mycroft promises never to sell your data to advertisers or third parties -- instead, it only uses it to help developers improve the product. Mycroft even uses the privacy-focused DuckDuckGo as its search engine instead of Google when you ask for information.

Mycroft makes its own smart speaker called the Mark I, though it's currently sold out with a new Mark II (video here) on the way. However, since the project is open-source, you can install Mycroft on just about any Linux machine, including the Raspberry Pi (thanks to a pre-made build called Picroft). Using Mycroft on the Pi is free, but you can also subscribe to a $1.99-per-month plan to help support its development -- you'll even get a few goodies, like other voices that sound more lifelike than the default robotic voice.

Long-time Slashdot reader ttsiod works for the European Space Agency as an embedded software engineer. He writes: After reading an interesting article from an NVIDIA engineer about how he used a dirt-cheap field-programmable gate array board to code a real-time ray-tracer, I got my hands on the same board -- and "compiled" a dual-core SPARC-compatible CPU inside it... Basically, the same kind of design we fly in the European Space Agency's satellites.

I decided to document the process, since there's not much material of that kind available. I hope it will be an interesting read for my fellow Slashdotters -- showcasing the trials and tribulations faced by those who prefer the Open-Source ways of doing things... Just read it and you'll see what I mean.
This is the same Slashdot reader who in 2016 reverse engineered his Android tablet so he could run a Debian chroot inside it. "Please remember that I am a software developer, not a HW one," his new essay warns.

"I simply enjoy fooling around with technology like this."

"Biohackers took one small but important step toward the science fiction dystopia depicted in William Gibson's Johnny Mnemonic," reports The Parallax, in an article shared by a Slashdot reader: The Four Thieves Vinegar biohacking collective has not figured out how to precisely mimic the memory data transfer scenario Gibson conjured, but it has built a device to enable people to store and transfer data wirelessly in their bodies. Using off-the-shelf parts and focused efforts, the biohacking group has designed and built a networked hard drive, coated in a biosafe resin, to be subcutaneously implanted in the human body. It's powered by an external battery that connects to the device via an induction coil, and its storage capacity is limited only by the size of the microSD card it contains. Michael Laufer, who founded Four Thieves Vinegar, calls it the Pegleg.

In the small hours of August 8, in an operating room within the small house, two patients received the second version of the Pegleg implant, which Laufer says is the world's first subcutaneous networked drive... To make Pegleg v2, Laufer and his team removed from the Raspberry Pi both Micro USB connectors (one for power, one for data), the Mini HDMI connector, and the camera connector. They then soldered on a second Wi-Fi chip to enable it to transfer data to another Pegleg and allow other devices to connect to it, as well as an induction coil to enable it to be powered by a wireless battery resting in a contiguous sports armband or pants pocket. They enabled Bluetooth for future functionality, inserted a 512GB microSD card for storage, and updated the firmware. Finally, they coated the hacked device in a biocompatible acrylic resin to prevent it from interacting with the recipient's body and to diffuse the heat it emanates.

At 11:44 a.m. on the same day, Laufer -- an implant newbie who has three small tattoos but no piercings -- took a seat in the surgical room... During the procedure, Laufer passed out for a few seconds and vomited a little bit. But 32 minutes later, he had a functional "Pegleg" implant.

option8 ((Slashdot reader #16,509) writes: TL;DR: Mining Bitcoin on a 1MHz 8-bit processor will cost you more than the world's combined economies, and take roughly 256 trillion years.
"But it could happen tomorrow. It's a lottery, after all," explains the blog post (describing this mad scientist as a hardware hacker and "self-taught maker", determined to mine bitcoin "in what must be the slowest possible way. I call it 8BITCOIN....")

There's also a Twitch.TV stream, with some appropriate 8-bit music, and the blog post ends by including his own bitcoin address, "If you feel like you absolutely must throw some money at me and this project."

"Upon doing some research, I found that, not only were other 8-bit platforms being put to the task, but other, even more obscure and outdated hardware. An IBM 1401 from the 1960s, a rebuilt Apollo Guidance Computer, and even one deranged individual who demonstrated the hashing algorithm by hand. It turns out, those examples all come from the same deranged individual, Ken Shirriff."

In comments submitted to America's Federal Trade Commission, Microsoft says repairing its devices could jeopardize protections from the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) security chip.

"Don't believe them," argues a group of information security professionals who support the right to repair. Slashdot reader chicksdaddy quotes their report: The statement was submitted ahead of Nixing the Fix, an FTC workshop on repair restrictions that is scheduled for mid-July... "The unauthorized repair and replacement of device components can result in the disabling of key hardware security features or can impede the update of firmware that is important to device security or system integrity," Microsoft wrote... "If the TPM or other hardware or software protections were compromised by a malicious or unqualified repair vendor, those security protections would be rendered ineffective and consumers' data and control of the device would be at risk. Moreover, a security breach of one device can potentially compromise the security of a platform or other devices connected to the network...."

As we know: Firms like Microsoft, Lexmark, LG, Samsung and others use arguments like this all the time and then not too subtly imply that their authorized repair professionals are more trustworthy and honest than independent competitors. But that's just hot air. They have no data to back up those assertions and there's no way that their repair technicians are more trustworthy than owners, themselves...

There's nothing inherent in repair or the things called for in right to repair laws like providing diagnostic software, diagnostic codes, schematics and replacement parts that puts the integrity of the TPM or the trust model it anchors at risk. Nor does the TPM require that the devices it secures remain pristine: using the same hardware and software configuration as when they were sold by the OEM. After all, TPMs are in Dell computers. Dell makes diagnostic software and diagnostic codes and schematics available for their hardware and I haven't heard Microsoft or anybody else suggest that a TPM on a repairable Dell laptop is any less secure than the TPM on an unrepairable Microsoft Surface.

The Chromium-powered Edge browser is now available on both Windows 7 and Windows 8 for testing today. The Verge reports: The release comes two months after Chromium Edge first debuted on Windows 10, and a month after it appeared on macOS. Microsoft is releasing the daily Canary builds initially, and plans to support the weekly Dev channel "soon." You can download the installer over at Microsoft's Edge Insider site. "You will find the experience and feature set on previous versions of Windows to be largely the same as on Windows 10, including forthcoming support for Internet Explorer mode for our enterprise customers," explains a Microsoft Edge team blog post. While most features will be the same, dark mode is missing and Microsoft says there is no support for AAD sign-in.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: The latest Windows preview from the 20H1 branch, build 18917, has some hidden components that signal a future where the Windows Shell UI parts, such as Action Center, will be separate from the rest of Windows and can be updated with shell packages. A developer who uses the Twitter handle Albacore gave a breakdown of a new component in Build 18917 called 'Shell Update Agent,' which he notes is "capable of obtaining and updating the shell on demand."

That capability may mean nothing to most Windows 10 users. However, for Windows watchers it could be an interesting development of Microsoft's unannounced plans for Windows Core OS, in which Windows is modularized and calls on a range of shells that target different form factors, from HoloLens to Surface and dual-screen devices like the recently revealed Centaurus laptop, whose shell is called Santorini. Albacore goes on to explain that the Shell Update Agent references 'Package Family Names,' which suggests that the "shell will indeed be a separate, packaged component." Those shell packages can be acquired from both external and internal sources, which could mean shell components like the Start Menu, Action Center and Taskbar could be selectively built, based on these acquired packages. Finally, one more shell-related change noted relates to a new method for syncing settings. "The new one should support syncing more advanced and previously 'legacy' options such as File Explorer configuration," Albacore notes.

McGruber quotes TechCrunch: Maker Media Inc ceased operations this week and let go of all of its employees — about 22 employees" founder and CEO Dale Dougherty told TechCrunch. "I started this 15 years ago and it's always been a struggle as a business to make this work. Print publishing is not a great business for anybody, but it works . . . barely. Events are hard . . . there was a drop off in corporate sponsorship." Microsoft and Autodesk failed to sponsor this year's flagship Bay Area Maker Faire.

But Dougherty is still desperately trying to resuscitate the company in some capacity, if only to keep MAKE:'s online archive running and continue allowing third-party organizers to license the Maker Faire name to throw affiliated events. Rather than bankruptcy, Maker Media is working through an alternative Assignment for Benefit of Creditors process.

"We're trying to keep the servers running" Dougherty tells me. "I hope to be able to get control of the assets of the company and restart it. We're not necessarily going to do everything we did in the past but I'm committed to keeping the print magazine going and the Maker Faire licensing program." The fate of those hopes will depend on negotiations with banks and financiers over the next few weeks. For now the sites remain online.

In a blog post detailing new features coming to Edge, Microsoft has started teasing what Edge will look like on macOS. The Verge reports: During the company's Build 2019 developer conference, Microsoft is announcing new features for Edge on Windows and teasing the upcoming macOS release. We understand that the release will be available very soon, and Mac users should be able to access both the Canary and Dev builds of Edge just like Windows. Microsoft's implementation of Chromium on Edge has so far seen good performance improvements and reliability on Windows. It's not clear if we'll see similar improvements on the macOS side versus Chrome, but at least it gives Mac users another Chromium option with some Microsoft services and sync integration. MacRumors notes that Edge "will be Microsoft's first web browser on the Mac since Internet Explorer received its last feature update nearly 16 years ago."

"If you're sick of MacBooks but love MacOS, be brave and convert a new laptop into a Hackintosh with our exhaustive guide," writes Motherboard, in an article shared by eatmorekix: Perhaps it's the fact that Apple solders on all of its main parts on its laptops. Perhaps it's the inability for users to repair or upgrade their own machines. Maybe it's the keyboard. For whatever reason, laptops are looking mighty attractive for Hackintoshing these days, despite the knotty qualms some people have with it...

As frustrated by the keyboard and the price as by the fact that nothing was upgradeable on the current generation of MacBook Pros, I went on this journey myself a year ago -- and made it out on the other side much more knowledgeable about why MacOS is a great, quite flexible operating system, often (and unfortunately) placed in a not-so-perfect machine.
It's a long read, but it ends with the author saying he "gained a great appreciation for the process" and ended up with "a fairly stable machine that can handle much of what Apple's own offerings can -- without the incredibly high price to boot."

Despite the (many) technical challenges, "enough of the things that make MacOS worth installing work, and you can make a good weekend project out of this and get a good machine in the end -- one with better specs and more upgradability than many of Apple's own products."

Long-time Slashdot reader beckman101 writes: This week Electric Dollar Store opened its doors, selling interchangeable postage-stamp sized I2C-based modules for prices between $1.00 and $1.80. The modules include lights, buzzers, counters and sensors — the range is aimed at electronic makers. These aren't manufacturing rejects shipping from Asia — they're assembled, tested and shipped from a small farming town in California, where winter labor is cheap.

All the code for the project is BSD licensed.

The project is a spin-off from the popular open-source I2CDriver hardware debugger.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica, written by Peter Bright: Ever since the first Xbox was released, an obvious question has been hanging in the air: Microsoft already owns one of the premier gaming platforms, the PC, and both the original Xbox and the current Xbox One are more or less PCs anyway, so when is Microsoft going to bring the two together and let us play Xbox games on Windows? With the new Windows 10 builds, it looks like the company is taking some big steps in that direction. Microsoft has put big chunks of the Xbox infrastructure into Windows 10. This starts right from the moment you download the game: it's coming from the Xbox distribution servers, not the usual ones for Store apps. The game package itself uses a format called .xvc, which is used for Xbox One games, and there are PowerShell commands to work with these .xvc files and install .xvc games. Microsoft Gaming Services includes portions of this Xbox infrastructure; it includes a couple of drivers ("Microsoft Gaming Filesystem Driver" and "Microsoft Gaming Install Filter Driver"), along with a number of libraries that provide Xbox APIs.

The last few Windows 10 preview builds have included some vague instructions from Microsoft to install a special edition of a game, State of Decay, and report any problems with the process. There are no problems with playing the game but, rather, problems with installing and launching it. The instructions didn't give any indication as to why or what to look for. Naturally, people have been taking a closer look to see what's special about State of Decay and figure out why Microsoft is having Windows Insiders test it. Nazmus Khandaker, Rafael Rivera, and the pseudonymous WalkingCat have been poking around both the special edition of State of Decay and a helper application called Microsoft Gaming Services that insider machines are running. Brad Sams wrote up his findings. [...] The State of Decay package does nonetheless contain PC-oriented elements. In particular, it tries to install and update the DirectX runtime during its setup. We the users don't seem to be at the stage of simply running Xbox games unmodified on our PCs, or at least, not yet. But it looks as if the groundwork is being laid. The strange preview of a 2020 Windows release looks like it contains even more of this infrastructure, with signs of a layer to support Xbox's Direct3D variant on PC. "Microsoft could go the whole hog and simply make a Windows 10 PC with a suitable hardware spec into an Xbox that can play any Xbox game," writes Bright, adding: "it might just be there as a simple option for developers to enable if they choose."