The RadeonSI NIR back-end as an alternative to its longstanding TGSI usage continues to be improved upon as a prerequisite for supporting OpenGL 4.6 with SPIR-V ingestion. A fresh batch of RadeonSI NIR work was merged today, including to enable it by default for one Linux game...

KDE is adopting non-proprietary and decentralized instant messaging services and is now running its own community-managed instance of Matrix.

Matrix works fine on mobile as well.

KDE has been looking for a better way of chatting and live-sharing information for several years now. IRC has been a good solution for a long time, but our channels are currently on servers KDE cannot control. It also lacks features users have come to expect from more modern IM services. Other alternatives, such as Telegram, Slack and Discord, although feature-rich, are centralized and built around closed-source technologies and offer even less control than IRC. This flies in the face of KDE's principles that require we use and support technologies based on Free software.

However, our search for a better solution has finally come to an end: as of today we are officially using Matrix for collaboration within KDE! Matrix is an open protocol and network for decentralised communication, backed by an open standard and open source reference implementations for servers, clients, client SDKs, bridges, bots and more. It provides all the features you’d expect from a modern chat system: infinite scrollback, file transfer, typing notifications, read receipts, presence, search, push notifications, stickers, VoIP calling and conferencing, etc. It even provides end-to-end encryption (based on Signal’s double ratchet algorithm) for when you want some privacy.

All the existing rooms on Matrix (and their counterparts on IRC, Telegram and elsewhere) continue to exist. The new service provides a dedicated server for KDE users to access them using names like #kde:kde.org.

For more information go visit our wiki page which contains details and instructions on how to get started.

You can also try KDE's Matrix service right now by checking in to KDE's webchat or by installing a Matrix client like Riot and connecting to the kde.modular.im server!

While "OpenCL-Next" will hopefully be on track for releasing later this year as the next big update to OpenCL, OpenCL 2.2-10 was released today by The Khronos Group as the latest maintenance update to the nearly two year old OpenCL 2.2 specification...

Vincross has launched a Kickstarter campaign for a modular “MIND Kit” robotics kit ranging from $89 for the Linux-driven, quad -A53 compute unit to $799 for a complete kit with servo controller, motors, battery, bases, sensors, lidar, and a mic array.

Vincross, which was founded in 2014 by Tsinghua University AI scientist Tianqi Sun, went to Kickstarter last year to launch its six-legged, all-terrain HEXA robot, controlled by a Linux-based MIND SDK. Now, the company has returned with a smarter and more modular MIND Kit robotics kit with an updated MIND 2.0 SDK. The company also announced a $10 funding round led by Lenovo (see farther below).

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Out today are the first alpha releases for Wayland 1.17 and the Weston 6.0 reference compositor. This alpha release is about two weeks behind schedule but the developers have updated their plans to now ship the beta releases on 5 March, release candidates begin on 12 March, and potentially releasing the stable versions of Wayland 1.17.0 and Weston 6.0.0 on 19 March...

• Here’s our first look at the LG V50: 5G, triple camera, and a 4,000mAh battery
• An Android flagship you won’t be able to buy will ‘rewrite the rules’ in March
• Android Authority’s big book of smartphone firsts!
• Google announces expansion of its Android Enterprise Recommended program
• Android update - Google could soon make a very controversial change to your phone
• Thousands of Android apps bypass Advertising ID to track users
• Samsung’s One UI is the best software it’s ever put on a smartphone
• Alldocube X Android Tablet Quick Look: Low-Cost OLED
• Honor 8X vs. Moto G7: Which should you buy?
• A developer is working on turning a Nintendo Switch into an Android tablet

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Intel developers have begun posting their Linux kernel patches for enabling multi-die/package topology support to the Linux kernel as part of their Cascade Lake AP upbringing...

Following today's Vulkan 1.1.101 release, NVIDIA has debuted a new Vulkan beta driver for Linux (and Windows) users...

The digiKam team has announced the release of digiKam 6.0.0. New features include full support of video files management working as photos; an integration of all import/export web-service tools in LightTable, Image editor, and Showfoto; raw file decoding engine supporting new cameras; similarity data is now stored in a separate file; simplified web-service authentication using OAuth protocol; and more.

• Next Windows update brings better Linux integration [Ed: Disappointing to see even SJVN calling this "Linux" even though it is not Linux, it's Vista 10 hijacking the brand]

  The Windows 10 April 2019 Update boasts many improvements, not least of which is Windows Subsystem for Linux's new ability to let you access Linux files safely from Windows.

• The Future of Artificial Intelligence at Scale

  For this week’s episode of the The New Stack Analysts podcast, TNS editorial director Libby Clark and TNS London correspondent Jennifer Riggins sat down (via Zoom) with futurist Martin Ford, author of “Architects of Intelligence: The truth about AI from the people building it,” and Ofer Hermoni, chair of the technical advisory council for The Linux Foundation’s Deep Learning Foundation projects, to talk about the current state of AI, how it will scale, and its consequences.

• ArcticFox has working DevTools again

  The past release of 27.9.15 ArcticFox has the Developer Tools working again, they were broken previously because of excessive work on Private browsing.

• FOSDEM 2019 video presentations are online

  LibreOffice developers and other community members were present at FOSDEM 2019, the biggest European meetup of free and open source software developers. Check out the talks that they gave! Click a link to find out more and watch the videos…

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• Open Outlook: Middleware (part 1)

  Middleware, both as a term and as a concept, has been around for decades. As a term, like other terms in the Darwinian world of IT jargon, it has followed a typical fashion lifecycle and is perhaps somewhat past its apogee of vogue. As a concept, however, middleware is more relevant than ever, and while a memetic new label hasn't quite displaced the traditional term, the capabilities themselves are still very much at the heart of enterprise application development.

  Middleware is about making both developers and operators more productive. Analogous to standardized, widely-used, proven subassemblies in the manufacture of physical goods such as cars, middleware relieves developers from "reinventing the wheel" so that they can compose and innovate at higher levels of abstraction. For the staff responsible for operating applications in production, at scale, with high reliability and performance, the more such applications use standardized middleware components and services, the more efficient and reliable the running of the application can be.

• RHEL AUDITD
• Security updates for Tuesday

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• Vulkan 1.1.101 Released With Two New Extensions - Including Another To Help DXVK

  Coming just one week after the Vulkan 1.1.100 release and just days after the Vulkan API celebrated its third birthday, Vulkan 1.1.101 is now available.

  Vulkan 1.1.101 is a bit more eventful than 1.1.100 in that there are two new extensions introduced and then a number of issue corrections/clarifications to the documentation.

• In Save Koch, you are a mafia kingpin trapped inside your own panic room and it's coming to Linux

  Save Koch from developer Wooden Monkeys could be a very interesting one, a strategic sim that puts you in the shoes of a trapped mafia kingpin as you try to save your empire and your life.

• The 3D steampunk dungeon crawler 'Vaporum' just had a huge performance update

  I think Vaporum is a really great dungeon crawler, with good visuals and a rather interesting setting and it just keeps getting better.

  When I originally took a look at the game back in February last year, I noted how in terms of performance I was hitting around 50FPS. With today's update, that's often double what it was which is madness.

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• Organize Files In Filetype-Based Named Directories On Linux Using Organizer (GUI)

  Organizer is new and doesn't have a lot of features yet, but it can already be very helpful in organizing messy directories, like the Downloads or Desktop folders for example.

  Currently Organizer supports organizing directories containing the following type of files: images (jpg, png, etc.), documents (pdf, odt, doc/docx, etc.), spreadsheets (ods, xls/xlsx), presentations (odp, ppt/pptx), videos (mkv, mp4, webm, and so on), music (flac, mp3, etc.), archives (tar.gz, zip, rar, etc.) and other (for example AppImage and deb binaries).

• Handbrake Video Transcoder 1.2.1 Released (Ubuntu PPA)

  Handbrake video transcode 1.2.1 was released a few days ago with numerous bug-fixes and improvements.

• Connecting a physical host to libvirt NAT network
• Logical & in Bash
• Creating a cryptocurrency user interface project with python

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When patents and free software crop up together, the usual question is about patent licensing. Patent exhaustion — the principle that patent rights don't reach past the first sale of a product — is much less frequently discussed. At FOSDEM 2019, US lawyer Van Lindberg argued that several US court decisions related to exhaustion, most of them recent but some less so, could come together to have surprising beneficial effects for free software. He was clear that the argument applied only in the US but, since court systems tend to look to each other for consistency's sake, and because Lindberg is an engaging speaker, the talk was of great interest even in Brussels.

• Google revises proposed Chrome ad blocker changes after public outcry and legal threats
• Qualcomm working on QM215 chipset for Android Go devices: Report
• Qualcomm's Snapdragon X55 5G modem can reach 7Gbps download speeds
• Galaxy Note 8 Android Pie update released in more markets
• Galaxy S10 preview: One UI is the clean break from Android Samsung has always wanted
• How to Install Google Camera Mod on Any Android Phone

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Welcome to a regular series here at Forbes that zeroes in on your very first experience with a desktop Linux operating system: the installer. This time around I'm escaping my comfort zone and leaving Ubuntu-based distributions behind with openSUSE Leap 15.0.

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• digiKam 6.0.0 is released

  Dear digiKam fans and users, following the long stage of integrating a lots of work from students during the Summer of Code, and after 2 years of intensive developement, we hare proud to announce the new digiKam 6.0.0.

• DigiKam 6.0 Released With Video File Management, New Export/Import Options

  DigiKam 6.0 is now available as the Qt/KDE aligned open-source image organizer and with this new release has full support for video file management too.

  The DigiKam 6.0 release delivers support for video file management in the same manner as photo management, integration of import/export web-service tools in LightTable and Showfoto, expanded RAW image handling for more digital cameras, new tools for exporting to Pinterest / OneDrive / Box, and the ability to re-organize the icon-view contents manually.

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While I am a big fan of Intel's Clear Linux distribution for its raw performance on x86_64 hardware that for most workloads goes unsurpassed by any other Linux platform out-of-the-box, there has been a lot of Phoronix readers wondering how well it could function as a standard desktop Linux distribution. With upgrading my main production system earlier this month, I decided to try out Clear Linux and now with 200+ hours into using it as the OS on my main production system, I figured it'd be good to share my initial thoughts.

While we've been benchmarking with Clear Linux for years, only over the past year or two have they really beefed up their bundles around the desktop and make it more appealing for desktop use along with support for Flatpaks, supporting the other DRM/Mesa drivers besides just Intel graphics, delivering a great GNOME Shell experience where as originally they defaulted to Xfce, and overall improving the experience for more use-cases. And, yes, it's even possible to run Steam on Clear Linux.

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Flatpak's Flathub finally supports the notion of application beta releases for application maintainers wanting to offer up early-access/testing versions of applications...