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Google on Monday announced the release of TensorFlow, its second-generation machine learning system, to the open source community. It's offering TensorFlow as a standalone library with associated tools, tutorials and examples under the Apache 2.0 license. Google uses TensorFlow in deep learning, Goo...

BQ last week opened an Ubuntu global store accessible to anyone who wants to buy an Aquaris Ubuntu Edition handset. BQ recently launched the BQ Aquaris E4.5 and E5 HD Ubuntu Edition smartphones in Europe. Both BQ and Canonical, which provides commercial support for Ubuntu Linux, have acknowledged ne...

Mozilla on Friday released security updates to fix a zero-day flaw in the Firefox browser. An exploit that searches for sensitive files and uploads them to a server -- possibly somewhere in Ukraine -- has surfaced in an ad on a Russian news site, Mozilla reported last week. The exploit impacts Windo...

Zimperium on Monday revealed a stunning discovery by researcher Joshua Drake -- a flaw in Android's Stagefright media playback engine that could expose millions of mobile device users to attack without their having done anything. Stagefright, which processes several popular media formats, is impleme...

Apple this week announced Swift 2 and said it would open-source it later this year. Swift 2 is a programming language for iOS, OS X and watchOS. It has a new error handling model that works with Apple SDKs and NSError. Two new features in Objective-C -- nullability annotations and generics -- make S...

SuperX OS is a solid Linux distribution that dispels all of the criticisms about using free open source operating systems. SuperX is a relatively new distro developed by Libresoft. Based on Ubuntu and Debian, it adds a highly customized KDE desktop environment. Version 3.0 -- dubbed "Grace" after co...

The Linux community is filled with friction and diversity. One of the advantages of open source software is the diversity that leads to innovative approaches to improve the computing environment. But can the diversity go too far? Is it a defining characteristic that kills programming creativity? Lin...

Security questions recently have been raised about Docker, a promising technology for running applications in the cloud. Docker is an open source initiative that allows applications to be run in containers for flexibility and mobility only dreamt of in the past. "Since the 70s, programmers have been...

The push is on for mobile database management tools built from the ground up to run directly inside phones, tablets and wearables. These mobile database solutions are being designed to do what heavyweight open source solutions like SQLite, Cord Data, MySQL and PostgreSQL were not designed to do. Som...

Open source developers apparently don't adhere to best practices such as using static analysis and conducting regular security audits, found Coverity's Spotlight report, released Wednesday. The Coverity Scan service, which is available at no charge to open source projects, helped devs find and fix a...

One of the essential draws to open source software should be superior product documentation. Well-written user guidelines are a key strategy that software developers should use to increase an open source project's growth and user adoption. All too often, programmers finish their last line of code ...

Red Hat on Thursday announced that it will acquire FeedHenry as part of a stepped-up initiative to support mobile application development. "Given the sheer number of mobile phones out there and the sheer adoption in the market at large of mobile technologies, our customers and prospects and target c...

Imagine a world where playing Pong and Minecraft gives people the power to program their computers. That world is Kano. It took the idea behind Lego to teach computer programming by playing first-generation computer games. Kano launched on Kickstarter in November 2013. More than 13,000 people from s...

OpenMandriva Lx 2014 is a KDE-only Linux distribution that has some rough edges but is otherwise a solid and reliable choice for user-friendly computing. This latest version, dubbed "Phosphorus," is based on the Mandriva Linux project and ROSA, a Russian Linux distribution. ROSA forked from Mandriva...

The Age of the Connected Car is dawning. The Linux Foundation is positioning an open source Linux OS to take the front seat in steering carmakers to adopting Automotive Grade Linux as the engine driving all in-car electronics. Today's automobile has from 60 to 100 sensors to control everything from ...

The Pinguy OS is a solid Linux distro with a focus on simple and straightforward usability for the non-geek desktop user. This approach may disappoint those who favor newer user interfaces, but if you consider yourself a normal computer user who does not like to tinker with settings and various desk...

Microsoft recently established a .Net foundation and open sourced substantial parts of the popular programming language, continuing to spread its newfound love for open source software. However, it's another movement -- devops -- that may be more of a driving factor in Microsoft's .Net move. In esta...

Individuals and businesses migrate to Linux for a variety of reasons. Disgust with Microsoft or Apple regimentation and software limitations are but two of them. For some, the greater flexibility that comes from open source software, as well as better cost and productivity controls, are the drivin...

After launching its Atom text editor into beta back in February, GitHub on Tuesday announced that the software is now fully open source under the MIT License. "Much of Atom's functionality is provided by packages, and every Atom package has been open source since the day we launched the beta," expla...

Open source software continues to gain momentum -- but what is not growing is an open desire among individual software developers to port their commercial Windows wares to Linux. Open source support is not a mere in or out decision. Some software makers shape their business models to take advantage ...