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This Smart Doorbell Responds to Meowing Cats Using Machine Learning and IoT – Hackster.io

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Those who own an outdoor cat or even several might run into the occasional problem of having to let them back in. Due to finding it annoying when having to constantly monitor for when his cat wanted to come inside the house, GitHub user gamename opted for a more automated system.

The solution gamename came up with involves listening to ambient sounds with a single Raspberry Pi and an attached USB microphone. Whenever the locally-running machine learning model detects a meow, it sends a message to an AWS service over the internet where it can then trigger a text to be sent. This has the advantage of limiting false events while simultaneously providing an easy way for the cat to be recognized at the door.

This project started by installing the AWS command-line interface (CLI) onto the Raspberry Pi 4 and then signing in with an account. From here, gamename registered a new IoT device, downloaded the resulting configuration files, and ran the setup script. After quickly updating some security settings, a new function was created that waits for new messages coming from the MQTT service and causes a text message to be sent with the help of the SNS service.

After this plethora of services and configurations had been made to the AWS project, gamename moved onto the next step of testing to see if messages are sent at the right time. His test script simply emulates a positive result by sending the certificates, key, topic, and message to the endpoint, where the user can then watch as the text appears on their phone a bit later.

The Raspberry Pi and microSD card were both placed into an off-the-shelf chassis, which sits just inside the house's entrance. After this, the microphone was connected with the help of two RJ45-to-USB cables that allow the microphone to sit outside inside of a waterproof housing up to 150 feet away.

Running on the Pi is a custom bash script that starts every time the board boots up, and its role is to launch the Python program. This causes the Raspberry Pi to read samples from the microphone and pass them to a TensorFlow audio classifier, which attempts to recognize the sound clip. If the primary noise is a cat, then the AWS API is called in order to publish the message to the MQTT topic. More information about this project can be found here in gamename's GitHub repository.

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This Smart Doorbell Responds to Meowing Cats Using Machine Learning and IoT - Hackster.io

How to use the intelligence features in iOS 16 to boost productivity and learning – TechRepublic

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Apple has packed intelligence features into iOS 16 to allow for translations from videos, copying the subject of a photo and removing the background, and copying text from a video.

A few years ago, Apple began betting on local machine learning in iOS to boost the user experience. It started simple with Photos, but now machine learning is a mainstay in iOS and can help to boost productivity in every turn. iOS 16 adds to the machine learning features of iOS to allow for the ability to copy text from a video, perform quick text actions from photos and videos, and allow you to easily copy the subject of a photo and remove the background, creating an easy alpha layer.

Well walk through these three new intelligence features in iOS 16, find out how to use them, and show you all of the ways that you can use these features to boost your productivity and more.

SEE: iCloud vs. OneDrive: Which is best for Mac, iPad and iPhone users? (free PDF) (TechRepublic)

All of the features below only work on iPhones containing an A12 Bionic processor or later, and the translation and text features only available in the following languages: English, Chinese, French, Italian, German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish and Ukrainian text.

One of the cooler features in iOS 16 was the ability to lift the subject of a photo off the photo, creating an instant alpha of the subject. This removes the background from the photo and leaves you with a perfectly cut out photo subject that you can easily paste into a document, iMessage or anywhere else you can imagine (Figure A).

Figure A

This feature works on iPhone with A12 Bionic and later, and can be done by performing these steps inside of the Photos app:

This doesnt only work in Photos, but also in the Screenshot Utility, QuickLook, Safari and other apps soon. This feature saves a lot of time over opening the photo into a photo editor and manually removing the background.

iOS 15 introduced Live Text, which lets you copy text from a photo or search through your Photo library using text that might be contained in a photo (Figure B). Apple is ramping up this feature in iOS 16 by allowing you to pause a video and copy text from it as well.

Figure B

It works like this:

This feature is great for online learning environments where students might need to copy an example and paste it into a document or other file.

Live Text has been around for two iterations of iOS, so Apple has started building additional features around the Live Text feature, namely the ability to perform actions on text from a photo or paused video frame (Figure C).

Figure C

When you select text in a photo or paused video, you now have the option of performing the following actions on the text:

You can do this by selecting the text from the photo or video, then selecting one of the quick actions presented. This works in the Camera app, Photos app, QuickLook and in the iOS video player.

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How to use the intelligence features in iOS 16 to boost productivity and learning - TechRepublic

Responsible use of machine learning to verify identities at scale – VentureBeat

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In todays highly competitive digital marketplace, consumers are more empowered than ever. They have the freedom to choose which companies they do business with and enough options to change their minds at a moments notice. A misstep that diminishes a customers experience during sign-up or onboarding can lead them to replace one brand with another, simply by clicking a button.

Consumers are also increasingly concerned with how companies protect their data, adding another layer of complexity for businesses as they aim to build trust in a digital world. Eighty-six percent of respondents to a KPMG study reported growing concerns about data privacy, while 78% expressed fears related to the amount of data being collected.

At the same time, surging digital adoption among consumers has led to an astounding increase in fraud. Businesses must build trust and help consumers feel that their data is protected but must also deliver a quick, seamless onboarding experience that truly protects against fraud on the back end.

As such, artificial intelligence (AI) has been hyped as the silver bullet of fraud prevention in recent years for its promise to automate the process of verifying identities. However, despite all of the chatter around its application in digital identity verification, a multitude of misunderstandings about AI remain.

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As the world stands today, true AI in which a machine can successfully verify identities without human interaction doesnt exist. When companies talk about leveraging AI for identity verification, theyre really talking about using machine learning (ML), which is an application of AI. In the case of ML, the system is trained by feeding it large amounts of data and allowing it to adjust and improve, or learn, over time.

When applied to the identity verification process, ML can play a game-changing role in building trust, removing friction and fighting fraud. With it, businesses can analyze massive amounts of digital transaction data, create efficiencies and recognize patterns that can improve decision-making.However, getting tangled up in the hype without truly understanding machine learning and how to use it properly can diminish its value and in many cases, lead to serious problems. When using machine learning ML for identity verification, businesses should consider the following.

Bias in machine learning models can lead to exclusion, discrimination and, ultimately, a negative customer experience. Training an ML system using historical data will translate biases of the data into the models, which can be a serious risk. If the training data is biased or subject to unintentional bias by those building the ML systems, decisioning could be based on prejudiced assumptions.

When an ML algorithm makes erroneous assumptions, it can create a domino effect in which the system is consistently learning the wrong thing. Without human expertise from both data and fraud scientists, and oversight to identify and correct the bias, the problem will be repeated, thereby exacerbating the issue.

Machines are great at detecting trends that have already been identified as suspicious, but their crucial blind spot is novelty. ML models use patterns of data and therefore, assume future activity will follow those same patterns or, at the least, a consistent pace of change. This leaves open the possibility for attacks to be successful, simply because they have not yet been seen by the system during training.

Layering a fraud review team onto machine learning ensures that novel fraud is identified and flagged, and updated data is fed back into the system. Human fraud experts can flag transactions that may have initially passed identity verification controls but are suspected to be fraud and provide that data back to the business for a closer look. In this case, the ML system encodes that knowledge and adjusts its algorithms accordingly.

One of the biggest knocks against machine learning is its lack of transparency, which is a basic tenet in identity verification. One needs to be able to explain how and why certain decisions are made, as well as share with regulators information on each stage of the process and customer journey. Lack of transparency can also foster mistrust among users.

Most ML systems provide a simple pass or fail score. Without transparency into the process behind a decision, it can be difficult to justify when regulators come calling. Continuous data feedback from ML systems can help businesses understand and explain why decisions were made and make informed decisions and adjustments to identity verification processes.

There is no doubt that ML plays an important role in identity verification and will continue to do so in the future. However, its clear that machines alone arent enough to verify identities at scale without adding risk. The power of machine learning is best realized alongside human expertise and with data transparency to make decisions that help businesses build customer loyalty and grow.

Christina Luttrell is the chief executive officer for GBG Americas, comprised of Acuant and IDology.

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Deep learning algorithm predicts Cardano to trade above $2 by the end of August – Finbold – Finance in Bold

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The price of Cardano (ADA) has mainly traded in the green in recent weeks as the network dubbed Ethereum killer continues to record increased blockchain development.

Specifically, the Cardano community is projecting a possible rise in the tokens value, especially with the upcoming Vasil hard fork.

In this line, NeuralProphets PyTorch-based price prediction algorithm that deploys an open-source machine learning framework has predicted that ADA would trade at $2.26 by August 31, 2022.

Although the prediction model covers the time period from July 31st to December 31st, 2022, and it is not an accurate indicator of future prices, its predictions have historically proven to be relatively accurate up until the abrupt market collapse of the algorithm-based stablecoin project TerraUSD (UST).

However, the prediction aligns with the generally bullish sentiment around ADA that stems from the network activity aimed at improving the assets utility. As reported by Finbold, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson revealed the highly anticipated Vasil hard fork is ready to be rolled after delays.

It is worth noting that despite minor gains, ADA is yet to show any significant reaction to the upgrade, but the tokens proponents are glued to the price movement as it shows signs of recovery. Similarly, the token has benefitted from the recent two-month-long rally across the general cryptocurrency market.

Elsewhere, the CoinMarketCap community is projecting that ADA will trade at $0.58 by the end of August. The prediction is supported by about 17,877 community members, representing a price growth of about 8.71% from the tokens current value.

For September, the community has placed the prediction at $0.5891, a growth of about 9% from the current price. Interestingly, the algorithm predicts that ADA will trade at $1.77 by the end of September. Overall, both prediction platforms indicate an increase from the digital assets current price.

By press time, the token was trading at $0.53 with gains of less than 1% in the last 24 hours.

In general, multiple investors are aiming to capitalize on the Vasil hard fork, especially with Cardano clarifying the upgrade is going on according to plan.

Disclaimer:The content on this site should not be considered investment advice. Investing is speculative. When investing, your capital is at risk.

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Deep learning algorithm predicts Cardano to trade above $2 by the end of August - Finbold - Finance in Bold

Are the US and the UK authoritarian regimes? Julian Assange’s supporters think so – PRESSENZA International News Agency

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A young Italian woman is the latest street installation activist to protest the medias silence regarding the inhumane treatment of Julian Assange by the UK and the U.S. Her installation in a square in Como lambastes the two self-styled democracies for acting exactly like authoritarian regimes.

What is it like to try to live what Julian Assange is living, incarcerated as he is in Londons Belmarsh prison since April 11, 2019 for having had the audacity to make public the secret war crimes, environmental crimes and human rights crimes of the United States and the United Kingdom? A young woman from Como has decided to reenact Assanges dramatic condition albeit in the open air and only for a limited time with a street installation in a central square of the Northern Italian town of Como. She hopes that passersbys will be led to put themselves into Julians shoes and thus better comprehend the conditions under which he is trying to survive.

It is now well over 1,220 days, in fact, that Assange has been imprisoned, in solitary confinement, in a cell that measures three meters by two (roughly 7 feet by 10 feet),

All this without there ever having been a conviction against him (except for a minor misdemeanor, no longer applicable). An incarceration which is therefore absolutely arbitrary just like in the worst authoritarian regimes from which the very UK and US claim to distance themselves but, in this case, dont.

It is a legal monstrosity that cries out for vengeance. And to cry out her rage, the young woman from Como has decided to enact in public what it means to be in a cell like Julians.

Every Saturday afternoon for the next eight months, Lorena Corrias will draw on the pavement of Piazza Verdi, in front of Comos Social Theatre, the outline of a 7X10 foot cell with a poster of Assange covering a space the size of the Belmarsh cot and will sit there from 4 to 6 p.m. (during summer), getting up only to distribute leaflets to passersby. The municipality has allowed her to occupy the 64 square feet of city property until March 25, 2023. She began enacting her protest on August 6, wearing for the occasion an orange jumpsuit reminiscent of that worn by prisoners in Guantanamo. (Belmarsh prison is, in fact, often called the British Guantanamo.)

Lorena took inspiration for her unusual protest from a young woman in Berlin, Raja Valeska, who, for the past one hundred days, has already been sitting inside a 7X10 foot cell drawn on the pavement in front of the Brandenburg Gate or in front of other busy places in the German capital. The Comit Free Assange Belgium is also carrying out a similar initiative: the Belgian activists are already at their 174th street installation in Brussels where they create, using road barriers, a 7X10 foot cell in which to lock themselves as a form of protest.

The outrage felt by people all over the world toward the persecution of Julian Assange is growing by the day. For them, Julians judicial prosecution is by no means legitimate; it is brutal revenge, pure and simple, disguised as a criminal case of spying, and they intend to denounce it as such by all means possible.

But while my street installation aims above all to save Julians life, absolutely in peril in Belmarsh prison, it also has other purposes, Lorena explains. It is a battle cry for all of us, because our democracy itself is at stake. To equate investigative journalism with spying, as the United States wants to do in demanding Julians extradition from the United Kingdom, is to kill investigative journalism, kill freedom of the press and, therefore, put an end to our #RightToKnow what our rulers are doing in our name especially the illegalities they carry out and then cover up as classified state secrets, so they can go unpunished. Anyone who unconvers them is labeled a spy and sent to jail, just like in the worse authoritarian regimes.

I realize, Lorena concludes, that not everyone has the vocation or the willingness to do a demonstrative action such as the one I have undertaken here in Como. Not everyone feels the need that I felt to really do something concrete for Julian. But everyone can, in their own city, support Julians cause with simple but effective actions. For example, by buying and reading Nils Melzers book, The Trial of Julian Assange, or, for those who know Italian, Stefania Maurizis book Il potere segreto: perch vogliono distruggere Julian Assange e WikiLeaks. and then by talking about them with family and friends. Or by participating in demonstrations organized by groups such as Free Assange Italia, Italians for Assange, Committee for the Liberation of Julian Assange or Free Assange Reggio Emilia.

Or by participating in mega events such as the 24hAssange marathon, a streamed event to be held on October 15. You can simply listen to it and get others to listen to it with you; or you can participate actively by expressing your point of view just write to 24hassange@proton.me to reserve a space in the marathon schedule.

If one really wants to defend a man who has made a great sacrifice for us all, and if, at the same time, we want to defend our #RightToKnow, well, there is no shortage of opportunities. For example, Free Assange Italia, the group I just mentioned and with which I am super active now, offers several initiatives to participate in, depending on ones inclinations and availability: http://freeassangeitalia.it/ciao

But who is Lorena Corrias?

A graduate in Sciences of Tourism from the University of Insubria in 2007 and now an office worker, Lorena had never been an activist in her life before she saw Riccardo Iaconas TV program, Julian Assange, journalism on trial (Presa Diretta on 8/30/2021 viewable on RaiPlay).

The broadcast prompted her to seek out the pro-Assange committee closest to her, in her case Milan, and on July 2 of this year, Lorena received her baptism of fire outside the Milanese British Consulate during a rally held there to celebrate Assanges 51st birthday. Overcoming shyness, she took the microphone in hand and delivered her first public speech, absolutely spontaneous here it is, shortened:

Ever since I was a child, I have always hated injustice, especially when it was committed by the strong against the weak. Inequality has always bothered me and, even as I grew up, this hatred for injustice has never abided. And in the case of Julian Assange, we are talking about a colossal injustice! Only, at the time, I didnt know anything about it.

Then I saw the TV program about Assange presented by Riccardo Iacona, which I encourage everyone to watch. I was shocked to discover that today there is a hero who put his future and his life on the line bravely and without any ulterior motives to enable us to know the truth. Because only by knowing the truth can we make informed decisions.

I do not want to live in a world where everything is passed over in silence.

I dont want to live in a world where Julian Assange is in prison, or worse, one where Julian dies in prison.

But most of all, I do not want to live in a world without Julian Assange! We need him!

Let me thank AnnaMaria Deidda, who has offered me logistical support during my campaign for Julian, and also Sara Giagnoni who has always been by my side.

The original article can be found here

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Are the US and the UK authoritarian regimes? Julian Assange's supporters think so - PRESSENZA International News Agency

OpenSSF Announces 13 New Members Committed to Strengthening the Security of the Open Source Software Supply Chain – DARKReading

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SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 17, 2022 The Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF), a cross-industry organization hosted at the Linux Foundation that brings together the world's most important software supply chain security initiatives, on Wednesday announced 13 new members from leading financial services, technology, employment, software development, cybersecurity, telecommunications, and academic sectors.

New premier member, Capital One, joins the OpenSSF Governing Board. New general member commitments come from Akamai, Indeed, Kasten by Veeam, Scantist, SHE BASH, Socket Security, Sysdig, Timesys, and ZTE Corporation. New associate members include Eclipse Foundation, Purdue University, and TODO Group. "We are excited to welcome new members to the OpenSSF," says Brian Behlendorf, General Manager of OpenSSF. "As open source software security vulnerabilities continue to draw attention from governments and businesses around the world, interest in the work of the OpenSSF has been rapidly increasing."

"A growing community of organizations, developers, researchers, and security professionals are investing the time and resources needed to strengthen open source security," said Jamie Thomas, OpenSSF Board Chair and IBM Enterprise Security Executive. "New members of OpenSSF are joining at a time when cross-industry collaboration and innovation are needed more than ever to proactively respond to pervasive cybersecurity threats."

Resolving the systemic issues that led to major security vulnerabilities like the Log4shell incident emphasizes the urgency and importance of the work of OpenSSF. A recent Cyber Safety Review Board report declared that Log4j has become an "endemic vulnerability" that will be exploited for years to come and that the 10-point mobilization plan introduced earlier this year at the Open Source Software Security Summit II by the OpenSSF will improve the resiliency and security of open source software.

OpenSSF will host a full day of sessions on Tuesday, Sept. 13, at OpenSSF Day EU on the eve of Open Source Summit Europe (OSS EU) in Dublin. Working Group leaders and community members will host sessions, panels, and fireside chats about ongoing work to secure the software supply chain and the future of open source security. Registration and attendance are free for all those attending the OSS EU.

Premier Member Quote

Capital One

"Today some of the most groundbreaking digital experiences created for customers are based on open source software. As a company that widely adopts this technology, Capital One is incredibly proud to join the OpenSSF and the world's technology leaders as we collaborate to strengthen the software security supply chain. As a highly regulated company, we are seasoned in managing compliance and governance and advocate for standardization, automation and collaboration. We look forward to working together to identify solutions that advance the OpenOSSF mission and give back to the open source community."

General Member Quotes

Akamai

"Improving the security of open source software so central to the internet ecosystem is one of the most critical security challenges we face today. Only by gaining visibility into the network and the software supply chain can we reliably address security flaws when they occur at the code level. The technology community must support the open source communities we depend on with financial and technological resources to limit our collective risk. As a leading security and cloud services provider, we look forward to contributing to the Open Source Security Foundation and helping to advance this important work."

Kasten by Veeam

"We are honored to be part of the Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) and champion this initiative alongside our peers. Kasten by Veeam has an open source heritage, and with Kubernetes data protection as our core offering, security remains a critical underpinning for Kasten K10 design and implementation. As Kubernetes adoption continues to fuel Digital Transformation journeys for enterprises, more attention is rightfully being placed on security, especially with the inexorable rise of ransomware attacks. Kasten by Veeam is committed to ensuring the security and data protection of cloud native environments to better protect business applications."

Scantist

"On one hand, the software industry is benefiting substantially from the rapid growth of open source, which has become the basic building blocks of the digital world. On the other hand, open source security is becoming more critical and all these risks are multiplied by the interdependent nature of open source. Now as a member of OpenSSF, we would like to contribute to the OpenSSF missions based on our recent research on open source ecosystem analysis to provide a quantitative view to understand the complexity and security of open source. We want to become the active participant, evangelist and ambassador for OSS governance in southeast Asia to promote open source software supply chain security."

SHE BASH

"Since our inception, SHE BASH has witnessed a variety of predatory industry practices that get shielded from extensive scrutiny via the protective veil of closed source. At our core, open source software is a public institution that enables everyone to build their future.

"The combination of decades of apathy and the incentive mechanisms that sustain a culture of 'don't care' has allowed our company to stand out among tech's largest and most culpable companies. We have always considered 'best practice first' as one of the main value propositions we can provide as a company, albeit a small one. Open Source Software provided us the level playing field to make differences in key technological shifts within the public sector, and the evolution of these shifts are the development of best practices born from the open source that sustains all software life today. It's a true honor to be of assistance to the work OpenSSF is leading to remedy large structural mistakes that grew from decades of neglect."

Socket Security

"As maintainers of open source packages which are installed over 1 billion times per month, the Socket team is intimately familiar with the massive growth in open source dependency usage. Modern applications use thousands of dependencies written by hundreds of maintainers, and installing even one package leads to dozens of transitive dependencies coming along for the ride. Unfortunately, it is far too easy for a bad actor to infiltrate the software supply chain and wreak havoc. That's why Socket is proud to join OpenSSF and do our part to make open source safe for everyone with our industry-leading approach to software composition analysis which is used by thousands of companies to detect and prevent supply chain attacks. The Socket team is excited to work with other OpenSSF member companies to safeguard the open source ecosystem for everyone."

Sysdig

Sysdig is proud to be part of OpenSSF and work together to help guide open source security standards and secure the software supply chain. As a cloud security company built on open source, we believe the industry must come together to strengthen software for the common good. Having created and contributed Falco to the CNCF to help secure the runtime, we look forward to continuing open collaboration in the OpenSSF. The future of security is open, and what we do now will shape software forever."

Timesys

"With software supply chain breaches up more than 650%, securing the software supply chain is a big focus. We've been working for more than 5 years developing technology to help secure, monitor, and maintain open source-based embedded Linux and Android devices from exposures and vulnerabilities. We are so excited to be joining up on this community effort with OpenSSF and to be a part of the Linux Foundation again. By sharing technology and collaborating to build ecosystems that accelerate open-source technology development, device manufacturers and consumers everywhere will be able to rest easier knowing they are secure."

ZTE Corporation

"We are very pleased to join the OpenSSF. As a world-leading communication equipment manufacturer, more and more open source software is used by us. While actively embracing open source software, it also brings unprecedented risks to software supply chain security. ZTE Corporation has made many efforts to control and manage risks, and regard them as our top priority. After joining the OpenSSF, ZTE Corporation works with a group of members with similar visions and goals to promote the development of open source software supply chain towards a more secure direction."

Additional Resources

About OpenSSF

The Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) is a cross-industry organization hosted by the Linux Foundation that brings together the industry's most important open source security initiatives and the individuals and companies that support them. The OpenSSF is committed to collaboration and working both upstream and with existing communities to advance open source security for all. For more information, please visit us at: openssf.org.

About the Linux Foundation

Founded in 2000, the Linux Foundation and its projects are supported by more than 2,950 members. The Linux Foundation is the world's leading home for collaboration on open source software, hardware, standards, and data. Linux Foundation projects are critical to the world's infrastructure including Linux, Kubernetes, Node.js, ONAP, Hyperledger, RISC-V, and more. The Linux Foundation's methodology focuses on leveraging best practices and addressing the needs of contributors, users, and solution providers to create sustainable models for open collaboration. For more information, please visit us at linuxfoundation.org.

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OpenSSF Announces 13 New Members Committed to Strengthening the Security of the Open Source Software Supply Chain - DARKReading

How W4 plans to monetize the Godot game engine using Red Hats open source playbook – TechCrunch

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A new company from the creators of the Godot game engine is setting out to grab a piece of the $200 billion global video game market and to do so, its taking a cue from commercial open source software giant Red Hat.

Godot, for the uninitiated, is a cross-platform game engine first released under an open source license back in 2014, though its initial development pre-dates that by several years. Today, Godot claims some 1,500 contributors, and is considered one of the worlds top open source projects by various metrics. Godot has been used in high-profile games such as the Sonic Colors: Ultimate remaster, published by Sega last year as the first major mainstream game powered by Godot. But Tesla, too, has apparently used Godot to power some of the more graphically intensive animations in its mobile app.

Among Godots founding creators is Juan Linietsky, who has served as head of development for the Godot project for the past 13 years, and who will now serve as CEO of W4 Games, a new venture thats setting out to take Godot to the next level.

W4 quietly exited stealth last week, but today the Ireland-headquartered company has divulged more details about its goals to grow Godot and make it accessible for a wider array of commercial use cases. On top of that, the company told TechCrunch that it has raised $8.5 million in seed funding to make its mission a reality, with backers including OSS Capital, Lux Capital, Sisu Game Ventures and somewhat notably Bob Young, the co-founder and former CEO of Red Hat, an enterprise-focused open source company that IBM went on to acquire for $34 billion in 2019.

But first what is a game engine, exactly?

Godot editor demo. Image Credits: Godot

In simple terms, a game engine serves up the basic building blocks required for developers to create games, and may include anything from renderers for 2D or 3D graphics to scripting and memory management. Its basically a software framework that developers can use and reuse without having to redesign the wheel with each new game they create.

This allows developers to utilize pre-made functionality that is common to most games when creating their own, and only create the parts that make the game unique, Linietsky explained to TechCrunch.

While many companies, particularly larger game studios, develop their own engines in-house, as games and the associated development processes have become more complex, third-party general purpose game engines have grown in popularity. This includes long-established incumbents such as Unity, developed by tech powerhouse Unity Software, which is currently in the process of merging with IronSource.

One reason why a studio might use a third-party game engine is to cut down on in-house development costs, but a trade-off here is that it then has to work with a gargantuan code-base, which it has limited control over. And that is why Godot has gained some fans through the years as an open source project, it gives developers an oven-baked game engine that they can tweak and fine-tune to their own needs, with improvements pushed back to the development community for everyone to benefit from.

The result is reduced development costs and more freedom to innovate, Linietsky said. Godot brings to the game industry the same benefits that enterprise software has been enjoying from it [open source software] for decades.

Red Hat Inc. signage is displayed outside the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Image Credits: Bloomberg / Getty Images

Anyone who has even remotely paid attention to the technology sphere over the past decade or sowill have noticed that open source is now big business. The likes of Elastic and Cockroach Labs have built billion-dollar businesses off the back of open source projects, while Aiven recently hit double-unicorn status for a business that helps enterprises make the most of open source technologies in cloud environments.

But Red Hat, arguably, remains one of the biggest success stories from the open source world, selling enterprises premium support and services for some of the worlds biggest community-driven projects, from Linux to Kubernetes.

Companies like Red Hat have proven that with the right commercial offerings on top, the appeal of using open source in enterprise environments is enormous, Linietsky said. W4 intends to do this very same thing for the game industry.

Its an interesting parallel, for sure, and one that seems pretty obvious when presented with such a comparison. Linuxs open source credentials were what led it to become the leading operating system for web servers, while Androids mobile market share dominance can substantively be attributed to its Linux kernel base. Elsewhere, other open source projects such as Kubernetes are powering enterprise adoption of microservices and container technologies.

In truth, Godot is nowhere near having the kind of impact in gaming that Linux has had in the enterprise, but its still early days and this is exactly where W4 could make a difference.

We expect Godot to take the same route in the game industry as other open source software has taken in the enterprise, which is to slowly become the de facto standard, Linietsky continued. It is very difficult for companies that create proprietary software to compete with the massive talent pool that popular open source projects have, and unappealing for software users to concede the freedom to use software as they please to a third-party entity.

On top of that, having one of Red Hats original founders on board as an investor can only be construed as a major coup for a startup that is just eight months old.

Bob is an incredible human being who helped create a whole new type of business where nobody expected it was possible, Linietsky continued. He identified the opportunity for Godot and W4 as very similar to Linux and Red Hat two decades ago, and has been very kind to share his wisdom with us, as well as becoming an investor in our company.

Concept illustration depicting technical support. Image Credits: Macrostore / Getty Images

W4s core target market will be broad its gunning for independent developers and small studios, as well as medium and large gaming companies. The problem that its looking to solve, ultimately, is that while Godot is popular with hobbyists and indie developers, companies are hesitant to use the engine on commercial projects due to its inherent limitations currently, there is no easy way to garner technical support, discuss the products development roadmap, or access any other kind of value-added service.

But perhaps more importantly, while Godot is touted as a cross-platform game engine spanning the web, mobile and desktop, it has hitherto lacked direct support for games consoles. The reason for this is that as an open source project served under a permissive MIT license, Godot cant provide support for consoles because it wouldnt be allowed to publish the code required to interact with the proprietary hardware game studios that develop for consoles have to sign strict non-disclosure agreements. Plus, console makers will only work with registered legal entities, which Godot is not.

Put simply, Godot cant be a community-driven open source project and support consoles at the same time. But there are ways around this, which is why W4 hopes to make money by offering a porting service to help developers convert their existing games into a console-compatible format.

W4 will offer console ports to developers under very accessible terms, Linietsky said. Independent developers wont need to pay upfront to publish, while for larger companies there will be commercial packages that include support.

Elsewhere, W4 is developing a range of products and services which its currently keeping under wraps, with Linietsky noting that they will most likely be announced at Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco next March.

The aim of W4 is to help developers overcome any problem developers may stumble upon while trying to use Godot commercially, Linietsky added.

Its worth noting that there are a handful of commercial companies out there already, such as Lone Wolf Technology and Pineapple Works, that help developers get the most out of Godot including console porting. But Linietsky was keen to highlight one core difference between W4 and these incumbents: its expertise.

The main distinctive feature of W4 is that it has been created by the Godot project leadership, which are the individuals with the most understanding and insight about Godot and its community, he said.

Of Godots 1,500 or so contributors, 10 are more-or-less permanent hires, paid via community donations. Similarly, W4s current team of 12 largely consists of long-standing Godot contributors, spread across eight different countries in the Americas and Europe. This is much like how other companies built on an open source foundation started out, including Red Hat and WordPress.coms parent Automattic, which was one of the most well-known distributed companies out there, long before the remote-work revolution came along in 2020.

Indeed, distributed work is one of the core defining characteristics of open source software development. By way of example, Linietsky is based in Spain, while co-founder and COO Rmi Verschelde works from Denmark. The other two founders, CTO Fabio Alessandrelliand CMO Nicola Farronato, operate from different locations in Italy.

But every legal entity needs to choose somewhere as its corporate home. And similar to many tech companies, W4 elected Dublin, Ireland as its official HQ though this presence is really just on paper, only.

We are based in Ireland because two of the co-founders have previously established there, have relatives and are very familiar with the Irish ecosystem, Linietsky said.

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How W4 plans to monetize the Godot game engine using Red Hats open source playbook - TechCrunch

Secure Open Source Rewards’ to help in preventing assaults on the software supply chain. Check out how! – Economic Times

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The SOS.dev initiative 'Secure Open Source Rewards' will help in preventing assaults on the software supply chain by incentivising researchers to offer security upgrades to essential projects.

This new initiative aims to reward developers and security experts that enhance crucial infrastructure using open source software. According to those who support it, the rewards initiative, which is 'Secure Open Source,' will cover more ground than bug bounty schemes at the current time.

By encouraging academics and developers to make security changes, the programme would "harden vital open source projects" and aid in protecting against application and software supply chain threats.

Save Our Software

The NIST definition of "vital software," the scope of the security enhancements and the number of users, who stand to gain, will be considered when selecting qualified projects for the 'Save Our Software Secure Open Source Rewards'.

For "complex, high-impact and enduring enhancements that virtually surely avert severe vulnerabilities," rewards range from $505 for simple changes to $10,000 or more. As SOS.dev develops, we will add additional enhancements to the goals.

Million Dollar Funding

In contrast to traditional bug bounty programmes, the programe named 'Secure Open Source Rewards' takes help of developers in security enhancements rather than merely vulnerabilities. Additionally, it will provide a small amount of up-front financing for initiatives seeking to enhance security over the long term.

The initiative comes as businesses plan to improve the security of their most important apps and infrastructure. Software supply chains are receiving more attention, particularly the significance of key open source components throughout the ecosystem.

We will continue to see significant breaches resulting from software supply chain attacks if we don't take action right away to address these Achilles' heels. "Supply chain security starts with the original contributor and the security of their coding standards, computing environment and build systems," said Andrew Martin, CEO at ControlPlane and CISO at OpenUK.

Disclaimer: This content is authored by an external agency. The views expressed here are that of the respective authors/ entities and do not represent the views of Economic Times (ET). ET does not guarantee, vouch for or endorse any of its contents nor is responsible for them in any manner whatsoever. Please take all steps necessary to ascertain that any information and content provided is correct, updated and verified. ET hereby disclaims any and all warranties, express or implied, relating to the report and any content therein.

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Secure Open Source Rewards' to help in preventing assaults on the software supply chain. Check out how! - Economic Times

Free Dev Tools! But Whats the Catch? – DevOps.com

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Software companies, especially young startups, are always in a development race by definition, they are trying to maximize achievements and minimize their burn rate. That means development teams naturally face an internal tug-of-war. On one hand, they seek to use the newest dev tools that the market can offer, targeting their applications to become better (more secure, more efficient and compliant with the latest standards). On the other hand, they cannot spend money on such tools since they need to save every penny. With the current economic climate, many new investments are being delayed or, at minimum, double-checked.

To appeal to developers, many vendors and software development tool companies offer freemium programs. Some are driven by the spirit and the goodwill of open source and community; others are business-to-developer (B2D) companies relying on the product-led growth (PLG) mode. If developers see value in the free tools, they are more likely to become paying customers later on to get access to more features.

Here, well review the common parameters of popular free developer tools and distinguish their services between the free tier (aka the community tier), the entry-level paid tier and other paid program offerings. Well look at tools for observability, logging, vulnerability scanning, compliance, authentication and VPNs.

Logs are considered to be one of the three pillars of observability and are the bread and butter of troubleshooting and debugging. The more code lines you have in your product, the more loglines you collect, store and aggregate. Logs accumulation can quickly get out of hand and become very heavy on the budget. One logs aggregation vendor, Sumologic, provides a freemium offer that allows log collection up to one gigabyte per day. If you need more volume, you can move to their paid tier that allows for higher volumes or pay more for no limits at all.

Transactions and tests are probably the most imperative features of a freemium offer. It involves the core offering with a quantity limitation, giving you a chance to try the product through practical use, but youll probably have to move up quickly into the first paid tier. Snyk.io, for example, will help you scan your open source software for flaws alongside container vulnerabilities as early as code creation, with up to 200 open source tests and 100 container tests per month.

Its one thing to play with, say, a free AutoCAD seat that doesnt involve sensitive data and another thing entirely to draft the next-generation design that must not leak to your competitors. Security and compliance certification is often included in the freemium tiers; more detailed reports and analysis of security and compliance are for the paying tiers only.

Having a free tool is greatbut if this tool is bound to a proprietary service, then you should probably demand these tools meet the same standards and SLAs that you are offering your customers. Observability platform Rookout offers 24/7 support and dedicated account managers and tools for enterprise customers in all tiers.

One key aspect of free tiers is the legal aspect of using the tool. The dev tool may interact with sensitive data, not only in your own dev environment but also with your customers environments. Your customers may require your dev operations to meet specific criteria, making the free tier a potential legal issue. For example, if you use the free tier of JFrog to manage your supply chain, you wont be able to use Artifactory to publish data to third parties; should you want to do that, you will have to move to one of the paid commercial programs.

Some free tools operate based on a usage modelyou are entitled to a free tier until a certain amount of users or actions is reached. Auth0, for example, a user authentication solution (now part of Okta), provides their service free of charge for up to 7,000 users (generous!) but should you grow beyond that, youll need to graduate to a paid tier and be charged according to your monthly usage.

Some free and freemium offerings are tempered based on connectivity speed, bandwidth and even VPN. Today, you can even get a secure VPN for free, but only to a specific threshold. For example, ProtonVPN will provide you with a free VPN at a medium speed, if you move to the highest speed VPN, youll need to move to a paid tier.

In most cases, the freemium tier will limit a dev tools usage according to one or a few main characteristics but will allow you to perform the basic actions and enjoy the essence of the tool. Some parameters may be trivial, like volume of tests, while others require developers and DevOps teams to carefully monitor usage. Theres a lot of value in free and freemium dev toolsbut make sure you read the fine print.

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Free Dev Tools! But Whats the Catch? - DevOps.com

This Company is Aiming to Do to the Guest what VMWare and AWS Did to the Host – GeekWire

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AWS currently has over a $70B run rate so it may come as a surprise to some people that most workloads running on it are using an operating system that is 30 years old and is essentially the same as an even older operating system that is 50 years old. This operating system was built for real physical computers not the virtual ones that developers spin up on Amazon and Google Cloud. Of course we are talking about Linux.

Youd think after 30 years there might be different views on running those workloads and NanoVMs thinks so with its various commercial offerings and its flagship open source Nanos unikernel.

NanoVMs claims to be able to run workloads such as Go and Rust web servers up to 200% faster on GCP and up to 300% faster on AWS all with no users, no passwords, no shells, no remote access of any kind. In fact the unikernel acts like its own operating system running one and only one application versus another that a hacker might want to run.

NanoVMs has revenue from over ten different countries with customers in production for over two years now. They built their advanced R&D with backing from early investors such as Initialized Capital, Bloomberg Beta and famed cybersecurity investors such as Ron Gula from Gula Tech Ventures. They have multiple grants from the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy and the US Air Force.

How big of a market do they operate in though? The devops market is approaching $15B, exploding to $30B in the next five years, while cybersecurity is reaching over $100B in the next few years. Unikernels represent an unique category creation as their end-users are clearly devops professionals, yet they bring security benefits you wont find in the conference halls of BlackHat or RSA. The ecosystem has very deep moats as well, as at the end of the day even though its Linux binary compatible it is a new operating system.

Github, alone boasts having 83M software developers and in order to get the word out about the technology NanoVMs has launched an equity crowdfunding campaign that allows ordinary investors to invest in the company.

However, it would be wrong to speak of just the number of software engineers. Many tech companies are now built on open source software, each with their own massive valuations. Whether its MongoDB, ElasticSearch, Redis Labs, Confluent, Databricks the list is seemingly endless it all runs on open source software and guess what operating system that code runs on? Thats right, Linux. Even without modifying any of the code many of these companies projects run faster and safer as a unikernel than on Linux. If you do a quick google search youll see there are easily north of ten different vendors for something like ElasticSearch. The fact that even one vendor for one software application can potentially cause a lot of ruckus starts to detail the amount of turbulence this technology is going to generate. The TAM for this market, existing software being provisioned as unikernels, is explosive and volatile as now all these vendors have a new path to build better software and provide deep value differentiation.

Google published a series of papers that eventually turned into a book called The Datacenter as a Computer: An Introduction to the Design of Warehouse-Scale Machines. In it Google details how they operate entire warehouses filled with row upon row of racks on top of racks of servers and treat it as a single entity. Unikernels deal with the reality that the cloud, for many companies, is the new operating system even though developers still micromanage hundreds to thousands of fake virtual machines pretending they are real even if the intention is to only run a single application.

There is a new age of virtualization finally breaking the shackles of decades of stagnation in the operating system space. Unikernels arent just providing better security and higher performance at a lower cost, they are breaking long standing barriers that applications have been constrained to because of their dependence on systems built and architectures designed, in some cases, before the software developers using them were even born.

To learn more about NanoVMs or about how you might invest, check out https://invest.nanovms.com.

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This Company is Aiming to Do to the Guest what VMWare and AWS Did to the Host - GeekWire


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