Practical Technology

for practical people.

February 7, 2022
by sjvn01
0 comments

Intel invests in open-source RISC-V processors, creates billion-dollar fund

RISC-V International, the global open hardware standards organization, has announced that Intel has joined RISC-V at the Premier membership level. Let that sink in for a minute.

Intel, which has made billions from its closed-source, complex instruction set computer (CISC) x86 processors, is joining forces with RISC-V, the open-source reduced instruction set computer (RISC) CPU group. What next? Dogs and cats living together!?

Dr. David Patterson, co-creator of RISC-V, helped make it an open lingua franca for computer chips, a set of instructions that would be used by all chipmakers and owned by none. Today, Patterson said, “I’m delighted that Intel, the company that pioneered the microprocessor 50 years ago, is now a member of RISC-V International.”

Why? Because Intel sees a future in which ARM, x86, and RISC-V all play major roles.  In particular, Intel has already seen strong demand for more RISC-V intellectual property (IP) and chip offerings.

Intel invests in open-source RISC-V processors, creates billion-dollar fund. More>

February 7, 2022
by sjvn01
0 comments

StarlingX 6.0, the Edge-Computing Cloud Stack Arrives

The OpenInfra Foundation‘s open source, edge-computing cloud stack StarlingX‘s latest version, StarlingX 6.0 is out and ready to run. It’s optimized for low-latency and high-performance applications. In other words, it’s meant for Edge and Internet of Things (IoT) platforms. It does this by combining Ceph, OpenStack, Kubernetes, and other open source packages.

StarlingX’s main market to date has been telecom carriers, such as T-Systems, Verizon, and Vodafone. But enterprises, which need to deploy an edge cloud on a few to hundreds of servers are also embracing it.

Its most fundamental new feature is that StarlingX upgraded its core Linux operating system to the Linux kernel 5.10. This was done primarily for this kernel’s support of Virtual Routing and Forwarding (VRF). With VRF, you gain the power to create virtual routing and forwarding domains in the network stack. One use case is the multitenancy problem where each tenant has its own unique routing tables, or at the very least, needs different default gateways. The Linux kernel 5.10 also has user-space tooling to configure VRF’s routing and forwarding interfaces.

StarlingX 6.0, the Edge-Computing Cloud Stack Arrives. More>

February 4, 2022
by sjvn01
0 comments

The Alpha and Omega of software supply chain security

What is the Alpha-Omega Project? Its purpose is to “improve global open source software supply chain security by working with project maintainers to systematically look for new, as-yet-undiscovered vulnerabilities in open-source code” and then fix them. This is vital to improving open-source security.

To make this happen, the Linux Foundation‘s partner group — Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF), Google, and Microsoft — are joining forces to work with security experts and use automated security testing to improve open-source security. Microsoft and Google are bringing an initial investment of $5 million to the Alpha-Omega Project.

Software supply chain security has become essential. One major security problem after another — including the SolarWinds software supply chain attack, the Log4j vulnerability, and the npm bad code injection episode — can be traced back to software supply chain vulnerabilities.

The Alpha and Omega of software supply chain security. More>

February 4, 2022
by sjvn01
0 comments

How to watch Super Bowl 2022: All your streaming options

Almost no one saw this Super Bowl coming: The Los Angeles Rams and the Cincinnati Bengals will go head-to-head on Sunday, Feb. 13 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif. Curiously, even though it’s the Rams’ home field, they’ll be Super Bowl LVI‘s away team.

But whether you live only a few miles away or you’re flying to LAX from Cincinnati, you may not be able to see the game in person. At an average price of $10,237, Super Bowl LVI is already almost double the amount of last year’s average ticket price. The cheapest — and maybe the best — way to watch the game is with a streaming service.

How to watch Super Bowl 2022: All your streaming options More>

February 3, 2022
by sjvn01
0 comments

Is npm a Hotbed of Malware?

According to WhiteSource, a leading open source security provider, npm, one of the most widely used JavaScript package managers, is a playground for malicious actors. Is it really that bad?

First, JavaScript is wildly popular. Love it or hate it, Javascript by Stack Overflow’s count remains today’s most commonly used programming language. With more than 16 million developers worldwide relying on its speed, strong documentation, and interoperability with other programming languages that won’t be changing soon.

But its popularity is a mixed blessing. Hackers are increasingly targeting JavaScript’s open-source package managers and package registries. The most widely used of which is npm, with more than 1.8 million active packages.

Is npm a Hotbed of Malware? More>

February 1, 2022
by sjvn01
0 comments

Bitcoin: Delusions of money

Bitcoin is more popular than ever. Businesses such as AT&T, Microsoft, Visa, and PayPal all accept payment by Bitcoin and even small companies are getting into cryptocurrency. According to an HSB survey, one-third of US small and medium-sized businesses accept cryptocurrency as payment. If you invest in Bitcoin, I’m sure this is great news. To me, it’s more proof that a sucker’s born every minute.

Why the Bitcoin hate? Because it’s a con — always has been, always will be. Oh, it sounds good enough. Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency that you can buy, sell, and exchange directly via blockchain-secured ledgers, instead of relying on an intermediary such as a bank with fiat currency. It uses cryptographic proof instead of trust in a government. Like fiat money, though, at day’s end, its value is in the eyes of its owners.

Bitcoin: Delusions of money. More>