Microsoft’s Warning — “Don’t Change Linux Files In Windows”

Short Bytes: Microsoft has advised Windows 10 users to avoid altering Linux subsystem files using Windows tools, app, consoles etc. This might result in the loss of metadata, making the whole Linux environment corrupt. The company advises you to access files on your Windows filesystem from within Bash.
In its Windows 10 Anniversary Update, Microsoft introduced Linux subsystem, WSL, for Windows. This allowed the developers to use Bash on Ubuntu on Windows 10. Since then, the Linux subsystem has been updated with Ubuntu 16.04 and useful tools like Tmux.

However, Microsoft’s Linux endeavor is still in its initial phase. In a new blog post, the company has pointed out some technical limitations when it comes to dealing with Windows tools used for changing Linux files.

Microsoft’s advisory states that the Windows 10 users MUST NOT change Linux files using Windows apps, tools, consoles, scripts, etc. “under any circumstances”. From “Linux Files”, Microsoft means content under %localappdata%\lxss–which is where Linux filesystem is stored.

Doing so may result in data corruption and/or damage to the Linux environment installed in Windows 10. The users will need to reinstall their distro.

DON’T MODIFY CONTENTS OF %LOCALAPPDATA%\LXSS

Why is Microsoft stopping you from changing Linux files?

File metadata representation is different in Windows and Linux. As Linux subsystem files are stored in an NTFS folder in Windows 10, WSL calculates and stores Linux metadata in NTFS extended attributes. But, Windows apps and tools don’t know how to deal with this metadata each time they change files stored in %localappdata%\lxss.

So, if one will use some app/console/tool to create or change any file, it won’t be having any metadata. As a result, WSL will assume that the file is corrupted and it won’t work properly.

Microsoft advises the developers to access the Linux subsystem files from within Bash. “WSL honors the NT filesystem behaviors (e.g. case-insensitivity), permissions, etc. so you can easily access the same files using both Windows tools and Bash tools without having to copy files back and forth between filesystems,” Microsoft adds.

For more information, you read Microsoft’s blog post.

Source: https://fossbytes.com/microsoft-dont-change-linux-files-using-windows-tools/

A Complete Island Is Powered By Tesla’s SolarCity In The Pacific Ocean

Short Bytes: The Tesla-acquired SolarCity has made commendable efforts to change the diesel-dependant lives of the people in Ta’u island in American Samoa. They have set up a 1.4 MW solar microgrid which provides uninterrupted electricity to the 600 local residents.

The island of Ta’u in American Samoa falls somewhere in the pacific ocean. The remote island was largely dependent on cargo ships to fulfill their basic need of generator-powered electricity – consuming 109,500 gallons of diesel a year – and other machines like motor boats, water pumps.

There was a time when the people living in Ta’u had concerns about the scarcity of diesel and they had to limit the use of generators. The island now uses 100 percent solar energy, thanks to the inputs of SolarCity Corp – acquired by Elon Musk’s company, Tesla Motors.

The solar microgrid – having 5,328 solar panels – installed by SolarCity can generate 1.4 megawatts of electricity. It is stored in 60 Tesla Powerpacks which provide 6-megawatt hours of battery-based energy storage. This is fit for the 600 residents of Ta’u to live their daily lives peacefully. The sun-dependant system can store enough energy to supply uninterrupted power for three days in cloudy weather.

Other than eliminating people’s dependence on fossil fuel, the solar system has also helped in cutting costs incurred during transportation of diesel. Moreover, it doesn’t cause any harm to the environment, unlike the diesel-powered engines, eventually reducing the impact of global warming.

Solar power is a promising renewable energy solution having benefits in the long-run. The world has started to realize the need for such alternatives. However, the energy consumption is on the rise and solutions like these need to be more efficient in order to feed a larger population.

Source: https://fossbytes.com/complete-island-powered-teslas-solarcity-pacific-ocean

If you have something to add, tell us in the comments below.

 

Twitter Bans Its Own CEO Jack Dorsey’s Account

Short Bytes: Imagine the world where Twitter’s own CEO is barred from using his/her own service. Earlier today, this happened–just for 15 minutes. Due to some internal error, Jack Dorsey’s account was suspended.
In a strange development, Twitter briefly banned the Twitter account of its own CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey. It was reported by The Register. According to the report, Jack’s profile, @jack, showed an Error message around 6PM PT. The message claimed that Jack’s “account has been suspended.”

However, this mishap was fixed within 15 minutes and the company managed to restore his account. Talking about the stats, Dorsey has about 4 million followers and more than 20,000 tweets.
As expected, the Twitter users noticed it. Here are some amusing tweets about the same:

HAHAHA @Jack Dorsey got suspended from his own platform 😂😂😂

MEME MAGIC IS REAL FOLKS 🚨 pic.twitter.com/vCb4Lbwuno
— Baked Alaska™ (@bakedalaska) November 23, 2016

Guys, I now have more followers than @jack pic.twitter.com/tgfktdvxCt

— Jon Passantino (@passantino) November 23, 2016

For a miraculous moment, I witnessed @jack having been suspended from his own shitty website

And it was a pure, perfect life. I miss it.
— Gus (@guscraw) November 23, 2016

Later, Jack himself tweeted and called the whole saga an internal mistake:

just setting up my twttr…again (account suspension was an internal mistake)

— 🚶🏽jack (@jack) November 23, 2016

Hey 2017, come soon. 2016 doesn’t know how to end without a hiccup!
Source: https://fossbytes.com/twitter-bans-ceo-jack-dorsey-account/

Did you find this story interesting? Don’t forget to drop your feedback in the comments section.

This “Supercapacitor” Battery Charges In Seconds, Lasts For Days

Short Bytes: A group of researchers has developed a new battery technology that uses supercapacitors and newly discovered 2D materials. While the supercapacitor core provides high energy and power densities, 2D material coating facilitates fast charging.

The researchers from the University of Central Florida (UCF) have come up with a new process for developing flexible supercapacitors that exceed the performance of today’s batteries. These supercapacitors can be recharged more than 30,000 times and they can store more energy.
Compared to the conventional lithium-ion cell, this research could produce high-capacity batteries that last over 20 times longer than a conventional lithium-ion cell.


Talking about the same, UCF postdoctoral associate Nitin Choudhary says that one won’t need to charge the phone again for over a week. Moreover, it could let one charge the mobile phone in a few seconds.

SUPERCAPACITOR CORE + 2D Material Coating = Magic

The UCF team applied the coating of newly discovered two-dimensional materials, which are only a few atoms thick, to supercapacitors using a simple chemical synthesis approach. Other researchers have attempted the same in the past but they didn’t achieve much success.
The supercapacitors that we’re talking about are composed of millions of nanometer-thick wires that are coated with the above-mentioned two-dimensional materials. While the coating yields high energy and power densities, the core facilitates fast electron transfer for fast charging.

These supercapacitors can be used in smartphones and other electronic devices. The electric vehicles too can benefit from a sudden blast of speed and power.

At the moment, this supercapacitor battery tech is a proof-of-concept and it’s not ready for commercialization. However, the researchers are hopeful that it’s going to impact the technology world in a big way.

Research Paper: acs.org

Did you find this story about supercapacitor battery interesting? Share your views in the comments below.

Source: https://fossbytes.com/battery-supercapacitor-charges-in-seconds/

Wardriving: How To Create Wi-Fi Map Of A Town Using A Raspberry Pi

Short Bytes: Wardriving is an activity in which a person drives around the streets in order to track Wi-Fi networks in that area. The data can be collected using a device running a wardriving software. Security Researcher Scott Helme describes how he made his wardriving tech and created Maps by using collected data.

If you haven’t made any plans for this weekend. You might want to consider wardriving. It’s basically driving around your locality in search of Wi-Fi networks using a device like a computer or a smartphone and a wardriving software.

 

Scott Helme is a security researcher based in the UK. In a blog post, he describes how he installed his Wi-Fi finder tech in his car and powered it using the 12v charging socket. He taped a Raspberry Pi 3 on the window glass. The Pi was connected to Wi-Fi and GPS antennas mounted on the rooftop via USB cables. He used an ethernet cable to connect the Raspberry Pi 3 with his MacBook which was used to collect data during the trip (Find photos below).

“With the ability to drive at speed, collecting a large amount of data was easy. In total I gathered information on 10,442 different access points,” wrote Scott. He then uploaded the data to Google Maps.

Scott notes that there has been a considerable increase in the number of Wi-Fi points in the area since the last time he did wardriving in 2013. He has also uploaded the gathered data to a crowd-sourced wireless mapping platform called Wigle where wardrivers can upload their findings and contribute to the world map of Wi-Fi networks.

Before this, Scott created a handheld portable version of his wardriving tech but he says that he is a bit lazy and “most importantly, you can go a lot faster in the car” covering a larger area. He plans to use his findings in his future research project.

Other than pursuing his wardriving hobbies, Scott has also created securityheader.io which allows you to check whether proper security measures like HSTS, HTTPS, CSP, etc are deployed on a website or not.

Once you manage to create Wi-Fi map of your town or city, You can find plenty of open networks and remain connected to the internet most of the time without paying for cellular data.

You can read about how Scott created his portable wardriving tech in detail and take a look at the Google Maps of wireless networks in his area.

If you have something to add, tell us in the comments below

 

Source: https://fossbytes.com/wardriving-how-to-create-wifi-map-of-a-town-using-a-raspberry-pi/

Fedora Linux Distro Available For Raspberry Pi — Here’s How To Install It

Short Bytes: Fedora 25 Beta now supports the popular single-board computers Raspberry Pi 2 and 3. Apart from the Workstation version, you can also run Fedora 25 Beta Server. At the moment, the newer Raspberry Pi 3 owners need to useBluetooth and Wi-Fi USB dongles as onboard WiFi/Bluetooth isn’t supported. Unfortunately, older Pis and Zero will never be supported.

Red Hat is the biggest name in the open source world and it’s busy improving its line of distros: RHEL, Fedora, and CentOS. Out of these, Fedora is known for delivering the best-in-class Linux desktop experience that comes with the cutting edge Linux technologies. Often, a new Fedora release, which is a community-supported distribution, unconsciously influences the development process of other distributions. Even Linux creator Linus Torvalds uses it.

In the past, we’ve seen some remixed version of Fedora that supported Raspberry Pi. Now, still in beta stage, Fedora 25 officially supports Raspberry Pi 2 and 3.

What does this support mean? It means that apart from little issues, you can run this Linux distro that comes with support for different USB drives, Wi-Fi dongles, and other stuff to get things done.

You are going to get a good hardware support with Raspberry Pi 2. Fedora Project mentions that a Minimal Install, Workstation, and XFCE worked pretty fine on Pi 2. The testing included the regular MMC/USB/network, fully accelerated graphics with an open driver, and other hardware.

Talking about Raspberry Pi 3, apart from the standard device support, Fedora 25 Beta doesn’t support the onboard Wi-Fi/Bluetooth. The developers are working to bring the functionality very soon.

The older ARMv6 Raspberry Pi (Zero, Model A, older v1 Pi Model B, and the current compute model) will never be supported.

How to install Fedora on Raspberry Pi?

The process of setting up Fedora 25 on Raspberry Pi is pretty basic. If you’ve read our Getting started with Raspberry Pi series, you might be knowing what I’m talking about. You can easily prepare the SD card on any Linux distro, MacOS, or Windows. While you can use pretty much any microSD card for this purpose, I’ll recommend a Class 10 card for better performance.

You can download the Fedora Workstation 25 Beta image here and proceed. After that, you need to write this image on a properly formatted card. Before running the following command, please change the /dev/XXX to match the location of your card and match the name of the downloaded image:

xzcat Fedora-IMAGE-NAME.raw.xz | sudo dd status=progress bs=4M of=/dev/XXX

For more information, you can read the Fedora Project’s guide on the same topic.

Are you willing to try out Fedora on your Raspberry Pi board? Tell us in the comments below.

 Source: https://fossbytes.com/fedora-how-to-install-on-raspberry-pi/

Surface Studio — Microsoft Launches Its First Ever Desktop PC

Short Bytes: At its Surface Event, Microsoft announced the much-anticipated desktop PC, dubbed Surface Studio. It’s company’s first desktop PC that comes with the thinnest LCD monitor ever built.
Panos Panay, Microsoft’s leader of devices, revealed a new family of Microsoft devices in the form of company’s first ever desktop PC in the form of Surface Studio.

It’s powered by Microsoft’s PixelSense and TrueColor technology. Its display is thinnest LCD monitor ever built with 1.3 mm thickness. Its 28-inch screen houses 13.5 million pixels, 63 percent more than a 4K TV.

This beautiful product has 2.1 surround speakers and a forged aluminum enclosure.
Here are some more specifications:

• Core i7 quad-core processor
• 32GB RAM
• It’s touchscreen, of course
• Dual cooling fans
• 192PPI, 3:2 aspect ratio
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M graphics
• True Scale
• HD camera
• Windows Hello
• Zero-gravity hinge

Surface Studio also comes with a new form of input device named Surface Dial. You can use this device to rewind what you did with ink by spinning its dial.

Surface Studio is available for pre-order from 26th October for $2,999.

The company also launched Microsoft Surface Book i7, the updated version of its last year’s release. It comes with 3 times more graphics as compared to MacBook Pro 13-inch model. Also, you get 16 hours of battery life.

Did you find Surface Studio interesting? Don’t forget to drop your feedback in the comments section below.

Source: https://fossbytes.com/surface-studio-microsoft-launches-its-ever-first-desktop-pc/