At Skype, our mission has always been to bring people together—to make it easier for friends and families to be there for one another—wherever they may be. With that in mind, we’re investing in new ways for you to connect in the most human way possible—by simply using your voice.

Beginning today, Skype calling is available on Amazon Alexa devices—just in time for the holidays. With Skype on your Alexa-enabled device, you can connect hands-free with family and friends around the world just by saying, “Alexa, call Mom on Skype.” In addition to Skype audio and video calling, we’re providing the ability for Alexa customers to call most landlines and mobile numbers internationally using Skype to Phone. To celebrate the availability of Skype calling with Alexa, Skype is offering 200 free minutes of Skype to Phone calling to 34 countries (terms apply).

With Skype and Alexa, you can now connect with your friends and family around the world completely hands-free. Use Alexa-enabled devices like the Echo Dot to make hands-free Skype voice calls wherever Alexa and Skype are available, or place high-fidelity Skype video calls from the Echo Show and Echo Spot directly to Skype on computers and mobile devices.

To get started, simply link Skype with your Alexa account by following the instructions below.

After doing this once, you can start using your voice any time you need to make a call. Detailed instructions can be found on our feature page.

Skype calling on Alexa is available now in the U.S., U.K., Ireland, Canada, India, Australia, and New Zealand with support for other countries rolling out soon. And for the best Skype calling and video experience, update to Skype version 8.34 or later.

At Skype, we always appreciate your feedback, visit the Skype.com feature page for more details on compatible devices, how to link your Alexa account, and what new capabilities are supported. Please continue to follow our blog posts for more news and announcements.

Stalwart patent troll Uniloc filed a pair of lawsuits over the weekend claiming technology used in flagship Apple communications products, namely FaceTime and iMessage, infringe on property initially developed by HP and Philips.

Uniloc’s latest legal overture, filed with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas on Saturday, leverages patents dating back to the early 2000s.

The first suit targets Apple’s FaceTime video conferencing service with a U.S. Patent No. 8,539,552 for a “System and method for network based policy enforcement of intelligent-client features.”

Filed with the USPTO in 2003 and crediting former 3Com engineers, the ‘552 patent details methods of enabling and enforcing network policies between a communications service and client devices. Specifically, the IP’s claims protect techniques of intercepting and intelligently filtering signaling messages that trigger communications services including caller ID, call waiting, multi-way calling, multi-line service, and codec specification.

FaceTime works in a similar manner by first binding a supporting device to a phone number or Apple ID, information that is used server-side for caller identification. When a user starts a FaceTime conversation, a signaling message is sent to FaceTime’s servers, which determines whether the target device is authorized to accept a call, the suit reads.

If the target device is authenticated, a connection is established and the sender’s information — caller ID credentials — are divulged to the recipient.

Filed with the USPTO in 2003 by Hewlett-Packard, the ‘552 patent was signed over to 3Com that same year. HP regained control of the IP, and more than 1,500 other assets, as part of its acquisition of 3Com in 2010.

Uniloc’s main Luxembourg arm took control of the IP in 2017 before signing it over to Uniloc 2017 LLC in May of this year.

Uniloc claims Apple’s iPhone 4 and later, iPad 2 and later, iPad Mini, fourth-generation iPod Touch and later versions and MacBooks running OS X and later infringe on multiple claims of the ‘552 patent.

In its second suit, Uniloc takes aim at iMessage audio features with U.S. Patent No. 7,020,252 for a “Group audio message board.”

The patent, granted to Philips in 2006, details a “communal audio message recordal apparatus” that enables multiple users to record and access audio messages. Each message carries a “qualifying parameter,” such as a timestamp or geographic location, which is used to grant or deny access to recordings.

The ‘252 patent presents an alternative to sifting through irrelevant messages, or gating access to messages, posted to a community style board. For example, users who visited a nightclub might be granted access to recordings from other users who also visited the venue within a specified time frame.

Uniloc construes the IP more narrowly, saying Apple’s service allows users to record voice messages that expire after a set period, specifically two minutes after it has been played by a recipient device.

The ‘252 patent was filed for in 2001, then reassigned to IPG Electronics 503 in 2009, Pendragon Electronics in 2012 and finally Uniloc Luxembourg in February of 2018. Uniloc 2017 took control of the IP in July.

Uniloc’s suit targets iOS devices running iOS 5 or later and Mac products running OS X or later.

Both suits seek unspecified damages, reimbursement of legal fees and other relief deemed fit by the court.

Saturday’s lawsuits were filed a month after Uniloc’s last play at Apple, which perhaps not coincidentally involved an HP patent and FaceTime.

In 2017 alone, Uniloc sued over Maps, Apple ID, remote software updates, AirPlay, autodialing, battery technology, device wake-up, step tracking, AirPlay, the Home app, the Apple TV Remote app and Apple Watch GPS capabilities.

Uniloc is one of the most active patent trolls in the U.S., leveraging reassigned patents or vaguely worded original IP against a number of tech firms including Activision Blizzard, Aspyr, Electronic Arts, McAfee, Microsoft, Rackspace, Sega, Sony, Symantec and others.

Pokemon Go was a sensation when it first launched, and for many people it may have been their first brush with the idea that the GPS locator in your phone could be used for gaming. But Pokemon Go is not the only location-based augmented reality game out there, and it’s definitely not the one offering the deepest experience.

Here are several other strategy, puzzle and RPG games that will challenge your mind and the soles of your shoes.

Geocaching

Platforms: iOS & Android

First of all, why not go back in time to the very first GPS game? Geocaching goes back to the age when GPS units were expensive contraptions primarily of use to forest rangers, not something we forget is built into our phones and constantly monitoring us like SKYNET. It’s a straightforward game of going to a specific GPS location and finding a hidden package … at first.

Each geocache is hidden by another player, and some of them like to set up puzzles first. Unlike most GPS games, geocaching is a curated tour of your surroundings. The standard app is Geocaching, based on geocaching.com. The game has a freemium model where a lot of caches are free to find, but some you’ll need a subscription for. More so than other games on this list, though, Geocaching is the way to really explore your surroundings. It must be noted that there are plenty of different apps that plug into the geocache database, however

Ingress Prime

Developer: Niantic
Platforms:  iOS Universal, Android

If you like Pokemon Go, you should try Niantic’s first GPS game Ingress, which has recently been rebooted as Ingress Prime. In what is a common theme for augmented reality games, there is a secret world hidden behind our everyday lives, with Exotic Matter spewing into our reality at various hotspots. In a clever bit of post hoc justification, these hotspots show up at cultural markers in major population centres because humans are naturally attracted to them.

Also attracted are two rivals conspiracies that will recruit you to use your phone as a scanner to control fields of influence. The old guard is not happy with the new changes to Ingress, but for a brand new player, they may be welcome. The interface is smoother and a bit flashier (at the cost of data usage). Plus, it’s about to be an anime on Netflix!

Maguss

Developer: Mawa
Platforms: iOS Universal, Android

Another recent GPS MMO is Maguss, which is definitely not trying to make the player feel like they are in the world of Harry Potter. This is a very polished RPG with unique combat and potion-brewing systems. You pick spells like cards and have a limited number of slots for each round, which happen in a timed-turn-based fashion. Then, you use your finger to draw the spells you want to cast.

The devs are apparently working on a magic wand peripheral for when you want to stop just playing games and really go LARPing. Maguss is also unique in having real PvP combat. However, it is definitely not a Harry Potter game. We cannot stress this enough. Maguss may be about a secret world of magic, and have four rival schools, and magic wands, but it is not a way to live out your Hogwarts fantasies in the real world … at least until Niantic’s third game comes out.

Orna

Developer: Cutless
Platform:  Android

A new kid on the block is Orna, which basically takes your classic SNES JRPG gameplay and plops it into a map of your actual neighborhood. It’s Dragon Warrior, but instead of wearing out your thumbs stomping around looking for random encounters you’ll wear out your actual feet. There’s also some multiplayer aspects where characters can grow strong enough to become Duke of their area and be challenged by other players, and the ability to form parties to cooperate.

This one is only available on Android for now, but hopefully it will gain enough attention to make the jump to iOS. IAPs get you class specializations for more options but aren’t necessary to play the game.

CodeRunner

Developer: Robot Chicken Interactive
Platform: iPhone
Price: $1.99

A much stronger story is found in this AR game, which puts you in the shoes of a secret agent tasked with hacking suspicious citizens for the state by solving puzzles around town, some left by other players. CodeRunner really goes all-in on the augmented reality through its awesome audio, asking you to plug in headphones to play and giving you immersive spy ‘dialogue’ like instructions to keep your head down and don’t look behind you.

The game demands that you move around a lot as well, which is great if you’re trying to exercise more. It hasn’t updated in a while, and you won’t find many other players, but it’s a lot of fun while it lasts. Best of all, CodeRunner is a premium app, with no questionable IAP nonsense.

Resources

Developer: UN3X
Platform: Android

This Android game puts you in the middle of a war of tycoons. The real-world map gives you various resources to exploit, but after that advancing in the game is mostly up to you. After building mines, you can refine the raw materials with factories and sell them on a standard or black market. Plus lots of other economic trickery, including attacking the facilities of nearby players.

That said, you don’t need too many people playing in your area thanks to the global trading layer that keeps things interesting. If you’re interested in tycooning and walking, give Resources a shot. It’s free to play, and the IAP are more for early boosts or developer tips than for late-game domination.

DominAnt

Developer: Erik Melkersson
Platform: Android

Speaking of domination, this is another one-man-developed location-based game on Android. Here, you’ve got a great ant-based theme with three teams to ally yourself with. Build up your anthills anywhere you like, and they’ll expand on their own, gradually overrunning your whole town. Not only this, but the game is truly free-to-play, with IAP only for donations to the developer!

Do you have a favourite GPS/Location-based game or experience? Let us know in the comments!

Get to know networking basics with this tutorial from our archives.

Linux grew up with a networking stack as part of its core, and networking is one of its strongest features. Let’s take a practical look at some of the TCP/IP fundamentals we use every day.

It’s IP Address

I have a peeve. OK, more than one. But for this article just one, and that is using “IP” as a shortcut for “IP address”. They are not the same. IP = Internet Protocol. You’re not managing Internet Protocols, you’re managing Internet Protocol addresses. If you’re creating, managing, and deleting Internet Protocols, then you are an uber guru doing something entirely different.

Yes, OSI Model is Relevant

TCP is short for Transmission Control Protocol. TCP/IP is shorthand for describing the Internet Protocol Suite, which contains multiple networking protocols. You’re familiar with the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model, which categorizes networking into seven layers:

• 7. Application layer
• 6. Presentation layer
• 5. Session layer
• 4. Transport layer
• 3. Network layer
• 2. Data link layer
• 1. Physical layer

The application layer includes the network protocols you use every day: SSH, TLS/SSL, HTTP, IMAP, SMTP, DNS, DHCP, streaming media protocols, and tons more.

TCP operates in the transport layer, along with its friend UDP, the User Datagram Protocol. TCP is more complex; it performs error-checking, and it tries very hard to deliver your packets. There is a lot of back-and-forth communication with TCP as it transmits and verifies transmission, and when packets get lost it resends them. UDP is simpler and has less overhead. It sends out datagrams once, and UDP neither knows nor cares if they reach their destination.

TCP is for ensuring that data is transferred completely and in order. If a file transfers with even one byte missing it’s no good. UDP is good for lightweight stateless transfers such NTP and DNS queries, and is efficient for streaming media. If your music or video has a blip or two it doesn’t render the whole stream unusable.

The physical layer refers to your networking hardware: Ethernet and wi-fi interfaces, cabling, switches, whatever gadgets it takes to move your bits and the electricity to operate them.

Ports and Sockets

Linux admins and users have to know about ports and sockets. A network socket is the combination of an IP address and port number. Remember back in the early days of Ubuntu, when the default installation did not include a firewall? No ports were open in the default installation, so there were no entry points for an attacker. “Opening a port” means starting a service, such as an HTTP, IMAP, or SSH server. Then the service opens a listening port to wait for incoming connections. “Opening a port” isn’t quite accurate because it’s really referring to a socket. You can see these with the netstat command. This example displays only listening sockets and the names of their services:

$ sudo netstat -plnt Active Internet connections (only servers)

Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address Foreign Address State PID/Program name

tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:3306 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 1583/mysqld tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:5901 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 13951/qemu-system-x tcp 0 0 192.168.122.1:53 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 2101/dnsmasq

tcp 0 0 192.168.122.1:80 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 2001/apache2

tcp 0 0 192.168.122.1:443 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 2013/apache2

tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:22 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 1200/sshd tcp6 0 0 :::80 :::* LISTEN 2057/apache2 tcp6 0 0 :::22 :::* LISTEN 1200/sshd tcp6 0 0 :::443 :::* LISTEN 2057/apache2

This shows that MariaDB (whose executable is mysqld) is listening only on localhost at port 3306, so it does not accept outside connections. Dnsmasq is listening on 192.168.122.1 at port 53, so it is accepting external requests. SSH is wide open for connections on any network interface. As you can see, you have control over exactly what network interfaces, ports, and addresses your services accept connections on.

Apache is listening on two IPv4 and two IPv6 ports, 80 and 443. Port 80 is the standard unencrypted HTTP port, and 443 is for encrypted TLS/SSL sessions. The foreign IPv6 address of :::* is the same as 0.0.0.0:* for IPv4. Those are wildcards accepting all requests from all ports and IP addresses. If there are certain addresses or address ranges you do not want to accept connections from, you can block them with firewall rules.

A network socket is a TCP/IP endpoint, and a TCP/IP connection needs two endpoints. A socket represents a single endpoint, and as our netstat example shows a single service can manage multiple endpoints at one time. A single IP address or network interface can manage multiple connections.

The example also shows the difference between a service and a process. apache2 is the service name, and it is running four processes. sshd is one service with one process listening on two different sockets.

Unix Sockets

Networking is so deeply embedded in Linux that its Unix domain sockets (also called inter-process communications, or IPC) behave like TCP/IP networking. Unix domain sockets are endpoints between processes in your Linux operating system, and they operate only inside the Linux kernel. You can see these with netstat:

$ netstat -lx Active UNIX domain sockets (only servers)

Proto RefCnt Flags Type State I-Node Path

unix 2 [ ACC ] STREAM LISTENING 988 /var/run/dbus/system_bus_socket

unix 2 [ ACC ] STREAM LISTENING 29730 /run/user/1000/systemd/private

unix 2 [ ACC ] SEQPACKET LISTENING 357 /run/udev/control

unix 2 [ ACC ] STREAM LISTENING 27233 /run/user/1000/keyring/control

It’s rather fascinating how they operate. The SOCK_STREAM socket type behaves like TCP with reliable delivery, and SOCK_DGRAM is similar to UDP, unordered and unreliable, but fast and low-overhead. You’ve heard how everything in Unix is a file? Instead of networking protocols and IP addresses and ports, Unix domain sockets use special files, which you can see in the above example. They have inodes, metadata, and permissions just like the regular files we use every day.

If you want to dig more deeply there are a lot of excellent books. Or, you might start with man tcp and man 2 socket. Next week, we’ll look at network configurations, and whatever happened to IPv6?

Learn more about Linux through the free “Introduction to Linux” course from The Linux Foundation and edX.

Recently, IBM announced that it would be acquiring Red Hat for $34 billion, a more-than-60-percent premium over Red Hat’s market cap, and a nearly 12x multiple on revenues. In many ways, this was a clear sign that 2018 was the year commercial open source has arrived, if there was ever previously a question about it before.

Indeed, the Red Hat transaction is just the latest in a long line of multi-billion dollar outcomes this year. To date, more than $50 billion dollars have been exchanged in open source IPOs and mergers and acquisitions (M&A); and all of the M&A deals are considered “mega deals” — those valued over $5 billion.

• IBM acquired Red Hat for $34 billion

• Hortonworks’ $5.2 billion merger with Cloudera

• Elasticsearch IPO – $4+billion

• Pivotal IPO – $3.9 billion

• Mulesoft acquired by Salesforce – $6.5 Billion

If you’re a current open source software (OSS) shareholder, it may feel like the best of times. However, If you’re an OSS user or emerging open source project or company, you might be feeling more ambivalent.

On the positive side, the fact that there have been such good financial outcomes should come as encouragement to the many still-private and outstanding open-source businesses (e.g., Confluent, Docker, HashiCorp, InfluxDB). And, we can certainly hope that this round of exits will encourage more investors to bet on OSS, enabling OSS to continue to be a prime driver of innovation.

However, not all of the news is rosy.

First, since many of these exits were in the form of M&A, we’ve actually lost some prime examples of independent OSS companies. For many years, there was a concern that Red Hat was the only example of a public open source company. Earlier this year, it seemed likely that the total would grow to 7 (Red Hat, Hortonworks, Cloudera, Elasticsearch, Pivotal, Mulesoft, and MongoDB). Assuming the announced M&As close as expected, the number of public open source companies is back down to four, and the combined market cap of public open source companies is much less than it was at the start of the year.

We Need to Go Deeper

I think it’s critical that we view these open source outcomes in the context of another unavoidable story — the growth in cloud computing.

Many of the open source companies involved share an overlooked common denominator: they’ve made most of their money through on-premise businesses. This probably comes as a surprise, as we regularly hear about cloud-related milestones, like the one that states that more than 80% of server workloads are in the cloud, that open source drives ⅔ or more of cloud revenues, and that the cloud computing market is expected to reach $300 billion by 2021.

By contrast, the total revenues of all of the open source companies listed above was less than $7B. And, almost all of the open source companies listed above have taken well over $200 million in investment each to build out direct sales and support to appropriately sell to the large, on premises enterprise market.

Open Source Driving Revenue, But for Whom?

The most common way that open source is used in the cloud is as a loss-leader to sell infrastructure. The largest cloud companies all offer free or near-free open source services that drive consumption of compute, networking, and storage.

To be clear, this is perfectly legal, and many of the cloud companies have contributed generously in both code and time to open source. However, the fact that it is difficult for OSS companies to monetize their own products with a hosted offering means that they are shut off from one of the most important and sustainable paths to scaling. Perhaps most importantly, OSS companies that are independent are largely closed off from the fastest growing segment of the computing market. Since there are only a handful of companies worldwide with the scale and capital to operate traditional public clouds (indeed, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Alibaba are among the largest companies on the planet), and those companies already control a disproportionate share of traffic, data, capital and talent, how can we ensure that investment, monetization, and innovation continue to flow in open source? And, how can open source companies sustainably grow.

For some OSS companies, the answer is M&A. For others, the cloud monetization/competition question has led them to adopt controversial and more restrictive licensing policies, such as Redis Lab’s adoption of the Commons Clause and MongoDB’s Server Side License.

But there may be a different answer to cloud monetization. Namely, create a different kind of cloud, one based on decentralized infrastructure.

Rather than spending billions to build out data centers, decentralized infrastructure approaches (like Storj, SONM, and others), provide incentives for people around the world to contribute spare computing, storage or network capacity. For example, by fairly and transparently allowing storage node operators to share in the revenue generated (i.e., by compensating supply), Storj was able to rapidly grow to a network of 150,000 nodes in 180 countries with over 150 PB of capacity–equivalent to several large data centers. Similarly, rather than spending hundreds of millions on traditional sales and marketing, we believe there is a way to fairly and transparently compensate those who bring demand to the network, so we have programmatically designed our network so that open source companies whose projects send users our way can get fairly and transparently compensated proportional to the storage and network usage they generate. We are actively working to encourage other decentralized networks to do the same, and believe this is the future of open cloud computing

This isn’t charity. Decentralized networks have strong economic incentives to compensate OSS as the primary driver of cloud demand. But, more importantly, we think that this can help drive a virtuous circle of investment, growth, monetization, and innovation. Done correctly, this will ensure that the best of times lay ahead!

Ben Golub is the former CEO of Docker and interim CEO at Storj Labs.

Watch the Open Source Summit keynote presentation from Ben Golub and Shawn Wilkinson to learn more about open source and the decentralized web.

This weekend, DreamHack Atlanta saw the world’s best Halo 5: Guardians players and Halo legends come together for the Halo Championship Series 2018 Finals. The resulting action was a worthy community celebration, sending Halo 5: Guardians esports into the sunset in dramatic fashion.

During the tournament, we were delighted to announce the next chapter of Halo esports: HCS Grassroots. Designed to help the community directly, this new initiative will assist tournament operators and content creators to continue to do what they love while introducing all-new opportunities for growth. Halo wouldn’t be what it is today without a rich history of community contribution, and we’re excited to continue fostering this spirit moving forward.

HCS Grassroots is a partnership program where tournament organizers big and small, along with content creators, can apply for support from 343 Industries for the facilitation and promotion of their esports activities. For example, tournament organizers can receive assistance in the form of prize pool contributions, loaner consoles, social media promotion and sponsor acquisition support, while content creators can receive social media promotion, hosting opportunities on broadcast channels, graphics and content. Our goal is for these offerings to evolve over time alongside the support of our community and partners. Head to Halo.gg/Grassroots to apply, and for a full breakdown of the program check out Halo Waypoint.

Our goal with HCS Grassroots is to give back to the community through the fostering and support of Halo’s diverse competitive community. We want to support all flavors of competitive multiplayer, from whether its Halo 5: Guardians or our first LAN event of the program – The Halo Classic, featuring Halo 3 from Halo: The Master Chief Collection. Whether you are brand new to Halo esports or have been part of the competitive scene since Halo: Combat Evolved, HCS Grassroots is here to grow your community. We’re thrilled to begin the next chapter of competitive Halo, and can’t wait to experience the action alongside you.

For all the latest on the Halo Championship Series, keep it locked to Halo.gg and follow @HCS and @Halo on Twitter. For everything Halo, stay tuned to Halo Waypoint and Xbox Wire.

Play Rising Storm 2: Vietnam for FREE starting now through Nov. 21st at 10am pacific time. You can also pickup Rising Storm 2: Vietnam at 67% off the regular price!*

If you already have Steam installed, click here to install or play Rising Storm 2: Vietnam. If you don’t have Steam, you can download it here.

*Free Weekend ends Nov. 21st at 10am pacific.