Blockchain and its ability to “embed trust” can help elevate trust, which right now, is low, according to Sally Eaves, a chief technology officer and strategic advisor to the Forbes Technology Council, speaking at The Linux Foundation’s Open FinTech Forum in New York City.

People’s trust in business, media, government and non-government organizations (NGOs) is at a 17-year low, and businesses are suffering as a result, Eaves said.

Additionally, Eaves said, 87 percent of millennials believe business success should be measured in more than just financial performance. People want jobs with real meaning and purpose, she added.

To provide further context, Eaves noted the following urgent global challenges:

• 1.5 billion people cannot prove their identity (which has massive implications in not just banking but education as well)
• 2 billion people worldwide do not have a bank account or access to a financial institution
• Identity fraud is estimated to cost the UK millions of euros annually.

Read more at The Linux Foundation

Most Linux users have heard about the open source RISC-V ISA and its potential to challenge proprietary Arm and Intel architectures. Most are probably aware that some RISC-V based CPUs, such as SiFive’s 64-bit Freedom U540 found on its HiFive Unleashed board, are designed to run Linux. What may come as a surprise, however, is how quickly Linux support for RISC-V is evolving.

“This is a good time to port Linux applications to RISC-V,” said Comcast’s Khem Raj at an Embedded Linux Conference Europe presentation last month. “You’ve got everything you need. Most of the software is upstream so you don’t need forks,” he said.

By adopting an upstream first policy, the RISC-V Foundation is accelerating Linux-on-RISC-V development both now and in the future. Early upstreaming helps avoid forked code that needs to be sorted out later. Raj offered specifics on different levels of RISC-V support from the Linux kernel to major Linux distributions, as well as related software from Glibc to U-Boot (see farther below).

The road to RISC-V Linux has also been further accelerated thanks to the enthusiasm of the Linux open source community. Penguinistas see the open source computing architecture as a continuation of the mission of Linux and other open source projects. Since IoT is an early RISC-V target, the interest is particularly keen in the open source Linux SBC community. The open hardware movement recently expanded to desktop PCs with System76’s Ubuntu-driven Thelio system.

Processors remain the biggest exceptions to open hardware. RISC-V is a step in the right direction for CPUs, but RISC-V lacks a spec for graphics, which with the rise of machine vision and edge AI and multimedia applications, is becoming increasingly important in embedded. There’s progress on this front as well, with an emerging project to create an open RISC-V based GPU called Libre RISC-V. More details can be found in this Phoronix story.

SiFive launches new Linux-driven U74 core designs

RISC-V is also seeing new developments on the CPU front. Last week, SiFive, which is closely associated with the UC Berkeley team that developed the architecture, announced a second gen RISC-V CPU core designs called IP 7 Series. IP 7 features the Linux-friendly U74 and U74-MC chips. These quad-core, Cortex-A55 like processors, which should appear in SoCs in 2019, are faster and more power efficient than the U540.

The new U74 chips will support future, up to octa-core, SoC designs that mix and match the U74 cores with its new next-gen MCU chips: the Cortex-M7 like E76 and Cortex-R8 like S76. The U74-MC model even features its own built-in S7 MCU for real-time processing.

Although much of the early RISC-V business has been focused on MCUs, SiFive is not alone in building Linux-driven RISC-V designs. Earlier this summer a Shakti Project backed by the Indian government demonstrated Linux booting on a homegrown 400MHz Shakti RISC-V processor.

A snapshot of Linux support for RISC-V

In his ELC presentation, called “Embedded Linux on RISC-V Architecture — Status Report,” Raj, who is an active contributor to RISC-V, as well as the OpenEmbedded and Yocto projects, revealed the latest updates for RISC-V support in the Linux kernel and related software. The report has a rather short shelf life, admitted Raj: “The software is developing very fast so what I say today may be obsolete tomorrow — we’ve already seen a lot of basic tool, compilers, and toolchain support landing upstream.”

Raj started with a brief overview of RISC-V, explaining how it supports 32-, 64-, and even future 128-bit instruction sets. Attached to these versions are extensions such as integer multiply/divide, atomic memory access, floating point single and double precision, and compressed.  

The initial Linux kernel support adopts the most commonly used profile for Linux: RV64GC (LP64 ABI). The G and the C at the end of the RV64 name stand for general-purpose and compressed, respectively.

The Linux kernel has had a stable ABI (application binary interface) in upstream Linux since release 4.15. According to Raj, the recent 4.19 release added QEMU virt board drivers “thanks to major contributions from UC Berkeley, SiFive, and Andes Technology.”

You can now run many other Linux-related components on a SiFive U540 chip, including binutils 2.28, gcc 7.0, glibc 2.27 and 2.28 (32-bit), and newlib 3.0 (for bare metal bootstrapping). For the moment, gdb 8.2 is available only for bare-metal development.

In terms of bootloaders, Coreboot offered early support, and U-Boot 2018.11 recently added RISC-V virt board support upstream. PK/BBL is now upstream on the RISC-V GitHub page.

OpenEmbedded/Yocto Project OE/Yocto was the first official Linux development platform port, with core support upstreamed with the 2.5 release. Among full-fledged Linux distributions, Fedora is the farthest along. Fedora, which has done a lot of the “initial heavy lifting,” finished its bootstrap back in March, said Raj. In addition, its “Koji build farm is turning out RISC-V RPMs like any other architecture,” he added. Fedora 29 (Rawhide) offers specific support for the RISC-V version of QEMU.

Debian still lacks toolchain for cross-build development on RISC-V, but it’s already possible, said Raj. Buildroot now has a 64-bit RISC-V port and a 32-bit port was recently submitted.

Raj went on to detail RISC-V porting progress for the LLVM compiler and the Musl C library. Farther behind, but in full swing, are ports for OpenOCD UEFI, Grub, V8, Node.js, Rust, and Golang, among others. For the latest details, see the RISC-V software status page, as well as other URLs displayed toward the end of Raj’s ELC video below.

[embedded content]

By AppleInsider Staff
Wednesday, November 07, 2018, 09:12 pm PT (12:12 am ET)

Apple on Wednesday offered a preview of its forthcoming Iconsiam outlet in Bangkok, Thailand, which will open on Saturday as the company’s first retail presence in that country.

Apple Iconsiam, the tech giant’s first Thailand store, will open its doors to customers this weekend, the company announced in a press release.

“Bangkok is a cultural and economic destination for the entire region and home to millions of passionate Apple customers,” said Angela Ahrendts, Apple’s senior vice president of Retail. “We are thrilled to introduce our Thai customers to Today at Apple, our full line of products, our phenomenal employees, and the service and support that are loved by customers around the world.”

Connected to the ICONSIAM Center, a mixed-use facility located on the banks of the Chao Phraya River, Apple’s new store features an open design with indoor greenery and display tables canopied by a high-flung ceiling supported by towering columns. Two large glass facades — one in back and another out front — give an airy feel to the store, which is located on an outdoor roof terrace.

Outside, a roof garden serves not only as a picturesque meeting place, but also an area ripe for Today at Apple photo and sketch walk sessions.

Indoor Today at Apple sessions will be held in a large Forum, complete with video wall and ample seating. Customers can also sit at bespoke wooden tables and chairs to learn about their newly purchased equipment or troubleshoot problems with Genius staff.

Apple Iconsiam was first spotted in October after months of rumors hinted the company would soon open a store in Thailand. The outlet provides locals access to unique Apple services, like the aforementioned Today at Apple sessions and Genius Grove, for the first time.

Along with Creative Pros and Geniuses, Apple Iconsiam employs more than 100 people, the company said.

Apple Iconsiam opens on Saturday at 10 a.m. local time.

Love Letter is a game of courtly intrigue in which two to four players seek to gain the affections of Princess Annette. However, the Princess is locked away in the palace and not accepting visitors, which means that her suitors have to rely on occupants of the palace to deliver their letters of undying love.  I guess a trip to the local post office is not an option.

Love Letter was originally a Japanese game designed by Seiji Kanai. Its potential was quickly recognised and a version with a new theme and redesigned artwork was released for the Western market. The game proved to be hugely successful and triggered a trend for microgames. Typically, these games come in a tiny box, with simple rules and only take a few minutes to play. Not only did the original inspire a host of similar games but also led to a range of re-themes, which include Adventure Time, Star Wars and The Hobbit.

The game consists of a deck of just sixteen cards, only eight of which are unique. At the start of the game, to add a little unpredictability, one card is removed from the already skinny deck. Players are dealt a single card and then are good to go. On a turn, players simply draw a card and then play either of the two cards in their hand. Used cards remain in front of the player for the rest of the game to aid deduction and break ties. Each card represents a member of the royal household, from lowly guards to the princess herself. The world of romance can be brutal and unforgiving, which means that to ensure that your letter gets delivered to the princess, you must do your best to eliminate the opposition. You do this by enlisting the help of members of the palace, each of who have a special skill.

A round ends when there is only one suitor left standing or the deck of cards is exhausted. If more than one player is still in the game then the one with the highest ranked card in their hand wins. If more than one player has the same ranked card then the tie is resolved by adding up the ranks of the cards that they have played during the course of the game. The winner is awarded a point, with the amount of points required to claim victory dependant on the number of players.

To get a feel of how Love Letter actually plays we will need to take a look at the cards. Each character card has a ranking, with the highest being the princess. Having her in your hand is risky because if a player is ever forced to discard the princess then they lose. The King demands that two players exchange their cards, whilst the Prince forces a suitor to discard their card and draw a new one. The countess doesn’t have a special power and must be discarded if you also have the Prince or King. The Baron favours a no-nonsense approach, giving the owner the chance to challenge another player. Both reveal their cards and the player with the lower rank is eliminated. The handmaiden protects you from the effects of other cards for an entire turn, whilst the busybody priest will let you take a peek at another player’s card. Lowest ranked and most numerous are the guards. These give you a chance to guess an opponent’s card and if correct, then the unfortunate target is eliminated.

Love Letter is a wonder of minimalist design; it is incredible how just a few cards can conjure up such a delicious feeling of court intrigue. Deducing the cards in your opponents’ hands is obviously the key to success, There are obvious ways, such as playing a guard but also other subtler ways, which usually involve trying to read between the lines. However, beware because a smart opponent will be actively trying to distract you, leading you up the garden path, only to be waiting in the bushes to whack you over the head with a garden gnome. A shrewd player will keep a check on the cards played and those that possibly remain. They will try and put others off the scent by, for instance, using a guard to issue a challenge when they know very well that the target doesn’t have that particular card because it is already nestling in their own hand.

Each round plays so quickly that it never gets dull, even getting eliminated will not have you sitting on the sidelines for too long. The simple nature of Love Letter means that you never take it too seriously. Because the time investment is so short you are encouraged to be reckless, which makes the game so enjoyable.

The digital version looks the part, sticking closely to the art design of the original, complete with heaving bosoms and fluttering fans.  Each card uses stars to provide up to date information regarding how many copies of each card remain in play, which makes things even easier. Options are pretty limited, you can play offline against AI opponents or online in public or private multiplayer matches. Playing the app also eliminates any potential cheating but there again why would you play with cheats in the first place?

The big question is why you would want to play this over the original card game? The physical version is cheap and portable and comes in a cool velvet bag. I guess the big draw is that you can play online whenever you want. However, transfer the game to a clinical online environment and the game’s shortcomings are thrown into stark relief. A lucky guess can have the game ending before it has even begun, whilst a lot of the time the game feels like it is playing itself with no real input from the player.

More than many other games, Love Letter relies on the human touch. The Princess Bride style bluffing just doesn’t work without that immediate interaction with other players. It is not a shortcoming of the game but a shortcoming of the digital medium that makes it an odd choice for conversion to the digital format.

Addressing the rapidly growing user base around GraphQL, The Linux Foundation has launched the GraphQL Foundation to build a vendor-neutral community around the query language for APIs (application programming interfaces).

“Through the formation of the GraphQL Foundation, I hope to see GraphQL become industry standard by encouraging contributions from a broader group and creating a shared investment in vendor-neutral events, documentation, tools, and support,” said Lee Byron, co-creator of GraphQL, in a statement.

“GraphQL has redefined how developers work with APIs and client-server interactions,” said Chris Aniszczyk, Linux Foundation vice president of developer relations…

Read more at The New Stack