New Open Source Mobile OS Puts Privacy Front and Center

A renowned Linux innovator has developed a new mobile operating system, called "Project eelo," in an effort to provide a level of data privacy that traditional Android and iOS devices fail to offer.

The new eelo system will allow mobile phone users to regain control over their personal information at a price they can afford, said Gael Duval, who created Mandrake Linux back in 1998.

Apple has become too expensive, too boring and is "going crazy with its products," he said, while Google has "become too big" and is capturing too much information about what we do.

"They want to know us as much as possible to sell advertising," Duval wrote in a post introducing eelo"s Kickstarter campaign, which has more than doubled its goal with 14 days remaining.



"People are free to do what they want," Duval wrote. "They can choose to be voluntary slaves. "But I do not want this situation for me anymore."

After deciding to leave Google and Apple for eelo, Duval received more than 6,000 reads from a couple of articles he posted detailing his plans, he told LinuxInsider.

The eelo project on Kickstarter reached more than 200 percent of goal after only 15 days.

More than 2,000 people have registered at
eelo.io since December 20 in response to his posted updates, Duval added.

eelo"s Lineage

The new eelo project is a fork of the LineageOS, which is an open source system that runs mainstream Android applications. Open source modules are layered on top of that, which help create a consistent mobile and Web system, Duval said.

The project, which calls for the developers to sell preloaded eelo smartphones and provide some premium services, will run as a nonprofit. As a community project, it will welcome contributors.

The developers will release privacy-enabled smartphone ROMs, as well as smartphones for ordinary users, with associated Web services.

They have been testing custom builds of LineageOS/eelo on the LeEcho Le2 -- a 5.5-inch smartphone with a 1080 x 1920 pixel screen, 3G RAM, 32 GB storage, a finger sensor on the back and a 4K camera -- for about Pounds130, and on a Xiaomi Mi5S.

The developers plan to have downloadable ROMs for a range of devices by 2018, Duval said, as well as a limited number of post-market Flashed devices. He also plans to discuss partnerships with Fairphone, Essential phone or similar devices, and plans to industrialize the phone by 2019.

Privacy Tradeoffs

Many consumers have expressed a desire for greater control over their experience with mobile devices, but there has to be a balance between the value proposition and customers" willingness to share on a personal level.

"Information is currency, and people are going to want more control over who has information on their behaviors and habits on a mobile device," said Ryan Spanier, director of research at
Kudelski Security.

"Eelo is focused on maintaining privacy," he told LinuxInsider, "preventing tracking and monetization of your actions without your consent."

There is growing consumer interest in a potentially less-intrusive operating system for mobile devices, but the task of establishing one in the market is daunting, said independent analyst Jeff Kagan.

Though there have been some prior efforts, no alternative mobile OS has been able to compete with iOS and Android, he told LinuxInsider.

Even if privacy is a concern, the majority of consumers don"t understand the relationship between privacy and the mechanics of their personal technology well enough to persuade them to make the shift to eelo, suggested Paul Teich, principal analyst at Tirias Research.

"Success will be made on social media stickiness and whether enough consumers or organizations think they can get "more privacy" -- whatever that means to them -- than stock Google Android or Apple iOS products," he told LinuxInsider.

Developing leading products like the iPhone and other devices involves the willingness to make tradeoffs, noted Gartner analyst Tuong Nguyen.

Companies must invest substantial resources to make their products appeal to the specific needs of their customers, he told LinuxInsider.

"Google spends a lot of time and effort to make [products] easy to use," Nguyen said, "to keep you within their ecosystem."

Apple to open source its first graphical OS from the Lisa

Apple had a number of massive hits in the early 80s as the personal computer revolution was picking up steam. However, the Apple Lisa was not one of them. This computer was an undeniable flop, but it’s an important part of technology history.

It was one of the first systems to run a graphical user interface (GUI), and included much more advanced hardware than competing systems. You may soon be able to relive the age of Lisa now that the source code has been recovered. Apple is checking over the code and could give the green light to release it in a few months.

The code was recovered thanks to the diligence of the Computer History Museum. The museum’s software curator Al Kossow announced the find on a Lisa mailing list a few days ago. According to Kossow, the code has been handed off to Apple, which is reviewing it in advance of release. Considering the age of the software, there’s not likely to be any sensitive information in there.

It’s not often a computer that performed so poorly in the marketplace has such historic significance, but the Lisa came at an unusual time. Apple was still riding high on the success of the Apple II series, but more competitors were appearing every quarter. Co-founder Steve Jobs was famously excited by the demos of a GUI he saw at Xerox in the late 1970s, and the Lisa was the first machine to leverage that technology.

It even had a mouse! Apple spent upward of $50 million developing the first Lisa, which hit the market with a starting price of $9,995 in 1983. Apple only sold about 100,000 units of the Lisa, but the lessons learned from Lisa led Apple to develop the very successful Macintosh a year later. Despite predating the original Macintosh, the Lisa was significantly more powerful, with support for up to 2MB of RAM (the Mac topped out at 512KB and initially shipped with just 128KB). While the Mac’s CPU is clocked nominally faster, at 7.8MHz instead of 5MHz, the 6800K CPU and video controller can’t simultaneously communicate with system RAM. This reduced the Mac’s overall performance relative to its earlier and vastly more expensive counterpart.



Even the name “Lisa” comes with a lot of historic baggage. At the time, Apple said the name was an acronym for Local Integrated System Architecture. However, many suspected the name was a reference to Jobs’ first daughter Lisa Nicole Brennan, who he denied fathering for years. In his later years, Jobs admitted the computer was named after his daughter.

Fans of classic computing should keep an eye on the Computer History Museum’s website for the Lisa source code, as well as information about the historic importance of the Lisa. According to Kossow, the only thing included in the code dump that likely won’t make it into the final release is part of the LisaWrite word processor. That application shipped with an embedded version of the American Heritage dictionary for the spell checker. Apple doesn’t own that, so it can’t unilaterally choose to release it.

How to use the Windows 10 Timeline feature

Microsoft announced many features when it released the Windows 10 Fall Creators update. However, what really caught everyone’s eye was the Windows 10 Timeline feature. Lets take a look at what this feature is and why it is so interesting.

What does the Windows 10 Timeline feature do?

Okay lets answer that first question you have in mind. What Windows 10 Timeline does is that it allows you to find continue your paused work on either your laptop, Android or iOS device. It is something like a task view but in a global scenario. Microsoft uses its large cloud services to help with the task. Back during the release of the Windows 10 Fall Creators update, the feature was not ready for release. From today however, the feature will be available in the latest Windows 10 Insider preview build.

How does the Windows 10 Timeline feature work?

As mentioned above, it will give you an overview of your recent activities. You can then start off on your phone or PC at work from the place you stopped. Timeline will highlight what it thinks is more important but it also displays all the activities.

How to use the Windows 10 Timeline feature?

The feature will be available after you install the latest insider preview. The option is located in the task bar behind the task view button. Another way to bring up the feature is to click the Windows key + TAB.

The problem with this feature is that any developer has to include this on his or her app. For now, it works well with Microsoft’s set of apps. These include Maps, Edge and the Office suite.

Microsoft has been hard at work releasing a bunch of new features. They recently announced Sets and have also released plenty of updates to Microsoft Edge.

Blackberry to release a more secure version of Android

According to the latest reports coming out, BlackBerry is about to announce licensing deals for a more secure version of Android. It will supposedly be called BlackBerry secure.

Overview on BlackBerry

BlackBerry was once the go to device for corporates who wanted a secure phone. They started to fall behind when smartphones started rising. The company quickly fell behind. It was only in 2015 that they announced an Android smartphone. This was years after other competitors had made the move. Since then, it has partnered with various hardware manufacturers around the world to resuscitate the BlackBerry brand and reoriented its focus to providing BlackBerry software to Android users.

The former has been working out relatively well: it recently signed a 10-year brand licensing deal with Optiemus in India, which gives the Delhi-based telecommunications company the right to design, manufacture, and sell devices using the BlackBerry moniker. Not only that, it already has similar partnerships with BB Merah Putih for Indonesia and TCL (probably a better-known partnership) for the global market. The latter, on the other hand, has been limited to Google Play apps so far. This is about to change according to the latest report.

 

Called BlackBerry Secure, it will be based on Android. The Canadian company will make special security features. The company is right now discussing licensing agreements with various hardware manufacturers. Under the licensing deal, Android OEMs will be able to ship their devices with a modified version of Android. It will be packed with all the features that once made the company so appealing. This seems to be a good move by the company to revive its fortunes by doing what the company was famous for. Blackberry devices were widely used in the business sector during the height of their fame. It was because of the key emphasis on security and privacy.