News Briefs

• Mozilla announced its 2018–2019 Fellows in openness, science and tech policy. These fellows "will spend the next 10 to 12 months creating a more secure, inclusive, and decentralized internet". In the past, Mozilla fellows "built secure platforms for LGBTQ individuals in the Middle East; leveraged open-source data and tools to bolster biomedical research across the African continent; and raised awareness about invasive online tracking." See the Mozilla blog for more information and the list of Fellows.
• According to a recent Cloud Foundry Foundation (CFF) survey, Java and JavaScript are the top enterprise languages. See ZDNet for more information on the survey results.
• Valve announced that it's releasing the Beta of a new and improved Steam Play version to Linux. The new version includes "a modified distribution of Wine, called Proton, to provide compatibility with Windows game titles." Other improvements include DirectX 11 and 12 implementations are now based on Vulkan, full-screen support has been improved, game controller support has been improved, and "Windows games with no Linux version currently available can now be installed and run directly from the Linux Steam client, complete with native Steamworks and OpenVR support".
• Intel has now reworked the license for its microcode security fix after outcry from the community. The Register quotes Imad Sousou, corporate VP and general manager of Intel Open Source Technology Center, "We have simplified the Intel license to make it easier to distribute CPU microcode updates and posted the new version here. As an active member of the open source community, we continue to welcome all feedback and thank the community."
• UBports Foundation has released Ubuntu Touch OTA-4. This release features Ubuntu 16.04 and includes many security fixes and stability improvements. UBports notes that "We believe that this is the 'official' starting point of the UBports project. From the point when Canonical dropped the project until today, the community has been playing 'catch up' in development, infrastructure, and community building. This release shows that the community is soundly based and capable of delivering."
• NordVPN recently released the NordVPN Linux app. This dedicated app for Linux makes it even easier to install the VPN on your machine. For more information and to download, visit the NordVPN for Linux download page.
• Mozilla announced a different approach to anti-tracking on the internet. Mozilla's new approach means that "in the near future, Firefox will—by default—protect users by blocking tracking while also offering a clear set of controls to give our users more choice over what information they share with sites." In order to accomplish this, Mozilla has three key initiatives: improve page load performance, remove cross-site tracking and mitigate harmful practices.
• Linux Mint Debian Edition "Cindy" is now available. LDME's goal is to be as similar as possible to Linux Mint, but with a Debian base instead of Ubuntu. See the release notes for more information.
• Tor Browser version 8.0 was released. This is the first stable release based on Firefox 60 ESR, and it includes "a new user onboarding experience; an updated landing page that follows our styleguide; additional language support; and new behaviors for bridge fetching, displaying a circuit, and visiting .onion sites." You can download it from here.
• Nextcloud announced the release of version 14 this week. This new version introduces two big security improvements: video verification and signal/telegram/SMS 2FA support. Version 14 also includes many collaboration improvements as well as a Data Protection Confirmation app in compliance with the GDPR. Go here to install.