Issue #154 / Sep 2013

I’m thinking I won’t plan to drop $1,500 for Google Glass, the sleek augmented reality glasses that will officially go on sale around the end of 2013. By the time you read this, it will be about six months since Google co-founder Sergey Brin’s appearance on TED Talks to tell about a new device called Google Glass. What better time to reflect?

The DVD attached to this issue brings you two great new distros: Knoppix 7.2 and Fedora 19.

• Considered by some to be the “Best Live Distro on Earth,” Knoppix is the ultimate sys admin tool – a full-featured system packed with troubleshooting apps that boots and runs from the DVD drive.
• The Red Hat-sponsored Fedora is a free Linux with many of the same tools and packages found in Red Hat's enterprise editions.

• New Intel Xeon Phi
• Intel-HP HPC Center
• Oracle Supports Azure Cloud
• Wayland 1.2 Released
• Java Enterprise Edition 7 Released

The GNU project hasn't given up on the venerable Hurd project, and this long-running GNU Free OS project has recently received a burst of new energy with the release of a new Debian port.

Starting out in the HPC world requires learning to write parallel applications and learning to administer and manage clusters. We take a look at some ways to get started.

Cloud computing is most definitely here, but does it have a role in HPC? We discuss changes in HPC that could be solved effectively by cloud computing.

JavaScript, HTML5, and a liberal helping of Linux and Android inheritances: This is Firefox OS, the smartphone operating system Mozilla created to push into the low-end smartphone market. We tested the Keon and Peak models by Geeksphone.

The major web browsers claim to protect users against data collectors and the advertising industry; however, promises are often quite different from reality.

The WebRTC protocol converts your web browser into a communications center, supporting video chat over a peer-to-peer connection without the need for helper apps or browser plugins.

Test-driven development with a full-coverage regression test suite as a useful side effect promises code with fewer errors. Mike "Perlmeister" Schilli enters the same path of agility and encounters a really useful new CPAN module.