Raspberry Pis have arrived

Just writing to say that my RaspberryPi from Farnell and the one from RS Component have arrived yesterday.

I'm playing with them a little, doing some experiments, and actually they seems quite good, expecially for the price. The official Debian GN/Linux distro runs fast and without troubles. Actually, I'm trying to prepare a Kubuntu version for the RaspberryPi, but it will take some time, I think, to make it work smoothly.

If you want to give a look at them, you will find all the pictures in my gallery:
https://picasaweb.google.com/109718345247929494628/RaspberryPi

Internet ruining brains?

A reader send me an email, because he wanted to know what I think about an image he prepared. The graphic has an explicit title "Internet ruining your brain" (by the way: the image can be found at the address http://www.forensicpsychology.net/internet-ruining-your-brain/). Now, what to say about this work?
I can agree with the informations (and the graphic is nice), but I absolutely disagree about the opinion expressed:
sure, the internet is reducing our use of memory. But this is not a bad thing.

Meet the new Windows 8

Usually, if you say "linux" people think about a very hard to use OS. But is it true? Is Kubuntu really an OS for developers and nerds? I'm going to present "common people" Kubuntu, saying it's the new version of Windows 8: let's see what they think about it without any prejudice. And, since I'm a serious person, I'm filming it.
By the way: I got the idea because KDE has been awarded as best desktop environment of the year.
So, here is the result of my "investigation":

The result is that, on 14 interviewed people only one already knew Ubuntu, but everybody said that KDE is better than Windows (the medium vote reached is 8/10).
Well done, KDE.

KDE on Diaspora... why not?

Just a little ago, I thought about a question: KDE is free software. Diaspora is free software. So, why not share KDE related posts on Diaspora? Doing this is quite easy, and I'm gonna tell you how. Every one of you (everyone that have a blog) can follow these instructions to let people share blog posts on Diaspora.

By the way, if you don't know what I'm talking about, Diaspora is a free social network, built in an interesting way that allows you to have always control on you datas. For more info have a look at www.whatisdiaspora.com and register on joindiaspora.com.
A little info: on the official diaspora pod is not possibile, acutally, to create groups of users. It is, anyway, possible on another pod: https://diasp0ra.ca/. Also, on joindiaspora you can't simply register, since the number of users is limited. But on other pods the registration is immedate.

Some KDE developers are already on Diaspora, and there is also the official Krita account (https://joindiaspora.com/u/krita). But we could also create a KDE-offical account, and use it to share official announcements.
Another idea: it would be nice to put a little button "share on diaspora" in the posts of dot.kde.org.

Ubuntu for Android... and Plasma Active?

So, it's news of the day that Canonical presented Unity for Android devices (http://www.ubuntu.com/devices/android). As I seen the video I thought: well, also Plasma Active can do this. The problem is that there is no porting of Plasma Active for Android platform. So I'm asking: wich are the main techincal problems we could encounter in transforming Plasma Active in an app for this system (it's not rhetorical, I'm really asking it because I don't know)?
Talking about the ethical question, sure, Android is not really FOSS. But it's the most used quasi-free system, and having Plasma Active for this system could only improve the freedom of users. It would also became a big "advertisement" for the whole KDE software compilation.

By the way, here's a video of Unity for Android in action:

The "raspberry" that wants to change computer science

Some months ago, the project RaspberryPi has been announced. Its purpose is very ambitious: creating a good computer at a very low price, so it will be possible to reduce the "digital divide". In January, models A and B have been  presented (http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs), and they will be available after February 20th. The B model will cost 25 euros.

The "flow rate" of this thing is enormous: having a computer, perfectly working, at about 25 euros, means that we will be able to computerize a lot of things: used with Arduino, RaspberryPi will make possible the low cost domotics.

I asked some questions to Eben Upton, and I have managed to undestand a little bit more about what they are going to do.

Interviewing Ton Roosendaal: will it blend?

Yes, I could not resist to associate Blender with "will it blend" my favourite way to use an iPhone (check out this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_S8sxpK4_iA).

Some days ago, I asked some questions to Ton Roosendaal and he, really nicely, found the time to answer. As you all may know, he is the creator of Blender and the head of the Blender Institute. Anyway, for me, the most important idea he developed is the "open movie" project. It introduces a completely new concept of creating an artistic opera, where the public can be an active part during the production and expecially after it, possibly improving the opera itself or creating another version (if it's a movie, you can create your own final). Basically, it's the power of free open source software ported to art, expecially cinematographic art.

Tra l'altro: se siete italiani, potrete leggere una traduzione dell'intervista con presentazione nel prossimo numero di GNU/Linux Magazine Italia.