LINUX Unplugged - Episode 23: Google Invades Your Nest | LUP 23

Episode Date: January 15, 2014

We follow up on some of the most innovative Linux powered devices at CES, and this discuss Google buying Nest Labs. Is the future of the “Internet of Things” locked down to proprietary devices running locked down software? And what are the ramifications for the home?Plus some practical thoughts on Steam OS, 4k Displays coming to Linux, a new way to interface with your PC, and your feedback.

This is Linux Unplugged, episode weekly Linux talk show that's surrendering to the CES plague right this very second. My name is Chris. My name is Matt. My name is Matt. Hey there, Matt. We've got a fun episode this week. Not only has there been some big news in the Linux gadget space that is actually going to impact our homes, but we've got our first in-studio guest for Linux Unplugged. It is from Unfilter and GeekGamerTV and Minecraft, me, our very own Mr. Chase Nunes. Hey there, Chase. Hey, gents. How are you? Chase, it's great to have you in studio. Thank you. You know what? For episode 23, by the way, I love the number 23 because I was born on the 23rd of January.

So I got to say, this is kind of like the perfect start, right? Wow, it all comes together. This is meant to happen. You were going to join us on Sunday on the big show, Linux Action Show, but you got the CES SARS. Yeah, CES SARS. I talked to you the night before, and then the next morning I woke up and was like, oh my God, I cannot do this. Well, it happens, especially when you go on a big trip and you walk like a million miles

and you talk to like a million people. You end up contracting. I mean, I went to LinuxFest Northwest, and I was sick within a few hours. We literally thought we were going to have to get a wheelbarrow. It was bad. Yeah, it was funny because I went out to the truck and i'm like well man i'm just gonna go for a lunch break i'm gonna go out and then i leave the building and i immediately start

throwing up like like i'm sorry by the way to the bellingham i i did make it to the toilet thankfully but then i get out to my truck and then i'm like i had like a cup out there i was throwing up and i'm like man i don't think i'm gonna make it back in so i got a great tip i got a great tip like and i didn't follow through on it was to have my own personal bottle of hand sanitizer yeah and it didn't happen and so obviously by the way the whole crew is sick john is sick joe got sick actually john is on my couch right now because he's been out of it since saturday pretty much wow he really got it yeah he really got it hit hard so the tip is bring hand sanitizer hand sanitizer maybe wear a mask actually head to the health and fitness pavilion first oh they have one yeah sure and then just and talk to them and say hey

what kind of new technologies and innovations do you have to keep me healthy you grab that first then you hit the rest of the convention so you're ready to go wow that's good well i'm feeling educated yeah i know yeah now i feel like i have a little insider's tip on if we ever go to ces how to handle that go to the health you have you have to go i mean it's one of those experiences that uh by the way i i believe i was reading a stat that this year ces was the high of the largest attended ever really because i heard a ton of people couldn't make it because of the snow and ice storms and stuff well a lot of people showed up late.

Oh, yeah, yeah. But no, it was very, very highly attended. Oh, that's cool. Depending on the hall that you were in, of course. So I want to pick your brain on Linux-loving gadgets that you saw there and just cool stuff you saw there. But as is per tradition here on the Unplugged show, we start with feedback. We do the email up top because statistically, email is the thing that makes people tune out the most because it's a little boring for a lot of people who aren't interested in that topic. So what I figured to do is we put it at the top of the show.

That way we spill off as many people as possible right at the beginning. Get rid of them. And we stuck with that format since episode one. So damn it, we're going to continue on. So Michael wrote in, and Chase, I know you're going to have some opinions on this because you saw these at the convention center. I know Matt's got opinions on these, especially in terms of the economics. Michael Roni said, the most exciting feature for Steam machines. Hi, Chris and Matt and Chase.

In my humble opinion, the best feature of the new Steam machines is that the devices will still be usable in five to seven years when the current console cycle ends. It bothers me that companies like Microsoft and PlayStation move away from their old consoles to the new ones, and the leftover hardware is just virtually useless. The hardware is still decent and could be used to serve a purpose if Linux could be easily installed on them. Example, why can't the Xbox 360 be refurbed and set up as a desktop computer for a kid whose parents can't afford a regular computer? With Steam machines, this would not be a problem, as the console is already running Linux. So, once finished with the device as a gaming machine, it could still serve a

useful purpose, rather than sitting in the trash heap. Looking forward to another great show on Sunday. Michael, what do you think of this, Chase? You saw these Steam Machines. I'm going to pick this email apart. And you have some problems with these. Okay, so what was your problem with the Steam Machines, and tell me your thoughts. Okay, well, first off, can I respond to the email?

Michael? Yeah, well, first off, as a gamer, first and foremost, to say that the old Xbox 360 will be completely useless since Microsoft and Sony have moved on to the new generation of consoles or PS3 is completely unfair because of the fact that, I don't know, there's an entire incredible library of games alone that need to be played on the 360. So to say that it's virtually useless. I still play SNES games.

Yeah, so to say that it's completely gone. And not only that, there are some incredible apps that work on the Xbox 360. Even Plex works incredibly well. But what about this ability? What if you could put a DVD in that drive and you could install the desktop Linux distribution? You could be browsing the web. You could be checking your email and use it. It's got PowerPC processing.

Wouldn't that be nice? Yeah, it would be nice. And actually, Sony had that for a long time. Remember, they had the ability. They pulled it, yeah. And they pulled it. So maybe, here's the thing. If they could pull it, maybe they can put it back on, right?

Maybe once the lifecycle has completed for the PS3 and it's completely gone, then say Sony goes, all right, well, what we're going to do is we're going to give you guys the ability to install your own custom OS like we did before. So that could happen in the future. We don't know. So we can't say automatically that they're going to cut it off and not make it happen. The Xbox, the original Xbox, by the way, heavily moddable. You can make your own custom machine. A lot of people, that's how Xbox Media Center, XBMC, got started, remember? The original

modded Xbox. So you got that. At CES, we saw loads, about 15 different Steam machines from all major manufacturers, you know, Alienware, Falcon Northwest. Beautiful boxes, by the way. Very, very well

innovated. Right, I was pretty impressed by that. Micro ITX designs micro itx they're really trying hard they look great but here's some of the problems that i foresee happening okay first off you have a wide price range of boxes from 500 to 600 to six thousand dollars now obviously they think that if you're going to buy the low end you're going to be streaming from a higher end compatible gaming machine that is not really meant for you to game on. Now, I don't know about you, Chris, but when I purchased a machine, say a computer, say five to seven years ago, how honestly usable is it today other than basic web browsing and email and stuff? So it's very hard to say. one of my issues is i don't know

where valve and steam is going with this because of the wide price points and the wide variety of what you can get um they recently interviewed uh i believe his end gadget interviewed the uh ceo of microsoft's gaming division and asked him what he thought. And he goes, well, first off, I know better than go head-to-head against Gabe Newell. I know that. But he says, I'm not really too worried because they're not really in our target because of the wide variety of different platforms. Matt, let me ask you this. So do you think if the Steam console, after two, three years of use, can be repurposed as a desktop computer that could do email and web browsing running a Linux desktop. Does that change the value equation for you?

Because I know you've been critical of the high prices, and you think they've got to get that down to about $300. Does a $600 Steam box seem more reasonable if two, three years down the road it can also become a decent desktop? I think that's delayed value. I mean, the value is certainly there, and there's no question of that. And you'll certainly be able to get some value out of that. I mean the value is certainly there, and there's no question of that, and you'll certainly be able to get some value out of that. But I'm not entirely sure that the person that initially dropped $600 on a gaming console is looking for longevity value coming from a Linux box that's going to be then dated specs at that point. You're kind of mixing your apple juice and your orange juice there.

It just doesn't really make any sense. Someone buys a mid-range box maybe, but $600, I don't know. I guess people aren't going to look at that as a desktop replacement later on. Although there's one scenario. You're fairly affluent. Things are grooving. And then you buy your $600 box. Then you lose your job.

Everything goes to crap. And you now are trying to repurpose your existing equipment. Been there. So yeah, absolutely. Now then I could see it making sense. And if that's a business model, the way the economy is going, it's certainly possible. I mean that could work out for them. Well, OK. So I know Chase is critical of the streaming component of it, but don't you think that the fact that you could buy – so say you get the mid-range.

Say you get a $600 Steam machine today. Well, that would be a low range actually. Right, right. And maybe it's got – maybe it has discrete graphics in it. Maybe it's the Iris 5200 Pro. It's somewhere in that range. Integrated stuff there. Yeah.

graphics in it, maybe it's the Iris 5200 Pro. It's somewhere in that range. Integrated stuff there. If this Steam Box, if your primary goal is to play side-scrolling platformers, and if your goal is to play controller-based games, maybe this isn't a big issue, because again, it only has to send a 1080p signal. That's correct.

It doesn't have to go beyond that, right? So that lowers it a little bit. It doesn't have to do like a 1440p display. And then on top of that, this machine continues to be relevant because maybe, maybe you buy a Steam box, a mid-level Steam box for a couple of years. And then after a couple of years, you buy a new desktop PC, and now you use the streaming capability. And all of a sudden you're playing the latest games again on your Steam box. You know, there's, there's another problem here and it hasn't really been

touched on too much. And the chat room brought it up a little bit and then talked about the controller, the recommended controller, I should say. And they had a demonstration unit there. Did you get to try the controller? Yeah, but – You did? Yeah. What did you think? Here's the thing.

It's a controller. Yeah. So if I'm playing a first-person shooter, say like Half-Life 2, I believe the demo was Portal 2, but it's a controller, right? For us who play first-person shooters, especially on PCs and Linux machines, it's all about the keyboard and mouse, right? Yeah, a whole lot, yeah. And so if they came up with a – and a lot of people said, well, you can just plug in your own keyboard and mouse into it. Okay, that's great. So am I going to have a 10-foot USB cable?

Or wireless. Or wireless. But then when you have something that's wireless, it always introduces latency. Well, let me flip that question around. If you could plug that into your Xbox One today, wouldn't you? Well, yes. And actually, we saw something like that at the show, too. Okay, all right.

But you see what I'm saying? You would do it. You'd be willing to do it. And isn't the option to be able to do it nice? Yes. And isn't the option to be able to do it nice? Yes. And cleanly. And I think one of the things that's cool about the Steam Box is they're willing to work with outside innovations like the Oculus Rift. Valve has been working directly with Oculus Rift.

Wouldn't it be cool if the first thing that supports Oculus Rift is Steam Boxes? Because it's not going to be the Xbox One or the PlayStation 4. No. They might come up with their own solution mid-product cycle and release it, kind of like Microsoft released the Kinect towards the end of the Xbox 360's lifecycle. Correct. But Valve could be there day one with Oculus Rift support. Yep. And that could sell a few Steam boxes, too.

That would help. That would help. I think, like we've talked about before, the prices are too high now, and they're going to remain too high for at least a year. It depends. This is the weird thing, right? What is their goal? What is their target market here? Are they trying to compete directly with consoles?

Well, if that answer is yes, then they have to compete on price point and features. But couldn't you have flipped this conversation around 10 years ago and said, what is this gaming company doing making this distribution platform? They've got a couple of games on there. It's wrapped in this horrible DRMm and what happens to the used market like i go down to game stop today and i sell my old games and i buy a new buy a new game you can't do that with steam this is never gonna work well they were able to do that that was that was the conversation 10 years but they were also able to do that from the beginning because pc gamers were always uh kind of we were kind of brainwashed in a way like once you put your code into the computer, you can't move it anywhere else, right? Yeah, that's true.

So that happened from the very, very beginning. Yeah, early enough. And so when Valve came in with their distribution platform and said, hey, we have a way that you can keep all your games in one place. You can always reinstall them whenever you want. We're not going to go anywhere. That's why they've been successful with that. But on the console side, you've never had to, with the exception of a few games,

put in a code to be able to play them. Yeah, you're starting to see it now, actually. Well, EA said, well, we're not going to do that anymore. They actually said we're getting rid of the codes for online play. Oh, good. Like, for example, if you bought the newest... I know you're a football fan, Chris. Yeah, I like the sports ball. I mean, actually,

if I'm ever going to watch football, it's going to be this weekend. Yeah. The Sunday games are going to be incredible. I know. Let's say you bought Madden. Well, the only way

you could play Madden online is by entering the code that came with the game. And EA was doing that to prevent resale. Yeah. So let's say you went and bought that game used.

You would have to buy a new code from EA to play that online. Which is just crap. But they said they're going to discontinue that practice. Oh, how nice of them. Yeah, isn't that nice? Thank you, EA. Well, Michael, good email, and thank you for sending that to the show.

Yeah, totally. And it's going to be definitely a watch and see thing because there's, you know, and then that's not even getting to the ecosystem. Oh, by the way, will I buy one? Yeah, probably for sure. Or build one. Yeah, or build one. And that's the best part, right? Yeah, it is.

You can build your own and then have that back end ready for you. Well, and see, this is, like Gabe said himself, he's not too worried about their 63 million or whatever it was Steam users as bigger than PS4s or the Xbox Onlines. of that existing market who are just radically passionate about Steam and want to hook up a Steam box to their TV just to get a very trouble-free gaming experience. I floated this idea on last. I kind of came up with it on the spot, and I was wondering what you thought about it. I think Mac users could be the perfect target for Steam boxes because they hate Windows. They don't want to futz with a PC. They don't even want to bother with boot camp because they literally hate Windows, a lot like some of us Linux users do. And so why not avoid all of the Windows hassles and just buy a Steam box appliance?

That way you get your PC games and you still get to have your pretty Mac. Well, wait a minute. What if I just bought a Mac Mini? I mean, what's the difference there? Put SteamOS on that. Right. Exactly. Why just buy a Mac Mini, right?

You could. You could dual boot it, I suppose, or something like that. I'm just saying I think there is a market, but I think initially that market is going to be people who are willing to pay that premium price. And that's really my point. Right. No, absolutely. And then once we're through that phase, we're really going to see what Valve's endgame is. Yeah, no, totally. All right, well, Jay wrote in, and I think we'll bounce this one around for a little bit.

He says, Gnome still has a lot of an uphill battle ahead of it. In your recent Gnome 3 defense episode, you mentioned a theory that people that are adverse to GNOME 3's changes are those that resist change in general. This isn't true for everyone. Some have valid complaints. Others just complain because they can. Personally, I'm someone that loves change. In fact, I crave it. But GNOME 3's changes are just plain bad.

And I think that's the first problem with GNOME 3. Tweak tools and extensions should not be required in order to make this experience usable. Now, Matt, I think you probably agree with that, right? I would agree with the fact that I think they should include them. I don't have a problem with them existing. I just think the fact that they're not provided by default doesn't make any sense to me. Yeah, especially the really popular ones. And of course desktop environments continue to have the fanboyism. As soon as you say anything about XYZ desktop environment, they come out of the woodwork. And that's just an expected thing. It's kind of sad, but it is what it is.

I kind of agree with him though. I think it's got a lot of growing work, a lot of growing pants and growing room. It's going to have to kind of find its way. I don't know. He says that it's almost as if developers are saying, yes, we know the default user experience is bad, but that's okay because we have a tweak tool and extensions. It's easy for the GNOME developers to not be concerned with backlash when they're basically telling their users to install extensions and fix the problem themselves.

You know, and I, of course, go back to the, if you don't like it, don't use it. I mean, at the end of the day, that's kind of my big thing. It's like, I don't necessarily care for GNOME 3, but rather than becoming emotionally invested in it, I'll revisit it later and see if I've become more interested in it at that point. But I don't see a lot of value in going off about it because it's just like, yeah, it's not for everybody. I think they do a lot of things right.

I like the unification idea. I think that's very cool. It's something to watch. But it's not quite there yet, and that's OK. But why rip on it? That's my big thing. We got an email from a guy who's been using gnome 3 on his arch base touch uh laptop and he says that it works okay but there's also there's still a few areas that it seems like the code just hasn't been

hooked up yet the plum is not quite done yet sure uh he says uh you know he went on to say anyways awesome show and i hope the gnome gets their act together but uh they have a long way to go he says he predicts that someday gnome will probably be completely awesome. By that time it happens, though, I wonder if they'll have any user base left. You know, I've been using Gnome 3 since our episode in defense of Gnome 3. And what I've decided to teach myself is every couple of days I learn a new keyboard shortcut. And now, like, I've got Windows down where I can snap them to the different edges of the screen with the keyboard. I can move them between workspaces. And then somebody else, and I'm sorry, I forget their

name right now, but somebody in our community said, Chris, think of the activities as anytime you start something a little bit different, do it in a new virtual desktop because you can create them and destroy them on will. So what I have done is like if I open up a new tab, sometimes I'll think, well, maybe this is actually better to be done in a new workspace and I'll move it to a new workspace. And I've been working that way. So I've been trying to get GNOME 3 down towards muscle memory so I can then really say, okay, if I retrain myself to do the GNOME way of things, is it usable? And the things like SuperKeyM and it shows the notifications and stuff like that, I'm actually really starting to dig it. But it does require that you change the way you use it

a little bit and you kind of learn its new way. But I am trying to find out that if I totally subscribe to their philosophy, do I become more efficient? But it's one of those things that just takes weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks of usage. Yes, it does. That is where I'm at right now. All right. Well, before we move on, we had a great post in the subreddit and it came from Shimmy C.

And he says, DigitalOcean posted droplet distro usage stats. It's pretty much exactly what you would expect. And we were talking last week on Linux Unplugged with Mr. Popey in the mumble room, and we were talking about how CentOS and Red Hat had merged and how right now the stranglehold that... Oh, dang it, I changed that. The stranglehold that Ubuntu has on cloud providers is strong.

Maybe that's one of the reasons Red Hat wanted to work closer with CentOS. Well, DigitalOcean posted their droplet stats. Ubuntu has 66% of active droplets on DigitalOcean. Debian has 12%. CentOS has 18 percent and arch is coming in at a mighty 1.34 percent only to beat out fedora at 0.81 percent wow so there you go ubuntu rocking 66 percent of the digital ocean droplets a lot of that is direct lamp stack sometimes it's wordpress deployments docker actually since this is the first year of docker a respectable 1.74% of deployments use Docker.

Now, what is DigitalOcean? DigitalOcean is a simple cloud hosting provider dedicated to offering the most intuitive and easy way to spin up a cloud server. Users can get started with a DigitalOcean droplet as in little as 55 seconds. Now, I'll make a personal challenge to you, dear listener. I was able to do it in 44 seconds. That's right. I'm dropping the gauntlet right here on the Linux Unplugged show. Can you do it faster? Perhaps. Go over to DigitalOcean

and find out. And while you're over there, take advantage of our brand new promo code, Linux Unplugged January. That's going to get you a $10 DigitalOcean credit. And if you use the $5 rig like I've been using, that's going to get you two months of the DigitalOcean service. They have a super intuitive interface, and power users can even replicate it on a larger scale with their straightforward API. Chris, I'm confused here. I know I'm a noob in this arena. What does DigitalOcean do?

So if you wanted to go over to DigitalOcean's site, you could spin up a full-fledged server in like under a minute, and you could have like an Ubuntu rig. So you were recently playing around with Airtime. Airtime, right. Which we got going finally. Yeah, and it's really easy to could have like an Ubuntu rig. So you were recently playing around with Airtime. Airtime, right. Which we got going finally. Yeah, and it's really easy to get from running on Ubuntu. Did you do it on CentOS?

No, no. We had to go to Ubuntu. We couldn't do it on Cent. So for example, you could go over to DigitalOcean. You could log in. If you use our promo code LinuxUnpluggedJanuary, you'll get two months of DigitalOcean for free with a $10 credit. That gets you 512 megs of RAM, a 20 gigabyte SSD, one CPU,

and a terabyte of transfer, which is great for an audio streaming. Yeah, that would be perfect. And you could deploy it immediately from the get-go with Ubuntu 13.10 ready to go. And then you could get airtime installed

and get everything configured just the way you want it. And then you can save that droplet and then deploy it later, like next time if you want to deploy a secondary stream server to do a lower bitrate. Wow.

Yeah, it's really simple. Where are they located? Well, Chase, I'm glad you asked because DigitalOcean has data centers located in New York, San Francisco, and Amsterdam. This wasn't planned, by the way. I'm honestly inquiring. Actually, I don't know if you knew this, but so for the Unfilter show, I distribute the supporter show via BitTorrent Sync. Yeah. And I host it here at my house on the Fios connection, which is a 50-50 connection.

It's pretty good. Yeah. And then, because I'm on the West Coast, I have a DigitalOcean VPS on the East Coast that has a copy of the BitTorrent Sync. Wow. So that way folks can get seating from both sides of the United States, and it really helps with performance. Wow.

And it's really straightforward. But guess what? This is so freaking awesome. DigitalOcean is really excited because they have a contest going on right now. They're giving away $10,000 in free hosting credits to the user that spins up the millionth droplet. That's right. You get $10,000 of DigitalOcean hosting credits if you spin up the millionth droplet. Now look at this right now. That's cool. $983 million is at their end.

And change. So they're really, really close, you guys. So go over to digitalocean.com. Use our brand new promo code, Linux Unplugged January. Get the $10 credit. And maybe, just maybe, you can spin up the millionth droplet and get $10,000. Wow.

Wow, that's pretty incredible. Yeah, you know what? You know what, Chase? That does deserve a ding. Stand by. There you go. So go check it out. Go over to DigitalOcean.com and a big thank you to DigitalOcean

for sponsoring Linux Unplugged. Seriously, ever since I put my BitTorrent sync over there, it's just boom. People are downloading the show. It absolutely saturates their connection. That is awesome. It really makes shipping the file super quick. All right, guys. Well, there's a the shipping of files super quick. All right, guys. Well, there's a lot of things

to talk about, but Chase, before we get into some of the other topics I kind of had on the agenda, now that we've got you here in studio, I just wanted to kind of

pick your brain on what was, if you could just narrow it down to like, I mean, is it possible? Is there one thing that you really thought was just amazing at CES or one theme?

Well, well. Was it wearables? Be honest. Wearables was there. 4K TV ultra high def was everywhere. I mean, especially in the north and central halls where you had all the major manufacturers, you know, Sharp, LG, Sony. You know, NVIDIA had a big booth too showing off their Tegra technologies inside cars. Yeah.

Tegra Technologies inside cars. Yeah. Obviously, they had a demo set up in the parking lot where BMW had their electric cars running on NVIDIA with the front patch. It's incredible stuff. Was anybody dropping the Linux name or bomb? Did you see any Tux logos anywhere? Didn't see any Tux logos anywhere, but Linux was obviously the underlying operating system on a lot of platforms. was obviously the underlying operating system on a lot of platforms i mean you could see with you know with with the sharps and the lgs and stuff where you know they have their their customized overlays with yeah like lg was actually running web os yes yes and we saw that what did you think

um you know what for such a i call it beta right now obviously it's not out there in full front but it was very very smooth yeah and it worked very, very well. One of the things I hate about all TVs that have these built-in interfaces is that it feels sluggish. It's like, all right, I'm waiting, I'm waiting. Right. And then it finally kicks in, and it's like the overlays are not as smooth. This looked very, very good. Well, one of the things I've heard is a nightmare with these smart TVs is every smart smart TV, even like the different models have their own SDK and they're super complex to write for.

But if you had WebOS with HTML5 and that kind of stuff, did you happen to see any of the TVs that run in Firefox OS? No. Didn't see one. I'm really curious how that works out. I guess so these LGs with WebOS were the ones that would only, these were the TVs that Netflix said will support 4K streaming. So here we have,

once again, Netflix doing 4K streaming to a Linux box. WebOS is a Linux-based OS. Meanwhile, it's Linux users out in the cold. Gotta hack Silverlight together

in order to watch Netflix. But they're using Linux. They're using it, but they're – Oh, so frustrating. Come on. I mean they got to pay for House of Cards, right? They got to pay for it somehow. They got big money they got to pay Kevin Spacey to.

Yeah. Yeah, that's true. I'm going to bring in the Mumba Room here in case they have any questions about CES. But I just – I was curious. What did you think? But there were definitely some items at CES. We were talking about this in the pre-show. A company by the name of Ativitas makes a customizable controller. Oh, yeah, yeah. And it's for PC and Linux. By the way, Chris was telling

me, hey, we're going to bring you on the Linux Action Show. Part of the thing in the back of my head was look for Linux items as well to bring back for the show. And not only we saw this company, they make something called the Sinister. I love the name. I like the name. It's a great thing. And for those who are watching the video feed,

basically it's a handheld controller. It's fully customizable. You can extend it out, but also has these little modules with buttons on them, joysticks or whatever. And they're literally plug and play, and you can do it while it's plugged into the system. So this is a USB controller. Right. Does this replace the keyboard, or what does this do exactly? Yeah, basically it does.

So you plug your mouse into this. So there is a USB port. Okay. So you can use your favorite USB mouse. And then this is a handheld controller. So remember Logitech made a couple years ago. I think it's like the G19 or G58, one of those monikers. Only with all the keys.

With all the keys. Well, take that, add haptic feedback to it, which is very, very cool. So you feel the pulsation of every single bullet that you fire. But then you could also move the modules around on the fly and like, all right, I need to pull out this button controller module and put in a joystick module and just pop it in. Oh. Yeah.

Set that up with the Oculus Rift. Oh, now wouldn't that be a good combo? So right now, as you can see by the picture, these parts have been 3D printed. What? Yeah, so they're still working on this right now this is this is really early this is alpha they're saying they told me they are six months out they are six months out uh basically these are held in place by magnets and it works

i was actually playing some call of duty uh so i had one of their mices and i was using that and we we moved some modules around while i was playing, and it worked seamlessly. And while you were there, they specifically stated Linux support? Yep, they did. And actually, I believe they stated on their website, too, PC and Linux. They specifically say that. This is interesting because I don't know if it would replace the keyboard for me, but I don't know. I wonder if I could have—

I mean, you can see the thumb. He's also got buttons here. There's other images. Let me scroll through. But as you can see, here's another better image. Here on his, he moved the little thumb stick module that was here. He moved it here. So he had a little bit of a look button.

So yeah, this is one of those pieces of technology that they don't even have a price point for yet. But you can fully customize the length of it. You your mouse into it and it works great i'm i'm really fascinated by these alternative inputs for the computer because it feels like the keyboard and mouse awesome as it is right um is very old school yeah and there has to be a more efficient way to almost more instinctively and organically interact with these computers because i feel like the only thing now at this point i know this sounds there's a good picture there that is a really good picture you can see that more as more of a controller there yeah i feel like right now like i was playing very briefly do

you remember when we went to pax i picked up that pedal switch yeah yeah yeah oh yeah the what was it the stinky foot yeah the stinky foot yeah and for a for a brief period in time i was using that every time i'd put use my i'd my foot on that, it would drop down a terminal screen for me, and I could type in the terminal, and I'd tap it again, and it would bring the terminal back up, and it would slide up and down on my screen. Yeah. That was awesome for about two days. And then I did the show, I talked about it, and I left it out in the studio, and I didn't

bring it back to my desk, and I never hooked it up again. Oh, I thought you were going to say you got some sort of repetitive foot injury from using it so many times. No, no. I mean, my foot was fine, but it was like, it was neat to interact with the computer in a different way. But then at the end of the day, it's like, well, I can't have this at every computer I use, right? And this is a problem I see with a lot of this stuff is where voice and hand gestures and movements eventually could be integrated into every computer that has their appropriate sensors. These types of controllers are going to require that every computer you sit down at has this device connected to it.

And I just don't see that happening. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's one of those situations where, you know, as we're seeing it with the Oculus, right, is different ways to interact, different input devices. But it's still encouraging to see that you have a company. Now, I don't think I touched on it enough. This device also has haptic feedback.

So you could be playing a game or doing something where you fire upon something and you feel feedback in your fingertips depending on what you're shooting at. That's cool. Yeah. That is pretty cool for gaming. Yeah, but also you could use it for other purposes, I guess.

I wonder if there's some way accessibility-wise, like if there was a way to provide feedback to maybe a blind user. Yeah, I could see that for sure. That could be pretty cool. Yeah, like they know that they're in a sentence or they're typing. I'm not sure. I don't use much accessibility stuff. But no, it's one of the most interesting things I saw.

Another thing which I don't have any pictures of, I have to post the interview up still, but there's a company that was basically creating a new controller that will supposedly work on PC, Linux, and also next-gen consoles. Another controller? Yeah, but this particular interface is essentially based upon ultrasonic waves and sound. What? They were tucked away. No one covered this. No one found this.

I haven't heard of this at all. Yeah, so basically, you know how the Kinect works, right? Cameras and infrared and whatnot. Well, this is using ultrasonic waves, So it pings back and forth between you. Like a submarine? Essentially. One ping only. One ping only, Vasili.

One ping only. So the controller, there's these sensors that are placed on top of the TV and on the sides of the TV. And it knows, based upon proximity to those sensors, how close or far away that controller is. So if you're making an aiming motion or a shooting motion. Like if I'm holding a gun sideways like a gangster. It knows that you're holding it sideways. And I'm a gangster. And that you're a gangster.

Yeah. And it knows it within one one-hundred-thousandth of an inch. Wow! That's way better than I would know it. Right. So part of the problem, I guess, with, and they explained it to me in the interview. A lot of it's over my head right now, but they explained to me that, you know, the problem with Kinect and these other services, it doesn't have, it's not very good at depth perception

per se. Oh, interesting. Not very accurate. While it can emulate and knows that your arm's going up and down, it doesn't know necessarily that you're, let's say if I move my hand from one foot behind to one foot forward, it doesn't necessarily know that I've moved my hand one foot forward. So with the ultrasonic, it actually knows that all the time between my hand being here and here has changed. It can emulate that onto the screen. So you have just told Matt and I in the Mumble Room about two different types of interface devices, not even counting Oculus Rift, but let's throw that in there.

So three different types of brand new ways to interact with your computer. And I can't help thinking all of these you could see working on the Steam box before you see them working anywhere else. That's true. Because all Valve has to do is place a call to these guys, these little guys, right? I mean, dude, if you're making this controller on your 3D printer and Gabe calls you up, yeah, you're going to answer that call.

And if Gabe says, hi there, we'd like to work with you to integrate support for this into SteamOS, shit, yeah, you're going to do that. And you see how they have such an advantage here if they just grasp it by the sack. You know what I want to see? So this was talked about in the mumble room before the show. Razer was there, big gaming company, showing off one gaming-related item and one non-gaming-related item.

The gaming-related item is called Project Christine. Right, the modular PC. We talked about this on last. Yeah, we had an actual private interview. We got an interview. We got pictures. We got video of the whole thing. Oh, that's going to be a video to watch.

Yeah. Now, we weren't able to actually touch any of the modules. Oh, okay. Well, yes and no. So they had two systems pre-set up, okay? So basically, I don't know if you've seen pictures of Project Christine, but it's a modular-based system that is, of course, a concept at this point for them. Right. Very much so.

Very much so. Very much so. However, it looks phenomenal. And you know what? I take that back when I said I didn't see Tux. Tux was there. Tux was there at the Razer booth. Oh, really? Because on the front of Project Christine's box is a touchscreen.

Yeah. We were talking about this in the last. It looked very high-tech. In fact, Matt said he'd buy it because of the screen alone. This is true. Well, the screen actually had three logos on it. It had a Tux logo. It had a Windows logo, and I forget the third logo.

It wasn't Steam or anything. But, yeah, it is fully modular. So on the back, you pop in your SSDs. You pop in your memory and your CPU. The power supply is also module. And it just looks very, very sexy. It's very, very nice. Now, granted, though, it's very, very proprietary.

Sure, sure. And so we were – Blackout24 probably, an OSD Warp logo. Sorry. Haven't seen that busted out in a while. So they obviously didn't have a price point for us, but they did tell us some really cool details on what their thoughts were on this. Oh, yeah.

But it's one of those things where it'd be good for the beginner, quote-unquote. Yeah. And Joe and I uh the the the co-host on minecraft me and we were talking about this in a theoretical sense what if they set this up like a cell phone where you buy the system so for say two to three hundred dollars you sign a two-year agreement you pay a hundred dollars a month and as they update modules, you get an upgrade. Yeah, in fact, I think Razer was even talking about a subscription service.

Yeah. So I thought Matt made a throwaway remark on the Linux Action Show on Sunday that I thought was really poignant. And Matt said, if people will buy the Mac Pro, people might buy this Razer PC because it has a lot of advantages of a Mac Pro with that oil cooling. Yeah. Right? It's super slick looking, but it's way more powerful. But here's the big but, right? Well, potentially more powerful.

Yeah. Big but here. With Apple, you know that they're not going to go away tomorrow, right? You know that, I mean, they've been around for a while. You know they're going to support their devices for a while. The parts that you buy for it are not really proprietary. Do you really know the Mac Pro is going to be around for a while. You know they're going to support their devices for a while. The parts that you buy for it are not really proprietary. Do you really know the Mac Pro is going to be around for a while? I don't think you do.

Yeah, they change and drop stuff enough to where it's kind of like the company itself. But I think that form factors and such, it's like, you know what we need? We need a garbage can that runs software. They put that out there. I was just like, wow, really? If you came to me from five years in the future and you said, yeah, well, that was the last Mac Pro Apple ever made, you would not surprise me. So I see what you're saying, whereas Razer could start it and then never make another

one. But I'm very, very afraid because if I wanted to get a new hard drive, I would have no choice but to go through Razer. I have no other options, right? Yeah, that sucks. That's actually a good point. Yeah, that does suck. I mean, obviously, I think it was iFixit that did the breakdown of the new Mac Pro.

Yeah. Granted, there is no way of doing it at this point. But you can swap out the parts. You could drop in a new CPU. You could. Or a new SSD. That's going to be such a closed environment on the Razer side of things. You've got to buy a Razer component.

You're going to have to buy a Razer component. Without oil cooling hookup. Or without voiding your warranty and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So, going to have to buy a Razer component. Without oil, cooling, hookup. Or without voiding your warranty, etc. etc. Wow. Cold water poured on that one. Sorry. I just thought it would be the ultimate Linux rig. No, I bet it would. I bet it would be incredible. I mean, the thing is, right,

here's the only thing, though. If you're going to buy one, if they ever come out with it, first off, if you're going to buy it after it comes out, maybe wait six months and then buy it, don't be an early adopter on it, first off. If you're going to buy it after it comes out, maybe wait six months and then buy it. Don't be an early adopter on it, even though it's very, very cool, Matt. Even though that screen is awesome. Got away. Got away. Well, so I feel like we're doing a disservice. Now, I don't really... We got to talk about 4K, but I don't mean in a TV sense. Did you

see any computer monitors you could actually see yourself buying? I'm picturing GNOME 3 talk about 4K, but I don't mean in a TV sense. Did you see any computer monitors you could actually see yourself buying? I'm picturing GNOME 3 on a 4K display. Yes, yes. LG had an incredible 21 by 9 ratio. 21 by 9? That makes me uncomfortable on the inside. It's ultra wide, Chris. It's very ultra wide.

That sounds ultra wide. Yeah, I know it is. But LG had a few monitors there. And actually, I think you're going to bring up one of the – Ah, yeah, I saw that there. They're a 30-inch guy. What did you think of this? Oh, my God.

So you could put literally four 1080p screens on here. Four 1080p screens. Four 1080p. So corner, corner, corner, corner. Wow. I mean, for video editing, this is... Oh, oh. You know, when I went over there in the, I think, one of their spokesmodels, and yeah,

she was pretty hot. I was like, I so want this right now. It's so cool. Now, granted, though, the problem is when you're looking at super high def or ultra high def or 4K or however you want to explain it, you've got to make sure that you have a pretty good video card that can push this thing. Right. Because remember, it's not just the size of the monitor.

It's the resolution. It's the pixels. And that's so much bandwidth. Oh. Oh, it is. Yeah. And I've heard, like, in some cases what they're doing is they're splitting it into two 1080p signals. And what they're doing is – that's not even a fair way to say it, but they're essentially halving it.

So you have sort of like we used to have— Half the screen's handling the one side, half the screen's the other side. Yeah, thank you. So maybe that makes it a little more accommodable, but— Well, here's the good news, right? DisplayPort, I believe, handles 4K signal just fine. I also believe the new HDMI spec 1.4— I could be wrong there, also handles that new spec as well. So you still just have one cable going to your monitor.

But the thing is, like you, Chris, I see this as a great production tool. For gaming, probably not. Sorry, gamers. And the reason for that is simple. While it would be great to have that that big real estate you can get big real estate now and don't need 4k high def i mean a lot of games will probably not even right now with the current graphics that are out there would probably struggle with that kind of resolution i'm looking at how wide this is yeah and there's really no way to

visualize this unless you're looking at the video version of this show but i'm not and not even the quality either it's like 216 by 9 displays put together yeah in length yeah and width it's beautiful you you could watch for example a theater movie without bars because it's at the correct theater aspect ratio i was just thinking you know when i'm doing this show uh you know i've got one two three four five you could do it all on one chris yeah i got five screens going right you could literally do this on one or maybe just two because you know you want to well yeah it's beyond it's gotta look like a cockpit after all yeah i uh i'd like you to try to mirror that twice i know right yeah it's gonna make uh mirroring displays to the live stream capture a little more difficult of

course 4k live streams are gonna be a little ways out, you know, I've heard podcasters go like, hey, I want to do a 1080p live stream. I'm thinking no one's going to be able to watch it. Right. And now 4K? Yeah. I mean, who's going to want to see the pores on my skin? Exactly.

But for video game reviews and software reviews, I'd want it. You know what? It reminds me of... Maybe the web's going to be okay with HD for a long time. We saw this already in Back to the Future 2 when Marty sat down from his long day at work and said, show me 17, 45, 37, and then Weather Channel. And it was all on one big panel, right? So we're seeing the future come to light.

So true. So true. Well, we've got to shift gears here. I want to talk about some big news. There was a really big Linux gadget for the home that was purchased recently, and I want to talk about that briefly. But before we get to that, I've got to thank Ting.com, another sponsor of Linux Unplugged, and Ting is mobile that makes sense. My mobile service provider and Matt's mobile service provider. Matt's rocking the Note 2. I'm rocking the Nexus 5 right here. What do you think, Chase? You know what? Speaking of phones,

my HTC One's coming back, but I'm really close to jumping ship to something else. Well, you might consider the Nexus 5. I mean, that weight, it definitely beats the HTC One there, and I love the screen too, and the thinness. Yeah. So let's talk about Ting. So go over to linux.ting.com. That's how you're going to get started. If you go to linux.ting.com, that'll take $25 off your first device if you don't have one. If you've got a Sprint-compatible device, they've got a BYOD page. You can check out what is compatible with the Ting network. If you I know that? Because hundreds of Linux Action Show and Linux Unplugged and Coder Radio and TechSnap fans have switched over to Ting, and there's a good reason. You only pay for what you use. They take your minutes, your messages, and your megabytes. At the end of the month, they add them all up, whatever bucket you fall into. That's what you pay over at Ting.com. Plus, they have an incredibly powerful dashboard. And if you've struggled managing your wireless account, setting up where calls go, setting up call forwarding,

setting up and deactivating phones, let me tell you, Ting refreshes all of that. They bring it into the 2000s and even into 2014. That's right. Ting has a 2014 compatible dashboard. And I suggest you go over to linux.ting.com to get started. And by the way, now's a better time than ever. They have a savings calculator that's linked right at the beginning, right there at the front. When you go to linux.ting.com, if you use that savings calculator, plug in your existing wireless bill. Like Mr. Chase over here, he has one of the top two. And if you went over there and plugged in his wireless bill, he might shed a tear. A singular tear. I will say this. I'm i'm very very close to my

unlimited data because i'm one of the few people that still have it and i have done this yeah and if i honestly didn't have unlimited data do it then i would do this well see and this is great for me because i was in your i was in your same position but what i realized is that i had this massive voice contract that i was i was using a tiny fraction of. I was paying... Oh, we have the voice. We overpay for voice so much. I was paying $120 per month for my smartphone plan. Now I pay around $30 per month. I get Tethering and Hotspot included, which is amazing.

It uses just the built-in Android features. And if you try out their savings calculator and you tweet out your results, you'll be entered into a drawing to one of the Samsung Galaxy S4 for free. Plus there's going to be other lucky TING contestants who get a $50 Ting credit. So if you go over to linux.ting.com, use that savings calculator, which is linked right there in the middle of the page with all of the happy people. You try that out, tweet out your savings results, Bob's your uncle,

you can get entered to draw a Samsung Galaxy S4 from Ting. And I'm telling you, you're going to be so happy. It's the beginning of a new year, folks. 2014 just started. Now's a better time than ever to go save by going to linux.ting.com and find out what I've been talking about and why I've been a happy customer for over a year now. linux.ting.com

And a huge thank you to Ting for sponsoring Linux Unplugged. I'm serious, you guys. Bob's your uncle. This is a cell phone company that is doing it right, and we should support them for doing it right. They're going to clean up the wireless industry one customer at a time, and I really mean it. Okay. So, Chase, since you're here.

Yes. I felt like it would only be appropriate in the spirit of Linux Unplugged, we should play a news clip. So, right now, on the show. I know, right? Breaking news. Wait, wait, wait. Today's Tuesday, right? I just want to make sure. Here we go. Google buys Nest Labs for $3.2 billion. In a surprising move, Google is getting into the home appliance business.

The Internet company announced Monday that they're buying Nest Labs for more than $3 billion. The Internet company announced Monday that they're buying Nest Labs for more than $3 billion. Nest is known for reinventing home products like high-tech thermostats and smoke detectors. This is Google's second largest acquisition to date, and it's all part of its expansion into your home. So let's talk about this. Let's obviously bring back in Chief Business Correspondent Christine Romans. Surprising? Do you think it's a surprising move? I think this is Google wants to be a part of this home appliance interconnected world. Like, look, what Nest does, it's this really cool device that it knows.

It starts to learn your behavior and changes the temperature of your home based on what you're doing. It also has these really cool smoke detectors that are not annoying. There's actually a woman's voice that says, there is smoke detected. And it's not like screaming at you. You can wave your hand and it will go off. So it's very user-friendly stuff. It's interesting. The guy who runs the company, used to be at Apple, helped design the iPod. You know, changed the clunky Walkman into something that's cool and user-friendly.

Now doing the same thing with home appliances. I think it's a total natural fit for Google to get into this. What's so cool about Nest is Nest getting to know about you. Nest discovers you. Google obviously does the same thing. Is that the synergy here? Is this just a way for Google to get more places and find out more stuff about you? I mean, Google will now know what the temperature is in your bedroom, John Berman, if you have a Nest.

Oh, geez. Yeah, so Google has bought one of the biggest Internet of Things, let's put lots of air quotes around that, device manufacturers Nest Labs for $3.2 billion. That's right, the maker of the smart thermostat and smoke detectors, and they paid for it in cash. Nest has raised around $800 million from investors, including Google Ventures as one of the people. Now, it's not exactly clear how Google plans to use Nest, but the company obviously

sees it as an important part of its future. A combination of Nest Home Solutions coupled with Google's language recognition could give Google its strongest path yet into your home. And this is a quote here. Google will help us fully realize our vision of the conscious home and allow us to change the world faster than we could if we continue to go it alone, wrote the owner of Nest Labs. We've got great momentum, and now we've got a rocket ship. So, guys. I'm afraid. I'm sorry.

Are you a little comfortable? Google's already everywhere. We don't need them in our homes. Do you guys remember those, um, there was like a comic strip a while back with Google Toilet, where Google was analyzing what you were eating

and recommending restaurants for you. Oh, jeez. I guess it's becoming real now. I think that we should get it out of here. Nice. I like how you're indirectly asking for a... Get it out of here. ...RMS quote.

I think we should rename the show Linux Unfiltered. Well, so let's be honest. Don't we all want to live with Jarvis? Don't we all want the Starship Enterprise where when something bad happens, we can look around and we can just say, I want to know. I want to have Majel Barrett at the ready and say, you know, tea, Earl Grey hot. And maybe Google's the company to make all of this happen. Matt, what do you think?

Honestly, I think that this is going to be about as compelling as, I don't know, an AltaVista purchase or something like that. You know, I don't really see this as being that big a deal. First of all, Nest doesn't work very well. I'm just going to put that out there. I know people that have tried it and used it, and it's kind of like an Android-powered crockpot. It's cool for a while, but it's not really going to be as cost-savings as people think. Be careful making fun of Android-powered crockpots. I saw one at the show.

They exist. Does it put the food in it for me, though? Unfortunately, it does not. And my wife brought up a very good point. If you left your food raw sitting in that crockpot for X period of time and then you're turning it on, is it safe to eat? Yeah. So there's little things like that. I don't know.

I definitely am – I'm kind of lukewarm on it. I think it was a big drain. Where was Android when Google bought Android? Well, nowhere. Exactly. The same place the guy that created DOS was before Microsoft bought it. Here's what I ask you, my friends, is are we concerned at all about, and let's abuse the term, quote-unquote, Internet of Things. Are we all concerned about the Internet of Things being these Linux-based devices that we have no control over? We have no access to the source code. And now that we are

putting them in our home, we're installing them into our home, we're putting them on our walls, we're integrating them in with our daily lives. As a homeowner, don't you want to be able to build and extend your deck? Don't you want to be able to alter the way your furnace works? Aren't we becoming the operators of the devices instead of the controller of the devices in our very own home? Aren't we surrendering control of our homes, even if it's just in the smallest degree, even if it's just in the most minute way, aren't we surrendering control of our homes to corporations?

I think the omnis had it right. You know, technology has just taken over us. We don't need it, really, the omnis. Well, let me ask you just taken over us we don't need it really the omni well let me ask you chase i'll ask you this um i honestly am pretty much a stupid hairless monkey and i can barely keep my shit together and i'm amazed you have a luscious beard though and i gotta tell you it impresses me that i managed to show up and do a show every single day i don't even know how that happened right and i believe it is only because of technology that i can get this far. So maybe this stupid hairless monkey who's only been out of the jungle for a few thousand years, maybe I need more technology to make me more of a superior being.

Am I just being afraid to change? Am I just, this is new, this is different, I don't like it. See, I like Nest. I don't have one yet and I want to get one just because of the fact that there's some really cool innovations in the home automation world and the home technology front. And to have those abilities to help make your life easier. I mean, let's say, for example, you're cooking in the kitchen. Okay. And I know you like to do the paleo thing. You're making some really good ribs. You're making some good stuff. But let's say you accidentally burn something. Maybe the bacon catches on fire. Maybe it does.

Grease fires happen, Chase. They do, unfortunately. Let's say your detector's going off. What do you do today? You open up all the windows. You clear it out. I wave it with a towel or something. Wouldn't it be easier just to pop up your phone and say,

false alarm, done, and it's off? It's those innovations that help make your life easier. And I don't see Google – this is where I kind of get weird by it. It's like, what is Google going to be doing with this? Now, a lot of people forget, in the past, Google had – they worked with some power companies. I don't know if it's called Google Power. Yeah, I remember this.

But you have the ability to track your power usage. Right. And by the way, during this time, during this study, which I believe this has actually now been discontinued by Google, Google figured out, and this is not a joke. You can look this up. They figured out what shows you were watching based on the power draw of your plasma TV. Whoa. Because when your plasma TV is brighter, it draws more power.

And they would watch which shows had more white in them. They could figure out an algorithm. And then watching your power draw, they could figure out what shows you were watching at what time. Yeah. I like this technology. Actually, I got some Kickstarters that I still have yet to get here. One's a plug that works off of Wi-Fi. You plug it in the outlet, and it tells you the draw from that outlet.

Yeah, I like that a lot. Kilowatts are great. Yeah, one that runs off of the meter itself so you know the measurement of the power coming in your house. Creepy, man. But I like having that information because it makes me a smarter person. That's why I'm wearing a Fitbit right now. I like to track my sleep. So why wouldn't you want that on a house level? Why wouldn't you want that kind of customizable information on a house level?

I do, but I don't want it reporting back to some central cloud computing company. Okay, so as someone who plays with thermostats quite a bit, I can tell you that most of what Nest is doing, you can achieve

by using Arduino with a Bluetooth shield. Yeah, that's true. It, ding, ding, ding. Yeah, that's true. It's not that hard to do. It's all smoke and mirrors. What they provide is just a nice box

and a solution that you can just plug in and it works. So with a little bit of effort, you can have the same thing running that's open source, open hardware, and you have full control over what information it's collecting and where that information is going. True, but you have to set all that up yourself. And Matt, it looks familiar as bringing it up in the chat room, but in a post-Edward Snowden world where we know that the NSA is working with all of these companies, Google being one of them, should we be worried about some sort of privacy invasion here from government ovaries? I think so. Yeah, I think home automation is cool for those – the very, very minute part of the population that really cares.

I think that it's very cool, but I think that it's – for Google to spend this much money on it, I think they're kidding themselves. As someone that works in this industry, I'm telling you they don't have any idea how hard it is to get people to adopt stuff like this. They have no concept. They went into this blind, they overpaid, and they have a really great way of doing it. Don't get me wrong. I mean, as far as like interface and equipment and all that, it's really glossy, really sexy stuff. No question there. And it is cool to be able to like turn your smoke detector off. But as far as there's other variables with regarding to, especially like with thermostats and stuff like that, energy prices, weather outside, there's a lot of things going on that people don't realize

that Nest does not address. And the gentleman that brought up the whole point on the managing your own thermostat, that's what Nest does. That's literally, that's their big claim to fame. It's really weak. 3.2 billion is not that much for Google. Not for Google, no.

A lot of it was patents, too. They probably did it for patents. I think they did it as a preventive measure. They know right now it has no value. They know that in the future it has a huge value. Just a straight tie-in with Google Now. Google Now knows where you're at,

when you're at that place. Maybe you're on your way home. Google Now has detected you're at, when you're at that place. They did it for data. And maybe you're on your way home. Google Now would say, has detected, by the way, you've set home on your map destinations. So we will automatically turn on the heater in your house so your house is comfortable. And, you know, of course, the only thing I can think about these days is the't it be cool if some thermostat learned when I showed up to do shows and made sure that I was comfortable when I got there and then was saved money when I left? And I look at this and I think, I don't like all the privacy implications, but I sure like not having to worry about one more thing. One more thing that I don't have to think about is worth a lot to me. Right, exactly.

Exactly. Well, once again, you could do that. Like something as simple as this can actually be done with any thermostat. Yeah, any programmable thermostat that you can buy in any hardware store. That's fine for you and I, but you're not going to convince grandma and grandpa who are shopping at Walmart to buy this. But what will happen in five years, in 10 years? If you look at Android, at the beginning, it was nothing. Look at it now. In the meantime, it was all open source rate. Now it's closing to Google now. What will happen with this? Right. This is the big concern. And not only now, it's one thing when we're talking about our laptops and our desktop, and we're talking about

closed and proprietary software that we can't do anything about. But it completely is different when it's a piece of hardware that controls my home. If there's ever been a case for the GPL, it's right there in my opinion. And it's hardware in your home. That's the other thing. Another thing that I want to point out, and you mentioned the whole post-Snowden thing. Snowden thing. I think it's just a matter of time now before products start appearing on the market as competition to Google, as more people become aware of that, you know, their personal information being reported back and used for marketing and sometimes being reported to governments. There's

going to be a competitor market where they use, you know words like respecting your privacy as a sure something that uh people will want to buy it's a feature they can become competitive yes yeah the same way people buy stuff because it's green now or organic right yeah yeah i i can see that for sure it's yeah exactly boy that's a great sort of like things are labeled organic you could have things that are labeled secure in that same sort of marketing sense. Yeah. And that was one of my 24-week things. And then of course, there's certified organic and then there's organic. Certified to be, and you know, Mozilla has been making this case right this very week. Mozilla has been calling on the internet community to say, look, there's only one browser that is truly

open source top to bottom that is used by the majority of users on the web, and that's Firefox. Chrome's great, but if you want top to bottom transparency, you've got to come to Mozilla. Now, obviously, there's other browsers out there that are open source, but in terms of usage, Firefox, aka Mozilla, makes a very good point here. And this could be a point, and you already see people that are using this as a feature, right? John McAfee, he's all over the web right now talking about how he's building an NSA-proof appliance. In our subreddit right now, there's a thread about the NSA-proof Twitter. This is becoming a marketing buzz. So yeah, I think maybe we've got it nailed here. Some people buy devices that are tied in with this overall monitoring network, and there'll be users like us who are willing to maybe go a little bit extra through

the trouble, a little bit extra through the trouble, a little bit extra. Maybe we have to get a specific image. Maybe we have to buy a Raspberry Pi, but we can roll our own solution. What a great way to kickstart the economy, create a problem, offer a solution. And I think this is going to become a push not only for open source software, but also for open source hardware. Because then that manufacturer or the company can say hey people can actually review what goes into our products and tell you yes this actually

respects your privacy this doesn't report anything you wouldn't want to anyone else the only problem with all that is you know, obviously the end company or the maker of that wants to make money, right? Of course, you know, that's what drives a lot of people. And when you completely make it fully open like that, how do you protect IP? How do you protect your intellectual property on that kind of a system if you have it completely wide open? Right. We've seen it work in some cases for like a server load where you got Red Hat and they can sell commercial support. But how do you make it work? And let's go into the future here.

How do you make it work in a world? Yeah. How do you make it work when anybody can download a spec off the internet and print their own device? And then they load the software themselves. How do you stay competitive? Because that is a reality we are facing. It's very big.

Well, I can tell you right now and you've admitted to this yourself a few minutes before, sometimes just because it takes a little bit more effort, it's already too much for some people to be interested. If it takes

you building your own Arduino with a shield to make a secure nest-like thermostat, it's already too much work. So you prefer to pay someone else to do that work for you. else creates fork of some open source project, then it doesn't necessarily mean that it will be

done as well. Like Arduino being a great example here, there is many copies of Arduino. Many of them are good but no one actually provides as good of a quality product as the original makers of Arduino.

Right. Yeah, that's a great point. I'm just waiting for the day that Jarvis becomes reality. That would be awesome. Google is definitely working on it. And, you know, speaking of Jarvis becoming reality, one of the things that sometimes feels a bit like the future is when your computer talks to you. And there's a really important kick – or actually, it's an Indiegogo campaign that just kicked off this week, bringing digital sight to the vision impaired by the Accessible Foundation.

This is an Indiegogo project. They got 31 days left. They're trying to reach $100,000. They got $4,400. Now, I'm a big believer in these types of campaigns being a great way to fund open source development. And what these guys really want to do is they want to get Orca Screenreader to the next level. They want to bring it to the next level to make it accessible for the blind. And if you've got any kind of extra funds and a soft spot for this kind

of thing, I'm going to link to it in the show notes. I just want to give it a plug now. You can go over to Indiegogo.com and also search for Bringing Digital Site, and I think that will bring you to the project as well. They're only at $4,400, 31 days left to go. Orca Screenreader is a great project, and it just needs some more love. Well, they're trying to get to 100K. I submitted it to the subreddit earlier. It looks like it's actually doing pretty well. It is, yeah.

The big issue here is a lot of people think, yeah, but that doesn't really affect me. And it's kind of like, well, here's the deal. So proprietary desktops have this solved for years now. It's really not an issue. So it's a non-starter for them. For Linux, it's something we've tripped over for years. And we've seen all these quasi-half-done, kind of sort of started projects that then falter and fall apart and never really become a thing. Ork is the only thing that's really ever stuck around

and stayed, but it has kind of hit a glass ceiling, and it does need some serious fundage. Yeah. So I'll put a link down in the show notes if this is something you guys have some interest in. I'd love to see these guys get somewhere, because, you know... About adoption. Yeah, it really is, and it's about making Linux accessible to a whole

new class of folks who really deserve it. And then we got an email. I want to just wrap it up with an email from George. He says, hey, guys, congrats on the show. It's become the highlight of my week online. I wanted to say something about your reviews. Don't get me wrong.

I completely understand the big development team slash company, like SUSE, Canonical, versus the smaller development teams, like your Mintz and your Mangeros, situation that these smaller distros might not exist one day or in the near future. But I believe that there is innovation in usability, ideas, and custom solutions comes from these smaller teams. And the only thing that they have in mind is the target of how to offer the user something completely new and different from the established. There are distros out there that offer exactly that. And you know what? the established. There are distros out there that offer exactly that. And you know what? It doesn't matter that they disappear from one day because plenty will replace them and innovation never ends. Having said that, it would be nice to do a review of some of the smaller distros that

are simply wonderful to use. How about Sabian 1401 for rolling or Netrunner 1312, which beats Kubuntu by a long way. Just giving food for thought. Keep up the good work. So, Matt, I have created in the show notes, just like a boss, I embedded them right in the show notes, a survey that folks, actually not even a survey. It's a quick form that folks can fill out and answer which distro they think is the innovative little guy. Is there a small distro that just at some point has impressed the heck out of you? If you've been impressed by a little distro

and you want to get a review on the Linux Action Show, there is an embedded form in the show notes. I'll also paste it in the IRC chat room for those of you watching live right now. You can go out there and fill it out. It's three simple questions, the name of the distro, the website URL, and what you thought was great about it. You submit those to us. I'll

collect all of them, and then we'll do, whichever one kind of comes ahead, we'll do a review on the Linux Action Show in the future. What do you think of that, Matt? I like that. It's a good idea. Yeah, I mean, personally, I'm kind of throwing my hat into Hanna-Montana Linux, but that's just me. I mean, it's a struggling distro. What about Rebecca Black Linux? Can we? Well, you know, I like the pink of the Hanna-Montana. Montana. You know, it really pinks up the whole situation. That's true. I do like the pink. That's a good point, Matt. So go fill out that form. We'll have it embedded in the show notes. And in a future episode of Linux Action Show, we'll give that distro review right there.

And, you know, I'd really like to find something that does something new and unique, something really kind of innovative that we haven't seen before. And see, that's the real challenge I have with a lot of the distro reviews, is that people will say it does, but they never really identify what it is. So, I mean, like with Arch, it's readily identifiable. They did package management in a unique way. They did basic

installation in a unique way. Everything was done in a very... They did everything right. Arch is the master distro. I agree. It really is. Arch is perfect. But then finding other ones that are basically, it's kind of like, eh, it's kind of like this other one. I don't know really is. Arch is perfect. So it's kind of, then finding other ones that are basically, it's kind of like, it's kind of like this other one. I don't know.

Well, we'll see. We'll see what they come up with. Well, I agree. And I think it could be a fun segment. We're going to call it The Innovative Little Guy and we'll give it a review. Maybe we can make a whole series out of it.

You never know. Never know. Never know. Well, I want to thank you, Mr. Chase, for joining us. Oh, it's been a pleasure. You're going to have a ton of CES coverage. Where can people find that?

All week, geekgamer.tv. It'll be out over the next week to two weeks. Should be a lot of great stuff on there. And probably you'll give notices on Twitter. Where can people follow you on Twitter? At Nunes, N-U-N-E-S is the best place to follow me on the Twitters. Very good. All right, Matt. Well, if everything goes as planned on Sunday, we're going to have an interview with an amazingly talented photographer who does his entire workflow under Linux, including HDR photography. And we're going to pick his brain and get his workflow. Awesome.

Cool. That's really cool. I can't wait for that. That's going to be a great show. So, all right, man. Well, I'll see you on Sunday, okay? See you Sunday. All right, everyone.

Thank you so much for tuning in to this week's episode of Linux Unplugged. We'll see you right back here next Tuesday.