Microsoft creates its own FreeBSD VM Image for Azure Cloud Computing Platform

This year, Microsoft impressed the world with 'Microsoft loves Linux' announcements, like developing a custom Linux-based OS for running Azure Cloud Switch, selecting Ubuntu as the operating system for its Cloud-based Big Data services and bringing the popular Bash shell to Windows 10.

Now, the next big news for open-source community:

Microsoft has released its own custom distribution of FreeBSD 10.3 as a "ready-made" Virtual Machine image in order to make the operating system available directly from the Azure Marketplace.

FreeBSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) is an open source Unix-like advanced computer operating system used to power modern servers, desktops as well as embedded systems.

Until now, the only way for Azure customers to run FreeBSD was to make use of a custom image from outside of Azure (from the FreeBSD Foundation).

However, the new release makes it easier for Azure users to launch FreeBSD directly from the Azure Marketplace and get official support from Microsoft whenever necessary.

Why is it so important for FreeBSD to run on Azure?

According to the company, it’s important for FreeBSD to run in Azure because many top-tier virtual appliance vendors develop their products on the operating system.

However, the key reason for building, testing, releasing and maintaining its own FreeBSD 10.3 image is to ensure its users have an enterprise service level agreement (SLA) for their 

"FreeBSD VMs running in Azure," says Jason Anderson, Principal PM Manager at Microsoft's Open Source Technology Center.

As shown in the image, just click on the +New on the Azure Marketplace tile on your dashboard, Type "FreeBSD 10.3" in the text search box, and here you are.

He also added that Microsoft did so to remove "burden" from the FreeBSD Foundation that fully relies on community contributions.

"We will continue to partner closely with the [FreeBSD] Foundation as we make further investments in FreeBSD on Hyper-V and Azure," Anderson said, as well as add "new Hyper-V features – stay tuned for more information on this!"

The company has previously worked on supporting FreeBSD on Hyper-V as a virtual machine that was aimed at ensuring software appliance partners' kit functioned smoothly in Azure that makes use of Hyper-V.

Samsung introduces its first ever cord free earbuds - For ANDROID ONLY

Samsung showed off its first-ever cord-free earbuds Thursday, extending its line of wearable fitness gadgets.

The Gear IconX has built-in heart rate and distance monitoring that works by using an optical sensor and accelerometer.

The earbuds can play music with or without a phone, and they can take calls when paired with a phone by acting as a Bluetooth headset. They have 4 GB of internal storage and can stream Spotify, Google Music and Pandora (P) through a Bluetooth-connected smartphone. There's also a cool ambient sound feature that lets outside noise blend in with the audio.

I spent a little time wearing them and found the earbuds to be very comfortable and secure. I ran on a treadmill at about 6 mph for two minutes and they felt securely tucked in my ear -- after I found right size plugs. (One of the earbuds fell out about halfway through on my first attempt.)

The sound quality is rich and full, and volume and menu options are accessed through touch control.

The Gear IconX earbuds come in a charging case that can hold two additional full charges. Samsung says battery life should run around one and a half hours if the earbuds are paired to a phone and three hours if they're not.

Cordless earbuds aren't a new concept, but current models tend to be either too expensive with too few features, or inexpensive and questionable quality.

At $200, the Gear IconX isn't exactly cheap, but Samsung will likely offer promotions for the device in the third quarter when they become available. There are three colors -- black, white and blue.

I stopped listening to music at the gym last year after I crushed my iPhone between the pedals of an elliptical machine. Luckily, only the charging port was dented, but it was enough for me to understand that cords and swinging arms don't mix.

Still, cords and wires at least make it easier to find headphones in a bag, and if you lose one of these earbuds, you'll have to buy a whole new set.

Samsung also introduced an update of its Gear Fit activity tracker Thursday.

The Gear Fit2 now has GPS, a much wider screen that displays text vertically and a curvier shape for better fit. The Gear Fit2 also comes in a smaller size.

Like the Gear IconX, the new Fit has 4 GB of storage and Spotify is built in to play play music without a phone. The Gear Fit2 is also waterproof for up to half an hour.

Pre-orders for the Gear Fit2 start Friday for $179.

Raspberry Pi 3 to get official Android OS Support

It's fair to say the success of the ARM-powered Raspberry Pi computers have surpassed expectations and have been a godsend to hobbyists, hackers, and students.

If you're one of those people looking for unofficial hacks to install Android OS on a Raspberry Pi device, then stop and wait for the official release.

Raspberry Pi computers have largely been Linux affairs, as several Linux distributions have supported this tiny ARM computer.

Now, it seems like Raspberry Pi is ready to get official support for one of the most popular mobile operating systems out there: Android.

Google has recently registered the $35 Raspberry Pi 3 ‒ the newest version of the Raspberry Pi ‒ as a new device 'tree' in its Android Open Source Project (AOSP) repository.

If you're not aware, Raspberry Pi is cheap, credit card-sized, single board ARM computer that looks and feels very basic, but could be built into many geeky projects.

What Google is planning for Android and the Pi is unclear. However, once released, Android support for Raspberry Pi 3 would give programmers access to more than 1.5 million apps, allowing them to mess around with their own custom projects too.

Last year at Google I/O developer conference, the company, announced Brillo OS, a lightweight Android-based operating system for low-power devices built on ARM or Intel i.e. the Internet of Things (IoT).

This might be possible that Android support for Raspberry Pi 3 could be part of Project Brillo.

Interested Raspberry Pi enthusiasts should keep an eye on Google’s Repository.

Mediatek’s Pump Express Can Charge a Phone to 70% in 20 Minutes

Samsung and Qualcomm have been busy bundling their newest smartphones with multiple fast-charging standards but none of them is as fast as the one MediaTek has just announced.

The company has just unveiled the new Pump Express 3.0 standard which will be coming out to its phones later this year. The standard will allow your phone to gain up to 70 percent of its battery life in just 20 minutes which is faster than the competition.

Qualcomm’s fast-charging 3.0 can manage to reach 80 percent of the battery in only 35 minutes although there have been faster standards in between from researchers.

Pump Express 3.0 will make an appearance along with the upcoming Helio P20 chipset phones which will start arriving later this year. MediaTek hasn’t announced the capacity of the phone it was charging though.

It claims to have taken 20 safety protection standards to manage security. It manages overheating through something called “Direct Charging”, a solution which bypasses circuitry by routing the current directly from the adapter to the battery.

This is the first time someone is using this solution through the new Type-C connector, which will provide 4 hours of talk time with just 5 minutes of charging. Pump Express 3.0 has the potential to be a good match-winner for MediaTek, though the company must announce details soon.

Microsoft tries its hand at a news bot with Rowe

Like everyone else these days, Microsoft sure loves its bots. Now, the company has rolled out its own news-finding bot called “Rowe,” which lives inside the latest version of Microsoft’s Bing-powered personalized news reading app, News Pro. Rowe is an experiment with helping you keep up with the news that matches your current interests. You can ask the bot to show you news by typing in a topic, view today’s headlines, ask for other personalized suggestions or read the stories the bot has surfaced for you already.

Rowe, however, seems more like an assistive search engine, rather than a true AI-like bot, as its “personalized” suggestions are not as good as its ability to return articles on a given subject. And even then, its results are a bit limited. For example, if you type in a popular, but broad, subject like “U.S. Elections,” the bot returns just three top stories, one of which currently appears to be more of an op-ed/thought piece rather than hard news. That’s not a great experience.

Below its recommended stories, buttons appear that let you pull up more news articles on the subject, like those focused on “election predictions” or “polls,” in this case.

Meanwhile, if you type a news topic that’s a bit more specific, the selection of stories may improve. For instance, asking Rowe about “Twitter 140” — a reference to Twitter’s plans to distance itself from its strict 140-character count rule — the bot returns popular stories from well-known sites like Yahoo, CNET and PCMag.

Rowe has one other weird and not entirely practical trick, too — if you upload a picture of yourself, it will surface news articles where the person in the story looks like you. Why? Uh, because it can? (Oh, and prepare to be either very flattered or very insulted by its results.)

The bot — initially spotted by the blogMSPoweruser.com following Microsoft’sannouncement — is the latest development from Microsoft’s News Pro app, which first debuted this January. A sort of standard news-gathering app, News Pro is Microsoft’s own take on something like Apple News, or the third-party app Smart News, perhaps.

The app offers users a customized experience by connecting to your Facebook and LinkedIn in order to better understand your interests.

In practice, News Pro doesn’t do a great job at personalization yet, I’ve found. While it accurately suggests stories from areas like “computer hardware” and the “Internet” for me, it misses a number of possible suggestions that could be easily pulled from my ever-growing set of Facebook likes.

Similarly, the bot feels rough around the edges, too. But this is not an “official” Microsoft product, we should point out — it’s an app from the company’s internal R&D incubator, Microsoft Garage.

Microsoft is hardly the only company experimenting with new ways to deliver the news via bots, however. Other efforts in the space include those running on Facebook Messenger’s bot platform, like bots from CNN, The WSJ, Business Insider or even yours truly; Telegram’snews bots; or independent efforts like Quartz’s app, and many more.

The updated app also introduces other features, including groups for discussing the news with others, for example.

Rowe is available in the updated News Pro app on iTunes here.