Powerplant Ventures closes $42 million fund to back “plant-centric” food and tech startups

ZICO Coconut Water and Powerplant VC founder Mark Rampolla. In recent years, venture capital has poured into food companies, from meal kit and grocery delivery services to the makers of environmentally sustainable, or health-promoting food products.
Now, investors and entrepreneurs from tech, food and the restaurant industry have launched a firm, and closed a $42 million debut fund called Powerplant Ventures, to invest specifically in… Read More

Categories IT

Linux Mint 18 “Sarah” Xfce released!

The team is proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 18 “Sarah” Xfce Edition. Linux Mint 18 Sarah Xfce Edition Linux Mint 18 is a long term support release which will be supported until 2021. It comes with updated software and brings refinements and many new features to make your desktop even more comfortable […]

Intex Sailfish mobile phone running Linux released in India.

There is a new mobile phone available in India. The Intex Sailfish device runs a Linux based operating system and has an ARM CPU. This apparently supports Android *.apk packages, allowing the installation of Android apps. This phone could possibly run normal Linux applications as well as dedicated apps for the phone. This phone features. … Read more

Genovation’s GXE breaks the land speed record for a street-legal all-electric car

maxresdefault-2 You probably aren’t trying to set a land speed record for an all-electric, street legal car, but if you are, I have bad news: The goalposts just got moved further out. Genovation‘s Extreme Electric (GXE) car, which uses a Corvette Z06 chassis with a custom electric drive under the hood, broke its previous record of 186.8 mph by a margin of nearly 20 mph. The new record now stands… Read More

Categories IT

Hanergy to build solar-powered electric cars

Hanergy Solar Vehicles It used to be that only car companies could build cars. But this is the twenty-first century, when seemingly anyone can build a car or four, including a Chinese solar power company. Hanergy Holding Group, which manufactures thin-film solar panels, has created a Solar Vehicle Business Division that debuted four solar-powered prototypes in Beijing. In a world where anyone can come up with an… Read More

Categories IT

New open source Brave browser. A nice change from the Firefox browser.

There is a new web browser out there. Called Brave, this is a secure alternative to Firefox and Chrome. Made by the Made by Mozilla co-founder and ex Mozilla CEO. This is an open-source web browser for Linux and Windows. With built-in HTTPS Everywhere, built-in ad blocker and a built in tracker blocker that blocks … Read more

Ford and MIT project provides on-demand electric shuttles for students

Graduate student Justin Miller and undergrad Wally Wibowo of the Aerospace Controls Lab working on vehicles outfitted with sensors that match those of self-driving cars. This work is part of the Ford-MIT Alliance and aims to predict pedestrian behaviors on short time-scales while also providing data to support a mobility-on-demand system for the MIT campus." Ford is working with MIT on a research project that will deploy a new fleet of on-demand electric shuttles that can ferry students from class-to-class both on campus and on city roads at MIT’s Cambridge, Mass. location. Students can hail one of three electric shuttles using an app on their smartphone, and a driver will arrive quickly to pick them up. The research projects hopes to shed… Read More

Categories IT

Useful Linux tips for the desktop.

This command will capture a screenshot of the desktop and save it to the home directory. jason@neo:~$ import -window root "$HOME/$(date ‘+%y%m%d_%T’).png"jason@neo:~$ import -window root "$HOME/$(date ‘+%y%m%d_%T’).png" This is how to do this with the scrot utility. jason@neo:~$ scrot Desktop-%H:%M:%S-%d-%m.jpgjason@neo:~$ scrot Desktop-%H:%M:%S-%d-%m.jpg Characters preceded by a ‘%’ are interpreted by strftime(2). See man strftime for … Read more

Linux Mint 18 “Sarah” Review : Improved Features With Better Experience.

Some of the features of Linux Mint 18 are as follows: 1) Cinnamon 3.0 : Cinnamon 3.0 has received many new features like – improved tiling, Animation effect to menu, Improved touchpad and sound settings, Panel launch now includes application actions. 2) X-Apps : A new project called “X-Apps” was started and its goal is … Read more

How to create a new user on Linux and add a password in one go.

The useradd command can create a new user on your Linux system. Here is how to add a password as well all in one simple operation. root@neo:/home/jason# useradd -m -s /bin/bash -g users -p $(openssl passwd -1 ff302) randycoleroot@neo:/home/jason# useradd -m -s /bin/bash -g users -p $(openssl passwd -1 ff302) randycole This is a good … Read more

Use the find command in Linux to look for multiple file types at once.

The Linux find command is useful for finding files on your Linux system. It is possible to look for more than one file type. This example will search for all text and png files under the /usr/share directory. jason@neo:/usr/share$ find -regex ‘.*txt\|.*png’jason@neo:/usr/share$ find -regex ‘.*txt\|.*png’ This example will search for three different file types. jason@neo:/usr/share$ … Read more

How to get comprehensive information on HDD errors on Debian.

The smartmontools package for Debian allows the user to get comprehensive hard disk information. This is useful if the hard disk drive is behaving strangely. This might mean it is failing. Install the smartmontools package. root@neo:/home/jason# apt install smartmontoolsroot@neo:/home/jason# apt install smartmontools Now you may check your hard disk drive for any errors. root@neo:/home/jason# smartctl … Read more

How to list only the usernames in the /etc/passwd file on Linux.

This is how to list only the usernames in the /etc/passwd file. A very useful tip indeed. The -f1 parameter is the section that is shown. jason@localhost ~ $ cut -d: -f1 /etc/passwd root bin daemon adm lp sync shutdown halt news uucp operator portage nobody sshd man messagebus jason polkitdjason@localhost ~ $ cut -d: … Read more

Installing Debian from the netinstall ISO image is very easy.

Installing Debian from the minimal netinstall image is very easy indeed. The ISO image is available at this link. http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/8.5.0/amd64/iso-cd/debian-8.5.0-amd64-netinst.iso. This version of the netinstall ISO contains extra firmware if this is required. http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/8.5.0+nonfree/amd64/iso-cd/firmware-8.5.0-amd64-netinst.iso. Now we can begin installation of the Debian distribution. Choose the language for the installation. Now select the country where you … Read more

A few ways to list disk information in Linux Mint.

There are a few ways in Linux Mint to view disk information. The Disks utility found at Preferences->Hardware-Disks allows the viewing of hard disk information. This displays all of the partitions and their types on a selected physical disk. There are options for unmounting partitions, deleting a partition and even more options such as formatting … Read more

SuperTuxKart 0.9.2 Released

Linux gamers all over the world will be happy to hear that a new version
of SuperTuxKart is available. This should strike a nostalgic chord to people
who have used desktop Linux to play games during the past ten years.
more>>

How to toggle the caps lock key with the command line in Linux Mint.

Disable the caps lock key in the command lineDisable caps lock in the GUI Disable the caps lock key in the command line The Caps Lock key may be toggled using the command line. The xdotool utility will do this for you. Firstly, install the utility. jason@jason-virtual-machine ~ $ sudo apt install xdotooljason@jason-virtual-machine ~ $ … Read more