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System76 Teases COSMIC Theme Constellations for Its COSMIC Desktop

After Frosted Glass, System76 is now working on another cool feature that will probably boost the adoption of the COSMIC desktop environment amongst Linux users. The feature is called COSMIC Theme Constellations and consists of bundled themes with wallpaper, accent colors, icons, and fonts.

GStreamer 1.28.9 Multimedia Framework Adds Support for mpph264enc Encoder

Coming a month after GStreamer 1.28.8, the GStreamer 1.28.9 release adds 24-bit support to the level element, support for the mpph264enc (Rockchip) encoder to webrtcsink, and enables cross-compilation with sysroot for Rust plugins in the Meson build.

Calibre 9.18 Open-Source E-Book Manager Adds New Tool to Make Books Accessible

Coming two weeks after Calibre 9.17, the Calibre 9.18 release adds a new tool to make e-books accessible and check for accessibility problems, and adds support for viewing color previews in the e-book editor as an underline and allows Ctrl-clicking on colors to change them using a color wheel.

Sigil 2.8.5 Open-Source EPUB Editor Released with Modern CSS Parsing

Sigil 2.8.5 is here to replace the outdated CSS parser with a modern, spec-compliant parser based on Lexbor, and adds support for AVIF and JPEG XL images, along with support for polyfilling JPEG XL images in the Preview window using a URL scheme handler and the JPEG format.

schestowitz.com

Enzo Loses His Mojo

Arsenal happy

“Sacrifices”

You live once, make it count

After Two Consecutive Losses in the PL

Back to winning streak? (In PL, not CL)

Manchester City Council Report Card – Part 5 – Private Businesses, Not Public Services

For profit, against citizens?

Manchester City Council Report Card – Part 4 – Moving Towards “Network States” With Corporations, Not Public Servants

Like G4S in Manchester

Techrights at 20

Soon

Transnational Swatting

Need to raise awarness among ministers

Another SLAPP: “Russian billionaire Vitaly Orlov lawsuit against the Barents Observer is absurd and dirty”

Reproduced in full for more exposure and to make censorship harder

Finding New Whistleblowers

Promising times ahead

Manchester City Council Report Card – Part 3 – Unfriendly Staff

“Customer Service” 101 is something like “Customer is Always Right”

LinuxGizmos.com

Home Assistant-compatible board pairs ESP32-S3 and ESP32-P4

Crowd Supply has introduced a campaign for LocalDot, an open-hardware board developed by AAElectronics that converts third-generation Amazon Echo Dots into Home Assistant voice devices. The 83 × 37mm PCB uses an ESP32-S3 and ESP32-P4 for connectivity and audio processing while retaining the original microphones, speaker, buttons, and LEDs.

ESP32-P4 development boards combine RISC-V with Wi-Fi 6 or PoE

SparkFun today launched two ESP32-P4-based IoT RedBoards, offering either dual-band Wi-Fi 6 through an ESP32-C5 companion or wired Ethernet with Power over Ethernet. Both boards feature dual-core RISC-V processing, 32MB PSRAM, 16MB flash, MIPI camera and display connectors, and Arduino-style expansion headers for embedded and HMI applications.

ESP32-S3 USB dongle adds microphone, IR and hardware security

LILYGO has expanded its T-Dongle lineup with the T-Dongle S3 Plus, an ESP32-S3 development board housed in a transparent USB flash-drive enclosure. The device combines a 0.96-inch color display, 16MB flash, 8MB PSRAM, and microSD storage with additional features including a microphone, infrared functionality, and an optional hardware security chip.

news

Today in Techrights

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Aug 17, 2026

Fisherman In Against Haifa Harbor

Updated This Past Day

Updates:

  1. A Vortex of Beacons (or "Bluetooth Everywhere" Vision)
    If someone (or someones) calls you paranoid for taking about "beacon"-like functionality, there will be no lack of authoritative citations (e.g. Web links) they can be provided to prove them wrong
  2. IBM May be Sued for Mass Layoffs Via PIPs
    Some whole threads (with all the long comments in them) recently got nuked by thelayoff.com
  3. GNU/Linux is a Platform for Work (Usage Surges in Daytime)
    GNU/Linux 15% in daytime

New:

  1. IRC Proceedings: Sunday, August 16, 2026
    IRC logs for Sunday, August 16, 2026
  2. Falkland Islands: GNU/Linux Elevated to 6%
    GNU/Linux usage seems to have increased a lot there
  3. Links 16/08/2026: Reading Outside, Going Offline More, and Art of Computer Programming
    Links for the day
  4. The Question of Patience
    Is there a lesson here somewhere?
  5. Links 16/08/2026: Ceuta Reports Social Control Media Used as a Weapon
    Links for the day
  6. Links 16/08/2026: Europe in Crisis of Droughts While Energy- and Water-Consuming, Pollution-Emitting Chatbots Are Spread by GAFAM (US) to Keep a Ponzi Scheme Going
    Links for the day
  7. We Need Rain, Not Chatbots
    There's no "anti-AI" (it's not even AI), there's opposition to fraud, to plagiarism, and to companies that profit more when there's global warning (caused in part by their business activities)
  8. SLAPP Censorship - Part 151 Out of 200: Dealing With Sleazy People and Companies That Steal (While Employing These Sleazy People)
    we offer a quick summary and we're reflecting
  9. Over at Tux Machines...
    GNU/Linux news for the past day
  10. IRC Proceedings: Saturday, August 15, 2026
    IRC logs for Saturday, August 15, 2026
  11. Gemini Links 16/08/2026: Sterrenkijker Releases, Solar Gemini Server
    Links for the day

The corresponding text-only bulletin for Sunday contains all the text.

Top-read articles (excluding bot/crawler visits):

Span from 2026-08-10 to 2026-08-16
5020 /irc.shtml
3254 /index.shtml
2883 /browse/latest.shtml
2379 /browse/index.shtml
1132 /about.shtml
852 /litigation.shtml
822 /n/2026/08/10/Escaping_Ads.shtml
814 /n/2026/08/14/Over_at_Tux_Machines.shtml
806 /intro.shtml
791 /n/2026/08/10/Claims_of_Mass_Layoffs_at_IBM_in_Finance.shtml
749 /n/2026/08/10/Over_at_Tux_Machines.shtml
742 /n/2026/08/10/Microsoft_Killing_Morale.shtml
732 /n/2026/08/12/3_Voluntary_Layoffs_and_Proper_Layoffs_at_IBM_This_Year.shtml
730 /n/2026/08/13/Racing_Towards_Woman_Zero.shtml
729 /n/2026/08/14/Free_Publicity.shtml
710 /n/2026/08/13/Cancel_Culture_Isn_t_About_Empathy_It_s_About_Making_Good_Peopl.shtml
708 /n/2026/08/14/Chatbots_LLMs_Are_the_Next_Clown_Computing_Pure_Hype_a_Serious_.shtml
700 /n/2026/08/12/Over_at_Tux_Machines.shtml
697 /n/2026/08/14/Links_14_08_2026_Slop_Music_Causing_Problems_Slop_Data_Centre_C.shtml
679 /n/2026/08/11/Over_at_Tux_Machines.shtml
671 /n/2026/08/13/Over_at_Tux_Machines.shtml
652 /n/2026/08/13/Daniel_Pocock_in_The_Nerve.shtml
642 /n/2026/08/14/Fake_Growth_of_Social_Control_Media_is_Misleading.shtml
640 /n/2026/08/13/15_of_IBM_Marked_for_Potential_Termination_PIPs_are_the_New_Lay.shtml
631 /n/2026/08/13/Why_Support_Daniel_Pocock.shtml
628 /n/2026/08/14/statCounter_Windows_Down_to_All_Time_Low_of_25_Android_Leads_th.shtml
622 /n/2026/08/14/Explanation_of_What_Will_Happen_to_Red_Hat_and_Other_Acquired_C.shtml
621 /n/2026/08/13/Microsoft_Sees_Windows_on_Fire_Pours_Gasoline_Over_It.shtml
615 /n/2026/08/14/Gemini_Links_14_08_2026_32_bit_RISC_V_and_BlackBerry.shtml
605 /n/2026/08/14/SLAPP_Censorship_Part_149_Out_of_200_It_Took_a_Long_Time_to_Sho.shtml
603 /n/2026/08/14/IRC_Proceedings_Thursday_August_13_2026.shtml
600 /n/2026/08/14/Planet_Fedora_Fedora_People_is_Just_IBM_Staff_Former_IBM_Staff_.shtml
597 /n/2026/08/14/Microsoft_s_Mass_Layoffs_Including_Voluntary_Secret_Layoffs_Tak.shtml
594 /n/2026/08/15/What_I_Learned_in_London.shtml
593 /n/2026/08/12/Links_12_08_2026_X_s_Advertising_Business_Continues_to_Tank_Sto.shtml
586 /n/2026/08/15/Omarchy_is_Already_Dying.shtml
585 /n/2026/08/15/Over_at_Tux_Machines.shtml
582 /n/2026/08/10/When_You_re_Evil_and_You_re_Publicly_Attacking_Something_That_S.shtml
581 /n/2026/08/13/Voluntary_Layoffs_a_Form_of_Silent_Layoffs_Microsoft_Global_Vol.shtml
580 /n/2026/08/14/Links_14_08_2026_Mystery_of_Dark_Oxygen_People_Despise_Slop_and.shtml
578 /n/2026/08/10/Google_s_AI_Overview_as_Proprietary_Censorship_Engine_and_Gatek.shtml
577 /n/2026/08/10/Nigel_Farage_crisis_Taylor_Swift_Jeffrey_Epstein_both_shunned_c.shtml
576 /n/2026/08/14/It_s_Friday_A_Ton_of_People_Departing_From_IBM_and_Red_Hat.shtml
574 /n/2026/08/11/5_1k_Capsules_Known_to_Lupa_Gemini_Protocol_Crawler.shtml
574 /n/2026/08/14/Farage_s_fears_media_hijacked_by_election_what_really_happened_.shtml
574 /n/2026/08/10/Explaining_How_Someone_Attempted_to_Cancel_RMS_This_Year_and_Fa.shtml
572 /n/2026/08/10/When_the_LLM_Chatbots_Industry_Trillions_in_the_Red_Quits_Payin.shtml
569 /n/2026/08/12/Simpler_Means_More_Reliable.shtml
556 /n/2026/08/11/Links_11_08_2026_The_Enemy_Is_the_Platform_and_Vibe_Coding_Show.shtml
556 /n/2026/08/10/SLAPP_Censorship_Part_145_Out_of_200_They_Tried_Hard_to_Hide_th.shtml
555 /n/2026/08/14/GNU_Linux_and_ChromeOS_Beyond_11.shtml
553 /n/2026/08/12/Company_Wide_Reorg_Redundancies_at_IBM_Mark_October_1st_2026_in.shtml
551 /n/2026/08/10/Links_10_08_2026_Against_Oligarch_and_The_Invisible_Women.shtml
551 /n/2026/08/10/DebConf6_fight_denied_by_Google_artificial_intelligence.shtml
547 /n/2026/08/12/Clacton_manifesto_Reform_UK_hacking_leaks_raw_sewage_8GB_Swiss_.shtml
546 /n/2026/08/10/Software_Freedom_Conservancy_SFC_Does_Not_Support_Women_It_Imit.shtml
544 /n/2026/08/14/Gemini_Links_14_08_2026_Slower_Internet_Logging_Off_Made_Easy_a.shtml
544 /n/2026/08/10/statCounter_GNU_Linux_Up_to_8_95_Globally.shtml
541 /n/2026/08/15/Links_15_08_2026_There_Is_No_A_I_Slop_Plagiarism_Isn_t_Intellig.shtml
541 /n/2026/08/12/Links_12_08_2026_Trouble_in_Proprietary_Chaffbot_Company_Open_A.shtml
536 /n/2026/08/11/Gemini_Links_11_08_2026_Waking_Up_Earlier_Whining_About_LLMs_as.shtml

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