LinuxGizmos.com

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

Crowd Supply has launched 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.

Panther Lake joins AAEON’s Pico-ITX SBC lineup

Measuring just 100 × 72mm, the PICO-PTH4 is described by AAEON as the world’s first Pico-ITX SBC powered by Intel Core Ultra Series 3 processors (Panther Lake). The board supports up to 32GB of LPDDR5X memory, PCIe 5.0 NVMe storage, dual 2.5GbE, and Ubuntu, with up to 180 TOPS of combined AI performance.

9to5Linux

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Sigil 2.8.5 is here to replace the outdated CSS parser with a modern, spec-compliant parser based on Lexbor, and adds support for AVIF and JPEG XL images, along with support for polyfilling JPEG XL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.

OpenVPN 2.7.9 Released with Linux and GUI Improvements, Bug Fixes

OpenVPN 2.7.9 adds support for setting the IFF_BACKPRESSURE flag on Linux (if available) to help the kernel TUN/TAP to apply proper prioritization (qdisc, etc.) to incoming packets if userspace is slow to process them. Without this flag, the kernel would just drop everything.

KDE Gear 26.08.3 Released as the Last Update in the KDE Gear 26.08 Series

Coming almost a month after KDE Gear 26.08.2, the KDE Gear 26.08.3 release adds -- to the Ark archive manager to separate arguments and file names when dealing with CLI apps, fixes seeking in AudioTube by enforcing Opus over m4a, and no longer restarts the previous track in Elisa when switching tracks while paused.

Shelly 3.2 Brings Multi-Package Downgrades, Flatpak and AppImage Improvements

Coming less than a week after Shelly 3.1.10, the Shelly 3.2 release enhances AppImage support with improved desktop integration to use the application’s shipped desktop-file identity, embedded update-information discovery, support for .zsync control files, and better GitHub asset matching.

MPV 0.42 Video Player Released with AMD Frame Rate Conversion Filter

Coming ten months after MPV 0.41, the MPV 0.42 release introduces Wayland session management and Wayland color management through the protocol instead of the Vulkan API, improved HDR colorspace signalling on DRM for Linux, and an AMD Frame Rate Conversion filter.

Systemd-Free Artix Linux 2026.11 Is Out with Wayland-Only KDE Plasma Desktop

Coming six months after Artix Linux 2026.04, the Artix Linux 2026.11 official ISO release is powered by the Linux 7.2 kernel series, namely Linux kernel 7.2.14, and ships with the Wayland-only KDE Plasma 6.8 desktop environment for the Plasma edition, along with KDE Frameworks 6.31 and KDE Gear 26.08.2.

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schestowitz.com

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”

Manchester City Council Report Card – Part 2 – Four Weeks for Humans to Deal With Time-Critical Web Forms (or Requests Made Online)

Way too slow, indicative of severe understaffing issues

Manchester City Council Report Card – Part 1 – City Council Not Interested in Criticism When Services Demonstrably Fail

We don’t need staff to just say “Web site” (that does not work!) or “phone” (where nobody answers!)

Accomplishing a Lot by Doing Journalism “Out There”

We got a lot done today, but it’s in pen and paper form (for now)

Replacing Obesity With Drug Addiction/Dependence

Another generation of addicts

No Birthday Parties for Techrights

No need