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(credit: Canonical)

A new long-term support (LTS) version of Ubuntu is coming out in April, and Canonical just announced a major addition that will please anyone interested in file storage. Ubuntu 16.04 will include the ZFS filesystem module by default, and the OpenZFS-based implementation will get official support from Canonical.

ZFS support was already available "as a technology preview" in Ubuntu 15.10, where it's installable via an apt-get command and has to be compiled from source code first. This is no longer the case in 16.04, though you'll still need to download and install the zfsutils-linux package to create and manage ZFS volumes. Putting an official, installed-by-default, fully supported version into an LTS version of Ubuntu is a big vote of confidence, especially since people running Ubuntu-based servers often stick to LTS releases for maximum stability.

ZFS is used primarily in cases where data integrity is important—it's designed not just to store data but to continually check on that data to make sure it hasn't been corrupted. The oversimplified version is that the filesystem generates a checksum for each block of data. That checksum is then saved in the pointer for that block, and the pointer itself is also checksummed. This process continues all the way up the filesystem tree to the root node, and when any data on the disk is accessed, its checksum is calculated again and compared against the stored checksum to make sure that the data hasn't been corrupted or changed. If you have mirrored storage, the filesystem can seamlessly and invisibly overwrite the corrupted data with correct data.

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(credit: Mr.TinDC)

The Federal Communications Commission today approved a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that seeks to give consumers more choices in the set-top boxes they use to watch cable TV.

The vote was 3-2, with Chairman Tom Wheeler and fellow Democrats Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel voting in favor of the proposal, while Republicans Ajit Pai and Michael O'Rielly voted against. An NPRM is not a final vote. Instead, this will kick off a months-long public comment period leading up to a final vote that is likely to happen before the end of this year.

The FCC is essentially trying to create a software-based replacement for CableCard. Pay-TV operators from the cable, satellite, and telco industries would have to provide content and programming information to makers of third-party hardware or applications. Theoretically, customers could then watch their TV channels on various devices without needing to rent a set-top box from their cable company and without buying equipment that is compatible with a physical CableCard.

(credit: NASA)

The most common rocks that fall to Earth are called chondritic meteorites, or chondrites. In fact, the Earth is probably made of them. These are some of the oldest rocks in the Solar System, some dating to its very origin at just over four and a half billion years old. And some of their internal material has remained largely untouched since that time.

That makes them extraordinary time capsules, since the Solar System underwent churning differentiation and other processes to reach its current form. It’s a bit like finding a still-living velociraptor: an opportunity to study a bygone era, largely uncontaminated by exposure to the interceding time.

But the amount of information the rocks provide really depends on whether their composition was typical of that of the early Solar System. In a new study, a group of researchers has found that the composition of the chondrites is probably a match for the cloud of gas and dust that condensed to create the Solar System.

(credit: Google)

Google CEO Sundar Pichai took to Twitter (not Google+) on Wednesday night to comment on Apple CEO Tim Cook's post about hardware encryption and backdoors for law enforcement. Pichai opened by saying that Google does give data to law enforcement "based on valid legal orders," something outlined in the company's Transparency Report. But when it comes to creating backdoors to allow access to data stored on devices, Pichai was more hesitant:

4/5 But that’s wholly different than requiring companies to enable hacking of customer devices & data. Could be a troubling precedent

— sundarpichai (@sundarpichai) February 17, 2016

Pichai's "could be" stance on the issue is milquetoast, especially in comparison to the multi-paragraph line in the sand that Apple drew on Tuesday. Though many tech companies—Google, Microsoft, and Apple included—have all spoken out against encryption backdoors in the past, most have become quieter about it in the wake of the San Bernardino attacks.

It's also worth noting that Google doesn't have nearly as much control over the Android ecosystem as Apple does over the iPhone. Phone makers and mobile network operators all have their fingerprints on the Android phones they sell, and AT&T has already said that it has no interest in fighting the government over encryption.