Open-source News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

Simple Mobile Tools was a collection of basic, free, open-source apps for Android devices, including a file manager, calendar, and photo gallery. The apps were popular alternatives to paid apps and services, but the developer sold out the app suite to ZipApps recently, which then proceeded to ruin the apps with subscriptions and ads. The Fossify project has picked up where Simple Mobile Tools left off, so you can keep using the excellent app suite on your phone or tablet.

AI roundup: Elon Musk's AI startup xAI will open-source OpenAI rival Grok, it has been revealed today. Grok is a chatbot which was announced for X. Now, Musk says he will open-source Grok AI chatbot, which means its source code will be freely available to everyone. In other news, the manufacturing industry is struggling to integrate AI and automation into their business process. Know more about what is happening in the world of AI today.

Nintendo is suing the makers of Yuzu, an open-source Nintendo Switch emulator, according to a lawsuit filed in Rhode Island court on Monday. Game File reporter Stephen Totilo first reported the suit.

As soldiers and citizens provide information from the front lines and affected areas of the war in Ukraine – two years old as of February 24, 2024 – in quasi-real time, an active open-source intelligence community has formed to keep track of troop activity, destruction and other aspects of the war.

Google has announced its latest innovation in artificial intelligence (AI) called Gemma on the heels of the launch of Gemini Pro 1.5 Pro a few days ago. Developed by Google DeepMind, It is a family of lightweight and open AI models that Google says Gemma is built from the same research and technology that was used to create Gemini.

The most successful marketing phrase of all time may well be “artificial intelligence,” since, no, computers still can't think. What should take the number two spot? How about, “open-source artificial intelligence”. A popular prediction about the technology's trajectory in 2024 is that open-source AI models will catch up with proprietary ones such as ChatGPT and Google's Bard. That sounds promising at first. If free AI tools become as technically capable as those provided by tech monopolies, that means someone is challenging Big Tech's dominance of what could become the world's most transformative technology. 

Tech leaders have been vocal proponents of the need to regulate artificial intelligence, but they're also lobbying hard to make sure the new rules work in their favor.

Dungeon Keeper is one of my all-time favourite games, tied with Theme Hospital as Bullfrog's most fondly remembered management sim. Yet whereas Bullfrog's isometric cure 'em up is still fairly playable today, returning to Dungeon Keeper in 2023 is hard going. Its visuals are incredibly bleary on a modern machine, while it's also finicky to control and just not especially stable.

Unity might be facing the ire that comes with a near-universal condemnation of a new policy change, but at least things are looking up for two open-source game engines.

Developers received a nasty surprise when Unity announced that those who use its game engine will be subject to a runtime fee, beginning next year. This runtime fee will be charged monthly on a per-installation basis.

The irony has been pointed out many times: When game engine Unity revealed its new per-install fee last week, game developers were possibly the most united they've ever been—in disgust. Even developers who don't use Unity expressed anger or criticized the unprecedented change of terms. 

Re-Logic, the indie game developer and publisher behind the 2D sandbox title Terraria, has condemned the newly announced Unity Runtime Fee, and has announced that it is donating a substantial sum of money to two different open-source game engines, to help keep them “powerful and approachable for developers everywhere”. 

I mean, sometimes the whole story really is in the headline. OpenAI, the software company best-known for the various iterations of its ChatGPT text generator, has announced the acquisition of Global Illumination (GI), which describes itself as «a digital product company based in New York most recently working on Biomes.»

To no one’s surprise, criminals are tapping open-source generative AI programs for all kinds of heinous acts, including developing malware and phishing attacks, according to the FBI.

Open-source Morrowind engine replacer OpenMW has just hit version 0.48.0. The latest update adds a post-processing shader framework, which means modders will be able to make the 21-year-old RPG look even better, as well as adding a new Lua scripting API. «Both of these features greatly expand what the engine can deliver in terms of visual fidelity and game logic», the OpenMW team says in the release announcement.