According to the International Water Association (IWA), the main culprits for this loss are underground leaks on water mains and service pipes.

To monitor leaks in water pipeline networks, researchers at the Polytechnic University of Milan have experimented with a novel method using fibre optics — the inexpensive and commonly-used technology that allows us to have fast internet at home.

The scientists developed a distributed fibre optic sensing (DFOS) cable based on the so-called Stimulated Brillouin Scattering (SBS) technology, which enables the processing and storage of optical information.

This is a staggering amount of water lost daily, and it's not just the drinking water itself, but for local governments it usually also means lots of lost revenue. In South Africa, we've seen the crazy situation where a city is being flooded by rains, but there is a shortage of drinking water. But the reason is simply due to problems with the delivery of water, even though dams may be full.

It is good to see research not only focusing on putting billionaires on Mars, but also trying to solve real-world challenges facing billions of humans on Earth right now. Water is our most precious and essential resource here on Earth, and although we may see much of it, only a very little is actual drinking water, and that water needs to reach people every day for them to survive.

It would be great if this fibre could be both used for this detection, and at the same time, also provide Internet access.

See https://thenextweb.com/news/fibre-optics-answer-to-water-loss-leaky-pipes

#technology #fibre #waterleaks

This post was sparked by an interesting comment on LinkedIn in response to a government minister opening a new school computer lab at a rural school, and saying it is essentially a PR gimmick!

He did not go into specifics except to quote another one that was opened a few weeks before, and it is an "empty vessel".

But he voiced something that many suspect and may not really have vocalised. We know there are good intentions (a blend of PR and a hope that this makes a difference) but what is the impact of these labs, and how long do they actually keep operating in reality? Are there any follow-up surveys conducted annually to check on this? In many cases, such initiatives are just "pushed" into schools by external actors with good intentions, and there is no real planning around the long term sustainability or measuring the success of such labs.

I'll reference two posts below which are penned by actual educators, one of whom was situated at a rural school themselves. The bottom line is there is still a need, but it seems to depend on how the lab is integrated with, and complimenting, classroom teaching. Times have also changed a lot, with many learners now having their own mobile computing devices, even if it is just a tablet or cellphone.

If we look at the rise of early tech leaders like Bill Gates, many of them learnt what they did from shared computing resources. They had no computer or even cellphone of their own. The question is, are learners with this type of aptitude identified and allowed to innovate using the computer labs?

Also, having 25 standard Windows computers all teaching only Office365 is to me defeating the object of the exercise. That teaches kids to succumb to Microsoft and really reminds me of Pink Floyd's song "Another Brick in the Wall". I used to play that song flat out when I got home from school. Learning computers needs to be innovative and creative, and be teaching actively about changing things, doing things differently, and creating things.

The irony is that to learn and create often comes from having very little and needing to invent something to work like a pair of pliers, a hammer, a saw, and some wood. Young kids really love to create things.

What about rather (or at least also) having Raspberry Pi computers with free Linux, free LibreOffice, Python, FreeCAD, Home Assistant, or maybe even Sweet Home 3D (for redesigning their parents' home), on them to learn about dissecting and changing software, and also creating fun applications all on completely free software. It is software that those kids can use in their businesses one day at no cost. What about, learning about open source licensing? Maintenance costs are low, and there are no software license costs at all, making it more sustainable over the longer term.

They can even have fun changing that software, and learning how to submit improvements upstream to sites like GitHub. Remember Mark Shuttleworth from South Africa? This is what he does today as his global business, building Ubuntu Linux. How many learners in South Africa today know who Mark Shuttleworth is, or what Ubuntu Linux is, and where it came from? I'll just mention Impi Linux, and leave that here.

For me, the most important lessons are around creativity, making something with very little, and seeing what you can do with what you have.

Of course in South Africa, crime and security are a big issue, and I'd guess that 25 Raspberry Pi's are a smaller temptation to steal, and easier to lock away (they'd all fit inside the school safe).

But as one of the articles stated, do schools that are getting computer labs, already have a school library? Often this is not the case and a school library sparks creativity, knowledge and inspiration amongst the broader segment of learners. Books and a love of reading really needs to be cultivated as a first foundational step. If not, a good school library should be the first step before a computer lab. Books can be taken home and read slowly to absorbed information, and the information is presented in a structured way to boost learning.

The two articles I referenced are https://www.edutopia.org/blog/pros-cons-computer-labs-mary-beth-hertz and https://www.iste.org/node/6758. Neither call for labs being obsolete, but they do call for more thought about how they are implemented.

#technology #schools #computerlabs #opensource

For the first time in 28 years of JD Power’s car owner survey, there is a consecutive year-over-year decline in satisfaction, with most of the ire directed toward in-car infotainment.

Unsurprisingly, more people are choosing not to use their car’s native infotainment controls. Only 56 percent of owners prefer to use their vehicle’s built-in system to play audio, down from 70 percent in 2020, JD Power found. Less than half of owners said they like using their car’s native controls for navigation, voice recognition, or to make phone calls.

Naturally, it seems like most people are preferring to use smartphone-mirroring systems like Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, which have proven to be incredibly popular over the years.

In fact, my last car purchase revolved heavily around the infotainment system. The Toyota I was looking at just did not even have one, whilst the Hyundai I did buy (after 25 years of driving Toyota's) had an infotainment system that worked both with iOS and Android.

And for controls such as air-con etc, I actually prefer buttons and knobs that can be felt without looking.

Car manufacturers are just hopeless when it comes to software. We've also seen they have also been a step or two behind with security around that software as well. Every time I take my car in for its service, I ask for the infotainment software to be checked for updates. I don't think the dealer knows what I'm talking about, as the software has never received a single update in 3 years. How is that possible? Excellent forward-thinking software design, maybe...

See https://www.theverge.com/23801545/car-infotainment-customer-satisifaction-survey-jd-power

#technology #cars

Apologies if the posting is a bit erratic here - I'm sometimes waiting 5 minutes for the Mov.im server to respond, and if not by then I've moved on to other posts. It's going to impact the regularity of posting here.

WSL (stands for “Windows Subsystem for Linux“) is a feature of Microsoft Windows that allows the user to run Linux distribution alongside Windows by utilizing a compatibility layer. It was released in 2016, however, the current version is WSL 2, which supports numerous Linux distributions including Ubuntu, Debian, OpenSUSE, Manjaro Linux, Arch Linux, Fedora and others.

WSL is a beneficial feature for developers as it eliminates the need for extra hardware, virtualization, or dual-boot setups to manage Linux file systems or to access Linux command-line and tools.

With WSL, one can seamlessly switch between Windows and Linux workflows, enabling them to take advantage of Linux-specific tools while still enjoying the features of Windows as their primary operating system.

Something that is interesting (and I have not tried out myself, but I understand it can work) is that GUI Linux apps for X11 can also be run this way (those not requiring special drivers). Supposedly the way to do this is:

1. Open a terminal window in your Linux distribution and run the following command: export DISPLAY=localhost:0
2. Launch the GUI Linux application from the command line that you want to run.

WSL is not only great for accessing native Linux apps, it is also useful for devs wanting to test their apps out for Linux, and it is also a great way for Windows users to dip their toes into learning about Linux. I did a post about a week back about Distrobox which is a similar sort of WSL but on Linux for Linux.

See https://www.ubuntumint.com/install-ubuntu-on-windows/

#technology #Linux #WSL

I rediscovered this weather app again (for Android and iOS) and am quite amazed that it now has a 4.9 out of 5 rating on the Google app store, and 5m+ downloads just on Android.

Weather forecasting is just never going to be 100% accurate but I do like that this app presents a forecast view from a number of forecasting services so that you can best compare them. The widgets are also the most customisable that I've seen with font size adjustments, icon type, and a good selection to choose from. The weather page itself is also customisable to quickly see what you most want to first.

I was pleased to see it does accept, and works fine with, a non-precise location. It is also ad-free and there is an option to share some info, but it is defaulted to off. They work on donations via PayPal for once-off donations (nice to have that option), or monthly via the Android or iOS app stores. The app is Japanese based so hopefully data is safe from the US NSA, but they do state they are not selling data to any 3rd parties. They do seem to be handling privacy according to best practices.

They claim their feature is actually the "wow" weather photos you see, and they also offer a marketplace to sell your own weather photos via their market.

See https://weawow.com/

#technology #weather #weawow

Many install custom ROMs on their Android phones to escape Google, but there are also many using custom ROMs on, for example, Huawei phones that don't come with Google pre-installed. But as Android users you have the option to, or not.

There are also more variants than just the GApps suite itself, such as Open GApps, NikGApps, FlameGApps, and more. The linked article is a good guide to the various options you have, and why you may want to consider them.

The article also leads into how to go about doing this with the TWRP application.

See https://www.xda-developers.com/download-google-apps-gapps/

#technology #Android #GApps

I'm busy looking into xdotool to automate various actions on Linux with the Elgato Stream Deck (well because Elgato only provides apps for Windows and MacOS). There is a good Linux alternative app to work with the Stream Deck, but I do need to be able to execute some commands when I want to bring a specific window into focus from the background, and then to execute a key press shortcut. So an example may be to bring Brave Beta browser window into focus, then activate tab 3 and do a tab fresh.

Another tip I worked out is instead of struggling to identify which window has which name exactly, you can also right-click on a window's title bar and choose to rename the window. When I restarted that application, it retained the window name.

So, to bring Brave Beta browser into focus, activate tab 2 (CTRL-2), and then do a fresh (CTRL-R), I can just set this command string to a hot key on the Stream Deck: 'xdotool search --name 'Brave-Beta' windowactivate --sync key ctrl+2 ctrl+r'.

You can still do this sort of thing without having any Stream Deck by just setting the same string to any Linux shortcut on the keyboard.

Xdotool lets you simulate keyboard input and mouse activity, move and resize windows, etc. It does this using X11’s XTEST extension and other Xlib functions. With xdotool, you can search for windows and move, resize, hide, and modify window properties like the title. If your window manager supports it, you can use xdotool to switch desktops, move windows between desktops, and change the number of desktops.

See https://github.com/jordansissel/xdotool

#technology #opensource #Linux #automation #xdotool

If you've been an Android enthusiast lurking in the modding scene, or an app developer for any length of time, sooner or later, you will stumble upon a neat tool called the Android Debug Bridge, or ADB for short. It's extensively used in Android Studio as a command line companion utility. Android developers also use it as a standalone solution to manually install and test apps on Android smartphones as well as emulated Android devices.

But there's a lot ADB can do, and most of it isn't only useful to developers. Even if you aren't a developer, and you're reading this article, there's a good chance you've probably used ADB once or twice to sideload an app or tweak a permission. But that isn't all ADB can be used for. Keep reading for some tips and tricks for using ADB you might not have known about.

Especially useful are the APK install, disabling of system apps, backing up and restoring application data.

See https://www.xda-developers.com/adb-tips-tricks/

#technology #Android #ADB