Google is rebuilding some of its biggest products & services for kids under 13, Intel & Samsung feel the open source love. We’ll dig into major contributions both companies are making & their future commitments.

Plus Dropbox makes a play for business lock-in & much more!

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Intel reinvents Stephen Hawking’s voice systems and will open source the software – IT News from V3.co.uk

Intel has reinvented the speech and text communication systems used by Professor Stephen Hawking, and plans to release the software as an open source project in 2015.

The Assistive Context Aware Toolkit has helped to double Hawking’s speech and text input times, and make it up to 10 times faster for him to open files, switch between applications and browse the web.

Hawking said at an event attended by V3 that the Intel developments are “life-changing” for him.

“The Intel team and I have been working for three years on upgrading my communication systems. My old system is more than 20 years old and I find it very difficult to communicative effectively and do the things I love to do.

“With the improvement I am now able to write much faster and I can continue to give lectures, write papers and books and speak with friends and family more easily.

“This new system is life-changing for me and I hope it will serve me well for the next 20 years.”

Intel began work on the project three years ago when Hawking contacted the firm’s founder, Gordon Moore, to ask for help in impro

One major improvement is a new system making it far easier for Hawking to access files, as ‎Lama Nachman, principal engineer and manager of the Anticipatory Computing Lab at Intel Labs, explained.

One aspect of the system that has not changed is the voice, which has become synonymous with Hawking. “He was actually adamant about us not changing his voice,” said Nachman.

The new software will be made open source next year, but Swiftkey said that its involvement in the project will not be included as the technology is too similar to its core product.

Google to launch kid-friendly versions of Chrome, YouTube, others in 2015 | Ars Technica

Google is currently working on versions of products like Chrome and YouTube tailored specifically for kids under the age of 13, according to a report from USA Today. Pavni Diwanji, a VP of engineering at Google, says that the new products are due at some point next year and that they are intended to help children “be more than just pure consumers of tech, but creators, too.”

It’s not clear how these under-13 products will work, but they may change the way they look or the kinds of data they present.

In the US, one of the biggest considerations when designing online products and services for kids is the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA. It dictates how information can be collected from and presented to kids under the age of 13—changes to the law effective in July of 2013 include multiple stipulations related to privacy policies, parental oversight, and security requirements for data collected from young children. Since the vast majority of Google’s revenue comes from advertising and the value of the company’s ads is tied to its trove of user data, COPPA compliance will obviously be important to users and Google alike (Yelp was fined $450,000 earlier this year for COPPA violations).

Dropbox eyes Google and Box with launch of Business API- The Inquirer

**DROPBOX HAS ANNOUNCED **an API for third parties wishing to develop and integrate apps to work alongside its business service.

The move is designed to appeal to users of proprietary office systems.

The API launched with 20 partner organisations including Microsoft and IBM.

It will allow Dropbox for Business apps to use some of the more advanced features not available on the free service, and will also integrate with existing enterprise security systems.

But given Dropbox’s colourful history with regards to safety, what does the company which Edward Snowden described as “hostile to privacy” do to win hearts and minds?

George O’Brien, product manager for Dropbox for Business, told The INQUIRER: “Dropbox for Business is a security first product.”

Stop laughing and nobody mention Condeleezza.

He added: “We encrypt data as it travels through the API. Only a Dropbox for Business system administrator can install a Dropbox for Business API app. We’re very aggressive about who has control over the API and who has access to it.

Samsung’s Open Source Group Is Growing, Hiring Developers – Slashdot

Almost two years ago, Samsung’s open source team was just one person: Linux and FOSS advocate Ibrahim Haddad, head of the open source group at Samsung Research America. The new Open Source Innovation Group at Samsung is now 40 people strong, including 30 developers, devoted full-time to working on upstream projects and shepherding open source development into the company. The group is hiring aggressively and plans to double the size of the group in the coming years. Their first targets are project maintainers and key contributors to 23 open source projects that are integral to Samsung’s products, including Linux, Gstreamer, FFmpeg, Blink, Webkit, EFL, and Wayland. They plan to eventually start hiring more junior open source developers as well. Just about every Samsung product, from phones and tablets to home appliances, uses open source software, said Guy Martin, senior open source strategist at Samsung. Martin also mentions the importance of funding: “You already see this in the Linux kernel, where most people who contribute are paid to contribute. And you’ll see that more and more.”