In today's open source roundup: Linux Mint has a new bluetooth setup utility. Plus: Should Amazon release a color e-ink Kindle? And seven Linux and Android alternatives to the Apple Watch Linux Mint and Blueberry Linux Mint has always been at the forefront of making elegant tools for users. Now the Linux Mint developers have come up with a better bluetooth configuration utility called Blueberry. Blueberry will ship first in Linux Mint Debian 2 before being added to other versions of Linux Mint. Joey-Elijah Sneddon reports for OMG Ubuntu: The utility has been designed to be simple and to run outside of Linux Mint just as easily (e.g., in Cinnamon on Fedora) It will allow Linux Mint users to set up and manage their Bluetooth mice, keyboard and other extras quickly and easily and offer smarter integration with the underlying system and desktop environment. What Blueberry is not is a new Bluetooth stack. It is a new front-end to ‘gnome-bluetooth’ and will be accessed from the system tray only on devices that support Bluetooth or have Bluetooth enabled. More at OMG Ubuntu You can read the official announcement about Blueberry from the Linux Mint developers on Segfault: From a user point of view, Blueberry is an application which configures Bluetooth. It shows a systray icon in your panel and doesn’t annoy you if you don’t have a Bluetooth adapter. It also detects your desktop environment and integrates with it. For instance, if you clicked the “Sound Settings” button shown in the above screenshot, it would know whether to launch “cinnamon-settings sound”, “gnome-control-center sound”, “mate-volume-control”, “pavucontrol”, etc… depending on the desktop you’re currently running. As we speak it supports Cinnamon, MATE, Xfce, GNOME and Unity. From a technical point of view, Blueberry is a gnome-bluetooth front-end. Gnome-bluetooth 3.8 had two frontends (a gnome-control-center panel and a cinnamon-settings module), gnome-bluetooth 3.14 has two frontends as well… a panel which is part of gnome-control-center, and blueberry. Blueberry works on any desktop environment and should work on any distribution as long as gnome-bluetooth 3.14 is installed. Whether Blueberry will continue to work with future versions of gnome-bluetooth will largely depend on how gnome-bluetooth evolves in the future. More at Segfault Should Amazon release a color e-ink Kindle? Amazon’s e-ink Kindles are quite popular with bookworms the world over. The latest version called the Kindle Voyage has an average 4.5 out of 5 star rating by Amazon’s customers. But the company has always released Kindles without color screens. A Kindle redditor is wondering if it’s time for Amazon’s Kindles to make the jump to color screens. Degru starts the thread by noting the color e-paper display that will appear in the Pebble Time smartwatch: The Pebble Time smartwatch is going to have a color e-paper display, and from the video it looks like it actually supports live animations like a normal LCD. Tech like this would vastly improve the experience on the Kindle, especially on the touch models, where fast response and animations are important. Do you think Amazon will release a Kindle with a screen like this? What are your thoughts on the tech? Are there any limitations to this display technology that would make it unsuitable for use in a Kindle? More at Reddit Fellow redditors jumped in with their thoughts about color e-ink Kindles: Atetuna: “I don’t think they should do it unless it’s as power efficient as a monochrome display and only if it performs as well as the color LCD in every way. It won’t, and it won’t, and it would get terrible reviews because of people using it for and rating it primarily for purposes outside of its core functionality. They’ve already been burned hard by their phone, and I don’t see them wanting to risk that happening with their core device. They need to wait for someone else to get it right before they jump in.” Gregsaw: “E-ink and e-paper displays are not the same kind of technology. The pebble’s screen still uses power when it is not changing while the kindle’s uses no power. Using a display like what is on the pebble would greatly reduce kindle battery life.” Prof_hobart: “Pebble’s isn’t actually e-ink.” There’s several type of displays that fall under the generic “e-paper” title, with e-ink being one of them. The Pebble uses a transflective liquid-crystal display. The big difference is that e-ink screens use actual ink, and the only time they use power is when the individual ink capsules switch from off to on. With an LCD e-paper, there’s still a need for a very low power to keep the image visible.” Katihathor: “Keep in mind that a watch screen is really small, like 1″ square or whatever. A tablet has a much larger screen so color e-ink is probably still too pricey.” ScubaSteve1219: “I hope it never happens. The Kindle doesn’t ever need color e-ink. It would be beneficial for manga or something, maybe, but otherwise i see absolutely no point in spending the time and money to implement it. Just buy a tablet.” More at Reddit Fast Company has some thoughts on why a screen with colors makes a lot of sense for the Pebble Time smartwatch: E-ink may have lost the tablet battle, but Pebble has always thought it made particular sense on a watch, where both battery life and visibility in direct sunlight is a major factor. The Apple Watch may have a more beautiful screen, but it will also have poorer visibility in bright sunlight than an e-ink screen. And the Pebble Time will likely have significantly better battery life. …color e-ink allows Pebble down the road to do some clever things that LCD manufacturers can’t. For example, Sony already has a smartwatch that has an e-paper band. Imagine the Pebble Time 2, featuring a band that can change colors, just by tapping on a swatch in settings. Customers who don’t want to take off their watch to charge it every night, especially for something as trivial as a postage stamp-sized splash of color on their wrist. And for that, a color e-ink display will do just fine, especially if it comes in at less than half the cost of the cheapest Apple Watch or Android Wear. More at Fast Company Seven Linux and Android smartwatches Speaking of watches, the Apple Watch is gettings tons of media coverage these days. But there are other watches worth considering that run Linux or Android instead of iOS. Linux.com has a list of seven smartwatch alternatives to the Apple Watch. Eric Brown reports for Linux.com: Much to the delight of Apple fanbots everywhere, Apple has now fully unveiled the Apple Watch. The watch, which was previewed in September, will go on sale April 10 and ship on the 24th. Based on its brand name, styling, accessories, and battery life claims, it will likely be a big hit — at least as far as smartwatches go. According to Canalys, only 720,000 Android Wear smartwatches shipped in 2014 from about a half dozen manufacturers, out of a total of 4.6 million “smart wearable bands.” Yet, the first models shipped in the summer, and several second-generation models didn’t make it until later in the year or 2015. There are also a few new contenders. Our slide show of seven compelling Android- and Linux-based smartwatches features five Android Wear models, plus Tizen and WebOS-based watches. Asus ZenWatch Huawei Watch LG Watch Urbane LG Urbane Watch LTE Motorola Moto 360 Samsung Gear S Sony SmartWatch 3 More at Linux.com Paul Lamkin at Forbes also has a list of Apple Watch alternatives: So we now know the date the Apple Watch will go on sale, as well as how many dollars it’s going to cost in order to add the Cupertino company’s newest form factor to our iCollection. And, if the mainstream media is to be believed, this is the first smartwatch ever to be revealed. Hooray. Except it isn’t. Smartwatches have been around since 1927 don’t you know, and have seen a boom in popularity in the last year or so; thanks mostly to the advent of Android Wear – Google’s wrist friendly OS. So if you’re sitting on the Apple Watch fence, you best consider our pick of five Apple Watch alternatives: Sony SmartWatch 3 Garmin Vivoactive LG G Watch R Samsung Gear S Pebble Time More at Forbes Peter K at Phone Arena also took a look at some worthy smartwatches that aren’t made by Apple: …the first Android Wear devices came to life (the LG G Watch and the Samsung Gear Live), and since then, we’ve been treated to a whole slew of such Android Wear gadgets. But Google’s platform is not the single one that powers a compelling wearables these days – a lot of manufacturers have resorted to their in-house firmware solutions in order to make their smartwatches tick and click. As most of the large players on the market have released at least one wrist-worn contender, the Apple Watch will surely face some touch competition. Let’s delve in a bit and check out some of its more recent rivals. Then again, it’s worth mentioning that the Apple Watch and its Android Wear counterparts are closely tied to their respective ecosystems – if you are fan of Cupertino’s products, then you’d probably go for the Apple Watch. On the other hand, if you put your trust in Google’s ecosystem, then you’d probably want to invest in an Android Wear gadget. Provided that you are eyeing the smartwatches ilk with pleasure, that is. That being said, let’s check out some rivals of the Apple Watch. Pebble Time Steel LG Watch Urbane Huawei Watch Sony Smartwatch 3 Motorola Moto 360 LG G Watch R Samsung Gear S Asus ZenWatch More at Phone Arena Did you miss a roundup? Check the Eye On Open home page to get caught up with the latest news about open source and Linux. Technology IndustryOpen SourceSoftware Development