Wires reports that Intel has today unveiled a new open-source communication system created especially for Professor Stephen Hawking, which can be adapted for for the three million people worldwide who suffer from quadriplegia and motor neurone disease. The full feature article is available here.

The following is a press release from the organisers of Linux.conf.au 2015.

AUCKLAND, New Zealand – Friday 21st November 2014 – linux.conf.au 2015 Organisers are proud to announce our funding programme!

Last night a group of us gathered at Te Papa in Wellington to celebrate the NZ free and open source community. The NZ Open Source Awards celebrated the contributions of people applying open source principles to many aspects of creativity like software, hardware, making, science, and art. 

The event, as always, was brilliantly run, with MC duties provided by Hamish McEwan and the heavy organisational lifting led by Catalyst IT. Joy Liddicoat provided a stirring keynote about ways in which open source offers value to the world's least privileged and most at risk.

In the lead up to next week's NZ Open Source Awards, sponsor Internet NZ's Dean Pemberton has written a stirring article on why Internet NZ values (Free and) Open Source Software.

If you know any tech-curious year 12 and 13 secondary students, looking to broaden their horizons and future opportunities, then please point them at the Catalyst Open Source Academy! They can now apply for the January 2015 two week programme, to be held at Catalyst House in Wellington.

The judges have deliberated over an inspiring set of nominated projects and individuals to select the finalists for the 2014 NZ Open Source Awards. Three or four finalists were selected in each of the following categories:

At our 2014 AGM, the voting members of the Society elected the following Councillors: 

Shortly after our 2012-13 AGM, the culmination of several years of hard work by a dedicated group within the NZOSS and some of our sector collaborators, the NZ government altered our Patents legislation to block the patenting of software. In the warm glow of that major victory for all New Zealand software developers, the year has been one of quiet growth for the Society, but very busy for the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) world at large.

Nominations for the 2014 New Zealand Open Source Awards are officially open.

The New Zealand Open Source Awards are designed to recognise and promote

• the contributions of New Zealanders to free and open source projects and free and open source philosophy

• exemplary use of free and open source by New Zealand organisations.