News briefs for January 22, 2019.

Canonical announced the release of Ubuntu Core 18 "for secure, reliable IoT devices" this morning. The Canonical blog notes that "Immutable, digitally signed snaps ensure that devices built with Ubuntu Core are resistant to corruption or tampering. Any component can be verified at any time." In addition, "The attack surface of Ubuntu Core has been minimized, with very few packages installed in the base OS, reducing the size and frequency of security updates and providing more storage for applications and data." Ubuntu Core also "enables a new class of app-centric things, which can inherit apps from the broader Ubuntu and Snapcraft ecosystems or build unique and exclusive applications that are specific to a brand or model." You can download it from here.

Red Hat today announced that Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7.2 is now generally available. This new version of the open-source Java EE 8-compliant application server "brings greater compliance with Java Enterprise Edition (EE) 8, JDK 11/Java SE 11, and further support for Microsoft Windows and enterprise Java microservices. With this release, Red Hat is continuing our commitment to Java EE 8 and Jakarta EE, the new home for cloud-native Java, a community-driven specification under the Eclipse Foundation." See the JBoss EAP 7.2 documentation for more information.

Parrot 4.5 was officially released yesterday with some major changes. Parrot 4.5 no longer provides live ISO files for the i386 architecture. With this version, Parrot has released "desktop virtual appliances in the OVA format that can be imported in VirtualBox, VMware and other famous virtualization environments". The default kernel is 4.19, and Parrot plans to support two branches: a stable kernel and a testing kernel, and it will provide updates for both. In addition, Parrot includes recently released Metasploit 5.0, that Parrot "immediately imported and tested". There are many more updates, so be sure to see the release notes for details and download links.

HP is releasing two new Chromebooks for schools. Engadget reports that the Chromebook x360 11 G2 Education Edition is an 11.6" update of HP's G1 convertible tablet that has options for a Wacom pen and a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera. It also sports "a much newer 1.1GHz Celeron chip, up to 8GB of RAM (not so common in budget Chromebooks) and as much as 64GB of expandable storage". HP also is launching the Chromebook 11 G7 Education Edition, which is an 11.6" touchscreen laptop with the same storage options as the Chromebook x360. HP plans to ship both Chromebooks in April, and "There's no listed pricing, but it's safe to say you're not buying one in a store. This is for institutions that will likely be purchasing in bulk, and you're more likely to see it in a kid's backpack than anywhere else."

Google is being slapped with a $57 million GDPR fine. According to BGR, "France's data protection authority has announced a $57 million fine against Google in the first such GDPR penalty levied against a US technology company. In a statement explaining the action, the French agency known as the CNIL noted that the fine is a result of deficiencies that include Google not being clear enough about the way user data is handled to present personalized ads." From the CNIL's statement: "the infringements observed deprive the users of essential guarantees regarding processing operations that can reveal important parts of their private life since they are based on a huge amount of data, a wide variety of services and almost unlimited possible combinations." The BGR article also notes that Google hasn't yet decided whether to appeal.