The OnLive MicroConsole promises to change all that. With this device, it’s now possible to play some of the hottest titles on the PC…without the PC. For those of us running free and open source operating systems, this little device can get you back in the game (literally), and it even runs Linux!

How OnLive Works

The concept behind OnLive is not unlike VNC or other remote-desktop protocols: the client (you) simply sends input to a remote machine and receives visual and audio data back. The actual processing is done on OnLive’s servers, and all you need to do is provide a machine fast enough to handle the video stream it’s pushing out during gameplay. This means even comparatively weak devices like smartphones can play the latest PC titles, often with visuals that would simply be impossible for the native hardware to render on it’s own.

To be perfectly honest, when I first heard of OnLive a few years back, I was convinced it would never work. It sounded ludicrous at the time, and in the days when 8 Mbps was considered a top-tier Internet connection in the US, it seemed unlikely the average consumer would even have the bandwidth to make it possible. Today with services like Verizon FiOS, the average home can easily get access to a 25+ Mbps duplex Internet connection, and OnLive’s developers have proven to be exceptionally skilled in optimizing the whole process to deliver very impressive gameplay. Playing a game via OnLive will never look as good or run as fluidly as if you had a $3,000 top of the line gaming PC, but it’s certainly better than the alternative: not being able to play the thing in the first place.

The OnLive MicroConsole

My first impression upon receiving the MicroConsole was how good the packaging looked. For a device that has never seen a retail release and is only sold directly through OnLive, they went through a lot of trouble making sure the box looked impressive. Opening the MicroConsole box felt more like receiving an award than unpacking a game console.

Taking the MicroConsole out of the box, two things about it strike me instantly. First, it’s extremely small, and second, it feels exceptionally well made. I imagined something this small to feel a lot lighter, but the console has a fair amount of heft to it. Though the console itself is not something you’re likely to have in your hand very often, the feel of the device was very reassuring about it’s overall build quality.

The MicroConsole is a very simple device, featuring only a single button and two USB ports on the front of the unit. Around the back, there are ports for HDMI, Ethernet, TOSLINK (optical audio), analog audio, a proprietary component video cable (not included), and power. Seeing the rear of the device really helps give you a sense of scale, especially if you have a pretty good idea in your head about how big an Ethernet cable is.

It’s worth mentioning that the MicroConsole does not have WiFi built in, and can only connect to the Internet via Ethernet. OnLive says you can use a wireless to Ethernet bridge if you really want to get your MicroConsole online that badly, but given the amount of bandwidth this device consumes, I would stay with wired if at all possible.

Moving on to the controller itself, it felt equally as well made as the MicoConsole itself, but yet immediately very familiar. It didn’t take more than a few seconds to realize why I knew this controller so well…

Hey…don't I know you from somewhere?

Now granted, there are only so many shapes a game controller can take: but this is skating a pretty fine line. The MicroConsole controller’s battery pack setup is even identical to the 360′s (down to the ability to use AA’s instead of the rechargeable battery). The only major difference between the controllers is the swapped position of the left analog and directional pad, and the addition of the playback control buttons along the bottom. The look aside, the MicroConsole controller is a solid input device in it’s own right; the analog sticks are very accurate and all the buttons have a satisfying feel to them. The directional pad felt a bit stiff, but I imagine it will loosen up a bit with use.

In addition to the standard controller, the MicroConsole also supports basic USB input devices, and I had no problem plugging in both my wired and wireless keyboards and mice. For gamers who never quite got used to using a gamepad over the keyboard and mouse combo, you’ll be happy to know that either will work when using the MicroConsole. In fact, some games will actually require a full keyboard and mouse to play (such as “Silent Hunter 5“).

Setting up the MicroConsole is very easy, you plug in Ethernet, HDMI, and power; and off it goes. After it booted up and I signed in with my OnLive account information, it took a few minutes to update itself. This process was quick and completely automatic, though at the end it did ask me to plug the controller in so the console could update the firmware inside of it. Definitely the first time I had ever been asked to update my controller, welcome to gaming in 2012.

Performance

While looking good and being solidly built are of course important, this is a game console and should be judged accordingly. This is probably the area were people have the most doubt about OnLive and the MicroConsole: how will the games look and play? As a test, I started up “Just Cause 2“, a game I have played quite a bit of on the Xbox 360 and felt would be a good comparison:

"Just Cause 2" on OnLive MicroConsole and Xbox 360

As you can see, both versions of the game are very similar visually. The 360 does do better than the MicroConsole in the distance, as you can make out a bit more detail on the buildings and satellite dish, and the dirt texture on the hill is a bit crisper as well. The MicroConsole’s image also has a slightly washed out look to it, and doesn’t come off as vibrant as the 360. The image compression OnLive uses is clearly stepping on the image a bit, but not in any that detracts from gameplay. Honestly, if you didn’t have both versions of the game side by side to compare, you would never even notice.

Even in motion, gameplay on the MicroConsole looks very good. Here is brief clip of “Just Cause 2″ running at 720p:

Given the much higher cost, size, and energy consumption of the Xbox 360 compared to the OnLive Microconsole, I think it’s doing quite well for itself.

If there is one complaint I have about the OnLive MicroConsole, it would be that OnLive is all it does. In 2012, the idea of a device connecting to my entertainment center (even a game system) that does just one task is a hard pill for me to swallow. This is clearly a powerful little machine, so why not give it the ability to stream video and audio from my home network and online services like Netflix and Hulu? I would replace my Roku with it in a heartbeat.

Hardware Image Gallery

The new project allows you to dock a phone to a display, mouse and keyboard, while utilizing the unused cores in your phone to provide a full desktop environment.  From the project’s homepage:

 Ubuntu for Android gives mobile workers a compelling reason to upgrade to multi-core handsets with more RAM, more storage, faster GPUs and CPUs. It’s not just a phone they are buying, it’s a desktop too. While mid-range phones can deliver a perfect Android experience, it takes high-end horsepower to drive a phone and a desktop at the same time. Newer multi-core processors are up to the job, and Ubuntu is the killer app for that hot hardware. It’s the must-have feature for late-2012 high-end Android phones.

Here are the features:

• Secure full-featured web

Ubuntu will, of-course, use your 3G/4G connection so you can browse the web and tweet about how amazing this all is!  Ubuntu is able to share bookmarks and browsing history with your Android browser to create a seamless roaming experience.

• Unified Contacts

Ubuntu goes so far as to sync your Google contacts locally, and even sync with a standard contact list on your phone.

• Calendar coordination

Like unified contacts, Ubuntu is able to sync with your calendar as well!  If ever there were an indication that Thunderbird will finally play nice with Google Calendar, this is probably it.

• Messaging and calls

This is the big one guys!  Calls and text messages from your phone will be integrated with the message center in Unity.  Never miss a single thing…

• Simple integrated settings

1. Establishing an open, free, and globally accessible satellite communication network
2. Put a human into orbit
3. Land on the Moon

Interestingly enough, there is already considerable work being done on the second phase of this plan by the Copenhagen Suborbitals, and Google’s own Lunar X Prize is trying to spur development of robotic missions to the Moon. But what about the first phase? Answering the call is the “shackspace”, a hackerspace from Stuttgart, Germany, who’ve begun work on an ambitious project they’re calling the “Hackerspace Global Grid“.

hadez

We recently caught up with one of the core team members, hadez, who took some time to talk with us a bit about the current state of the project and what we should expect going forward.

Hackerspace Global Grid Concept

The Powerbase: There seems to have been a lot of miscommunication about what the Hackerspace Global Grid (HGG) really is, and what your goals are. So perhaps the best question to start off with, especially for readers who may only just be hearing about the HGG, is pretty straightforward: What exactly is the HGG?

hadez:  We want to build a distributed satellite ground station network or to be more precise, a distributed measurement platform. One major goal of the project is also learning about everything required to actually accomplish this. For instance electronic design, radio communications, high accuracy timing, etc.

The ground station itself will be a fairly compact and modular system. We’ll start out with modules like a power supply, a high accuracy timing source based on GPS, an ADS-B receiver as a proof of concept to prototype the satellite tracking software and so on. Our plan is to end up with a base system that can easily be built upon and extended with more modules. It’s all going to be open source, the software, hardware and documentation.

The Powerbase: In your documentation you stress how important it is for this ground station network to have very high resolution timers in order to track the satellites. Why is it so important that we have such precise satellite tracking?

hadez: If you want to use high gain antennas for high-speed broad band communication you naturally end up with an antenna that has a fairly narrow field of view.  This  implies that you know the location of your satellite very accurately.

The Powerbase:  Couldn’t you use the data published by NORAD? Doesn’t that work for the amateur (ham) radio operators who communicate with satellites?

hadez: Yes and no, once data from NORAD is available it can of course be used and continuously refined by repeatedly tracking the sat and adjusting the Keplerian elements. However, one ambitious goal we have as part of the Constellation project is trying to track satellites right after orbit insertion.

Data from NORAD and the likes usually only becomes available with a two week delay which will be two weeks in which you do not know where your sat is, if it reached the correct orbit or if it is working at all.

Hacerkspace Global Grid

Ground Station Design

The Powerbase:  So the ground station network will give us information on satellite position without waiting on NORAD, which will be important when we start dealing with our own satellites. Is that all? Will the ground station units also be able to communicate with the satellites, or are they just tracking devices?

hadez:  The ground station is more of a platform really. You can build and plug in whatever module you want. What you’ll get by doing this is access to the ground stations high accuracy timing source which will be synchronized between all ground stations since it’s (for the time being) based on GPS. GPS by itself is not much more than a time distribution system. The fact that you can determine your location if you know the exact time from multiple satellites is kind of a byproduct

But what this means is that you can add whatever you want, be it a weather station, a radio receiver or sender.

The Powerbase:  So eventually, when somebody adds satellite radio capability to the ground station hardware, would it be to receive or to transmit? Wouldn’t transmission require an amateur radio operators license?

hadez: You’re free to add sending capabilities at any point in time. Right now the HGG core team based out of the Stuttgart hackerspace “shackspace” is focusing on getting a first version of a proof of concept hardware up and running. So building a transmit module isn’t on our immediate roadmap just yet.

In any case, once you start transmitting checking applicable laws covering the frequency range you’re planning on using is probably a good idea

The Powerbase: When your ground station device is completed, are you planning to make it available as a kit or a completed product? Or is your goal only to design it, and let others build their own or turn it into a marketable product?

hadez: Whether or not we’ll be selling kits at any point in the future isn’t clear yet, we’ll think about that once we have to. But since everything is open source from the get-go everyone is free to build their own based on our designs or improve upon them.

5 Tabbed Google Apps for Tablets

I don’t know about you, but I used Gmail labels to their maximum potential.  A lot of that is lost on my device because it’s just too hard to switch between them.  Sure, I can place Gmail label widgets on my home screen and that works well enough, but it’s still more effort than is necessary.  Google, take a page from Mozilla’s Thunderbird and make a tabbed interface for everyone’s favorite mail client!  Don’t stop there!  We want the same functionality for Google Reader too.

4 Full x86 support

This one should go without saying.  Android is a reasonable candidate for a desktop OS for those that have limited needs as far as productivity in concerned.  If I used a computer purely for entertainment, I would use Android.  My wife would too.  At least then I would be able to watch Netflix…

3 Launcher options

Making folders anywhere, even in the dock, is a real boon for Android users; especially those who use the platform for real productivity.  But that’s not enough.  What about the ability to re-size icons and widgets, in a scaleable, and useable way.  How about giving us the ability to re-size the grid itself!  I like to keep it simple, so things like Trebuchet are not completely up my alley, but then again, some features are just no-brainers.  Just let me put anything, anywhere, and arrange it how I like it!

2 Real Google Docs support

No web apps in a wrapper.  Give us a proper front-end for what is the best and most convenient productivity suite in the world.  Give us a single-document widget so that we can place a single document on a home screen.  As far as managing a “honey-do” list, there would be nothing easier than this.

1 Support for devices older than 18 months

This should go without saying.  Android users stick behind their devices and the Android operating system.  For most manufacturers, support ends at the date of purchase.  If you get an update for your Motorola, Samsung or other, it’s about 1 year too late.  Those lucky enough to have official Google hardware are still not properly represented.  Sure, Google gives you your update, and for a few months you feel like the king if the hill, but what about 1 year later?  The Nexus One, arguably the world’s first “super-phone” is proof.  With 512MB of RAM and a 1Ghz Snapdragon processor, it’s still a great device.  Even the Nexus S doesn’t trump it in the RAM department– the most important ingredient– and yet still has official support for Ice Cream Sandwich.  The iPhone 3GS and it’s minuscule 256MB of RAM still officially supports iOS 5.0.1.

C’mon Google, get with the program.

I think there is room for another operating system. iOS is great but it is a closed system. I think that Android may end up as a closed system because of [Google’s] relationship with Motorola.

That statement, made at HP’s global partner summit in Las Vegas, is a tough pill to swallow.  While not exactly fighting words, this statement was most certainly designed to get people talking.  Is HP trying to create a fear factor around the Android namesake in order to maintain relevance?  Maybe it’s a shallow attempt to stay on the radar while they twiddle their thumbs…

Now it’s my turn to do a little wild speculating.  Why will we have to wait until September to see an open-source WebOS in complete form?  What’s hiding in the code that prevents this from happening right now.  As we speak, HP TouchPad users are falling over themselves to install Android on their device and not WebOS.  Is this not a chief concern of HP’s?  How can they possibly expect to keep mind-share with the public if the few devices that are out there are not even running the house OS.  Sure, the TouchPad was a hot item when it was liquidated, but who really got those machines?  I would speculate that many of them were users looking for a cheap tablet and are not every-day-joe’s.  The only people who got in on that firesale were tech guys who read tech news.  Not your grandpa or aunt Helen.

They have Android on their devices now, and they are happy to show it off.  This is how you’ll be remembered Touchpad.

As for Motorola and Google as one, I think that GOOG‘s market cap speaks volumes about who holds the cards in the partnership.

Meg, you won’t stay relevant stirring the pot.  You need to finish the meal and serve your hungry patrons.

The release timetable for the most popular devices (in the US, at least) is as follows:

Q2 2012 Devices

• XOOM (WiFi)
• XOOM (Family Edition)

Q3 2012 Devices

• ATRIX
• ATRIX 2
• PHOTON
• XYBOARD (8.2)
• XYBOARD (10.1)

To Be Determined

• DROID 3
• DROID 4
• DROID BIONIC
• DROID RAZR
• DROID RAZR MAXX
• DROID X2
• DROID XYBOARD (8.2)
• DROID XYBOARD (10.1)

The takeaway here is that, if you’re on Verizon and own a Motorola device, you may be screwed. With nearly every Motorola-made DROID being listed as “TBD”, it’s not looking good for some of the exclusively available devices such as the DROID 4 and DROID RAZR MAXX. The DROID RAZR was promised an ICS upgrade in the first months of 2012 when it was announced, and to slip from there to an undetermined status is sure to aggravate early adopters who may have choose the RAZR over the Galaxy Nexus believing they would be on even footing before too long.

While this is bad news no matter how you look at it, it may be some consolation to know that community developed Android ROMs such as CyanogenMod will almost certainly have ICS running on a few of these devices before Motorola gets around to it, and will likely even have ICS running on devices which Motorola has abandoned at Gingerbread (or even Froyo), such as the DROID 2 and DROID X.

Thanks to reader and friend of +The Powerbase +David Smith for tipping us off to this bit of news.

What Is It?  Should I Be Scared?

Now first, I’d like to point out that this article I’m going to be referencing doesn’t seem to have any sources other than the submitter/writer himself, so this is all highly speculative at this point.  I’d like to cross-examine this piece as if it were news, so sit back and enjoy.

This all has to do with a project called SEAndroid.  SEAndroid is born out of SELinux, which has been around for many years.  Now that Android is “main-lining” with the vanilla Linux kernel– to some degree–  integrating things like SELinux and create separate distributions based around it are no-brainers and that is just what this project is.

Its name is SE Android, for Security Enhanced Android. Its mission: “to identify and address Android’s serious security flaws.” It’s the brainchild of a newcomer to the smartphone market, the NSA. Yep, NSA for National Security Agency, the US intelligence agency in charge of spying on foreign telecommunications and the security of US government communications.

Go and check out the homepage for the SEAndroid project.  Where is the mention of the NSA entering the smartphone market?  There is none.  You could also try visiting the NSA’s homepage for the SEAndroid project.  Also, no mention of trying to break into the smartphone market or monetized the project in anyway.  In fact, both page outline the purpose and components of the project quite clearly and with a high level of transparency.

Who’s Gonna Make This Thing?

Every day about 700,000 Android phones are activated throughout the world, including to members of US government departments and agencies. Anxious to fulfill its mission to secure government telecommunications, the NSA published in early January of this year the initial version of SE Android. In reality it’s not so new: it’s based on SE Linux, another security module developed by the NSA specifically for Linux, the popular open source operating system.

The code for the SE Android is also open source. It’s accessible to any amateur or professional developers who want to “audit” it.

This is all perfectly reasonable, and if a manufacturer chooses to implement it, they will!  But maybe they won’t…  Malware in the Android Market is not exactly an epidemic, but it is quite problematic.  A major manufacturer like Samsung or a carrier like Verizon will likely not bother with this unless the threat of malware cuts into their ability to move Android handsets.  This isn’t a problem, much like moving Windows 7 laptops is not hard for Dell and HP…

Now if a carrier wants to gain more corporate mindshare in the fruit-flavored world of enterprise–I’m talking about Blackberry and Apple– then SEAndroid might be a value-added feature to lure the lingering customers that are trying to find a new platform to migrate to; but other than that, who cares?

 In 2007 and 2009, the NSA admitted to having worked with Microsoft on the security for their Windows Vista and Windows 7 operating systems. In December 2010, doubts about the intentions of the US government culminated in the Open BSD case. A software engineer by the name of Gregory Perry revealed that his former company, NETSEC, had at the behest of the FBI inserted backdoor Trojans into the code of Open BSD, a free operating system similar to Linux.

Having a history of working closely with Microsoft certainly doesn’t do much to promote the effectiveness of the NSA!  Jokes aside, I’ve still yet to read anything here that indicate’s the NSA’s intent to manufacture, distribute or partner with 3rd parties.  The speculative tone of this piece is overwhelming, and it may very well be effective in scaring the living $h!7 out of you!  But don’t be scared.  Consider the impact that SELinux has had in it’s relative space.

The real spy just may be Google.  Sleep tight!

 Source:  OWNI.EU

LibreOffice 3.5 is now available and is over-flowing with features and fixes.  No, you won’t find any Citrus in this release but you will find these key changes;

1.) Better UI for header/footer handling. Easily add header or footers.

2.) New faster built-in grammar checker for English and several other languages.

3.) New multi-line input bar in Calc.

4.) Import filter for Microsoft Visio documents.

5.) Custom Shapes import was greatly enhanced, many bugs were fixed and new presets implementation added.

6.) LibreOffice checks for updates automatically at user defined intervals, and allows manual download of the newest version.

7.) New native driver for PostgreSQL databases.

8.) The word count dialog is modeless and updates as you type.

9.) Improved font hinting fir high quality docs.

But these aren’t the only improvements!  Here are some of notes from the announcements, that if nothing else, further alienate its fore-father, Open Office, from relevancy.  This except touches on a few issues with the code of the original Star Office.

We inherited a 15 years old code base, where features were not implemented and bugs were not solved in order to avoid creating problems, and this – with time – was the origin of a large technical debt,” says Caolán McNamara, a senior RedHat developer who is one of the founders and directors of TDF. “We had two options: a conservative strategy, which would immediately please all users, leaving the code basically unchanged, and our more aggressive feature development and code renovation path, which has created some stability problems in the short term but is rapidly leading to a completely new and substantially improved free office suite: LibreOffice 3.5, the best free office suite ever.

On overall progress;

In sixteen months, we have achieved incredible results – comments Michael Meeks, a SUSE Distinguished Engineer, who is also a founder and director at TDF – with nearly three hundred entirely new developers to the project, attracted by the copyleft license, the lack of copyright assignment and a welcoming environment. In addition to the visible features, they’ve translated tens of thousands of German comments, removed thousands of unused or obsolete methods – sometimes whole libraries – and grown a suite of automated tests. Although we still have a long way to go, users – who have sometimes complained for the stability of the software, as they were not aware of the technical debt we were fighting with – can now benefit from a substantially cleaner, leaner and more feature rich LibreOffice 3.5.

…and lastly, a nice shout-out to the community.

LibreOffice 3.5 is the first release where the contribution of local communities and associations, such as ALTA in Brazil, has been acknowledged. In addition, TDF tried to recognize those volunteers – where we could easily identify them – who put so much into the 3.5 release, with a “hacking” or “bug hunting” hero badge presented the same day of the announcement. TDF is encouraging the development of a global, open and diverse ecosystem where companies, associations, local communities and volunteers share the common objective of developing the best free office suite ever.

How Do I Get It?

Well, it’s available now from the project’s homepage, but if you are an Ubuntu user, you may want to wait just a little while longer.  The latest version available in the official Libre Office PPA is 3.4.5.  Though if you are brave, you can download it anyway from the homepage and give it the ‘ol college try.

But the last few weeks have seen some very nasty press for Wallet, and a few reports have even started to ask if it’s already destined to fail. Between competition from carrier-supported NFC payment options and a rash of recent security exploits, things certainly aren’t looking good. Are the complaints against Wallet justified, or a overreaction? Is Wallet doomed, or just experiencing the natural growing pains of such an evolutionary technology?

Limited Audience

One of the biggest problems with Wallet is the very limited group of people who have access to it. Wallet requires your phone contain an NFC chip, which only a handful of devices currently on the market include. At the time of this writing, only a single device is fully supported by Wallet, the Nexus S. While the Galaxy Nexus includes NFC hardware, it only works on GSM versions of the phone which have to be imported into the US. The American version of the Galaxy Nexus, using CDMA technology and available exclusively (for the time being) from Verizon Wireless, can only run Wallet if the application is side-loaded.

When it was originally announced, Wallet was supposed to include support for stickers which could be used to retrofit existing phones with NFC capabilities. Google said devices relying on the stickers rather than integrated NFC chipsets would have a “limited” experience, but that they would still be supported by the service. But here we are, some 8 months after the service officially went live, and nothing has been heard of the retrofit stickers. Are they ever coming? If they do, will the limitations they pose on Wallet’s functionality make them unattractive to potential Wallet users?

Carrier Competition

If Google is serious about Wallet, they’ll need to get more devices on board, and fast. A new competitor for Wallet is gearing up in the form of ISIS, a NFC payment system created through a partnership between Verizon Wireless, AT&T, and T-Mobile. Many speculate the reason that the Verizon Wireless version of the Galaxy Nexus isn’t officially supported via Google Wallet is due to Verizon’s position as a founding member of ISIS. Its not unreasonable to conclude that carriers which have joined the ISIS network would be unwilling to allow their branded devices to function on a competitor’s NFC payment system.

With Google abandoning it’s attempts to sell unlocked mobile devices directly to the consumer after the less than stellar performance of the Nexus One, carrier limitations on Android phones could be a serious roadblock to Wallet. If carriers refuse to ship their Android devices with Wallet or disallow it’s installation through a market filter, Google may have no choice but to distribute the Wallet APK outside of the Market itself. This is not without precedent, as Amazon has been using this method to distribute their Appstore for Android. Users who wish to install the Appstore must first enable “Unknown Applications” under the Android settings, and then download the APK manually either via text message or QR code.

Conceivably, Google could use QR codes at retailers to install the Wallet package on devices, but there would still be the issue of NFC support. It’s already a stretch to expect the average consumer to enable “Unknown Applications” and scan a QR code to install Wallet, but then to also expect them to know if their device supports NFC is unrealistic.

So, you want to make your desktop look like the screenshot above, huh?  Mystified by the process?

No more!

This guide will show you how to install and use the Oxygen-transparent theme for KDE 4.8 in Kubuntu 11.10.

What Is Oxygen-transparent?

Oxygen-transparent is a spin on the default Oxygen theme for KDE 4 the makes the widget background transparent and blurred, not entirely unlike the effect provided by Aero in Windows 7.  Oxygen is already an attractive theme that’s nice to look at, but this piece of software simply takes it to the next level.

The Process

Get Your Deps!

You’ll need git to get the sources for oxygen-transparent.  You’ll need some other packages too.  Run this command:

sudo apt-get install git build-essential cmake kdelibs5-dev kdebase-workspace-dev libxrender-dev libx11-dev

Now, since you’ve still got your terminal open, let’s finish the job.  Get the sources like this:

git clone git://anongit.kde.org/oxygen-transparent

Now, navigate to the directory you’ve downloaded:

cd oxygen-transparent

Almost there kids. Let’s run the setup script.

./oxygen-setup.pl

Getting closer…

sudo make && make install

Provided there were no errors, you should be able to use this immediately. Just open up System Settings and go to Application Appearance. Click Style and find Widget Style. Select Oxygen Transparent and click Apply at the bottom.

Now, click on Configure.  Lower your Opacity to a level that’s comfortable for you to look at all the time.  Hit OK as the bottom of the window, and you are all done?

When you’re finished, maybe you can do this to your wife’s computer too…  Like this.  :)