Open Hardware and Shareable Design News
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-02-28 08:22:07 UTC
- Modified: 2014-02-28 08:22:48 UTC
Summary: Recent news about hardware that can be modified and it permissive in that regard
SkyNet
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At the former Wired editor’s start-up, 3D Robotics, open-source robots take to the skies
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In the meantime, he’s hard at work on a new project called SkyNet Firmware, which will run on the open source Arduino circuit boards, devices you can use to build all sorts of computerized gadgets. “The idea is that you can load SkyNet Firmware on any Arduino compatible device or board,” he says. “The Arduino connects to SkyNet and just waits for commands.” This would let you attach almost anything to SkyNet.
3D Printers
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At the forefront of the 3D printing boom for consumers is MakerBot, whose Linux-based Replicator printers sell for between $1,300 and $3,000 and are small enough to sit on your desktop. Their MakerWare design software runs on any platform and the Thingiverse online community allows more than 13,000 users to download or upload designs in an open source, collaborative model for do-it-yourself manufacturing, according to a sponsored post in The Atlantic.
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So far, in short, I can describe 3D printing as: Building an object, by depositing layers, and creating every layer by drawing it with melted plastic. The key to understanding 3D printing, and thus learning how to do it better, is to think about the objects as a stack of layers. Then, consider how the layers will look like as they are being stacked.
Charles Babcock's Series of Articles
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References to Linux come up naturally because it is one of the most successful, sustained, and adopted open-source software projects. New releases of the Linux kernel now appear every 70 days. Each contains up to 10,000 updates and patches, a rate of change that equals 7.14 an hour. Linux's fame rests not on the fact that it's frequently modified. Rather, it's frequently modified and also respected as having a long-term future in the enterprise datacenter. The way things are shaping up, it also very likely has a permanent place in cloud architectures.
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Facebook, Fidelity, Goldman Sachs, and other leading IT users think the open-source movement is ready to shake up the hardware industry the way Linux did in software.
Misc.
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Intel announced a Developer Program for IoT, which will offer 5,000 Arduino-compatible Galileo SBC-based IoT development kits, plus hackathons with prizes.
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AS you may know, just few weeks ago OSHWA published the results from 2013 Open Hardware Community survey. You can find original datasheets and everything here. Despite raw data is good, I thought it was good to spend some time looking at the data trying to gather more insights, when possible, still keeping in mind that the survey samples a very limited and polarized (OSHWA centric) chunk of the community. But we need to start from something in a way.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- [Video] Richard Stallman's Talk in Sweden, Attended by Nearly 700 People, is Now Online
- The Web page is in Swedish, but the talk is in English
- Coping With the Site Going More Mainstream
- Fame is no laughing matter
- 21 Pages in Less Than 7 Hours is No Joking Matter
- We've become a lot more effective and efficient
- Generation Chaff - Phase V: Censorship of Dissent (Painted as Harassment or Terrorism)
- Censorship is all around us now
- Generation Chaff - Phase IV: Apps Only Few Companies Decide On
- Tools are being collectively confiscated, under the premise or false prospect of "security"
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- The Serial Slopper Starts Up - or Restarts - His Plagiarism Machine (LLMs)
- Serial Sloppers like these don't belong in news sites. That's why he got sacked by BetaNews.
- Links 24/10/2025: Esperanto Music History, Anxiety, and New Portals
- Links for the day
- Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity.com, Linux Journal, and Pet Slopfarms of Google News
- Why does Google News still advance these fake sites to the top of search results?
- Links 24/10/2025: Inequality Grows, Billion-Dollar Scam Center Industry
- Links for the day
- Links 24/10/2025: "Independent Media in Cambodia is Collapsing" and Serious F5 Breach
- Links for the day
- They Never 'Put Down' Corporations
- There are "pests" that are traded in Wall Street
- Correct Information is a Valued Asset in the Age of Slopfarms and Public Relations (PR) or Spin
- Publishing suppressed facts is never easy
- The Register MS Continues to Bag Money to Promote a Ponzi Scheme, Even Money From China
- Today in the front page
- analytics.usa.gov: The Only Supported Version of Windows (This Past Week) is Only Used by About 13.9% of People in the US, the Home Base of Windows
- Even Vista 7 is still used more
- Rust is Very Secure
- If only Rust itself is secure
- Who Will be Held Accountable for Breaking Ubuntu by Imposing Rust on Otherwise-Functional Programs, in Effect Replacing GNU With Proprietary Microsoft (GitHub)?
- they're practical people who merely point out that a bunch of buffoons not only ruin Ubuntu but also every future distro based on Ubuntu
- Generation Chaff - Phase VIII: In Summary
- Like "Science" with a capital "S", what we see here commercial interests usurping everything
- Generation Chaff - Phase VII: Curtailing Alternative Media
- There was always an obligation - a collective duty of sorts - to uphold independent journalism
- Generation Chaff - Phase VI: Centralisation of Information (X, Cheetok/Fentanylware)
- Would you trust information when controlled by such people?
- Generation Chaff - Phase III: Slop and Plagiarism
- A lot of the current so-called 'economy' is built upon false valuations
- Generation Chaff - Phase II: "Cloud", Blockchains and Other Hype
- For those of us who turned down those propositions there was a struggle; we needed to justify not having skinnerboxes or "social" accounts in some site run by a private company
- Generation Chaff - Phase I: Social Control Media
- IRC predates the Web
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 23, 2025
- IRC logs for Thursday, October 23, 2025
- More Clues Shed on Collapse of Microsoft XBox
- XBox is basically circling down the drain as Microsoft implements 2-3 waves of layoffs each month
- 'Vibe Coding' Doesn't Work
- In a lot of ways, so-called 'Vibe Coding' is already considered vapourware or a passing fad promoted in the media by managers who try to justify mass layoffs, especially ridding companies of "very expensive" software engineers
- Links 24/10/2025: Microsoft's Killing of XBox Connected to Revenue/Profit Problems, "How Elon Musk Ruined Twitter"
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 24/10/2025: 86,400 Seconds and "Society's Task"
- Links for the day
- Slopwatch: Google News and Slopfarms That Relay Nonsense From LLMs
- Google News, which once prioritised or used to care about provenance and quality, is feeding slopfarms
- Links 23/10/2025: More Health Concerns Over Dumb Chatbots (LLMs) and "Talking Cars" as Latest Buzz
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 23/10/2025: Daylight Savings Time and Duration Shorthand
- Links for the day
- Links 23/10/2025: LLM 'Hallucinations' (Defects) in Practical Code 'Generation', China Becomes More Economically and Technologically Independent
- Links for the day
- Why We Support Richard Stallman and You Probably Should Too
- It's not about being "Richard Stallman fan", it is about maintaining the right to hold positions (on technology) like his
- Linux Foundation Uses LLM Slop to Promote Microsoft in Linux.com (Again), Rendering It a Linux-Hostile Slopfarm
- Openwashing with slop by "Linux.com Editorial Staff", which basically seems to be a bot
- Some Large German Media Covers Richard Stallman's Talks in Germany Earlier This Week
- LLM-based chatbots are just "bullshit generators" (as he has long called them)
- Links 23/10/2025: Windows TCO Galore and "The Internet Is Going to Break Again"
- Links for the day
- Trouble in Red Hat/IBM and a Retreat to Ponzi Economics in Search of Wall Street Market Heist
- Would you invest your life savings in this kind of crap?
- Who Asked Software in the Public Interest (SPI) for a Refund? ($100,000, Resulting in Losses of $267,201 in 12 Months, Highest-Ever Losses)
- The IRS does not reveal who or what's tied to this refund (or the cause/reason)
- Social engineering attack: Debian voted to trick you on binary blobs
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Techrights Will Always Stand for Women's Rights
- We even invest money - personal savings that it - in our principles
- Certified Lawyers Should Know Better (Than to Intimidate Us With Man Who Drives on Motorcycle Through a Really Bad Storm Between Distant Cities, Then Collects Photos of Our Home)
- Mentioning someone was in prison for bad things isn't a crime, it's a public service
- The "AI" (Slop) Bubble is Already Imploding
- "ChatGPT Usage Has Peaked and Is Now Declining, New Data Finds"
- The So-called "Sexy" Buckets (AI, Quantum) Cannot Save IBM From Reality, Shares Tank
- "No matter how much financial hocus-pocus they use to reclassify revenues to land in the "sexy" buckets (AI, Quantum), it still smells old and musty - just like this company."
- Paul Krugman is Wrong About the Scope of Mass Layoffs in the United States
- A few years ago society was accelerating its journey towards feudalism, boosted by COVID-19
- Links 23/10/2025: Proprietary Blunders and CISA's Latest Disclosure of Holes
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 23/10/2025: Fast Past (F1), 99.9% Uptime
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 22, 2025
- IRC logs for Wednesday, October 22, 2025
- Slopwatch: Google News is Promoting Fake 'Articles' About Fake Xubuntu, Fake Articles About Replacing Windows With GNU/Linux
- The quality of the Web deteriorates and unless someone cleans up the mess, real sites will lose an incentive to produce anything
- When "AI Layoffs" Mean Layoffs Due to the "AI" Bubble Popping
- many people that are laid off by Microsoft claim to be specialists in "AI"
- Mysterious grant forfeited, $100,000 from Software in the Public Interest accounts 2023
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Evidence: bullying, student union behaviour: Armijn Hemel's FSFE resignation
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Evidence: psychological abuse, stalking, Galia Mancheva, Susanne Eiswirt ignored by FSFE judgment for Matthias Kirschner
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Helping FSFE scam victims and conference organisers
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Nigerian fraud in FSFE constitution
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Worrying and Amusing Stories of "Clown Computing" Gone Awry
- Many of these disasters could be avoided
- Links 22/10/2025: Amazon Plans to Replace Workers With Robotics, AWS and Clown Computing in General Ridiculed
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 22/10/2025: Niri Completely Changes Multitasking and Overview of Diff-ers
- Links for the day
- Links 22/10/2025: Study on Misinformation by Slop and Heavily Debt-Sabbled Microsoft OpenAI (ClosedSlop) Uses "Browser" as Gimmick/Distraction
- Links for the day
- They've Already Spent Close to a Million Dollars on Lawyers and Sent Us About 50 KG of Legal Papers (Sponsored by Mysterious Third Party) to Try to Censor Techrights, Without Success
- They try to overcompensate with sheer volume for a lack of solid, clear arguments (we are the victims here)
- 12 Months Ago the 'Hulk Hogan of UEFI' Officially Went 'Tag-Team'
- We're actually sort of flattered or proud that such despicable people are so desperate to censor us
- "Cloud Computing" Was Always a Joke, But This Week Was the Punchline
- Maybe stop following tech trends and fashions
- "Cloud Computing" Does Not Mean Safety
- Fault tolerance is related to the notion of software freedom
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 21, 2025
- IRC logs for Tuesday, October 21, 2025
- The Fall of Windows: From Something to Nothing
- Of course Microsoft will pretend everything is fine and "just trust the hey hi" (AI)