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
- Estimates of Microsoft Layoffs: 3,000 Staff to be Culled Just in Gaming, How Many in Other Divisions?
- Now the XBox division has its own "fall guy", but it is a woman
- Straw Man Arguments Against Rust
- If anything, it teaches the importance of auditing packages
- Tesla Debt Rose Sharply, Sales Declined, Wall Street's Claim of Tesla "Value" is Merely a Fairytale (and Not Just Tesla)
- We would gladly sell land on Mars to anyone who honestly believes a company that loses money is somehow "worth" trillions in Wall Street
- Stop Calling Losses "Investment"
- XBox is losing money, it is a sinkhole
- For Justice We Need More Speech, Not Less Speech
- When you attack something you are just giving that something a bigger platform
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 107 Out of 200: Keeping Law Accessible to Everybody
- We'll have stories related to this in the future
- Links 15/06/2026: Slop "Beg Bounties", Wall Street Fakes 'Worth', and Arkansans Saved PBS
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 15/06/2026: Dating Oaks, Simulation, and Theremin
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 14, 2026
- IRC logs for Sunday, June 14, 2026
- Links 14/06/2026: Energy Cost and Reality Strikes at Heart of Slop Bubble, 75 Data Center Build-outs "Successfully Blocked"
- Links for the day
- Microsoft CEO Says XBox is Not a Sustainable Business
- "Now, we have to turn this into a sustainable business," he said about XBox
- MElon (MUSK, Elon) is a Trillionaire Like Penguins Are Mammals
- Have media outlets told the truth?
- Unlikely Heroes
- One personal hero who is not alive (anymore) is Navalny
- Bruce Schneier Was Probably Wrong About Slop
- Right now politicians who openly speak in favour of slop are committing "political suicide"
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 106 Out of 200: 100 Kilograms of Legal Papers
- When one party's communications and filings weigh at about 3 KG of paper and another's... at about 100 KG of paper
- Links 14/06/2026: More Google Layoffs, Wall Street Deems Companies That Lose Money "Worth" Trillions
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 14/06/2026: "The Universe is a Hologram", "Matrix Brain Download", and "Happy 0th Year"
- Links for the day
- European Patent Office (EPO) Series: Battistelli's "Baltic Crusader"
- Gilles Requena, Battistelli's erstwhile "Baltic Crusader" and the loyal servant of his successor Campinos
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, June 13, 2026
- IRC logs for Saturday, June 13, 2026
- Links 13/06/2026: University of Nottingham Confirms Data/System Breach, Courts Fuming at Fraudulent Lawyers Who Fling LLM Slop at Them
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 13/06/2026: World Cups and 做人
- Links for the day
- Microsoft's XBox "Bloodbath" Seems to Have Already Begun (Informally), Studios Allegedly to Face Shutdowns, Layoff Notices Handed Out, 100% Layoffs in Some Cases, 10% in Others or on Average
- So is a complete closure/shutdown imminent? (Compulsion Games in this case)
- Discussing Morale at IBM and Conversations Regarding IBM Layoffs (Disguised as Other Things)
- Trolling can be a form of censorship
- European Patent Office (EPO) Series: All the President's Men
- Gilles Requena,Patrice Pellegrino, and Sandro Mendonça
- SUEPO Elections Coming Up, Union Leaders at Europe's Second-Largest Institution (EPO) to be Determined Soon
- The staff union of the European Patent Office (SUEPO) is having an election soon
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 105 Out of 200: When Bad Legal Advice Results in Your Client, Dale Vince, Ordered to Pay £600k - or 801,930 United States Dollar (USD) - to the Person Frivolously Sued (Lord Bailey of Paddington)
- "A judge has ruled that Dale Vince must pay punitive costs to Lord Bailey of Paddington, the Tory peer, over the 'unexplained abandonment' of his" SLAPP
- How Long for Can American Taxpayers Justify Bailing Out Microsoft?
- How many times need the American taxpayers give Microsoft money for vapourware that's neither necessary nor delivered?
- IBM is Importing/Exporting Corporations' Regime of Censorship (Hiding the Wrongdoing) to Free Software Communities
- Is IBM protecting criminals in the name of "manners"?
- Links 13/06/2026: Microsoft’s XBox Crisis and "Apple Deepfakes"
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 13/06/2026: Why Humans Are Mostly Right Handed and "Getting Things Done"
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 12, 2026
- IRC logs for Friday, June 12, 2026