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
- "The War on Children" Explained by The Cyber Show
- Consumer protection and the war on children
- In statCounter, a Lot of "Unknown" Turns Out to be GNU/Linux
- GNU/Linux has more than doubled
- Silent Layoffs (PIPs) Have Allegedly Accelerated Since IBM's Stock Cratered
- "IBM is Managing Decline, Not Building Growth"
- Being Pro-Slop is Death Knell to One's Credibility
- It's not hard to see Ubuntu users resisting and antagonising this
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- Many CEOs Are Just Glorified Scammers With Suits and Ties
- Economies cannot function when few people abuse them for self-enrichment
- After statCounter Figures Out Many "Unknowns" Were in Fact GNU/Linux the "Market Share" Estimate in China More Than Doubles
- Japan is the same for similar reasons
- peppe8o - a Site About Raspberry Pi, Arduino and Electronics - Has Turned Into a Slopfarm
- We won't be linking to it anymore
- Feeding 'the Children'
- Maybe some time soon we'll do a fund-raiser to help feed the birds
- Japan: GNU/Linux Crosses the 5% Threshold, Two Years Ago It Was Only 1%
- Now it's at over 5%
- We Need More Transparency
- Our heads of state are very much aware of and concerned about SLAPPs and censorship
- EPO Cocainegate and Current EPO/EU Series to Carry on for Months to Come
- Another week has begun
- When IBM "Managers Have to Mark 15% of Their Teams as Low Performers" a PIP Means Likely Layoffs (Disguised as a Performance Issue)
- "IBM is a Law firm with an I/T department."
- Links 27/07/2026: Chatbots Lead to Suicides, Social Control Media Intentionally Designed for Addiction
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 26, 2026
- IRC logs for Sunday, July 26, 2026
- Daniel Pocock in Mainstream Media Again
- AFR wrote an article today. It is about Pocock and another contender.
- Millions of Daily Requests
- 4.5+ million requests in 4 days
- 3,500 Active Gemini Capsules Soon
- How much longer before 3,500+ active? A month?
- Gemini Links 26/07/2026: European Eclipse, Writing About Writing, and Comments on Formatting Gopher Posts
- Links for the day
- Stigma of Being Laid Off by Microsoft
- One might call this the "curse" of having worked for Microsoft
- Non-Techs Using Slop Run Fedora and It's Turning Out to be a Total Disaster
- RIP, Fedora?
- Gemini Links 26/07/2026: Beach Day, CAs, and Plaintext
- Links for the day
- Sweden Needs GNU/Linux and Free Software, Not GAFAM
- home of IKEA and ABBA
- Maintenance Today
- Preparing for more mass-publication activities
- Links 26/07/2026: "Zelenskyy Says Russia Wants To Bring North Korean Troops Into Ukraine", Muslim Van Ramming Attack on Berlin Pride
- Links for the day
- Centrica fraud exposed: worse than Palestine Action 'terrorists' with cardboard placards
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Links 26/07/2026: "Nate Silver Discovers the Educated Poor" and "India’s “Cockroach” Protest Movement Faces State Repression"
- Links for the day
- The Slop Bubble is Killing the Planet, Not Just the Economy
- The chatbot/LLM speculation bubble not only causes a health crisis, a mental health epidemic, and climate change; it's also crashing the economy on several levels
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 25, 2026
- IRC logs for Saturday, July 25, 2026
- IBM Hammers a CoI Into a CoCed Fedora, RIP Fedora?
- Also in the "Fedora is dead" dept. today
- Gemini Links 25/07/2026: Zoo, MUD, Literature, EMF Camp, and e-ID
- Links for the day
- European Patent Office (EPO) Series: The Solution of No Choice: A Shortlist of One
- deployment of the "shortlist of one" by Campinos
- Wife of Dan Williams Has Explained Mental Factors Leading to His Death
- "We need to be open and honest about mental health," his wife pleads
- Several New Series Coming Soon
- we'll publish 8 series in tandem, in parallel
- Insolvency as the New Norm in the United States' Economy
- this is vastly worse than then 2008 subprime mortgage crisis
- IBM's CEO Might 'Retire' or 'Step Down' by Christmas
- PIP the CEO
- Misleading Articles About YouTube and Google Financial Performance
- The future of Google is self-serving monopolisation and destruction of the Web
- Microsoft Cannot Survive the Fall of Windows
- It has amassed way too much debt
- Links 25/07/2026: Hong Kong Squashing Criticism/Dissent, Mirror Caught Breaking Into Voicemail
- Links for the day
- PIPs Are Shrinking IBM and "IBM is Managing Decline, Not Building Growth"
- IBM is going down the drain
- IBM is Killing the Fedora Community, Replacing It With LLM Slop From IBM Staff
- Krishna buys companies only to gut them. They've all learned this from experience.
- Give Me Your "Dumbest" (Devices)
- Why can't people accept that a "modern "smart" "phone" isn't necessary to check the time (overkill) and playing social control media "on the go" is far from necessary?
- Earlier This Year Dan Williams Prepared for Scenario Where Linus Torvalds Dies
- He had only just started a job at NVIDIA
- Links 25/07/2026: Data Breaches Abundant and Attribution Imperiled in the Age of Slop Hype
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 25/07/2026: Poetry and Plaintext Pages
- Links for the day
- What is Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
- In many cases, the acronym became a misnomer
- IBM PIPs Continue Until Morale Improves, Silent or Quiet Firings at IBM Explained
- IBM is a dying company
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 24, 2026
- IRC logs for Friday, July 24, 2026