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
- Legal Letters Are Not Postcards
- It seems like intimidation, nothing more
- European Patent Office (EPO) Strikes Persist, EPO Management Tries to Give False Impression of "Happy Staff"
- EPO is trying to broadcast to the world a totally phony image of itself
- The End of FOSSPost (fosspost.org), It Has become an LLM Slopfarm Like FOSSLinux
- These sites will never get lucky with slop. These experiments always end badly.
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- Links 23/05/2026: Social Media Bans and Demise of Userbase of LLM Chatbots
- Links for the day
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 85 Out of 200: The United Kingdom's Rating for Press Freedom Has Improved, But We Can Do Even Better
- we see the US at #64
- Sites Realise That Becoming More Active by Using Bots (LLM Slop) is Self-Destructive
- We'll soon (maybe next year) also show that some of the 85+ KG of legal papers sent our way are computer-generated garbage, which might run afoul of some rules
- Gemini Links 23/05/2026: Patience, LLM Chatbts Being Bad, and Unexpected Computer Surgery
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, May 22, 2026
- IRC logs for Friday, May 22, 2026
- Links 22/05/2026: Ebola Crisis and Samsung Averts a Walkout With Big Bonuses
- Links for the day
- Links 22/05/2026: Inflation Fears and Thailand Tightens Visa Rules for Tourists From Dozens of Nations
- Links for the day
- EPO Staff Representation Speaks of This Week's Discussion With the EPO's Budget and Finance Committee (BFC) Amid Mass Strikes
- The Central Staff Committee's outline (prepared in a rush) or the "flash report"
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 84 Out of 200: New Legislation Against SLAPPs on the Way (After We Reached Out to Ministers)
- They dealt with the matter individually too, but we won't share this in public, at least not at this time
- The Corrupt Lecture the Non-Corrupt - Part XXX - Where Was "The Ethics and Compliance Team" When the Family of EPO President Campinos Was Caught Doing Cocaine?
- It remains to be seen if national delegates will tolerate this in future meetings
- Gemini Links 22/05/2026: Esperanto Music History, Suspicious Adoption of Signal, and Unauthorised LLM Slop in Code
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, May 21, 2026
- IRC logs for Thursday, May 21, 2026
- Links 21/05/2026: "Declining America" and Why Slop 'Code' is Made to Fail
- Links for the day
- Techrights and Tux Machines Subjected to Cyberattacks for Several Weeks
- In the past I spoke to the cybercrime unit of British Police. Maybe it's time to do so again.
- The Register MS Has Become a 'Content' Farm Promoting Slop for Hostile Corporations
- Now they call it "PARTNER CONTENT" - not "SPONSORED" - as if semantics make the difference
- Latest Example of Widespread Fake Assertions (False News) About "Hey Hi"
- The false narrative of "Hey Hi layoffs"
- Links 21/05/2026: Facebook Rewarded With Tax Breaks to Destroy the Environment and Cause Global Warming, Shortages, Pollution; SpaceX (SPCX) Continues Losing Billions of Dollars
- Links for the day
- Codecs and Software Patents - Part VIII - GNU Audio/Video Team Has Chosen the AV1 Video Codec and It Explains Why (They've Researched Their Options)
- AV1 video codec will be used to encode and share GNU videos online
- Dr. Stallman Helps Establish Free Software Advocacy Outside the Free Software Foundation (FSF) as Well
- The ideals or principles of Free Software needn't be centralised or monopolised; they can be federated
- 22 Years of Tux Machines and a Community Stronger Than Ever Before
- We've already received some feedback from the community and improved it accordingly
- Microsoft Under Investigation for Breaches of Law in the UK
- Just like the Microsofters
- More Microsoft Layoffs on the Way (June and July 2026)
- with or without PIPs
- LWN Sponsored by the Linux Foundation (Monopolies)
- We must be able to casually point this out
- The Corrupt Lecture the Non-Corrupt - Part XXIX - European Patent Office (EPO) Tells Staff "Speaking up" is Good, But Not When the "Brother-in-law" of EPO's President Does Cocaine
- Do we still have a functioning democracy and potent press?
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 20, 2026
- IRC logs for Wednesday, May 20, 2026
- Gemini Links 21/05/2026: Immigration, Slop, and Slop 'Code' Suggestions Infesting Code Repositories
- Links for the dayGemini Links 21/05/2026: Immigration, Slop, and Slop 'Code' Suggestions Infesting Code Repositories