Sharing Works: Latest News Stories About Crowd-sourcing, Sharing, Transparency
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-04-13 08:35:48 UTC
- Modified: 2014-04-13 08:36:30 UTC
Voting/Government
After spending tens of millions of dollars in recent years on ineffective voting systems, California election officials are planning to experiment with an “open source” system that may prove to be the cure-all for secure, accessible balloting – or just another expensive failure.
ARM
Sensor algorithm software company Sensor Platforms Inc. (SPI) is getting into the open-source movement by transforming its internal sensor platform into an open-source platform for sensor hubs. SPI’s Open Sensor Platform (OSP) is aimed at simplifying sensor hubs and data collection, and ARM is on board with the plan.
Printers
Guns don't kill people, people kill people is what guns advocates say. But the guns, well, the guns do play an essential role in killing people. How much blame to place on objects of design is at the heart of MoMA's Design and Violence ongoing online exhibition and was the subject of the series' first debate.
For those not in this niche of hobbies, embroidering your favorite image on something isn't as simple as grabbing a crappy jpeg off the website and telling the machine "go." You need an embroidery file, and making that file is called "digitizing." It's best to start with vector art, and then you need to understand things like stitch types and when the thread should be trimmed. It takes some effort to learn (like any skill), but to get better at it means sitting in front of that computer with the dongles in it. And with my travel schedule, let's just say that doesn't happen very often. I'm excited that now I can have the design software on my Linux laptop and work on digitizing anything anytime I want, whether I'm in an airport or a hotel or a beanbag in my house.
A new type of open source 3D printer called the Mamba3D has been unveiled this week and its creators MyMatics are shortly set to launch a new Kickstarter crowd funding campaign to help construct the first Mamba3D 3D printers.
Beehives
With the help of Open Source Beehives, a do-it-yourself apiary kit, you can build a hive that encourages healthy bees. The hive comes with a sensor system that collects data so that you can keep an eye on the bees in real time.
NASA
NASA says it will publicly releases code for many of the systems the space organization has used through the years making your DIY satellite now closer than ever.
By that time, the code was little more than a novelty. But in recent years, the space agency has built all sorts of other software that is still on the cutting edge. And as it turns out, like the Apollo 11 code, much of this NASA software is available for public use, meaning anyone can download it and run it and adapt it for free. You can even use it in commercial products.
Robotics
“The Glaucus, named after the Blue Sea Slug (Glaucus Atlanticus), is an open source soft robotic quadruped from Super-Releaser { http://superreleaser.com }. It is a proof of concept for a method developed at Super-Releaser that can reproduce nearly any geometry modeled on the computer as a seamless silicone skin. The company hopes to apply these same techniques to practical problems in medicine and engineering as the technology develops.
There isn't an engineer out there who hasn't, at one point, wanted a robotic arm. Unfortunately, they're quite costly. Dan Royer from Marginally Clever, however, has released an open-source 3DOF robotic arm that is sure to get many excited.
Drug Discovery
India's Open Source Drug Discovery programme is struggling for lack of expertise and a research ecosystem. However, the programme's real contribution may be the creation of just such an ecosystem
Starck/Furniture
...downloaded as data to be 3D printed at home.
Misc.
If you don’t have a garden or a balcony but fancy growing your own herbs and vegetables you might be interested in a new smart indoor greenhouse called MEG, which has been launched over on the Kickstarter crowd funding website.
In the open source community, we know the value of collaboration. It’s at the core of everything we do. Some of us are lucky to work for organizations that understand and embrace the power of collaboration. Yet, the silo mentality runs rampant in many organizations where collaboration and internal crowdsourcing is not valued. (Opensource.com readers who are pursuing open source projects on the side, but spend their days working at companies with silos are likely very familiar with this).
This is especially relevant to software. When we forget to provide software freedom, a collaborative project becomes just another crowdsourced project. This isn’t just a matter of philosophy — it affects the degree and quality of collaboration too. A crowdfunded project will have to be created and maintained solely by the recipient of the funds, even if they claim to be creating an “open community”. Open source is unlocked by the equality of all participants in a given community. When that equality is constrained, the network effect that delivers the benefits the initiator is seeking will be inhibited.
Though they're on a trajectory without a clear future, their vision is crystal. To share what they've created with the world and allow the natural course of innovation and invention to change lives—without the obstacles of patents and the barriers of cost.
There are a good number of nice programmable DIY guitar pedals out there. So, the pedalSHIELD is nothing new, except for the fact that I think we've strived harder than the rest to keep the project open, simple, supported, and affordable. The idea was to design a platform for Arduino users to learn about digital signal processing, effects, and synthesizers—also to experiment without a deep knowledge in electronics or programming.
Skirmos Takes Laser Tag To The Next Level By Going Open SourceLaser tag is something that we might have played before in the past. The premise of laser tag is simple: aim for the enemy, pull the trigger, score some points. However a Kickstarter project b y the name of Skirmos is hoping to take a relatively simple game like laser tag to the next level by making it an open source project.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- The Register MS (Situation Publishing) is Participating in a Ponzi Scheme
- The market in "tech" seems awful when a lot of it sells a fraud and journalism about this market is part of the fraud
- Mass Layoffs in Starbucks... and Society Loses Nothing of Value
- Society might even be better off if Starbucks shuts down entirely
- Matthew J. Garrett Behaved in a Similar Fashion to 4Chan and Kiwi Farms
- Opposites attract? Are they opposites at all?
- Drew DeVault Suggests "CoC Enhancement", Starts Trolling Projects in Microsoft GitHub
- And it backfires immediately
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- Pieter Hintjens on Codes of Misconduct a Decade Ago
- original is still online
- Links 27/09/2025: Australia Might Ban Microsoft GitHub for Young People, Likely Illegal Executive Order Turns TikTok Into Cheeto Propaganda
- Links for the day
- Repeating the Lies to Promote a Ponzi Scheme is Not OK Because "Many Other Sites Do This" (Including Slopfarms)
- They already work on the next Ponzi scheme
- Glimmer of Hope: More People Realise and Come to Accept "AI" is Just a Giant, Elaborate Ponzi/Pyramid Scheme That Will Leave Everyone Worse Off (Except the "Top of the Pyramid")
- quoting Einhorn and some comments
- Do Your Job and Demand Your Compensation - But in That Order.
- We'll do our best to convince the Judge to award all costs to us (lawyers, barrister, LIP bills etc.) plus judgements against them, for abusive litigation and needless suffering associated with that abuse
- Like Nazi Germany and Volkswagen
- Tell us all about "freedom" when your government runs a Ponzi scheme
- Microsoft Sponsored This Man, Microsoft Sponsored His Behaviour (and He Controls Microsoft)
- They get what they paid for
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, September 26, 2025
- IRC logs for Friday, September 26, 2025
- He Talks Too Much, He Says Dumb Things
- only British when that suits him
- Slopwatch: FUD and Plagiarism (Working Against Linux) Promoted and Rewarded by Google News
- Shame on Google News
- Reminder: We're Unloading Some Publications to Tux Machines
- About 15 years ago I was struggling to keep up with TechDirt
- The E-mail Protocol is for Text
- bad netiquette
- Gemini Links 26/09/2025: Slop in OpenStreetMap and MOPML (My Own Private Markup Language)
- Links for the day
- Links 26/09/2025: More Provocations Against NATO by Russia (Near Alaska, USA), Microsoft Booster Accenture Has Mass Layoffs
- Links for the day
- Links 26/09/2025: Hardware, Security, Health, and Nuclear Armament
- Links for the day
- Links 26/09/2025: "Digital Fatigue" and Slop Frenzy (Hype) Ruining Work Productivity, Culture, Languages
- Links for the day
- Brett Wilson LLP Unwilling to Disclose or Explain How 'Hulk Hogan of UEFI' Pays for His SLAPPs Against Us (He Cannot Afford These), So We Are Escalating
- Escalated in the British authorities
- What 'Hulk Hogan of UEFI' Could Learn From Jimmy Kimmel About the 'Streisand Effect'
- Lawyering up is risky and is usually doesn't work
- Linux is Replacing Apple
- Apple is money down the drain. Not only are the gadgets overpriced; they cost a lot to maintain and keep going over time
- "We don't have that kind of relationship with Microsoft. The only public key that every UEFI firmware is guaranteed to have is Microsoft's, and only Microsoft owns the private key."
- This is how to sabotage GNU/Linux distros that Microsoft does not control
- Slopwatch: linuxconfig.org, linuxsecurity.com, and Google's Promotion of the Worst and Most Prolific Slopfarms
- Over in Google News it has been quite chaotic this past day
- Gemini Links 26/09/2025: Reading RSS Feeds, ROOPHLOCH 202
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, September 25, 2025
- IRC logs for Thursday, September 25, 2025
- Links 25/09/2025: More European Airports Shut Down Due to What Seems Like Russian Drones
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 25/09/2025: Amiga Revived and Hackers (UTF-8)
- Links for the day
- Purchasing Concert Tickets in 2025 in Manchester: The "Modern" Experience
- I recently spent a couple of days here testing the "terrain" in order to better understand how large public venues, for concerts rather than sporting events like football, currently "work"
- Links 25/09/2025: French Unions Want Another Strike, Super Typhoon Ragasa Kills Many
- Links for the day
- Microsoft 'Secure Boot' and Shim as Barrier or Obstacle to New GNU/Linux Users Trying to Escape Microsoft
- Just as intended all along
- Lovers and Haters
- Always beware hate preachers and demagogues (or how they frame issues or whose fault they distract from)
- Focusing on What People Have in Common Instead of Killing and Cancelling One Another
- Men and women of both "wings" stand to gain a lot by working together on common interests
- 'Cancel Culture' Isn't About Enforcing Ethics (and It's Done by People on the Right, Not "The Leftists")
- Smarter folks would leave social control media
- Russia's Attack on Europe (and NATO) Will Worsen Censorship and Corruption in Europe
- Can we still debate issues that predate the invasion of Crimea?
- Lawyers Should Permanently Lose Their Licence (and Worse) for Using Chatbots in Legal Work
- They not only waste people's money and time. They pollute the literature with falsehoods. They commit perjury. [...] Brett Wilson LLP sent the Judge nearly 1,000 pages of material (mostly mine, copied without proper permission) shortly before a short Hearing, which lasted less than an hour
- GAFAM and MATA (Mythical, Metaphor) as Explained by analognowhere.com
- They're instruments of suppression that sponsor the oppressor
- We've Already Mentioned Who Nowadays Funds Garrett's SLAPP Against Us (Not Garrett), Let's Examine Who Sponsored His Litigation Partner (Other Than Microsoft Salaries There's a Buddy of Bill Gates)
- it's alleged that the Serial Strangler from Microsoft got money from him
- Florian Müller: Using Software Patents to Attack Software Developers, Agitate Against Patent Reform
- He also promotes attacks on the German Constitution and laws
- Reliance on Typepad Seems to Have Doomed the Voice of Software Patents and Patent Maximalists in PatentDocs
- Follow the money
- UEFI 'Secure Boot' is Potential Mayhem to the Environment (Older and Leaner Distros Stop Working)
- creating new problems, disguised as "solutions" to problems that do not exist
- Sometimes 'Cancel Culture' Backfires Badly
- There's no such thing as "too much" coverage
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, September 24, 2025
- IRC logs for Wednesday, September 24, 2025
- Links 25/09/2025: Jimmy Kimmel Returns to Air (With Limitations) and London Stansted Airport Latest to Have Incident (Fire)
- Links for the day
- Slopwatch: Fake Articles, SPAM With Slop, and Google News Directs People to Read Slopfarms
- why does Google News insist on still linking to prolific slopfarms?
- Gemini Links 25/09/2025: New Game for Gemini Protocol, Eleven, and Network Solutions Woes
- Links for the day