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
- Wayland Pushers Lose the Argument, Use LLM Slop and Chatbots to Make Up Arguments for IBM
- Another new low and low blow
- What is "MATA"?
- Think of it as GAFAM or "Meta"
- WebProNews is a Slopfarm
- Please avoid linking to WebProNews
- Another "Told You So!": XBox Mass Layoffs at Microsoft (Many Recent Reports Were Chaff and Spin), Many Other Divisions Affected
- With mass layoffs at Microsoft the world would be much better
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- Links 25/06/2025: Elon Musk’s Lawyers Caught Lying, WhatsApp Faces More Bans
- Links for the day
- Brian Fagioli Created Another Slopfarm Targeting "Linux" After BetaNews Became a Slopfarm of Phantom Accounts and Pseudonyms
- Mr. Fagioli even had slop about a dead Torvalds (hypothetical) as clickbait
- Wayland is Perfect, Nobody Can Escape Its Perfection! (Or Not)
- Do not form on opinion on Wayland based on politics
- Moral Duty for "Linux Sites" to Speak Out Against LLM Slop
- My wife has long complained about "Linux bloggers" keeping quiet and thus passive about a growing problem: slop
- In Recent Hours Google News Promoted at Least 3 Slopfarms That Relayed Linux Foundation Propaganda Made by Bots or LLM "Bullshit Generators" (as Dr. Stallman Dubbed Them)
- Google is circling down the drain and Google News too is hopeless
- Linux Journal is a Slopfarm, It's Experimenting With LLM 'Authors'
- Is Slashdot next?
- Microsoft LinkedIn is Dying and Many More Layoffs Are on the Way
- LinkedIn is just a failed acquisition of Microsoft. It causes losses and debt.
- Gemini Links 25/06/2025: Combinatorial Music and Self Hosting
- Links for the day
- Richard Stallman Coming Back to Europe This Autumn to Give More Talks
- His last talk in Europe attracted about 400-450 people
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, June 24, 2025
- IRC logs for Tuesday, June 24, 2025
- Social Control Media, Technology & Catholicism: Synod on Synodality review and feedback
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- How Many More Women Will Managers at Microsoft Strangle and Tell to Kill Themselves (or Try to Kill)?
- The world needs to know what happened
- The New BetaNews: 7 New 'Articles', All of Them LLM Slop
- BetaNews is basically defunct. Nobody writes there anymore.
- statCounter Estimates Only 1 in 300 Iranians Would Use Microsoft for Search
- Iranians don't quite trust Microsoft
- Gemini Links 24/06/2025: ftpd on FreeBSD and Online Small Web Magazine
- Links for the day
- Google News Does Great Harm by Promoting Slopfarms as Legitimate News Sites
- Slopfarms are sites which are 100% LLM slop
- Links 24/06/2025: Trouble at "Open" "AI" and ‘Siarhei is Free’
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 24/06/2025: Stimulants and Subscription Costs for DRM
- Links for the day
- When the Microsoft Aggressors Rely on Several Law Firms ('Attack Dogs', 'Guns for Hire'), Not Just One, Lawyering Up Against Techrights (Acting on Behalf of Americans Against UK Publishers)
- From serving customers at some restaurant he has moved on to bullying people with demand letters
- Links 24/06/2025: OpenAI [sic] May Soon Die (Too Much Debt) and Social Control Media Accused of Being Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda Amplifier
- Links for the day
- Nirbheek Chauhan in Planet GNOME Explains Why Wayland Pushers Are Losing
- "A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."
- Polygamy, from Catholic Synod on Synodality to Social Control Media & Debian CyberPolygamy
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Only a Third of or 1 in 3 Web-Connected Devices is a Desktop or Laptop, According to statCounter
- we can expect Android to widen its lead
- The Days Are Getting Shorter, the First Half of 2025 is Almost Over
- We're gratified to see significant increase in traffic and also positive feedback on the work we do
- Turning GNU/Linux Into a Political Football
- X (not the site) is Free software
- X Server Still Works for Many People
- A lot of people will grow suspicious of Wayland boosters/pushers if they persist and insist on using these tactics
- Exactly a Week Ago "BetaNews Staff" Said "Betanews Is Growing Alongside You". Since Then Every Article (All by "Camila Nogueira") Has Been LLM Slop.
- BetaNews is basically a slopfarm
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 23, 2025
- IRC logs for Monday, June 23, 2025
- The "Tarzan Effect" in Compilers and Software
- What happens when you forcibly make things 'work', either by hacks or by disregarding warnings (like those that compilers tend to issue)?
- Gemini Links 23/06/2025: Mass Tourism, Hair Love, and Google Gemini as a Googlebomb
- Links for the day
- Law Firm Burgess Mee Does Not Fully Deny Participating in Abusive Litigation for Serial Strangler From Microsoft
- I am not unfamiliar with these tactics
- The Modus Operandi of Wayland Pushers: Make It Political
- do what I say or you're a nazi...
- Links 23/06/2025: RFE/RL Contributor Vladyslav Yesypenko Released, Recording Industry Cutbacks
- Links for the day
- Brett Wilson LLP Solicitors (M): Over 99.9% of Our E-mail is Self-Marketing, We Send You 3.5MB E-mails for Less Than 1KB of Text
- Why would tech people entrust legal matters to such people?
- Peter Moon's (Computerworld) Interview With Richard Stallman
- Stallman: If you want freedom don't follow Linus Torvalds
- At What Point Does Outsourcing Constitute Malpractice?
- Brett Wilson LLP's new staff page is misleading
- United Arab Emirates (UAE) Sailing to GNU/Linux, According to statCounter
- countries in that region will quickly learn the price of neglecting digital sovereignty
- From Do Your Own Research to Do Your Own Search
- The Web is full of garbage; search engines amplify this garbage
- More People Moving to Geminispace?
- at age 6+ Gemini Protocol seems to have gained some maturity and it seems like more people use it
- Permutation in LLMs Does, Inevitably, Change Meanings and Therefore LLMs Cannot Properly Rephrase or Summarise Texts
- LLMs lack actual grasp or comprehension of what they spew out
- Links 23/06/2025: Many Security Breaches, Population Declines
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 23/06/2025: "America at the Crossroads" and OpenWRT Surgery
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 22, 2025
- IRC logs for Sunday, June 22, 2025
- Pure Dove
- Different means different, and sometimes those who "deviate" from "the norm" have a point
- Censorship is a Sign of Weakness Which Invites More Censorship Attempts
- revolutionaries don't succumb to pressure from bullies
- Why It's Unlikely That LLM Slop Will Dominate the Web in the Long Run
- Slopfarms will eventually perish (they have no actual value) and "survivors" on the Web will be sites that never depended on search engines and social control media
- GNU/Linux in Argentina Now Measured Near 5%
- Like in central Europe, they must be seeing an increasingly hostile US
- BetaNews is Fake News, Composed by LLM Slop
- nothing in BetaNews is written by humans anymore