iPad contre Arduino: la révolution du matériel open source Les exemples sont nombreux: prenez l'iPad ou le nouvel iPhone, avec un écran tactile multi-touch vraiment précis ou une batterie qui font rougir nos ordinateurs portables avec une longévité de plus de 8 heures (contre 2-3 maximum pour les autres batteries)... ajoutez à cela un design bien pensé et des processus industriels maîtrisés et vous avez un véritable bijou technologique à la portée de (presque) tous. Tout cela est très bien à une seule exception près, ces merveilleux gadgets sont tous "bloqués" aussi bien au niveau logiciel que matériel. Aucune possibilité de modifier ne serais ce le code source des logiciels qui le pilotent, que de modifier, bidouiller le matériel que vous avez acheté. Il y a peu, une cour de justice américaine à légalisé le fait de "jailbreaké" votre iPhone (de passer outre la restriction logicielle), mais avec le risque de se voir annuler la garantie par Apple. Reprendre la main sur la technologie Définition et utilité Deux exemples: le RepRap et l’Arduino
An In-Depth Look at the Google TV Interface Google TV will include a podcast directory, giving users the ability to subscribe to shows and have future episodes show up in the same list as their DVR recordings. That’s one of the takeaways of an in-depth look at the Google TV interface, courtesy of the fine folks over at StuffWeLike.com (hat tip to Engadget). StuffWeLike recorded a video of Google showing off its upcoming TV platform in concert with Dish at Comiccon, and the video features a detailed description of a number of features, including the previously demoed universal search capabilities, YouTube integration, a few early apps and a central element called Google Queue. Check out the entire video embedded below, but here are some screen grabs of some of the highlights: Universal Search across TV and video content, with the ability to extend the search to web pages as well. Bookmarked websites. YouTube integration. Google Queue lists all the content available for playback, including podcasts and DVR recordings.
Hacker en sous-sol Rencontres en sous-sol au Plastic Hacker Space Festival qui se tient ce week-end à Vitry-sur-Seine. Ici le Do It Yourself, que ce soit pour faire un sex toy ou des objets en 3D. La rue Léon-Geffroy de Vitry-sur-Seine est une longue voie quasi droite typique de nos ZA – zones d’activités-. C’est dans ce paysage emblématique de notre société de consommation moderne que se tient ce week-end le troisième Plastic Hacker Space Festival, PHSF pour les habitués. Assise sur un matelas à même le sol, Laura dynamite avec humour l’image de la ménagère. À l’autre bout du sous-sol, Guiral s’active avec une poignée de participants pour installer un réseau de WiFi mailé. Au centre de la pièce et de ces workshops, la RepRap est reine. Si dans ce royaume du DIY (Do It Yourself), la société de consommation en prend indirectement pour son grade, on ne vit pas non plus que d’amour et d’eau fraîche. Plus ou moins prégnant selon les projets, le politique pointe le bout de son nez.
L’Open hardware, open source pour bricoleurs du XXIe siècle Dans le cadre de SFR Player 2010, SFR organisait hier soir une conférence en partenariat avec Digital Arti sur les FabLab. Après un petit tour dans l’univers futuriste et ultra-geek de l’Atelier SFR, retour donc aux objets concrets et réels avec un topo très intéressant sur les FabLabs. Un FabLab, c’est quoi ? Le concept est né au MIT. Proposé par Niel Gershenfeld, le FabLab est défini comme un « atelier communautaire de prototypage rapide à commande numérique ». Atelier communautaire car il repose sur le principe de l’open hardware, où chacun peut venir (vous et moi, pas besoin de compétences techniques) usiner ou faire usiner des objets, à condition de laisser ensuite les plans en « open plan ». Les FabLabs sont conçus en réseau mondial dans lequel chaque FabLab partage ses plans de fabrication, des connaissances, des questions, avec les autres FabLabs. On retrouve donc l’esprit de l’open source sur les objets, dans la même mouvance que des projets de crowdsourcing tels que ikeahacking.
Proof SCO Knew IBM Was Involved in Linux From 1998 Onward Look what I just found, SCO's Partners page from 2002, on Internet Archive, and lo and behold, it provides proof positive that SCO, then calling itself Caldera, knew that IBM was involved with Linux as far back as 1998. That's the year Santa Cruz and IBM signed the agreement regarding Project Monterey, executed in October of 1998. No one, therefore, Santa Cruz or Caldera, had any reason to be in the dark about IBM's Linux activities while IBM was also working on Project Monterey. Now that the old caldera.com pages are on Internet Archive again, thanks to SCO selling off the domain name, many interesting things are surfacing, and we find out why SCO tried to hide them for so long. I took some screenshots for you: And here's a closeup: I know the type is small, so I've placed a larger version here, where you can clearly see that the date was 2002 for that page, December 7, 2002. IBM offers the industry's most comprehensive lineup of solutions for Linux®. So they knew.
RepRap, la machine réplicante qui fait peur aux capitalistes L’un des multiples objets 3D réalisés par la RepRap Machine d’Adrian Bowyer, qui dit travailler sur l’auto-réplication des objets. En open-source, naturellement… © RepRap RepRap, la machine réplicante qui fait peur aux capitalistes « Nous sommes en 2020, les hackerspaces, fablabs et autres usinettes se comptent par milliers en France et pas seulement dans les grandes villes. Nous sommes en 2010 et ceci n’est pas une fiction, c’est écrit sur le site d’Usinette. Adrian Bowyer présente son RepRap Project et sa machine infernale : Alors donc, cette RepRap machine (pour « replicating rapid prototyper ») et sa copine, la Makerbot, une imprimante 3D open source, sont des machines anticapitalistes. La Makerbot, la copine de la RepRa, version Dark Vador : Cindy désire une assiette pour son invité supplémentaire ! Nous sommes en 2010, et l’invention de Bowyer est à ce jour un peu capricieuse. Cindy et ses copines ont du boulot, car la machine infernale, il s’agit aujourd’hui de la monter.
Hardware Hackers Create a Modular Motherboard | Gadget Lab An ambitious group of hardware hackers have taken the fundamental building blocks of computing and turned them inside out in an attempt to make PCs significantly more efficient. The group has created a motherboard prototype that uses separate modules, each of which has its own processor, memory and storage. Each square cell in this design serves as a mini-motherboard and network node; the cells can allocate power and decide to accept or reject incoming transmissions and programs independently. Together, they form a networked cluster with significantly greater power than the individual modules. The design, called the Illuminato X Machina, is vastly different from the separate processor,memory and storage components that govern computers today. “We are taking everything that goes into motherboard now and chopping it up,” says David Ackley, associate professor of computer science at the University of New Mexico and one of the contributors to the project. Norair agrees.
Why Intel bought McAfee There's been quite a bit of head-scratching over Intel's decision to purchase McAfee, but, despite all the breathless talk about mobile security and ARM and virus-fighting processors, the chipmaker's motivations for the purchase are actually fairly straightforward. First, Intel's management has decided, in the wake of Operation Aurora, to move security up to the top of Intel's priority list. Second, secure systems require a lot more than just hardware support—security is about the whole stack, plus the network, plus policies and practices. Third, Intel has waited for ages for its ecosystem partners to come up with ways to give consumers access to vPro's security benefits, and little has really panned out so now they're just going to take vPro (and any newer security technologies) directly to consumers via McAfee. Let's take a look at each of these reasons in turn. Security is Job One Moving up the stack, and then off the stack Why they did it
3D Printing, Intellectual Property, and the Fight Over the Next Great Disruptive Technology it is critical for today’s 3D printing community, tucked away in garages, hackerspaces, and labs, to keep a vigilant eye on these policy debates as they grow. There will be a time when impacted legacy industries demand some sort of DMCA for 3D printing. If the 3D printing community waits until that day to organize, it will be too late. An important call to arms to the open manufacturing community, by Michael Weinberg of Public Knowledge, who examines how intellectual property (IP) law impacts the rapidly maturing technology of 3D printing, and how incumbents who feel threatened by its growth might try to use IP law to stop it * White Paper: It Will Be Awesome if They Don’t Screw it Up: 3D Printing, Intellectual Property, and the Fight Over the Next Great Disruptive Technology. Excerpts from Micheal Weinberg: “The next great technological disruption is brewing just out of sight. In many ways, today’s 3D printing community resembles the personal computing community of the early 1990s.
Forget Hall Monitors, School Investigates Tracking Students with RFID So much for bathroom passes and hall monitors - these days it's technology that is making the art of skipping class much more difficult for students, and we're not just talking about security cameras. A forward-thinking school district in Connecticut is looking to crack down on wayward students, faculty and even equipment by making use of radio frequency identification (RFID) in its schools. New Canaan Public Schools hopes to increase the efficiency of its security efforts by embedding RFID tags into student and faculty identification cards and onto various pieces of school equipment. The tags could be used to track where specific students and faculty are located throughout campus, as well as hunt down missing laptops, projectors and other school property. SecureRF Corporation, a company specializing in secure RFID software, proposed the project to the school district.
The world's first printed plane - tech - 27 July 2011 Read full article Continue reading page |1|2 Video: First flight of 3D printed plane Read more: "3D printing: Second industrial revolution is under way" The promise of 3D printing has finally taken off with the development of a drone that takes just a week to create Under darkening skies on a grass airstrip in the UK's Wiltshire Downs, north of Stonehenge, I am watching half a dozen aeronautical engineers rushing to assemble an uncrewed aircraft before the weather takes a turn for the worse. Led by Andy Keane and Jim Scanlan of the University of Southampton, the team believes that 3D printing will soon allow uncrewed aircraft known as drones or UAVs to go from the drawing board to flight in a matter of days. 3D printing has come on in leaps and bounds since its origins as an expensive prototyping tool over two decades ago. To do this, the 3D printer first slices up an object's computerised design into hundreds of easily printable layers. This is a huge deal for aircraft designers. (YouTube)
Newspapers gone by 2022 says futurist NEWSPAPERS as we know them will be irrelevant within 12 years, according to futurist Ross Dawson, who said journalism would be largely 'crowdsourced'. Mr Dawson, who will address a Newspaper Publishers' Association forum on the future of the industry on Thursday, predicted within 10 years, mobile reading devices that would allow people to consume news on the run would be our "primary news interfaces''. But he said the price to consumers of such devices, the forerunner of which was Apple's iPad, would fall from $629 - the minimum cost of an iPad today - to less than $10, and they would often be given away. "We are shifting to a media economy, dominated by content and social connection,'' Mr Dawson said. "Media revenues will soar but will be unevenly distributed,'' he said. "Yet established media organisations will need to reinvent themselves to participate in that growth. "More sophisticated news readers will be foldable, or rollable, gesture-controlled and fully interactive,'' he said.
The Ultimate Guide: How Media Companies Should Offer Daily Deals « Yipit Blog YipitData aggregates transaction data from ecommerce marketplaces for institutional money managers and industry participants. Past reports have been covered in WSJ, Bloomberg, Reuters. Researching Alibaba? Contact us: data@yipitdata.com One of the most hotly anticipated IPOs of 2014, Alibaba is rumored to go public next month at a valuation north of $130 billion. Disclosures from Yahoo’s investment in the company, however, show signs of slowing growth. Based on YipitData, which tracks every transaction on Alibaba’s marketplaces, there’s reason to believe Alibaba could be worth substantially more. Alibaba has several business units, including Alibaba.com (B2B marketplace), Taobao.com (C2C marketplace), Alyun (cloud services) – but its jewel is Tmall. Tmall 101 Alibaba launched Tmall in April 2008 for brands and large retailers to sell their products directly, leveraging the shopping community in its hugely successful Taobao C2C marketplace. What drives Tmall’s value?
Why Apple's iTunes Rentals May Have Little Effect on TV Business Model | Peter Kafka | MediaMemo | AllThingsD Very, very good bet: Steve Jobs will stand up onstage tomorrow and announce that you can rent some episodes of TV shows from iTunes for 99 cents a pop. I’m told that Apple (AAPL) has finalized a deal with Disney (DIS) for some of its shows, which isn’t a surprise. Steve Jobs has had a hard time convincing other networks, but sources tell me News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox is likely to join in as well, particularly if Rupert Murdoch thinks he can extract some iPad favors out of Jobs down the line (the Los Angeles Times reported the same thing last night). Big deal? Maybe. But it’s worth noting that TV has been facing off against the forces of digital disruption for a long time, and it’s been holding its own so far. Apple–with an initial push from Disney–started selling TV shows a day after they aired back in 2005, for $1.99 a piece. Bear in mind that you still won’t get to watch any ABC show via iTunes until it’s already aired on TV. That doesn’t sound like a tectonic move to me. Maybe!