Technology

  • Chillhub: a new, open source smart fridge was revealed at CES back in January by GE. The fridge is a part of firstbuild: a collaborative project with the open source, crowd development, car company Local Motors. It is run by a Raspberry Pi running Linux and it features internal USB hubs that allow anyone to […]

  • The Hummingbird Robotics kit is a spin off product from Carnegie Mellon’s Create lab that is a $145 kit based on Arduino designed to introduce kids age 13 and up to robotic engineering. This kit could be great to use in a classroom setting by using the open source mentality to encourage teachers and students […]

  • 3D Robotics, the largest US-based drone manufacturer, announced the launch of their open source flight control app named Tower. In addition to providing plenty of beneficial methods for communicating  with drones, it also allows developers to build new tools and features without needing to reinvent the wheel. The app includes the ability to set up […]

  • Despite a long history of failed attempts at using DRM to control hardware products, Keurig has decided to employ DRM measures in their new coffee brewing machines that prevents the use of competing coffee pods. Coupled with a failure to clear previous, non-approved, Keurig-branded cups from store shelves before launching the product this was a […]

  • Linaro has released an open source spec for ARM Single Board Computers (SBC’s) called 96Boards, and has released an octa-core SBC that is built from these specs. The spec is designed for mobile, embedded, digital home, networking, and server segments, and is targeted at software developers, the maker community, higher education, More from Linux Gizmos.

  • Mass adoption of Internet of Things (IoT) devices has been severely hampered as a result of the industry’s focus on building separate, walled gardens. This is part of an effort to “own the home” where companies want to be the providers of the entire IoT ecosystem, rather than build products that work universally, across ecosystems. […]

  • Drones and UAVs have been receiving major interest in the last year from the open source community. A multitude of companies are now offering drone products based on open source solutions, a trend the Linux Foundation has recently caught on to with the launch of Dronecode. ArduPilot is one of the most successful open source […]

  • The list of products at CES that run on Linux has been growing for years, this year is no exception. Many vendors openly discuss their use of Linux, but some are much more difficult to identify. Smart TVs are one of the products Linux has mostly taken over with numerous companies that have released TVs […]

  • Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus Rift led many people to question what would happen if the company dominated the virtual reality hardware market. Razer is looking to disrupt this by releasing their own open source virtual reality headset with $200 dev kits set to be released as early as June 2015. The device relies on an […]

  • The concept of open washing has been covered in brief on this site before, but another form of deceptive practices has been becoming more common in the tech world. With the increased awareness of privacy over the last year, there is a growing number of individuals looking to capitalize off this movement, some of which […]

  • The options for someone looking to build open source electronic devices is consistently expanding with a selection of high quality competing devices. Choosing the platform you will use is one of the first steps in designing your own electronics, and its important to choose the platform that best fits your needs. Arduino – Arduino is […]

  • MeArm is a small robotic arm which the creators hope to turn into an accessible platform for everyone. The final goal of the project is to design a robotic arm that can be built with nothing but a screwdriver. It is built from a standard sheet of acrylic with low-cost servo motors, and uses an […]

  • Cars are becoming much more intelligent every year, but many traditional manufacturers have developed strictly controlled, walled off gardens for the computer systems in their cars. OSVehicle is best known for their Tabby chassis, which is shipped in a flat-pack box and can be assembled in under an hour, but the company behind it looks […]

  • Shah Selbe is an explorer for National Geographic who focuses on environmental conservation. He recently took a trip to the Okavango Delta wilderness in Africa where he applied open source technology to his work in conservation by using a Raspberry Pi to measure environmental variables and share the data openly, and he is also working […]

  • Graphing calculators can be quite expensive, despite the old technology that is used on many of them. Enter LibreCalc, a graphing calculator built on low cost, easy to obtain hardware that has extensive documentation and free and open source software. The case models are free to download on the web to 3D print at home, […]

  • OpenMotics is an open source home automation hardware and software system that allows users to control lighting, multi-zone heating and cooling, measure power consumption, and automate actions. The project started 10 years ago with a few simple inputs and outputs, but it has since grown to create a fully extensible home automation system. The company […]

  • Intel has unveiled a new open source communication system built specifically for Stephen Hawking that can be adapted to help the more than three million people suffering from quadriplegia and motor neurone disease. The Assistive Context Aware Toolkit (ACAT) is th result of three years of collaboration between Intel and Hawking and replaces the 20-year-old […]

  • Networking vendor Juniper has announced they will be embracing the open compute platform with the upcoming OCX 1100 switch. This is a significant deviation from their normal business practices as they have relied on their own proprietary hardware running their own proprietary operating system. The company views open compute as an opportunity to expand their […]

  • A silicon valley startup founded by two teenagers is working to design and build a parallel processor that will deliver a 10x leap in performance per watt over current technologies. Rex Computing hopes to then make this processor open source under the Open Compute Project that was started by Facebook in order to rally supporters […]

  • Random Articles from the OST Archives

    • LiDAR is a remote sensing technology that measures distance by illuminating a target with lasers and analyzing the reflected light. It is a necessary part of building autonomous drones that are functional enough to be used in situations of high importance. A new project has been launched on kickstarter to fund an open source LiDAR […]

    • Samsung has announced plans to develop software and hardware for digital health as well as a $50 million fund to help innovative start-ups. Samsung Architecture for Multimedia Interactions (SAMI) is an open source, cloud-based framework that tracks health data from users to provide useful analysis. More from The Inquirer

    • Toyota has announced that the infotainment system in their new Camry sedans to be sold in the US will run Automotive Grade Linux (AGL).  Toyota has been working on this platform along with 10 other automakers because it makes it much easier to customize infotainment systems that have well-developed features. The Camry models that run […]

    • Oculus VR, a company that produces virtual reality gaming hardware and software, has acquired RakNet: a networking middleware system for gaming, and released it as open source under a modified BSD license. RakNet’s features include remote procedure calls, patching, secure connections, and voice chat. More from Oculus VR