Open Source Software

I read recently that a powerful US copyright lobby is likening OS (Open Source software) to piracy or worse. Alright, we need to put this into perspective, so you can realize just how absurd this comparison is. Piracy is when somebody’s copyrighted content, whether it is music, movies, video games, books etc. is taken and distributed. We won’t go into any big detail, you know what I am talking about.

Open source software on the other hand is where a programmer, or a team of programmers, create an application. This can be in the form of a browser, such as Firefox, an operating system, such as Linux (any flavor), or a graphics application (Gimp, Blender, MyPaint, Inkscape…) etc. and make it open to the community. Have these people stolen anything? No. Have they distributed somebody else’s content? No!

What they have done is made their intellectual property available to people like you and me. These people give many others the opportunity to do something they wouldn’t otherwise be able to do. And chances are they have contributed more than you might think.

If you run a website, or even visit websites, you have come into contact with open source software in various forms. You don’t realize it, but the majority of the web is run through the open source database MySQL. Not to mention WordPress, Apache, RedHat, CentOS etc. etc. etc.

Meanwhile, it’s not uncommon for commercial applications to “borrow” code and inspiration. Even Mac OS X is based on the BSD operating system.

Off the top of my head I know of two countries that actively support open source software, one of them is Germany. The second one is Indonesia, which last year sent out a report to all their government departments encouraging them to migrate to open source.

You can read an interesting post from the Technology Blog on the Guardian.co.uk, the title of the article is: When using open source makes you an enemy of the state

Is this the end of open source software? That isn’t very likely, it will take more than one greedy corporation lobbying to outlaw what people are allowed to do with their IP.

Leonar3Do

I saw this earlier today and I was really impressed with how the idea has evolved. I saw something like this several years ago in a documentary and at that point it was closer to science fiction than reality. That has changed.

But before I go on I should probably explain what “this” is. Leonar3Do is a creates virtual space in front of your computer monitor. You can more it around and you can look at it from different angles as long as you are wearing the headset.

The device was created to allow you to sculpt on your computer, this actually isn’t anything new. There have been applications that allow you to do this for years but you were always restricted to the screen. Now with the creation of Leonar3Do that is no longer the case.

To get a better idea of what this means you can take a look at this video that demonstrates the technology better.

Black Dragon Sculpture

I should mention that this video is a mock-up, you can’t film the effect and you can’t see it unless you are wearing the glasses. My guess is we’ll have to wait a couple more years for something like that.

You can learn more on the official website, Leonar3Do.com. And if you are wondering how much this is going to cost, it may disappoint you to learn that it will be over $1000.

A couple of days ago I was online and I happened to find a post about a toy maker named Mani Zamani. He recently graduated from the Design Academy Graduate and already has a large number of toys in his portfolio.

Here is one of the toys he has made. It is particularly interesting how he made the robot suit, which he named the RetroRobo, fit around the pilot inside.

Mani Zamani 3D printed robot

You can get a better idea of the size and shape of the toy in this turntable video.

As I have already said he has a large portfolio of toys he had designed. Here are a couple of my favorites.

Mani Zamani 3D printed-steel revoltech 4

Mani Zamani 3D printed-steel revoltech 5

Mani Zamani 3D printed-steel revoltech 6

You can see more of Mani’s designs by visiting his website: manizamani.com