Steven Chu, the current US Energy Secretary, argues that open source software will cut down on global warming. Long story short, widespread adoption of open source software would cut down on IP- and standards-related conflicts, allowing both the so-called first and third world to quickly reap the benefits of technology, particularly in doing more with less power. Yes, there’s a us-against-them aspect to the idea:
blockquote>But he is adamant that great efficiency, particularly in buildings, will significantly reduce the number of power plants built. To really take effect, he says, global co-operation on technology to improve efficiency is vital. And that …read more

Imagine typing out a text message, tapping in “reboot”, and wondering why your phone actually rebooted. That’s a quirk caused by a hilarious—but serious—bug affecting G1’s running on the RC29 firmware revision. I totally understand why Ed Burnette called this the “Worst. Bug. Ever.” over at zdnet.com. A bug that ultimately gives a casual user complete access to your smartphone if you happen to leave it unattended is a very bad thing indeed.
At the same time however, Ed’s discussion of the issue also shows the advantages of open source, and why being able to share info quickly over the internet …read more

It’s easy to argue that the open-source movement’s progress to the hardware world was inevitable. This aspect of sharing is the chief activity of a company recently featured by Wired Magazine. Arduino seeks to exist by developing and testing specific hardware components—and releasing the results for the entire world to download and copy.
Of course, like any sensible business, profit is still a part of the Italian company’s objectives. Apparently, despite releasing the specs of their creations, Arduino can stand out on the strength of its “Italian manufacturing quality”, compared to copycats that “were poor quality, rife with soldering errors and …read more

Internetnews.com reports on Nokia’s bid to buy out all of Symbian (spending $410 Million in the process) and offer “a new, royalty-free mobile software platform.”

This obviously works to Nokia’s advantage. As the top dog in the smartphone world, Nokia would like to make it harder for new players to profitably compete in the market. At least, that’s what the article implies.

Open hardware specs seem to be catching on. After the OpenMoko released CAD design files for all of its handsets, Via’s gone and done the same thing with their new OpenBook. It’s only the outside that’s being released as an open design, but that’s not a bad start.
The OpenBook site spells it out like this:
The external panel CAD files for the VIA OpenBook Reference Design are being released under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 license giving customers the flexibility to bring their own innovative style and brand value propositions to the Mini-Note market segment. This also …read more

Open source software was just the beginning, as we’re now seeing the slow but steady growth of open source hardware as well.
The newest development in this field is now accepting pre-orders — the Open Graphics Project’s OGD-1, a totally open source FPGA (Field-Programmable Gate Array) development platform.
It’s actually not a graphics card yet, but that’s one of the many possible things it could be morphed into, and that’s all part of the plan.
The OGP itself has as their stated mission the creation of a graphics card that has entirely open hardware specs, and can be run …read more