- MIT released the Reality Mining dataset—220 000 hours of continuous accelerometer, Bluetooth, GPS and survey data from 106 people over nine months—showing that coarse phone-sensor traces can predict friendships, job satisfaction and daily routines with >90 % accuracy, underscoring privacy implications (data available at http://reality.media.mit.edu).

- Early self-replication milestones were revisited: a 2003 Lego robot that assembles an identical copy from four supplied parts (http://www.molecularassembler.com/KSRM/3.23.4.htm) and Matt Moses’ 2009 paper on wax-printing + investment-casting pipelines that can produce almost any metal part needed for full parts-closure in a self-replicating factory.

- Participants began encoding basic machine-element physics (motors, gears, levers, screws, springs, hydraulics) into SKDB packages, aiming to supply steady-state linear equations for automated design analysis; resources shared include a UWA spring-modeling note set, a Scribd document on translational/rotational elements, and the free textbook “Introduction to Physical System Modelling” (control-systems-principles.co.uk).

- An open-source CAD-to-image pipeline is being prototyped: OpenCASCADE converts models to STL, then VTK off-screen rendering (http://vis.lbl.gov/staff/jshalf/VTK/vtkOffScreen/) and Blender’s headless mode (`blender -b -P`) generate images without X11; the Blender LDraw add-on (http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:Py/Scripts/Manual/Import/LDRAW) was noted for importing LEGO-style parts.

- Center Star, Alabama—17–37 acres near Huntsville’s Cummings Research Park, NASA Marshall’s Lab-on-a-Chip facility and the new Advanced Technology Robotics R&D Complex in Decatur—was proposed as a low-cost hub for open biotech/AI research, with domain names like partsfabr.com and adfablab.com brainstormed for future DIY-science portals.