• A YAML-based Bill-of-Materials schema is being drafted at http://designfiles.org/skdb/inventory/data/schema.yaml to let hardware packages specify interchangeable part trees (e.g., stepper vs. servo, metric vs. imperial) so users can swap suppliers without redesigning assemblies.

• The group has pivoted from designing a new EEG headset to reverse-engineering the 32-channel Emotiv EPOC; the immediate goal is to extract its AES-512 key from the Windows executable and publish an open driver.

• An open-source “apt-get for hardware” system (SKDB) is under active development: kanzure has already imported all of Thingiverse into stub SKDB packages (http://designfiles.org/~bryan/thingiverse/thingiverse_packages/) and aims to integrate it with RepRap/MakerBot and EMC2 for self-replicating demonstrations.

• A Burning Man art installation is being built around Arduino nodes that perform real-time FFT on ambient sound and drive RGB or motion effects; the resulting open FFT library will be released for others to program new behaviors.

• A new, no-strings-attached cash fund is available to accelerate open-source hardware work, covering everything from nootropics for contributors to machining infrastructure and SKDB development.

• Participants are creating a public technical-paper mirror at http://designfiles.org/papers/ and http://bio.cc/Bioinformics/papers/ and invite bulk uploads via SFTP to prevent future link rot.

• lepton_ and kanzure are preparing a step-by-step Ubuntu 10.04 build guide for PythonOCC with GEOM/SMESH support so aerospace students and others can run the PAF optimization library; the guide will be ready before kanzure’s SciPy 2010 talk.

• genehacker and lepton_ are collaborating on adding pick-and-place capability to RepRap machines: genehacker will supply CAD for a syringe-pump head, lepton_ will CNC-machine it, and both will integrate OpenCV-based machine vision for component placement.

• Pink Army Cooperative, an open-source personalized anti-cancer virus project, was introduced with its factsheet (http://pinkarmy.org/pa_factsheet.pdf) and technical PDF (http://pinkarmy.org/images/Pink_Army_Cooperative.pdf).

• kanzure will present on PythonOCC at SciPy 2010 and on “datapkg” (apt-get for scientific data) at the H+ Summit 2010 in Boston, while also demoing an SMS-based “project projector” workflow manager that coordinates distributed volunteers until full CNC automation is ready.