- Emotiv EPOC EEG headset has been successfully hacked; open-source code and documentation are now available at https://github.com/daeken/Emokit and were covered by H+ Magazine.  
- A 5-axis vertical mill CAD assembly (108 k STEP entities) was successfully loaded into HeeksCAD/OpenCASCADE, demonstrating progress toward open-source CNC toolchain integration.  
- NIST is developing a formal methodology to compute the carbon footprint of any manufactured artifact, documented at http://www.nist.gov/mel/msid/dpg/sccwmp.cfm.  
- The USAF “Technology Horizons” report explicitly lists human augmentation via autonomous systems, human-machine interfaces, pharmacological or implant-based cognitive enhancement, and genetic/brainwave screening for specialty roles.  
- STEP (ISO 10303) AP203/AP214 schema support in open-source CAD tools was debated; small test files with primitives like “SQUARE” still trigger parsing failures, indicating incomplete implementations.  
- A 2000 industry estimate claims more than one million STEP-enabled CAD workstations were already deployed, underscoring the format’s relevance for open hardware ecosystems.  
- A cautionary note was issued about a STEP-file tarbomb (ftp://www.steptools.com/private/Vancouver/5-Axis_Vertical_Mill.zip) that extracts directly into the current directory.