• Japanese “GREEN FLOAT” concept proposes a floating city in the sky powered by algae bioreactors and solar arrays, documented in DigInfo video and Shimizu Corp project pages.  
• Microsoft Kinect, hacked within days of release, is now a $150, 30 Hz 3-D point-cloud sensor—three orders of magnitude cheaper than prior depth cameras—spawning ROS drivers, SLAM demos, and immediate “get me a beer” robot prototypes.  
• Channel members debate the path to industrial self-replication: whether to pursue fully universal constructors or instead standardize low-complexity open-source work-cells (torch-table / router / PCB-mill hybrids) that can reproduce 80–90 % of their parts while treating micro-controllers, motors, and copper as purchasable exotics.  
• A cyclic fabrication system (CFS) paper and the OpenFarmTech project are cited as working examples where one CNC machine makes structural parts for the next, aiming to bootstrap village-scale 1990-era IC fabs and, if necessary, relay-logic computers.  
• Genomera launches “So You Think You Can Science,” a citizen-science contest soliciting open, data-driven research proposals from non-traditional investigators.  
• Work-in-progress announced on a git-based hardware-hosting platform intended to give open-source physical designs a collaborative, version-controlled home independent of GitHub’s closed-source stack.  
• Ray Kurzweil’s new Q&A argues that open-source software plus exponentially improving 3-D printing/nanofactories will eventually realize communist ideals (“from each according to ability…”) while proprietary models persist for high-value information.  
• Participants sketch a “global village construction set” that replaces tractor-centric models with soil generation via vermicomposting, integrated wastewater treatment, modular aquaponic greenhouses, and a no-electricity Savonius wind-driven membrane pump carved from tree trunks and animal skins.