- NanoEngineer CAD (https://github.com/kanzure/nanoengineer) remains the flagship open-source tool for the classic “pick-and-place” nanofactory vision, while DNA origami and metal-organic phase-change chemistries are treated as complementary rather than replacement paths to molecular manufacturing.

- Vanderbilt’s ISIS group, funded by the DARPA Metamorph program, is releasing WebGME-based design software for Project Ara’s modular-phone ecosystem under an open license; early repositories are already public (https://github.com/webgme/webgme, https://github.com/adamnagel/webgme-cyphy).

- Parallax has fully open-sourced the Propeller 1 multicore microcontroller—including Verilog RTL, Spin interpreter, IDE, and compilers—making it one of the most open hardware chips in its performance class.

- MindRDR (https://github.com/ThisPlace/MindRDR) is an open-source Google Glass application that lets users take and share photos via a NeuroSky EEG headset, demonstrating a low-cost, consumer-grade brain-computer interface.

- The DOJ’s “Antitrust Guidelines for the Licensing of Intellectual Property” (http://www.justice.gov/atr/public/guidelines/0558.htm) were cited to argue that post-patent royalty clauses can correct “incomplete contracting” problems when patents are hard to value.

- Global aluminum smelting consumes ~3 % of world electricity (~$30 B/year), dwarfing Bitcoin mining at 0.02 %, prompting half-serious proposals for an aluminum-backed currency.

- Filecoin’s whitepaper and token economics were dismissed as technically unsound; Gregory Maxwell’s critique argues that “cut-and-choose” proofs of storage are useful but do not justify creating a new alt-coin, which he labels an investment scam.

- Stellar and Ripple were characterized as technically competent yet redundant layers that could be implemented on top of Bitcoin without separate tokens; exchanges listed Stellar rapidly because it was “Ripple with s/ripple/stellar/.”

- Participants observed that exposure to Bitcoin often triggers sudden day-trading behavior in people previously uninterested in currency speculation, suggesting a strong psychological novelty effect.

- Cryptocurrency was questioned as a transhumanist technology; the only defense offered was a vague appeal to “personal empowerment,” while critics argued that useful currency should have intrinsic utility (e.g., diesel vs. ethanol).