Patent lawyers: Help! The evil Makers won't let us apply for bullshit 3D printing patents! Nintendo claims ownership over gamer fanvids on YouTube NYPD wrongfully seize wrong SD card Top UK government officials tamper with inquest into Brit assassinated by Russian spies in London, suppress evidence Is this the best song from this year's Eurovision Song Contest? Associated Press quietly nukes its dumber-than-dumb DRM-for-news system Patent lawyers: Help! The evil Makers won't let us apply for bullshit 3D printing patents!
By Cory Doctorow on May 19, 2013 09:10 am Two minor characters from my novel Makers have apparently come to life and written an article for 3D Printing Industry. These two people are patent lawyers for Finnegan IP law firm, Washington, DC, which I don't recall making up, but this is definitely a pair of Doctorow villains (though, thankfully, I had the good sense ...
Read in browser Nintendo claims ownership over gamer fanvids on YouTube
By Cory Doctorow on May 18, 2013 08:43 pm Alan Wexelblat comment on the news that Nintendo has claimed "monetization rights" to fan videos on YouTube that feature tips on playing its games. Some of these videos are incredibly popular, and while their use of Nintendo's creations are often fair use, Nintendo gets to use YouTube's monetization system to advertise on all the videos: ...
Read in browser NYPD wrongfully seize wrong SD card
By Jason Weisberger on May 18, 2013 07:53 pm "New York City police officers arrested a woman who was video recording them from a public sidewalk as they conducted some type of 'vehicle safety checkpoint.'"
Read in browser Top UK government officials tamper with inquest into Brit assassinated by Russian spies in London, suppress evidence
By Cory Doctorow on May 18, 2013 05:36 pm Marina Litvinenko, widow of Alexander Litvinenko (a British citizen who was assassinated in London by two former KGB agents who poisoned him with radioactive polonium) has accused the British government, Secretary of State William Hague, and PM David Cameron of sabotaging the coroner's inquest into her husband's death. Hague and Cameron intervened in the coroner's ...
Read in browser Is this the best song from this year's Eurovision Song Contest?
By Rob Beschizza on May 18, 2013 04:20 pm The battle of the bands, featuring acts from Ireland to Israel, is underway as we speak. Embedded above is Cezar Ouatu's particularly excellent It's my life, this year's Transylvanian entry. Our Europe Correspondent Leigh Alexander will be filing a report, but not until she's had a bit of a lie down.
Read in browser Associated Press quietly nukes its dumber-than-dumb DRM-for-news system
By Cory Doctorow on May 18, 2013 03:00 pm Do you remember the Associated Press's 2009 announcement that they had discovered a magic-beans technology that would let them stop people from quoting the news unless they paid for license fees (for quotes as short as 12 words, yet!)? Didn't work. Since the launch... we heard absolutely nothing about NewsRight. There was a launch, with ...
Read in browser Meet SparkTruck, an “educational build-mobile” for the twenty-first century.
Dreamed up by a group of Stanford d.school students and funded through Kickstarter, SparkTruck is a mobile maker space currently traveling across the United States. At schools and summer camps and libraries around the country, the SparkTruck team offers workshops to help kids “find their inner maker” as they design and build projects like stamps, stop-motion animation clips, and “vibrobots.”
[video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmRKXqDwieY&feature=plcp]
This might seem all shiny and new. And it is—but only in part. What’s so striking (and exciting) about SparkTruck is the way it combines old and new. It does so in the tools it gets kids using, which range from pipe cleaners to laser cutters. It does so in its educational approach, which combines cutting-edge (get it?) STEM and design pedagogy with the fundamentals of an old-school shop class. And it does so in its method, which combines the iconic, century-old technology of the bookmobile with the hot new form of the maker space.
In doing so, SparkTruck joins a growing number of libraries which are combining time-tested principles (like equal access to information) with new technologies (like 3-D printers), putting in maker spaces and media production labs alongside bookshelves and meeting rooms. As I’ve argued over on bookmobility.org, these combinations make sense because reading and making actually have a lot in common. They’re both creative processes that take existing materials and combine them in new ways. Getting people engaged in those kinds of processes—through imaginative thinking, contemplation, hands-on problem-solving, and collaborative learning—is what both maker spaces and libraries are all about.
Taking that commitment on the road with scissors and hammers and 3-D printers and a great big bookmobile-like truck, SparkTruck serves as a laboratory for new approaches, as well as a reminder that trying new things doesn’t have to (and probably shouldn’t!) necessarily mean tossing old ones out.
After all, what would those vibrobots be without classically crafty pipe cleaners and tongue depressors? And what would a library be without the creative, participatory, straight-up awesome experience of reading?
SparkTruck schedule [sparktruck.org]
How to arrange a visit from SparkTruck [sparktruck.org]
SparkTruck YouTube channel [youtube.com]
Signature: --Derek Attig, bookmobility.org
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