May 6th, 2013 will stand out in the memory of anyone involved in the 3D printing community as the day that the mass media, for better or for worse, really took notice of this rapidly evolving field. That’s because as of right now, anyone in the United States can legally download and print their own [...]
GitHub Graciously Helps Female Programmers Cower In Fear
It’s no secret that the tech world has historically been a boys club. Programmers, engineers, hackers, makers; the majority of them are all male. Any females who wander into the fray tend to be ostracized, or perhaps even worse, garner so much unwanted attention that they are treated more like a sideshow than a colleague. The [...]
PhoneSats in Orbit, Transmitting Data To Listeners Worldwide
After a few delays, the inaugural mission of the Orbital Sciences Antares mission successfully made it into orbit on April 21st. While the mission didn’t carry the actual spacecraft Antares is designed to lift (that’s currently slated for June), it didn’t go up there empty handed. The Antares rocket safely delivered all three of NASA’s PhoneSats into their intended orbit, and [...]
Reimagining Play: Interview with PlayMG’s Taylor Cavanah
Last month, we brought you a review of the MG, an Android powered handheld gaming system designed for casual games. The combination of vanilla Android and the MG’s custom parental controls made the device a compelling option for gamers young and old alike, and its comparatively low price combined with the vast Android software library [...]
Antares Rocket Launch Scrubbed at T-12 Minutes
This evening’s planned launch of the Orbital Sciences Antares rocket had to be canceled just 12 minutes before liftoff, due to the unexpected separation of the booster’s umbilical cable while the vehicle was on the launch pad. This is the first attempt to fly the Antares rocket, which is a commercial craft and direct competitor to the [...]
Open Source Music Streaming Service Napster.fm Released
When the MP3 format was unleashed onto the relatively young Internet, it was an absolute game changer. It finally made audio files small enough to practically distribute over the Internet, as high-speed connections were still a luxury item for the majority of Internet users. But while it was the MP3 format that made it possible, [...]
Negative to Positive: Interview with Mayan Developer Roberto Rosario
The free and open source software community operates on a very simple principle: obey the license which the software is released under. But what happens when the rules of engagement set down in FOSS licenses like the GNU GPL are ignored? What do you do if a rival developer or company takes your code and [...]
Back to the Future: Pwn Pad Review
It was nearly one year ago that we took an in-depth look at the Pwnie Express Pwn Plug, a security appliance that absolutely exploded its way onto the scene. By combining an off the shelf hardware platform that was well supported by open source software, custom software front-end, and the experience and knowledge of their team of [...]
AOKP Drops SuperSU for Open Source Superuser
The Android Open Kang Project (AOKP), one of the most popular custom Android builds currently available, has just unveiled their 6th build of Jelly Bean. Along with the normal host of bug fixes and improvements, this build features an especially important addition: the removal of SuperSU in favor of Superuser. Open Source Prevails As we’ve [...]
Taking Control: Interview with FLIRC Creator Jason Kotzin
We’ve covered a lot of hardware projects here on “The Powerbase”, from completely open source creations such as the OsciPrime, to 2012′s incredible influx of Kickstarter campaigns. But none of them have kept our attention as closely as Jason Kotzin’s FLIRC. Jason has managed to achieve a delicate balance between the obsessive attention to detail that comes [...]