ethics

Febryary 3rd, 2016, that is the day before our first 2016 Project Meeting was a very busy day. We had four different meetings with different groups and organizations who, for one reason or another, may have some interest in greater diffusion of Digital DIY.

Drones are a clear example of Digital DIY: many people engage in making their own drones, often based on shared designs - as Open Source Hardware. And they are a case of Atoms-Bits Convergence (ABC), as the bits move the atoms when piloting such machine; in the oppositie sense it also holds true: many drones are being equiped with digital cameras that convert atoms into bits.

New South Wales (Australia) recently enacted a new legislation to regulate gun control with the Firearms and Weapons Prohibition Legislation Amendment Bill 2015. It is the first of its kind in that it tries to control digital fabrication of firearms, it aims: "to create a new offence of possessing digital blueprints for the manufacture of firearms on 3D printers or electronic milling machines".< href="http://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/bills/docref/5bb4f02b-1f1e-48b2-aa93-955574e699f6"> Source (PDF)

A milestone in DiDIY history: The Australian police has (very likely :) been reading up on our work about ethics and the New South Wales Parliament decided to ban not certain objects, but certain digital files! http://3dprint.com/106940/australia-ban-3d-files-guns/

3D bioprinting is a developing technology relying, as its name indicates, on the principles of 3D printing (also known as additive manufacturing). It involves the ability to build bones and various kinds of human tissue, and might ultimately give us the ability to build whole organs, layer by layer, in a digitally controlled manner, using cells as raw material.

No, this is NOT about 3D printed weapons (though we do study those too)

On October 1st I had an interview with David Bollier. Given his decade long work on the commons, as researcher and activist, author of books like Viral Spiral and in particular his work on Laws and the Commons, I thought that his perspective would be meaningful for our research in the DiDIY project. In particular for our work on rights and responsibilities, but also more in general to the various workpackages that make up the project.