"open bio" entries

Four short links: 10 November 2014

Four short links: 10 November 2014

Metascience, Bio Fab, Real-time Emoji, and Phone Library

by Nat Torkington | @gnat | +Nat Torkington | November 10, 2014
  1. Metascience Could Rescue the Replication Crisis (Nature) — Metascience, the science of science, uses rigorous methods to examine how scientific practices influence the validity of scientific conclusions. (via Ed Yong)
  2. OpenTrons (Kickstarter) — 3d-printer style frame for micropipetting, magnetic micro-bead washes, and photography. Open source and kickstarterated. (via Evil Mad Scientist)
  3. Emoji Tracker — real-time emoji use across Twitter. (via Chris Aniszczyk)
  4. libphonenumber — open source Google’s common Java, C++ and Javascript library for parsing, formatting, storing and validating international phone numbers. The Java version is optimized for running on smartphones, and is used by the Android framework since 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich).
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Four short links: 12 June 2014

Four short links: 12 June 2014

Our New Robot Overlords, Open Neuro, Anti-Surveillance Software, and LG's TV Made of Evil and Tears

by Nat Torkington | @gnat | +Nat Torkington | June 12, 2014
  1. Norbert Weiner (The Atlantic) — His fears for the future stemmed from two fundamental convictions: We humans can’t resist selfishly misusing the powers our machines give us, to the detriment of our fellow humans and the planet; and there’s a good chance we couldn’t control our machines even if we wanted to, because they already move too fast and because increasingly we’re building them to make decisions on their own. To believe otherwise, Wiener repeatedly warned, represents a dangerous, potentially fatal, lack of humility.
  2. Open Ephys — open source/open hardware tools for neuro research. (via IEEE)
  3. Startups Selling Resistance to Surveillance (Inc) — growing breed of tools working on securing their customers’ communications from interception by competitors and states.
  4. Not-So-Smart TV (TechDirt) — LG’s privacy policy basically says “let us share your viewing habits, browsing, etc. with third parties, or we will turn off the `smart’ features in your smart TV.” The promise of smart devices should be that they get better for customers over time, not better for the vendor at the expense of the customer. See Weiner above.
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