With the right investment, an open source drug discovery system might compete with the traditional pharmaceutical industry to deliver the drugs we need.
Imagine where working together on open data can get us?
Puzzle pieces image via www.shutterstock.com.
This method of crowdsourcing science legwork is ready to expand into other disciplines – and maybe the amateurs themselves can start calling some of the shots.
CubeSats upon release from the International Space Station.
NASA Johnson
Just about anyone can get a tiny, cheap satellite into orbit these days. As we consider how to deploy them responsibly, inspiration comes from an amateur community of enthusiasts.
Google’s decision to release its machine learning software as open source could be a major boost for the development of new Artificial Intelligence technologies.
Open access is crucial for South Africa and other developing countries.
Shutterstock
South Africa does some amazing research but cannot share it globally because of restrictive copyright laws or unreasonable policies and embargo periods set by publishers that limit their audience.
Microsoft’s part in a US$70m investment in CyanogenMod has raised many eyebrows: why is Microsoft investing in a popular version of the Android mobile phone operating system, when it has its own competing…
When all your appliances are internet-enabled, whose hands are holding the remote control?
Hands image via www.shutterstock.com.
An ever-increasing number of our consumer electronics is internet-connected. We’re living at the dawn of the age of the Internet of Things. Appliances ranging from light switches and door locks, to cars…
But they might also cost £12 billion and arrive, non-functional, 10 years late.
US FDA
Without the fuss and delays that have plagued so many large government IT projects, a key part of the NHS digital infrastructure was recently migrated and updated in a single weekend. The collection of…
Apple computers could be at risk from the latest Bash bug.
Flickr/Oliver
A serious security flaw has been discovered in a ubiquitous utility program present on a wide variety of important computer systems, including many Unix-based servers and Macintosh desktop computers. “Shell…
OpenOffice.org helped make Open Document Format popular.
Flickr/Josep Puigdemont
We often wish to share electronic documents with friends, colleagues, business or government, and the software application we use to prepare these documents will save them in a particular format. Any application…
Today, just three companies – Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenta – account for about half of all commercial seed sales. More and more, agricultural patents are used to increase the control these and similar…
If it ain’t broke don’t fix it - but sometimes it’s just time to move on.
Otherthings
Like many large modern organisations, the NHS has grown up with constant change – not only in medical practice, but also in the systems that support the daily routine of one of the world’s largest health…
You could still be at risk from the Heartbleed bug.
Igor Stevanovic
It’s been almost three months since the Heartbleed bug was revealed and many thousands of computer servers still need to be fixed. The Australian government’s Stay Smart Online initiative this week points…
Linux, the most widely used open source operating system in the world, has scored a major publicity coup in the revelation that it is used on 94% of the world’s top 500 supercomputers. Every operating…
Honorary (Senior Fellow) School of Culture and Communication University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne