Many years ago I had great visions of open source concept evolving into something much bigger, and leaving it’s software grassroots.. My own ideas are along the lines of Open Engine, Open Vehicle, Open Space Shuttle. I think that could be a serious boost to humanity in terms of getting things done in this super commercial world where everyone has their own interests closest, and standards seems to be more of a marketing thing than actual leverage for development and intergration.

Those that have yet to wrap their head around the notion of open source hardware may want to mosey on over to the MAKE blog, which has put together a quick primer that attempts to clear things up for you and set you off on the right foot. Among other things, it sorts out the partially open source hardware like D-Link’s WRT54GL router from the truly open source gear like MAKE’s own Daisy MP3 player (pictured above), and provides a few suggestions to ensure that your own open source hardware creations remain as such. True to its nature, the primer is also admittedly a work in progress, so you know what to do if you see room for improvement.

• MAKE offers up open source hardware primer – Engadget

Talkr.com is a pretty neat webservice that converts blogs into mp3 audio blogs (aka Podcasts), the sound and voice quality is pretty good, at first I actually thought it was read by a human, but the strange pauses between words doesn’t sound too human afterall. It costs money to get your own blog converted on a daily basis, but as far as I read you can download three files pr. day for free (bandwidth costs money).

* Talkr – Letting blogs speak for themselves