Peer2Politics

This research project aims to shed light on the conditions of transferability of Commons-based peer production (CBPP) processes to physical manufacturing. We draw from the political economy of CBPP and its conjunction with digital, desktop manufacturing technologies, the concept of “voxels”, and the case of a hybrid RepRap-based, Lego-built three-dimensional printer-milling machine, to discuss the importance of modular design. We show that modularity, not only in terms of development process but also of hardware components, is necessary to make possible CBPP’s replication for tangible products, decreasing the need for coordination and enabling parallel developments to various directions.

Participatory online platforms and visual tools are lowering the barriers to participation and empowering citizens to design their communities. These crowd planning systems facilitate an open dialogue between city agencies and the people they serve, establishing a structured process for collaboration and encouraging a higher level of participation at the civic level. By seeking input throughout the development process, these crowd-planned systems help ensure greater transparency and buy-in that ultimately results in an end solution that meets the actual needs of the population.

I believe there is a historic opporunity to reconstruct a progressive majority around enabling the commons, which would be based on the following political and sociological complementarity between political forces and parties.

A freelance Java developer claims it took him only 30 days to build and launch a basic open source office suite that runs on multiple OSes.

New research commissioned by The People Who Share shows that 65% of adults in the UK are already part of the sharing economy, and a further 28% would consider taking part, if they don’t already.

The Bitcoin system uses a distributed computing network to transfer the virtual currency from computer to computer. Part of the system involves "miners," or computers that cryptographically verify those transactions, which are entered into a public ledger called the "blockchain."

The evolution of collaborative consumption continues, with several startups serving up different takes on monetizing shared meals in North America.

There is a place where you can make (almost) anything. Actually, there are many places like this. One of such places is FabLab Manchester, launched in March 2010, based on the digital fabrication laboratories model (hence FabLab) conceived by Neil Gershenfeld at the MIT.

Marcin Jakubows­ki dreams of liv­ing off the grid. Over the past few years, he’s been work­ing on a set of 50 machines he believes nec­es­sary to found and sus­tain an inde­pen­dent, mod­ern com­mu­ni­ty. He wants to “take every­thing that

A mechanical engineer (awesomely) named Anjan Contractor has won a NASA grant to prototype a 3D printer for food -- specifically pizza.

Hacking in China thrives across official, corporate and criminal worlds and is openly discussed and promoted, whether for breaking into private networks, tracking dissent or stealing trade secrets.

Popular car-sharing startup Lyft has raised $60 million in a major new round of funding led by Andreessen Horowitz, the influential Silicon Valley venture capital firm started by Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen.

Ride-sharing startup Lyft has closed a $60 million funding round led by venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, the company announced on its blog. It also confirmed raising $15M in October of 2012. (Ride sharing #startups have been hot.

More and more people see that the current financial system rewards those who hoard their money and invest in risky or damaging ventures such as derivatives and other forms of speculation and are asking: how do we opt out of Wall Street now?

What makes Capital Bikeshare, the largest such program in the U.S. with nearly 2000 bikes, a success? What are its shortcomings? Mohana Ravindranath investigates.

May hasn’t gone so hot for some of the sharing economy’s most promising entrepreneurs. 2012 might have hinted of challenges to come, but so far 2013 has overdelivered. In the last two weeks, New York regulators and courts have essentially shut three of these companies down, at least temporarily.