As a society, we need an open source device for reading. Books are among the most important documents of our culture, yet the most popular and widespread devices we have for reading are closed objects, operating as small moving parts in a set of giant closed platforms whose owners' interests are not always aligned with readers'.

The Open Book aims to be a simple device that anyone can build for themselves. The Open Book should be comprehensible: the reader should be able to look at it and understand, at least in broad strokes, how it works. It should be extensible, so that a reader with different needs can write code and add accessories that make the book work for them. It should be global, supporting readers of books in all the languages of the world. Most of all, it should be open, so that anyone can take this design as a starting point and use it to build a better book.

Check out the promo video as well:
https://youtu.be/vFD9V8Hh7Yg

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[–] nossaquesapao@lemmy.eco.br 21 points 2 years ago (1 children)

This is a great question. I don't believe it can reach the point of any person simply being able to create their own hardware, unless we're talking about an utopic future with multimaterial 3d printing in small scale, but I can see small businesses being able to manufacture custom open source hardware on demand, based on open standards. For me, the ideal scenario would be something like going into an open hardware service shop and asking for a device with your requirements, and they creating it for you, or repairing/upgrading yours.

[–] RobotToaster@mander.xyz 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It doesn't seem super utopic to think a 3d printer could make a pcb, dispense solder paste, pick and place, and heat it to solder it.

Making the ICs themselves on the other hand...

[–] trolololol@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago

Risc-v to the rescue in the CPU space.

Although I'd say there are big gains if current off the shelf ics are used, even if purists wouldn't call the whole endeavor open source.