The Fabricatorz Team remains busy and productive as the month of September sets off. The past few weeks have seen a Fabricatorz collective, as nearly every member of our team convened in China to extend global reach and push current projects to greater heights.

Among the array of projects making serious headway, the official launch of Creative Commons’ Arab World Site is a key step forward in the global copyleft mission. CC Iftar events describe informal gatherings, set up in Arab communities, where leading social media and open web producers can network, while enjoying a meal, to celebrate the breaking of the traditional Ramadan fast. Through such events, it’s hoped that ideas are shared and foundations for new and even more innovative content are formed. In this way, a shift from “content consumption” to “content production” can take place.

Another Fabricatorz initiative, Laoban Soundsystem, is in the spotlight. Laoban is a unique copyleft hardware soundsystem. China houses the current hub for Laoban speaker production, but complete documentation exists online for the construction and implementation of the soundsystem. This Saturday, in China, Laoban is having it’s very first dedicated event showcasing the exciting capabilities of the speakers.

Expect more on these and recurring projects, like The Open Clip Art Library, in next week’s Fabricatorz update!

Recent visitors to The Open Clip Art Library may have noticed a new addition to the home page. Fabricatorz Developer Brad Phillips has spearheaded an initiative to implement an Activities section that aims to alert the Community to the most recent incentives for content submission. These incentives can take many forms, including contests and Community-created packages.

The latest Community Activity, a Fall 2010 Themed Clip Art Package is actively accepting new and remixed work from artists, through the rest of August. Users wishing to contribute to this new Seasonal package should upload their work, tagged with the key term “fall2010.”

The Librarians are also beginning to round up elements for a larger Halloween themed package that will run through the month of September. Contributing artists should be sure to tag each item accordingly (“halloween2010″ for the Holiday theme).

The Fabricatorz Team congratulates The Open Clip Art Library for these exciting new efforts to extend user contributions and Community involvement!

The Fabricatorz team has been all over the map (literally) these last few weeks, and it’s time for a status report!

Kicking things off, Founding Member and Developer extraordinaire, Jon Phillips, was a key speaker at this years FISL Conference, in Brazil. This gathering of free software developers and enthusiasts is ever-growing and one of the largest sources of such a community in the world. Jon’s presentation involved an increasingly vital topic in today’s “webscape”: an Autonomous Federated Social Web. The conference was a huge success and it’s current initiative involves creating that social web network.

In Affiliated news, StatusNet has garnered additional funding from FirstMark Capital. With this latest addition, StatusNet has brought in a total of $2.3 million in investment dollars!

A key Community-driven project, The Open Clip Art Library updated to Version 2.4 last week, spearheaded by Fabricatorz Developers Bassel Safadi and Brad Phillips. Brad initiated the call for and Release of the Sports 2010 Clip Art Package that coincided with the OCAL update. This week, Brad took giant leaps toward more active Community participation with the building and launching of an ‘Activities’ box that now sits on the Library’s Home Page. From this starting point, any user visiting the site will have direct access to the most recent goings on and incentives that The Open Clip Art Library has to offer, beginning with next month’s Fall 2010 Clip Art Collection.

Bassel continues his forward momentum in the Fabricatorz work-flow by updating his Aiki Framework to Version 0.35! In this new Release, many “under the hood” tweaks have taken place to ensure a more speedy and reliable user experience, through the platform. Sites featuring Aiki Framework 0.35, along with OCAL, include Open Colour and Sharism.org.

Speaking of Sharism, Christopher Adams recently completed work on the logo design for the site (above), which aims to promote the open sharing of resources, with the idea of “getting what you give”.

Meanwhile, developer Barry Threw continues advocating advances in technology, as it applies to music, with his resent presentation of the K-Bow, a device that puts digital control in the hands of stringed instrumentalists in an intuitive and seamless fashion. Also check out some of Barry’s latest collaborative work below, a video walk-through of the Global Lives 2010 installation at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, in San Francisco.

Stay close to Fabricatorz.com to keep up-to-date on the latest work being rolled out by the Team!