

BugLabs.net's really cool reconfigurable gadget in depth - a hacker-friendly electronics platform - tlrobinson
http://scobleizer.com/2007/12/01/buglabsnets-really-cool-reconfigurable-gadget-in-depth/

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tlrobinson
Normally I find Scoble's videos incredibly boring, but these guys have a
really neat idea.

It's a WiFi enabled platform with a bunch of different plug-in modules (LCD
screens, GPS, camera, motion sensor, accelerometer, etc) that you can put
together in different interesting ways.

It lets people easily build obscure but useful things that would otherwise
never get built due to the complexility of building such things.

One example they had was a GPS/internet enabled radar detector, that would
automatically report the locations of speed traps. Sounds good to me!

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Tichy
Frankly I don't understand it - you can't build an iPod with that, whatever
you build with it will be bulky and ugly. I'd love for the masses to be able
to build their own hardware, but I don't think this is the way.

I didn't watch the whole video, but I almost couldn't bear when he told about
his son putting a video screen on both sides. That's funny, but not really a
huge market. I think they should create a short, concise video showing off a
few cool things to do with the Bug.

Another thing: I am guessing today you can get a mobile phone that already has
all the things the Bug could do with modules on board, in a much sleeker
package.

~~~
iamwil
Things usually look bulky and ugly on first revision. That can be changed over
time.

It's precisely the fact that there isn't a large market for two-sided screens
that Bug exists. People with niche needs (like two-sided screens) are
currently out of luck since Sony and Apple won't address it. Bug addresses
people with niche needs across many different niches. That's their market.

The other thing is that people not only build their devices like legos, but
people can build their own pieces. For creative builders like most of the
people on hacker news, that should be exciting.

~~~
Tichy
But if you can build your own pieces, why do you need Bug?

I am no good at electronics, but sometimes I looked. Seems to me you can buy
whole "system on a chip" chips today, chips that have all the functionality
you need for creating a PDA (usb, bluetooth, wlan, whatever). If you know some
electronics, you are probably better of soldering such a chip onto a small
mainboard, rather than using the bulky bug thing. I mean those chips are
probably the size of a stamp - why use a brick instead? And they do have small
connectors, too.

Sorry, just playing devil's advocate - I sure wish them luck with Bug, I just
don't really get it. 10 years ago maybe, but today?

~~~
iamwil
For hackers that can build your own pieces from scratch, I'd say--because it
cuts down on your development time. By analogy I can definitely write my own
mapping widget in javascript, but if I'm trying out a concept where building a
mapping widget isn't the point (but rather an app that showed me where my
friends are), it would be prudent to try it out w/ the google maps API first.
So if there's something that I can snap together using Bug, I'd do that first,
and only go to soldering boards if it's something I can't do with Bug. And if
the concept doesn't work, I can unsnap it, rather than unsolder chips.

For the other types of geeks...not all software developers are hardware people
nowadays. Not that you need to be, but not knowing hardware puts things like
mobile devices that aren't phones, sensor networks, and RFIDs out of your
reach. Having a platform like Bug frees you from having to know it if what you
need to do fits in Bug's framework.

It's true that most of what they have appeals to builder geeks. Will it be
something your non-geek friends would use? That remains to be seen, but they
seem to be creating an environment that allows freedom to create things their
non-geek friends would want. If the geeks make stuff where a Bug brick's
functionality can be modular and snapped on without requiring programming,
then that might be a possibility.

I think a lot of hardware people are looking to open up the hardware world
like they see going on in the software world. This is one interpretation of
what open hardware might look like.

No problem, since it challenges my own thinking. Thanks for being clear headed
and courteous about it.

~~~
Tichy
I actually applied to the last YC round with an open source hardware idea
(rejected, though), so I am very interested in the field. However, I was
rather thinking on the lines of somebody to use 3d printing technology to
create a prettier casing for Minty MP3 (
<http://www.ladyada.net/make/minty/index.html> ) to make it a real alternative
to the iPod shuffle. I want to see really cool open phones, not the locked up
crap that is still being sold today. So I guess I am just a bit disappointed
that Bug won't help here (except with the prototyping, maybe).

Still, there are other exciting developments, like printable electronics,
which all compete with the Bug. If I see something cool come out of the Bug
thing, it will only make me happy.

Btw., the Bug reminds me a lot of the Khepera robot
([http://www.k-team.com/kteam/index.php?site=1&rub=3&p...](http://www.k-team.com/kteam/index.php?site=1&rub=3&page=197&version=EN))
which actually with it's modular concept was/is a very successful product in
academic circles. So who knows, perhaps the business is viable after all.

~~~
iamwil
Despite all the ruckus in the echo chamber about social networks, ajax,
web2.0, I there's lots of other areas to explore that don't seem to get
mentioned often--open source hardware being one of them. Lots of pieces are
moving into place to make it more of a reality, but in my opinion, it's not
quite there yet.

Thanks for the heads up about khepera. I'll have to look into it.

