At the TechCrunch Hackathon on Saturday, the 108-year-old, All-American automaker, Ford, teamed up with the newly-American music service, Spotify, to showcase the growing opportunities for developers looking to take advantage of in-car gadgetry to integrate their apps and mobile services.
Today at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco, Ford looks to continue pushing forward with in-car connectivity and gadgetry, announcing a partnership with Bug Labs — an open-source hardware and software provider that tinkerers and engineers can use to create their own digital devices. The two companies will be collaborating on a new in-car research platform, named OpenXC, which looks to transform the car into a plug-and-play platform that will support open-source hardware and software to allow developers to make the car a playground for all kinds of cool new technologies. → Read More
If you’re interested in getting into mobile development, you should probably check out Bug Labs. Their BUG system is a modular collection of snap-together components to rapidly prototype a new mobile device. The BUGbase is the backbone — think of it like the mainboard of a traditional PC — into which you can connect a GPS, touchscreen, accelerometer, etc. It runs Linux, and is programmed with Java. At Mobile World Congress today Bug Labs is making the big announcement of version 2 of their product, which supports Android. You can port existing Android apps to run on the BUG hardware, as well as develop new Android apps. Full press release inside! → Read More
Hacker enablers Bug Labs have been making customizable doodads for a long time, but wifi and Bluetooth support have been lacking, though we heard they were incoming back in January. The new Bugbase WiFi is pretty much what it sounds like: a new base module for your Bug creations, but with wireless capability baked right in.
The upcoming 3G radio module should add even more to its connectivity, but for now I’m sure there are plenty of tinkerers who’ll be happy with a little local wireless. → Read More
It seems like TI’s DLP pico projectors are going to make a big push at this year’s CES. I mean, even Wowwee is getting into and we’ve caught wind of a few other big time players who are getting ready to announce similar devices over the course of the week. Bug Labs now has one and they’re calling it the BUGprojector. The other four BUGmodules include BUGsound, BUG3g GSM, BUGwifi and BUGbee. More juicy, buggy details after the jump. → Read More
I’m not sure how many hardcore Java/BUG developers are lurking around these parts, but if any are out there: BUGLabs has a new toy for you.
As the newest addition to the piece-it-together-and-code-your-own-devices library, the BUGvonHippel lets you connect just about anything with a wired connection to the BUGbase. → Read More
[photopress:f.jpeg,full,center] Bug Labs, those guys making the open-source hardware we’ve been talking about, are blowing up. The first batch of “Bug”, the wireless device core to many Bug configurations, is sold out, with new supplies at least two months away. We like the idea behind Bug Labs and the BugBASE. Let’s hope this is a good omen. → Read More
Here are the first shots of the BUGBase Hiro P model that goes on sale this Monday when the store opens up. This is the final production model, but is, sadly, sans Wi-Fi. Yeah, seems that open source Wi-Fi drivers were causing some issues and Bug Labs decided to ship out the base stations without Wi-Fi modules rather than delaying shipment. To make up for this indiscretion, early adopters will get the Wi-Fi module at cost plus a free BUGvonhippel module. [Update] A Wi-Fi enabled BUGBase module is coming in case you were wondering. “The BUGvonhippel module is named after Eric Von Hippel, MIT professor and author of “Democratizing Innovation.” It’s basically a breadboard module for developers to create their own interface options, allowing them to hack their BUG even further.” [photopress:2202721268_a141219bc5_b.jpg,thumb,pp_image][photopress:2202723122_72cbe7951a_b.jpg,thumb,pp_image] Bug Labs → Read More
Too tired to do anything but copy and paste here, folks. Bug Labs has a lot to announce today (yesterday), starting with the topic that gets the most questions: pricing. But, it is important to take a moment to introduce a new concept in pricing for consumer electronics devices: the Early Adopter Discount. Just as it sounds, the BUG Early Adopter Discount is going take a shift away from tradition, and actually reward the first wave of customers with a 13% (or greater) discount on products for the first 60 days of sales. Retail pricing for the first run of products is as follows: → Read More
We’ve been covering the open-source hardware guys at Bug Labs for awhile, and that’s because the ideas that these guys have are dear to our hearts; the concept of roll-your-own gadgetry is a perfect things for geeks like us. And the wondernerds at Popular Science’s PopSci blog have put together a contest where they’re giving away a BUGBase brain-unit as well as the first four modules (GPS, digicam, touchscreen, accelerometer). All you have to do to win is download the Bug Labs SDK and build yourself a virtual awesome device. Sadly, it’s Java-based, so you have to have some good programming chops, but if you’re geek enough to want this gear enough, you’re probably already in your console typing stuff that makes no sense to luddites like Yours Truly. Announcing the PopSci.com/Bug Labs Build-a-BUG Challenge [PopSci's How To blog] → Read More
What good is open source hardware without an online home for the developers? It’s not, so Bug Labs, has introduced the community side of its website, which includes the SDKs and a virtual BUGBase and collection of hardware components, so you can start getting your bug on now. For those not in the loop, Bug Labs is targeting hardware the way Linux targets operating systems; making open-source, community-editable hardware that can be combined into pretty much anything you want it to be. We’re watching these guys with great interest, so look for more from there here soon. BUG Wiki and SDK guide [Bug Labs] → Read More
http://progressive.playstream.com/playstream/progressive/flashplayers/FLVPlayer.swf This is the first real demo of Bug Labs’ open source hardware thing. It’s a skeleton that you add components onto. If you want an MP3 playing camcorder and flashlight, you get those parts and put them together. And this is it working right now. → Read More
Attention open-source hardware aficionados. Bug Labs, the startup developing a Lego-like device that lets engineers mix-and-match different modules to create any digital device they can dream up, has its first working prototype. CrunchGear has a very cool video: http://progressive.playstream.com/playstream/progressive/flashplayers/FLVPlayer.swf CrunchGear also has more pics (like the one below) here: CrunchBase Information Bug Labs Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
We told you about Bug Labs last week so you should have all the pertinent info, but now we have pics and video of a working model. Videos will be up as soon they’re done loading so please bear with us and check back soon. → Read More
We were ready to chalk these guys up to the vaporware list, but now it’s looking as if Bug Labs just might change how we look at and use hardware. Scratch that, it might change how we make hardware. Bug Labs is making what is basically a version of Lego Mindstorm for grownups. Like Mindstorm, a central brain, here its a Linux-enabled BUGBase, is at the heart of anything you want it to be at the heart of. The idea is that you can take any number of the 80 slated modules and combine them in your own way to make your own custom gadget. Once you’ve got what you like, you’ll be able to slim it down and mass produce it on the cheap. Think of it this way: you’ll be able to customize your laptop in ways that nobody else ever has. Some are calling it open source hardware, which is more than a buzzword. Bug hopes that other makers will develop custom modules for the platform. If it takes off, look for these devices to show up in cars, boats, hotels, houses, laundromats, restaurants, police stations and needle exchanges across the planet. First Pics of Bug Labs Open-Source Hardware [TC] → Read More
I keep hearing more and more buzz about open-source hardware. One of the most ambitious open-source hardware startups is Bug Labs. The company is creating a Lego-like hardware platform that tinkerers and engineers can use to create their own digital devices. I visited their offices in New York earlier this week and played around with a prototype. It starts with a BUGBase, which is a general-purpose Linux computer about the size of a PlayStation Portable, encased in white plastic. This has four connectors that plug right into the motherboard. The company will also make a variety of modules that can plug into the computer—like an LCD screen, a digital camera, a GPS unit, a motion sensor, a keyboard, an EVDO modem, and a 3G GSM modem. (There are also places to add USB, Ethernet, WiFi, and serial ports). Bug Labs is planning on making 80 modules over time, and hopes outside companies and developers will create their own. CEO Peter Semmelhack hopes to make possible the “long tail of gadgets.” With Bug Labs, the idea is that an engineer or entrepreneur can now create a digital device customized to their exact needs even if the market for that device is only 10 people, or only one. This could be great for making prototypes on the cheap—no need to tool up a factory or find one in China that wants a couple million dollars to do your first production run. Soon, designers will be able to just order a Bug Labs kit with the modules they need and write the software to tell the device what to do. This product is aimed squarely at engineers. But making a gadget will become a lot easier—maybe as easy as creating a Web 2.0 site. And if someone comes up with a winning combination of hardware features, the guts can be easily repackaged into a slimmer, better designed case and manufactured in the thousands or millions like any other device. So there is a way to ramp from hardware curiosity to consumer gadget. Still, it is unclear that a long-tail approach to gadgets will ever create the scale and demand necessary to support a hardware business. Time will tell. (Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures is an investor) The Bug won’t be on sale until December at the earliest, but below are pictures of what they will look like. The modules literally click together → Read More
