Tag Archives: open hardware

Open-source hardware is eating the world

Move Over Patent Trolls

Much like its immediate software relative, open-source hardware uses existing hardware design licenses rather than creating new ones, to co-innovate and share it forward. In a stark shift from the usually guarded patent world of hardware, we find a new environment for the sharing of ideas. Literally hundreds or thousands of hardware designs—circuit design, component integration, machines, tools, processors and practically anything that can be physically invented—are getting published and made available for anyone to use. There are many upsides to this, although it also seems to be encouraging more red-faced patent trolls to sue unsuspecting users of open-source hardware on Kickstarter and Indiegogo, because someone, some time ago, was already awarded a patent. (It’s just my opinion, but if you filed without the intention to ever build or share your invention, you deserve to get out-innovated.)

You’re Either In Or On The Way Out

Right now it seems like everyone is joining, but you might be less enthusiastic if you’re a Fortune 100 that established itself on the grounds of proprietary technology. Remarkably, however, many of the companies I would have bet on being slow in adapting into this new world are actually fully endorsing it. From Intel, to Atmel, Freescale, and TI, these silicon tankers have proved agile and responsive, powering most of the kits we all know and love (and maybe by doing so, they will start opening up some of their core chip designs?) Maybe it shouldn’t be surprising: They’ve been publishing reference designs for their boards for decades as a way to make it easy for customers to get started. And now they’re also learning from open-source electronics royalty like Arduino, while juggernaut creative hits like SparkFun, Seeed Studio and Adafruit, show how to further adapt, share more, and be part of a community.

I’d rather build on the shoulders of giants, share everything we’ve learned, and learn a thing or two from others. At the end of the day, SparkFun is successful because of the products, value and service we deliver, not our IP portfolio.

Nathan Seidle Founder & CEO, SparkFun Electronics

And it doesn’t stop with electronics. Just take a look at Toyota’s CES 2015 announcement. The company is following the example of Tesla Motors, making all of its 5,680 patents related to fuel cell technology available, royalty-free, to anyone in hopes of driving more innovation. Sure, you can argue that all of this is done in the name of self-servitude: They save on R&D resources while broadening the market, and eventually sell more products as a result. Autodesk is also working on a similar initiative with Spark: an open platform that allows any hardware manufacturer, software developer or material scientist to automate, simplify and improve 3D printing. Regardless of the motivation, this is happening, and the beauty of it is that it taps the collective crowd for exponential brainpower and innovation.

A Freeway Without Speed Limits

By distributing hard earned engineering IP via the Creative Commons Attribution and the GNU General Public License and a widespread “Copylefting” attitude, innovators are transforming the world of hardware creation at speeds we’ve never seen before. The implications reverberate across the playing field, affecting everyone from hardware hackers to major players, and beyond.

Startups. With little to no hardware engineering experience, startups can now hack their way into building hardware prototypes, fully capable of connecting to the “internet of things”, skipping months and thousands of dollars traditionally associated with such creations.
Community. Open-source hardware is creating new communities that share recipes of creation. For me this became a personal obsession. Myself and Ben Larralde, co-founders of Hackster, are helping people everywhere co-create and learn open-source hardware. We see a massive wave of hardware innovation resulting from this movement, with firmware, schematics and inventive combination of electronics being developed, shared, redesigned and shared again from every corner of the planet in speeds we never seen before.
Kids. If you are a parent like me, you are starting to see how this movement is accelerating your child’s abilities to design complex creations. My daughter who is only 4 years old can assemble strangely beautiful hardware creations using littleBits and thinking through “what if” scenarios. What happens when she’s 10 and can actually build complex blocks using LittleBits version 8.0? Does she even buy hardware at Best Buy or just build it herself because it’s more fun and possible better? When everything is open, big changes are inevitable.

Hardware innovation is driven by demand chain not supply chain, and open hardware provides the creative engine.

Eric Pan, Founder and CEO of Seeed Studio

Why Is This Happening Now?

We’ve lived through many decades since the computer revolution, the invention of the microprocessor, and the mainstream Internet. Maybe it’s not a surprise that all of the technology required to create software and hardware has finally come together, simplified and affordable to almost anyone on earth. Today, all you need is free cloud computing account from Microsoft’s Azure, an Intel Edison or Spark’s new Photon, basic programming skills and an access to a 3D printer. Voila, you are well on your way to creating a basic, functioning, piece of hardware. Unfathomable even 5 years ago. When I built my first hardware company in 2010, much of the above was generally unavailable.

Disrupted Again

Built on the heels of open-source software and the new sharing economy, open hardware is a disruptive evolution. It will create massive changes to how hardware innovation is co-created and monetized in rapid new cycles. It will shift the tight hold of old power that was jealously guarded by the few, to the new power which is open, participatory, and peer-driven, forceful as it surges.

But the real change in open-source hardware will come when you see a consumer product released as fully open-source — not something for programmers, hackers and hobbyists. The day that Samsung release a phone or a GE a washing machine that ships open will be the signal that the value in hardware openness is here to stay.

This post was originally published on LinkedIn by Adam Benzion along with the help of Nathan Seidle, Tom Igoe, Sean Geoghegan and Eric Pan. You can also learn all about Hackster.io and explore a wide-range of the latest Maker projects here.

littleBits announces bitLab, an App Store for hardware

1 Reply

Taking one step closer to its mission of “putting the power of electronics in the hands of everyone,” litteBits has announced the launch of bitLab, a marketplace for user-generated hardware. Comparable to Apple’s App Store, bitLab allows Makers to create their own littleBits modules and share them with burgeoning DIY community.

“When Apple launched the App Store, many apps were games, many were frivolous. I remember a lot of fart apps,” explained littleBits Founder and CEO Ayah Bdeir. “But now 6 years later, there are more than 1.3 million apps that have distributed nearly $15 billion to the software developer community. We believe the same thing will happen with hardware developers just need one common platform to develop on, a supply chain that powers it, and a marketplace for community and distribution.”

According to the company, anyone with a working prototype of a new Bit can submit it for community consideration. In contest-like fashion, littleBits will then select the ones receiving the most votes, examine them for viability and put them into production, with the creators receiving a 10% royalty.

“We’re breaking down the barriers of entering the field of hardware. We want to democratize the hardware industry, to revolutionize it and make it accessible,” Bdeir tells Forbes. While anyone with a laptop and a little coding skill can make an app, and 3D printing is opening up manufacturing, the hardware industry hasn’t gone through that. “It’s still largely closed, very top down, really prohibitive to non-engineers.”

In its latest blog, littleBits writes:

For the hardware community, the bitLab means our community can come together and develop on one common platform, add in a seemingly incremental innovation, and see the innovation multiply. The hardware developer community has often been distributed, decentralized and considered by the outside world to be secondary to the software developer community. We believe a big part of that is because the community has not had one common platform to develop on, with a supply chain as a backbone, coupled with a marketplace to grow its distribution. But even more importantly, we haven’t seen this happen in hardware because of one simple fact: making hardware modular is an extremely difficult and complex problem. It’s difficult to create a system, a product line, and a supply chain in which one module can be added to the others and work in every which way. Over the past many years, this is exactly what we have done with littleBits. We have made the largest modular hardware library in the world. With the bitLab, a hardware developer that has created an exciting new sensor circuit or has an idea for a new digital interaction can create a module (or multiple) and leverage the entire littleBits library with its sensors, switches, wireless transmitters, power, actuators and other modules without having to recreate them. Every new Bit multiplies the power of the rest of the modular platform. And it grows exponentially from there.

Similar to how the app store opened up Apple’s API to developers, littleBits has open the doors to a world of electronic modules, via its Hardware Development Kit that is now available. “It’s a proprietary connector basically creating entry points into the system,” Bdeir reveals to Fast Company. “With that and the rest of the HDK, which also includes a perf board, tinkerers can plug in whatever they can think up and make it work with other bits.”

In recent months, littleBits has taken huge strides to stretch the limits of imagination. Around Maker Faire Bay Area, the company launched its Arduino module. This programmable ATmega32u4 powered Arduino at Heart component enabled Makers to easily incorporate sketches into their littleBits circuits.

A few months later, they launched another pillar of “power,” the cloudBit. In what the company hoped would alter the perception of littleBits from toy to tool, the electronics kit manufacturer announced a new component that empowered any littleBits creation to the become an Internet-connected ‘thing’ without the need to solder, wire or program for basic projects.

Now, the newly-unveiled bitLab is the first of its kind in the field of electronics. “Even though it may seem obvious that hardware needs an app store, building a genuine app store that can allow every new “app” to interoperate with every other app and its underlying platform is complex,” the company writes.

bitLab is an evolutionary successor to dreamBits, an open forum where littleBits users can suggest new modules they’d like to see produced. While countless Makers have already showcased their creativity and added a number of ideas to the site, Bdeir is hoping bitLab will now experience a domino effect. In other words, as more Bits join the library, more people will think of different and new ideas.

Partners who took part in the bitLab beta include some of our friends as well as fellow Arduino At Heart members including Arduino’s Massimo Banzi, MaKey MaKey‘s Jay Silver, Bare Conductive‘s Matt Johnson, Korg‘s Tatsuya Takahashi, Gabotronics’ Gabriel Anzziani, Backyard Brains’ Greg Gage, and and Bleep Labs’ Dr. Bleep.

“We want people to say, ‘There’s a Bit for that,’ and if there isn’t one, they will make one,” Bdeir concludes. Interested in learning more? Read littleBits’ entire announcement here.

The Maker Movement continues to grow as a technological and educational revolution, demonstrating its true potential to today’s young Makers. Ayah Bdeir will be joining Massimo Banzi, Quin Etnyre, and Atmel’s Bob Martin and Daniel Ujvari for Saturday’s Maker Faire panel on the MAKE: Live Stage as they explore the ways in which DIY culture is influencing young Makers and helping to create tomorrow’s industry innovators.

Don’t forget to join the Atmel team in Queens this week for the 5th Annual World Maker Faire! Undoubtedly, this year will be amazing as an expected 750+ Makers and 85,000+ attendees head to the New York Hall of Science to see the latest DIY gizmos and gadgets, as well as a number of the Makers mentioned above. Once again a Silversmith Sponsor of the event, Atmel will put the spotlight on everything from Arduino to Arduino-related projects.

Makers tap into China’s open hardware scene

Reza Kazerounian talks IoT and Makers (Part 1)

3 Replies

Reza Kazerounian, Senior VP and GM of the Microcontroller Business Unit at Atmel, recently sat down with the folks at EEWeb to discuss a wide range of topics including the Maker Movement, the rapidly evolving Internet of Things (IoT) and the future of Atmel’s MCU business.

As Kazerounian notes, the IoT is a combination of multiple market segments, tens of thousands of OEMs and hundreds of thousands of products.

“It is seen by many as the next wave of dramatic market growth for semiconductors. If you look at the different estimates made by market analysts, the IoT market will be worth trillions of dollars to a variety of industries from the consumer to financial, industrial, white goods and other market segments,” he explained.

“Companies that provide cloud-based services, service providers and semiconductor companies will also benefit from this market. The number of small or new companies that are showcasing connective devices has increased – there will be 50 billion connected devices by 2020. These nodes will have characteristics such as low-power embedded processing, a human-machine interface and connectivity.”

That is precisely why Atmel has consolidated the most complete portfolio of IoT technologies: ultra-low power microcontrollers, wireless connectivity, touch controllers, touch materials (XSense), sensor management and security.

“These key IoT ingredients combined with Atmel’s development environment, culture and global support infrastructure will enable us to offer the broadest and most comprehensive IoT solutions in the industry,” he said.

“Atmel is a leading supplier in embedded processing. We compete in the low-power technology market segment because many of the near-home devices have been around for many years and have the ability to be connected wirelessly. These devices include gateways such as routers, access points and more.”

Kazerounian also discussed Atmel’s relationship with the burgeoning DIY Maker Movement which espouses an open hardware philosophy.

“More designers are initially starting with [Atmel-based] Arduino boards for their prototypes, and these designers will eventually become our customers. The Maker community is continuing to grow and is influencing how designers jump-start their first design to accelerate their prototype development,” Kazerounian continued.

“This trend will potentially increase ROI. Atmel is seeing an increase in professional engineers relying on [Atmel-based] Arduino boards to create initial models for their prototypes. The net impact of the Maker movement is the accelerated development of products which contribute to the overall IoT market growth and will ultimately benefit Atmel.”

  Note: This is part one of a two-part series. The second installment can be read here.

1:1 interview with Michael Koster

2 Replies

A candid conversation of Internet of Things
By Tom Vu, Digital Manifesto and Michael Koster, Internet of Things Council Member

Three-part Interview Series

Series 1 – Inspiration and requirements for Internet of Things

Tom Vu (TV): What inspired you to build the IoT Toolkit and educate the IoT community about data models for the Internet of Things?

Michael Koster (MK):

Michael Koster, System Architect, Open Source Internet of Things, Member of Internet of Things Council

A little over a year ago my partner and I started researching the Internet of Things (IoT), with the idea of creating a system as a sort of “valet” to help manage things in our lives. At the time we lived off the grid, and generated our own energy, maintained our own water system, and spent significant time away from home. We looked at what was available, and there was nothing available in ready-to-use systems that would not require at least a layer of programming to work together in the ways we imagined.

Interoperability between multiple devices is quickly becoming a common feature as people try to build their own ‘Internet of Things’—getting all their smart, devices to be connected to the ‘cloud.’ Once they buy the device on Kickstarter, they can easily enjoy the remote control ability and automation afforded for a while. We found a lot of vendors selling devices that connected to services—services such as the Internet. Some vendors offered open source clients but still tied the devices to their service. We wanted to pull together devices with multiple services, such as combining the home environmental control, energy management, and water, garden, and livestock automation. This requires multiple devices connected together by algorithms, controlling valves, doors, fans, lights, blinds, batteries, etc. Very often, the vertically integrated devices and services didn’t allow all the devices to be connected because they weren’t built on a standard that was interoperable.

Soon they started to think about ideas on how they could create new relationships and interactions between devices and humans by integrating devices from two or three of these systems together. They quickly found out connecting the systems were quite complex.

This is becoming more common as people try to build their own Internet of Things. Once they buy the device on Kickstarter, they enjoy the remote control ability and automation afforded for a while. Soon they start to think up ideas about how they could create new relationships and interactions between things and between themselves and things by integrating devices from 2 or 3 of these systems together. They quickly find out that it’s not straightforward.

There is a service, IFTTT (IF This Then That) which has software connectors that hook up to the APIs of some popular IoT services and provides a rule engine to apply simple logic predicates to conditions and generate actions, if this, then that. All well and a good proof of the need, but not sufficient for the general use case.

We then decided to investigate the DIY approach, and started from the bottom, through online resources like Sparkfun and Evil Mad Science. We also used components like Arduino, many of which are driven by megaAVR (ATmega) or ARM Cortex-M3, both are AVR and ARM microcontrollers with a strong open hardware, IDE and ecosystem tied to it. We put together a few networkable connected sensors, like a weather station, environmental sensors, ambient LED displays, and power monitoring. We found it relatively easy to connect these to Xively formerly Cosm, Pachube, for monitoring and recording, and quickly discovered a number of limitations to what we wanted to accomplish.

We discovered the same situation with the vertically integrated systems, that there was no open, standard way to connect many different devices together and build a larger application to manage things together. Some Platform-As-A-Service vendors run rules engines, similar to IFTTT, and other application logic inside their platform, but we were looking for a way that enabled us to choose where we wanted to run the software, particularly in both the cloud service and in a local hardware gateway. This allowed more embedded devices and connected sensors to potentially grow into a larger system without a central hub, where IoT is being driven.

This is important because our network connection was often impacted by weather and other variables. We realized that everyone would be impacted to some degree, even with DSL or cable service. Our experience with frequent service interruptions taught us the importance of being able to tolerate interruptions in the network connection. Even if the network connection could be made reliable enough, the services are subject to outages and “latency events”, which make them unsuitable for critical services without backup.

After a few months of inquiry and investigation, we decided a robust, common way of interacting between all devices and things was a requirement. It felt like the early days of the Internet. Before the web, before the invention of hyperlinking, HTML and the http protocol, there were no common ways for people to interact within a document, such as creating hyperlinks.

The Internet of Things is at a similar stage of development. IoT needs a standard to interact with other machines; the standard enabling software for easier interaction is essential.

A platform that provides a base set of common tools and services, similar to an operating system, is also a requirement for IoT users. This platform would enable them to get started quickly with their IoT ideas.

Accessibility and interoperability were key to enable a user to start building smart, connected devices in the era of the Internet of Things.

It became clear that if we could find a standard way to do what everyone expects the Internet of Things to do, and make it as easily accessible and usable as the web is today, that we could help enable the Internet of Things to scale and evolve into what conceivably is the next stage of the internet.

We studied a number of IoT use cases, collaborated with the IoT community, and began to map out what was needed in a common set of tools everyone could use, share, contribute, distribute, and enhance. We wanted to take what already existed in standards, infrastructure, and system components, and build an open source platform that we, and others, could use to create our own end-to-end IoT systems and products.

In the platform, we wanted to provide machine to machine (M2M) connections from sensors and devices, along with application software, and re-use common data models that can easily span across devices and other IoT data streams to build out a common language for descriptions and connections.

We started this process with Social Media, reaching out to like-minded people on LinkedIn. During our investigation, we learned that the issues we discovered weren’t widely known and discussed. Many people there were using no common tools for IoT.

We realized community learning was required to an already steep learning curve on some technologies like RDF and Linked Data. This was one of the reasons we started this IoT blog series to educate people about semantic data modeling and Linked Data driven APIs. Around the same time, we started the Open Source Internet of Things Meet Up in Silicon Valley to meet other like-minded people and build the community.

The founding principle is to create a community around Open Source and Internet of Things. The gravitating principles follow two successful fundamentals: community and interoperability. In fact, the very nature of Internet of Things resonates well with Open Source and Conway’s Law. We want to build a system. Create the structure we envision, based on community and sharing.

You can also read Part 2 and Part 3 to learn more about Michael and IoT.

Open Sauce

9 Replies

By Steve Castellotti

CTO, Puzzlebox

North Beach, San Francisco’s Italian neighborhood, is famous for the quality and wide variety of its many restaurants. From colorful marquees scattered up and down Columbus to the hushed, more dimly lit grottos hidden down side streets and back alleys, there is no lack of choice for the curious patron.

Imagine then, having chosen from all these options, you sit down and order your favorite dish. When the plate arrives the waiter places next to it a finely embossed card printed on thick stock. A closer examination reveals the complete recipe for your meal, including hand-written notations made by the chef. Tips for preparation and the rationale for selecting certain ingredients over others are cheerfully included.

Flipping the card over reveals a simple message:

“Thank you for dining with us this evening. Please accept this recipe with our regards. You may use it when cooking for friends and family, or just to practice your own culinary skills. You may even open your own restaurant and offer this very same dish. We only ask that you include this card with each meal served, and include any changes or improvements you make.”

Sharing the “Secret” Sauce

Having been raised in an Italian family myself, I can assure you that there is no more closely guarded secret than the recipe for our pasta gravy (the sauce). But I can’t help but wonder how such an open sharing might affect the landscape of a place such as North Beach. If every chef was obliged to share their techniques and methods, surely each would learn from the other? Customers would benefit from this atmosphere of collaboration in terms of the taste and quality of their dinners.

These many restaurants, packed so tightly together as they are, would still be forced to compete on terms of the dining experience. The service of their wait-staff, the ambience, and cost would count for everything.

For the majority of customers, knowledge of the recipe would simply be a novelty. In most cases they would still seek a professional chef to prepare it for them. But to the aspiring amateur, this information would contribute to their education. A new dish could be added to their repertoire.

An experienced restaurateur could no doubt correct me on any number of points as to why such a scenario would be a poor business model and never could or should be attempted. But just across town, throughout Silicon Valley and indeed across the globe, in the realm of technology, this exact model has been thriving for decades.

Open Source in the Software World

In the software world, developers have been sharing their source code (the recipe for the programs they write) under licenses similar to the one outlined above on a grand scale and to great success. The Internet itself was largely constructed using open platforms and tools. Mobile phones running Google’s Android operating system are now the most popular in the world, with complete source material available online. And in 2012 Red Hat became the first open source company to achieve a billion dollars in revenue, with customers from IBM to Disney and Pixar among their roster.

The benefits are many. Developers can leverage each others’ work for knowledge and time saving. If you want to build a new web site, there’s no need to write the web server or common routines such as user management from scratch. You can take open versions and start from there. Even better, if you have questions or run into trouble, more likely than not someone else has, too, and the answer is only a search away. Most importantly, if the problem you found indicates a flaw in the software (a bug), then a capable coder is empowered to examine the source and fix it himself or herself. And the result can be shared with the entire community.

There are parallels here to several fields. Similar principles form the basis of the scientific method. Without the sharing of procedures and data, independent verification of results would be impossible. And many discoveries result from iterating on proven techniques. A burgeoning do-it-yourself community, a veritable Maker Movement, has grown around magazines like Make and websites such as Instructables.com. New inventions and modifications to popular products are often documented in meticulous detail, permitting even casual hardware hackers to follow along. Electronics kits and prototyping boards from companies like Arduino are based on Atmel microcontrollers plus open circuit designs, and are often used to power such projects.

Brain-Controlled Helicopter

Recently, our company, Puzzlebox, released the Orbit, a brain-controlled helicopter. The user begins by setting a display panel to the desired level of concentration and/or mental relaxation they wish to achieve. A mobile device or our custom Pyramid peripheral processes data collected by a NeuroSky EEG headset. When that target is detected in the user’s brainwaves, flight commands are issued to the Orbit using infrared light. One can practice maintaining focus or a clarity of thought using visual and physical feedback.

Puzzlebox Brain-Controlled Helicopter with Atmel AVR

Beyond novelty, however, lies the true purpose of the Puzzlebox Orbit. All source code, hardware designs, schematics, and 3D models are published freely online. Step-by-step guides for hacking the software and electronics are included. Methods for decoding infrared signals and extending mechanisms to operate additional toys and devices are shared. Creative modification is encouraged. The goal is to promote the product as a teaching aid for middle and high school sciences classes and in university-level programming and electrical engineering courses.

This business model is itself a bit of an experiment, much like the restaurant described above. There is little preventing a competitor from producing a knock-off and leveraging our own recipes to do it. They might even open their doors just across the street from ours. We’ll need to work hard to keep our customers coming back for seconds. But so long as everyone abides by the rules, openly publishing any modifications of improvements made on our recipe, we’re not afraid to share the secrets of our sauce. We only ask that they include the original material with each dish they serve, and include any changes or improvements made along the way. We’re willing to compete on cost and dining experience. In this way we hope to improve the quality and flavor for everyone.

Puzzlebox with Arduino and Atmel AVR

Openness and The Internet of Things

Today, communities such as Kickstarter and others tapping into the power of openness and crowd-sourcing are fueling a lot of technological innovation. The next era for enterprise is revolving around The Internet of Things (#IoT), machine-to-machine (#M2M) communications and even the Industrial Internet (#IndustrialInternet).

One strong proponent of innovation and thought, Chris Anderson, is renowned for having his fingerprints and vision on trends as they bloom into movements. Anderson is committed and energized in this Make-infused world. His latest book, “Makers: The New Industrial Revolution”, eloquently outlines the “right now” moment with makers. “Hardware is the new software”, opening up the brink of the next age of the Internet, where devices and machines become connected. Cloud, agile apps, and embedded design hardware (systems on chips, microcontrollers, or smart devices) are converging and paving the next generation of integrated products across the fabric of devices.

“The real revolution here is not in the creation of the technology, but the democratization of the technology. It’s when you basically give it to a huge expanded group of people who come up with new applications, and you harness the ideas and the creativity and the energy of everybody. That’s what really makes a revolution.

…What we’re seeing here with the third industrial revolution is the combination of the two [technology and manufacturing]. It’s the computer meets manufacturing, and it’s at everybody’s desktop.”

Excerpt credited from Chris’s Anderson’s “Maker: The New Industrial Revolution”

With that said, we enter the next age, where hardware is the new software.

Move Over Patent Trolls

You’re Either In Or On The Way Out

A Freeway Without Speed Limits

Why Is This Happening Now?

Disrupted Again

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: