Hardware Hacking

Hardware Hacking at TED: From Snap-Together Circuit Kits to Roach-Based Neuroscience

LONG BEACH, Calif. — In a now infamous editorial published in The Wall Street Journal last August, internet pioneer Marc Andreessen launched into an epic screed on the triumph of software in today’s tech landscape. A catchy phrase encapsulated his central thesis: “Software is eating the world.”

To a large extent, Andreessen is right. When Google, which already owns the massively popular Android OS, announced it intended to acquire Motorola’s ailing mobile hardware business last year, it provided a telling example of what Andreessen cites as the dominance of software over hardware.

But while software is Silicon Valley’s darling, hardware hacking is still a big theme at this year’s Technology Entertainment and Design conference in Long Beach, a week-long expo of big thinkers and even bigger ideas. From garage hackers in the tradition of Jobs and Woz to well-funded MIT specialists, TED 2012 has been a veritable buffet of men and women changing the way we think about hardware’s role in the greater tech space.

Take the story of Ayah Bdeir. As an engineering student, the nuts and bolts of technology always came naturally to her. However, after leaving graduate school at age 25 with her freshly minted engineering degree, Bdeir quickly realized that not all minds in the real world were like those back at MIT. The common, non-technologically inclined person would probably never know the things Bdeir spent her school days playing with, learning from breadboards and programming.

“Electronics intimidate people,” Bdeir said in an interview. “But as we’re completely surrounded by technology in nearly every part of our lives, intimidation is no longer a valid excuse.”

So she spent the next four years (completely bootstrapped) developing Littlebits, a library of individual electronics modules, each about the size of a silver dollar and part of a greater circuit that snaps together via small magnets. A Littlebits project requires no soldering, and won’t suffer crossed wires.

Most of the circuit building results in flashy LEDs and cutesy buzzing sounds, suggesting Littlebits is aimed primarily at a younger crowd. Indeed, at first glance they evoke comparisons to LEGO.

But Bdeir says her idea should appeal to an audience beyond children. While the more serious computing nerd may reach for an Arduino unit for his or her homebrewed hardware, Bdeir says Littlebits are for people who haven’t ever been particularly interested in building circuits. “They’re for the non-engineers out there who are just as creative, but bound for a lack of understanding,” Bdeir says.

And the barrier to entry isn’t high — just $90 for a 14-piece starter kit, which is expandable to work with any other Littlebits booster packs you buy in the future.


More @ http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/03/ted-2012-hardware-littlebits-makerbot/