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Coming Soon for Gadget Geeks: Snap-Together Electronics

Tracy Staedter, Discovery News

Photos

Do It Yourself

Nov. 13, 2007 -- A New York entrepreneur has developed a line of customizable, Lego-like electronic gizmos that allow people to tailor their gadgetry to their needs.

A month after Sept. 11, software developer Peter Semmelhack, married with a newly born son, found himself wanting a gadget that would let him know where his loved ones were at any given time -- maybe a device with a GPS unit and a modem that would plot a person's location on a map online.

"It's not a complicated device," said Semmelhack. "But it didn't exist."

Now it could. Semmelhack has developed a line of Linux-based hardware modules that can be snapped together like Legos, allowing consumers to build just about any kind of electronic device they want. (Open-source software called Eclipse is available for programming.)

The New York City-based company is called Bug Labs and according to founder and CEO Semmelhack, the Bug -- still in a beta version -- could be available to consumers by the end of the year.

"I'm really intrigued that they are planning to make everything open source. I think it's a step in an interesting direction," said Leah Buechley, a computer science researcher at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

At the hub of the system is the Bugbase, a component that consists of a CPU, 128MB of memory, built-in WiFi, a rechargeable battery, USB, Ethernet, and a small LCD screen.

Wannabe innovators can purchase Bugmodules -- for now, including a digital camera and video camera, a GPS device, a touch-sensitive LCD screen, and a motion detector -- that snap into the base. Eventually Semmelhack wants to expand the number of available modules to 81, including such items as a bar code/RFID scanner and a CO2 detector.