Bug Labs and Open Source Hardware

I’ve been meaning to write about Bug Labs for sometime but never got around to doing it. This will be a good post to end my month-long hiatus from blogging.

Bug Labs is developing a programmable platform with hardware modules such as GPS, camera, LCD display and more. The cool thing about these modules is that you can put them together and build anything that you want with them.

Want a home security system? No problem, just plug the motion sensor into the Bug Base, write some code and you are up and running.

Think of BUG modules as programmable LEGO blocks with really special functionalities that you can tap to build your very own product. Here’s a short video from CES 2008, where these guys also got a show award.

It’s great to see something like this out in the world. The open source/community hardware idea is a good one and I hope they do well. The only wrinkle I see has to do with their limited market – geeks, techies and makers. But they must have done their homework and understood that the market was good enough for them.

More videos on the site.

Brazil Kicks It Up A Notch

April 30th 2008 will be a day to remember for Brazilian economists and investors. Standard & Poor upgraded Brazil to “Investment-Grade” status. What this means, in a few words, is that the Brazilian economy has become stable enough to be deemed investment-safe.

This is excellent news, since the upgrade will make it possible for many more international investors, such as pension plans, to get into the Brazilian stock market.

More details about all this can be found in this story over at BusinessWeek. It’s a great report on the state of the Brazilian economy and the role of government in keeping things under control.