We have released yet another production release of the Eclipse Dragonfly SDK – #6! More information is available here and you can download it here.

Aside from fixing some defects that magically got into the code, we added some important features as well (http://bugcommunity.com/wiki/index.php/SDK_New_and_Noteworthy_Features). One of these improvement makes integration with BUGnet work to the user’s advantage in the SDK. As BUGnet grows in the number of applications that are available to download and explore there is a need to sort out and present this information, after all this what we all are looking for – relevant information, isn’t this is why we love Google? This new feature is called ‘Applications by Modules’ and the idea is that once you connect your physical BUG or launch Virtual BUG a new section in BUGnet view will show relevant applications. The list of relevant applications is dynamic – so when modules are removed from or added to the BUGbase the application list will reflect that change.

Hope you are as excited about this and other improvement as we are! If you have other ideas – we are listening.

Please come by the Eclipse DemoCamp:

June 30th, at 7:00 pm
Spitzer’s
101 Rivington St (Map)

We’ll have Dragonfly SDK demo, some Bug Lab folks will be on hand, and we’d love to see you. Also, as always, you can share your ideas at our forums (http://bugcommunity.com/forums) or drop by our IRC channel #buglabs at FreeNode.

We’ve spent a lot of time watching the discussions on our forums, and have seen some wonderful conversations about future BUGmodules (like here and here). We really want to capture all this data in a way to be (1) useful for our planning purposes, and (2) engaging to you, our community. It’s our feeling that while the forums here are great for in-depth conversations, Q&A, and quick polling, it’s not the ideal setup for what we want to accomplish.

Our goal is to have the voice of the community at large play a loud part in our product planning. This means we’d like to know how the ideas you are all sharing really rank with each other. One person’s all-important laser range finder module is another person’s worst. idea. ever. And the forums don’t really let you express that very easily. Enter IdeaScale.

IdeaScale is similar to the Starbucks and Dell “idea crowdsourcing” systems. Basically anyone can come to the site, and vote or comment on existing ideas, or create their own suggestion. We’ve organized the site to have 4 categories for your feedback:

1. BUGmodules – suggest a module for us to build
2. BUGbase – suggest a technology or other aspect of how you’d like to see a future BUGbase be configured
3. BUG+ – suggest a location for us to come have an event
4. BUG+EDU – suggest a school or program to do with an educational facility

Please come check out the site. At present, no registration is required for basic participation (voting), and we are hoping to create a single-signon process so your BUGnet or forums ID will work across both sites in the future. Also, please feel free to use the forums (here) to give any feedback on IdeaScale itself, how it could be improved, if there are other categories we should add, etc.

A few Bug Labs team members have gotten the ball rolling (myself included), but really this is about the community. Hoping to see you there soon, the very future of the world might just depend on it. Well, that may be a bit of a stretch.

I’m very happy to say that we’ve moved the blog to the Wordpress platform. I’ve been a big fan of WP since I first started my own blog there years ago (after a short-lived stay at the earliest version of blogger.com). In context to Bug Labs, I think it’s a very “fitting” choice. Here’s why:

1. Both are built using open source technologies and ideals
2. Both use the GPL
3. Both start good but get tremendously better with a developer community
4. Both are fully extensible, with practically no limitations to the final product (Guy Kawasaki launched a business, Truemors, purely by customizing wordpress!)
5. Both are “blank canvases” for creation, which could result in a motion-controllable slideshow playback device or… pictures of cats with bizarre captions

We’re working the kinks out of the system now, so you may see an oddity here or there (if so, please do leave a comment on this post!).

While packing my bags (gadgets, chargers, extra batteries, cables) I realized why Maker Faire is so important for the DIYer: meeting like minded people. Maker faire allows us to share ideas, obtain advice, see new things; it exercises our innate passion for creating things – cavemen were Makers!

I recall the experience of building my first robot. There I was with a RIM 850, an 8051 micro-controller and a toy tank. I had learned to program blackberries during a summer internship, 8051 assembly during a course, and had some knowledge of basic electronics. I new I could control actuators via an H-bridge with the GPIO pins of the 8051 but didn’t know how to interface the RIM 850 with the micro-controller. At that point I perused the Blackberry Hardware Developer’s manual and realized that the gold plated connector at the bottom contained the signals for serial communications. Unfortunately, my 8051 provided TTL levels instead of RS232. This was a road block.

Fortunately, as I was drinking some water near an electronics lab, I overhead a classmate discussing the same issue with a professor. When my classmate walked out of the lab into the hall way, I stopped him and told him I was interested in converting RS232 levels to TTL. He relayed what the professor had told him and introduced me to Maxim’s RS232 transceivers.

A simple question turned into full-blown discussion where we exchanged our ideas, solutions, and feed back. I can’t imagine what will happen while I’m at Maker Faire, but I encourage everyone to ask us questions about BUG and other related topics; as I know I will be asking other Makers many similar questions.

Now in its third year, Bay Area Maker Faire 2008 takes place next weekend, Saturday May 3 and Sunday May 4, and Bug Labs is raring to go as we gear up for the event. For those who are new to Maker Faire, it is best described as a weekend of unbridled creation and exploration of all things hackable – whether mechanical, electrical, or other. From making music with tesla coils to aptly titled danger machines, next weekend will be about celebrating the unabashed spirit of DIY and, for lack of a better word, "making" things.

For our first go at Maker Faire, we’re inviting the community of hackers, hobbyists, tinkerers, designers, and free thinkers at large to come by our station at the San Mateo Fairgrounds, and join the Bug Labs team in creating the next batch of BUG applications and modules.  The Bug Labs team will be arriving in force, with our biggest showing at an event to date. We’ll have two tables and several BUGs to play with,  and we encourage you to bring your soldering irons, your laptops, and your breadboards, and come along with us as we venture into making new gadgets and apps.

And over the next week, we’ll be publishing a series of posts on this blog chronicling the "Road to Maker Faire," featuring pieces from Bug Labs employees and guest columnists. We’ll also be giving away several passes to the event for those interested in attending. Stay tuned for more details!

I was really searching for a good title for this post.  It ranged from "inauguration" to "freshmen orientation" but none fit that well.  Then I remembered that it was the end of Spring Break and voila!  But now for the important news – we’ve released all the details of BUG+EDU on the website.  Please take a look and give us your thoughts.  We’d love to hear your comments on ways you think the program can expand and grow in the future.

First time hearing about BUG+EDU?  No problem, I’ll take a moment to explain…

In our opinion, children of all ages represent more creative, original thinking that can possibly be harnessed.  When I was young I envisioned a future with all moving sidewalks, and remember sketching out how they’d work (intersections are tricky!) and thinking it through to the nth detail.  Now, that’s not completely true, since the one topic that never really crossed my mind were the economics of the situation. 
Which is an unfortunate reality of technology innovation – it tends to be a bit pricey relative to allowances and after-school jobs.

The amazing thing for "kids these days" is the power of computers and the Internet.  They both provide vast opportunities to create new software, applications and web sites.  But all those opportunities are isolated to the digital realm.  Hardware invention/innovation remains frustratingly out of reach for all but the most intrepid youth.  We aim to change that.

BUG+EDU (again, details are all here) is a series of programs to not only get discounted BUGs to interested students, but also provide free units to educational institutions, help participate in creating new class curricula, and sponsor on-campus events and demonstrations of the platform in action.  We’ve tried to offer a wide enough range of programs to help virtually any type of school, teacher, or student, but if there’s something that somehow has slipped through the cracks, please let us know!  In the meantime, good luck on finals!

(UPDATE: Due to several requests, BUG+Hack has been extended to Thursday at noon. Remember to visit the BUG+Hack wiki page)

Just a quick reminder: BUG+SV is happening tonight. With EclipseCon in full swing, it looks like we’re going to have a good turnout of developers joining us for drinks as we extend BUG+Hack into the evening. Again, the event is open to all, and
we’ll be giving away BUGbundles to the two developers who create the
coolest BUG applications. Visit the BUG+Hack wiki page for rules and instructions.

Looking forward to seeing you tonight!

Ken, Angel and Alex from the Bug Labs NY team will be out in the SF Bay Area next week to speak at EclipseCon 2008. And we figure it’s been a while since we did a BUG+ get-together (not to mention that we need to celebrate shipping the BUG). So on Tuesday March 18, we’ll be hosting BUG+Silicon Valley, or BUG+SV, between 6-9pm in Palo Alto at Bistro 412, and we’re inviting developers, enthusiasts, and the community-at-large to meet and grab drinks with the Bug Labs team. Let us know via upcoming if you can make it.

However, there’s a twist to this BUG+ event. At previous gatherings, we’ve been demoing the BUG and Dragonfly, and showing how to build custom apps on the fly. This time, we want YOU to make a BUG with us. You bring your laptop and your imagination, we’ll supply the drinks and support, and let’s see if we can develop a new BUG application or two by the end of the night.

And as always, the event is open to all, developers and non-techies alike. Hope to see you there!

March is looking to be an exceptionally busy month for Bug Labs, as we set off for a series of conferences and events in the lead up to the BUG launch.

To start, we’ll be at the O’Reilly ETech Conference in San Diego next week, where Peter will be delivering a keynote on the morning of Wednesday, March 5, on "Personalizing the Device". The following week, we’ll be at SXSW in Austin, where Peter will be delivering another presentation on Monday, March 10, this time on "Hardware Mashups: Introducing the Long Tail of Gadgets". (UPDATE: On the evening of Wednesday, March 12, Jeremy will be speaking at eComm 2008, taking place at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View.)

Bug Labs software gurus, Ken and Angel, will be at EclipseCon in Santa Clara on Wednesday March 19, discussing the development of the BUG platform in "BUG: A Customizable Hardware and Software Platform using Linux, Java, and OSGi". And to close off March in style, Ken will be at the Internet of Things 2008 in Zurich on Thursday, March 27, participating in the session on "The Software Fabric for the Internet of Things".

And finally, March 17 is the day we’ve all been waiting for – Lá Fhéile Pádraig, commonly known as Saint Patrick’s Day. On this day, we celebrate in the streets in commemoration of Saint Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland. (We should also mention that is the day BUG finally ships. If you haven’t ordered yours yet, you can do so now in the online store).

You can follow our updates online via Twitter, Jaiku, and Facebook, and we’ll be posting reminders and updates here on BUG blogger.

If this were 1997, this post would be chock full of blinking content as we announced our store’s opening with pride.  Instead, we’ll be only slightly more subtle as we open the padlocks, and welcome you in to browse around.  I want to take a moment to (and boy is this going to sound odd) potentially discourage certain shoppers:

For those of you who have ZERO programming experience, this isn’t a great time to buy a BUG.  It’d be like having a Web browser on your computer in 1988 (which would’ve been quite a feat, by the way): the platform works, but it doesn’t have much going on.  Right now, and for the next few months, our focus is building a developer community.  This is part of why we made the SDK available back in December, as we anticipate working hand-in-hand with programmers to build a huge suite of cool applications for the BUG.  So if the promise of the "Lego of Gadgets" is appealing to you, but you don’t have any direct programming skills, we recommend you hold off for a few months.  Stay tuned for updates here as we’ll be sure to talk about how the community is evolving the BUG!

We’re also announcing the BUGbundle today, which is the BUGbase and the first four shipping modules (gps, LCD, motion detector/accelerometer, 2MP digital camera).  It’s being sold for $705, but the Early Adopter Discount brings it down to $549 (22% savings!).

Also, we’re in such a limited supply right now that we are limiting orders to one per customer.  If you are interested in a bulk order, please send us an email.  Also, we have not yet started the BUG+EDU promotions, which we’ll unveil in March.

Lastly, just in case you missed it last week, the BUGbase going on sale now is the "Hiro P" edition, and it has a slightly different interface than you’ve seen on our site before.  Also, it doesn’t have WiFi built-in.  For those of you who don’t need WiFi for your gadget dreams, jump on in, we’ll also be sending you a free vonHippel module!  Further, if you do want WiFi, but can’t stand the wait, we’re making a BUGmodule with 802.11b/g and it’ll be available to you at our production cost.

This is an extremely exciting moment in the history of Bug Labs.  Thanks for being a part of it, and once you’ve placed your order, please join us in the discussion forums to get your feedback our way!

UPDATES: A few emails already came in, so I wanted to add a few points (I will do this throughout the day as new topics arise).

International shipping: we are working on a solution, but we don’t have it ready yet.  We will have an early adopter program available to international customers.

Future products: we will also have an early adopter program for future products, as they come to market.