We concluded our design project with IDEO on Monday and the results speak for themselves.  But don’t take my word for it, go see for yourself.  The entire process was done in the open, which was a first for us (and I think for them as well).  We all learned a lot and for those of you who participated, thanks a ton.  Iain, Chris, Jerry, Dave, Travis, Nicholas – nice work and job well done.  Since we all learned so much from this project we intend to keep the discussion alive and moving ahead and look forward to everyone’s thoughts.

While the final results of this project phase are mostly conceptual, by incorporating the community’s feedback and developing a better sense for what’s “possible,” we gain a stronger understanding of our customers’/partners’ needs and requirements.   And by conceptual I don’t mean to imply it was just an exercise.  We will actively pursue what it will take to productize the best of these concepts.  So stay tuned for more on this thread and thanks again for your support and participation.

Over at BUGcommunity, we just posted details of how community member [cmw] helped us achieve a rather sweet milestone by porting Quake to the BUG!  Head on over to read more and download the binary, and also check out a couple of videos of BUG+Quake in action (one below).

IDEO published its first batch of concepts drawings and animations for the new BUGbase user interface on the BUG+IDEO blog, with five concepts spec’d out for review by the community. The discussion is already underway, with lots of good questions and suggestions coming in from readers like yourself.

Here’s one animation of Concept #3, incorporating LCD Display with segmented backlight:

Head on over to the BUG+IDEO project page and jump into the discussion!

Michael Arrington has a post up talking about his tablet computer, called the CrunchPad, that they are designing and building with the help of their readers.  It’s an open, public project that is getting great results (from what I can tell).  Robert Scoble comments on it here and raises a point that I think is great.  If building electronic gadgets becomes easy enough, won’t everyone jump in, including individuals?  It may seem totally absurd to us now, but in ten years or less we will see devices being designed, produced, branded and sold in the same way that people now build and use web sites.  I’m not saying everyone will do it, I’m just saying it will be that common.  It will be normal.  So Scoble asks if Techcrunch is now an electronic gadget brand?  My answer is absolutely.  My only question now is, Robert, what do you want to build ?

Today, we’re excited to announce a new project we’re kicking off with IDEO, a well known international design and innovation firm.  Taking cues from everything we’ve seen in the community, our own experiences with new and emerging interface technologies and your direct input, we hope to gather several new ideas on how we can re-envision user interaction with the BUGbase.  Essentially, we are going to build on the great work done to-date by our original design partner ECCO Design and explore an area of our product that we think has a ton of potential – the BUGbase user interface.

So, we want *your* feedback!  IDEO has agreed to do this project in the open, which is a new approach for them, and we’re hoping it leads to superior results for Bug Labs and the BUGcommunity.  We don’t have a fancy name (yet) for this process, and we’re still working on the specifics for collecting your input.  But since everything we do is based on community participation, we are big fans of the idea, and naturally open to all your suggestions.

Over the next two weeks both companies will be posting their ideas and reporting on progress, via this blog and BUGcommunity.com.  At every point in this cycle we would love to get your thoughts on the work-to-date, and at the end we will publish our findings, which again we welcome your thoughts on.

The whole point of this exercise is to continue to push the boundaries of how we innovate, not just on the BUGbase UI, but on all things related to BUG.  We take pride in thinking our designs are good, but we also know they are exponentially better when the community gets involved.

Thanks in advance for your participation in this fun new project, and stay tuned for updates!

This was yet another great year for Bug Labs at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, as the Bug crew (Alicia, Angel, Brian B, Jeremy, Kevin, Matt I, Matt P, Maurizio, Peter and myself) headed to the world’s largest technology trade show to exhibit BUG in front of over 110,000 attendees. Though the general sentiment on the show floor was a bit subdued compared to previous shows, the BUG booth was well received and well attended.

At CES 2008, where we debuted the BUGbase and first four BUGmodules, we didn’t expect much but a few press hits and the occasional BUG enthusiast stopping by to chat. We ended up winning the CNET Best of CES award, filming a bunch of b-roll and holding interviews for several hours at the booth. So the bar was pretty high going into this show. I’m happy to say CES 2009 didn’t let us down. We got some great coverage and met a ton of great people. Most importantly we debuted five new BUGmodules that will greatly expand what you can now do with a BUG.

Relevant to those BUGmodules, we received some great mentions in blogs and publication such as MAKE, Create Digital Music, Gizmodo, Engadget, CNN Money, DVICE, and Barron’s just to name a few. Check out our press section for more.

CES was just the first of many exciting events slated for Bug Labs in 2009. Keep visiting this blog or subscribe to our newsletter for updates as they happen.

Paro the Baby Seal is probably the most adorable robot Bug Labs has ever seen. BUG and Baby Seal met at CES 2009. Paro is a therapeutic robot that interacts through sensors when squeezed or pet. Paro is often found in hospitals or nursing homes, soothing humans and batting its big loveable eyes. Baby Seal especially liked jamming out to the Phunky application, using BUGsound and BUGmotion on the BUGbase and uploading the app via Dragonfly. BUG hopes Baby Seal will visit the NYC office soon. See the Baby Seal in action:

(UPDATE: CES 2009 is now over! Thanks for the great time in Las Vegas, and look for an update here on BugBlogger.com very soon!)

After a great first day at CES, with hundreds of enthusiasts and press (including Engadget, MSN, Barrons, Gadgetell and more) stopping by the Bug Labs booth, the BUGcrew is gearing up for its second day on the showfloor. For those of you who can’t join us in Vegas, you can check us out online any number of ways.

IRC – #buglabs on irc.freenode.net (handle: CEStallions)
AOL IM: bugplus
Twitter: twitter.com/buglabs

(more…)

We’ve got a lot to talk about today as we get ready for CES, which starts tomorrow in Las Vegas. We’re taking everything to the Sands Expo, booth #IP209, including the (Test) Kitchen sink!

After announcing the availability of BUGvonHippel, we’re excited to announce five new BUGmodules today: BUGprojector, BUGsound, BUGbee, BUGwifi, and BUG3g GSM.

Over the last few months, we’ve been searching for better ways to view pictures and videos on our BUGs without squinting at the BUGview LCD. So we tinkered with the idea of viewing it on something bigger — like the wall. That’s one of the many reasons we built BUGprojector, the mini DLP-based projector we developed in partnership with Texas Instruments. Now you can display video from your BUG as big as you want to see it.

BUGsound is for music lovers.  With a 20-mm speaker, omnidirectional microphone and four stereo jacks for input, output, headphones and microphone, we’d like to think we can help inspire the next generation of hackers musicians. And with the onboard hardware codecs, you can also program BUGsound to act as an audio processing server.

If you have a great idea for using your BUG for short-range wireless applications, we’ve got the BUGbee 802.15.4 module and the BUGwifi 802.11 and Bluetooth 2.0+EDR module. Connect BUGs to WLANs, PANs, headsets and more, wirelessly.

Finally, for all the folks that have been asking for mobile BUG applications, we’re announcing the BUG3g GSM module, which provides your BUG the ability to connect to high-speed 3G cell networks.

All these new BUGmodules will be available by the end of this quarter, with pricing and shipping details to be announced in the coming weeks. We’ll also release additional tech specs, including schematics and gerbers, on our website and wiki. Several cool applications showcasing the capabilities of the new BUGmodules will be demo’d live at CES and uploaded to the BUG community soon.

Full details of our announcement can be found here, and photos of the BUGsound module can be found in our Flickr gallery.

We’re really excited to share this with you.  I look forward to working with you all in 2009!

Peter