If there was ever a great indication of the power that is/will be open source hardware, this is it. TechCrunch announcing they want to build their own Web tablet device. Just awesome. A couple of years ago, Jeremy Toeman (our marketing guy) and I were sitting around thinking about the future and Jeremy actually said – “I bet in the not too distant future we’ll be buying gadgets from bloggers”. I don’t think he meant it literally, though in this case he seems to have been right, he meant that it’s not such a stretch to think that individuals, and not just big corporations will be able to make and sell gadgets economically. If you look at what bloggers have done to big media, it didn’t seem too outlandish. The power to make things is moving from traditional producers to consumers in just about every industry. It’s a profound shift.

I think this is just the tip of the iceberg. And we’re excited to see it happen. Anything we can do to contribute to their success we will.