• On TechRepublic: Five super-secret features in Windows 7

Bug Labs Platform Video

To play this video, you need Javascript enabled and the latest version of Flash installed. Install Flash now
Bug Labs Platform
Created: 01/06/2008
Video description: Tom Merritt is impressed with this open-source mini computer that is can morph into many other gadgets. He takes a look at it at on the stage at CES 2008.

Bug Labs Platform Video Transcript

[ music ] ^M00:00:04 [ background music ]

>> Hey, I'm Tom Merritt, here at CES 2008. And we have got one of the coolest products I've seen, because it's about six hundred products. Now I've got this thing here right, the old iPhone. If I want to mess around with it, I can jailbreak it, try to put some third party apps on it, but I can't open it up, I can't change it. This is totally different. What they've got here from Bug [assumed spelling] Labs, this is the Bug base, this is actually a computer with one hundred twenty eight megabytes of RAM, it's got an ARM CPU inside, Wi-Fi, USB, little mini LCD on the front here. But that's not the end of it. So you buy this, this gives you a pretty functional mini computer. And then you want a bigger screen than that LCD? You buy a module, buy this LCD module, plug it in, and now you've got a little bit of a bigger screen. You can also plug in a USB keyboard and a USB slot right there. Has an open source MMC card slot here as well, and that reminds me. This whole thing is GPL, not just the Bug Labs SDK is GPL, where you can create your own software for it, but the hardware is GPL'd as well. So you can create your own modules. They're gonna have four modules at launch, course we have the LCD screen here. You can also put in a camera, this is a five megapixel camera that you can plug in. And the other two are a motion detector and accelerometer. Plugs in on the back just like all of them, and a GPS device. Even has a little external antenna, so if you want to plug in a car antenna or something like that. So now you can mix and match. You've got GPS, you've got a camera, in fact one of the first pieces of software written with the Bug Labs SDK is an auto locator. So I can take a picture, the GPS tells me where I am, and it uploads it through the Wi-Fi to Flicker. I know where I am, I've got the Geo tagging all in one piece. Of course there are almost an unlimited amount of things that you can do with this, because not only are there the modules that they sell, but because it's open source you can build your own modules if you want. Now here's the pricing structure. I'm gonna have to cheat to look at this. They're doing something called an early adopters discount. So instead of charging you more at the beginning and then punishing you for buying early, they're charging you less at the beginning. For the first sixty days the base will go for two hundred ninety nine dollars, and then after sixty days it goes up to three hundred forty nine dollars. LCD module runs you ninety nine dollars, then up to one nineteen, GPS, camera, and the motion and acceleromator [assumed spelling] are a little less. There's also BugLabs.net if you want to get involved with writing. You can download the software today, you can download the SDK and get started writing apps for this. [ background music ] It's really too much to talk about in the time we have today. So go check it out at BugLabs.net. This is the Bug Labs platform at CES 2008. I'm Tom Merritt. ^M00:02:49 [ music ]

Related Videos

OQO Model O2

At CES 2008, Tom Merritt takes a look at this mini PC.

2008 Infiniti EX35 Journey

Impressive for its technology, the 2008 Infiniti EX35 Journey brings in all the latest gadgets, and adds a few unique ones not seen on other cars. All of this makes it an Editors' Choice car.

Road Warrior: Smart phones and GPS

Tom Merritt takes a look at the latest smart phones and GPS devices, and a gadget that does both.

CNET Top 5: Most wanted gadgets

What gadgets do CNET users want most? Tom Merritt takes a look. Expect some big surprises!

Garmin Nuvi 880

At CES 2008, Tom Merritt takes a first look at Garmin's latest GPS device, the Nuvi 880, with speech recognition.

Microbot Herey

From CES 2008, Tom Merritt takes a look at the Microbot Herey, an educational robot using Microsoft's Robotics Studio.

Spykee

At CES 2008, Tom Merritt takes a look at the Spykee robot, a Wi-Fi robot with a built-in camera.

WowWee Tribot

From CES 2008, Tom Merritt takes a look at the WoWee Tribot, the successor to the Robosapien.

Dell and Sun partner on Solaris

At Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco, Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz and Dell CEO Michael Dell share the stage to announce that Sun's open-source operating system, Solaris, will be shipping on Dell servers.

Take an early tour of OpenOffice.org

ZDNet's Patrick Houston looks at the free open-source version of Sun's StarOffice suite, now available for public download, which offers new file-saving Shockwave presentation options.