The Open Hardware Revolution

If you haven’t heart of Arduino or Raspberry Pi, then you need to get up to speed urgently. Arduino is revolutionizing hardware and gadget innovations. It is a do-it-your-self-hardware-kit that allows you to build complex systems by stacking up components like GPRS/3G, NFC, etc. Raspberry Pi is an ARM GNU/Linux box for $25.

However Kickstarter just funded the next generation of both projects:

The FreeSoc (alternativel link) allows hardware programming to be done via simple drag-and-drop.

The Parallella Super Computer (alternative link) for $99. A 64 Cores computer on a small board for an affordable price and very low power consumption. Imagine stacking a 100 parallella’s in a box. There is already a parallel programming competition set-up.

Both projects are open hardware and open source project, hence expect hobbyists to come up with lots of cool ideas…