innovation evaluation turns the spotlight on the open source hardware movement. open source hardware is barely a new concept, however lately it’s been getting a great deal much more attention, with the assist of magazines like MAKE as well as sites like Instructables. Chumby, a business that offers a modifiable cube with a screen, embedded computer, as well as a Wi-Fi connection, developed their product to be quickly hackable. The openness of the product triggered a neighborhood heavily invested in the product’s advancement to be created. The growth of such neighborhoods has likewise stimulated rate of interest from corporations such as Nokia, which is working together with MIT on open source video decoders. They acknowledged that opening up would cause advancement time to be decreased as well as offer higher flexibility, enabling them to allocate resources to other areas, including advertising as well as brand development. [Jamey Hicks], director of the Nokia research study center in Cambridge, believes that the open source motion can even complement closed designs, as long as it’s handled appropriately. With higher gain access to to advanced software application tools as well as resources, the barriers to entry keep falling away, as well as it’s much simpler for the world to find the joys of tinkering as well as hacking.

[photo: Andreas Pizsa]