While I was not able to attend the Consumer Electronics Show this year due to other work commitments, all reports indicate that it was bigger than ever. As expected, a number of high performance, high definition videocameras were announced, featuring researcher-friendly capabilities including larger capacity hard drives, image stabilization and greater optical zoom ranges. I'm somewhat partial to the new JVC Everio line from a styling point of view, especially the top of the line GZ-HD7.
But beyond the typical consumer product lines, one product stood out and even took the Best of CES award for the emerging technology category. That product is Bug Lab's Bug, described as a:
"collection of easy-to-use electronic modules that snap together to build any gadget you can imagine. Each BUGmodule represents a specific gadget function (ex: a camera, a keyboard, a video output, etc). You decide which functions to include and BUG takes care of the rest letting you try out different combinations quickly and easily. With BUG and the integrated programming environment/web community (BUGnet), anyone can build, program and share innovative devices and applications. We don't define the final products - you do."
In other words, a set of modular consumer electronics components that can fit together and then be custom programmed to do whatever the user/developer desires - open source will help with that a lot.
The current set of modules include an LCD display, a camera, GPS and motion detector - all to be released this quarter, with second quarter modules including a touch screen, keyboard, and audio module. Check out some videos on YouTube.
These components represent a promising set of opportunities for user and design research:
- Create custom data gathering devices and programs to conduct observational research (camera), time and motion studies (motion sensor, GPS), etc.
- Develop custom products and user interface prototypes for testing using the hardware and software capabilities
The quality of the hardware (e.g. video image quality, motion detector sensitivity) and the ease and flexibility of the development environment will be key of course, but I look forward to the possibilities that BUG may enable for the creative designer/researcher.
