I just got a reminder of how much technology has changed in my lifetime thanks to a photo from my dad. When I was 6 years old a game cartridge was roughly the size of the cable box remote and the computer (my Atari 600) was about the size of a shoebox + my analog TV. There was a phone adapter to put the phone onto and a cassette tape drive to store games that I programmed on back then. The PC that arrived to replace the series of Atari computers that I grew to enjoy was much larger, but not by necessity. Today the computer, phone, TV remote control, recording device, storage and batteries are roughly the size of that cable box remote! Games no longer require cartridges I can take photos as well as do a two way video call on the same device.
Ironically, Steve Jobs worked on both my first computer at my iPhone. He managed to meet and befriend Steve Wozniak. Together, these guys built the company that brought you the Apple and us the iPhone. I say that they brought you the Apple because I never owned an Apple. Nevertheless, it is impressive that Steve Jobs managed to get ahead of the curve at each bend in the road. Both Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were part of the home brew computer club, a group that brought hackers together on a regular basis. When I look around today the closest thing I see to the home brew computer club here on the East Coast is Hac DC, a group of people who get together to work on hack on electronics. I love the Hac DC group and wish that there were many more groups like it everywhere.
So here is the challenge. I have been talking to software engineers and others around the Washington, DC area since the late 1990’s. In all of the conversations that I have had with people I can count on one hand how many people hacked together something that combined hardware and software in a way that was interesting. You may recall my mention of an interesting product that was not local recently. Maybe looking in all of the wrong places. I would like to find and share stories here on Social Matchbox about products that involve hardware and software. To be clear, I’m not looking for mobile applications that leverage Android or the iPhone SDK in order to run on the mobile device. What I am looking for is products from the East Coast engineering community that combine hardware and software to make new products entirely.
If you are wondering what I’m looking for, check out what the folks from NASA put together last year or Johnny Chung Lee’s Wiimote Hacks (some of his more recent work).
If you are working on something interesting that you would like to share or maybe that you are not quite ready to share yet then we would love to hear from you. If you know someone working on something interesting please do let us know. Either way, send a note to contact@socialmatchbox.com – I would love to chat.
Recent Jobs
