Innovation
Qi Hardware makes innovative projects. Here are a few highlights.
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Copyleft Hardware
- copyleft hw = hardware built only with freely available knowledge.
- the first computer built out of Wikipedia
What makes copyleft hardware superior?
Well you know the long laundry list, question is what sticks
1. no vendor lock-in 2. you can max out software upgradability, drive the actual physical bits to their maximum lifetime 3. dramatically lowers the amount of capital/people needed to improve upon the piece of hw, distributing the innovation burden on more shoulders 4. foundation for software continuity, i.e. you can make investments into or on top of software, and not be worried that your foundation is gone one day 5. will be cheaper than proprietary hardware once the amount of reusable copyleft hw reaches a critical point that makes investing to replace it prohibitively expensive at that point (#5), it should really take off btw. but I think it's quite a way out, especially because proprietary hw can be subsidized with proprietary content or ads, better than copyleft hw
Ben WPAN, akak SLoWPAN
First Open Processor
Milkymist1 is the first open source system-on-a-chip. The software that runs on our FPGA is completely GPL'd.
- We democratize IC design
- Make it accessible to anybody
IC design is where the innovation in the next 20 years will come from OS design is maxed out application design (whatever model-view-controller stuff or similar you want) languages - bah - we have enough compiled, interpreted, jit, etc. IC design is the forgotten child, huge potential once it is pulled into the software equation
speaking about that - what innovation have you seen in the Linux kernel in the last 10 years?
Its mature, Its polished!
IC design is also the entry door to DSP (digital signal processing), which is the entry door to many applications, RF protocols being one of them also ultrasound, microwaves, radar, etc.
imagine if your smartphone would also be an ultrasound device, the implications for global health would be unimaginable
in order to reach those applications, we need to look beyond what we have in software right now like I said above, beyond 1) OS design 2) application design 3) programming languages those things are all maxed out database design all digital stuff MAXED OUT if you wait 10 years, don't expect innovation to come from there object-oriented databases? come on UML - unified modeling language
Rapid Design
- Over the weekend you can hack up something cool
Hardware is Much Cheaper than Equal System
As pure hardware, one innovation is that it is cheaper than other systems that can do the same thing especially if you want to control DMX, MIDI as well
