Hasta La Gadget!

There’s a growing number of startups out there that are focusing on building new hardware, and that’s an immensely different problem compared to building a software business, in terms of sourcing resources to use to build the products involved, sourcing talent and solving problems. That’s why Natasha Baker founded SnapEDA, a website and community dedicated to helping hardware engineers connect, and helping businesses connecting with them.

Baker was at Disrupt’s Startup Alley this year, showing off her platform, which she says is essentially a Github for hardware. It’s a community based around sharing CAD design for components in circuit boards and electronics, including tools that allow schematics to be downloaded in a variety of formats compatible with all leading CAD programs, and community validation tools that allow users to flag problems with schematics or to verify that they work correctly.

“What we’re trying to do is show people everything they need to know, so data sheet specs, pricing, and availability,” Baker said in an interview, discussing the parts pages aspect of the site. “But our main value add, the thing that hasn’t really been done before is offering CAD files that are convertible to every format.”

Aside from providing crowd-sourced, multi-format exportable design files for chips, SnapEDA also aspires to be a true community for builders and electronics engineers. Part of that is allowing people to vouch for designs and components, but another part is allowing them to build personal profiles on SnapEDA, which lists their community contributions, as well as tags that describe their expertise. The long-term vision is to use those to help connect them with companies who need to find specific talent. Baker says that it’s a big challenge for companies to find the right people to help them design and build hardware, so there’s a big opportunity in becoming a specialist network for that.

“A lot of the startups don’t know where to find designers,” she said. “Or they have designers, but they don’t know where to find the layout engineers [those who actually plot out the circuit board layout]. So our goal is to connect people who are specialized in different areas of electronic design. Electronic design is so niche, but there’s so many specialities even within electronic design.”

Someone needs to provide a central resource not only for connecting these individuals but also for keeping track of what hardware engineers are doing, and which ones are actually qualified to fill the needs of emerging hardware startups.

“We try to aggregate all the actions that people have taken on the site,” she said. “Because just the way that Github has made it so that people look at your online profile before they hire you as a software engineer, we think the same thing is going to happen for hardware.”

SnapEDA also has a manufacturing platform, where they produce their own boards for customers. They have both low-cost options sourced from China, as well as manufacturing partners based in Portland or Toronto for customers who would rather source things domestically.

Startups supporting hardware startups are becoming more numerous as the opportunity expands, with others like Upverter trying to capitalize on this growing movement. SnapEDA has a good model to follow in Github, but we’ll have to wait and see if hardware has matured enough as a startup category to fuel a big need for this kind of product and community. So far, the company is bootstrapped, but Baker says they’ll start looking for funding pretty soon.

Tonight NBC revealed it is bringing back comedy Community for a fifth season. While NBC has been criticized for shifting the premiere date for this last season and dumping showrunner Dan Harmon, Variety suggests its renewal may be related to something apart from the show. The Sony Pictures-produced show could have followed the path of Cougar Town to cable but there’s also new competition for content from sources like Netflix, Amazon and Hulu. All are willing to pay for quality original content and would love to snatch up the audience that’s already watching on NBC.

One needs only look at Arrested Development or the Kickstarter for Veronica Mars to see how much hype “saving” a show brings in the digital realm. Another boost for the show is likely to come from reruns on Comedy Central, all of which adds up to a renewal order which at one time seemed unlikely to happen. Finally, NBC has other elements that are certainly in play, like stabilizing a Thursday night lineup with familiar shows as it prepares for the Winter Olympics early next year. When the show comes back it will unfortunately be without Chevy Chase’s Pierce Hawthorne character, so a Journey to the Center of Hawkthorne 2 is probably not on the table. If you’re not familiar with the show’s pursuit of “six seasons and a movie” and wonder what all the hype is about, check after the break for one man’s theory of Community as a “postmodern masterpiece.”

Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD

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Source: Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Alison Brie (Twitter), Joel McHale (Twitter)

Each week Joshua Fruhlinger contributes This is the Modem World, a column dedicated to exploring the culture of consumer technology.

I have many interests: mountain biking, martial arts, video games, running, reading, cooking and horror movies. For each one of these, there is an internet rabbit hole so deep, so full of information and compatriots that it’s a miracle I ever actually follow through on them. Ask yourself this: Do you do what you say you do online?

The internet is great at allowing people to nerd out on their particular interests. While it serves up news and media like a champ, many of us spend our time deep-diving into whatever rabbit hole interests us. When we nerd out about technology here at Engadget, for instance, we’re getting a double dose: reading about technology in a tech environment. It’s a beautiful thing; it’s addictive and we lose sight of reality while we’re going deep. We could be in a bar, at home, at the office — wherever it is, we lose sense of our environment.

Filed under: Misc

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It’s not every day that you see a new EV manufacturer get started; it’s even less common when the company promises a switch-up of the typical automaker’s formula. Scarlet Motors has made its formal debut with an aim towards the same kind of openness in its electric sports cars that founder Julien Fourgeaud would be familiar with from his days at Nokia and the Symbian Foundation. In addition to giving a peek behind the curtain, Tesla-style, Finland-based Scarlet wants future (and eventually current) drivers to influence the design choices themselves, both through a dedicated community as well as Facebook and Twitter. We’ll get more details in time, but those that just can’t wait can sign up to the community beta and help shape what might become their next ride.

Filed under: Transportation

Scarlet Motors promises an open EV design process originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Aug 2012 03:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mozilla’s Thunderbird mail client just hasn’t enjoyed the same level of stardom as its Firefox cousin. Their developer must be feeling this discrepancy more than most, as the company has confirmed plans to take the organization out of active Thunderbird development. The shift is officially being spun as an adaptation that lets the Foundation center its energy on Firefox OS and the usual browser plans, but when Mozilla proper will only be handling bug fixes and security updates for a client that’s “not a priority,” we’d say it’s putting Thunderbird on ice. Accordingly, leaked details from TechCrunch show Mozilla moving some of the team out of the project at some point; any new features will have to come from the community, which suggests the future upgrade schedule will be more than a bit unpredictable. The writing is on the wall soon enough that existing owners could have food for thought well before a final strategy is due in early September.

Mozilla giving Thunderbird the (effective) axe, leaving its fate to the community originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 06 Jul 2012 21:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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