Bug Labs device was cooler than I expected

At CES this week, I managed to stop by the Bug Labs demo, which ended up winning an award for the best emerging technology. I've been hearing about this device for months from co-workers and I'd explored the website, but seeing the live demo was more impressive than I expected.

The little Lego-like embedded electronics development kit was quite flexible. As a challenge, in 8 minutes, they created a new application of a motion-triggered camera that would upload photos to a server. I was quite impressed.

They use Eclipse to create an easy-to-use development front-end and PhoneME to run Java applications on the device. The device is running both X11 with Athena Widgets (AWT) and Qt/Embedded. This isn't quite as nice as the GTK stuff running on the N810, but it shouldn't take them any time to get there. The demonstrator had no trouble throwing together a new program in Java and sending it down to the device over USB, despite being harassed by one of his co-workers about the missing award they had just won.

Apparently, someone decided to take their newly won prize. Hopefully, it was just on loan to one of the many television interviewers showering attention down on them.