Resurgence of the Do It Yourself (DIY) community has driven a range of open hardware platforms, giving aspiring technologists cheap and easy access to embedded development. Outside of hobbyist toys and embedded computer educational devices, however, "hacker" boards are increasing performance and I/O flexibility, and have become viable industrial options for professional product development.
The “networking appliance” movements of the past few years quickly gained traction in the education and networking appliance market, as organizations began producing open hardware boards with a “less-is-more” architecture at a price to match. DIY boards like the Arduino, BeagleBoard, and Raspberry Pi provide “known state” programming platforms that allow easy exploring for novice developers, and enough flexibility for advanced industrial hackers to create some pretty remarkable things – which they have.
The “networking appliance” movements of the past few years quickly gained traction in the education and networking appliance market, as organizations began producing open hardware boards with a “less-is-more” architecture at a price to match. DIY boards like the Arduino, BeagleBoard, and Raspberry Pi provide “known state” programming platforms that allow easy exploring for novice developers, and enough flexibility for advanced industrial hackers to create some pretty remarkable things – which they have.
refer to:
http://embedded-computing.com/articles/diy-pushes-open-hardware-kindergarten-kickstarter/
