The good news is that things are changing, there is a resurgence in building DIY hardware. Roger is arguing that wireless sensor networks are going to be the 'next big thing'.
Sun has been amazingly sucessful getting Java onto cell phones, over 1 billion shipped. But what comes next? That's where Project Sun SPOT comes in...
Sun SPOT is 'small programmable object technology', it's designed to be flexible, and make hardware projects into software projects. The Sun SPOT is a battery powered device, with wireless connectivity, and runs Java on the metal. Java is the operating system. So people who are normally high level programmers, can play around directly with hardware.
