Arduino, the programmable platform of sensors and corresponding device controls, will add ethernet connectivity and a web store of built products, the company announced this weekend.
Arduino is one of the best known companies enabling others to create what’s called the Internet of Things, network connected physical-world devices with web interfaces. The organization announced a number of new hardware and software developments forthcoming in the short and medium term in a blog post on Friday.
TRAILER Arduino: The Documentary (available on HD) from gnd on Vimeo.
The addition of ethernet will be based on “a new bootloader that lets you upload code to the board via TFTP and discover them on the network via a broadcast protocol,” the blog post explained. “This board can be powered over the ethernet cable through an optional PoE power supply module that’s standards compliant. We’ll demo the board at Maker Faire and it will be available later in the autumn.”
The Web Store of Arduino-built products will be a curated collection of the best products built on the platform and will launch on the 18th of October. There’s nothing like a good App Store to make the value of a platform clear to consumers and to inspire further development by developers.
Open source hardware, network connected physical devices and sensors that can facilitate the control of real-world systems are fast becoming more accessible outside the mega-geek-o-sphere. The blooming of new data streams, like the physical location of mobile device users, and the proliferation of new publishing platforms for updates from devices (Facebook, Twitter, think clients) could converge with platforms like Arduino to further dissolve the hard line around what constitutes a computer and computing in the future.
