This is a good read with some great points... more and more people are coming into the fold and realizing what you can do with platforms like the Arduino in the space of physical/embedded computing. This is where real innovation is happening. Coming from a software dev background, I picked up an Arduino about a year and a half ago - and it is awesome...it's just so much fun...it's like the feeling you get when you make a great web app but times 100 because it's a real physical thing that moves, senses the world around it and lights up (or whatever). Even if you don't believe it's the "next big thing", if you are a sofware dev, you should get into it because it's so much fun and it makes you better developer when you learn about things about digital logic like shift registers.
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I really think the culmination of all this will be what I see as the next logical step after "mobility" in computing (i.e. the idea that you "take your computer everywhere with you"): "ubiquity" - or, in other words, the idea that everything around you - the table you are sitting at in your restaurant, the walls in your office, things that farm your food and control your air conditioner, are computers..and perhaps the most exceiting thing is that this next revolution will (hopefully) be ushered in and controlled by startups. Exciting times.
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<editorial_hyperbole> I really think the culmination of all this will be what I see as the next logical step after "mobility" in computing (i.e. the idea that you "take your computer everywhere with you"): "ubiquity" - or, in other words, the idea that everything around you - the table you are sitting at in your restaurant, the walls in your office, things that farm your food and control your air conditioner, are computers..and perhaps the most exceiting thing is that this next revolution will (hopefully) be ushered in and controlled by startups. Exciting times. </editorial_hyperbole>