Sunday, April 09, 2006
Growing list of references
The list you see on the sidebar is growing! I've come across great books that sound quite promising in terms of convering a lot of the things I'd like to look into. Jinsuk, a friend of mine at MIT, has sent me this article on iRobot "sanctioning" the end-users tinkering with the roomba. I think the subject of both "sanctioned" end-user innovation and "unsanctioned" end-user innovation may be an interesting area to cover!
Right now I'm tempted to say that the end-users involved in both the "sanctioned" and "non-sanctioned" hacking activities belong to the early-adopter category. Primarily because it is non-trivial to engage in end-user innovation for these high-tech toys. Regardless, I think there may be some slippery slope creation that can lure others in when manufacturers provide tools to make the job somewhat simpler. If that is indeed the case, then it seems logical to say that unless a large population of early-adopting hackers will work on unsanctioned hacking activities because they give them a high of "coolness" (cuz you're going against the grain and potentially sticking it to the "man"), "sanctioned" hacking will just help to grow the population of hackers (at the cost of the manufacturer actually having to spend some amount of effort, of course). I suppose if the cost-benefit analysis yields convincing argument for doing this, the manufacturer will do it, but otherwise they'll either just look the other way or come down hard and stomp on them. Being the red-blooded guy that I am I may be quick to think that it is "evil" to stomp on such activities, but I wonder if there are good arguments from the other side of the fence....
