Influx

Maker Faire is all about the fringes of the DIY culture, the hackers and inventors that make the cool things possible, but there was a splattering of commercialism around the Faire.  

Google promoting Sketchup, Yahoo invited hackers to play and the biggest presence of all Microsoft, who, in typical style, took over a whole hall and invited people to play, see and experiment with everything from virtual maps to gaming.

Sitting on the boundaries between the world of hackers and commerce was Open Moko, a platform designed to solve the lack of openness in mobile software.

The purpose is to solve this problem identified by the founder Sean Moss-Putlz

“I can never upgrade or customize my phone. I have to buy a new one every few months if I want some new (software) feature to work.”

It’s complicated and dense, but that’s the idea, it’s a phone for geeks, not just the cool dudes who want the iPhone, it’s for those who want to tinke and play.

Build it, the geeks will take it and make it better.

Interestingly, this isn’t just a geek pipedream, Sean has backers, FIC, a Taiwanese handset maker.

The first Open Moco handset will be launched in the summer.

Yes, it has a touch-screen.

A more detailed explanation of Sean’s thinking can be found here.