A new executive at Motorola Mobility, a division of Google, said that Google seeks to “googlify” hardware. By that he meant that devices would be inexpensive, if not free, and that the data created or accessed by them would be open. Motorola wants to build a truly hackable cellphone, one that makers might have ideas about what to do with it.

Regular hardware startup meetups, which started in San Francisco and New York, are now held in Boston, Pittsburgh, Austin, Chicago, Dallas and Detroit. I’m sure there are other American cities. Melbourne, Stockholm and Toronto are also organizing hardware meetups. Hardware entrepreneurs want to find each other and learn from each other.

Hardware-oriented incubators and accelerators are launching on both coasts in America, and in China.

The market for personal 3D printers and 3D printing services has really taken off. 3D printer startups continue to launch, and all of them seem to have trouble keeping up with demand. MakerBot is out raising money. Shapeways raised $30 million in a new round of financing announced this week.

Makers are discovering that the Raspberry PI, developed for educational uses, can fit into some interesting commercial niches.

The marketing-friendly phrase, “Internet of Things,” is beginning to mean something, with new boards such as Pinoccio and Electric Imp.

Design software is getting better, and less expensive, if not free, although the developers of TinkerCad announced that they were abandoning it.

And an 11-year old maker, Super Awesome Sylvia, was recognized at the White House Science Fair, exhibiting a watercolor robot that will soon be a kit sold through Evil Mad Science.

“Hardware is the new software” reported Wired and the New York Times. Joi Ito of the MIT Media Lab said it was one of the top trends to watch in 2013.

This year’s Hardware Innovation Workshop, held May 14-15 at the College of San Mateo in San Mateo, Calif., during the week leading up to Maker Faire Bay Area, will provide a deep dive into the new world of hardware startups. You’ll learn what VCs are thinking about hardware startups, which startups got funding and why. You’ll meet dozens of newly formed startups that haven’t launched yet. You’ll also learn from maker case studies and from the founders of hardware incubators.

Among our speakers are:

• Chris Anderson, CEO of 3D Robotics and founder of DIY Drones
• Massimo Banzi, co-founder of Arduino
• Robert Faludi, collaborative strategy leader at Digi International
• Bunnie Huang, co-founder of Chumby
• Ben Kaufman, founder and CEO of Quirky
• Scott Miller, CEO and co-founder of Dragon Innovation
• Alice Taylor, founder, Makie Lab
• John Park, COO/GM, AQS
• Carl Bass, CEO of Autodesk
• Ted Hall, CEO of ShopBot

Learn more about the Hardware Innovation Workshop. O’Reilly Radar readers can register using the code “RADAR13″ and save $100.

Here are some of the topics we’ll be discussing:

• Open source hardware and software are providing standardized components on which to build new applications.
• New fabrication tools are creating a rapid-prototyping revolution that makes iteration cheaper, faster, and easier.
• Collaborative design practices are using new tools and tapping new kinds of expertise.
• Options for manufacturing at scale are improving, as more and more of the process becomes automated.
• Crowdfunding is helping launch new projects and providing funding to test out new product ideas.
• Traditional investors are wary of hardware, but hardware-focused incubators hope to soften resistance by helping hardware startups become better prepared for investors.

As important as the topics are the makers who are taking the lead in creating innovative businesses and innovative platforms, often combining hardware and software with an open community.

Phil Torrone and Limor Fried of AdaFruit combine amazing engineering design with grassroots community building to create an innovative open-source hardware company located in the heart of Manhattan. This self-funded business continues to grow and grow, and it’s the kind of success story you can read about in Wired magazine but still fly under the radar of many.

Massimo Banzi of Arduino has raised interest in microcontrollers to a new high, creating a platform for hobbyists, artists, designers and developers. Arduino is the brains of many maker projects, such as MakerBot and DIY Drones. Unexpectedly, it was designed and manufactured just outside Turin, Italy.

Ayah Bdeir of LittleBits has created a new interactive educational kit that teaches electronics. She has improved a basic design, iterated through several prototypes and now she’s manufacturing at scale for a mass market.

Liam Casey of PCH International works with all kinds of companies who want to tap into the manufacturing capacity of China. He believes that is becoming easier for more people to make things, and that the interfaces to China’s manufacturing companies are becoming easier to navigate.

Bunnie Huang, formerly of Chumby, is a hardware hacker extraordinaire. Now living in Singapore, he’s especially familiar with sourcing parts from China as well as setting up manufacturing processes there. He’s also an inspiring maker himself.

Jay Rogers, CEO of Local Motors, believes that collaborative design practices and the online tools that enable collaboration are making possible new ways to build anything. His focus is on building open source vehicles, and he’s set up a microfactory in Chandler, AZ where you can go to build your own RallyFighter.

Caterina Mota of OpenMaterials believes that open source materials may create new opportunities for innovation.

Kai Backman, CEO of TinkerCad, worked on Google Docs but left Google after he started playing with a 3D printer. He believed that the software tools for 3D design were too complex for mere mortals to create things to make on a 3D printer so he co-founded TinkerCad, a browser-based 3D design tool.

Carl Bass, CEO of Autodesk, has created a new consumer division to develop free 3D design tools and combine them with the robust online community of Instructables. He also finds time to work in his own workshop, where he helps kids make their own wooden baseball bats for a local Little League. He can make them in the traditional way on a lathe but he now can also make them on a supersized 5-axis CNC router.

Mark Hatch, CEO of Techshop, is busy creating large-scale workshops throughout the country. Starting in the Bay Area with three locations, a TechShop recently opened in Detroit, MI. What you may not know about TechShop is that it’s becoming not just a place for hobbyists on weekends and evenings, it’s become the go-to place for hardware entrepreneurs to build prototypes, and even do small-scale manufacturing.

Ted Hall, CEO of Shopbot, first built his own CNC machine so that he could build a wooden boat. He never really finished his boat but ShopBot tools are found in TechShops, Fab Labs and through a network of independent makers called 100K Garages.

Helen Zelman and Jeremy Conrad of Lemnos Labs and Ben Einstein of Bolt are both trying to help hardware entrepreneurs develop successful products and launch viable businesses.

John Diamatos of MakerBot Industries is the Director of Application Development. He’s exploring the kinds of applications that will drive 3D printer sales in the home and office. It’s one thing to have a 3D printer to print a few things for fun, but it’s another to see it as a production tool for new designs and new products.

Allan Chochinov of Core77 is starting a new design program in the fall called Products by Design at the School for Visual Arts in New York City. This program, influenced by the fabrication tools and collaborative design practices of makers, will explore what we make, how we make and why we make it.

Brad Feld, co-founder of the Foundry Group, is the lead investor in MakerBot Industries and some other hardware startups. In a world of copy-cat investing, Brad is doing something very different.

Nick Pinkston of CloudFab began looking at automating manufacturing by creating software tools that eliminated costly design review. He believes the future of manufacturing in America is in building open source software that automates even more of the process from quoting all the way through to packaging.

Greg Borenstein, author of O’Reilly’s “Making Things See,” has been a leading experimenter in the open Kinect movement, developing 3D applications based on Kinect, Processing and Makerbot. The Kinect is a great example of a product that was developed for one purpose (gaming) while the development community has unlocked its potential for cool new applications in areas such as healthcare.

Alasdair Allan is an astrophysicist who specializes in remote sensing. He’s the author of several O’Reilly books including “ iOS Sensor Applications with Arduino.” Alasdair will demo applications that integrate Arduino and the iPhone/iPad.

For the full listing of speakers and their bios, go to: speaker roster.

On Tuesday evening, we will host an opening reception and an innovation showcase of 25 hardware startups including several new 3D printer startups along with demos by companies like Autodesk, ShopBot, MakerBot, and more.

For complete information on the event and to register, go to: Hardware Innovation Workshop.

Maker Faire Bay Area follows this event on the weekend, May 19-20.

The maker movement is a remarkable new source of innovation. We are starting to see what results from a powerful combination of open hardware + personal fabrication tools + connected makers. Sometimes this innovation is hard to identify in the excitement that surrounds Maker Faire. Yet at Maker Faire, you can find new products and new startups at various stages of development that you will see almost nowhere else. Business people tell me they come to Maker Faire expecting to have a good time with their family but unexpectedly walk away impressed by the creativity and innovation they find there. As the song says, “there’s something happening here.” Even now, the pace of development is quickening and the number of hardware startups is rapidly growing.

Tim O’Reilly has been urging that the opportunity is now to showcase makers as professionals who are starting new businesses and developing new products. So, I’m happy to announce a new business conference during the week of Maker Faire, taking advantage of the makers who are already coming to Maker Faire. Presented by Make, the Hardware Innovation Workshop will be held Tuesday and Wednesday, May 15-16, at PARC, a Xerox company, in Palo Alto, California. (I’m excited to have PARC host us and this event because of its long history as a source of technology innovation.)

The Hardware Innovation Conference will present a number of hardware-related startups and review the major platforms and the new toolset for prototyping and personal fabrication. It’s an intimate setting to meet the leaders of the maker movement and understand how makers are changing the technology landscape, in much the same way that enthusiasts once helped to create the personal computer industry.

Our presenters will include:

• Massimo Banzi of Arduino, an Italian interaction designer and engineer who created this open source micro controller. The Arduino platform has become the Linux of open source hardware and it is found at the heart of many maker projects.
• Carl Bass of Autodesk, a maker himself whose new consumer division, which acquired Instructables, is exploring the software and services needed by this emerging maker market.
• Jay Rogers of Local Motors is creating an open source car through collaborative design and he’s built a micro factory for assembly of these cars by the owners themselves.
• Ayah Bdeir of Little Bits is one of those non-traditional product designers who has developed a new educational product.
• Allan Chochinov of Core 77 is starting a new program called Products of Design at the School of Visual Arts in NYC, which is reshaping product design around what makers are able to do.
• Nathan Seidle of SparkFun Electronics runs one of the major suppliers for maker projects. He’s also a partner for makers who have the idea but not the factory to build a new product.
• Bre Pettis of MakerBot will explore the 3D printing opportunity in consumer markets. MakerBot is the Apple II of the personal fabrication revolution. Brad Feld of Foundry Group will tell us why he’s invested in Makerbot.
• Mark Hatch of TechShop, whose membership model for a community workshop has become a hub for hardware innovators.
• Bunnie Huang of Chumby and author of “Hacking the Xbox,” who understands how Asia’s manufacturing capacity might be tapped by makers.

Check our event website for full program details.

The lesson for us from makers is that hardware isn’t as hard as it used to be. It’s benefiting from the same forces that allowed open source to reshape the software industry and create the web economy. Makers are part of a prototyping revolution that is inviting a new audience to design and develop products. Open technologies and new collaborative processes just might change the face of manufacturing by making it much more personal and more automated. Unlike traditional manufacturers, makers are able to pivot easily to serve niche markets. In addition, larger companies are hiring makers and maker advocates to infuse their own teams with creative ideas and keep track of these new market opportunities.

The conventional wisdom is that Silicon Valley investors don’t like hardware startups, but that’s not stopping makers. We even see hardware startups raising capital from non-traditional sources such as Kickstarter. (Twine raised over $850,000.) This is causing some investors to pay attention. As an angel investor said to me recently: “Everybody’s just looking at mobile/social. I want to look at things outside that well-developed space and that’s why I’m looking at makers.”

Please join me along with Tim O’Reilly and the creative team of Make Magazine and Maker Faire for a program focused on maker-led innovation at a historic location in the Silicon Valley. Due to the venue, we are limited to 300 participants. If you’re coming from outside the Bay Area, you can stay for the weekend of fun at Maker Faire, May 19-20th.

Event: Hardware Innovation Workshop
Dates: May 15-16
Location: PARC, a Xerox company, Palo Alto, CA

In an article in Slate, “What Beer Can Teach Us About Emerging Technologies,” Dave Conz writes that many DIY activities can be illegal in some towns:

“Home brewing is part of a broad spectrum of DIY activities including amateur astronomy, backyard biodiesel brewing, experimental architecture, open-source 3-D printing, even urban farming. (My pet chickens Pepper and Fanny eat my spent beer grains and, in turn, feed me breakfast.) Many of these pastimes can lead to new ideas, processes, and apparatus that might not otherwise exist. Depending on your hobby and your town, these activities can be officially encouraged, discouraged, unregulated, or illegal. For example, it’s illegal to make biodiesel fuel at home in the city of Phoenix (a simple process in which waste vegetable oil is mixed with methyl alcohol into which lye has been dissolved) but not regulated in the bordering towns of Scottsdale, Chandler, or Tempe (where I make mine). Based on its zoning laws, Phoenix considers the process ‘industrial’ and therefore prohibited in residential areas while the other cities do not. If making biodiesel were legal and encouraged, the reduction in exhaust emissions and diversion of grease from sewers and landfills could help clean up the ‘brown cloud’ of smog in the Valley of the Sun.

“We need more sensible policy like the legalization of home brewing beer. It’s unlikely that we’ll be able to successfully shop and consume our way into the best future, but we can make it brighter by encouraging DIY.”

I agree that governments, particularly local governments, need to do more to understand and adapt to what might be called DIY citizenship. Cities need to re-examine their industrial policy and zoning laws, redefining what light-industrial means and relaxing regulations that were meant for the industrial age when production was housed in factories. We need cities to become maker-friendly and welcome makerspaces, foster new maker businesses and support individuals who are now doing things that lawmakers of yesteryear didn’t expect them to be doing for themselves. It’s re-inventing what you can do in and around a city, even what you can do in your backyard and garage.

One consequence of not getting this right is that a city shuts down a makerspace, which happened in Nashua, New Hampshire earlier this year, even as it funds economic development efforts to attract entrepreneurs. Cities should encourage this kind of “homebrew” innovation and inspiration, which is a healthy form of growth.

Studying the emergence of makers and makerspaces in cities would be a great urban planning research project, developing a set of policy guidelines for cities to implement if they want to foster the kind of innovation and social change found in the Maker Movement.

Note: I will be speaking at the FutureTense – Tinkering with Tomorrow event this Wednesday in DC.

Last year, I ran into Anil Dash at World Maker Faire and had a short conversation with him. Afterwards, he wrote a wonderful article, “Make the Revolution“. Yesterday, I sat down with Anil at the offices of his media consulting firm, Activate, to get some long-term thinking on the Maker movement.

This conversation with Anil touches on the social context of making, and what it means for individuals, families and communities. How will a “long, slow make” transform our society?

Subscribe to the Maker Faire podcast in iTunes, or watch it on YouTube.

Check out more videos of makers coming to World Maker Faire at YouTube/Maker Faire.

For a preview of Maker Faire attractions and daily news, go to daily.makerfaire.com.

What if Albert Einstein, Willy Wonka, Curious George, R2D2 and MacGyver threw a really big party? They’d invite all of their really cool friends: the artists, the inventors, the crafters, the mad scientists, the happy scientists, the curious, the creators, the hackers, the tinkerers.

Sure, Leonardo da Vinci would be there showing off his new helicopter prototype and Rube Goldberg would be making people laugh with his convoluted contraptions and Grace Hopper would be taking apart all the clocks while writing new computer languages. It would be the kind of place where everyone who’s ever been called weird, crazy or geeky would feel right at home.

Good news: That party is happening this weekend in Detroit.

In our second year, we’re able to see all kinds of examples of how makers have become resources for the community, contributing in Detroit and the region. Jeff Sturges is one good example of an inspiring maker. He’s working in the community to reach kids and share the joy of making. We shot a video of Jeff this week, which starts in Eastern Market in Detroit. He brought kids to teach soldering. These kids learned to solder at the year-old Mt. Elliott Makerspace, located in the basement of a church and at the center of a supportive community. Seeing 8 year old Raven teaching teenage boys and adults to solder makes quite an impression.

Follow the Show Daily for Maker Faire Detroit for news and featured attractions.

The Harper Valley School Board recently adopted a new policy that allows students to use their cell phones to search for answers on state-mandated standardized tests. “There’s no doubt this new policy will raise student test scores district-wide but it will also improve our rankings statewide,” said District Superintendent Carly Moore. Cellphones will be allowed for testing periods during the 2011-2012 school year, although there could be roadblocks ahead from state officials.

Ms. Moore said the “hands-on” cellphone policy was proposed by School Board member and local realtor, Carol McMasters who said the idea came to her while talking with friends who regularly consult their cellphones. “Whenever we forget the name of an actor, or a musician, we pull out our phones and find the answer. Right away, we know without guessing. Why can’t students do the same thing?” Her husband, Larry, a self-described hacktavist, convinced her that cell phones would help kids think of standardized tests as a massively multiplayer game, in which they were cracking secret educational codes. Mr. McMaster said that he would prefer to see standardized testing eliminated and he embraced his wife’s idea as a means to that end. “If every kid in America could find the right answer to every question, maybe testing will just go away.”

The school districts plans to divert money from textbook purchases to lease cell phones for kids who do not have them. Superintendent Moore said that the percentage of students with cell phones is already high and growing. However, she added that kids who lacked so-called “smartphones” were at a disadvantage. “We are going to target kids with Nokia phones and upgrade them. ” Some schools may share phones among students. There are plans to add charging stations in classrooms. Before the standardized tests are given, students will participate in “txting and searching” exercises, led by students, and facilitated by teachers who will prepare sample test questions. “These are basic life-skills for students,” said Ms. Moore. “Plus students will be more excited to participate, rather than demoralized and apathetic.”

Roberta Gonzalez, also a board member, was skeptical of the policy when she first heard about it. “I was concerned that we are taking away the opportunity for our children to recall knowledge they had gained in class.” After talking to teachers, she became aware of how much they loathed the now common practice of teaching to the test. A social studies teacher said that he no longer taught a real subject but he found himself teaching students how to be effective test takers. He was telling them not to over think tests, but just how to make the best guess. Ms. Gonzalez came to believe that testing didn’t correlate to what students were actually learning. “The emphasis on high-stakes testing was counter-productive and preparing for tests was eating up valuable time in the classroom,” she added.

Deborah Chaney said that TV quiz shows like “Cash Cab” and “Millionaire” allow contestants to call friends or family if they don’t know the answer. “I think it makes a lot of sense to use your social network to find these kind of answers,” she said. “That”s why you have a social network.” Chaney added that many test questions were designed to trick students, which she thought was unfair. “I’d like to see them posting these trick questions to Facebook,” she added, noting there was no feedback mechanism for students to report problems with tests.

Tech guru Tim O’Reilly said the new policy allows students to tap into collective intelligence. He predicted that the market for paper-based bubble testing was about to burst. “Why are we still using #2 pencils?” he asked. “I don’t know why they can’t deliver the tests on the phone.” O’Reilly remarked that educators should think of re-directing the energy that goes into standardized testing into richer educational programs that allow students to cooperate with each other to solve real-world problems in meaningful ways.

Ned Simon, a district parent, said that the new policy reminded him of a recent dinner table conversation. “My wife and I were arguing about how long we’d been at war in Afghanistan. Dora, my teenage daughter, interrupted us, saying ‘Dad, where’s your cellphone?” It was her way of telling me to stop arguing and look up the answer.” Dora will be one of the students who will benefit from the new cellphone policy at school. She said that using her iPhone during tests could “make testing fun.” She mentioned that a number of apps she already uses when doing homework. “I use Google Maps, the Calculator, and mostly iTunes, so I’m not so bored by the assignment.”

Asked how the State Superintendent of Education might react to the district’s new policy, Ms Moore said she expects to hear from state officials. “I think they have my cellphone number,” she added. She hopes they will look at the Harper Valley policy as a pilot that can be expanded statewide. “Educators have to ask why we keep supporting a testing system that produces such failure. If we are unwilling to do change that system, then allowing students to use cellphones during testing will reduce failure immediately. Why shouldn’t we do that?”

What surprised me when I looked at the program was that many participants were faculty and students. The principal, John Walker, gave an Ignite talk on how to survive a bear attack. I gave a talk on “Creating Makerspaces in Education.”

The presentations by students were remarkable. They seemed to grasp the Ignite format and take full advantage of it. I was particularly impressed by Kara Flageollet and her talk “How Joe Kincheloe Changed My Life.” I was glad I didn’t follow her.

A speech and debate team member, Kara was so comfortable on stage and discussed how the ideas she was learning made her see the world and interact with it in new ways. Afterwards, I told her that her talk should be her college application. Anyone seeing it would recognize her passion and see evidence of the capabilities she demonstrates so well. I believe that education should increasingly focus on giving students the opportunity to demonstrate what they can do, and share that online with a broader community.

Ignite is a great format to bring together students, faculty and members of the community and connect the school to the community by sharing what we do and what we know. I would expect to see Ignite take place at more schools in the future.

You can watch other talks from Ignite Petaluma here.

Last year, I met with Lynn Harper and Daniel Rasky of the Space Portal at NASA Ames to talk about ideas for a DIY space issue of Make, which became Make Volume 24. In that same conversation, we talked about the role that makers could play in space exploration. I recall Lynn saying that we needed “not hundreds of experiments going into space but hundreds of thousands of experiments.” There is so much we don’t know; so much we could learn, she added, if we simply had more experiments testing what happens in microgravity. The Space Portal team recognized that makers were an untapped resource, ready and willing to take on that kind of challenge. Makers just needed an open door.

Now the Space Portal is known as the Emerging Commercialization Space Office (ECSO), which is the new name for the Space Portal group now that it is an official NASA office. Rasky, an inventor who developed the heat shield used by Space X, is the Director of ECSO. We have collaborated with this new office and the Teachers in Space program to create the NASA Make Challenge, which benefits education as well as the space program.

Our first challenge is to develop inexpensive science kits that can be built in a classroom and then sent on-board suborbital flights to conduct experiments. The experiments must fit within a CubeSat, a 10 cm x 10 cm x 10 cm module. It’s an opportunity to use off-the-shelf technology to design projects kits that students can build and see them actually get into space. Imagine — Arduinos in space. (There has already been one Arduino sent into space.)

Teachers in Space program, located in Plano,TX, will work with teachers across the country to build the first set of kits and make the arrangements for the experiments to fly on an unmanned suborbital vehicle in late summer. Later on, these teachers will work with students to build experimental kits for future flights.

If you are fascinated by space, it’s a great time for you to be able to do something as a maker and make a real contribution. Makers can participate in a new kind of space program, one that expands beyond NASA to include commercial space collaboration.

Visit the NASA Make Challenge page on Makezine.com for information on how to participate in the program and sign up for a mailing list to get more information. (The rules are still under review.) The deadline for experimental science kit submissions will be April 30, 2011. The winner of the NASA Make Challenge will be honored at this year’s Bay Area Maker Faire, and the winning kit project will be featured in the magazine.

Related Links

• NASA Make Challenge page on Makezine.
• Teachers in Space
• NASA Launches 2011 Nationwide Technology Space Competition (official NASA press release)

Q. How would you describe the response you’ve received from industry lobbyists?

A. It’s professional. It’s active. We’ve had about 475 meetings in five months. And since the lobbyists haven’t found us on the weekends (usually), you can do the arithmetic. It’s quite a bit.

I will say this: In America, large institutions have a great deal more resources than the investor advocates. If you looked at those 475 meetings — and we’re posting every one of them on our Web site — 90-plus percent are probably larger institutions or corporations.

Q. Can your staff handle the load?

A. This agency, just this past year, got back to the size it was in 1999. We think we need about 400 more people — even though we’re taking on markets that are seven times the size of what we currently regulate and far more complicated. So we’re going to continue to make the case. Even though our great nation has a very large deficit, this is the best investment for taxpayer money.

Q. Republicans have said that the C.F.T.C. is moving too fast in developing regulations. Are they right?

A. I think we have to remember there was a great financial crisis in 2008. Every American was affected — millions of Americans are out of work, millions of Americans have homes that are worth less than their mortgages. Derivatives played a role in that.

I found it fascinating that Gensler let us in on the game in Washington. Here’s the link to the list of external meetings on the CFTC website.

There’s not any detailed information about what goes on in the meetings but it’s nice to see an agency reporting on who’s knocking at the door. In Gov 2.0 terms, this is progress. The next step is to have live webcams present.

Still, lobbyists get an all-access pass to government agencies. Those are the voices that are heard in DC. Even if they don’t get what they want, they use up as much time as possible — and that seems to be part of the game. It’s a slow-down offense — if they can’t get an easy basket, they just keep passing the ball back and forth, making the agency stay on defense. Funny that Gensler can be accused of moving too fast on regulation, three years after the financial crisis.

Gensler seems determined to do what’s best, even though he’s besieged by lobbyists. I certainly hope he succeeds.

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And Gensler might also have more than just lobbyists to worry about. In a separate story written for Monday, Man Accused of Threatening to Kill Regulators, Dealbook reports that Gary Gensler received threats from a NY money manager who was also targeting 47 different federal regulators. The man was arrested on Friday.