Many manufacturers are focusing solely on creating hardware that will run on Google's Android operating system.
The companies said they would also create hardware for the game modeled after the instruments used by the Beatles...
Her first job was as head of creative engineering for education startup Erly Stage Studios, creating hardware prototypes and web applications.
At the time Steven P. Jobs, Apple's chief executive, said that Apple would use that expertise to create hardware for its iPhones and iPods.
Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive, said at the event that the product was part of a longstanding tradition at Microsoft to create hardware, like computer mice, that show off innovations in its software.
"Something that once took three months to make now takes less than a month," explained Andre Yousefi, co-founder of Lime Lab, a product development firm based in San Francisco that works with start-ups to create hardware products.
You can do this at home at high quality by following the instructions at diybookscanner.org, an open-source project designed to create hardware and software for digitising books.
Mr. Thompson said that Apple's unusual functional organizational structure — in which executives are in charge of certain business functions, like engineering or marketing, and not product lines — worked better for creating hardware products than compelling online services.
A. Although the notion of sending digitized scents from computer to computer may have seemed a bizarre notion just a few years ago, several companies are working to create hardware and software for just that purpose.
On the plus side, Google have managed to create hardware to rival that of Apple's, and if anything, it proves that they are capable of going toe to toe with the best in the business when it comes to build quality.
