But there is no doubt that something big is happening in the computer industry—as big as the rise of the PC in the 1980s that turned hardware into a commodity and put software squarely at the centre of the industry.
Pencil, the iPad stylus from app-maker turned hardware builder FiftyThree, is getting an update that allows it to change the character of lines drawn in its Paper app based on how you apply the unique tip of the pen to the iPad's surface.
These are questions that many new founders wrestle with, including Sarah McDevitt, a college basketball star turned hardware founder whose product she hopes to have in consumers' hands by this holiday season — even while she's acutely aware that a lot has to go right first.
Denzel Washington, on especially humourless form, stars as an ex-CIA agent turned hardware-store clerk turned avenging angel for the man in the street.
More posts by this contributor The many twists and turns of hardware The mystery of the public marketplace.
Other controls that have been implemented in software that will be turned into hardware controls are master tempo, master volume, individual voice volume, and voice mute.
The moderator -- for many years Lee Felsenstein, a political activist turned computer hardware engineer -- would point to people around the room, and each would describe what they were working on.
In the first hour of the show, Apple played up its new brand identity as something other than a company that turned out hardware products by unveiling its news and gaming services.
But trade protection, lax antitrust rules and a friendly bureaucracy have preserved Japan's IBM clones long after their usefulness has come to an end.PCs opened up the American software market to outside companies and turned the hardware into a commodity.
And this chain of events, in turn, destroys hardware innovation.
