Amateurs' Hour

In 1976, three tech geeks sat around a living room fiddling with a  central processing unit and some basic computer chips. They got to a point where their project ran as a very basic personal computer — even though it still lacked features we would deem necessary today, such as a screen or keyboard.

They called it the ‘Apple 1’, slapped a US$666.66 price tag on it, and sold 500 units to their local computer store. Apple Computers was born. Those tech geeks have come quite a way in the past 30 years —  from selling Steve Jobs’ van to finance a computer housed in a wooden  case to becoming one of the biggest computer companies ever, worth over  US$24 billion.

These days, there’s a general impression the majority of technology development is done by hundreds of technicians working in heavily funded development departments in giant companies like Apple, Microsoft or Sony.

What many don’t realise, however, is that as technology evolves so does the potential for everyday people working out of garages or bedrooms to design or build their own software or hardware. Abhilash Kamineni, a student at Mt Roskill Grammar in Auckland, is a perfect example of such an inventor/designer.

Abhilash designed and built his own speaker system for mp3 players,  which won the runner-up prize in the 14- to 15-year-olds’ category of the 2007 Bright Sparks HiTech Competition. However, he didn’t start his project purely for the competition. “My school entered some Year 13s and some Year 12s in the competition, and they had a form left over.

They thought my project was pretty good so they asked me if I wanted to enter, too, and I heard there was money to be won,” he says with a chuckle.

Abhilash is a self-proclaimed science geek, and has been keenly working with technology since he was given his first taste of the subject in Year 8. He explains that the mp3 amplifier he made was a project originally assigned to him by his school early last year.

“The category we were given at the start of the year was ‘safe and secure’, so we had to make anything that could fall under that. Most people chose to make alarms, but I’d already made one of those in Year 10. It was boring — I wanted to make something interesting, something I could actually use.”

Abhilash designed and built the mp3 amplifier entirely himself, and it can be used with any standard mp3 player with a headphone jack. Even though Abhilash has designed and built what is sold for upwards of $100 commercially, he still didn’t go into the competition expecting a prize.

“I went to the website and checked out all the entries. Some of them were pretty hard out, so I definitely wasn’t expecting a win.” And technological development isn’t limited to young inventors like Abhilash. Because of the abundance of people with knowledge of computer programming, any piece of software can be rewritten to perform a different task.

When the Xbox  360 and PlayStation 3 were released in the US, consumers were given access to a free software development key — a program that essentially allowed them to legally reprogram the device to do things not originally intended by their developers.

This practice of modifying digital devices with foreign or self-designed software is referred to as ‘homebrew’, and it allows would-be computer designers and programmers to test their ideas by running them through computers, game consoles or cellphones. And as time passes, the freedom awarded to these homebrewers gets greater and greater.

The recently released iPhone in the US represents the height of homebrew freedom. It frees savvy users from the limitations of the original software and allows them to download functions designed by ‘amateur’ software designers worldwide — such as voice recorders or software that emulates video game consoles.

Bill Gates once said: “If General Motors had kept up with technology like the computer industry has we would all be driving $25 cars that do 1,000 miles to the gallon.” That technology is evolving so quickly is thanks, in part, to people like Abhilash tinkering with personal projects in their spare time, trying out and developing new ideas.

So with that in mind, keep an eye out for Abhilash in the future. He’s got plenty more ideas and a career path in mind. “My dream job would be running a robotics company. But I couldn’t just sit back and watch my employees do it. I couldn’t stand a desk job. I’ve got to be in there, working with my hands.”