Mike Kuniavsky of the electronic projects studio ThingM says:
When we designed the BlinkM we took the old school Unix philosophy of making it simple and focused, a useful component in a larger system of interlocking pieces.
blink(1) is our idea of what that same philosophy would be like, when mapped to a consumer electronics products.
It's a USB indicator light, and we think it's the best one, ever. Or at least the one that is the best compromise between flexibility, simplicity, utility and cost that we could come up with. It's easily programmed and can be connected to both local events and to things that happen out on the net. It's Open Hardware.
It's on Kickstarter.
We think people might want a new little indicator light their lives, or maybe they want to support us because we're treating this as a Lean Startup project, and will pivot the design based on how people use it.
Also, since we have a pretty good track record of making and shipping products in volume, we are confident that if we make our goal [Ed note: they met their goal!], we will actually ship these things in a couple of months, unlike many Kickstarter hardware products that have long wait times.