Open source? Check. Linux? Check. Under $100? Check. It's time to meet BeagleBone, a new $89 open source hardware platform, giving electronic enthusiasts a smaller, friendlier and more affordable treat. It's a platform aimed at those who love building things. It's the latest open source development platform that easily enables incredible inventions like wirelessly networked autonomous robots, self-teaching electronics education kits, intelligent digital signage, flexible retro-gaming devices, home automation and much more.The Arduino has seen much success in this industry, and it's about time we had a few more options to pore over. BeagleBoard.org is pleased to introduce the newest member of its wildly popular pack — the BeagleBone. Three years ago, BeagleBoard blurred the lines between desktop and embedded computing, paving the way for rapidly accelerated open source innovation on ARM processors. At $89, the new BeagleBone development board, based on a Texas Instruments Sitara AM335x ARM Cortex™-A8 microprocessor, features the best open source development value for hobbyists, developers and engineers. It delivers bare bones hardware with access to interface signals for sensors and controls, while eliminating the need for additional equipment with a single cable development environment.BeagleBone runs full-featured Linux, including native scripting and compilation tools. It also provides on-chip Ethernet–MAC, USB with PHY and A/D converters, along with countless other peripherals, to minimize the number of extraneous components needed and further simplify design. BeagleBone can be used as a stand-alone development board or as an add-on to the existing BeagleBoard, BeagleBoard-xM or desktop computer to attach thousands of readily available sensors and peripherals. Featuring more than 60 configurable industry-standard 3.3 Volt I/Os, enabling five serial ports, two I2C buses, timers, power management modules, SPI and more, BeagleBone provides easy connectivity to additional peripherals for greater design flexibility. Developers also have access to the open source community, which provides a large number of I/O references to help with programming. Continual support is also available through BeagleBoard.org, one of the most active open source hardware communities today.The company claims that you can start development in five minutes with a single cable and 10-second boot, and from there, only your imagination is holding things back.