LAS VEGAS -- Bug Labs may be the kind of company only a geek could love. But that may be enough. And it may end up reaching far beyond the enthusiastic Linux hackers and gadget mavens that have been driving a growing buzz about the company for much of the past year.

The cross-continental start-up, based in both San Francisco and Manhattan, this week will announce the availability and pricing of its collection of Linux-based, snap-together electronic modules that let you build and program your own mobile gadget. It’s like extending the concept of open source from software to hardware.

(I’ll be meeting the BUG team on Wednesday to talk with them in more detail and see the BUG modules in operation. If you have questions or comments, send them along to me at john_cox@nww.com, and I’ll share some of them with the BUG guys. If you’re in Vegas for CES, you can find BUG Labs at the Sands Convention Center, in an area called the Innovations Plus Pods. The company has an online map and details of its activities both at various CES venues and online.)

BUGbase is the foundation of your BUG gadget: a fully programmable and hackable Linux computer with an ARM1136JF-S microprocessor, 128MB of RAM, built-in Wi-Fi, USB 2.0 and Ethernet interfaces.

Today, you can pick from four BUGmodules that plug into BUGbase: GPS, digital cam/video cam, touch-sensitive color LCD screen and combination motion sensor and accelerometer.

The BUG smarts are built completely of open source software. The BUG Module Interface logically links modules to the base. Relevant services and applications dynamically become available depending on which modules are plugged in. Higher up the software stack, Java hosts a service-oriented standard framework for dynamic software modules, called OSGi, created by the OSGi Alliance. The goal is to make simple, intuitive BUG applications that can discover and work with each other automatically. The BUG software development kit is available for download and BUG applications are share through an online community, BUGnet. A BUG wiki goes into details on getting started.

The tinkerers behind all this are just that: tinkerers. And, according to the company Web site, they think everyone longs to discover their Inner Tinkerer: “At BUG, we want people to recapture and share this excitement again, and we want them to apply this to their everyday device. We believe everybody is an inventor at heart, so we've developed a platform for users to create and forever modify their favorite gadget, allowing for ultimate customization and use.”