with KNC announcement of SCRYPT ASICS and friedcat not seeing them be a worthwhile investment. with the prices of other alts and interest in scrypt asics - does asicminer not find it a good market to explore as well. with a well made scryptasic this year (possible solo mining) it could give friedcat and AM further revenue, stronger foothold in cryptocurrency, diversification and many other benefits. someone should talk to him about exploring this option again.
The point in scrypt is that it's ASIC resistant and the Litcoin devs are against ASICs. They might very well alter the code or switch to sth else than scrypt and make your 10K USD scrypt ASIC into a very expensive doorstop (you could probably still use it as an electric heater, hoping it's not too noisy for the home).
I can see why FC doesn't want to
waste allocate resources for developing a scrypt ASIC.
+1. scrypt ASICs dont make much sense. If a single cryptocurrency is to succeed it would be Bitcoin, otherwise it would be another SHA-256 coin that improves significantly in a few ways (such as smaller size blockchain, shorter block times, or the capability to handle much more volume) so that the massive pile of existing infrastructure remains useful and secures the network.
its like inventing the stone wheel, then deciding that the rubber-covered square is the real game-changer
I don't think they can force a hard fork given ASICs are rolling out and making an impact, it'll only destroy the coin by forcing a hard fork, so scrypt ASIC and coins are here to stay!
correct - "hardforking" litecoin will likely kill it or cause financial losses to those vested in it. ain't gonna happen.
also, you have to really understand that just cause it makes sense to you doesn't mean the world will be on the same page. if litecoin shoots up to $100 after scrypt asics people will be fine mining them as well.
keep in minding that implementing BOTH bitcoin and say litecoin is ALMOST frictionless since it doesn't require much "coding changes"
i'm almost certain that prices of litecoin will approach $100 by year end and scrypt asics could be a huge opportunity (WITH LITTLE RISK).
you don't want ASICMINER to be like "intel with mobile chips" - completely miss a money making opportunity.
doesn't matter if you like scrypt or litecoins - if it makes money and good amount of money friedcat should apply his expertise.
Board, any info for heads up? Whats happening? 
maybe they're updating to 0.9 ... but what about that deleted update ... something happened, again 
