Load error with 0.0.6 on OS/X?

[william-stearns]

I'm trying to load a ruby library on my mac.  The "sudo gem install rb-blink1" works fine, but when I go to load it:

require 'blink1'
SyntaxError: /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rb-blink1-0.0.6/lib/blink1.rb:136: odd number list for Hash
id: i,
^
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rb-blink1-0.0.6/lib/blink1.rb:136: syntax error, unexpected ':', expecting '}'
id: i,
^
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rb-blink1-0.0.6/lib/blink1.rb:137: syntax error, unexpected ':', expecting '='
serial: cached_serial(i),
^
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rb-blink1-0.0.6/lib/blink1.rb:137: syntax error, unexpected ',', expecting kEND
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rb-blink1-0.0.6/lib/blink1.rb:139: syntax error, unexpected '}', expecting kEND

Here's the function from the original library:

def self.list
count = enumerate_vid_pid(vendor_id, product_id)
i = 0
devs = []
while i < count do
devs << {
id: i,
serial: cached_serial(i),
path: cached_path(i)
}
i += 1
end
devs
end

I replaced the colons between the keys and values with "=>" 's to look like this:

def self.list
count = enumerate_vid_pid(vendor_id, product_id)
i = 0
devs = []
while i < count do
devs << {
id=>i,
serial=>cached_serial(i),
path=>cached_path(i)
}
i += 1
end
devs
end

Now the library loads and runs just fine.
Is the "key: value" a deprecated syntax?  Too new for for my ruby?

ruby --version
ruby 1.8.7 (2012-02-08 patchlevel 358) [universal-darwin11.0]