I think the Pandora handheld is much more exciting.
http://www.open-pandora.org/
Specifically this- "But the most interesting part is probably that it isn't designed by a large company, it was designed by the suggestions and requests of hundreds of people on the gp32x forums."
The form factor is very impressive considering the sheer volume of physical buttons and i/o options. Even more so considering it was design-by-committee. Could have been hideous.
Ethernet and WiFi are not built in, but the device is compatible with several WiFi SDIO cards, including the Spectec SDW-821 and SDW-823, says Qi Hardware.
That seems like a big mistake and it's no longer $99 for most people.
I am actually always happy, but my point was why not include wifi (and charge more if needed)? I mean, even toasters have wifi now. (edit: okay, maybe not a toaster - but how about a refrigerator - http://freshgadgetnews.com/displays/digital-frames/zipel-e-d...)
Today just seems like a step back to 2000 by not having wifi builtin.
Yeah that's a bit of a bummer. I understand the need to hit the $99 price point, but it's a bit less compelling when you realize it's effectively a $140 device with no SD card slot, once you buy and install a WiFi card.
Still, I applaud the effort and hope that the upgraded models will be out soon.
(honest question) what would you do these days with a screen and a keyboard that didn't have a ready interface to the outside world? I looked at this, and it seemed like another "almost, but not quite" sort of project platform.
The only thing that looks dubious to me is: "3-inch, 320 x 240 display". That's awfully small; it's exactly the same resolution that my Nokia phone has (well, if you swap the height/width).
What you mean? The website seems to suggest that the only browser available now is… lynx. (And with 32 MiB RAM, well, what would you expect? Could be possible with some adapted and modified browser, but off-shell Firefox and Gmail with this? Uhm.)
I was really excited by the Sharp Zaurus when it was coming out, and by that openMoko idea and all that, and the the iPhone came out and actually made all that stuff practical. Ok, so I can't hack my own UI on the thing. BFD. I don't have time to. I can develop apps for it, and I don't have to "roll my own" support for my typical uses, and that's just fine.
I'm curious as to their choice of OpenWrt. OpenWrt is meant for wireless routers and this thing doesn't even have wifi. As a general purpose Linux distribution OpenWrt rather minimal. I understand Ubuntu might be a bit much for the hw specs, but surely they could install Slackware or Gentoo?
I was just taking a look at the Openmoko dev progress yesterday, been wanting one for a while, but like with software it's always best to check up on the issue queue and the pace of developments. I've not been so impressed recently. This looks like an interesting contender, and along with the Pandora Handheld (linked by nathan82) it's looking like some healthy competition is finally entering this market. I can't wait to see how this unfolds.
Just bought one for my 3 years old son.
He loves his mother's MacBook too much so giving him this one is much cheaper than sending the MacBook to a repair ;-)
I have had a business idea for a while: some kind of mobile phone like device for kids. No actual phone stuff (no emergency calls or accidental calls to random people), but a basic Java ME chip, graphics, and sound. You could almost certainly do it for less than $100, and it would be great fun for programmer dads/moms to create little applications... and also something that children could have themselves rather than constantly trying to grab mom/dad's cell phone/computer.
That's pretty cool. What they do is, it looks like, create an app that first and foremost makes it so kids can't mess with your phone (calls, opening other apps, whatever), and also adds some fun stuff.
What I'm thinking of, though, is a dedicated device. You don't need a smart phone for kids games; all you need is some audio/graphics and whatever it is that runs Java ME in these things. Given the price of cheap Nokias, it should be doable for less than $100, especially since you don't even need the actual phone machinery.
A large part of the reason for a dedicated device is that most kids are not going to accidentally make calls, they're going to accidentally drop your expensive phone or something else that will physically damage it. A 'toy phone' could be made a bit more resilient...
The $50 "ZipIt" device (linked above) is pretty close to what you're describing, although the included OS load doesn't look very customizable, so no custom apps.
It's designed to connect to Wifi and do IM and SMS, not a whole lot else ... but for a lot of kids I suspect that's a large portion of what they want. From a parent's perspective it frees up the computer and avoids having to get Junior a cellphone (and its requisite monthly plan fee) for a while longer.
Apparently ZipIt charges $30/year for the SMS and IM functionality after the first year, which makes me wonder if they're selling the hardware unprofitably, believing that they'll get subscription fees down the road. (That strikes me as a poor business model, since I doubt most of the devices will resubscribe for a second year -- 12 months is a long lifetime for a $50 device aimed at kids that's most likely a stopgap on the way to their own laptop. But I assume they've planned for that.)
I'd guess we're going to see a lot more in that space in the near future; the PC and laptop markets are getting pretty saturated, but I think netbooks have really just started to tap into the ultraportable demand, and kids could be a big consumer.
That's a great idea. In fact, why don't you make it a mp3 player too! Built in wifi would be nice, and of course a decent API for development. While we're at it, make sure there's some sort of parental controls on there to make life easier for parents managing this thing.
Apple's products are not baby resistant. I've actually heard of plenty of adults who manage to break them. My suspicion is that they are designed to be beautiful, and if they're a bit more fragile than an "ugly" (but, in my experience, fairly durable) Nokia, so be it.
Music devices inside stuffed animals isn't new. I (still) have a stuffed frog toy somewhere in my shed that contains a radio in its chest I received as an infant 27 years ago.
I suspect if you could build interactive applications embedded within a toy, you'd have a winner, especially if a parent could expand the applications on it.
Could you imagine an interactive teddy with its own app store powered by something like fisher price or hasbro?
Mamma and Dada's cell phones are extremely appealing to our daughter, who is nearly two. I have no conclusive evidence that this is because the objects in question receive attention and interest from us, or if it's the device itself (noisy, lights, images, etc...) that's interesting in its own right.
I wonder what the best approach would be for creating little applications like that? Very easy integration of graphics, sound, images etc. with simple input events.
e.g. Click on the picture of dad and hear him snore... etc.
Cool! I've been looking for something like that to base a home-rolled Squeezebox on. I've got an eee-box connected to the TV and stereo for movies, but don't want to turn the TV to listen to music.
not sure exactly what you mean, but i run the squeezebox server on a barebones machine that has a via-c7 chip (think early netbook) with a usb data disk, and it is very slow. the music streams just fine, but the web based server is noticeably sluggish. i guess it might be the usb disk, but i think the computer itself is underpowered (the server software is perl-based).
[edit: ah, no, i think you just want a client; you've got the sever on the eee? in which case ignore this. you know you can buy the little controller handset things?]
