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Netpliance Sponsors 100 Creative Mobile Computing
Halcyon writes: "The maker of the Flat Panel Linux Box for $99, Netpliance once again gains the interest of the open source community by posting the winners of the Pilot 100 Program. The program originally started by the development department of Netpliance in order to tap a new market created by these $99 Internet terminals turned portable pc's. Some skeptics of Netpliance have speculated that these refurbished machines are a cheap way to conduct R&D through easily bought community members, but I don't see any of the winners complaining. Decide for yourself. " What's strange is that they are trying to get people to put Linux/*BSD on machines, when I had thought that's what they were trying to *stop* before.
I'm one of the people that got into the pilot100 program, and I have to admit, most of the projects, including my own, were kinda weak. I don't know what all got submitted (Netpliance: Post all submissions!) but a lot of the ones chosen were exactly the same. "I want to configure an IO to play Mp3s"
What can I say though, I'm getting free hardware for the first time in my life. More than I can say for any other company. And, I'd like to actually see if I can pull of my project, in some form atleast.
Don't get me wrong - other developers - some of the project ideas were also really cool. But the majority was same ol same ol.