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TechCrunch Wants To Create an Open Source Tablet
RKo618 writes "TechCrunch announced that they are planning to design their own $200 web tablet device. Quoting: 'The idea is to turn it on, bypass any desktop interface, and go directly to Firefox running in a modified Kiosk mode that effectively turns the browser into the operating system for the device. Add Gears for offline syncing of Google docs, email, etc., and Skype for communication and you have a machine that will be almost as useful as a desktop but cheaper and more portable than any laptop or tablet PC.' The aim is for the tablet to run on modified open source software, which will be released back to the community along with the specifications for the hardware."
They have to compete with the N770 and N800 both that run open source software and both already have a very large installed base of users.
They have to compete with that, so they really need to get it right. I love my N770 except for battery life. I wish these things could go at least 3 days between charges.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I mean, those specs pretty much match a Nokia N800 with a pair of 2 GB SD cards and running OS 2008. Heck, they even got the Linux part.
Okay, you can upgun to an Arm11, put in a bigger battery, and make the touch screen multitouch, but the device proposed is not something entirely new.
It is, however, something eminently useful on a daily basis.
They could use Jabber for instant messaging, and Asterix for voice communications.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
Linux kernel ... check. ... check. ... Gecko-based browser, so check. ... check. Also all the other IM protocols. ... check. Also Bluetooth to my EDGE phone. ... check. ... still waiting. But I have abiword.
Touchscreen interface
Firefox
Skype
Wifi
Headphones, mike, camera
Google Gears
About $100 over the target price, but not bad.
http://www.nseries.com/products/n800/#l=products,n800
I'd like a bigger touchscreen, but then it wouldn't fit in my pocket.
Firefox is a great operating system it lacks a good browser, though.
At a dollar a piece, I'd buy a few. But what would you do with 200 of them?
Sell them at the (two) dollar store.
And what the hell is 200 hundred?
Twenty thousand.
Next customer!!
I think these things would be more useful going the thin-client approach. E.g., just use it to ssh+vnc into a persistent desktop on your home PC. That way you have all your settings preserved, and the performance will likely be much better for anything more complicated than reading.
I think the opera browser for most smartphones / blackberries use a thin client approach, where they render your web page on their servers and send screenscrapes to your device which you can pan and zoom around in their interface.
Anyway, I've been looking for something to eventually replace my Palm T|X, and don't really see anything I like too much. The N810 looks nice, but seems like the PIM functionality will be taking a step back from what I have now (granted it wasn't really designed for PIM at all to begin with).
a technology blog wants to create a device?
yea right seems like linkbait to get more ad impressions (open that site while having firebug open they load so much ad shit)
The iPod Touch is also a serious contender. If it were about 4-5x bigger, it would be almost exactly what TechCrunch is asking for.
Read that as 'TechCrunch Wants to Create an Open Source Toilet' and I was like 'Hell...yeah'.
I want a 9" iPod Touch.
Make a Linux based one with a glass screen and multi-touch that has that level of polish, and that level of simplicity and people will be interested.
Give them plain ol' Firefox on a lousy LCD with a resistive touch screen and it'll have the same success every other internet tablet has had... ie, it'll end up on TigerDirect at 80% off.
More power to them, but they need to scrap their list of requirements and put one thing at the very top: usability. If it doesn't have the UX and physical usability of an iPod Touch (where my grandmother could figure it out), its missed the boat. If the software is getting less than 95% of the attention, then they've missed the boat.
That $199 on the iphone is just a down payment.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Pepper Computer already tried this, and they failed. It turns out that producing a device that can sell for $200 is quite difficult.
It also turns out that people aren't willing to spend $N for a limited-functionality device when they're able to get a full-featured laptop for $N, or even $N+100
I wish TechCrunch luck!
On screen keyboards maybe? They've only been around for a few years, so you might have missed them, but it's hardly rocket science.
We know PDA-sized screens are no good for web-browsing (especially when the mocked-up picture implies showing print-sized text). So it follows that the screen will have to be at least the size of a paperback and preferably the size of an A4 sheet to get any kind of mass market take-up (with, of course the battery capacity to match). If you plan to do this for $200, you must know something that the rest of the world has missed.
Even the book readers that appeared last year didn't manage that - and they seem to have sunk without trace. Without this, the project is nothing more than pie in the sky.
I'll keep an eye out for the end product, but I won't hold my breath waiting for it.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
You want a Macbook-air thin wireless touch screen tablet device for $200? I want world peace, Dick Cheney's head on a pike, and a pony... good luck with that!
I'll admit what they are talking about sounds really cool, but the real world limitations of battery technology, thin electronics, and design prowess that only companies like Apple seem to have will make this thing cost $2000-3000 when it's finally done. Sorry, you just can't cram all of that good stuff into a 0.5 inch enclosure for $200.
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
I like the Idea. For the simple reason that if it were truly open it could be used for other purposes. Like alternative communications devices for the speech impaired (i.e. autistic, cerebral palsy, kids, with motor speech problems).
Currently the only thing available to my knowledge is the Prentkey Romich tablets at about $6,000 US a pop.
It would be nice to be able to have the ability to develop an open source low cost alternative. Something with maybe only one button besides the screen. For people that cannot afford these devices for one reason or the other.
once more into the breach
Every time these ideas come around, they simply boil down to lightweight desktop interfaces. Just taking interfaces people are used to elsewhere and dumbing them down is not going to solve any problems. First, determine if the product solves any problems, then make the solution fit those specific needs.
Windows Mobile demonstrates this pattern exactly, which is one reason the iPhone dominates it. Apple realized that the form factor, the input devices, and usage scenarios are radically different from the desktop. Microsoft used hierarchical menus, scroll bars, and other common metaphors that break-down on handhelds. Apple opted for user interfaces that give powerful visual clues where pixels and real estate are hard to come by. The different is, as millions of people will tell you, striking.
This “yet another tablet PC” is not going to catch on or provide any value if the designers simply repackage the laptops we already have (never mind other flops like Windows XP Tablet Edition). Figure out what users actually need and develop to those needs. Have they solved handwriting recognition? How are they going to deal with small screens? Will essential functions be quickly accessible? Do they have any concrete use cases? Have they considered that people dislike stylus input? Any ideas for one-handed keyboards perhaps?
Sorry, but trimming down the web browser and preserving constrained desktop functionality elsewhere is not going to make waves. This strategy has failed many times in the past, and I am surprised that we are still trying it so many years after the QBE.
Microsoft's problem in handhelds is Windows. They don't want the Windows Mobile based devices to become laptop replacements, because that would compete with Windows sales, but they want them to be recognizably Windows to both make development easier and to promote the brand.
Windows Mobile loses because Windows CE is just not reliable and solid enough to serve both the needs of a mobile phone and the needs of a general-purpose handheld. Palm didn't have this problem nearly as badly because PalmOS ran under a real time OS (AMX) that you couldn't get into from user applications... the whole Palm environment is just one task for AMX.
Take away the phone, and just worry about making a PDA, and you get a lot more freedom. The iPod Touch has really got more potential to benefit from iPhone apps than the iPhone, because it's not such a critical device. In the Pocket PC WinCE would have been fine if ActiveSync worked as well as Palm HotSync, so your ActiveSync repository served as a complete backup for everything on your Pocket PC... losing data every time I ran my battery flat was what drove me back to PalmOS for my PDA. So the Pocket PC loses because Microsoft didn't make it good enough to run standalone, and didn't make PC-side software good enough that you didn't care.
Going to a tablet, and you get even more freedom. Before "Tablet PC" there were Windows CE based clamshells and tablets that were quite capable, but Microsoft pretty much nuked them by loading the Pocket PC software down with restrictions (both technical and contractual) that meant the Windows CE based tablets were stuck with the previous generation of Windows Mobile software. Of course, they wanted their flagship product on the Tablet PC, not this stripped down embedded-only Windows CE.
I don't know if a browser-only tablet is a good solution, but a tablet is so far from the iPhone or Windows Mobile that trying to draw analogies between them is misleading at best... even if Microsoft hadn't continually undercut Windows Mobile to keep it from even potentially cannibalizing their flagship product.
... is that it's not possible.
Look at the specs - if you want decent battery life, a decent screen (with decent resolution), decent RAM and storage (specced at 512MB and 4GB), and to all go for $200, it's hard.
The only thing on the market NOW that's even remotely close is the XO-1, but it only has 256MB of RAM and 1GB storage. And it's BOM costs are quite high already, even with its anemic CPU. If you want to mass-produce it and sell for $200 retail, after taking out everyone's profit and overhead, you're looking at a manufactured unit cost of around $100. Maybe $125, if you can squeeze profit margins from retailers and the like. (Figure in profit/time for doing the software, as asll as distribution costs to get it to retailers - you'll probably want wholesale to cost around $150-160). Of that, the screen, RAM and flash are the big budget items, and a good CPU can be pricey in quantity ($10-ish, nominally for a high-end ARM processor from the big companies - Samsung/Marvell/Freescale).
It's a tight squeeze, add in the other costs like warranty and support, and you'll find not many people are willing ot take on such a high-risk project with such little returns. You can try to sell it online like the OLPC guys with their "give one get one" thing, which lets you raise the manufactured cost more, but then have to deal with all the issues of distribution to end users.
It's not that no one wants to do it, it's just that it's really hard to do a good job in very tight constraints. Give it a year, and you'll probably be able to do it with last year's CPUs, last year's RAM, and last year's storage. But if you up the requirements next year, well.
The original Eee PC had a crappy screen, crappy battery life, OK CPU, as-required RAM and as-required storage, and still cost $400, even though the screen was bulk leftovers from portable DVD players, and the CPU was more or less "hey, I found a box of these things sitting on the shelf".