Second Prototype of the $200 Open Source Tablet

holy_calamity writes "TechCrunch blogger Mike Arrington decided last year to invent a new class of low-cost internet tablet using open source hardware and software. The second prototype has been unveiled, sporting a 12-inch touchscreen powered by a Via Nano processor, 1 GB of ram and a 4 GB flash drive. It runs a browser and nothing else on top of a custom Linux build. 'Resolution is 1024×768, which means the vast majority of websites are viewed in full width without scrolling. The device also has wifi, an accelerometer (so when you turn the screen on its side you can view more of a web page), a camera and a four cell battery.'"

Comments

resource sucking

[Eunuchswear]

Because the device skips the resource-sucking parts of the operating system and focuses on one application - the browser

skips resource-sucking parts of the operating system and focuses on the browser?

skips resource-sucking parts of the operating system and focuses on the browser?

skips resource-sucking parts of the operating system and focuses on the browser?

What alternate reality is this guy writing from!

Re:resource sucking

[jellomizer]

The point of the design is to give as much resources to the browser as possible. And allow a small system to run a Fat Browser well.

Tablets are rather useless without internet and a web browser. The hardware is too under powered for games, or heavy computing. The UI makes it difficult to type or the random letter generator called handwriting recognition. It is only good for apps which are mostly point and click and type in a few words and point and click again.

Most of those apps are now web based or going to be so soon. So allowing a Fat Browser to run smoothly is important, and should be a focus.

Part of Apples success with the iPhone is that it can run a Fat Browser like Safari, which has the modern standards built in. Vs. others who have a reduced browser which makes it useful for work only on an elementary level web applications, which are normally hard to use and slow. So Yes I would say "skips resource-sucking parts of the operating system and focuses on the browser".

Makeing a real product that is useful is different then those thought exercise in Computer Science. Modern business needs and user requirements conflict with intellectual purity.

Re:resource sucking

[bishiraver]

I would rather have a low-cost art tablet (drawing surface with an LCD screen) than a low-cost web browsing tablet.

Current LCD screen tablets are over $1500, which weirds me out because my freakin' 24" widescreen LCD was only $500. Stylus technology (most use passive induction) can't be THAT expensive can it?

I would love it if someone came out with a $200 1024x768 thin digital sketch pad. Put all its computing into running GIMP (or better yet, photoshop) or Inkscape, make it able to plug in directly to my desktop to download my images from it (or use it indirectly as a tablet for my PC).

That's something I'd easily drop $500 on. Easily.

Hope the market is ready...

[vidarh]

I worked on a similar product ten years ago (it was covered on Slashdot twice in '99 or '00) which unfortunately stranded because of perpetual delays (I left at the end of '99) and lack of commitment from distributors and customers, and several rounds of re-engineering everything.

Today it should be a lot easier, given that they can rely on much cheaper off the shelf components and don't have to squeeze everything into minimal amounts of RAM and flash (for the first version we were working with Opera to get it running with a custom GUI in 16MB or 32MB of RAM total, and about the same amount of flash)...

Hope they make it - I want one.

Nothing else?

[Thanshin]

Excuse me if this is a stupid question, I've not played with such toys.

It runs a browser and nothing else on top of a custom Linux build.

When it ways "and nothing else" does it mean "nothing else except the linux build, fully featured and usable to do whatever you need including changing the browser, upgrading using the toy to read documents in whatever format you download readers for, etc."?

Re:Nothing else?

[slim]

Obviously the tablet won't be locked to that distro. If you want a more full-featured distro, you can install one.

I'm not

[mikesd81]

not going to pay $300 for a device just to surf the web. But it's a cool piece of equipment. I see it's running a full installation of Ubuntu. That's cool. I'd like to be able to open an ssh client and use the on-screen keyboard and maybe a notepad of some sort. It doesn't have to be a full blown computer, but something other than just surfing the web should be included. Imagine the business use of this type of open source hardware and software device. Add some kind of notepad software you can write notes quick and immediately send it out to another device/computer. I can't see many people just buying it for a web browser when notebooks are so readily available that can use email client software, not just web mail. And have other usable apps. Remember the web devices that were around in the past? There used to a white one that Staples sold, I don't remember the name, but they didn't hit off to well.

Screen enlargement

[Bromskloss]

an accelerometer (so when you turn the screen on its side you can view more of a web page)

I need a larger screen too. Must get myself one of them accelerometers.

hm, not sure

[Tom]

While it does look interesting, I do wonder whether the core idea, that a browser is enough, really is solid. I knew it was Netscape's dream once, but did it work out?

When I think about what I do, certainly Firefox gets a lot of time. However, there's a lot of PDF content out there that I want to view and/or print - does this device do that? That's not an unusual usage scenario, btw. - when you book online tickets, or buy stuff online, very often you get the ticket and/or receipt in .pdf format.
Then there's the whole "download" scenario. Does it do that? Lots of people come across cool stuff they want to download. It doesn't have to launch Keynote, sorry OpenOffice or whatever the external App is, but at least ''saving'' something to an external shared device would be a requirement.
Then there's mail. There are still people around who don't use webmail, you know?

So, I quite like the idea, but I do wonder whether '''just''' the browser isn't a little too little.

ur doing it wrong

[savuporo]

Why go with X86 if you want low BOM cost ? Any ARM/MIPS/PowerPC SoC with decent Mhz will do it better for lower bill of materials. Try TI OMAP35xx line for instance, one with Cortex ARM and PowerVR graphics all in one chip. Works out way cheaper than anything x86-based. Getting a Beagleboard is a good way to start.
And now with Canonical throwing official support for ARM-based Ubuntu, you have got your opsys covered as well.

Why x86?

[Kegetys]

What reasons are there to put an x86 processor in a device like this? The Nano is not exactly low power, with an ARM based solution (Nvidia Tegra would seem pretty great for this for example) you could have many days of standby power without needing to reboot it all the time. Only reason for x86 I can think of is that it could run Windows, but is that really needed for this type of device?

Why is this taking so long?

[mollymoo]

I'm just utterly amazed it's taken this long for somebody to have a serious stab at a device like this. I've been asking for one for years. I got a Nokia Internet Tablet, but it's just too small. When Asus brought out the Eee and then everybody copied them within months I though they'd get the hint a build web tablets with the same kind of kit. But they haven't. Weird. This is exactly the kind of thing I want for browsing the web around the house and they will sell even faster than netbooks have, just as soon as somebody vaguely credible brings a reasonable quality one to market.

As to all the people wondering what else it will be able to do other than run a browser: It's an x86 box running Linux. It'll do whatever the hell you want it to do. Yes to PDFs, yes to ssh, yes to media player, yes to OpenOffice, yes to IM, yes to blowjobs on the beach, yes to absofuckinglutely everything you can do on any other Linux box. It's just a keyboard-less tablet netbook (not that that's not awesome).

(I lied about the blowjobs)

You're not

[Sepodati]

the audience this is designed for then. Seriously, go get a laptop.

$299 is a world away from $199.

[Anonymous Coward]

the article says

(we were aiming for $200, it looks like $299 is more realistic)

But let me tell you something: the difference between $199 and $299 is worlds. There is no LAPTOP near $199. but $299? You are now competing with full laptops. It is now a luxury item, since it would be like asking someone to buy two laptops - one that does almost nothing except surf the web. DONT MAKE PEOPLE MAKE THAT CHOICE.

This is what I think you should do:

• let go of 1gb ram / 4gb flash drive: you don't need that much.
• Let go of the camera if you have to.
• Let go of the accelerometer if you have to.
• Go with wussier batteries.

Batteries dont matter as much as you think, because it's okay to leave the thing plugged in, like digital picture frames. In fact, that's how I read in bed: with an old LCD monitor connected to the desktop next to me, in my hands, with the power and VGA cables going off to the side. (I scroll with the mouse, in my other hand). I am your real target market. If you need to have a $199 version that has a 1-hour battery do it. If you can't, do it without a battery, so it only works while plugged in (like a digital picture frame). Do whatever it takes. You need to get this thing down to $199, no matter what.

I can spend that much for it just to read my bookz (scanned books from the net) - it's the price of 10 hardcover books. But $299 and I can't justify it.

And you don't need RAM. You need video RAM. I know, because I use a 500 mhz desktop with 128 MB of RAM all day - with a video card that has more RAM than it does. Flawless web use - flawless youtube etc. I'm waiting to upgrade until I drop about $2000, which I'm not doing in this economy. Meanwhile I get flawless web use out of this old POS.

Lower your standards until you can squeeze this thing out for $200. Have a $199 version with a sucky battetry (or none at all if you must), no camera, or accelerometer. And then a $299 version with all that, if you want to.

Do you want to know what will happen if you price this thing at $299? All your customers will settle on something smaller for $229.

Just my 2 cents.

Re:for 300 bucks

[mollymoo]

I've got an Eee. It's not the same thing. Laptops force you to a particular body position to use them, it's just unpleasant to use a laptop/netbook when lying on your side, for example. You can be as free using a tablet thingy like this as you can be while reading a paperback. I'd prefer something a little more compact than their prototype though - an 8 or 9" screen should be plenty if it's light enough to hold in one hand.

Re:major suck

[BadAnalogyGuy]

"Way faster" is not necessarily the best way to prove a chip's value.

Does it have good cost/performance?
Is a certain level of performance required?
Can the package fit on the board?
Is there application support for the instruction set?

There's no reason you need to have the fastest chip on the block if you're only interested in showing webpages and playing web-video.

iGala Already Exists -- $239

[Beltway Prophet]

Well, I know that by posting this I officially brand myself as a corporate shill, but here's a device that runs Linux, has a touch screen, has an open API, and already exists and can be yours for $239:

http://www.thinkgeek.com/electronics/digital-photo-frames/b425/

And you can use it as a picture frame out of the box. =)

Re:BOM? Dev cost?

[hairyfeet]

But why the camera and accelerometer? Lose those and you would probably be able to get closer to the $200 price tag. I'm sure that for a lower price folks will be happy to hit the button on the desktop for landscape mode, and if they are like me they have enough crap with cameras in it NOW, thank you very much. And in this economy lower price trumps all.